1036: Chapter 19

“Whoa,” said Aril. “You’ve got quite a pair of lungs on you.”

I closed my eyes and balled my hands up into fists. I hope it reached him. Wherever he was.

Of course it couldn’t have reached him. That was ridiculous. I couldn’t shout between worlds. Could I?

No, that was ridiculous.

I felt Aril’s hand on my shoulder. It was cold.

“This will… work out,” he said. It didn’t sound overly convincing. “He’ll be back. I’m sure of it. He’s… special.”

I hadn’t heard him use this tone before. I didn’t like it. He sounded uneasy.

BANG-BANG-BANG.

What?

BANG-BANG-BANG.

Someone was knocking on the door. Both Aril and I froze. What were we supposed to do? I looked at him in the hope that he might give me some sort of signal. He looked back at me, but his eyes were blank. I half expected him to just vanish into nothingness to not deal with an awkward situation — it wouldn’t be the first time he’d done that, for sure.

I was glad when he didn’t do that.

BANG-BANG-BANG.

Whoever was knocking on the door wasn’t going away. I grit my teeth and walked into the hallway, trying not to make a noise, or a movement obvious enough to be seen through the frosted glass. I carefully put my eye to the peephole and looked out.

There was a girl out there. I vaguely recognised her, but I couldn’t remember her name. Had I met her before? I didn’t know.

What to do?

BANG-BANG-BANG.

The sudden sound of her knocking again made me jump, and I bumped into the door, making a sound.

“Bugger,” I muttered to myself.

“I know you’re in there!” came the girl’s voice from outside. “Please open up. I want to talk to you.”

I wanted to shout back “no!” at her, but figured that would probably just confuse her. Better to take the direct approach?

I flung open the door and stood there defiantly with my hands on my hips.

“Leave this place!” I bellowed in my strongest voice. “Begone! Away! And never return!”

No, actually, I didn’t do that. It would have been fun, but also there was really no reason to. Also, who talks like that outside of books?

I did, however, decide to open the door — slowly and carefully rather than flinging it open dramatically, though.

“There you a–” began the girl. She stopped when she saw me. “What the fu–”

She trailed off. Obviously she knew who I was. I couldn’t remember her name, though.

“Alice?” she said. “Is that you?”

I nodded.

“But you’re–”

I smiled sweetly.

“No, never mind,” she said. “Um, can I come in?”

“It’s not really a great time,” I said. “Do you need something?”

“I was hoping to talk to your brother, actually,” she said, eyeing me warily. “But… I’m guessing he’s not here?”

“No, actually,” I said, a little more defiantly than I meant to. “I’m not sure when he’ll be back.”

It wasn’t technically a lie. I didn’t know when he’d be back. I also didn’t know where he was, but this girl didn’t need to know that.

Where did I know her from?

“Oh,” she said, looking a little upset. “Sorry to bother you, then. I’ll… try again another time.”

“Okay,” I said brightly. “Bye!”

She turned around and walked away. I watched her leave. I felt Aril walk up behind me, though as usual he didn’t make a sound while he was walking. I just felt his presence. I also felt a sense of relief from him.

“Okay, that’s that dealt with for now,” he said. “Now we need to figure out what to do next.”

I frowned.

“Do you know who that was?” I said. “She seemed familiar but I just couldn’t place her.”

Aril scratched his face.

“She’s… hmm, how to explain it,” he said. “She’s important to your brother, though there’s something not quite right about her. I haven’t quite figured it out yet. We should keep an eye on her, though.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, looking down the path where she had just walked away. “So we let her go.”

Aril nodded. His usual confidence was nowhere to be seen. This whole situation had obviously shaken him up a bit, and it worried me. He was normally so calm and cool about everything, and for this to mess him up? I didn’t like it.

“We let her go. But we should keep an eye on her,” I said.

He nodded again. He didn’t seem to see what I was getting at.

“Should we perhaps follow her?” I said, spelling it out for him.

“Oh,” he said. “Right. Yes. Maybe.”

“Come on then,” I said, pulling one of my brother’s coats off the hooks by the door. It was way too big but I didn’t have any of my own clothes here, so it was the best I could do. It was cold outside. I wasn’t about to go out in the cold without a coat.

I left the door unlocked so we could get back in later. I had no idea where the keys might be in this world, so rather than waste time looking for them I just left it unlocked. This always used to be a nice neighbourhood, at least in my world, so hopefully it was the same here.

Aril followed me out of the door and we set off down the path to follow the girl.

*

She’d left me. She’d made me feel safe, comfortable and warm — holding me, embracing me, kissing me — and then she’d left. I was all alone again. I was back in the darkness again. Where was I? Who was–

Suddenly, there was a bright flash, and I heard a sound. A rushing, roaring, whooshing sound that culminated in the sound of someone’s voice, distorted and echoey, like it was being amplified too much and blasted out of some speakers too small to cope with the sound. It was something that I hadn’t heard for a very long time. But it was something that I needed to hear — something that I hadn’t realised how much I had longed to hear.

It was something that gave me hope. Something that I knew would bring me home.

A connection. A weak connection, but a connection nonetheless. I could make it back. I could make it back. I could make it back.

I closed my eyes and followed the sound. I didn’t know which direction it was coming from or even which direction I was facing, but I could tell where to go. I knew what it was. It was calling me. It needed me. It wanted me.

I floated. I couldn’t tell how long for. But I could tell I was going somewhere. The actual sound had long since dissipated, but I still knew that I needed to continue onwards. Ever onwards. Follow the sound. Return home.

Where was home? Who was calling me? And why was I here?

My mind kept being clouded by strange questions and doubts, but I shook them off. I didn’t need to hear them. I needed to focus right now, to concentrate, to make sure that I got to my destination.

Home. That was where I was going.

Home.

I felt my feet land on solid ground. I opened my eyes, and I was back where I thought I should be. It took a moment to orient myself, but I recognised the open door, the shelves, the cold room in front of me.

I was back home. Back where I should be.

“Hello?” I called, my mind swirling back into place as if it was trailing behind my body by a few seconds. “Aril? Alice? Are you here?”

There was no response. I swallowed and looked around. How long had I been gone?

I closed the pantry door.  I walked to the bottom of the stairs and called up them.

“Alice? Aril? Are you here?” I shouted again. “Hello?”

Still no response.

This was the… right world, right? Doubts started to creep in. The questions started to slip into my mind through the cracks again. They were unwelcome, but the fact I was still alone was making it harder to fight them off.

I looked around the hallway. I saw that one of my coats was missing from the hooks on the wall. Oddly, that gave me a sense of relief. Alice must have taken it. But when? Where had she gone? Why? How would I find her?

It wouldn’t do to stand around here. I took one of my other coats down from the coat hook. I opened the door — it was still unlocked, presumably from when Alice had left — and walked outside. I fumbled in my pocket for my keys and locked it behind me.

Now what?

I walked down the path from my front door and onto my street. Which way? I couldn’t tell.

I closed my eyes. I wasn’t sure why.

“Alice!” I cried out. I didn’t expect it to work. If I couldn’t see her, she probably wouldn’t be able to hear me, either. I didn’t like speaking loudly in the street. There was no-one else around, but I was still self-conscious about the neighbours looking outside and seeing me yelling to myself. I gave it one more try, though, louder and longer this time. “Alice!”

There was no response. I didn’t expect there to be. Why would there b–

I heard footsteps. They were running. Coming from — over there? Yes, there they were. And they belonged to–

“Alice!” I said, shocked. Part of me wasn’t expecting to see her again at all, let alone so soon. She flung her arms around me and nearly knocked me over as she ran into me.

“You heard!” she said. “You heard!”

I wasn’t really sure what she meant, but I was happy that she was pleased to see me.

Wait… “you heard”? Had she been the source of the sound? My connection?

“Yes,” I found myself saying, almost automatically. “I heard, Alice. Thank you for bringing me back.”