I saw the bear. And then...I was back here.
I'm back home.
“Oh, God, Attis,” I whisper, tears pouring down my cheeks as I stand up, as I pace in small circles, running my hands over the walls of the basement, trying to find an opening, a crack, a door...anything. But of course there's nothing there.
The portal opened and took me back through. And it's closed again.
I sink down to my knees, and then there's no more holding back the tears. They stream down my face as I put my head in my hands, as I sob out in the darkness of my basement.
Somehow, I manage to get to the elevator. I manage to punch the right floor button, and I manage to get up to my apartment. My keys are in the pocket of my bottoms, and I fumble with them at the door.
When I get into my apartment, I stare at what was once so familiar of a room. My living room. There's my red couch with the teal blue pillows, the bright aqua walls and the terribly messy kitchen. There's Wonder, sitting on the counter, licking her lips as she digs into the bowl of wet food.
I stare at everything around me, breaking down inside. It was once so familiar, but now it's foreign to me. I hardly recognize anything, like I'm looking at it all with different eyes.
Which I am, I realize, as I sink down on one of my stools by the kitchen counter. Wonder saunters over to me, pressing her forehead against my forehead as I wrap my cat in my arms, drawing her close to me, and I begin to sob into her fur.
Getting home was all I wanted seven short days ago.
But I know this place isn't home any longer.
Attis is my home. Wherever she is is where I'm supposed to be.
But she's a world away.
---
Somehow, impossibly, it's the same night that I left, I realize. I stare at the date on my laptop screen in shock, but then, should anything shock me anymore? I shut the laptop, push it away from me across the bed and stare at the outfit I've laid out carefully on the chair in the corner of the room.
Tomorrow morning, the meeting with the trust committee is going to take place.
Like nothing ever happened.
Like my life didn't, in any way, change.
Part of me wonders if this was one long, psychotic episode. That maybe I imagined all of it. But I know I didn't. I know. My clothes are dirty, Wonder has muddy mats on her paws and legs, and even without that physical evidence, the fact of the matter is that I'm changed. When I look in the mirror...there's a completely different person looking out at me now. I don't recognize her anymore, but—somehow—I think she's much better than the person who fell through that portal into another world. She's grown. She's changed. Irrevocably changed.
I place my hand over my heart, press down, trying to ease the ache that fills me. But nothing can ease that ache. The woman I love is a world away. And I can't reach her.
It's not fair. Life's unfair, I realize that, but this? This is miserably unfair. I spent a lot of time tonight yelling at nothing in particular, curling myself up into the tiniest ball possible on my bed, banging my fists against the coverlet. But my anger did nothing to change my situation, and now I'm so exhausted, I'm only left with my sorrow.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. I'd made my choice. I'd chosen her.
I need time to mourn this, to deal with this. But of course I don't have any time. This is my sister's death all over again. Somehow, I had to keep going with my life like the best person I'd ever known wasn't taken from me, when Ellie died.
And somehow, now, I have to keep going. I have to convince several people that a radio station they already don't believe in deserves another chance. Somehow, I have to keep living, keep trying, when everything seems like such a pale imitation of what life can really be like.
Because life? It can be so perfect. I close my eyes, I imagine Attis over me, her beautiful, soft smile turning up the corners of her lips as she trails a finger down my chin, to the skin of my neck. I breathe out, my heart racing, as I imagine Attis bending low to press that perfect warm mouth to mine.
“Josie,” she'd whisper. She'd whisper my name like a prayer.
Wonder jumps up on the bed next to me, making a light meow, bumping her forehead against my elbow as I curl into a tighter ball, as I try to pick up all my broken pieces.
I pass a sleepless night, tossing and turning, feverish with heartache and sadness as I try to make sense of the past seven days, and somehow can't. Because, if everything that just happened is supposed to make sense, then I wouldn't have left Attis. I wouldn't have been taken from her.
I get up at six o'clock in the morning, and I call Carly, punching the numbers into my cell phone with blurry eyes.
“Yes?” is how she answers, her voice icy.
“Can we talk?” I ask her.
There's a long pause, and—for a long moment—I think she's going to tell me no.
“Meet me at the coffee shop in front of the trust building,” she tells me, words clipped. And then she hangs up.
I get dressed, pulling on my nicest clothes with numb hands, lifting my chin to my reflection in the mirror.
The woman who gazes back at me looks empty.
---
“Wow,” says Carly, her brows raised when I walk into the coffee shop. She leans back in her seat, crossing her legs as she takes a sip of her coffee. “You look like hell,” she tells me helpfully, her voice edged in sharpness.
“Something...happened to me,” I tell her, licking my lips. “Look, I need to apologize. I was very wrong, and it was shit of me. I should never have made fun of you about the Boston Beast. You staked your professional reputation on it, you stuck your neck out—that took a lot of bravery. And I was wrong. The Boston Beast existed. I'm really sorry, Carly.”
I think that if I'd told her Santa Claus was outside and wanted to meet her, Carly wouldn't have been more surprised. She stares at me with wide eyes, her mouth actually open for a long moment before she snaps it shut, leaning forward across the table. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she asks succinctly then. Her eyes narrow as she taps the tabletop. “Are you sick? Are you dying?”
“No,” I tell her, though, inside, it very much feels like I am. “I was just wrong, and I owed you an apology. I wanted to make it right.”
“How do you know that the Boston Beast was real?” she asks me, leaning back in her chair and holding me in place with her suspicious gaze.
“I...met someone,” I tell her, pressing my hands flat to the table.
Carly still gazes at me in suspicion, but her eyes are growing wider. “Who did you meet, Josie?” she asks me, her voice softening.
“Carly,” I tell her, leaning across the table, “you wouldn't believe me if I told you. And, anyway, we need to prepare for the meeting.” I'm so tired when I say those words. I can't imagine going in front of all those people, convincing them of...
“Wait,” says Carly, leaning forward then, reaching across the table and pressing her fingers to my arm in the very first gesture of niceness she's ever shown me. “Just...Josie, please...trust me. And try me. I've seen some stuff you wouldn't believe,” she says, her head to the side.
“Yeah,” I tell her softly, biting my lip. “So have I.” I take a deep breath. “What would you say if I told you that I met someone,” I tell her, my radio brain taking over, “a veritable...knight in shining armor?”
Across the table, Carly actually pales, her eyes going wider.
“Josie,” she says, leaning closer to me and dropping her voice, “I'd tell you...it's not the first time I've heard that story.”
I don't know why, but I take a deep breath, and then I do something that is probably very stupid. I tell Carly everything. I tell her how I fell through a portal onto a lady knight. I tell her how I journeyed with this lady knight toward a city, how we went on adventures, and how—across the course of a single week—we fell in love.
And Carly listens attentively, making sympathetic noises when the time is right, but—mostly—remaining
silent. When I'm finally done, spent, leaning back in my chair, Carly leans forward, taking a deep breath.
“Holly... Well. It's a small, small world,” says Carly, her eyes shining as she reaches across the table. She takes my hand and squeezes it, causing me to raise an eyebrow. “And I believe you, utterly,” says Carly with a bright smile. “Because—”
I'm staring at her with wide eyes when the phone in my pocket begins to ring. I frown, reaching in... Who the hell would call me so early in the morning? I glance down at the phone, and then I take a deep breath.
It's Deb.
“The trust committee is a bunch of bastards, and they've moved the meeting up,” she snaps the second I answer the phone. “They're trying to make certain you don't make the meeting. Where are you?”
I glance out of the coffee shop across the street to the building where the Moran Grant Trust resides.
“Believe it or not,” I tell Deb, rising and gesturing to Carly to follow me, “we're right outside of the building.”
“Oh, thank Freddie Mercury,” Deb mutters. I can hear her take a deep inhale of a cigarette on the other end of the line. “Look, just get in there and do your best, okay? They're bastards. I don't think they're going to listen to you. But, hey, you're giving it a shot, so go you.” Her voice is so dry and sarcastic, and I find myself actually chuckling.
After telling Carly everything, I feel strangely light.
I'm going to go in there, and I'm going to give it my best. And that's really all I can do.
“Your stirring speech has moved me,” I quip to Deb, surprised that I'm still capable of jokes. “Don't worry. We'll call you when we're out.”
“Good luck,” she mutters and hangs up.
Carly and I practically trot across the street and then the courtyard in front of the high-rise building.
“They moved up the meeting,” I tell her, pushing through the rotating door. “It's now. They don't really want to meet with us, so they're being assholes.”
“I figured that,” she snorts. We race to the elevator.
“What floor is the Moran Trust?” I ask the guy behind the front desk.
“Eleven,” he tells me with a frown. “Do you have an appointment?”
“We're with LEM Public Access,” I tell him, as the elevator door slides open.
He's about to open his mouth, about to argue with us, but we're already in the elevator, and the door is already—blessedly—sliding closed.
The floors ding past, and then we're through reception and waiting in the plush waiting room, sitting on chairs, staring at one another.
“This is it,” Carly whispers, licking her lips.
“They can see you now,” the receptionist tells us, swinging open the board room doors.
There are eleven men and two women sitting at the broad table that takes up the entire room. At the far end is a podium and a sleek wall that a projector is projecting a white screen onto. Because the room is darkened a little, it's difficult to make out features of the committee members. They all look business-y...successful.
And they're all frowning.
They really, really don't want to hear this pitch.
But you know what? I just faced down a wolf. I faced down that wolf, and I—somehow—survived.
They don't scare me. Not even a little.
“Gentlemen—ladies,” I say, clearing my throat and launching into my radio voice seamlessly. “I'm Josie Beckett, and this is Carly Aisley, and we represent LEM Public Access Television and Radio. I have it on the best authority that the grant that you so generously gave us each year has been revoked because someone on the board here was swayed by an argument by conservatives that our radio and television stations are liberal media.”
A guy on the far right starts to bluster. “That's not true,” he begins, coughing.
Bingo. Got him.
“But we'd like to demonstrate to you that public access programming is important for the city of Boston,” says Carly smoothly, stepping up next to me.
Carly proceeds to show them the interviews she gathered with the people on the streets, projecting the raw footage onto the wall behind them. She speaks with passion for the radio station, and I watch her, feeling the energy in the room shift. Carly speaks for over half an hour, and when she's finally done, the guy on the far right—the guy who'd disagreed—starts up again.
“Be that as it may,” he tells us, standing up, “there are better things we can allocate that grant to.”
And that's when something inside of me snaps.
“Such as?” I ask him, venom in my tone.
He looks surprised. “Well. Ah...there's a golf company that—”
“At the end of the day,” I tell the assembled board members, energy surging through me, “you have to ask yourself...did I do what was best for the city with the power given to me? There are voices on radio and television, voices that agree with us and disagree with us, but that bring to light stories and humanity in a way that's needed. Radio and television connect us; they show us that we're not alone.” My voice catches as I stand up straight, as I imagine Attis staring at me with her warm, golden eyes, reaching across the space between us to curl her fingers through mine, like we fit together. “And it would be wrong to take that away—because it belongs to everyone. Not you or me,” I tell them, breathing out. “But to everyone here in Boston.”
The woman at the center of the table rises, nodding to us. “Thank you both. Please see yourselves out.”
Carly glances at me, shaking her head just a little.
I blew it. We blew it.
It didn't work.
We're riding down in the elevator when the phone in my pocket rings. I take it out, stare down at it, feel my heart beat faster.
It's Deb.
“Hi,” I tell her with a grimace as I answer the phone.
“It's done,” says Deb, her voice light for the first time I've ever known her. “The grant's been reinstated. Apparently,” she says, disbelief in her voice, “there was one guy who'd swayed them all, because—honestly, they didn't care much about it. And that's a direct quote from the woman who just called me. But she said that you obviously care, and they've rethought it. The grant's reinstated, Josie,” Deb repeats. I have never, in all my years working for her, heard my station manager speechless. But she practically is right now.
I stare at Carly across the expanse of the elevator. I stare at her, and she has her head to the side. She mouths, “What is it?”
“They listened to us,” I tell her, handing her the phone. “It's happening.”
It shouldn't shock me, after the past few days I've had...but it does, anyway. And as emotion rushes through me, I know exactly where I need to go, the only place that—after everything—will still make sense to me.
So as Carly and I are about to part ways at the foot of the high rise, Carly turns to me.
“We have to talk,” she tells me, her fingers finding my arm and gripping me tightly there. “It's really important, okay?”
“I'm exhausted,” I tell her. “And I have something...important to do. Can I call you later?”
“Okay,” she tells me, with a small grimace. And then we embrace awkwardly—old enemies possibly becoming friends—and we each go our separate ways.
But my excitement from the grant being reinstated fades away almost completely as I put my hands in my pants pockets, as I begin the familiar path, walking the blocks, my head down, gazing at the sidewalk of my beloved city.
I walk all the way to West Side Methodist Church cemetery without even really seeing where I'm going, I'm so lost in thought. But I've walked this path so many times, I could do it in my sleep. As I slip through the small gate, as I walk up to my sister's grave, I feel so much in that moment that I'm breathless.
I sink down in front of her grave, pressing my fingers into the grooves of her name in the granite. I close my eyes; I take a deep breath.
“Ellie,” I whisper. “Something...somethi
ng extraordinary happened. And now I'm back home...and I don't know what to do. Would you believe me?” I tell the gravestone softly. “I went to another world. I met someone, Ellie.”
Peace fills my head and my heart as I speak those words. I know that if my sister were alive, she'd be proud of me that I had made room in my life for happiness. I know that she'd want me to be happy, that she would feel bereft for me, that my chance with Attis was taken away from me.
She would want me to be happy.
As I crouch there, my palm flat against my sister's gravestone...something strange, but familiar, happens. I feel a little zing of electricity pulse through me, from the granite into my fingers.
I snatch my hand away from the headstone, shocked, gulping air as I blink away the tears, as I stare at the gravestone. I stand then, staring down at the grave, staring down at my fingers, utterly perplexed, my blood rushing through me.
And, for some reason at that moment...I look up.
Wind whistles through the trees, a light wind that brushes the leaves and branches together. A loud, rumbling SUV drives up the road beyond the graveyard, and somewhere close by someone talks loudly on their cellphone. The regular, normal sights and sounds of my city are all around me.
But there's nothing else.
I close my eyes. I press my hands over my heart. I listen to the wind in the trees, listen to the traffic, listen to the sounds of Boston living all around me, even here. Even in the cemetery.
And warm fingers curl around my elbow. Someone is behind me. Someone curls arms around me.
I'm imagining this. I must be. Because I feel a sweet, warm mouth on my neck, feel her holding me like she's never going to let go.
No. It can't be.
Attis is a world away.
I open my eyes. I turn.
Attis smiles down at me, her warm, golden eyes sparking with desire, with delight...with love.
“Hello,” she whispers to me, her voice low as she gathers me tighter, closer, in her arms.
And then she kisses me.
It's searing, that kiss. Intoxicating as I drink in her warmth and softness and all that she is. But then I'm gasping, taking a step back, holding her out at arm's length, because she's real. I feel the intensity of her mouth, the strength of her arms.
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