The Remembered

by Michael J Sanford

  "But this can't be your memory..." he said, nudging Lucy.

  She looked at him and shook her head.

  "And it isn't mine, I don't think."

  Lucy shook her head again.

  Wyatt felt the entire forest spin around him. He squeezed his eyes shut in an effort to steady his thoughts.

  When he opened his eyes, the forest was gone. In its place was a small bedroom of stone. He was sitting on the floor, next to a bed, bathed in morning sunlight streaming in through a single open window. Lucy was sitting up on the bed, staring at him.

  "I think we're wrong about the Realms," Wyatt said.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "OOH! FOOD!" LUCY shouted as she and Wyatt entered the common area of their suite.

  Wyatt was still too confounded by previous events to respond, and watched as his sister skipped to the table at the center of the room and began helping herself to the steaming dishes. They hadn't talked about their shared dream...or memory...or whatever it was. And the more time that passed, the fuzzier it became for Wyatt. He knew at one point it had seemed real, no different than when he bounced between Earth and the Realms. But now it was beginning to feel more and more like a dream. Dreams always had a funny way of blurring the further one got from them. Despite all that, Wyatt remembered Athena. The rest was mist and vapor, but the look on Athena's face and the pain in her voice as she was torn away from him was breathtakingly real.

  Lucy shouted something at him, but her mouth was stuffed with food, and the words were mangled beyond recognition. Wyatt watched her for a few more moments before crossing the room to the door of the second bedroom.

  He knocked. No answer. He knocked louder. "Ms. Abagail?" he called out.

  Wyatt listened for another breath before grabbing the latch and slowly easing the door open. Peering into the room without entering, Wyatt could see Ms. Abagail sprawled atop the single bed, hair covering her face.

  "Ms. Abagail," he said again, raising his voice.

  Ms. Abagail groaned and rolled over. Her eyes remained closed. "Too early," she said.

  "But something funny happened—"

  "Too. Early," Ms. Abagail growled more than said. "Get out."

  "But—"

  "Out!"

  Wyatt snapped back, shutting the door in his own face, nearly clipping his nose. He stared at the wood of the door for a moment, then sighed and joined Lucy at the table.

  "She isn't a morning person, is she?" Lucy asked around a mouthful of biscuit.

  Wyatt shook his head. "On Saturday mornings, she used to tell us not to talk to her until the sun was as high as it could get."

  "Hmm," Lucy mused, head cocked to the side. "Biscuit?" she asked, holding out her hand.

  Wyatt shot a look at Ms. Abagail's door before accepting the biscuit. He hadn't realized how hungry he was until he took the first bite. He couldn't even be certain how it tasted, for in what felt like a blink, it was gone, and he found himself pawing at the table for more.

  Lucy laughed, grabbed an apple in one hand, and a piece of steaming meat in the other. Wyatt found something akin to bacon and began stuffing it into his mouth as quickly as he could.

  "Try this," Lucy said, tossing a pastry at him.

  It hit him in the chest and dropped into his lap, but he snatched it up and bit off half the thing in one bite. When had he last eaten? As troubling as his situation was, it became a distant thought, replaced by the need to feed. Finally, a problem he could solve.

  "Anything to drink?" he asked after he devoured the pastry.

  Lucy pushed a ceramic carafe toward him, sloshing dark liquid onto the table. Wyatt grabbed it with both hands and took a deep swig. Fire lit across his tongue and chased down his throat into his gut. A tingle shout up from his toes and spread to the rest of his body. Wyatt set the pitcher aside with a violent cough.

  He kept coughing until Lucy swatted him on the back several times. "Thanks," he said weakly.

  "No good?" Lucy asked.

  Wyatt grabbed another pastry and chomped into it. It helped quench the fire left behind by the unknown beverage. "Not sure that's for drinking, but it certainly woke me up. And I'm all tingly."

  "Oh! Fun," Lucy said, reaching for the carafe. Wyatt grabbed it before she could and placed it on the opposite side of the table from her. She pouted.

  "You don't want it. Trust me."

  "Okay," she said, smiling at him. Jam was smeared across one cheek and her hair was disheveled. "Brother."

  He smiled back and felt his skin tingle again, though he didn't think it had to do with the strange concoction he had drunk. He patted Lucy on the shoulder, immediately blushed from the awkwardness of the gesture, and returned to his breakfast.

  "Do you miss it?" Lucy asked after Wyatt had made his way through another biscuit and a pair of muffins.

  "Miss what?"

  "Being a Druid. Being magical."

  Wyatt grabbed at his chest, feeling the emptiness carry straight to his core. "Yeah, I guess."

  "But I'm the Druid now, right?" Lucy reached beneath her shirt and withdrew her Druids' seed. The green gem set in dark wood glittered in the early morning light. Wyatt didn't think his had ever been so clear and vibrant. When he had given it to the Bad Man, it had been nearly black.

  "Guess so. Do you feel any different?"

  "Different than what?"

  "Well, when I first came to the Realms, I could, like, hear this whisper. Hard to explain, but I learned it was the Mother speaking to me, giving me power. But if you're the Mother..."

  Lucy pinched the gem between her forefinger and thumb and brought it to her eye. "I never said that. You did. I'm just Lucy."

  Wyatt watched the sparkle of the gem and felt a thin glimmer of jealously break through the darkness. If he took the amulet from her, could he become a Druid once more? Wyatt shoved the impulse away, back into the depths of his mind, but still it scratched at him. Wyatt dug his fingers into his chest, hoping to quell the itch.

  Lucy replaced her amulet beneath her shirt and looked at Wyatt's chest. "You all right?"

  Wyatt looked down at his hands, scratching at his chest as if they sought to rend the flesh from bone. He forced them to stop.

  "Oh, you're bleeding now," Lucy said, shuffling closer atop the bench they shared. "You shouldn't scratch so hard."

  A small spot of red slowly bled through the white of his buttoned nightshirt. Tentatively, Wyatt undid the buttons from the top down to assess the damage.

  "Cool," Lucy said as Wyatt pulled the halves of his shirt apart. "Does it hurt?"

  In the middle of Wyatt's chest, where his Druids' seed had once grown, was a mass of pink and purple scar tissue. It took up a fair portion of his upper chest. Lucy pressed a cloth napkin against it, stemming the weak flow of blood from the small cut Wyatt had opened up in the massive scar.

  Wyatt put his hands over hers and forced her to let go of the napkin. "I got it," he said, suddenly feeling far more self-conscious than he was used to.

  "Don't be embarrassed," Lucy said. "I have a scar, too." She reached up and parted her hair away from her left temple. There, amid the blonde locks, was a thick scar that curved above her ear.

  "How'd that happen?" he asked, setting aside the napkin and buttoning his shirt.

  "No idea. Yours?"

  "Doesn't matter," he said.

  Lucy frowned. "If I knew, I'd tell you. We're brother and sister now. That means no secrets."

  "Everyone has secrets. Even you."

  "Do not."

  "Then what happened to us? To Mom and Dad?"

  Lucy's face contorted with rage. "That's not fair!" she shouted, at the same time swiping her arm across the table, scattering its contents in all directions.

  Wyatt jumped up in an attempt to avoid the edible projectiles as well as the infuriated girl. He managed to half-fall, half-sit on the floor behind the bench. Lucy climbed atop it, armed with a wooden serving spoon. She pointed it at Wyatt.

  "You tell m
e what happened. All I know is that it was your fault!" Lucy's face was bright red, the spoon shaking violently in her white-knuckled hand.

  Wyatt stayed where he was, legs up on the bench, back to the floor, eyes locked on Lucy. "It wasn't my fault!" he retorted. "I told you before, when we were at Greenwood. It was an accident. A car accident. Ms. Abagail showed me the newspaper article about it. It wasn't anyone's fault. If you could just remember, then maybe all of this craziness would end."

  "It is not my fault! You gave the Bad Man your power." Lucy punctuated each statement by kicking an object in Wyatt's general direction. "This was my secret place. And you took it away from me, just like you took Julia away."

  Wyatt swatted aside a flying roll only to catch a clay dish in the chin. He scrambled to his feet. "We wouldn't even be in this mess if you hadn't made this world and put all your messed-up memories in it. The Bad Man is here because of you. And probably the Regents, too. I have friends out there," Wyatt was yelling now, and gesturing at the nearest window. "And I've lost even more friends here. The Realms aren't some playground or fairy tale land you can just play in and hide whatever stuff you don't want to deal with. It's real."

  Lucy stopped in the middle of the table, quivering with rage. "The Bad Man said you wouldn't admit what you did. He said to stay away from you. But you wouldn't leave us alone."

  "I didn't do anything," Wyatt shouted back. "Mom and Dad are dead, Lucy. And it wasn't anyone's fault. Admit that and maybe we can fix things."

  "Liar!" Lucy dropped the spoon and pressed her hands over her ears, continuing to scream the single word.

  Wyatt felt hot fire burn up from his gut. Why was she being so stubborn? It had been an accident. He'd read the paper with his own eyes. It wasn't a mystery anymore. And any blame he had once placed on himself was misguided. It had to be. He hadn't killed his parents. It had been an accident. Perhaps a deer had run out into the street. Or maybe his father had fallen asleep at the wheel and veered into danger. Wait. How do I know my father was driving?

  The door behind Wyatt blew open, smashing into the wall with a loud retort. Lucy stopped screaming and Wyatt turned around to see Ms. Abagail looming in the bedroom door, eyes glowing like embers, pinning him in place.

  "Why are you screaming?" she demanded, switching her glare back and forth between Wyatt and Lucy.

  "She can't admit that this is her fault," Wyatt said, jabbing a finger at Lucy.

  Lucy leaned forward, eyes pinched shut and fists clenched, and began shrieking with a guttural ferocity that forced Wyatt back into Ms. Abagail. She pushed him away and walked toward the table, crushing food beneath her bare feet.

  "Hey! Knock it off, right now!" Ms. Abagail shouted at Lucy.

  Lucy continued to shriek, the pitch in her voice increasing. The few things still on the table began shaking, and Wyatt could have sworn that he felt the floor shift beneath him, if just an inch.

  "Yeah, we get it," Ms. Abagail said with far less tact than Wyatt was accustomed to seeing from her. "You can scream real loud and real long. Well, it is too early for this."

  Lucy's face was shifting a scary shade of purple. And still she screamed. Wyatt didn't dare move. In the moment, he held a respectable fear of both Lucy and Ms. Abagail. I'll just let them work this out, he thought. He couldn't force himself to leave the spot he was rooted to, however.

  "Lucy!" Ms. Abagail shouted, reaching a hand toward Lucy.

  As Ms. Abagail's hand touched Lucy's arm, the shrieking immediately ended.

  "Oh, good, you found the off switch," Wyatt said, wiggling a finger in his ear. "I was about to—"

  Just as Lucy's scream had suddenly stopped, so did Wyatt's ability to think. There was something glowing from the center of Lucy's chest. A small orb of bright green rose from beneath Lucy's stained shirt and lazily floated in the air between him and Ms. Abagail.

  Lucy's eyes narrowed on Ms. Abagail and she let out a low growl before pouncing on the stunned woman. Wyatt snapped into action at the same time, moving to intercede. Lucy drove Ms. Abagail back and into Wyatt mid-charge. A violently green light flashed and Wyatt knew at once that when he forced his eyes open again, he would not see a disheveled eating area in the mountain fortress of Sanctuary.

  CHAPTER SIX

  WYATT ROSE TO his knees, spitting grass and rubbing his temples. "Well, that was real great, Lucy. Nice going."

  Lucy was sitting cross-legged next to him, and Ms. Abagail was sprawled on the ground on her other side. Wyatt stared at Lucy for a moment, received no response, and stood to survey their new surroundings.

  "Oh, wonderful," he said. "Looks like you sent us back to Earth."

  A dirt road passed along the top of the bank that Wyatt stood at the bottom of. He could see utility poles and a mailbox. Enough to tell him he wasn't in the Realms any longer. And when he turned, he saw, at the end of a long driveway, a solitary house. It was small and plain, and most certainly of earthly construction.

  "Why did you do that, Lucy?" Wyatt asked haughtily, turning back to his sister.

  Lucy turned and looked up at him, smiling ear to ear. "Oh, hi, Dumb-name," she said cheerily.

  Wyatt smacked himself in the forehead. "Even better. This is just plain fantastic."

  "Dumb-name?"

  Wyatt sighed. "Hey, Julia."

  Ms. Abagail stirred and sat up. She squinted at Wyatt, looking dazed. "What happened?"

  Wyatt rolled his eyes. "I'd say ask Lucy, but it seems she didn't make the journey with us."

  Ms. Abagail frowned. "What are you talking about?"

  Julia spun around to face Ms. Abagail. She stuck out a hand. "Hi! You must be Ms. Abagail. Dumb-name and Lucy have told me so much about you. You seem really nice and oh so pretty. Maybe you'd like to be in our club? Can you keep a secret?"

  "Not the time," Wyatt said sharply.

  Ms. Abagail looked back at Wyatt. "Seriously, what's going on? Did we, like, fall through the floor again? And what's wrong with Lucy?"

  "Lucy's gone," Wyatt said.

  Julia nodded vigorously.

  "This," Wyatt said, nodding at the grinning girl, "is Julia. Seems I didn't send her away like Lucy accused me of doing. Guess I didn't break everything after all."

  Julia shook her head, sending her hair slapping about her face. "Oh, no. I've just been hiding. Lucy wanted time to get to know her new brother."

  "But you're back now," Wyatt said.

  "Oh yes," Julia chirped. "You said some really mean things to Lucy, Dumb-name, and she needs some time to cool off. She gets like that sometimes. Nasty and such. Mrs. Devereux says she's more beast than girl."

  Ms. Abagail stood and approached Wyatt. "What did you do?" she hissed.

  "I didn't do—I didn't mean to. We, well, we sort of got into a little argument. Lucy got mad, as you saw, and well, seems it activated whatever power she has. And sent us here."

  "What power?"

  Wyatt glanced at Julia. She had a handful of grass and was picking single blades to add to it, humming as she did. "I don't know. Far as I know, she's never actually been to the Realms. But obviously, she can take us between worlds like I could. Oh, and we somehow shared a dream last night. Or a memory. I don't really know what it was, but it was weird. I saw—"

  "Forget that for now," Ms. Abagail said. "Where are we and what do we do now?"

  Wyatt looked around. "No idea. I don't recognize any of this, though we're definitely back on Earth. Maybe Lucy—er, Julia—knows. Or we could just ask whoever lives there." He pointed past Ms. Abagail at the small house.

  Ms. Abagail turned.

  "I don't think Julia will be much help, but maybe we can, I don't know, coax Lucy back out. I don't actually know how it works. But first, let's find out where we are." Wyatt walked toward to the house, feeling confident despite the strange situation. Of the three, he thought himself most capable of handling such a problem. "We'll just have to play it cool and not mention how we got here. Obviously. And—" Wyatt stopped, noticing h
e was walking alone.

  Turning back, he saw Julia still picking at the grass and Ms. Abagail frozen in place. Wyatt threw up his hands and walked back to them. "We can't just stand around. We need to find out where we are and somehow get back to—"

  Ms. Abagail stood still as a statue, eyes wide and unblinking. Her fingers twitched at her side and carried a tremor all the way up to her shoulders.

  "Uh, Ms. Abagail?" Wyatt asked, waving a hand in front of her face. "You all right?"

  Ms. Abagail's mouth moved, but no words came out. Wyatt reached out a hand and touched her arm. She jumped like he'd shocked her.

  "Sorry," Wyatt said. "You okay?"

  Ms. Abagail abruptly turned and starting walking toward the road.

  "Ms. Abagail?" Wyatt called out.

  She made no indication of hearing him and didn't slow down.

  Wyatt ran to Julia and yanked her up by the arm. "Come on, Julia, something's wrong with Ms. Abagail."

  Julia dropped her fistful of grass. "Oh no. Well, let's save her, then."

  Wyatt smiled. "I was hoping you'd say that. Come on, let's go."

  Reunited, Greenwood Hospital's secret club raced after the young woman with the pink stripe in her hair. They caught up with her just as she reached the edge of the road. She stopped walking, coming to a halt next to the mailbox.

  "Hey, what's going on?" Wyatt asked. He leaned in front of her and saw that Ms. Abagail was silently crying.

  "Oh, you're sad," Julia said, her normally cheery voice subdued.

  "What...how..." Ms. Abagail said haltingly. The shaking in her fingers had grown.

  "How what?" Wyatt asked. "You look like you've seen a—wait, do you know where we are?"

  Ms. Abagail covered her mouth with a hand and turned away from him. As she did, Wyatt saw the name painted on the side of the mailbox. Miller.

  "This is your house?" Wyatt asked, knowing full well the answer.

  "Oh, that's good, right?" Julia asked. "We're not lost. Good, I hate being lost."

  "We need...we have to get out of here," Ms. Abagail said.

  "Well, yeah, that's the idea, but if this is—"