Two Bodies in a Field

Anne Morris reached around to ease the backpack from her daughter’s body and pushed it clumsily toward the pile she had made of their possessions. She lowered Sarah back onto the ground and shook her gently. She was startled when her daughter took a violent breath.

“No!” the girl screamed.

“Sarah, honey, wake up!”

Her daughter’s eyes opened. Sarah looked at the sky, then around where she lay, and then to her mother. “Why are we in a field?”

“No idea,” Anne replied.

“Where’s the car?”

“Don’t know.”

“Were we robbed?”

“I have my purse, jewelry, money…fur,” Anne said. She shrugged her shoulders.

Sarah struggled to sit up. “God, my head’s pounding,” she said. She motioned to her backpack. “There’s water in my pack.”

Anne reached to drag the backpack to them, unzipped it, and moved the textbooks aside. She handed the bottle to her daughter. “It’ll be dark soon,” Anne said. She grabbed her purse, pulled out her phone, and hit the emergency button. The phone beeped, so she touched the button again, but she got the same result. “There’s no service.”

“They guaranteed these to get a signal everywhere,” Sarah said.

“Can you stand?”

Sarah attempted to get on her feet but fell back to the ground. “Maybe not,” she gasped. “My head hurts.”

“Mine too,” her mother said. “Either way, we need to walk.” She grabbed her daughter’s hand and pulled upward. The teen was shaky but managed to stay on her feet. Sarah held her mother’s shoulder and stooped to pick up her backpack. Her mother reached to grab her fur coat and purse. Anne went to put her coat back on but thought better of it. “It’s warm,” she observed.

Sarah stopped to scan the forest. “The trees have leaves.”

“What?”

“Look around,” Sarah said. “They’re green.”

“They’re pine trees.”

“They’re oaks,” Sarah corrected. “They’re already bare at home.”

Anne shrugged again. “We need to find a phone signal.”

“It’ll be scary out here in the dark,” Sarah said, looking around at the thick woods.

They started walking to what looked like another clearing and stumbled onto a dirt road. “That was easy,” Anne said, relieved, but then she stood perplexed. “Which way?” She pulled her phone out and checked again for a signal. “Nothing.”

“There’s a sign ahead,” Sarah said. “Probably says Argentina.”

“Argentina?”

“Where else could the season change from fall to summer?”

“Let’s get to a landline and call for help,” Anne said. She scanned the trees. “None of this feels right.”

Sarah focused hard on reading the sign. “Philadelphia, one mile,” she read. “You’d think we’d be able to see the city.”

“I see buildings,” her mother replied, pointing. They increased their pace toward what looked like a town.

It was dark by the time they faced a rough-hewn grey building with a wooden sign reading “Beaufort’s Inn” dangling from a crude metal chain. “An old-time inn,” Anne declared with a smile. “They had one of these in Ithaca.”

Sarah inspected the street as her mother was talking. It was lit by soot-stained lamps. “Is this what they mean by a gaslamp district?”

“I don’t know,” her mother replied, still scrutinizing the front of the building. “If it has food and rooms, maybe we should stay the night and figure things out in the morning.”

“There has to be cell service here,” Sarah said.

Her mother pulled out her phone and dialed. It beeped again. “Your father probably wouldn’t answer even if there was service,” she said. “We may be on our own tonight.”

“Like most nights,” Sarah quipped.

“What d’you want from me?” Anne said, irritated, as she pushed open the door of the inn. It was lively inside, with more people than they’d expected from the dark exterior. There was a hostess dressed in a colonial costume behind a counter.

“Can I help you, mum?” she said.

Anne pushed closer to the front desk. “We were robbed. Can I use your phone?”

“Oh dear, robbed, you say? We’ll notify the sheriff in the morning,” the hostess replied. Then she noticed Sarah. “Oh my!” She waved frantically at another woman in a colonial dress who was waiting on a table. “Annabelle!” she cried. “A blanket from the cupboard, quickly! They’ve been robbed!” Both costumed women had gone into a panic. Sarah stood there, confused.

“Find a blanket,” the hostess repeated. “Poor girl had her dress stolen!” Annabelle, a chubby young woman, hurried to the closet, grabbed a blanket, and wrapped it around Sarah’s body. Sarah stood stunned through the entire process.

“’Tis a cruel world where a robber thinks naught of leaving a lady in her pantaloons,” Annabelle said.

“Pantaloons?” Sarah questioned. “This is a put-on, right?”

“No, ’tis a blanket,” Annabelle replied. “I’m sure there’s a dress we can lend somewhere in the closet. There are things people never come back to claim.”

Sarah and her mother waited for her to return with a dress. It took some acrobatics for Sarah to slip it over her head while still covering herself with the blanket. When she was done, she stood there wearing her new dress on top of her school uniform with the blanket dropped at her feet. The costumed women looked at her with pleased grins, happy to have averted a major crisis.

“That should do until you get a proper dress,” the hostess said from behind the desk. “Poor dears!”

“Thanks,” Sarah said. She felt groggy and wondered if this all really made no sense or if it was because she was so tired.

“We need a phone,” her mother said to the hostess.

She gave Anne a puzzled look. “Are you recently from across the ocean?”

“No,” Anne said. “Why would you think that?”

“Your words,” the woman replied. “’Tis not Philadelphia, to be sure.”

“We’re not from Philadelphia, in any case,” Anne said. “We’re from Oak Ridge, Tennessee.”

“Welcome to Philadelphia, present circumstance aside.”

“Do you have a phone I could use?”

“I don’t believe we have this foon,” the hostess replied.

“You don’t have a phone we can use,” Anne asked, “or you don’t have a phone?”

“Should you see one,” the hostess said, still perplexed, “you’re most welcome.”

Sarah, who had been taking stock of the surroundings, turned her attention back to the desk. “It fits the theme,” she said to her mother. “You don’t make all this effort to look old-time and then have people sitting around talking on cell phones.”

“We’ve rooms,” the hostess said. “You don’t look like no beggars.”

Anne’s head was pounding hard, and she was having trouble focusing. “We’ve got cash and credit,” she said. It was a struggle to say the words clearly through the pain.

“Your coin all stolen, then?”

The smell of the food was making Sarah hungry, and she needed to get off her feet. She spoke up, trying to ask as nicely as possible. “Can you show us what would be acceptable payment? We’ll make sure you get paid for the room and some food.”

The hostess pulled out a thick wooden register and set it on the counter. “Put your name, colony, and mark saying you’ll make good on your four-shilling debt,” she instructed.

“Four shillings?” Sarah’s mother asked.

“For the both of you; meals tonight and tomorrow morning,” the hostess said. “’Tis a fair price.”

Sarah poked her mother gently in the side. “’Tis a fair price,” she repeated. “Sign so I can sit down.” Sarah’s mother looked around for a pen. There was a quill next to an inkwell. She pulled them close and filled out the ledger.

“Four shillings is a fair price,” Anne said. “I apologize. I’m very tired.”

“We understand, mum,” the hostess replied. “We’re used to weary travelers. Gather yourselves in your room, then come for a meal. Your humor will be much improved with a full belly.”

Annabelle motioned, and they followed her through a hall lit by oil lanterns in sconces. She carried a candle into their room, guarding it with her hand as she reached to place it on a worn wooden writing table that separated two simple beds. The writing table had an inkwell with a ragged feather quill and a printed piece of paper that was folded in half. The beds were made up with woolen blankets and quilted pads for pillows.

“’Tis a half shilling for another candle, should you desire,” Annabelle said. “They’re costly as of late.”

“We’re fine,” Anne replied as she looked around.

“Come downstairs when you’re ready to take your meal,” Annabelle said. “I apologize for what you’ve endured this night. A mother and daughter robbed and abandoned in the street? What has become of this fine city?” She left, closing the door behind her.

Sarah and her mother stood there, bathed in the flickering light of the candle. Sarah eased her pack down to the narrow swath of bare wood floor between the beds and took a seat. Her mother sat facing her on the opposite bed. “What’s going on?” she asked her daughter.

Sarah was trying to adjust her position to relieve the tugging of the dress on her shoulders. It had been a long time since she had worn a full-length dress. “I have a new dress,” she said. “It smells like dust, but it fits.”

Her mother stared blankly at the wall, hypnotized by the candlelight that danced about the room. “The leaves are back on the trees,” she said. “We’re in a place called Philadelphia that doesn’t look like Philadelphia, and we’re staying at an inn that only takes coins.” She reached out and touched Sarah. “This isn’t a dream?”

Sarah rolled her eyes and reached over to pull the paper from the corner of the writing table. “Philadelphia Gazette,” she read. “It says August sixteenth, 1762. They make it look so real.”

“We might as well go down for food,” her mother said. “Maybe it’ll help my headache.”

They stood up and went into the hall and down the steps. The dining room was bustling with activity. Another costumed woman, a waitress, noticed them and pointed to a table. “Sit there, mum,” she said. “I’ll be over.” The room was dim, lit only by the warm glow of the oil lamps.

Sarah took inventory of the faces around them at the wooden tables. “Do you think everyone here’s an actor?” she whispered.

“We’re the only paying customers?” her mother asked in disbelief.

“Nonpaying customers, actually,” Sarah reminded her.

“We’re somewhere else,” her mother insisted. “Or sometime else.”

“Mother, seriously?”

“I remember leaving the hotel to pick you up for school,” Anne said, “then nothing.”

“I remember standing outside your car,” Sarah replied.

The waitress was at their table. “Two ordinaries?”

“What’s an ordinary?” Sarah asked.

“Lamb, carrots, and potatoes. The ale is excellent.”

“Two ordinaries and two ales,” Sarah’s mother said, smiling at her daughter. “I’m sure it won’t be your first.” Sarah remained silent.

The woman returned almost immediately with the drinks, set them down, and left to get the food. “They’re not going to ask for my ID?” Sarah said.

“I told you,” her mother replied. “We’re someplace else…sometime else. Seasons don’t change while you sleep.”

“Mother,” Sarah replied. “There’s an explanation.”

“Ask the waitress when she comes back.”

“Ask her what?”

“The paper upstairs said it was 1762,” Anne said. “Ask the date.”

“She’s going to say 1762,” Sarah declared. “It’d be silly to not stick to the story.”

“Everyone here’s an actor?”

Sarah looked around. “That would be pretty hard to believe,” she admitted.

“Wait until the morning before asking questions. I’m too tired for a surprise.”

The waitress was setting the food on their table. “Here you go, mum. Anything else?”

“Yes,” Anne replied. “We were robbed this evening and need to sell items to travel home. Where should we go?”

“What would you be selling, then, mum?”

“Jewelry, mostly.”

“Reed’s,” the waitress said. “It’s a walk down Market Street, perhaps fifteen minutes. They trade in gold, gems, and such.”

“Thanks,” Anne replied. The waitress turned to attend another table.

“You think we’re going to walk fifteen minutes down the street and not get a phone signal?” Sarah said, exasperated. “And then you think we’ll need to sell our jewelry?”

“I don’t know what to think,” her mother replied.