Wangaia by Gayle P. Nastasi (novel24 .txt) 📖

Wangaia

by
Gayle Nastasi

I

Casey stared at the rejection slip. The fourth--or was it fifth?--this week.

'Although your story is well thought out and your characters are delightful, we're sorry to inform you that we are not buying fantasy right now. Good luck with your endeavors.'

Not buying fantasy. No one was buying fantasy. Naturally, fantasy was what Casey wrote. She crumpled up the slip and tossed it into the trash can beside her desk. It hit the top of the mountain of discarded paper and rolled off, landing lightly on the carpet along with a dozen of its cohorts.

The computer screen stared into her face. Wangaia: Takeover

, somewhere around the halfway point of chapter eleven. Useless words, over 50,000 of them would scroll past her if she pressed her PageUp key. 50,000 words, six months of her life, the outpouring of her soul for the past half year. 50,000 words that no one would want to buy because fantasy isn't selling.

She clicked the close button and the word processor screen disappeared, leaving a desktop cluttered with assorted icons in its place. Why even bother writing the rest? No one was going to buy it anyway.

Oh, but it was a good story. She stretched and rose, shuffled over to the counter between the kitchen and the living room, and looked at the stack of bills, reminders, and collection agency notices lying there unopened. They were all good stories. Well thought out and with delightful characters. Characters that lived in her head, breathing and eating and sleeping and doing battle and making love through her days and right on into her dreams at night. Characters no one but she and her email critique group were likely to ever meet.

The phone rang. She glanced at the clock--10 AM right on the nose--before picking it up.

"Hi, Mom."

"How'd you know it was me, honey?"

"You call every morning at 10. Who else would it be?"

"You sound down, what's the matter?"

She didn't want to say it, but what kid could lie to their mother and get away with it? So she braced herself for the lecture that was bound to happen and said, "Wangaia got another rejection. It came in this morning's mail."

A deep sigh sounded through the receiver, accompanied by the crackle of electric static. Casey glanced out the back window. The sky was black and foreboding, an image right from the Vatas’ Mountain, the most mysterious realm in Wangaia. The realm which was also a central location of a useless sequel, which was bound to sit 50,000 words undone on her hard disk forever.

"Sweetie, I know how you love to write, but don't you think you were a little premature to quit your secretarial job? Writing full time is something only successful writers can do."

"I am a successful writer." It wasn't quite true, not anymore. She'd sold a romance novel a number of years ago, but it didn't do all that well, and she'd never even seen any royalties. It went out of print quickly, and she hadn't sold anything since but a few short stories.

"Why don't you call your old boss, ask him if he needs someone part time? You have to eat, dear."

The stack of bills on the counter screamed at her. Listen to your mother!

Jim Laffeter would probably hire her back. He was the grandfatherly sort, always watching out for his people. It wasn't really a bad job--just not part of her dream. She knew his business had been growing slowly but steadily, and had heard through the grapevine that they were looking to expand again. They were going to be needing people for the new office that would open right in her own home town. Why were mothers always right?

She swallowed the tear that leaked down the back of her throat. "I . . . I'll give him a call after the storm passes, Mom." Casey wasn't normally a cryer. She just felt so drained, so tired.

Her mother gave her a few comforting words that she half-heard. The crackle of the approaching storm grew louder, and they agreed that they should get off the phone before it came too close. She'd just let go of the receiver when the first bolt struck. It hit close--real close--and the rumble of thunder that followed immediately on its heels shook the house. Hail clattered against the shingles like machine-gun fire. Another lightning bolt streaked through the sky and hit somewhere in the woods behind the house. The crack as it exploded sent electricity zapping through the air around her, and her hair stood on end with the static.

Her whole house was suddenly charged.

The cat raced across the living-room rug, sparks flying off its tawny fur.

Casey giggled. "It's okay, Zimmer," she called after the slender tail that had vanished beneath the old overstuffed chair near her desk, "It's only a storm."

Only a storm. A third crack of lightning hit close, and sparks flew like blue fire around the room. One hit the computer on the desk, and the hard drive rattled and hummed of its own accord.

"Whoa!" Casey raced across the carpet, and the static charge tingled up her legs, through her body, along the back of her neck. As she reached the desk, her word processing program popped up before her. The sequel to Wangaia was staring out at her, at the very place where she'd left off writing.

"Too strange!"

She reached for the power button. Zimmer darted out from under the chair and clung, frantic, to her leg.

"Hey, what's up with you?" She hauled him into her arms, hugging tight and rubbing her face on his short, cougar-like fur. She waited for his soft Abyssinian purr, but it didn't come. He was trembling. "You're not usually afraid of storms, silly."

Casey shifted the cat to her left arm and once again reached out to switch the computer off.

Zimmer cried out.

Lightning shrieked from the sky.

Her hand contacted the computer.

The world exploded!

* * *

When Casey came to, the first thing she noticed was that she was wet. Soaking wet. What in the world had happened? Had the lightning blasted a hole in her roof? She lay there for a moment, clutching something warm and trembling to her chest. Zimmer--she still had hold of the cat. He shifted slowly--at least he was alive. Oddly enough, the tremble didn't seem to be a tremble after all--he was purring.

Her head hurt miserably. Evidently she also was still alive. Was that going to be a plus, or a minus? She squeezed her eyes tighter shut, afraid of what she would find when she opened them. Feeling out from the pounding in her head, she searched for additional pain--for burns or missing limbs or other dramatic effects that a lightning strike may leave on a person's body. To her surprise, there was nothing--nothing but wet. As it dawned on her that the wet was actually warm, her eyes flew open.

She immediately wished she'd kept them closed.

A man stared down at her, concern lighting the depths of his deep blue eyes. His black hair hung long and straight around high, chiseled cheekbones. Full, firm lips curved up in a slight smile, touching his sun-bronzed face with a hint of relief.

"Ah, you are awake, lass. I had thought I might lose you for a moment there. Are you in pain?"

"Where the hell am I?" Casey shot to a sitting position, clutching Zimmer tightly. Thick, crude woolen blankets fell around her and the chill air hit her soaked clothing and made her shiver.

He chuckled softly. "Safe, now."

Casey looked around. She was surrounded by large stretches of hide on three sides, held up by crude poles freshly hewn from sapling trees. The front of the tent was open, and the rain poured down in flowing gray sheets before it. It hit the ground and streamed away from the tent opening, which told Casey that whoever set this camp had done so on a rise. She tried hard to peer through the pouring rain, to see into the distance, but all she could make out was a darker shadow through the gray that loomed in the distance. Even though it was unclear, its shape was vaguely familiar. Familiar enough to give Casey's stomach a nauseous turn.

Zimmer settled contentedly in her lap, purring and kneeding with his slender paws, as if this was where they had been meant to be all along.

Her strange companion was seated on the ground before her, just at the edge of the pile of blanket-covered-straw that made up Casey's unusual bed. He was dressed in rough-hewn breeches and a pull-over shirt of dingey-white. The stitches that held the material together stood out coarsely, reminding her of a badly-patched stuffed animal. The cloak he wore draped over his broad shoulders, though faded and worn, was made of silk and velvet. Had he stolen it? Casey's searching gaze finally rested on the long, naked dagger in his belt.

"What . . . what place is this?" The words didn't want to come out, and when she finally forced them they sounded cracked and dry.

"You do not know?" His voice was deep and resonant, and his eyes glinted mischievously as he spoke.

She shook her head. "How did I get here?"

"There was a lightning strike, and I heard a scream. I never have been able to resist the sound of a woman in distress." He grinned broadly. "I found you lying beside the stream at the bottom of this hill, where it runs from the meadow into the forest, clutching that animal to you. You were unconscious."

"Well, uh-- I suppose I should thank you." Her head was spinning, but she resisted the urge to shake it to try to clear it. The throbbing headache would never let her get away with that. "So, thank you. But you didn't answer my first question. Where am I?"

He frowned and peered closely into her face. "You have been injured more than you appear to be. This place is called Wangaia-- "

Casey didn't hear the rest. At the sound of the name of her fabricated fantasy world, the spinning in her head overcame her, and Wangaia turned black.


II

The sounds around her were the same as before, the rain beating against the canvas, the distant rumble of thunder. Distant. The storm was moving away, at least. Warmth radiated toward her from somewhere on her right, and with the heat wafted a spicy aroma. Casey's stomach rumbled, and she once again braved the frightening