Unreal City (8 page)

Above her fluttered a massive butterfly with oddly shaped wings, whose entire form hummed with wisdom and power. Every time it flapped its wings, they seemed to shine in a different iridescent hue and if I looked at it too long, I felt dreamy, like I was slipping away from this world. I sensed it knew me—knew what I was thinking, and could speak to me if it liked, yet remained silent as I stared at those mesmerizing wings with their changing patterns and colors. I shook my head. These two were as real as the boy in my garden had been. I could feel the girl’s soul brimming with love for me, though I hardly knew why.

“Blanche!”
called a female voice from inside the cottage. This French sounded different than the little girl’s, as if the speaker had a strong accent. “
Reviens vite, toute suite! Pischouette, c’est dangereux à l’extérieur, maintenant! Qui est...
” The huffy woman stepped outside, her words trailing off as she noticed me. Her black eyes searched me the way the boy’s had, but instead of running, her face broke into a welcoming smile, stained with a deep sadness I could not understand.

“
Ma, jamais d’la vie…elle est la defante.
Hey, girl, what they call you?” she pointed to me as she spoke, the child still chattering away in French.

It took me a moment to piece together what she had asked. It had sounded like
‘Ey, gaal. Wut dey caah ya’
. “Er, Sarah. I’m Sarah.”

The old woman nodded and shut her eyes, then beckoned me to come closer. I complied, the little girl romping alongside me. The old woman had big, round eyes with yellowish whites. The skin of her face was soft, papery, and showered signs of age, but wasn’t very wrinkled. A scarf wrapped around her head tinkled with little beads and crystals, and many different shawls of varying shades of purple were wrapped about her shoulders.

I couldn’t contain my questions. “Please, ma’am—can you tell me…well, anything about this place? I’m—I’m kinda lost, I guess you could say, I—”

“Hush now, child. Come on inside. I’ll tell you ‘bout everything. This here est ma petite Blanche’s Garden. I’m a visitor here too, but she seem to like you fine,” the old woman laughed, her voice hoarse but amiable. I couldn’t imagine there being any danger here, so I followed her into the cottage, the little girl still hopping at my heels.

The inside was just as lovely as the exterior. Porcelain cups, rustic furniture, home-sewn quilts, and vases bursting with flowers picked from the meadow were crammed inside the cozy space. It looked like a replica of Snow White’s cottage, complete with the pies sitting on the windowsills. We sat at a worn, wooden table with gentle light streaming in through the stained glass and coloring the room. The butterfly landed on the chair where the little girl sat, its wings still dreamily flapping even though it was not airborne. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the wings, no matter how I tried, and my head ached in the same way Felix’s eyes caused it to. The old woman bustled about, making tea for the three of us as she spoke kindly to the little girl in French, as if explaining something that a child her age would not easily comprehend. When she was done and three steaming mugs of tea that smelled strongly of herbs sat before us, she turned to me with her dark, hazy eyes and gave me her full attention.

“First you tell Mama Stella, child, how it is you come here.” Beneath her thick Cajun accent her voice was motherly, though it didn’t quite make me feel safe. There was something powerful behind that kindly gaze that I didn’t feel like testing, so I stuck to the truth.

“I—I gave some food to him,” I pointed at Felix, who had followed us into the kitchen, “and he offered me a cake, and I ate it and—”

“And it take you here. To the Unreal City,” Mama Stella finished with an understanding smile.

“Unreal City? Is that what this place is? Is that how you all get here? Please, tell me more,” I begged. I just knew my time here wouldn’t last for very much longer—I could feel the heightened sense of reality already fading, especially when I looked at that butterfly. I wanted to know exactly what I was getting into, and what it might cost me if I ever wanted to come back.

“It what the man in the library call it, so most of us Cunning Folk come to call it that too, but it never had no true name,” she explained. “And what bring us here is something different for each one—a tiny bottle of sweet liquor for me, a
bon bon
for
cher
Blanche, so she tells me. It’s our heads that make it look different, make it look
tempting
. But my podna Mardi tell me it all the same stuff—only they the ones can make it.”

“Podna Mardi?”

“Ah weh, girl, my friend the spirit. Come on in here, Mardi,” she called into the back room of the cottage, and the sound of hooves on wood approached. An animal that at first looked to be an oversized ram with golden wool clopped around the doorway, and I shuddered at the sight of its face. Instead of the sheep’s head that should’ve been at the end of its fleecy neck, there was a solid gold carnival mask. Elaborate horns sprouted on either side; emeralds, amethysts, and a plume of feathers decorating them. I couldn’t see any eyes behind that mask, but the jewels glimmered with that ethereal light that made my head fuzzy. It was looking straight at me, feeling what I felt and pillaging my memories.

“Please, tell me everything you know. I don’t think I have much time left,” I insisted, willing myself to look away from the familiar.

“There sure ain’t time for that, but here’s the basics. Your spirit cannot lie to you, and he
must
do what you say once you enter a pact with him, but he always try to trick you, too. Just you gotta ask him the right questions, weh?” Mama Stella said, a twinkle in her eye. “You be careful ‘bout what you give him too, be careful ‘bout how many times you come here unless you sure you want it always—things start to seem different, back home, too. Don’t be scared of what you see. They can’t hurt you none. But stay in the right places here, ‘cause there’s things here that can. Don’t never go looking for trouble, peeshwank, don’t go digging deep in the Unreal City. Stay where your friends stay. That’s why I stay here with her, ma Blanche. She can’t wake up, anymore—she say there was a car accident in her life, and now she’s sleeping forever. I just make sure her dreams is always nice.”

The old woman looked upon the little girl, who was sipping at the steaming cup and licking her lips. My heart ached for her. She might forever be frozen at this age, in a state of unchanging innocence, until she died. I knew that if I ever came back to this place—to Unreal City—then I would want to spend some time with her.

“Now come here, Sarah. I know what is your kind of girl—you not gonna heed my warning,” Mama Stella said, standing up and gesturing for me to do the same. “So I’m gonna help you out, silly as you is.”

I rose alongside my anger, opening my mouth to protest her criticism, but the old woman hushed me with her raised finger. The ram moved its head back and forth, the beads, coins, and jewels adorning its body tinkling. Mama Stella studied me, then shut her eyes and took a deep breath in through her nose.

“Hang on, a minute, what are you going to do to me?!” I cried.

Before I could stop her, the old woman lifted two fingers and touched them to my pendant. The brief contact sent an electric current flowing through the chain of the necklace and buzzing down to my chest, making me gasp and double over. I caught my breath and looked up at her, shocked tears in my eyes.

“What the hell was that? What did you do?”

“I gave you a charm for protection. I want no harm to come to you child, that’s why I done it.” Mama Stella’s dark eyes were passionate, but I was already withdrawing, my hands clasped over my pendant.

How dare she touch this...does she know?

“Thanks for your help, but I’ve got to be going,” I barked, making for the door.

Little Blanche leapt from her seat, looking back and forth from me to Mama Stella in confusion. Mama Stella nodded, that sadness overtaking her again, and waved her hands in the direction of the door.

“Please take care out there, child. You come back here too. You always welcome. Come back,” she pleaded as I made my retreat, Felix scampering after me.

My breathing was agitated and my heart pounded as we made for the edge of Blanche’s Garden. “Felix, what did she do to me?” I panted as I walked, not daring to look back.

“What she said she did,” he replied, calm and confusing as always.

I wasn’t sure I was in the mood to dissect potential meaning behind this, so I charged onward until I stepped through the thin layer of cellophane-like energy separating the gardens. I thought I’d been going back to mine, but found I had stumbled into another stranger’s world. Things were starting to look less focused now, but I could tell I was on a beach at night, though it was neither tropical nor rocky like the ones in California. It was nestled between green mountains, and the sand was soft beneath my toes.

In the sky was a dazzling display of aurora borealis. A few feet away stood a little hut with a thatched roof and paper screens. I took a moment to study this, then noticed a slender, middle-aged woman approaching in the dim lavender light. She seemed glad to see me, her smile reaching her eyes. She took my hand in hers, holding it for a moment before letting go.

“Hello,” I said, comforted by her presence, the threat of the electric shock already fading from my nerves.

“
Youkoso
,” was her reply. The tone of her voice was soothing, but I shook my head to show I didn’t understand her.
“Hajimemashite, atashi ha Masami...namae ha Masami. Masami desu. Kore ha Masami no niwa yo.
” She pointed to her chest, repeating
Masami
until I guessed that she must be telling me her name.

“Oh, um, Sarah. I’m Sarah,” I said and pointed to myself.

She nodded and gestured for me to come to the shore, and we sat down together in the sparkling sands to watch the aurora. I tried to communicate details about who I was, and she did the same. She kept making little motions as if she were casting a line, and I guessed her daily life had something to do with fishing. We gave up and just enjoyed the lights in the sky.

A pair of iridescent jellyfish floated by in mid-air, glowing as if under a black light and connected by their tentacles. Masami laughed, a pleasant sound, and Felix leapt up to join them. They spun around together in the sky, silent communication ensuing as the jellyfish pulsated with that particular type of light that seemed to be the familiar spirits’ energy.

“
Izanami...to Izanagi
,” Masami pointed to each of the jellyfish, then laughed as if she’d made a little joke. I laughed too to show I was listening, but the spirits’ dance was making my head drift further and further away. My vision blurred until it was just a smudge of glittering lights on the black ocean waves, the shimmering waves of the aurora, and the floating tentacles in their pale luminescence. I stayed there until shadows washed in and wiped the color and light away, and a heavy sleepiness weighed down on my shoulders. I fell from Unreal City peacefully, with quiet in my heart and the gentle crashing of the waves in my ears.

WAKING UP WAS
pure agony. I groaned into life, my joints aching, my throat and nose burning with sickness. My head was pounding like a jackhammer was going off inside it, and I was soaked through to the bone. A thick layer of mud and pine needles had ruined my clothing, and as I rose from the forest floor dripping, coughing, and sniffling, I wanted nothing more than to return to that place where no pain was allowed. I felt hundreds of pounds heavier as I rose to my feet and did the best to remove all the debris from my hair.

“How are you feeling, Sarah?” asked a voice, and I looked over my shoulder in surprise. He was still there. Felix had followed me home.

“I need to get home. I think I’m sick,” I sniffed, and took a few steps in the direction I thought would lead me back.

Felix corrected me, and I followed him through the glistening ferns. The forest always seemed to shine too brightly the morning after the rain. I couldn’t quite see things properly—my whole mode of perception seemed skewed. Every time I stopped to take a short break I would lean against a redwood tree and the entire tower of it felt alive. I was more aware than usual of its growth, of all the creatures that made its body their home, of the moss and lichens feeding off it. It was too overwhelming. I found it hard to care when my horrified hall mates saw me stumble in and make straight for the shower.