The Hidden World

Chapter 5

MAEVE SLEPT FITFULLY AND AWOKE WITH THE DAWN.

In the still, quiet moment before she thought to open her eyes, she was aware of a vague unease, like the memory of an unsettling dream. Then the unaccustomed feel of the straw pallet beneath her, the coolness of the air and the faintly floral scent emanating from the pillow brought her back to full wakefulness. Her eyes sprang open, wide and alarmed; saw the rustic interior of the room, dim and half- defined in the dawn light; and closed their lids against it.

No.

She lay still for a time, feeling her heart beat, listening to the few faint sounds that punctuated the deeper silence. There were birdcalls, some coming from quite close by and others more remote, their echoing quality describing a large cleared space. There were myriad rustlings of trees, the larger rumours of the air beyond and the distant respiration of the sea. No human sounds as yet invaded the dawn: no voice, real or electronic; no mechanical dronings of cars, planes, lawnmowers or chainsaws. The world breathed and sang and murmured and softly stirred, not as a pleasing background to human activity, but as though it was a thing entirely sufficient in itself.

Soon, however, human noises entered the soundscape. There were voices and the sound of feet in other parts of the cottage. No one disturbed her, but at last she found she could no longer lie still; sunlight was beating on her lids. Unwillingly, she rose.

Branwen was in the main room, kneading bread dough on the wooden table, but no one else was to be seen.

"Ah, good morning, Maeve." She smiled. "Can I get you something to eat now?"

"No, thanks," Maeve murmured.

She stood in the open doorway, gazing out. She saw rows of wooden buildings, sheds and houses, with the rounded stone tower of a church-like structure exulting above them. A bell rang in the tower, the sound carrying clearly over the roofs of the village. Connemara, Branwen had called it.

She knew of no such place.

People were working in fields that lay to the west of the village; she could see their heads and backs bobbing rhythmically as they weeded, or gleaned, or whatever it was one did in fields. Their clothes were strange, a mixture of different time periods. Some of the men wore rough trousers and shirts of linen, others tunic-like garments that would not have looked out of place in a Shakespearian play. The older women wore white caps that had an eighteenth-century look about them, but their long flowing gowns were almost medieval in design. Small shaggy ponies grazed freely in the open meadow beyond. Her uncle had spoken to her of the small and hardy Newfoundland ponies that had been able to live off the poorest pasturage. Settlers had used them for hauling fish and firewood, he said, but today they were a dwindling breed.

She walked out through the door, looked to the east. She saw a grey-headed hill—very like Dutton's Hill—but there was that ring of broken, weathered wall around its summit. The opposite headland, with its bare, rugged rocks, looked much like Sunker's Point at Mary's Bay, but there was no lighthouse perched on its tip.

She turned to look at the people again. A fantastic thought occurred to her, and she rushed back into the cottage. "What year is this?" she blurted.

"What year?" asked Branwen in amazement, her hands arrested in the middle of kneading the dough.

"Just tell me. Please!" Maeve begged.

"Why, 'tis the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and ninety-nine."

Maeve released her pent-up breath. The woman said it oddly, but it was the correct year. For a wild instant, she had almost believed she'd travelled back in time, like the heroes in the science-fiction stories Brandon used to read—back to some previous, primitive time when Mary's Bay was still just a settlement. Branwen had to think she was crazy. She laughed weakly at herself, but also felt a flood of relief. This isn't Mary's Bay; it just looks similar, that's all. I wandered into another outport last night.