Chapter 6

Sarah backed out of the cave, ran about 15 feet away, and turned and stared hard at the cave entrance. There was no sign of that man anymore. She ran a few yards away and to the left, until she could see the back of it. He wasn't there either.

She felt her heart stop in her chest. There was no other opening. Nowhere he could have gone…

She had to make a decision. She could decide this was a hallucination and call a psychiatrist. She could go back to her friends and try to forget it. Or she could go back into the cave, and investigate further.

The first and second option seemed most sensible. After all, if he was a hallucination she would have more of those, and then know whether she needed clinical attention or not.

She could try to forget it, but she had a growing feeling that this would haunt her for life. Was he real? Who was he?

And somewhere in the pit of her stomach she knew he wasn't dangerous. Crazy, maybe, but not dangerous. Even as her logic told her that listening to the pit of her stomach wasn't always wise, she felt her curiosity getting the better of her.

She walked back towards the mouth of the cave, prepared to run at any moment. She still gripped the rock, never having let it go.

As she neared the mouth of the cave she heard the baby birds. As she peered inside she saw nothing and no one other than the insects…crawling towards an opening on the other side. Where bright sunlight, closer to the brightness of noon sunlight than here (where it was 4 PM), shone through another entrance to spill onto the cave floor. Shadows crisscrossed weirdly from both sides.

Sarah stepped forward until she could be sure there were no places for the man to have hidden himself inside the cave…from which he could still choose to jump out and attack her.

She stood in a piece of light on the floor, feeling its very real warmth. Then she edged slowly forward, brushing aside moss, until she was out the other side and gazing at rocky ground covered in moss, and a fast-flowing stream.

She stood stunned for a moment, very nearly ready to faint for the first time in her life. It felt like a choice: to faint or not to faint.

She stepped backward into the cave. It was still there. She stepped out again. And back in. And out again. Until she was sure that this was either real or she had had a psychotic break. Either way, she didn't really want to faint. She felt mildly irritated and wanted answers.

"Hello?" she said over the sound of rushing water.

She heard a male voice say "over here."

She turned and saw the man, maybe 20 feet away, sitting on a larger stone with his hands folded in his lap. He did not stand or try to advance. She walked slowly, as if in a dream, towards another large stone about 10 feet from him, and sat down.

"You're a nice person, aren't you?" She heard herself asking, somewhat stupidly.

"Most of the time," he said, and smiled. She thought it was a rather nice smile, and that thought disturbed her. Especially paired with his vague answer.

He stopped and frowned. "I was trying to be honest," he said. "I don't think anyone is nice all the time. People can be mostly good and not always nice."

She nodded.

As they sat she began to notice something different about this place. This was definitely not like the woods near home, the oaks and pines and maples of the American South. The air had a wet chill and it reminded her of a spring semester in college she spent in England. The moss on the rocks was so green that it didn't look real. And there was something in the air…something she could almost taste. A tingling buzzing real-ness... It seemed to get under her skin and enter her through each breath until she felt as if she could do anything.

I'm dissociating, she thought calmly. I'm stepping outside of myself and watching the scene. It's a coping mechanism.

The whole time she was thinking the man just sat and watched her, though casually, as if to say: I'm not going to say anything unless you speak first.

And the silence stretched further, until they were simply looking around at the scenery in each other's presence.

"What is your name?" asked Sarah.

"Merlin," said the man, looking her straight in the eyes. His eyes were blue and his hair was curly and black. He looked as if he didn't eat or sleep well, and suddenly it reminded her of her Uncle who spent so much time reading and writing that he forgot about his bodily needs. He used to say intelligent people didn't have time for mundane things like eating, sleeping, and choosing their outfits carefully. But..she told herself, looking hard at Merlin…he doesn't act like he's just a intellectual, not quite. He also had an air of calm assuredness, as if he knew he could take care of himself. And though his skin was pale, the skin of his hands, neck and face was a bit darker, possibly from sun exposure. His hands looked calloused and a bit big for his body, and she wondered if he did hard labor.

His accent was definitely not American; she had dimly registered that earlier. It sounded sort of British, from what she could remember of BBC characters' speech, but even heavier than that.

"My name is Sarah," she heard herself say, and then had a mild heart attack. Why did I tell him my real name?

At this point, however, she was almost glad she had made the choice. It gave her permission to move forward on the path she was currently on. Too late to turn back, in a way. He knows my name, and I've acknowledged to myself that as far as I know this could be real.

"Lovely to meet you, Sarah." He looked very serious and very curious.

She nodded and tried to smile.

"The cave," he said, pointing, "is a strange place, don't you think?"

She was growing tired of this exchange. Now that she had chosen to fully acknowledge the situation and, for lack of a better phrase, go with it—she wanted to ask things outright, not beat around the bush.

Her words came out in a rush. "It is. It has two sides. No cave has two sides…at least not when each side is in a different place."

"Yes," he said, nodding, "I agree. It is out of the ordinary." He paused and then continued "so, what are we to make of it?"

"I'm not sure," she said.

"Well," he said, "It looks as if your side and mine are in two different places. Until we know what to make of it, best not to tell anyone."

Best not to tell anyone? She thought, why on earth is he worried about that?

She wanted to call some sort of scientific society…or the police. They could investigate and then she would know if this was a new discovery of some kind…or all in her head.

"Shouldn't we?" she ventured.

"I don't think so," he said with more certainty. "At least not the people here, where I am from. They don't respond well to things that are out of the ordinary…" here he paused meaningfully, as if choosing his next words very carefully. "They would call it Sorcery and do whatever necessary to put an end to it."

What a word! Sorcery. She wondered at his sincerity; she could tell he meant every word. He was indeed concerned about the reaction of the people…in this place.

"The people where I am from," she said, "do not believe in Sorcery. Well, most of them. But what they do believe in is science."

"Those things are not so far apart in my experience," Merlin interjected.

She stared at him. Part of her still couldn't believe he was real. He was saying so many things that she had thought before. She had many dreams, dreams in which she could do magic. Dreams that, even now, made her blush with embarrassment. She had dismissed them as ridiculous, even when some of them had felt so real that she had woken up believing them to be so. In these moments between true sleep and true waking she had thought to herself: it's not so impossible.

But now she was afraid. The strange buzzing in the air made her think it could be real. That there were things beyond what she had been told. And underneath the fear…something that worried her even more: an excitement and a desire to find out more.

"What is this place like? What do the buildings look like? What do the people do?" She asked in one rush of breath, before she could stop herself.

"This place," he said without hesitation "is Albion. The kingdom is Camelot. The buildings are either made of wood, thatch, or stone. The greatest, like the castle at Camelot, are made of stone so they will last. The people do many things…from courtiers, to merchants, to farmers who tend the livestock and the fields."

Her heart stopped. Camelot.

Her breath caught in her throat and her vision blurred. Camelot…I know this.

Her mind flashed to stories: The Once and Future King. The Mists of Avalon. Stories she had read…not that long ago.

"If this is Camelot," she said "prove it. Where is King Arthur?" She felt a derisive laugh bubble out of her throat without her consent. She could not help herself, it was too surreal. She felt the laughter burning away some of the tension, but stopped it to ask another question. "If this is Camelot, where is…" but she froze. She knew his name, he had told her. When he had told her first, she had thought of a bird- merlin. Now she did not.

Merlin. The wizard Merlin. But this was no old, toothless, and bearded man wearing shabby robes and hobbling…he carried no twisted staff, there was no talking owl…this man was young, dark, tall and scrawny. He had a kind smile and all of his teeth.