by Tanya Allan
Ed
Dropping naked out of the blue is not an experience I will ever get used to, and this was my third time! I wondered how Gilly was getting on. She went through just before me.
I fell onto a soft grassy hill, so pitched forward into a roll, as per my training and came to an ungraceful splat in a scratchy bush.
It was warm, with the sun shining, so at least they’d managed to get the season right. I extricated myself from the bush and stood, looking for Gilly, or rather, who Gilly was this time around.
As far as I could see I was alone, which worried me. We’d both lain on the bed-things at the same time, and I’d winked at her, saying, “I’ll see you on the other side in a second.”
Only it was now a couple of minutes and I was still alone. Not only that I was stark naked, and being a stark naked female alone is never the most effective means of building confidence and invulnerability. I was used to it, but Gilly wasn’t, and she was a man, this time!
Okay, so my proxy form was enhanced, but I was still, to all intents and purposes and naked woman. I had chosen to be very similar to my previous jaunts. Gilly had persuaded me to do ‘one more time as a girl, just for the hell of it!’
I knew she was curious and wanted to see things from my side of the fence. I didn’t blame her. It didn’t bother me anymore. I knew I could do it and no longer had that yearning that I once had.
Similarly, Gilly had chosen to be an almost exact replica of me, even down to the scars that Russak hadn’t eradicated so mysteriously.
I looked in each direction, just in case I’d missed something, but no, I was truly alone. I walked back up the hill, down which I’d just rolled a good way.
At the top with a commanding view of the countryside were a couple of old oak trees, so I was able to get an excellent view all around.
No Gilly!
I tried calling mentally, to no response. They said that the telepathy might not work with the proxies.
Not just no Gilly, there was a young girl on a large horse riding straight up the far side from the one on which I’d landed. I immediately scrabbled in a very undignified way up the tree nearest me. It’s hard to do anything dignified while naked!
The girl was around fifteen or so and quite pretty. She sat bareback on the horse beneath where I hid. Her clothes were typically bucolic and placed her neatly in the seventeenth century.
So, they got that right, at least.
The girl looked worried, scanning all around as if looking for someone or something.
Then she surprised me.
“Mrs Annette!” she shouted.
I was supposed to be Annette Forster, as I had already experience at speaking British English. Gilly had found it hard to lose her Scot’s accent, so was a Scot living in England with an English wife. Even the conditioning which was supposed to be fool-proof failed to help her lose her accent.
“Up here!” I said.
The girl looked up and smiled.
“I thought I’d missed you.”
“No, but when you’re naked and somewhere you perhaps shouldn’t be, I wasn’t going to hang around waiting for anyone to find me. How did you know I was here?”
“Master Gilbert sent me with clothes for you.”
“Gilbert?” I asked, momentarily forgetting that Gilly was my husband, a Mr Gilbert Forster, a farmer from Dorset, England.
“Oh, Gilbert, right, sorry. I was away with it for a moment. Why isn’t he here, and who are you?”
“I’m Nancy, I lives next door. He sent me because he’s in trouble. He said not to worry, but I wasn’t to ask you how you managed to lose your clothes, but…”
“But?”
“How did you lose your clothes, and how did he know?”
“Ah, that’s a long story. For another time, maybe. What kind of trouble?”
“The soldiers tried to steal his grain, so he stopped them and, well, they’ve arrested him. He’s been taken to Dorchester.”
“Which soldiers?”
“The King’s men.”
I came down the tree, jumping the last twelve feet, and landing on my feet beside the horse then jumped slightly.
The girl stared at me, disbelieving what she had just seen.
“How?” she asked.
“Never mind. Give me my clothes then, and I suppose I will have to go and get the silly sod out.”
She handed me down a bundle of clothes. I dressed as quickly as I could, cursing the seventeenth century, and their archaic attitude towards female fashions. What is wrong with jeans? I ask you.
Dressed and mounted behind her, we rode towards Dorchester, and into a new adventure in the beginning of the English Civil War.
Books by Tanya Allan
Her AMAZON.COM PAGE: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B004VTB5OQ
A Chance would be a Fine Thing (Knox Journals Book 1)
A Wedding and Two Wars (Knox Journal Book 2)
A Fairy's Tale
A Girl can but Dream
Amber Alert
A Tale of Two T’s*
Behind The Enemy - Book 1
Beginning's End – Book 2
The Candy Cane Club – Book 1
Dead End – Book 2
Dragons & Stuff!
Emma*
Entirely Blank
Every Little Girl's Dream #
Rise to the Challenge
Extra Special Agent
Fast Forward with a Twist
Flight or Fight
Fortune's Soldier
Gruesome Tuesday*
In Plain Sight*
In The Shadows
It Couldn't Happen, Could it?
Killing Me Slowly*
Marine I: Agent of Time*
Marine 2: A very Different Roman
Marine 3: Island of Dreams
Modern Masquerade
Monique*#
Monique (L’edition francais)
Queen of Hearts*
Ring the Change
Shit Happens - so do Miracles*
Skin*
Tango Golf: Cop with A Difference
The Badger’s Girl
The Hard Way*
The Offer
The Other Side of Dreams
There's No Such Thing as a Super Hero
The Summer Job & Other Stories
The Torc (Book 1 – The Emerging)
To Fight For a Dream*
Twisted Dreams*
TWOC - A Comedy of Errors
Weird Wednesday*
When Fortune Smiles - Book 1
Changed Fortune – Book 2
When I Count to Three #
Whispers in the Mind* - Book 1
Whispers in the Soul* - Book 2
*Paperbacks can be found here: http://www.feedaread.com/profiles/368/
# = Published on KOBO.COM
