by Jojo Brown
Her only answer came in the form of a small smile, right before she slipped through the door.
Chapter Fourteen
Her mind raced faster than her feet on the way back to her room. Something had shifted — things were different now, more so than they had been when she first arrived. She was different. Amante was different. Even Dante had changed. What was it about this place that had such a strange effect on people — maybe it was the water — maybe it was the place itself. Some buildings can have effects on people, and after all is it really natural to be shut up inside a building for a whole week?
The decision to just step outside, into the parking lot for a few minutes was not so much of a conscious one as it was spiritual. For some reason her inner-being needed to feel good old-fashioned Ontario pollution on her face again. She needed to get away and have a chance to think clearly.
As she drew closer to the door that she was certain would lead her to the large foyer where she had filled out the questionnaire, her heart started pounding in her chest. She was afraid. So afraid in fact that she broke into a trot and then a run. She had to get to that door, before anyone could stop her.
Just as she slid around the final corner, she nearly barrelled right into Dante and the man who had shown her to her room. Her sudden appearance had startled them both and they nearly fell out of the embrace they’d been sharing. His arousal showed clearly in the prominent erection tenting his toga. Dante’s flushed cheeks and glistening eyes, told of hers.
As they tried to compose themselves, Lexie skidded to a halt mere inches from the two of them. Her breath came in short, painful gasps. During her race through the hall, the niggling fear had turned into an all-consuming panic.
Dante was the first to find her voice. “Lexie, what’s wrong? Where are you going in such a hurry?”
She looked from one to the other. Neither of them looked quite so sweet or caring any more — something had shifted. “I just thought I would step outside for a minute or two.”
“If you want some fresh air, there are suitable paths and seating areas in the wooded space near the rear of The Retreat.” Dante’s companion — Lexie’s arrival escort — informed her, sternly.
“Yes, I know that, I’ve been there, thank you. I just wanted to get something from my car,” Lexie lied
With a gentle hand on her elbow, Dante turned Lexie back the way she’d come. “Everything you could ever want or need is right here at The Retreat.”
Lexie’s fear deepened, as she turned, multiplied with shock. The hall was full of Retreat attendants. Some of them were glaring at her with something akin to hatred. She was sure she saw a few of their eyes glowed a horrible red, before they blinked and seemed to shrink. Her mind really was playing tricks on her now.
She let Dante lead her back to her room. The twisting hall seemed much shorter, now that she wasn’t racing along it in a blind panic.
Sitting on the edge of the bed together, Dante took Lexie’s trembling hand in hers. “I know what you saw in the hall, and I know that this is not the right time — but I have to ask you to not tell anyone. Dax and I have broken the rules. We have fallen in love and if they find out we will be harshly punished.”
“What? What are you talking about?” Lexie could not think clearly about anything in her state, let alone comprehend how falling in love with anyone could be a bad thing.
“Dax is on his last chance. If they find out about us, they will send him away. He will have to go back home and the stars alone know what he will end up doing then — he will be lost to me and without him I will be lost.”
Slowly, Lexie’s senses started to return. She really could not clearly remember what it was that she had been so afraid of. The thought that Dante needed her help was all that thrummed through her mind. “But if he is your greatest wish, shouldn’t you easily be able to have him — especially here.”
“The Retreat is about us making your wishes come true. The same cannot be said for those of us who are here to assist.”
“I won’t tell anyone about your secret, Dante. But I do have a question for you. What is this place?”
Dante looked perplexed at the simple question. She stared at Lexie as though no one had ever had the audacity to ask such a question before. “This is The Hermit’s Retreat. A place where all of your wishes can and do come true. Surely, you have been here long enough to know that. You have even met Him for yourself. You can’t possibly say that you have had to go without while you’ve been here.”
“No, of course not. You have all done a wonderful job of making my every wish come true — except the one where I want to walk out the front door and go to my car.”
“I can get whatever it is you need so desperately from your little car.”
“Sometimes people need to just do something for themselves.”
“Lexie, you signed some papers when you arrived, did you not?”
“Yes. I signed the agreement and filled out the questionnaire — why?”
“Perhaps you didn’t read them as closely as you should have, but one of those papers you signed was an agreement to stay here, until your allotted time was finished.”
Lexie got up and went to the window. The scene was the same; the breeze was still the precise same strength as it always had been. Even the chirping birds sang the same songs as always. They had done an excellent job putting all of this together, but there was no natural flow to any of it. Nothing was ever random, not even the breeze fluttering the sheers.
They’re all changelings. They’re from some far off world with an impossible-to-pronounce name and this building is actually a portal to their ship.
Without turning to her companion, Lexie asked the question that she hadn’t realized had been nagging at her since she arrived. “Who are you and where are you from?”
When Dante didn’t answer right away, Lexie turned to face her. “I don’t mean what is your name and what cute little made up town are you from, either. I mean — what species are you and what solar system did you fall out of?”
“You ask too many questions Alexandria. Just live out your wishes and enjoy the time you have left.”
The door burst open, shattering it from its hinges as three large men charged into the room. Two of them grabbed Dante roughly, lifting her off the floor. In her struggle to escape them, her shields dropped one by one. To Lexie’s horror, she watched the beautiful woman change first back into the timid young girl she had met her first day, then devastatingly she saw the men holding Amante and finally the third man threw a silver bag over a cluster of blue light.
Lexie fell to her knees and let the tears of frustration, fear and heartbreak course down her cheeks. None of the guards spoke a single word — not to her — not to Dante/Amante — not to each other. The one voice she did hear came from the sack of sparks.
“I did as I was asked. I won her over, she made the promise, gave herself to be mine, to be ours.”
As the group stomped out her doorway, the broken door dissolved where it lay on the floor and a new solid one appeared. The random thought — I wonder if my key card will work on the new one — flitted through her mind. The idea was so mundane amidst everything that had happened; she couldn’t control the laughter that bubbled up her throat.
Emotional exhaustion took over and she crawled onto the softness of her bed. Deep sleep wrapped her in its arms almost instantly.
Chapter Fifteen
Somewhere far off, in the blackness of the night, she could hear screams of anger and frustration. As she fought to gain consciousness, her brain felt fuzzy and drugged. It felt the same way it did when she came around after having her appendix removed a few years earlier. Her head and limbs felt so heavy. What had they done to her now? Had they drugged her in her sleep? Sent some sleeping agent through the air system? Whatever it was, she had to fight her way out of it.
The voices were a good distance away, but they were still somehow quite loud. There was a major fight going on. Someon
e was bound to end up severely injured — if not dead.
Most of the voices were unknown, but there was something familiar and comforting about one of them. God, she hadn’t thought about him even once since she arrived.
Stuart.
Stuart was here, at The Retreat, he was fighting with the guards. He would never stand a chance against those massive brutes.
She bolted from her bed and slammed her door open. A poor replica of Dante’s timid beginning fell from the chair set in the hall for her use in guarding the door. The slamming door jarred her awake.
“Oh, Miss Alexandria you have risen. You missed your evening meal, but I didn’t want to disturb you. I have a tray here for you.”
Lexie stopped in mid stride and glared at the woman on the floor. “Yeah I bet you do. Is it nicely laced with whatever poison you’ve been feeding me all week?”
“You really should eat.”
“Shove it up your ass, or whatever replica you have of said orifice.” Lexie was on the move again in the span of a heartbeat. Her bare feet beat a hard thumping path down the hall. From behind her the high screeching alarm sounded. In her mind, she pictured the creature she had left behind with its head thrown back, mouth wide as it screamed its warning of her escape.
Lovers did not bar the door this time, and she threw her shoulder against it. She stumbled into the room in time to see Stuart barely holding his ground against the three toga-clad guards that had carried Dante off.
The scream that issued from her throat sounded more animalistic than human to her ears. In surreal slowness, everyone in the room turned to look at her.
Stuart, still held by the guards — battered and bruised — was the most welcome sight she had ever seen. “Let him go! Leave him alone!”
She took a step toward Stuart and found herself grabbed from behind. The alarm had brought attendants from all corners of The Retreat running and as they poured through the door, they all made a grab for her. She had to fight against them just as hard as Stuart was fighting the guards.
Unseen to any of them, a large figure swathed in layer upon layer of flimsy material entered into the midst of the melee. The booming voice filled the entire space, rattled the windows and actually knocked a few of the late arrivals to their knees in the doorway.
“STOP!”
Every eye turned to him. Every foot stopped. Every mouth closed as they all waited to see what would happen next.
The Hermit spoke so quietly, so lovingly that everyone visibly relaxed. “Violence is not our way. Have you all forgotten that? There is no need to be over-zealous. Hold the intruder with kindness and let him speak.”
Stuart’s eyes bored into Lexie’s heart, his tears streamed down to drip from his chin, as the relief flooded through him and showed clearly on his face. “I went to your apartment and the super said you had left the day before. Lexie, I have been searching for you ever since.”
She shrugged off the women that held her arms and stepped closer to him. Stuart’s obvious panic confused her. “It’s only been a few days, Stuart. Why are you acting like I am a missing person or something?”
“Lexie, you left your apartment a month ago. The police are looking for you. Your friends and co-workers are all searching. We found your car burned out in the middle of a field about thirty kilometres from town. Everyone thought you were dead, but I never gave up. I could still feel you, I knew you were alive, somewhere.”
Lexie stood stock-still trying to comprehend everything he had just told her. How could it have been a month? She could clearly remember every day, every meal — but that would explain her ravenous appetite at each meal. When she turned to look to the Hermit for some sort of guidance, she saw Dante standing in his place.
“He was not among your wishes Lexie. In fact, one of your wishes was to get over him, to forget about him. Therefore he must be disposed of.” With a flick of her hand in their direction, Dante instructed the guards to take Stuart away.
The realization that he is her one true deepest desire filled Lexie with a comfortable warmth, the likes of which she had never known. He had come looking for her. He had searched even when everyone thought she was lost forever. He had never given up. He loved her and she loved him. White picket fence here I come!
Blinking two or three times she was finally able to focus her eyes on Stuart as he was dragged, kicking and screaming toward a dark door set into a recess of the hall.
“Stop! Wait a minute! You can’t do this. You can’t take him away. I love him! I didn’t realize how much until right now, but I do — I love you Stuart, with all my heart and soul.
“The Hermit gave me the gift, himself. I’m allowed to change my list at anytime. Well I want to change it.”
Taking a deep breath, she turned to Dante and looked around at everyone gathered. “My deepest desire is to be with him; to let life play out the way it will even if that means I will be faced with disappointments sometimes. I want to go back to the lousy job that I thought I hated; I want to be at home in my cute little apartment — complete with the drippy taps, rattling pipes, nosy neighbours and useless superintendent. I want my regular old life back, with all of its quirkiness and hardships.”
Dante transformed into Amante, right before her eyes and lifted a hand to stroke down her tear stained cheek. “Are you certain that this is truly what you want, Alexandria?”
“Yes, I am certain. Please tell them to let him go.”
Amante pulled her into his embrace briefly. “Sometimes in life you are handed an opportunity, but with it there is always the chance that you will miss out on something else good if you take it. You could stay here and your every wish would be fulfilled for the rest of your life.”
Stuart’s arm slipped around her waist and she rested her head on his shoulder as he steered her to the exit. Just before turning away from Amante, she flashed him one more grateful smile. “It will be. My every wish will come true — in the real world, right where I belong.”
* * * *
The land where The Hermit’s Retreat stood is now a strip mall. No one can really remember it ever being anything else. No one that is, except Lexie. She will never forget the lessons she learned in that windowless building.
‘Be careful what you wish for.’
About the Author
“We all have fantasies, I just write them out!”
Jojo was born in London, England in 1961 and brought to Ontario, Canada at the age of three. She has been an army wife, in Oromocto, New Brunswick, during her first marriage. She’s also been a farm girl all over southern Ontario, a waitress, seamstress, party planner, wedding coordinator and videographer, personal care worker and costume designer. Now happily settled with husband number two and three daughters, she enjoys the small town life. With so much quiet time to devote to her writing, she lets the muses take her where they may.