Chapter Six
6 – Home Again
Between Sil’s apartment and the Kitazawa residence stretched about half an hour of uncomfortable silence interspersed with Yuri describing, somewhat awkwardly, her second experience in the darkness.
“I can’t even begin to speculate about what goes on in the place between the planes,” she said very seriously, both hands on the wheel of her 2005 VW Beetle, eyes straight ahead. “However, what you’ve described both times lines up pretty well with what I’ve been told about interplanar travel. That ribbon you saw was probably a manifestation of the thread I’d told your subconscious to follow when I instructed you to think about where your home was.”
“So… you’re really, actually, Silaelin, but you live in Waldorf?” Yuri struggled, and largely failed, to wrap her brain around the concept.
Sil nodded, her demeanor shifting back to the somewhat cheerful attitude with which she’d begun the drive. “It’s called ‘bilocation,’ when one person or object occupies two different places at the same time. It’s… well, it’s really hard to explain to someone who either hasn’t done it or isn’t at least in the clergy, but as far as you’re concerned, Silaelin and Silvia are one and the same. Which is why I said it’d probably be best for everyone if you just called me ‘Sil.’”
“Okay.” Yuri turned to watch the small towns on MD-235 roll past outside the passenger side window. “What do I do now? When is now, anyway?”
“It’s only been a few hours, I’d imagine,” said Sil. “It’s a little after ten, and you said it was around three in the morning that you got hit, right? This time it was convenient, but you will probably find that the amount of time you spend somewhere else isn’t proportionate to the amount of time that passes here.
“As for what happens now… well, that’s up to you. Like I said, there’s a little work that you need to do before you can be sure that you have conscious control over what you’re doing. If you want to just forget this happened, you can, but I really wouldn’t recommend it. I mean what happens the next time? The universe is pretty big, what are the chances of you finding someone who can help you get home again? Chances are, you’d just be stranded and miserable.” Sil shrugged. “But it’s up to you.”
“Not much of a choice, is it?” Yuri muttered sullenly.
“Aww, cheer up! All is hardly lost.” Sil flashed a dazzling smile. “I can give you my number and we can get together whenever you feel like it, and I can give you some pointers on how to get a handle on this. It’s not that hard, you just have to keep at it. Like exercise. Is this your turn?”
“Yeah, this is it, at the light.”
Sil flipped her turn signal on and finally executed the turn onto Pegg Road (the home stretch, Yuri thought). A little less than a mile down the road, both she and Sil could see what remained of her bicycle, stranded in the ditch. The car slowed. “That’s yours, right?”
Yuri felt her heart sink a little. She frowned, sighed, and shook her head. “Just leave it. No sense in bringing it home now. It’s not like I can use it, and God knows I don’t want to have to explain it to my parents whenever they get home.”
“You sure? I have a sheet in the trunk we could throw over the back seat, and I’m sure we could wedge it in without too much trouble.”
“I’m sure. Now, in about a mile, you’ll take a right, and that’ll be my subdivision.”
With a barely perceptible nod, Sil eased the car back up to the speed limit.
*
Though Silvia made sure to scribble her personal cell number on a card printed with her business cell number, Yuri did not call. Neither did she give Silvia her home telephone number; her cell number was moot, since her cell was in the bag which she no longer possessed. When Yuri’s mother called the land line, worried because Yuri had not been answering her cell, she merely mentioned how her bike and bag (which included cell phone, a partially filled sketchpad, and a weatherbeaten copy of Good Omens, among other things) had been stolen at some point in the past few days. She told Reese the same story, and no one thought better of it.
The hazy feeling she’d experienced when she first opened her eyes on Silvia’s sofa lingered like a miasma. She had difficulty concentrating on anything for any length of time, and spent most of the next few days either asleep on the couch or in a kind of stupor on the couch, watching whatever happened to be on the television at the time. She tried desperately to play a handful of console games, as though the distraction they offered could make it easier to forget the few hours she’d been lost. However, the only games she could actually succeed at were mindless button-mashers that let her mind wander with relative ease.
Her days soon became a blur of eating, sleeping, and the TV Guide Channel.
A week after Sil had pressed the business card into her hand and driven away, Yuri dreamed.
Her dream self rolled off the couch and onto the hardwood floor of a coffee shop that seemed to be a bizarre hybrid of the one she remembered fondly from her youth and the one in which she had met Len. With elements from both jammed together in this way, the differences between them were clear; the coffee house she remembered was older, the furniture and fixtures worn and faded, but well loved. The Sunset Cafe was warmer, the wood newer, and a greater amount of care had gone into maintaining the things customers often abused.
In the rear of the room, a fire roared in the fireplace (which looked disproportionately large on the wall), and a handful of people gathered around it, speaking in anxious tones. They seemed to not notice the girl gazing at them quizzically from the floor behind them, but Yuri knew with strange, dreamy certainty that they worried they were being watched. To her left, Len appeared behind the counter. She wasn’t quite sure if he’d appeared out of thin air or if he’d simply been elsewhere and walked into her field of vision; either way, he smiled at her gently and beckoned her over, laying out some pastries and a cup of tea.
Without really standing up or walking, Yuri found herself perched on a high stool in front of the counter. “I’m very glad you came back,” Len informed her as he set about cleaning the strange device Yuri assumed was an Adani espresso machine. “Though I think that you might have chosen a poor time. The whole city is in disarray– it seems a monster is loose in the streets. It’s good to see that you safe in all this mess.”
Yuri had meant to say something flippant like, “Monster. Right.” However, what she heard leave her mouth sounded more like, “Safe. Right.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. “No one’s safe now. There’s no peace in this house.”
Len merely shrugged as though Yuri’s strange declaration were the most normal thing. “It could be worse. You could be out in the cold like them.” He pointed toward the bay window at the front of the cafe, and Yuri’s gaze followed. The world outside the cafe was dark, almost too dark for her to discern anything. She leaned forward just a little, and saw a small flash of something in the corner of the window.
She no longer sat within the supposed safety of the coffee house. Now she stood in the dimly lit street, a twisted parody of the grace that characterized Nachtlin’s buildings and roads. Everything around her was jagged, shattered, and harsh. All the buildings seemed splashed with black or brown, and the structures that Yuri knew to be made of the strange white bedrock were all mottled and covered with thick ropes of a ruddy ichor that twitched ever so slightly. In the allies, dark forms huddled together, indistinct and pitiful.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the flash again, closer this time. She whirled on her heel in ultra-slow motion, her hair whipping around her face just as a bolt of lightning split the sky open and illuminated everything around her in stark clarity. The first fat rain drops pelted her with cold as she stared into a pair of fiery green eyes. She barely noticed the white face or the black hair that framed them; she was pinned by their luminous ferocity and the vicious glee she saw in their depths. If eyes were the windows to the soul, she realized distantly, this soul had been made of shards of glass and razor wire. The longer she stared into them, the less human they looked.
The illumination from the lightning faded slowly, leaving Yuri in a dark, rain-soaked landscape lit only by the predatory green eyes. Below them, a glimmering white smile formed, a crooked and malicious slash in the dark. Behind them, other pin-pricks of color began to appear, a forest of malevolent eyes moving silently toward her. Lightning flashed again, and the green-eyed creature surged forward so quickly that she had no hope of tracking its movement. It lashed out with a hand like a claw and gripped her throat so tightly that Yuri could feel her windpipe collapsing in its grip.
It jerked her forward off her feet and lifted her so that she was staring into the eerily electric depths of its slitted pupils. She heard it sniff her once or twice, then felt it huff its breath out harshly in her face. The edges of her vision began to grow dim (from lack of oxygen, she assumed), and the last thing she saw was the crooked grin floating in front of her like some twisted Cheshire cat.
*
When Yuri opened her eyes again, she almost convinced herself that she was still dreaming. Everything was dark and a little chilly, though there were no eyes floating either near or in the distance. The lack of rain, the lack of a cityscape, the lack of anything at all eventually filtered into her awareness and dispelled all thoughts that her dream had shifted.
I was sure that I had imagined you, a familiar “voice” said. Yuri turned around, beginning to kick her feet as though treading water, to see the spindly and familiar shape of Corwyn. I thought I had imagined that you called my name.
“If it’s any consolation, I’d been hoping that I’d imagined it, too,” Yuri said wryly.
Corwyn shrugged. I don’t understand, but I really don’t need to, do I? He drifted a little closer and reached out to tuck a lock of Yuri’s hair behind her ear. When Yuri did not flinch or jerk away, he pulled his hand back and gave the distinct impression of widening his eyes. My Gods, I can touch you. This is real, isn’t it?
In response, Yuri grabbed his hand and lightly tugged on all of his fingers. His skin was cool to the touch but not clammy, and it put her in mind of how Silaelin’s skin had felt. “I guess it is,” she said, trying for his sake to keep the sullenness out of her voice. “Listen, I’m not really sure what I’m doing here, but I do want to thank you for pointing me where you did. I met someone who was able to help me, even though I kind of stopped listening to her after I got what I wanted out of the deal.”
What brings you back here, if you viewed our encounters as a dream? Corwyn asked, seeming to study Yuri’s fingertips.
“I’d just been sort of hoping that this would go away if I didn’t think about it,” she replied, feeling shameful telling him this. “So when I got home, I tried to pretend that it had never happened. That meant turning down an offer someone made to help me get a handle on the situation. Tonight…” She sighed. “Tonight, I had a bad dream, and when I woke up, I was here. I didn’t mean it. But it kinda proves that I need help with this, doesn’t it?”
Hmm. Corwyn pulled away and drifted slowly to Yuri’s right. Flailing her arms a little, she followed. If you might pass freely here, then it is possible that I might pass freely as well. Perhaps it is time I left this place?
“I don’t think I understand what you’re saying, now,” Yuri said.
I was damned, Corwyn replied, gently taking Yuri’s hands into his. I was to live here for the rest of my days cold, alone, and without the comfort of anyone’s touch. However, you are here, you are real, and this means I am no longer alone. To prove his point, he laced his fingers with Yuri’s and cautiously pulled her toward him. This is fantastic, he continued, a tingly edge of excitement creeping into his “voice.” Please, since you are the catalyst for this, I would be honored if you chose where we go first. It would be a pleasure to see a place that you enjoy.
There was a brief moment in which Yuri thought of the living room of the apartment which Reese, Lexi, and Matt shared, but she quickly decided against it. Instead, her thoughts turned to the Sunset Cafe and the time she’d spent sitting on its porch listening to Len. “Sure, okay. I think I know just the place.”
Corwyn looked at her expectantly, his fingers still loosely intertwined with hers. Please, lead on.
“Right.” She closed her eyes and tried to recall the instructions Silaelin had given her. Instead of beginning large and working downward, she held in her mind a picture of the Cafe as she had first seen it from the street. From there, she built a panoramic image in her mind that drew the graceful nautilus curve of the city streets of Nachtlin, which she situated like a shimmering white shell on what she imagined to be the Dark Coast.
There was a moment in which she felt like the universe slotted into place and she knew she’d done well enough. She tightened her grip on Corwyn’s hands and drew him with her when she began to tumble downward.
March 8, 2009 12:01 AM 
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By Scribbler, March 12, 2009 @ 2:02 PM
Fantastic chapter! This is one of your strongest yet, without a doubt. I really got a better feel for the characters that were involved (except Sil; she’s quite the enigma, isn’t she? Reminds me a bit of a character my mother created way back in the day….), and I’m especially glad to see Corwyn “sticking” in the story (though I don’t think there’s any way I can make that sentence make sense, lol!)
There were a couple places I had trouble reading – the few paragraphs immediately following the break, for some reason, I was just inclined to skim over – but all in all, this was well-written and balanced nicely. Can’t wait for the next!
By S. Gates, March 12, 2009 @ 2:07 PM
Thank you! I can’t really say much about Sil except that she’s got her reasons for being how she is, but I’m not really sure if/when Yuri (and by extension the readers) will get full disclosure. And yeah, there will definitely be more of Corwyn. :3
By Lanir, April 8, 2009 @ 4:08 AM
I just started but I’m having fun reading this so far. Now I’m interested… but the link to chapter 7 from here seems to be broken.
By S. Gates, April 8, 2009 @ 8:17 AM
Oof. Apparently I fail at copy/pasting. Thanks for the heads up, should be fixed now. :)
By daymon, July 9, 2009 @ 5:26 PM
Well now, I wonder what Corwyn looks like. At least she didn’t forget how to move between planes.