Transported

Chapter 1

24 May 1661

The sun's rays seemed to peak over the looming wall as the village bustled with their morning routine. Men and women of all shapes and sizes were running around with cages filled with chickens, wheelbarrows and various farm animals. Tahira took a shaky breath as she tried to comprehend the situation she found herself in.

"Fifteen hundred?" The man repeated, his tongue seemed to roll it around in his mouth like it was a foreign language. She looked around her and sighed. She wasn't sure now if it was the fifteen hundreds. It could have easily have been the fourteen hundreds or even the sixteen hundreds. She could clearly remember seeing villages like these in her history textbooks. She paged through it in her mind's-eye. Charles the first. Nope, Charles the second. Yes, there we are. 1600's.

"It's a date," Tahira responded. Amusement drowned out some of the terror as she watched the wheels turning behind his midnight blue eyes. It was easier for her to focus on his eyes than on the busy street. They did not induce anxiety. In fact, they seemed to calm her instead.

"It's a fruit?" He asked with his head cocked to the side, causing his slightly too long hair to fall across his sun-bronzed face. Tahira took a second to take in the pure manliness of his jawline, the raw beauty of his full bottom lip and his straight, near perfect nose.

"No," Tahira sighed, stifling a giggle, "It's not a fruit. It's time."

"Interesting," he murmured.

"As fascinating as this conversation is," Tahira said firmly, "I have to get out of here."

Without waiting for a response, she turned around. Her intention was to go back into her place and grab a few things, but instead, she stopped dead. The door was gone. The same door that she used less than twenty minutes ago was just gone.

"Why are you staring at the wall?" the man asked, humor evident in his voice. He wasn't wrong. She was staring at a wall; a big, dark, stone wall, to be more precise.

"Shut up!" Tahira shouted and covered her ears with her palms. Her mind worked through what happened over the last hour. Her photographic memory replaying it scene by scene.

"The walls!" she exclaimed as she spun around to face him, "Where did they come from?"

"The walls have been here since I was born," he stated and looked up at them. Tahira did the same and couldn't help but think that the walls looked even taller now. Her eyes followed the wall and fell on a tower that was connected to the wall.

"What the?" Tahira whispered, "That's the Sixth Street Church tower."

She walked towards the towers instinctively, compelled by the need to understand why she was here and how to get out of here. Her hand reached up to the doorknocker, and she paused. Fear coursed through her as all sorts of different scenarios filled her head, each one worse than the other. Fighting the images her imaginative mind built up for her, she took a deep breath, reached up again, and knocked.

The sound vibrated through the tower, and Tahira held her breath, waiting. She didn't wait long. The heavy door swung open. She waited a second for a person to appear, but no one did. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears as she stepped into the tower.

It was dark and smelled musty. She couldn't tell the walls from the floor except for the sliver of light that shone through the doorway. Her footsteps reverberated through the room, and Tahira questioned her sanity as she continued deeper. She nearly jumped out of her skin when the door swung closed and slammed behind her. Light flooded the room as ancient chandeliers lit up out of nowhere. The room was bigger than it looked on the outside, empty except for a spiral, stone staircase, and the chandelier that hung from the roof.