Previously:

The group got to the turn-off for the Tor after traveling through an emotionally disturbing town of residents. 

“Oh no.”

When we looked at the sign on the sawhorse blocking our path, we understood why Cordelia had groaned.

Karin read the sign out loud. “Go no farther, turn around and catch the shuttle bus in town to return to the Tor.”

I couldn’t help myself. “Whaaat? We have to go back down through that dark distortion of slimy sickness?  I’m dowsing each of us a shield of protection.”

 *********

We made it through the spiritual gauntlet, basically unscathed. The myriad of cars parked diagonally distracted me from really seeing my surroundings. I saw a sign indicating we had arrived at the shuttle-waiting line.

I watched Cyndy and Karin vanish through some door, obscured by a line of people. There was a wall of expansive writing on the building that caught Cordelia’s and my curiosity. 

When we got closer, we realized it was a written record of the history of the frail, rudimentary remnants of the Abbey or Monastery we were standing in front of. As Cordelia studied the message, she said, "We were here."

She continued on. “This is the location of the ancient ruins of the violent destruction of the Benedictine Abbey during the 15th century.”

My vision and hearing began to waver as she got to the words… "In 15 th century, the Abbots were taken to the Tor and hung to their death. The chief Abbot Richard, was buried at the top of the Tor.

As I took my last breath, standing there, I barely heard her voice as the words upon the wall blurred and swirled. 

There was such a loud buzzing in my ears that I did not hear her announce the most important part for me. “‘With no leadership present, the monastery was attacked and every monk, beheaded’.”

Distracted with confusion, I nearly collided with a heavy-set gentleman attempting to slide by me, to access the same building Cyndy and Karin had entered. As I stepped aside, Cordelia’s words rang in my ears, ‘We were here.’  ‘We were here.’ And...

I stepped down into darkness.

*********

Had I been blinded by something or someone? Had we both been abducted and drugged? I could see nothing. The last I remember was we were standing outside some building waiting for the shuttle to take us up to the Glastonbury Tor in England.

Where ever I was, it was midnight-dark. There were neither windows nor skylights. It was, as my friend Marty used to say, ‘Darker than the inside of your pocket'.

I felt around to get some clue as to where I was. The walls were made of large stones. I could feel their rough texture and by the shape of them, I was quite certain they were mere fieldstone. 

Swishing my hands around, I traced a rough stoned floor, perceiving nothing to have been polished or smoothed. I rubbed my eyes to see anything, maybe to cause this frightening world to disappear and the world I know, to reappear.

Toes, wiggling freely, my feet seemed different and sensitive to a draft coming from somewhere. While I was bent over testing the floor’s make-up, I blindly traced my feet. 

Trembling fingers walked up the arch of my foot to a strap that had the consistency of leather. I timidly touched the other toes. The lavender Asics running shoes, I wore every day, were missing, my toes, bare, and cold to the touch. 

In order to check out my feet, I had to slightly lift some thick weighty material. As I examined the fiber-type, I was shocked to discover it cloaked my entire body, right down to my foot-covering that had morphed into sandals. I had sandals on...and a long course material skirt that nearly reached the rock-formed floor.

I heard feet pounding like giants...or maybe it was just the thump, thump of my own heart. Deathly silence surrounded me, and I sensed I would find no source of noise outside that room. I heard no screams of pain. This encouraged me to think I was not in some kind of torture chamber.

As my eyes adjusted to the dark, it was of little help. I felt what must have been my necklace. But it was tied around my waist.  I have no idea why it would be there, rather than gracing my neck. I must have had a rip-roarin' night wherever I was.

But I had no alcohol to drink at Karaoke. In fact, when some enthusiastic guy yelled, ‘I want what she’s drinking’, I wanted to yell, ‘It’s a glass of ice’. I said nothing and secretly enjoyed my ice cubes over ice.  

Patting my pocket area, I dared plunge into the depths of some ‘gimundous’-sized pockets. Sometimes, like a lady's purse, one could find out a lot about someone by checking their pockets. Maybe I could discover more about the person whose clothes I was dressed in.

Hmm, no money. Hopefully, my fanny pack was somewhere in that room.  Huh, the only thing I found was a bracelet of tiny beads.

As I was spinning around in the corner of this claustrophobic room, I stubbed my toe and slammed my shin into something sharp. The pain of injured toes is bad enough, but I’ve always considered my shin, my proverbial Achilles’ Heel. This seemed to be a striking foreshadowing. Not good.

I sidled along the injurious object. Using a pacing measurement, I judged the knee-high mass to be about six feet long. When testing the width, I speculated it was some sort of low table. 

But there were no expected objects on it, such as a book or magazines, or in this case, a simple candle with matches or cigarette lighter. I altered my assessment. It may not have been a table, but a bed with a thin scratchy wool blanket.