My name is Holly and I'm normal.
When I say normal I mean it in the most literal of terms; I've had the usual melodramatic childhood of parents divorcing and finding love over the internet before finally remarrying carbon copies of each other. I have believed for a long while that my step mum is a clone of my own mother. Following childhood there were the normal, rebellious high school years of boys and puberty which have now reached the plateau that is the big 20. I'm 19 and the thought of being anything but a teenager has taunted me since my last birthday, for goodness sake I'm already half way to 40 and feel as though I have achieved nothing, I mean there are some people by this age that have worldwide businesses at their finger tips or are looming on the prospects of (god forbid) marriage! At 19 all I have achieved is a bad haircut and an addiction to nicotine, something that I'm not entirely proud of, however when you work 50 hours in a week in a bar you need some excuse to have 5 minutes to one's self thus I present to you my average life which usually revolves around work. My friends describe me as the workaholic for my usual day consists of getting up in the afternoon going to work and then coming home in the early hours to sleep and do the same again the next day, all in all you could describe me as a boring fart but boring is such a harsh word that I'd rather call myself dull, and like most when the occasional day off comes along I like to spend it socialising with a few bevies that turns into several bevies however when I do get a few minutes to myself one of my favourite past times is to read.
If I were to die tomorrow I would hope that my friends would know me well enough to have me buried in the bowels of some grand library so that I may sleep among the greatest literature of all time. At daily intervals I submerge myself in Yeats, Bronte and Orwell to just escape the normality of life and for once experience some kind of adventure. For those scarce moments I am Cathy in the moors, I am Juliet with her Romeo, and yet when I have to go back to reality I no longer wish to be the person that I really am. No one wants to admit that they are normal, we all come out of high school buzzing with hopes of budding romances and great job aspects; but when it comes down to it most of us will end up in one of those "9 to 5" jobs that Dolly Parton sung about, which is why I have a terrible habit of daydreaming about those whirlwind romances and swashbuckling heroes, wondering whether the authors of those tales only wrote them to amuse themselves during their own boring existences. I like to have hope though that some authors really do lead adventurous lives and I cling onto that hope with dear life for one day I too would love to be an author and write my thoughts down on a page for others to read for I deem the stories of past generations are still read today because their morals have yet to be learnt and understood.
One of my other great loves is history and I suppose this sprung from my avid reading of trashy historic love novels, thank you mills and boon! I have never really been in love; my only real love affair was at 16, if you can call it a love affair. His name was Rob and it only lasted a month but he bought me a rose on valentine's day which I thought at the time was the sweetest thing I had ever received till I found out so did the 12 other girls who had accepted one from that skank that day. Since my parent's marriage never worked out I have stayed away from the idea of love and instead accumulated a friend with benefits. Noah is a great guy with floppy hair and blue eyes but is far from being Casanova in his skinny jeans and neck scarves, more Adam Ant I think. Anyways he listens to me and most importantly he understands my reading habits and withstands my addiction to historical drama, most recently the Tudors. I'm not sure whether its Jonathan's bulging cod piece or Natalie Dormer's feistiness but despite the historical inaccuracies I am addicted,so addicted that the Tudors has become one of my daydreaming topics, flouncing around in one of those ornate dresses would be a dream come true. Why on earth do we women not wear corsets? In my world they would be compulsory; in fact it was during one of these daydreaming spells that I experienced what can only be described as a phenomenon.
Sat upon my bed fifteen minutes before work I watched again the emotional scene of Anne taking to scaffold; it had always baffled me how a relationship that had lasted the reformation had dissolved in the space of two years. Anne and Henry's story interests me more than any other because of the final outcome and the personalities that were entwined for almost a decade. As I watched I turned to see the clock nearby, 5.50. I had to leave now or else once again I would be late and my excuses were beginning to wear thin so picking up my bag I shut up my laptop and left my room only to return a moment later to retrieve my keys.
The walk to work is always one I find rather amusing. I live near, believe it or not a brothel and two sex shops and find it hilarious seeing well dressed business men sneaking from their BMWs into these seedy establishments. The best bit is when they are coming out and they see you across the street watching them. The colour drains from their face and you can see their initial embarrassment, hoping that you have no connection to their wives at home wondering why their husbands are running late. Arriving at work I dumped my things in my make shift wire locker and stared at myself in the floor length mirror. Today I had decided to leave my hair to its own devices, allowing it to flow in waves of ebony down my back, the week before I had had it dyed from its usual mousey state due to an incident involving a naked flame and my hair being covered in hair spray. Let's just say that the hair on my left side of my face is noticeably shorter than the right. As I came onto the bar I did not even have time to speak before a large plastic bucket was thrown into my arms.
"ICE!" shouted Noah as he smiled mischievously, he knew I hated fetching ice but I hated to grumble; after all there were more males on shift than females and I wanted to prove my worth so sticking out my tongue in response I headed to the cellar and the stairs of death. The stairs of death are 13 steep steps that lead to the basement where we keep practically everything including the ice machines. After successfully making it down the stairs alive I headed into the cold store and straight to the ice machine, with my trusty ice shovel in hand I began the mind numbing task of shovelling the ice from the machine into the large green bucket. The process can take several minutes so to pass the time I began to daydream. I thought of the first time Anne ever made an appearance on the Tudors in her crimson dress that I had been envious of from the moment I laid eyes on it. I sighed heavily and began to imagine myself wearing it as I continued to shovel.
It was then it happened as my scoop hit the ice. It sounded like a voice. At first I didn't stop, after all many people came down to the cellar and I was sure it was probably Noah coming to find out what was taking so long but after a few minutes the voice came again, muffled but noticeable. I stopped for a few minutes and was about to continue when a knock came from a door at the other end of the cellar. I had always wondered what laid behind the door and had been tempted now and again, after all the key was always in the lock as though waiting for someone to enter however I hated to be a snoop and always forced myself away but today I swore that the knocking came from that very door. I tiptoed forward, with scoop in hand, wondering whether someone had been locked in as a joke.
"Hello?" I called. The knocking came again, "Who is it? Tom is that you? Did they send you for a long stand again? How gullible can you be? Hang on a second I'll get you out."
As I turned the key I expected to find myself staring at one of my co-workers but instead what I saw was unexplainable. She couldn't have been a day older than 20 with long raven hair flowing down her back, the blue dress she wore cinched in at the waist and ballooned into a heavily embroided navy skirt, a complete contrast to the dresses plain neckline which was hard to see due to the darkness that surrounded her. The expression on the girl's face seemed to match my own, and for a few moments we stared at each other as though the other were a ghost. iThis can't be real /i I thought, this girl must be part of some bar publicity stunt that I wasn't aware of, the building was centuries old and no doubt my boss was now playing on that.
"Ah so this is how they are bringing in new customers" I chuckled, trying to break the silence. The woman remained quiet, her eyes moving over the beer kegs and the blue ice shovel that was still lodged in my hand. "I have no idea how you got in there" I continued "Someone must have told you the code for the door, but I'm not entirely sure how you locked yourself in there, you must be a magician!" I smiled warmly but all I received from the woman was a face full of confusion. I fell silent again.
"What is this place?" The accent was one that I had never heard before but I did not care, I was just happy that the woman was finally talking even if her question confused me. "One minute I was with my brother among the trees at Balinghem and now I am in this rather strange room, may I ask why on Earth you are wearing such strange attire"
"Strange?" I replied "This is my uniform and this comes from the woman in cellar wearing some sort of re-enactment outfit, just who exactly are you?"
"My name is Anne Boleyn, and you are?"
"Yeah right, Anne Boleyn" I scoffed, how could I take this seriously, was this some sort of practical joke? "Tell me what you were doing in Balinghem before you magically turned up here"
The imposter sighed heavily crossing her arms as though she was already tired of my investigation. "My brother George and I were taking a walk. Tomorrow is the meeting between King Henry VIII and King Francis."
Wow, she was good, her accent was slightly odd but there was something almost believable about her.
"So you're telling me you were transported here from almost 500 years ago?" It was so farfetched I was waiting for someone to pull out Aston Kutcher and scream "you've been Punked" but it never came just an awkward silence as Anne moved from the doorway to inspect the room as I stood frozen.
"What is this place?" She queried again, digging her hand into the ice that I had scooped into the bucket. "I have never seen anything quite like it, is there are room like this at Whitehall?"
I couldn't believe my ears, did she think that mentioning Whitehall was going to make me believe her.
"Look" I was beginning to lose my patience. "I don't know who you are but you're not supposed to be down here and if you expect me to believe that you are Anne Boleyn you have another thing coming" I placed one foot into the darkness "I don't believe in teleportation or any of that nonsense and I'm going to prove it look!" The door slammed behind me as I entered the darkness.
"Hey! Oi! If you steal anything you are so dead, do you hear!" I continued to shout but soon realized there was no longer a door there, only darkness, and the only light was coming from behind me. The only way to solve anything was to follow the light. With my hands out in front of me I began to take mini steps towards the light. As I moved further I realized that the darkness was becoming leaves and the light was actually sun rays that danced upon the muddy floor. Finally I reached the clearing and gasped at the Royal splendor below me, each large tent had its own hue while people below hurried here and there as though preparing for some great event as I watched on, with shovel in hand.
"We're not in Kansas anymore Mr scoop."
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bEver since seeing lost in Austen I've wanted to write something similar, I am aware that some of the language may be a bit too brash for some people, I do apologize but the character is dear to my heart. If you enjoyed please rate and review as this will affect heavily on whether or not continue this story /b
