“Naomi sent me,” said he, when we asked him. We were talking to him from the opposite side of a thick glass wall on a hand phone in what looked like Cell Block F in the fairy correctional facility. There was no one else there, but I figured anyone able to talk to these people now had to be dead, too, so there was much chance of that happening.
He looked positively criminal in the gray coveralls they gave him to wear and he said so the moment we sat down. “And I have to let you people know, this place is a decorator’s nightmare,” he added, looking properly horrified.
“Thom,” I said, “forget that for a minute. How did Naomi send you here and can you get us back?”
“The same way she sent me before...she concentrated on you and did something magic to me and I started feeling all weird. Except this time, something happened and everything stopped. I woke up here, or not far from here, I guess.”
“My guards found him outside the walls of my kingdom,” Fallon explained.
“Maybe something happened to her,” I said thoughtfully. “Either way, we’ve got no connection to where we came from.” Thom shrugged.
“I was thinking that, too,” he replied. “Last time, I still knew she was there and the magic was still there, but this time...” He shrugged again and I dropped my head on the counter.
I was still screwed, but now I had company.
Great.
“Okay,” I sighed, sitting back up. After all, I still have to be the infallible, ever-confident escape artist Fallon thinks I am, I thought. “Can we not get Thom out of this place?” He agreed with an urgent frown.
“Certainly,” Fallon said. “I’ll put him in a room near you in the guest house.” She snapped her fingers and a guard returned to her side and another came to Thom’s. She signaled to Thom’s guard to bring him outside and the guard obeyed.
We left the room and walked down a short hallway to wait beside a Dutch style door with another guard standing behind him. Thom came out of this door within moments in his normal clothes.
“What do you plan to do now?” Fallon asked me.
“Yes, what do you plan to do now?” Thom echoed.
I gave Thom an irritable look. “You know, you can always go back to fairy hell,” I said. He made a zipping motion across his lips, then locked them and threw away the imaginary key. I turned back to Fallon, frowning uncertainly. “I think,” I said, scratching the back of my neck thoughtfully, “I’m gonna...uh, well...I’m gonna go sleep on it!” So saying, I took Thom’s arm and dragged him toward the building I was staying in.
“This would be your way of saying we’re fucked?” he asked politely.
“Don’t be so negative,” I said halfheartedly. “If we were that, we’d both be at home enjoying it.”
Jerry stood cringing in front of
Alan until he realized that he had stopped.
He had taken the liberty of freezing
time for both Naomi and Alan to avoid taking the physical brunt of the blame
for Alan shaking Naomi out of her connection with Thom, but he hadn’t actually
expected this to work.
Especially not so...well, he
thought, looking at Alan’s perfectly frozen fist just inches away from full
body contact. Jerry was suddenly very
glad that it had worked after all. He smiled in relief, then
turned to go. He needed to go somewhere where he could think in peace.
Suddenly, he paused and grinned again. He just remembered something he’d been needing to do for a long while...
A few moments later, he emerged from
the room shaking his hand out with a pained, but altogether satisfied look on
his face. The thought that Alan’s left eye would hurt worse when he came out of
the time freeze made the pain in his fist seem like nothing.
This left only one problem...Thom
and Daina. Jerry sighed and sat down on the floor in
the hall. He’d told Thom not to try to do anything, and now they were all going
to have to pay for it, because Jerry still
had no idea how to help either one of them get back from...jeez, I don’t even
know where they are!, he thought to
himself.
“Alright,” he said aloud, “if
there’s a clue ANYWHERE in this world, I could really use it right now.”
Almost on cue, Christine poked her
head out of her room. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Very little in the way of constructive
thought,” he replied, wryly rubbing his forehead. “I‘m trying
to figure out how to save your sister and Thom.”
“Mmmm,”
she said, walking over and sitting next to him. “There is the possibility that
you might just have to...wait.”
“What, like
sit and do nothing?” he asked her.
“Uh-huh.”
Jerry blinked. “What fun is that?”
he whined.
“None, but think about it. When Thom
and Daina get back...” she began.
“If Thom and Daina get back,” Jerry
corrected.
“When Thom and Daina get back, they’re going
to need a little white magic to get them back up to speed? And I don’t do that
stuff, you do.”
“What are they gonna
need white magic for?” Jerry asked.
“So you’re going to have to be at
your best,” said Christine, ignoring his question entirely. “Which
means no heroics for a while.”
“Why does everybody think I’m tryin’ to be the superhero!” Jerry protested.
“Because,” she replied, standing up,
“you are. And it’s your turn, so don’t sweat it, you’ll get to be the
superhero. Just not yet.”
Jerry looked up,
then squinted at her suspiciously. “Wait a minute, this thing with Thom just
happened. How did you know...” He paused, then added, “You know,
don’t you?”
“Know what?” she asked innocently.
“You know what,” he retorted. “And you can’t help me, right?”
Christine gave him an expression of
routine pity. “It is up to you guys to solve this problem on your own,” she
said, as if reading from a rulebook.
Jerry rolled his eyes. “Why am I not
surprised?”
“Because you know Daina’s head and her flair for the adventurous just as well
I do,” she answered with a wry smile. “When she’s gone, I just have make sure you stick to the basic rules, that’s all. Anyway,
if it makes you feel better, neither one of us would be here if she wasn’t
coming back. You’d be in your own head in your own world attending the funeral
of your best friend Daina. Same goes for Thom.” With
that, she walked off down the hall. Before she entered her own room, she added,
“You might want to referee this one.”
“What one?” he asked, puzzled.
At that moment, Josh came running in
yelling at the top of his lungs with Stevie right on
his heels. They began ducking and weaving in their chase around Jerry as they
both shouted at each other.
“Ahhhhhhh!
Tell him I didn’t do it!” Josh shrieked, half laughing.
“Didn’t do what?” Jerry asked.
Stevie
shook a fistful of hair at Jerry while simultaneously grabbing his best friend
by the back of the collar. “He cut a big chunk outta
my HAIR!” he shouted, while Josh yelled and struggled in his grip.
Jerry looked desperately up the hall
at Christine, who grinned and walked into her room. Oh, well, he thought,
physically separating the two boys with his arms, at least I’ve got something
to do while I wait...