M Sellars - Miranda

“She’s been waiting for you,” Ariel says, pointing off into the void.

I follow the line of her arm and see that a large wooden door has appeared. It looks heavy and old. Intricate carvings cover its surface, but when I try to focus on any of the detail it becomes blurry and nondescript.

I’m certain the door wasn’t there a second ago…

Or was it an hour ago?

Or maybe it was a day ago…

I have no idea how long I’ve been here. It seems like forever. And it seems like I’ve only just arrived.

“Go,” Ariel says. “She’s waiting.”

“Who?” I ask.

The word flips and tumbles as it falls from my mouth, and then it liquefies and drips slowly into the darkness to disappear. Seen, but not heard.

Ariel repeats in earnest, “She’s been waiting for you, Rowan. She’s been waiting for so very long now… She needs you. Go to her.”

I look at the door and then back to Ariel. However, only the dark void remains where she once stood. Her voice echoes in my ears, coming from no direction, and all directions. “She’s waiting…”

I cautiously step forward and rest my hand on what appears to be an ornate handle. I push the door inward, allowing it to swing open on groaning hinges.

The creaking of metal against metal is all that I hear.

Beyond the threshold I see nothing but blackness.

“She’s waiting for you,” Ariel’s voice says.

I turn to find that she is standing behind me.

“Go to her…” she says, nodding as if to urge me along. “She’s waiting.”

Ariel reaches forward and presses her palms against my chest. The touch seems light, but I am unable to resist the incredible force it carries.

My balance is gone.

I topple backward.

I’m falling…

Falling…

Impact.

“Get me some salt,” Constance said. “Now.”

An unfamiliar voice questioned, “Salt?”

“Yes, salt,” she barked. “Get it, now dammit!”

Whoever belonged to the other voice didn’t press the subject. I could hear feet against carpet receding in a quick scamper.

“Felicity?” Constance said. “Are you still there? No… He’s not shaking anymore. He just jerked suddenly, and now he’s not moving at all… Yes, he’s still breathing… Do what? Are you sure? Okay…”

The darkness is replaced by grey.

I’m standing in the center of a small room.

The walls are close.

Too close…

Claustrophobia claws at me.

I close my eyes, but when I open them again nothing has changed.

The discordant unharmony of silence is suddenly replaced by quiet sobbing.

I turn toward the sound.

An ivory skinned woman is huddled in the corner.

She is nude, which makes the fact that she is emaciated even more obvious and pronounced.

Her body is bruised and covered with weeping abrasions.

I cannot even imagine the abuses she has suffered.

A long cascade of hair falls around her, matted and filthy. Here and there, a wisp of its original fiery red can be seen.

I kneel in front of her.

She continues to sob.

I reach out and gently touch her.

Slowly, she brings her face up and stares at me with vacant eyes.

She looks familiar.

Too familiar…

The recognition frightens me.

“Felicity?” I ask, not wanting to hear the answer.

Terror burns through my stomach, and I can no longer breathe.

The darkness is gone.

This time it is the light that comes for me.

The first thing I felt was a sharp sting against my cheek.

The second thing I felt was my body spasming as it drew in a quick breath.

The third thing I felt was bile rushing up my throat.

I heard a woman’s yelp filter into my ears, followed by a quickly muttered, “Dammit.” The latter belonged to the same voice.

A moment later I was pushing myself up from the floor, groaning as my head resumed its earlier intimate relationship with a near blinding migraine.

“I think he’s coming out of it now, Felicity,” Constance said, a mix of relief and disgust in her voice. “He just threw up on my shoes.”

“At least it was a different set of paramedics this time,” Constance said as she pushed open the door and walked into my room. On her way through, she reached up and flipped the security latch out of the way so that the door would now be able to fully close. Advancing farther inward she continued the verbal observation, “I really don’t think the pair from this afternoon would have bought my story that this was just a false alarm.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” I agreed. “Thanks for taking care of that. I really wasn’t up to another argument.”

“No problem.” She stepped over to the side of the bed where I was perched and thrust a plastic bottle of sports drink into my hands. “Here. Felicity told me to make sure you drank at least one of these right away.”

“Yeah, she said she gave you care and feeding instructions for the wayward Witch,” I replied, absently giving the cap a twist to break the seal. “Thanks.”

I had spoken briefly with my wife once I was back to something resembling lucid. As I expected she was no happier about the current situation than she had been about the earlier one, but she took it somewhat easy on me anyway. It really wasn’t as if this was anything new. The big difference was that she was too many miles away to do much more than worry. Of course, she claimed she tried to make good on her earlier threat but was unable to find a seat on a flight out until the next afternoon. Had it been earlier in the day, I wouldn’t have put it past her to make the eleven-hour drive; although, knowing Felicity and her lead foot, she probably would have done it in nine.

Constance frowned and gave me an obvious once over before announcing, “I still really wish you would have let the paramedics check you out anyway. Just to be sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.”

“Yeah, Rowan, you’re the poster boy for fine,” she snorted, making no attempt to hide her sarcasm. “In the past twelve hours you’ve dealt with a constant headache, hemorrhaged all over a restaurant, and experienced some kind of unidentified seizure that had you curled up in a ball on the floor. You just can’t get any better than this.”

“It’s not like you haven’t been down this road with me before, Constance.”

“True, but I don’t think I’ll ever really get used to it,” she countered. “Do you know the night manager asked me three different times if they needed to worry that a housekeeper might find you dead in the morning when she comes in here to clean the room?”

“What’d you tell…”

“Him,” she finished for me. “I told the truth. I said that right now I don’t know. I mean, let’s be honest. If Ben hadn’t called me when you didn’t answer your phone, you’d probably still be laying there.”

“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe not. Hard to say.”

“It’s the maybe part that bothers me, Rowan,” she spat. “It bothers all of us.”

“I understand,” I replied. “It takes its toll on me too, Constance. And, just in case you forgot, it’s not like I have any control over it. I wish like hell I did.”

Her voice took on a more soothing tone. “I know. It’s just… I don’t know…”

“Freakish?”

She nodded vigorously. “I guess that’s as good a word as any. Even Ben thinks so, and he’s more used to it than I am.”

“Well, I can’t say that I disagree with either of you…but if it makes you feel any better, you don’t need to worry… They won’t…find me dead that is. Not yet, anyway.”

“I hate to tell you this, but the events of the day aren’t really inspiring much confidence in that statement.” She sighed heavily then stepped over to the nightstand and parked an extra bottle of the sports drink before simply standing there and watching me. After a long moment she motioned and said, “Go on. Drink it.”