by E E Ewer
“Are you all right?” asked a man’s voice.
“I… I…” she stammered as she looked up. She was in the bike lane of a city street. The light she had seen must have been the car that nearly ran her over. “I think so,” she said.
“What on Earth were you doing just standing in the middle of the road like that?” the man asked as he helped her to her feet.
“I… I don’t know,” she said, turning her hands over and looking at her arms. She had skinned her elbows and was still shaking from the adrenaline. That sounded stupid… she thought. “I think… I might be lost. Where am I?” she tried to ask casually.
“52nd and Alpine,” the stranger said, uncertain if that was the answer she was looking for. It took Nire a moment, but as she looked around she realized she was back in her home town.
“Oh!” she suddenly cried out at the realization. “Um, thank you, but I have to go!” she shouted over her shoulder as she hurried away. It’s a long walk home, but the busses don’t run this late and I don’t have any money for a cab… she thought.
She hurried as quickly as she could, but for the most part all she could manage was a quick walk with spurts of jogging in between. It was probably a few miles at the least to get back to her house in the suburbs, and she didn’t want to over exert herself.
Finally, she saw the lights of her high school parking lot in the distance. Excitement surged through her veins and spurred her forward. She picked up her pace and started jogging. When she reached the school she smiled widely, and slowed for a moment to catch her breath.
It wasn’t far now… and she could see the stars in the east begin to fade as the sun approached. As she saw her house coming into view on the west side of the street, she began running and quickly broke into an all out sprint. She was so happy she nearly started laughing as tears began to fall down her cheeks.
Reaching the front door, she banged on it as hard as she could. “Mom! Dad! It’s Nire! MOM!” she cried as loud as she could. Suddenly the bedroom light flicked on and she could hear footsteps running down the stairs.
“Nire?!” a voice called from inside the house. The door flew open and Jane stood in the doorway in her nightgown, Richard directly behind her. “NIRE!” Jane cried as she swung open the screen door and threw her arms around her daughter. “Oh my goodness, Nire, where have you been all night?!” Jane shouted as she put her hands on Nire’s shoulders and pushed her away.
Nire stopped smiling. “All night?” she asked, confused.
“Yes! You have been missing all night! We called the police but they wouldn’t start looking for you until you’d been missing for 24 hours! We have been worried sick about you being out in the dark by yourself, where did you go?” Jane frantically spilled words from her mouth as Nire tried to piece everything together.
“I… I got lost in the woods, but I was gone for a lot longer than just one night,” she stuttered.
“What?” Jane asked, confused.
“I… I’ve been gone for almost three months!” Nire nearly shouted. Jane and Richard exchanged glances.
“Sweetheart, its Wednesday morning, your birthday is tomorrow, how could you have been gone for three months?” her mother asked.
“I… I fell, and I wasn’t here anymore. I was in another world and I couldn’t get home, but then Lucian said he would let me come back to say goodbye,” Nire rambled.
“Lucian?” her mother interrupted. “To say goodbye? What on Earth are you talking about sweetheart?”
Jane put her arm around Nire’s shoulders and noticed her arms were scraped up. “Come inside dear, sit down and we can talk about it. I will make some coffee. Richard, please go get the peroxide and some bandages,” Jane instructed as she guided Nire into the house. “Nire’s all scraped up.”
After she was taped up and had a cup of coffee in her hands, she told her mother and father what had happened during the months she was gone. She knew it probably sounded crazy, but if she planned on going back they needed to know the truth. She told them about Lucian, Miko and Margery, but decided to leave out the part about Azael and that entire escapade.
When she was finally finished, Jane and Richard looked at each other with concern. “Dear…” Jane started.
“Nire, that sounds… pretty hard to believe,” Richard said.
“I know,” the brown haired girl replied. “But that’s what happened. If it’s only been one night here then maybe time is different… or something like that.”
“Sweetheart, it’s not like we don’t want to believe you. But you were lost in the forest, and you said you woke up standing in the middle of the city street on 52nd and Alpine? Don’t you think it’s possible you fell asleep and dreamed it all, and perhaps walked in your sleep?” Jane suggested.
Nire was at a loss for words for a moment. “No!” she suddenly shouted defensively “And I have proof,” she said, reaching for the necklace. Panic suddenly spread across her face as she looked down and searched herself frantically. “Where is it?!” she screamed, standing from the couch and looking all around her. “Where is it?!” she cried again.
Jane and Richard were more than concerned at this point. “Where is what, sweetie?” Jane asked calmly.
“The necklace! The necklace he gave me, I need it to get back!”
Nire felt an wave of sheer panic spread over her as she tried to think of where it could have gone. “The road!” she suddenly shouted. “It must have fallen off when that guy knocked me out of the street!”
Nire turned to her parents with tears in her eyes. “You have to drive me there! Right now! I have to find it!” she shouted hysterically.
Jane looked at Richard, who shrugged. “All right, let me get dressed,” Jane said.
Jane drove Nire downtown as the sun hovered above the horizon. It had only been a few hours; it had to still be there. As Jane reached
52nd street Nire jumped out of the car before it even came to a stop. “Nire!” Jane shouted, shaking her head at the girl as she ran to the cross walk. Pulling into a parking space on the side of the street, Jane stepped out of the car and walked towards Nire, who was frantically searching the ground.
“Where is it?!” she shouted, checking the gutter. “It had to have fallen off here! I would have felt it fall off while I was walking home!” Nire spun in circles staring at the ground when Jane approached.
“Nire, darling…” The woman placed her hands on the girl’s shoulders. Nire spun around and fell into her mother’s arms, sobbing.
“It’s not here!” she cried. “Where is it?” she choked out through her tears. Suddenly pushing her mother away she began retracing her steps home.
“Nire!” Jane shouted after her.
“Maybe it did fall off on the way home and I just didn’t notice!” Nire called back. Her mother ran after her.
“Nire, get in the car and we will drive back the same way you walked, you can’t walk the five miles home again. You’ve not slept all night and you’re being hysterical.” Nire stopped for a moment. “We will drive slowly and you can watch the sidewalk, ok?” her mother suggested as she reached her.
Nire was tired. She didn’t want to walk five miles. With tears streaming down her cheeks she nodded, and followed her mother back to the car.
Jane drove slowly, and every time Nire thought she saw something she shouted for her to stop and jumped out of the car, only to return empty handed. By the time they reached home Nire was completely distraught.
The digital clock in her room read 7:34 a.m., as she collapsed onto her bed sobbing. Her mother stood in the door way, and Richard came up behind her. Closing Nire’s bedroom door they left her in peace, and eventually Nire fell asleep, completely exhausted.
Jane had called Jennifer and Niccole, to let them know Nire was home and safe. She suggested they wait until the next day to come by however, because Nire was very tired and not feeling well. The girls agreed, and decided they would give her a nice quiet birthday party when she was rest
ed.
Nire lay in bed all evening. She’d woken from her sleep sometime around 3 that afternoon, but she hadn’t moved from her bed. Her heart felt as though it had been ripped from her chest, and tears still streamed down her cheeks as the sun dropped in the sky. Jane walked cautiously into her bedroom with a tray.
“Nire, honey? I brought you up some dinner.” Nire shook her head. “You need to eat something dear. You haven’t eaten in 24 hours,” her mother pointed out.
She was right, of course, but Nire didn’t care. She wasn’t hungry. “I promised him I’d come back,” was all she could manage to say through her tears. Her voice was hoarse.
Jane sat down on the edge of her bed. “Jen and Nikki are coming over tomorrow,” she said hopefully. “Won’t that be nice?” Nire nodded silently. “Honey, I know you don’t want to hear it. But I don’t think you lost your necklace. I think it’s gone because it wasn’t… real.”
Nire knew her mother was being logical. But it had been real. She knew it had been real. There was no way anyone could ever convince her that it hadn’t been.
“I never told him I loved him,” she said as her mother sat stroking her hair.
“Everything will be all right, dear,” Jane said reassuringly. “We’re all here for you. You’ll be okay.”
The next day Jen and Nikki came over bearing gifts. They sat on the sides of Nire’s bed and tried to raise her spirits. She still refused to get up, but with her friends there she sat and opened her presents. Jen leaned in and gave her a long hug.
“We were really worried about you, Mouse, you know,” Jen said before handing her a present. Nire unwrapped the gift and smiled down at the framed picture of herself and Nikki that Jen had snapped in the school hall.
“And here’s mine,” Nikki smiled, handing her a green box.
Nire lifted the lid from the box and found a set of sketching pencils. She smiled. Just as she was about to thank her friends, her eyes suddenly grew wide.
“Oh!” she shouted as she leaped out of the bed. Her friends exchanged confused glances and hurried after her. Nire bolted down the stairs and Jane poked her head out of the kitchen.
“Nire?” she asked as the girl shot by and went straight into the living room. Everyone followed as Nire ran to the corner and grabbed her bag. Dumping its contents onto the floor she picked up her black sketchbook and flipped through the pages.
“See!” she shouted excitedly as she held the drawings up for everyone to see.
Jane took the sketchbook from her hands and began flipping through the pages. Nikki and Jen stood in awe looking at all the drawings of plants and little notes made on the side about what they did. As they continued through the book they found lists of rooms and directions on how to get there, as well as crudely drawn maps of service hallways.
“What, exactly, is it we are looking at, dear?” Jane asked as she studied the pages.
“It took me a month to fill it!” Nire shouted excitedly. “That’s where I was!”
“It’s… very impressive dear,” Jane said. “But…it’s hardly proof that any of it was real.”
“There’s no way I could have done all that in one night!” Nire protested.
“And look they get better,” Jen pointed out as she glanced at a page near the front and compared it to one in the back. Jane shot her a glance. “Sorry Mrs. A., but it is a pretty impressive amount of improvement for one night…”
“Yes, that it is,” she agreed, but that was all she said.
“Looks like you need another sketchbook already,” Nikki said, changing the subject.
“Oh!” Nire said again, her face lighting up as she scanned the floor. “Oh… I didn’t pack it,” she said, remembering that she had left the sketchbook Lucian had given her on top of the chest at the foot of her bed. Her face darkened again.
Her friends both put their arms around her. “It’s ok, hun,” Jen said. “We’ll get you another one, and maybe you can tell us this crazy story you have,” Jen suggested.
Nikki smiled and chimed in. “Yes, it sounds like it must have been quite the adventure!”
Nire smiled softly as she looked up at her friends. She was glad they were here. Even if they didn’t really believe her story, she knew they would treat it like it was real none the less.
Jen suddenly strengthened her grip around Nire’s shoulders. “Okay! Who’s ready for cake?” she shouted, causing Nire to laugh a little. “That’s better, let’s get this party started!”
Nire’s friends helped console her as the weeks passed. Jane had arraigned for Nire to see a psychiatrist twice a week, and while Nire insisted she was perfectly fine she went along with it to satisfy her mother. She had walked the distance between her house and 52nd street at least a dozen times and there was no sign of the necklace anywhere. Nire’s heart hung heavy in her chest as each day passed.
Nire hit the light switch in the doorway and walked to her bed in the darkness, not bothering at all with her usual routine. She still wasn’t all that comfortable in it, but it made her feel closer to Lucian. If he was in fact darkness itself, he was with her every night. She sighed as she closed her curtains. It disturbed her, the pitch black darkness. But sometimes she swore she could feel it around her, the same way she had that time in the castle depths.
With the room completely dark, she climbed into bed and held the covers close around her. She imagined it was the cape she had left on her bed in the green room. He never had come to reclaim it, and she’d kept it by her pillow every night since. Bringing her blankets to her face she breathed in and imagined his scent.
“I love you, Lucian,” she said softly, trying to hold back her tears.
Chapter 13
Table of Contents
Nire opened her eyes in the darkness and let out a sigh. Placing her feet on the ground she stood and walked out of her bedroom, across her small apartment and towards the kitchen. Feeling her way around the cabinets in the dim light, she put a pot of coffee on and wiped the sleep from her eyes. Cascading blue light fell through the living room windows and washed across the floor. A small dark shadow hopped off the couch, and made its way towards the girl in the kitchen.
Gibson meowed softly and rubbed against her bare legs. Leaning down she stroked his gray fur, then lifted him up and walked to the sofa. She placed Gibson on her lap as she listened to the sounds of the coffee maker and ruffled his fur as he purred loudly.
It was only 4 in the morning, and the sun wouldn’t be up for at least two and a half more hours, but it was pointless to try and get back to sleep. Once she woke up she could lie in bed for hours and it wouldn’t do her any good, so eventually she just stopped trying.
The coffee stopped brewing and Nire lifted the gray cat off her lap as she stood. Pouring a cup, she returned to the couch and sat in the quiet darkness. She still didn’t like it, but she was used to it at least.
She often wondered what it was that really happened that night she’d gotten lost. It had been seven years and it still seemed as vivid as ever. Her psychiatrist said she panicked and had a psychotic episode, inventing the entire thing and using it as a replacement memory for what really happened that night.
Even though she couldn’t really understand why she would dream up something that had been so traumatic, in order to cover up another trauma, it did make some sense. She had to admit, it did start and end the way a dream would.
Nire wanted to know what really happened, but her therapist said if it had been hidden it was done so for a reason. If she did remember, it had to be done in its own time, and only when she would be able to accept reality. That was not necessarily what she had meant, however. She didn’t really care about what memory she might be repressing, all she wanted to know was whether or not she had actually been in the Shadow Realm, or not.
Nire looked at her phone. Speaking of her therapist, she had left yet another message. Nire deleted it. She knew what it was about. It had been nearly a year since she took herself off medicat
ion, and she was sick of that woman trying to convince her otherwise.
Depressed or not, being on those damned pills never changed how she felt anyway. She would rather be depressed without the quirky side effects of whatever new drug she was put on. It was ridiculous to spend money on a pill that didn’t do what it was supposed to.
Nire sighed and drank her coffee. She had a project deadline tomorrow. Might as well get it done early, she thought as she stood from the couch and hit the light switch. Moving to her drafting table she sat her cup of coffee to the left of her supplies.
The project was for an author who was publishing a book on local plant life. Tomorrow the “Milk Thistle” page was due. Taking a short break for breakfast, she flipped on the TV and listened to the weather as she painted.
It’s supposed to snow today, she thought as she carefully lined her drawing. Maybe I’ll go do something if I get this done early. Then I can come home and work on my project.
Nire had her own personal agenda outside of her usual work: A fictional flora book, based on the old drawings in the sketchbook her friends had given her back in high school. Her therapist said it was unhealthy to keep revisiting that area of her past. Treating it like it was real wouldn’t help her recover, she would tell her. Nire ignored her. In fact she wasn’t even sure why she bothered keeping in touch with that woman. She hadn’t scheduled a session in years. Maybe it was time to just forget about it.
A morning talk show took over her thoughts, as a couch of irritating women began to talk about the most uninteresting things imaginable. Clicking off the TV and rolling her eyes, she turned on her stereo instead, allowing herself to sink into the music as she painted.
By 2 p.m. she had completed the illustration, scanned it in and sent it to her client. Yawning and stretching, she peered out the window into the cold landscape. The snow had already begun to pile on the ground, but the roads seemed clear enough.
