//------------------------------// // Chapter 5: Otherwhere // Story: Sisters of Willowbrook // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Charlie was... somewhere. For a long time, she'd been somewhere else. She remembered dark spaces, cramped hallways, riding in somewhere long and bumpy. It didn't matter that those memories were entirely incongruous—impossible, even. Somehow she had to take two pieces that didn't make sense, and assemble them into a whole.  She traveled far, but nowhere exceptionally dangerous. She was worried about her friend, who grew increasingly erratic and confused in the messages she sent. Ever since Victoria left him, he'd been barely holding it together, digging into deeper and stranger holes in search of connection. She should still be in that place, shouldn't she? She hadn't had the time to remove her belongings, she had work in the morning. Charlie opened both eyes, sitting up violently and scattering an ocean of blankets and pillows. In a single instant, her confusion expanded to vast proportions. Every factor she searched for to orient herself was wrong.  It started right at her nose, which protruded far too visibly in her field of view. There were no glasses or any sign of her contacts, yet she still saw perfectly clear, saw into a room which couldn't exist anywhere in the forest she had gone to explore. The space was fairly small—a bedroom so tight that the oversized bed wedged itself between two protruding walls. The windows were high overhead, far too high to make any sense. And in the bed with her, close enough that she'd probably been lying just beside her, was a sleeping animal. A purply, lavender-looking creature not too different from a horse, except that she looked almost nothing like one. Those proportions were too human, particularly the eyes. Her colors would've required a cruel amount of dye, except they seemed to go down right to the roots of her mane.  The little creature slept peacefully, apparently oblivious to Charlie's sudden waking. Charlie did her best to escape quietly, backing away along the surface of the bed until she reached the edge. Even the simple act of moving that far was difficult for her—her arms didn’t seem to want to work right, and she kept flopping forward, rather than sitting up properly. And when she finally saw her arms in the feeble light of morning, she could see why. They were covered in a soft orange and yellow fur, darker on one side than the other, and ending in a pair of flat, useless stumps. Just like the ones on the sleeping animal in front of her. She almost rushed over to it, maybe waking it for help. But no, this stranger wasn't the one she needed to talk to. She needed to find Derek. Her memory was still hazy on the exact details, but she remembered enough. He'd been there to see what Derek wanted him to see. His friend had done something, something that should've been impossible. It went wrong. And now she was here, wherever "here" was. A bedroom that was at once cramped between two narrow walls and an opening barely big enough for a door... but also huge, wide enough that two of them could comfortably share the same bed. She didn't feel intoxicated, her mind was clear. Afraid, confused, memory a little hazy—but her thoughts came easily. She flopped sideways off the bed, squealing as she went down. Something stretched to her either side—wings? She slowed a little more than she probably should have, before touching down on a heavily carpeted floor. What farmer in their right mind would use carpet in a room with livestock? She landed, then rolled. She stood up, but only on all fours. It would have to do. She had to see what had happened to her. The mirror wasn't big, actually it looked more like a toy. It didn't even reach halfway up the wall, with heart-shaped designs twisted into the metal along with a detailed sun at its crown. But the mirror still reflected well enough, so she could see herself. Charlie looked back at something that wasn't her staring back in the mirror. A horse looked back, the smallest looking horse she'd ever seen. A horse with huge eyes of green, and wings that looked far too big for its teeny little body, dragging on the floor. She twisted around in disbelief, staring at where those wings ought to be—there they were, feathers and all. "This isn't... right," she said. She was supposed to be... bigger! She should be standing on two legs! She should be strong, confident! "I'm not me." She sounded like her little niece had, at their last family reunion. That girl had been... six? "I'm not a little girl." Even in her head, the voice sounded wrong. Her whole body didn't fit. The door beside her swung open, just a crack. Something stood in the opening, something that was at least twice her height. Yet she didn't find its alien shape nearly as disturbing as her own—it was another horse, somehow older and more mature. It also wasn't naked, but wore a simple white hat and vest. There were words on each, or maybe just letters, but Charlie couldn't read them. They came from no alphabet she'd ever seen. "Sweetheart, you're awake?" she said, in a voice as sweet as maple syrup. "I'm sorry, I thought we were being quieter. You can go back to bed." Through the door was another room, a room with uncomfortable-looking wooden chairs and a desk that must've been over her head level. An office? Except that the ones sitting in it were horses too. She moved forward to get a better look, but the huge horse stuck out one hoof, catching her by the chest. She might as well be pushing against rebar for all the good it did. "We'll be finished in a few hours, and get you sent home. Don't worry." "Oh." She relaxed, settling backwards into a sitting position. Her hindlegs folded against the ground, with her forelegs remaining upright. Maybe dogs sat like that sometimes, only the legs didn’t bend quite the same. "I do want to go home." "Just get back to bed," the creature said. Her voice was so much deeper than Charlie's, yet at the same time sensitive and soft. It calmed her to hear it, though she couldn't have said why. She nodded, lowered her head submissively, and stood still as the larger creature shut the door, plunging her back into the gloom of early morning. For a few seconds Charlie just stood there, feeling more relaxed than she had so far. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to go back to bed. She made it back up onto the bed, possible only by getting a running start to hop the distance up with a bounce.  It jostled the other creature, who had until this moment been asleep, snoring so faintly that Charlie could only hear it from right beside her. The sound stopped abruptly, and she cracked open a pair of vibrantly green eyes. Were those the same shade as hers? She'd have to check when they were both in the mirror. "Where... am I?" she asked. Her voice was slightly lower than Charlie's, though there was a squeakiness about the way she said some words. She backed up until she was vertical against the headboard, clutching the blanket with her as she went. Charlie blinked, watching her in silence for a few seconds. She wanted to answer, but when she opened her mouth, she realized that she didn't actually know either. "I don't know." Why was she getting back into bed again? It couldn't just be because the nice-sounding horse lady had told her to, right? She stopped moving abruptly, and her desire to stop also manifested in her wings. She spread them both wide, catching herself near the edge of the bed. She could think here, figure out what she was doing. The purple horse watched her closely. She seemed to consider her words carefully—more than Charlie had when meeting the stranger just outside. "I'm looking for my friend," she said. "He is..." Her face twisted to discomfort, like she'd just bit her tongue. "...tall. Strong, brave, popular. About... I don’t know big. Stands on just two legs, no fur..." Charlie listened to the description, watching the constant nervous twitching of the little horse's ears. She didn't seem to be in control of herself, any more than Charlie was. "You're talking about—" She tried to say “human,” but the word just wouldn't come out. She tried to sound it out, and suddenly a headache nearly doubled her over. She slumped onto the soft sheets, breathing heavily. What the hell was that? She looked up, wiping the moisture from her eyes and trying again. "You are talking about one who..." Slow, one word at a time. "...went into the forest. Looking for magic?" Those words worked. Some seemed almost effortless, like “magic.” Others made her think for a few seconds before they would come out. But the other horse nodded eagerly, darting over to her. So eagerly that she tripped over herself in bed, and flopped sideways. She landed sprawled in the sheets and blankets, righting herself on unsteady legs. She doesn't know how to move either. "Did you see him? I need help! It wasn't supposed to happen like this!" Charlie sat up, looking as confident as she could. Her mind would never have jumped to such an absurd conclusion, except for one thing—it had happened to her first. "Did you go into the forest? Did you... take... your friend?" "Yes!" she said again, nodding. "Wait. How do you know? I would have... I would remember you. So... weird. I've never seen anything in the forest that looks like you." "I didn't look like this," Charlie said. She reached out with one leg, resting it on the horse's shoulder. She had to reach up to do it, but not by much. They weren't that different in size. "I was with you, D—" She choked, and the word wouldn't come out, like so many others. "What's going on?" She looked up, laying on her side in the blankets and pillows. "Where are we? Whatever magic you used, you have to make it go away! I have work!" The horse stared down at her, recognition finally dawning. Despite how fundamentally alien the little horse looked, her expressions were easy to read. Familiar, even. "You're... him," she said. "Whose name... doesn't work. Like lots of stuff." Charlie nodded. Though if she couldn't even say the name, was it really hers? She sat up, looking as confident as she could. If this was Derek, then she would need support to keep working through high stress. "I need you to reverse this," Charlie said. "You're the one who knows how it happened. You're the one with magic." Her friend whimpered and buckled, pulling away from her leg. She sniffed, wiping tears away from her eyes. "I-I-I... I don't know any of that!" She looked away, tail falling limp. "I read my spellbook... over and over again. Every page. There was nothing about being a horse in there!" "But..." Charlie tried to speak cautiously. She might feel extremely passionate, but just a little too much energy would probably be enough to frighten her friend even more. If Derek locked up, it could take hours or maybe even days before she was able to accomplish anything again. She tried to say her name again, maybe calm her down. It didn't work, and she just ended up coughing for a few seconds. "Deep breaths. I don't know anything about this, but you do. Tell me everything you remember. Anything that might be useful." "Um..." The horse hyperventilated for a few seconds, her mane waving wildly around her. "I, uh... magic. I found something called a... per-pen-dicu-larity." She went over each syllable carefully, obviously concentrating. "Where high magic touches down into the world of... our world. I brought a crystal to harvest it, prepared it... then we were doing a ritual..." She whimpered, covering her head with both hooves. "Ugh. I don't know what the spell was!" She squeaked quietly into a pillow, not quite any specific word, her hindlegs falling limp behind her. That was all Charlie needed to see to know there was no point in pushing further, at least for now. Her friend would need to cool down. "Okay. Just keep thinking about it. Let me know if you remember anything else."