Chapter 46
the girl who fell to Earth
Annika cautiously wiggled each of her fingers and toes, making sure she hadn’t broken any bones, and slowly rose to her feet. There was blood trickling from a gash on her left shoulder, but it wasn’t life-threatening. Looking around, she found herself in an alley beside a vacant lot in the coldest hours of the early morning. There was a dumpster just a few steps away; it was probably what she’d cut her shoulder on. As she stumbled around the corner, the signs labeling the buildings came as a relief to her. They were all in French.
Of the few languages I can understand, thank goodness this is one of them! she thought in relief. She wasn’t even halfway down the block when she found a small café. She ducked inside and headed straight for the bathroom, trying to act as normal as she possibly could, but she still got some startling looks along the way. When she glanced at her reflection in the mirror, she knew why immediately. Her left sleeve was half covered in blood, and there were mud and blood spatters all over her face. Her amulet from Dragana was covered as well as most of her body. Her shoes were caked in mud and grass, and she was still wearing the sword at her hip, though it was hidden from view by her cloak. She locked the door and carefully removed her sword, cloak, and backpack, then took out her Fairy Poppins box and tucked them inside. She was half expecting it not to work on this side of the portal, but they disappeared without any trouble. When she inspected her shoulder, she saw that the wound had stopped bleeding and was now beginning to close up. She stripped down to her underwear, turned on the water, and splashed it up onto her face and her shoulder as best as she could. The gash was healing, but still painful. She took off her necklace and rinsed it under the faucet until the water ran clear. The garnet and sapphire looked dead under the fluorescent lights, as if their power had been used up.
Her hands rummaged through her bag in search of a clean pair of pants and a black t-shirt that was way too big to be her own. Her eyes began to water as she slipped it over her head and inhaled deeply of cinnamon and sweat. Talvi’s scent had stayed with the fabric, and now it triggered all of the thoughts that she’d pushed to the side for too long. The white letters on the front of the shirt caught her attention in the mirror, and she smiled for a moment as she read, I’m huge in Japan. It dissolved with the hot tears that immediately began to overflow. She knew she’d never again be the same person that she was just days ago, just hours ago, even ten minutes ago. She had a lover, in some realm. She had friends and a family history in that place. She’d developed a strange ability to heal herself, and her five senses were more acute than ever before. But she’d also killed in the name of battle, and being from a military family didn’t make it as easy to accept as she used to think it would. She wished she could erase the sight of those that had died in front of her, but they kept ambushing her thoughts.
She finally ventured back out to the café, where she dug around her pocket for one of Finn’s tiny rings to buy a cup of coffee. She asked the clerk where the nearest place to exchange silver and gold might be. The man behind the counter wouldn’t take the strange currency, and probably served her out of pity. She sat at a little table in the corner with her hot coffee and stared at the ring on her left finger.
Did this just really happen to me? she thought. I’m always having dreams that I bring something back with me, and each time I wake up, it’s gone. But it can’t be a dream, not when I have this.
She tugged at the ring a little, but like before, it only pulled her skin painfully. It hadn’t even been a quarter of an hour since she was standing beside Talvi and her other friends. Annika finished her coffee and began walking down the sidewalk, arriving at the small coin shop right as it opened for the day.
The sleepy clerk at the counter didn’t ask many questions, much to her relief, and eventually gave her two thousand Euros before sending her on her way. She was grateful for so much cash, but it would only get her so far. She could easily visualize her passport sitting on the nightstand in the second bedroom of Vince’s house. Stopping by a small sidewalk vendor’s booth, she bought a calling card and asked where the nearest hotel was.
Around the corner and nine blocks later, she was standing in the lobby of a posh hotel, the kind of place where everything was polished and immaculate and real, right down to the marble tiles. She shook her head as she realized she’d asked for the nearest hotel, not the cheapest. When she walked up to the front desk to get a room, the hotel manager himself appeared out of nowhere to inquire what she needed with no hospitality whatsoever. She glanced in a full-length mirror at herself, and understood why she’d received such prejudice. She looked like a broke Euro-trash hitchhiker, wearing the wrong thing and not fitting in at all. Just as the front desk manager was about to escort her out, she came up with an excuse about grabbing the wrong bag at the airport. Without hesitation the manager took care of her arrangements himself. In the meantime she dialed her parents’ phone number from the front desk; she was in too much of a hurry to make the call from her room.
“Uhh?” A deep voice groaned. “Whoisit?”
“Dad? Dad? It’s me, Annika?”
“What the…Annika? Is that really you, honey? Are you alright? Where are you?” she heard her mother growing hysterical in the background.
“Don’t worry dad, I’m okay!” she assured him. “I swear I’m fine. I haven’t been near a phone in months.”
“Where are you?” her mother screeched, having taken the phone from her husband.
“I’m in Paris,” she said, looking around the hotel until she found the name embossed on the doors.
“Paris?” the hysterical voice cried. “What happened? Where have you been? Are you safe?”
“Yeah mom, I’m fine, I need you to call Vince and tell him that I’m okay, but I need my passport to get out of here,” she said, trying to comfort them.
“Where have you been?”
“I…I can’t really explain over the phone, Mom. I don’t think I have that many minutes on this card.”
“I don’t care! How did you end up in Paris? Stay right there, and I’ll come get you!”
“I’m at l’ hotel de Regent on rue Dauphine. I’ll be waiting for you here.”
“I don’t want you to hang up! Oh please tell me that you’re safe and sound!” her mother said while choking back tears.
“I promise Mom, nothing bad happened to me. I’ll tell you everything when I see you. I promise!” She hung up, feeling bad that she couldn’t talk longer. She didn’t know what she would say when she saw her family as it was, not to mention the possibility of upsetting them more to know their missing daughter was reportedly running around Paris, out of her mind on hallucinogenic drugs. Hello Mom and Dad…I fell into a broken portal and I’ve been hanging out with nymphs and elves and trolls and vampires for the past two months in a parallel universe. Sorry I haven’t called. They don’t have phones. No, that wouldn’t do at all. They would show up with a team of emergency personnel brandishing syringes and straightjackets.
Still carrying her backpack, Annika followed the hotel manager to her room. He opened the doors to reveal the elegant quarters, with the windows letting in bright sunshine. There was a vase of fresh flowers on a little table, where a room service menu was set on the linen tablecloth.
“A bath has been drawn for you, mademoiselle,” he said. “And if there is anything you would like during your stay, please do not hesitate to ask.” With no hesitation whatsoever, she ordered a bottle of red wine, roast duck with boiled potatoes, asparagus, and cheesecake for dessert to be brought up in an hour. He nodded and left quickly, and she tossed her bag onto the bed, anxious for that bath.
She sank into the water, exhausted. It stung her shoulder, which was starting to heal at an expedient rate, and she was barely aware of her rich surroundings. The puffy down comforter and pillows on the queen sized bed didn’t really matter, as long as it was clean and warm. Lying in the soothing heat of the water, she tried to
relax, but she kept seeing lightning bolts flying through the sky as weapons, and then turning the sky purple as her body was flooded with pain. She saw horned helmets sprayed in blood, and a girl crying over her parents’ warm bodies. It was the most unpleasant and non-relaxing bath she’d ever experienced in her life, and therefore it wasn’t that long before she got out and wrapped herself up in a soft robe provided by the hotel. There was a knock at the door. It was her dinner, carried in on a silver platter and laid carefully upon the table beside the window that overlooked the city. That must have been one hell of a tip she’d given the manager.
She sat down to eat, but couldn’t stand the silence. It allowed her imagination to run too wild, replaying the past few months over and over. She couldn’t stop seeing those green eyes with blue centers, or feeling her sword plunge into the body of a crazy Pazachi man and woman. She drank a full glass of wine before trying any of her dinner, desperate to numb the painful memories. She finished most of the bottle while she devoured the potatoes and asparagus, but after a couple bites of the perfectly roasted duck, she felt ill. Seriously ill. The rest of the night was spent watching television and throwing up, and it was definitely not the wine.
Early the next morning there was a knock at her door. She still felt nauseous, despite all the sleep she’d gotten.
“Mademoiselle, I am so sorry to disturb you at such an hour, but there are some people here to see you; they say it’s most urgent,” the voice said from outside the door. When she opened it, there stood her mom, dad and Uncle Vince. Her family hugged her tight, crying profusely. She started to cry too. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what they had gone through, wondering if she’d been kidnapped or killed, or joined a cult in Croatia.
“Where have you been for the past two months?” her father asked.
“Were you kidnapped?” her mother asked.
“Did you run away?” Vince asked.
She took a deep breath. She hadn’t thought up that perfect little lie that could excuse her absence, so she proceeded to tell them that yes, she’d fallen into a broken portal and had been hanging out with wood nymphs, fairies, elves and vampires for the past two months in a parallel universe. She conveniently left out the bit about killing a few demented nature-nut extremists, but she did say she was married, and showed them how her ring wouldn’t come off her finger.
“Annika…” her mother began, but she couldn’t finish her sentence. Instead, she sank into a chair with a distressed expression consuming her. Annika glanced at her uncle, expecting him to be wearing his typical lackadaisical grin now that he knew his niece was safe, but he only looked concerned.
“I think what your mother is trying to say, is that this is a bit much for us to handle right now,” her dad said. “The important thing is that you’re not hurt.”
“But I can prove it. I took pictures,” she said, and went to get her camera out of her backpack, which was sitting near the bed at the other end of the room. She dug around for a few moments, unable to find it, and then resorted to dumping out the entire contents on the down comforter. She unzipped every compartment, but the only thing she discovered was that her little music player was absent as well. She glanced at the ring on her left hand and immediately knew who had them.
“That has got to be the most elaborate story I think have ever heard,” her dad said in a bewildered voice, but he didn’t accuse her of lying. He was examining a few of the gold rings that she hadn’t given to the coin shop. They were the only proof that she had, besides the Fairy Poppins box and its contents, which had left her family speechless when Annika gave them a demonstration of how it worked.
“This really happened, Dad. I would never just take off like that and not tell you!”
“Annika,” he paused, baffled at her excuse, “I think maybe we should keep this just between us.”
“Well I can’t lie to my own brother or my friends!”
“Just don’t tell the whole world, okay kiddo?” Her father smiled softly at her, but he still wasn’t convinced that she was mentally sound. After seeing the Fairy Poppins box in action, he wasn’t sure he was mentally sound, either.
“We’re all leaving tomorrow evening,” her mother interrupted before Annika could respond. “We bought you a plane ticket and Vince was thoughtful enough to bring all of your things with him.” Annika’s stomach dropped. “That was a terrible scare you gave us. I know it’s not your fault. I really don’t know what to think about it yet, but it’s time for you to come home.”
“But what about Talvi?” she asked. “He won’t know where I am.”
“I think that’s for the best,” her father said. He looked deeply upset. She started to explain that Talvi had protected her from the blood-drinking trees, and saved her from Vaj’s first attack during the birthday party, but the skepticism on her family’s faces made her give up as an uncomfortable sensation of reality struck her.
She’d somehow thought that she could simply go back to Vince’s cottage and wait for Talvi to come find her, or even go hiking again and try to find him, but that was hopeless. She was lost when she accidentally found the samodivi cave and crossed through the portal. And even if she went back to Europe, it would take Talvi weeks to return. He still had to cross the Sea of Forneus and get through the Mesoyadna Forest without getting killed. And if he did pass safely through the flesh-eating trees and the sirens and monster that lived deep in the sea, they’d met each other in the oldest part of Sofia. He didn’t know that Vince lived in a cottage outside the city. Tracking her down would take an eternity.
I suppose I should be glad we have time on our side, she thought miserably, recalling his wedding gift to her. I’ll need it.
Annika’s family took her out to breakfast, but she didn’t enjoy any of it. Most of it came back up, and the entire time she could hear their thoughts wondering what was wrong with her, wondering what she’d endured that she needed to make up such an outlandish story. When they returned to the hotel she fell into a fitful sleep, where every time she caught a glimpse of her dark-haired elf, he was covered in those thick, blood drinking roots, or pulled under water by the beguiling sirens. She felt Talvi’s hand smoothing her hair, and she began to cry. He felt so real, as if he were there right beside her. She could even feel him sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Talvi, is that you?” she asked. She wasn’t sure if she was awake or dreaming.
“Sweetie, you need to get up. We have to get to the airport extra early for the international flight,” her mother said, patting her back. Annika rolled over and wiped the tears from her eyes. She got up and reluctantly packed the rest of her things, fitting everything into the Fairy Poppins box and sticking it in her backpack that bore the burnt hole from the lightning bolt attack. They were getting ready to part with her uncle when she had a last minute idea. It called for a pen and a sheet of the hotel stationary, and she motioned for her uncle after her parents left the room with their luggage.
“Vince, do you think you could do me a favor?” she asked. She scrawled across the paper, then crumpled it up and started over.
“Mais oui bien sûr. Anything for my favorite niece,” he said, watching her with an unlit cigarette hanging in his mouth. He’d already become thin and gaunt again as a result from his terrible cooking, and probably from worrying himself sick for the past two months.
“Can you give this to the owner of the used bookstore that I went to in Sofia?” she said as she handed him the paper, and then a few of the golden and silver rings. “I’m sure that’s the first place Talvi would go. I just know it. And on the back of the paper, put your address next to mine, so he can find us.”
“Annika,” his cigarette bobbed as he spoke, “Don’t you think your family has suffered enough?”
“I know you all think I’m nuts,” she stammered, trying not to cry, but she couldn’t help it. “I just wish I could count on someone to believe me, even just a little bit. I’m back safe, aren’t I? If Talvi wanted to kidnap m
e, I never would have come home that day I met him in Sofia.” Vince took the rings and the paper from his niece.
“So that is his name, oui?” he smiled, and put his arm around her as they left the room. “The young man from the bookstore who called you a ‘saucy girl’? I suppose he can’t be all that bad.”