Other Worlds Than These

“Maggie. They took you away from me. They took you away—” I stare at her, my heart bleeding and breaking. She is a ghost and I have gone mad at last.

She puts her arms around me. I fall into her embrace, sobbing like a child, inconsolable. She is solid, my child, not a ghost.

I look over her shoulder at the men I believe—I assume—took her away from me. Masters of some religious cult, or a gang (Were there any boys? the police asked, and like a fool I said no, when I didn’t know anything).

The three of them stand near the boat, watching us uncomfortably. They’re dressed like Maggie, in leather and rough cloth, high boots, scuffed and worn, cloaks with hoods, studded belts and swords.

The largest of them has coarse hair tied back with a piece of leather. He looks over the water, clutching the hilt of his sword. He’s standing guard; the posture is unmistakable. The oldest has short hair the color of fog and a trimmed beard. He watches the third man, who watches my daughter. This one’s face is set in hard lines, his lips frowning, an expression that makes him formidable, yet handsome. Unreachably handsome. I hate him for the way he watches my daughter with such intensity his eyes burn. He has short hair and no beard, and wears a polished red stone on a chain.

This means something. This all means something, but I can’t guess what.

Maggie must sense me staring back at him, because she pulls away and turns to look back and forth between us. “Mom, I have so much to tell you.”

I clutch her sleeves, holding her arms as best I can, my knuckles white. The scenarios playing in my mind to explain what I see before me are muddled.

It doesn’t help when Maggie says, “This is my husband. He’s the king.” King of what? The words don’t make sense.

“They took you away,” is all I can find to say.

“I had to go.” She pulls on my arms, helping me to stand. I feel like an old woman. None of my joints work. But a moment later I’m standing. Maggie is still talking. “They needed me. They still need me. I didn’t know what was happening at first. I came here, something drew me here. I watched the mist over the lake, like I used to do when I was little. This time, the mist spoke to me. Maybe it had always been speaking to me, but this time I really heard it. I was at that point—I didn’t want to go to college, couldn’t train for the pentathlon, and I no idea what to do with my life. So I stepped out. I stepped over the water—and there he was with the boat, waiting.”

“She belongs with us,” the man, the one Maggie said is a king, and her husband, speaks. I’m surprised I understand him—I expect him to speak a guttural Scandinavian language. He sets his shoulders, fisting his hands, like he’s preparing to do battle.

I realize that Maggie isn’t staying.

“Who are you?” My voice is shrill.

“Mom—” Maggie recognizes the tone.

The gray-haired man steps forward. “We are warriors protecting you and your world from a darkness you cannot fathom.”

It’s silly. Words from the blurb on a paperback.

“We called one of you to join us in the battle. For a long time, we called. Almost, she came too late.” He glares like this is my fault. I glare like I don’t believe him.

“Mom, I only have a few minutes. I have to say goodbye.”

“Why? Why call her?”

“Because you did not answer when I called you.” And this wasn’t me failing my duty to his world. I had betrayed him personally. That is what his look says to me. He might have been the prince in his day.

Had there been a time, when I was a girl staying with my family and cousins at the cabin, standing on this dock, when I heard voices in the mist, and ran away because I was afraid?

“Where’s Dad,” Maggie asks. “Is he here?”

I shake my head. I haven’t heard the car return, crunching along the gravel drive. “He’s getting groceries.”

She presses her lips in a line. “Will you tell him I was here? Will you tell him I love him? I love you both. I’m sorry I can’t stay.”

“Maggie.” The word is a sob, filled with desperation.

It’s no comfort that she’s crying too. “There’s still fighting. I have to go.” The thought of her using that sword—a real sword with a sharp edge that draws blood, not a dull flexible rod with a button on the tip that registers hits with a green or red light—makes me ill. The thought of her coming up against such a weapon makes me ill.

The large man says, “We should go. The shadows grow close.”

He’s right. The mist has become a wall around us.

The king nods. “Meg?”

It’s not her name, but she nods. When had she become Meg? If she wanted us to call her Meg why didn’t she say anything? She studies me, like she expects to never see me again.

They will have children, my grandchildren, and I will never see them.

“I want you to be proud of me, Mom. I’m happy, with him. I need you to be happy for me.”

You try to be supportive. All I want to do is scream. But I nod.

She kisses my cheek, then lets go of me. The king holds out his hand to her, and she takes it. A look of such trust passes between them, I can’t understand it because I come from a world without princes. They have saved each other’s lives. He guides her back to the boat.

“Maggie!” I cry, stumbling forward, falling to my knees. “I love you! Don’t go, please—”

The boat, all its passengers aboard, fades back to the mist, without even a splash.

You did not answer when I called you.

Just after twilight, under a dark blue sky, Dave finds me lying on the dock, as if I’d curled up to sleep. He picks me up, carries me to the house, puts me to bed, and I don’t even notice. I pretend I’m dreaming. I wake up sometime—lamps light the room, the windows are dark—to smell hot tea and a crackling fire. Dave sits by the bed, watching me with something like desperation. He is no king or wizard from the mist. His brown hair is thin, the hairline receding. He wears a plaid flannel shirt untucked over gray sweatpants, not leather armor.

“What were you doing out there?” he says.

I know the words are crazy but I have to say them because she asked me to. “I saw Maggie. She was here. She said to tell you she loves you. She loves us. She had to go.” Rolling to my side, I stretch my arm under the pillow and hug it to my face. She came back, I think, strangely happy. She didn’t have to come back to tell me what happened to her, but she did. “She isn’t coming back.”

We stare at each other, because after all this time I’ve made it real. Saying the words has locked hope away, sealed its coffin. She isn’t coming back.

Dave puts another log on the fire in the bedroom fireplace, then watches it burn.

I don’t say another word about seeing Maggie and neither does he. If I say another word, he’ll say something like “therapy” or “hospital,” and we’ll fight. We’ve both had counseling, apart and together, and mainly it helps us get through the day, and add up the days so we can get through the weeks, and the months. But every day has felt like the one before it, and we don’t know how to move on. Dave is afraid that insanity is the next symptom of being frozen.

I can stay frozen for the rest of my life.

“We should get back,” Dave says the next morning at breakfast. “The neighbors’ll wonder what happened to us.” He smiles, trying to make it a joke. Never mind the neighbors, Dave’s job won’t wait. I left mine when I lost Maggie. Not going back is part of being frozen. But Dave is responsible.

“Just a little longer.” I lean on the edge of the sink, looking out the kitchen window at the lake, the dock. The sun is up, sending quicksilver sparkles over the water. She stood there yesterday. Like a dream. “Another day.”

Or week, or year. This is close to where she is, wherever she is. I think I should stay.

“I’ll pack up today,” Dave says. “We can leave tomorrow morning.”

After breakfast, I don’t bother changing out of my pajamas. I pull on a robe, slip my feet into canvas sneakers, and walk down to the lake. I sit cross-legged at the end of the dock, close enough to hear water lapping