Excerpt: Duck, Duck, DRAGON

I

In Which Our Reluctant Heroine Discovers the Dangers of Closets

or

Down the Rabbit-Hole, or Something Like That…

"When I used to read fairy tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one! There ought to be a book written about me, that there ought!"

- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Jessica Stuart opened her closet door one day to find that something was horribly wrong. She blinked for a moment, shut the door, and then opened it again, only to find that nothing had changed, though everything had changed, really.
Her clothes had apparently been replaced by what appeared to be a forest.
As she stood there and stared, her tabby cat, Noodles, decided to investigate. He poked his head through the closet door, and made ignorant by shock, Jess didn't realize that Noodles was going into the woods until it was too late to stop him.
"Noodles!" she hissed. "Get back here!"
The cat glanced back at her, and with what looked suspiciously like a grin, he scampered off through the trees.
"Shit," said Jess. She took a deep breath, all the while wondering what she had done to deserve this. "If it starts snowing and a satyr shows up, I'm running like hell." And with that, she followed her cat through the closet.

@)~>~

To Jess’s relief, it wasn’t a particularly scary forest, but never the less, she kept an eye out for any Narnia-esque creatures as she searched for her cat.
“Noodles!” she called out.
“What?”
She stopped and looked down. There was her cat, and unless she was mistaken, he had just talked to her.
“Um, Noodles?”
“What?” the cat repeated. “I’m trying to explore, I’ll have you know.”
“Ok… what…?” She paused to take stock of herself. She didn’t think that she had overdosed on her medicine, but it was within the realm of possi-
“What?!” Noodles said urgently. “Either say something intelligent or leave me alone.”
“I’m being told to say something intelligent by a cat,” Jess muttered.
“Yes, and it’s something that you’ve yet to accomplish, as you keep repeating everything that I say.”
“Ok- why, why are you talking?!”
“I don’t know! Why don’t why don’t you tell me why there’s a freaking forest in your closet? Or better yet, why the hell did you name me Noodles? Noodles- what kind of retarded name is that?” the cat asked, indignant.
“Um,” said Jess, “to be honest, I don’t really remember.”
“Then can we change it?”
“Change what?”
“My name! Good Lord, you really are retarded...”
“And you’re an asshole!” accused Jess.
“I’m a cat,” replied Noodles, quite frankly. “It’s in my nature to be an asshole.”
Well Jess couldn’t argue with that (it was the truth, after all).
“So, uh,” she said, feeling ridiculous as it had dawned upon her that she was arguing with a cat in a closet forest that shouldn’t exist, “what do you want your new name to be?”
Noodles (or not-Noodles, rather) looked pensive, and then replied, “I think that I would like to be called Alexander, like Alexander the Great.”
Jess snorted. “Pretentious, much?”
Looking quite haughty for a cat, “Alexander” replied, “I am a great cat, therefore it is suiting.”
“Whatever, Al,” said Jess. She looked around at her surroundings, which had gotten a bit darker since they had arrived. “Let’s head back.”
“Back? Why?”
“‘Why’? Because we’re in the middle of a forest in the middle of my closet. Something is definitely not right in the land of Oz, or Narnia, or wherever the hell we are.”
Al shrugged and turned towards the direction that they had come from. For some time they walked in silence, primarily because Jess had some serious doubts concerning her sanity, and she didn’t want to encourage whatever it was that was wrong with her. But before long, she had to say something, for either they had gone in the wrong direction, or her closet door had disappeared.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” she asked her cat.
“Of course,” said Al. “I’m a cat- we have an impeccable sense of direction.”
“Ok. Then where the heck is the door?”
“I don’t know. It should be somewhere hereabouts,” Al informed her. “Though perhaps we should keep moving,” he added nervously, as night was beginning to fall.
At that moment, the duo heard a loud crashing sound that seemed awfully close to them. Al leapt up onto Jess’s shoulder and hissed, “Heck with the door- just get us out of these woods!”
“Wait, what do you mean ‘get us’? You can run much faster than I can,” she pointed out, “and get your claws out of my shoulder, you lazy cat!” She tugged at him, but he only held on tighter as two men, dressed in medieval clothing, tumbled out of a nearby copse of trees. Jess quickly got out of their way, as the men were locked in what looked to be a pretty heated sword fight.
“Idiot boy!” shouted one of the men. “You will die for your impudence!” He appeared to have the advantage in the fight, with heavily muscled arms and he moved just a bit faster the other man, who as he said, wasn’t much more than a boy, really. The boy looked to be not much older than Jess, so he couldn’t have been any older than nineteen or twenty.
“Shouldn’t we be running now?” whispered Al into Jess’s ear. She ignored him, fascinated by the swordfight, after all it wasn’t something that one saw everyday (but then again, neither was finding a forest in your closet).
“One of them might be able to help us,” she replied to her cat.
“Or they might both rape you and leave me to starve. Let’s go!”
Though Al certainly had a point, Jess was tired of being lost. Clearly her throat, she stepped toward the men and said, “Uh, excuse me.”
The pair stopped their fighting and stared at her, noticing her for the first time.
“Um, yeah, I know that you two are kind of busy, fighting and what not” Jess continued, “But I’m kind of… lost. Could either of you help me?”
“You’re lost, Miss?” said the older man, going from angry to suave in an instant. “Just from what land are you from? You’re dressed quite strangely.”
“I’m dressed strangely?” said Jess, without thinking. “Hello, it’s 2008 and you’re dressed like it’s 1408.”
“2008?” said the boy, stepping forward. “Miss, the year is 105 AV.”
“Wh- what?!” Jess sputtered.
“Why it’s 105 years After the Vanquish,” replied the man. “Are you well?”
“Um, no.” Jess shook her head, convinced now that something indeed was very much wrong with her. “All I wanted to do was change clothes- change clothes! And now there’s a freaking forest in my closet and my cat’s talking and there’s random strange people with swords and clothes that certainly aren’t mine!” She took a deep breath, aware that she sounded insane, which she probably was. “Ok,” she said, “just where the hell am I?”
“Danir, milady, in the Dark Forest.” said the boy, looking very confused, as was the man. “Where are you from?”
“Not here,” said Jess leaning against a tree, “wherever ‘here’ actually is.”
“I told you- you’re in the Dark Forest of Dan-”
“I know!” she snapped at him. She dropped her head to her hand, backtracking. She didn’t drink. She didn’t do drugs, as in the illegal kind, and she hadn’t overdosed on any of her prescriptions in recent memory. Or had she? Did she do it on accident?
“Um, miss, are you ok?” asked the boy, peering at her curiously.
“I don’t know, probably not,” Jess replied, shaking her head. She waved him away, saying, “Just ignore me. Go back to your sword fighting or whatever…”
The man and the boy looked at her, and then looked at each other. There was a moment of silence, followed by the resumption of the fight that Jess had semi-politely interrupted. Muttering to herself, she started to walk away, but at that moment, several more people burst from the midst of the surrounding trees. The newcomers were dressed in the same fashion as the boy and the man fighting, though Jess noticed that the new people and the boy wore clothes that were much more worn and of a poorer quality than the man’s.
Before she could really do anything, she found her arms being grasped rather roughly by a man and a woman from the group of people. Al leapt from Jess’s shoulder, clawing at the people holding her captive. The man, who had received the most damage from the cat, tried to hit Al, narrowly missing as the cat scampered off.
“What the hell are-”
Jess was cut off by a cloth shoved over her nose and mouth. She breathed in a sickly sweet scent and before she could further protest or struggle, the world went black, leaving her at the mercy of her captors.

@)~>~

“-she from?”
“I dunno. I’ve never seen anyone dressed like that before.”
“And the quality of the fabric! She must be rich!”
“But she wasn’t carrying any money… Maybe she’s lost and we could get a nice ransom for her?”
“I don’t know about a ransom, but she’s certainly lost, possibly insane. You should have heard what she said to me earlier…”
Jess came into consciousness, but didn’t open her eyes. She simply laid there and listened, trying to figure out where she was and what was going on. Through slitted eyes, she observed the people talking, taking note that among the four or five people who had captured her, the boy who was fighting earlier was present as well. There was also an elderly looking man who seemed to not be a participant in the conversation, but was content to listen. As she studied him, his eyes fell on her and he smiled.
“Why don’t we let our guest speak for herself?” the old man said, startling the others. Speaking to Jess, he continued, “Sit up, young one. We mean you no harm.”
Jess sat up slowly, now looking openly and warily at her surroundings. She was in a tent, not a large one, but not small either, and was on a cot. The strangely dressed people were all staring at her with looks to the contrary to what the man said. A couple certainly appeared to want to harm her greatly. Why? She didn’t know.
“Where are you from, miss?” asked the old man, walking towards her.
“Charlotte, North Carolina,” she answered truthfully.
“Where?” asked one of the women present (there were two), while everyone else looked at her blankly.
“North Carolina,” Jess repeated, “in America.”
More blank stares, all around.
With a deep sigh, she said, “Not here.”
Shaking his head, the old man replied, “I suppose that answer will have to suffice. Now more importantly than where you’re from, we must know your allegiance before we can decide what to do with you. Now I apologize for our rough handling of you earlier,” he said, smiling kindly, “but I’m afraid it was necessary. These are unsafe times, you know.”
“No, I don’t know,” Jess informed him. “I have no clue whatsoever what you’re talking about, and to be honest, I have no clue how I got here. All I want to do is grab my cat and go home.”
As if on cue, Al ran into the tent and jumped up beside her. “They’re not going to try and hurt me again, are they?” asked the cat with a wary glance at Jess’s captors.
“No, we won’t,” said the old man. “You weren’t harmed were you?’
“No, I’m quite fine, thanks,” Al replied and then stuck his tongue out at the man who had tried to hit him (who was looking very cross by that point).
This was too much for Jess to handle. How was she supposed to just sit there sanely while her cat carried on a conversation with a Dumbledore wannabe?
“Alright, please, somebody tell me what the hell is going on?” she shouted, trying not to sound too hysterical, but her voice rang with tension, causing the people present to reach for the various weapons that hung on their respective belts.
“It would seem that we are on different pages here,” said the old man calmly, gesturing for the others to calm down. “Would you share with us your story?”
Jess took a deep breath. They already thought that she was a raving lunatic, so nothing that she could say could make her situation worse.
She hoped.
“Ok, do you all have closets here? You know, little rooms with doors that you can keep clothes or other stuff in? Yeah, I was going to my closet this afternoon, or yesterday or whatever, to change clothes, and when I opened the door my clothes were gone. Gone, as in instead there being the inside of the closet, there was a forest. A forest. As in the forest we were in earlier. So yeah, anyway, I’m staring at this closet forest when my cat, Noodles, or Al now, I guess, runs in, and I have to go in after him. And then, what’s more, he starts talking! Talking!”
“Hey!” Al felt the need to interject. “I am-”
“Shut up!” Jess snapped. “Anyway, yeah, the cat starts talking and then we get lost, run into him,” she said, pointing at the boy who had been fighting. “Him that other guy confuse the shit out of me, then they show up-” This time she pointed to the others. “-and freaking chloroform me and now I’m here and even more confused, and freaked out, and you all probably think I’m insane, which I probably am and all I want to do is go home.”
Jess inhaled deeply, as she had given almost her entire spiel on one breath.
“You’re not insane, dear child,” said the old man, smiling serenely, a stark contrast to the looks Jess was receiving from the other people in the room (who were regarding her as they would a madwoman, which she essentially was).
“Ok then, what am I?”
“A miracle.”
Jess simply stared at him. “Come again?”
“You, my child, are part of a prophesy, of fate.” The old man turned to face the rest of the tent and announced, “The beginning of the end of Lord Kruger is today!”
“What?” Jess said. She thought that she couldn’t be more confused than she already was, but apparently she was wrong.
“You’re here to save our kingdom,” said the old man, grasping Jess’s shoulders.
She shook her head and said simply, “Shit.”