The Island's Inhabitant

The Prisoner

Jack slowly began to wake, his mind drifting towards consciousness like a lazily floating soap bubble dancing in the breeze. The last thing he had seen before blacking out was a flash of white light as he fell through the floor of the attic. He wondered what that had been. Aunt Mae didn't have such harsh lights in the house—she always preferred the more natural soft lights, especially with his frequent headaches. If it hadn't been him seeing the light in the ceiling of the bedroom beneath him, it must have been a trick of his mind as he lost consciousness. After all, he had just recovered from a migraine, and relapses were all too often for him.

What was he doing thinking about light? He just had a bad fall and Aunt Mae must be worried about him. He must have made an awful mess, too. There must be splintered wood and smashed plaster everywhere. Funny how the seemingly solid hardwood of the attic had simply given away under him. But he had to get up...tell Aunt Mae he was unhurt...the mess probably got all over Zoey's top bunk. She would be furious.

Zoey! The soap bubble popped, and Jack sat up quickly. He opened his eyes and squinted against the light. "Ow." The fall had done some damage after all. His brain hurt, and it wasn't from a migraine relapse.

"Ah, so you are awake."

He had expected Aunt Mae's voice, but this was a strange woman speaking. Her voice was soft and musical. She stepped in front of the light, and Jack struggled to focus on her silhouetted form. His eyes stabbed with pain, so he closed them again.

"Have you a headache? It is to be expected. You have travelled such a long way in such a short time. The shock—it takes time to recover."

Jack struggled to place her. Was she a nurse? Was he at the hospital? What was she saying? It sounded so strange. He couldn't think straight. His head hurt!

Cool hands felt his forehead and pressed on his temples. The coolness seemed to flow into his mind and soothe his scattered thoughts. The pain in his head subsided. The woman lifted her hands and Jack opened his eyes, which now focused easily.

Standing before him was the most beautiful woman ever. Jack was unsure of how his mind was able to make such a positive statement, but at the moment it seemed an irrefutable truth. She was dazzling. Her face was perfectly formed and her eyes a striking blue. Hair the colour of spun gold flowed generously over her shoulders, coiling almost to her waist. With the light behind her, it appeared almost as if her hair was glowing. Her skin was white like Aunt Mae's best china, and as she smiled, her reddened lips parted to reveal a set of perfect teeth.

"Wow," he finally managed to say. "How did you do that? Take away my headache, I mean."

She smiled again. "I can do many things. That is only the beginning. But come now, who are you and to what do I owe the honour of your visit?"

Jack paused, suddenly realizing that this beautiful woman wasn't the only unfamiliar thing. He was in a strange room, with stone walls that curved around as if he was in the turret of a castle. Rich tapestries hung on the wall, and at the far end of the room a window opened out onto a glorious lake view. "Where am I?"

The woman laughed, a bright, musical laugh that set the air in the room to dancing. "You are in my home—my prison—the Tower of Nahora, on Teconis Island."

"Tower of Nahora? And I've never heard of Te—whatever you said. Are we still in Texas?"

"Teconis Island. And this 'Texas' is strange to me. You are on the outskirts of the country of Calcasia."

Jack frowned over these strange names. He was a geography whiz and loved learning about the different countries of the world. But he had never heard of Calcasia. And yet...somewhere inside his mind, recognition stirred.

The woman continued talking, her voice dreamy. "And this, the tower of my despair, for I am locked here...unable to escape..."

"If you'll excuse me for saying," said Jack in a confused voice, "you're sounding a lot like a fairy tale. A princess locked in an isolated tower?"

"And you, perhaps, my prince come to free me?"

"I'm no prince," stated Jack matter-of-factly as he jumped down from the bed he was on. "I'm just Jack."

"Well, 'Just Jack'," said the woman, flashing her sweetest smile, "it truly is a pleasure to meet you. I am Tatl Enasi."

Jack grinned back, then offered to shake hands. Tatl shook with him, her hand light and gentle in his grasp.

"But come," said she, "you never answered my question. To what do I owe the honour of your visit?"

Jack shrugged. "I'm still trying to figure out how I got here. I was in the attic when I fell through the floor, and then a bright light flashed, and I woke up here. And wherever this is, it's sure nowhere I've ever heard of before!"

"There will be many things strange to you here. But," Tatl's voice softened, "while I am sure your long journey has tired you, I will greatly appreciate your company. It is lonely, living here for so long."

Jack's mind spun with unanswered questions. He wasn't tired, but he did want to be alone. Tatl didn't seem too eager to answer him directly, and he needed time to process. So he nodded and acted sleepy. Tatl left him, gently closing the door to the circular room. Jack wandered over to the window and stared out across the water to the horizon.

Whatever had happened, it was connected in some way to Zoey's disappearance. He knew that much. He had heard her scream, gone back up to the attic to investigate, and had fallen through—into what? If only he could remember what sounded so familiar about the name Tatl had said. Not Teconis Island, for that was utterly foreign, but the other one: Calcasia. He knew he had heard it before, but where? A movie? A fantasy his sisters had read? No, not a fantasy, but a story, yes. He had heard the name in a story. It must have been one his dad read aloud when he was much younger, though, for he remembered snuggling in Ma's arms while Dad told the story in his rich voice.

But that's silly, Jack chided himself. I can't fall into a fairytale. That was the second time the thought of a fairytale had entered his mind. The first had been when the exquisitely beautiful, princess-like Tatl had told him she was confined to the tower.

Perhaps he was just dreaming. He was probably unconscious on the floor in the bedroom beneath the attic. His mind, scattered from the sudden fall, had simply seized on an old memory and blown it up into one big, colossal dream.

And yet... he found it hard to believe that he could dream up something as amazing as Tatl. Jack was at the age where girls didn't even enter into his reckoning. Whether a girl was cute or not didn't change the fact she had cooties. But Tatl was the first girl Jack had ever met who wasn't icky to him. She was... Jack cut off the thought before it dared finish.

His mind wandered on. Had Zoey fallen into the same strange place? As far as he could tell, she hadn't ended up here. If the attic was a portal into Dreamland, he and Zoey weren't dreaming the same thing.

It was too much to handle. Despite his not having felt tired before, Jack began to yawn. A sudden lethargy descended upon him, and he returned to the bed behind him and slept. Perhaps it would all make sense in the morning. His last thought was of Zoey.