I could have written this better, but it is a babble inspired by Mary Hooper's Newes from the Dead (2008). I might come back and re-work this one day. Until then, enjoy.

Drawen to Memorie

Anne Green survived the gallows. She cheated death after being hanged by the neck for thirty minutes, hit in the chest by the butt of a musket and having her throat and neck stamped on in the dissecting room in 1650.

What a curious case it is, for sure. But, if she cheated death once, can she do so again, and again after that?

Records say that she died in 1665, leaving three children and her husband John Taylor behind, but what if the body was not that of her? What if she just disappeared somewhere, desperate to be alone, knowing her life would not end, but go on and on and on?

It was maybe the twentieth time that Anne Green had spirited herself away to some remote village to begin her life again. She had not aged for a long time and her belief in God was as strong as ever. She had picked a quaint little English village that reminded her of where she had been born hundreds of years before. She liked this place. It was in the middle of Northumberland, but the borders had been settled years before and so there was no threat of war. She had seen enough wars in her own long and lonely life, and because of them her heart had been broken too many times.

When you have lived as long as Anne Green has, for over three hundred years, you get used to things. More precisely, you get used to death.

Anne lived a lonely existence. She could never be with anyone for long, nor stay in the one place. She did not age as others did and her mannerisms were not what were normal. She still held on to her graces from her serving days and had found it easy to gain work in many a large house after she left John Taylor. Never again had she been tempted by the lies of the masters of those grand houses and never again had she a-tumbled with them, or in fact anyone without need.

Anne knew of her beauty. Painters had painted her, poets had written of her. But those paintings were too familiar and so she stayed away from civilisation as best she could, so as not to be recognised. She once had been, and had quickly told the enquirer that the subject "was my great great grandmother, who I never did meet but from whom was handed this necklace".

Anne Green worked honestly in households and on farms for three hundred years before the work became too hard to find. She had to learn quickly the new technologies of the 1900's and often found herself working in a shop of sorts, selling fine gowns to fine ladies. But as fashions changed Anne found herself in London, selling expensive items to expensive people, seeing the same things come and go in the world of fashion.

She took it upon herself in 1990 to get an education. The past years had given her the time to learn to read and write. She did cheat though, and studied history, quite easy as all she had to do was call upon her memories for what she needed to know. Her hours decreased as her pay increased and Anne found a new way of life. She got served in the designer boutiques by the great grand daughters of those who she had served, and felt a terrible glee at how the future had turned out for them.