If this had been easy, I would have opened my eyes and I would have been in bed.\u00a0 It would have all been like a dream, except for muddy shoes and the smell of doughnuts.<\/p>\n
Or crumbs of cheese-puffs.\u00a0 No one, except for me, is allowed to eat crackers in my bed.\u00a0 I told Maggie it was a deal-breaker.\u00a0 In retort, she offered to make s’mores.<\/p>\n
I opened my eyes in time to see the portal draw into itself, like the reverse of unwrapping a package, I guess.\u00a0 That would be wrapping it, of course, but I’m terrible at that.\u00a0 I’m more likely to pay the nice lady in the festive scrubs the “donation” to get mine all pretty, or hand it to the kid still in a plastic sack from the store while their mom’s not looking.\u00a0 (Of course I’ve been moving to cloth bags instead, but some of those crazy boutiques still hand out the plastic unless you cuss up a storm.\u00a0 Which, I mentioned, I’m no weather worker, so I can’t even swear up more than a little bit of bubbles and spit.\u00a0 Ahem.)<\/p>\n
This was a nice, neat folding of the universe from the edges of where the gate was anchored into a localized center that imploded.\u00a0 I’m sure it all has to do with some sort of interaction between magic and physics,\u00a0 but I think the quantum theorists have to be even stronger practitioners than the heavy hitters, or quacks.\u00a0 I still haven’t made up my mind.<\/p>\n
It left me sitting next to a stone table, under the weak sun of a sithen hill where fortune was never my friend.\u00a0 I looked for meaning in the table, or in the bread, but instead brought my eyes to the castle which loomed over us.\u00a0 Why did my subconscious give it such pretty, sharp spires?\u00a0 I would have sworn my opinions far more clear, my willpower to suggest it more an iron fortress, an asylum filled with despair.\u00a0 But no, this was more Lisa Frank than Edgar Allen.\u00a0 Poe.\u00a0 You know.\u00a0 Rainbows and kittens with halos and nary a\u00a0 sharp word, ill thought, or bad habit.\u00a0\u00a0 Except for the cobwebs.<\/p>\n
There was a guard at the gate.\u00a0 The armor was white, and sharp.\u00a0 I ignored it to climb back up to the cave.<\/p>\n
Doloise stood there, a visible haze of anger around her.<\/p>\n
“Shut it,” I said, before she could even begin to say whatever it was she was going to say.\u00a0 A crackle of lightning crossed her amber sunglasses.\u00a0 “I want back into my world.\u00a0 More than anything else you can pay me, I just want to go home.”\u00a0 I leaned over.\u00a0 “I feel used.”<\/p>\n
So, to make a long story short, she brought me back.\u00a0 Not by the same route we used, although I remembered the promise of my heart.\u00a0 It was dark and it was dark when I went into my house and she dismissed my simulacrum.\u00a0 It was dark when I pulled off my pants and sat on my bed.<\/p>\n
Her voice surprised me there in the darkness.<\/p>\n
“You did not use your magics.”<\/p>\n
“No, but I sure used my talents,” I said.\u00a0 “Go away.\u00a0 I uninvite you, if ever I invited you in the first place, which I’m pretty sure I didn’t.\u00a0 Just go away.”<\/p>\n
“We are…confused.”<\/p>\n
I laughed.\u00a0 I couldn’t help it.\u00a0 Actually, it took me a few minutes to stop laughing, even there, without my pants on, which, really, is one of the best times to laugh.\u00a0 Unless you’re on the toilet, at which point you’re a bit too vulnerable to enjoy it.<\/p>\n
“Go away.\u00a0 Two words.\u00a0 Get out of here.\u00a0 Four words.\u00a0 Don’t come back.\u00a0 Three words, if you don’t count the conjunction.\u00a0 What part don’t you understand?”<\/p>\n
“Why did he leave?”<\/p>\n
I paused.\u00a0 “That answer will cost you.”<\/p>\n
“We are prepared to pay.”<\/p>\n
“You don’t have enough.\u00a0 Look.\u00a0 I know what I’ll see if I look in a mirror.\u00a0 I’ll see him.\u00a0 Or rather, I’ll see myself, and I’ll see that you never come unscathed from dealing with a shadow lord.\u00a0 He left because he marked me.\u00a0 His will was done, so mote it be.\u00a0 Jerk.”\u00a0 Bleepin’ demons.\u00a0 “I can’t make it any clearer for you.\u00a0 Go ask the Questor.\u00a0 He might be able to tell you how to find the answer.”\u00a0 I wonder if he ever sends anyone to bark up the wrong tree.\u00a0 Or to jump in a lake.<\/p>\n
Why did he leave, E?\u00a0 You felt something just as he left.\u00a0 Like a shadow on the brow, a whisper on the soul, a sliver of what makes a whisker quiver.<\/p>\n
I wanted Maggie.\u00a0 I wanted somebody to hold.<\/p>\n
But instead, I had a family of faerie arguing with itself about what a mortal could possibly mean, a cold bed, and no dinner.<\/p>\n
I think I’ll get a cat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There’s a restlessness in returning home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chapter-two"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}