Temporal Locum

by Wendie Nordgren

  Chapter Two

  A seething pain in her temple had Bym lifting her hand to feel if an ax had somehow become embedded in her skull. Feeling only hair and skin, she cautiously opened her eyes, expecting to see her apartment. That wasn’t what she found. She wasn’t lying prone on her floor. She wasn’t even in her apartment. Bym stood still, absorbing the sights and sounds around her. It was as though she had blinked and upon opening her eyes had found herself in an alternate reality. She was out in the city with a familiar sidewalk beneath her feet. She recognized the cracks in it and glanced up at a store window, recognizing herself in its reflection. She stared into her own startled eyes.

  “This has already happened. This has happened.” She was holding the handles of her brown paper shopping bag, the one she’d been given at the fabric store. She continued to stare at herself. It was a reflection which she’d raced by earlier while on her way to meet Monique. Was this real or was it a psychotic break? The early lunch crowd didn’t give her time to contemplate. They herded her along the sidewalk until she escaped them by venturing off into the coffee shop. Just as she remembered, Monique turned to her, coffees in hand, and made a face. “No, it’s not my costume or a political statement.”

  Monique asked, “How’d you know what I was thinking?”

  Taking the cup which Monique offered, Bym went to the table and sat.

  Following at a slower pace, Monique asked, “Or where I’d been sitting for that matter? Have you been stalking me?”

  Bym looked up at her, not knowing what to say, certainly not the truth. “I saw your coat,” she replied as she placed her shopping bag on a chair. Monique seemed at a loss as to what to say, and Bym realized that she’d inadvertently altered their entire conversation. Taking a five out of her wallet, she tried and failed to make sense of her own scattered thoughts. Was she crazy? Was it all déjà vu? Had the universe taken pity on her and given her a do-over? “Thank you for the coffee. Here you go,” she said as she handed over payment.

  Taking it, Monique asked, “Does this feel weird to you?”

  Bym shrugged. “It is Halloween. Maybe that has something to do with it. So, have you finished your costume?”

  “Yeah…. You?”

  “Not quite. I need a few finishing touches.” An onslaught of sudden panic seized her. She needed to leave before the nightmarish future she’d dreamed up came true. Had it really even happened? She didn’t know and didn’t want to find out, but what should she say to get Monique moving? “Actually, I’m getting desperate and need some help. Would you mind going with me to hunt for what I need? I really need to hurry.”

  “Oh, alright,” Monique said as she grabbed her things. “Where to?”

  “I’d like to drop in at a costume jewelry shop a few blocks away.” Grabbing her things, Bym made her way to the door and held it open, hoping Monique would move a little quicker. Once they were out on the sidewalk, she set a brisk pace. She looked back and sighed in relief at having avoided Mackenzie. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. Silently, she said to herself, “Classy, not trashy. Couth and cultured. Only those beneath you can pull you down. Focus on the costume contest.”

  “Hey! Watch where you’re going!” a shrill female voice demanded upon full-frontal impact.

  Squished between herself and the other woman, Bym’s coffee cup’s lid popped off, and the cup’s contents spilled all over the chest of an infuriated Mackenzie. Bym’s short-lived relief morphed into horror. “Oh, no! I’m so sorry! Please, let me pay for the dry-cleaning bill.” Holding the dripping ruined cup away from herself, Bym carried it over to a trash can, flicking coffee from her fingers as she did.

  “Bronwyn! I should have known. You’ve got the grace of an elephant on skates. Monique, you really should form better acquaintances. You know what they say. If you lie down with dogs, you get fleas.”

  Pensively tapping her chin, Monique said, “It’s just like you to use a trite cliché. Here’s a new one for you. If you lure other girl’s boys away with your cooch like bait at the end of a hook, it must smell fishy.”

  To Mackenzie and her friends, Bym’s shocked expression probably looked to be a reaction to Monique’s comment. Everyone knew what Monique meant by it. A few weeks ago, Roger, a sweet, handsome sophomore, had been flirting with Bym. They’d exchanged numbers, and Bym had been very hopeful of getting a text asking her out to coffee. However, Monique had noticed their exchange and had swooped in like a vulture on a fresh kill. Just like that, she’d stolen Roger. Anytime something started to go right for Bym, Mackenzie ruined it. Taking her friend’s arm, she pulled her away from Mackenzie and her friends and hurried around the corner.

  Only after they’d entered the discount store she’d wanted to visit did she indulge in a good hard laugh. Monique laughed right along with her, but they weren’t laughing about the same thing. Whereas Monique laughed in humor over their encounter with Mackenzie, Bym’s hysterical laughter was more of a release of confusion and horror. Her laughter eventually faded as her feelings turned to those of dread. At least, if it had ever even happened, she hadn’t deliberately assaulted Mackenzie this time. Bym rubbed her hand against her jogging pants, trying to get the sticky drying coffee off of it.

  “It doesn’t matter what I do. Does it? The outcome is the same, well almost.”

  Monique asked, “What are you going on about?”

  “Oh, nothing. Here, have a handbasket and help me find some Celtic-looking pieces. We need to hurry. I’ve still got some beading to do.”

  “Cutting it close, aren’t you?” Monique asked as she took the proffered basket.

  “Just help me look.”

  After a few minutes spent searching through the selection of cheap costume jewelry, they took their handbaskets to the checkout counter. Monique said, “I found a few things you might be able to use or else glue together with other pieces, but oh. Sorry. I’ve got to go. Hair appointment. Give me a hug.”

  Giving her a quick embrace, Bym said, “See you tonight,” and watched Monique rush from the store. Absently, she returned her attention to the cashier who was busy ringing up each piece of fake jewelry in the garish pile and placing them in a plastic bag which after she’d paid, she tossed into her brown paper bag.

  Once Bym made it back to her apartment, she again started questioning her sanity. “What the hell is wrong with me? What just happened? Something happened. Then, it was like a reset button was pushed and none of it happened. No. Bym, girl. You’re talking to yourself. There’s an explanation for all of this. Earlier, when you were crossing the street, you got clipped by a car, tripped, and hit your head either on the pavement or a pole. Something has to be wrong with you.”

  Her fabricated explanation didn’t seem plausible, even when saying it out loud. Trying to steady her nerves with the familiar, she emptied her bags out on her square metal kitchen table. Finding the small bag of beads that she needed, she threaded a needle and turned her attention to her costume. It was a goddess design in deep-blue rather than white. The fabric was sheer and would do nothing to keep her warm, but couture was seldom practical. She began putting the finishing touches on the beading on the front panels which would cover her breasts. The fabric twisted at the shoulders and formed rope-like blue straps which twined together behind the neck, split apart down the back, and then crossed together again at the center of the back where another long, beaded panel like those which comprised the bodice covered the spine. It was an unconventional design but an artistic one.

  Finished with her sewing, she turned her attention to the costume jewelry. “Okay. Let’s see if either of us got a usable accessory.”

  The metal jewelry clinked against the table’s surface as she scattered it about. Her thoughts drifted. Mackenzie wouldn’t be wearing costume jewelry to accent her ensemble for the historical costume design contest at the Halloween party. That was a certainty. The contestants weren’t competing for candy. The winner would be getting to attend Fashion Week, the place w
here a young design school graduate’s dreams could come true, amongst other things. Monique wanted her to try for an International Textiles and Apparel Association scholarship, so that when the time came for her to return to London, Bym could go with her. Winning the contest tonight would get her the attention she’d need to be in the running for such a prestigious competition. She just needed a fair chance to prove her worth.

  “Huh,” she said as she picked up a simple, elegant piece.

  It was an infinity design of two snakes biting their tails. The gold was a bit too bright in contrast to her gown, but it would do. As she held it on her palm, she felt a powerful tingle travel up her arm and rubbed her elbow. Taking the piece over to her dressmaker’s mannequin, she hung its heavy chain over the neck to see the effect and then absently rubbed her elbow. Sewing by hand would do that along with creating aches in her fingers. Satisfied with her work and hopeful that she’d place in the costume contest, she went off to shower and get ready.

  In a pensive state, she allowed her mind to wander while washing her hair. She frowned when she didn’t find any bumps on her head to explain her insane day. Her thoughts twisted upon themselves like the shoulder straps of the gown she’d designed. She’d woven a life for herself with the threads she’d been given and done her best to make it pleasing to herself. For example, Bym had never cared for her given name. Bronwyn had always seemed rather pretentious to her, and her childhood friends had always struggled to say it. Therefore, subtly over the years, Bronwyn Maren had become Bym. Only strangers or people like Mackenzie who wanted to get under her skin called her by her full name.

  After a shower consisting of a great deal of mental rewinding and replaying of events which still made no sense, the water went cold and forced her out of the shower. She shifted her attention to her hair and make-up. Unlike Monique, she had to do her own hair, so she’d decided on a simple partial updo, letting loose, messy waves tumble over her shoulder.

  Carefully removing the dress from the mannequin, she stepped into it, pulling it up and getting her boobs in place beneath the fabric panels. Satisfied with the fit, she twirled, enjoying how the sheer dark-blue fabric billowed out. The ballroom in which the festivities were being held would be warm enough, but she knew she’d freeze in her sheer, sleeveless creation the moment she set foot outside of her building. However, she’d planned for that. In the closet, she pulled out the cloak she’d made for the Renaissance Fair. The black, hooded, satin-lined velvet cloak was one of her favorite pieces. She slipped her feet into gold strappy heels, knowing her feet would freeze but not willing to compromise for the weather. Doing so would compromise her aesthetic. Grabbing a small black clutch, she tossed her lipstick, keys, and phone inside and was heading out the door when something, some odd sensation, prevented her movements.

  “Oh, duh.”

  Tossing the clutch onto the kitchen table, Bym returned to her mannequin and reached for the thick gold chain. She hoped the simple design of the pendant with its two gold snakes biting each other’s tails would balance out the thickness of the chain. Careful to keep her hair from becoming tangled, she slipped it over her head and let the pendant fall between her breasts.

  The pendant’s contact with her bare skin sent her mind reeling. Forcing her eyes not to roll back in her head, she reached for the pendant, trying to take it off intent on flinging it across the room, but to her horrified disbelief, it and her chest appeared incorporeal, faded and ghost-like. The pendant sank into her diaphanous chest where it disappeared. She tried to scream, but her brain was too busy to process her command, busy bombarding her with her earliest memories only to race her through her life, like trying to watch a movie on fast-forward. Her life began, sped to the present, and then began again, but one thing was different.

  In the final vision of her present, it wasn’t her body which the old man tugged to safety but her soul. She watched as if from above as he bumped into her, and the old lady dropped something shiny and golden into her bag. She met the old man’s eyes and nodded to him that it was done. When Bym stepped from the curb, he reached out like lightning and pulled her spirit from her body. Sadly, he smiled down at the elderly woman.

  Patting his hand, she said, “My long service is done. I pass the temporal locum on to its chosen one.” Then, as Bym faded now, so had they done.

  All that had been after her fatal encounter with the speeding suburban had been but the possibilities as the fates cut her strings to the reality she’d known, possibilities as the lines had snapped and flailed. That knowledge proved to be too much for Bym. Her past and present rolled through her in a dizzying, unending loop until she broke apart into billions of incorporeal pieces, fragmented by what had been, could have been, and had become. Her splintered consciousness was forced to accept the hard truth that there was no future for her, not here. The future she had envisioned for herself had been as diaphanous as her gown. The realization slammed through shattering her. She no longer belonged to the world she had known.

  Then, there was darkness.

  Chapter Three

  Hard unyielding ground bit into her flesh through the thin fabric of her dress. Her hipbones felt crushed into it, sore and bruised. Disoriented, Bym tried to grasp at her last memories, but it was as if her life had become nothing but a fading dream. She’d been getting ready for something, but she had fainted. She’d fought with Mackenzie. She remembered that. Maybe it was why she was here. Wherever here was. Had her nemesis had her kidnapped from her apartment and dumped out here in the middle of nowhere so she wouldn’t win? Win what? She couldn’t remember. She spread her palms out to push herself from the floor but felt dirt and rocks rather than the dated, unfashionable, burnt-orange carpet which should have been beneath her.

  “What the hell?” Her voice sounded groggy and rough in her own ears.

  Her head throbbed. Wherever she was, night had fallen. She was outside and not in the familiar surroundings of a city. Pushing away from the ground, she sat in a barren clearing where nothing grew. Several feet away was a crumbling stone archway. It might once have been part of a greater piece of architecture, but what might have been had long ago gone to ruin. Picking a pebble from her palm, she absently wondered if it had once been part of the construction before being worn away by time and the elements.

  “Hello? Is anyone there? This isn’t funny,” Bym called out in a shaking voice. She pulled her cloak more tightly around her and searched the surrounding darkness for anything. She frowned, gazing around at the ruins in which she found herself.

  Moonlight reached for the ground, struggling around naked branches with clawed ends. They reminded Bym of the skeleton cardboard cutouts which had decorated many of the doors in her apartment building. Shivering, she staggered to her feet and turned in a slow circle, trying to figure out where she was. Unfamiliarity had terror scratching at her, building and strengthening to the point where she felt like she had to leave.

  “Hello?” she called out to the darkness with far less confidence than she had before.

  No one answered, and no roads or city lights were visible.

  The impending sense of danger made chills rise all over her flesh. It was a foreboding, an overwhelmingly urgent instinct to run. Irrationally wondering if by some miraculous chance the stone archway could be a magical portal that could take her back home to the city and away from the creepy forest of death, she walked to it. Standing underneath the crumbling arch, moonlight and a breeze like death’s breath washed over her. There was nothing magical about the archway. There definitely wasn’t any type of control panel, so she hadn’t found herself in any sort of virtual reality room if such things even existed.

  Feelings of danger continued to grow in their persistence. Desperate to hide, Bym searched the darkness and found only trees and crumbling stone. However, standing as she was near the gate and illuminated as she was by the light of a full moon, was no way to win a game of Hide and Seek to the death, so she wobbled away in her strappy gold hee
ls and into the trees. She had no means of defending herself.

  How had this happened? Had a serial killer broken into her apartment, watched her, and waited for the opportune time to knock her unconscious, and drag her out here? If so, he wasn’t here now. Was he coming back? Had Mackenzie hired someone to make her disappear? Fear drove bile up her throat. She hid behind a large tree, digging her fingers into its dry bark. A twig snapped under her foot making her freeze.

  Off in the distance, she heard a snuffling sound. Then, a high-pitched animalistic cry pierced the night.

  Pushing herself away from the tree, she stumbled away and ran through the darkness in the opposite direction. She held the edges of her cloak closed with shaking hands, keeping her eyes on the ground in front of her. She could hear the footfalls of a heavy beast as it ran through the forest. She might not be a fighter, but even in heels, Bym realized if she kept her weight on the balls of her feet that she could run as fast as ever. She forced herself to run faster when her ears brought to her the sound of the beast as it found her scent beneath the arch.

  “Shit. I need to find a river or stream to throw it off my scent, or I’ll never lose it.”

  Unfortunately, she didn’t see any water in sight, nor for that matter the root which caught her heel and sent her rolling along the ground. The ripping of fabric as she fell sounded loud in the quiet forest. Any creatures in residence within the foliage had gone silent in fear for their own lives. The breeze tickled the trees, making what dying leaves stubbornly remained upon their branches tap against each other to make the only sounds. Rolling over onto her back, Bym tried to stand, but her shoes got stuck in her dress.

  “Now is not the time,” she silently whispered to herself in frustration.