The snapping of a twig was enough to rouse me from my slumber. I felt Kit stirring next to me and opened my eyes. It was now dawn but the sunlight was blotted out by a gigantic figure of a man. He had to be at least seven feet tall and almost as broad again across the shoulders, wearing green tights, brown buckskin boots, a brown tunic, a knife belted at his waist, and the sort of grin that was usually spotted on something stripy lurking in the jungle. I stared at him for a moment before I was grabbed by the upper arm and hauled to my feet.
"Well, well, well, what have we here?" boomed a well-spoken voice in my ear. It had an underlying tone of authority, that voice - it was used to barking orders and having them obeyed. "They have the shape of women but they are wearing some very outlandish garments!"
"Whoa, who invited Errol Flynn?" demanded Kit, rubbing her eyes. I turned to face the speaker. A man decked head to toe in forest-green tunic and trews, with a green cap perched jauntily on top of messy brown curls, grinned at me. His dark eyes held a spark of mischief and he held a longbow in his hand.
"Oh great, we've run into the Robin Hood Recreation Society," I muttered.
"What are you doing in my forest?" demanded the man.
"It's a free country," shrugged Kit.
"What I want to know is why they were asleep in our tree," said the giant in a thick rural Derbyshire accent.
"I heard myself proclaimed, and by the happy hollow of a tree escaped the hunt," I quoted and shook my head. "Look, it's been nice meeting you but we really have to be heading back into Nottingham now." Kit and Kels scrambled to their feet and went to follow me as I started towards where I thought the town lay, only to find our way blocked by the giant.
"You're going nowhere 'til you answer our questions," he said.
"Hagrid?" asked Kels, as she shook her head. "I'm dreaming, aren't I?"
"Don't know about you but I wish I was," snarled Kit. "Look, I'm not a morning person. Don't make me have to kick your arse."
"Fine. We'll play your game." I sighed dramatically and sat myself down on the floor. "Who the hell are you?"
"I the hell am Robin Hood, Lord of this forest, and I'm not sure that I like your language, young lady!" he said with a smirk.
"Yeah, sure. Who are you really?" I snorted.
"I told you. I am Robin of Locksley, otherwise known as Robin of the Wood. An outlaw am I, and have been since the age of fifteen when I killed fifteen men with a single arrow!" He looked a right prat, posing with his hands on his hips with one foot up on a fallen log, and Kit burst out laughing. "All right, it cost me several arrows, and it was only five men, but they were trying to kill me. Such a shame that they were richer than I!" He chuckled and carried on. "It was then I met my friend Little John over there. He challenged me to a duel with a quarterstaff and beat me soundly. We've been friends ever since, haven't we, Johnny?"
"Aye, and I can still give you a thrashing, too!" rumbled the giant.
"Over the years we've been roaming the forest, gathering other outlaws to ourselves and forming a merry little band of men who rob from the rich and give to the poor. The taxes that Prince John has imposed in his brother's absence are quite crippling." Kit and Kels looked at me and sniggered and I felt my face flush.
"That's nice, Robin, but we really have to go," I said firmly and turned to leave. His hand on my shoulder stayed me and I turned back to face him.
"I cannot let you go," he said softly. "For all I know you could be a spy for the Prince or the Sheriff of Nottingham."
"Never met them and wouldn't know them if I did and I can't be arsed to play your game. May we please leave?" I snapped. "I'm hungry, I want some breakfast, and I need to go and buy some more cigarettes because I'm nearly out. Excuse me!" I shook his hand off and stormed off, Kit and Kels following me.
"That wasn't very nice," smirked Kit as I strode along.
"Well pardon me, but it's far too early in the morning to bandy words with some jumped-up actor!" I snapped, and rubbed at my head. "Does anyone else feel weird?"
"How so?" asked Kels.
"Well… I don't know… I just feel…" I trailed into silence, trying to explain my feelings. For some reason I felt far more… alive than I'd ever felt before, and there was a pressure in my head that was building up to be a major headache, which would explain my mood.
"Aware?" asked Kit softly and I nodded.
"Let's get out of here. This forest is wigging me out."
The forest seemed a lot larger than it had the previous day, and denser, as if the undergrowth and several thousand trees had grown overnight. I noticed that a lot of the human touches, like fences and poles supporting the older trees, were missing… and actually those older trees looked younger and healthy, too.
"Did someone give this forest a makeover when we weren't looking?" asked Kels, panting slightly in the heat.
"I think it moved, just to spite us," said Kit, glaring at an oak tree. "I'm watching you," she muttered under her breath as a squirrel ran up the tree trunk and sat on a branch, staring at us.
The journey out of the forest took longer than an hour and by the time the trees started thinning out we were hot, sweaty and irritable. Kit, who was by now leading the group as always - she was the youngest, but always assumed the mantle of leader - flung out her arms to stop me and Kelby from going any further.
"Listen," she said ominously. I strained my hearing, but couldn't hear anything apart from birdsong and the wind in the trees.
"I can't hear anything," I said.
"Exactly. No cars. No aeroplanes. Something weird's happened here."
"What are you talking about?" demanded Kelby, pushing her way out of the forest. She turned, screamed and ran back to us. "Someone's stolen the road!"
"You what?" Kit and I ran out of the forest and were confronted by a wide dirt track. Gone were the pavements and tarmac that so marked our times.
"I knew I didn't like that forest!" yelled Kit in frustration. "We've gone back in time!"
"No." I shook my head violently. "It's not true. We're dreaming. I refuse to believe it…"
We walked along some way in silence until we came to Nottingham. What should have been a sprawling metropolis was more of a collection of villages loosely connected via a vast expanse of green. We passed the pub we had been drinking in the day before, the Blue Boar Inn, and I was surprised to note that it hadn't changed much over the years apart from the fact that there was no electric lighting, no picnic tables outside and no window boxes full of flowers. A couple of peasant men eyed us suspiciously as we passed and one of the men crossed himself as Kit glared at him.
"Believe it now?" asked Kels as we headed towards the centre of town. The locals were staring at us and one woman hurried her children inside as we headed down the road. I sidestepped a big pile of dung in the middle of the road and nearly collided with a herd of pigs. I turned to Kit and whimpered pitifully.
"How did this happen?" I demanded. "It can't be true! How the hell have we been transported back nearly eight hundred years?" My voice rose several octaves so that it came out as a squeak.
"Calm down," muttered Kit, looking around her warily. "We'll figure it out, and find out a way to get back…"
"Calm down? CALM DOWN?" I screamed. "Kitten, we have gone back in time! We don't belong here and we stand out like fucking aliens, and you're telling me to be calm? My family and friends are eight hundred years in the future! Football hasn't even been invented yet! We're in a time with no running water, no sanitary conditions and no fucking electricity, and what the hell are you looking at?" I snapped at a man in a yellow tunic and tights who was pushing a cart and had stopped to stare. He seized the handle of his cart and hurried through the crowds.
"I know, I know and I'm as pissed as you are, but please hush, you're causing a scene," said Kelby soothingly, grabbing my arm and leading me away from the interested crowd of onlookers who had gathered.
We wandered away from the main square and I found a log seat and sat down on it, burying my head in my hands. I heard Kit and Kels discussing what to do about getting food and drink, and I heard them wander away to a nearby market stall. My head was throbbing painfully now and I wanted to smash things. I was surprised to find that I wasn't upset, merely angry.
"Excuse me, miss, you can't sit there," a voice to my right said.
"Why not?" I snapped and looked at the speaker, a burly man with wiry black hair and a black goatee.
"That's my seat," he snapped and grabbed hold of my arm to drag me off the seat. I screamed, letting all of my rage and frustration out, and all of a sudden the man went flying across the square. He hit his head on a tethering post and slumped to the ground, unconscious.
"She's a witch!" someone shouted. I could only stare at the man.
"What? No I'm not! That's never happened to me before!" Kit and Kels looked over from where they were bartering with the stall owner.
"Are you upsetting the neighbours?" called Kit.
"No, I've blown them up!" I eyed a group of men who, upon hearing the cries of 'witch' that one hysterical woman kept screaming, had grabbed some heavy looking things from the smithy and were coming towards me menacingly. "Guys, I think you'd better run!" Kit and Kels took one look at the group of men and ran with me following close behind.
"Where to?" yelled Kels over her shoulder.
"The forest, we can lose them there!" I called back. I could hear the men behind me trying to get the townsfolk involved and glanced back. One of them, presumably the blacksmith as he was wearing a leather apron, was right behind me. I swore under my breath and looked ahead again, just in time to collide with a cart. I tumbled into the hay and choked as it went up my nose. The next second hands grabbed me and hauled me out. I just had time to see Kels hauling Kit, who looked like she was about to kick some major arse, into the shelter of the forest before I was whipped around to face the blacksmith.
"What do you have to say for yourself, witch?" he snarled.
"I'm not a witch!" I protested, trying in vain to keep a certain Monty Python sketch out of my head.
"What did you do to Isaac?" he pressed.
"Nothing, I swear, I… I'm not a witch!"
"We'll see about that!" He and two of his mates grabbed me and hauled me off to the other side of the village where I was unceremoniously dunked into the duck pond. I surfaced, spluttering and choking, and glared at the men.
"These are my only clothes!" I protested.
"She floats! She's a witch!" one of the townspeople yelled and hands descended into the water and hauled me out. I glared at the blacksmith as my hands were tied behind my back.
"I'll send for the sheriff," someone said and the rest of the villagers eyed me warily as the smith held me tight.
"Check if she has a third nipple!" a voice in the crowd called.
"No-one's going anywhere near my nipples and I'll kick the first person that tries!" I growled. One of the men lunged for me and I kicked him squarely in the groin. He sank to the floor, making bubbling noises, and I glowered at the rest of the crowd. Presently we heard the sound of hooves and I looked up to see a man on a white horse approaching.
"The Sheriff approaches. He shall deal with you, witch," said the smith, and spat in my face.
"Now that's disgusting." I glared at him, shook my head, and forced a smile for the sheriff of Nottingham.
He was a handsome man, decked in black silk and with short-cropped black hair and beard. My first impression was of Edmund Blackadder in the second season. He gave me a cold, thin-lipped smile and reined in his horse.
"They tell me they have captured a witch," said the Sheriff, and a chill went through me at the sound of his voice. If you could tell the nature of a man due to the sound of his voice, then he was evil. He sounded like the kind of man that liked to inflict pain and I started to feel scared.
"I'm not a witch," I said firmly.
"We shall see. Thank you, Guy. I shall take her from here." The blacksmith handed him the end of the rope and I was dragged along behind his horse.
"Not so fast, sheriff boy!" I called as I stumbled and was dragged along on my arse before righting myself. He said nothing and I grumbled to myself all the way back to the castle.
Once there I was thrown into a dungeon, the Sheriff entering after me and laying his cloak fastidiously over a set of stocks in the corner.
"So, they call you a witch." It was a statement, not a question, and so I didn't say anything back. "Why do you think that is?"
"I have no idea. Some dude lay his hands on me, I push him away, he goes flying and knocks himself out and suddenly I'm a witch."
"And yet you floated in the river."
"Yeah, because I had air in my lungs. Simple physics would let me float." Without warning he lunged for me and lifted up my shirt. "Hey!" I protested and kicked out of him. He lowered my shirt again and stepped back.
"I was merely checking for the mark of Satan," he stated matter-of-factly. "What are those marks on your arms?"
"They're tattoos. You put them there with a needle and ink." He gave me a searching look and picked up his cloak again.
"I will return in a couple of hours. Then we can begin your questioning, to determine whether you really are a witch. Although I have to say I have never yet met a witch who did conform to our society's standards." With that remark he left, the door clanging shut after him. He turned the key in the lock and smirked at me before striding off. I screamed again and ran to the door, kicking the bars in an attempt to dislodge them. Great. Just fucking great! I get lost in the woods, I find myself transported back to the thirteenth century, and I get arrested on suspicion of being a witch. To quote Arthur Dent, it must be Thursday…