Return What's Mine

“Ashlin, hurry. We must go now,” Papa said, his voice a hushed tone in their small apartment.

“But, why?” she asked. Why did they have to go? It was Saturday.

She shifts restlessly in her unconscious state.

Suddenly, a blinding light was shone on her, and her papa screamed, “No! Don’t take her. Leave me this one memory of Ashley. Please,” he pleaded in desperation, a hopeless plea useless to the merciless ones as they snatched a squirmy child from his arms.

“Papa! Papa! Help!” she screamed.

“It’s gonna be okay, baby.” The lie left his lips as he tried hard not to cry. “I’ll make you a bargain,” her papa yelled to her kidnappers. His voice was hoarse.

Twenty-two now, I do not know who I am or whom I was. I was told my parents died in a car crash when I was just two, and told on a different occasion by a stranger on the street that my dad just disappeared one day.

As a child, I used to imagine them watching me from the shadows and it often did feel as if I had a mysterious stalker following me around. It was this thought that made me strive for perfection, to become the grown up whom I hoped they would have wanted their little girl to be.

The letter came on May sixteenth, the paper yellowed and the graphite letters faded, but I didn’t open it until the twentieth when it rammed against my face while I was driving to the office in my penciled secretarial business attire.

Demand to borrow a pencil from- the rest was an illegible scribble in a shape of what seemed to be a fairy or butterfly. Disturbingly, the scribbles were written in blood, and I didn’t even use pencils excluding the standardized tests I had to take as a child. I was an anxiety attack at the office that day, glancing in every direction every few minutes. While sipping coffee and jotting down meaningless words for Stan I often found myself thinking about the letter and what kind of sick creature would send something like that and who was I supposed to borrow this supposed pencil from. Could it be my secret stalker? I laughed at the thought during a meeting, and got a disapproving scowl from Stan.

At the end of that day, Stan pulled me over to his office. Behind the closed doors, he smiled his lawyer grin.

“What’s up? You’re all antsy today,” he paused for a moment and hesitantly said, “Ashlin, have you received any- strange parcels.”

Goosebumps plagued my arms, and I might have jumped a little. I did not show fear though, instead I put on a poker face and said confidently, “Define… strange.”

“Ashlin, do you believe in alternate dimensions?”

“Stan, you’re kidding me, right?” I raised my eyebrows, and Stan raised his human incognito.

His translucent skin was a minty green color with vines tattooed all over it. When he licked his lips with his pointy tongue, a row of shark-like teeth were revealed. Deciding whether to run or scream, I let out a hoar

se cry. He touched my hand, and for the first time I noticed how bony it was. The office desk faded and I began to regret that I hadn’t run. Ancient trees with metallic leaves dangling from their branches appeared, and we were in a whole other world.

“Such a pity he asked for you. I would have thought he’d have forgotten after all this time. We could have gotten married, my pretty fairy bride.” Stan traced my jawbone with his index finger looking at me longingly.

I flinched and Stan laughed, “Mortals and their fickle emotions.” His lips touched the nape of my neck and I could feel the electric feeling I first felt when I saw my boss all over again. My heart pounded in my chest and I knew I should probably run before I did something utterly stupid, but I was magnetized and even if I ran there was nowhere for me to go in this world. “I wonder how you would taste.” Stan smiled a snarky grin and I was awakened to my senses, I trembled slightly, shaking my head and backed up a few steps.

Demand to borrow a pencil from- Who? Certainly not Stan. Definitely not Stan.

“Let’s test your agility.” He began to run into the oddly colored woods and an invisible rope dragged me towards him. After I fell face first, I began to run towards him. Agility? I could outrun him easily. Would gravity then also overpower him? I flexed my muscles, pulling into full stride and within less than a minute, I was at a ten foot lead. The invisible rope did indeed cause him to fall.

Stan grumbled as he pushed himself up, mouth full of purple fluorescent grass, and said, “I lead, or else.” He glared at me and I caught the glint on a shiny copper rapier in a sheath tied to his belt. I let him lead afterwards until we reached a curtain of fairyland vines.

“The master awaits,” Stan snickered. He pushed me to the other side. “I have faithfully done what you asked, Unseely King. The chosen mortal is here.”

I stumbled toward the throne in which a human-looking man was bestowed upon. He had pallid skin and hair as dark as his heart. Cruelty was written in his coal-black eyes that shimmered with specks of red flames as he spoke.

“My future Queen,” he said chillingly, smiling coldly, “as your father bargained.” His cold lips caressed my hand, and I winced. It felt like frost-bite.

Demand a pencil from- It had to be.

“I demand to borrow a pencil. Now.”

Court members chattered, wide-eyed and panic stricken in horror as a metal blade impaled Stan from the hands of the Unseely King. “I told you not to fail me, I don’t return what I have taken from mortals.”