Stranger in a Strange Land [open]

[jane_eyre]

Today Jane is alone. Adele in school, Bertha in the doctor's care, she is free to do as she pleases. And today she pleases to wander.

The forest that once seemed so forbidding and full of terror is now friendly and familiar. It was here that she came to realize the awful truth about Thornfield and it's master - may he to the devil and his name be struck from the record of her mind - and it was here that she felt she truly came to know herself. Jane Eyre of - not of Gateshead, not of Thornfield, but of the moor.

She stands a moment in a clearing, listening to the rustle of wind amidst leaves, feeling the spring of moss and dead leaves beneath her feet, and closes her eyes, opening herself up to the world of spirits Helen had once told her about. She fancies she can feel it now, a light tingling just out of reach, if she could only grasp it -

Her hand presses forward into the dusky fog, fingers wrapping around the invisible life beyond, when behind her eyelids the light changes, bright and hot, and the smell, the gentle give of the earth, and the sounds - all of it gone, replaced by things new and, indeed, frightening.

She opens her eyes and beholds the new world around her, solid stone beneath her feet, unfamiliar, overwhelming smells in the thick hot air, and cacophony. Voices, yes, but things stranger still, beyond her understanding, a distant rush and roar, a tapestry of noise she cannot even begin to mark.

She feels herself sway, near into a faint, and catches herself just barely, bracing upon the lip of a great fountain behind her, an angelic statue staring down.

"Oh," she whispers to herself. "Oh, saints preserve me."

What unholy nightmare is this, what strange netherworld has she stepped into? It feels realer than anything she has ever dreamed. For many moments she rests at the fountain's edge, frozen and quite, quite alone.

Comments

[adventuressing]

On days when she has nothing better to do, Charley has taken to bringing a book to Central Park and reading in the sun. Or indeed the shade. Truth be told, she is rather beginning to itch at the stillness of this life; certainly it has its fair share of mystery and intrigue, but it all seems to be of a very slow-burning variety, and not immediately satisfying. Besides which, despite her best efforts, she remains at the fringes of all of it.

So Central Park it is. Charley knows this is where most people pop out when the Rift grabs them, so she keeps an eye out over the top of her books, in case anyone obviously out of place should suddenly appear.

Today, someone does. It's a girl-- or a young woman, really, Charley supposes-- dressed in a drab Victorian frock, looking around her in wide-eyed, terrified incomprehension. Charley hoists herself to her feet, tucking her book (something by someone called Tamora Pierce today which Charley is very much enjoying) into her bag and making her way over into the girl's line of sight, trying not to startle her further.

'I say!' she calls, lifting one hand in a little wave. 'Are you all right?'

[jane_eyre]

It takes a moment to realize she is being addressed. She casts about for the source, eyes dark and dazed, lips parted like a half-drowned thing gasping for air. She sees the woman approaching her and straightens herself up, attempting presentability.

The woman, she notes, is wearing trousers. How very... peculiar. However her accent is familiar and her tone encouragingly friendly, and Jane manages a subtle nod.

"I'm not altogether sure," he replies. "I seem to have been... spirited away." She glances, furtive and uneasy, at her surroundings, but it's too much to look at; she refocuses her attention on the young woman. One thing at a time for now.

"My name is Jane," she says, keeping her hands clasped before her. "Jane Eyre, formerly of Thornfield. Is this a dream?"

An odd question, perhaps, but she's asked it before, and every so often the apparitions have answered. It is worth seeing.