A/N: This is just a random idea I had after a regression/reincarnation story that me and my best friend Alexie were discussing. It's just a one shot because I know I can't do another entire story, or I might drown in fanfictions. I hope you like it, and yes, I think this could happen by the time I'm sixteen next year! You never know...
"You know I'm only doing this for the money, right?" my cousin Charlotte reminds me for what feels like the millionth time. It's only been an hour or so and I'm already sick of her whining.
"Yes" I sigh, "Shut up now, I'm trying to listen"
Charlotte scowls and looks down at her elegantly manicured fingernails, playing with her Tiffany engagement ring. Only the best will do for my snob of a cousin.
We're crowded on a vast expanse of overturned and torn apart lawn with maybe twenty or thirty others. This pile of dirt and rock, these deep holes in the earth, were once Beaulieu Palace, otherwise known as New Hall. I've been wanting to go on a proper archaeological dig for ages, especially since I completed my exams a month ago, but I never really found one that interested me before. Until I heard about this.
I've wished that Beaulieu was still standing since I read about it three or so years ago, namely because it was once owned by George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, the important and tragic historical figure that everyone seems to forget. Most people have never even heard of him. I've been writing a biography of him for a year now, and am hoping to have it finished in another couple of years, so that I'll have done something for him, made him known to everyone. I'd like that. And when I heard on the news that some underground rooms have been discovered beneath the foundations of Beaulieu, I just had to come and search them. So I signed up for this excavation project.
The only problem is my mother. I love her, but she has this crazy idea that sixteen year olds can't go anywhere that's more than a mile away without someone over eighteen. This has caused a few problems for us since my sixteenth birthday in February. But, miraculously, I managed to persuade my nineteen year old Barbie-doll cousin Charlotte to come along as my 'chaperone'.
Okay, I might have threatened to tell her fiancée about the barman in Ibiza.
But a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.
So here I am. I may be the youngest person here, as not many sixteen year olds that I know are very interested in history, but I'm happy. Though if Charlotte doesn't shut up soon I might be a lot less happy.
"Good morning, everyone! My name is Mimi, I am the leader of this excavation project. Most of you are trained archaeologists, or history students – "
I will be a history student come September.
"So I would imagine that you will all have some sort of an idea of what we're looking for here today. If anything at all important comes to your attention, please come and find me straightaway. I hope you all enjoy yourselves, and maybe we can make some very special discoveries today!"
I find Mimi kind of annoying. But at least she hasn't commented on my age yet.
I'm eager to get started, grabbing a pair of gloves to stop myself tainting any valuable items and climbing down a hastily arranged ladder to get to the rooms down below. It's thought that they are cellars, storage rooms of some sort, probably used to store wine, though the barrels are long gone. The earth is that horrible, dusty powder type that makes you choke every time you breathe. Charlotte does not look happy as she pulls on gloves to protect her precious nails and wobbles down the ladder in her pink summer wedges. The rooms, if they can be called that, are shimmering with suppressed heat. I take off my shrug, leaving my shoulders bare in my strapless red top.
I start examining the items stacked haphazardly round the room. They're all trunks, most of them elaborately carved. The luggage or storing places of a very rich man.
"What do I do?" asks Charlotte, gazing dumbly around us, "Do I have to lift boxes? What do people do on these excavation things?"
Charlotte's actually pretty intelligent, just not when it comes to history. For now I'm too blissed out for her to annoy me, but I'm sure the time will come.
"We have to look through the boxes, see if there's anything left inside them. Most of the stuff will be rotten, with age or with damp, but there could be some stuff worth saving. If there's nothing there, then the boxes are still worth keeping, as they're probably about five hundred years old, so just carry them up to the top of the ladder. But if there's rotten stuff inside them, you should probably clean them first" I explain. Charlotte nods, grimacing as she kneels on the dusty ground beside me.
"Got it. It's a good job I love you, otherwise I really wouldn't be doing this" she says, rolling up the sleeves of her top and pulling forward a box. I hide my smile. If she wants to pretend that she's doing this out of love, not blackmail, then that's fine with me.
By the time Charlotte's finished cleaning out the first crate, which, unfortunately for her, once had food in it, I'm onto my third crate of extremely damp papers. Some of them are really soggy and completely worthless, but others can be readable if I squint a little, and could possibly be fully restored with a bit of work, I think. I put them into my bag, ready to give them to Mimi later on.
What feels like hours later, I pull out my fifth trunk. I'm disappointed that I haven't really found anything that interests me – the papers were in Latin so I can't even read them.
From behind the fifth trunk falls a long, thin, wooden tube with thick wooden stoppers at either end of it, and maybe a sliver of rusted metal too. It's the sort of thing that you get if you order a poster from the internet, though obviously not cardboard.
Careless of the nails I've been working so hard to grow these past few months, I start working on one of the stoppers. Curiosity has overtaken me and although it hurts my fingers, I've almost got the stopper out. My face lights up as it finally comes undone with a loud popping sound. Other people look over and laugh at the noise. Charlotte is watching me, confused.
"What's in there?" she asks. My heart sinks as I peer into the tube.
"Paper" I say forlornly, "Just a bit of paper. It should be readable, though, as the tube is so tightly sealed" I add, trying to be positive. I take the paper gingerly between my gloved fingers and ease it slowly out of the tube.
It's a bigger piece of paper than I thought. I put the tube down and hold the paper tightly, unravelling it slowly.
It's a portrait.
"I found something!" I gasp. A few people look over, seeming uninterested when they see that it is paper.
I stare at the handsome face, painted exquisitely on the page with bright, thick acrylics, I think. It's a man, quite pale, dark hair, dark eyes, well-dressed.
I look at those eyes closely. I know who this is. I've seen those eyes before, in the portraits of his sisters, Anne and Mary.
George Boleyn.
As I look into those eyes, it's like something's pulling me in, drawing me to them. I remember a line from my favourite TV show, The Tudors;
"Those eyes of yours are like dark hooks for the soul...".
It's one of my favourite lines. Thomas Boleyn says it to his daughter Anne. And now I see what he means.
They continue to draw me somehow. A flash of memories, none of them that I recognize, flick past my eyes. I know I'm there, but I can't see me. And, somehow, I'm not me. I'm dancing, dancing with....with George, I think! And then I'm running down a corridor, laughing, and I feel so unexplainably happy, so filled with love and wellbeing. I'm kissing someone next, and I can't see his face, but I can feel his hands all over me – I'm blushing now. And then I'm holding this baby, this beautiful baby, with big dark eyes. And then there's this grief, emptiness, blood pooling around my feet that isn't mine....another place. Another time.
My vision returns in a hazy blur. Charlotte is looking worriedly at me, and someone has their hand on my shoulder.
"Are you okay?" they ask me, a man's voice. I turn to look at him, still a little dazed, and give a weak smile.
"I'm fine" I say awkwardly.
"The portrait's amazing. Do you know who it is?" he asks, kneeling down beside me to stare at the picture.
"It's George Boleyn" I tell him, "He used to own this house"
"I know. It was a present from Henry the Eighth, while he and Anne were still in favour" the man finishes, "But how can you be sure that it's George?"
I'm about to tell him that it's just a feeling I have, when something tells me to turn the paper over. I do so, jabbing my finger at the bottom right corner triumphantly. It says George Boleyn, Lord Rochford, 1532.
"The year Anne was created Marquess of Pembroke" the man and I say at the same time. We grin at each other.
"I can't believe you've found it" he says, "This is a big thing. Historians have been wondering about this forever"
"I've been wondering about this forever!" I say with a laugh, "This is just the sort of thing I always wanted to find. I've always wanted more people to know about George"
"So have I. It's so unfair that he was forgotten. But now everyone will know about him. They'll probably cover it on the news and everything" the man says, awed.
"You'll be famous!" Charlotte squeals, "Isn't that amazing??"
"It sure is" I agree, still stunned. I hold out my hand to the man. He only looks about nineteen.
"I'm Lauren" I tell him.
"Lee" he replies, shaking my hand, "I wonder who painted the picture?"
"Holbein, maybe?" I suggest, "There's no signature"
"It could have been, but didn't he usually sign his work?"
"Dear God, you two are so boring" Charlotte groans, "I can't believe that I had to come here to babysit a history geek and now another one's tagged along for the ride"
I blush at the word babysit, "I'm sixteen!" I say defiantly. Charlotte laughs.
"I know, I know. I need to get out of here, I'm going to go and tell Mimi all about your important discovery over here. Be back soon" she brushes down her jeans and teeters up the ladder again, making me laugh.
"I think there's another piece of paper in there" says Lee suddenly, peering inside the tube, "Shall I get it out?"
"I guess" I agree, carefully rolling up George's portrait after a last look at those hypnotic black eyes. I still don't know what happened there, but I think I liked it, until the bit with the blood.
Lee carefully unrolls the second picture. It's much much smaller, the equivalent of an A5 page nowadays, I think. We both stare, a little surprised.
"Wow" I murmur.
"She's pretty" says Lee, sounding shocked. It's a sketch of a woman with beautiful flowing hair and big, shining eyes. She's wearing a pearl and ruby necklace and her dress is slipping somewhat sluttishly off of her shoulders, revealing a little more than is necessary.
"Who is she, then?" asks Lee, baffled, "There's no name on this one"
"She's me" I whisper. As soon as I say it I know it's true, though thankfully Lee doesn't hear me.
"His mistress, perhaps?" I say a little louder, "Because that sure as hell isn't his wife"
We unroll the picture of George and put them side by side, searching for similarities incase it is a relative of some sort. They don't look anything alike. More people are coming over now, interested in our discoveries.
"I think you're right" says Lee, "This is amazing"
"Looks like I'll have to rewrite my biography" I sigh, mentally adding another year onto my expected deadline, "Or add another massive chapter into it"
"You're writing a biography? Of George?" asks Lee eagerly. I nod.
"Yeah, I've been working on it for about a year now"
"Cool" he grins, "I can't wait to read it. Maybe I could be your editor? And I could proof read for the research stuff too. See if I could find any sources for you. What do you think?"
I give him a little smile, "Maybe" I agree, "That could work"
"The only problem is we'll never know who this woman is. We'll never know if George really had a mistress" says Lee, sounding annoyed.
"Oh, I don't know" I reply with the hint of a knowing smile, "We might find out one day"
Six camera crews, four news reports, one interview for CNN and a lot of squealing from Mimi later, it's time to go home. I promise to come back next week for the rest of the dig, with Charlotte, much to her 'delight', though I don't know why they're so eager to have me back. It was luck that I found that picture, and luck that Lee found the sketch, nothing more than that. Or maybe, I like to think, I was meant to find that portrait. It was meant to be me that found it.
I swap numbers with Lee. We agree to maybe meeting up during the week, if he's not too busy at sixth form and if I don't get dragged out anywhere by my parents or make plans with my friends. It's nice that I met someone.
And now I just have to continue on like normal with the knowledge that George Boleyn might just have had a mistress, and, even more importantly, she might possibly have been me.
I think I can keep that a secret.
A/N 2: Yes, I actually do have a cousin called Charlotte, who is engaged, but she's a lot nicer than she's portrayed in this. And she would never cheat on her fiancée. And my name is Lauren. See, I don't make up strange things all the time!!! Please Review!