Dream and Nightmare

Chapter 5 - Drunk on Magic

The creaky, wood floor beneath Anah's feet turned the wrong way, knocking Anah into Jack who fell against the wall next to him. "You're really bad at this," he told her as he stabilized her and righted the floor they stood on.  

"At falling?" she asked, rubbing her eyes to get rid of her double vision.  

"No. I think that might a unique talent of yours. What you suck at is walking through portals." 

"Well it's difficult!" she said defensively. "The entire world flips upside-down a couple times." 

He frowned. "I suppose it's different for everyone."  

Anah looked away from him to take in their surroundings. They were at the end of a short hallway made of wood. The ceiling was tall and ended at a large stained glass mural of the exact scene that was on the island. "That must be our portal back," Anah mused. 

Jack was staring at the wall he'd just bumped into, a faraway look in his eyes. Anah joined him, not making a single sound as she passed across the floorboards. What he was staring at made her heart stop. It was her name. Carved into the wood with a knife was the name 'ANAH'.

"Is that how you spell your name?" Jack asked. 

She nodded. "Why...?" Then she noticed the other names below it. 'KELLEN', 'MARIELLA ', 'KERT', 'JAKOBAN', 'LISA', 'RANDALL'. The date on the wall beneath it was twelve years before. Anah would've only been two. Her name shouldn't have been up there at all. Not next to Jack and his parents, or those three other names she didn't recognize.  

"I don't understand" Anah breathed. "What is this?" 

Jack's fingers brushed against his parents names before rising to the names above them. "I know them," he said. "Kellen, Mariella , Kert, Jakoban, Lisa, and Randall. I've read that article a thousand times. They all died in that storm twelve years ago. They're all dead except for you and me." 

"But why is my name up there, Jack?! I don't know who those people are!" 

Jack gave her an apologetic look before rummaging through his bag. "I think you do, or at least you did." He found what he was looking for, but kept it hidden from her sight. "Don't get mad at me for this. If I had realized it was you, I would've told you earlier." 

"What are you talking about?" she asked harshly. He didn't deserve her anger, but her nerves were on edge from finding her name with a list of dead people on a wall in some bizarre otherworld. If Jack was expecting her to take whatever his news was with grace and dignity, he was sorely mistaken. 

He handed her a faded newspaper article and a freshly printed photograph. "It was one of the negatives I found with my parent's stuff. There was another print next to it that I left at my house. That's Kert, Mariella , Kellen...and Anah." He pointed at each person in the photograph as he said their name. 

Kellen was about ten. He was a bigger-boned boy with a grin on his face so large that it forced his eyes and nose to scrunch up to make room. He had chin length dark hair that was glued with water to the side of his face. Mariella had shoulder length dark hair and bangs across her forehead. She wasn't facing the camera, but her profile reminded Anah of Cleopatra. She was dressed in an oversized flannel shirt over her bathing suit. Kert was tall with the start of a rounder belly. He had deep dimples, and playful eyes. 

Little Anah in the picture was either laughing or talking animatedly. She was wrapped up in Kellen's arms, him holding the child like she was the most precious thing in the world to him. Kert draped his arm across his son's shoulders while Mariella kissed the little girl's cheek.  

Anah's back found the wall right before her knees collapsed. Jack stood above her, not sure what to do. "The article," he continued in a voice so gentle that Anah almost couldn't hear him. "Is about the storm. It talks a bit about the victims, and states that Kert and Mariella Denrek were outlived by their youngest child. A two year old girl named Anah who had been staying with friends at the time. I never actually thought that was you. I figured she'd been taken in by family. And the name's spelled weird so I just assumed yours was A-N-N-A. I'm really sorry, Anah."