Sentence The Sixhundredandthirtyfourth

Now, as it happens in the best of stories, something quite unexpected and unanticipated occurred, which involved Griselda of Longformacus and Tavish Dalwhinnie's cloak, and it happened like this: as she passed the dozing figure of Tavish, hunched against a tree, she noticed that his cloak had fallen to the ground and picked it up, to brush leaves and twigs from it and out of a little moth-hole came a thread and at the end of it, a gourd was attached; "how curious," she thought and pulled on the thread, but met resistance, so she tugged harder and by chance, the hole grew larger and when she put her eye to it she saw a black sky dotted with stars and galaxies and distant suns, and she pulled the hole wider until she could squeeze first an arm, and then a shoulder and then her head and upper body, and it was as if she was entering the night sky, with no surroundings, no hills or valleys, indeed, no horizon, and as the cloak fell from her body she found herself seemingly floating in the void, with all the twinkling, blinking stars and suns and a great feeling of peace came over her as she floated, with the grace of a ballerina and she realised there was no 'up or down' everything was just as it should be

– and then, just as she was getting used to floating, she caught sight of the thread spooling away from her and disappearing into a bright light, and then felt her hand grasped by another, which pulled her steadily towards her left side, and found herself squeezing through an invisible tunnel, squashed and pressed on all sides until she followed her arm through a kind of slit in the universe and her head came out and she wriggled her body and legs through and the opening closed behind her with an ever-so-slight POP and was gone; now she lay half inside an open wardrobe and with her head and arms and upper body on the floor of an untidy room: "who are you?" the woman standing over her

asked, "why were you knocking on the inside of my wardrobe? what were you hiding among my clothes for? where did you come from? look, see one of my petticoats is ripped, you can redress that before you leave, my girl!" and Griselda knew that she could not answer truthfully so simply said "how or why? no answer can I give for I know not what happened to bring me here; my name is Lady Griselda of Longformacus and I felt you pull me from where I was and now I am here, but know not where or how," and the woman laughed, "as fine a story as I might give, Lady Griselda – where is Longformacus? never have I heard of such a place, but you speak well, though your accent is strange indeed to my ears, are you Irish, or Welsh, or Scotch?" and Griselda slowly rose to her knees: "my home is Longformacus, in the hills south of Edinburgh, so yes, I am a Scot, and your speech is not a 

common one heard in that place," the woman helped Griselda to her feet and sat on the bed beside

her: "my name is Sarah, this is my room, we are in Drury Lane in London, have you never been here before?" at which Griselda shook her head, her mind spinning and the shaking made her feel sick: "I have heard of London, of course, but never have I been in England, I seem to have passed through a tunnel, but lit with all the stars of the Universe!" and again the woman laughed: "are you sure you are not from Bedlam? the things you say are so strange – though, I have seen many strange things in my life, heard them and felt them, are you gay?" and Sarah knew not what she meant, "are you a gay woman, do you work the streets, do you go with men, do they pay you for a feel, or a fuck?" and Griselda was shocked at the talk, she denied it hotly, "but how old are you, my dear? you look to me full grown, though smaller than me, and your hair is as yellow as a sunflower, your skin so soft and

fresh, ah, your hands – I can see you have never done a day's work with them!" to which Griselda asserted: "my father is a gentleman, he is Laird of Longformacus, and a knight of Scotland, and does not know where I am for I have been gone some weeks, I was with Sister Evadne Eglantyne and several other pilgrims," she had decided to tell as much of the truth as she felt safe to disclose, "pilgrims, say you? is that some sort of equivoque in Scotchland? and have I not done service with many a priest or vicar in this very room myself" the woman laughed, "Holy Willies! they may be Holy but their Willies are just like any another man's. are you a virgin?" and Griselda blushed: "my body is intact!" she said stoutly, "never have I been with a man, nor shall I till the day I marry!" and the other chuckled, "ah, well, my dear, we'll see about that, for I know several young bucks who'd pay well for the pleasure of you, but your age?" and Griselda, hands clasped in her lap, replied: "I am full sixteen years, what date is this?" the woman's eyes narrowed: "have you been drinking, my dear, to have even forgot the date? no? well this is January 30th. 1867 so you can put that in your pipe and smoke it, but why? what should it be," for she had seen confusion in Griselda's eyes, and the young stranger replied: "just before I passed through the night of stars it was the Year of Our Lord 1267 in the reign of King Alexander III of Scotland – can you tell me who sits on the Scottish Throne now?" and the woman gave out a full belly laugh, "bless me! you are so convincing, I want to believe you, truly I do, but Queen Victoria reigns now over all of England, Scotchland, Wales and Ireland – and half the world is in her Empire, I would list them all if I knew all their names, but they are too many for me to remember, here, have a drop of brandy and water, it will put some colour in your cheeks,

and then you and I will have a talk of how best we can put you to work to earn your keep! and though I may not be fastidious about my room, I am fastidious about my body and how I dress it, so I'll expect you to be the same, especially as we may be lodging together for a while," but Griselda was not hearing the words, so verklempt was she at the woman's words – 600 years, 600 years, how could it be? and she looked back into the wardrobe, but through the few clothes hanging there she could see no obvious doorway or hatch, and she felt herself about to really be sick, but so also did Sarah and a bowl was in Griselda's hands and her head down over it before she heaved and spewed out the little that she had eaten that morning – 600 years ago!