I woke up screaming, my hands out to fend off the dragon, but there was nothing there. I looked around, brushing silky strands of hair away from my face. It had been a dream! Relief flooded me, but I couldn’t settle back down, so I pushed the covers away and paced to the large picture window.

Still in yesterday’s clothes, I hugged my arms across my chest, a chill going down my spine as I remembered the massive face that had risen before me. I knew it must have been all this talk of dragons, the house, and that rock formation, what else could it be? I’ve never dreamed of dragons before.

Bears had plagued my childhood nightmares, and snakes, oh how snakes had plagued my nightmares, but dragons? Not even once.

I gazed out over the plain between the house and the cliff face that went down to the cove. Movement caught my eyes and I peered into the darkness until I could make out six shapes, heading straight for the house. Wolves!

They moved to the edge of the lights that dotted the outer walls of the house and I could make out the colors of wolves that were far too familiar. Three reddish brown, two black wolves, and a gray, all doing their bowing routine. My heart started to pound in my chest once more as I looked at from the safety of my bedroom.

How was that even possible? I’d flown here, how could the same wolves I’d seen in West Virginia now be on my lawn in England? I backed away from the window, fear clutching at my heart. It simply wasn’t possible.

I was still dreaming, that was it! I was just dreaming still! With a laugh at my own silliness, I went back to bed and climbed in. I’d just go back to sleep, in my dream of course, and I’d wake up in the normal world again.

But, I didn’t go to sleep.

I tossed and turned instead, trying to talk myself into believing that those were not the same wolves outside. I almost got out of bed at one point to check if they were still there but the fear of seeing the exact same wolves would not let me move.

I’d grown up in the wild forests of Appalachia, I’d learned how to use a gun properly, I’d taken the required hunter’s safety course that all children had to take when they reached a certain age in the state, I’d learned the legends alongside Holly before her grandfather passed away and took the stories with him.

I’d learned not to be afraid of wildlife, but to respect it, to give it the same understanding that I gave to human beings. They also had a right to life, but when they threatened mine I had a right to protect myself.

These animals, though. They weren’t the normal kind of animals. There was something off about them, and it was more than just their bowing at me that had me freaked out. It was more than their appearance an ocean away. It was that they somehow knew not only who I was, but where I was and when. It was uncanny, unnatural, and most of all, highly disturbing. I clenched the covers tightly in my hands as I stared at the window. They couldn’t get in through that could they?

I finally came to the conclusion that the house was more than secure and that I couldn’t stay in bed, so I went downstairs as the sun began to rise and waited for Holly to get up. I’d left my suitcase downstairs so I took a shower and changed into the first sweater and pair of jeans I pulled out, before I headed into one of the living rooms and turned the television on. British television was much like American in that most of the morning programs were things I wouldn’t normally watch anyway.

I fell asleep on the long, dark brown couch without realizing I’d even closed my eyes against the dim glow of morning. This time I didn’t dream.

* * *

“Abigail, why are you asleep on the couch? Come on, I’ve made breakfast. What I could of it anyway. There is some really weird shit in that kitchen.” Holly left me scrubbing at my face with my shirt sleeves as she walked out of the room. “I don’t know what’s got into you, but you sure were snoring to beat the band. I heard you all the way in the kitchen, girl!”

Her voice trailed off and I looked over at the bay window. Wolves and dragons, that’s what had gotten into me. Mythical creatures messing with my sleep. I shook it all off and went into the kitchen.

“I swear, if you laugh at my biscuits I’ll scream. I don’t know what kind of flour that was, but something wasn’t right!” Holly normally made the most mouthwatering biscuits in the world, but the flat little things she put in front of me looked like door stoppers, not biscuits.

Breakfast didn’t improve when I bit into a sausage. I chewed, grimacing.

“There’s no seasoning.” I said, puzzled. “And, what is that texture? Is that some kind of flour?”

Holly looked at the package, still on the counter. “The ingredients say there’s some kind of cereal in them.”

“Cereal? In sausages? Why? Why would they desecrate a perfectly good sausage like that?” I paused as a shiver went through me. “This might take some getting used to. Is there any, well, cereal in the drawers? Or oatmeal even?”

We rummaged around and found some bran flakes to eat after we threw away the biscuits and sausage. We both cleaned up the kitchen and looked through everything to see if we had anything to at least make lunch and dinner with tonight.

“When is that rental car coming?” Holly asked as we walked around a storage building at the back of the yard, well away from the view of the house.

“Tomorrow, I think. You’d think there’d have been a car in the family somewhere along the way.” I waved at the garage beside the storage building, but we’d checked it and found it empty. “Mom didn’t have any siblings, and there aren’t any other relatives that I know of, so what happened to the car? Surely they had one.”

“It’s hard to say. Maybe they left it to a charity or something.” Holly always had helpful ideas.

Before long, we’d figured out how to get into the building and found two bikes, so we decided to go to the small village we’d driven through yesterday. We were almost run over by a speeding van as we pulled out onto the road.

“What the hell, buttmunch!” Holly shouted as we came to a stop on the side of the road.

“Um, Holly, I think we’re in the wrong here. They drive on the wrong side of the road, remember?” I felt like an idiot for forgetting that simple, but very well-known detail.

“We’re going to have to think about that every single time we step into a street, or drive on the road, aren’t we?” She asked as we got back on the bikes and stared down the road.

I actually had to think about it, and force myself to stay on the wrong side as we rode into the village. My brain was screaming out a warning to me the entire time we were on the road...”you’re on the wrong side!!” I vanquished it, however, and kept to the ‘right’ side.

We parked outside of a small cafe and went in and ordered tea and some sandwiches.

Two hot mugs of tea were put on the table in front of us. “Um, could I have some ice please? And we don’t need this milk, thanks.”

The man that brought us the tea looked at me as though I’d grown another head. Then he smiled as realization dawned.

“Oh, you’re American. You want that cold filth you lot call iced tea.” He gave me a conspiratorial wink and a good-natured laugh. “Try it, love. Most of your lot find it nice after a cup or two. Just add some milk and sugar. If you don’t like it, I’ll bring you something else.”

Holly and I both looked at him doubtfully and tried it. He was right, we did like it, even if it was odd to try and eat the sandwiches he soon brought us with a hot drink rather than a cold one. He chortled as he walked away, obviously pleased to have taught us something.

“So, I saw those wolves again last night.” I said when I’d finished eating, brushing crumbs off the emerald green sweater I’d put on that morning. It brought out the silvery gray of my eyes, especially when I lined them with black eyeliner and some lip gloss.

“Homey saw what?” She coughed out around the last of the fluffy bread of her sandwich. Those things really were just a crumb factory. I brushed a few from her yellow West Virginia University hoody and smiled. Her makeup was impeccable, but today she’d gone for casual jeans and a pair of ankle-length moccasins instead of the high-heeled boots and tight pants.

“The wolves. You remember, we saw them in West Virginia that night we came back from the lawyer’s office? In the driveway?”

“You think there was another pack of wolves in the yard at Wyvern House last night?” Her doubtful look was softened by the concern in her voice.

“No, they were the same wolves. I swear, Holly, they were right outside of the house.” I tried to explain to her in the empty cafe as the man came back to collect our dishes.

“Oh, that can’t be, love.” The man said with assurance. “There’s not been wolves in Britain for centuries.”

I gaped at him, but I saw them!

“Except for those cubs introduced earlier this year, but they are in the next county over. They don’t come up this way.” He started to wander off again but stopped. “It might have been wild dogs, but we don’t have many of those either.”

I looked at the man and Holly in confusion. Perhaps I had been dreaming after all? I was just under a lot of strain right? My mother had recently passed away, my life had been turned upside down, and I was now in foreign country where even something as simple as a sausage and riding a bike on the road didn’t make sense. I was going to be disoriented and confused for a while, right?

We pedaled back to the house in silence, both of us, obviously, just taking in our surroundings, lost in our own thoughts. We really were a world away from all we’d ever known. At least it was all in English. I could only imagine how much worse it would be if I was trying to navigate this new world in Dutch or Spanish. My only experience with foreign languages was my high school French and I hadn’t done very well in that.

When would a mountain girl ever need to speak French, I’d thought back then. We arrived at the house and Holly went in to check her social media, but I was drawn to the water. Out there, across the English Channel, the place where French was spoken as the accepted daily language actually existed. For all my life, place names like France, Germany, Nepal, were just places on a map.

Sure, there were people there, things happened, I’d even seen movies about many of the places or from those places, but I’d never expected to actually see any of them. Now, only a few miles of water separated me from an entirely different continent from where I stood on the island I’d never even dared to dream about visiting. What was out there, I wondered as I walked.

I’d made it down to the beach now, and found that the cliff was dotted with dark holes. Caves!

My memory of last night’s dream popped up then and I couldn’t help but scoff at myself. I might find a pirate’s treasure, or even some ancient fossils, this was part of the Jurassic Coast, as it was called. I’d never see a dragon, though. They didn’t exist.

I walked gingerly into the largest of the caves, so tall I didn’t have to bend over. It was dark inside so I took out my cellphone and turned on the camera’s flash. The bright light pierced the darkness as I wandered into the cave. The ground was much like the ground in my dream, sand, water filled holes, rocks jutting out of both. I stepped carefully and held out my phone as I peered into the darkness. At least there wasn’t a light shining deep in the back.

“You’ll want to watch your step in there, Abigail!”

Startled, I fell, sharp rocks coming up to meet me.

Who was that and how did they know my name?