Mandy Hubbard: Prada and Prejudice

I still don't get it. Why am I here?

What if I'm not even walking in a straight line? I could be circling! I could be out here forever!

It's cold and way too silent. The canopy of the forest is blocking most of the remaining light, making it way too dark for my comfort. Did something just move? No, that was just a leaf falling. I'm being paranoid.

Ten minutes of walking, cursing England and everything in it, and I hear something.

It's like a roaring, almost like a train, except not quite as loud. And then there's a horse whinny. What the heck? That can't be good.

I duck behind a giant oak tree, well obscured by the wide trunk, and watch. Please don't be an ax murderer.

A carriage appears, pulled by four gray horses. Have I woken up in some kind of fairy tale? I stare as the wheels roll by and the ground shakes beneath my feet. The thundering noise quiets as the carriage rolls away, and I realize maybe I should have asked for help.

Maybe they were nice people and they could have helped me.

A sinking feeling comes over me. What if I'm really really far away? What if I'm lost forever? They could find my body or something, deep in the woods. And they won't know what happened to me. Because I don't know what happened to me.

This is so not good. So not good.

I have no choice. I have to keep walking. I can't see any sign of civilization, but I can't be that far from the hotel. Or at least a house and someone with a phone. I can call Mrs. Bentley, but how am I going to explain this? She doesn't want us leaving the hotel unaccompanied, and I inexplicably end up lost in the woods? She's not going to buy that.

At least the carriage has shown me the road paralleling the path I'm walking, so I move over fifty feet and use that instead. It's only moderately better than the trees — there are deep ruts on both sides of the road, and no gravel, just mud and compact dirt.

Thankfully, my heels don't sink here, so I can walk faster. The light is a little better too, so at least I'm not tripping as much.

It's incredibly silent. The only sound is my heels scraping the road, a steady noise that seems far too loud. The sun hasn't disappeared yet, but the moon is rising behind me and the stars are already glittering. The light glints across the scattered mud puddles. I try not to notice that there seem to be so many more stars than there were last night.

I walk until the sun is just a sliver on the horizon, wishing I had stopped the carriage and asked for help. My toes are blistered and the back of my feet are raw where the heel keeps rubbing on them. My head spins.

Could this be a dream? Maybe I was knocked unconscious and I'm really sitting in a hospital bed coming up with this whole crazy story. That's plausible. Sort of.

Argh! I can't believe this. Tears spring to my eyes again, only this time, I let them roll down my cheeks. This isn't fair. I didn't do anything to deserve this. Angela should be the one showcasing her survival skills. She made fun of me. Karma is supposed to catch up with things like that, not kick me when I'm down.

Today is officially the worst day of my life. Why did I have to talk my mom into letting me go to England? She was right. I wasn't ready for a foreign country. If my mom was here right now, I'd tell her that and beg her to take me home. I'd spend the rest of the summer doing my usual stuff: movies, surfing the internet, magazines, junk food. Maybe that stuff will never make up for the things I really want, but it won't get me stuck in England's wilderness either.

There's something ahead of me. I duck behind a tree again, trying to figure out what it is. I squint. There's a glowing in the distance. Lights! I must be close to someone's house! I jump out from behind the tree and scurry toward the lights, as quickly as my blister-clad toes will let me.

My shoes must be ruined by now. Four-hundred dollars down the drain. How am I going to explain that one to my mom? I consider ditching the heels altogether, but being barefoot doesn't seem any better, so I keep them on.

As I get within fifty feet of the lights, I realize that they're lanterns. Real, flaming, oil-filled lanterns.

But it's a house! Or at least, I can make out a rooftop amidst the shadows.

When I reach the crest of a small hill, I'm shocked to see the house that belongs to the rooftop. Calling it a house seems silly. It's a castle. It stretches out before me, perched on a grassy knoll, two big wings on either side of the main entry. Ivy is climbing up one side, its green vines covering the east wing. The entire building is made of stone, like a castle you'd imagine in a fairy tale, and in the dusk it looks both stately and scary. I stare at it for a long moment, wondering what kind of people are inside. They must be super rich. Will they help me? Or will they think I'm some crazy runaway teen or something?

With no other choice, I limp toward the front door as the rocks transition to cobblestones. My feet are pounding and I'm shivering. It had seemed so warm earlier, but the dampness from the mud has taken all that away. In the last twenty minutes, the wind has kicked up, and it's whistling through the trees. If they don't help me... I can't bear to think of what I'll be faced with.

I pass a big pond with a few geese paddling merrily on its surface and make my way to the entry. The door is huge — twice as tall as it needs to be. It's big enough to be the door to the Emerald City.

I close my eyes as I knock. You will help me. You will help me. You will help me.

The door of the mansion swings open before I can even drop my fist, like someone has been standing on the other side the entire time. The elderly man staring back at me is thin and frail, with a sneer and a hard glare that makes me want to step back. My stomach twists. He doesn't look very friendly. He's dressed in a really old fashioned way, wearing a starched white shirt and black jacket, and get this — he's wearing a powdered wig like George Washington or something. He looks down at my dirty jeans and T-shirt, and then moves to shut the door in my face.

"Wait!" I say, and stick my foot into the entry. The door bounces off my aching toes and sends a wave of pain up my leg. Yes, my shoes are most definitely trashed now. "Please, I, uh, I n-need your help," I stutter. Is it crazy to even want help from a guy wearing a powdered wig? "I'm lost and—"

"Rebecca?" a girl's voice calls, in one of those pure, melodic British accents.

I crane my neck around the still half-closed door, hoping to catch a glimpse of whoever the girl is, hut she barrels at me so quickly I barely get a glimpse of her brown hair and beautiful pale skin before she's throwing her arms around me.

"It is you!" she squeals. "I knew it must be by your American accent! We hadn't expected you for a month yet! I've only just received your last letter stating that you were soon to purchase your tickets for the sea voyage." She envelops me in a hug so tight I can't breathe. I squish against her, and I can tell she's wearing a corset underneath her old fashioned dress, because the ribbing pokes me through my T-shirt. I think she's close to my age, probably less than eighteen, but with the clothes she seems older.

The lanterns, the old-fashioned clothes, the carriage... the size of those trees... and the way the stars look . ..

No, that's crazy. England just looks a lot different from America, that's all. England probably has better environmental regulations.

I realize I'm staring at the girl when she laughs awkwardly. "It's me, Emily! It's truly been along time, has it not? I believe we were seven when we last saw each other! Oh, how I missed my best friend!"