by Elle Lincoln
“Well, I’m glad you find this funny.” Casseus shakes his head before he points to where Bette had lain on the dirt. “She’s gone.”
My stomach drops. My head jerks to the side where her form had been mere moments before. A feeling of loss sweeps through me and panic floods my limbs. The feeling takes over my conscious thoughts one by one, until it is all I can think about. Insecurity floods me and I clench my fists. The foreign emotion leaves me frozen in place. I can’t act and I can’t not act. I don’t know what to do since I’ve never felt this way before.
“Calm down.” I look at Casseus who isn’t freaking out like I am. He stands there for a moment before walking toward an inky bundle on the ground. His lifts that shadowed cape of his around him, drowning out the appearance he is human. He fists the side and drags the hood over his head. He’s now but a black spot devoid of color before me. It’s incredibly eerie.
“Where is she?” There is always direction. Even before this hellish prison, I had direction. If someone acted against me I reacted. Finding someone to punish. No action is ever without consequences, including my own. Even subterfuge gave me a game to play, a goal to set, and action to take. Except there is nothing here to let that happen. I’m fully stuck in this fucking realm with nowhere to go.
No way to get back to her.
“Earth.” He’s so sure. He isn’t even egotistical, just factual. “We will go there as soon as you pop that eye back where it belongs.” He gestures to my eye patch with revulsion, his nose crinkling up.
“I can’t leave here,” I remind him.
“Oh, but I bet you can. Now,” he walks to the edge of the mist where it lazily parts for him, and I hesitate, his words reminding me it caressed me earlier, “try.”
My feet move of their own accord. Only the thought of freedom bounces around inside of me. Overwhelming my brain and allowing my limbs to take over. I step into the mist, my heart races thinking it will sting me. But the mist parts for me. My hand sweeps through. Again it adjusts, leaving space for me to move.
Casseus claps. “Right then, how about that eye?”
I ignore him. “Why?”
“I’m guessing she marked you instead of killing you to get out of here. Either way, mission accomplished. Now about that eye…” His shadowed arm gestures to my clearing to motion me on.
Again, I’m frozen. It’s all just too good to be true. Can I really leave? Return to Earth? Can I return to the Realm of Immortals? I’ll never know if I don’t move my ass and get the hell out of here.
The need to leave consumes me and I dart off into the cabin with Casseus tight on my heals. I know I need him as a guide. The forest can be tricky, dulling the senses and confusing the brain. Since the fog and its inhabitants live between worlds, it has the ability to transport others with it. If they allow it that is and I have never been allowed. Until now.
I pop up a floorboard and there, sitting in the dirt, is a cloth. I hesitate to grasp the worn material. I’ve let it sit to rot. Only like me, it is deathless. I can hide the damn thing but it will never die. I pick it up, nerves making my hands shake. Some things should stay hidden forever
I look to Casseus, my words caught in my throat. I want to ask him to keep me from the caged beast locked deep inside of me. If the monster inside me cannot be controlled, he will need to kill me. There are weapons this realm can never understand. Nor the world of man. It’s the motivation for my family’s betrayal, and for good reason.
But I say none of these things, my eyes scream for the request yet my throat stays quiet. My needs and wants are a foreign concept. Once we leave here, I will know nothing of the worlds. I’ve been locked away for far too long. If I’m ever captured again the eye can still be used. That can never happen.
This man who has been my only companion for centuries, dare I say friend, gives me a slight nod. He understands my worries and I’m grateful. I push to my feet and head to the pump in the clearing where I pour water over the cloth. I don’t dare open it. Not yet. With a deep breath, I glance behind me. “You may want to turn around.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” he mutters, and I watch as he walks to the edge of the forest where the mist grows thinner and thinner, eager to move on.
I turn back and open the cloth, worn and ragged from years of sitting to decompose. Thereupon the cloth sits my eye. With shaking fingertips I move the eye patch down. The strap harsh against my skin. The world around me moves in slow motion as I pry my eyelid open from years of disuse. I hold the eye in my other hand, and the closer I bring it to my face, the more it awakens. Bits of nerves and blood vessels come alive in my eye socket and from the eye I hold. As I near my face they attach themselves and with a sickening pop, my eye is sucked into it’s home.
Before I allow the world to be seen through the eye, I cover it with the worn leather patch.
I look over the clearing. There is nothing here for me. Nothing of material value. Yet I pause and look over the even section of land I’ve called home for so long. I’m surprised to find myself hesitating. This prison changed me. Gave me years upon years to think about who I was and who I’d like to be if given the chance. Perhaps time can change a tyrant. I can only hope so as I follow Casseus into the mist.
Chapter 12
Bette
Back in the Real World
The ground beneath me is cool but not frozen. Dew wets my skin and I feel the race of goosebumps as they form across my body. I yawn and stretch, the sun’s rays beat down upon me from the sky. My eyes flicker open, slightly stuck with the goo of dreaming. The reel of dreams is hazy and yet something is telling me they are important. I try to grasp ahold of them, but they just slip through my hands like sand.
Ignoring the need to remember my dreams, my eyes look above at the canopy of blooming spring trees. A breeze drifts across and ruffles petals, and I watch as they flounce to the ground, dancing in the wind. I stretch, feeling the grass beneath me.
An odd sensation sweeps through me as though I’m missing something very important. I sit up realizing I’m in a forest. Birdsong reaches my ears and the scurrying of small creatures scuffle old leaves. I scrunch up my nose and glance around. I don’t recall being intoxicated last night. But I also don’t remember last night. Not clearly at least. Must have been one hell of a night.
Confused, I stand. I’m barefoot, and wearing black cargo pants and a black tank. No bra, which does nothing for my tits. I run a hand over my hair, shuddering at the feel of the ratty grease bomb. Looking over the forest, I notice the light beaming down on me in streams of sunlight.
My movements slow with a sharp pinch at my neck. I run a palm over the bump of vertebrae there. One step. Then two, and the sensation spears up my neck to settle somewhere in the center of my brain. I fall to one knee, the pain intensifies. I yank at my hair. The pull of the strands do nothing to avert my attention to the ice pick stabbing my brain matter to a pulp. I’m panting. My lungs burn as they struggle to gulp down that sweet oxygen.
I’m going to die here. Lost. Abandoned. Tears threaten to fall as my elbows slam into the dewy grass. My eyes become unseeing as a blindness washes away my sight.
Then, like tide, it wavers and stills to finally recede, taking the pain with it. With one last rush upon the shores of my mind, my soul flashes with memories of my life. Slow at first, until they over whelm me with their presence.
Most of them. Up until that one night in mid December.
This? This isn’t Winter. This is Spring in full, beautiful bloom.
I attempt to stand once more, hoping like hell I didn’t just have an aneurysm. My legs are shaky and sore like I’ve run a marathon. I glance around once more. I’m fucking lost.
I bite my lip, I sure as hell wasn’t a girl scout and I have no sense of direction. Fucked a boy scout once though. Doesn’t the sun rise in the East? Is it dawn? I look up at the sky and I can’t determine if it’s rising or falling.
“This is quite the pickle you’ve got
yourself into Bette.” No matter, I’ll walk and hopefully run into a road. Ugh. Yeah no, I li.ve in the Smoky Mountains. That could prove really dangerous. I’m not even surprised my drunk ass wandered out into the wilderness. Must have been a damn good night.
But... No. That’s not right. It doesn’t feel right. But how else could I have gotten out here? Shit. Hands on hips I spin in a circle, fully taking in my surroundings. Maybe if I set a fire? Fuck it, I’m gonna walk. I cringe at the feel of sticks and grass beneath my feet. I’d give anything for a pair of shoes right now. Thick-soled, shit-kicking boots.
I hear something. Is that a car? I struggle to listen to the direction it’s coming from. My left ear twitches and I turn and walk to the left. Hopefully, my internal compass has upgraded. I shrug, who knows, may as well walk that way anyway. All I have to lose is myself out here, in bumfuck nowhere.
Really, how the hell do I get myself into these situations? Oh, that’s right, I’m usually not thinking.
My feet pinch but not as bad as I thought they would. I lift my heel to see callouses covering the bottom of my foot. Oh look, I’m a hobbit now. That’s strange. I dismiss it and move on through the forest. There is no way I wandered too far from the road.
But the longer I walk the less sure I am of everything. My unease grows more and more, and I become convinced that it was the beginning of winter when I last went out. This is very obviously spring. And unless I’ve somehow slept walked my way to the southern hemisphere, something is very wrong.
Either way, there is nothing I can do about it right this very minute—except walk my ass in one direction and hope for civilization before I starve to death.
Oh and that’s another thing, I’m not fucking hungry. Not even thirsty. No cotton mouth. Nothing. I’ve woken up with a hangover before and this is no hangover. Hell, just waking up in general, I either have to pee or chug a glass of water.
I don’t have to pee. I move my cargo pants out of the way. Yep, vagina is still there. Pretty sure my bladder is too. But I don’t have to pee. Why this bothers me more than anything else I have no idea. But I hate it. If only because it’s hella weird.
That and I’m pretty sure I’m missing something. There’s an odd tugging sensation in my belly. It isn’t really leading me anywhere, just pulsing like it’s searching, but it can’t find what it is looking for. I pat my belly trying to ease the gremlin inside that seems to be lost.
I hear another car and look up to the side of a small slope. Grimacing, because this is gonna hurt, I make a mad dash up the hill only to stumble out onto a road. I jump up and down for joy but that’s short lived as a car swerves to miss me. Tires squeal and a panicked, doe-eyed man is sitting behind the wheel. Oops.
I run to the driver’s side and fling open the door.
“Hi, can you give me a lift?” The teen looks at me, his eyes wide and his pimpled face pinched.
“You just jumped out in front of me! I could have hit you!” His voice, just past the change of puberty, squeaks.
“But you didn’t.” I point a finger at him and roll over the hood like a bond girl, and hop into the passenger seat. “Are you old enough to drive?”
“Yes.” He’s lying, I know it. The pimples are screaming at me.
I hum at him. “Where ya going?” I pause. “Wait. Where are we?”
“You don’t know?” He looks at me, and his red hair is just as greasy as mine, falling onto his forehead.
“Nope.” I pop my P. Ah humor, it’s like I’ve missed you or some shit.
“I was on my way to Turtlehead Falls.” He starts the car again and pulls away.
But that can’t be right. That’s miles from home. “What town?”
“Rossman.”
A chill creeps up my spine. I’m miles from home. I’ve been to Turtlehead Falls only once in my life and the cold as fuck water was a lesson I never wanted to return to. So why am I here?
“Can you drop me off in Rossman?”
He groans but whatever panicked look he sees on my face has him pulling a three-point turn on the lonely road. Maybe he is old enough to drive. “Sure,” he grumbles out. “What’s your name?”
I shrug, seeing no harm in a name. “Bette Morgan.” I slam forward, hitting the dash because I never put my damn seatbelt on. My nose clips the hard surface and blood spurts from it. “What the hell?
We are now sitting in the middle of the road and the pimply teen is staring at me like I’m a ghost. Me? Clearly, I’m fucking tangible. I pinch myself. Yep, still tangible. I grab a shirt from the floorboards and stuff it against my nose.
“Your name is Bette Morgan. Bette Morgan?”
Am I famous? Did I stutter? “Yes child, now drive.”
“But you’ve been missing for over a year.”
I turn to him, my head cracking with the movement. My heart pounds. “That’s impossible.” I feel like I can’t breathe.
“You went missing in December of 2017. Its May of 2019.” The kid shakes himself. “I think I need to take you to the police station.”
I open my mouth. But it just flaps like a fish. That can’t be right. There is no way I went missing for that long. I only slept in the forest after a night out. Granted I don’t know where my car is, but surely it can’t be true.
Chills spread through my entire body. What happened to me? Where did I go? I try to remember last night. Or rather the night I went missing. But I can’t. It’s like an empty void, a black hole of all my memories. Is this amnesia? I don’t like it. Especially because there is no way I could have survived in the forest for over a year just lying there like I was. I’m also pretty sure these aren’t my clothes.
I sit back quietly. There isn’t anything I can say. The rumble of the engine soothes me until we near a town. Then everything flares, my adrenaline rushing through my system, and I feel like I need to get the fuck out of there. I have to run. I don’t want to go to the police. My instinct wars with my gut. Do I stay or do I go?
Stay or go?
I sit tight, but I doubt the police will give me any information. This is only going to confuse me even more. The teen, I didn’t even ask him his name, parks in front of a run-down police station. I climb out. My feet hit the hot asphalt, and I hop onto the sidewalk like a rabbit. The damn kid follows me. I raise a brow at him curiously.
“What? I’m not missing this. You’ve been gone for a while.” He pulls out his phone. “Can I go live with this?”
“No, what the hell?” I gape at the kid, and I turn around just as a man in uniform walks out. His brow is sweaty, but he’s young enough to look good in that brown uniform.
“Can I help you?” he asks, giving me a strange look.
“Right then. I’m Bette Morgan and apparently, I’ve been missing for a while.”
He freezes and I can visibly see the blood drain from his face. He looks me up and down, a frown marring his handsome features. Yeah, I know buddy, I look like shit. Just let it happen. He’s at a loss for words. Opening and closing his mouth just like I did a few moments ago.
“Tony, I thought you were going to the springs?” An older, grey-haired man walks up in jeans, a ratty t-shirt, and boots.
“Oh, I was, but I found Bette Morgan,” the teen, Tony, replies to the older man in a cocky voice. Bad child, bad. The resemblance isn’t lost on me and I’m guessing this is his dad. Even more concerning is the growing excitement in the teen’s face which makes me pout.
“You what now?” The older man pauses, eying up his son before looking over at me. It’s rather comical as he takes in my features. His eyes grow wide and he frowns in speculation. The wrinkle lines of his forehead mush together into little valleys. Oh, and he has a cute little dimple in his chin I kind of want to squish.
“Bette. Morgan,” I say slowly, suddenly craving a coffee. More specifically a latte. Oh yes, that would be nice. “Do you have decent coffee in there? Or can I send your son for some?”
“I... Well shit. Tony get the woman some coffee
that isn’t swamp muck. And you,” the older man points to me, shaking his head as though he just can’t believe this day—it isn’t even noon and I can’t believe this day, fate fucked something up, “follow me. I’m Sherriff Brown. Dammit, I’m going to have to call the feds back.”
He grumbles to himself before walking into the old police station. I follow him in, letting him mutter out his woes. I mean at least he didn’t wake up in the forest losing fifteen months of his life. Which, by the freaking way, I’m handling like a pro—for now.
“I suppose you can’t tell me where you’ve been for the last year or so?” he throws over his shoulder, while walking down a dank hallway.
“Don’t suppose I can.” What a smelly station. The walls are yellowing and the air reeks of stale cigarettes, and maybe a splash of piss. I shudder, not really wanting to be there anymore. Even though I damn well know I need someone to help me figure this shit out.
“Is there anyone I can call?” He opens a door to an office and I’m hit with the smell of tobacco. Not the stale cigarette smell from the hallway, but real pipe tobacco. I may be in a shitty predicament, however that smell makes me trust this guy just a hair more. Call me sentimental, but it reminds me of my pop. How he’d sit me on his knee with that pipe tobacco in his mouth, just puffing away. It’s actually a good memory, and I stuff it into my heart box and shelve it in my mental warehouse of things to go back to later. When I’m breaking down from the what-the-fuck situation I’ve got going on right now.
And right now the sheriff’s question has me feeling weird.
“Ms. Morgan?” I snap out of it, watching the older gentleman sitting behind his desk. He pulls the phone close to him ready to make a call.
Oh yeah, he asked me a question. “No, there’s no one.” My chest aches at the realization. But it feels like I’ve lost something, someone, and not the thought of those I left behind here. My heart skips a beat and a frown pulls my brows down. I purse my lips as thoughts skitter through me. Nothing concrete, but just odd emotions that make no sense. A crisis. Comfort, care. The promise of something more.
