Chapter 2

Wednesday, June 2, 3109, 9:24 p.m. “Are you all right, dear?”

Rebecca moaned without opening her eyes.

“Are you all right?” the woman repeated.

Cautiously, Rebecca cracked her left eye to gaze upward. “Who are you?” she croaked.

“I’m Leda. How do you feel, dear?”

Rebecca felt sick to her stomach and lightheaded. “What happened to me?” She swiveled her eye enough to discern unfamiliar surroundings. “How did I get here?”

The woman extended a hand. Rebecca took it and sat up, moaning. “My lip,” she complained, touching it and flinching. Her right eye ached, as well, swollen almost closed. Someone had punched her a good one, she thought. She looked around. “Do you know where I am?”

“You fell through backwards and cracked you head, dear. I hope you don’t have a concussion.”

Rebecca rubbed the back of her head. “I fell through what backwards?”

Leda was middle-aged, with gray-shot blonde hair, worn short and neatly trimmed. She wore purple loungewear. Her accent was odd, as though English was not her first language.

“Where am I?” she asked again. The large room was hemispherical with a ceiling so subtly lit that height was difficult to determine. The lighting had no apparent source. Rebecca spotted no furniture, only a centrally located lectern atop a broad, circular dais. A passageway beyond the dais gave exit from the room.

Rather than answer, Leda gazed intently at something beyond her. Twisting, Rebecca spotted the gate. A painful shake of the head failed to banish the locus; it stubbornly hung on the air.

“Did I come through that?”

“Yes, dear, you did.”

“And where am I, again?” she asked.

“The Hall of the Gate. In the High Palace of Norkaal.” Leda smiled apologetically, as though embarrassed to utter the words. “What’s more important is when you are, dear.” She hesitated. “You’ve stepped forward more than 1000 years.”

Rebecca moaned and held her head. “Please, no more of this time travel stuff.” With the help of Leda’s hand, she got unsteadily to her feet. “Will that take me back?”

Leda nodded. “Let me care for your wounds first and get you something to eat and drink. The gate has a terrible side effect of disrupting your digestive system when you step through.” She laughed. “In your case, plummet through on your backside, I’m afraid. It also makes you voraciously thirsty, as I’m sure you’ve discovered.”

Rebecca nodded unhappily. The first thing Iris had asked for was a Diet Coke. Did they have soda here, she wondered? Wherever here was.

“I’m sure you’d like to know more about the High Palace, as well. It would be to your benefit to know more, Rebecca, I assure you.”

Rebecca cocked an eyebrow as Leda raised hers. Benefit her how, she wondered. And Christ, what about her parents? “Oh, shit!” she gasped. “I need to get back! Right now!”

Leda put a restraining hand on her forearm. “Your mom? Don’t worry about your mom, sweetie. I’ll arrange it so your mom never even knows you were gone. In fact...” She dropped her hand and smiled. “While here in 3109, time effectively stands still at your departure point. It’s not like you snuck out your bedroom window to meet a boy.” She laughed delightedly. “You’re how old... 16? Oh, my gosh!” She laughed again. “Incredible.”

Still unbalanced, Rebecca backed away, stumbling over her feet. Leda caught her arm. “Careful, dear; you don’t want to fall through again. It’s not safe to use it within a short time-period, anyway. The side effects are cumulative, and can result in hypoglycemia, compounded by severe dehydration. Passing out is a real danger if you don’t take precautions, dear.”

“How long then? 6 hours?” she complained stridently a moment later.

“8 is better, and a minimum after your first trip.” She frowned. “This is your first trip, correct?”

Rebecca winced painfully. “You’re just trying to keep me here!” she accused.

Smiling patiently, Leda gestured at the gate. “You are free to travel at any time, Rebecca. I’m only explaining the risks.”

“Fuck,” Rebecca muttered sullenly. “I am so much in trouble.”

Laughing, Leda took her hand. “Let’s get you cleaned up and fed. Just this way, around the podium, dear.”

They entered the long passageway and Rebecca asked: “How do you know my name? Did Iris tell you?”

Leda stopped short. “Who is Iris?”

Rebecca blinked in surprise. “But she...” Frowning, she looked ahead, and then cast a glance behind toward the circular hall. “She knows you. She wanted me to meet you here. Maybe you’re not the person I’m supposed to see?”

Leda laughed. “Trust me, dear, I am. I’ve expected you for the longest time, Rebecca.” She tapped her lips with the tip of a finger. “Iris? Iris, Iris, Iris,” she mused. Her eyes popped wide. “Of course!” She laughed delightedly again. “I had forgotten after all these years. She told you to call her that did she?”

Rebecca was confused. “Isn’t that her name?”

Leda grinned. “Good a name as any, I guess. Anyway, here we are.” She ushered Rebecca into a small, but softly lit room. It contained no furniture of any sort, though unlike the cool hallway floor and that of the hemispherical room containing the gate, the floor here was warm beneath her bare feet. “Sit down, dear. I’ll be back in a moment,” Leda said.

Still disoriented, Rebecca glanced around for something to sit on, and then turned to query her host. But Leda was gone, along with the door through which they had entered. Panicked, she rushed forward and started to grope the wall for a hidden entrance when suddenly it dilated like a camera shutter opening. Stumbling into the passageway, she gazed back and forth, lower lip caught between her teeth. “Leda?” she called shakily.

Leda reappeared through an adjacent doorway, a silver platter in her hands. Upon it sat a carafe of pleasantly bubbling clear liquid, and a pair of tall glasses. Startled, Rebecca backed into her room, and Leda followed, setting the platter atop a low table that had appeared from nowhere. She filled a glass, offering it with a smile.

“Aren’t you drinking?” Rebecca suspiciously eyed the glass.

“I want to attend to your wounds first. Take a sip, dear; I guarantee it won’t harm you.”

Eyeing her host, Rebecca held the glass beneath her nose and carefully took a sniff. She detected no odor at all. Taking an experimental sip, she held the glass away, thinking it tasted good. It tasted almost indecently good, in fact.

“Is this wine?” she asked, sniffing cautiously at the surface again.

“No dear, it’s water.”

Startled, Rebecca exclaimed: “Not like any water that I’ve ever tasted! What is it, really, Leda?”

Leda laughed. “I assure you, Rebecca: no illness will befall you drinking that liquid. Now go ahead and quench your thirst.”

Acknowledging that Rebecca retained doubts, Leda filled the 2nd glass with sparkling liquid and drained half the contents in a series of measured swallows. Remaining suspicious, Rebecca did the same, her eyes never leaving Leda’s. The liquid felt almost solid in its texture, like fine silk gliding across her tongue. She found it confoundingly, exquisitely refreshing. “May I have another?” she gushed, holding out the glass.

“Help yourself, dear.”

While she did, Leda removed a thin black box from her pants pocket and opened the lid. Inside sat a long narrow tube, and several Q-Tips. Removing the tube’s cap, she applied salve to the head of a Q-Tip and used it to apply balm to Rebecca’s swollen lower lip, and then to her right eyebrow, which had bled slightly from the errant punch.

“Thank you,” she said, as Leda closed the box and returned it to her pocket. “You don’t know how much better that feels.”

Rebecca suddenly swayed and half-closed her eyes, the glass of water slipping from her fingertips. “No,” she moaned, her knees giving way. Leda helped her settle onto a divan that had appeared as magically as the table had earlier. “What did you do to me?” she complained. “What was in the water?”

Smiling warmly, Leda covered her with a down comforter. “Sweet dreams, my dear. You have such a day ahead of you, tomorrow.” Leaning from the waist, she gently kissed Rebecca on the forehead and stroked her blonde hair. Rebecca watched her disappear into the enveloping mist.

-------//-------

Tonight’s was the second bizarre occurrence that Rebecca had fallen victim to in a week. The first took place at a party on Honeysuckle Lane the Friday night before, where she’d come within moments of losing her virginity. Stupidly wasted on weed and half drunk, Rebecca snuck upstairs to an empty bedroom with Gunther Tripp and began to make out. Twenty feverish minutes later, her panties and jeans on the floor, her sweater and bra rucked up to her armpits; he’d begun to insert his bare erection. Suddenly, Rebecca experienced a stab of vertigo so intense it had twisted her sideways in reaction. She realized Gunther wasn’t there anymore. Dazed, she’d looked all around the room, croaking, “Gunther?”

No answer, only the music pounding downstairs, vibrating the bed, and everything she touched. The digits on the bedside clock read 9:24 p.m.

Retrieving her clothes from the floor, she struggled them on and stumbled to the bedroom door, where she discovered that Gunther had locked her in. Grateful, she yanked out the swivel chair, sat down and donned her Chucks, the wrong foot, at first. Along with the booze and weed, Gunther’s disappearance had her bewildered.

Halfway down the stairs, she’d looked upon an empty living room, beer bottles strewn about, red, and blue plastic cups littering the floor. The previously pristine beige carpeting appeared soaked through in places. Before Gunther took her upstairs to the bedroom there’d been such a crush of teenagers in attendance, one could barely move. Where the hell were they?

“Gunther?” she croaked. “Amy?”

She began to backpedal up the stairs, weirded out worse than ever, panic nibbling at her with razor sharp teeth. They’re fucking with me, she told herself: everyone just dropped their drinks on the floor and, like a carefully orchestrated flash-mob, disappeared into the kitchen--or downstairs to the basement. She pulled out her phone to call Amy. The display read 9:34 p.m.

A repeat bout of vertigo hit her an instant later and suddenly she was back in the bedroom, Gunther propped on his elbows above her, staring at her in shock. “What’s wrong?”