She strode to the sign and paused to read it. The faded writing was in two languages, neither of which she recognized: Cornish, she decided, and something else. Gaelic, maybe? Or, were those two the same thing? In any case, the nearest place indicated on the greyed and weathered signpost was twelve something. Miles, probably. Or kilometres. She hoped it was kilometres.
Determined to put the unsettling strangeness of her predicament behind her and find the nearest human habitation, she stepped onto the road and began walking with purpose. After perhaps two or three miles or whatever-they-were, she heard a sound behind her-a slow, steady creak-clack-creak-clack. Turning around, she saw a horse-drawn wagon trundling along the road towards her. Obviously, a farmer, Mina thought. She hurried to meet the wagon, intent on hitching a ride to wherever he was going.
As the vehicle drew nearer, she realised that it was not, as she had first imagined, a simple field conveyance, but a much more substantial vehicle: a large, high-sided affair with a cloth top drawn over curved hoops to form a round tentlike covering. The wagon was pulled by not one but two rangy, long-eared mules, and sitting on the driver’s bench was a very plump man in a baggy cloth hat. She stopped and allowed the vehicle to meet her, whereupon it slowed and rolled to a halt.
“Hiya!” she called, putting on a chirpy voice in the fledgling hope that her damp and bedraggled appearance might be overlooked.
“Guten Tag,” came the reply, which sent Wilhelmina instantly back to her childhood and her German grandmother’s kitchen.
The unexpected oddity of encountering a Deutschsprachigen on the road only served to deepen her already fathomless confusion. Bereft of speech, she could only stare at the man.
Thinking, perhaps, that she had not understood, the stranger smiled and repeated his greeting.
“Guten Tag,” Mina replied. Grasping for her long-disused German, she said, “Ich freue mich, Sie kennen zu lernen.” The words felt lumpy and wooden in her mouth, and her tongue resisted making them. “Sprechen Sie Englisch?”
“Es tut mir Leid, Fraulein. Nein,” answered the man. He eyed her curiously, taking in her odd clothes and short hair, then squirmed in his seat and searched both ways down the road. “Sind Sie alleine hier?”
It took her a moment, but the words came winging back to her as if from a very great distance. He’s asking if I am alone out here, she thought. “Ja,” she answered. “Alleine.”
The fat man nodded, then spouted a longish sentence that again sent Wilhelmina right back to the German she had learned as a child-the long-outdated language of her grandmother, who had learned it from her immigrant grandmother, and much different from the Hochdeutsch Mina had studied in school. Nevertheless, she worked it out that he was offering her a ride to the next town. She accepted on the spot. The traveller put down the reins and stood, leaned over, and indicated the iron step ring projecting from the base of the wagon bed behind the front wheel, then reached down his hand. She placed a muddy boot on the step and accepted the offered hand, and was pulled effortlessly up and onto the wooden seat. As soon as she had settled on the bench, the man picked up the reins and gave them a snap. “Hu! ” he called; the wagon gave a jolt, the wheels creaked, and the mules resumed their languid clip-clop pace.
They proceeded in silence, rocking over the uneven road. Now and then, she stole a glance at the driver of the wagon. Her companion was a well-upholstered man of indeterminate age, with a mild, pleasant demeanour. His clothes were clean and tidy, but so very basic as to be nondescript-consisting of a plain wool jacket of dark green over a rough but clean linen shirt and spacious breeches of heavy dark hopsacking. His shoes were sturdy ankle-high boots, well crafted, but scuffed and worn and badly in need of a shine. The plump fellow presented an altogether unremarkable appearance-save for his face: smooth, pink as a baby’s, round, even-featured, with pale blue eyes beneath pale eyebrows, and ample cheeks that glowed in the brisk autumn breeze beneath the fine haze of a thin, stubbly blond beard.
It was that sweet-natured face that made him, she decided, for the countenance with which he faced the world wore an expression of benign cheerfulness-as if all that met his gaze amused and delighted, as if the world and everything in it existed only for his pleasure. He seemed to exude goodwill.
Finally, Wilhelmina cleared her throat and said, “Ich spreche ein biss-chen Deutsch, ja?”
The man looked at her and smiled. “Sehr gut, Fraulein.”
“Thank you for stopping for me,” she said. “Ich bin Wilhelmina.” My name is Wilhelmina.
“A good name,” replied the man, his own accent broad but light. “I, too, have a name,” he announced proudly. “I am Englebert Stifflebeam.” Lifting a plump hand, he raised his shapeless hat and made a comical little bow from the waist.
The old-fashioned gesture touched her strangely and made her smile. “I am happy to meet you, Herr Stifflebeam.”
“Please! Please, Herr Stifflebeam is my father. I am simply Etzel.”
“Etzel it is.”
“You know,” he confided cheerfully, “I almost did not stop for you.”
“Oh?”
“I thought you were a man.” He indicated her strange clothes and short hair. He smiled and shrugged. “But then I said to myself-think, Etzel, maybe this is how they are dressing in Bohemia. You have never been out of Munchen, so how do you know what they do in Bohemia?”
Mina heard the word Bohemia and wondered at it. She had to think a moment to phrase the next question in German, then said, “If you don’t mind my asking, how did you come to be in Cornwall?”
He gave her a strange look. “Bless me, Fraulein, but I have never been to England. This Cornwall is in England, oder?”
“But we are in Cornwall now,” she informed him. “This is Cornwall.”
He put back his head and laughed; it was a full and happy sound. “Young people must have their jokes, I suppose. No, we are not in England, Fraulein. We are in Bohemia as you surely must know,” he told her, then added by way of explanation: “We are on the road that leads to Prague.”
“Prague?”
Englebert regarded her with a look of pitying concern. “Ja, I think so.” He nodded slowly. “At least, this is what the signs tell me.” He examined her again for a moment, then said, “Could it be that you are lost, Fraulein?”
“Jawohl,” she sighed, slumping back in her seat. “Most definitely, lost.” The desperate strangeness of her plight came crashing in upon her with renewed vengeance. First London had disappeared, and now Cornwall. What next? Tears of fear and frustration welled up in her large dark eyes. She thought, What in God’s name is happening to me?
“There, there, Schnuckel. Not to worry,” said her podgy companion as if reading her mind. “Etzel will take good care of you. There is nothing to fear.” He reached behind the seat back and produced a heavy woollen blanket, which he passed to her. “Here, your clothes are wet and it is getting cold. Wrap yourself in this. You will feel better, ja?”
Accepting the blanket, she brushed at the tears with the heels of her hands. Schnuckel-it was what her grandmother had always called her, the same grandmother, in fact, whose German she spoke and whose name she bore. “Vielen Dank.” She sniffed, gathering the travel robe around her. As the warmth began to seep into her, she did feel a little better for his reassurance. Keep it together, girl, she told herself. You’ve got to keep a clear head. Think!
Her first thought was that without a doubt her current predicament was all her low rat of a boyfriend’s fault. All that talk about laying lines, or whatever it was, and crossing thresholds into other worlds and all that malarkey. It was so… she searched for a word. Impossible. So utterly impossible. No rational and sane person would have, could have believed him.