Valkyrie got dressed slowly, listening out for the sound of her mum's car pulling out of the driveway. When the coast was clear she opened the window, and swung her legs over the sill. The ground beneath her churned. She felt lightheaded. Jumping from a second story window felt like a bad idea, but she could hear her dad talking nonsense with Alice downstairs, and she figured it would raise some awkward questions if they saw her leave the house twice. So, she pushed the vertigo aside, and let herself drop.
The fall should have gone smoothly. She was well practiced at it; but her reaction time was slower than usual. She displaced the air too late and landed roughly in the grass. The air was knocked out of her lungs. A fresh jolt of pain raced up her neck. She collapsed onto the ground, trying to catch her breath.
This is ridiculous, she thought. She'd been doing this for years. It was basic stuff. She should have been able to cushion her fall with her eyes closed and her feet bound.
Valkyrie could have laid there the rest of the afternoon. Only the thought of a nosy neighbour catching sight of her sprawled out on the lawn spurred her into action. Slowly and shakily, she stood up and made her way to the pier at the end of the road.
"The sedative I gave her is starting to wear off. She should be waking up any minute now," said Synecdoche. "She might be a little groggy at first, but keep talking to her. It'll help her feel safe and grounded."
The bed beneath Valkyrie creaked under the weight of a second person sitting on it. The bed was small, the mattress firm and familiar. There was a stack of pillows propping her upright, but they were too stiff, like wood. They made her neck ache. Someone took her hand. It felt firm and familiar.
With great difficulty she opened her eyes. White filled her vision. She blinked slowly a couple of times, trying to clear her vision. Black and then White. Black. White. White clouds. White walls. She felt so heavy.
"Hey, Steph. It's your dad. Can you hear me, sweetheart?" Desmond asked her in a gentle voice.
She turned her head towards the sound. Even that slight movement made her vision blur and darken around the edges. She could see her dad but struggled to pick out his features. It was like looking at an out-of-focus photograph.
A chair scraped loudly against the floor, and then a hazy image of her mother came into view. She brushed a stray strand of hair from Valkyrie's face.
"Mum? Dad...?"
Just saying those two words was agonising. They clawed at her throat. Coming out brittle and barely audible.
"We're right here, honey." Melissa said.
"This should help," said the man Valkyrie couldn't identify.
He passed something to Melissa, just out of Valkyrie's muddy field of vision. She pressed it to Valkyrie's lips. A plastic cup, filled with water. It trickled down her throat. Cool and soothing.
Melissa put the cup down. Valkyrie's vision began to sharpen. She could see that her parents were smiling but it looked strained.
"Where am I? What's going on?" Valkyrie asked. Her voice was weak and hoarse, but the pain was manageable now.
Desmond and Melissa looked at each other and then towards the room's other occupants.
The man who had given Melissa's the cup of water stepped forward. Small, old and perpetually grumpy-looking. She recognised him at once. Kenspeckle. Here. Alive. Standing behind her parents in this strange white room.
"You're dead," she blurted out.
The smiles faded from her parents' lips. Kenspeckle nodded his head in acknowledgement. If he was surprised by the news of his demise, he didn't show it.
"Good afternoon, Stephanie. My name is Professor Grouse. I'm a clinical psychologist. We've met before, although I'm not sure if you remember me."
He gestated towards Synecdoche, "You've also met my colleague Doctor Synecdoche before. She's a psychiatrist. We both work at North Youghal Estate, a residential treatment centre for young people with serious mental illnesses. That's where we are right now. You've been a patient with us for about six years. Do you understand what I'm saying, Stephanie?"
Individually, Valkyrie understood the words. But strung together in that order, they didn't make any sense. This whole thing didn't make any sense. One moment she had been at the pier in Haggard and the next she was here; with her parents, and Reverie Synecdoche, and Kenspeckle.
Gods, Kenspeckle. She remembered his mutilated body all too vividly. Sliced to pieces with his own scalpel.
A new lump was beginning to form in Valkyrie's throat. She swallowed it, trying to ignore the stinging in her eyes.
"I was there when you died. I saw what happened... I... I saw the body."
Both her parents looked even more uncomfortable now. Kenspeckle didn't. He looked her in the eye. He had kind eyes. Alert eyes. Nothing like the unseeing glassy gaze of a dead man.
"Stephanie, I can assure you I am very much alive."
She shook her head. "You can't be. Unless..."
It clicked. The idea falling into place like the pieces of a puzzle.
"Nadir. He did something to me. He must have shunted me into this dimension."
The words tumbled from Valkyrie's mouth before she could stop them; but once they were said a great sense of relief filled her, lifting her heart. Sure, being sent to another dimension was dangerous and there was a chance she might be stuck here permanently, but at least everything made sense now. At least now she had a chance to do something about it.
She couldn't help but let out a little laugh of relief. The laugh turned into a rasp and then a cough.
Melissa tried to press the plastic cup of water to Valkyrie's lips once more. She pushed it away, and swung her legs out of bed. Everything wobbled.
"Stephanie, lie down, please. You're not ready to be back on your feet yet." said Synedoche.
"I'm sorry, I can't. There's been a mistake. I don't belong here. I need to get back to my dimension."
She gritted her teeth and stood up. Her legs trembled beneath her weight. Sweat dampened her forehead. She was much too weak. This wasn't right. She was going to pass out.
From below her came the sound of the crashing waves, from above, the cry of a seagull. Someone was calling her name.
"Valkyrie? Valkyrie, can you hear me?" Skulduggery asked. He sounded worried.
Gloved fingertips pressed against her wrist. Wooden floorboards pressed into the back of her head.
Wake up, Darquesse commanded.
She groaned and opened her eyes.
"Valkyrie?"
She made a noise which sounded something like "Uhhhmmppphh."
"That is not a word," Skulduggery said, "But it is rather alarming. Can you sit up?"
Very slowly, she propped herself up onto her elbows. The effort left her breathless. She felt like someone had shaken a snow globe with her in it. The world shifted and swirled for a moment, before starting to settle.
"I'm going to carry you to the Bentley," Skulduggery said.
She didn't protest.
One arm moved to support her legs and the other her back. For a second, she floated. And for a second, she was back in bed. And then cool leather pressed against the back of her head. Someone gave her hand another comforting squeeze.
She did her best to focus. Skulduggery's skull appeared in front of her, then his clothes, followed by the rest of the world.
"Nadir did this," she said.
"Nadir? Valkyrie, I don't see how Nadir could have done this."
"He shunted me to another dimension."
"I think the fever's playing tricks on you."
He's right, Darquesse pointed out. Nadir has nothing to do with this.
"You're supposed to be on my side," Valkyrie told her.
Skulduggery gave her one of his inquisitive head tilts. "Are you talking to your subconscious or me?"
"My subconscious. She's trying to confuse me. But I was there, in another dimension. I must have shunted back just as you got here."
You're wrong.
Skulduggery shook his head. "I've been with you for at least ten minutes now. I would have seen if you'd shunted anywhere."
"I'm not lying. I was in another dimension."
She wasn't sure which of them she was arguing with. Nadir or some other shunter sending her to another dimension was the only explanation that made sense, so she clung to it.
"Alright," Skulduggery conceded. "I'll keep an eye on you and if you do shunt, I'll make sure I go with you. But right now, my priority is getting you to the Sanctuary."
The passenger door slammed shut. A second later Skuludggery appeared in the driver's seat. The Bentley purred to life under his direction. Haggard slide from view, replaced by a picturesque scene of rolling hills and open country roads.
Skulduggery was saying something to her again.
"Steph? Stephanie? Are you alright?" Desmond asked.
He was still holding her hand, doing his best to steady her. She turned her head. Melissa was on her other side ready to catch her should she fall. The professor and the doctor were watching her carefully. She couldn't see Skulduggery. He hadn't followed her when she'd shunted.
"Lie back down, Steph, please. Before you hurt yourself." Melissa said.
"I... need to... go home," Valkyrie said.
"I know you want to go home," Desmond said. "I want you to come home too. But you're too unwell. You need to stay here while you recover."
Her legs buckled. She fell back, bouncing back onto the bed. Her pelvis hit the bed, then her elbows. Shock jolted up her spinal column. This wasn't right. This wasn't her. She wasn't weak. She was strong. She was Valkyrie Cain, for god's sake. Determined, she pushed herself back up into a sitting position.
"Stephanie, try and relax. You're safe here," Kenspeckle said.
Stephanie. He and Synecdoche kept calling her that. Was that the only name she went by in this dimension or was it a ruse for her parent's sake? She wondered where her double was. This world's version of Valkyrie Cain or Stephanie Edgley or whatever name she went by, had a lot of questions to answer to.
"Look... I'm not who you think I am." Valkyrie said.
"Stephanie, please..." Melissa began, and then stopped as tears began to blossom in the corner of her eyes.
The sight made Valkyrie's heart ache. This isn't my mother, she told herself. This is someone else's mother. Not mine. My mother is fine. That didn't make it any easier to watch as Melissa dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her shirt sleeve.
"I'm sorry. I know it's hard to believe, but I'm not your real daughter. I just look like her."
"That's the sickness playing tricks on you, Steph. It makes you believe that," Desmond said, his voice gentle. "But you are our daughter. My daughter."
Valkyrie shook her head. She realised she wasn't going to be able to convince them. It shouldn't have surprised her really, if another Valkyrie from another dimension had met her parents and tried to convince them that she was from an alternate reality... well, she imagined they'd handle it just as well as these two had. It was probably best she left, before this reality's version of her showed up, she didn't think they'd be able to handle the truth.
She took a deep breath to steady herself, and tried to stand up once more. The seat belt stopped her.
Skulduggery was saying something to her again.
"You didn't come with," she said, cutting him off mid-sentence.
He glanced at her, taking his eyes of the road for just a second. "Valkyrie. You didn't go anywhere."
"I did. I shunted, just a minute ago. You weren't watching."
You didn't shunt. You blacked out.
"Will you, please, shut up for once!" she told Darquesse.
Skulduggery spared her a second glance. She could tell from the tightness of his grip on the steering wheel, that he was worried.
"Where is it you think you shunted to? Describe it for me."
"I don't know. It was this weird place, some kind of hospital for mentally ill people. My parents, and Kenspeckle, and Doctor Synecdoche were there. They said I was...sick. There were others there too Clarabelle, and Tanith, and Melancholia... And I...I..."
She let her voice tail off. It sounded ridiculous when she put it in to words. There were too many holes in her story. She'd shunted before and it had been nothing like this. For a start, when you shunted you disappeared from reality, her parents would have seen her. Skulduggery would have seen her. No, this was more like, well, a fevered dream.
"I imagined it, didn't I?" She said, flatly.
Ding. Ding. Ding . We have a winner . Took you long enough.
Now, Valkyrie felt embarrassed that she could have believed this had been anything other than a result of her fevered brain. It felt more and more obvious the more she thought about it. Fat lot of good her deductive reasoning had done her.
"Sometimes fevers can do funny things to brains." Skulduggery said, kindly.
She bit her lip. "It's just that... it felt so real. As real as this."
"I'm sure it did."
"More real, in a way."
Skulduggery gave her another little glace. "We'll be in Roarhaven in ten minutes. Then we can see if the medical bay has anything that can help you."
She did her best to quell the shadow of a doubt that was starting to creep up on her.
"That was quick," she said.
"I may have run a few dozen red lights on the way."