No Stranger

We spent our last night together in that chamber above the main room of the inn. Downstairs we could hear all the others drinking, singing, carousing and having a good time. Up here, though, in a room lit only by a few small candles and the fire in the stone fireplace, we knew we only had these few hours together. Jenny knew that come the dawn, I would be gone.

So we kissed and held each other. Neither of us wanted to say anything that would break the spell of our last hours. She held me close afterwards, lying on my chest, her hand wrapped around me and her leg thrown over mine, almost as though she was trying to hold me there. I could feel the flutter of her eyelashes against my chest as she tried to stay awake, even though both of us knew we needed the sleep; sleep that would not come for either of us.

But, eventually, in the end, we both must have fallen asleep at some point, because I did not see Jenny again for around 200 years.

I woke up again lost deep in some woods, not knowing where I was or when it was. Time had slipped by, that was all I knew. Eventually, using those tricks we all have to learn if we are to survive in this kind of life I managed to find some clothes. I discovered I was back in the old country too, for once. But I still had no idea when it was. From the look of the clothes I’d stolen, I guessed sometime around the 17th century.

I walked out of the trees into a clearing in the dense forest. There was a merchant’s caravan there, stopped to camp for the night as the summer evening slowly turned into a warm summer night.

I walked up to the first campfire. It had a pot of stew simmering over it. The enticing smell of cooking meat and vegetables drifted towards me on the evening breeze.

‘Could you spare some food for a stranger,’ I asked the figure bent over the pot.

Jenny looked up at me and smiled. ‘You are no stranger,’ she said.