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There was dust in his nose. Not just in it, but up several centimeters. That and the pain in the back of his head were the first things Daniel became aware of. He pushed up to his elbows and glanced around, but couldn't see for a lack of light.
"Ian?"
Had he come through the door?
Slowly his tired legs managed an agreement to support him. "Ian?"
Silence.
He squinted, trying to see in the darkness, then a sliver of light caught his eye several feet up. He stepped closer and tripped over the bottom step of a wooden staircase. Finding the handrail, he worked his way carefully up a set of old, creaking steps to the wooden door. It was ajar, and pushed open easily, into Frank Harper's kitchen.
"What the hell?" Daniel rubbed his head, then reached along the wall and flicked on the cellar light. "Ian?"
No one answered his call, and by the light of the dim single bulb hanging by a chain in the cellar he saw no movement.
Dazed and sore, Daniel found the key in the cellar door where he'd left it and pulled it out. He took it to the counter and set it down, then noticed his forgotten tea cup.
And the steam rising from it.
Incredulous, he touched the cup. It was still warm.
He grabbed the cell phone sitting on the kitchen island and checked the battery. Just under three quarters charged. And the date and time . . .
"Ten minutes? I was there over a we--" Daniel blinked, feeling the lump on the back of his head. "I was there." He went to the small washroom beside the kitchen and looked in a mirror, checking his pupils.
His head hurt from the fall, but he couldn't have lost conscious for more than a few seconds.
Confused, he ran some cold water and splashed his face several times, then leaned against the sink and let the water drip off his nose.
"Was it real? The fog, the worm, the--" He grabbed at his chest, then pulled his shirt away and felt his neck.
Nothing.
"You've got to be kidding me."
No worm tooth, no proof any of it had even existed.
Before Daniel could ponder the mystery, his cell phone rang.
"I'm sorry to call so late, hope I didn't wake you up."
"Jonathan? Um, no, you didn't wake me." Had it really been no more than a few minutes since he'd opened that cellar door?
"I'll make this quick," the lawyer continued. "I was just on my way home from taking the wife out to dinner, and we noticed a for sale sign on the new complex going up just outside of town. You know the old Nalley farm? It sold years ago to a developer and he's just now getting a set of office buildings in the works. Might not be a bad setting for a family physician."
Daniel felt his neck, where the tooth should have been. Where was Ian? He'd opened the door, but couldn't keep his hand on the key. Ian should have been right behind him.
"Daniel?"
"Oh, sorry, Jonathan. I'm a little distracted." Should he explain? It could take hours to get his friend to believe, or even understand what had happened.
"Is everything all right?"
He cleared his throat. "Yeah, yes, everything's fine. I just . . . Have you ever had a dream that was so vivid, you weren't sure if it was a dream or not when you woke up?"
"A dream? Oh yeah, I sure have." Jonathan replied. "In fact just a few months back, I woke up in the middle of the night absolutely convinced there was a tsunami coming. I'd seen the quake footage on the news, and heard the announcement through the city hall's PA system. The wife and I had packed and loaded the car but we couldn't find the kids." He laughed shortly. "I woke up and ran around the house for a good five minutes before my wife could convince me it had been a dream."
"Yeah?" Daniel glanced around the kitchen, looking for any sign he could find that would tell him it was real.
"It was a doozy. And I'd only been asleep for a few minutes. I'd just gotten up to get a drink of water and the kids had left the tub faucet dripping down the hall. Must have sparked my tsunami dream the instant I feel asleep."
Daniel nodded out of habit and walked out to the living room.
"What kind of dream was it?"
"It was strange," Daniel replied with a shrug. "I'd been reading some of Uncle Frank's journals, and looking at his collections. Then found a strange key and opened the cellar door. Then I think I fell down the old stairs and hit my head."
"Are you all right?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. It was just a bump." He touched the carved wooden air ship on the bookcase. "Thing is, I found myself in a place called Ether. And this older guy named Murphy was telling me it wasn't a dream, while I was insisting that it was."
"Well, there you go. You hit your head after reading your uncle's journals." Jonathan declared. "Are you sure you're okay? How long were you out?"
"That's the thing. I was in that dream for a good ten days. And I mean details, Jonathan. I saw details, and I remember everything. Eating, sleeping, traveling. But next thing I know I'm on the floor in the cellar, waking up with a bump on my head, and my tea water was still hot."
"Your tea water was still hot?"
"I'd made tea, before going down the cellar stairs."
"That's good, then. If it was still hot, you couldn't have been unconscious for more than a minute or two, right? Are you sure you don't need me to come over? Maybe take you to the hospital?"
"No, Jonathan, I'm fine," Daniel assured. "Seriously, I'm just a little disoriented." He picked up the wooden toy and stared at it. "I can't explain how vivid the dream was. I was there, I'd swear it."
"And I saw a wall of water coming toward the town," Jonathan replied. "I was sweating for an hour after that, still convinced it was real. That's how dreams work sometimes, I'm told."
He set the toy down. "I'm not so sure anymore. I mean, I've never had a dream like that before. Not that long, or that vivid. And in the dream I kept telling everyone that it was a dream, and they kept assuring me it wasn't. Well, except this one guy."
"This one guy?"
"Yeah, a guy hired to guide me. He was sure I was nuts, or imagining things. That his world was real, and mine was made-up."
"Listen, you sound pretty shaken up," Jonathan said. "Maybe I should come down there. You can tell me all about this dream and work through it."
"No, really, I'm fine." He took a deep breath. "I'll just get some sleep and see how I feel in the morning."
There was a pause, then finally Jonathan relented. "Okay, just see that you call me tomorrow if you need anything. And ask yourself, is it logical? The things that happened in your dream. That's how I got through it. A tsunami this far up the Sound just wasn't logical. You know?"
"Yeah, I'll do that. Thanks for the call."
"Good night."
Daniel hung up and walked back to the kitchen. He stared at the cellar door from the other side of the counter, then picked up the small key and looked at it again.
"Is it logical?" The answer was obvious, but that didn't explain anything. Murphy, the three moons, Ian Foster, his ship the Myst, that black fog no one has ever explored. And why would his mind conjure up a forest of trees too tall to fly over? Or a giant worm living under ground that was hunted by men from above? Nothing in his own wildest imaginations could have created a tree that chased people with white roots, or a maze of tunnels where men ran naked and mindless.
If he'd imagined the castle, it wouldn't have looked anything like the one Stefan was king of.
"There would have been pretty women, and beer."
The answer was simple, and right there in his hand. Daniel looked at the key. All he had to do was use that key in the door again, and see where it took him. If it was a dream, he'd be in the cellar. If not . . .
Well if not, he assumed he'd be back in the city. That wouldn't help Ian one bit. But he had to know.
He stood and walked to the cellar door, turning the key over and over in his hand. Maybe he could open the door and just look inside. Did he have to step through it?
He slid the key into the lock and put a hand on the knob.
Maybe he could just open it a bit, and look.
He turned the knob, then a knock on the front door sent him out of his skin.
"Jesus H. Christ!" He pulled the key out as if it had shocked him, then slipped it into his front pocket.
The knock repeated, slightly more insistent, and Daniel hurried to the front room. He looked through the small window beside the door and saw a young woman there, looking somewhere in her early twenties, wearing jeans and a light sweater, with an equally light jacket her only protection against the evening chill.
He opened the door. "Yes?"
She smiled, then looked somewhat surprised to see him. "Hi, I hope I'm not disturbing you so late, but I was looking for Frank Harper?"
Daniel blinked. "I'm sorry, Frank passed away not long ago. I'm his nephew, Daniel."
Her expression was nothing short of complete deflation.
"Is there something I can help you with?"
She shook her head and backed up two steps, leaning against the porch railing. "Oh, I can't believe this. To come all this way," she looked up. "After all these years! I can't have done all this just to be too late."
"Too late for what?" Daniel was still reeling from his own mental fog, but he could see she was genuinely upset. He looked out to the drive and saw a old VW Beetle, the kind you expect to be dropping pieces on the highway every few miles.
She put a hand on her forehead. "I can't believe this. There's no other way now. Frank had the last one."
"Had the last what?" Daniel pushed the door open wider. "Why don't you come in and explain, it's cold out there and I've had a pretty strange evening myself."
She looked up. "But you don't even know me."
Daniel huffed and rubbed his eyes tiredly. "I seriously doubt you're here to rob me, are you? Besides, I'm Air Force trained." He wasn't entirely sure why he'd just added that, but the thought did cross his mind that the bushes next to the front porch could easily hide an ambush.
"Thank you," she said as she stepped through the door. "I'll have to trust you're an officer and a gentleman, then, myself." When Daniel closed the door, she turned to him with a hand offered. "My name is Beth."
He shook her hand. "Daniel," he replied. "Did you know my uncle?"
"No, unfortunately." Beth shook her head. "You see, the thing is, you're going to think I'm a bit crazy, but I was hoping Frank Harper had something I could, um, borrow. Or buy. I heard he was quite a collector of interesting things."
"That's putting it mildly." Daniel held out a hand. "Would you like to sit down? Can I offer you some tea?"
"Oh, no, thank you." Beth took a set, perching on the edge of an old wingback in the living room. She was holding her fingers, fidgeting like a girl with stage fright.
"Thing is, my uncle collected a lot of things." Daniel sensed Beth's nervousness, but he was having a hard time dealing with his own thoughts and only vaguely realized he was bumbling through the politeness. "Was there something in particular you wanted?"
A suddenly resolve seemed to grip her and she looked up. "Okay, here's the thing. You're going to think I'm crazy, and most people will agree with you. After all, I spent the better part of my teenage years in and out of therapy because no one believed me. In fact, it wasn't until my third foster family before I started thinking that maybe -- just maybe, mind you -- they were right. I mean, it didn't make any sense, did it?" She stood and began pacing the living room. "In order to stop being sent to therapy, I started believing it myself, and I studied physics in school. At first I was trying to find a way to prove it was real, but then after a few years I started to see that it couldn't possibly be, you know?"
Daniel looked at her, slightly aware he was staring. "Um, no, not yet." He raise an eyebrow. "Maybe it would help if you slowed down?"
"I'm sorry, it's just been so long, and I've been looking and looking. You wouldn't believe the places I've been trying to find it, and then I found your uncle's name and I got so excited, you know?" She was still pacing, hands wringing in the air to expend extra energy. "And then to come so far only to find out I'm late by, what, just a few weeks? God! I can't believe this!" Her dialog ended with a dramatic flop on the couch. "Maybe I really am nuts."
"To be honest, miss, er, Beth, I can't say I'm in a position to say one way or the other right now."
"God, I'm sorry." She sat up. "Here I show up, late in the evening, some strange woman you've never seen before and just go off on a rant." Beth took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "Okay, here's the thing." She looked Daniel in the eye. "I'm not from here, originally."
"You mean Seattle?"
"I mean here," she replied. "I'm from a place called Ether."
"Ether? You -- Beth, you said?" Daniel was stammering. He swallowed, staring at the young woman out of fear she'd suddenly poof into mist and vanish.
"I know it doesn't make a lot of sense," Beth continued. "But, you see, I'm from a place called Ether. My brother, Stefan, killed our dad and pushed me through this door into your world. We call this--"
"Otherworld," Daniel finished for her.
Her eyes lit up. "Yes! Otherworld! So you know of Ether? You know about the key?" She sat forward. "Do you have your uncle's key?"
"I, uh, I'm not entirely sure." Daniel shook his head. "I was just there, not twenty minutes ago."
"In Ether?"
He shrugged. "Somewhere. I think. Maybe."
Beth blinked. "I don't understand."
"Well, neither do I." Daniel took a seat in the wingback chair. "One minute I'm drinking tea in my uncle's kitchen, the next minute I'm standing in traffic. I thought I'd just fallen down the cellar stairs when I tried that strange key in the door."
"You've been to Ether?"
"That's what they said, yeah."
"Then what's the problem?"
"Excuse me?"
"You said you thought you were somewhere," Beth replied. "Where do you think you were, if not Ether?"
"I thought I was unconscious on the cellar floor," Daniel replied with a huff. "In fact, I think I might have been, after all."
"Tell me what you saw, when you went through the door."
Daniel looked at the young woman. She seemed reasonable enough, and pretty. Did he really want to risk looking like a nutcase, while some strange pretty girl ransacked his uncle's house?
He cleared his throat. "Okay, whatever happened, I found myself in traffic in a city, where a Sheriff named Murphy--"
"Murphy's the Sheriff now?"
"Uh, yeah. Unless there's more than one Murphy," Daniel replied with a shrug. "Anyway, he explained how I'd just used a special key and stepped into Ether. And the only way back here, what he called Otherworld, was to use the key. Only I'd left it in the kitchen cellar door."
"Then how did you get back?"
He shrugged again. "Ian took me to the castle, and we found a key there."
"Ian? Ian Foster? He was my father's personal guard."
"So, you're Marabeth? The princess who vanished after the king's death?"
"My foster family always thought Beth was a more normal name," she replied. "See, my brother couldn't bring himself to kill me, because the royal court might have found him out. Especially after he'd just murdered our dad. So he used a key and opened a door, then pushed me through. I found myself in Otherworld, with no way back to Ether, and no one who believed me. That and no family got me into the foster care system, and my insistence that I was a princess in a place called Ether got me into therapy." She sighed heavily. "After a few years, I started believing I really had made all of that up. They were convinced I'd invented Ether and my royal lineage as a way to escape child abuse. I was labeled a runaway, and when they decided they were never going to ID my family, I was formally adopted by the third foster family to take me in."
Daniel ran a hand over his short hair. "So it's all real?"
"You said you were just there."
"Yeah, I did say that," Daniel admitted. "Only I can't prove it. Not without trying to go there again, anyway."
"How long were you there? If you say you stepped in to Ether in the city, then left from the castle, that's a long trip."
Daniel nodded. "Ten days, or so, I think. But the thing is, I wasn't gone from here for more than ten minutes. I'd made tea, you see, when I stepped through the door. And when I found myself in the cellar again, with a headache, my tea was still hot."
"It works like that." She shook her head. "Did you bring anything back with you? A weapon or trinket? Something in your pockets or on your shoe?"
"I had a weapon, but we were being chased and I must have lost it," Daniel replied. He touched his chest. "And there was a tooth. A worm's tooth, on a leather strip around my neck. I had that on when I was there, but when I came to in the cellar, it was gone." He shrugged. "That's why I figured it was all my imagination."
Beth stood. "In the cellar, you say?"
"Yes, why?" Daniel stood as Beth strode purposefully toward the kitchen.
She pointed to the door. "This one?"
"Yes, but what are you --?"
Beth opened the door and flicked on the light, then marched down the stairs.
Daniel followed. "Be careful, these stairs aren't in good shape." At the bottom of the steps Beth walked to the center of the cellar and peered around in the dim light.
"Your imagination, you say?" She leaned down, then straightened up and held out something shiny and black hanging from a leather strip. "This looks like a worm tooth, to me."
Daniel stared at her find.
Beth came back toward him proudly holding the tooth at arm's length. "So, you hunted a worm? I've only heard of them, myself, and seen a few of these on some of the braver men." She handed Daniel the tooth and started back up the stairs. "So, Mr. Harper, why don't you tell me all about your adventure. Then you can escort me home."
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