by Blair Drake
Maybe they had something to do with whomever was still trying to keep her safe. The only two people who would care enough would be Hettie or Luke, and Luke hadn’t contacted her in over a year. Of course, Gideon loved her, he always had. She didn’t know if he loved anyone else equally, but she knew he cared about her even if only for her cuddles. With the two of them draped around each other on the bed, she closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep. Maybe she could wake up with some bright ideas.
The trouble was, even though she lay here with her eyes closed, she wasn’t sleeping. Eyes open, she reached for the talisman to see that yet another light had gone out. She looked toward the window and saw the darkness outside. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw…someone. But a quick jerk of her head found nothing there; nothing alive, that is. Still…she could have sworn she saw a teenage boy.
She sat up slowly, Gideon in her arms, and recalled that, according to the voice, she was safe in the ice field. But she’d come back to the school, and chances were, she brought the darkness here again. That means if anybody was left here alive, they would be in danger.
“What have I done?”
Chapter 9
She lay down heavily on the bed. All the joy of having made it back to her bedroom was completely wiped out in the face of the danger she unknowingly brought here. She realized more and more how much somebody put particular effort into keeping her safe. They obviously figured she could either stay there in that icy-tundra bubble until she was rescued, or she could rescue herself. Instead, she panicked and went on a wild spree, bouncing around the world, trying to figure out how to get back to where she’d been. All she managed to do was return here, in this thin, plastic world, and brought the danger with her to boot.
Just then, Gideon cried out. She sat up and draped him across her thighs. She reached down to stroke him. “How come you and Winter are the only things alive in this world?”
She was so damn tired of the silence around her. However, there were the voices in her head. Who were those voices? Was she really alone, or was it because she was in this plastic world they were just voices? Maybe that was the only way they, as 3-D people, could communicate with her because she was caught up in the 2-D bubble. She groaned at all the possibilities with no answers. “I’m going a little crazy here, guys.”
“No, you’re not.”
She grinned, happy to hear the voice yet again in her head. “So, if I wasn’t in this plastic 2-D world, we would be facing each other and talking normally?” she asked.
Silence, but she felt almost a mental shrug, as if to say, Who knows?
She shook her head. “I don’t know what this is all about, but I’m really glad you’re there,” she said being completely honest. “I was terribly lonely last year—at least until I became friends with Annalise. Even that couldn’t fill the void fully.” She held up a hand, knowing immediately what the voice would say. “I know. That’s my lesson, but I just want you to know it’s really nice to have you around.”
“It is your lesson, and so is this—we’ve always been here.”
Her shoulders sagged. “What does that mean?”
There was laughter again.
She shook her head hard. “I really don’t like to be laughed at. No one does,” she snapped. “This quest is tough enough at the moment without that too. I hope you’re not playing games like that with the others.”
Then the voice seemed to change.
“Everyone is facing a quest, but they will all have, in their own way, a unique journey.”
“Wow. Okay. That changes things completely then.” She waited a moment then said, “Did you mean to push me out of the black circle?”
“What?”
She grinned, happy to know she knew something they didn’t. “Weren’t you the one whose hand was in the center of my back and pushed me out of the circle?”
“No.”
But then, in the background, she could hear a discussion going on, though she couldn’t hear the words. “So there is more than one of you here? Did the other person push me out?”
Silence.
She nodded slowly. “Now that’s interesting.”
The second voice said. “Why is that interesting?”
“Because maybe he wasn’t supposed to, or maybe you weren’t supposed to know, or maybe you’re not working together at all?”
Silence.
It was really frustrating they wouldn’t give her more information. She stood, letting Gideon prop up on her shoulder, and paced the small room. Winter ignored her and slept on.
“If the person who pushed me out of the darkness was trying to help me, who the heck was it? And whoever it was who did help me that much, is it possible to get a little more help to figure out how to get out of here?”
Nothing.
Just then she thought she heard a voice. She spun around and stared at the bedroom door. When the sound didn’t repeat itself, she tiptoed to the doorway and peered outside. She thought she caught sight of something in the corner of her eye. It was the same male face, but it was only a glimpse, and a faint one at that.
“Hello? Anyone there?”
No answer.
She walked into the hallway and tried to look from her peripheral vision, which is where she caught sight of the person before. There was somebody there. She knew that sounded crazy, but at least there was something definitive. “Hello, are you in trouble? Can I help you?”
She swore a yes whispered through the winds, but, at this point in time, she couldn’t count on anything, not the voices in her head or her own interpretation of what was happening. Something really crazy was going on. Her main question was how could she get back to help the rest of her people? She laughed at her wording. Her people? That was a first. She’d always felt like it was her against them, that she was a stranger, and if it hadn’t been for Luke, she never would’ve felt connected to the people here in any way. After he left, she was so lost...and alone.
Even now she loved Luke. How long would it take for her to get over him like he got over her? Why the hell else wouldn’t he have anything to do with her once he left? If he had a problem, surely he could have said something; surely they could have worked it out.
Closing the door to leave Winter safely inside sleeping, she strode down the hallway, looking for any sign of the other face she thought she saw. The only way that could happen was if there was a bleed-through in the dimensions. Maybe somebody was trying to contact her. Maybe her talisman was trying to speak to another student’s talisman? Was that possible? Maybe it was possible if both talismans were in the same dimension? She closed her eyes and stopped in the middle the hallway. In her mind, she reached out and sent thoughts to her classmates. I’m here. If anybody wants to find me, I’m right here.
She waited a long moment, opened her eyes, and slowly looked around. A kind of lightning flash appeared, then a buzz filled the air around her as if somebody was trying to communicate, but they hadn’t figured out how. Maybe they couldn’t communicate, or maybe she was in such a 2-D state that so many of the five human senses were blocked off so people couldn’t access her face. Maybe that was the problem. Maybe it had nothing to do with Melissa being unable to return to the real world as much as the black cloud’s energy was too strong to overcome. If that was the case, maybe the whole group of schoolkids was trying to contact Melissa.
Could it be the others had mounted a rescue, and she just needed to be patient? Wouldn’t that be sweet?
Almost instantly she remembered the voice—or rather one of the voices—saying they all had unique quests of their own to do. Meaning, they could be in as much trouble as Melissa was and hoping the others were trying to rescue them.
It was highly likely no one was left to take charge of anything at all.
She took one last look to see if she could catch a glimpse of the boy again, then sighed and returned to her room, shutting the door to make sure Winter wasn’t set loose in this huge school.
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“Gideon, what can we do from this dimension? We have to get safely get back to the school in the 3-D world. We can’t lead the darkness back to that dimension either.”
Of course, Gideon didn’t answer. She was getting damn tired of hearing her own voice. She walked over to the stereo on one side of her room and hit the Play button. Music filled the air, but it was haunting, as if coming from a long distance. She shifted to a couple channels and still heard the same thing. Finally, she grabbed a CD, popped it into the holder, and hit Play. Same thing. Musical strains she loved so much filled the room but didn’t have the same warm welcome or joyous feeling. Instead, it was all haunting, distant, disembodied almost. She shivered and shut off the music.
With Gideon in her arm, and a quick check of the sleeping Winter, she left her room. She closed the door securely and walked through the upstairs to the opposite end, then headed down to the kitchen. “Is there a portal here I can use to cross to the other dimension?” she asked the voices in her head.
She swore one of the voices paused, like the other voice was giving it a stare down.
“No.” The voice sounded…frustrated.
“Can I make one?”
“I don’t know. Can you?” the voice countered.
She frowned. “That’s what I want to know. I’ve made portals and traveled, but it’s always kept me on this 2-D side of life. Do I have to return to the icy field to make the portal returning me to the 3-D school?”
“No.”
“Thanks for answering.” She frowned, catching just a hint of a tone in the voice she wondered about. It was almost familiar but not quite. “Hettie, you sure that’s not you?”
“No.”
She shrugged. “Okay. So, what do I call you?” She hoped the voice would identify itself. She felt foolish thinking of it as an it. Surely a name would help her identify them.
“You know my name,” the voice said in exasperation.
She froze, thought about the familiarity she heard, and realized the reason she couldn’t pinpoint the voice was because of the distance. In this world, she was living in a flat zone, a place with no echo that allowed her to understand or recognize the voice. “Would I recognize you if I saw you?”
“Of course you would.”
“You’re one of my friends, one of the other students?”
“Sort of…”
“So, since I’m in this weird space, it stops me from recognizing your voice.” That made sense. It was so odd to think this person knew who she was, and she didn’t know who they were. It was also irritating. “You could just tell me, you know.”
She knew this person knew her.
Hettie knew her background and likely Luke’s.
“So how come being alone is my lesson?”
“You will have other lessons to learn. Each student on a quest has abilities to gain, lessons to learn. It’s up to each of you to figure out how they go together.”
“We all have abilities?” she asked in delight. “Can everyone open portals?”
“Not necessarily,” the voice warned. “What your abilities are versus anybody else’s is quite different.”
“But there is a whole school full of us?”
“No, not really.”
She frowned and continued to walk slowly with Gideon in her arms. “How can Gideon be in this flat world?”
“Because you didn’t need or didn’t want Gideon to be flat. You wanted Gideon to be real.”
“What?” She shook her head. “That makes no sense. What about Winter?”
“Again you wanted Winter to be real.”
“But I want my old world to be real too,” she cried out, desperately trying to understand this new rule. “And that hasn’t happened so far.”
“It’s easier for animals to shift. They have a natural affinity for dimensional travel. So Gideon is capable of traveling back and forth on his own.”
She came to the top of the stairs, but as she stared down the long empty hallway, she realized the hallway was lit up behind her, but the stairs before her were dark. “How much do light and dark play into my 2-D world here?”
“A lot.”
“Can you tell me in what way?”
“No.”
Instead of getting frustrated or angry, she tried to reword the issue so she could get more information. “Is it light because that’s where I’ve been?”
“Not quite so simple.”
“Is it dark because I haven’t been there yet?”
“It’s not quite so simple.”
She stared down at the dark stairs and realized it was a different darkness than how the black cloud swirled angrily outside the school. “Do I need a different kind of portal to cross the dimension?”
“No.”
That brought her eyebrows shooting upward toward her hairline. “So then why can I not cross that divide?”
“That’s part of your lesson.”
She frowned. “I get that. If all this darkness is sitting, waiting to find a way back to the school where I was taken from, isn’t it important I get back as fast as I can to help the others?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, can you help me cross it?”
“Not even a little bit,” the voice said cheerfully. “However, you will thank us at the end of all this.”
“I doubt it,” she said in a dark voice, “when you refuse to make this easier for me.”
“Sure, but a big lesson is here you need to learn, and that lesson will make a big change in who you are both inside and out.”
And with that, the voice disappeared, leaving her mind blank and empty.
It was very easy to feel the difference from having the voice there and not. So much she realized how much she had already learned. “The portals, the voices talking inside my head,” she muttered. “Making Gideon and Winter part of this world because I needed them.”
And she did. She hugged Gideon close and kissed the top of his head, loving the way his diesel engine kicked in and murmured back.
“Okay, Gideon; apparently, you’re more important than bringing Hettie.” If she’d managed to bring Hettie over, Melissa would at least have someone to talk to. Someone to help her out of this predicament.
So why had she chosen Gideon?
And she realized part of the answer was because he’d always been there for her, the first thing she reached for when she was upset. He’d never shunned her, never ran away from her. He’d been the mainstay of her life until Annalise arrived, a kindred soul, another introvert, and someone who needed a friend. That helped bring Melissa out of her shell a little bit, a shell she’d slid right back into like a second skin. It was a skin she’d worn before Luke. He brought her out of it just by loving her. Once he walked away, she slid back into her skin—deeper than ever.
More distrustful than ever.
More reserved than ever.
More alone than she felt possible.
She slammed the door on all the others to avoid getting hurt again and to avoid making the same mistake again. It was hard to trust your judgment when you kept making the wrong decisions.
In Gideon, she’d found a friend who hadn’t judged her, laughed at her, or pitied her. He just accepted her, and that meant everything.
She was friendly and polite on the outside, keeping up appearances, but inside she was locked down, afraid to open up and feel.
She’d sensed the same thing within Annalise. Melissa felt she had to reach out and touch her friend in some way to stop Annalise from becoming a clone of what Melissa became. Then she realized something else. “Gideon, I brought you into this world to be with me because I really care about you. I felt a connection with you. What’s the chance I can bring somebody else here because I want that same connection?”
Gideon stared at her, his golden eyes shining marbles, but there was no expression in them, other than love me.
She kissed and hugged him gently, but instead of going down the stairs, she wandered th
e upstairs hallway. Why wouldn’t it work? Could she bring Hettie over to help her? Or was that against the rules? Likely there were rules stopping her from helping Melissa. This was a quest, a lifetime achievement if these abilities were anything to go by.
Back in her room, after again checking on the sleeping Winter, she lay down on her bed, staring at the ceiling. “I’ll sleep for a few hours,” she announced, and in a moment of positivity, she added, “When I wake up, I will have some answers.”
She closed her eyes, rolled to her side with the big tomcat in her arms, who still wasn’t protesting anything she did to him, and closed her eyes ready to sleep. And she waited.
And she waited.
And she waited some more.
Finally, she opened her eyes and groaned. “So, in this dimension, apparently I don’t feel tired either.”
Melissa was frustrated. So maybe she needed to do some more portal-hopping. She closed her eyes and, with Gideon tight in her arms, she opened a portal back to the icy fields. She couldn’t stop trying to go back to that same place.
Just as she was about to enter, she froze. What if she lost Gideon? She quickly shut down the portal and sat, torn with indecision. That wasn’t a place for him. Now that she’d brought him into this 2-D world, how could she leave him behind? She might never find him again. There was a damn good chance he wouldn’t be up to going from one place to the other either. And what good would it really do to go back to that icy wilderness? She’d been there twice and hadn’t solved anything.
She took Winter home again, and it was his choice to return with her, but there was no guarantee that she’d have the same outcome with Gideon. She’d be devastated if anything happened to him. Was she really confined then to the 2-D school, or should she just leave him behind? It was his home too.
What did the voice say about how animals had a natural affinity for dimensions travel? So, did she call Gideon here to this 2-D world, or could Gideon travel back and forth between the 2-D school and the 3-D school because it was the same building, just on different planes, in different dimensions?
