Conlan broke eye contact to look at the blended green and brown around them.
“This is Millers Forest.”
Eleanor sat up, wincing slightly as she pulled stiff muscles, irritated by his response. He was answering her questions, but there was no actual information in what he was telling her.
“We’re not on Earth, or at least not the Earth you know,” he added. Green eyes searched her face; again, she wondered what he was looking for. Then what he had actually said hit her.
If I’m no longer on Earth, where am I?
Like a strange reality check, her mind then chose to remind her of the bullets.
I should be writhing in agony or stone-cold dead.
Fear slid an icy hand down her spine, the forest lurched slightly, her heartbeat jumped and her breathing accelerated. Conlan moved to kneel beside her.
“Eleanor, just breathe.” he touched her shoulder, but Eleanor jerked away from him, moving out of his reach.
“Don’t touch me!” she snarled. “What have you done to me? Where am I? Did my body just disappear? My family are never going to know what happened to me... What have you done?!” As she ranted at him, Eleanor thought she registered pain flash across his face, but he was so quick to hide it she could not be sure. He waited patiently until she had finished, there was no surprise at her outburst. Snapping her mouth shut she glared at him. He stared back, frowning; she forced her breathing to slow down.
“Well?” she said eventually.
“I don’t have time to go into all the details right now – we’re not safe here and must move soon,” he said quietly. Eleanor glanced around the forest, which had taken on a dark and foreboding aspect with his words.
“Why aren’t we safe?” her words shot through with the fear she knew was showing on her face. Conlan turned his head away, not looking at her, he appeared to be thinking. Every second of delay in his response increased the terror Eleanor could feel building in her body.
“We’re not meant to be here. If we’re caught the results could be fatal, so we have to get to safety.” Conlan’s flat explanation did nothing to calm her.
“Fatal?” she echoed, her terror forcing breaths out of her in short, sharp gasps.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he added almost as an afterthought, his eyes returning to her face, still searching it.
Eleanor raised an eyebrow at him, anger overriding some of her terror.
“Brilliant job on that one! If we’re not meant to be here, why did you bring me?”
He stared at her again, the silence stretching along with her nerves. “This is where the ritual took place,” he said. “That level of released energy is noticeable. We must leave before it’s investigated.”
“Investigated by whom?” her question had been calm, but he appeared to notice how much she was shaking. He reached to touch her but then thought better of it, letting his hand drop to his side instead.
“People you really don’t want to meet. I know this is difficult for you, but this world is very different from yours and you need to trust me.”
“You drag me from my world, to who knows where, to do who knows what, and you won’t tell me what’s going on and I’m supposed to TRUST you?!” she spat this last part out, her voice rising to a yell.
“I gave you a choice, Eleanor.” The tone was calm and reasonable, but there was an edge to it.
“Some choice! Have you done this before? How many choose to die?” Eleanor snapped, her fear fuelling her anger. Conlan stood and turned his back to her. When he spoke, his voice was flat again.
“The first three times this worked, but Earth is different. I’ve been looking for you for a long time. You’re the fourth attempt – and no, nobody chose death in the beginning.”
“Three others... where are they?”
Conlan wrapped his arms around his body, holding in his secrets. Eleanor stared at his back, waiting until he answered, unwilling or unable to let this question go.
“They didn’t make it,” he whispered. His voice sounded so hollow that Eleanor felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Tears hid threateningly at the edges of her eyes, but she had no idea why she was crying.
“What do you mean, ‘didn’t make it’? They died? Did you…?” her implied accusation sounded harder than she had intended.
He spun round, anger flashing in his eyes. “I didn’t kill them, Eleanor, but I’m responsible. They killed themselves, every one of them. They couldn’t handle the shift in reality. They lost all hope. Earth isn’t like the others. I chose you because I thought you were stronger.”
“Earth?” she asked, confused.
“I really can’t get into this right now, so please try to hold it together until we’re somewhere safe.”
“I’m not losing my mind, Conlan; it’s just a lot to take in. You saved my life and I’m grateful.” her words sounded calm and in control, but it had taken effort because her grip on what was going on was not nearly as tight as she was pretending.
Conlan laughed a bitter, self-mocking bark, not the soft sound of amusement Eleanor remembered. “I’m not a hero. I brought you here so you could help me. You have no reason to trust me, of course, but now you’re here you have no choice but to do so.”
There were just too many questions for Eleanor to handle, and she felt that if she demanded that he answered them all, they would never get anywhere. She sighed, deciding.
“OK then, let’s go.”
Conlan nodded, looking slightly relieved. He reached for the blanket Eleanor had left on the floor and shook out the ‘pillow’ she had been using. It unfolded into a jacket and he shrugged it on over the once white shirt that covered his slim, muscular torso. In the past this jacket would have been a fine garment, its dark green padded velvet would have been luxuriant, but now it was dusty and worn. One of the elbows had been inexpertly patched with a rough material of muddy green, the stand-up collar was frayed and several of the tarnished silver buttons from the front were missing. There was an insignia stitched in silver thread over his left breast, which looked like a stylized shape, but Eleanor was unable to identify it properly. He noticed her inspection of him and tossed the blanket to her.
“Roll that up, I’ll get my horse.”
Horse? Oh crap!
Eleanor stood frozen in horror as Conlan led a huge grey animal towards her. It was beautiful, from a distance, which is where Eleanor wanted to keep it.
Conlan saw her expression. “Eleanor, this is Rand.” He affectionately patted the massive beast’s broad neck, and in return it lowered its huge head and rubbed its nose against his master’s side.
“I’m... I’m not a great fan of horses,” she stammered as memories of failed horse riding lessons flashed through her mind. Horses were too big, too unpredictable and they frightened her. Eleanor saw the amusement in Conlan’s eyes.
“You’re going to have to learn to deal with them, there are no cars here.”
“Can’t I just walk?” she stuttered slightly, fear making her voice sharp.
Conlan appeared to consider this proposal. “Yes, you could walk. We’re three days’ ride from where we need to be, so walking will take maybe a week, possibly longer. That’s too long for us to be out in the open, plus it would be long past dark by the time we cleared the edge of the forest. There are wolves here, and without a fire…”
“Wolves?” she asked.
Conlan nodded and calmly returned her incredulous stare for a moment.
In a practiced, fluid motion he mounted and settled himself in the saddle, which also struck Eleanor as being a piece of finery that had seen better days, although its shiny red leather had been better cared for than the jacket. Eleanor rolled up the blanket and handed it to Conlan. He secured it tightly behind the saddle over a couple of matching red leather saddlebags, and he then reached an arm down and with surprising strength hauled Eleanor up until she sat behind him on top of the blanket roll. Wriggling, getting comfortable, she noticed her clothes for the first time. They were not hers. She felt her cheeks redden. Her shop uniform was gone and in its place were baggy, non-descript brown trousers, worn brown boots that slouched around her small feet and a brown shirt several sizes too big for her delicate build.
“Conlan, where are my clothes?”
“You’re wearing them,” he said, without turning round.
“No, I was wearing my shop uniform. There should be blood...” Her voice dropped off to a whisper. There was a pause, as if Conlan was trying to think of something to say.
“You left your old body behind,” he eventually replied. Eleanor looked down. The body felt real, felt like her, but if what Conlan said was true – that it was a different body to the one that was shot?
Is it really different?
She wrestled with her right sleeve.
“What are you doing?” Conlan asked, twisting slightly in the saddle to look at her.
“When I was five I fell off the garage roof into my Dad’s scrap pile and there was a piece of wood with a nail in it. The nail went through my arm. I still have the scar...” Having pulled her sleeve up over her elbow, Eleanor examined her forearm.
No scar...
For some reason this did not frighten her as much as she had thought it would.
Perhaps it’s because this body feels anything but alien.
On the inside of her wrist the skin was burnt and blistered; it was hard to make out but it looked like a shape had been burnt into it, a radiant-cut diamond seen side-on. It looked like it should hurt. Eleanor gingerly ran her finger over it.
Numb.
“If this isn’t my body, whose is it?” she asked. “And what does this diamond mean? How did it get there?”
“It’s your body, Eleanor, it was made for you. The symbol represents the element of Earth; it’s a side effect of the ritual that brought you here. Does it hurt?” There was curiosity rather than concern in his question.
She shook her head. “No, it doesn’t hurt.”
Conlan tilted his head, scrutinising her again. “Let me know if it starts to hurt, OK?”
Eleanor rubbed her left hand up and down her arm. “This body was made for me?”
“How about we leave that as another question for later?”
Eleanor sighed. “Were you this unhelpful with the others? It might explain the suicide rate!” She had meant it as a joke but Conlan did not laugh – the muscles in his jaw tightened but he showed no other signs of emotion as he stared at her before twisting back round in the saddle.
“Put your arms around my waist and hold tight,” he ordered. Eleanor obeyed, wondering if she should apologise.
Rand moved at considerable speed through the trees. The ground seemed very far away and Eleanor judged her position to be rather precarious. She gripped a little tighter, feeling the tension in Conlan’s body. Leaning her head against his back, closing her eyes, she focused on not falling off and settled into the steady rhythm of the horse and Conlan’s movement in the saddle, allowing herself to drift in that pleasant place that comes before sleep.
A sudden change of pace brought her back to reality. Eleanor opened her eyes and found they had cleared the forest and were now moving along a dirt track that snaked into the distance over rolling, grassy hills. Conlan’s body tensed as he glanced behind him, frowning at something over the top of Eleanor’s head. He gently urged Rand to greater speed. Automatically Eleanor turned to look and gasped. The height of a tall man, weaving a rhythmic dance from side to side on the track behind them, was the tightly spinning cyclone of dirt and dust of a small tornado. Eleanor glanced at the sky. There were no storm clouds, no rain, no wind and no humidity. There was no reason at all for there to be a tornado, which, Eleanor noticed, had increased its forward momentum to match the speed Conlan had just demanded of Rand.
“Is that tornado following us?” Eleanor asked as she bounced up and down with Rand’s steady gait.
“Yes.”
His response was so matter-of-fact that Eleanor was stunned. “Why?”
“Because Air is curious.”
“How can Air be curious?”
“Asks someone who never stops questioning…” Conlan muttered.
“Is it dangerous?” Eleanor asked, ignoring Conlan’s aspersion but noticing that he had pushed Rand to greater speed.
“Sometimes. Air is usually quite timid, but I’d rather we didn’t get too close.”
“You make it sound like a person. Air is just a random collection of atoms; it can’t really decide to follow us.”
Conlan did not reply and Eleanor suspected it was not because he agreed with the logic of her argument. The tornado continued to follow for several hours, keeping pace with them but never catching up. Eleanor’s attempts to get more information from Conlan fell on deaf ears, and irritation pushed her into angry silence. Eventually the tornado disappeared and Conlan relaxed slightly, taking Rand’s speed back down to a steady trot. Eleanor looked about her. There was nothing as far as she could see in any direction but grass, hills and trees. The familiarity of it tugged at her memory, reminding her of a trip through France she had taken as a child. The scenery seemed to slip by, like a movie on fast forward. Eleanor watched it, dazed, her head throbbing. Everything was happening too fast.
The quality of the light began to change as the sun started to drop below the horizon, giving the landscape a more pronounced, dreamlike quality.
This isn’t real.
Eleanor’s thoughts spun until it hurt too much to think, so she went back to drifting, eyes closed, shivering as the failing sun took what little warmth the day had left.
“You’re cold.”