A Second Contact

Someone was shaking Briana’s shoulder. Her eyes sprang open. She was still where she had sagged to the ground, but it was night. She must have fallen asleep.

“The police patrol will be here shortly, missy,” a voice told her softly. “They will take you in rather than just telling you to move off the boulevard.”

“Take me to where?” Briana croaked. Her voice was parched from not having drunk anything all day. She looked up to the figure stooping over her. It took a moment to decipher what she saw. Long mouse-grey straggly hair, knotted and unkempt and a beard like a bird’s nest on a face deeply creased and smudged with dirt. A man then and not a woman. The clothes were in tatters — dirty browns and greys. Toes gnarled like stubby roots from an uprooted weed sprouted from bare feet. The stench of the unbathed filled Briana’s lungs.

Definitely not a lord like all the others she had seen, she thought. Were the serfs only allowed out at night?

“They call me Slow Eddie,” the man said. “But I know what I am talking about. If you got an ID, they’ll drop you off somewhere else in the city. If you don’t, you will be on the next bus south, back to where you came from.

“I don’t think so.” Briana shook her head and tried to clear her thoughts. “I come from — from too far away.”

She looked up and down the street. It was almost deserted. The swish of the speeding carriages was absent. Except for the pools of light cascading from strong imp lights, the darkness was heavy.

“An illegal, eh?” Eddie smiled, showing only three teeth in a cavernous mouth. “I figured as much. Just cross the border and start enjoying the land of plenty in the good ol’ U S of A. Do you have a place to stay?”

Briana frowned and did not answer. What was this old man hinting at?

“No, no, I don’t mean nothing like that,” Eddie said quickly. “You look like too nice of a missy for  — well for someone like me. I just mean you have to get off the street before the cops come crusin’ by.”

Briana’s stomach growled, loud enough for Eddie to hear. “Betcha haven’t eaten since you arrived too. Well, you picked a good day to show up. Tomorrow, over a few blocks and then south a few more there is a Sunday handout. Haveta get there early though. They run out before everybody in line gets something.”

He paused and screwed his mind in thought. “Look, meet me at this place tomorrow at noon, and I will walk you to the place. Get a good meal in ya, and things will stop looking so bad,” He wrinkled his nose. “And sometimes they have a shower truck there too — though it has been a while since the last one showed up.”

Briana blushed, remembering her predicament. How long had she slept anyway? She had to take care of herself and return to where the portal was due to reappear before anyone else could see it.

And…Eddie seemed kindly enough. Different from everyone else so far who had disregarded and jostled her as they passed…

Return or stay? The question boomed back into her mind. She needed time to think things through. For now, she decided to leave all options open, just in case.

“Yes, tomorrow, I will be here at noon,” she said. “But do not wait for me long if I do not come.”

Eddie smiled again weakly, and then sighed. “Don’t worry about it, missy. The years have made me slow, but not so slow that I cannot not understand what words mean a brushoff when I hear them.”

He turned and slowly began to walk away. “But I will be here at noon nonetheless. I just wanted to have a friend to talk to.”

“No, wait, I did not mean what you think. The language is new to me.”

Eddie did not respond but continued a slow shuffle up the street to the east.

Briana watched a moment and took a deep breath. She had things to do.

###

Briana slowly walked back the way she had come in the morning. Like a warm comforting blanket, the quiet and darkness was soothing. Only occasionally would one of the carriages rush by. And after a few of those passed, they did not seem to matter much either.

When she was almost back to where she had first entered the boulevard, she turned south onto a cross street populated with smaller dwellings on either side. Most of them were dark, but for a few light pierced through large glass windows onto the street like the eyes of huge dragons looking for prey. She ducked behind a large hedge of one of the unlit houses, stripped out of her leggings and undergarment, and relieved herself.

The walk had done her good. She had figured out what to do next. She removed her cloak from her backpack and her dagger from her waist. For a moment, she hesitated. Her father had given it to her on her eighteenth birthday, and she had to admit she felt quite special when she wore it to a bazaar and everyone knew that she was the daughter of the Archimage.

And now, without it, what would she then be really — a heroine on an adventure but now in disguise or only a mere girl who should return home and accept what fate awaited her?

Briana shook the images out of her head. “It has only been one day,” she whispered to herself. “Far too soon to tell.” Holding the cloth tight in one hand, she slashed the cape into pieces, creating two aprons, one to drape her in front, and one for the rear. The appearance would look bizarre, but then she was from a different world so what difference did it make.

Briana cut four more banners of cloth all the way across the remainder of the cloak and folded them up into hand-sized pads. She climbed back into her leggings, placed one of the pads where it should be and put the remaining three in her pack. What was left of her cloak and the soiled undergarment she disposed in one of the curious looking boxes with small red flags that stood in the front of some of the houses. Shortly thereafter, she was back in Wattles Gardens, drinking from her goatskin, munching a hunk of her bread and waiting the return of the portal.