by Brian Olsen
Somebody elbows me in the face. “Ow!” We’re crushed, all jumbled together. We’re not in the prop storage room, we’re somewhere smaller, a tight enclosed space. I’m lying sideways and it’s Nate’s elbow crushing my nose. Somebody’s on my legs and my back twists in a way it shouldn’t twist. Someone else is screaming in fear.
“Jaz!” Nate yells. “Jaz, it’s us!”
The person who was screaming takes a breath, then shouts, “Natey! You’re back! I was so worried!”
We’re in the back seat of Nate’s car. All six of us. Somebody manages to open a door and we crawl over one another to get out. The car is in the junior parking lot at school. It’s dark out, but lampposts light the almost empty lot.
“Oh my gosh!” Jasmine hugs Nate. “You were gone for hours! They closed the school so I brought the book and the necklace out to your car. I didn’t know what to do! I was about to text Lily for help!”
“Sorry, babe,” Nate says, rubbing her back. “It took a while, but everything’s good. We’re safe.”
“Did you meet the elves?” She finally notices Tannyl, who’s been examining the car. “Oh! Hello!” She sticks her hand out. “I’m Jasmine. Aren’t you Alisa’s ghost boyfriend elf?”
“Ghost no more, thank the Logos.” Tannyl takes his hand in both of hers. “I am Tannyl, of the Sagemoss clan. I am happy to meet you, Jasmine.”
Jasmine beams at us. “You saved an elf! Are we saving the other elves too?”
“Not yet,” I say. “We’ve got a lot to work out, first. But I’d say we’re off to a good start.”
“Oh!” Tannyl’s whole body jolts. “I feel strange. I think—” His body shakes once, violently, and he comes to rest looking weirdly distorted, like a fun-house mirror. Half of him is normal, the other half stretches slightly back towards the car.
“It’s pulling him back in!” I yell.
Alisa dives for the car. From the back seat she retrieves the book and the necklace. “Tannyl, stay in this world! Stay safely protected from the Moment! You won’t go back into the necklace! Truth!”
The elf’s body snaps back into shape and he staggers a few steps, then pats himself down. “That was…unpleasant.”
“How do you feel?” she asks.
He considers for a moment. “I can sense the necklace’s location. I feel drawn to it. But I don’t believe I am in any danger of returning to that world. For now.”
“Great!” Nate slaps his back. “That’s one elf done. What about the other couple million? Search for an empty country they can use? That’s gonna be tricky.”
“We have to think through the logistics of this,” Alisa says. “If there are millions of elves, what’s the population of the other magical species? Where will we put them all? How will the world react to so many magical refugees?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I answer. “I mean, it does, obviously. But the other species didn’t have a Tannyl to tell them about the Moment. They don’t even know what happened to them. We have to meet with them, like we did the elves. It’s the right thing to do.”
Tannyl looks at me, I think with surprise. “I agree.”
Zane leans against the car. “And what if they want out? Like, right away, whether they’ll get sucked back into the book or not?”
“Then we let them out,” I say. “It’s their choice.”
Nate nods. “Damn right it is.”
“Are the other species trapped inside necklaces as well?” Tannyl asks.
Alisa takes the book out of the back seat. She pulls the necklace out from between its pages and places it around her neck. “No. They’re all in different artifacts. I’ve got an idea to find them, if you’re all okay with me hanging on to the book tonight.”
“Works for me,” I say.
My phone vibrates in my pocket and I take it out. Texts from Dad, asking where I am and when I’m coming home.
“Sorry,” I write. “Hanging with the gang. Home soon”
“I gotta go. My dad’s worried.”
Zane looks at his phone. “Oh, yeah, me too. Mom’s using all caps.”
“I guess I’m everybody’s chauffeur tonight,” Nate says. “Hop in and let’s hope we don’t get pulled over. I’m still on a provisional license. Not supposed to be driving after eleven.”
I step back to let everyone else into the car. “You drive after eleven all the time.”
Nate grins. “I said I’m not supposed to. I didn’t say I don’t.”
Jasmine gets in the front and the rest of us start to bundle into the back. I’m halfway in when I realize Tannyl hasn’t moved. He’s staring at the car uncomprehendingly.
“Oh right,” I say. “What do we do with Tannyl?”
He frowns and steps towards the car. “I shall go with Ree.”
Alisa takes a deep breath. “Oh, no. Sorry. No way my parents are letting me bring a boy home.”
“But Var and Dan adore me!” he says. “They granted our union their blessing.”
Alisa puts her hand to her forehead. “Union. He said ‘our union.’ Oh god. He’s not meeting my parents. No way.”
Nate opens the driver’s door. “Don’t worry about it. He can crash with me. I’ll make up a story. My folks won’t care.” He frowns. “We’ll have to cover the ears, though. And those clothes won’t work. Unless we tell everyone he’s really, really into cosplay.”
“I’ll lend him some clothes.” I slide into the back seat next to Alisa. “I’m the closest in build.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Nate slaps the door a few times. “Let’s play hide the elf.”
Twelve
“Here you go.” I lean over the rear door of Nate’s car and pass a duffel bag full of clothes through the window.
Tannyl takes it and lifts out a pink hoodie with a kitten and a rainbow on the front. “The clothes here are strange.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Nate thrums his fingers on the steering wheel. “No time for a fashion show, bud. Change while I drive. See you tomorrow, Chris.”
I back away from the window. “Good night.”
“Wait!” Zane opens the door on the other side and hops out. “One sec, Nate.”
Nate sighs and rests his head on the wheel. “Why not? I’m already in for maximum mom-yelling. What’ll a few more minutes do?”
Zane pulls me a little ways down the sidewalk. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
He kisses me.
“I was scared as hell,” he says. “In the necklace. Scared they’d kill you and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.”
I kiss him again. “I was thinking the same about you.”
He rests his forehead against mine. “Do you want to go on a date with me?”
I laugh. “I thought we were already dating.”
“No, we’re practicing magic with your friends and making plans with your friends and worrying about whether we’re going to die with your friends.”
“Sometimes we sneak into the woods to make out.”
He grins. “Yeah, okay, that part’s great. But we’re not getting to know each other much. The real us.”
“Which real us?”
His smile falters. “You know what I mean. I want to do something, just us. Chris and Zane. Not Kirt and Dirt or whatever our names used to be. Can we, like, get dinner or watch a movie or just hang out or something?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
He sighs. “You think I’m being selfish.”
“No.” I kiss him. “I don’t. I think it’s a great idea.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. We can take a little time to ourselves. We’ve earned it. How about Friday?”
Nate smacks his door and calls out, “Some of us have school in the morning, you know.”
I kiss Zane again. “We’ll talk tomorrow and figure it out.”
“Cool. A real date.” He frowns. “This’ll be my first gay date.”
“Okay. No pressure.”
“I want flowers.”
“I’ll bring you flowers if you bring me chocolate.”
“Deal.”
We kiss one last time and then walk back to the car. Zane gets in and my friends all wave goodbye to me as they drive off.
I go inside. Dad’s in the living room, reading on the couch, so I go in to say goodnight.
He looks up. “Who was that?”
“Nate. Dropped me off. I went back out to lend him a book.”
He nods. Lying to my father is getting easier.
“Have a good night?” he asks.
“Yeah, you know. Just us and Alisa and Jasmine. Nothing special.”
“You eat?”
I haven’t, and now that I’m out of the necklace world I’m starving. But I’m too tired to eat, so I say, “Yeah, we got pizza.” I yawn. “I’m heading up. Goodnight.”
“Night, hero.”
I go back upstairs, leaving a billion things I should say to my father unsaid, feeling like the monster child that the elves called me.
I use the upstairs bathroom, but I skip brushing my teeth. I go to my room, strip off my school clothes and leave them on the floor. I hit the light and collapse. Sleep. All I want is sleep.
Elves.
I met the queen of the elves.
I wonder if Tannyl wants to kill me.
I wonder if Liefer will kill me if he knows I broke our promise and went to see the elves.
Should we really let all the magical creatures out? Humans have enough prejudices already about other humans. What if this starts worse wars than I ever did?
I mean than the Common King did.
Stop thinking, brain. I need to sleep.
Are we making the right choice by leaving Miller for Mr. Liefer to deal with? What if Liefer lied to me about not hurting Mom? He probably did.
Should I tell Dad I saw Mom at her office yesterday? No.
Shut up, brain!
If we find a way to set the magical creatures free, it means the whole world will know the truth behind the Moment. What will that do? I can’t even wrap my head around it.
Will I be making the world better or worse?
I don’t want to have that much of an impact on the world. It’s too big a responsibility.
What should Zane and I do on our date? I don’t want to just hang out and watch a movie. We should do something fun. Go out.
It’s his first date. I need to make it special.
I can’t take him someplace I’ve gone before on dates with other guys. Not for our first date. That would be scuzzy.
Could we go into New York for our date? No, that’s too much.
Did I do my homework for tomorrow?
I’m above the barren plain. I’m standing on the tenth step. The floating room is high above me.
I guess I fell asleep.
“I know what’s in there.”
I start at the sound of the voice. My arms pinwheel but I don’t fall off the step.
Standing on the cracked clay earth below me is a little girl. Eight or nine years old, in a dirty, torn nightgown, with ghost-white skin and wet, stringy black hair hanging down over her face. She looks up at me, her eyes wide behind the strands of hair.
“How are you here?” I say to her.
“I know what’s in the floating room.”
I look back up. As ever, I can feel the presence of the Common King, his mind and memories, his power, calling to me, eager for me to climb to him.
“So do I,” I say. “And I know who you are.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You’re the Nightmare Queen.”
“That’s not who I am. That’s just what I’m called.”
And she’s next to me. Not on the step with me, but standing flat-footed on nothing, on the air.
“Who are you then?” I ask.
She puts her finger to her lips and smiles. Her teeth are yellow.
“Have you been sending me these nightmares? The visions of things the Common King did?”
“Yes.”
“Are they true?”
“All nightmares are true.”
“But did they really happen? Exactly the way I saw them? Or are you making them up?”
“They really happened. Exactly the way you saw them. I don’t make anything up.” She stretches an arm out and wiggles her fingers. Her nails are long and dirty. “I dig around in your head and show you what I find.”
“I want you to stop. Stop attacking me.”
She giggles. “I’m not attacking you! I’m showing you the truth. Isn’t the truth better than a lie?”
“Not this truth.”
“Are you sure?”
She floats a little higher, level with the next stair. If I step on it, another will appear, and then another, until I’m all the way up to the room.
“Why are you afraid of remembering?” she asks.
I have to laugh. “Are you kidding? You saw what he did! He’s a murderer. A monster. He slaughters innocent people without remorse.”
“You’ve got remorse.”
“Yes. Yes, I do. I’ve got a crapload of remorse.”
She moves again, coming around in front of me, above the next step, so we’re face to face. The floating room looms above her.
“Why do you think you’ll lose that remorse if you get your memories back? Maybe you won’t be as bad as you think. Maybe you’ll be good. Couldn’t the Common King’s powers, with your conscience to guide them, help a lot of people?”
I shake my head. “No. It’s too big a risk. Mr. Miller was a good person and he changed completely when he got his memories back. And my mother…no. I won’t climb up to the room.”
She moves back a little, so that I have a clear path to the next step. “Climb just a little higher, then. You get stronger when you do.”
“No.”
She gestures to the nine steps behind me, leading back down to the ground. “But look how far you’ve come already. And you’re still you, aren’t you?”
I swallow. “Yes.”
She spins and looks up at the room. There would probably be another twenty steps at least before I reached it.
“Look how far away it still is,” she says. “You could handle one more step. I wonder what new tricks you could do if you climbed just one more step? It might be something that would help you protect your friends.”
“Don’t threaten my friends!” My whole body blazes with fire and I reach for her.
She spins back to face me, dodging my clumsy grasp easily. Her horrible face lights up with joy.
Damn it. I climbed the step.
She claps her hands. “You did it!”
A twelfth step appears.
I take a breath. Calm down. Put out the fire.
“No more.” I try to step back, but I already know it’s useless. I’ve never been able to climb down.
“Okay.” She smiles. “No more for tonight.”
“Stay away from my friends.”
“I am staying away from your friends.”
“You went after Jasmine.”
“I’m sorry.” She giggles again, covering her mouth with her hands. “Jasmine has so many nightmares. I couldn’t help it!”
“And Kenny. And Shonda.”
She drops her hands and pouts. “I didn’t hurt them. I was playing.”
“You tried to kill Lily.”
“Lily isn’t your friend.”
“She is.”
She kicks her feet in frustration. “She isn’t! She’s bad! I’m keeping the bad people awake at night so they’re too tired to find us and hurt us! That’s all!”
“Oh, please.” I fold my arms. “Cut the act.”
“What act?”
“You said all nightmares are true. But there’s no way you’re a creepy little girl out of a straight-to-streaming horror movie in the real world.”
She grins. “There are different ways of being true.”
Her body changes. She grows taller, older. Her nightgown becomes golden armo
r with a long sword sheathed at her hip. Her hair is fire cascading down her back. Her face is strong and imposing. She’s a grown woman, a warrior queen.
“Better?”
“Were we really married?”
“We’re still married.”
“Then yeah, this is better than an eight-year-old.”
She laughs. “Our marriage was one of convenience. You’re more friend than husband.”
“You’re not my friend.”
“I am. Your dearest friend. And I only want what’s best for you.”
The stairs are gone, the floating room is gone. We’re in a city. A modern city, not one from before the Moment. I think it’s New York. Neon signs everywhere and tons of people. Yeah, we’re on 42nd Street, in Times Square. I’ve been there a few times, but other than the location, nothing about the scene is familiar.
“What is this?” I ask. “This isn’t one of my memories.”
“This is the future. The future you’ll bring if you continue to deny yourself.”
“What—”
“Ssh. Watch.”
A siren sounds. Not like from a police car or an ambulance, though. It’s loud, and coming from all over. It sounds like a warning.
The people know what it means, even if I don’t. Everyone panics. It’s mass chaos, everybody screaming and shoving into one another. They’re all running for shelter, either for open doorways or down into the subway. A woman next to me falls and I grab her and pull her to her feet before she’s trampled. She thanks me and rushes into a store just before an employee locks the door.
“I touched her,” I say.
“Of course.” The Nightmare Queen steps out of the way of a terrified tourist. “This is a nightmare, not an illusion.”
“Why are they so frightened?”
“Because they know what’s coming. Look.”
She points to the east, the direction everyone’s running from. Traffic has stopped, and drivers are abandoning their cars. Screams from far off are getting louder.
I grab the arm of a man running past. “What’s happening?”
He pulls free of me. “They got into the city! They’re here!”
I turn to the Nightmare Queen. “Who? Who’s here?”
“The monsters, of course. The ones you freed.”
“I haven’t freed any monsters!”
She throws back her fiery hair. “Not yet.”
