Unfamiliar Territory

“Hell!” I shouted as I woke up. Sitting up in the seat made me curse again as my body screamed back at me in protest. “Why the...”

I was inside a bus. A bus riddled with dirt, debris, and dead bugs. As I moved around in my seat, I could just make out the junkyard through the grimy windows.

It was the bus I had failed to get to. The one that was out of my reach as I lied in the mud and water. The storm had passed and the sun was high up in the sky. I didn’t want to think about how long I had been out of it this time.

I sniffed a few times. The smell was still foul, but not the overbearing intensity it was before.

“Better to not worry about it,” I grumbled, standing up with a groan.

I checked the seats as I walked down the aisle. Some were torn--most covered with several layers of dust and dirt. All empty. I moved slowly down the stairs, peeked out the bus through the jammed door, and then stepped outside.

There didn’t seem to be anyone around. I took a cautious step away from the bus, when something occurred to me.

“I can walk!?” I exclaimed, feeling my leg and looking down at it.

All at once, all thoughts and actions froze inside me when I saw the gauze tape wrapped around my thigh and the new ratty, long-sleeved, t-shirt with a literal solid blue rat on the front.

“Where did all this come from? How did...shit.”

I heard a sound. A slight creaking of metal from the bus behind me. I spun around and was met with a girl standing on top of the bus, looking down at me with a quirky, sort of amused, kind of look.

“You!” I shouted.

“Yo,” Kat greeted with a casual wave.

“You did this to me!”

I backed away a few steps as Kat jumped down gracefully to the ground, shouldering her red backpack. “I’m the one who fixed you, yes.”

She walked over to me, and I walked backwards. It felt like déjà vu. Besides the fact that she was wearing a new, faded, shirt that had the words ‘Surprise and Lies’ written down the front of it, it was just like that time outside the asylum. Predator and prey.

“Mouse was the one who shot you, remember?”

I stopped retreating. “Funny you should use that word. I’m having some problems with that whole remembering thing. Maybe you know what I’m talking about?”

Kat stopped her approach. The amused twinkle in her eye was gone and her green eyes looked away from me for a moment. “Yeah, I know what you’re talking about.”

“Good, then maybe you can start telling me just what the hell is going on,” I said through gritted teeth, raising my hand above my head. “Cause I’ve had it about up to here with all the bull-”

“I heard you last night,” Kat said, holding up a hand to silence me. She locked gazes with her powerful eyes. “You don’t need to repeat yourself.”

I held my tongue for a moment. At first embarrassed that she heard me ranting to myself, and then furious that it hadn’t been to myself at all, as it turned out. “You were there?!”

“Yes.”

“How long?”

“I think I caught up to you shortly before your walking stick broke.”

“So you mean...All that time...When I was crawling, digging through the goddamn dirt...you were there? You could have stopped me at anytime!?”

“Ye—”

“That was rhetorical!”

Kat folded her arms, clearly unamused with my outbursts. “I wanted to see what you would try to do to escape. I wanted you to show me your resourcefulness, and you didn’t disappoint.”

“Well, that just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I’m oh so happy that I could-”

“Shut-up.”

“Okay, fine, we’ll save the sarcasm.” I straightened up my shoulders. “Let me tell you, straight up, what I told your good buddy, Mr. Mallard. I’m not being told what to do anymore. No more tea, no more commands, or being chained up, or any of that crap you all put me through. If you really came to take me back, you’d better be ready to fight me.”

Kat stared me down. I held her gaze. Maybe I still cared about her, maybe I even still had feelings for her, but no longer was I going to let it blind me or keep me in line with what they wanted me to do.

I wasn’t entirely sure what I would do if she decided to make this encounter violent...but one step at a time.

“Oh?” she said.

Kat’s arms fell to her sides and my whole body tensed. But, just when I thought Kat might do something--pull out her knife, threaten me, or worse--she instead threw back her head and laughed.

It was the second time I heard that laugh--loud, like she was laughing with all of her energy. It threw me off just as much, if not more so, than the first one.

“I suppose he was right when he called you a ‘wild animal’,” she said, wiping her eyes as her laugher died, “but seeing it in person--gotta tell you, Foxy, it’s an entirely different story.”

“Glad I can amuse you,” I huffed, still unsure if I should be ready for an attack or not. She wasn’t acting like herself.

“Did you know that I lost track of you after you got through the fence and that storm started?” she asked out of nowhere as she ran a hand through her hair. It had gotten longer, and blonder. “I was freaking out a bit. Mr. Mallard was going to give me hell if I came back without you. Also, I’d feel pretty shitty about it too, but then I had this feeling...”

She stopped and looked over at me. She smiled.

I looked back at her, dumbfounded and clueless as to what she wanted, until I realized she was waiting for me to ask. “Uh...Feeling?”

“A memory, actually,” she informed, placing her hands on her hips and shaking her head. “Stupid one, really. I hadn’t thought about it in awhile.”

She glanced back at the bus and I followed suit. Peeling, yellow paint and grimy, cracked windows. It reminded me of the asylum.

“This is also where I ran to when Mr. Mallard told me most of my memories were gone.”

I stared at the back of her head, but she continued to look at the bus. “I knew they would send Mutt after me, and I knew how good his sense of smell was. I figured I could hide here, escape or take him by surprise, and then...”

She sighed and turned back to me, a weak smile on her face.

The breath caught in my throat. What was she doing? Was this another trick?

“I was right thinking that Mr. Mallard would send Mutt. He was there, but when I went to ambush him...Georgie was right there with him.”

She noticed my look. “You know him better as Stallion.”

I dropped my eyes to the littered ground. “Oh.”

“Mr. Mallard knew what I was planning, though Georgie insisted that it was his own idea. I knew better.” Kat folded her arms again, but it looked more like she was hugging herself. “I couldn’t...I was already having reservations about what I would have to do to Mutt in order to escape...but when I saw Georgie...I tried to convince them. I told them what he was doing to us, how wrong it was, but I don’t think Mutt ever had problems being Mr. Mallard’s little pet and Georgie would never leave his friend to run away with me.”

Kat rocked on her feet as she stared up at the sky. Similar to times she did alone back at her tree, but a lot less peaceful. “So, that was that. I couldn’t do it.”

She stopped rocking and glanced back at me, smile gone. “You can’t either, Foxy, and I think part of you knows that.”

“You couldn’t do what you had to do to be free,” I said, staring back into her brilliant green eyes. “You had someone close to you to keep you from leaving, to keep you from...doing what you had to. I don’t have that.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you?”

I let out a slow breath. “You won’t be able to convince me not to go. If I have to...If you try to stop me...I’ll do what I have to do.”

Her expression hardened. She looked me straight in the face, unblinking. “And that is?”

“I’ll kill you.”

My throat closed up as I said those words, my heartbeat ached my chest, but I held firm.

Maybe it would be enough. It had to be enough.

Kat held my eyes for a moment more before staring back at the sky. “I believe you,” she said, softly.

“I don’t want to, but...”

“I’m not Mouse,” she finished, smiling as she looked back at me.

That gave me pause. It took a moment for my train of thought to catch back up. “What? That’s not-”

“It doesn’t matter, Foxy,” she interrupted, suddenly walking up to me.

I hesitated, unable to move at her sudden forwardness as she stopped less than a few feet from me. “You don’t need someone you care about to be here to keep you from leaving. You just need someone to remind you that being with them is better than being alone.”

I tried to speak, but my throat was closing up again. I swallowed the lump as I looked into her eyes.

She reached out a hand towards me, and my knees started shaking. She was going to catch me, take me back to Mr. Mallard--back to that nightmare. I couldn’t let her.

Her hand touched my chest. The horrible sights and smells of the junkyard surrounding us melted away as I remained locked in those green eyes.

Was it the spell? Was it my true feelings? I couldn’t be certain.

“You can’t go, Foxy,” she said, pleaded. “You are broken, like all of us--like Mary. She needs you, Foxy, and you need her. I don’t know everything that will happen to us once we’re familiars, but I do know that once you drank that tea you would never again be able to function out in the world. Most people don’t know about the Knowledge, witches, and familiars and, even if they did, they would not understand it. They would lash out with violence, with weapons, and out there, alone, you wouldn’t have anyone to protect you.”

“Even here, in our world, we aren’t safe. You know that just as much as us. But, in here, in this...nightmare, you can have friends...You can be closer to the person you love...I tried to convince Georgie to come with me, but since then I’ve realized how futile it would have been. What could a couple of fourteen year olds have done out there on their own? With no memory of who they were, of what the outside world would have in store for them...Constantly on the run...Looking over your shoulder...Never...”

Kat dropped her hand and dropped her eyes. The feeling still did not go away. She was right.

“Kat...” I said, my words barely escaping as I reached out to her. “I-”

“Mutt and Georgie are dying!” Kat suddenly shouted, looking back up to me, her green eyes filled with tears. “Georgie might already be dead, I don’t know. Mallard won’t tell me and I can’t...I can’t do this...I can’t...”

“Whoa, Kat, slow down, slow down!” I grabbed her shoulders and tried to steady her. She grabbed mine and buried her face into my chest. “What’s going on?”

“I need you, Foxy,” she said into my shirt. “We’re the only ones that can do anything.”

It was all happening too fast. Kat breaking down, holding me, saying she ‘needed me’. I was battling with a difficult mixture of happiness and extreme worry.

“Kat? What are you talking about?”

“They were bitten by Fawn’s pets,” Kat said through chocking sobs. “They’re poisoned...They...”

I couldn’t feel Kat grabbing me. I wrapped my arms around her, but I still couldn’t feel her.

I recalled seeing the bite on Mutt’s calf--the purple veins, his pale skin. Stallion had been fighting two or three at once...and if their intention had been to bite...

I had been too afraid to ask Kat what had happened, and now she was telling me.

“He told me...Mallard told me not to act like this. He told me to ‘act normal’ and just bring you by force if I had to, but...Alex...”

I looked down at her when she said that name. It sounded so familiar, was it mine?

She was looking back up at me. The tears were still there, but she was clearly looking at me. “I’m so tired of all this pretending and putting on a show. We did it to Mary, they did it to me--to Georgie. They made us into trained pets--into animals. I won’t try and deny and say that it didn’t work--it did. On everyone but you.”

Some feelings returned when Kat reached out and held my head in between her hands. Her green eyes were swimming, brighter than I had ever seen them before. Like swamp water illuminated by the rising sun. I looked at the rest of her face and it ached to see the trembling lips, the wet cheeks, the absolute humility.

I wanted to kiss her.

The desire hit me with such strength it made my whole body tense again.

Thankfully, Kat spoke up before I could think on how I should handle the desire. “I wish I had what you have,” she whispered, gripping me somewhat tightly as she continued to gaze into my face. “You fight so hard, harder than I’ve seen anyone fight. When I saw you walking out of this bus, I...Mr. Mallard was right to call you a wild animal. He might have changed you, but he did not break you.”

Kat released my face and took a few steps back, forcing me to release her and let my arms hang uselessly at my sides. She wiped an arm over her face and looked back at me with the dry eyes and hardened frown that I knew so well. I gripped my running shorts with my now empty hands, feeling very guilty for that desire.

“So, I’m not here to force you to come back with me, Alex. I’m asking you, for Georgie and Mutt, for me, for Mary. Please, don’t go.”

I stared down at a broken down toaster and ripped up pieces of newspaper that lay near my feet. I wished I could see myself in the reflection of the toaster.

What did I look like now? Who did Kat see when she looked at me? What did Mutt, Stallion, Mr. Mallard, and Mary see?

I let go of my shorts and opened my hands out so I could see them. The skin was darker, the nails were long and sharp, and everything was covered in dirt or dried blood.

They had changed me, but was I still the same person? Had I become a wild animal because of what they did to me, or is that what I have always been?

I don’t remember anymore. The person I was, the one who spent time with family, with old friends, was gone. I could remember telling Stallion that I was popular, that I had friends, but I could no longer picture their faces or remember their names. They might as well be ghosts.

What was left of the old me? What did they see?

If I ran from Kat, if I escaped this nightmare, would I really be escaping? I saw cars, but I could not remember how they worked. I saw people dressed in so many different ways, different fashions, but I no longer remembered what for. Just trying to think about all I had probably forgotten... It gave me a headache I did not think I would ever get over. What could I do out there, alone?

But, I wasn’t alone. There were others like me. Others who had suffered, who tried to fight--tried to be free.

Like Kat, still standing a few feet away, waiting for my answer. She fought once. Mary fought; she escaped until I came back into the picture. Maybe, together...

I remembered something and dug into my short’s pockets. I was half expecting to have lost it, but let out a sigh of relief when my hands touched something soft and fuzzy.

Kat’s eyes widened when I pulled out the object and held it up for her to see. “You still have that?”

“It didn’t seem right to just throw it away.” I tried to shrug while hiding the new warmth on my face.

Kat raised a brow, a smile cracking through her hardened features. “So, instead, you keep it in your pocket?”

Feeling the blush getting worse, I focused my attention on the hat and the little fox face that was stitched onto it. With my other hand, I reached into the other pocket and retrieved the little black rabbit, Lionel.

I still had friends...and, in a way, I still had a family too.

I made a promise to that family, I chose to forgive my friends, and, even if I forget everything else...

“I want to hold on to what I have left,” I said, looking back up to Kat, her smile vanishing. “I’ve lost so much without even trying--almost everything, really...but...”

I glanced at the ground for a moment, unsure if I should say it.

But, if I didn’t say it now, when would I get the chance again?

“But I still have something...I have you...I have Mary, Mutt, Stallion, Dr. Quincy and his children. There are people still worth holding on to...There are still memories worth holding on to, and I almost forgot that. Kat, if you didn’t come find me I don’t know where I’d be right now, so, you know, thanks, for stopping me.”

I peeked up at her and saw that she was watching me with wide eyes, her mouth open slightly.

When our eyes met, she closed her mouth and stared at the ground. “Y-You’re welcome.”

The world stopped. She stammered. Kat stammered. She kept her eyes away from me as I stared at her. She bit her lip. She gripped the bottom of her shirt.

All of it happened in a moment, but I caught it, and suddenly the nightmare did not seem so scary anymore. She was nervous, embarrassed--everything I had felt and thought it was...but it wasn’t...

“It wasn’t magic...” I whispered. I couldn’t keep a smile from my face. Everything felt light inside.

“Alex?”

I gasped, forgetting for a moment where I was.

Kat was studying me and I lowered my head, forcing the smile away. Now wasn’t the time. Kat was with me, but there were still a lot of other people I had to get back.

I tucked Lionel back into my pocket and, with both hands, placed the hat on my head for the very first time. It fit perfectly.

“I’ll go back with you,” I answered her.

Kat watched me for a moment, silently, before she closed the small distance between us and grabbed my hands. I tried to speak, but the words died on my tongue when she kissed me.

Her lips were dry, warm, and hot all at the same time, and it was over before I knew how to react.

“Thank you, Alex,” she said, breaking the kiss but still keeping hold of my eyes and hands.

I gazed back. It was impossible to keep my face from growing red. I had to say something. Anything.

“Kat...”

The hollow sound of someone knocking on a door interrupted me. Kat leapt away like she was hit by lightning, and we both turned towards the source of the noise.

It was a door. Old, wooden, and riddled by the scars of termites and weather. There was no way that...

The rusted door handle turned. The door slowly opened until it revealed a gun, followed quickly by Mr. Copper and his over-sized coat and monocle.

“Mr. Copper!” Kat exclaimed. “What are you-?”

“Bastard!”

It was like something in me snapped. I snarled and was racing across the trash filled ground towards the small man in the coat.

He cursed, closed the door behind him, and aimed the gun at me. By then, I was already too close.

I gripped his arm that held the gun and grabbed what I could of his coat in the front before slamming him back into the rotted door he had crawled out of.

He gasped. The gun flew free from his hand when I smashed the arm into the door frame. He cried out, tried to break my hold, but I easily held him off his feet and pinned him against the door with a hand against his chest.

“Ale-?!”

I stopped him from speaking by digging the claws against his chest, into flesh. He cried out in pain again. His left eye still sported an eye patch, but the one visible eye was strangely calm. It looked back at me clearly--contrasting heavily with the sweat and pale skin.

“Alex!” I heard Kat call out somewhere behind me. “What the hell are you doing?!”

“You forced Mary to attack me!” I shouted into his face, digging the claws in deeper. “You made her nearly kill me!”

“My orders were merely...to restrain you...” Mr. Copper said, his voice as even and collected as his eye, though he spoke through groans. “What she did...ah...with those orders...was her own choice...”

“Liar!”

“Alex! Stop it!” Kat shouted, grabbing my arm that was pinning his and pulling me off him.

I tried to fight her off, but she managed to spin me around, hit the backside of one of my knees, and pin me to the ground before I even knew what hit me.

“Let me go, Kat! This asshole needs to-!”

“Needs to what? Needs to die? Alex, calm down and think about what you are doing!” Kat snapped, holding firm my arm as she pressed it against my back. “Mr. Copper is here to help us.”

“I don’t want his help!”

“Well, like or not, this isn’t about what you want. We need his help. Things have gotten a lot worse since you left...It’s more than just Mutt and Stallion being...poisoned. Fawn and her pets have taken over the asylum.”

That stopped me. I didn’t fully understand yet, but something in her voice told me that it was much worse than it sounded.

Kat remained sitting on me until my breathing had subsided and I promised her that I wouldn’t try to attack Mr. Copper.

“Are you alright, Mr. Copper?” she asked him as we both stood up.

“Quite alright. You have my gratitude, Elizabeth,” Mr. Copper said.

He had moved away from the door and was brushing himself off like he had just fallen down. He inspected his hole-ridden white dress shirt which was now stained heavily with blood. “I suppose I’ll have to pick out a new favorite shirt, however.”

He then strode over to where his fancy gun still lay, but hesitated when he knelt down to get it as an unintentional growl resonated from deep in my throat.

Unintentional as it was, I did not regret it.

“Alex.”

“It’s alright, Elizabeth.” Mr. Copper eyed me and held his hands up. “Even though I have been using my Knowledge for most of my life, it does not mean that I don’t make a few mistakes from time to time,” he went on, straightening up. “I assure you, Alex, this was just a precaution; I had no intention of shooting you.”

“Even though you gave him plenty reason to,” Kat added, arms folded.

“That isn’t necessary.” Mr. Copper held my glare, his visible eye still calm. “Alex, may I retrieve my gun?”

I stared at the thing. It was similar to the one Mary had, the ones the people in the car with lights had, but it was decorated with ornate, bronze lines that curved around it like thin vines.

“Is it magic?”

Mr. Copper looked down at it as well. “It’s been...touched, yes. The gun and bullets are specifically designed for a Stalwart to combat witches and their Knowledge. More than that, I am not allowed to say. I will tell you that I’ve held this gun for over five years now and, in that time, I’ve only had to use it twice.” He looked back at me, catching me in his pale eye. “The first time was a terrible mistake and the second time was in defense of my own life. I try to use this gun to intimidate, to make people think twice about doing something rash, and, when that fails, I try to look for another way. Do you understand?”

His eye was still so calm, so still, like no matter what I told him he would remain unaffected. However, he remained where he stood, waiting for me to answer him.

I nodded, but kept my eyes on the gun as he kneeled over and picked it up from the ground. He wiped the mud from it with his over-sized coat and then placed it within some sort of holster on his waist.

As soon as it disappeared inside his coat, my body relaxed and all of the sudden I wondered what the hell just happened.

“Sorry...” I mumbled.

“Quite alright,” Mr. Copper said again. “After we first...met, Mr. Mallard shared a great deal with me about your situation. Not an uncommon tale, but always tragic. You have my sympathies.”

That made me think. “Wait, you said you were a...Stallsomething?”

“Stalwart.”

“Yeah, what is that exactly? Something to do with...people like me?”

Mr. Copper’s calm eye appeared to light up at that. “Oh, quite right, you are still very fresh eared to all this, aren’t you?”

“It’s been nonstop crazy since Alex joined us. We haven’t had the time to explain everything to him yet,” Kat spoke up, stepping between Mr. Copper and I. “Speaking of which, we don’t have the time right now. Mutt and Georgie are dying, we know where the enemy is, and every second counts.”

“Very sorry, too right you are,” Mr. Copper said with a nod. “Actually, my original intention for arriving here was so that I could take you both back to my office in order to begin laying out our strategy.”

“Perfect, let’s not waste anymore time.”

Mr. Copper glanced between Kat and I. Kat looked over to me as well. It was becoming more and more apparent that whatever sort of new world I had stepped into was much more complicated then I could have imagined.

But Kat was right, first things first.

“Okay,” I said.

Mr. Copper led us back through the rotted door. I was still amazed that it would open, let alone that I was basically stepping inside a pile of junk where a cramped, cluttered office had taken up residence.

Kat and I struggled to make room on the coffee stained carpet as Mr. Copper stepped in and closed the door behind us. I watched him grab a wetted cloth that was waiting on a coat rack and used it to wipe away the elaborate inscription written in marker on the glass window of his office door.

This close up, I could just make out what looked like numbers before it was gone in a few quick scrubs.

“Home sweet home,” Mr. Copper muttered to himself, placing the rag back on the coat rack, followed by his coat. He looked even smaller with it off.

Without looking back at us, he reopened the door and peeked outside. From the crack in the door, I couldn’t make out anything but darkness--like staring into a black void.

Looking around the small space of his office, I saw a tacky, stained glass lamp that was shoved into a corner and nearly buried by papers. It was the only light source in the room. Also, it was a pretty unnerving fire hazard.

“I’ll be right back,” Mr. Copper said, opening the door just enough so he could fit through. “I’m going to make sure we’re alone here...and go find that new favorite shirt. I’ll be just a moment. Please, have a seat, make yourselves comfortable.”

He then slipped all the way out and quietly closed the door behind him. I could just make out the soft steps of him leaving. He was going very slowly.

“So...”

Kat was nudging her head at something. I looked around the office some more. There really wasn’t much. A few file cabinets stuffed with papers. The lamp. A dead potted plant. A desk that took up nearly half of the small room. And one, leather bound, chair behind the desk.

“Guess he doesn’t get that many ‘clients’,” Kat noted before indicating the chair again. “Did you want to call dibs?”

“Nah, you can have it.”

“Thanks.”

Kat went over to the chair and pulled it out. It wasn’t one of those with wheels, making it seem that much older.

When she sat down, she almost immediately put her face into her hands, resting the elbows on the desk. I wasn’t sure what more to say that wouldn’t sound empty. She wasn’t crying this time, but I wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

“Foxy?”

“Yes?”

“What we talked about...What happened with me back there...Don’t tell anyone else.”

“Or you’ll kill me? Right?” I finished, remembering having to make a similar promise back in the woods.

“No,” she said, lowering her hands so I could see the tired eyes and the soft smile. “Could you just... not tell anyone?”

I smiled back. “Yeah, no problem.”