by Linda Welch
“The dark part?” from Maggie.
“Yes, the place between, the bridge.” He rubbed his nape with one hand. “However, they are temporary exit portals. You must use one of the permanent entrances to return to Downside.”
“We didn’t picture anything when we came back but we ended up where we thought we should be, Manhattan.”
“Because you did not fix a destination in your mind, you returned to where you entered Downside.”
“Simply put,” Chris interrupted, “you can exit Downside to any location you choose, but it won’t let you back in the same place?”
“It will not exist.”
“That, laddie, is implausible.”
“It is as it is. So, I can enter Downside unseen but because I am hidden, someone must be with me to make the doors open. You can use the San Francisco entrance to Downside, take me with you and leave me there, and exit to Clarion. I will wait for you Downside, although I do so with reluctance. The longer I am there, the more chance my people will see and try to detain me. When you have your lady, as you cannot return Downside from Clarion, you will fly to Manhattan or San Francisco, as they are the only entrances known to you.”
“We take you Downside and return to Clarion. Then we wait for Chris’ plane to land at Clarion Municipal, or go to Salt Lake City and take a commercial flight to San Francisco or Manhattan,” Royal said thoughtfully. “With a patient along, arrangements will take time. It will be simpler and faster if you stay with us. We will fly from San Francisco to Clarion, retrieve Tiff’s body, then fly here to access Downside.”
I agreed. Chris nodded. With nothing else to arrange, Bel ushered us into the shop before long. He shut the door, but their voices still came to us: Bel’s quiet, patient, reasonable, and Freyda’s objections.
The door opened, he came in the store with a long brown coat over his arm. Freyda trailed him.
Several people approached the door and tried the handle, ignoring the CLOSED sign when they saw us inside. Bel politely waved them away.
He held Freyda’s face between his palms and kissed her. She gripped him with desperation I recognized. Letting your man go when you know he walks into danger is heartrending for a woman. A pang shot through me—I caused this. My need was tearing them apart and putting Baelfleur at risk.
With no more ado, we went to the door. Freyda stood mutely as Bel opened it and we trooped outside. He paused and looked at her. She sharply inclined her chin.
And that was it. We walked through Carmel to our rental car and got in.
Chris sat in front with Royal, Bel sat in the back with us. He looked through the window and after a moment said, “She is protective of me.”
Maggie asked, “Why did you and Freyda leave Downside?”
He smiled. “You are human. You will not believe me.”
“We were there. I think I’d believe anything about the place.”
His tone turned wistful. “We wanted a better life. That is all.”
I thought not. Why did they fear Bel’s mother? From what they said, it seemed to me they ran from her. There was more to their story, but his history was none of our concern unless it endangered our mission. “I don’t think we should pry, Maggie. He doesn’t want to tell us.”
She threw out a heavy sigh, folded her arms and slumped on the seat.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The jet taxied along the runway. I knew Royal fretted from the way he held himself, and I was as impatient.
Bel’s fingertips dug in the leather armrest as the aircraft left the ground.
“Don’t worry.” Maggie offered a sympathetic grin. “Statistically speaking, it’s one of the safest ways to travel. Honest.”
“I have seen them in the sky,” Bel said through his teeth. “And on the television. Inside one, trusting a contraption as heavy as this can stay in the air is another matter.”
“I guess whichever world you call home, you have to trust in its magic.”
Fifteen minutes later Bel went from window to window, enthralled. He didn’t sit until Maggie tempted him with a video game.
I watched them. Royal on a couch, looking at nothing through glazed eyes; Chris in a padded chair, studying the wine in his glass; Maggie and Bel fervently working their game controls. I felt more and more isolated, not a part of our little band. I could have dragged Maggie away from the console and used her to speak to Royal, but what to say to him? Much more of this inability to talk to him without a go-between would send me over the edge.
Anger filled me as I paced the cabin. I moved faster, stomping along thinking it isn’t fair! And I didn’t care if the thought made me a whiny little kid. I wanted to break something. I swiped Chris’ wine glass out of his hand, knocked a small bowl of olives off the mini wet bar. I went in the bathroom and tore the towels off the rail, smacked at the container of hand soap in its little wire cage.
Nothing moved, except my hand, which passed through every item.
“Tiff?” Maggie said when I came back to the cabin and furiously swatted at anything not fastened down.
Royal emerged from his funk. “Is something wrong?”
She swiveled her chair. “I think she’s in melt-down. She’s trying to wreck the cabin.”
“Tell her I want to talk to her.”
“She doesn’t need to tell me. I hear you, Royal!” I leaned to yell in his ear. “Don’t you understand? I hear every goddamn word outta your mouth!”
“Take it easy, Tiff. I’m sure it’s difficult—” Maggie began.
“Difficult!” I fumed. “You have no idea.”
“Then tell us.” Maggie replaced the control in the console. “I’ll come over there. This game stinks, anyway.”
“Because you are losing?” Bel suggested, eyes twinkling.
Maggie sat on the chair opposite Royal. She closed her eyes. “Okay, go ahead.”
Before then I saw myself as pragmatic; something might hurt me and cause me stress, but if I couldn’t change it for the better I moved on. But I challenge anyone in my predicament to remain cool-headed. I spoke so quickly, Maggie gabbled to keep up with me. “I can feel myself, my hair, my skin, clothes.” I swept my hands over my hair. “And I feel inside. My stomach clenched so tight it hurt when we saw Dagka Shan.” I crossed my hands on my belly. “I do things automatically, as if I am alive: suck in a breath or puff it out, but I don’t feel the air move.
“Just now, I got angry at my helplessness. I can’t communicate without Maggie, can’t touch anything material. I feel . . . real. But my body is the only tactile thing in my world. I can’t interact with anything else. I see but can’t feel, can’t smell, can’t taste.” I brushed my cheek at angry tears which weren’t there. “Christ! I can’t even cry properly. I think I am but there are no tears, my eyes are dry.”
Royal’s voice cracked as he spoke. “Do not cry anymore, Sweetheart.”
“I’m not. Do you see me crying?” I folded my arms. “No, ‘cause you can’t fucking see me!”
Maggie’s lips wrinkled as she squeezed them together. She laughed in the back of her throat.
“You think I’m funny?” Fuming, I gave her my back. “Excuse me while I go someplace else to sulk.”
Royal frowned at Maggie as she tried to suppress her mirth. “Talk to me, Tiff.”
“I think I’m done talking. How about it’s your turn?”
After Maggie echoed my words, he dipped his chin, gaze on the floor, thinking. Then he said in a low voice, “When Maggie closes her eyes and speaks for you, I look past her, expecting to see you at her shoulder.”
My anger drained away, leaving me limp. I slumped on the couch. “I’m next to you.”
He lifted his eyes as if he thought I stood at his side.
“No, I’m sitting beside you.”
His head dipped and, uncannily, he seemed to look me in the eyes.
I laid my hand on his. “And my hand is on yours.”
He leaned to one side as he eyed his hand.
>
“I can’t feel you, though. Why can I feel myself and nothing else?”
He shook his head mutely. A second later he said, “Soon, your hand will be in mine, flesh on flesh.”
“Will it? Shan plans something treacherous. Why? He’s Shan. What if everything else is malarkey? Can Arthemy put me in my body? If he can, will he? Kicking me out was a ploy to make you find Shan so you can take Lawrence to him; what does he care if I get in again?”
“I must believe he can reverse the operation. It is the only thing keeping me sane, Tiff. And remember what Angelina said: when Shan is dead, the mage will work for us if we pay him enough.”
I replayed what Angelina said in my mind. “I guess she knows what she’s talking about. Hope so, anyway.”
I didn’t feel much better, because every step of this plan might crumble, but my anger diminished.
Mercedes came in the cabin. “We’re making our final approach and will land in approximately twenty minutes. Please fasten your seat belts.”
The plane tilted a wing and began a wide spiral.
“Is everything arranged?” Royal asked Chris.
Chris stood in the jet’s open door. “Ready to go.”
“Give us an hour. We need the photo from Tiff’s house. Dealing with the hospital will take time. No doubt I will have to fill out paperwork.”
“Right you are, old chap. They’ll be waiting outside. Give me a tinkle and I’ll tell them to head in.”
“Give him a tinkle?” Maggie said.
“Phone him,” I interpreted.
We walked to Royal’s pickup and took off for home. Nobody said a word. Looking glum, Maggie hunched on the seat. My head swam. Despite all the discussion, argument and guesswork, what we meant to do was really only just sinking in. Were we insane?
We stood in the kitchen while Royal went upstairs to find Lawrence’s photo. I watched Mac as he waited for Royal to come back. I watched Royal pet my boy and when Mac scuttled to the pantry, tell him, “Maryanne will be here to feed you soon, but you can have this.” He got Mac a couple of liver treats. Then he scratched behind Mac’s ears.
Anger rose in me again, an ugly suffocating pain in my chest. It wasn’t fair. I should be tending to my little lad and I couldn’t touch him.
And I hated Shan as I never before hated anyone or anything.
The drive to the hospital was as quiet. It was past visiting hours but nobody stopped Royal as he went up the staircase and strode confidently along the corridors as though he had every right to be there.
He left me and Maggie in my room while he went to track down someone in authority and tell them he was taking me out of here. I looked at myself on the hospital bed and tried to picture me clinging to Royal as he dashed us to some destination, as I had so many times. I dreaded eventually losing my memories if I got stuck like this.
Time was running out. I smiled at Maggie although she didn’t see my expression, just a hazy woman-shaped thing. “Before we go, I want you to know I think you’re great, Magenta Benson. None of this would have been possible if not for you.”
She rubbed one arm and tilted her head. “Um. I don’t know what to say.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been short tempered with you.”
“To be expected, given the circumstances.” She shrugged.
“Well, watch out for me if this doesn’t work. And if Jack and Mel come to you before I see them again, explain everything.”
“I will. Promise you’ll come see me, whether you’re—” She bit off the words.
Whether I’m alive or still like this.
My spirits sank so low they must be in my socks. Thinking of what we headed for made me sick to my stomach. And I was afraid, for myself and for Royal. Royal’s heart beat with mine, he breathed life into me and made my world a vibrant place to be in. I would be lost without him.
Tired of waiting, I asked Maggie to look for Royal. We found him signing release forms in the chief surgeon’s office. The chief surgeon was in quite a tizzy. He protested the move would endanger me. Royal simply said he had engaged services at a private facility and wrote an address in Switzerland on the form. I presumed it was a legitimate care facility. What happened when the docs made inquiries at the Swiss facility? Did this plan include contingencies for that?
As we walked the hospital corridors back to my room, Royal found his phone, punched numbers with his thumb and put it to his ear. “We are ready,” he said after a second’s silence.
We barely got in the room when the door opened and a gurney propelled by two Gelpha in hospital scrubs came through leading a procession consisting of a nurse, two aides and a frustrated physician. With boxy machines loaded on the lower shelf, the gurney looked heavy, but the Gelpha pushed it with ease. The doctor jabbered at them and the nurse put in a few curt words.
The Gelpha swiftly and efficiently removed all my attachments, moved my body to the gurney and hooked it to the machines on the shelf underneath. At a nod from Royal, they set off. The guy with lilac hair laced with gold led the way, guiding the gurney, the other with charcoal and tangerine hair pushed. The hospital staff gave up on Royal and left him with sour expressions.
Royal, Maggie and invisible me remained. Why didn’t we follow my body?
“Tiff, where are you?” Royal asked softly.
“Near you, to your left,” Maggie said.
He slowly turned. “Before we leave, let me hold you.”
A tiny, shocked gasp escaped me. He may as well have torn my heart out. “But you can’t.” How could he be so cruel?
He held his arms away from his body. “Trust me, Tiff. Come here.”
I stared into his face, at his expression switching between trepidation and anticipation.
Although this was impossible, I went to him. I folded my arms around his chest and back, my head tucked in the hollow of his neck. I didn’t feel him any more than I felt anything now.
Royal’s arms closed on where my physical body would have lain against him, a body he knew so well.
He sighed and closed his eyes.
“Can you feel me?” I whispered, praying this once he’d feel something if only a peculiarity in the air.
Maggie took a second to repeat my words.
“No,” Royal husked. “But I can imagine. Your face turned to me, soft skin against my neck, your hands clasping my back. Your hair smells of your favorite shampoo, lilac. And those tiny, fluffy hairs on your temples tickle my chin and neck.”
And although no tears dripped from my eyes, I wept.
“She’s crying,” Maggie said.
“No, do not cry, Tiff, my darling, my sweet. You said you would not cry again.”
I snuffled. “Can’t help it.”
“It will be. . . .” Royal’s voice cracked and he fell silent for a moment, holding a woman he neither saw nor felt. “Everything will be fine. I promise.”
I gulped on a sob.
“This is it,” he whispered. “Don’t let go, Sweetheart. I will not know whether I leave you behind.”
Maggie came in close to repeat my words in a low voice. “Don’t worry, I’ll never let you go.”
Royal’s arms contracted as if he gave me a quick hug. I slipped away a few inches and around to his back so I looked over his shoulder, and found his aura with my hands.
“Go home now, Maggie,” Royal said. “And thank you.”
I smiled at her. “You’re a treasure, Maggie. I can never repay you for everything you’ve done.”
Her eyes glistened. “Why did you have to say that? I like you better when you’re prickly.”
I barely had time to call out, “I’m sure I’ll see you again,” before we went through the door.
Maggie nodded and the door closed, blocking my view of her mournful face.
They parked me at the end of the cabin away from the couches, chairs and tables. The Gelpha locked the wheels on the stretcher and held the sides.
Mercedes shut the door, or hatch, or whatever it
’s called on an airplane. Royal sat across from Chris. Bel sat nearby. Nobody said a word as the plane taxied to the runway and stopped, as the pilot waited for the go-ahead from the traffic controller.
When we were in the air, Chris and Royal spoke in hushed voices as if they might disturb me, the way you speak when near very ill hospitalized people. Royal’s eyes kept flicking to my body. I ached to speak to him; I already missed Maggie. Now I truly was only an observer.
“Are you sure she’s here?” Chris asked.
“I have to trust she is,” Royal replied.
Royal stood at the top of the steps. The two Gelpha had left to get our transportation. “They should be here. I’ll see what is holding them up.” He trotted down the steps and across the tarmac.
Chris shot to my side, leaned over the gurney and ran a gentle finger over my cheek. “Ah, Tiff, if only you’d come with me,” he said so softly I barely heard. “The offer still stands. When this is over we can ride away together, into the sunset.”
Sneaky, jetting in while Royal was out of the way. Chris must mean when he invited me to go away with him. I didn’t think he was serious at the time; it was an act for Royal’s benefit. He knew Royal heard him.
He sounded serious now. One corner of his lip turned up wryly, but his solemn eyes glistened. “Once upon a time, long ago and far away, we spoke of dreams. This is only a dream, my love. You’ll wake soon and this will be nothing more than a bad memory.”
He said nothing more, but stood over me for another minute with his hand on mine. Then he bowed lower, kissed the side of my mouth and gently squeezed my hand.
Awed, I imagined a giant feather slapping me to the ground.
He met Bel’s eyes and put one finger to his lips, a silent request Bel keep what he saw and heard to himself. Bel twitched a shoulder and looked away.
