Touch. Movement. Some of it gentle, some rough. There was light and there was darkness. There were noises I couldn't place. A soundscape that was completely foreign to me. Nature and dull, rhythmic thudding, and then, finally voices.

Awareness returned in torturous increments. Pain came first. My feet were throbbing, my throat was parched and my face stung.

It took a while for me, lying in blissful darkness, something vaguely soft beneath me and something equally soft covering me, to tune in enough for the voices to become more than just random bleats of sound. To turn them into actual language.

"-- this woman?" A new voice, male and American as well, but not the man who'd found me. I kept my eyes shut, not wanting to give myself away just yet. My heart started to pound again. Even on a good day, in a regular setting, strangers made me nervous, and now I was helpless and seemingly surrounded by them.

Someone huffed a breath. Floorboards creaked.

"Told ya, Sheriff." This was him, the first guy. "She was alone, far as I could tell. Down by the cracked rocks, pretty much smack down in the middle of the forest, getting acquainted with a goddamn bear." He chuckled and I felt a flare of indignation at his amusement. He sounded like a real dick, but he'd saved me. At least it seemed like he had. If he'd brought me to the sheriff then that meant he wasn't going to do anything to me. Right?

"Doctor should be here in a couple of minutes, guess then we'll learn more about her condition. She's got a pulse and is breathing, so ..." The sheriff was standing close to me, I could feel his eyes on me despite having mine closed. It was an uncomfortable feeling. "There haven't been any missing persons reports. She doesn't fit any descriptions of fugitives that crossed my desk, haven't seen her on any posters or anything, and she sure as heck doesn't look like she's from around here," he said.

"A real mystery," the first guy grumbled. "I thought maybe she was Indian –"

The sheriff interrupted him with a snort of disbelief, while I bristled at the word choice. Indian, seriously?

"I mean, she has that look, don't she?" the first man asked defensively.

"No, Miller." The sheriff paused, then added, "I suppose, she could be mixed, maybe."

I was stunned by this shameless speculation about my ethnicity. I was half-Turkish, I wanted to snap, so yeah, in a certain light, a clueless American might confuse me for all kinds of things? But what did it even matter? I was a human being who was injured and in need of help.

"Have you seen her shoes?" Miller piped up, his voice tinged with something like astonishment. I heard him move around, the rustling of his clothes and the popping of his knees. I realized I wasn't wearing them and pictured him picking them up from the floor right now. "I ain't never seen anything like 'em before."

What? What the hell?

I'd been wearing regular sneakers. Converse was a US-brand to boot. They were everywhere. What kind of hillbilly was this guy?

No longer able to hold myself back, I cracked one eye open. Thankfully, the men weren't looking at me but at one of my shoes which the older of the two was holding out to the other one for inspection. I balked at their fashion choices. They both wore cowboy hats. Come to think of it, they were dressed like cowboys from head to toe. My mouth went even drier than it had been before as my eyes kept scanning the younger man, who seemed to be the sheriff. He wore a leather vest over a blue shirt and the star was pinned to his breast, catching the dim light from the oil lamp on the wooden crate serving as a bedside table.

Nope, I thought, no, no, no, no.

My eyes were glued to his wide belt with its oval buckle and the holster dangling from his hip. I could see the polished brown grip of his revolver. I swallowed. This was either some impressive cosplay or ...

"Look at this," Miller said as he bent my sneaker in his hands, watching the sole flex and spring back when he released pressure.

"Huh." The sheriff ran a hand over my shoe. "That's rubber. I've never seen it attached only to the bottom of a shoe like that. It's a smart design, lighter than a full boot. Maybe she's related to Goodyear."

"To who?"

"Goodyear, man who has a patent on rubber? Died a few years back, before the war, I believe."

"I don't remember nothing from before the war," Miller growled, scratching his thick dark beard. "Anyway, all her clothes are funny."

Yeah, sure, they would be to you, I caught myself thinking with a strange giddiness born from despair, because you're from the past.

Which means I'm in the past. Which means I can't go home.

The sheriff hummed in agreement and turned his head just in time for his eyes to meet mine. His eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"Ma'am, you're awake. We've called a doctor for you. How're you feeling?"

I gaped at him, definitely not over the whole being stranded in the past thing and very much not ready to have a conversation.

"I'm Sheriff Joseph Bourke. Do you remember what happened? How you got here?" The sheriff had a gentle voice and a kind, actually pretty handsome face, I couldn't help but notice despite my trepidation.

He took off his hat as he stepped closer, his hazel eyes searching my face. His expression was soft but there was intense focus in his gaze. I was a puzzle he needed to solve.

Great bone structure, I thought as I admired his cheekbones. There was a hint of dark stubble on his chin and – Priorities, I told myself, furious with the way his looks had instantly distracted me. So he was tall and wiry but still muscular and had a full head of dark hair, curling a little at his temples and the nape of his neck, so what? I had run from a demon who wanted my soul, had almost become bear dinner and now I was - Oh God - thousands of kilometers and more than a century? from where I was supposed to be.

Plus, I had nothing to tell this man. He'd never believe my story.

What options did I have?

Wait, I was a foreigner. I could just pretend I didn't speak English. Tut mir leid, ich verstehe nicht, or maybe, İngilizce anlamıyorum? I had the vague feeling that identifying as German would be greeted with less hostility than Turkish, maybe?

And I had been staring at him wordlessly for too long. He narrowed his eyes.

"Are you okay?" he asked very slowly, over-enunciating every syllable.

"Maybe she bumped her head," Miller offered. He came over to stare at me as well. The streaks of grey in his beard glinted in the lamplight. His weathered skin had a leathery appearance and when he squinted his eyes, shadows caught in the web of his crows feet.

"I'm okay," I said. My voice was shaky and unsure. I didn't know if I was dooming myself by talking to them. Both of these men were armed. Miller even had a rifle slung over his back. If they felt like it, they could kill me in a second.

The sheriff smiled a little, his lips, I noticed, were slightly chapped. It gave them a raw but tender look. I thought of my lip balm pentagram and the huge mess I'd made of everything. For a moment, I felt like crying.

"What's your name, Ma'am? Do you have family here?"

Miller was hovering next to the sheriff, still holding my shoe. My gaze flickered between them.

"Nevin," I replied and instantly regretted telling the truth.

This elicited a snort from Miller. "Kevin? Your parents must have really wanted a boy, huh?"

They had, but that had nothing to do with anything. "Nevin," I repeated, "With an N."

"What kinda name is that?" He looked at me suspiciously.

Yeah, I'm a foreigner, I wanted to snap. So are you, you're not from around here either, you stole this land. Remembering their guns, I quelled my European righteousness and shrugged.

"It's just my name."

"Where are you from?" Miller asked with that inflection I only knew too well.

I was German, born and raised there. My Turkish was so shitty, I needed google translate to form a semi coherent sentence that went beyond Nasılsın. But that didn't stop a lot of Germans from asking me where I was from when they heard my name.

"I'm German," I said.

"Huh, I've met a buncha Germans," Miller drawled. "You seem nothing like them."

The sheriff, who'd been watching me in silence, clapped a hand on his shoulder, but addressed me.

"You've come a long way from Germany, Ma'am."

I nodded, a lump forming in my throat at the thought of just how far away from everything I knew and loved I was.

"This might be a stupid question, but could you tell me what the date is today?" I asked, hoping that, somehow, I was wrong and this was still the present somehow.

Sheriff Bourke cocked his head at my strange request, but he didn't ask me why I wanted to know. "It's Monday, April 9th 1866," he said.

1866.

The year hit me like a punch in the gut. I swallowed and forced a weak smile.

"Thanks," I said as a wave of panic rose inside me.

1866 in America, what did that even mean?

If only I'd paid more attention during history class.

I was well and truly fucked.