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Chapter 4
~One Week Ago~
It was after a particularly unbearable day at school, and an equally agonizing evening at home that Emma was finally whisked away to another realm. She was of course, caught completely unprepared.
Not that she hadn’t been trying to escape reality for some time. The physical world she lived in on a day to day basis seemed at best, lame and at worst, outright torture. At 15, she couldn’t drive yet, didn’t have a cell phone, and didn’t really have many friends to call or visit even if she did. She lived in the country with her mom, dad, little sister Isabelle, and a menagerie of broken down horses, three legged dogs, unwanted cats and a mentally disabled goat named Bozar. Her mom was pushy, her dad was absent much of the time, her sister was a pain, which pretty much left Emma to hide in her room with her books, or out in the barn with the animals.
She loved animals. It was a statement “Doctor Mom” ridiculed her for. Emma really couldn’t stand to see the pain or suffering of living creatures; it made her ill. Her mom just so happened to be a veterinarian, which would have been great, if being a vet was anything like it was portrayed in Barbie commercials. Emma hated how kids always said they wanted to be veterinarians. They didn’t know what that was really like. What they really wanted was to have more pets. They didn’t want to set broken bones or induce vomiting or put animals to sleep. And she didn’t either; like most kids, she just wanted to pet animals and play with them and feed them treats.
Her mom was willing to give her a job at the vet office, but only if she was willing to stay put when the syringes came out. Emma wanted nothing to do with that. Although she was happy to nurse abandoned kittens or even clean out cages, she could no more give an animal a shot as she could cut off her own arm. “A little bit of unpleasantness is not the worst thing in the world,” her mom would explain as she stuck a yelping puppy with a hypodermic.
Emma said she didn’t need the money that bad.
Emma would have been surprised to hear that people thought she was at best, shy, and at worst, arrogant. She never saw herself as a quite person in part because she never realized how very little she really said to other people. She would not have been surprised to hear someone say she was “off in another world,” because honestly, that’s where she spent most of her time.
It was her father’s fault, though she didn’t blame him. She loved her father, even though he’d fallen into a routine of working early-morning and late-night shifts at his restaurant job, so she didn’t see him much any more. Still, she was proud that, growing up, he’d given her books instead of makeup, model horses instead of dolls, took her to concerts and movies instead of shopping. But in a way, it was his fault that she grew up angry and resentful towards the world around her that didn’t seem to reflect what she read about in stories or saw in films. Real life never seemed to begin “once upon a time” and didn’t usually end “happily ever after.”
This was never more obvious than it was during that fateful December day, right before winter break. It was the day that the one person she would have talked to and text messaged, if she’d had she the ability to, decided he didn’t want to talk to her anymore. It was the day Valentine broke up with her.
Valentine was in her grade; tall and gangly. She had seen him around, he was in her science class and, due to proximity and the mathematics of dividing the classroom into pairs for lab experiments, she’d actually got to be his partner a few times. She wasn’t sure why she liked him, he wasn’t abnormally funny and they certainly didn’t talk very much, but there was just something about him that made her warm and smiley.
“It was probably just his name I liked,” she thought later that night. Her misery had led her to go on a long, cold, lonely night-time walk, over the snow-covered yard, past the barn, out over the pasture and down the fence line that outlined her family’s property. She found that walking helped her think better, but unfortunately, all she could think about was Valentine.
Her mind traveled backwards in time, back to the day all of what, two weeks ago, when they’d first started going together. Valentine was standing in the lunch line, his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans, staring rather absently at the wall. Emma was at her locker getting her lunch bag when she noticed him. Acting on instinct and not letting herself think, for fear she’d talk herself out of it, she all but ran to get in line behind him.
“Hi,” she said. “What’s for lunch?”
“I’m getting a salad,” he said, looking at her with absolutely no expression on his face.
“Oh,” she said, realizing she had no reason to be in line since she held a crumpled grocery bag in her right hand. “I brought my lunch but I think I’ll get some supplementals.”
“Supplementals?”
“Add-ons. What goes well with bologna?”
“Yuck. You eat lunch meat?”
This reaction stunned her, and for a moment she was too embarrassed to speak. It wasn’t even what he said as much as it was the fact that he was actually talking back to her. They were, like, having a conversation. So that’s how it works! She went on. “It is meat, and I eat it for lunch. So I guess yes.”
“
“Wow, I didn’t know that,” she said, looking at his lips. They were pale pink and narrow, like little kitty lips.
“You don’t have the kind with bits of cheese or olives in it do you?”
“No, this is the good kind.” Then, trying to steer the conversation away from the humiliating contents of her lunch bag, she told him about the fact that her dad worked for a restaurant. She avoided the fact that he was a waiter and not head chef, but they moved through the lunch line smoothly, and she didn’t even have to buy anything. Valentine took his salad, which he heaped with cheese and croutons then slathered with ranch dressing, and they talked and walked across the lunchroom. They sat at an empty table, and kept talking.
And thus it began. There was hand-holding and hugging and passing notes between class and annoying glances from the teachers. They partnered up all the time in science, and left notes to each other scrawled on the desks when they shared a classroom, but in different periods.
Then the stupid jerk had to go and wreck it all. Stupid tall knobby idiot boy and all his dopiness. And they never even got to the kissing stage! Bastard.
Emma crunched her way along the fence line, caught up in her own thoughts. After she’d gotten home from school that night, she’d spent most of the evening in her room. She’d cried and prayed and wished and said every magical word she could think of to try and figure out how she was going to get him back. She scribbled letters asking forgiveness, asking him to please die, and finally reached the realization that she didn’t understand why he’d broken up with her, and she didn’t know what to do. She’d blurted out her problem at dinner. Her dad wasn’t there, as usual. Her sister laughed and her mother scolded her for being too young to have a boyfriend anyways. A lot of family support they’d been. One thing she was sure of, though. She’d never wanted to escape real life more than she did right now.
She kicked at the snow, unable to cry or do anything. She walked until the dark grew dense and the moon appeared above, full and fat. She trudged over the hill and farther down the fence line, distracted from her depression momentarily by the beauty of the moonlight, which pooled into bright puddles between every rolling hill.
Then she saw movement. Something was loping along the opposite fence line. She froze. It almost looked as though a snow bank had come to life and was lumbering across the field.
“That’s a big dog,” she thought as she watched it move. This animal was white as the snow, moving slowly yet in a determined path. Its long tail stretched straight out from its body, waving like a banner.
Emma was not frightened by strange animals in the least. Living in the country, strays and neighbor’s animals were always wandering in and around their land. But this was one she’d never seen it before. If she had, she knew she would have remembered it.
It perked its ears and turned its head towards her. Then the beast began to approach. It was the biggest dog Emma could imagine. She had a momentary vision of the animal curling its lip back in a snarl, but disregarded it almost immediately. Yes, it did have a narrow, fierce, lupine face, but its ears weren’t wolf-like. They were sort of half upright, with the silky tips flopped over. Actually, it looked rather silly.
The strange dog fixed on her seated itself in the snow less than six feet away. It turned its head to nibble an itch on its shoulder then looked back at her. Kind black eyes pierced the whiteness like two charcoal lumps in a frosty snowman face.
“Aw, look at you,” she smiled, and cautiously approached. The dog stuck its nose into the snow, snuffled around for a moment, then rolled onto its back, snaking back and forth scratching that itch. She held her hand out to the animal to sniff, but it was more interested in playing in the snow. She patted its side. “Good boy.”
The animal rolled to its feet, abruptly alert. Emma pulled back her hand and quickly stood up. The dog stood too, shook the snow from its white coat and looked around. It started to whine, as if it wanted to be anywhere but where it was. Backing away from the girl nervously, almost apologetically, it trotted a few steps.
“What is it?” Emma looked behind her. She heard the sound of wind, but the air about her was still. Odd. Then, a flash lit up everything within her view as bright as day. She blinked to adjust her eyes, only to see a faint orb of light encircle her and the dog.
“Was I just struck by lighting?” her confused brain asked, but that made no sense. Still, something had happened, for there was now a full circular glow enveloping the two of them. Her eyes met the dog’s. Its ears were back flat against its skull, and her heart jumped as it let out a low, long growl.
“Whoa, it’s okay,” she tried to keep her voice from wavering. She backed towards the edge of the circle of light, but the dog dashed past her, teeth barred. Strangely, the circle of whitish yellow light followed him like a spot light. Was there a plane shining the light down from above? Emma quickly glanced up but still saw no source. “What the hell is going on!” she cried and spun around.
And came nose to nose with the scariest thing she’d ever seen.
Well, nose to empty socket where a nose should have been. The thing was shaped like a human, standing on two legs, but its body looked like it was made of dead sticks held together with tar. It’s head was like a skull with gaping black holes instead of eyes. Behind it, there appeared to be more of them. Hundreds of them. They were oddly silent, swaying and writhing shadows. Then the thing in front seemed to unhinge its jaw and all Emma saw a mouth full of pointed shark-like teeth.
She screamed. The dog barked one short, sharp bark which seemed to startle the monstrous thing. Emma turned to run, but the giant dog jumped into her way, knocking her off balance. To keep herself from falling, she found herself grasping onto the scruff of its neck. The dog wheeled and leapt forward, and before she knew what was happening, it bolted forward, dragging her across the moon-dappled field.
She had no choice but to hold on for dear life. She tried to get her footing, to run next to the dog, but it was going too fast. She could do nothing but pull herself onto its back, or risk being left behind to face those devils. As the dog ran faster and faster, a storm of snow rose around them. She looked up and could see nothing but white, and before them, the painfully bright circle of the full moon. It seemed to be coming closer and closer, blinding. She buried her head in the dog’s fur, and the light enveloped them completely.
---
It was dark. She opened her eyes. Okay, that helped.
She sat up, for she was no longer on the back of the dog. She was on the ground, which smelled of moss and of earth. Her hand rose to her throat, and she sought the comfort of her good luck charm. Finding the necklace flopping half out of her quilted blue coat, she twisted the clasp around to the back and felt the familiar roundness of the pearl in her hand. Where the hell was she? Where was the dog? And what about those devil looking things?
Her brain worked feverishly hard to connect dots and calm her nerves. “I was just riding a dog. A giant dog. A dog as big as a bear. And we galloped across the meadow.” These thoughts did not help her much, and so, finding that she had nothing wrong with her other than a bruised butt, she decided to stand. She looked up and took a deep breath.
Above her a wide canopy of tree branches hung knitted together like finely woven cloth. Some of the trees were terribly tall, and gave off the aura of something so old and sacred that she shouldn't even be looking at them. They stretched up to what seemed heaven-heights. Some trees were short and gnarly, twisted, with branches reaching upwards like the fingers of an old man. Others were wispy thin, in movement even while standing still. But, strangely, none of the trees had leaves, and despite their odd way of tangling together into a dense mat that she couldn't even see the sky through, the area where Emma stood was not dark. Brightness surrounded her and the air seemed to sway and sparkle, like she viewed the forest through a wet pane of glass. It was unsettling, this strange glen.
“I must have been sleepwalked.” Her brain halfheartedly admitted defeat, as this was the only semi-sane explanation it could come up with. “I must have been dreaming, and I sleepwalked off to some strange forest. But why isn't there snow here?” She took another deep breath, to slow her fluttering heartbeat and clear her mind. The air was so sweet she didn't want to stop inhaling. It smelled like some amazing flower, something like honeysuckle and orange blossom, a fragrance that needed wide open spaces to fill. It was tinged with cut grass and honey. Emma felt her head grow light with the scent and sighed audibly.
“Maybe I'm dreaming now.” That actually seemed to be a more plausible idea. “Although I don't feel asleep. Everything looks so real, smells real,” she put her hand out to stroke the smooth white bark of a birch trunk. “It feels real, too.”
She walked, her eyes glazing over with the strange beauty of it. She felt dizzy. There was almost no underbrush, but there was also no path to follow, and the strange way the trees seemed to play with light and air around her made it difficult to tell if the forest was getting denser or if it was thinning out. She felt warm where she was, but as she moved in one direction, things got noticeably cooler.
The absence of sound was disconcerting. She could hear no birds, no traffic, no buzzing or humming of electric lights or insects. No plane flew overhead, no leaves rustled. The place was quite - silent like a temple or a church.
She was pretty certain she was drawing near the edge of the forest, for the chill was mounting. The pinky-orange glow seemed to fade to a resolute flat daytime light, and she saw, beyond the last line of trees, an open field of low grass. Then, almost as if she were pushed, she found herself outside the glen.
She looked around to get her bearings. Behind her was the forest she had just tumbled out of. But, strangely, it didn't appear to be any different than any other grove trees she had ever seen. She tried sticking her head between the trees only to see more branches and an amazing wall of brambles she was sure had not been there before.
Her head was spinning, and she credited it to whatever she’d been inhaling. The portion of forest she was in now was open, like a huge park. Bare trees stretched up into the light grey sky. The ground was covered with a carpet of half-rotted leaves and pine needles, along with stones and moss and tufts of various grasses. The texture of the landscape felt good to gaze upon, but at the same time, utterly unfamiliar.
