The Misplaced Mystic

Chapter the First: Of Pentacles and Suspicious Sicilians

Author's Note: I have only seen one other story of this type in this fandom, so I thought I'd have a bash at writing one for the pure entertainment of myself. I do have too much free time, yes. Anyway, it is slightly cliché, but stories of this type are very hard to write otherwise. I hope you enjoy it, and feedback is very much appreciated. Thank you for your time.

Collapsing onto my bed, completely exhausted, I reached for the bar of delicious Galaxy chocolate I had to hand and took a bite. The perfect end to the perfect day.

My sister and I had been shopping all day, her indulging herself with clothes and make up, me only buying a necklace and a belt for myself from the shopping centre's only gothic emporium, Lavish. I delved around in a black plastic carrier bag for my purchases, admiring them for what must have been the thousandth time.

The necklace was more of a pendant, a simple pentacle, (a five pointed star with its lines conjoined, surrounded by a circle) on a long silver chain. I put it on, and the pendant hung all the way down my chest, almost to my navel. This was my new favourite piece of jewellery.

The day only got better. Moments later, my mother walked into the room holding a package that had come for me mail-order. I jumped up in excitement; I knew what this must be. Unwrapping the package, I found my suspicions to be true; it was a copy of the abridged version of The Princess Bride by William Goldman. I was over the moon by this, having loved the film. I opened to the first page, beginning to read, but my mother butted in, saying that it was my bedtime, and I should sleep because I had a dentist's appointment the next morning.

Talk about ruining my good mood! I begrudgingly put down the book, and made for my dressing table to store the pendant away as my mother left the room.

"Hello," said a voice from behind me, making me jump. I turned around. A woman was stood on my rug, the epitome of a Goth. She looked oddly familiar; I wondered where I'd seen her before. Then it hit me. She was the sales assistant from Lavish, the one that had sold me my items. She wasn't alone. A man, tall, strong and muscled stood by her side. He wore a stony expression. He wasn't someone I wanted to mess with.

"We've caught you," she continued, her voice silky, her lips, painted black, curving upward into a smile, revealing impossibly white teeth.

"Caught me?" I squeaked. "Was I supposed to be running?" I didn't like how scared and weak I sounded.

She looked unimpressed by my feeble attempt at humour and stepped towards me. I restrained myself from stepping back, trying to retain what little dignity I had left. That little remaining dignity was also ripped from me when she took another step towards me and I started to tremble. "You didn't pay," she said simply, reaching out to me and touching the pentacle around my neck.

Now I looked confused. "Yes I did," I said indignantly, despite my fear. "I have the receipt and everything."

The man behind this strange woman walked across my room to the Lavish carrier bag on my bed. The woman hissed at him in a warning tone.

"Don't, Ethan!" He ignored her. He looked inside it and found the receipt. After inspecting it, he declared, "Everything seems to be in order. I think we've got the wrong girl, Jocelyn."

Jocelyn's dark eyes stared into mine. "No, it's her all right," she said. There was something in her eyes that wasn't human, wasn't normal. "Tell me, girl, how many of these pentacle pendants were there in this shop when you bought yours?"

I stumbled for a moment, and then I remembered. "This was the only one left. It had a price tag on it and everything. You let me buy it, don't you remember?"

Her expression turned from cool contempt to blistering anger. "Where I come from, there are punishments for liars! There are also penalties for people who mess with magic and don't know what they are doing!"

I was so frightened just then that if I was wearing boots, I would have been quaking in them. "Wh-what? M-m-magic?"

She seemed to get even more enraged, if that was possible. "Yes, you insolent girl! Magic! Don't you know what a pentacle is?"

"Y-yes, I do…" I thought for a moment. "It's a symbol of Hygeia, the goddess of health, and it also symbolizes harmony between body and mind."

She seemed surprised, almost impressed, that I knew this. That struck me as weird; I thought most people knew this. Suddenly, without warning, her face hardened once again as she drawled, "I've had enough of this. Thieves and know-it-alls alike are vermin I would like the earth to be rid of! You like to toy with magic? Well, let me show you what happens when you do!"

Ethan was now stood behind us, looking like he didn't at all approve of the situation but was powerless to do anything to stop it. I wondered why he, a big burly man, was afraid of this tiny little hellcat with a mouth bigger than Jupiter?

I wasn't aware of Jocelyn raising her arm to hit me, or indeed holding anything to knock me out with, but I have come to the conclusion that she must have hit me with something, for the next thing I knew I was out cold.

I don't know how long I spent there, drifting around in the darkest depths of my mind. I wondered if I was dead, in a coma, or just dreaming. It was weird; sometimes I would see lights twinkle above me, like stars, sometimes I saw comets, and at other times I saw the moon. It must have been hours later when I finally woke up, my head still too drowsy and stupid to realize things that I should have deduced in a second.

It started with a light, blue, shining down on me. It was blurry, and kept swirling before my eyes, as if I was drunk, but I had no recollection of drinking. I began moving upwards towards the light, wanting to find out what it was. Whatever was around me resisted my force slightly, but I pushed upwards with further diligence. I didn't know what I was doing. Was I flying?

It was getting harder to breathe. I realized that the force holding me back was water weighing down on me. Whatever Jocelyn had used to knock me out certainly had killed off a few brain cells. I swam towards what I could only assume was the surface with increasing desperation, my lungs crying out for oxygen.

When I finally reached the surface, taking in more air than I've ever breathed before, I realized I was definitely not in Rotherham anymore.

How did my thick sore brain figure that one out, you ask? Well, I appeared to be in some kind of ocean, and Rotherham is very clearly landlocked, even a fool like me could work that out.

I started to panic. This was nothing like what I had expected Jocelyn meant when she talked about spells. I looked around for anything that could help me before I drowned or froze to death.

Luckily, and this really is the luckiest thing that's ever happened to me, there was a small ship, or rather a boat, sailing nearby to me. I waved my arms as best I could without dragging myself under the water and shouted, "Hey! Hey! Help me!"

I struggled to swim towards the boat. As I started to move, I heard a shrieking starting up from somewhere under the water. That, understandably, did nothing to help my already shaky nerves and I swam with increased vigour towards the vessel.

The shrieking grew louder as I reached the boat. I tried fiercely to reach the side of the boat and haul myself aboard, but the edge was just out of my reach. "Help! Help me! Help!" I cried out, and finally, thankfully, someone did.

I heard an urgent male voice, deep and thick with a foreign accent, mumble, "The eels! Quick!"

I heard someone else say something in protest, but mercifully the man didn't listen to him. I saw a gigantic face loom over the side of the boat and look down at me. The shrieking reached fever pitch and I saw long, slender black eels with razor-sharp teeth swirl about me.

The large man reached out for my arm and dragged the grateful me out of the eel-infested water before promptly plonking me down on the hard deck floor.

"Thank you, thank you so much..." I gasped between breaths.

"Don't mention it," said the man, who was even larger than he had seemed from my previous view in the water.

Relief flooded my body. I was safe.

No sooner had that thought entered my head than someone was pointing a knife at my neck.

"Oy! I just rescued that!" My large rescuer complained.

"She's seen us with the princess, she must be killed," the other man said. He was considerably smaller than my giant saviour, with balding hair and evil little eyes. I already loathed him, which was quite understandable judging by the fact that he was threatening to slit my throat.

"What princess?" I asked. This was mightily odd.

"Don't ask questions," the short bald man said. "Don't suppose it matters though, seeing as I'm about to kill you. The princess is Prince Humperdinck of Florin's bride, Buttercup. Where have you been hiding all your life to not know that?"

If I wasn't preoccupied by the fact that I was about to die, I might have realized then that they were talking about fictional characters from The Princess Bride as if they were real, living people.

"Don't kill me," I begged. "Please, please, don't kill me."

"Quit grovelling, miss," the evil man said, "You might as well go honourably."

I played with my pendant anxiously, waiting for the cold blade to penetrate my throat.

"Wait!" Called the voice of a third man, also foreign. I heard footsteps running towards me and the evil little man.

The newcomer elbowed my attacker out of the way (he objected profusely) and took the pendant from my hand.

"I know what she is!" He cried. "She can help us! Vizzini, can't you see?"

He waved the pendant in the man's face, nearly strangling me in the process, but I didn't care. Alarm bells were ringing in my head as details hit home. Vizzini? Prince Humperdinck? Buttercup?

I looked up at the sky. "Oh, Jocelyn, you have got to be kidding me," I said.

Vizzini raised an eyebrow. "Well, she seems not only to be insane but hallucinating too to me," he said. "How could this madwoman possibly help us?"

I decided it was best not to go mad at him for calling me a madwoman just then. He still had that knife, and it still looked pretty sharp.

"Can you not see she is a witch?"

This surprised me. I supposed I should have expected him to say that.

Vizzini was looking at me with renewed interest, but I, being me, of course, had to go and screw it up.

"A witch? I-I'm not a witch." The words had escaped my mouth before I'd had chance to stop them. If they believed I was a witch, they would do one of two things:

Ask me to help them by using magic (I'd fail completely, obviously.)

Kill me.

To be honest, neither of those looked too promising, but a) was definitely better than certain death.

"You're not, huh?" He looked between me and the man holding my pendant, who I knew to be Inigo Montoya. (Fan girl attack) "She is no use to us. Kill her."

"No – no!" I cried, stumbling over my words, trying to make amends for my blooper. "I-I'm not a witch – I'm a – I'm a – mystic!"

After a contemplative pause, Vizzini asked, "So you can see the future?" His cunning dark pupils studied my face. I could only hope I looked truthful.

"Yes," I said, trying to sound confident.

"All right then," he said testily. "Predict something for me."

"Anything?" I queried.

"Anything, but preferably something relevant to our mission."

I thought for a moment, then beckoned him towards me, "I don't want her to hear this, it might change things," I explained in a whisper. "The princess is going to try and escape the boat. She will jump overboard but be driven back by the eels. You have nothing to worry about for the time being."

"Hmm, interesting," he mused. "All right, I believe you. You're in."

I was delighted, but tried to look indifferent. "Remember, I cannot be one hundred percent accurate. The future changes with every decision you make."

He pretended not to hear me, turning to the other two. "All right then, this is the newest member of our little team, err…"

He wanted to know my name. Oh dear, oh dear, I thought. Think of a fake name, and fast!

"Isabel Maria Marrón," I said. Basically, it was my name, Liz Mary Brown, translated into Spanish. I quickly realized how stupid that was, owing to the fact that I was neither Spanish nor a Mary-Sue, and yet I had given myself a Spanish Mary-Sue name.

The others, barring Fezzik the giant, were also catching on to this.

Inigo looked at me in confusion. "You do not look like a Spaniard to me."

"That's because I'm not," I said quickly, trying to fix my second mistake. I had been here what, two minutes and already I was screwing up and making myself look like an idiot? "My mother was, and I was born in Spain. Then my English father took me to Florin where I grew up."

"All right, enough of the life story," said Vizzini impatiently, obviously believing my lies. "This is Inigo and this is Fezzik, and I am Vizzini," he gestured between them. I wanted to say, "I know," but for once I managed to restrain my unruly mouth. Vizzini dragged me across the deck next to a woman in a red gown, shoving me down onto the floor next to her. "And this is the Princess Buttercup, we're kidnapping her, blah blah blah…"

"Hi," I said to her, holding out my hand for her to shake. Might as well be polite, she looked scared out of her wits.

"Hello," she replied, shaking my hand.

"Well, I want you two to sit there nice and quiet and Isabel, if you "see" anything important, let us know," Vizzini finished, going to sit on the deck and lean on the mast. Fezzik leaned on the other side of the mast and dozed off. Inigo steered the ship, seemingly lost in his thoughts.

Buttercup looked very much like she didn't want to be quiet at all, but she shut up anyway and resorted to giving Vizzini filthy looks. I rolled my eyes when she wasn't looking.

I fiddled with my pentacle some more, wondering why Jocelyn had seemed so adamant that I had stolen it and also that I was an unworthy witch wannabe. I was not guilty of any of these accusations. I then pondered over why I was here. When she was talking about casting spells and messing with magic, I had thought she was going to torture me or hex me or give me eternal bad luck or something. I had not for a second thought that I would end up on a boat on an ocean between two countries that shouldn't even exist!

Maybe she was just bluffing. Maybe she had knocked me out with something and now I was dreaming. That seemed the most probable explanation. Jocelyn didn't look like a very good witch anyway. Sure, she fit the description, wild flyaway black hair, dark kohl-rimmed eyes, lacy gothic black clothing and silver jewellery, but that doesn't mean she is actually a witch. Most of those items can be purchased from any old costume dress shop!

Maybe she was trying to be a witch, but was terrible at it. Maybe when she saw me buying the pentacle, she assumed I was a witch too and out of jealousy she decided to try and frame me for stealing it and get me into to trouble. Maybe she had tried to hex me, but the spell had gone drastically wrong and she had sent me back here. That too seemed likely; she must have some kind of magical talent, how else would she and that brainless lump of muscle Ethan have ended up in my room without anyone seeing them or hearing them?

I was abruptly dragged out of my thoughts by Vizzini scolding Inigo for looking behind them and making him nervous.

I decided to try and get in Inigo's good books by "predicting" something.

"He is right," I said to Vizzini. "Something is there. A lone man on a boat."

Inigo smiled triumphantly, as if to say, 'See? I told you so!'

"What are his intentions?" Pressed Vizzini.

I decided it was best not to give everything away, as that might damage the plot. So, shaking my head, I said, "I cannot say for sure. He wears the black mask of a pirate or spy. He may be just an outcast sailor fishing, but that is unlikely in eel-infested waters. No, I suspect his intentions are less than favourable to us."

The three men leapt up from their stations and rushed to the stern of the boat to look out. I made myself usefully by steering the boat for them (even though I had no idea what I was doing) to prevent us from going off course.

Then I remembered Buttercup was about to make her escape.

"Vizzini…" I butted into his long "logical" explanation about pleasure cruises.

"Not now, Isabel!" He chided me.

"Please, it's really important…"

"I said, not now!"

Perfect, my plan was working!

"But-"

Vizzini had realized too late that when a "mystic" says something is important, it generally is. Buttercup had jumped off the side of the boat into the murky, deadly water, and was now swimming away at top speed.

The four of us clattered our way over to the side of the boat from which the princess had jumped. "I tried to warn you," I told him.

Vizzini gave me a look that said, 'Shut up or you'll be joining her.'

I said nothing more, and sat back to watch the eels do what they do best.

Author's Note: Well, thank you for reading! Hopefully, if I have time, I shall update soon! Please review, it means a lot to me!