by Tracey Tobin
“I can’t explain it,” she said. Her voice was so soft that her friends had to lean in to hear her. “But ever since last night I’ve been seeing and hearing things, like, I don’t know… Visions?” She frowned and stared down at the floor, but she could feel her friends staring holes through her. “I had this strange dream about being attacked by shadows, and I keep hearing things that no one else can hear, and seeing things-” She raised her head to look at Jared and took a few breaths before continuing. “In Chem class I swear I saw this living shadow with claws hovering over me, reaching out for me. And then in the bank I could hear this rolling sound, like thunder, and all of a sudden there was a herd of huge horses running right for me.” She watched Jared’s lips purse and his eyebrows knit together before she added in the best part. “And then when I looked up at you, you were… Well, you were you, but not. I can’t really explain it any better than that. It was you, but different. There was a long scar on your face.”
They sat in silence. Krista squeezed Tori’s hand, and the corners of Jared’s lips turned down as he struggled to work through this new information.
“Are you seeing anything right now?” Krista eventually asked.
Tori closed her eyes, tried to keep her breathing steady, and nodded. She’d been trying very hard not to acknowledge the little bouncing balls of light that were surrounding her in every direction. “There are fireflies,” she admitted. “They’re all around us.”
They tried not to make it obvious, but Krista and Jared couldn’t help glancing around the room, and then at each other. Of course, they didn’t see anything. That would have been too easy.
Suddenly Tori stood, her lips parted in realization. “Wait a minute…”
“What is it?” Jared asked.
Tori let her gaze wander around the room, really paying attention to the little lightning bugs for the first time. “They’re not going away,” she explained. “The other images, they all happened pretty quickly, and then they were gone, but the fireflies have been buzzing around since I first opened my eyes.” She began to wander the room, scrutinizing the quantity of the bugs. She noticed that there were far more of them to one side of the room than the other. Without further explanation to her friends, she grabbed her sweater and ran outside into the front lawn. In the late-evening twilight she saw that there were almost no fireflies to the north end of the street, but there were so many along the south end that she could have sworn they were creating a path.
“Tori, what’s going on?” Krista called from the door. Jared pushed past her, shrugging his jacket up over his shoulders.
“I think they’re trying to lead me somewhere,” Tori called back. She felt ridiculous saying it out loud, like she was admitting to believing in fairies, but at the same time she felt absolutely certain that she was right.
Jared was at her side a second later, and Krista was close at his heels. “Alright,” he said, tying his very best to be supportive under extreme circumstances. “Lead the way.”
Jogging down the road, chasing fireflies that only she could see, Tori felt like a child with a terribly overactive imagination. Having her two friends following half a step behind her as she did, well, that made her feel a bit like a sideshow freak. But as the group of fireflies thickened she began to truly feel that she was on to something.
“Oh my god,” Krista suddenly gasped. “I can see them now too!”
Her revelation made Tori want to shout in celebration. I’m not insane! she assured herself. Krista can see them now, and that has to mean that I’m not insane!
Then she heard the first scream.
With hardly a second of hesitation, Tori sprinted toward the cry with her friends right behind her. She lead them to a house half a block from her own, where a group of neighbors were having a backyard barbecue. The sizzling meat had been abandoned as neighbors and friends backed away in a wide arc from something that clearly frightened them at the center of the yard.
“Where the hell did you come from?” someone exclaimed.
“Just calm down now, son,” begged someone else. “Put down the weapon…”
“Someone call the police!” a third person hissed.
Tori shoved her way past the party-goers. Her friends cried out protests, but she was desperate to get to the bottom of whatever chain of events had begun with her rapid descent into madness.
At the center of the crowd stood a boy, about her age. He was dressed strangely, in what looked like canvas pants, a leather vest, and muddy boots. He had a very nasty-looking knife in his hand and was waving it around indiscriminately. He appeared to be in a great deal of distress. “Where am I?” he cried. His voice, though it had a strange accent to it, was extremely familiar. “Who are you people?!”
Though one of the neighbors tried to pull her back, Tori stepped forward and gazed at the stranger. He was surrounded by fireflies. “Who are you?” she demanded, loudly enough to be heard over all the other voices.
He turned toward her, knife raised, and Tori’s hand went to her mouth. Behind her Krista sucked in a gasp of air and Jared made a strangled sound of disbelief.
The strange teen could have been Jared’s twin. He had several inches too much hair, and a scar across the length of his left cheek, but other than that he was identical in every way. His twin blue eyes looked past Tori, found Jared’s face, and widened in abstract horror.
“W-who are you?!” he exclaimed. “Why do you have my face?!”
The party-goers were speculating wildly at this point, but Jared’s half-mad bark sounded out over all of them. “I could ask the same question, pal!” he cried.
Tori stepped between the two, trying to block the stranger’s view of his double. She had a wild panic in her voice as she demanded again, “Who are you?! Tell me! Who are you?!” Her heart raced. She felt that this was it - this stranger was going to hold the answer - if only she could get him to focus on her. She rushed forward, and in his alarm the stranger with Jared’s face lifted his knife. Jared shouted out and leapt to snatch Tori back, but as he did so his body connected with something solid and he went sprawling to the ground. Krista stepped up beside him and reached out with both hands. Her fingertips touched solid air, invisible, but dense. Jared jumped to his feet and put his fists to the invisible barrier, but it held strong. All around them the party-goers stepped up and found themselves similarly barred from approaching the two teens at the center of the yard.
“Tori!” Jared cried. “Tori, come back!”
But Tori’s focus was entirely on the stranger. She scarcely registered the knife in his hand as she moved closer to him.
“Stay away!” the stranger warned. He held his knife straight out at her, but something about him, something in his eyes, made Tori certain that he would not harm her. She moved right up to the point of the knife, letting it rest against her chest, and then begged him again: “Please, who are you? Where did you come from?”
The stranger didn’t answer because his focus had suddenly lowered to Tori’s chest. His eyes were wide, horrified, and his skin paled. He took a step back and swung his knife in a wide arc to keep her away. “W-where did you get that jewel?” he croaked.
For a moment Tori hadn’t the slightest clue what he was talking about, but then she reached up and placed her fingertips on the crystal necklace. “This?” she asked. Then, with more authority: “Have you ever seen this before? Do you know what it is?” When he didn’t respond she felt her face grow hot and a desperate anger filled her chest. “Tell me!” she cried. She pushed forward again so that his knife was pressing against the small of her throat. The action made the stranger cringe. “Answer me!”
“Tori, for Christ-sakes, step back!” another voice was screaming. A myriad of others joined in the call.
Finally Tori tore her gaze from the stranger in order to glare back at her friends. For the first time she noticed the crowd of people were all beating their fists against the air, seemingly unable to move forward. She caught Jared
’s eye and there was genuine fear there that made her heart stop.
“Jared?” she called, her voice weak.
“Tori!” he cried back.
It was only then that Tori seemed to realize her situation, and she began to panic. She abandoned the stranger to run for Jared and was stopped dead by the strange barrier that couldn’t be seen. She put both her hands on it and pushed, digging her heels into the soft yard, but it wouldn’t give. Jared pulled a fist back and punched it with all his strength; the attack split the skin on his knuckles and left a stain of blood hanging in midair between them.
“Tori!’ Krista’s voice came in a sob. The other girl’s gaze was on the crystal necklace. “Tori, take it off!” she begged.
Tori followed her friend’s eyes and found that the jewel laying against her chest was glowing white hot. She reached to touch it, fully intending to rip it from her neck, but as she did a flash of light and heat sent her flying backward with a scream on her lips.
The stranger, perhaps on instinct, rushed forward and caught her as she fell. There was a second flash in the moment they touched, and a heat on Tori’s throat that felt like a thousand sunburns. She screamed, a sound so frightening that she hardly recognized her own voice, and then she felt suddenly very weak and faint. She looked up into the stranger’s familiar blue eyes while Jared’s voice screamed her name in the background, and then she took one last breath and passed out.
Chapter Three
Tori was having an unusually pleasant day.
She was in a beautiful park by a river, with the smell of fresh air and wildflowers filling her lungs as the sun shone down on top of her through the trees. She was wearing a cute, yellow sun-dress, and she sat on a checkered blanket, surrounded by all kinds of delicious food and treats and wonderful things to drink. Down on the river her parents, alive and well, were happily paddling a canoe against the flow of the water, while Krista collected shiny rocks and shells from the bank. Everyone was content.
A beautiful bouquet of flowers was dropped on Tori’s lap. She pulled them to her face and took a long, deep breath, savoring the fragrance with a sigh. She smiled and turned to look at the young man beside her, but as her eyes reached his face a dark, black shadow appeared above them, blotting out the sky. “Who are you?” asked a dark, curious voice.
Something warm and wet licked the length of Tori’s face, rousing her from the dream. For half a moment she smiled and thought of her dog, Misha, but then she remembered that Misha had died of old age when Tori was twelve. Her eyes shot open, and she screamed just as loud as her throat would allow. The dark brown horse that had been examining her with its muzzle reared back and gave a shrill whinny. If given the chance it may have slammed its hooves right down on top of her to stomp out the threat, but someone rushed in front of it, his hands out to his sides, calling calming words. He barely managed to coax the horse a few inches to the side while Tori scrambled away in the grass.
Grass? her bewildered subconscious wondered. Where the hell am I?
“Jared?” she said aloud. “What happened? I had the weirdest dream, and-” She stopped short. Her heart skipped a beat as she pushed herself to her feet.
She gazed around the meadow with her mouth hanging open, her mind in a haze. She stared at the field full of grazing horses and at the small log cabin at the edge of a forest of trees that looked more gray than green. And then she turned, panicked, to face the young man standing behind her. He had Jared’s face, but there was too much hair on his head and the scar on his left cheek was like an affront to his perfectly handsome face.
She opened her mouth to scream again, but the familiar stranger threw his hands in the air as though to plead with her to stop, so she instead took a deep breath and forced herself to ask, as calmly as she manage, “Where am I? Where have you taken me?”
The stranger gazed back at her with a look that was equal parts confusion and fear. While Tori was contemplating what in the world he had to be afraid of, he spoke with his unusual accent that was the only thing that distinguished his voice from Jared’s. “A thousand apologies, my lady,” he forced out slowly and eloquently. “I did not mean to take you anywhere, but there was a strange light and then suddenly I was back on my farm and your ladyship had somehow followed.” He bowed his head low as he spoke. His bare shoulders tensed as though he was expecting some kind of physical punishment.
Tori gaped. “Why are you… Why are you talking to me like that?” she asked.
The stranger raised his eyes from the ground, but instead of a response he set his gaze on Tori’s breast. She reached up and let her fingers brush against the crystal necklace. It had stopped glowing, and was quite cool again.
“This?” she asked, gesturing to the gem. “Is this what you’re so afraid of?” She narrowed her eyes and let her arm fall back to her side. “Why? What’s so frightening about a necklace?”
The stranger’s eyebrows raised and for a moment his jaw went slack. “Do…do you really not know what that is?” he asked, incredulous.
Tori felt a flush of annoyance rise in her chest. “It’s a necklace,” she replied with dry sarcasm. “A necklace that someone gave me when I was born, but I only just got it back yesterday. That’s all I know.”
The stranger blinked his surprise away, and after a moment’s hesitation he slowly stood back up to face her like an equal. “That crystal,” he explained carefully, “is the symbol of the royal family. Only emissaries of the king and queen wear that pendant.”
Tori looked down at the crystal and frowned. The tiny sword wrapped in flowers seemed to shine back at her. “And you’re scared of these ‘emissaries’?” she asked.
The stranger didn’t look even the slightest bit abashed. “Have you never met any of them?” he offered in response. “They are…not generally the most pleasant to deal with. If you’ve never come across them yourself you are very lucky indeed.”
Tori closed her eyes and shook her head. She felt that she was getting nowhere fast with this line of questioning. “Okay, wait. Answer me this then,” she requested. “Which royal family are we talking about?”
The stranger seemed genuinely startled by the question. “I… I don’t understand what you mean, my lady.”
Tori raised her eyebrows at him. “The royal family,” she repeated. “Which royal family are you talking about? The royal family of England? One of the Asian royal families? Or-” She trailed off at the confused look on the young man’s face.
“I’ve never heard of these places, my lady,” he told her. “And so far as I know there has only ever been one royal family: the royal line of Kynnon.”
Tori opened her mouth, stood like a fool for a count of ten, and then forced out a hoarse whisper. “Where the hell am I?”
It seemed that the stranger was considering whether or not he wanted to reveal that information, but at the desperate look on Tori’s face he eventually relented. “We are on my family’s farm, which is on the east side of the Oraton River, and about three hundred miles from the Howling Mountains.”
Tori felt the color draining from her face. “Those aren’t really places,” she muttered to herself. Though she was far from a geography expert, she felt certain that there was no such place as the ‘Howling Mountains’ anywhere in North America. “God dammit, those aren’t real places!” Stumbling over herself, her heart rising in her throat, she pulled her cell phone from her sweater pocket and swiped at the screen. No Signal, it told her. Her chest felt tight. Desperate, she opened a GPS map and held it to the sky as though that would help establish a signal. Error. She moved the phone to another spot. Error. She stared up at the lightening sky herself and with a gasp realized that the rapidly-disappearing stars were shining down at her in a number of colors. She saw faint pinks and blues and purples mocking her amid the usual whites, and the brightest star - the one that should have been the North Star - glowed a ghastly orange.
Tori began to hyperventilate.
“I’m not on Earth,
” she gasped, struggling to draw in breath. “I’m in some other world. I was seeing glimpses of another world, and now I’m actually in it.” She clutched at her chest, staring at the stars. Her mind desperately searched for some other explanation, but in the depths of her stomach she knew that her outrageous conclusion was the correct one.
The stranger was watching her mounting panic and seemed to make a decision. He took a step forward, then another, and gently placed a hand on Tori’s shoulder. She twitched and looked up at him with eyes like a frightened bunny. “Maybe you should come with me,” he suggested.
She looked at him, so like Jared, and a strange little laugh escaped her throat. “Maybe it’s not another world,” she suggested with a madness in her voice. “Maybe I’ve just really gone completely insane. Maybe I’m in a mental hospital right now and I’ve dreamed you up to make up for the fact that they won’t let Jared in to see me.” Strange that she was actually hoping for this horrible scenario to be the real one.
The stranger was too stunned to respond, so instead he linked his arm into hers and gently lead her toward the cabin. “It’s alright,” he assured her. “Just come with me.” She followed at a stumble so he allowed her a small smile. “My name is Jacob, by the way.”
Even the name is almost identical, Tori thought to herself. Aloud she managed to offer, “My name is Victoria, but my friends call me Tori.”
The interior of the cabin was very modest. There were only two large rooms, which contained a mishmash of items. There was a small kitchen area off to the side of the main room, which mostly consisted of a clutter of metal pots and clay containers piled around an indoor fire pit. There were a few wooden chairs scattered around a bench, upon which were strewn pillows and hand-sewn blankets. The smaller room - which contained only a bed, piled high with blankets and furs - was separated from the larger one by a sheet that was nailed to the top of the door frame and pulled aside with a string. The entire interior was a little dirty and dingy, which made one particular item seem very out of place. On the wall, above the bed, was a shining shield and sword, polished to perfection. The sword was thinner than a broadsword, but at least as long, and it looked to Tori like the kind of thing a brave knight might carry. The shield depicted an image of a creature that looked like a dragon without wings.