Thunder and Lightning
Chapter 1:
Kendal,1st December, 2011.
A weak winter sun peeked out from the cloud scudded sky onto the landscape below. The streets were still wet with rain the that had fell during the storm the previous night, and the afternoon sun did nothing to remove the puddles from the pavements. It was warm for the time of year. One of the warmest summers in the Lake District, had led to the warmest autumn and the warmest winter. Funny how that happens. The locals were not complaining though, and neither were the hoards of young people exiting the various schools around the town of Kendal. They were having a whale of a time. One solitary figure did not join in with the water splashing and puddle jumping. She did not wait by the side of the road, egging on passing cars to drive through the standing water at full speed. One passing car did stop by her though.
"Are you sure you don't want a lift Anna?" A round and pleasant face poked her head out of the wound down drivers window. "It might rain again soon."
Anna sighed "I'm fine, really Gemma. Thank you for the offer but I'll take the train. I need some time alone to think."
"Well once you have done thinking, call me." Her friend conceded. "It won't do you any good trying to get through this alone you know."
"All right mother hen. I'll phone you when I get home." Anna smiled at the girl in the car and willed her to go away. She got ready to run off, but that wasn't needed as Gemma gave her a reassuring nod and drove away.
Diving into the pocket of her greatcoat, Anna pulled out her student card and purchased a ticket for Staveley, the nearest settlement to the farm where she and her family lived.
The train that she got on was not a big one, nor was it completely packed. But she didn't think that it was worth her while trying to find a seat when the station she needed to get off at was only a few minutes down the line. Instead she allowed an old woman to take one of the last remaining seats and got a grateful "Thank you" for her troubles. Anna smiled but did not start any conversation.
It did not take long for Anna to be consumed by her thoughts and she had to be rudely interrupted from them by the conductor, asking if this was the station she requested to get off at. The young woman nodded, picked up her bag and exited the carriage. As she looked up she saw a rather ominous cloud moving across the sky and wasted no time in heading home.
Her trek involved passing through the high street of Staveley and about a mile long hike over the hills.
"Walking boots are a must in this kind part of the north" Anna thought wryly to herself.
With her grey coat and lithe walk over the rugged terrain, many of the local people said that Anna Baxter was akin to John Peel, the acclaimed huntsman of the Lakes. He was a triumphant figure, a favourite of folk songs and long forgotten stories. But the figure crossing the bleak countryside could not have felt more different. An intense sorrow ripped through her, anger burnt in her very soul and every step was painful. She kicked a stone away, as hard as she could, as though wishing it was his head. Her anger abated and Anna carried on on her way.
But something had decided that Anna was not going to have an easy time of getting home. Well that was what the young woman thought as she tripped up over a lump of metal in the small stream that she was trying to cross.
Anna landed with a loud "ooof!" and fell face first in a pile of bracken. She got up angrily, brushed herself down and went to inspect the object that had caused her to take such a wonderful trip.
It was around half the size of a shoe box, rectangular and made of a copper coloured metal, but had not oxidised in the way that copper should have in the conditions on the side of a hill. All that Anna knew was that it was very old. It had been dislodged from the bed of the stream and by the look of the hole left in the mud, it had taken a while for the object to be almost completely buried.
"The storm must have slightly uncovered it." Anna mused to herself.
With gloved fingers she found the lid and removed it. Letting the small sheet of metal drop to the floor she examined its contents. Instead of being hollow as she had first thought, Anna found herself confronted with some sort of control panel. It had various dials and buttons of different shades of copper. All made of the same metal that the outside of the box was constructed of. The only thing not made of metal was a series of ivory dials with black numbers on them.
The numbers at that point were set as so:
1 . 12 . 2011 .
For some strange and unbeknown reason, Anna felt the urge to change the numbers on the dials. She did so.
1 . 12 . 1890.
"What a weird little thing, eh? What on earth are you?" She pondered out loud.
Quickly losing interest in the dials Anna turned her attention to the other aspects of the device. Mainly the big shiny buttons. Now, it must be said that in a situation such as this, it really isn't a good idea to go messing around with unknown technology. But, human nature doesn't listen to common sense, and Anna couldn't help pushing the largest button on the panel.
Nothing happened for a while, until a low humming started to emit from the device. It got louder and louder until the box suddenly shone bright white, Anna was transfixed and found herself unable to let go of the device. The world around her moved and changed until it finally came to a stop.
Anna let go of the box with her left hand and fell against something cold and hard. She looked at the hand that had broken her fall and what it was resting against. A red brick wall. Startled she leapt up and observed her surroundings. Tall Georgian tenement houses, cobbled streets, gas street lamps, horse drawn carriages and people bustling around on their own merry way. Definitely not the Lake District.
"Oh bugger."