The Ninth Door

Chapter 4 - Mission

Emmerich

I had been thrown into a strange world – a future world I had never imagined I would see and I was a man born into everything strange. A knight. A shifter. A prince. Suddenly, wars were no longer my immediate concern. Instead, I had been tasked to be a young, unchaperoned woman’s protector and quest companion.

Sienna Kelley shouldn’t be a stranger. She had been carrying my book since she was a young girl. She called to me, but it took me years in her time for me to arrive here. It took a still growing magic and acceptance. It was a quest that I might not survive. After all, I was merely a character in Sienna’s book.

“You told me about all the things I have to go through – we have to go through, but I can’t just leave,” she said, her eyes anxious. They were green with some dots of yellow, and I almost imagined that she would shift right in front of me. When I traveled from my realm to hers, I took on my sturdier form – the leopard. I understood that she was like me, but someone who had never seen what she was capable of. Her family had turned its back on what they were. They lived their lives mostly as humans, ignoring their mystical feline form.

Nine lives. Nine doors.

My throat felt raw with emotion, as I remembered saying goodbye to my mother. I had to leave her with an irresponsible but ruthless older brother just because of a cry for help. My father was already dead, an honorable man who had defended his kingdom not just as a king but as a warrior and a shifter.

“We can wait,” I said, although my body was primed for adventure and my time was ticking. I wanted to be able to return home after this is all over and see what I could do for my mother, who had to take the role of monarch just because my father deemed my brother unworthy when he was still alive and because I chose the life of a knight. My knighthood didn’t require chastity and celibacy, but I had not found a wife. Perhaps it was for the best. She would have been one other person to leave behind for this quest. Lady Mary of Briar Hill would have been an option not because I loved her, but because my mother liked her and she seemed like a sensible choice.

“Are you sure?” Sienna asked, bringing back my thoughts into her world. “I need one more week before Christmas break. I’m a graduate student.”

I couldn’t help but exhale sharply. Graduate student. Christmas break. I didn’t know what she meant by that although her pattern of speech was becoming familiar. Leopards could blend in perfectly anywhere, and we were packed with strength despite being the smallest among big cats. Perhaps that could help me complete my mission here as soon as possible. Then, I could return home and live my life as it was always supposed to be lived. As soon as she realized what the ninth door was, it would be time for me to go home.

“One week should be fine,” I said, the modern words rolling off my tongue. Even the clothes I wore began feeling more comfortable. Of course, they were lighter than any chainmail and armor that my body had been used to carrying. It also made me wonder where the male who owned the clothes was. Her house was tiny, and the decorations were too feminine. Where would a lover or a spouse live? Would it be proper to ask about him?

“What can I do to help you here while we wait?” were the words that came out of my mouth, instead.

“It doesn’t have to be a week, Emmerich. I will try to finish all that I need to do in less time. Then, I’ll have to take a leave of absence to see if I can get off work earlier, too.”

Sienna wasn’t like any woman I knew. In my realm and time, women stayed at home. When you came for them, they only had to drop their needlework or bring along their children. They didn’t have to wait for days so that they could leave. I had to admit I was curious. Lady Mary would just take her chaperone with her, and would leave with a few of her belongings and supplies on horseback.

“You being here is help enough,” she added. “I know you’ll find it strange that I’m readily accepting all this. I might be hallucinating you. You might not be real at all, and I’m talking to myself. Maybe I’m making plans with myself. But it’s been lonely and scary here, something I can’t admit to my family.”

“Therefore, you believe you can confess to someone who might be a figment of your imagination?”

She nodded.

At that moment, I realized that I was truly needed there.

“I still need to know what I can do. I wake up before dawn breaks, Sienna. What chores do you need me to do?”

“Just be here.”

“Sienna -.”

“Okay. You can help me clean the house, and don’t call me Sienna.”

‘Annette? Annie?”

“Annette,” she said simply, but I felt the slightly hard edge. “Annie” was reserved for those who had shown her affection before, but I knew that her new name was a shield, and what she had to go through for the next few weeks or months would be an unmasking. It would be painful.

“Would I be taking the room to the right of the stairs?” I asked.

The whole setup would be considered improper in my realm, but it seemed a natural thing here in hers. Whatever the case might be, she could rely on my honor and a respect for hers.

“Yes. That room isn’t often used,” she said, and again, I wondered about a lover or a spouse who might not like this new situation.

“Apologies for even thinking of asking this, Sienna, but is there a lover or a spouse who would find this arrangement unacceptable?”

She chuckled bitterly, and looked at me in the eye.

“I am alone in this world, Emmerich. It’s why I’m willing to talk to a figment of my imagination.”

I didn’t know what possessed me, but I reached out and took her smooth, pale hands in my rough, calloused ones. We weren’t allowed this simple gesture, but then again, I shouldn’t be alone with this woman at all unless she were my wife. She drew a long breath, holding it in while watching me with surprise.

There was no fear there, though, and she didn’t pull away, either. Warmth coursed through my skin from the mere contact with hers. I almost dropped her hands as if they burned mine, but I held on. I could feel that she wouldn’t be able to take rejection, even if it was simply from friendship or human connection.

“You’re no longer alone. Do you feel that? I’m real, Sienna Kelley. You and the rest of the people around you will feel the effects of our quest. It’s our mission, and we will work toward it together.”

“W-what about you, Emmerich? Do you have a family waiting for you? A wife? Children? How old are you? It’s hard to tell from your book, but then again, I was a child when I was reading it.”

“I had been to occupied with wars and defending my realm to find a wife. I intended to ask for the hand of Lady Mary of Briar Hill in marriage after I’m done with one last mission. I have no children. Yet. I was a squire at age twelve, and became a knight at twenty-one. I had been fighting wars for four years now.”

“Oh, you are twenty-five,” she said. Various emotions flitted on her face. They were too fast for me to identify one at a time. “Most of the wars I fought are internal, Sir Emmerich. I am an assistant librarian and a graduate student. I am twenty-one years old.”

Sienna looked younger than most women of one and twenty from my realm. Only those who were from royal blood, like Lady Mary, had the luxury of pampering themselves. Other young women worked hard and looked years older than Mary or Sienna. I knew Sienna would have guessed me older than I was, perhaps almost thirty. Battles could do that to you. I had seen so many things. Things nobody should ever see in their lifetimes.

But Sienna? She might look young, but her eyes were haunted as if she had gone through hell like I had. Only one night could do that to you. Seeing and hearing her mother vilified and murdered had done that to her.

“I look and feel older,” I admitted, gently placing her hands back to her lap. I hadn’t had this kind of talk with anybody for a long time, even with my mother. With other knights, it was mostly drinks and ribaldry. I couldn’t blame my men. We didn’t have time to talk about anything serious when we could die in just a few hours.

“You should have seen yourself just now. Y-you look younger than you were when you arrived here.”

I chuckled at her sense of wonder, at her willingness to expect things to become better. Perhaps my mission wouldn’t be that hard at all. All mirth died when I saw she had raised her right hand. It stopped mid-air, but it looked like she was about to touch my face. There was hesitation there and the flush of embarrassment on her face. She wasn’t used to having someone in her home, and I forced myself into her life several years too late. Instead of letting her hand hang there awkwardly, I took it and placed it on my face, letting her feel the rough tips of my days’ old stubble. I shouldn’t be doing this, the impropriety hitting me as I felt her hand on my face.

“Human connection, Sienna. You need it, too. It doesn’t have to be with me. Find someone who can be a friend. Someone who will care for you even after our quest is complete.”

I gave and took with that little speech. I could give her companionship for the time that I was here with her, but I made it clear that she should find someone who would be more constant in her life. After all, I wasn’t sure I would survive this mission at all.