UNREADY FOR THE NIGHT

CHAPTER 1

Lucinda fell a long way down, too far down to judge in meters or yards, just far and deep. One moment, she'd been dashing home along the sidewalks in the gathering twilight and the next, the darkness swallowed her whole in a giant gulp. No teeth or tongue, which was a blessing, only the longest throat known to man, beast, witch, or power-born.  

She just kept falling, scanning her memory for anything she had learned of the terrors after dark. Only one thing came to mind that fit: the Night Midden. As a kind of ancient vacuum spell that cleaned her dimension of any refuse, whether that garbage be person or thing, the Midden supposedly kept the streets clean of filth and curfew-breakers. 

Garbage! If this was the Night Midden, she was heading for prison, the kind of giant refuse heap where nothing or no one escaped alive or dead. She'd be trapped there forever! No one would know where to find her, even no where to look! Panic raced through her, jabbing sparks into the dark like tiny fireworks. 

And then she hit bottom and blacked out.  

When her eyes opened many hours or days or years later, they gazed into darkness as thick and deep as any she had ever known. At first she hoped she'd only awoken from a bad falling dream but soon the sickening realization hit that she was in a very dark place. She sat up and remembered. The Midden, the very darkest place. She felt the ground with her fingers. Stone. She sniffed deeply, catching the scent of damp, moldy, things. And then, as her eyes adjusted, she saw a faint glow coming from far over to her right. Climbing to her knees, she leaned over and looked down. 

A long way down. She gasped and pulled back, leaning against a wall. It took a few moments before she risked another peek and leaned forward again for a better look. Far below, lay the bottom of this prison world. Small figures -- people, creatures? -- crawled about, corralled by some bigger creature that rose like a lumpy shadow against the fiery light. She couldn't detect features or even shapes from so far overhead but she saw enough to know she'd rather stay put. Wherever put was. 

Luci climbed to her feet, bracing herself against the wall. She was on a ledge, she decided. She looked up and saw nothing but dark and looked down to see nothing but more dark limned by brightly-lit hell-scape below. Great. Stuck smack dab in the middle of nowhere. 

Granny? 

No response. What a dismally bright idea cutting off communication with the only person who might rescue her, all in the name of independence. And where was mother when she needed her this time? Independence could be so over-rated.  

She took tentative sideways steps along the ledge. Impossible to tell if this halfway place had a beginning or end but she took the ledge as a good sign. If she landed halfway down maybe she could climb the rest of the way up? Only she knew before she even looked overhead that up had to be incredibly far and that these walls were not meant for climbing.  

"Forsooth, be I not alone after all?" 

Startled, Luci yelped, losing her balance. Seconds from tumbling over the edge, an arm reached out and snatched her to safety. She stood looking up into the shadowy face of her rescuer. Male, she decided. Taller than her and possibly human, though who could tell these days? Age was impossible to detect in this half-light, too, but she thought she saw a beard and very long hair. "Thanks," she mumbled, trying to extract herself from his grip. He wasn't letting go. 

" And you be?" 

"Lucinda and you?" 

"Sir Geoff. I believe we are dead, Lady Lucinda, and that you have been sent to sweeten my days in purgatory." 

Luci kicked him in the shins and swiftly leapt, then shuffled, several paces to his left, where she stood clutching the wall on either side with her arms outstretched. "Don't be gormless. This isn't Purgatory. We're stuck in the Midden, halfway between the prison down there and wherever here is. We're not dead but we may as well be if we can't get out. And, by the way, I won't be sweetening your days any time soon so don't get any ideas." 

"My word, but you do speak most strangely and dress stranger still!" 

"I've been living next to the twenty-first century. In the future." She leaned over to study him better. With a little distance, she could now make out his tunic and leggings. "And you're from, what, the Dark Ages?" 

"Dark Ages?" 

"What year?" 

"The year of our Lord, 1066." 

"I thought so. History and dead accents are my specialty. You're a long way from home, Sir Geoff. But then, so am I. What were you up to just before you ended here?" 

"Up to?" 

"Doing? What activity were you engaged in -- sleeping? Eating?" 

"I was engaged in battle with my father, the thane of Aethstan , serving King Harold. The battle was fierce and our force greatly weakened. With my sword on high, I readied to fell an adversary and suddenly a ferocious light did smite me on the head, blinding me, sending me to meet my Maker, though, I fear, I have yet to see Him." 

"Okay, so either you have the power or someone you were about to fell did because nobody ends up in here unless through supernormal means. I'm a latent witch, myself, thought right now, I wished I'd insisted on joining the Congregation sooner and ending the latent bit. How about you?" 

"You be a witch? I am...a knight, no more. You are a witch, truly?" 

"I am truly and I doubt you are just a knight, but forget all that, Geoff. Mind if I just call you Geoff? We have to get moving and find a way out of here." 

"I must return to the battle. As I speak, I fear it rages without me and the invasion threatens our homes! I shame my family by thus cowering in this hole. I prefer to think it as Purgatory for, if I am truly dead, I may be forgiven for not being in attendance." 

"Look," Luci began, "I hate to be the one to dump all this on you, but I come from many centuries hence and you lost the battle to William of Normandy, the French guy. We call it the Battle of Hastings, by the way." She peered over at him again, realizing now that he wasn't terribly old, after all, maybe nineteen or twenty, and looking every bit as stricken as she would be after receiving such news. "Okay, so forget I said that and let's concentrate on getting out of here." 

"Getting out?" he repeated. 

"We're in the Midden, which is like a huge hole you drop into if you happen to be at the wrong place and time. I repeat, not Purgatory, the Midden. You can end up here from any century or dimension but it is possible to get out. I think," she added, struggling to remember all she'd learned on Midden myths. Yes, she'd read escape stories. It must be possible to get out, though maybe not to the exact same century you left. "Are you coming with me or not?" 

Geoff looked stunned but made no move to follow. 

"Fine. I'll just go without you." And with that, she began inching along the ledge in the opposite direction, which, she notice in dismay, grew leaner at every shuffling step. Her leading foot flew into empty space just as the entire ledge began crumbling away beneath her. She felt someone grasp her left hand just as she began to fall and heard Geoff calling: "I shall not forsake you, Lady!"