"…is she?"
"Melody, lower your voice. You'll scare her."
The first thing Marcie heard was two voices speaking above her head; one curious, another one deeper and laced with a reprimand.
I'm not scared, Marcie thought to herself. Suddenly a wave of pain bounced across the girl's cranium, and she shut her eyes tighter in response.
"…should come to any minute now."
Another voice spoke up, this one distinctly male, possibly the same male voice from a moment before. There was an almost calming aspect to it that would have put Marcie at ease had she not been so bewildered at the moment.
She could smell something being waved under her nose, something sharp and stinging. Her stomach tightened immediately in hunger, as though it expected this to be food. It smelled kind of like running rubbing alcohol under her nose. But why?
"I feel so bad, I hope she's alright," a nervous woman's voice said, not bothering at all to be quiet.
Marcie felt a hot flash of pain rip through her head at that; she made a moaning sound in response. She reached up a hand to her forehead, and slowly opened her eyes. She squinted in the process as she didn't have her glasses on. She could see blurry forms around her head, people she assumed, but she could hardly tell who was who in her state.
"What happened?" Marcie mumbled, blinking once or twice before she managed to prop herself up.
"You fainted." A man's voice, the one that had sounded calming before, spoke more towards Marcie's right.
The girl turned her head to the blob that she assumed was the man. Without her glasses, the world seemed to be just one huge mess. She blinked once more in confusion, before frowning.
"I fainted?" The girl tried to clarify, her frown deepening and her squinting becoming harder as a worrisome thought filled her mind. "Did I break my glasses again?"
"No, I have them right here!" A voice, a familiar woman's voice, anxiously rushed to say.
A hand—was it the woman's?—was thrust in front of Marcie's face, and in that hand the girl could see the fuzzy image of her glasses. Warily, the teenager took them from the hand and put the thing back on. After blinking once or twice, she let her eyes flicker towards the blobs she'd seen before.
She nearly jumped out of her skin in shock.
Jumbled memories immediately started playing back in the girl's mind, as though allowing the teen to get up-to-speed with the reality of the situation. Not that the reality of the situation made anything more helpful, mind you. The woman was sitting near her on the couch, while the dark-haired man was standing a few steps away from her.
Marcie's heart started racing in anticipation as she realized that she still did not know where she was, what was going how, how she'd gotten here, what was going to happen to—
"Don't be so anxious." The dark-haired man (Eric was his name, right?) said, his ice blue eyes steady upon Marcie's. He lifted his hands up, as though he was surrendering to the girl. "We're not going to hurt you."
"Famous last words." Marcie retorted, her blue eyes wide as she scrambled to the other end of the couch. She remembered the charm she had stuffed into her jacket pocket; she reached in, relieved when her hand closed around it. "How do I know you guys aren't gonna do something bad?"
"'You guys'?" A new voice questioned, a voice Marcie could hazily remember hearing as she had started to come too.
There was a girl sitting on the armrest of the couch, her eyes curious, but wary. Dark strands of hair hung loosely around her heart-shaped face, but most was tied back in a ponytail. In retrospect, it was obvious that while the girl seemed to look a bit like the Nebraskan teenager, there were differences in their features, like their hair, the color of her eyes, and even the shape of her lips. The most obvious of the variances, however, was that the dark-haired girl was beautiful.
Marcie hated her at once.
"Melody, shush." A more familiar voice answered the girl's question, and Marcie now flickered her gaze over to the woman she had deemed Crazy Lady.
Crazy Lady's own gaze fell on Marcie, and the slight annoyance was gone from her face, replaced with a sort of motherly understanding. The teenager turned her eyes away from the woman, distrust flowing through her body like a river.
"Sweetie, no one is going to hurt you. We just want to make sure you're alright, and if you're not, help you." Crazy Lady extended her non-wrapped hand towards the wary teenager, as though she was waiting for her to take it.
"Help me?" The teen repeated, scooting further away from the woman's hand. "You guys are the ones that need help!"
"Don't you know your P's and Q's?" The dark-haired girl asked, her nose wrinkled at the poor manners.
Marcie looked at her, puzzled. "I'm pretty good about dotting my I's?"
The dark-haired girl blinked for a moment, confusion sweeping over her features. Then, an outright smile broke out on her face. She bowed her head and tried to smother a giggle, although she did a poor job of it.
"Anyway," the teen continued on from before, ignoring the girl's lighthearted laugh at her naiveté. "I'm not the one saying crazy things!"
Marcie noticed the couple exchange a look with one another. She wasn't sure what it meant, but it put her unease even higher than before. She had to start thinking about escape plans before it became too late.
"What do you mean?" The dark-haired man—Eric was his name, right?— questioned slowly, his face very inconspicuous on this subject.
"I mean," The red-head intoned, "Crazy Lady over here saying that thing about you guys being my parents."
There was a slight, awkward pause, with the girl dropping her eyes to stare at the carpet. This was hard, for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, didn't like having to admit, especially to strangers, such intimate details of her life. That was followed by the fact that she got a weird vibe around these people, probably her paranoia, but still.
"You must be making a mistake," That Melanie girl spoke up, her voice firm in her belief. "You probably just heard something wrong."
Marcie's head snapped up quickly, a fire behind the glasses she wore. "Listen, my eyes might not work well, but my ears do, and I know what I heard."
The dark-haired girl scoffed in disbelief, her arms crossing over her chest in defiance. "Maybe you hit your head, because there is no way that there was anything about—"
"Melody, hush," Crazy Lady chastised, giving the girl a look before the teen was able to speak any more. Then she turned back to the other teenager in the room, her expression curious. "Why do you think I don't mean what I said?"
Marcie gave a sigh, bringing her knees up to her chest so that she could hug them tightly. "Look, I'm tired and my brain is hurting thinking about this. Can't I just go home? I already said I was sorry for hurting you."
"What do you mean 'your brain hurts'?" Crazy Lady's brows knit together in a confused sort of worry. "Are you getting a headache?"
"I dunno," shrugging, the teen brushed off the woman's words nonchalantly. "It'll probably turn into one sooner or later."
"What if that's a head injury?" Crazy Lady anxiously questioned, her eyes starting to gain a fearful quality to them.
Marcie snorted. "It's not."
"But what if it is?" The woman pressed, her mouth becoming a hard line.
"It's not a concussion."
"A concussion!" Ariel nearly cried out the words, a cold fist clutching her heart at even the idea. "Are you dizzy, or nauseous, or—Eric, what else is there?!"
"Is there an odd sound in your ears?" Eric tried, his expression adopting the same worry that his wife had.
"You guys are starting to make me feel that way." Marcie grumbled, rolling her eyes. "Look, I've had concussions before. I know what they feel like. I don't have one."
"Maybe we should send for Doctor Berg, just in case." Crazy Lady conceded, her voice softer than before, as though she was worried about upsetting the girl further.
"Mother, he was just here and he said she was fine." The Melanie girl's voice came across as bored. "Then he said the birthmark on her face was interesting."
"Watch your tone, Mel." Eric spoke up, sending a warning glance in that girl's direction. Then he turned back to the Crazy Lady, sighing as he ran his fingers through his hair. "I think, I mean, maybe if—"
A loud, fierce growl suddenly cut Eric off. Three separate pairs of eyes slowly turned back towards Marcie. For a reason she could not explain, the girl went scarlet and slumped even further on the couch. Her head was only high enough so that her eyes could stare at the far wall.
"Was that you?" The other girl questioned, not unkindly, but rather more curiosity based. Marcie felt her face flush again and she refused to even nod as an answer.
"Was that—ah, your stomach?" Crazy Lady's voice sounded like she was repressing a heap of giggles. Well, Marcie reasoned as she sighed, at least someone found pleasure out of her discomfort. "Alright, when was the last time you ate?"
"Um…lunch?" Marcie tried.
Ariel seemed satisfied enough with the answer, her eyes still dancing in glee and her mouth hinting at a smile. Eric looked rather amused about the whole thing, probably because of the way the girl's face matched her hair. It was only Melody that seemed to note the way Marcie had said her words, as though she'd been forcing them out.
"When did you eat lunch?" Melody asked slowly, ignoring the surprised glances sent by her parents.
"Day before yesterday." Marcie mumbled, cringing immediately because she expected some outburst to occur.
There was none. There was only silence, this one horrified. She could almost feel the shock. And somehow, it was worse than the loud eruption the teen had expected.
"You haven't eaten in over twenty-four hours?" Eric's voice was the first to break through, and it was pensive. The teenager in question dared not look up to see if his face matched his tone.
Instead, she opted for a shrug.
"It's not as bad as it sounds, trust me. I'm like, not even hungry." Marcie lied, trying to make herself come off as strong and convincing.
"How can you not be hungry if you haven't eaten? I'd be starving!" A younger voice chirped out this time, the girl's voice, Marcie realized. She'd momentarily forgotten the other girl was here.
"I dunno. I guess after awhile you just get used to—," Marcie broke off here to wince slightly at the soft mumble coming from her stomach. "Get used to it."
"This happens…often?" Crazy Lady inquired dryly, her tone implying that she was doing this for clarification purposes.
Marcie, realizing her mistake, quickly pressed her lips together and turned her head towards the far wall as a sign that the conversation was over. Her guard went back up, and her body stiffened in response. This saved her from trying to find the words to explain how sometimes, paying the electric bill meant more than buying groceries.
"Melody, go to the kitchen and ask Louis if he can make something quickly for the girl." Crazy Lady finally said, after realizing that Marcie was done speaking on the subject. Her voice was tightly controlled.
Two heads snapped upwards at her words, although with very different reactions.
"But Mother, I don't—"
"I'm really not that—"
Both teens stopped mid-sentence to stare at one another, surprised that they had started speaking at the same time. However, after only a moment, Marcie looked away once more.
Melody took this opportunity to complain. "I don't want to go all the way to the kitchen!"
"Mel, its twenty seconds away." This time it was that other man, Eric, who answered.
"I don't even know what she wants to eat!" The girl—Melanie, was it?—argued with a huff. "Or who she is."
"She wants…" here Crazy Lady trailed off, and if Marcie had been paying closer attention, she might have noticed the woman frowning. "What do you want to eat?"
Instead the teenager, eyes still on the floor and head turned away, mumbled out a meek response. "I'm not hungry."
That other Melanie girl seemed satisfied with her answer. "See? She's not hungry. You were going to make me go all the way to the kitchen and she's not even—"
"A sandwich, Melody." Crazy Lady cut through, her voice thick with exasperation. "Get her a sandwich."
The girl objected quickly. "She just said she wasn't hungry!"
"I don't care what she just said. I'm telling you to go get her a sandwich." Crazy Lady answered back, her exasperation turning into pure annoyance by this point.
"I don't even know what kind of sandwich she'd want!"
"What kind of sandwich do you want?" Eric asked resignedly, and Marcie shrugged once before shaking her head. She heard him sigh. "Ask Louis to make her a ham sandwich."
"Eric, meat?"
Marcie finally lifted her head slightly, just so that she could peek at what was happening. Crazy Lady was making a noise in her throat that sounded a lot like revulsion. Her face was twisted in a grimace, and the same went for the other girl's features. Did they not like meat?
She knew only two people in town that didn't eat meat. Although, she'd seen Johanna Hepburn eating a hamburger last week, so she wasn't so sure about it now. That left only one other person: Teresa Mackley.
Teresa Mackley brought her vegetarian lunch to school, used a rolling book bag, and drew dogs all over her school books.
Teresa Mackley also had no friends.
This Melanie girl and Crazy Lady weren't like Teresa Mackley, not eating meat and being weird, were they? They both didn't appear so (Crazy Lady might be crazy, but she didn't seem completely bizarre), but looks could be deceiving.
"Ham has protein." Eric's voice startled Marcie out of her thoughts. She continued to peek at the other people just slightly through a curtain of her short red hair. "And if she hasn't eaten in awhile, then her body needs that protein."
Crazy Lady's face twisted up like she wanted to be sick. "But Eric…meat?"
"I agree. Meat's gross." That Melanie girl put in her two cents, and from where Marcie was looking, she seemed just as disgusted as Crazy Lady.
"It's still good for your body." Eric shrugged, a slightly amused smile lifting up at the corners of his lips. Then he turned his head, and his blue eyes connected with Marcie's. "Unless, you have any major qualms about eating meat…?"
Marcie huffed; she was a completely normal teenage girl, she wasn't weird! "'Course I eat meat. I'm not hungry, though."
"Alright, you got your details." Eric started, and when Marcie peeked again, she saw that he was addressing the other girl. "Now go ask Louis if he can please make her a ham sandwich."
The Melanie girl gave a heavy sigh, blowing away her dark bangs in what appeared to be annoyance. "But I don't really want—"
"Melody, now," came the firm response, cutting off the girl's argument before she had a chance.
"Fine." The dark-haired girl spoke exaggeratedly, sighing for what appeared to be dramatic effect.
She pushed herself off of the couch, looking over her shoulder once in slight curiosity, before shrugging it off and going out the door of this room.
As she left, the girl didn't close the door all the way. Marcie couldn't help but stare at it, torn between running away and eating a good meal. She frowned slightly, almost guiltily at these thoughts.
"I'm sorry if our daughter seems a bit..."
Eric seemed unable to finish his sentence. This was just the same, because Marcie finally lifted her wide eyes to meet his, a question burning upon her lips.
"She's your kid?" Earning wary nods in return to her question, Marcie ventured, "So that means you guys are like, officially together, right?"
"Married, actually. For fifteen years." Crazy Lady answered, her amused voice confirming the teenager's early detection.
Marcie's eyes widened more at the number. "Jeez. You don't look old enough to be married for that long. Did you get married at thirteen or somethin'?"
"We were a bit older than thirteen." Crazy Lady gave a good natured laugh, and Marcie flushed scarlet again in embarrassment. "But, I'll take it as a compliment. It's always nice to hear you look young."
"I tell you that every day!" Eric's affronted voice rang out.
However, there was a certain playful ring to it, as though he wasn't really being serious. It was almost as though he was just teasing. Seeing Crazy Lady turn her head a fraction of an inch to give him a sly smile confirmed what Marcie thought.
"Your opinion doesn't count, because you tend to be biased, dear." Crazy Lady returned, batting her eyelashes sweetly, although her tone was dry as can be.
"Me? Biased? Never!" Eric laughed, taking a step and leaning down to kiss Crazy Lady on the cheek. She swatted him half-heartedly away with a giggle. "It's not my fault I'm married to the most beautiful woman in the world."
"Eric, really." Crazy Lady returned in a chiding voice, although her face had gone as red as her hair at the compliment. Eric just grinned, his dimples showing, and his face shining with a certain look of mischief.
Marcie blinked, looking at both of the people with a sense of astonishment. They were just having fun at each other's expense. But they were doing it in a way completely foreign to her.
"So…you guys aren't gonna fight?" Marcie wondered incredulously, her eyes shifting back and forth between the two people. Both of whom who looked, oddly enough, surprised.
"Fight?" Eric repeated, frowning at the word. "Why would we fight?"
"At home, if someone says your opinion doesn't matter, it'll usually lead to a blowout," Marcie stated, shrugging her shoulders at the entire situation.
Ariel shared a look with her husband. He motioned for her to speak first, because he apparently thought she could do a better job getting more information out of this girl.
"And your…parents, they have these…blowouts a lot?"
Marcie's eyes darkened, her lips thinning out into a single line. Although it was a simple mistake, it was one that the girl hated with all her might. She could keep calm, but only just.
"They are not my parents." Her words were firm, almost with a biting edge to them. Both adults exchanged another look at that, a look that held meaning for them, but was lost upon the teenager.
"What do you mean?" Ariel followed up, hesitant in how she phrased this question.
"It's kind of a personal thing." Marcie sighed, looking past both Ariel and Eric with trouble in her eyes. "I don't like to talk 'bout it."
"That's fair." Eric stepped in, because he could see his wife about ready to press for more answers to the subject. Instead of letting this happen, however, he steered the conversation in a different direction.
"So…the adults you live with," he started slowly, trying to gain Marcie's approval on the terminology. The girl nodded, and he continued. "Do they fight a lot?"
"I mean, it's not—there's not—" Marcie struggled to correct them, unable to come up with the words. Finally, she settled on, "Sure, yeah, I guess so. But all family's fight, don't they?"
"I suppose." Ariel gently agreed, looking up at her husband for the briefest of seconds, before biting down on her lip. "Where was it you said you were from?"
"Amher—I never said where I was from." Marcie said, much more on her guard now. "And I'm not telling you either, so don't bother asking."
Eric frowned at the girl's sudden mood change. "Why not?"
"Because I was told not to talk to strangers and give them your address, that's why," she retorted with a bit of a bite to her words, stubbornly crossing her arms over her chest.
"But what if we can help you?" He pressed, concern underlying his tone.
"The kind of help I need is to get back home," the teenager answered defiantly. "You guys got a phone I can use?"
"A phone?" Confusion alighted Ariel's tone, and she sent a sideways glance to her husband, as though asking him if he knew what that was supposed to be. Judging by his equally perplexed look, he didn't.
"Yeah, like a cell phone, or like, uh, shoot…" Marcie shook her head, trying to recall what she'd meant to say in the first place. "A landline? My phone is—" she reached into her pocket, pulling out a device, before frowning, "it's got no service."
Ariel eyed the device in the teen's hand, just barely curtailing her curious nature. "I can't say that we do. Eric?"
"Not that I've ever heard," he replied, shaking his head. "Maybe we know it by a different name. Can you describe it?"
The teen's face clouded over, obviously unhappy. "It's a phone. With like, wires that go inside the walls; like a home phone? Or maybe, you know, a cell phone? Like, mine?" She held up her phone for good measure, hoping for some type of recognition.
The confusion in the adults eyes only seemed to settle deeper in. They didn't know what she was talking about, Marcie realized. In fact, it was as though they'd never even heard of a phone, much less seen one.
Suddenly, she could hear her heart thumping in her ears. She stuffed the phone back in her pocket, asking "Isn't this place like, a skyscraper?"
Ariel seemed unsure at the statement, her eyebrows furrowing together. "No, you're at the palac—"
"Our home," Eric cut in quickly, shooting his wife an even look. The girl was clearly unaware she was in the presence of royalty, and frankly, he wasn't sure what she would do once she found out. "You're at our home."
Marcie twisted her mouth, unable to hold back her sudden surprise. "A house? This is all a house?"
Crazy Lady shared another look with her husband, before nodding slowly. "It's our home."
"I've never seen this house before…" Her eyes shifted across the richly decorated room, before settling back on the couple before her, worried. "We're near Amherst, right? Right?"
"Amherst?"
"My town," the girl explained, uneasy. She started speaking rapidly, the words tumbling out in her distress. "I was walking back from school, and then next thing I know, I'm in the woods, and I saw this place from faraway and I thought maybe you would have phones so I could call and get back home?"
Eric and Ariel exchanged a look. "You're not from the village?"
"The town outside?" Marcie asked, her eyes flicking back and forth. When Eric nodded, slowly, she shook her head. "No, sir. I'm from Amherst."
"Where is Amherst?" Eric continued questioning, now growing concerned. He had assumed the girl was from the village itself, or a neighboring one. "How did you get to the village?"
"I…I don't know?" Marcie replied, her voice becoming small, frightened. She bit her lip, forehead creasing as she thought. "I was walking back from school. There was all this wind, it just started hitting me…then it's like I blinked and I was in the woods. But there are no woods where I live, just farms. I saw how tall this place was and since I didn't have signal, I figured I would walk and see if I could get help?"
Another look between the couple. Marcie felt the anxiety prickle at her skin. She knew how the story sounded. "I promise, I'm not lying. I know it sounds crazy, but that's what happened, honest."
"I don't think you're lying," Ariel answered, slowly, breaking her eyes contact with her husband, blue eyes steady upon the girl. It was true, she didn't believe the girl was being untruthful…purposely, at least. "But maybe, when you fainted, you did hit your head and…?"
"I know what happened," Marcie replied, firmly. "My full name is Marcella Nicole Johnson. I go to Amherst High School. I live on Oak Street, in Amherst, Nebraska. See? My brain is working fine, I didn't hit my head."
"Nebraska," Eric started in on the unfamiliar name, "Is that the kingdom you're from?"
"Kingdom?" Marcie jerked at the idea, giving him such an odd look that Eric felt himself grow self-conscious of the question. "Nebraska is a state."
"A state of what?" Eric pressed.
Marcie looked at him as though he'd grown another head. "A state inside of a country!"
"…this is all on land, right? Nothing in the sea?" Ariel asked, to make absolutely sure. She'd never heard of a place called 'Nebraska' either, but the teenager was so convinced, so unshaken in her story that...
The look she earned from the teen practically answered her question itself. "Of course it's on land, this is Nebraska. The ocean is like, a thousand miles away, in every direction."
"This…isn't Nebraska," Ariel put in, watching the girl's reaction carefully. "You're in Elsemaine."
She seemed just as confused as they were. " …is that a city? In, like, Kansas or something?" Marcie pushed her glasses further up her nose, chewing on her bottom lip in thought. How had she gotten lost in another state?
Eric shook his head slowly. This conversation was going round in circles, neither the girl nor the couple able to understand each other. "Elsemaine, where you currently are, is a country, mostly comprised mountainous villages and sea cliffs."
For the first time in this entire warped conversation, Marcie sat up straighter, now thoroughly alert. Crazy Lady jumped back slightly from her position near the girl on the couch, and Eric stiffened, his eyes narrowing on the teen. Neither of them trusted her, but for now, the girl had other pressing issues on her mind.
"What do you mean, country?" The teenager asked, almost panicked now. "I've never been out of the country—in fact, I've never been out of the state! I'll even narrow it down for you, I've never been past Omaha!"
"Maybe it's just a misunderstanding," Ariel tried to point out, hoping to calm the already riled girl. "I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for all this, right, Eric? Right?"
Her voice was pressing, almost demanding for him to agree with her. Eric pushed back his dark hair, sighing once more, before nodding along. "Sure, fine. Actually," an idea started to form in his mind, "why don't you show us where you live? Maybe we can find a way around all this mess."
Marcie took in a deep breath, trying to calm herself before she spoke. Her hungry wince was hardly even noticeable. "Okay. How?"
"There's a globe, on the desk." Eric nodded towards the one the teen had noticed when she first entered. "It shouldn't be too hard to pinpoint where it is."
"I dunno…" Marcie started, hesitant to stand. "How do I know you guys won't try to do something to me if I get up?"
They both looked at her strangely. Why would she think they would hurt her? Surely by now she should have realized they posed no threat.
"We won't hurt you," Eric assured, showing the girl his empty hands. "Besides, our daughter is coming back any minute, and the door is open. You're safe."
Marcie eyed him, a bit suspiciously, but finally acquiesced. "Alright."
Slowly, she released her knees from her tight hold and placed her feet firmly on the ground. Keeping a wary eye on Crazy Lady, she got up. Once standing, it only took the girl a few steps to get to the globe on the desk.
"This looks expensive," she whistled appreciatively, muttering more to herself than anything as she ran her fingers across the bronze cradle. "The one's we got in school are usually in, like, bad condition."
"I suppose it was, years ago when my father commissioned it." Eric said lightly, smiling despite himself when he saw the girl look up at him, her blue eyes, even behind her glasses, filled with wonder.
She reminded him of his daughter. The thought of it made his smile disappear.
"So this was specially made?" Marcie asked, her eyes lighting up at just the thought. When Eric nodded, his face growing serious, she stopped touching it, afraid she may do something wrong. "Wow. Your dad must've been really rich, huh?"
Eric gave a shrug. Obviously, she was unaware how well off the royal family was. "You could say that we were…comfortable." Clearing his throat, he changed the subject. "Why don't you start searching for that town of yours, Amherst?"
"Right." Marcie nodded, using gentle fingers to start spinning the globe.
There was something odd happening though. The more she spun it, the more she realized that everything looked…different. The landmasses were incorrectly shaped, and their positions were skewed so much that she couldn't recognize them.
Finally, after about a minute, she made a frustrated noise and quit trying altogether.
"This thing sucks." Marcie scowled, her tone fierce and furious while she glared at the globe. From her peripheral vision, she saw both Crazy Lady and Eric's heads turn to glance at her.
"Is something wrong?" Ariel wondered, her voice underlined with a motherly sort of concern.
Marcie's scowl deepened to the point where it looked like she would happily burn the globe and then stomp on its ashes. "This thing is stupid. I can't even find North America on it!"
"The best map-makers in the world worked on that globe." Eric said clearly, taking a few steps to the desk. The closer he got, the more the teen stepped back, almost as though she was acting on instinct. "Maybe if you looked harder you would—"
"I already looked!" Marcie flung out her words, crossing her arms over her chest in an irate manner. "Everything on this thing is completely different!"
"Different how?" Eric wondered idly. The girl's expression, so similar to Ariel's when she was angry, made his heart lurch, although he tried hard to appear nonchalant.
"Look!" Marcie stated, pointing a finger to one of the landmasses on the globe. Eric did as he was told from a few steps away, finding nothing out of the ordinary. "What the heck is that supposed to be? Nothing looks like that! It's like this is a different world or something!"
"Hm." Eric made a noncommittal sound, before shaking his head and looking back at the girl. "I honestly don't know what to tell you. Maybe you've only seen old versions of the world map?"
Marcie scoffed again. "I may be fourteen, but I know what I'm talking about. This thing is a rip-off."
"I didn't mean any offense," Eric said mildly, straining to keep his tone as composed as possible "I'm thinking that maybe—"
"Wait, I can prove it!" Marcie announced suddenly, an idea springing to her mind.
Within a second, the girl raced passed the man, sliding on her knees to her school bag. It hadn't moved since the Captain man had thrown it (and her) in a not so gentle manner; she wondered briefly where'd he gone, but found she really couldn't care. She stuck her hand inside for a few seconds, moving around papers and such until her hand finally connected with a thick, large textbook.
"What are you doing?" Ariel wondered, concern ebbing away in her voice. She exchanged a look with her husband, who seemed uneasy at the girl's irrational behavior, and his wife leaning far too close towards her.
"I'm looking for a thing," Marcie answered, flipping quickly through pages and ignoring the hungry growl from her stomach and focusing at the task at hand.
She felt her lips curl upwards triumphantly as she thrust the textbook out to Crazy Lady. "See?" she said, pointing to the illustration. "This is the world map. That globe is totally off!"
Ariel said nothing, taking the textbook from the girl and letting her eyes sweep over it. After only a few seconds, she found herself utterly confused. She looked up at her husband, completely lost.
"Eric?" She asked, and he got her hint immediately, coming over to his wife on the other end of the couch to take the book from her. In the meantime, the teenager kept rifling through her bag, searching for something else.
"What in the…" He muttered to himself, unable to distinguish what he was looking at. Certainly it was a map, but a map of where?
Marcie grabbed hold of another item inside her bag, pulling it out, and thrusting it towards the woman again. "This is my school ID, it's the only thing that's got my full name. I'm telling you, I didn't hit my head, I'm from Amherst."
Ariel reached out, taking the shiny, stiff paper, slowly. The edges were bent, and at some point it looked like the paper had been folded in half, a crease still evident in the middle. But there was no mistaking it, the card read: Marcella Nicole Johnson, Amherst High School, with a miniature portrait of a girl in the corner, smiling.
Ariel looked up, to the worried teen before her, back to the smiling teen in the portrait. It was clearly the same person. The short red hair was unmistakable. She flipped the card over, reading the back, which said, in bold letters: If lost, please return to Amherst High School, Sycamore Lane, Nebraska.
Eric looked over her shoulder for a moment, asking, "May I see that?"
Ariel handed it to him silently, her eyes never leaving the teenager before her. Alarm bells went off in her mind. She took in a breath: something wasn't adding up.
"Your bracelet charm," Ariel started, and Marcie leaned away immediately, her hand going into her pocket to feel the charm within. "You said it's all you have from your real parents."
Hesitantly, Marcie nodded. Last time this conversation came up, the woman claimed they were her real parents. "I mean, I think it's from my biological parents."
"You're not sure?"
"Adam says I've had it ever since he can remember," Marcie answered, nervous, running the charm between her fingers. "I figured it had to be from my real parents, then."
Ariel's brows creased together. "Adam?"
"My brother," Marcie said, biting her lip. "He's four years older, he remembers when his mom got married to my old man."
Clarity arose in Ariel's eyes, and then uneasiness. "And the…cool design, on the charm…?"
Marcie's shoulders dropped as she sighed, defeated. "I've tried looking it up before, but I've never found anything on it. It's like…it doesn't exist."
"I see," Ariel answered, swallowing hard.
Again, her gut told her the teen wasn't lying, and it appeared the girl was completely lucid. But there were too many gaps in the story. How could no one have recognized the royal crest? How could no one have put the idea of a missing princess, a royal crest, and a birthdate on the charm together? How could the girl have come through their kingdom and not have known she was within the borders of Elsemaine?
Marcie tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear. "I know it sounds wild, but I'm telling the truth. One second I'm in Amherst, just walking home from school, minding my own business, and the next I end up here."
"Ariel," Eric interrupted, and Crazy Lady's head jerked in his direction, brows drawing up in surprise. Marcie made a mental note of the woman's name. "What does this look like?"
Ariel extended her hand out to accept the textbook from her husband, wariness written across her features. "…I don't know?"
"Think, I've shown it to you before!" Eric was growing excited now, his voice running fast as he tried to get his point across. He still held onto the girl's school ID, eyes flickering from the shiny paper to the book. "Doesn't it look familiar? At all?"
"Honey, I have no idea what you're talking about," the queen sighed, her eyes flickering up to her husband. "It's just a map of…of…"
"It's the world map." Marcie supplied, mumbling to herself, "I told you your globe was way off."
"That's the thing, it's not." Eric said, shaking his head as he realized there was only one way to do this. "Come on!"
"Eric!" His wife cried out in shock, as he pulled her too roughly towards to the bookshelf on other side of the room. "What is wrong with you?"
"Just trust me," he replied, as a way of answer. "Help me look for a dark green book; it should be thick and leather bound."
Ariel regarded him for a moment, his head whipping back and forth as he searched for the book. He had figured something out. "Alright, but you owe me an explanation whenever we find this thing."
"It'll all make sense, I promise," he answered, still busily searching through the bookcase. "If we could just find it…"
"I'm not seeing any dark green leather-bound book on this side." Ariel said, her eyes not finding whatever she'd been looking for.
Eric deflated slightly, saying, "It's not on this side either."
His wife turned her blue eyes up at him, thoughtful. "Maybe it's in the library?"
"Um…it's on the top."
The two adults whirled around at the sound of the girl's voice. Her eyes were focused on something upwards, across the room on the bookshelf. Eric turned back around, and seeing that the book was sitting on top of the giant shelf, reached up to grab it.
Ariel, meanwhile, looked at the girl inquisitively. "How did you know that?"
"I'm good at noticing little things," the teen shrugged, her gaze falling down to her worn down Converse as she leaned to rest her back on the couch from her still sitting position on the floor. She'd just never gotten up after giving Crazy Lady her school ID. "My brother says that I've always been that way, even when I was little."
Her thoughts had a hard time staying on track, as her heart beat fast in her chest. The girl tilted her head to the side, her brows drawing together. Ariel pushed back the hot tears that threatened to fill up her eyes. No matter where she was from or how she had gotten here, Ariel was sure this was her daughter. She knew it as well as she knew her own heart.
"I knew it was in here!" Eric's voice cut through the moment, his finger pressing against a page in the thick book. He thrust the thing out to his wife, stating, "Now tell me if this looks familiar."
Turning away from the girl, Ariel calmly looked at the other book from her husband, trying to keep a dignified air. That went out the window as soon as she looked at the illustration. "What the…?"
Her eyes went colossal. She put the textbook next to the book her husband was holding, gasping. Her hands shook slightly, and her head went back and forth between the two illustrations.
"Eric," she started slowly, carefully. "Is that…?"
Without a word, her husband shut the book on his finger, to mark the page. He turned it slightly, so that she could read the cover. Although she already had a sinking suspicion, Ariel still swallowed hard when she realized what the book was.
"So then..,?"
Still silent, Eric opened the book back up, taking a few strides across the room, until he was a few feet from the girl. He extended the novel towards her. "This looks more familiar, doesn't it?"
Marcie was so stiff that a board would have had competition. She reached out for the book slowly, keeping her eyes set on the man for any sudden movements. When it was firmly in her grasp, she pulled it close to her, using her knees to prop it up like a table.
After only a second looking at it, her face brightened. "Yeah! This is definitely the right thing. I mean, Australia looks sort of tilted, South America is too skinny, and I don't know why Asia is cut in half, but it's good enough. See here?" She pointed her finger to about the middle of one of the land-masses, and turned the book back toward him. "This is kinda where Amherst is."
Eric was looking at Crazy Lady/Ariel. She was looking back at him. Both of them seemed to be reeling in shock. They seemed to be having a sort of conversation, with just one look.
"May I have the book again?" Eric asked at length, extending his hand out to her.
Marcie shut it and handed the book over, watching him with caution. "Are you guys—"
The door to the room slammed open. The redheaded teen jumped in her seat, startled, before ducking slightly. She didn't realize her eyes had been squeezed shut until she opened them to see the Melanie girl staring at her.
Disclaimer: Ariel, Eric, Melody and the setting for this story are from The Little Mermaid, which is property of Disney. I own nothing; everything represented from the film(s), tv series, etc. is/are the property of Disney. Other characters are from my own imagination and are not associated with Disney.