Forever and a Knight

by Bridget Essex

  “Oh...it’s a quarter moon’s worth of travel,” says Attis easily, turning on her heel and marching back toward the encampment.

  “A quarter moon? How long is a quarter moon?” I ask, trailing after her.

  “Seven days,” Attis replies over her shoulder.

  I stop cold.

  “Seven days?”

  When she doesn’t answer me, I trot to catch up with her. She’s already reached the camp and is stomping nonchalantly on the little fire in the circle of earth. I stare at her leather boot pummeling the fire, and then I swallow.

  “Seven days is a really long time... Is there any way we can speed things up just a bit?” I ask her, nervously fingering the edge of the blanket wrapped around my shoulders. Attis glances at me, surprised, grinding out the last of the flame with the heel of her boot.

  “No,” she tells me crisply. “Seven days is the length of time that Zilla can get us there, and that’s already pushing her more than I’m comfortable with.”

  “Who's Zilla?” I ask, utterly confused.

  Attis jerks her thumb over her shoulder. But when I glance over her shoulder, all I see is the horse.

  Oh. Zilla is the horse.

  “Zilla...like Godzilla?” I quip immediately, because it's the first thing that comes to mind. Attis glances back at me with continued bemusement.

  “I'm sure she thinks she's a god,” says Attis thoughtfully.

  I roll my eyes and follow after her again. “Can’t we ask...uh, Zilla to speed things just up a little?” I mutter, as Attis bends down and picks up the blanket I’d been sleeping on. She shakes it out with a smart snap and then folds it as quickly as Martha Stewart can fold a pillowcase.

  Attis casts me a single, pointed look. “No,” she growls.

  I shiver a little under my completely inadequate blanket. A soft, insistent, utterly chill breeze has begun to pick up beneath the trees, and it’s starting to blow a little harder. The leaves at my feet shift and begin to dance across the forest floor.

  Attis glances up at me from her crouched position, stuffing the blanket into one of her packs. “Look, if you’re going to travel with me, I think it’d be highly insulting if I let my charge die of frostbite,” she tells me mildly, untying the knot on one of the larger woven bags at her feet. She casts a glance back at me, as if sizing me up, and then she pulls what looks to be a fur jacket out of that pack. The coat is big and warm and so utterly inviting.

  “How many bunnies were harmed in the making of this?” I ask her, as she offers the coat to me.

  “There were no bunnies harmed in the making of this,” she says, her jaw hard as she helps me into the coat. “It is made from the skin of a cannibal werewolf. He devoured three children before I cut his throat.”

  I shrug the coat onto my shoulders and then stare at her for a long moment, waiting for the punchline.

  But there, of course, isn't one. She's serious.

  “Cannibal werewolf,” I repeat, my voice wooden as I finger the soft fur, suddenly wondering if I really want to be wearing this, after all.

  “Well,” she says, stopping to consider as her mouth curls up at the corners. “He isn’t a cannibal werewolf anymore,” she tells me, smiling a little at her own joke.

  “Tell me about it,” I mutter, and because the choice is either to put on this fur coat that once belonged to a cannibal werewolf (where the hell am I?) or freeze to death...I keep the damn cannibal werewolf coat on.

  I wrap my arms around myself. The coat’s pretty warm, which is awesome, but I’m still just wearing slippers and leopard print PJs on the bottom, so I feel the cold. But I'm a lot warmer than I was a moment ago, just wearing the blanket.

  I glance up at the little knoll, along the side of the encampment. “Is this where I came from last night?” I ask her, shoving my hands into—blessedly—pockets. The coat has pockets. Thank heaven for small favors.

  “Yes, but do not go up that hill,” Attis warns me, her voice sharp as she rolls up her own blanket and lashes it to one of the packs, tying the leather tightly. “Remember what those thorns did to you last night. I don’t have enough energy to heal you again this day,” she says, all business as she chirps toward Zilla. The big, black horse snorts out of her nose and swallows one last enormous mouthful of grass before sauntering on over to Attis.

  I glance down at my palm, the palm that's completely devoid of any wound. “You healed me? With what?”

  Attis glances up at me in surprise as she rises, placing one gloved hand along her horse's neck and patting her twice. “With magic, of course,” she tells me, in the same tone of voice that people say “duh.”

  Magic. Sure. Why not. I mean, after cannibal werewolves and finding myself in another world, it's par for the course for magic to come into the picture.

  I swallow and glance up at the knoll, wondering what's just out of sight beyond the edge of the hill and those trees. I wonder if there's a hole in the ground just past that one big pine tree, a hole that—if I fell into it, just like I fell into one last night—I'd appear back in my world, in my own, stupid Basement of Evil, a place that I would never, ever complain about again, having just fallen against something and knocked my head pretty badly. A knock that made me hallucinate all of this while I was unconscious.

  But I'm pretty damn sure, at this point, that this is no hallucination. This is too damn real, all of this. It's impossibly real.

  I still wonder if there's a hole up there—a portal back to my own world.

  Attis catches me glancing wistfully up toward the trees, and she shakes her head as she lifts a thick blanket up from the ground and places it on her horse's back. “I scouted the area, Josie. There is no trace of the portal that you fell through. I'm sorry. You're stuck with me for the time being.”

  I look at her in surprise. She genuinely does sound sorry. I wrap my arms tightly around myself, glance at her a little sheepishly.

  “I'm grateful for the coat. Thank you,” I tell her, my voice quiet.

  A softness comes over her face, and her mouth turns up at the corners—but just a little. “Take good care of it,” she tells me, her voice no-nonsense. “And...” She's lifting up her leather saddle—which doesn't look like any saddle I've ever seen (if anything, it reminds me of something I saw once on a horse at a Renaissance Festival...), but she pauses before placing it on Zilla's back. “If you see the bear again,” she begins, turning back to me and holding up her hand. Her amber eyes flash dangerously. “You do not go near her—do you understand? Do not let her near you.” Her jaw hardens. “She is a very dangerous beast. You must avoid her at all costs.”

  I open and shut my mouth. The bear hadn't seemed dangerous to me. She'd seemed the exact opposite of dangerous, actually: peaceful. Kind, even. I want to ask her what she's talking about, but at that moment, Zilla snorts, lifting her massive head and widening her nostrils as she looks out towards the woods. Attis glances toward the trees, too, and shakes her head. “Be ready to go in a moment,” she tells me, reaching under the horse's belly and grabbing one of the dangling leather straps of the saddle. “And stay close by. These woods are not safe.”

  I take a deep breath and grimace. I can't stay close by. I have to pee.

  This is going to be so awkward.

  I draw in another deep breath and wrap my arms around myself, trying to consider my options. I don't exactly want to step one tree away and do my business where the woman can very well hear it and probably see me (I'm shy, okay?). But Attis looks like she's serious about me actually sticking close by. I glance at the trees surrounding us miserably and clear my throat.

  “Uh...where can I go to...you know?” I ask her, waving my hand in a small circle and hoping desperately that she knows what I'm talking about and that I don't have to spell it out.

  She looks bemused as she cinches the saddle to her horse. “Are you really so modest?”

  “Hey, now,” I mutter, going as red as a beet. “It's not necessarily modesty that compels me t
o avoid peeing in front of a stranger,” I tell her, placing my hands on my hips. I don't add that I also don't want to pee in front of someone so damn attractive, but I'm certainly thinking it.

  I definitely fell on my head.

  “Behind a tree, if you must,” she sighs, shaking her head and chuckling a little.

  I march behind the nearest big tree and fumble with the ties at the waistband of my pajama bottoms. And then I do my business in the most clumsy way possible. It's not exactly the most comfortable pee of my life, but finally it's over, and I'm wondering what sort of leaves I should use, or if the leaves here are members of some lethal plant species, much like the random plant that jammed a thorn through the center of my hand yesterday. At the last minute, I simply pray that the leaf belongs to a nice, gentle plant species. I stand up, tie my pants and don't feel so much relieved as embarrassed.

  And that's when I hear the mewing.

  It's impossible, what I'm hearing. But I'm instantly and instinctively on high-alert, because if there's one thing in the world I know, it's my cat's mew.

  It's Wonder. And I can hear her. And she's mewing for me.

  This is her patented (and highly piteous) “I've not eaten in a thousand years, why are you trying to kill me by starvation, you terrible mom?” mew, which she uses on me about five minutes after she's eaten and wants more food.

  Oh, my God, I realize, a cold sweat breaking over my skin.

  I can hear my cat.

  My cat, who's supposed to be an entire world away.

  “Wonder?!” I call out to her, standing very still and trying to still my heart (which is beating so quickly, it's almost all I can hear) unsuccessfully. “Wonder?” I try again, a little softer.

  There's another mew, but this time, I can hear where it's coming from.

  The knoll that I fell down last night. The knoll that is covered in bushes with poisonous thorns that can, apparently, kill you.

  That's where her mew is coming from.

  I don't have time to think. I only have time to react.

  In that moment, nothing else matters—nothing else in the world, except for saving my cat.

  I bolt through the clearing that I woke up in, past the fire that Attis put out. I bolt past the surprised woman tacking up her horse and past the surprised horse. I race past everything, the fear coiling in my throat like something poisonous.

  There's another mew at the top of the knoll, and I hit the steep slop running. Pure adrenaline pours through me, propelling me up that hill when, really, I'm not the athletic type. My feet slip on the scree, and I fall forward, my palms sustaining a new nasty brush burn that I immediately ignore, because in a moment of climbing hand over hand, I'm at the top of the knoll...

  And I'm staring straight ahead, at a patch of briers.

  “Briers” is a stretch. These are bushes that are as tall as I am; some of them actually tower over me. These bushes are blood red, which is utterly creepy, but not nearly as creepy as the fact that each branch sports a ton of wicked-looking, clustered thorns that are longer than my hand.

  In the cold, drab, gray day, the tips of the thorns closest to me actually glisten. Like they're waiting to pierce me through.

  “Wonder?” I yell out, and then I see movement. Just a little movement. It's hard to spy anything through the sea of branches that faces me, but then I see...

  Wonder. She's practically prancing in her self-satisfied way across the ground, her tail up in a question mark as she slides herself through loops and tangles of the branches effortlessly.

  And doesn't touch them at all.

  She saunters through the last few feet of the branches, and then she sits down in front of me, glancing up with her slow blink as she begins to purr.

  There's not a scratch on her.

  I fall to my knees, scoop my stupid, wonderful, brave cat up into my arms, and I squeeze her so hard as I begin to cry that she makes a little squeak in the middle of her purring, but then she goes right back to that purring as she rubs the side of her face against my chin.

  Attis is somehow, impossibly, beside me in an instant, staring down at me and my cat with a look that I'm not sure is wonder or bewilderment, or is perhaps a bit of both.

  “What just happened?” she asks, glancing from Wonder back to the thorn bushes.

  “She's here,” I breathe, brushing my chin across the top of my blissfully purring cat's head. “How did she get here?” I stand, still holding Wonder, and together Attis and I look out beneath the tall pine trees at the mess of tangled thorns.

  “I...don't know,” says Attis carefully, placing her hands on her hips. She glances down again at me, raising one brow artfully. “It is well documented, of course, that all cats are magical creatures who can slip into other worlds whenever they wish.”

  “That's the first thing that's made sense to me all day,” I tell her, and then I actually chuckle. I glance out at the thorns again, my eyes wide as I sober. “But...do you think that maybe the portal opened?”

  Attis shakes her head and sighs for a long moment. “Even if it was open, Josie, there's no way that we could ever get to it. Not through those. But rest your mind: I don't believe the portal opened. I checked last night, and there was nothing there. If your cat has followed you here, it's much more possible that she did so under her own enchantments, and it had nothing to do with the portal.”

  I glance down at my cat, who blinks slowly at me and then—again—makes the mew sound that details how hungry she is, and how wet food had better be coming posthaste if I know what's good for me.

  “Um,” I grimace, glancing up at Attis. “Do you have any...uh...meat?”

  Her brow remains up, but Attis chuckles a little, too. “For the little puss? Perhaps.”

  I carry Wonder back down to the encampment, and Attis produces a few dried meat stick-type...things from one of her packs, and Wonder chews on them like she's died and gone to kitty heaven. Which is good enough for me.

  When Wonder is done—and I've stopped wondering (ha!) how she could possibly have gotten here—Attis and Zilla are all suited up and ready to move out.

  I open up the cannibal werewolf coat (I'll never be able to think of it as anything else) and scoop my cat up in my arms. She protests, but sleepily, since she's full of meat, and lets me place her not-insubstantial bulk into the coat and against me, buttoning the coat back up. As I turn to take in the fully tacked Zilla and the patiently waiting Attis, Wonder begins to purr again against me.

  I have my crazy cat with me, and that's kind of wonderful.

  I wander over to Attis and motion toward the trees. “Ready to go?” I ask her.

  Attis regards me with an unknowable expression, and then, as smoothly as if she's bowing, Attis kneels to the ground on one knee in front of me and cups her hands together, glancing up at me with her warm amber eyes.

  I stare at her for a long moment. She can't be serious.

  “Well?” she asks, her voice a low growl.

  “Uh...you want me to get up on that thing?” I ask her, staring up at the saddle and chewing my lip. “I'm not really much of a horse...uh, woman.”

  Attis stares at me, perplexed. “How else do you suppose that we will reach Arktos City before either of us are old and gray? I will walk, and you will ride her,” she says simply, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. “We must travel many miles, and judging by the state of your boots...” She raises an eyebrow as she stares pointedly at my feet and their fuzzy slippers, “I must insist that I walk and you ride. Zilla will take care of you—she is a good beast.”

  I glance up at the towering horse, feeling my heart thud unpleasantly inside of me. I'm, of course, remembering the single time that I ever sat on a horse. The Grand Canyon trip with my college friends. We were signed up for a trail ride, and they put me on a big black-and-white horse named Buck.

  It was kind of an appropriate name, since that's all he was capable of doing.

  I'd sailed through the air and sustaine
d a broken wrist. And that was the extent of my horseback adventure.

  Zilla is glancing around her shoulder at me now, her ears slicked back. I'm fairly certain that my unhappy feelings about the situation are mutual. Under my coat, Wonder gives an unpleasant growl. I don't think she's thrilled about this, either.

  “Josie,” says Attis then, with a very long sigh. Her hands are still cupped together, and she's still kneeling, but she's staring up at me with narrowed eyes now. “We really do not have all day.”

  I shake my head, hold Wonder a little tighter. “Your horse is enormous, I'm afraid of heights, I'm fairly certain she wants me dead...”

  Attis closes her eyes and opens them, fixing a smile that's obviously not genuine on her face. She growls out the words, trying to keep her tone light—and failing. “You will ride Zilla, and you will mount her right now. We have much ground to cover, and this area is not safe. Not with the Ursa being seen here.”

  “Ursa?” I ask her, but she shakes her head, pins me with her gaze.

  “Mount,” she growls. “Now.” And then, with maddening sarcasm, she says, in a low, hard voice, “Milady.”

  On any normal day, I don't enjoy being told what to do. When I'm cold and hungry and holding my miraculous-God-knows-how-she-got-here cat and should really be at a board meeting trying to save my radio station, but am, instead, on another world...well.

  Then I really, really don't enjoy being told what to do.

  “No,” I tell her, my voice cold and absolutely dead serious. “I can walk. At least for a long while,” I tell her, gesturing down to my slippers with their rubber soles. “I'm going to walk,” I tell her, but then I see the storm building behind her eyes.

  The horse glances around her shoulder, as if she finds this interaction vastly amusing.

  “You can mount into the saddle, or I can tie you to the saddle,” says Attis mildly, her voice in a low, controlled growl. “Which is it?”

  I stand firm, rising to my full height, one hand on my hips, another hand holding my cat tightly to me, a little like the weapon I know she can be.