Disclaimer: Sure they're mine. I only do this fan fiction thing when I feel like slumming.
Part 2
A month had passed since that day, the day that she had first gotten the idea. It was also the same day she had broken off a relationship that had lasted the better part of two decades, but being the optimist she was Jenny preferred not to linger on that part. Besides, no longer being one half of the Tom-and-Jenny unit was not the life-altering loss she had led herself to believe it would be.
At worst, she had lost her guaranteed movie date, someone with whom to check out some chic new restaurant that had opened up downtown, or someone to drag along on her spontaneous shopping trips. True enough she could still do those things with Dee, but her best friend had really hit it off with Devon, the "chocolate martial arts god" (in Dee's own words) and the two were virtually inseparable. Much as Tom and Jenny had been in their early years, and therefore tagging along would leave her feeling like a third wheel… um, speaking in terms of motorcycles, of course.
A quiet night at home with a fire burning, curled up on the couch in front of the T.V. wasn't quite the same when you did it alone, and Valentine's Day had been hard. But it wasn't so much Tom she missed, rather the companionship that she had grown used to. And the sex.
Well no, not the sex, but sex in general. There had been nothing significant about their love life that it would cause her to spend lonely nights reminiscing about it, but it had been… nice.
However, the month hadn't been spent idly. Countless hours after work and during the weekends had been passed at the library or on the Internet, diligently researching everything and anything relating to runes. She even went so far as to retrieve her grandfather's old journals from Pennsylvania. It hadn't been as difficult to get into the house as it had back when she was sixteen and she had snuck across the country with Dee and two other members of their group, Audrey Myers and Michael Cohen.
A twenty-four-year-old visiting the home of her missing, and possibly dead, grandfather wasn't an unusual occurrence. No one even realized that she'd removed anything—her visit was merely a nostalgic indulgence in childhood memories, even if there was still some doubt as to what happened between the two that fateful night nineteen years ago. Jenny had denied it vehemently when she'd learned what they all believed, that the kind man she remembered, the one who gave up his own life in place of his granddaughter's, would ever do a thing to hurt her.
In college she had even gone so far as to visit a psychiatrist, claiming to retrieve repressed memories that cleared her grandfather of any wrongdoing. In actuality, she had discussed anything but that night and her subsequent experiences with the Shadow Men during her therapy sessions, but that was what doctor-patient confidentiality was for.
Still, suspicion in her family never completely abated and Jenny had learned, with disgust, that even a good man's name could be tarnished through rumors and unfounded accusations alone.
There was still the issue of avoiding Dee's suspicion. While others had no reason to question her actions, Dee knew Julian was on her mind. And had she known about Jenny's sudden resurging interest in runes and Norse mythology, she surely would have guessed the nature of her best friend's plan.
So she made sure that when she conducted her research at home Dee was out, and the long hours at the library were explained away as an especially large workload at the youth center, where she worked as a social worker. After all, with Tom out of the picture, she suddenly had a great deal of idle time on her hands. Even when she left for her weekend trip to Pennsylvania, she had taken care to develop a cover story about a sick aunt.
Any other time her reasons would not have been accepted so readily. But the usually perceptive Dee was the victim of love, a phenomenon well known to interfere with one's common sense. And for her own selfish reasons Jenny was especially glad that Devon Saunders had entered her friend's life.
Finally, Jenny had ensured herself the perfect window of time during which to enact her plan.
On a Friday morning in early March both she and Dee had sat in the kitchen, having breakfast. Casually, Jenny inquired, "So, you going out with Devon tonight?"
Giving her a wolfish grin, Dee replied, "You bet I am. Though I doubt we'll be spending much time 'out'."
"Should I expect you back before tomorrow?"
"Hmm, in the words of the eternally wise magic eight ball, 'I wouldn't count on it'." An eerily dreamy look overcame Dee's face—eerie because dreamy and Dee were not two words that were commonly associated—as she held the plain white mug between her hands, elbows propped up on the table. She almost looked she belonged in one of those coffee commercials.
"Devon is the master of many trades, and let's just say he likes to take the time to make sure whatever he does, he does well. The man has the endurance of a marathon runner."
Jenny tried to suppress the twinge of jealous that arose at Dee's words. "Marathon, huh? Tom was more like a hundred-meter dash kind of guy."
Dee immediately burst out in laughter before she was able to correct herself and adopt a more sympathetic attitude. "Oh sorry, babe, you're not still touchy about the whole Tom thing, are you?"
Jenny arced one straight eyebrow in response. It was a strange question considering she hadn't been upset about the breakup from the very beginning—and that very fact had been what bothered Dee the most when she learned about it. Jenny chalked it up to the whole being in love thing again.
"If I were, would I be making jokes about his stamina?"
"I guess not," Dee replied, smiling as she shook her dark head. She looked toward the clock and jumped up from her seat. "Shit, I'm going to be late." She dumped the remaining brown liquid down the sink and rushed out of the room. "See you tomorrow, Sunshine."
"Have a good time," Jenny called out, and then added to herself, a bit enviously, "Not that there's any doubt about that."
When the front door slammed shut and Jenny was safely alone, she allowed herself an indulgent smile that she had been hiding from Dee, a smile that had nothing to do with her friend's good fortune.
Immediately, she rushed to the phone to call in for work. Her boss was quite understanding for Jenny rarely used her sick days, and he had little reason to doubt her claim. With Dee gone and that taken care of, Jenny set to work. She had at least a day on her hands, but she didn't want to waste any of it.
After her phone call, she had slipped into clothes that were a little more practical for what she was about to face, and a little less appropriate for work than the ones she had been wearing before. Dark blue jeans, tan hiking shoes, and a matching sweater rounded off the outfit. It wasn't anything special or glamorous, but she was going for functional. And if she did see Julian, it hardly mattered what she wore. He had watched her for years and seen her in all states of appearance. Without makeup, hair uncombed and unwashed, and in those old, ratty ensembles that you only wore in front of family and only when you were concerned about comfort, nothing else.
If he'd seen her at her worst and still wanted her, then he should be perfectly satisfied with mediocre. If he still wanted her, a nagging little voice whispered in the back of her head. But she pushed it aside and focused on the task at hand.
Jenny's heart thudded wildly in her chest as she looked at the old journal page for what must have been the hundredth time. The truth was that she had unwittingly—and perhaps with subconscious reasoning—committed the necessary instructions to memory back when they had evoked the runes during the last game. When she and her three friends had entered the Shadow World in order to retrieve Tom and her cousin Zach from Julian.
Still, she found herself checking, double-checking, and checking once more as she reached up with the black felt pen to draw the runes onto the door. Remembering the damage caused last time to the wooden panel in her grandfather's house, the runes forever emblazoned as smoldering etchings on the surface, this time she chose a discrete location for her endeavor. Namely, her closet door.
Afterward, they had removed the door and burned it to eliminate the evidence of their activities from the house. Of course, they'd had a difficult time of explaining just where the door had gone to her parents and Mrs. Durash, her grandfather's one-time housekeeper on whom the role of caretaker had eventually fallen.
But there were a lot of things that day they had difficulty explaining, and the door had been the least of them.
Steadying her hand through sheer force of will, she drew the two circles, one inside the other. Then the runes, within the inner circle. All seven. Next, she picked up the sharp new box cutter she'd bought for just this occasion, and carved the penned figures into the surface of the door.
Now came the part she remembered as being the most difficult: tracing the runes in blood. She had considered attaining it in some other manner, maybe animal blood from the butcher, but she hadn't wanted to risk the unacceptability of the substitute. She had too much riding on this to let her mere queasiness get in the way.
This time there was no accidental slip of the knife to save her the task. Of course, she was still sure that the "accident" had been less that and more the result of Julian's influence. It seemed only too convenient that it should have occurred when she hesitated to cut herself and thus allow the completion of the next step in entering the Shadow World. Not that she begrudged him his intervention because it was a lot easier than having to do it herself.
Nonetheless, the task had to be completed and the reward that awaited her was enough to make her swallow her fear. The knife was sharp and with just enough pressure, done quickly so the pain did not come until afterward—a bitter stinging sensation that cried for attention—there was an open gap no more than an inch long with the ruby red liquid pooling steadily on her finger.
She reached up to trace the carvings with her blood. By the time she'd finished, the wound was already clotting, and after placing a handy band-aid over it, she carried on to the next step.
All she had left now was to say the runes out loud. She took a deep breath and began.
"Dagaz." For awakening, the rune of change.
"Thurisaz." The thorn.
She faltered momentarily as she reached the next one. "Gebo." This one still held painful memories. Sacrifice, gift, death, and the yielding up of the spirit.
"Isa." Primal ice.
"Kenaz." Primal fire.
"Raidho." For journeying in space or time, and for protection walking between the worlds.
And finally, "Uruz." The ox. For piercing the veil between the worlds.
And it began.
If she had believed it would be any less stunning the second time around, she was severely mistaken. The fact that she was alone this time to face whatever awaited her beyond, only served to make the whole procedure more intimidating.
The door began to flash, like a strobe light in black and white, while the circle of runes began to glow and then start spinning. And the sounds were more incredible than she remembered—a dull roar that metamorphosed into a tearing sound, so loud she was sure the neighbors would call the police to come investigate. The floor vibrated beneath her, and there were multiple clattering sounds as ornaments and other small loose objects within her room shifted across the surfaces of her dresser, her armoire, desk and night table.
Then with one final blinding explosion of light, it all stopped, leaving behind only an eerie stillness and a deafening silence.
Jenny glanced at the door, swallowing the lump that rose up in her throat. She made a perfunctory adjustment of her bag, the single strap thrown over one shoulder, and the bulk of it resting against the opposite hip. Everything was in it; flashlight, extra batteries (which she packed remembering the incident of the last trip), matches, a second box cutter, and anything she could consider being of use during her stint in the Shadow World. Though, after the last experience, she was more knowledgeable of what sorts of tools might be required, she wasn't so foolish as to believe that she would be facing the same journey once more. Something told her the Shadow Men didn't play the same game with the same participants twice.
Finally, before resigning herself completely to her fate, Jenny pulled out the object nestled firmly within the front pocket of her jeans. The pants were of a more form-fitting style and pockets seemed to have been added on more for the aesthetic appeal than functionality, so she had wiggle and squirm a bit to get it out. But eventually she did.
It caught the light and sparkled in her hand, its luster undiminished through the passing years. Because even though it may not have been presented on her hand for all to see for some time now, it had still been tended to with great care. Julian's ring.
Placing it on her finger, where it had always belonged. She had only taken it off to put on Tom's engagement ring when he had finally proposed just over a year and half ago. And sometimes a part of her wondered whether he hadn't done so simply to see Julian's ring replaced with his own. Despite his claims that he understood, and he had at one point, there was no denying that it must have been difficult to watch his girl walking about with another man's declaration of his love visible on her body.
But none of that mattered now because she had exchanged the diamond-adorned band for the simple gold one she wore now. And this one was infinitely more precious.
"I am my only master," she whispered firmly, reaching forth.
And with that thought at the fore of her mind, she opened the door.
