MlMM’s #First Line Friday 22 June

The strangers with her on the rooftop paused in unison. They seemed confused, unsure what to do next. They had got her this far and so far no hint of what their intentions for her were.

Her mind raced. Looking about her wildly she couldn’t, in fact refused to believe that twenty  minutes  ago she had been walking through the cobbled streets of the finely preserved National Trust show village.

There had been no sign that there was some form of medieval pageant but  she had found herself grabbed bu a pair  of swarthy, dark-skinned men in what looked  like authentic peasant’s smocks. If the dirt was anything to go by.

Despite her protests the two men had grabbed her and speaking in a strange accent, at least it sounded like an accent but the words weren’t even recognisable, had put a rope round her waist and started to lead her towards the public house she had just passed, “The vine.”

It had seemed empty before but now she found it to be full of the costumed townsfolk. Baleful eyes were cast in her direction as she was roughly dragged through the door.

Still unable to make her captors understand what she was saying and in total confusion, tears started to form; they pulled her through an archway at the side of the old wooden bar.  Despite her situation she found herself marvelling  at  the authenticity of the bar. It really was like stepping back in time as she noted the two large oak barrels standing on the dark brown, knotted, roughly sawn plank that doubled as a bar counter. Behind which there were a range of earthenware pots with unknown contents. There wasn’t even a price list. Then they started to ascend a granite staircase between two rough whitewashed walls.

The people had formed a procession behind them, there were giggles and shrieks of laughter but it was more at her than with her and there was no humour  in their loud clamour. From the dark staircase they  burst out into the light  and she saw that they were on a wooden balcony that overlooked the  street at least two storeys below. A rough shaped beam was crudely attached to the handrail and looking up she saw the rope that hung from it over the edge. It was knotted at the bottom with a noose.

Only then did she start to scream.