Another journal

You can find all the sections here.

Janice got Emily inside quickly, with at least one worried look around the trailer park. Emily stopped cold just inside the door, open backpack hanging off one shoulder. Everything appeared the same on the surface, but the more she looked the more incongruities popped up. There were new throw pillows and rugs covered what were probably worn spots in the carpet. On the coffee table was what had to be a portable computer, but Emily had never seen one that slim, or known anyone who owned one. Next to it was the painfully familiar half-full tumbler of iced tea. Before she could take in much more, Janice steered her niece to the couch, her grip tight on Emily’s arm. While her aunt twisted the blinds closed, Emily slid the backpack to the floor and rested her head in her hands, looking at the unfamiliar rug beneath her feet.

“Why don’t you want the others to know I’m here?” Emily’s voice was muffled, aimed at her knees. She felt the old couch sink and shift as her aunt sat down.

“I’ll explain it to you soon, but can you wait until Becky gets here?” Janice pulled something from her pocket that Emily knew was a mobile phone, even though it was the size of a pack of cards and had a full colour picture of a meadow on the screen. Her aunt pushed at buttons, sighed and leaned back, still holding the phone.

“Is it on speakerphone or something?”

“What?”

Emily frowned. “Is it ringing right now?”

“Oh.” Janice laughed, the sound harsh and close to tears. “I texted her—like with a pager you send short codes? Only you can do sentences now.”

“But that’s a phone.”

“Yes.” Abruptly, Janice grabbed her niece in a crushing hug. “We thought you were dead. I got your last letter five years ago. I’d hoped maybe you were just trapped over there or something, but when we didn’t hear from you again—”

Emily pulled back. “Five years! But I wrote you just last week. I mean, even if time passes differently on each side, why a break that long?”

“There’s no sense to it.” Janice fumbled at a box of tissues on a side table, sniffling. Emily’s voice softened.

“I’m sorry.”

Janice waved one hand dismissively while wiping her nose. “I knew that time passed differently, no way you can guess what it’ll be until you’re out of it. A day could be a hundred years or just a week. Or there could be no time difference at all. But regular communication just stopping for that many years? I don’t want to say what I thought.”

“That I was dead? That maybe I’d decided none of you were worth coming back for?”

Janice paused, about to blow her nose. She nodded. Emily continued carefully. “How long were you gone? You were in the Sidhe for a long time.”

“I left the mundane world in 1868 and returned about 112 years later. Subjectively I wasn’t in the Sidhe too much longer than that.”

“Shit.” Emily shook her head. “I can’t even imagine. What was new to you, everything?”

Janice laughed again, short and half-choking. “Nearly. And everyone I’d known was dead.” She smoothed back Emily’s hair, which sprung back, wiry, as her hand passed. “I’m glad you were only gone ten years.”

“Aunt Janice—” Emily paused, uncertain of how best to approach it. “Do you know what everyone here did? They’re not, Auntie, they’re—”

The door opened as Becky let herself in. “I told them I had a migraine, though the way they don’t ventilate I might as well have had one.” She closed the door quickly behind her, wide eyes on Emily.

Janice sat up straight, crushing a tissue in her hand. She looked at Becky, but spoke to Emily. “Wretches, manipulators and complete bastards. Becky is the only one left I trust.”

The woman’s shoulders fell. She shrugged off her jacket, still wearing a salon apron underneath. “And I knew what they were doing and I didn’t stop it.”

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.