Fantasyland 03 Fantastical (38 page)

Something hit me. “Do you think she had
something to do with Rosa being at her house the day of the
wedding?”

“Yes,” Tor answered promptly. “It could be
payment for Minerva agreeing to take her to your world.”

“But that would start the curse! She’d have
to know that,” I cried.

“This would be a hideous thing to do, even
for Cora, sending her delicate sister into the clutches of Minerva
but I think you have learned that Cora is not above doing something
hideous, even to her own sister. That said, she would also know
that I would see to it that Rosa was rescued, which I did.”

The entirety of my body froze except my
eyes. They blinked.

Then I whispered, “What?”

Tor studied me and as he did so I could
actually feel the blood rushing to my face as the mounting anger
rushed hot through my veins.

“Cora, love, listen to me,” he urged, his
hand holding mine so firmly I had no hope of pulling mine away
which pissed… me… off.

“She’s been rescued?” I asked, my voice
quiet and trembling with anger.

“Yes,” he answered and my eyes narrowed.
“Orlando was faltering. I sent him a missive and called him to
Bellebryn. I met with him and my warriors, in secret from you, and
we devised a strategy. They carried this out and it was successful.
Rosa was delivered safely to her parents some weeks past. Since
then, she has been engaged in the re-planning of her wedding. She
and her parents were asking after you but I sent a missive
explaining you were not yourself and when you were better, I would
take you to her.”

Hmm. It seemed during his days away from me
my warrior prince had been busy.

The big, fat
jerk!

“She was rescued some weeks past,” I stated
softly.

His hand gave mine a gentle tug. “Cora
–”

“
She was rescued some weeks past!
” I
shouted and felt the eyes of the customers swing our way.

“Cora, calm down,” Tor commanded
tersely.

“Calm down? Are you nuts?” I snapped. “I was
worried
sick!
And you
lied
to me, telling me nothing
had changed! Leading me, I might add, to believe my
sister
was in the evil clutches of a she-god!”

I felt more attention come our way as Tor
leaned closer to me over the table.

“And I did not know that
you
were
you,
” he reminded me. “And you did not one thing to stop
Rosa from seeing Dash. I know now you didn’t do anything because
you had just woken in a new world. I thought then that you didn’t
do anything because you were
her.
I could only assume you
did this because you meant Rosa harm. I could also speculate that
you were united with Minerva for some despicable purpose. Because
of this, I could not give you that information. You must understand
that.”

“What I understand,
Tor,
” I hissed,
trying and failing to pull my hand from his which pissed me off
even more because I was sick of how bloody, stinking
strong
he was, “is that we’ve been
here
and you’ve known
I
was
me
for two and a half days and you did not share this
information with me!
” I was fairly shouting my last and his
hand gave mine a rough jerk.

“And why, my love, do you think that is?
Perhaps because you’re reacting the way you’re reacting right now?
Or, could it be that I had hurt you gravely prior to us coming to
this world, so gravely, you fled from me and I watched you tumble
down a flight of marble,
bloody
stairs, smashing your head
and bruising your body in the process? Bruises you still carry on a
beautiful body that is bearing my child? A child we were both
extremely fortunate didn’t abort upon this accident? And, just
after that, holding you unconscious in my arms and wondering if
you’d ever wake up, suddenly I was in a new world, with you angry
and hurt, pushing me away. And, by the gods, I’d just come to
understand you were who you are and I was in love with you so
perhaps I had other things on my mind than the fact that your
sister is happy, healthy and has decided to change her wedding
bouquet from orange blossoms and jasmine to roses and daisies
because she thinks the scent of jasmine will clash violently with
the blossoms?”

I stared at him.

Then I breathed, “You’re in love with
me?”

“Gods, Cora, I just told you you’re the
other half to my soul.”

“You’re in love with me?” I repeated.

He leaned back in his chair then tipped his
head back and looked at the ceiling to which he muttered, “Deliver
me.”

“Tor,” I called, tugging his hand lightly
and feeling something swelling inside me, swelling fast, so fast, I
was going to burst at any second.

He looked at me and raised his brows.

“Everything is right in your world,” I told
him quietly.

“Yes, Cora, everything is right in my
world.”

“The curse is no longer pending. Rosa is
saved,” I went on.

“Yes, love, I just told you that.”

“So if we can get back, get Dash safely
married to Rosa, then the land will be safe for our
generation.”

“And you married to me,” he stated
firmly.

“And me married to you,” I whispered
softly.

He glared at me.

“Then all will be well,” I whispered.

“Yes, Cora, all will be well,” he
semi-repeated with obvious strained patience.

“So that means,” I kept whispering, “I can
tell Mom and Dad and Phoebe that, when I go back with you, it will
just be you and our child and me and my sister, alive and happy, in
a fairytale land and they’ll feel better letting me go.”

I watched Tor’s body go still. Then I
watched his face get soft and his eyes get warm.

Then he whispered, “Yes, my love, that’s
what it means.”

“That will make me feel better,” I whispered
back.

He stared at me about a nanosecond before,
without letting my hand go, he stood, rounded the table, pulled me
out of my chair and into his arms where he plastered me to his body
and laid a wet, hot, fantastic and very long kiss on me which I
returned all the while melting into his arms.

When he lifted his head I looked in his eyes
and whispered, “I love you, my prince.”

At my words, Tor smiled his freaking
unbelievably beautiful smile.

Then we were hit with a wave of sound when a
loud, spontaneous cheer went up in the coffee house.

“All right, dawg!” some guy yelled.

I felt heat hit my cheeks and I pulled in my
lips. Tor’s smile just got bigger.

“Jeez, you guys, seriously, you keep that
up, you need to get a room, like,
pronto
,” Phoebe said and I
turned my head to see my grinning friend, her friend Brianna who I
had met a couple of times and another woman joining our table.

The other woman was gazing with open
fascination at Tor and I knew she was the Circe back in the other
world’s friend. And I knew she knew Tor was from a parallel
universe.

And I also knew that my crazy life was about
to get better… or decidedly worse.

Oh boy.

Torn Away

I was sitting on the armchair in my living
room, feet up on the coffee table, legs bent, pad of paper on my
knees, making lists. Tor was stretched out on the couch, his
fingers wrapped around a bottle of beer that was resting on his
abs, his eyes on a baseball game on the TV.

So… totally…
a man.

This was after our conversation with Phoebe,
Brianna and Marlene. It was after we had gone by the mall to get
Tor a cell. And after we had come home, Tor stopping blocks away
and getting out of the car to walk back just in case the apartment
was under surveillance (somehow, he was standing outside my door by
the time I got in the driver’s seat, drove home, found a place to
park on the street and walked up to my apartment proving he wasn’t
just strong, my man was fast and, I hoped, stealthy). I’d made Tor
a dinner of spiral pasta, spaghetti sauce with meatballs, garlic
bread, salad and beer (for him, diet root beer, for me) and Tor had
shared he liked this meal far more than bologna sandwiches and
Cheetos. Obviously, we followed dinner with red velvet cake because
that cake could be a week old and it would still kick ass.

At the coffee house, we had learned from
Phoebe that Noc had not given her anything.

Not that first thing.

Except he appeared pissed that, first, she
was there and not Cora (as anyone who was getting the boot would
be) and second, that he was getting the boot without explanation
and for what appeared to be no reason. She’d tried to pry but he
was closed up tight and after his hand gripped the handle of the
suitcase, he didn’t hang around long.

She did stress, however, that he
appeared
pissed but she got the sense he felt relief and
that mostly he just wanted his stuff. She also reported that he
seemed distracted, acted like he had better things to do and that
he just wanted to get the hell out of there.

This was a disappointment but not
unexpected.

What was
not
a disappointment but was
a shock (some of that shock good, as in possibly very good, some of
it was bad, as in really bad) was all that we learned from
Marlene.

First, we learned that the alternate Circe,
in an effort to bring back the, uh,
real
Circe, had gone all
out to find a witch in this world who would be able to bring the
real Circe back to her world (how’s
that
for
confusing?).

Then we learned, thankfully, as Tor
confirmed from Marlene’s additional information, that this world
was,
indeed, Korwahk. And the witch had provided the
information that there weren’t an infinite number of worlds. There
was Tor’s and there was ours.

Then it was confirmed that Circe was sent
back not by the witch. Circe’s King Lahn had found some means to
transport her back to him. However, the witch had, with great
confidence, assured Circe’s father who assured Marlene that Circe
was safely back where she wanted to be. However, although the witch
did not send Circe back, Marlene was relatively certain
(relatively, yikes!) that she had the power to send Tor and I
back.

And Marlene had also, prior to meeting with
us, called Circe’s Dad, found out the location and swung by this
witch’s trailer (yes,
trailer
) only to discover she was no
longer there. In fact, the whole trailer was gone.

This was bad.

What was a surprise was that Marlene had
said the witch was old, she was blind and her name was
Clarabelle.

At that, I gasped and Tor’s eyes sliced to
me. He showed and shared no response even when I quizzed him about
it later in the car telling him I thought this was good news.

His reply was simply, “You are not the other
Cora, this Noc is not me and this witch is not the other
Clarabelle. We have no idea of her character. What we do know is
she is a witch and anyone who dabbles in magic is suspect. We must
tread cautiously.”

I had to admit, I was totally down with
that.

I questioned Marlene more about Circe’s
other world and learned that what Tor and Phoebe had said was true.
Things for Circe, like me, had not started out all that great with
Circe and her King Lahn and this was to say the least (she was,
indeed, hunted, “claimed”, as in
raped
by this King Lahn,
then installed as his queen) but somehow he rallied, they ended up
getting on well, as in
very
well, so well she was
desperately in love with him, desperately heartbroken when she’d
left him, totally into having his child and apparently blissfully
happy when she got back, gave him twins and was living her life
like a queen (literally). She was so happy, she was apparently
totally fine with leaving everything behind and living with this
guy in his primitive world for the rest of her natural born
days.

The semi-good news about all this was that
apparently, Circe’s Dad had been able to get a message to her in
her world and she was able to return one, setting her Dad (and
Marlene’s) mind at-ease about her situation. The reason this was
semi-
good news was that, although Circe had been back there
for awhile, communications between worlds were unpredictable and
although Marlene told me that Circe’s Dad kept trying and Circe had
promised her Dad she would too, he had not heard from her
again.

This sucked. However, where there was hope
well… there was hope.

Obviously, Queen Circe (or Queen Circe, the
True Golden Warrior Queen of Korwahk, how’s that for a kickass
title?), her brute king and their growing brood didn’t take
vacations in Seattle which also sucked. We learned from Marlene the
reason Circe did not go back and forth was because the witch
Clarabelle informed Circe’s father, and the
other
Circe (who
was, more news, a sorceress) corroborated this, that it took vast
amounts of power to travel between worlds. There was not only
little communication with the other world, what little there was
was random, not in anyone’s control and therefore the witch did not
know who was controlling the travel from the other side and she
could not guarantee she could get messages from there or to there
to bring anyone back. And even if she did, it would be a one way
trip as, once she brought them here, she couldn’t get them home as
getting them here would use up all her magic. It would take decades
for her magic to recover enough for her to attempt another
trip.

See? Totally sucked.

So, when Circe made her decision to send the
message to her father that she was staying, this meant Circe knew
it was King Lahn’s world or her own.

Circe chose King Lahn.

I got where she was coming from though I
would have preferred to be able to travel back and forth at will
say, having my child in my world where medicine was more advanced
and so my parents could meet him or her and, of course, when the
Oscars pre-shows were on because that was my most favorite event of
the year (it was all about the dresses and, I might add, the
hairstyles and jewelry).