The Yellow-Brick Road by Adam Rutter

Nadia stepped inside her Mini, turned the ignition, and the music came on at full blast. She lowered the volume. The dial on the fuel gauge was pointing at near-empty. Nadia drove to the nearest filling station just outside the village of Hay-on-the-Wold, where she lived. The filling station was along the A722. Known by the locals as ‘The Yellow Brick Road’, the A722 stretched all the way to a henge in South Wales. Why it was called that was not known, although according to local legend, it is thought that the A722 road was once an ancient trail, which had been walked on by many pilgrims, to pay homage to a wizard. It is said that the wizard had powers to send pilgrims to places in another realm. The legend was certainly a myth. However, it was understood that pilgrims went to the henge, but never returned. How true this was, no-one knew. Nadia filled up the tank and paid for the fuel.

When Nadia went back to the car, she continued driving along the A722, which cut through the Plains. ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’, by Elton John, was playing on the radio. Islands of cumulus clouds slid across the sky, piling up into giant heaps, coalescing in a dark, heavy blanket. A big raindrop splattered the windscreen. Lightning flickered, a bright jaggered column stretching from sky, to Earth. Thunder boomed in the air. A funnel emerged beneath the cloud, a spinning vortex growing into a twister, throwing up everything in its path. The twister drifted toward the car. Nadia veered off the road, hitting a rock. Her head struck against the steering wheel, knocking her out. After she regained consciousness, she struggled to lift her head off the steering wheel. Through the windscreen, she saw the stone that her car hit. There was something different about the stone. The colour. It was black. Weird, wondered Nadia, I’m sure the stone that I had hit was white. She also noticed something strange on the windscreen. It did not have a single raindrop. The glass was dry. When she looked through the window, she realised that the storm had gone. There was not a cloud in the sky. She turned on the ignition. The engine revved-up, and then came to life. The radio came back on. ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ continued playing. Only this time, the artist was performing the song in a foreign tongue. What language is this, wondered Nadia. The artist sung in a language that was unfamiliar to her. None of the words in the song had never been spoken in any earthly language. There were scripts containing symbols and figures streaming across the LCD. The scripts represented a pictographic language that she had not seen before. The radio presenter spoke on the airwaves, talking in the same language as the artist. Where the hell am I, she wondered. She changed gear, reversing her car onto the road, and drove on. A heavy goods vehicle was going along the same side of the road as her car, getting closer. It sped towards her. The driver blast the horn. She swerved to the right, tyres screeching. Swinging back onto the left lane, a van came from the opposite direction. She spun the steering wheel, sending the car flying off the road, bouncing on the ground. Her car stopped. The engine cut off. 

‘Idiots’, she cried, hitting her fists on the dashboard. She turned the engine back on, and got back on the road, sticking to the right-hand side of the lane. She kept going. The road went in a straight line, stretching for many miles. The Plains reached beyond the horizon. The journey lasted longer than expected. She had not seen a car for three hours. She spotted a string of boulders standing on a short grass, arranged in a wide circle. 

‘The henge,’ she murmured, her heart thumping against her chest. 

She pulled the car over  and stepped out. She walked over to the henge – slowly – gingerly. The sun was on her left. The boulders shadow fell to the right. The boulders were exactly in the same circular formation since the first time she saw them when she was a teenager. There was one thing that struck her as peculiar. The henge was off the right side of the road. The henge was on the left side when she first saw it in her youth. The boulders looked nothing more than a necklace on the Plains. But just by merely catching sight of them was enough to raise the hairs on the back of her neck. A voice spoke in soft, flowing intonations. It was coming from behind, seemingly saying a few rhymes. She turned. Standing behind her was a man, 5’ 8”, long white hair with a beard, wearing a blue jumper, and a pair of jeans. His sunglasses – round with iridescent blue-purple lens looked directly at her. His gaze never strayed. 

‘The wizard,’ she exclaimed. 

Was it the same wizard that she was told about in the village? Could it be the same man that the pilgrims went to see? Was the henge the place that they used to walk to as told by the local legend? Nadia still remained unsure, though one thing was clear: she was in a world that was different than the world where she came from. It is possible that this the world where the pilgrims came to. Could it be why they never returned? What of Nadia? Was she to remain here for all eternity? Only fate could decide that. The man began to chant. A gust of wind blew. His hair and beard were flapping like a flag. The wind blew ripples around the arms on her black jumper. The curls hanging down her face blew round the sides of her head. The sky darkened. There was a rumble of thunder. The man’s chant crescendoed. The chanting was as loud as thunder. Lightning glimmered inside the clouds, electric sparks flashing around them. Funnelling beneath the clouds, a whirlwind was writhing down to earth, spinning inside the henge, tossing Nadia into the air, spiralling her upwards. The whirlwind threw her out. She fell to the ground. Her eyes flipped open. Lifting her head off the steering wheel, she looked through the windscreen. The view shimmered as the rain was falling onto the glass. She saw the stone that her car hit. It was back to its original colour. The Lightning was flashing across the sky. Thunderclaps cracked through the air like a whip. The rain was drumming on the car roof. She heard ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ sung in English. It was performed by the artist she knew in her own world – Sir Elton John. Nadia cheered. 

‘I’m back,’ she cried.