Chapter 17 - Kiss
As Bo opened the door to the cottage house, she immediately noticed the aroma of crushed tomatoes, basil and garlic.
She took a deep inhale and closed her eyes. A vague memory briefly flashed: a stock pot of homemade pasta sauce simmering on the stove.
Faint vision of the entire kitchen came to her for a split second, before it went away.
Flinching a little, Bo opened her eyes and entered the house.
In the entry foyer there stood a console table, which was a repurposed small TV stand with chippy green paint. Next to it was a pair of kids' yellow rain boots, a bucket labeled "umbrellas" and a standing coat hanger.
On top of the console table, there were framed photos. Bo examined each of them.
In one of them she was hosing down a mud covered Dash in the yard while wearing her blue dolphin raincoat.
In another she was at the beach, in her rainbow bathing suit, holding a small crab that she had found in the sand with a big grin.
The third one was a trick-or-treat picture of her and three other kids. She herself was in a puffy pumpkin costume. One of the other kids wore a witch costume and had her face painted completely green. She even had fake warts all over her face. Another kid dressed up as a ghost, and their costume was basically a white sheet that covered their entire body with two cut-out holes for the eyes. The third kid, in a pink princess dress, a tiara and a pair of sparkling shoes, already had her face buried inside her candy bucket.
Are these my childhood friends? Bo wondered. Very vaguely, she remembered dressing up as a pumpkin for Halloween night one year. She also remembered that she had misplaced her candy bucket so she had to use the umbrella bucket instead. But...had she been trick-or-treating with other kids that day? Who were they? What were their names? Why couldn't she remember any of their names, or their faces….
She shook her head and picked up the last picture on the console table. It had her and a woman in it.
The woman wore a blue shirt dress and a small sunflower pin brooch. She stood beside Bo and had her hands on Bo's shoulder.
No matter how closely Bo looked at the picture, she couldn't see that woman's face.
She sighed and put down the photo, and headed to the living room.
The moment she stepped into the living room, the scent in the air changed to warm vanilla, apple and Fall spices.
The fireplace was crackling. There was a garland of faux fall leaves hanging in front of it. On top of the fireplace mantel, there was an antique white pitcher filled with mums, a robin egg blue quartz clock and several bronze candlesticks.
In front of the fireplace was a Victorian style wingback armchair with a knitted blanket and an open book.
The coffee table had a Fall themed centerpiece, a tray of pinecones and apples. In the middle of the tray there was a scented candle. Beside the tray, a half full mug with apple cider topped a small stack of books. The mug was still warm to touch.
Bo walked around in the living room, examining everything that she saw. When she noticed a teddy bear at the foot of the sofa, she picked it up and checked its left leg.
Just as she expected, the stitches at the end were slightly different from the rest of the bear.
She remembered the bear. It was her favorite stuffy. She was told that she had received it as a gift on the day she was born. One day, she ripped the left leg accidentally, and her mother repaired it for her.
The light of the setting sun outside flickered. Also flickered was all the vague memories of many little things that she had no idea existed:
The taste of her mother's grilled cheese;
Sun dried sunflower heads twice the size of her face in a wicker basket;
Dash's wet nose;
The creaking floorboard right under her bedroom's window;
A small snowman melting on the back porch;
A lego figure hidden under a loose tile in the bathroom;
A Christmas ornament with a small golden bell inside;
Her favorite throw blanket...
Those mundane details of her past, of her childhood, of the days that she had long forgotten, came back crashing.
As the sweet scent of Fall disappeared, she started to hear susurrus murmurs.
At first, she thought it was just the whispers of the wind outside, or the crackling from the burning fireplace.
Until, the whispers got louder.
It came from the small study on the other side of the house.
She approached the study with great curiosity, and noticed that the french door to the study was not completely shut.
She stared at the lock for a while, as she remembered that she had broken the lock not long ago and was too afraid to tell her mom about it.
She took a peek through the cracked open door, but only saw bright light. She turned away in reflex, and suddenly the conversation inside the study got clear.
"...no time...must leave tonight..." One person urged firmly.
"...other children?" A second voice asked.
"...know exactly…found the one," the first voice replied in haste.
The conversation stopped for a while. Distress plagued the air.
The second voice eventually asked, "what time?"
The first voice answered, "nine."
After that, neither of them spoke again. It was nothing but dead silence.
Bo nudged the door open, but when she entered the study, she found no one there.
Standing in the middle of the empty study, Bo shut her eyes and dug deep into her memories.
She did remember eavesdropping on a conversation between her mother and a visitor, but barely.
She remembered the visitor being a woman, but she couldn't recall who that might be.
While not able to recall the exact conversation, somehow she remembered that the conversation made her anxious and scared.
As she exited the study, the scent inside the house changed again. Now she smelled wet mud, damp leaves and ozone.
She turned to glance at the outside. It was pouring.
Tamsin scouted the outside of the cream white cottage house. As she walked past the big hydrangea plant, she let out a deep breath and thought, so, this is her childhood home...
When she was checking out the backyard, she caught a glimpse of a silhouette through one of the windows.
It was Bo. The brunette was inside the house.
Thrilled, Tamsin rushed over and yelled, "hey!"
Strangely, even though Bo was staring right back at her through the window, she didn't seem to hear her, or even notice her presence.
Bo was in a weird trance, with the look on her face altering between sad and happy. Sometimes, she seemed numb. Other times, she had tears in her eyes.
"Hey!" Tamsin slammed her palm against the window repeatedly. "Bo! Hey! It's me! Can you not hear me at all?"
Bo did not respond. She just turned and walked away from the window.
"Ughhh!" Tamsin groaned and headed to the front door.
She tried the knob. It wouldn't turn.
She tried picking the lock. It wouldn't work.
She tried blunt force. The door wouldn't budge.
"The hell?!" Tamsin cursed and went to the flowerbed. There, she picked up a hedging brick and smashed it at the closest window.
It was like hitting a piece of rubber. The window let out a dull sound, but did not shatter.
She tried every window of the house. Not a single one of them can be broken.
Frustrated, she hurled the brick at the front door. The brick bounced back and fell. The door did not even have a dent.
"Great..." Tamsin bit out and sat down in defeat.
As she wondered if she should try entering the house through the chimney that looked suspiciously flimsy, she felt a tug on the back of her shirt.
She turned back and found Fenrir gently pulling the corner of her shirt with his teeth. Her raven, Knut, stood on the pup's back like a king while giving her a judgemental look.
"What you two geniuses have found a way in or something?" Tamsin snorted.
Fenrir kept tugging on her shirt, so Tamsin had to stand up and follow him. He led her to the back of the house and forced his way into a patch of tall fountain grass.
Tamsin was surprised to find a hatch door to the basement of the house behind the grass, whose door's pull handles were held tightly shut by long stretches of entangled bramble.
Tamsin carefully reached out, trying to remove them, but was immediately met with angry thorns.
"Ahhh!" She cried out in pain as she withdrew her hands.
Well it's just a little pain. She told herself as she tried again. This time, the bramble snapped at her, wrapped around her wrists and tightened. It was as if a row of sharp teeth had sunk into her flesh.
"Damn it!" She scrambled to free her bloodied hands.
She tried to cut them with her weapon, but whenever she moved closer those vines would attack her fiercely.
Fenrir growled at the brambles with his nose scrunched back, but he wouldn't dare to touch them either.
Knut let out a series of grunts behind them.
"If you have something to say, say it!" Tamsin hissed.
The raven gave her a big eye roll, before he flew to the small garden shed in the corner of the yard.
Tamsin went over and tried to open the shed door. Just like she expected, it wouldn't let her in.
Knut shook his body slightly, before he flew to the roof. He walked to a small air vent under the roof and entered the shed there.
A few seconds later, he came out with a pair of rose pruning gloves. He placed them in front of Tamsin and shook his body again proudly.
Tamsin raised her eyebrows at her pompous companion, then at the gloves. Letting out a deep sigh, she put them on.
She touched the brambles again. They immediately snapped around her wrists like before, but their thorns couldn't bite nearly as deep.
Tamsin grabbed one of them and yanked it off. It let out a loud screech like a dying person, and immediately withered in her hand.
"Sucker..." Tamsin snorted and tossed it away. Then, she rolled her eyes at the one million brambles that were left.
"I can do this," she muttered to herself as she took a deep breath. "I can do this..."
Fenrir lay low on the ground watching her intently with Knut standing on his back.
As Bo approached her childhood bedroom, through the half closed door, she heard a child humming a song.
"Ring around the rosies,
A pocket full of posies.
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down!"
Hey, that's my favorite song when I was a kid! Bo thought.
She sang along silently. At first, it made her feel nostalgic, but after having heard the child inside the room repeating the song over and over for a while, it started to feel eerie.
It was then that she noticed the smell in the air: a blend of rubbing alcohol, Lysol and bleach.
She swallowed hard as she took a peek inside the room.
The first thing she saw was her twin size bed with small floral patterned sheets. Beside it was a light green dresser and a shelf full of toys and children's books.
In front of the shelf, there sat a little girl facing away from Bo.
The little girl was building a tower with wooden building blocks. Each time the tower had reached a certain height, she'd push it down while singing the line "we all fall down".
At that point, the song started to creep Bo out. Somehow, she sensed a darkness in that rhythm.
She also noticed that the little girl's voice was bizarre. It was almost robotic. It sounded as if she was a recording being played on loop.
Beside the little girl, there was Dash. He was resting with his chin on the floor as he lazily sweeped his tail left and right. Occasionally, he'd push a wooden block around with his nose just for fun.
Bo watched Dash for a while, before she moved her eyes back to the little girl. The girl was in a sailor collar dress with short, puffy sleeves and blue ribbon trims. The trim on the back of the right sleeve had a small loose spot.
Bo knew that dress. She had a picture of herself wearing that dress. She had been wearing that exact dress the day she had been found wandering outside a mall alone by a good Samaritan who eventually alerted the CPS. Later, they had taken a picture of her, and she had kept that picture with her ever since.
This is…me! Bo thought to herself.
Her merely having that thought seemed to have alerted both the girl and Dash. The little girl turned to her immediately.
She was Bo's younger self, but at the same time, she wasn't. Her eyes...they were cold, hostile and chaotic.
As the girl locked her eyes on Bo, Dash jumped up and bared his teeth. He snarled at Bo in great anger.
"Whoa, Dash, stop!" Bo exclaimed.
Dash wouldn't listen to her at all. He kept growling with his nose scrunched and his fangs shown. As he arched his back, streams of dark energy appeared out of nowhere inside the room.
Dash absorbed the dark energy and grew larger. His fur grew longer and more bristle. His eyes turned into orbs of swirling darkness. His muscles started bulging. His fangs grew sharper.
In seconds, the cute brown puppy had transformed into a furry monster that was at least six feet tall.
The monster roared at Bo and pounced.
Letting out a small scream, Bo turned around and ran.
The monster came after her, knocking over everything that was in his way.
Bo tried to escape through the front door, but the dog blocked her way. She then tried the backdoor but it wouldn't open.
After narrowly dodging the monster's blade-like fangs, Bo rolled behind the couch and pushed the heavy furniture forward to block the monster temporarily.
She dashed towards the stairs to the basement. As she rushed down the stairs, the monster came down like a derailed train.
At one moment she could swear that his muzzle was touching her back. She lunged forward, throwing herself through the door to the basement.
She slammed the door close behind her, shoving it with every bit of strength that she had to stop the monster from budging in.
She managed to close the door completely and lock it. Then, she moved the desks and chairs to block the door.
Enraged, the monster launched himself at the door repeatedly. Every time he did that, the entire basement shook.
"You are not Dash!" Bo yelled, her voice shaking. "Go away! Leave me alone!"
That only made the dog madder. The pounding got heavier and heavier. Soon, the bolts on the door lock started to loosen. One after another, they fell.
Knowing that the monster would get through the door any minute, Bo desperately searched for an exit, but the only other exit - the door to the backyard - was locked from the outside.
In great despair and fear, Bo hid herself in an old armoire in the corner. She curled up and wrapped her arms around her knees. Burying her face into her knees, she started to sob.
She could hear the monster crashing through the door. He rushed into the basement with grunts and growls. He sniffed around noisily while clawing the floor.
He passed the armoire, but immediately returned. After having taken a whiff, he let out a low, threatening growl.
Bo bit back her sobs and squeezed herself deeper into the corner.
Just as she thought the monster would destroy the armoire door like he had done to all other furniture pieces in his way, she heard a loud bang from the basement door to the backyard.
She flinched hard and held her breath.
Another loud bang, and someone was muttering something outside.
It was then that Bo noticed that monster Dash seemed to have suddenly gone quiet.
She took a peek through a hole on the side of the armoire. The monster was gone.
With great caution, she let herself out. "Dash" had indeed vanished.
She closed her eyes and let out a deep breath.
Another loud banging came, and it almost made her jump out of her skin.
"Bo!" Tamsin's voice came through the door. "Are you in there?"
Bo's jaw dropped. She quickly wiped tears off her face and muttered, "Tamsin, is that you?"
"Yeah it's me! Took me fucking forever to unlock this damn door!" The Valkyrie complained loudly as she opened the door from the outside.
Light poured in. Bo gaped at Tamsin: her dirt streaked face, her ripped shirt, the wound around her wrists, a small cut on the side of her cheek….
Bo couldn't help but let out a smile of relief. No words could possibly describe how happy she was to see Tamsin's face right now.
A fluffy head poked out behind Tamsin. It was a brown puppy with warm eyes and a dark muzzle.
"Hey! It's that...it's that dog I-" Bo muttered. She knew him. She had seen him briefly the day after she and Tamsin had bonded. At that time, she had thought it might have been a dream of hers.
"Wait...is this a dream? Am I dreaming?"
"You wish!" Tamsin snorted. "You zoned out during your dawning, moron."
"I did?" Bo frowned hard as she turned around and scanned everything. "My dawning? When did I have…my dawning?"
Tamsin gave her a big eye roll and a loud sigh. "When they put those electrodes on you, you kind of just…snapped into your dawning and zoned out."
"So…I'm in a vegetative state now?"
"Not yet but you ain't that far away," Tamsin replied. "You need to get us outta here asap."
"Out of...where? What is this place anyway?"
"This is the spiritual dimension. You are trapped inside your mind."
"Right, that's what zoning out would do to me…I'd be trapped in my own mind. That explains all those nightmare-ish stuff ..." Bo muttered. Then, she took a quick glance at Tamsin. "So...you are not real. You are just a piece of my imagination..."
Somehow, that finding crushed her.
"I am real, Bo!" Tamsin bit out. "I came here to rescue you!"
"Oh!" Bo's face lit up again. "Wait…you came here, like…you came into my mind? How did you even do that?"
"Valkyrie specialty, you should really pay attention to the reading material they hand out during your training sessions, sweetheart," Tamsin pointed a finger at Bo.
"Right…Valkyries can guide Einherjar out of zone-outs…" Bo nodded along. "Okay. I think I get it now. I'm trapped inside my own mind, and you came here looking for me. Now, you've found me. What's next?"
"Next, you get your shit together and find a way out of here."
"How?"
"This is your mind, Bo. You should know how!"
"Well, I don't!"
With that, the basement door suddenly slammed shut on its own.
"What the hell, Bo?!" Tamsin exclaimed as she pulled on the door hard. The door wouldn't budge.
"Open this damn door!" She urged.
"Hey I didn't close that! It shut on its own. How am I supposed to open it?"
"This is literally your mind, Bo! You control everything."
"Yeah, right, like I was controlling that hairy monster so it could eat me!"
"Listen, Bo! When you are zoned out, your consciousness is in a weak state. Whatever monster you encounter is probably a manifestation of your fear or past trauma, or whatever. Just get over it and take control!"
"It's easy for you to say! You are not the one who's trapped."
"Well I am trapped now, because I came here to find you!"
"Nobody asked you to come here, Tamsin!" Bo yelled.
"Geez, okay, fine, you are upset. I get it. At least get yourself out of the daman basement first, will ya?"
"Fine!" Bo bit out.
In a flash, both of them were teleported to the inside of a small cabin that did not have a single window. The only feature that would let the outside light in were several small openings along the roof.
It was dark outside, and the only light source in the cabin was a lit oil lamp emitting a strong fishy odor.
Other than a bench bed covered by layers of animal hides and fur, the cabin was practically empty.
"What is this place…" Tamsin muttered with a small frown. The interior of the cabin reminded her of the longhouse she had been to when she had first entered Bo's mind.
The smell of the oil, smoke and wood stirred something deep down….
"I don't know but I feel like I know this place…" Bo replied hesitantly as she ran a finger over the side of the soapstone oil lamp.
"Maybe a cabin you've been to when you were a kid?"
"No…" Bo shook her head.
"Well, at least you are out of the basement. Let's just-" Tamsin stopped abruptly when she discovered that the only exit - the door - wouldn't open. "Great!"
She turned to Bo impatiently and ordered, "focus, sweetheart! We need to leeeeeave, not stay here forever."
"Yes, I know! You've said that about a million times if not more! I don't know how to leave, Tamsin! I'm barely keeping myself alive!"
With that, the oil lamp suddenly went out, leaving the two of them in the darkness.
Tamsin let out a frustrated growl. "If you don't find that exit soon, you will be lying in a hospital bed with tubes up your nose for the rest of your life," she warned.
"Why do you even care?" Bo yelled. "It's just sex to you anyway!"
Tamsin huffed. She combed her hair in great frustration. "Hey, you said the same thing."
"I said that only because you said that."
"And I said that only because you wouldn't shut up about my non-existing future girlfriend!"
"Yeah, because I didn't want to wake up one day and see you are with someone else!"
"I am not going to date anyone else, Bo. Why can't you get that?!"
"W-what?"
Tamsin closed her eyes and let out a deep breath. She clenched her sweaty hands and replied, "you know it was far more than just sex, Bo."
Bo swallowed hard. "Then tell me what it is exactly, Tamsin."
Tamsin sighed again. Instead of answering Bo's question, she slid her hand into Bo's hair to pull her close.
She briefly ran the back of her index finger along Bo's cheek, before she kissed Bo.
A soft moan was all Bo could get out. Before she allowed herself to surrender completely, though, she pushed Tamsin away.
"I...I don't know, Tamsin," she admitted in a whisper as she stared into the Valkyrie's eyes. In darkness those light eyes shimmered. "Your words say one thing and then you act the exact opposite."
Tamsin cradled her face and leaned in. "Then don't listen to what I say..." she uttered as nuzzled Bo's nose. "Just trust this..."
Their lips touched again, and then again. Then, their tongues touched, hesitantly at first but passionately shortly after.
They held each other like they would never let the other woman go.
Until, Bo suddenly pulled back and turned to the side vigilantly.
"What?" Tamsin frowned.
"They are coming!" Bo announced in a whisper. Her heart pounded in fear.
