I slowly came to, consciousness returning in fragments like mirror when your mom looked at it, shattered into pieces; cough, cough, sorry for the poorly timed joke, the mirror didn't deserve it.
The first thing I registered was warmth, actual, blessed warmth that seemed to seep into my bones and chase away the bone-deep chill that had settled there. Then came the sounds: a faint rustling of fabric, the soft pad of footsteps on stone, the distant crackle of fire.
I was lying on something soft. A mattress. An actual mattress with what felt like real bedding wrapped tightly around me, cocooning me in layers of rough-spun fabric that scratched slightly against my skin but felt like heaven compared to the alternative. My body ached, a deep, pervasive soreness that radiated from every muscle and joint, but it was the kind of ache that came from exhaustion and trauma, not active injury.
And most importantly: I could no longer smell the rotting corpses.
That alone was enough to make me want to weep with relief. The air here smelled of smoke, herbs, something vaguely medicinal, and the earthy scent of stone and wood. Clean smells. Living smells. My stomach chose that moment to remind me it existed, letting out a growl that would've been embarrassing if anyone had been close enough to hear it.
I cracked my eyes open, squinting against even the dim light. I was in some type of ward or infirmary, beds lined up in neat rows along the walls with a wide aisle running between them. The beds were simple wooden frames with straw mattresses, each covered with rough woolen blankets. Most were empty, though a few had lumpy shapes that might have been other patients sleeping.
Movement caught my attention on my right. I turned my head, slowly, because everything still hurt, and saw a middle-aged woman hustling about with an armful of bundled cloth. She wore a long dress of undyed wool, an apron stained with what I hoped were just herb stains, and a white cap that covered most of her hair. She moved with the brisk efficiency of someone who'd done this a thousand times before, not even glancing in my direction as she headed toward a pair of great wooden doors.
And I mean great wooden doors. These weren't your standard Home Depot specials. These were the kind of massive, ornately carved doors I'd only ever seen in old manor houses or historical buildings, the kind that probably weighed more than a car and had iron hinges the size of my forearm. They swung open with barely a creak as the woman pushed through them, and I caught a glimpse of a stone corridor beyond before they closed behind her with a heavy thud.
I let my gaze wander around the room, taking inventory and trying to make sense of where the hell I was. What I saw was not exactly comforting.
In one corner stood wooden shelves, rough-hewn planks with no visible bracing or support brackets, just slotted into the stone wall as they'd grown there. The shelves held an assortment of glass vials (actual glass, which seemed weirdly advanced), wooden containers of various sizes, and a multitude of ceramic jars, each type grouped together in its own section. Some of the jars had symbols painted on them that I didn't recognize. Others had what looked like dried herbs or powders visible through cracks in their lids.
Near the shelves sat a couple of heavy wooden tables, scarred and stained from years of use. On one of them sat a cauldron, and I mean an actual, honest-to-god iron cauldron, the kind you'd expect to see in a Renaissance fair or a fantasy movie. It was big enough to cook for a whole family, black as night, and surprisingly free of rust despite its obvious age. A ladle the size of a small shovel hung from a hook beside it.
Along the walls, about eight feet up, torches burned in iron sconces. Real torches, wood and pitch and actual fire, crackling and smoking and casting dancing shadows across the high vaulted ceiling. The ceiling itself was impressive, all exposed wooden rafters and beams creating a cathedral-like space that had to be at least twenty feet high at its peak.
What the room didn't have were windows. Or air vents. Or any visible source of ventilation beyond the gaps around the doors. Which raised the question: how the hell were we not all suffocating from smoke inhalation? And for that matter, how was the temperature so comfortable? There was no air conditioning, no heating system, no radiators or vents or,
Magic. The word popped into my head unbidden. It's magic, you idiot. You saw people flying on broomsticks. Of course, it's magic.
I shoved that thought away before I could spiral into another existential crisis.
Near the large ornate doors was a smaller, more normal-sized door, probably leading to a storage room or office or something. The whole setup had the vibe of a medieval hospital ward, which, given everything else I'd seen, was probably exactly what it was.
I sat up slowly, my body protesting every movement. The pillow behind me shifted, and I noticed a few feather ends poking through the rough fabric. Huh. Actual feather pillow. Weird. Though I guess in a world without synthetic materials, what else would they use?
I looked down at my hands, holding them up in the flickering torchlight. They were small, child-sized, with skinny wrists and delicate fingers. There were a few calluses on the palms and fingertips, the kind you'd get from manual labor or maybe using tools. Definitely not mine. My hands had been bigger, broader, with different calluses from typing and lifting weights and,
I reached lower, under the blankets, checking something I probably should have checked earlier but had been too out of it to think about.
Everything was still there. Still the right configuration. Still male. And still circumcised, fwooh, what a relief. Don't get me wrong, uncircumcised men are not lesser, its just not as... hygienic, those who know, know.
I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. "Thank you God," I muttered. That truly would have been the final straw. I could deal with being in a different body, in a different world, possibly in a different time period. But if I'd woken up as the opposite sex? That would have made me want to jump roof, jump rope, jump off a bridge, you get the idea.
I pulled the sheets off and shifted to the right, swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. The stone floor looked smooth and cold, maybe six inches below where my feet dangled. Six inches. That should have been nothing.
Except I'd forgotten, really, truly forgotten in that moment, that I was no longer six feet tall.
I hopped down.
Bang! Ding! Ow!
"Uhhh..."
My feet hit the ground with way more force than I'd anticipated, the impact jarring up through my shins and knees. But worse than that, my feet, which apparently had no idea how to handle this new center of gravity, immediately slipped out from under me on the smooth stone floor. My arms windmilled uselessly as I pitched forward, and my face met the corner of the bed next to mine with a solid thunk that I felt all the way through my skull.
Pain exploded across my forehead and nose. My knee cracked against the stone floor. My toes, at least two of them, bent at angles toes should not bend. And worst of all, I hit my funny bone on the way down.
For a moment, I just lay there, sprawled on the cold stone floor like a discarded puppet, my cheek pressed against the ground, tasting blood where I'd bitten my tongue. The stone was smooth and blessedly cool against my throbbing face.
And I did what any rational man would do in this situation when alone and in pain: absolutely nothing.
I just lay there. Didn't move. Didn't get up. Didn't even try to assess the damage. Just wallowed in the pain and the humiliation and the sheer absurdity of it all, enjoying the caress of the cold stone against my face like it was the only thing in the world that made sense anymore.
My forehead throbbed. My nose throbbed. My knee throbbed. My toes throbbed. Everything throbbed in a symphony of pain.
This is my life now, I thought distantly. I survived a pit of corpses and flying witches just to be defeated by gravity and a bed frame.
I lay there for what felt like an eternity, but was probably closer to five minutes, just breathing and existing and trying to convince myself that getting up was worth the effort.
Then I heard the sound of the large doors opening.
Panic shot through me like electricity. I scrambled to my feet with a speed that would have been impressive if it hadn't been fueled entirely by embarrassment and the desperate need not to be seen lying face-down on the floor like an idiot. My head spun from the sudden movement, and I had to grab the bed frame to keep from falling again.
The middle-aged woman from before stepped through the doorway, now carrying what looked like a stack of folded linens. She took two steps into the room, glanced up, and saw me standing there, swaying slightly, one hand clutching the bed frame, my face probably bruised and my hair sticking up at odd angles.
She jumped, letting out a small gasp, and nearly dropped her linens.
I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring smile, but probably looked more like a grimace. "Ahem, sorry about that. I just fell on the floor, didn't mean to scare you like that."
The woman stared at me, her eyes wide, her mouth slightly open. For a long moment, she didn't say anything, just looked at me like I'd sprouted a second head.
Then she spoke, and my brain immediately short-circuited trying to process it.
"Marry, child! Thou art awake!" She set down her linens and hurried toward me, her hands fluttering in concern. "Prithee, what dost thou upon thy feet? Thou must needs rest thyself! The mistress did say thou wert grievously hurt and should not stir from thy bed for some days hence!"
I blinked at her. Then blinked again. My brain was trying to translate what she'd just said, but it was like trying to read through frosted glass, I could make out the general shape of the words, but the meaning kept slipping away.
"I... what?" I said eloquently.
She frowned, her concern deepening. "Art thou addled in thy wits, poor lamb? Canst thou not understand me? Mayhap the shock hath, "
"No, no, I can... sort of... understand you?" I said, though it came out more like a question. "It's just... the way you're talking is really... old? Like, Shakespeare old? Are you doing a bit or...?"
Now it was her turn to look confused. Her frown deepened, and she tilted her head like a dog hearing a strange noise. "Shake-spear? I know not this word. And what meanest thou by 'old'? I speak as I have always spoken, as do all folk of sense and breeding."
"Right. Okay. Sure." I rubbed my face, which was a mistake because it made my bruised forehead throb worse. "Look, I'm just trying to figure out where I am and what's going on. Can you tell me... uh..." I paused, trying to figure out how to phrase this. "Where am I? What is this place?"
She stared at me for another long moment, and I could practically see the gears turning in her head as she tried to parse my words. "Thou... art in the healing ward of Mistress Blackwood's dwelling," she said slowly, enunciating each word like she was talking to someone very stupid or very foreign. "We did find thee in the burial pit. 'Tis where all the sickly ones who die are put to rest."
The pit. Right. The corpses. The smell. The dead girl's face stared into mine. My stomach churned, and I had to swallow back bile.
"Yeah, about that," I said, my voice coming out rougher than I intended. "I don't... I don't really remember how I got there. Or why I was there. Or... anything, really. It's all kind of a blur."
This was apparently the wrong thing to say, because her eyes went even wider, and she pressed a hand to her chest. "Thou rememberest naught? Oh, thou poor child!" She turned toward the door and raised her voice. "Mistress Blackwood! Mistress! The child is awake, and he knoweth not who he is nor whence he came!"
"Wait, no, I didn't say I don't know who I, " I started, but she was already bustling toward the door, calling out again.
"Mistress! Come quickly! The boy hath lost his wits!"
"I haven't lost my wits!" I called after her, but she was already through the door. "I just don't remember from whence I came! My wits are fine! Mostly! Relatively speaking!"
I stood there, still clutching the bed frame, listening to her footsteps recede down the corridor and her voice echoing off the stone walls as she called for this Mistress Blackwood person.
"Great," I muttered to myself. "Just great. Not only am I in some medieval fantasy world, but now they think I'm brain-damaged. This is going so well."
I looked down at my small, child-sized body, at the rough nightshirt someone had dressed me in while I was unconscious, at my bare feet on the cold stone floor.
"What the hell is my life right now? Lord, help me," I asked the empty room.
The room, unsurprisingly, didn't answer.
But I could hear footsteps approaching, multiple sets of them, moving quickly. And voices, speaking in that same archaic, hard-to-parse English that made my brain hurt.
I straightened up as much as I could, trying to look less like someone who'd just face-planted into a bed frame and more like someone who had their life together.
I failed spectacularly, but at least I tried.
The doors swung open, and three women swept into the room. The first was the middle-aged woman from before, still looking worried. The second was older, maybe in her fifties, with sharp features, piercing dark eyes, and an air of authority that made me want to stand up straighter. She wore black robes, actual robes, like a wizard, and her graying hair was pulled back in a severe bun.
The third was younger, maybe in her thirties, with red hair and a face full of freckles. She carried what looked like a medical bag made of leather.
All three of them stopped just inside the doorway and stared at me.
I stared back.
The silence stretched out, awkward and heavy.
"So," I said finally, because someone had to say something. "This is awkward. Hi. I'm... uh..." I paused, realizing I should probably come up with a name. My real name felt wrong somehow, like it belonged to someone else. So I need some help, how does one name themselves? "I'm... look, can someone just tell me what year it is? And maybe where I am? Like, country-wise? Or continent? Are we still on Earth? Is that a thing I should be asking?"
The three women exchanged glances. The older one, Mistress Blackwood, I assumed, stepped forward, her eyes narrowing as she studied me.
"The boy doth speak most strangely," she said, not to me but to the other women. "His words are twisted, his manner of speech foreign to mine ears. Canst thou make sense of his babbling, Goodwife Ashford?"
The middle-aged woman, Goodwife Ashford, apparently, shook her head. "Nay, Mistress. He doth speak of 'years' and 'continents' and asketh if we be upon the Earth, as if there were some other place we might be. I fear his mind is most grievously afflicted."
"I'm standing right here," I said, waving a hand. "And my mind is fine. I just need some basic information. Like, what year is it? Is it 1400? 1500? Are we in England? Europe? Please tell me we're at least in Europe and not, like, some completely different dimension."
Mistress Blackwood's frown deepened. She turned to the red-haired woman. "Mistress Crowley, what thinkest thou? Hath the boy some malady of the brain?"
The red-haired woman, Mistress Crowley, stepped closer, peering at me with professional interest. "Whan that I saugh hym first, me thoughte his eyen were cleer," she said, and my brain immediately gave up trying to translate. The words were English, sort of, but they were so mangled and archaic that I could barely pick out individual words. "But now I ne sholde seye... mayhap swich a grete shock hath wyth his wit y-meddled?"
"I'm sorry, what?" I said, my frustration mounting. "I literally understood maybe three words of that. Can you say that again, but in... I don't know, normal English?"
All three women stared at me as I'd just spoken in tongues.
"He doth not understand Mistress Crowley's speech," Goodwife Ashford said, sounding amazed. "How can this be? She speaketh plainly!"
"That was not plain!" I protested. "That was like... Middle English or something! Like Chaucer! Nobody talks like that anymore!"
"Chau-cer?" Mistress Blackwood repeated, mangling the pronunciation. "What manner of word is this? Is it a name? A place?"
"It's a, never mind." I rubbed my temples, feeling a headache building behind my eyes. "Look, can we just start with something simple? My name is..." I hesitated again, then just went with it. "Ahem, what's yours? And where am I?"
Mistress Blackwood drew herself up, looking offended. "Thou knowest well who I am, boy. Goodwife Ashford did tell thee already. I am Mistress Blackwood, and this is my dwelling. Thou art in the village of Hogsmeade, in the shire of, "
"Wait, wait, wait." I held up a hand, my heart suddenly pounding. "Did you just say Hogsmeade? As in, Hogsmeade? The village near Hogwarts?"
The three women exchanged glances again, and this time there was something else in their expressions, wariness, maybe even fear.
"Thou knowest of Hogwarts?" Mistress Blackwood said slowly, her eyes narrowing. "How dost thou know this name, boy? Who art thou, truly? And how camest thou to be in that cursed pit?"
I opened my mouth to answer, but before I could, there was a loud boom from somewhere outside, followed by screams and the sound of people running.
All four of us froze.
"What in the name of, " I started.
But Mistress Blackwood was already moving, sweeping toward the door with her robes billowing behind her. "Stay here," she commanded, pointing at me. "Move not from this spot, boy, or thou shalt answer to me!"
Then she was gone, the other two women hurrying after her, leaving me alone in the ward with the echo of that explosion still ringing in my ears and a thousand questions burning in my mind.
Hogsmeade. Hogwarts. Flying witches. Magic.
"Oh," I said to the empty room, the pieces finally clicking into place in my exhausted, battered brain. "Oh, God save me."