Melissa's Quest

by Blair Drake

  That was a hell of a blast. Everything hurt. And if she hurt, what about Winter? She opened her pocket to find him staring, his eyes huge. She scooped him up and placed him on her shoulder.

  “Sorry about that. It hurt me too,” she whispered. “I think it’s some kind of force field or a serious electric fence.”

  She slowly sat up and stared in front of her. There didn’t appear to be a wall, at least not one visible to the naked eye. No doubt she had slammed into something.

  The school did have a perimeter fence, built into the hillside, easily hidden among the woods. Yet deer, even raccoons, plus squirrels played on the school grounds. They must have entered through the big front entrance.

  So what was keeping Melissa out?

  She hopped to her feet and walked closer. As she approached, she thought she heard something. The closer she got, the more she could hear a weird buzz, like an electric fence. So, something was here, but she just couldn’t see it clearly. It must have something to do with being in the 2-D world. Then again, nothing was what it seemed. Look at Winter. He was in the 2-D world and he’d made several portal jumps with her already.

  So…the fake dimensions varied far more from the real dimension than she originally considered.

  Okay.

  She was still determined to get into the school within this dimension.

  What would it take to get inside that field? And would the effort cost her another light on her talisman?

  Smiling, she knew exactly what she had to do. She had to follow the fence until she came to a driveway. Someone built this fence, and that meant a gate was somewhere.

  All she had to do was find it.

  Chapter 5

  Melissa walked around the outside of the force field for a good ten minutes in the same direction in search of the school perched on the highest hillside. The driveway leading to it was steep and winding but ended at the school with an incredible view. When on the school’s rooftop deck, you could see all around the island, even catching sight of the ocean in the distance. At least in her dimension, that was the way it worked.

  When you could see at all, that is. The fog was heavy and thick, all sounds muffled. She saw a lighter gray off in the distance a bit but not any longer. A definite chill filled the air as well. Of course, night was coming on. Why couldn’t she travel so she arrived at dawn? That would be so much easier.

  Then again, why wasn’t she here as part of a group?

  Oh right, she had a lesson to learn…

  She kept going. She should be getting closer to the school building itself. She walked on, occasionally reaching out a finger towards the force field just to make sure it was still there. She dared not touch it again in case it sent her flying backward a second time.

  She checked her school pin to see one more light in the circle had gone out even though she hadn’t portal-jumped. She worried the next light was fading quickly too. Why?

  “Hey, Winter, are you doing okay?”

  Melissa got no answer, but just the warmth of his body against her neck was reassuring. She stroked his tiny back, loving she could even do that much. It was wonderful to feel him. How unusual and incredibly special was this? Was he magical, or was it the heart connection between them that made the difference? She’d never had a pet in her life although she asked several times. That was why Gideon, the big orange tabby at the school, had been such a lifeline for her. That he’d loved her back was priceless.

  Now she had Winter. What would Gideon think of him?

  She traipsed through the woods, looking for the driveway. She thought she recognized this area. If so, she should have come to the road already, should have been there by now. She was getting tired, and she didn’t know why. She wanted water, but her mouth wasn’t dry. She was thirsty, but she didn’t know how much was her mind’s habits versus her body’s actual needs.

  Again, she seemed to be in this flat two-dimensional world with no senses. Her emotions were all over the place. Finally, she stopped and stared at the force field. “Can anyone tell me if I’m even close?”

  The voice whispered in the back of her mind, “As close as you can be and still way too far to cross.”

  She bowed her head, figuring out what that meant. “In other words, I can keep doing this for days and not get across?”

  “Correct.” came the soft whisper.

  “So how do I get inside the field?”

  “That is for you to figure out.”

  At that she turned and screamed in frustration. “Damn, it is so irritating when you do that.”

  Once again there was silence. She realized they couldn’t answer questions they weren’t allowed to. which wasn’t helpful. Damn it. So, whoever was watching over her appeared to have their hands tied as to what they could tell her.

  The last thing she wanted was to spend the night in this wooded area. She stopped and took stock. She might not see any animals, but the fog was lifting.

  Her gaze narrowed, her heart rate picking up as she realized something waited for her on the other side of the fog.

  That damn black cloud.

  “So there you are, and here I hoped you forgot about me.”

  Of course it hadn’t. There was a waiting stillness to the dratted thing, as if waiting for her to make a mistake.

  “Go find someone else to haunt.” She deliberately turned her back on the threat with a nonchalance she didn’t feel, but she wouldn’t give it power over her.

  Right now, her focus was getting into the school. She’d love to have a bed to sleep in tonight. Although not an option since she had no money, a hotel room would be a lovely second choice. Many great hotels on Torino were not too far away from the school.

  She checked her pockets, just in case any money might have appeared with all her portal-hopping but found nothing other than her dead cell phone. Her portal traveling seemed to cost her a light on her talisman each trip, but now she was convinced just the passage of time cost her almost two more as she searched for a gate here in the woods. Despite what the voice said earlier about her well-being, did it really matter if all those lights disappeared?

  The voice whispered in the back of her head. “It matters in a big way.”

  “Crap.” Melissa guessed she had to take the voice’s word on this matter since allowing that to happen in this dimension could mean being lost forever.

  She shook her head, tired and frustrated. She wanted this all to go away. She closed her eyes and pinched her brow. Other things mattered too. Like getting inside the school where it was safe, and having something between her and that black cloud. Whether it was harmless wasn’t the issue. It watched everywhere she went, a threat just on the edge of her vision, waiting…

  She pulled her talisman from her pocket and stared at it. Was it her imagination, or were the next two lights dimmer than the others? When the lights were gone, was it a pass or fail grade for her quest? As in, she wouldn’t graduate otherwise? Or was it worse, like actual life or death to her? Was it really more about her running out of energy, like on the computer games she often played? Too bad no healers were around. She snorted.

  Can I heal myself? She closed her eyes, held the talisman tight against her heart, and whispered, “Use my energy to heal. Do what you need to do to bring my talisman up to full strength.”

  She kept repeating it over and over in her mind. Finally, she pulled the talisman away from her chest and looked down at it. Nothing had changed. Her heart sank. “Of course it hasn’t.”

  Not for the first time, she was forced to face the fact she wasn’t a brilliant student. She was only an okay student, particularly when up against the rest of the super brains at the school, but she’d always been resourceful. Only, right about now, she was running out of resources—and confidence.

  She hadn’t done much right so far.

  Looking for a place to sit, she found a tree with a mossy blanket around it. She sat down and leaned against the trunk. Winter took that moment to run down her a
rm. She tried to keep him with her, but he ran over the back of her hand and down her leg.

  “Winter, stay here, please.”

  He twisted, wrinkled his nose at her, then turned, and ran down to the ground.

  She leaned over on her side and tried to scoop him up, but he dashed under her hand and disappeared into the underbrush.

  “Winter,” she called. She rose to her knees and called out softly, “Winter? Where are you? Please come back.”

  There wasn’t a sound.

  Her heart breaking, she carefully lifted every leaf, looking for her new friend. “Please come back,” she called out, her cry soft but plaintive.

  This wasn’t his environment. He didn’t know his way around, and the climate was so different for him. She didn’t know if it was a good thing or not to live in this dimension. It made her feel guilty for taking him from his home if he was only going to get lost here. She should have left him in that horrible winter world, but what kind of life would he have?

  “It would have been his life,” said that voice in her head.

  She glared. “If you’re not helping me, you don’t get to criticize either.”

  Silence.

  Yeah, that’s right. She grinned. But, at the same time, she worried about Winter. She wanted to get into the school, but she couldn’t leave him here without feeling like she’d abandoned him.

  “Winter? Are you gone?” She turned to look behind her. He was so small he could get into all kinds of trouble here. Although pure white, he was hard to see.

  There…she spun to see an odd light to the side of her. “Winter!”

  She laughed as he sat on his back legs and reached up a paw. “What were you doing?”

  As her hand lowered toward him, Winter hopped up onto her arm and raced up to her shoulder. She sat back on her heels and cuddled him. “You know where you belong, don’t you?”

  A tiny noise sounded in her ear. She chuckled as she slowly stood up, a hand cupped around Winter’s furry bottom. Now she wanted to get the hell out of here, somewhere she could keep Winter safe.

  The fence was still at her side, the valley on the other, but how was she supposed to get past it and inside the school? It’s like she could see where she wanted to go, could hear it in her mind, could feel the connection in her heart, but she couldn’t access it. Something was missing.

  Her thoughts kept returning to the voice in her mind. That is the lesson, it kept saying.

  But what exactly was the lesson? As she stood here, she could feel a dark blanket lowering around her. It would be nighttime soon. She glanced over her shoulder to see darkness encroaching. But what darkness? Was it nighttime? Was a storm approaching? Or was it that very terrifying dark cloud?

  She realized it didn’t matter because the nighttime darkness wasn’t like a moving fog. It did not come from the left or right; it came down from the top. As the sun sank, the whole world grew darker by degrees, and that nighttime darkness could hide a storm approaching or even the very terrifying dark cloud following her.

  That answered the question then. She kept her hand on Winter and ran down the hill—to where? She didn’t know. “Whoever has been talking to me, is there any place I can go from this darkness?”

  No answer.

  She shook her head. “This is really pissing me off,” she called out. “It’d be nice to get a helpful tip or two. I’d feel like I was getting somewhere and not in this alone.”

  “And that is your lesson.”

  She froze. “So you are there? You’re always just waiting until I say something you can respond to. And, as always, when I talk about being alone, you bring up my lesson. I spent my entire life feeling like I’m alone,” she snapped.

  The only good thing was her temper kept her warm, kept her fear at bay. Because right about now, the thought of spending a night outside in this weird world wasn’t something she wanted to contemplate. “Is there a safe zone for me until I can figure this out?”

  “Did you create one?”

  Her jaw dropped. “I can create one?”

  Of course, there was no answer because, no matter what she did with a question, they barely gave her enough of an answer to make sense. “So is my test here to be alone?”

  No answer.

  “Or is my challenge not to be alone? To find a way to connect with everybody?”

  No answer.

  She raised both hands in disgust. “Is this a way to get rid of students who don’t quite make the grade?” she snapped. “You could just send me back to my father. That was a bloody useless existence, but at least it was mine.”

  No answer.

  “This is like a torturous kind of pathway that’ll drive me stir crazy.”

  No answer.

  She reached up and rubbed her temple. “This is just too maddening.”

  A gentle voice whispered in her ear, “You will make it through this.”

  “Glad you think so.” She snorted. “I’m not so sure.”

  She brushed the leaves off her pants and resumed her walk down the hill. “Here’s hoping you will respond at appropriate times as I talk my way through this. Feel free to jump in at any time,” she called out. “So this has to do with being alone. I’ve been alone all my life. Yes, I was born to a normal mother—at least I think she was. I have no personal knowledge since she left when I was a toddler.”

  There was an odd twinge, almost a snort in her mind.

  Her footsteps slowed. “Okay, so I was born to a not-so-normal mother?”

  A light laugh rippled through her mind.

  “So maybe I was born to a special mother, and I didn’t know it?”

  The laughter became more pronounced.

  Melissa shook her head. “If she was a special mother, then I have some kind of abilities? Why did she never tell me?”

  No answer.

  She groaned and rolled her eyes. “So you can’t answer that question either.” But why had no one told her this in all these years? Surely someone would know Melissa was different. Why wasn’t she given any training in magic? Why hadn’t she been included in a magical society? It made no sense. What and who was her mother? The woman left when Melissa was little, leaving her father to look after her, but only when he couldn’t pay someone to do it for him.

  “My father didn’t particularly like his daughter. There was only me and him, and he was a workaholic. I was alone with babysitters, at boarding schools, with nannies—you name it. I didn’t have any of my own money. It was all his money. He did what he had to but no more. It was all about duty for him.” She stepped around a large rock, grabbed a large branch sticking out, and ducked under it. There was no end to this road—of course there wasn’t.

  The voice offered nothing after her comments.

  “Bottom line is, I was always alone.”

  And there came that same frustrating whisper. “That is your lesson.”

  She almost stumbled on a rock as she worked her way down the hill, half-sliding in the wet moss, and, every once in a while, gaining too much speed and having to slow her steps. “You keep saying that, but I was always alone. I became comfortable being alone. How is that a lesson?”

  Or was it she hadn’t been as much comfortable being alone as comfortable with hiding how she felt?

  No answer.

  She tried again. “You know how irritating the silence is when I ask a question, right? So, let’s talk about my mother. What does she have to do with any of this?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Does she have special abilities letting her turn into a pumpkin at midnight, a princess by morning, and a witch by Halloween Eve?”

  No answer.

  “So much for that idea.” Too bad. She’d always wanted a fairy godmother.

  As she kept walking, she thought about the talisman and everything that happened since. Her mind kept returning to the chaos on the roof. Had Hettie given it to her then? She wanted to believe this talisman was different than the original school pin. She’d
hate to think she’d been hanging on to a magical talisman the whole time and not know what it could do. How terrible would that be? But add in the differences in the talisman and the voices, the change of location… it was all connected. It had to be…

  It made her consider all the different types of magical abilities. She quickly used her hand as a wand to raise a rock off the ground. When that didn’t work, she swirled her hand about in a pattern attempting to create funny lights—something to make her feel accomplished. Again, nothing happened. “That’s the story my life. Overwhelmed with mediocre results.”

  “Yet you used a portal.”

  The voice’s comment made her grin, and her doubts faded slightly. “I did. I opened a portal. That’s huge, isn’t it? That’s not mediocre in any way. I just have to figure out the rest of this stuff.”

  She turned to look around her. It would be pitch black soon. She shivered. In this light, she couldn’t tell where the darkness of night stopped and the damn cloud started.

  Even if she used up more of the talisman lights, she needed to get to a place where she and Winter would be safe until morning or until she got through the force field. She slowed her footsteps at a flat spot, stopped, closed her eyes, and mentally created a portal. She opened her eyes ever-so-slightly and could see it was there. “I want to go to my bedroom.”

  And she stepped through the shimmering window.

  Winter gave a mild squeak of surprise and darted down her back.

  “No, stop!”

  She bolted backward, giving chase, and came to a screeching halt. The foggy forest was gone. She was in a strange gray world, not in a new physical earth location but no longer inside the portal—caught somewhere in between.

  She was in a terrifying gray world that was nothing yet everything. She could see the world she’d walked out of in the distance—as if behind a foggy mirror she had no way to dry off to bring clarity. She had no way to peer through this blasted blurriness.