by Frewin Jones
Zara’s eyes brightened. “That is joyous news,” she said. “I am so very glad.”
“Yes. Me too.” Tania looked across the table to where Hopie sat. Thanks, she mouthed. Hopie gave her a grave nod.
Rathina leaned toward her. “I rode Maddalena over hurdles as high as my shoulder this afternoon and never once came near to falling,” she said. “I am glad you did yourself no harm, but you must take better care of yourself.”
“I think the fall did me some good, actually,” Tania said, spreading a heavy linen napkin on her lap.
She saw Gabriel looking at her with concerned eyes. She smiled at him and his face cleared.
The King’s voice rang out across the table. “I crave your attention, my friends.” Everyone turned to look at him. “Honored guests and wise counselors, my beloved daughters, we are gathered here for a parting feast. Tomorrow I shall ride out to meet with the lords of the far-flung Earldoms of my Realm.”
“You’re leaving?” Tania asked in surprise. She had been hoping for the chance to get to know him better…especially if he really was her father.
His hand cupped her cheek. “It must be so, dearest daughter. Far too long have I neglected my duties. I must see to my Realm. I go to meet the lords of Talebolion and of Dinsel, and of far-flung Prydein and of mountainous Minith Bannawg. I have summoned them to meet me at Castle Ravensare in two days’ time, and it is a long ride and a hard road for man and horse. I shall take with me a retinue of fifty courtiers. And as is the custom and tradition of this Court, I leave my eldest daughter, Eden, as Regent in my absence.” He frowned and his voice lowered. “But she rules in name only, for she has refused to yield her long solitude, so it is to the noble Lord Drake that I bestow the duties of the Court.” He nodded to Gabriel. “Full well has he served me, and I hold him in high regard.”
Tania looked at Gabriel. Nothing showed on his face except for a gleam of excitement that she caught in his silver eyes.
“And now, good folk, to the feast!” the King declared. “I ride in the morn!”
Tania gazed around the table. It was laden with many different dishes—roast fowl and meat on the bone, savory pies and puddings, and tureens of soup and stew, as well as dishes of vegetables and loaves of warm bread.
Looking down, she noticed that her knife was made of a bone handle onto which a finely worked sliver of sharp gray stone had been fixed. Her fork was also made of bone. She looked around the table—all the plates and bowls and serving dishes were made of wood or china.
“Why don’t you use metal?” she whispered to Sancha, who was beside her.
Sancha gave her a puzzled look. “I do not know that word,” she said. “What is metal?”
“Iron and steel,” Tania told her. “Gold. Silver. Lead. Tin. There are lots of different types. We use it all the time back home.” She stopped. “In the Mortal World, I mean. We make knives and forks out of it, for instance. And jewelry and cars and airplanes and bridges and watches and computers. All kinds of things.”
Sancha gave her an uneasy look. “I think I know the substance of which you speak,” she said, leaning close and speaking in a low voice. “Here it is called Isenmort. It is a dire and deadly bane, as virulent as poison.” She shuddered. “The folk of the Mortal World must wind themselves about with powerful incantations to protect themselves from its blight.”
“It’s not really like that back there,” Tania told her. “Metal is completely harmless. We wouldn’t be able to do without it.” Her eyes widened. “Oh! I’ve just remembered something. Just before the accident, before I came here, every time I touched something made of metal it gave off sparks. Dad just told me it was static electricity, but I knew there was more to it than that.” She looked at Sancha. “So, why is metal such nasty stuff here?”
“Because it is not natural to this world,” said Sancha. “Its touch withers the skin and gnaws at the very vitals of the body.”
“No wonder I was getting sparks from it,” Tania breathed. “I suppose I should be grateful it didn’t kill me on the spot.” She frowned. “But if I belong in this world, and if I’m allergic to metal, then why did it only start affecting me a few weeks ago?”
“Mayhap you were growing into your Faerie self?” Sancha suggested.
Tania nodded. Maybe.
She ate for a while in thoughtful silence.
And as she ate, the full reality of her situation began gradually to fill her mind; her life as she had known it for the past sixteen years was gone forever.
Gone forever…
A single tear ran down her cheek.
A single huge tear for her mother and her father, for Jade and for all the other friends that she would never see again, for the life that she always assumed would be hers. Playing Juliet. Finishing school. A long summer touring Europe. And then? A brilliant career? A family? A big house on the coast?
Evan Thomas?
Gone. All gone.
Taken away from her in an instant when Gabriel had appeared in front of her and she had got up out of her hospital bed and followed him.
She imagined that empty bed, the tousled covers thrown back. Nurses scouring the hospital for her. Finding nothing.
She imagined the faces of her mother and father, gray and drawn with anxiety and loss. They could have no idea what had happened to her. How could they? They would be frantic with worry.
“Mum…” Tania whispered. “Dad…”
“Tania, will you play a duet with me? I can have your lute brought down.” It was Zara’s voice.
Dragged from her mournful thoughts, Tania blinked at her.
“Our father would like us to play for him,” Zara explained.
Tania stood up. “No,” she said, pushing her chair away from the table. “I’m sorry, I can’t.” She stumbled to the door and shoved her way out into the corridor. She needed fresh air, she needed to be alone, she needed time to think.
She was halfway to her chamber when she came to a halt. Daylight was fading rapidly, and candles were already flickering in wall sconces along the corridor.
“I have to get back home,” she said. “I have to see Mum and Dad again.”
But how?
She knew she had the power to walk between the worlds, but so far her trips to the Mortal World had been uncontrolled and very alarming. Was there any way she could go back on purpose and use her powers to her advantage?
“Maybe,” she murmured. “If I go back to the first place I remember seeing, maybe I’ll be able to work out what to do. It has to be worth a try.” She turned on her heel, casting back through her memories of the vast palace, trying to recall the route by which Gabriel had first brought her here.
“The bridge,” she muttered under her breath as she ran. “The white bridge.”
She ran to a window, but it faced north over the gardens. Wrong. She ran through various rooms and along several corridors until she found a window that looked out over the river.
Yes. That was the way. She made her way down to ground level and out through a doorway that led into a wide courtyard. The river was to her left, and ahead of her she saw the white towers of the bridge rising into the darkening sky.
She ran across the courtyard, already breathless, but determined to find her way back to the Mortal World, to the hospital, to her parents. Even if she was destined to stay in Faerie, she had to see her mum and dad at least once more—to explain, to try and help them make sense of what had happened to her.
Mum, Dad, guess what? I’m a Faerie princess!
It was so absurd that she could have laughed if it hadn’t also been so very awful.
She raced along the bridge, the wind whipping her hair, her skirts heavy around her legs. The night air was cool on her burning face.
She came to the far end of the bridge. She made her way down to the jetty where she had been standing when she had first arrived.
She stood in the same spot, her feet firmly planted, her arms stretched out, her head tilted back,
and her face to the sky. “I want to go back!” she shouted.
The trees rustled. The river flowed softly by.
The white stars gazed impassively down at her.
She shook her head. It wasn’t going to work, not like this. Then how?
Behind her, a rough, stony track led from the bridge into the forest. Was that the direction from which Gabriel had brought her? Was that her path back?
She jumped down off the jetty and ran under the arch of branches.
The wind rushed in her ears. The blood pounded in her temples.
She gasped for breath, her feet hammering on the packed earth. The trees seemed to tighten around her like a closing fist. The pathway dwindled in the distance to a black pinpoint.
The wind began to roar and bellow in her ears. The world spun like a pinwheel in front of her. She was running on tree trunks, in the branches, upside down with the leaves crunching under her feet. Spinning out of control.
And then the trees were gone and she was running along a white corridor.
She smelled disinfectant. Electric strip-lighting flickered above her head. She saw a sign.
MERCY WARD.
She was back in the hospital.
X
For a few moments, Tania just stood in the corridor, bent over, one hand to her side, sucking in air; recovering from the insanity of that long race between the worlds.
She heard voices and glanced around. There was a large metal-framed cart parked against the wall, filled with laundry. It was nighttime; if she was seen, she would be asked what she was doing there, and probably why she was wearing an old-fashioned dress. She didn’t want to waste time with that kind of thing right now.
She slipped behind the cart and pressed herself against the wall, holding her breath as two doctors walked toward her.
“I already do longer hours than any other surgeon in this hospital,” one of them was saying. “They don’t seem to appreciate that I have a family at home that’s being neglected because of this place.”
The two doctors didn’t notice Tania standing in the shadows.
She breathed out shakily as they turned off the corridor.
She glanced at the chrome rails of the laundry cart. Should she try it? Yes, she had to make sure. Very gingerly, she reached out a forefinger toward the metal. A blue spark arced from the rail, biting at her fingertip, sharp as a wasp sting.
She pulled back her hand, sucking her tingling finger. If anything, the shock was even fiercer than before. Isenmort, she thought with a shudder.
She listened for more voices. There didn’t seem to be anyone around. She walked quickly along the corridor, heading for Mercy Ward, the same ward she had been in a couple of days ago before her life had been turned inside out.
Was it really only a couple of days? As she walked through the lobby that led to the ward, she felt as if she was revisiting a place she had known years and years before, like returning to a childhood haunt and finding it quite different from the way she remembered it. Not because the place had changed, but because she had.
The ward was dimly lit and very quiet. She saw the night-nurse’s station with its small pool of light. But no one was sitting at the desk. She walked softly to the end of the room that had held her bed.
She felt an odd, disturbing chill when she saw there was someone in the bed. What if it was her?
But it was a middle-aged man. And he was snoring.
She heard approaching footsteps sharp as the cracking of broken glass in the stillness.
She slid out of sight behind the folded-back curtains.
She could see two nurses approaching. She recognized one as the dark-haired nurse who had picked her up off the bathroom floor the other night; the other one she didn’t know.
“…monitoring bed nine,” the dark-haired nurse was saying. “But apart from that you should have a quiet time. You missed all the fun while you were on leave.”
“Why, what happened?”
“Only that we had two patients go missing off this ward in one day,” the dark-haired nurse told the newcomer. “Unbelievable. And there are supposed to be security people on all the doors down there. Management hit the roof. They’ve had us on high alert ever since, although what good that’s supposed to do is anyone’s guess.”
“How do you mean, they went missing?” the new nurse asked.
“Well, there was a young man who’d been in a speedboat accident. There wasn’t anything seriously wrong with him except that he hadn’t regained consciousness. He was the first to do a vanishing act, just disappeared overnight. And then the next morning, in broad daylight, the girl he was brought in with vanished as well. Can you believe that? If you want my opinion, the boy came back and fetched her away and they’re halfway to Gretna Green to get married. She’s only sixteen, the little fool. And not a thought for her parents, poor things. Isn’t that just typical?”
“Didn’t anyone see her leave?” said the other nurse.
“A couple of people said they saw her go through the TV room and out onto the balcony. They don’t remember her coming back in again, but there’s no way she could have made it down to street level off that balcony, it’s far too high up. Not unless she flew down.” The dark-haired nurse paused to unhook a clipboard from the end of a patient’s bed. She checked the notes, then looked up at her colleague. “Mind you, she was a bit odd—odd in the head, I mean.”
“In what way?”
“Well, the night before she vanished,” the dark-haired nurse began, “I found her on the floor in…Oh, good lord, look at the time. I’ll miss my bus. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow. Have a nice quiet shift. Oh, speaking of that girl, her belongings have been packed in a box and left in the family room. Her parents are meant to be picking them up in the morning. I just thought I’d mention it in case they come in early and you’re still around.”
She hooked the clipboard back onto the bed, walked briskly over to the nurse’s station to retrieve her coat, and vanished down the corridor.
A bit odd, am I? Tania mused. And I’ve run off with my boyfriend? Well, it makes more sense than the truth.
She waited behind the curtain until the new nurse had taken her seat behind the desk and was busy with some documents. Then she slipped quietly back the way she had come, heading for the family room.
She felt a tight pain in her chest when she thought of her mum and dad. What was worse? Imagining your daughter has been abducted against her will, or assuming that she’d run off with some boy without bothering to say a word about it?
Now that she was back here, her first priority was to make contact with them, to let them know she was all right. But how to explain what had happened?
Tania wasn’t concerned that her parents would think she was lying when she told them about Faerie. They’d probably accept that she believed it all, but they’d also probably think she was delusional because of the bang on the head. Off her rocker, as her dad would say.
She needed some way of proving to them that she wasn’t out of her mind.
She thought of the leather-bound book. It would be among her belongings. It had been blank when she had first received it, but now it told the story of her Faerie childhood, right up to the point when she stepped out of Faerie on the eve of her wedding. She had no idea why the writing had been invisible or missing when she had first opened it, but the important thing was that the story was there now. She would be able to show it to her mum and dad. Proof that she wasn’t out of her mind.
Tania still had no idea who could have sent the book. Gabriel had never mentioned it, so it was unlikely to be part of his plans. But whoever was responsible, she was in no doubt that it was a Faerie book. At first, when she had believed that her Faerie life was all in her head, she had assumed that the dream had been inspired by the book. But now she knew that wasn’t the case at all. The book was the chronicle of her life, all the way from her birth to her disappearance.
But who had sent it to her? Evan?
If so, why? To help her come to terms with the truth? To learn about who she really was? Possibly, but why would he send it to her through the mail? Why not just give it to her on the boat trip?
She peered along the corridor, watching for any movement. There was no one around. She opened the door to the family room and slipped inside. The walls were covered in cheerful paintings and posters. The cardboard box stood on a cabinet under the window. She walked over to it and lifted the lid.
She saw her neatly folded jacket on top. She drew it out and stood for a few moments just looking at it. There was a long ragged tear down one sleeve and signs of scuffing on the shoulder and back. But it was clean and dry, not rumpled and drenched and smelling of the river as it must have been when she arrived at the hospital.
She put down the jacket and looked into the box again. Her shoulder bag lay on the top. Tania reached out and ran her finger over the faded canvas. She knew that it held all the normal, everyday things that proved who she was. Who Anita Palmer was. Her school ID card. Her bus pass. Old movie tickets. Lip balm. Elastic hair bands. Her address book. House keys. Her cell phone.
Her cell phone!
If there was any power left in the battery, she could call her mum and dad right now to tell them she was okay, tell them she was on her way home. She could even get them to drive over and pick her up.
Her heart leaped. She picked up the bag. Lying under it was the leather-bound book.
Tania reached down into the cardboard box to pick it up.
The moment her fingers touched the ancient brown leather a howling tornado ripped upward from the box, almost lifting her off her feet.
“No!”
The colored walls began to revolve around her. She tried to pull her fingers away from the book, but it was too late. The room spun, the colors stretching and blurring until she was surrounded by whirling bands of painted light. Red. Green. Blue. Yellow. Red. Green. Blue. Yellow. Faster and faster. And then the lights began to swivel around her, making a nonsense of up and down and left and right, and she lost her balance and fell, screaming, into the terrifying maelstrom.