“You know about the vortex?”
"Hm, I just told you. It brought me here. Actually, my cat jumped to the other part of it and I followed him.”
“Is this the first time the vortex appeared to you?”
“Hmm.” She put a finger on her bottom lip, thinking. “It’s showed up a couple of times, I guess.”
“And you went through it?”
“Hmm, what do you do when a quaint vortex appears in front of you other than jumping in?” How pathetic did she sound?
He was shocked by her explanation.
Who could blame him?
“Is there something wrong?” He was constantly frowning all the time while drenching her in questions, but she managed to notice his indecisiveness just now.
“Not certainly.”
“How so?”
“Well, the vortex is not something unusual in the forest. It is told that it appears to those in need who are here for the right reasons. It is believed to be really classified and all the people who’ve seen it are treated very respectfully here in the forest.”
“Some respect,” she thought.
He left his stump on the ground and kneeled on one knee. Now that was too much to handle. Was he crazy? One minute he threatens her and the other one he bows down? How could she deal with that?
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m honoring you.” It was funny how he didn’t even hoist his head to meet her eyes.
“What? But I’m just a person. Nothing special here.”
“Not anymore.”
She looked at her pet taking pride in this moment as if he was a royalty cat.
“So what are you looking for in my property?”
“Hmm?”
“I will help you find it.”
“I…don’t know.” She hesitated.
“There must be something. The portal always brings you to the required destination.”
She didn’t have any required destination. She just followed her cat. That’s all. It was impulsive. There was no explanation whatsoever behind her actions. But what could she say? There was a hideous creature in front of her that was waiting for a response. Any response.
Maybe she could come up with something.
“I was looking, hmm, for the catchfly of enchantment.”
Catchfly of enchantment? Where did she find that?
Awesome. Now he’d think she was a liar.
“What?”
“I mean…the…umm…”
The cat lingered around her legs.
“There must be a reason why you came here. Maybe it wasn’t intentional, but the portal recognizes your feelings and needs. That’s why it led you here.”
“Oh,” she frowned.
“Just try to remember what you were thinking before coming here.”
“I mean…I’m not sure.” She was so perplexed. What did the vortex want her to accomplish?
First, she'd seen her friend getting petrified and she blamed herself for that. So maybe she just wanted him to turn back to normal. Maybe she just wanted to go back home. And still, it made no sense. The portal would have brought her on campus, not in some random place she had no attention to visit.
But it didn’t make sense. None of it seemed to be the case.
Wait…
The portal was a manner of attainment, right? Before all these series of circumstances took place, she had wished a lot to have her roommate back. So maybe that was it.
“I think I should’ve been looking for my friend.” She wrinkled her eyebrows.
“You think? As in, you’re not sure?”
“I’m sorry,” she clenched her shoulders.
“So what does your friend look like?”
“Oh,” she let her shoulders fall loose. “Brown hair, cherry lips, mahogany eyes, and she’s really gabby.”
“That’s not a physical element of description.”
“I’m sorry.”
Apricot waddled around while they started looking around the area. The cat felt comfortable now. And she did too, sort of.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Eudora?” Anwen looked at her roommate, shocked.
“Anwen?” she was just as surprised. “I thought you were hostages.”
“Yeah…” the whole thing crossed her mind. “It’s complicated.”
“How did you find me?”
“I followed the portal.”
“I told you, don’t just go around chasing portals. It’s crazy.”
“But it brought me to you.”
Now Anwen could not put up with her friend’s rough manners. Even chained, she managed to be just as unbearable as she always was.
“Now why do you stand there all contemplative?” she criticized her. “Come unchain me.”
Eudora was wrapped up with a big, metal chain against a tree inside the property of the quaint man that accompanied her.
“Who is he?” Eudora shouted as soon as she saw him.
“He’s on our side. Don’t freak out.” She assured her.
“Now, hurry up. My wrists are starting to hurt from the bruises.”
“It’s so big, I don’t know how to unchain you.”
“Find a way.” She ordered her.
What was wrong with her? Even chained, she handled to be high-and-mighty and exigent.
The huge, hideous man approached. Eudora seemed to frown, stricken by his enormity and Anwen could tell she was a little scared of him.
With his big hand, he clutched the chain and stretched it with such a force that startled her.
It was unsuccessful anyway.
The chain refused to break.
“Leave it…” she hesitated because she just realized that she didn’t know his name.
“Tilden.” He said.
“Tilden,” she repeated. “It’s okay. Hm, it’s not actually. But anyway, you can let go of it. It’s impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible.” He corrected her.
“Well, some things just are.”
Look at them, Anwen thought, it was just their first encounter, but that didn’t stop them from having a philosophical discussion.
“It’s charmed.” Eudora finally said.
Anwen’s enthusiasm disappeared when her roommate turned into her original, cruel self again.
Her roommate was the definition of craziness and hostility.
“How did you get yourself chained anyway?” she wondered.
"They did it," Eudora shouted. “God, Anwen, what is this question? What kind of a person would actually wrap themselves against a tree stump?”
She shrugged.
After a moment of contemplation, it occurred to her that they’d managed to resolve way more intricate issues. She rummaged to her pocket to find something that was going to help her in this situation too.
“What are you doing with that piece of thing?” Eudora yelled.
She was such a grudge.
“You’ll see,” Anwen smiled.
She rubbed her hairbrush against the chain and in no time the magic seemed to disperse.
“You can take it from here,” she talked to the man.
He approached and grabbed the chain by both sides and in no time it shattered into pieces.
“You did it,” she holloed in enthusiasm.
“Yeah, yeah,” she nodded mechanically as Eudora had wrapped her into a hug, almost suffocating her.
“Hey, I can’t breathe,” she mumbled in torture.
“I don’t care.” She smiled. “You saved me.”
Well, Anwen liked her grudging friend better than this abundantly loving creature.
The cat lingered beneath her legs.
It took her a moment to realize something was missing.
“Where’s Brayden?” she frowned.
Anwen wrinkled her face. How could she explain to her that he was petrified and that it was all he
r fault?
“He’s…uh…”
“Tell me,” she demanded.
“I’m sorry.”
“Anwen, what’s wrong?”
“They petrified him.”
“What?!” her faced crippled in shock. She cringed and frowned. This was unexpected. And painful.
They remained silent for a couple of moments.
“You still got the ointment, don’t you?”
"Hmm, of course." Anwen rummaged through her pocket and the glassware materialized in front of her.
“We should use it on him.”
“This is for Harvey.”
“I don’t care.”
“But...”
“Just let’s get back there.”
“I don’t…”
“Where did this happen?”
“The same place where Asterix was petrified.”
“God, Anwen, I cannot believe this. How come you’re still here then?”
What could she say? Brayden sacrificed himself for her pet. Eudora would go crazy if she found out.
“Hey, Tilden,” she shouted. “So you know how to navigate the forest?”
“I know this forest in detail.” He informed her.
“Cool,” Eudora said.
* * *
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” she said, panicked. “He’s supposed to be right here. That’s where it happened.”
"They must have taken him," Tilden explained.
“Where?” Eudora shouted.
“To shatter him into bits.” He said. “I’m sorry.”
This information got them all speechless. Eudora tried to sit down. She couldn’t handle this much stress.
“Why is he nowhere to be found?”
No response.
“How did you manage to escape?”
“He saved me.” She shouted. It seemed like she was finally getting this off her chest.
“What?”
“Actually he saved Apricot.” She shrugged in faultiness.
“Why would he do that?”
She shrugged.
“We can’t risk staying here,” Tilden said. “They might come back at any moment.”
“Where can we go?” Eudora scoffed in hopelessness.
“Home?” Anwen suggested.
“Like that’s a possibility.”
“You can use the portal,” he offered.
“How?”
“I’m not chasing after her cat,” Eudora frowned.
"When it appears, think about campus and it will incorporate into your wishes."
“That portal brings us to the craziest of places.”
“The portal brings you where you need to go.”
The cat hopped inside it.
“Apricot?” Anwen called.
“Anwen?” Eudora said.
“We have to go now.”
It seemed like they didn’t have much of a choice after all.
“Thanks, Tilden.” Anwen smiled and stepped foot inside the portal
He nodded, but she was already on the other part of it.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“How could you do this to me,” Harvey scoffed in frustration.
“I didn’t mean to.” She tried to explain it.
“You know, you’re nuts.” He shouted. “I can’t believe I ever went on a date with you.”
She stood there speechless. But then, what did she expect? Like, the guy you petrified isn’t going to thank you for turning him back to normal again. Of course, he’d go crazy.
But she hadn’t figured he’d go that crazy.
“Look on the bright side,” she smiled. “I saved your ass back.”
He shook his head in disbelief. He was getting more and more convinced she was completely deranged.
Which she wasn’t.
Right?
Anyway. Anwen had gone through all this trouble just to bring his ass back to normal again, and look how she was getting paid for it.
Ungratefulness.
Had she known he’d be so conceited, she’d never have gone on a date with him in the first place.
Why did he have to be so different from the Harvey she'd known all these years?
Why did he change so abruptly and unnoticeably?
Oh, yeah. Because the one she knew wasn’t even real.
He was like a hologram she’d created in her head.
Oh, my God, she was crazy.
Her roommate had been right all along.
In the middle of her contemplation, as she was getting convinced she was going nuts, the cat jumped in front of them.
“What is that thing doing here?” he asked, terrified.
How could he talk to Apricot like he was some kind of a monstrous creature that had ruined his life? Now sure, the cat sabotaged the date, and then she had to fix it by coming up with the ointment that petrified him.
But the pet wouldn’t have done any of it on purpose, now would he?
“Just keep it away from me.” He shouted.
“But Harvey.”
“I’ve had enough of this.” He got up on his feet.
“I’m sorry,” she said in the most desperate way possible.
“Like I care,” he said.
Now that was obnoxious.
How could he manage to be so cruel?
“Harvey, where are you going?” she whined as soon as he was about to get out of the room.
“I’m done with you, for good.”
“What? Why? I—I saved you…” she said in the most pathetic way ever.
She was acting depressively, but maybe that was because her lifelong crush was dumping her…in the most terrible of ways. He was leaving her behind in that crappy basement.
“But what about our next date?”
“What?” he looked at her as if she was the most cringe-worthy person he had ever encountered.
The chances are she was.
"How could you expect another date, after everything you did to me? You turned me to stone!" he yelled.
Boy, it was unbearable to hear him say all those obnoxious things.
Like, she saved his life.
And look what she was getting for it.
“But you should give me—us—another chance.”
“In your dreams…”
No, no, no, no. She cringed, terrified.
She’d been living inside her dreams all along. She couldn’t go back there. That place was creepy and unreal. Now pleasant, but still…creepy. And even she could tell that.
Her lips twitched in contemplation and she made up her mind. She wouldn’t let him go like that. He was meant to be with her.
Boy, she was getting crazier and crazier.
The cat meowed.
Harvey looked at him suspiciously.
And then he walked out.
She took a seat, sighing in hopeless and desperation. He’d report her by any means.
Now all she had to do was wait for whatever crazy plan was in the store for her.
“What are you doing there all contemplative?” Eudora asked her as soon as she entered the room.
“He dumped me.”
“It’s not like he ever was with you.” She rolled her eyes.
“Yeah…but…" she was deficient in excuses, she noted.
Bad.
“I’ve got good news.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“M-hmm,” Eudora nodded happily.
“How come?”
“Now wouldn’t you like to hear it?”
“Okay,” she said, disinterested.
“I’ve still got the sample I saved from the ointment. We can turn him into stone again.”
“What?”
“I mean, think about it. He wouldn’t tell us off, nobody would know it was us.”
“Even I am not that crazy.”
“But I am.”
As if she hadn’t noticed.
“He’s probably on his way to the dean’s office. Or worse. He could tell his friends about us and just think…our whole social life on campus is done for good.”
“With all the terrible, horrible things we’ve done, you still think we’ve got a social life?”
“Mm-hmm."
“We’re gonna be like social pariahs…soon enough.” She shouted.
“If,” she emphasized, “we don’t do anything about it. That’s why I came up with this brilliant idea.”
“It’s not brilliant…it’s deranged.”
“But…”
“It’s over Eudora. We just wait for what happens next.”
This made Eudora sit next to her with a rather depressing complexion on her face…It must’ve been contagious.
They got into all this trouble, just so they could get punished or expelled.
Well, she couldn’t have that.
“What do we do now?”
“We wait…” Anwen responded. Though even she could hear how lame and uninteresting this sounded.
They stood there quietly for another minute or two, and wondered what their life would’ve been like if she hadn’t created that ointment that ruined everything, or if she hadn’t gone to that stupid date in the first place. But Eudora had been the one who talked her into asking him on a date in the first place.
Yeah, everything would be better if they hadn’t messed things up. But after all, where’s the fun in that?
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Shhh,” she shushed him. “I can’t hear anything.”
“Maybe it’s better that way. I can only imagine what the dean is saying about us right now. Not sure I want to hear that.”
Apricot lingered silently around her legs, while she was eavesdropping.
She didn’t pay attention.
“I’m so sorry it had to come to this,” she could hear the dean say. “I really had high expectations for her. You’ve put the bar so high, we were almost confident she was going to keep up with that standard. Not only did she manage to overrule that, but on record time too. Now I'm speechless."
“We all are,” her mom said.
God. She could only imagine how disappointed her mother might’ve been. They brought her to the academy so that she could shine and accentuate their good reputation.
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