Anna (2/2)

Continuation of part 1.

    As Anna continued walking, occasionally coming across more houses, she tried to guess where she was. She was on Earth, she knew, and most likely in North America or Europe, given the temperate weather and vegetation, as well as the style of the houses she passed. Eventually, Anna could see a village just a little way farther down the path. That path had since become much more like a road. She could now make a guess as to where, and when, she was. Unless she had stumbled upon the set of Brigadoon, she had to be in Western Europe, sometime during the 1700's. She could tell this from the style of the houses and the clothing the people wore. This time when she was pulled away, she had been taken not only across the ocean, but also 300 years backward in time. This was how her other trips had worked. She would find herself someplace on the planet, as well as in an unknown time, ranging from 80 years to a few millenniums in the past. There had been times when she didn't go very far at all, winding up just a few decades back or just a few hundred miles from her home. But every time she was taken away, she seemed to go into the past, and always to somewhere beyond her home.
    Anna entered the village just a few minutes after first seeing it in the distance. It had a quaint, rural feel to it, and she felt immediately at home. She could see a few dozen people in the town, sitting on their porches, or walking between the houses, or heading to the three or four small businesses that made up the downtown area. There was what appeared to be a farmer's market set up in a large empty spot in the middle of town. Villagers looked through the produce and goods available for sale, examining the quality of a pear or haggling for a better price. A clergyman sat on the steps of his church, scrawling down in a notepad what might have been that Sunday's sermon. Children played on old playground equipment outside a small school. Everyone looked perfectly happy, content with their simple, though perhaps sheltered and naive, lives.
    As she enjoyed the simple village, she felt herself begin to go. Her time here was up, the force was bringing her back. It would be just a few seconds before she found herself back on the streets of her small town, where she had been walking when she was caught up. She looked over the small town, then up at the warm sun, as the force that controlled her pulled her back into her own time.