Chapter 1 #3
“Keep learning more about yourself and your sexuality,” he suggested.
“Books are a good place to start, especially if you want to learn more about people like us and how we live. Pay attention to what your body is telling you. When you get older, you can look for someone who understands you and what you like. Like my boyfriend understands me.”
That comforted her, but also made her a little unhappy. “If that’s how it is for people like us, then am I going to be like this for the rest of my life?”
“I can’t tell you that.” He rubbed his hand over her curls. “Just be careful, Becs. It would be easy for someone to take advantage of you, so it has to stay secret, something you don’t even mention to your grandparents or friends. If you ever need to talk about it again, come and see me, okay?”
After that talk Rebecca decided that her sexuality would be something she’d talk about only with her true love someday.
She kept researching and learned more about pain, desire, and how they meshed for people like her.
She came to understand that many forms of self-denial and struggle aroused her slowly, and ultimately gave her a sense of power when she rewarded herself with something she desired.
Rebecca knew she’d never meet anyone who would suit her unless she started dating again. Now that Scott and Bess had left Boston she could at least try to find like-minded possibilities.
When she reached the first floor landing Rebecca encountered two lab techs who smelled suspiciously like burnt vanilla cupcakes.
Judging by the faint haze in the air both of them had been breaking a hard and fast hospital rule about no vaping on the premises, which was sometimes easier to get away with than smoking tobacco.
“Someone has been voluntarily inhaling heavy metals, formaldehyde and diethylene glycol,” she said as she approached them. “It usually takes two to three years to get a lung transplant after you destroy yours, you know, assuming you don’t die of a heart attack first.”
The first girl hung her head and shifted on her feet, but her brunette companion just laughed.
“I’ll probably get strangled by my psycho ex first, Dr. Ponytails,” she told her, defiantly taking one more hit off her vape pen before she left, a waft of burnt cupcake-scented mist trailing behind her.
“Sorry, Dr. McIan,” the other tech said. “She’s in a custody battle, and just had to get a restraining order to keep her husband from stalking her and their kid.”
Rebecca nodded, and followed her out into the ER lobby.
As the tech hurried after her friend, she stepped over a wad of blue fabric sitting just in front of the elevators.
It looked as if someone had dropped a scrub top on the floor, which someone might step on and slip as they came out of the lift.
She walked over and bent to pick it up, but snatched her hand back when the dark fabric slithered around her fingers as if it were alive.
“Ugh.” She stepped back, shuddering. “What is that?”
’Tis the cluet, my child, a strange voice said behind her eyes.
An instant awareness of what the cluet was blazed across her thoughts, pouring knowledge and images into her mind so fast her head began to ache.
A treasure beyond price, the cloth could grant any wish.
Even more fantastic, it could change its shape and appearance, move through time and across vast distances to find what it needed to fulfill a wish.
The rest blurred into a confusing vision of what seemed like a high fantasy movie, complete with flashes of an evil queen and her monster soldiers and a clan of ancient Scottish highlanders who looked like a medieval mob that lived in the fourteenth century.
“Oh.” Rebecca took a prudent step from the scrub top. “I, ah, have everything I could ever wish for here, thank you.” Was she apologizing to a magical, sentient fabric?
No’ for long, lass. You’re everything wanted by another in that long ago time. I cannae grant a mortal a wish, but come with me, and you shall live.
“Why would I die?” she asked, taking another step back.
A moment later glass shattered behind her, and Rebecca turned around to see a young man pointing a gun at the wide-eyed brunette lab tech, who was backing away from him toward the elevators.
Then everything seemed to slow down as the tech backed up and ran around Billy and Georgia Baker as they came off the elevator, shoving the boy’s chair toward the shooter before diving inside and closing the doors.
Someone’s trembling voice announced on the PA system “Code silver, ER. Code silver, ER.”
Code silver meant armed attacker. Rebecca ignored the screams and fleeing people as she ran for her patient.
“Get out of my way, lady,” the shooter screamed at Georgia, who stepped in front of her son to shield him.
He stopped in his tracks when Rebecca put herself between him and the terrified woman, and leveled his gun at her face.
“I’m going to shoot that bitch who took my kid from me. You think I won’t kill you, too?”
“That won’t solve anything,” Rebecca told him. “Put down the gun.”
All around her the hospital suddenly went dark, as if day had become night. The shooter blurred and then doubled as reality seemed to split into two.
Look upon your fate if you dinnae fulfill the wish, Rebecca McIan.
On the left the scene shifted, showing the shooter pulling the trigger.
A wet red stain bloomed on Rebecca’s chest as Georgia caught her from behind and screamed.
The shooter then seemed to go crazy, shooting wildly before more shots came from behind him.
He stiffened and then collapsed face-down on the floor.
A patrol cop with his weapon drawn then came inside and kicked the shooter’s weapon away from him.
“No, please,” Rebecca heard herself whisper to Georgia, who lay bleeding on the floor beside her.
“Billy.” The other woman glanced at her son, who sat huddled and unmoving in his chair. “Oh, no.”
If you come with me, the lad shallnae murder the lady and her son. Only you must go willing.
Rebecca’s gaze shifted to the second scene, where she saw herself pick up the scrub top, which instantly grew to an enormous size and wrapped around her. A few moments after she and her bizarre cocoon vanished, the glass broke, and the shooter came in and pointed his weapon at Georgia.
“Get out of my way, lady,” the young man shouted as she stepped in front of her son’s wheelchair. “I’m going to shoot that bitch who took my kid from me. You think I won’t kill you, too?”
“I know you will,” Georgia said, her expression and her voice eerily serene. “But please, don’t shoot us. I know you’re not like her. You don’t want to hurt a child.”
The shooter’s gaze shifted to Billy, and he took a step back. “Sure, yeah, go.”
A second after Georgia pushed her son out of the way a shot rang out and the young man collapsed as the patrol cop advanced on him. Then both scenes went dark, and Rebecca was standing in the unlit, empty hospital again.
“Please, take me away from here.” She pressed her hands to the sides of her head. “I’ll go with you. I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t let anyone die.”
The killer’s fate, ’tis sealed. To save the mother and her lad, and your own life, you must pick up the cluet and agree to fulfill the wish of another.
Why would anyone wish for her? That didn’t really matter, only saving Georgia and Billy did. “Yes. Yes, I will. I agree.”
Rebecca suddenly found herself standing in front of the elevators, as if nothing had happened.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the brunette lab tech, and considered shouting to her to run.
But she had agreed to do this, so she bent down and picked up the scrub top.
The fabric clung to her fingers as if glued to them the moment she touched it, and then flared out around her, growing into a huge dark blue cape that sparkled with copper and violet metallic threads.
As it cocooned her she experienced a sense of being embraced by an old friend.
This really is magical. But where was it taking her?
As it wrapped around her the hospital faded from her senses, replaced by a cold breeze that made the cluet dance around her.
She could smell woodsmoke and trees, and heard the sound of water gently lapping.
Instinctively she held her breath as the cloth whirled away from her, and she fell into an enormous lake.
Where am I?
The shock of the plunge into the frigid waters made her heart race, but Rebecca focused on the light above her head, and swam up until she surfaced and sputtered, clearing her airways and squinting against the blinding sunlight.
At this temperature hypothermia would quickly set in, so her first priority was to get out of the water.
To her right lay a large, wooded island with a dark gray castle built in its center, and since that was closer than the lake shore she swam toward it.
Halfway there she saw a tall, dark-haired man dressed like the highlanders from her bizarre vision wading into the water and making waves as he rushed toward her.
Help, thank heavens.
Her savior got to her just as she reached the shallows, and snatched her up out of the water, holding her against his chest as he turned around and carried her the rest of the way.
He didn’t seem to care that her soaked clothes were pouring water all over him, or that she was shaking so much now he had to tighten his grip on her to keep her from falling back into the freezing water.