Forever and a Knight

by Bridget Essex

  I’m hyper aware of everything in that moment. Of the fact that she’s holding gently to my hand, that her skin is warm, even though she just got out of a freezing creek, and even when everything else in the world (including me) seems so cold. That the heels of my slippers are sinking into the mud along the bank of the creek, and that my nose is so chilled that it feels like it’s falling off.

  But everything else is taking a backseat to the fact that this woman is still holding my hand, her fingers still gentle, her breath still warm against the skin of my palm.

  And then, behind my eyelids, something begins to...well, glow. The day itself has been gray and drab, with the sun showing no possibility of peeking out from behind clouds. But now, just the same, there’s a warm glow happening right in front of me, the light as soft and subdued as a candle's flame, or a match being struck. And, at the same time, my palm feels warmer than it did, even when she was blowing on it.

  “All right,” she says smoothly, the words rolling out like velvet, and—sadly (much to my dismay)—her fingers leave my hand. “You can open your eyes now,” she tells me.

  I do. And I stare down at the palm of my hand, spellbound.

  There’s...no wound.

  That's the best way I can describe it: it's as if the wound on my palm never existed. Which I know it most certainly did. I'd seen it with my own two eyes just a moment ago, and I'd felt the pain of it with my whole body. It had hurt like a mother. It was real.

  But it isn't there anymore.

  “Okay,” I say, taking a deep breath and clenching my hand into a fist. When there’s no pain in my fist, I open up my palm again, staring down into it. “Um...” I glance up at her, biting my lip as my brain cycles through the millions of things I could possibly say in this moment.

  Unfortunately, my quick mouth works before my brain can catch up with it.

  “What the hell?” I manage, as that mysterious, gorgeous, naked woman folds her arms in front of her chest and smiles ruefully, shaking her head.

  “That’s not how we say ‘thank you,’” she murmurs, her one brow artfully up, and then I’m blushing again, because she moves past me easily, toward the edge of the forest and a low leaf-less shrub that has a white blouse and what looks like deerskin pants hanging from its branches. Her silver armor is stacked neatly on the ground on top of her cloak.

  I stare at that pile of metal armor, at her sword and scabbard, leaning against a large pine tree. I try not to stare at her nude form, and I fail, so then I drink in the curves of her rear for a long moment before I open my mouth again.

  “What the hell is going on?” I persist then, steeling myself and following her. If she doesn’t care that she’s naked, I’m going to do my absolute best not to care, either (I’m currently failing at that, but hell, at least I’m trying).

  She glances at me over her shoulder and shakes her head, little droplets of water dripping off her hair and flying in different directions. “You tell me,” she growls, picking up a piece of cloth from the bushes.

  I watch, mesmerized, as she pulls on what I can really only describe as panties. They don’t look like the normal, Fruit of the Loom stuff you can get at Target, but they’re still similar enough that I know exactly what they are. I guess the best way to describe them would be tight-fitting boxers. They appear to be made out of silk, or something like that—they shimmer in the clouded light as she pulls them on, as they hug the muscular contours of her body as if they're a second skin.

  She places her hands on her hips again, and stands strongly, one brow raised, her mouth turning up at the corners as she catches me staring at her.

  I blush a shade of red so deep, I wonder if I’ll ever not look like a beet again.

  The woman shakes her head, and I can tell she’s doing her best not to chuckle. She sighs for a long moment, pulling the pants (which are made of something like deerskin, now that I can see them up close; they look like leather) on each leg and pulling them over her hips in a single fluid motion. She knots the leather thong at the waist.

  “Look,” the woman tells me, then, shaking her head. She’s pulling the blouse, which resembles something medieval men might have worn while penning poetry (I just get that impression when staring at it; it also looks like something Fabio might have worn on a romance novel cover), over her head, letting it settle over her breasts. She pulls her hair out of the shirt and shakes it again in her hand, droplets flying from her red mane. “I don’t know where you came from,” she says succinctly then, pulling socks that look hand-knit onto her feet after she sprawls down onto the cloak next to her armor. “I don’t know why you’re here. But as lovely as it’s been,” she says wryly, “I must be leaving you.”

  “What?” I squeak, moving past my outrage that she has no idea what’s going on right into the fear that she’s not going to stay to help me get back home. It's a quick change in my rotating inner list of things-to-worry-about. “How...how can I get back home? Where is home? Where's Boston?” I ask her, realizing that I sound like I’m pleading, but I’m actually kind of nervous, in that moment.

  She wouldn't really leave me here, all alone in this enormous forest, to fend for myself.

  Would she?

  “Hey,” I persist as she stands, shaking her head, her long, knee-length boots pulled on. She picks up the chest piece and back piece of armor and lifts them overhead, draping them over her shoulders, so that they fall over her front and back. The two pieces of metal are attached by leather straps on her shoulders and sides, and she’s tugging them tighter.

  The chest piece of the armor is sculpted for her breasts, which I actually don’t stare at, at that moment. Instead, I hold her deep, amber gaze.

  “Look at me,” I tell her, gesturing down to my Scooby Doo pajama top, leopard-print bottoms and the blanket wrapped around my shoulders. I hope that she can sufficiently see how not cut out for this I am. I step forward. “I have no idea where I am, and I have no idea how to get home, and you’re the only person I’ve met so far in a forest that shouldn’t even exist. You can’t just leave me here,” I tell her as she raises that eyebrow again, pulling shining metal gauntlets over her arms and wrists and drawing their leather straps tighter, too.

  “What kingdom do you hail from?” she asks me, her head to the side as her eyes rake over my body. There’s absolutely nothing sexual in the way that she looks at me, which is in turns disappointing (I mean, what are the chances she’s gay?) and also horrifying, because, again—I’m wearing a Scooby Doo shirt. I doubt that anyone has ever found someone wearing a Scooby Doo shirt utterly attractive.

  I blink, then, processing what she just said.

  Kingdom?

  “Look,” I tell her, taking a deep breath and hoping that my voice doesn’t shake. It shakes only a little, at the end of the word. “I was just doing laundry in my basement, minding my own damn business, and then I fell into a hole in the floor. My basement is in Boston, which is in the kingdom of the United States.” I take another deep breath and hold it for a moment while she considers my words, and not a single bit of understanding or recognition passes over her face. She's never heard of the United States. “What kingdom am I in right now?” I ask her, squeaking a little as I do my best to play along and not to feel overwhelmed.

  “The kingdom of Arktos,” she says promptly, her face growing a little stony as she slips a leather skirt over her feet and shimmies it up to her hips, over the leather pants. It’s not a long leather skirt—it only reaches about mid-thigh, but each feather of leather also has a metal plate on top of it, so it’s part of the armor. Normally, a skirt looks feminine on someone—but pulled over the leather pants and with the metal plates, it doesn't look feminine in the slightest on her.

  She looks like a warrior.

  “Arktos,” I repeat in a whisper.

  She sighs, then, turning as she hooks her scabbard over her shoulder and plucks up her cloak. She walks toward me, the metal clinking where her arm gauntlet brushes against the sto
mach of her armored chest piece. I think she's going to walk past me, but then she pauses.

  She stares, her amber eyes dark and deep, as she glances down at my front.

  “Where did this come from?” she breathes, and she reaches out and brushes her fingers against the blanket that’s over my chest.

  I’m red again and finding it difficult to breathe, but then I realize that she’s talking about the silver hairs on the blanket. The silver hairs from the bear.

  “Um,” I mutter, clearing my throat again. “They came from the bear I just saw.”

  I mean, what else am I going to say? It’s the truth. But when she stares at me, her eyes are so wide, and her lips are parted, like she’s finally the one who’s surprised about something.

  “A bear?” she asks me then, narrowing her eyes and stepping forward, even closer to me. We’re almost touching, and then we are, because she’s gripping my shoulders in her gloved hands, holding me tightly, staring down into my eyes with her own dark ones as she frowns deeply, her lips in a thin, tight line. “You saw a bear? A silver bear?” she growls. “What did it look like? When did you see it?”

  She’s holding me so tightly that I wince, and only then does she blink, stepping back and releasing my arms. She takes a deep breath, folding her arms in front of her.

  “Just now. It was back there—in the woods. But it disappeared,” I tell her, straightening my blanket in front of me.

  She stares at me, as if mesmerized for a long moment, as if I’m something magical.

  I don’t mind at all that she’s looking at me like that. For the first time since I came to this crazy place, I feel something good unfurling deep inside of me. I love how she’s looking at me...

  But just as quickly, she glances away, darting past me in a graceful trot, up the bank of the creek and back into the forest proper.

  “Over here?” she calls over her shoulder. “Where exactly did you see her?”

  “Over there, I guess?” I call after her, following, but a bit more slowly. “I’m not exactly familiar with this area,” I tell her sarcastically, as I stand, wrapped tightly in my blanket, following her back the way I came. “Look, she disappeared,” I reiterate, as she crouches on the ground, pressing her gloved fingers to the earth with a frown.

  She’s pressing her fingers, I realize just then, into an enormous paw print.

  She appears deep in thought for a long moment, and though I can't see her face, the sweep of hair in front of her features, the curve of her shoulders...there's something bothering her.

  The woman stands fluidly, turning on her heel and prowling toward me, then. She stops in front of me, reaching out with her hand and fingering the blanket as she stares down at the silver hairs with a deep frown.

  My heart is threatening to launch itself right out of my rib cage.

  Her fingers are directly over my heart, and as she turns the blanket this way and that, her gloved hand brushes against my left breast.

  A shiver races through me, even as I try to stomp it down. She flicks her gaze into my eyes then, and for a moment, I think she’s amused, but then her intensity comes back.

  “What did she do?” she asks, her voice low.

  “She...uh...came up to me,” I tell her, clearing my throat. “And she sort of stood there for a while. We were nose to nose. And then she just turned, and she walked away. She brushed her shoulder against the blanket, and that’s where the hairs came from. But when I looked back up, she was completely gone, like she’d disappeared. Which,” I add, chuckling a little, though it’s high-pitched and desperate-sounding, “there’s no way that she could just have disappeared. I mean, right?” I ask her, swallowing.

  She gazes deeply into my eyes for a long moment.

  I notice that she hasn’t let go of the blanket. That the backs of her fingers are still against my heart.

  “What is your name?” she asks me, mystified.

  “I’m Josie Beckett,” I tell her easily, the words rolling out of my mouth, sounding exactly as they do when I announce that fact a thousand times every morning on the radio. That’s because I’m smiling like I do when I announce it into my microphone, I realize with no small amount of chagrin, as I stare up into this stranger’s eyes.

  “Josie Beckett,” she says, one eyebrow artfully raised, “I am Attis. And you are in great danger. You are not safe in these woods.”

  I blink up at her, smile fading. I’m not exactly certain what I thought she’d say, but this...isn't it.

  “What do you mean, I’m not safe? I don’t even want to be in these woods,” I tell her miserably. “I just want to go home. I have a meeting today, and I’ve probably already missed it, and that means that my radio station...” I trail off, taking in the blankness of Attis’ expression. She has no idea what I'm talking about. “I have to go home,” I tell her then, simply, shaking my head. “I need to go home.”

  “What kingdom did you say you were from?” she asks, stepping back, her hand falling to her side as she stands surely, feet hip-width apart, her head to the side as she considers me like a difficult problem that needs to be solved.

  “I’m from Boston,” I tell her. “It’s not a kingdom. It’s a city.”

  “Well,” she says, folding her arms in front of her, “there is no Boston that I know of.” She considers me with shrewd eyes. “And what world are you from, Josie Beckett?”

  “Just call me Josie,” I tell her, before I fully understand that she’s asking me what planet I’m from. “For real?” I ask her, blinking, but she looks dead serious, her mouth in that thin, hard line and her amber eyes glinting. I wait for a long moment for the punchline, but there isn't one.

  “Earth,” I finally tell her in the tiniest voice I’ve ever used. “I’m from Earth.”

  The woman stares at me for a long moment before shaking her head. “You are on Earth no longer, Josie,” she growls, not unkindly. “This is Agrotera.”

  Chapter 4: The Cat

  “You’re joking,” I tell Attis, stepping forward and wrapping my fingers around the edges of the metal chest piece of her armor and holding her tightly. I shake her a little, panicked. “You’re joking, right? You’re telling me I’m on a different world?”

  Attis allows me to cling to her, but one of her eyebrows arches high to the sky. “I’m telling you,” she says, surprisingly gentle, reaching up with her gloved hands to curl her fingers over mine, “that you’re on Agrotera.”

  “How is this... How is this possible?” I ask her, letting her go and stepping backward as I wrap the blanket so tightly around myself that I cough a little. “I'm on another world? How am I going to get home?” I take a deep breath, my heart rate skyrocketing. I take a few more deep breaths, calming myself down. I close my eyes, swallow. “What am I going to do?” I say then, softly.

  The woman clears her throat and shifts her weight back into her heels. “Well,” she says, drawing out the word a little, her head to the side again. She watches me for a long moment, her piercing gaze unwavering until she says in a soft growl, “You could come with me.”

  I stare at her. Go with her? “Where are you going?” I ask, uncertainly.

  She’s the only human (God, I hope she’s human. She looks human—that's got to count for something) I've met since I came to this place. I don’t want to let her out of my sight, but at the same time, a complete stranger is telling me to come with her to God knows where. I was raised in Boston. I wasn’t born yesterday. For all I know, she wants to eat me (though, I admit, she doesn’t exactly look like a cannibal. Whatever a cannibal looks like. I've...never thought about what a cannibal looks like before, but Attis isn't what I might have imagined).

  “I’m journeying to Arktos City,” she says smoothly, chin up as she regards me with her warm amber eyes. “I’m on my way there for the Festival of Stars.”

  “I’d prefer the Festival of Getting Me Back to My Own Damn Planet,” I tell her, voice sharp, but she actually laughs, lifting her head up, tilting h
er chin back, and letting out peals of laughter.

  It’s the first time I’ve seen her smile, like, actually smile, and the first time I’ve seen her laugh. God, she’s gorgeous when she laughs. Her hard exterior sort of melts, and all of her strength remains, but there’s a sort of gentleness there, too, in the way that she lets her head tilt back, exposing the sweet, cream-colored skin of her neck, the way she sounds. It’s bright and warm, her laughter. I love it.

  She’s also laughing at my joke, which warms me from the inside out.

  But I’ve currently got problems, and I shouldn’t be paying so much attention to what she sounds like (or, you know, looks like) when she’s laughing. I shouldn’t be paying so much attention to how she stands, her gloved hands on her hips, or how the armor clings to her body because of the leather straps, or how gorgeous her hips and thighs look, encased in that leather.

  I’m on another planet, and I’m standing next to a gorgeous woman wearing armor.

  I’ve got to try to look on the bright side, if only for a moment. And I have to admit: things could be worse.

  “Okay, Arktos City,” I say, softening a bit. “What’s there?”

  She’s stopped laughing, but she’s still smiling, her full lips turning up at the corners as she gazes at me with bemusement. But when I speak, she puts her head to the side again, and again considers me.

  “Well,” she says, straightening, “there just might be someone in Arktos City who could help you, possibly show you a way to get back to your world. But,” she says sharply, when I gasp, “it’s just a guess. I’m not certain she can help at all. Still, it’s worth a try.”

  I might (might) just have a ticket home.

  “Oh, my God!” I squeal, and then I’m so damn excited—like, little-kid-at-Christmas excited—that I bounce in place for a moment. All I can think about is the fact that, yeah, maybe I couldn't make the board meeting, but maybe I can reschedule if they'll give me another chance... “So, we’re heading to that city now? Like, right now? Let’s go!” I tell her, jerking my thumb back toward the encampment. “Is it, like, a couple of miles from here?” She stares at me blankly, and I try to curb my enthusiasm. “Um...how far is it?”