this is to go with my other story which until this point has been titled: new project, title pending but now has a name: Firséd. This is for Areida because she told me she liked Sara, thought she was cute and as she doesn't show up in Firséd I thought she should have some more page time.
EL
The Door (accompaniment to Firséd: a tale of Evermore)
For Miss Ari because of Sara
Sara couldn’t understand it, Kyle wouldn’t miss more than four days of school unless he was deathly ill or on vacation, and when she had seen him on Monday he hadn’t said anything. Come to think of it, Kyle never went on vacations during school days ever. So on Friday when he hadn’t shown, she had asked around. No, no one had seen him but he was best friends with Jake Hall and he should know. But, no, no one had seen Jake either. So since Sara lived near Jake she stopped by on her way home from class.
Mrs. Hall answered the door, a very suburban looking house-wife, summer dress and apron to match her winning smiling.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes, I’m Sara Bookout, I was wondering if Jake was home.”
She looked back over her shoulder as if she needed clearance. “Yes he is. I’ll go get him for you.”
Mrs. Hall disappeared and a few lagging minutes later Jake stood uneasily at the doorway, hand on the handle as if a safety precaution.
He looked a mess. There was a deep red cut starting at the far-side of his jaw which disappeared under his shirt collar. He had dark bruises tinged in yellow under his left eye, and his lip was split and swollen.
“Listen, Jake I was wondering if you’ve seen Kyle. He was supposed to-”
Sara didn’t even get a chance to finish her sentence before Jake Hall slammed the door in her face. But not before she saw the fear on his face.
Strike two; maybe I’ll try the house.
Kyle lived on the other side of town, but Sara’s curiosity was piqued. She wanted to find out about Kyle. Not showing up to school, teachers and admin clueless, his best friend looking like he just went through a class A rumble, and refusing to speak.
Checking the address on the old SPAR receipt she’d written it on, Sara got into her maroon ‘86 Toyota Corolla, and headed for Kyle’s house.
*
Approaching the door of 146 Aspen Avenue Sara felt the fingers of anticipation and fear grasp at her. Had Kyle gotten hurt like Jake? Was he okay? The sound of her feet landing on each of the porch steps thundered in her brain. She knocked on the door, its baby blue paint peeling to reveal ashen wood.
When nothing answered, Sara knocked twice.
A cheerful voice came from inside.
“I’m out back, use the side garden door please.”
Sara stepped off the porch and walked to the garden door, pushing and finding it open she entered.
The path was a mess of brambles, leaves, branches, and leaves; a tumulus mass of green and brown.
Slowly, and having to fight herself free numerous times as the greenery bit and snagged her, as if trying to hold her back, keep her stationary, she moved forward. Catching her foot on a branch, Sara fell just barely shoving her arms out to save herself from utter disaster. Grumbling at the offending twig, she raised herself up.
Jeez, this really is a forest. Kyle wasn’t kidding.
After fighting to regain her left arm from the wood, Sara braced herself as she came into the light. Brushing herself off, she looked up to call out for whoever was working in the garden. Blinking at the scenery, her mouth fell open.
I’m not in the backyard anymore.
She was at the edge of a towering forest, which each way from her spanned in all its sparkling greenery to the horizons. The long grasses that she was immersed in at the edge of the wood hid her from the view on the women in peasant looking clothing who were kneeling and gathering little dark berries from low-lying bushes. On the other side of the women stretched a sheared plain, the colour of hay, stretching till in coupled with another expansive wood. This is not Kyle’s backyard. All this mind-boggling information was making it hard for Sara to think clearly. There were riders approaching as well, they looked positively Arthurian in their dress from what she could see. At the horses hocks danced a pack of tawny dogs, sleek and lithe, reedy like greyhounds.
Uh shit…
In her effort to see better she had come partially out of the grasses and the dogs had spotted her. They were bounded straight for her. It wasn’t that she did love dogs, but at a full run they were an imposing force.
In a panic, Sara ran out of the comfort of the trees and tall grasses. But the dogs were faster and launched themselves at her at full runs.
Sara, under the onslaught of sharp teeth and claws was trying to protect her head, and curled into herself. She heard above the barking and growling of the dogs, the riders drawing near, then their voices as they dismounted. One sounded vaguely familiar but the language was foreign.
The dogs had gradually backed off, and someone grabbed her elbow with a gloved hand, hauling her to her feet. She rounded on that someone to stare angrily.
It was a large dark skinned man, with short, curling ebony eyes, his stark crystal blue eyes narrowed questioningly. He wore a large cloak of patchwork purples, browns and reds, under which were dark leggings, which were tucked immaculately into large riding boot. She just barely came up to the middle of his chest. All in all, Sara was in awe of this giant-man.
“Nom? Vin? Est? Tourva? Cesulem? Name?” He said the last as if he wasn’t sure he was saying it properly.
“Sara,” she said quietly, “Where am-”
“Sara? Sara Bookout?” That vaguely familiar voice from before cut her off.
A man strode into view. He wasn’t particularly tall compared to his dark skinned companion but certainly taller than her, and his slender figure looked well muscled. He wore a similar outfit, but he wore no hooded cloak, a tunic, in the centre of the dark brown material was a silver stag rearing, at his feet an exact replica of one of those greyhound-like dogs. His longish auburn hair flicked out in wisps from his tanned face, and he had soft eyes that matched his hair. It was something about those eyes that caught her attention.
They stared at each other for a long moment. Sara imagined the man de-evolving in front of her, to a skinny sophomore, with expressive brown eyes, who shared art with her.
He turned to his man, “Fet lis can, Jakesh.” The man relaxed his stance at Sara’s right.
The man offered her a shy smile before speaking in that so familiar but older, wiser, stronger voice, “Sara Bookout, fifth period Art with Ms. Bennet.”
The image of the man in his teens was speaking to her again. The boy she had seen last Monday.
“Kyle?” Her mind was reeling with theories and possibilities of how he got here, where here was, and the time that had passed.
His face brightened at her recognition.
“Yes,” he smiled again, “Welcome to Evermore.”
Did you mean hair?
