Installment 29

She blinked a couple of times, still staring at me.
"Fi, it's not that simple. I can only do that when you're dreaming."
"Then I'll stay asleep. I don't care, Janet. This is all too weird and crazy and I don't like this world. I just... I just want things to be simple."
"Nothing's every simple."
"Some things are."
"This isn't."
I sighed and looked at my hands; my fingers intertwined and twisted.
"Fi, I wish I could do this for you. I mean, I can, sort of, just not all the time. It's just not possible. It'd kill you."
"I don't care. I don't need to live. I need her, though."
"I need you to live, Fi. Don't you get it?"
"I... shit... yeah, I guess I kinda do."
"Come on, let's get out of here. We'll work something out, but we need to get away."
"Ok."
She started the engine and drove out of the car park.

***

I woke with a start.
"What was that?"
"Nothing, love. Go back to sleep."
"Christ, I don't remember falling asleep. How long have I been out?"
"Silly... no-one remembers falling asleep."
"I meant... I don't remember being tired. I just remember talking to you, then waking up."
"It's that place. I wouldn't worry about it, love."
"That place?"
"Yeah, just the dimensional shift probably made you pass out. It's fairly normal."
"Dimensional shift?"
"Yes."
"So I was... what? in a different dimension?"
"Yes."
"Shit!"
"Didn't you realise?"
"No. I thought I was in Blackpool or somewhere."
She laughed, "You're funny."
"Why's that funny?"
"Well, as if he'd ever go to Blackpool, or, well, earth."
"Why not?"
"Well, it's beneath him!"
"But not you?"
She sighed, "I used to think so, but, well, we screwed up, Elena and I, and now we have to pay."
"What happened?"
She shook her head, "We were stupid. We were always like sisters. We loved each other, but we hated each other. We spent all our time playing tricks on each other. We were just inseparable. Well, then one time, we went too far; I went too far. I took the pendant from him and put it on. I thought I'd just be invisible, so Elena wouldn't be able to see me and I could scare her, but I lost all sense of myself. I couldn't tell where I was, or what I was doing. It was like I was just a body-less soul. She found me and she brought me back. I don't know how she did it, but she took the pendant from me and freed me. Anyway, the pendant was lost and we were banished. That was the first time we've been allowed back since. We brought you to him. We brought the pendant to him. Elena was supposed to get it from you the same way she got it from me, only she couldn't. She didn't remember how."
"But he said that I could teach him how to see the pendant."
"Did he?" she smiled, almost laughing, "He's full of shit."