PART ONE: ANACHRONISM

Chapter LIII: My Coming Out Story

I've never told anyone this before. Not even you. You know what happened but not in detail. I could never bring myself to tell you in detail what happened at the Battle of Helm's Deep. But I need to tell you now. Because I said that I would tell you everything when I started this. And so I will.

It's the story of a poor girl who couldn't control her Skips and the story of a man. A tall man. He had a short, brown beard. Almost black. He usually had an easy smile. But he wasn't smiling now. He was fighting on the battlements of the Hornburg. His long sword was constantly moving. Slicing. Cutting. Slashing. He was always moving. His armor seemed so heavy, slowing his movements considerably. But his enemy were slowed too. Orc armor was thick and broad. Their helms only partially covered their distorted, purple-black faces.

Clouds rolled through the darkening sky. The storm had come, rain bursting on the stone wall. The first drop fell, landing on the girl's forearm. She was on hands and knees. Her right foot was resting on a dead man's head. She apologized to him. There was the legless body of an orc in front of her. She was crying. Not for the orc. Not for the dead man. But for herself.

The wall of the Hornburg was coated in death. Bodies were everywhere. Draped over the battlements, coating the ground. Piled on top of each other like building blocks, or a patchwork quilt. And yet, the men, the elves, and the orcs, they kept on fighting. And they kept on dying.

And there was that one man. The one with the dark beard and an easy smile. The girl did not wish for much, but she wanted him to live. She knew there wasn't much hope. She knew how things were supposed to turn out, but still, she willed him to breathe even if a hundred others had to die. Just let him live. Please, let him live.

There was an orc. Huge, probably over six foot, and muscular. His iron armor, marked with a painted white hand, exposed his flat stomach. His hungry, white eyes fell on the man. The rectangular blade clutched in the orc's right hand was already stained with blood of many men. The orc let out a roar and leapt forward.

The girl screamed.

The orc's blade slid in between the man's ribs easily. As though it was made for that single purpose. The missing piece of the puzzle. A perfect fit.

The man's eyes grew wide. A convulsed shudder spread through his body. His lips moved soundlessly. The orc wrenched his blade out and moved onto the next soldier. Blood flowing from his side, the man joined the piles of corpses, just one of the many to fall during the Battle of Helm's Deep.

"Dorthin!"

Okay. I need a break. You must know how hard this is for me. How hard to tell you all this. I've kept the memories of Dorthin shut away, to come out only in my nightmares. Let me talk about something else. Let me talk about what happened after the Skipping malfunction.

I woke up in a hospital. It was one of those white-roomed hospital where the bedsheets are tucked too tight so patients can't move an inch. There was a window to my right, which looked over the hospital parking lot. My dad was sleeping in the cushioned windowsill. His head was resting against the glass so that his cheek was smushed out of shape. My mother was sleeping in a lazy boy. Her blonde hair was spread around her pale face. She looked exhausted. Both of them did. There were purple shadows under their eyes.

I sat up. I didn't feel tired. It wasn't like when I'd woken in the Houses of Healing after being shot. No part of me hurt. I was just fine. So why was I in the hospital?

It took a minute to come back to me. The Battle of Helm's Deep and that damned coffee shop. Back and forth. Back and forth. Over and over and over and over again. Never stopping. Never ceasing. Always Skipping. Until I passed out. I'm pretty sure I passed out in the end. The world had gone black. Both worlds. I must have ended up in Ohio in the end.

"Ana?" My mother was sitting up in the lazy boy. She seemed unsure if she shoulder smile or cry and her lips kept moving between the two emotions. Finally, she settled on both. She laughed and then burst into tears.

"Hi." I scratched the back of my head and managed a weak smile. "Long time no see."

"Galin…" Mom shook my father's shoulder.

His eyes snapped open and he sat upright. "I wasn't sleeping."

"Ana's awake." My mom spoke through streaming tears and a face contorted by emotion. (You can see from which parent I get my ugly crying face from.)

My dad turned to me. He didn't say anything but smiled gently. I smiled back. My father had always had a calming presence. He was the one I went to when I was upset, the one I could trust to listen to me and think things through from all perspectives.

"I had the weirdest dream," I said. "I passed out in a coffee shop after falling through a window."

There was nothing to say to that, and my parents wisely remained silent. My mother was still sobbing, so my dad handed her a box of Kleenex.

"Nick and Bonnie are here too. They went to get some coffee," said Dad finally.

"Oh." I fiddled with the edge of the bedsheets. "How long have I been out of it?"

"Two days," said Mom. She sniffled and blew her nose on a tissue. "I've seen you sleep for a long time before—but never that long."

"I was just, um, you know, really tired." I laughed.

"But no one could wake you up." Mom face was white and thin. "We kept trying and trying. You were, you were, you were comatose."

"Lexie," said my dad gently.

"I called your name, but you never answered. My Ana always has something to say. I have so much trouble keeping you quiet. When you were young, I would get calls from your teachers asking me to teach you about appropriate times to talk. But you…you were so quiet on that bed…" The tears had returned again full force.

"Lexie." Dad rose from his seat and placed a hand on my mother's shoulder. Turning her head up, she stared at him for a long, watery-eyed moment. Dad nodded once. "I think we should call the nurse."

The door to the hospital room opened.

"I have coffee," said Bonnie. Her red hair was pulled up in a bun, and she had the same dark shadows under her eyes as my parents. A tray of four cups was balanced in her right hand. She stopped at the sight of me. "You. You're awake. Took you long enough."

"Yeah," I said, stretching my arms and rolling my shoulders back. "I just took a quick little nap."

"Your 'quick little nap' was a bother to everyone."

"Yeah. Sorry about that. You guys kick up too much of a fuss."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

Bonnie grinned, dimples appearing in her freckled face. "I'm glad your back. Sorry, if I knew you'd be awake when I got back, then I would have gotten more coffee."

"Meh. I don't want coffee," I said. "I want a big, juicy steak."

Dad rolled his eyes. "She's fine. We can go home already."

"Where's Nick?" I asked.

"He and Karen were going to get a couple drinks from the vending machine," said Bonnie, handing my mother one of the coffees. "They're probably making out in some corner."

"That sounds like Nick," I said, sighing.

Dad grinned. "He's a player."

"To the bone," said Bonnie, nodding.

"What are you saying about me now?" asked Nick, stepping into the room. Karen followed him, clutching a chocolate bar in her right hand and a cup of coffee in the left.

"That you're a player," I said.

Nick paused. He stared at me for a good, long moment. He frowned and squinted. Then, he turned to Bonnie and asked, "Are you sure that's Ana?"

"Pretty sure," said Bonnie.

"She looks funny."

"It's called not eating for three days," said Mom, a little irritably.

I groaned and pressed my hands to my cheeks. My face didn't feel any different from usual. "Do I look strange?'

"You always look strange," said Nick. "But that's beside the point. When did you wake up?"

"Maybe five minutes ago…"

"Oh, we have good timing then." Nick sipping his coffee. "I can just stand here and drink this coffee in front of you and remind you that you can't have any because you passed out in a coffee shop, gave us all a scare, and are now a hospital patient. Sucks to be you."

I groaned. "I just want meat."

"Are you really in the hospital?" asked Karen. "Is there even anything wrong with you?"

"Oh," said Bonnie. "There's so much wrong with her. Where to begin?"

"You should have seen Raoul's face when you passed out," said Nick. He bounded across the room and cheerfully took my Dad's place in the windowsill. "He had no idea what the hell was going on."

"I did explain it to him," said Bonnie. "Somewhat."

"Explain what?" asked my mother.

I gave Bonnie a poisonous look before turning to Nick. "He's all right though?"

"Yeah, yeah," said Nick. "You're lucky Raoul is crazy already. Otherwise he—and you—would be in some deep shit. Instead, he was just like, 'Oh, she's like that, huh. Poor Ana. Oh look there's a customer. Gotta go make some coffee.'"

I smiled. "That sounds like Raoul. There's a reason he would have made a perfect soulmate for me."

"I am so confused," said Mom. "What does Raoul have to do with any of this? What happened?"

"Don't worry about it," I said quickly. "Raoul's just the exceedingly hot guy I work with. I'm just embarrassed to have fallen through a window and passed out in front of him."

"I want to know," said Mom. "What happened in the coffee shop? How could the cuts from the glass make you pass out? The doctor said they were shallow. And there was blood other than your own. What's going on? Ana, you can tell me anything. I'm your mother."

"Lexie," said Dad softly

"I just don't like blood," I said. "It terrifies me. It's all red and sticky and it gets everywhere. And have you tries to get blood out of clothes? Nearly impossible. I don't know about you, but I don't fancy scrubbing my work uniform."

Mom looked on the verge of tears again.

Dad sighed. "I really think we ought to call the nurse."

The blood grew like a disease. At first, it seemed as though the wound was only part of the girl's imagination, but then, a small red blotch appeared on the armor. The blotch expanded into a puddle, and the puddle began to drip down the sides of the armor's metal plating. Long streams of red expanded from the wound to the stone ground. Water droplets pounded, ringing music against the armor. The puddle of red was disrupted, mixing water and blood. Circles and ripples. A pretty pattern.

The sky was pouring. Fat, heavy rain droplets pounded the world below, like an onslaught from above. Orc, elf, or man. The rain droplets did not care about the soldiers. They attacked mercilessly. Faces were soaked. Hair was dripping. Armor was stiff. Voices were overwhelmed. Stone was slippery. Puddles formed in the ground. The dead were drowned. An army of millions of droplets drummed through the battlefield relentlessly.

The girl crawled over the piles of dead bodies, unnoticed by the chaos around her. She was oblivious to the world, and the world was oblivious to her. Her eyes were focused in one place. The rain obstructed her vision. Water dribbled in rivers from her head, down her blonde hair, down her back, along her clothes, and down to the ground. She did not feel or see the rain. Her senses were filled with the dead.

The car door closed behind me with a loud bang. I blinked and stared at the red-brick apartment building in front of me. I was home. It had not changed in the time I had been in the hospital. The same man with the red baseball cap sat on the street corner, rattling his plastic red cup. The same silver car was parked outside the entrance. The same pink flowers were in bloom outside apartment 202. It was all the same.

"Do you want me to carry your stuff?" my dad asked as he shut the trunk of the minivan.

"I can do it," I said, holding out a hand for the little suitcase.

"Too bad. I'm keeping it. You should take advantage of being fresh out of the hospital while you can." Dad picked up the navy blue suitcase and carried it towards the entrance, the wheels awkwardly bumping against his right leg.

"Come on." My mom came to stand beside me. She intertwined her arm with mine and pulled me in the direction of the apartment.

"You don't have to do this," I said.

"We want to," said Mom. "We'll get you settled, maybe stay with you a couple days, and then we'll head home. Okay? We won't intrude on your life too much."

"It's not that…"

I stared down at where my mother's arm was linked with him. Who knew when I was going to Skip again. It could be three months from now, it could be three weeks from now, it could be three seconds from now and I would bring my mom with me to Middle Earth. I didn't want them in my apartment. I didn't want them to see my Skip, and the longer they stayed with me, the more the chances of that increased.

However, I had the sinking feeling that I wouldn't be able to hide it much longer. Not after the whole world believed I was dead. Not after they started planning my funeral only to hear that I was alive. Not after they'd received news that I was in the hospital after falling through a window. At a certain point, lies could only do so much.

I let Mom lead me up the five flights of stairs until we were standing outside my apartment. My dad was waiting for us on the landing, leaning against the wall next to my door. He smiled at us, though the smile did not reach his brown eyes. I pulled the apartment key out of my pocket and unlocked the apartment.

Surprise, surprise. The apartment was a mess. It was always a mess. I lived as a slob, all right? I was happy with my slobbish life. My mom, on the other hand, was not.

"Ana," she cried, "why is this place such a wreck? Do you just leave your bras lying around for anyone to find? Doesn't Nick come over often? I know he's just a friend, but really!"

"Can I get you anything to drink?" I asked. "Coffee?"

"Tea?" asked Dad.

"I think I have some somewhere…in the back of the pantry…" I moved into the kitchen and began rummaging through the cupboard. I found a box of Earl Gray and pulled it out with a cry of "Ah-ha!" I put the kettle on and moved to the archway the joined the kitchen and the living/dining room.

Mom used the remote to flick a pair of underwear off the back of the couch before she delicately took a seat. My dad didn't really care. He plopped down in the lazy boy and used a sweater of mine as a pillow.

"Well," said Mom, searching for a safe topic of conversation, "Nick's girlfriend seems nice."

"Yeah," I said. "I like Karen a lot better than Joanna, that bitch."

"Ana, watch your language!"

"I met her once," said Dad. "She was a bitch."

Mom sighed and shot Dad a glare that could have killed a wild boar. "You're not helping, Galin."

The kettle went off and I moved back into the kitchen to make Dad a cup of tea and myself a cup of hot chocolate. Through the rectangular window in the wall I could see over the counter as my mom mouthed something at my dad. Dad shook his head and my mom made some sort of motion. My dad sighed. He mouthed something back at my mom. She nodded.

I gritted my teeth as I tossed the used teabag in the trashcan. I had a feeling I knew where this was heading.

I picked up the two steaming mugs and carried them into the living room. I handed Dad his black tea and then took a seat on the couch next to my mom.

"Ana," said Mom instantly. And so it began.

"Yes, Mother?"

She looked pointedly at my dad. Dad sighed and turned to me, his expression was dead serious even though I detected some faint amusement in his dark eyes.

"Ana," he said. "What happened in the coffee shop?"

"I don't know. I blacked out."

"Something happened."

"I don't know."

"Something happened before you blacked out."

"I fell through a window."

"Why did you fall through a window?"

"I don't remember."

"Why can't you remember?"

"Because I blacked out."

"You know that you can tell us anything. We love you, and we want what is best for you. It is your choice, Ana."

Stubbornly, I said, "I fell through a window."

Dad nodded once and then turned to my mother. "There you go, Lexie. I asked her. She doesn't want to tell me. There's nothing I can do."

"Galin! Ana!" Mom's voice reached a whole new level of shrill. "Don't do this to me!"

Dad's smile faded a little. I looked from one parents to the other. My father, even though he appeared calm and relaxed, was worried about my mother. His brown hair was a mess, and his wrinkles were well-defined; however, he didn't seem to notice his own exhaustion as he kept glancing at Mom, wondering if she was all right. My mother, with her blonde hair pulled back in a bun, looked like a fretting hen. Her gray hairs were more prominent than ever right then. (Sorry, Mom.) She looked haggard and worn and, for a second, I wondered if it was my fault. It probably was my fault. Because I Skipped. Because I lied. Because I could never tell her the truth and she didn't know how to deal.

I took a deep breath. "I think we should order pizza or Chinese because this is going to be a long story."

The man's eyes were still open. Like glass. Inanimate. Transparent. There was nothing behind them. He was a defective doll. He didn't work anymore. All his parts were there. His head. His arms. His legs. His heart. His lungs. They were all there. But they didn't move. They were cold and wet and lifeless. So lifeless.

A trembling hand reached out. Perhaps to touch him, but the hand drew back as if burned. The girl knelt beside him. She was no longer crying. At some point, tears have had their fill of sorrow and they become apathetic.

The girl was a defective doll. She didn't work anymore. All her parts were there. Her head. Her arms. Her legs. Her heart. Her lungs. They were all there. They moved. Her heart beat like a drum in the deep, and her chest heaved with a tragic rhythm. But she didn't move. She was cold and wet and lifeless.

She knew this had to happen. She had learned her lesson when her other friend had died. The world was cruel like that. Not just Middle Earth, but the world she was born in as well. She had been shot, she had been rejected, she had been lost and misunderstood, and she wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball and sleep for the rest of eternity.

It is a good thing, however, that she didn't sleep for the rest of eternity. It's a good thing she woke up and moved on with her life. Because if she hadn't, she wouldn't have seen all the good things that were yet to come.

You know me so well. It's almost frightening at times how well you know me. But I suppose that's to be expected. Sometimes, I think you know me better than I know myself. I hope so. Because I need you.

"…and that's the story," I finished.

The apartment was silent. An empty box of pizza lay on the coffee table along with several empty coffee/tea/hot chocolate mugs. Outside, the sun hung low in the sky, casting pink light across the city skyline, bordering all the buildings. The golden sunlight shone through the windows; I would have thought the city was on fire.

Finally, my dad spoke. "I can't believe you think dwarves are majestic."

I blinked.

My dad was leaning forward in the lazy boy. He yawned and stretched, flexing his shoulders. "I mean, it is odd how that happened."

"Um, yeah." I blinked again. "You know. Usually people will, kind of, be surprised. Shocked. General reaction is like, 'Oh what? You're crazy. I know a good therapist though. Or you can just skip therapy and go straight to the mental institution.'"

"Yes," agreed Dad. "That is the general reaction."

"Galin." My mom shook her head.

I looked back and forth between my two parents, trying to decipher whatever silent conversation was going on between them. Finally, I gave up and simply asked, "Am I missing something here? Or are you people more insane than I am?"

"Well," said Dad. "I think we might want to order another pizza. My story is pretty long too."

"Say what?"

Mom nodded as she turned her blue eyes to me. "We promised that we would not tell you anything until you opened up to us about your Skipping."

"Say what?"

My dad took a deep breath. "I am from Bree."

"Say what?"

And then, because of my incredible luck, I Skipped.

Say what?