Strangers and Shadows (6 page)

As he remembered this scene from his childhood, he kept telling himself,
It’s okay, you’re alright, just feel the wall until you find a door or some kind of way out
.  

Ava found the door first, opening it and stepping out into a moonlit room. 

Hoping she didn’t notice his panic, Asher followed her into the room.  He had never told Ava about the rug.

There was a bed on the far side of the room.  Posters of men fighting with glowing swords hung on the walls.  Clothes were laying on the floor in heaps.  A cool breeze blew in through an open window, fluttering the curtains.  Someone was asleep in the bed.   Asher could hear whoever it was stirring.  An alarm went off inside his head and he felt the need to leave immediately.

“We need to get out of here,” Ava whispered.  She must have felt it too.  

They slipped out of the open second-story window, and dropped down to the yard below.  Asher first, who tucked and rolled, and then Ava, who tried to land without rolling and managed to twist her ankle.

Thankfully the sprain was not a bad one.

They walked for a few miles, Ava limping, but
,
for once,
not complaining.  They wandered aimlessly among rows of houses and paved streets with lamp posts lining the sidewalks.  

Back in their world, there were pictures of the past, before The End War, but this was incredible.  It was one thing to read about it and to see a picture of it, but to actually be there—he shook his head in wonder.

Asher could see the same excitement that he felt on Ava’s face, and something else was there as well, but he wasn’t sure what.  

Ava yawned, covering her mouth with her hand.  Asher was tired too, he could feel sleep calling to him with every step they took.  “I’m exhausted,” he said.  “We should find some shelter for the night.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at his choice of the word night.  It had been night all day long for them, but he supposed that Ava knew what he meant.

“
Should we
?” Ava asked, her tone biting.  “Last time I checked, I was
still
the princess.”

Asher felt the blood rush to his cheeks.  He hated when she got like this.  As if for just a second, he could forget his place in the world.  There was no need to berate him the way she did.  Still, he was far too tired to try to change the world tonight.  “Apologies, Your Highness…  I merely thought—”

“You think too much sometimes, Asher.  It is not your place to do so.”

“Forgive me, my Lady.”  Asher bowed his head, staring down at the ground.

“There appears to be some hedges over there,” Ava said, pointing past a sign that read Arlington Heights Park.  “We’ll sleep there… it should give us some shelter from this wind.”

Frustrated and tired, Asher followed Ava silently to the park and laid down beside her, trying not to let her see how upset he was.  Ava cuddled up next to him, wrapping her arms around his chest.  It had been a good, if strange day up until recently, and he was ready for it to be over now.  Fortunately, he was too tired to be upset for long before sleep took him away.

He woke first.  Someone was shining a light in his eyes.  No, not a light, it was the sun.  He hadn’t seen the sun in months.  The sight was unbearable.  Tears began to form and a flood of relief came rushing over him, releasing feelings he didn’t even realize had been there.  The gloomy cloud of depression was fading.  He had to wake up Ava, she should see this.

He turned to wake her, but she was already up, watching him with tears of her own in her eyes.  She brought a smile to Asher’s face, and before
he
knew it, they were laughing.

Strange noises greeted their ears as their laughter subsided.  They were standing next to the hedges on the boundary of the park.  

The park was on a large plot of land, with trees and fields, and, were those baseball diamonds?  They were, and the feeling of awe returned to him as he remembered all of the things he had read about as a child.  

And there’s a car!
  Asher watched it go by, followed by a school bus full of children. 

“Ava?  We’re not in New Britain anymore, are we?” Asher asked, though he already knew the answer well enough.

“I’m not nearly as concerned with
where
we are as I am with
when
. 
How,
no,
why
, are we in the past, before The End War?”

“The Holy Mother works in mysterious ways,” Asher said.  “Think of all the stories we’ll have to tell.”  His mind was reeling with the endless possibilities.

“There won’t be any stories.  We’re leaving as soon as we find a way back.”  The princess was back and she was in full control.

If I didn’t love you...
Probably best not to finish that thought, Asher decided.  

He knew he was mostly just upset at the way the world worked.  That woman were stationed above men might be the way of things now, but it still didn’t feel right, at least, not to him.  It never had.  “What do you propose, my Lady?”  He wondered if she had ever picked up on the fact that he never called her Ava when she acted like a spoiled tyrant.  If she had, she’d never mentioned it.

“Well, we came here through a door, so, naturally, there must be one that takes us back, right?” Ava guessed.  

She’s as clueless as I am, only too scared and proud to admit it
.  

They were back on the sidewalk at the park entrance and Asher was about to respond whimsically, hoping for a laugh to lighten the mood, when he heard the screech.

He and Ava both instinctively ducked as a black Mercedes sedan skidded to a halt on the street in front of them.  

A man in a black suit stepped out of the passenger side.  He was middle-aged, in good shape by the looks of him, and walking directly toward them.

“We have to go, they’re right behind us,” the man said. 

 Asher and Avialle stood blinking like two deer caught in the headlights.  

“Right... How silly of me.”  The man reached into his pocket and pulled something out, holding it up to eye level.  “This will help you adjust to any shock that you most definitely will be exposed to over the next few days.”

 Several bright flashes went off, and Asher’s brain felt like it was melting.  He grabbed his head, feeling like it would explode at any moment. 

 And then it was over.  His head cleared and he suddenly knew things that he hadn’t a moment before.  He looked at things that he could only guess at what they were and what their purpose was and he knew them.  He didn’t know
about
them, but he
knew
them, knew what they were and what they did.  It was comforting and disconcerting all at the same time.  Where a moment ago he had felt like a stranger in a strange land, now he only felt strange.

“We have to leave now!” the man repeated.  “We don’t have any time to lose.”

Asher was about to ask a simple question but he forgot what it was when he heard the screeching sound again.  He looked up to see another black sedan sliding through a turn four blocks away.

The car came out of the turn and accelerated toward them.  Asher felt something reach out and grab at him.  It was like an invisible hand with sharpened claws that was trying to get at his mind.  

A strange scene flashed in his mind’s eye, and he suddenly filled up with dread.  Ava must have felt something too, because they both ran for the first car at the same time.  They jumped in and slammed the door behind them.  

The man in the black suit told the driver of the car to go, and they sped off into the morning with the other sedan close behind them.

“That was lucky,” the man said
.
  “They usually aren’t so sloppy, they must be desperate for them to have tried to touch you so soon.  By now, they’ll have guessed that something about you two is amiss.”

Asher’s heart raced as he was thrown every which way in the back seat.  Beside him, Ava was trying to put on her brave face and only mildly succeeding.  Asher decided he needed some answers.  “Who are you?” he demanded of the man.  “And where are we?  Why is that car after us, and who are they?”

“All in good time, Asher,” the man replied.  “First let’s put a little distance between us
and them
, eh?”

Asher’s eyes went wide
. 
H
e knows my name
!
 
How does he know my name?
  He had a very bad feeling about the entire situation.  What had he and Ava stumbled into?

Their car zig-zagged through traffic, taking rights and lefts whenever Ava and Asher least expected it.  As the world outside blurred by, Asher could see Ava building up to something. 
Here it comes
, he thought.
  This should be quite a spectacle.

“Do you know who I am?” Ava blurted out in her best royalty voice.  “I am the Princess Avialle, Regent of New Britain, and you will heed my wishes.”  

Asher was trying to keep a neutral expression on his face, and just barely managing.

“
And I’m the Duke of Normandy
,” the man in the passenger seat replied.  “Do shut up, Princess.  This is not your
New Britain
, and you are
not
ruler here. So if you don’t want to get out and walk, then I suggest you
wish
to be quiet.”

It was everything Asher could do not to laugh out loud, as he tried to remain in his ever moving seat.

Ava’s mouth was still hanging open and Asher could tell she wanted to say something, but she was in shock.  She had never been talked to like that before, let alone by a man.

“We’ve got to end this now, before the local police get involved,” the man said to the driver.  “I don’t want this to turn into a media situation.”

The driver nodded as he opened the glove box, took out a small black square about the size of a teaspoon, and threw it out of the open sunroof.  

“Because
,
then, we couldn’t do fun stuff like that.”

Asher twisted, following the object’s path.  The black square landed in the street behind them, bouncing to a halt, and then it was gone, and so was the street around it.  The little square, whatever kind of device it was, had eaten a crater six feet deep into the road beneath it.

The driver of the car chasing them, had just enough time to slam on the brakes and turn into a skid before the car entered the crater in the street, effectively ending their pursuit.

“There, that takes care of that.  For the moment, anyway.”  

They drove on in silence for the next ten minutes before the man spoke again.  “What do you think, Mike, Starbucks?” he asked the driver, who nodded his approval.  “You two have coffee back in your New Britain?” the man cheerfully
inquired
.

“Not anymore,” Asher replied.  “The last stores of it ran out years ago.  I’ve always wanted to try it, though.”  He was surprised Ava hadn’t opened her mouth yet.  He looked over at Ava to see her still fuming in the seat next to him. 

The driver pulled up to the drive-thru window and ordered four coffees. 

 “Hope to-go’s okay.  We don’t really have time to spare, there could be more of them out there.”  The man in the black suit
took
the coffees from the driver and pass
ed
two to the back seat.

Asher took a sip of the scalding black liquid and winced.  His tongue burned in his mouth.  He swallowed the bitter tasting coffee quickly, not sure what to make of it.

“Might want to let it cool a bit first.”

“Thanks,
now
you tell me.”  Asher ran his raw tongue over the roof of his mouth.  “Listen, not that we don’t appreciate the ride and the coffee and everything, but do you think you might explain what this is all about?”

“I suppose you have a valid point,” the man said, taking a deep breath and smoothing his shirt with his hands.  “I am Dorian Wallace, the Minister of Defense, if one simply
must
have a title.”  He smiled at Ava over the last part.  “This is Mike.  He’s the driver,” he lowered his voice to a loud whisper, “
he doesn’t like to talk much
.”

Mike laughed in the driver’s seat.

Asher wondered when Ava was going to snap out of her little hissy fit.  This was not the time to act like a spoiled child, though he couldn’t help but realize that Ava was
,
essentially, just that.

“I understand all of this is a lot to process, but, in time, you’ll have all the answers you want.  For now, just enjoy the ride.”  Dorian turned to the driver.  “Alright, Mike, I think we’ve good and lost them.  Let’s head for our door.”  Dorian seemed to be in a rush.