Chapter Seven

I checked the caller ID for the hundredth time. I knew already that the last time that Will had called me was nearly half an hour ago, but I could not figure out for the life of me why I kept checking the caller ID again and again as though I was expecting him to call back soon.

But he would not be able to call me back soon. He was at work and I was aware that he wouldn't be able to take a break for quite a while. Alice would probably be home before Will was able to call me again.

I had arrived home about an hour ago. After I had applied at the seafood restaurant, I went and applied at several more restaurants in the square. Next, I walked into downtown and applied to a stock clerk position at the main branch of the town's public library. The local art museum was also hiring and I said to myself why not? I applied there for a strange job that I couldn't even remember what it was called. I also applied at a few more restaurants in the general area, another bookstore that was very similar to Antonio's and as a barista at a local coffee shop—I applied for that job because I thought that the job title was cool.

All and all, it had been a pretty successful day. I didn't receive any jobs on the spot but a few of them told me that they would be contacting me as soon as possible about the results of several interviews that was given to me immediately after I had filled out an application for a few of the jobs. The library was really in need of help and I assumed that it would be a given even though I didn't have any previous work experience. The same thing applied to the barista job and of course, all of the restaurants. Restaurants seemed to have a high turnover rate and were always in need of new hires.

Now, I was back at home, waiting on Alice to come home after classes. I had recently hung up the phone with Melody, who checked on me to make sure that everything was all right. I felt bad about skipping out of school today without letting her know, so I invited her to hangout with Alice and me. I knew that Alice wouldn't mind since Melody was becoming more and more like a third sister to the two of us with each passing day. Melody was thrilled to join us and told me that she would be over after she finished her homework, which she thought would take a little over an hour.

I sat on the sofa and stared down at the phone again. I figured out what I was doing. I was stalling, debating if I wanted to give in and call Will at work. I missed him deeply and obviously he was missing me—he had called way too many times throughout the day.

I made a snap decision and dialed Will's cell phone. I couldn't hold off another moment without speaking to him. I was surprised that I had even lasted this long. I've never had great willpower and I usually gave in quickly to something without putting up much of a fight. If I had to wager that if I had gone to school instead of playing hooky today or if I hadn't had any plans in the city, I probably would have gave in and called Will way before now, or I would have at least answered one of his phone calls.

I had to admit that as tough as I tried to be, I really didn't have a mean bone in me. And Will was . . . well, I was madly in love with him and I knew that our love could withstand such a minor problem. It would take a lot more than just one broken promise to derail this love train. But then again, even though it was only one, it would leave a scar for a very long time. Will had wounded me and I needed some time before I could be completely healed.

Will didn't answer his cell phone and I couldn't prevent the storming of thoughts that told me that it was his turn to ignore me now, even though I knew that he was at work. The human mind is a complex thing and there's so much that goes on upstairs that it is very difficult to filter out everything—all of the thoughts, memories, and desires. It was like watching several channels of cable TV at the same time and on the same television set. You can focus on only one channel at a time, yet you can also pay attention to all of the other channels and know exactly what was going on there as well. It was so fascinating how that worked.

Right now, I was thinking about Will being at work, what he was doing, and wondering how quickly he would look at his phone and see that I had called him and then, call me back. At the same exact moment, I was also pondering if I should call him at work as well as what movie Alice and I should watch and what we would be eating for dinner. I was also thinking about a very beautiful woman with fiery red hair that danced around her angelic face like licking flames and gorgeous green eyes that entranced me, drawing me in so that she could hold my attention long enough to address me. She looked as though she had something really important to tell me and her eyes were reeling me in . . . .

Whoa! I snapped out of my temporary stupor. I was confused. What had just happened? It felt like I had blacked out and was dreaming. One moment I was thinking about movies, food and Will, and the next I was staring at a beautiful woman, which made me shudder and feel strangely uncomfortable.

As much as I hated to admit it, I had been attracted to the woman in my vision—for lack of another term to call what I had just seen. Not attracted in the sense that I was with Will because I loved him, but she had intrigued me an awful lot. It had felt as if she had been real and not just a part of my wandering thoughts that were all over the place. It was like she was a real person who was standing in the living room with me.

I looked around feeling slightly paranoid. No one was there of course, but I couldn't suppress the creepy feeling that I was being watched.

I needed to take my mind off of the strange, beautiful woman who I thought was watching me. Will hadn't called me back yet and I found myself dialing his work number.

Someone answered on the third ring but it wasn't my Will. It was one of his co-workers.

"Hello?" The guy answered the phone. "Thanks for calling Avon Courier Service. This is Brad speaking. How may I help you?"

I had hoped that Will would have picked up the phone—he usually did—and I was slightly disappointed. If Will had answered the phone, there would have been no way for him to avoid me—if he was avoiding me now too—unless he was flat out rude and hung up the phone on me. Will would never hang up on me anyways, but I had thought that he would never break a promise with me and look what happened there. Nonetheless, since Brad had answered the phone, Will could simply avoid me by telling Brad that he was currently busy and would call me back later. So, would Will lie to me like that? Stay tuned . . . .

"Hi, Brad," I greeted him. "Is Will Stratford around?"

"Um, I don't think so," Brad replied.

My jaw dropped. "He's not working today?" My heart sunk too. Where was my darling? Was he okay? I was worried now and I felt horrible for eluding him all day.

"Oh, he is," said Brad and I felt mostly relieved. "But he stepped out for a while. He should be back later."

"Did he say where he was going?" I wondered, biting my lower lip. It wasn't like Will to leave work during the middle of a shift. He barely took lunch breaks for crying out loud.

"No," Brad informed me. "He just said that he'll be back and then he left."

Odd. What was Will up to? None of this made sense at all. What had gotten into him lately? All of a sudden he was a very different person, acting very bizarrely. He reminded me of those people from that book series about teenagers who could turn into animals, who were controlled by slug-like aliens who took over their minds.

"Okay, well, I'll just try back later," I told Brad. "Thanks."

I hung up the phone and just sat there staring at nothing for a while. I knew that it was a waste of time but I tried to figure out what was wrong with Will. Before yesterday, he was the Will that I loved with all of my heart. When had this sudden change in behavior taken place and was I present for it the very first time? I tried to remember yesterday and I had no problem recalling every single event that had transpired the day before. When had Will changed? When did he start acting—

And then, I remembered. It was because of the stupid Shakespearean manuscripts that he had wanted me to read. That was when the change had occurred, when I had told him that I had read from one of them. Will had been a little too excited when I had told him about my experience. He had wanted all along for me to read from one of the manuscripts, which had never made sense. What was so important about those documents? I knew that Antonio had never allowed Will to read one of them as a kid so maybe that's why they were so dear to Will. That was why he had wanted me to read one so that I could experience what he never could and then tell him all about it.

But that still didn't explain why Will was acting so weird today. What was he doing? Had he taken an early lunch break or had he just left his job without telling anyone where he was going and how long he would be gone? Had he put his job in jeopardy by walking out? I hoped that he had not done it for me although I didn't think that he did. I couldn't bear it if he had lost his job because of me.

My head started to ache and I slid off of the couch. I walked into the bathroom and found some ibuprofen in the medicine cabinet. I popped a couple of them without anything to wash them down. I then returned the bottle of pills to the shelf from whence they had come and then I closed the cabinet door.

I saw a reflection of a woman standing behind me in the mirror. She had fiery red hair . . . .

I jumped and spun around. The bathroom was empty. I was all alone. Suddenly, I was delusional. Through my headache, I was seeing things and my mind had elected to show me the woman from my vision again. In the flash of a second that I had seen her reflection in the mirror, she had been motioning for me to come towards with a twitching of one of her pointer fingers. She had wanted me to come and listen to what she had to say . . . .

Ding-dong! Ding-dong!

The doorbell chimed twice and I jumped again. Seeing that reflection—or believing that I had seen a reflection behind me—had me on edge now. I left the bathroom and headed back into the living room. Passing the kitchen, I glanced at the time on the microwave and decided that it was too early for Alice to be home unless she had skipped her last class of the day. Assuming it was Melody, although I hadn't expected her so soon either, I peeked through the peephole.

"Who is it?" I called timidly through the door. I was always nervous to answer the door whenever I was home by myself.

"Anne, it's me," came Will's voice the moment that I saw his handsome face. It was distorted as though I was looking at it from inside of a funhouse mirror but handsome just the same.

I was happy to see Will, so happy to see him, but my initial happiness faded away quickly when I realized that he had left work just to see me. He shouldn't have done it. What was he thinking?

As soon as we made up, I was going to chide him for leaving work. He didn't need to get fired because I had been a jerk by eluding him today.

I tore the front door open, nearly almost forgetting to undo the chain. "Will!" I cried and I threw myself into his arms, burying my face into his right shoulder. "I am so sorry! I should not have avoided you all day just because you didn't call me last night. But you broke your promise and I was mad and . . . and I'm sorry, okay?"

Will patted my head several times. "It's okay, Anne," he soothed me and it felt so good to be back into his strong arms once again. An entire day almost was just too much time to be away from something so pretty as my marvelous boyfriend.

I pulled back slowly and he released me. I kissed him at once and he kissed me back, although something didn't feel right about his kiss. It was a nervous kiss as if he was kissing me for the first time again.

When I could no longer bear the strange kiss, I pulled away from him again. I looked at him as he held me out at arm's length, staring away into his eyes. I saw nervousness there as well.

"Will, what's wrong?" I questioned him inquisitively. "Is everything all right?"

Will didn't respond. He just stared back at me, his face stark white.

"What's wrong?" I repeated.

And then, the first of many strange events that would occur in my life from that point forward took place. A man, a man with half a disfigured face and who was dressed like he had popped out of a fantasy book by Tolkien or Paolini, materialized immediately to my right to stand beside Will. One second he wasn't there, invisible to the naked eye, and then the next, he was pulling a strange, liquid clear cloak off. The more of the cloak he pulled off, the more of his body was revealed until he was standing there in the hallway with Will and me, the cloak falling to the floor near his feet.

I gasped in shock and scrambled backwards into the doorframe of my apartment. I was horrified. That was not possible. There was no way that someone could appear out of thin air. I was seeing things again. The man, who I noticed was vaguely familiar looking like I had met him somewhere before, was not real. He was not there at all. He was an apparition, a mirage, and an illusion. It was just Will and I there. There was no one else present.

I closed my eyes and squeezed them shut for a moment, telling myself over and over again that when I opened my eyes again, the man would no longer be there.

I opened my eyes. He was still standing there, smirking. Again, he looked familiar and again, I closed my eyes, blinking. When I looked a third time, the newcomer was still there.

He was real. I knew it then, but, but, but, HOW did he just appear out of nowhere? The cloak had something to do with it but I had never heard of a cloak that can cause people to disappear or reappear. It was unheard of. It was preposterous and yet it had happened.

I was still suffering from shock when the stranger spoke. His voice sounded familiar too but I couldn't quite place where I had heard it before. I knew that it wasn't school because the man was far too old to be in one of my classes.

"So," the man said, drawing out that one word for effect of an introduction. "You're the one who read from the manuscript and caused the relics to become lost?"

I was baffled as much as I was stunned. What was he talking about? I didn't know this guy at all, yet he seemed to know stuff about me. How did he know that I had read from one of the Shakespearean manuscripts—I assumed that he was talking about the manuscripts that Antonio possessed? Had Will told him? And what did he mean by relics? He had said that I had made the relics become lost by reading from a book. What was he talking about? The only relics I knew remotely about were the Seven Relics from my dreams that I had been having . . . .

Oh my God! My mind cried, appalled by the very thought. OH MY GOD! I knew who the man was now and that was impossible just as much as him appearing from invisibility was. The man was Caliban from my dreams about the world of Shakespeare that my subconscious mind had created. Or at least I had thought all along that I had crafted the world from Shakespearean plays but here was Caliban in the flesh, standing before me.

Caliban . . . . I could not believe this. He looked just as he did in my dreams. And as he took a step towards me, I noticed that he walked with the same slight limp.

I gasped again and backed away from him. Will moved forward as if to block Caliban from getting to me. Caliban . . . wait what was I doing referring to the man as Caliban? He may look exactly like Caliban from my dreams, but there was no way that he could be Caliban. Caliban didn't exist. He was a fictional character and nothing more. He was only alive in the play by Shakespeare that was entitled The Tempest and in my head sometimes at night. He was not real, I attempted to convince myself. He was not real.

Anyways, the man who looked like Caliban halted and continue to stare at me as though I was fresh meat.

"So, you are Anne Hathaway," the man made a statement more so than asking me a question. He was trying a different approach, trying to get me to talk. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Anne. I have been waiting for this moment for quite some time now."

"Who are you?" I demanded, finding my voice although it did not sound like my own. I looked at Will and pleaded silently with him to tell me what was going on. I was so bewildered.

"I am Caliban," the man announced proudly and I felt faint all of a sudden. So he was Caliban. How was someone who was in my dreams apart of my reality when he shouldn't have been? I didn't understand it at all. There was no logical explanation for this. "I am leader of the Sycorax and I am here in desperate need of your help, Anne Hathaway."

The word Sycorax made perfect sense to me and my mind immediately processed the meaning of the word with two definitions. The first one was that Sycorax was the name of Caliban's witch mother from The Tempest and the second one was that the Sycorax was also the name of the group of swordsmen who protected the borders of the free lands in the world of Shakespeare. Yeah, it made perfect sense and yet, I couldn't believe that I was hearing the word being spoken by someone other than those who were present in my dreams.

"How do you know my name?" I questioned him. Caliban seemed to enjoy saying my name and I wanted him to stop. It sounded creepy when he said "Anne Hathaway".

"Your boyfriend, Will, and I, we are old friends," Caliban explained and I looked at Will in disbelief. "He has told me so much about you already."

"Will, is this true?" I asked him. "What's going on? Baby, please answer me?"

Will nodded but didn't speak.

"So, this is all true?" I tried to get Will to talk to me like Caliban had tried to get me to talk to him earlier. "You know this man?"

Will walked towards me and I found myself backing away from him too. I was nearly back inside of the apartment now.

"Yes," Will responded, taken aback by me wanting to stay away from him. Sadly, Will being in the company of Caliban was scary and it terrified me. Add that to the fact that I had no earthly idea what was going on and I was petrified. "Yes, I know Caliban." he sighed and took a deep breath. It seemed difficult for him to continue to speak. "Look Anne, there are many things that you don't know about me, things that I haven't told you. And I'm sorry. For the past year, I have hiding behind a mask and now, it is time for me to take the mask off and come clean if you are to accompany me and Caliban."

It took only the blink of an eye for my complex brain to comprehend what Will had just told me. Devastation took over my mind, body, heart, and soul. I felt a hundred times worse than I had felt when I had first woken up this morning. It was like I didn't know Will at all anymore and in fact, I hadn't known him at all. He just admitted it himself that he had been living a lie ever since I had met him. Living a lie . . . .

For an entire year, I was convinced that Will was perfect. Now, I knew that he had been perfect in only one thing. And that was lying. He had been the perfect liar. I had never suspected anything, never wondered if there was much more to him than he had told me about. I still didn't know everything yet, but I felt my heart being ripped into two and then fours and then eights and so forth.

"Accompany you?" I echoed, and I started to sob. The tears poured and I was in so much pain, although I could not feel it physically. "Will, I don't even know you."

Will looked troubled. "Anne . . . ."

"Stay away from me, Will!" I yelled suddenly and it felt like torture. "You stay away from me."

I backed away from Will and Caliban some more, trying to keep enough distance between me and the two of them so that I could be able to close the door in their faces quickly when I was completely inside of my apartment. I didn't want to see Will right now and I didn't want to see Caliban ever.

"Anne," Will tried again softly. He moved towards me and I inched away from him. My back foot was inside of the apartment now. A few more steps and I would be there.

The smirk faded from Caliban's face instantaneously. He saw what I was doing and he was going to stop me.

"Move aside, Will!" Caliban growled and he shoved Will out of his way. "You are coming with me, Anne!"

I panicked and moved backwards quickly. I tripped and stumbled over my own two feet but I didn't fall to the floor. I seized the door with my outstretched hands and I pushed it close. The last thing I saw of Caliban through the narrowing crack was that he was raising his hand—

Ka-booooom!

With the sound of an explosion that shook the room and temporarily deafened my ears, the front door was thrown off of its hinges and I was sent careening through the air and over the sofa, which slowed my decent considerably. I tumbled to the floor and stood up quickly, my head pounding now.

I saw Caliban approaching and Will was on his heels. Will was yelling at him.

"What did you do, Caliban? Really, did you have to blow up the door? You could have killed Anne, you idiot! If she is hurt, then I am going to kill you!"

"She's not hurt," Caliban assured him, pointing at me. I stood there behind the sofa, trying to figure out what to do next. I was trapped. Just like in my dreams, Caliban could perform magic. This was not happening. This was not happening! Since Caliban could do almost anything through magic, there was no way that I could escape in conventional ways. The only way I could would be to utilize magic myself but I couldn't do that. Now that was something that was impossible.

"Okay," Will said, and he seemed relieved when he could see that I was okay. He stepped into the apartment behind Caliban. I looked past them and through the open doorway, expecting someone from the apartment building to come to my aid. Surely, someone had heard that loud explosion that Caliban had created with . . . with . . . and I was still having trouble believing this . . . but with . . . with . . . magic! "Let's talk about this, Caliban."

"What's there to talk about, Will?" Caliban asked him but he had frozen, which was more than I could ask for at the moment. Even though I didn't like Will right about now, I had to silently thank him for giving me more time to think and come up with a plan. "Anne has to come with us. There is no other way! You know that!"

"But we can't force her to!" Will screamed back at Caliban. "What about her own free will? We need to tell Anne what is going on and allow her to make the decision to come with us. We can't just make her! That's kidnapping!"

"I don't want to go anywhere with the two of you!" I spat suddenly. "Just leave me alone!" And I started to cry harder.

"Anne," Will spoke again but Caliban prevented him from saying anything more.

"You see, Will," Caliban was saying. "It would be a waste of time to explain everything to Anne and convince her to come along with us when she won't do it no matter what we tell her. Time is of the essence, my friend. Even while we stand here and debate like some of the pointless meetings of the King's Men, the Dark Lady and her new allies are marching closer and closer to rebellion. The Relics are the only things that can stop them. I am not the enemy and Anne must come with me."

The King's Men and the Dark Lady. Those were also two terms that I knew from my reoccurring dreams. Everything that I had dreamed about was my reality now, which made me question if my dreams had really been dreams or something else.

"But what about the King's Men?" Will wondered. "Why should we take her back to the Sycorax when Prospero and the others can help us?"

"I have my reasons," Caliban replied simply and said nothing more.

Will glared at Caliban. Caliban wasn't paying attention. He was eyeing me hungrily and I almost called him a pedophile.

"Well, your hidden reasons aren't good enough," Will told him. "I think we should tell Anne what is going on."

"No," Caliban growled and he leapt at me so suddenly that I didn't even have time to move out of the way.

Caliban fell upon me like a bird of prey. I was the helpless little rodent that he had ensnared; however, I wasn't defenseless. I kicked and screamed and threw a tantrum to try and shake him off of me. I even bit him on the arm, the only part of his body I could reach as his arms wrapped around my shoulders, enclosing me in a flesh prison.

Caliban shrieked and howled in pain. He hadn't expected me to gnaw on his arm, taking a chunk of skin with me. And it was enough for him to release me.

I ran away immediately while Caliban regained his composure. I headed for the open door, hoping that Will wouldn't try to stop me. If he really cared about me and if he really loved me then he wouldn't stand in my way of a clear exit.

Will cared about me and loved me and it showed. He didn't even flinch as I darted past him. Caliban told him to stop me but Will wouldn't listen. So, Caliban dashed after me. I had scrambled through the doorway and had taken several steps out in the hallway before Caliban had snatched me up and pulled me back into the apartment. Now, if Will cared about me and loved me, he would do something to get Caliban to release me.

"No!" I screamed, trying to make as much noise as possible because my neighbors in the apartment building seemed to be extremely deaf. "No! Let me go! Will, do something!"

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Will coming over to help me but Caliban raised a hand, a gesture I understood to happen whenever someone performed a spell, and Will was magicked away.

Will crashed into the nearest wall and I shrieked in rage and horror. "Will!" I cried, fearing the worse. And I thought that Caliban was his friend. Friends just didn't do stuff like that to friends.

But Will was tougher than he looked. With his pride hurt more than anything, he climbed to his feet and glared at Caliban again. "What was that for?" he demanded.

Caliban didn't answer Will's question. "Let's go," he growled.

Clutching me tightly, Caliban turned to exit the apartment. But the exit was blocked and I couldn't believe how many surprises I was receiving today. It was too much for me and I predicted that I would have a heart attack at any moment now.

A girl was standing in the doorway, a shimmering, ghostly girl. She was the same girl that I had seen at the seafood restaurant earlier, the one who had been sitting at the table with the much older black man. She appeared to be glowing just like before and she stood there staring at the three of us. I couldn't help but to wonder, as I peered at her through my drying tears, what role she would have to play in all of this.

"Leave her alone!" The girl demanded and for a moment I was taken by surprise that she had come in behalf of my defense. "Let her go Caliban, or I will be forced to hex you!"

"Ariel!" Caliban called in mock surprise and introduced the girl to me. I didn't have to think long and hard to recall my expertise of Shakespearean lore. I knew that Ariel was the name of the spirit girl from the same play that Caliban was a character in. "Where is the rest of your friends? Surely, you did not come alone."

"I didn't," Ariel confessed. "I am not alone. Othello and the others are on their way up here. Othello sensed that something was wrong up here when we arrived and he sent me to investigate. But I didn't expect this. What are you doing here, Caliban?"

"The same reason why you are here, I would presume," Caliban told her. "I am here for the girl."

"How did you know about Anne Hathaway and the manuscripts?" Ariel questioned Caliban. I loved how they all talked to each other as if I wasn't even standing there and I hated how they loved to include my last name every time they referred to me.

"I just know," Caliban said. "Now, quit stalling Ariel until your friends get here and move out of my way. I am taking Anne with me back to Shakespeare. I don't need the help of the King's Men to recover the Relics. The Sycorax can do it alone and restore peace and glory to the lands that we protect."

"I can't let you go, Caliban," Ariel informed him. "If you stay here, then the Sycorax and the King's Men can work together to stop the Dark Lady's rebellion. But if you leave right now with Anne and return to Shakespeare, you will be branded as a traitor by the King's Men and things will no longer look so good for you. There is already talk among my colleagues who believe that you have already betrayed us by being in league with the Dark Lady. Do not make everyone believe this to be true. The Sycorax need the King's Men, just as much as the King's Men need the Sycorax."

Caliban raised a hand. One of his arms had a secure hold on me so I couldn't move at all. Now was my chance to escape but Caliban held on to me tightly. He was very strong. My only hope relied on the appearance of Othello, who Ariel had mentioned, and other accompanying members of the King's Men.

"I'm warning you, Ariel," Caliban said in a sinister voice.

Ariel stood her ground. "Do as you wish, Caliban," she said. "You can't hurt me."

"Yeah, I know," Caliban agreed. "But I can distract you."

Caliban fired several hexes at Ariel, who dodged them and put up a magical shield around her already shimmering body. That was enough of a distraction for Caliban. Throwing me over his shoulder, he ran swiftly between a distracted Ariel and a disoriented Will and out of the apartment.

"Put me down!" I screamed, pounding my fists into Caliban's back until I was tired and ceased doing so. Caliban ignored me and ran down the hallway. I could hear Will and Ariel coming after us.

"Help!" I called to anyone who could hear me as we dashed past apartment after apartment. I never thought that a person could run so fast like Caliban was running. We were moving along at such a rapid pace that I was beginning to get dizzy. However, not even the onslaught of vertigo could stop me from yelling, "Help!" continuously.

"Silence!" Caliban cried in annoyance. He looked up at me and waved a hand in my direction and I fell silent immediately after his command. I tried to cry out for help again but I couldn't speak at all. My voice was gone. Caliban had magicked my voice away!

Angrily, I slapped him hard on the back, careful to avoid the quiver of arrows that I had only just noticed. That got his attention and it made him as mad as I was. That wasn't fair of him to steal my voice away anyway.

"If you hit me one more time," Caliban threatened me through gritted teeth. If his voice had sounded like a growl before, it was worse now. It was more like a roar when he spoke like that. "I will hex your arms off, do you understand me?"

I froze. I didn't think that Caliban would go through with his word. After all, he had told Will that I was important and that he needed me because of the Relics—my head was spinning whenever I thought about the Relics and disbelief about the entire ordeal that was taking place so far was just unreal—so I didn't think that he would curse me like that. Nonetheless, Caliban was the type of person who frightened me deeply and I did as he said out of fright and with the knowledge that he could probably jinx my arms off if he wanted to. The way he had fired those spells at Ariel had told me that he was pretty gifted in magical arts.

Listen to me. I'm insane and should be locked up in a padded cell inside of an asylum. I'm talking about curses and spells and magical arts. I didn't understand how my life could turn upside-down all of a sudden. Earlier today, I had skipped school and went to look for a job in the city. Now, that was not normal teenage behavior but still, my life had been pretty normal before Will and Caliban showed up at my apartment. After that, things just got out of control and entered the world of fantasy and insanity.

Caliban was running full speed down the hallway but even then, I could tell that he was heading for the quickest exit, which would be the stairs. He had already passed the elevators. I saw them just now through slightly blurred and hectic vision since I was bobbing up and down on Caliban's shoulder as he ran with me.

At that precise moment, one of the elevators chimed, signaling the opening of its doors. Two people emerged from the elevator and one of them was Antonio from the Merchant's Library.

For a fleeting second, I wondered just what in the blazes was he doing there, but then I put it all together, the pieces fitting together nicely like a puzzle. Antonio was a part of all of this as well and he was from the world of Shakespeare, along with Caliban, Ariel, and Will. Him and Will were old friends and I realized that Antonio was from the play, The Merchant of Venice, as he was a merchant named Antonio. Why hadn't I seen this before? I guess I didn't ever stop to think that there was a freaking world of Shakespeare—and that's me being sarcastic by the way.

Antonio's traveling companion was odd little man who wore a mischievous look on his face, even when he was looking focused and serious as he was when he and Antonio burst from the elevator to peer left and right down the corridor as though they were in search of something or someone—hopefully me. What was strange about the little man was not only his short stature but the fact that he was flying . . . . flying, I said! His little gossamer wings were flapping madly on his back.

I stared at him in wide eyes and when he saw me, he alerted Antonio to Caliban's retreating back. I looked into his face and I just knew that he was a fairy and if I had to guess who he was, I would have to go with Robin Goodfellow, or Puck as he liked to be called. And yes, that was my final answer and I don't need to use any lifelines, except to be saved from Caliban please.

"There she is!" Puck called.

He and Antonio came after us as well. They were several feet ahead of Ariel and Will. Puck was the fastest since he was in the air and he zoomed after us, coming in closer and closer.

"Puck, no!" cried Antonio.

At the last moment, Caliban spun around so quickly that I thought I was going to hurl and I was no longer facing Puck. I heard an eruption of sound that resembled the hiss of a steam engine and then I heard someone cry out in horror and pain, before that person crumpled to the floor. When Caliban turned around again, I could see that Puck was lying on the floor, writhing in pain. Caliban had stunned him from the looks of it.

"Ariel!" Antonio called over his shoulder. "Tend to Puck!"

And he and Will continued to thunder after Caliban and I, while Ariel, who was looking livid, stopped to see if Puck would be okay.

"Caliban!" Antonio called. "Give it up! You have been caught! Release her!"

"Never will the King's Men claim the glory of my people!" Caliban retorted.

I heard the sound of an explosion suddenly behind me that made me cover my ears. Then, Caliban was running down a flight of stairs, sometimes taking two or three steps at a time, and all of the bouncing around was really making me nauseated. I swallowed a small amount of vomit and prayed that no more would come up again. I didn't want to throw up at all, or throw up on Caliban, who I didn't think would be very appreciative if I threw up on his cloak.

Speaking of cloaks, the fool Caliban had left the one that helped him achieve invisibility upstairs outside of my apartment. Stupid git! I was grateful that he didn't have the cloak with him because it would have helped him to elude the King's Men and Will easily. I did not wish to go anywhere with Caliban, especially alone.

We ran down several floors. Above us and slightly behind us, Antonio started firing jinxes our way that bounced off of the walls all around us. If I could have screamed I would have. What was Antonio doing? He was supposed be trying to rescue me, not injure me with spells, even if he was trying his best to slow Caliban down.

Every now and then, Caliban would retaliate with a few offensive counter attacks of his own. Like with Antonio's spells, Caliban's too missed their mark, sailing over the heads of Antonio and Will or around their hurrying bodies.

"Anne, hang in there!" Will called down to me and his words brought a sense of comfort, even though I was angry with him for lying to me for the past year. I couldn't believe that he never told me the truth. I still loved him despite his deception but I didn't know what would happen next. We could never be together anymore. Maybe in the future, he would have a second place in my heart, but that would be only after I had forgiven him and I gotten to know the real Will and survive this bizarre encounter, of course. The Will Stratford that I had thought I knew for the past year was nothing but a persona. Will had been hidden behind a mask the entire time, just like the Dark Lady . . . .

At the bottom of the staircase, when we had reached the first floor, I heard another explosion behind me and I knew that Caliban had blown the exit door off of its hinges.

We stepped through the doorway and slowly Caliban came to a halt. What was going on? I tried to hang upside down a little more and peer through the small space between Caliban's free arm and his torso. But I couldn't quite . . . make . . . it . . . .

Blind to what was happening, I heard the ching! of a sword being drawn from a scabbard, the metallic sound echoing throughout the hall.

"This ends here, Caliban!" I heard a girl speak. She sounded young but confident. I could not hear any nerves in her voice, which was pretty considerable since she was facing off against someone like Caliban. "Release her or suffer the wrath of the King's Men!"

Caliban laughed and his laugh echoed throughout the hall as well. "Foolish girl!" he said. "Lower your weapon; I am not your enemy."

"Then, why are you trying to kidnap her?" The girl wanted to know. "If you are not our enemy, then release her!"

Caliban raised his free hand—I could feel his shoulders shift. I waited and listened.

"Move aside!" Caliban commanded the girl. "Don't make me stun you!"

And then, several things took place in sequence that confused me so much that I didn't know what had happened.

Out of nowhere, an unseen force pried me easily out of Caliban's arms because the girl who I couldn't see had distracted him. Caliban cried out in outrage and started firing stunning spells at random. The unseen force carried me over to where the girl was standing. I was placed down against the wall and I had to duck to avoid one of Caliban's bouncing spells.

Then, he stopped shooting jinxes altogether because he was trapped now. The girl and I stood before him, blocking the main exit from the building as Antonio and Will came running up behind Caliban from the stairs.

"Show yourself!" Caliban was crying, gazing at the spot that was immediately to my left.

My savior emerged then from Caliban's nifty little cloak and the sudden appearance didn't startle me as much as it had did upstairs. It was the man from the seafood restaurant who had been waiting with Ariel for Antonio to come and eat lunch. He had to be Othello. Ariel had mentioned him earlier.

"Interesting cloak you own there, Caliban," Othello said by way of introduction. "You shouldn't leave something like that lying around. It could fall into the wrong hands and I'm pretty certain that someone like the Dark Lady, per se, could find it highly valuable and put it to good use."

"Thanks for finding my cloak for me, Othello," Caliban said sardonically. "I really appreciate you taking care of my belongings for me."

Othello didn't hesitate afterwards. He dove right into interrogating Caliban.

"What are you doing here, Caliban?"

Caliban pointed at me. "I'm here for the girl. She is going to help me recover the lost Relics. What are you doing here?"

"Official King's Men business," Othello replied simply. "The Sycorax has no business here."

Caliban chuckled. "Well, the same could be said about the King's Men."

Othello smiled. "But the Sycorax has no jurisdiction here."

"Neither does the King's Men," Caliban retorted.

"Oh, yes, we do," Othello told him with confidence. He snapped a finger and a rolled up slip of parchment appeared in his hands. Othello walked towards Caliban and held out the document. "By official order of Kings Henry and Duncan, the King's Men is authorized to search for Anne Hathaway. This was granted to us after a request from Prospero."

Caliban took the document from Othello and looked it over once. His scarred face was seared by anger. He handed the document back to Othello with contempt.

"I see that Claudius's signature and seal is not on there," Caliban observed. "May I ask why?"

Othello looked stumped. "I do not know why King Claudius did not sign the order; nonetheless, there are two Golden Kings' signatures and seals, which is a majority, and authorizes the King's Men to transport Anne Hathaway to Shakespeare."

That struck a nerve with me. I was so ticked off suddenly that I was shaking. Maybe it had to do with the adrenaline that was pumping from the excitement of the adventure that I was on. Maybe it had to do with the fact that I didn't like everyone talking about me like I wasn't even there. Both parties—Caliban and Will, I guess, against the members of the King's Men—kept conversing as if I didn't have a choice in the matter, even though some of the King's Men told Caliban that I did have a choice. Well, they weren't acting like it, especially Othello with his official decree.

"What if I don't want to go with any of you?!" I yelled in fury. "What if I don't care about the Relics? What if I want to stay here and continue to live a normal life?"

Everyone looked at me and stood there stunned as if I had cast a gigantic stunning spell that had struck all of them at the same time. I spun around and ran from the hall and out of the front door. No one tried to stop me, which I thought was very weird, although Will called weakly after me. But I didn't stop. I kept running, and I didn't halt for a very long time, tears streaking my face.

------------------------------------------------

It didn't take Will very long to find me and I knew that it wouldn't—he knew me too well.

I sat in my favorite spot—the school's clock tower—and cried my eyes out for a while. I had lost track of time and the sun was already beginning to set in the evening sky. I wondered momentarily about Alice and if she was home yet. If so, then she wouldn't find me there and she would start panicking. I didn't have my cell phone with me so she wouldn't be able to reach me. Melody was probably at the apartment by now too and she would be helping Alice try to find me. Alice would really freak out when she saw that the living room was a mess and that our front door had been destroyed.

A lot of thoughts crossed my mind while I sat there and waited for Will to find me. I thought about how topsy-turvy my life had become today. I thought about Caliban and how angry he had made me by his feeble attempt to kidnap me. I thought about Othello and the King's Men and how even though they had rescued me from Caliban's clutches, I was ungrateful. I thought about Will and how he had lied to me for an entire year.

But most of all, I thought about how bizarre this all was. I had read nearly all of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets. As a kid, I used to pretend that I was Juliet or Rosalind. I had watched many movies and many more plays that were based on the works of my favorite writer of all time. I even had dreams at night about the characters from those plays. But never, never, never, in a million years, would I have imagined that these characters were real.

So that meant that my dreams hadn't really been dreams. I don't know what they were but they weren't just dreams. Everyone in my dreams was real people, from Caliban to Tybalt, King Claudius to the Dark Lady. They all were real and they all lived in a world that was called Shakespeare, ironically enough.

My head was spinning. This was crazy, but yet it wasn't. It was impossible but yet somehow I had known all along that it was possible.

I could hear Will coming but I didn't budge from the spot I was sitting in. I could hear him climbing up into the tower but I didn't care. I would tell him to leave me alone, of course, but I would at least give him false hope by allowing him to make it all the way into the upper area of the tower. That would be payback for lying to me.

Will entered and I didn't even look up at him. He walked over to me. "There you are, Anne," he said, sounding genuinely relieved. "I thought that you might come here."

"Go away, Will," I said to him like he was an annoying younger sibling.

But Will kept walking towards me as if I hadn't said anything at all. I was getting furious again. Crying had tired me tremendously but I still retained enough energy to get mad.

Will sat down on the floor next to me and tried to wrap an arm around me but I shoved him away. He tried again and I growled this time when I pushed him away. Will took the hint and he didn't try to comfort me that way again. Instead, he sat there and all was silent for a while.

"I'm sorry, Anne," Will spoke into the silence without warning. "I am terribly sorry. I know that I lied to you but—"

"I don't care why you did it," I said to him, cutting him off. I didn't want to hear anymore. If Will knew what was best for him, he would leave me alone right now. "You lied to me, Will, and if I were you, I would go away."

"Anne," Will pleaded. He was so persistent, which was one of the attributes that I had liked about him during our relationship. Perhaps that hadn't been a lie but maybe it had. I didn't know because I didn't know Will at all. "I did it to protect you. And I didn't want you to find out this way."

I finally looked at him. He was so handsome and I took a quick trip back down memory lane to the first time that I had ever laid eyes on his pretty face. Staring at him now was like meeting him for the first time all over again and I was beginning to fall in love with him a second time. But no, I must not do that. I had to stay strong, which wasn't one of my best traits but it would be from here on out. Will had deceived me and we could no longer be together because of it.

"Trust me", he had said throughout our relationship. Each and every time he said those words, I felt like I could honestly trust him. But it turned out that I couldn't trust him at all. For the boy I had thought could never lie, he had been a master at such an art. No wonder Will and Caliban had been friends as well. Both of them were slippery and deceptive.

"Well, it's too late for that now, isn't it?" I asked him rhetorically.

"I'm sorry," Will repeated. "I didn't think . . . I didn't think that you would believe me. Before today, all of this would have seemed so unreal to you. You never would have dated me if you knew that I was from a different world."

I looked away from him. He was right and that was something that through my anger, I hadn't considered. What if Will had been honest with me from the beginning? What if he had told me all about him? Would I have thought that he was crazy? Would his physical attractiveness been enough for me to overlook the wild and insane stories that he would have told me just to be with him?

I didn't think so. I wouldn't have believed him and I probably would have never wanted to see him again. But I wouldn't tell Will that. I didn't want to show any chance that we could remain a couple after all of this. I could have forgiven him about missing one phone call, but I could not forgive him yet for a year of lies. Call me cruel but he had to suffer just as much as I was suffering right now. If we were meant to be together, then this trial would come to pass and we would be together; however, I just couldn't see that happening, especially at the moment.

"You don't know that," I told him. "You could have proven it to me. I'm sure like Caliban and the rest of your friends that came to visit me, you can perform magic as well."

Those words sounded so weird springing forth from my mouth; so foreign. Too much had taken place today and because of it, I found myself speaking so naturally about topics such as magic.

I didn't want to think about it much but I was now apart of the fantasy world that Will belonged to. By reading from the glowing manuscript of Henry IV, I was now somehow tied to the Seven Relics of which I knew nothing about except what had been revealed in my dreams. I didn't want to tell Will about the dreams that I had been having but I did realize something then—Will was the reason why I had known about the special manuscripts in the first place. He had been the one that had wanted to provoke me into reading them.

I rounded on him and slid across the floor away from him as though he was something vile—he had been sitting way too close anyways.

"This is all your fault!" I accused him before he could comment about my last statement.

"What are you talking about?" Will asked, baffled. He looked injured too and I didn't think that he liked it that I had moved away from him.

"You wanted me to read those manuscripts!" I cried. "You've always wanted me to read from the manuscripts! This was your intention all along, wasn't it? You came from the world of Shakespeare and found some poor, unsuspecting girl like myself, pretended to fall in love with her, all so she could read the manuscripts and become important in recovering those stupid Relics. You wanted someone else to do all of your dirty work for you, didn't you? You wanted all the glory of finding such precious artifacts and you were going to use me to help you."

Will shook his head. "No, you've got it all wrong," he said. "That wasn't the plan at all?"

I wasn't convinced but yet I asked, "Well then, what was the plan?"

Will opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. He hesitated, his mouth hanging open. Then, he closed his mouth, looked at me, and then looked away quickly.

"What's wrong?" I asked him in a biting, mocking tone of voice. It was so unlike me to act this way but I was extremely furious at Will right now. He was glad that I didn't punch his lights out. I was so mad that I could strike him. "Can't think of a good lie to tell this time?"

"I—I," Will stuttered. "I can't tell you why I wanted you to read from the manuscripts. It's—it's too complicated."

Will was hiding something from me and he was still lying to me. I couldn't believe it. He was an idiot. Why was it so hard for him to tell me the truth?

"Are you still trying to protect me?" I asked him. "Why are you continuing to lie to me even now when I am aware of things that I wasn't aware of before?"

"It doesn't matter," Will said. "I didn't know that one of the manuscripts was tied to the Relics. That was not the reason why I wanted you to read them. You have to believe me, Anne. Trust me, I am telling the truth. I didn't know."

I scoffed. "You expect me to believe you after a year's worth of lies. I don't think so. You didn't tell me the truth when you needed to. Why start now?"

"Because I don't wanna lose you!" Will exclaimed and he really started to show emotion then. He voice had raised an octave and had gotten louder by several decibels. He was frowning now, no longer trying to comfort me but intent on doing whatever it took to prevent me from saying the one line that I needed to say before the night was over. There was no Will and I anymore. "I love you, Anne. I truly do and even though we are young, I can say that with the utmost sincerity."

I scoffed again. "That could be another one of your lies."

Will was angry; I had finally succeeded in making him mad as well. Good. He could wallow in anger like I was currently doing and he could know what it felt like.

"You want the truth?" He questioned me and I shrugged casually as if I was bored with the conversation. "Okay then," Will took my shrug for a yes. "Let's start over." He held out his hand. He was close enough again that I could at least touch his hand but not close enough to smother me and make me feel guilty for the way that I was treating him. He deserved it, just as he had deserved me ignoring his phone calls after he had failed to call me last night even though I had waited up for him for hours. "My name is Will Stratford. It's nice to meet you, Anne."

I shoved his hand away too. "Very funny, smart aleck," I said in outrage.

"I am not trying to be funny," Will said and he was dead serious. "I want you to know the truth about me."

"Will, don't . . . ." I warned him but it was too late. He erupted into an entire spill about himself and I gave him some pleasure by listening. But I knew in my heart that after his story was over, it wouldn't change anything. He was 365 days too late.

"As I said, my name is Will Stratford. My name was at least one of the few truths that I had told you. I was born in the kingdom of England in the world of Shakespeare. England is one of the largest countries in Shakespeare, considering it is ruled by a Golden King and is one of the Three Thrones. There are three Golden Kings and they are called that because they rule the only three kingdoms that are present in Shakespeare, and those kingdoms are nicknamed the Three Thrones. In addition to England, Scotland and Denmark are the other two kingdoms.

"England is also one of the wealthiest states in all of Shakespeare. But not all of the citizens of England were rich. My family was among one of the poorest families. We were peasants who farmed the lands and made our money mostly through mercantilism after my father lost a fortune. My parents named me William after the founder of our world himself, William Shakespeare. My mother used to tell me when I was a small boy that she had visited a fortune teller prior to my birth and the fortune teller had told her that I was destined for great things, so my parents had also chosen the name William because such a name was profound in our society. And if I was really destined for great things, then they wanted my name to be profound as well and who better to name me after than the great William Shakespeare.

"For eight years, my family lived happily on our farm. We didn't have much money but we had enough to survive. Some of the happiest days of my life, in addition to spending time with you, of course, were days when I got to run around the farm and chase the chickens or ride the horses. Most of those memories still stand out inside of my head, as vivid as ever. I cherish those happy times because over the next few years, things weren't quite so happy for my family and I.

"My father passed away two weeks after my eighth birthday. Each year, he traveled with a family friend to the markets in a few of the free lands, such as Venice and Morocco, to trade our farm goods with buyers or even sell them to consumers. That year, when he was on his way back, bandits attacked his caravan and my father was murdered. The Sycorax had been too late in saving him."

Will paused and he looked on the verge of tears as he recalled this painful memory. He had never spoken of his family to me before and I never knew that his father had died. I had always thought, always imagined that they were alive and well and living here in our town with Will, but I never knew. I had never known the truth. Will had deliberately kept it from me.

That last thought drove the one that I had before it out of my mind. I wanted to comfort Will after hearing about his father and I was tempted to forget that I wanted to break up with him. He was so charming even when he didn't try to be and I had to resist his charm if I was to carry through with my plans, plans that I thought I was so resolute about, yet I kept wavering, unsure if this would be the right move or not for me.

"With my father gone, mother and I quickly lost the farm lands that we owned because we weren't able to work the lands like he could. I was too young and I wasn't strong enough and my mom was weak and sickly and heartbroken at my father's death. She wasn't the same after my father died. She stayed inside a lot and I was left to take trips to the market to buy food for us and I was only a child.

"We lost the farm within a year and we were forced to move in with some of my mom's relatives. Her sister and her husband had a big family, seven children, and it did my mother and me some good to live with them. I had fun playing with my cousins and mother started coming outdoors again and she was happier than I had seen her in a long time.

"But no matter how happy we were there, the untimely death of my father still haunted us. Mom wanted justice and for his killer to be caught. And I just wanted to be stronger than my father, strong enough to protect myself from my father's fate. I constantly told my mother and all who would hear that one day I would join the King's Men when I was ready to. I had met some of them as a boy, including Antonio who was a close friend of my uncle's, and I wanted to learn how to fight and perform magic like they could. I wanted to be strong.

"Then, something unexpected happened. When I was ten years old, I was discovered by Caliban, who was the leader of the swordsmen known as the Sycorax, as you now know. Caliban was interested in recruiting me to join the Sycorax at such a young age, where as with the King's Men, I would have had to wait until I was at least fifteen or sixteen years of age. I was impatient. I was impulsive and I left my family to join the Sycorax."

Will fell silent for a moment. I had never seen this side of him before and it was like I was getting to know him all over again. It was too soon though. Will had done me wrong and it was too soon for me to start falling in love with him all over again. I couldn't . . . Not after what he did. My mind was telling me yes, but my heart was telling me no. I had always heard that people should follow their hearts when making important decisions and that was what I intended to do—follow my heart.

"Over the course of the next few years, up until this point in my life, I rarely saw my mother. I left our new home in England and traveled throughout the free lands, including an unnamed island where Caliban claimed that he came from, training with the Sycorax and learning all that I could from Caliban, who was my master. I entered the Sycorax as a novice, the lowest ranking, and I got to train alongside many people who were older than me. Caliban even boasted that I was the youngest member of the Sycorax ever, which boosted my ego. I had many friends. Hamlet and Romeo were my closest friends and I encouraged them to join the Sycorax as well on a regular basis but to no avail."

I thought about something then. I was definitely interested in Will's story, there was no way that I could lie about that. But I had to feign a disinterest for my sake because I didn't want him finally telling me the truth to be the deciding factor in whether or not I broke up with him. Nonetheless, I couldn't stop myself from asking him a question that I was suddenly dying to know the answer to.

"Is that why you were so good at portraying Hamlet in the school play last year?" I wondered. "Because you knew him?"

Will nodded and smiled. "Yes, that was why."

"Are you sure you had never read the play before?"

Will nodded again. "I am positive," he answered. "What you call plays that were written by Shakespeare, are actual manuscripts that many people in my world hold sacred. Only a few people have ever read from them since the times of Shakespeare and many believe that the purpose of the manuscripts were to predict the future of a generation to come and the fate of the world of Shakespeare. We have reached the generation that Shakespeare had wrote about centuries ago, as you know that we have stories about Hamlet, of course, as well as Othello, who you just met, and even Caliban. Many of my friends or associates are aware that tales have been written about them and most of them try to stay away from the manuscripts because of the sudden overwhelming urge to read their futures that they feel whenever they are in the presence of one of manuscripts. That was why Antonio brought them to the human world."

I considered what he had just told me for a moment. The manuscripts were fascinating subject to discuss.

"So, the plays—I mean, manuscripts—that I have grew up reading and have come to love, will come to pass in the world of Shakespeare soon?" I questioned Will. I couldn't imagine the real Othello murdering Desdemona and taking his own life after being deceived by Iago. He had seemed too wise to be connived by someone, too perceptive. I couldn't imagine Antonio becoming mixed up in a trial against Shylock with a pound of flesh being involved when Antonio was living in my world.

Will shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. No one is completely sure. Caliban believes that they will come true if we don't recover the Relics—that was what he had used to convince me to come with him and take you back to the world of Shakespeare, something that I was completely against—but Prospero doesn't think that the manuscripts will come true. He says that everyone is in charge of his or her own destiny and because we have choices, the manuscripts cannot accurately predict the future, even if they were written by Shakespeare."

I agreed with Prospero. Everyone was in charge of his or her own destiny. I was in charge of my own destiny, which meant that Caliban nor Will nor Othello nor anyone else could force me to go to the world of Shakespeare. I was in charge of my own destiny and I would go with them only if I wanted to.

"Then, why did you want me to read from the manuscripts?" I asked him, thinking about that suddenly. "It doesn't make sense. If you wanted to know the futures of certain people I could have told you, as I am an expert in Shakespeare. You know that."

"I can't tell you why I wanted you to read from the manuscripts," Will said after a brief hesitation, which made me instantly furious with him once more.

"Get out of here!" I yelled suddenly. "Leave me alone! If you can't tell me the truth then . . . ." My lips were trembling as I yelled. " . . . . Then go away!"

"Anne," Will began softly. "There are some things that I just can't tell you yet. Please, just—"

"What made you come to my world, Will?" I cut him off and asked him to catch him off guard.

Will sighed. "I can't," he said sadly. "I can't tell you that either. It is all connected. Why I'm here and why I wanted you read from the manuscripts."

I didn't say anything for a long time as I tried to figure it all out and come up with the truth that Will was denying me. I couldn't come up with the truth though. The only thing I had to go by was what Will had just told me. The reason why he was here was connected to why he wanted me to read from the sacred manuscripts.

"You knew that one of the manuscripts were tied to the Relics!" I screamed at him, accusing him again. "Tell me the truth Will! Please . . . ."

"I did not know," Will said. "And that is the truth, Anne, I promise."

My lips continued to tremble and an explosion of words sprang out of me. "Well, I guess that we are done," I told Will. I was crying again. Here comes the part that I wished I could have avoided. Here come the words that I wished I couldn't say but needed to say nonetheless. "For a year, you lied to me Will. And I feel like I don't even know you, so I think that it is best . . . I think that we should not see each other anymore."

I was surprised at how easily I was able to say that. Raging emotions were sometimes a brilliant catalyst.

Will hung his head for a second and then, he looked into my tear-filled face, with a pleading look. Tears of his own started to fall slowly. He had said that he wanted to be strong, yet he wasn't strong enough to not cry when I broke up with him.

"Anne, you don't mean that," he tried to convince me, tried to tell me what I didn't mean. But he was wrong. I was in charge of my own destiny. I was faced with a choice and I choose the best one rationally.

I nodded. "Yes, I do mean just that. We are done, Will. I can't be with someone who constantly tells me to trust him but then he constantly tells me lies. I'm sorry but we are finished so please leave me alone. I have nothing more to say to you right now."

"Anne . . . ."

"GO! Damn it, Will, just go!"

Silence. I could hear my ragged breathing and small sobs. I couldn't hear Will at all. He was deathly still, terribly stunned, I was sure, at my stinging words and at our breakup. He didn't move a muscle for a few minutes. I nearly yelled at him to leave again but I was crying way too hard.

Then, slowly, Will climbed to his feet. I looked up at him. He wiped the tears from his face and didn't say a word as he turned and walked away, heading to climb down the clock tower.

Will left me alone and I remained sitting there for at least an hour straight, balling my eyes out. I tried to be tough but breaking up with the best boyfriend that I had ever had was difficult and it hurt worse than him lying to me.

My heart was broken and that was only simply put. It was broken so that it would take a lot of time before it was mended ever again.

Darkness swallowed me up whole inside of the clock tower and I allowed it to claim me. Path lamps were on outside in the schoolyard but they didn't provide too much light in the clock tower, which was fine by me. I welcomed the darkness. The shadows that danced along the wall were perfect reflections of how I was feeling.

I stopped crying when my tear ducts could no longer create tears. Alice was going to murder me when I got home. It was late, not too late, but I didn't have my watch with me to tell what time it was and I couldn't see the giant clock face of the clock tower because I was inside of it. When I got home, I would explain to her what had happened between Will and I only—and not about the rest of my strange day—and she would ground me. I would accept my punishment without argument. Alice would be disappointed that I missed sibling night but I would make it up to her and Melody, who I had invited out tonight as well.

I made the conscious decision then. I was not going to the world of Shakespeare. I was not going with Othello and the King's Men and I was definitely not going with either Will or Caliban. I did not care about the Seven Relics. If the King's Men and the Sycorax were true warriors, then they should be able to defeat the Dark Lady and her followers without the aid of magical artifacts.

It was time to go home. I was still surprised that no one had come after me when I had run away except for Will. Maybe they were all still gathered outside of my apartment awaiting my return. I wondered if I would be able to make it home at all.

I stood up and stretched. It felt so good to stretch my legs after I had been sitting down for so long. I yawned—crying always made me so sleepy—and peered at the exit through the gloom that surrounded me.

I was startled by what I saw standing there in the doorway. At first, all I could see was flaming red hair and then I could see the beautiful face of the woman I had seen at my apartment before Will and Caliban had showed up.

She was motioning for me to follow her and I was immediately captivated and intrigued. It was like she had me under an enchantment, manipulating my mind to her will. What was this strange attraction that I felt? Who was this woman and what did she want? After the day that I had, I knew that she was just as real as the Shakespearean characters were.

After motioning for me to come with her, she descended from the apex of the clock tower. I followed her like a dog on a leash, no longer concerned with going home to face the wrath of my sister. Matter of fact, I wasn't concerned about anything at the moment except for following this mystical and perplexing woman and learning what she wanted with me.

She had disappeared by the time I had climbed down the broken stairs. I stepped through the exit and was out in the courtyard of the school. The pale moonlight washed over me and washed away the darkness that had haunted me inside of my safe haven, my fortress of solitude. I saw the woman up ahead. She was standing in the center of the courtyard, staring at me. She seemed to float there, hovering in mid-air and I stared back at her.

Then, she spoke.

"Come, my child," she said to me. "We have much to discuss."

I complied with her offer without thinking. I walked towards the stranger, attracted to her like metal to magnet. I never hesitated, never stopped to think what I was doing. With her, I wasn't in charge of my own destiny and I didn't have any other choice but to go to her. My free will had been snatched from me and I didn't know how. I didn't see the woman perform a spell on me or anything like that. I had seen enough about magic from Caliban's botched kidnapping to know that most spells required a rising of a hand and the woman hadn't raised her hand had she?

I wasn't sure and to be honest with you, I really didn't care. My primary focus was complying with the woman's command.

Then, when I was close enough to her, she spoke again.

"I have beckoned you to me, my dear child, because you are to accompany me to see my sister. She has a . . . a friend who requires your help. He cannot leave his home due to certain circumstances, but my sister shall take you to him so that he can speak to you directly."

"Of course," I said without actually thinking the words.

The woman smiled. She had a very dazzling smile.

"Who are you?" I asked her, blown away by her smile. I was surprised because I had actually thought of those words before I spoke.

"That is irrelevant," the woman said as though she was trying to convince me otherwise. "Just know that I am a friend."

I nodded in concordance.

"Anne!" Someone cried suddenly, shattering the connection that the woman had with me. I looked around to see who had called me and the woman was staring over my shoulder looking livid.

SWOOOSH!

An arrow flew over my head, so close to my hair that I could feel the breeze radiating from it as it passed. The arrow was aimed straight at the chest of the red-haired woman; however, it failed to reach its destination, thwarted by an invisible shield.

The woman no longer looked beautiful. Now, she looked menacing and perhaps evil.

Angered, the woman unleashed a frenzy of attack spells. Jets of violent light zipped past me, from crimson red to mercurial silver. Panicking, I hit the deck, not wishing to be struck by a jinx, all the while muttering in the grass, "Not again!" I had enough of magical combat for one day.

"Anne!" Someone called again. It was a male's voice but it sounded small and slightly squeaky. I didn't raise my head to see who had yelled my name. If I was going to be hit by a curse, then I didn't want to see it coming. If I were to die, I would die blindly. It would almost be like dying in my sleep peacefully.

"Back you hag!" Another voice screamed and I nearly perked up. That voice sounded familiar like the girl's who had boldly stood up to Caliban before Othello had rescued me.

"This does not concern the King's Men!" The woman retorted. "This is between my sister and Anne Hathaway!"

She knew my name too. How did she know my name? What was going on? Had the beautiful woman come to take me to Shakespeare to find the Seven Relics as well? Maybe the Relics were really important to the future of Shakespeare—everyone seemed to really want to recover them again.

"You will not claim her witch!" The girl whose voice was familiar shot back. "Anne Hathaway will not be subjugated to your wicked deception!"

The pretty woman screamed suddenly in outrage, a high and piercing shriek that could most definitely shatter glass. I covered my ears and then, the sound disappeared altogether.

I remained where I was and waited. I didn't know if it was safe to lift my head. Then, without warning, as I uncovered my ears, I received a tap on my shoulder. I jumped and someone chuckled.

"Puck, don't laugh," the familiar girl's voice chided the fairy. "It's not funny. You startled her."

I looked up finally into the faces of Puck and his female companion. Puck was returning his bow to a sheath on his back. He was grinning, his cheeks rosy, while his companion was looking concerned.

"Anne Hathaway? Are you okay?" The girl asked me.

"Yeah," I replied, looking around. No one else was there. The three of us were alone in the school's courtyard. "Is she—" I started to ask.

The girl nodded. "Yes, she is gone. I think that we scared her off."

The girl held out a hand then and I took it. She helped me up to my feet and I stared at her.

"You were at my apartment complex?" I asked more so than made a statement.

The girl nodded. "Yes, I was," she told me. "The name is Rosalind by the way," she introduced herself. So, she was Rosalind . . . . Rosalind had always been one of my favorite Shakespearean heroines and I was actually honored to meet her. She pointed at Puck. "And this silly fellow is named—"

"—Puck," I said and the two of them looked at me confused. "Will told me," I quickly added the lie before changing the subject. "Who was that woman?" I asked them because they seemed to have made acquaintances with her before. "She was very . . . alluring, to say the least."

"That was Lachesis," Rosalind informed me with disgust clearly present in her voice.

"Lachesis?" I echoed and I knew enough about Greek Mythology to know that Lachesis was one of the Moirae, or the Three Fates. "As in Lachesis from Greek Mythology?"

Rosalind and Puck looked more confused now than when I had known Puck's name prior to a formal introduction.

"Greek Mythology?" Rosalind said.

"Yeah, Greek Mythology," I repeated as if it should have been obvious. But then, again, I had forgotten that Puck and Rosalind weren't from around here. "The former Pagan and polytheistic religion of Ancient Greece."

"Greece?" Puck said, cottoning on. "The military-led city-state within the free lands of Shakespeare?"

I was dumbfounded. I had no idea what he was talking about but I nodded my head anyways. "Yeah, exactly," I said. "Well, in Greek Mythology, Lachesis is said to decide how long each person on Earth is allowed to live by measuring the thread of life with her rod. She also had powers of persuasion and can choose a person's destiny after the thread of life is measured."

"Well, I don't know anything about Greek Mythology," Rosalind said. "But this Lachesis you speak of sounds similar to the woman you just met as far as being manipulative and controlling the fates of women and men. Lachesis is one of the Three Witches, three demi-goddesses who serve the goddess and sorceress, Hecate."

I nodded in comprehension. I knew much about Hecate and the Three Witches because they were prominent figures from Shakespeare's play entitled Macbeth.

"What did she want with me?" I wondered aloud, not really asking Puck or Rosalind because I assumed that they wouldn't be able to tell me the answer anyways. "Did she want me to help her and her sister"—I remembered then that Lachesis had mentioned something about a sister—"recover the lost Relics too?"

Puck was willing to try and answer the question for me. He bowed low and then quickly straightened up the moment that Rosalind and I started snickering at him. It amazed me how in sync Rosalind and I was and how well we got along even though we didn't know each other yet. I guess I had always liked Rosalind's character because she was really the only one who I could relate to, although Beatrice was probably a close second. When it came to displaying emotions, I was a very complex individual, just like Rosalind. I also admired Rosalind for her boldness and imagination and the genuine love that she feels for Orlando, the love she had been waiting on her entire life. And Will had had been the final piece that I had been missing for a long time. He was the Orlando to my Rosalind but that was no more.

I felt a pang of hurt and regret in my heart but I ignored it. I was well aware of what I had gotten myself into before I had gotten myself into it. I knew that it was going to hurt and that there would be some regret, but I had to ignore those emotions and stay strong. Whenever I felt this way in the future, I would remember that Will had lied to me and it would be enough to pacify those feelings that I didn't want present in me at all. I was aware that those feelings would remain there like a dark cloud for a very long time because I was human and it was in my very nature. I wished that wasn't so but it was and I would have to live with it.

"No, she didn't," Puck replied after the snickers subsided. "She more than likely wanted you for other reasons."

"That's right," Rosalind agreed. "The Three Witches do not care about the Seven Relics. They only care about meddling in the affairs of others." She then cocked her head in thought—I sometimes did that when I was thinking hard about something. "But I have to wonder why would they be interested in you, Anne Hathaway. Forgive me, for I do not mean this in a bad way, but you are human and do not know much about our world."

I wished what she said was true but I knew far more about the world of Shakespeare than Rosalind could ever imagine, and I had never been there before. And if I had my way, I would never go there.

"No offense taken," I assured Rosalind with a smile. How could I be mean and disrespect my idol anyways? "But I'm glad that you two were here," I added, speaking proudly of Rosalind and Puck. Puck beamed. "For a second there, she almost got me to come with her."

Puck grinned. "You think that Othello and Antonio would take the chance to leave you unintended now that you know that you are to help us with the Relics?" he asked rhetorically and my insides groaned. I was so sick and tired of hearing about the stupid Relics. "He had Rosalind and I follow you here to keep an eye on you until you decided to return to us. But we didn't count on Lachesis showing her ugly face around here."

Ugly? My mind echoed. Even though Lachesis was not exactly a good person, I still thought that she was pretty.

"Othello is really interested in you, Anne Hathaway," Puck added.

"Please just call me, Anne," I told both of them, growing weary with the whole first and last name thing as well. "And why is Othello so interested in me?" I wondered. "Is it because I read from a manuscript that connects me to the Seven Relics, which doesn't make a bit of sense by the way?"

"Yes," Rosalind told me truthfully. "Like all of us, he is curious to know why you happened to read the one manuscript that had been magically bound to the Seven Relics? You are a human girl after all and you have never seen our world. It's almost like fate. A destiny awaits you, Anne, and we want to help you achieve that destiny."

"Fate, prophecy, destiny," Puck said before I could begin to say anything. Rosalind's words had touched me in a way that I didn't know could happen right now when I was completely against anything that had to do with the world of Shakespeare and the Seven Relics. "It's all the same thing. Maybe this has to do with the Prophecy of the Sycorax," he suggested. "That Prophecy is so complex, so convoluted, that it might be possible."

I looked at the two of them confused as Rosalind mused with a, "Perhaps."

"What's the Prophecy of the Sycorax?" I questioned them, recalling that the Sycorax was the name of the group of swordsmen that Caliban was the leader of.

"A prophecy that was made many years ago by an unnamed seer," Puck responded. He talked as if he was very knowledgeable when it pertained to the Prophecy of the Sycorax; however, he hadn't told me anything yet that could back this up.

"Do you want the short version or the long version?" Rosalind interrupted by asking me a question. "Because if you leave it up to Puck to tell it, you will be getting the very long version."

Puck chuckled, but it wasn't his usual merry laugh. It was a very sarcastic laugh. "Do you wish to tell her about the prophecy then?" he asked Rosalind.

"I would give her a better and easy to comprehend version than you would, Puck," Rosalind told him. "However, our job is not to tell Anne about the Prophecy of the Sycorax. Our job is to escort her to the Merchant's Library"—she looked at me with a pleading look—"if you are willing to come with us, of course."

At last, someone had finally got it right. Instead of telling Puck that I was going with them to Merchant's Library, Rosalind offered me a choice of whether or not I wanted to go with them. I already knew what my answer was—although meeting Rosalind was slowly making me second guess my resolution—but it made me feel better to know that not all people from Shakespeare was as demanding as Caliban and Othello.

"I think that I am going to go home," I announced to Rosalind and Puck. "I have had enough adventure for one day and I am in enough trouble already. I'm sorry that I cannot help you. I don't think that I am the right girl for the job."

There, I said it. It had been easier than I thought, just like with breaking up with Will. Again, I felt a pang of hurt.

"But you have to help us," Puck insisted, disappointed. "We will never be able to recover all of the Relics without your help."

"But how can I help when I don't even know where to begin to look for the Relics?" I asked him a question I should have asked a while ago. "This whole thing is absurd. Just because I read from a stupid manuscript doesn't mean that I know how to find the Seven Relics."

"If you come with us back to our world you will know," Puck told me.

"I doubt that all of the answers will magically appear in my head," I said, sighing. "I'm sorry. I just can't do it. I am a normal girl, a normal human girl. I don't have any extraordinary talents like you guys. I can't use a sword and I definitely can't use magic."

"Oh, but you can learn," Puck said with a grin.

I frowned. He just never seemed to get the hint. I didn't want to go to the world of Shakespeare. I've had enough of it in all of my readings of Shakespearean plays and from my dreams about the Dark Lady. After all, fantasy was supposed to remain a fantasy. It was never supposed to become real.

"As enticing as that offer is, I will have to decline it," I said, still fighting and trying to keep Puck from convincing me to do the very thing that I did not want to do.

Puck looked forlorn and as though he was about to give up with attempting to persuade me. He looked to Rosalind for help and if she tried to convince me, I didn't think that I would be able to reject her.

"Look, Anne," Rosalind began slowly and I knew it was coming. "Can you hold off your final decision until you have come to the Merchant's Library. Othello and Antonio have much to discuss with you and I think that it would be worth your time if you would at least hear what they have to tell you. Then, if you still don't want to go to Shakespeare with us, we will understand and then, you can return home. But if you like what you hear and if you are interested in fulfilling your destiny, then you will be more than welcomed to go with us to a place that no human from your world has been before."

There it was. How could I refuse that? I mean, I could refuse it but the way Rosalind had put it made it extremely difficult to do so.

I thought about it for a long while. I was faced with two choices. All I had to do was go with Puck and Rosalind to the Merchant's Library and listen to what Othello and Antonio had to say. It was an easy enough task except for I knew that after my conversation with them, I would be more than likely to go along with their plans for me. Or I could just go home and be with Alice and never be bothered by people from Shakespeare ever again, except for whenever I had to see Will at school. I regretted having some classes with him now that we had broken up.

But how could I turn down a trip to the world of Shakespeare now that I knew it existed. All that I had ever read, had ever come to love with a huge portion of my heart had been prophecies, predicting the future of characters that would come to live during my generation. Now the plays of William Shakespeare had come to life and I had the chance to live a dream and I was turning it down. What was wrong with me? Was I really going to deny myself a once in a lifetime opportunity all because I was mad at Will and mad that I hadn't been given a choice in the matter until now?

I sighed. Was I really going to do this? Not yet, I told myself. I would hold out until I heard what Othello and Antonio had to say.

"Okay," I agreed with Rosalind's proposition. "I will go to the Merchant's Library to speak with Antonio and Othello. Then, I will make my ultimate decision."

Rosalind smiled, a little too smugly. "That was all we could ask for."

"So, how are we going to get back?" I asked. "Surely, we are not going to walk and I am not sure if you guys would like riding the bus." I noticed that Rosalind turned a slight shade of green when I mentioned riding the bus, which confirmed what I said to be truth.

Puck was grinning, his smile full of mischief. "I have an idea, a way for us to travel quickly back to the Merchant's Library."

Rosalind groaned and she seemed to catch on to what he was talking about. I, on the other hand was clueless. "Oh no, we are not going to do that."

Puck nodded feverishly. "We should. It will give Anne a taste of what it would be like to use magic."

I looked back and forth between the two of them wondering what they were arguing about. Puck had concocted some grand scheme of travel that allowed me to use magic. What could that be? Knowing Puck's character from A Midsummer's Night Dream, his plan couldn't be good.

"No, I am not doing it," Rosalind said firmly, crossing her arms.

"Do what?" I asked, dreading the answer to my question.

"Fly," Puck answered. "I think we should fly."