Imagine

Creative Writing
Imagine
First Revision

Imagine you wake up one morning and nothing is the same as it was when you fell asleep in your cozy bed the night before. You roll over, yawn and stretch. You open your eyes, expecting to see your room, but you don’t. Instead of your dresser and closet, you see trees and rocks. Instead of your walls, windows and ceiling, you see leaves, flowers and blue sky. You blink and rub your eyes, thinking that perhaps you are still dreaming. You throw back your comforter only to discover that it isn’t your comforter, but a scratchy wool blanket.

“You’re awake.” You hear a voice say from behind you. Startled, you jump up and spin around to see who spoke to you. An old man with long white hair and a long beard sits on a rock behind you. He looks at you, motions to the tiny cauldron he is tending, and says: “Are you hungry?” You nod your head. It is then that you realize that maybe you aught to check and see what you’re wearing. Much to your horror you discover that you are wearing a long gown type garment, reminiscent of your grandmother’s shapeless nightgowns. You are somewhat mollified when you realize that the old man is wearing a similar outfit. You consider asking him where you are, but he seems to know you and you don’t want to sound like a fool. So, instead, you walk over to where he sits. You make yourself comfortable on a rock near him. “I suppose you are wondering where you are and how you got here?” He asks you with his eyebrow cocked at an angle. You start to shake your head to deny this, but he catches your eye. You feel like he is looking into your soul. A shiver runs up your spine as you realize he is probably reading your thoughts. Apparently he likes what he sees because he grunts, nods, and hands you a bowl of oatmeal. He tells you to eat heartily because you will need your strength before the day is over. You look around as you eat your oatmeal. Incidentally, you eat with your fingers because there doesn’t seem to be any silverware handy, and it seems to be what the old man is doing. Anyway, you look around as you eat. You take in the beauty of the forest glade that you woke up in. you don’t remember ever seeing anything so beautiful or peaceful. A nearby stream babbles happily over the rocks. Birds sing in the treetops. Tiny frogs peep from the mud by the stream. Crickets chirp merrily in the early morning air. As you look around, you sense that the old man is watching you again.

“Okay” you say as you finish your second bowl of amazingly tasty oatmeal. “Where am I and how did I get here?”

“Well, it is a long story. I’ll tell you as we walk.” The old man winks at you. “First, we need to break camp.” You see him suppress a grin as he catches the exasperated look on your face.

“You’ll just have to wait.” He says as he goes to the stream to wash his bowl. You think to yourself, “at least it isn’t winter here, like it is back at home in New England.”
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That was what my first morning in this strange new world was like. Later, as I walked along with the old man, Sandoris, he told me about the place that I found myself in.

“It was not always this serene, or this beautiful.” He began his story. “There was once a time when evil roamed the land freely. People lived in fear and violence took the lives of many. Our little world came close to being destroyed. If not for a hearty band of warriors that came from your world, we would be no more. They conquered the evil and banished it from here forever, or so we thought. What we failed to realize is that neither good nor evil is ever completely gone. In the past two years, many of the old fears have risen up again. Some of our own people have even turned against us. So, I sent for you.”

As you can imagine, this made me sputter, “Whoa, wait a minute, Sandoris. I am no warrior. I am just normal. I don’t know anything about defeating evil.” I almost tripped over my own feet on that one. I stood stock still in the middle of the trail waiting for further explanation.

“I know. Let me explain more about those hearty warriors I spoke about.” I just stood there gaping. “The warriors were what your people now call the Celts. They often traveled between our world and yours. When they came to us the first time, they were looking for their gods. Instead they found our problems and us. They not only helped us, they taught us to open the gates between the worlds. Only the Celts and their descendants can travel between our world and yours. The magic still runs strongly in the Celtic blood even though it isn't recognized in your world. The first person we brought over was a man named Theric, a great druid. Since that first time, we have brought over many people and have trained them in our ways. Many go home and choose not to return. Some stay and marry into our people. Your grandmother was one of the latter. She stayed and married a druid of the ancient Celts, a descendant of Theric. Your mother was a powerful Druidess as well. The magic flows strongly in your blood."

“So why did I never know of this?”
“Your father chose to take your mother back to your world and live there. You see, he fell in love with your mother, but she was promised to another. Together they fled to your world. Many men tried to bring them back to face their fates. One night not too long after your birth something went wrong and your parents were killed. When it was discovered, your grandmother agreed to go back to raise you as your parents wished. She promised never to tell you of this; for fear that you would grow up with anger and vengeance on your mind and in your heart. Now that she is gone I will begin your training. Had she stayed here in our world she would still be alive. Our time does not pass as does yours.” Tears formed in the old man’s eyes and he changed the subject. He told me of the many plants and herbs that were edible along the roadside. He stopped here and there picking herbs as he talked about them and put them in a pouch that he pulled from the folds of his robe. Others he handed to me and told me to eat, for it was past time for our midday meal.

I thought about what Sandoris said as we walked the path. I thought about my grandmother and the parents that I never knew. I remembered seeing some pictures of them once. They had haunted and unhappy looks on their faces in all of the pictures but one. It was one where they were together, holding me. They seemed happy only after I was born. And they died shortly after that short moment of joy. It was then that I knew I had to know more of this land and its people. I wanted to know more about my parents and I wanted to know what happened. What had gone wrong? How did they end up dead? Also, it would be nice to know what this evil was that I was brought here to defeat.

“So many questions, little one.” Sandoris chuckled. “I will answer all of your questions in time. Now, we must find somewhere to pass the night. There is a town around the next bend. If memory serves, there is a hostel that will serve quite nicely.”

I thought to him, “quit reading my thoughts it’s rude.” He had the decency to flush and apologize. “It will be difficult. Your thoughts come to me unbidden. In time, with training, you will be able to block others and will probably be able to read other thoughts as well.”

As we rounded the bend and entered the town, I gasped. This is not at all what I had expected. The town that Sandoris lead me to was little more than a dozen wooden huts and a single lane dirt track down the middle. The largest building sported a sign saying “ROOMS AND FOOD.” Incidentally it was the only building with a stable behind it. The stable had a sign saying “mule – 2 coppers; horses – 3 coppers; carriage – 7 coppers.” As Sandoris lead me to the hostel my only thought was “at least, I won’t have to pick leaves out of my hair in the morning.” And so we entered with Sandoris chuckling to himself.

We entered through two heavy wooden doors into the hostel’s large dining hall. The inside of the hostel was much finer than the outside suggested. The wood floor was polished to a high sheen. There were plenty of tables and benches for customers to sit and partake of a meal, or a jug.

“Sit,” Sandoris pointed to a bench and table in the corner. “I will procure a room for us.” He walked up to a bar built into the wall to the right of the entry. The bar was impressive. The side facing the customers was simply ½ of a log, the rounded side down. It stood slightly higher than waist high and the curve of the log went all the way to the floor.

“Where did you find a tree of this size in this area?” Sandoris nodded his head, appreciating the fineness of the wood grain.

“It wasn’t from this area,” the rotund man behind the bar said with his eyes narrowed. “ The tables are from the same log, before you ask. What else do you want?” His thick brows furrowed, “If it is a room you want, you’ll have to share. We have a party of hunters in from Harrow, and they have taken up much of the space.”
“One room will do, though an extra pallet will be needed.” Sandoris smiled trying to alleviate the large man’s obvious unease. It didn’t seem to help. I decided to take in the surroundings while they haggled over the price of the room.

The table Sandoris had pointed out was tucked in the corner of the large hall. There were at least twenty other tables, and I had to wonder why. The town was so small and dingy the whole town could probably sit at three or four tables without squeezing the patrons too much. Each tabletop was indeed made from the same log as the gigantic bar. They were well over five feet across and several inches thick. The legs of these tables were trunks of smaller trees, debarked, sanded and polished smooth. To the left of the large entry doors was an enormous fireplace. I think I could have stood up in it and still had room to stretch. As the day was warm, no fire adorned the stones. The only other feature of the room was another door that I assumed led to the sleeping quarters.

As I sat there waiting for the negotiations to finish, a group of boisterous men tramped in through the entry door, letting them slam closed behind them. One had the audacity to look at me as the door crashed into the frame, as if it had been my fault. They crowded around a couple of tables in front of the bar.

“Bertram, Food!” The tallest demanded, interrupting Sandoris.
“And ale, plenty of it” another continued.
“Keep it coming.” A third quipped.

Quietly, Sandoris turned and looked at the group. Then, he walked over to where I sat without saying a word to them. He sat down beside me on the bench and whispered: “you have perhaps heard the expression, ‘discretion is the better part of valor.’ I believe that it comes into play in this instance.” He turned and scowled at the backs of the men. “They are the men of Selah, one of the larger landowners in our kingdom. Selah has few scruples and his men have none. Most of his landholders have left, leaving only slaves to keep his fields and livestock. They have made out to be hunters, but they are not hunting for food, they are hunting for slaves for their master’s fields.”

“I have secured us a room. Bertram will have our food brought there.” He stood and walked to the door at the back of the room, confirming my assumption. There was a long wide hall behind the door. Our room was the furthest back on the left. It wasn’t a large room, but we were not cramped either. There was a small sitting room where someone had laid out a meal. There was a roast bird circled with root vegetables of some sort and a freshly baked flat bread in a basket covered in cloth. Water beaded on the outside of a tall pitcher, I later found out was filled with ale. I walked thru the sitting room and peered into the sleeping room, cautiously wondering where the bathroom was. A pitcher of warm water and a bowl sat upon a stand between two small beds. Remembering my high school history lessons, I deduced that the facilities were probably behind the building, much to my dismay. Sandoris settled his pack on one of the beds and motioned me to do the same.

“Come we will sup and then I will answer more of your questions, if you wish.” I have to admit I have never eaten a meal that tasted better than that bird did. And the bread was soft and flavorful even without slathering it in butter as I used to at home. We ate every scrap of food that we were given. I even liked the ale, though at home I wasn’t much for beer. Everything tasted different here; maybe it was the lack of preservatives or maybe the fact that I walked twenty miles that day. Whatever the difference, the food was good.