Seeker

Quin fell from her horse and landed on nothing.

Her mother was there with her, somewhere. Quin could feel Fiona’s arms groping to find Quin’s body.© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

“I can’t see you … I can’t see you …” Her mother’s voice already sounded odd, an echo of her real voice, thin and stretched out.

Quin couldn’t feel her chest, but she could tell the numbness would not last forever, and when it ended, she would be in agony. She was starting to shiver, and her breath came raggedly.

“I’m shot,” she breathed. “Maybe it’s just as well …”

“Shh, shh,” Fiona said.

There was a confusion of arms and legs, as though ten people had come through the anomaly with them.

“John might have killed you … It’s all ruined …”

“Hush, Quin.” Fiona sounded far away, though Quin was pretty sure it was her mother’s hand on her stomach. “What’s ruined, girl? You’re here with me. We got away.”

“I did bad things, Ma. So many. I can’t get rid of them.”

“A clear picture of, where I came from, where I will go …” She heard Shinobu whispering the time chant. He was getting closer.

Her own sense of time was changing. “How long …”

“How long what?”

“… have we been here?” Quin finished weakly.

“I don’t know,” Fiona said from far away.

A hand connected with Quin’s right arm, then another with her left. She could tell it was Shinobu, even in the darkness. There was something intelligent and sure about the way his hands moved as they traveled down her arms, taking the athame and lightning rod from her. She was getting so cold, and he felt warm.

“I don’t know where to go,” she whispered.

“I do,” Shinobu told her. He pulled her close to him. “Can you stay awake?”

“I don’t know …”

“Try. You have to try.”

“It’s all wrecked,” she whispered.

“It is,” he agreed.

In the faint glow of the athame, she saw his hands moving over the dials, adjusting them to a new set of coordinates.

The vibration engulfed her as Shinobu struck the stone dagger. Her eyes drifted shut.

“Quin, please stay awake.” She felt him moving. “Fiona, you have to take her feet. Fiona!”

Quin forced her eyelids open, saw the new anomaly, heard its hum. They were carrying her. There was fresh air on her face. The next time she opened her eyes, they were outside, in an open space somewhere, with bright sunlight on her skin.

She was on the edge of consciousness. There were sirens, other voices, speaking a different language. Asian faces around her. Her chest was filled with a hot red ache that was overwhelming in intensity.

Her eyes stayed closed for a long while. Then a quiet room with candles, and a small man with gray hair, slanted eyes, a bright face. The pain was starting to go away. How long had she been here? Minutes? Hours? Days? Maybe she wasn’t here at all; maybe she was still There. She could hear herself talking. Her eyes would not stay open.

The small man was murmuring something to her. Quin was not sure she had heard him right. Her ears seemed to be stuffed with cotton. Even so, a feeling of happiness enveloped her, and then she was unconscious again.