A Love Out of Time

Chapter 25

Something felt decidedly strange.

I hovered in that magical plain between waking and sleeping, enjoying the peaceful warmth that The Wizard had left behind. I didn't want to wake up. I hoped that I would slip back into the Great Library and glimpse those floors again.

He had said that they were my stories. How could that be? I wasn't a writer! I traveled through worlds; I didn't create them!

Something moved within me, again, more insistently, and I felt ill. There was an odd feeling over my entire body, almost like pins and needles. But that couldn't be possible. In order to have pins and needles, I had to have feeling. Was I really feeling my limbs right now?

My mind focused in on the smell and the taste of the air. I had to be in a different room. Why would they move me?

Slowly my eyes creaked open. The sound of the air conditioning was so much louder in here. And there was another noise, a sort of tapping, like heels. I was staring at a white ceiling that looked puckered, as if it hadn't been painted smooth. It didn't even feel like I was in the same building.

The sound of tapping was getting closer, and instantly my anxious mind was full of images of Morgan, coming back to finish the job. My stomach rolled.

"Who's there?"

My voice seemed so much louder and more explosive in the small space, and it scared me. The tapping came to an abrupt stop, and then hurried even faster towards me.

"Hey, don't be afraid!"

It wasn't Morgan's voice, which was instantly reassuring. Her face rose into my vision and for just a moment, I wasn't sure if I was still in that reality.

"Gwyn?

Her eyes flickered uncertainty, but she smiled.

"My name is Pepper Potts. I'm Mr. Stark's assistant. He asked that I stay here in case you were disoriented by the move."

If only I could have face palmed myself, I would have been sore for days. My brow wrinkled, and I momentarily forgave whatever moving they had done while I was asleep.

"Of course! I'm the one who should apologize. I have a friend who looks just like you. I was confused by it."

She smiled again, wider.

"It's no trouble. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"Pepper, there's no need to be formal with me. I'm not anyone important."

A flicker of mischief shot through her eyes.

"You are Mr. Stark's guest. But I understand. I wouldn't want to feel alone either."

She sat down on a chair beside the bed and pressed a peddle that lifted the front half of the bed, so that I could sit up. I looked around the crisp, clean room with growing amazement. Panels on the wall moved by themselves to reveal the outside, a skyline I knew well.

"I'm in Stark Tower, aren't I?"

Pepper's smile never faltered or wavered. "Yes! Mr. Stark had you airlifted overnight."

My brow furrowed.  "Why so quickly? No one even told me."

Pepper looked away, and her air of mischief seemed to dissipate. "I was not privy to that information."

Well, that sounded unmistakably suspicious. In my mind there were two possibilities. Either I was a threat, or I had been threatened. I assumed that if they thought I was a threat, I would be in some triple-locked cell somewhere, but on the other hand, had Morgan really been that much of a threat to me? There had to be something else going on.

My eyes fell to the bed, and I jerked. The Cassidy shined bright on my left arm. How was it there? Even more, I had just seen my hand flick with my jerk. Neither of them could be possible.

My journey to the library had been purely temporal. There was no way I could have traveled physically.

"What is that?"

My fearful voice was only a whisper, but Pepper's attitude changed instantly.

"I'm sorry! I thought you might like something pretty. I'll get rid of it." She started sliding Cassidy off my arm.

"Oh no!" I didn't mean to sound so frantic, really. I was just a little stressed out from waking up in such a place, feeling my limbs, and seeing a long-lost relic I had left floating in the airless void of space nestled on my arm. "I do like it! Where did it come from?"

She froze. Her face was a mask of confusion and worry. I'd freaked her out. I pushed away the wild possibility that sped through my mind. If she were Jordan, she'd be smugly gloating right now, and she would never have given me Cassidy in the first place.

"It was found in an attic. Mr. Stark acquired an old house from the turn of the century, and this, along with some other pieces, was locked up in a jewelry box. Mr. Stark placed the box and its contents in my care."

I could barely swallow. Somehow, through time and space The Wizard had brought Cassidy to intersect perfectly with me. I could call it many things. Uncanny was the first word to come to mind, but it really was comforting. The future had already been seen. The outcome was decided, and I didn't have to be afraid. I'd live on to write all those stories.

"Thank you, Pepper. It's exactly what I needed."