The Magic Hour

Chapter 3: Entering Elaimat

"I TOLD YOU I would get here, that I would know when you had retrieved it for us." It was Naliv's voice.

    "Where are you?!" Nathan shouted.

    No answer. Of course not. He stood next to his car and felt his head. No blood. He was lucky. He was so tired he must have fallen asleep at the wheel. Now he'd begun hallucinating. He pulled out his cell phone only to find there was no service.

    "Nathaniel, you cannot use that."

    He heard the same lilt in her voice that he remembered from the interview room, the origin eluding him again.

    "You do know I can't see you, so you have me at a disadvantage. Not to mention you don't exist, at least not right here and now."

    "Look in the car. Go ahead, I dare you. Look in." Her laughter surrounded him, something in it that seemed irrepressible.

    Against his will he bent over and looked into his car and drew back. "No!" he said. Then he leaned down again, staring at his body inside, seeing his head against the steering wheel. "I can't be dead," he whispered.

    "You are very much alive. However, you did hit the tree, so just now you are having a mild concussion. They will find you in time, before there is any harm done to you."

    Who will find him, he wanted to ask, but then he'd be yielding to the tricks his mind was playing on him. He was in his car, hallucinating, that was all.

    "They are already looking for you. You will be fine."

    "I'll be fine . . . great. Sure looks that way."

    "Where do you think you are?"

    "Where do I—I think I'm dreaming, is what I think! Or in some kind of crazy coma—that works for me. Only I'm talking to myself so I guess not."

    "Not exactly, Nathaniel. Come with me. I can help you. You will understand in a moment." She appeared beside him on the road, her face even more pale in the moonlight, her black hair shining again, as if it had silver threads running through it.

    He wanted to stay where he was. He wanted to make sure he woke up alive. Yet he was drawn to her in the same inexplicable way he had been when he'd seen her at the station. She was in his dream now, somewhere, and he may as well keep her there for as long as whatever was happening to him lasted. Until they found him.

     She turned and began walking away. "Come with me," she repeated.

    He leaned down to look into the car again but it was gone. Instead, all he could see in every direction were fields of tall grass like wheat that bent in waves in a high wind. It was no longer night but broad daylight.

    "Wait a minute!" he called out after her.

    She was so far ahead he could barely see her. She moved quickly along a dirt road that seemed to unfold as she went.

    "Wait!" he shouted again. The next second he was beside her. In the distance, behind them both, he saw someone signaling them, obviously calling to them, but the sound too faint to hear. "There's someone else back there," he said.

    Naliv stopped walking and took his arm. "That is you," she said with a smile. "Come on, this will not take long."

    He saw the yellow knapsack hanging from her other arm. It was heavy, yet she carried it easily.

    "Yes, I took it from your car. Thank you," she said as they continued walking, "for helping us. For finding this."

    A few feet beyond them there was nothing at all, only an emptiness. He couldn't name the color. Yet with each step the road extended, with fields of wildflowers on either side.