The Yellow Pine

Chapter 11 - Colliding Worlds

With her eyes screwed shut and her fists clenched tightly at her sides, Maisie Llewelyn Carter stepped out of one world, and into another. For several long moments, she held her breath, only now realizing that she knew nothing about this place, and that the air might not be good for her to breathe. She slowly opened first one eye, then the other and looked around, taking a shallow and unsteady breath. The air didn't immediately kill her, so she took a deeper one. The air was cool in her burning lungs and smelled pleasantly of dry leaves and woodsmoke; in short, it smelled like a normal, Appalachian fall. The sky was shrouded by a dark cover of thick leaves and pine needles above her, but she didn't need to see the sky to know that it was clearly late at night.

A brown blur sped past her with a whoop, as B'loga crashed away through the brush. Giggling and unafraid, she followed after, marveling at the beautiful surroundings. The sounds of the Zoog crashing ahead of her steadily led her closer to the lights she had seen through the portal, and which she could tell from here where obviously electric. As she drew close enough to see the source of the lights, her heart tried to simultaneously pound and sink, leaving her with a sick, horrible feeling in her torso. It was her own house.

B'loga sniffed excitedly around the bushes along the foundation, and looked up curiously when the disappointed little girl began to cry. "Why?" he asked in the brief and quiet speech of his kind, tilting his head to the side like a curious dog. "Because I thought this would be Carcosa! I wanted to find my Mommy, not come back here!" She stomped her tiny foot into the soft covering of leaves on the ground. B'loga's withered and grotesquely long fingers brushed consolingly against her leg, and sympathetic tears swam in the creature's large, alien eyes. Maisie was suddenly very tired, and it occurred to her that she was still asleep in her bed. She wasn't sure what to do next. Could she climb into the bed where her body already lie, or should she try to go back the way she came? The more she thought about it, the more muddled her thoughts became. The very idea of going into her house and to her room made her yawn widely, and her arms and legs became as heavy as her book-filled school bag. Without conscious thought, her eyes drifted closed and she was suddenly asleep. Her last thought was of where she would wake up, and how she would explain her new "pet" to her Daddy.

As the first piercing rays of the morning sun pierced through the forest canopy and onto her face, Maisie stirred against her pillow and opened her odd-colored eyes on the familiar scene of her own room. She sat up cautiously and looked around. Something was off, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Then she realized: Cassilda and Camilla weren't mewing and crawling around on her bed. "Kitties! Where are you?" She climbed out of bed and walked through the house to the kitchen, where her Daddy was already up, stirring a pot of oatmeal on the stove. The warm smell of cinnamon drifted through the air, and her stomach grumbled. "Have you seen Camilla or Cassilda this morning?" "No, sweetie. Weren't they sleeping with you?" Maisie frowned petulantly. "No, I can't find them anywhere." Roland began spooning the thick oatmeal into a pair of white ceramic bowls decorated with twining green leaves and vines. He carried them to the table, while Maisie opened the drawer and retrieved a pair of spoons. "I'm sure they're around here somewhere, honey. Maybe they're just sleeping in the basement." Unconcerned, Roland quickly changed topics. "What do you have planned today? I'll be busy getting the flooring guys started over at the hotel, so you'll be on your own for a little bit. You okay with that?" Shaking off the anxiety she'd felt since waking up, she told her Daddy that she just wanted to stay in and play video games for a while. It was their usual Saturday routine. Roland would go to the hotel nearby and make sure the contractors were following his meticulous plans while she watched television or played video games. He would be back in time for lunch, and then they would go to one of the nearby parks for a bit, or maybe down the mountain to Kingdom Come and feed the ducks. Sometimes, they might even ride the paddle boats or play a round of putt-putt before going home for dinner.

As Roland left the house an hour later, Maisie made another pass through the home, looking for the kittens, but they were nowhere to be found. She longed to go outside and search for them, but Roland's most important rule for the few hours she was trusted to be alone was that she never, ever open the doors or go outside for any reason. If a person were to knock or ring the doorbell, she was supposed stay quiet until they went away, with the exception of Flora or Ms. Cooke. There was no rule against looking out the windows, though, so Maisie walked throughout the whole house, stopping in every room to look carefully out the windows for her missing kittens.