We both sat there staring at the contents of the table.
I had called her over and she wasted no time. I interpreted her silence to be fright but I had no idea.
"So..you are telling me, in this box, you found a pendant and that pendant opened up a portal to your actual reality just because you thought about it?" She sounded intrigued.
"Yea–ah. " I replied.
"Holy shit." She voiced getting up on her feet. "This is amazing. This is– super. Movies are real. This proves a lot. Time travel is not a myth, can you believe that?" She went on.
"Claire?" I called.
"Hm?" She turned to look at me.
"Focus. Please?" I begged her.
"Oh. Yeah. Sorry. Got a little bit carried away. " she said,
"So what else did you find?" She asked me.
"A sort of diary," I told her as I lifted it from behind me.
"Great. We could find every explanation there." She said, "you opened it yet?" She asked me.
"No," I said,
"Why?" She inquired.
"Everything in this box has more to it than meets the eyes. We must be careful. I don't want to open up the diary and then get sucked and stuck in one of its pages" I told her.
"You are one drama queen." She told me.
"How could Dad have had this all the while and never thought to check?" I found it confusing.
"The box?" She asked.
"Yeah. I mean, from our conversation yesterday, I could tell mum kept it a secret. He wasn't aware he married a witch." I said,
"When you put it like that, it sounds harsh. We're talking about your late mother. " She said,
"It's who she was. There is no better way to put it." I told her.
"Well, I don't buy that he didn't suspect her at all," Claire said to me.
"That's the problem, he did. He saw the signs but I guess love is blind." I said,
"That blind?" She asked. "Annie, I think we need to first understand your mom in all this. For one, I think she put a spell on your dad that he never found out," she added.
"I had the thought too but what hurts the most is that it turns out Baba Yaga was indeed right," I said, handing over the photos from behind my waist on the couch.
"They were friends. She appears in almost every photo my mom took." I added.
"Then I don't understand, why did she do it?" Claire asked as she quickly browsed through the pictures.
"I don't know, she betrayed her friend. I don't know her to be evil, she was the sweetest person I ever knew. I guess you can't really know someone. " I replied sadly.
"These photos, the necklace, the extracts, everything here only points to one thing and it's that Baba Yaga hasn't been lying at all," Claire concluded.
"Urghh, I feel the walls closing in on me," I said, shutting my eyes as I held on to the sides of my head.
"Hey. Everything is going to be okay." She said to me,
"No, it won't," I said, as I got up.
"In my reality, I have two weeks left to leave, Chris said that and you affirmed it. Well, the future you. What happens when I die there?" I panicked.
"Do you really think you will die?" Claire asked sarcastically.
"Meaning?" I inquired.
"Meaning you need to stop being so conclusive and open the damn diary. Baba Yaga and all of this confirms you are no ordinary being, you seem to possess what you have no idea of controlling and I believe this is exactly what she is getting at. She brought you to this reality and took Chris out of it." She said,
"She is trying to push me off the cliff hoping that as I fall, it would trigger my abilities," I said, as my mind began to match the lines.
"You said she called you the bigger fish." She asked me
"Yeah. She did." I replied.
"Now, that could mean a lot of things but I strongly believe she wasn't being indirect. If you can successfully access your powers, she does have use for them but until you do, she can't do anything about it." Claire said,
"Because my other mom put a protective shield around me," I said,
"Yep and from all indications, only you– can break it," Claire told me with a smile while she slowly nodded her head.
"Okay, but isn't that a bad idea then?" I asked her.
"Breaking the shield? Yes. Understanding your abilities so you could learn to control them to your advantage? No." She answered.
"This is getting way above my intellectual quotient," I admitted and sat back on the couch.
"Relax. You will be just fine and seriously, I can't wait to see what you could do with these powers inside of you.." She said, sitting next to me.
"You are going to be a badass." She added joyfully.
I rolled my eyes. Couldn't believe she was excited over this.
Just then, her phone rang. She excused herself to take the call and once she returned, I noticed her face wasn't as bright.
"I have to leave now, " she said in a hurry.
"Why?" I asked,
"Not to worry, just keep me updated." She said, trying to leave.
"Claire, I forbid you from stepping out of this house without telling me the truth," I said,
She paused her steps. I could tell something was wrong. She wasn't willing to talk yet she knew she had to. Her hands shook and her eyeballs rolled about in their sockets like a guilty criminal.
"It's Chris.." She finally said,
Somehow, fear elevated me from that couch and I was upstanding and right where she stood in no time.
"What about him?" I asked very worriedly.
"He– he was.." She tried to speak.
"He was what?" I shook her entire body with my firm grip on both her arms.
"I just got a call that he was involved in a terrible accident." She said, I watched tears roll down her face so quickly as she looked into my eyes.
I didn't know what to feel. What to think. How to react. This cannot be.
"Where is he now?" I managed to speak.
"St Anthony's." She replied.
Trying as hard as I could, I turned toward a space in the living room. I held back the tears and ignored the pain rumbling through my heart as I tried to concentrate. I focused on the address she had given to me and held on to the pendant on my necklace. I felt the glow on my face. I knew I had to open my eyes now. I did just that and a large screen appeared.
There he was, Chris, all bandaged up with a lot of wires connected to his body. Well, I call them wires. By his side was his leggy lover, she had sore eyes already. I watched Claire slowly move closer to the screen. She looked broken.
"I don't understand this," I said,
Just then, the doctor came into the hospital room along with two other men, they looked like cops. The Doctor introduced them to her and she became uneasy.
"Hello miss, this may not be the right time but we need to ask you some questions." One of the men spoke.
"It was only a misunderstanding and I lost control of the wheel, I didn't mean for an accident to happen." She said, sobbing.
"Bitch!" I yelled, rushing towards the screen. Claire held me back.
"No." She said, with red eyes. "Not like this, " She added.
I understood and so I shut my eyes again, this time, I focused on the restroom of the hospital since I was familiar with it. It appeared on the screen. It was a go and so we stepped in.
As we did, it sounded like a hand dipped in a water puddle, only slower. The landing was smooth, not dramatic, we only found ourselves in the restroom. It freaked us out but we could take it in.
We hurried to the room and burst in.
"Miss Claire.." The doctor voiced on seeing us.
"You again?" Chris' supposed lover said to me.
"Oh shut up," I warned.
" Hey, calm down ladies, you know yourselves?" The other cop asked.
"I don't know people like this. I only knew she was bad news the very first day I saw her." I replied.
"It was a mistake!" She yelled.
"How– did you know about it? You only just got here." The cop asked me.
Claire slapped her face.
"Can you all please just stop?" She said,
The cops seemed to understand the situation and excused themselves. The doctor and the bitch followed, leaving Claire and me. I watched her try to touch his face. It hurt her so much to see him like that. On my end, it killed me.
"How is this happening?" I broke down. "In my reality, I am the one in the hospital bed and here, he is? Is this some kind of trick from that witch? She is trying so hard to push me into giving in to her offer?" I vented.
Claire said no words.
"What can I do? I feel so helpless." I said sniffing as I tried to touch him.
"Do you want him dead?" Claire turned to me at once. Her voice had become like that of a desperate mother.
"No.." I answered.
"Do you wish for him to suffer your death in your reality!" She asked again.
"No, I don't!" I answered back.
"Then wake up and smell the carpet because all of this is happening, all of this is real, none of this is a dream or some nightmare you will eventually wake up from, the only way you can save him and yourself is by embracing the truth and discovering who you are!" She said to me in one breath.
"But I have no idea how to do that, don't you understand?" I asked her with a puzzled look.
"The only thing I understand here is you are only being a coward. If you are my friend then you must save my brother, the only family I've got." She said to me,
"Why are you being this way to me?" I said, taking a step back.
"None of this is my fault," I told her.
"Is that what you think? Your presence alone in this reality has tampered with the order of things. Your connection with the dark side has and will continue to do damage, look at my brother!" She yelled in my face.
"If he dies, nothing will matter, not even our friendship or don't you get it? You have powers that can undo this, all of it, why wouldn't you use it when my heart is involved? And we are supposed to be friends?" She said to me,
I understood she was hurt. I knew her words were of grief and so I tried my best not to digest them as they came. I turned away from her. I knew what I had to do. I had never felt so responsible for someone before but now, a lot was dependent on me and it was burdening. How did I get here? How did my life get so twisted?
I didn't turn back to see her face. I wiped my tears with the back of my hands and took a deep breath as I shut my eyes. Once they opened up again, I walked out of the room. She needed some alone time and so did I. Maybe, for now, we didn't need to be in each other's personal space.
Sorting stuff out is easy but not when it's you who's the stuff.
In no time, I was back at my apartment. Locked the door and stood before the table. I knelt before it and began sorting the contents. I needed to know the truth, the whole f*cking truth.