Amendment

{Two} In the Lion's Den

"What in the hell were you thinkin’, boy? Bringin’ this girl back here? Of all the dumb things!"

"What else was I s’posed to do? Just leave her out in the woods?" Someone snorted. "Yeah. That’s a right smart idea."

"Don’t you sass me."

It wasn’t the talking that’d made me rise, but the silence. For a few minutes, now, I’d been listening groggily to a three way conversation between two guys and one girl. When they stopped talking all of a sudden, I decided it was time for me to get up.

"Where am I?" I groaned. Unlike the first time I’d woken up, I remembered everything. I just didn’t know what to make of it. Time traveling? There was just no way! Ah, but I was getting myself all worked up again. Better to just take a few deep breaths and calm my ass down.

"Easy now," a middle aged woman with graying brown hair said gently. "You’re safe."

Safe didn’t quite cut it for me, though. "I need to get back to my brother," I said firmly.

"You’ve got a pretty big knot on your head," the woman continued as if I’d said nothing. "You should rest for a bit."

I looked around, confused of my surroundings. Last I checked I’d been in the woods. Now I was in a house, and judging by the furniture it was a living room. How long had I been out? I looked passed the woman to the men standing behind her. Instead of just two, there were now three; Cap, another young man, and a middle aged man. By the way the younger men were behaving around him, I suspected it was their father……Devil Anse Hatfield.

Man, how I wished Russ was here right now. He’d be able to tell me if the Hatfields were worse than the McCoys. Curse my short attention span! Why hadn’t I listened to Mr. Jameson in history class?

I tried not to look as visibly scared shitless as I felt when Devil Anse walked toward me. He crouched beside the couch in which I was sitting in. I couldn’t help thinking he wasn’t the evil tyrant I’d expected him to be. Once upon a time, he might have blonde hair, but all that remained was light salt and pepper tresses, a burly beard to match.

His blue eyes were anything but ruthless as he stared back at me. "Can you tell me your name, ma’am?"

For a minute, I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what I’d expected him to say to me, but the question threw me. "Josie," I choked out. "Er, Josephine."

There was a hardness to Devil Anse’s eyes that suggested maybe I’d answered incorrectly. "Josephine what?"

I swallowed back my fear. "Sherwood. My name is Josephine Sherwood."

Devil Anse seemed to relax, and soften, a bit. "Where are you s’posed to be right now, Miss Josephine?"

2012! I wanted to scream. "Tennessee," I said, my voice wobbly. "My family and I were in Kentucky visiting friends….I don’t know what happened. We got separated. Please, I need to find my brother. We were together last I remembered. He has to be around those woods…."

"You’re in West Virginia now," Devil Anse said in his muffled voice. "That’s where you were found. Any idea how you might have gotten there?"

I was close to tears and it was nothing he was doing. It was all too much, the reality of this time traveling thing. "I wish I knew," I whispered. When I started to stand, the older woman put her hand on my arm. "Please, I have to find my brother."

Devil Anse stood, an imposing height of over six feet. "We looked for your brother, ma’am. We didn’t find no one in those woods ‘sides you."

How was that possible? We’d been together. Was it possible that we got separate somehow while we were traveling in time? How else would I have ended up in West Virginia and not Kentucky?