––––––––
When I finally came to, the bathroom was gone. In fact, Tom's Diner had completely vanished, and I was lying in an open field filled with sweet smelling clover and luscious green grass. I blinked a couple of times because of the bright sunlight, and I tried to catch my bearings, but I had no clue where I was. The odd dizzy spell I had experienced before had not completely passed, plus I felt drained like I had just run a marathon, so when I tried to sit up I did so slowly. I noticed the patch of clover I was sitting in was very peculiar. Every single one of them had four leaves. I don't consider myself a lucky person. In fact I have never found a four-leaf-clover before now, but here I was sitting in what appeared to be an entire field full.
I shook my head from side to side, trying to wake up from whatever strange dream this was. How did I go from the bathroom in Tom's in the middle of Pittsburgh to this spacious green field? None of this made any sense. I gathered in my strange new environment. On my left there was a swiftly flowing, extremely wide river and on my right the field stretched out for approximately a mile before edging upwards into rolling hills that were covered in dense forest. I continued to look around me, and that's when I realized I wasn't alone. Walking toward me, through the green grass and clover, was a woman.
This woman wore a long silky looking gown of a brilliant turquoise. Over that she had on a midnight-blue hooded cloak. From her attire, she looked like she stepped right out of the Middle Ages. She was thin and an inch or two shorter than me. She carried a long white staff that was elaborately carved with intricate designs, and she had chin-length silver colored hair. I assumed she was fairly old because of her silver hair, but as she drew near, she didn't look much older than me. Someone in their thirties with silver hair, that was interesting... maybe the Goths on the Southside were dying their hair silver now instead of black. Besides her silver hair, what really struck me were her eyes. They were the same brilliant turquoise color of her dress. I was so taken with the bright pretty bluish-green color of her eyes I almost gasped.
As she approached, she stretched her arms out toward me in an obvious sign of greeting, and said in a very friendly pleasant voice, "Hello, Christina Vaughn. Welcome to Meric."
Two things in her greeting struck me as odd. First of all, how does this strange woman know my name? Secondly, where in the world is Meric? I wanted to ask these two questions; however, any articulate speech I possessed seemed to evade me at that particular moment and all I managed was. "Huh?"
"I'm sure you must have countless questions and I promise all of them will be answered in time, but right now I must urge you to follow me out of this open field. We need shelter, and we need to find Shaw. I assumed he would be with you, but perhaps you were not together at the time of travel." The words escaped her mouth fluidly, with a fair amount of haste to them. Even with her slight sense of urgency, she had a very congenial tone to her voice and I was struck by how pleasant I found this perplexing stranger. I was overcome with the feeling that somehow I knew this woman, as if we had been friends a long time ago.
"Huh?" Again, my usually witty sarcastic ways seemed to elude me. What in the heck was a Shaw, and what did she mean by travel?
"Please, Christina, come with me," she urged again, extending out her hand, intending to help me up. She flashed me a very wide smile with large bright white teeth. Something about this woman made me want to trust her, but I have a tendency to be stubborn, and following erratically dressed strangers is something I don't normally do, no matter how distantly familiar they may seem.
"Look, lady," I began, finally finding my voice. It helped that my head had finally decided to stop spinning, "I'm not going anywhere with you until I figure out what's going on here."
The woman looked around. She was obviously searching for something, but I had no clue what she looked for. She was in a hurry, not nervous, just urgent. After a moment she sighed and then said, "My name is Charis, and you are in the Land of Meric. This is where you are from, where you belong. I brought you back here because you are the prophesied one who can bring about the end of Leticia's reign."
"Oh... that makes total sense. I'm so glad you're here to clear things up for me." My voice was soaked with its usual cynicism. Not even a single word of what she said made any sense to me whatsoever. "Now... Charis, is it? I am going home, just as soon as I figure out where home is." I stood up and started to look for anything that might be recognizable. This attempt was unfruitful, because nothing about this area looked even remotely familiar. That's when I noticed someone running toward us from just beyond the bend in the river.
This runner was moving very fast, just as fast as any Olympic athlete I had seen, and I quickly noticed that it was a young man. I started to get nervous but then I realized there was something vaguely familiar about that figure. He was wearing blue jeans, a plain white t-shirt, and black Converse sneakers. As the man drew closer, I realized it wasn't a man at all but a teenager. What in the world was he doing here?
My mouth dropped open when Russell Samson reached the side of the strange woman and he started yelling at her.
"Charis," he shouted. "What in the world were you thinking? Do you have any idea what I've been through? Do you have any clue how long it took me to figure out what happened? I still don't understand it all."
"Russell?" I quietly tried to interject, but he paid no attention to me.
"Shaw, please listen—" the woman tried to stop Russell's tirade, but her luck was no better than mine.
"Do you have any idea how long it took me to find her?" He thrust an angry finger in my direction and continued. "And then, when I did find her, I wasn't even sure it was her... until she grew up and... well, obviously she looks exactly like her mother. But do you realize that we've been gone for thirty years!"
"Russell?" I tried again, but I might as well have been invisible for all the good it did. What in the world was going on here? So much of this whole scenario was incredibly disjointed and confusing. I was in some freak-of-nature field complete with mutant four-leaf-clovers, a crazy woman dressed like she just got back from a Renaissance Fair, and Russell Samson? I wouldn't be surprised if Abe Lincoln and Elvis showed up next. What was this? I had a million questions and no one was paying any attention to me, let alone giving me any insight to what was happening.
The woman spoke up loudly, but in a soothing voice. "Shaw, there is a time and a place for this discussion, but this certainly is not it. There are Vaipes about. We need to get out of this open area, and I know Christina needs some answers."
"You're right I need answers!" I shouted hoping that perhaps I could shock an answer or two out of them. "I want someone to tell me what is going on here. Let's start with you." I rounded on Russell with my voice now at screaming pitch. "What is going on? Where are we, and why does she keep calling you Shaw?"
Russell's pale blue eyes flashed with just the tiniest bit of shock that I was yelling at him, but he quickly regained his composure and held up one hand to indicate that I should stop yelling. With his other hand, he reached out and took hold of mine. I ripped my hand away from his grasp in a very reflexive kind of move. No matter what kind of messed up reality this was, I wasn't going to be caught dead holding a student's hand.
Russell chuckled slightly at my kneejerk response and then said, "Christina, my name is Shaw, not Russell. But Charis is right, we need to get under cover. It isn't safe in the open."
"I'm glad to see you've dropped all formalities, usually you call me Miss Vaughn." I had stopped yelling and my sarcastic voice was back, although it was a bit snippier than usual. "I'm not going anywhere with you two lunatics, Russell." I put a lot of emphasis on his name to let him know just how ridiculous I thought he was. Whatever game he was playing, I wasn't going to be a part of it. I started to walk upriver, away from them. I had no reason for heading in this particular direction, other than it was away from my two crazy companions.
Obviously, these two weren't going to be any help. I needed to figure out what was happening on my own. The last thing I remembered before I woke up in this insane place was getting very dizzy in the bathroom at Tom's Diner. Did I pass out? Did I hit my head on the sink?
"I've got it," I exclaimed, spinning around to face Russell and the woman. "I got food poisoning at Tom's and passed out in the bathroom. All of this," I gestured toward them and the strange surroundings, "is just some wacked out dream brought on by the stress of turning thirty and some really bad chicken. You're here," I pointed an accusatory finger at Russell, "because I was thinking about your eyes in class today. And you're here Carrie... or Charis... or Casey... or whatever your name is, because you're the waitress I had at Tom's," I finished exultantly. Then I remembered the waitress I had was a short redhead named Janet, but neither of them knew that, so I tried to keep my face as triumphant as possible. I liked the idea that this insanity was just a dream. It made me feel better. Besides it had to be a dream. It was too strange to be anything else. How could it be anything else?
"You really think you're dreaming?" Russell said with a sly smile.
"I know I'm dreaming," I stated confidently. I just don't know how to wake up. Usually I can force myself to wake up from dreams, but it wasn't happening this time. "Wake up, Christina, wake up," I mumbled to myself unsuccessfully, turning away from Russell and looking back upriver.
As much as I wanted this to be a dream, I wasn't completely sure it was. It seemed too real. I felt the soft breeze on my skin, the warmth of the sun, and I could smell the sweet clover. Fine details like this usually aren't in dreams... are they?
"All right, then," Russell replied, walking over to me. He reached up and pinched the underside of my arm really hard.
"Hey, what'd ya do that for?" I exclaimed rubbing the painful spot his fingers had left behind.
"To prove that you aren't dreaming."
I rolled my eyes at him as the woman cleared her throat and said, "We need to get moving. I do not sense any immediate danger from the Vaipes, but it certainly is unwise to linger here. Shaw, is there anything you can do to convince her to come with us?"
Russell took a deep breath and then said, "Christina, if I can prove to you that I am not a teenage boy named Russell, that this..." He waved his hand in front of his body, "is just a disguise, will you at least agree to come and find shelter with us so we can explain more to you?"
I looked at him skeptically as I pondered his request. What could he possibly do to convince me he wasn't who I knew he was? He was Russell. I've known him for three years now, since he was in ninth grade. Who else could he be? However, I guess I could at least let him present his case. It's not like I'm having any luck waking up from this ridiculous dream, anyway. I suppose I could let it run its course.
"All right, Russell," I replied putting a great deal of stress on his name again. I was determined not to believe the cock-and-bull story he was about to feed me.
"I need you to sit down because this will be a bit shocking. I think I should go all the way back to the beginning so you will understand," he said. I rolled my eyes again. This preposterous dream was starting to get annoying. What in the world was he talking about? Beginning of what?
"Fine," I said in a huff, plopping myself back down on the clover filled grass.
Russell sat down directly across from me and reached for my hands again, but I pulled back before he could make contact. Even in weird dreams—or whatever the heck this is—I've got to have some standards. He snickered and I threw a dirty look in his direction. He laid his hands in his lap instead and closed his eyes. He screwed his face up in deep concentration.
"What is supposed to be happening?" I asked, not hiding the annoyance in my voice.
"Just watch," the woman said, pointing toward Russell's face.
Unimpressed, and slightly irritated, I looked back at Russell. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary, but then it happened. His face and body slowly started to change. I gazed in awe as Russell turned into a completely different person right before my eyes.
Mr. Rounds, my fourth grade teacher? My mouth dropped open in total shock. In that moment, I remembered that Mr. Rounds had blue eyes just like Russell. He was in his forties, and average looking, but he had those amazing eyes. I was about to comment on how bizarre this situation was when his appearance changed again. This time he shifted from Mr. Rounds to Steven Curtis, that kid I knew in Middle School. Steven was a short, heavyset kid with round cheeks and red hair, but he had the same blue eyes.
"What in the—" Before I could finish, he changed again. This time he turned into Alex Lamont, the extremely good-looking guy I went to high school with. This is insane. How is Russell doing this?
The cute, floppy haired Alex Lamont morphed into Chris Steelham. I had gone to college with Chris. He was a tall, athletic baseball player with sandy blonde hair. This was so surreal. Watching these people from my past flash before me was like watching some kind of nostalgic picture show, but it didn't stop with Chris. He changed again into Derrick DeFlavio, a student I taught at a different school. Finally, his appearance shifted back to Russell.
"Um..." I wanted to ask about a million questions, but I didn't know where to begin.
Before I could get a single word out he started to change again. This time his jaw became squarer and his nose ever so slightly broader and longer. His brow appeared more intense and his cheekbones higher. His face also began to softly crease. Where there were no lines before, when he was Russell, now he had the littlest hint of wrinkles. He appeared older, somewhere in his thirties. His body changed from the bit too skinny, gawky look of a teenager to a body that rippled with muscles like a football player. His neck, chest and arms had to be at least twice as big as they were before, which made the baggy t-shirt and jeans he wore now fit tightly around his muscular physique.
The man in front of me took a deep breath and opened his eyes. Eyes that were the palest most beautiful blue. He had black hair that was cropped short around the sides and just a tad bit longer on top. It reminded me of a high and tight Army guy hair cut and he had the five o'clock shadow of a scruffy beard. He had a golden brown tan that really set off his pale eyes. Additionally, this strange man was, without a doubt, the most handsome man I had ever had the pleasure of seeing. Just sitting there in the grass gazing at him made my stomach leap up into my throat and my heart skip a beat.
"Hello, Christina Vaughn," he said with his amazing blue eyes shining at me and a gorgeous grin on his face displaying perfect white teeth. "My name is Shaw, welcome to Meric."