Sohna and Vivian - My Brother's Keeper

She was walking back over to the bed now. Odd how it sounded like she’d just come out of the bathroom, he thought, but the door to that was pretty close to the door to the bedroom they were in, so maybe he just couldn’t tell the difference - he’d only been here one day, after all. Quietly, softly - oh, yes, so softly - she climbed back onto the bed. Any moment she would wake him and he would see her smiling ...

But she only laid back down. Puzzled at this unexpected turn of events, he opened his eyes. She was lying on her side, facing him, apparently watching him sleep. Part of him - well, most of him - was both flattered and exhilarated. He’d watched her sleep countless times, most of them on their journey when he hadn’t been sure if she was even capable of returning his love, until he’d memorized every freckle on her beautiful face. The last ten days - since she’d told him she loved him - had been an absolute joy, marred only by her sorrow and grief over the circumstances surrounding her mother’s death. But that would pass, he knew. Their love would last forever: Yes, happily ever after, that’s for us! he thought with amazed delight. A small part of him, however, thought it odd that Virginia didn’t seem to be aware of the food smells coming from the kitchen.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” she said softly, her voice almost a whisper, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

No, she really didn’t seem to know about the food at all. He sat up. She looked up at him curiously, and sat up herself. He drew her to him involuntarily - it was a gesture he could only have stopped with an extreme act of will - and put one finger to his lips, listening. Startled, her intensely blue eyes grew wide, and she turned her head to look toward the kitchen, but made no sound. Yes, he thought, he could detect some vague, almost indistinguishable clatter from that direction. Virginia turned back to him and shook her head to indicate that she hadn’t heard anything, but he put his finger back to his lips and nodded toward the door with what he hoped was a meaningful look. She nodded back to him - if he’d heard something, that was apparently good enough for her. Silently, he retrieved his trousers from the floor and began to put them on.

There was a man’s robe handy - obviously intended for Tony, and therefore long enough to cover his tail at any time of the month - which would’ve been quicker to get into, but he wasn’t quite sure exactly who or what he was going to meet. He could move a lot faster in the trousers.

He crept quietly towards the door while pulling on his undershirt, Virginia just behind him. Soundlessly, he turned the handle and peered out, but saw nothing besides the bare hallway and ludicrous all-white furnishings of the main living area just visible through an arched opening ahead and to his left. Part of his mind drifted off onto a tangent, thinking they’d have to find someplace else to live before the baby came - he couldn’t imagine children growing up in this spotlessly white environment where no dirt was ever permitted, with someone constantly cleaning up at their heels. This errant thought, however, did not in the least interfere with his concentration as he headed cautiously down the hall to the kitchen door. He waited there silently until Virginia was just behind him, then threw the door open with such force that it banged against the inside wall and bounced back so hard he knocked it aside again on his way in.

Justine, one of the cooks who’d helped fix the rack of lamb for him yesterday, nearly dropped the carton of eggs she was holding as he sprang into the room, teeth bared, a growl growing in his throat. Virginia pushed past him, her hand on his arm.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“F... fix ... fixing breakfast,” stammered Justine in a small, scared voice. Her eyes stared at him in alarm, like a frightened doe’s. No!! No, not a good comparison! he thought. Not at all! Stop thinking that! He needed to calm down. Now. Desperately he concentrated on how soft and cool Virginia’s hand felt on his skin as he wondered exactly why he had reacted the way he had. There was no reason for it at all. Calm down! Slowly he got his breathing under control, taking her hand in his and squeezing it. It had very obviously been only a member of the Murray family that had let themselves in to prepare breakfast. All the evidence had pointed to it: they had keys, they were inclined to that kind of servitude, and he’d definitely smelled and heard breakfast being prepared. Yet he had reacted as though their lives were being threatened. It made no sense - it was the way he might have behaved during full moon, only right now the moon was not quite to first quarter - and he had no idea what it was that had set him off.

Virginia was arguing with Justine about their agreement to be left alone for a week.

“Oh, but surely you wanted to eat?” the woman insisted.

“We like to prepare our own food,” replied Virginia coldly. She turned to look at Wolf. “Don’t we?” she said, obviously expecting him to confirm her statement. But in her eyes he saw the unasked question: What’s gotten into you?

“Yes,” he said, amazed that his voice sounded so normal. But then he felt perfectly all right now, the only residual effect a slight clamminess to his skin, left over from having briefly broken into a sweat. “Sorry I scared you like that,” he added quietly, “I thought someone had broken in.”

The excuse sounded lame, he thought, but he was still too confused at the moment to think up something better. Fortunately, she seemed to believe it.

“And yes, I really enjoy preparing food,” he continued. “I especially like to make up my own recipes for marinading meats.”

“Oh,” replied the cook. She looked terribly disappointed.

Virginia shot him a curious glance at his last statement.

“Yes, and I enjoy it too,” she said, then relenting, went on, “But you’re here now, so you may as well finish fixing breakfast. Just from now on, let us do it, okay? And I mean all meals, not only breakfast. When Dad comes back, you can come cook for him.”

As might be expected, at the mention of Tony, Justine had agreed immediately and the two of them headed for the terrace, where the food was to be served. But just outside the kitchen, after the door had shut behind them, Virginia stopped him.

“Are you okay?” she asked. Concern for him radiated from her.

He sighed. He didn’t want her to worry, but then he didn’t want to lie to her, either.

“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. The answer upset her as he knew it would. She studied him for a moment, then took his hand and led him into the bedroom, closed the door behind them and sat him down on the bed.

“Wolf, you said that once a month, you ...” she suggested, but he cut her off immediately.

“No, it’s not that. It’s not time yet.”

“I didn’t think so.” She paused for a few seconds, then asked, “Is what happened in the museum yesterday a part of this?”

He had to think for a minute to remember what she was talking about. When he finally did, he started to laugh.

“No,” he said, “No, that was just my overactive imagination.” Wasn’t it?

She leaned over and put her arms around him, hugging him hard. He lost himself for a moment in the ecstacy of her closeness, the feel of her and her scent all around him, as he gathered her in.

Still in his embrace, she looked up.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said, “I really don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you here - if you got sick or something. Maybe we should go back to the Fourth Kingdom.”

“No.” He was definitely not doing that. Not when Virginia was doing so well here - and she sure didn’t need to go back to Wendell’s castle and be constantly reminded of her mother’s death. Whatever it was that was happening to him, it wasn’t as bad as the full moon, and he thought he could even handle that without the pressure the queen had put him under. He had at least been able to control it once - long ago, before he went to prison (why bother in a solitary locked cell?) - except for the few times he’d been in unbearably tempting situations. But he’d never been prone to these kinds of episodes between full moons, either, so he knew he couldn’t really be sure. And he knew that if he were in Virginia’s position, he’d be worried about him. Still, he had ten days, unless whatever it was got worse ...

“If it gets worse, we can always go back then,” he suggested, hoping that would satisfy her.

She agreed, though he could tell it was somewhat reluctantly, and led him through the bathroom out to the terrace. For the brief length of time it took to walk through, he forgot his worried musings, his imagination taken over once again by the extraordinary surroundings, as it had been the first time he’d been there. Even Wendell’s palace had nothing to rival it. He’d had a special use in mind for the freeform blue pool with its whirlpool water jets, which Linda had amazingly referred to as a bathtub, and it had nothing to do with bathing. Yesterday, however, he hadn’t quite gotten around to trying it out, being rather preoccupied elsewhere. Today, as he passed by the pool-tub, he vowed to remedy that oversight.

But outside on the terrace, the pale sliver of the waxing crescent moon had risen halfway into the sky, still visible against the blue thanks to a cloud on the eastern horizon which still obscured the sun. The sight of the moon in that setting brought back the memory of his museum visit, the knowing that the people of this dimension had gone there. The idea frightened him, maybe because he was unable to stop himself from imagining what it had been like. No air. Somehow that seemed appropriate. He doubted he’d be able to breathe there anyway. Breathing had been difficult enough for him in the museum, just thinking about it. But could that only be another symptom of whatever was wrong with him? He didn’t think so. Not directly, at least. This morning’s episode had been very much like a mini-moon madness. At the museum he’d felt nothing like that. No matter how much pain he’d ever had to endure to prevent himself from morphing (and the last full moon had been one of the worst ever, as futile as it had turned out to be), he’d never had trouble breathing before. Unless they were both simply reactions he had to this place. That was certainly possible. Although he wouldn’t like to say so to Virginia, he didn’t think he could spend the rest of his life here where the ground was covered in concrete and the only woods were artificially planted and covered with the grime of an impossibly populous city.

Not that it wasn’t incredibly interesting to visit, or that he wouldn’t stay here anyway if that was what Virginia wanted. He could tolerate that a lot better than he could living without her, he was sure of that. Maybe the whole thing was rooted in the lack of magic here. He’d never liked magic, personally, but then he’d never really stopped to consider the alternative (though he really didn’t think even his imagination could have ever conjured this up), though he hated to think of magic or its lack thereof having any kind of effect upon him.

Cripes, do you have to analyze everything??? His brother’s voice was as clear in his mind as if he’d actually been there speaking, even after all these years. He smiled. The two of them had argued continuously, it seemed, though he’d usually just given in and let Rafe win, since his brother had apparently viewed everything Wolf did as a personal competition. He’d never understood why, since from his point of view Rafe was not only better looking, but so perfectly comfortable with what he was. But this particular argument wasn’t one Wolf had been willing to let go. He’d been trying to figure out exactly what it was about the full moon that affected them and Rafe had, predictably, sneered.; So Wolf had lunged at him. And, as usual, lost the match.

“Are you okay?” asked Virginia, bringing him abruptly back to the present. He realized he was still staring at the moon and tore his eyes abruptly away.

“Yes, I’m fine now,” he said. “I was just thinking about my brother, that’s all”

“You have a brother?” she asked.

He realized then that he’d never told her anything about his family.

“Yes, I have two sisters, too, but they didn’t really grow up with us,” he said. “Rafe - my brother - and I went to live with an aunt when I was eleven and he was ten. Our sisters were younger, and they went to live with some cousins who didn’t live very close to us.”

Virginia nodded.

“Is that what happened after your parents were killed?” she asked.

He blinked. How did she know that? Or had she just assumed that was what must have happened?

“You told me about what happened to them,” she explained, apparently seeing his confusion. “When we were in Little Lamb Village.”

“Oh.” He wondered uneasily how much and what else he had told her.

“You don’t remember that?”

He shook his head. “No,” he said.

She nodded. “You only told me that they were dead and how it happened,” she explained gently. “You didn’t say anything else about your family at all.”

At that moment, Justine brought their breakfast out. The smells wafted enticingly over from the tray she carried. Wolf’s mouth began to water as soon as she opened the door, but he waited patientlyuntil she’d set their plates on the table. He looked down at the large omelet of mushrooms, yellow cheese and some sort of green vegetable, the two slices of buttered toast, and the measly four strips of bacon on his plate, but decided not to complain since he knew Virginia wanted the woman gone as fast as possible. But then as she set down a pitcher of orange juice, which he detested, she said, “Is there anything else I can get you?”

“Could I have some milk?” he asked before he could clamp his mouth shut, though he heroically managed to remain silent about the bacon. After Justine had left to go after his milk, Virginia, who had looked up in alarm at his request, smiled at him and moved all her bacon to his plate.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Oh, but Virginia, this is yours! I can make myself some more later.”

“Wolf, I’ll be doing good if I can eat this whole omelet. I don’t need bacon too. Really.”

He nodded, picked up his fork, and poked at the omelet in front of him.; The green stuff was broccoli, which he thought looked far too similar to beanstalk. Deftly, he pulled all of it out and laid it aside. He was nearly finished dissecting it when Justine finally returned with a crystal pitcher of milk and the thickest newspaper he’d ever seen: rolled up, it must have measured six inches in diameter.

“I took the liberty of getting you the Sunday paper,” she said. “Will there be anything else?”

Both of them told her no and breathed a sigh of relief when she actually went away. Wolf had been prepared for her to stand over them and clean up after their every move as had been done the day before. He picked up the pitcher.

“You want some?” he asked.

“No, I don’t like milk.”

“Huff puff, more for me then,” he said as he filled his glass.

“Wolf,” she began, “Did you really mean that about making up your own recipes?”

“Of course I did,” he replied, surprised. “Did you?”

“Yes,” she said, then looked away and laughed, almost to herself.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just that, well, before I ever knew the Nine Kingdoms existed I used to dream about someday opening my own restaurant. I thought all I needed to make that dream come true was to have a man who was interested in food as a partner.”

He had his fork halfway to his mouth, but stopped and put it back down on his plate.

“I guess I could try to do that,” he said hesitantly, privately marveling at the machinations of destiny. He had still been a little worried about his fixation on food, and here she had wanted someone like that! “But, you know,” he added, “I usually like to eat what I cook ...”

“No, Wolf, don’t worry about it,” she said. “I don’t know, it’s just not important any more.”

As soon as he had taken the last bite, Justine appeared instantly to clear away the dishes, making him wonder if she’d been staring at them the entire time they ate. To pass the time until she left, Virginia picked up the paper and unrolled it. Wolf would have beaten her to it - he was very curious about her world, but was slightly afraid of finding a headline about a moon landing. But the bold print on the front page only screamed cryptically: War Renewed in Bosnia. He hoped Bosnia wasn’t nearby.

Virginia methodically separated out the paper into different sections: Sports, Business, Entertainment, Travel - that looked interesting - a small section of colorful pages, and a booklet. He picked up the booklet. TV Guide.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Oh, that just tells you what shows are going to be on TV this week,” she said. She’d already explained the concept to him the day before.

He opened it and began flipping through the pages. Suddenly a small quarter-page advertisement caught his eye. It was a picture of an island with a snow-covered mountain at its center and several castles scattered throughout the surrounding woods. But beneath that, as if in a reflected image, a city very much like the one he was in was depicted. The words beneath it read, The 10th Kingdom. Below that were several small pictures of different people.

“Look at this,” he said, turning the page so Virginia could see it. “It’s a TV story about Cinderella and Snow White!”

She bit her lip. “I hate to disappoint you, Wolf, but those things are hardly ever any good. It’s just a collection of famous people the network put together to entice people to watch. You probably wouldn’t even recognize Cinderella or Snow White at all, they’ve probably changed their stories so much. If there’s even any real plot to it, which I doubt.”

“Oh.” There was something about the picture which intrigued him, regardless. He turned it upside down to get a better view of the city. “Is this New York?” he asked her.

“Yes, it is,” she said, studying it. “Oh, I remember this now. It was on before, earlier this year.”

“You’ve seen it, then?” he asked.

“No. I wouldn’t have wasted my time.”

“Oh.” He was unable to keep the disappointment out of his voice. “It’s not that I don’t like fairy tales ... I mean, stories about Snow White or Cinderella, it’s that I just don’t have any faith in the television industry being able to tell them. That’s all. But I really do love this kind of thing. I always have.”

He was about to ask her if they could just watch it anyway, but something stopped him. Instead, he asked, “Do you know the story of the Tenth Kingdom, then?”

“No,” she said. “What is it?”

“The Tenth Kingdom was an island that disappeared centuries ago. A lot of centuries ago. At least that’s what it was supposed to have been. It’s really only a legend.”

“Do you mean Atlantis?” she asked.

“What’s Atlantis?”

She told him.

“No. I don’t think it had anything to do with a volcano, or with the island sinking. And I don’t think it was quite that long ago.”

“Well, what is the story?”

“I don’t know. It’s only a legend - everything I know about it I just told you: It was an island and it disappeared. Eight to ten centuries ago, more or less. I was hoping you could tell me.”

“No, sorry, she said. “Was this one of the things you learned in school?”

“No.” Where had he heard it? In prison? It all seemed so vague.

“Look,” she said, “If you really want to watch it, we can do that. It’s not like we have to be somewhere - when is it on, Friday? I just don’t want you to be disappointed, that’s all.”

He smiled at her, happy she wasn’t too set against seeing it. She could be right, of course, about it being only a terribly written play, but then it was also possible he’d find some interesting things out about his own world. There were several things which seemed strange to him about the connection between the two places - first, how the history of his world had found its way to hers, and second, why both traveling mirrors he’d seen had led to the exact same place. He was delighted to think that the story might hold some clues to those questions. But he got even happier when Justine left a few moments later and he finally got a chance to try out the new bathtub.

A blast of cold air hit Virginia in the face as she opened the glass door to the refrigerator at the convenience store just around the corner from their apartment. The Murrays had stocked it quite well, but they just hadn’t figured on having a wolf live there. Oddly enough, there was still plenty of meat - that could be kept in the large freezer, and they had filled it to capacity. What they hadn’t bought much of was milk, which she found quite understandable. She scooped up the gallon jug by the pink carrying handle, then supported it with her other hand, just to make sure the thing didn’t slip off. The bottom of the container was already wet and it made her hand feel slimy.

There was a fairly long line at the register, and she found herself standing part of the way down one of the aisles. She noted with amusement the large display of condoms to her right, and passed some of the time entertaining herself wondering what Wolf would make of them. She doubted he’d seen them - she was sure he’d have mentioned the outlandish advertising printed on the boxes if he had. The line had nearly allowed her to leave the aisle when she saw them: Home pregnancy tests. Her period was already three days late, though she’d told herself that it could just be because of all the emotional strain she’d been under for the past month. But she knew, especially considering Wolf’s prediction, that it was also quite possible she was really pregnant. Still, she had no direct proof, and was unwilling to visit a doctor simply to find out: They may have been living in total luxury, but in actuality they had very little cash - only her last paycheck from the Grill and what little she’d had in savings. Her medical coverage had ended with her job. On an impulse, she picked up one of the boxes and took it with her.

Wolf was just putting the finishing touches on their dinner when she got home.

“Oh, huff, puff, good! I was starting to get worried about you,” he said.

“It was just crowded,” she told him, handing him the jug of milk. “I’ll be right back.”

She shut herself in the bathroom and took the pregnancy test out of the shopping bag. Yes, she thought, she really needed to get this over with. Thinking about it was starting to consume her. She’d never noticed before how many pregnant women there were in the city. On the way home alone she’d seen three, and all she’d done was walk around the corner. Once she’d taken the test, if it turned out she wasn’t pregnant, she could finally go on with her life. And if she was, well, she’d think about that when she knew for certain. Purposefully, she tore open the end of the box and took out the directions.

Wolf had spread a sheet out on the floor in front of the giant screen television that dominated the living room. He thought they could eat dinner and watch The Tenth Kingdom at the same time, but he was afraid of ruining the white carpet. Oh, well, he thought, It looks a little like we’re having a picnic now and that’s nice, anyway. The TV was already on, droning its way through a multitude of commercials. He found many of them more intriguing than the plays they were scattered through - it amused him to figure out what tools they used in this dimension to sell things to people. So far he’d noticed that they used a lot of sexual suggestion. The one that was on now, for instance, seemed to consist of nothing but that: Two people, in different cars, were staring at each other out their windows, obviously mutually attracted. Wolf actually stood and watched it, even though he was in a hurry to get dinner out, because the man in it reminded him vaguely of a wolf. But he couldn’t have been, of course. Not in this dimension. Nor was the character, he concluded, after watching the end. They guy’d had a baby daughter in the back seat, and so obviously had someone else for a mate. It was not even a very good commercial, he judged, since he still had no clear idea of what it was trying to sell. There were some cryptic words at the end: Passat, by Volkswagon, but even if he’d known what they meant, he didn’t think it would be enough. Huff, puff, if you want to sell something, you shouldn’t make people wonder what it is, he thought as he hurried back into the kitchen to get the food.

“Oh, my God,” she murmured.

Virginia stared at the thin, pink plastic wand in her hand, unable to quite take in what it was telling her. The white indicator panel will turn pink if you are pregnant, the directions had said. She’d wondered how pink it was supposed to turn, and what she was supposed to think if it came out with only a slight blush. But she needn’t have worried. The thing was positively neon. Wolf was right. She was pregnant.

Still, she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the wand. She heard Wolf call to her from the other room, but took no notice. I don’t feel any different at all, she thought. And I must have been pregnant for what, almost three weeks now? No morning sickness, no cravings - nothing! Shouldn’t I feel different somehow if I’m really pregnant? Yet there was the indicator in her hand. And Wolf had somehow known, too. How?

Thinking of him made her realize he was shouting from the other room.

“Virginia!!! Come here! You have to see this!”

Numbly, she walked out into the living room, still holding the wand, looking up at the television just as the music faded from the title scene.

“Oh, you missed it!” he exclaimed, disappointed. “You should have seen ...”

“Be quiet!” she snapped. The opening words, spoken in a voice-over by an actress, riveted her:

My name is Virginia and I live on the edge of the forest.

He started to say something else, but stopped. Both of them stared, their mouths open, at the actress who had evidently been speaking. Her costume was unmistakable: She was wearing clothes identical to the ones Virginia had worn threadbare during their adventure in the Nine Kingdoms.