by Jason Beil
presents!”
With that, he grabbed his pink raincoat and umbrella, and trooped off into the storm.
Hugo, the Shapeshifting Sorcerer of the West (Call me Westie) strode through the forest. His skin seemed to glow, and the ends of his hair crackled with static electricity. He could barely contain the magical energy he had consumed at the glowing house. He had an idea or two on how to expend it, though.
Just let me get near those two conniving witches.
Harvey barely noticed the rain pelting down on him as he wandered aimlessly through the forest.
“Harvey want present,” he whined. “Harvey want friend. Present, friend, present.”
Without realizing it, his feet were bringing him towards a faint glow. As he got closer, he noticed the glow and hurried towards it.
“Hugo come back!” he screamed. “Hugo bring Harvey present!”
As soon as Hugo’s ears stopped ringing, he patted Harvey’s knee soothingly.
“Yes, my friend, I’m back. I left your present at Deidre’s house, and I’m going there now.”
Harvey got so excited that he started jumping up and down, causing the forest to rumble and shake. Hugo tried to get him to stop.
“I know you are excited Harvey,” Hugo said. “But we need to be quiet so that we don’t let on that I am here.”
“Oh, I got it! You want to surprise Deidre.”
“Oh, yes,” Hugo said, smiling. “I think Deidre will be very surprised to see me. Very surprised indeed.”
Wilberforce Quentin Stanford IV pondered the events of the last several days, and decided it was time for an intelligent talking turtle to swim out to sea. Rapidly.
Bob trotted along for a few minutes, seeing no one and seeming to get no closer to the center of the city. At last, up ahead, he saw a young, oddly dressed woman, her long skirts and the wimple on her head looking like something Bob remembered seeing in a college textbook on the Middle Ages. But she looked human. An honest-to-God human being! Bob jogged toward her, pausing as he suddenly became aware of the fish still clutched in his hand.
“Won’t need this any more,” he muttered, and tossed it aside. “Miss!” The word pushed past his lips in a husky croak. He swallowed and tried again. “Miss!”
Bob yelled “Miss!” a little louder. She still didn’t hear him, but when she brushed her hair away from her face, Bob’s eyes grew wide as saucers. He stood there with his mouth hanging open not saying anything, because he was taken aback by what he saw.
It was Amy. Bob swallowed. Amy Whitaker! The girl he’d been dating before he met Sara. But that was impossible.
Amy Whitaker was dead.
She began walking away, unaware that Bob was there. Bob stood staring and scratching his head, trying to figure out what he was seeing.
I bet if I close my eyes, all of this will go away, he said to himself. So that’s what he did. He closed his eyes.
It wasn’t a steep bank. It was nothing more than a grass verge really, but it was there, and with his eyes closed, Bob didn’t even notice the slight adjustment in his step that turned him towards it.
Amy’s in my imagination. It’s all in my head. Everything is in my head. I didn’t see…
“AMYYYYYY…!”
The last thought was screamed out loud as he slipped, tumbled, and rolled down the verge.
He saw the torrent of water as it flew by beneath him, and he managed to dig in his heels. The momentum carried his body upright, and he stood there watching the water and listening to the rapid tapping of feet on concrete.
“Bob!” Amy screamed in delight from the top of the verge.
Startled, he spun, lost his footing, and fell backwards into the river.
He landed on a hard surface, which bore him upwards towards light and air.
“You again!” he and the giant turtle cried in unison.
Bob didn’t know what to think. As water poured from his saturated clothing, he looked up and saw Amy standing there. Calling out his name. He rubbed his eyes thinking he was dreaming. Oh heck, he didn’t know what to think!
Excusing himself from the turtle, Bob clambered back up the bank and Amy pulled him up to the safety of the path.
“Amy… it is you!” he blurted.
“Of course it is.” She grinned. “I’ve been wandering around here for hours looking for a way out, or someone who can tell me how to get out.”
“Do you even know where we are?”
“Of course I do,” she laughed. “We’re in Honalee.”
Bob frowned. “Why does that sound familiar? Hold on, did you just say you’d only been here a few hours?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Amy, you were reported missing, presumed dead, over six months ago!”
Amy looked at Bob with an open mouth. “Six months ago?”
“Yes. How did you… how did you get here?”
Amy couldn’t believe it. Bob had to be wrong!
It’s only been a few hours since I arrived in Honalee!
Then she started thinking about her parents and what they must be going through thinking she’s dead.
Oh why oh why did I have to fall down that hole!
It’s pretty hard to ignore a glowing sorcerer accompanied by a giant in a pink raincoat. Somehow Lupo and Deidre managed this feat, as their argument escalated to poking each other with their forefingers and shouting.
“Hey!” yelled Hugo. They didn’t react at all. “Harvey, pick them up.”
As they were each gripped in one of Harvey’s hands, Deidre gulped and went silent. Her face turned an interesting shade of grey-green. Lupo, however, merely looked up in exasperation.
“Harvey, now what? It’s rude to interrupt you know. What are you—”
He stopped mid-speech when he saw Hugo glaring at him from below.
“Hugo! Westie, dear boy, so glad to… human shape, eh? Where… how?”
“Never mind!” Hugo snapped. “I’ll tell you later. Right now,” he said, fixing a milk-curdling glower on Deidre, “I’ve got a few questions of my own. Did you really think you and Vivian could get rid of me?” He glanced at Lupo and said “Us?” He returned his attention to the ashen-faced witch. “So easily?”
“It was all her idea!” Deidre squeaked the words.
Hugo made a grating sound, part laugh, part snarl. “Which I’m sure would be Vivian’s response in this situation.” Another laugh/snarl. “You and your sister, darling, are really quite the pair. Banishing Lupo and me to another world? Honestly, I am so over the games you two play! I think it’s time you had a taste of your own medicine.”
With that, he began to weave a Spell of Banishment. With the orange energy he had picked up in the other world, it would be easy.
“Now… now, just wait a moment!” cried Deidre, panicking. “Let’s talk about this!”
“No talk,” said Hugo. “Relax. This won’t hurt. Much.”
Vivian stomped in anger as she realized she had lost her potential champion. She kicked open the door and pulled out her broom, noticing that the fuel indicator was in the red. With a howl of frustration she dragged out the vacuum cleaner and checked the charge. It was full.
She mounted the vacuum cleaner and hit the ‘on’ switch.
The vacuum cleaner hit the end of its cord and nearly dumped Vivian. She snarled a curse. Then, one hand clutching the cleaner in a death-grip, she seized the cord with the other and unplugged the damn thing! Bloody hell, she always forgot that part! Freed, the cleaner rose. Vivian guided it toward the nearest window and out into a rapidly darkening sky.
Soon enough, on the road below her, she spotted the poodle. It hadn’t got that far, not on those short little legs. With a shriek of triumph, Vivian aimed the cleaner and howled down upon the dog. It saw her, and its legs pumped harder, trying to outrun the vacuum cleaner. Vivian laughed.
“I have you now, my pretty!”
Amy stared at Bob. He was talking to her, asking her questions, but she wasn’t ready to answer. All
she could think about was that hole… the hole that had brought her here. Her thoughts froze on the image. The hole in the ground that had seemed to just suddenly open under her feet. No time to do anything before she was suddenly plummeting downward into blackness. Total blackness.
She had heard a voice in the blackness. A slow voice, like the thickest Southern drawl she had ever heard. She had looked to the source of the voice, and was stunned to see a mountain of a turtle. A monstrous huge turtle, with eyes easily the size of a small car. She swallowed. Hard.
“You found one of our portals,” the turtle said. “Or, perhaps more precisely, one of our portals found you.”
Amy stared at the turtle in disbelief.
“Yes, it seems it has found me. What is this place? Why am I here?”
The turtle looked at her and laughed. “You don’t know why you are here? Can you think of no reason?”
“Nothing.” Amy slowly wagged her head. And yet…
Something tickled at the back of her mind. An awareness that, perhaps, she did know why after all. A tremor shuddered between her shoulders and down her spine. If she thought about it…
No. She did not want to think about it. A sense settled upon her that the reason was something terrible. Something waiting to be revealed that Amy did not want to know.
She shuddered the thoughts away—that flickering almost-knowledge. She met the turtle’s unreadable gaze.
“Nothing,” she repeated with an assurance she struggled to feel.
Amy shook herself free of the memory. She wanted to go to Bob, embrace him, but something still held her back. Something drew her mind once again into the past…
She had been sitting in the park.
