21st Century
My legs give way and I sink onto the cold, polished floor of the pharmacy, screaming with – with what? Rage. Grief. Frustration. I'm not imagining it, it's really happening. I can see the red and blue lights of the patrol car reflected on the ceiling above me. I don't move, though, even as they scream at me to do so. My mind actually goes strangely blank as the realization that it's all over, that my plan is screwed, that I'm not going to make it back to the Viking camp in time, hits me.
"SHOW US YOUR HANDS!"
No, I think. No, I'm done. Do what you have to do, but I'm staying right here on this nice cool floor. You're going to have to come and get me.
I stay where I am, and the shouts of the police officer – maybe there are two of them, I can't tell – seem very far away. I'm very tired, too. So tired it almost feels as if I'm about to drift off right now, right here on the nice cold tiles in the–
Before I can finish contemplating whether or not to fall asleep on the floor of the pharmacy I've just broken into, I'm flying through the air somehow. Wait, no – I'm not flying. Someone is lifting me. A cop. My body is limp, I don't fight. I do, however, catch the look of surprise on his face when he finally gets a glimpse of me.
"It's a girl," he says, and he sounds so shocked I actually giggle. "Dave! It's a chick!"
He's handling me roughly, probably because he's angry I ignored their demands to surrender, to show them my hands, all those things I thought only happened on TV. But he's managed to get me over the counter and now I'm standing in front of it as he holds me very tightly by the arms. Hildy's done that before, held me that way. I don't like it. For the first time with the police I fight back, trying to wriggle out of the officer's grip. But I'm weak and it's useless.
The other officer – Dave – is rifling through the linen sack.
"It's – uh, it's food," he's saying to his partner. "And antibiotics. Yeah, just antibiotics. Granola bars, peanut butter, amoxicillin –" Dave looks up at me, confused. "What the hell are you doing stealing antibiotics?" He asks. "What, did you think these were Oxys? Is that what you – oh shit."
The cop holding my arms looks at his partner's suddenly serious expression. "What? Got something? I know this little chicky didn't just come in here to steal anti –"
"She's pregnant."
Both cops look down at my belly, which is partially obscured by my father's baggy sweatshirt.
"Are you?" The one holding me asks, and I feel his grip softening even before I can answer. "Are you pregnant, I mean?"
"Yes, I am."
He shakes his head disapprovingly. "What the hell are you doing? You don't look like an addict – and pregnant! Are you crazy?"
I shake my head. "No, not crazy."
"Not that it matters, you're under arrest for –"
Just as he's about to launch into my rights, which I admit I am looking forward to in a very strange way, the other officer – Dave – has another 'oh shit' moment. Only this time, instead of saying anything his eyes suddenly get very big and he points at me and does a little on-the-spot dance.
"What's your problem?" My officer asks him and Dave puts his hand over his mouth.
"Dude. It's – I think it's her – that college girl, Paige something. The one who went missing last –"
I find myself suddenly spun around to face the cop who had been holding me this entire time. They both study my face for a moment.
"No fucking shit," he says slowly, a few seconds later. "It sure looks like her – is that you? Are you Paige, uh, Paige –"
"Renner," I reply. "And yeah, that's me."
They're going to find out anyway, soon enough. Why not spare myself whatever trouble it would take if I didn't just admit it?
It's been almost a year since I used my last name. I sniffle a little after I do it this time, and the officers both soften noticeably.
"Get a chair!" The first one barks at Dave, and Dave brings me a chair. I sit down. "I'm Jim," he says, looking into my eyes. "Officer Jim Granton – and this is Officer Dave Stiles. You're – you're OK. Are you OK? Are you hurt? You don't look hurt."
"Should we call an ambulance?" Officer Dave Stiles asks, and his partner concurs. An ambulance is summoned, as are more police.
"How did you get here?" Officer Granton asks me, looking shocked. "Did you escape from somewhere – from someone? Have you been held? You know the whole country has been looking for you since last September, right?"
"The whole country?" I ask, still not quite convinced any of this is really happening. The whole country? The state, maybe – that I could believe. But the country?
I watch, when more police and paramedics arrive, as Officer Jim Granton takes my bag of food and antibiotics out to his car, knowing I won't see it – or any of its contents – again. My mind is whirring, trying to come up with a plausible scenario for getting back to the woods behind my father's house, alone. They don't seem to be arresting me – am I free to go?
Five minutes later, wrapped in a blanket I don't need in the back of an ambulance, I look right at the woman shining a light into my eyes and asking me what my name is and tell her I'd like to go. When she makes a non-committal noise I move to get up and she puts a hand on one of my shoulders.
"Wait a second, Paige. We're not even close to finished here. We need to –"
I shove her aside, not roughly, and try to exit the back of the ambulance. A man in street clothes, who looks to be a detective from the way all the uniformed cops are deferring to him, takes hold of my wrist.
"And where do you think you're going?"
"Home," I say, not looking him – or anyone – in the eye. "My dad's house. I need to see my dad."
"Your father has been called, Paige, he'll be waiting for you at the hospital. Is there something we can get for you? Are you hungry? Thirst –"
I try to yank my arm out of the man's grip and fail. "Let me go!" I yell. "Are you arresting me?! I haven't done anything! Let me go home – I just want to go home!"
"We aren't arresting you," he tells me, "not right now. But if you try to leave we will – we just caught you stealing, remember?"
I go limp as my exhausted brain remembers oh, yeah, they actually do have a right to prevent me from leaving.
***
I wake up in a hospital room. Sunshine streams in through the window. To my left, my father sleeps in a chair, one hand barely clinging onto a disposable coffee cup. The moment I see him, I begin to cry and the sound of my crying wakes him. He looks up at me.
"Paige."
I have never heard the kind of relief I hear now in my dad's voice. Never. He stands up slowly and I see he is even more unsteady on his feet than I remember – this is a man who isn't even 50 years old – and we reach for each other desperately.
"I thought you were dead," he whispers, after we have clung to each other for many minutes. "Paige, I thought you were dead. I still don't even know if I believe what I'm seeing right now, I don't trust myself not to be dreaming. Is it really you? What happened? Who – who took you?"
"It's me," I smile through my tear-blurred eyes. "It's really me."
"The police said they found you in the pharmacy in River Forks, trying to steal medications. They say you haven't mentioned anyone yet – anyone you might have been stealing on behalf of, I mean. How did you – Paige, you have to tell me what happened. They say you're having a baby! Who did this to you? We have to find them. We have to –"
"Nobody," I answer. "What I mean is, nobody 'did' this to me – any of this. I –"
"Well what happened then?!" My father asks. "You disappeared into thin air, Paige. We found your phone, all your things, your bank account was untouched, none of your friends knew anything. Well there was that one girl, what's her name? Your roommate?"
"Emma?" I suggest, marveling at how soft the hospital blanket feels under my fingers, at how clean all the shining, modern surfaces are.
"Emma, yes, that's the one. She told some completely crazy story about time travel and, I don't know, it was absurd. And other than her, no one knew anything. We know you made it back to River Forks because there was CCTV footage of you at the bus station, and the police think you made it home because they found fingerprints in the house, but beyond that there was literally nothing. Honestly it was like aliens had kidnapped you! And now you're back and – it feels the same as your disappearance, just out of nowhere, no explanation, nothing. Not that I'm complaining, Paige. The only thing that really matters is that your home and that you seem to be fine, physically. I just – if someone hurt you, I want them to pay. You should want them to pay, too. Even if they convinced you they were you friend, you should –"
"Dad," I say, because I can feel my father getting away from himself. "I told you no one hurt me. No one convinced me they were my friend."
I'm aware that what I'm saying is not strictly true. Someone did hurt me – Veigar with his rough handling when I was captured, Hildy various times after that – but telling my dad or anyone else about it isn't going to do anything except make them think I'm crazy. Because as soon as I admit I've been hurt, they're going to ask me who did it and then I'm either going to have to lie or admit that it was some 9th century Vikings that hurt me. From there, I doubt it's a very long distance to the psychiatric ward.
After a few more attempts to get information out of me, my dad finally gives in to my pleas to be allowed to go home and disappears to talk to the doctors, or the police, or whoever it is who gets to make the final decision on the matter. He returns not 10 minutes later, and I can tell from his expression that the news isn't good.
"No!" I protest. "Dad! Ask them again – please! Why am I even in here? Nothing is wrong with me, I'm fine – and I just want to go home."
I've got a vague plan formed in my head right now. I can't just go home and leave my poor father again. No, I have to tell him the truth. I will tell him the truth. But not here in this hospital, where I can see he's not completely convinced my mind hasn't been affected by whatever it is he thinks I've gone through. I have to tell him at home. I have to convince him to come with me.
My brain pauses, throws itself into reverse. What? I have to convince him to come with me? Yes, I do. I also need to know if Eirik is alive or dead. If he's alive, then I need to be with him. Our child needs to be with him. And my father needs to be with me, the only person keeping him tethered to his own life. He already looks like he's about 75 years old, I know he won't survive losing me a second time. If Eirik is dead – my mind skips over the possibility even as I am fully aware that it's likely – then the decision is made for me, I will return to the present and live the rest of my life with my dad and my baby and my friends in this world, with its bright lights and hospitals and student loans.
But I have to know. I have to know if the man whose very being, mind and body, is now as familiar to me as I am to myself, has lived. I know he probably hasn't, but I can't go on to live in 2017 without knowing for sure.
So I have to get out of this hospital. I have to get home.
"Dad," I say, pushing myself up into a sitting position. "Dad. I have to go home. I – I can't relax here, I can't think. Please, you have to –"
A woman I don't recognize walks into the room – a doctor. She smiles at me, and then at my dad, and asks me how I'm feeling.
"Fine," I reply, instantly regretting the shortness in my tone. If I'm going to get out of here I need to start being nice to people. I need to start acting like I just want some time to heal, to process, to do whatever it is people are supposed to do in a situation as messy as this.
"I'm Dr. Lawson," she says, offering her hand to me and then to my dad. "I'm just here to talk to you, Paige. Do you think we could be alone for a little while?"
My father balks at leaving, I can see he's about to protest when one of the detectives walks in and reassures him it's fine, that there are two cops posted outside my room and a further two at the entrance to the ward.
"Wow," I say to Dr. Lawson. "Four guards?"
The doctor pulls a chair up next to my bed. She's a psychiatrist, I can tell already. Something about the cast of her eyes, the mask of gentle concern. "Eight guards," she replies. "We have four posted at the entrances, to keep the media out."
"The media?" I ask. "For – me?"
Dr. Lawson doesn't answer. Instead, she asks me a question. Definitely a psychiatrist. "Are you surprised? You've been missing for months, Paige. Normal college girl, no history of criminal activity or running away, doing well socially and in her studies, just disappears into thin air? And then shows up just as suddenly months later, pregnant? This story is huge."
Why is she telling me all this? Isn't it her job to help me get myself together? Not that I intend to ask her any of this out loud, of course.
"So," she continues, leaning in the way some mental health professionals do, almost as if you're just two friends sharing a juicy secret. I don't like that tactic – never have. It's fake and I don't buy it for one second. "Can you give me your full name?"
I answer, and Dr. Lawson follows up with questions about where I think I am, the name of the university I attend, the year, the president. I answer all of them correctly. Some of them she repeats, as if trying to catch me out. I decide about halfway through that I don't like this woman at all. Eventually, though, she moves on.
"And can you tell me where you've been since last September, Paige?"
I know exactly what I have to say. I also know I need to make her believe me, and I'm not so sure I can make that happen. As ever, though, I don't have a choice. Can't tell the truth, can't tell an obvious lie – because it'll get found out right away. Got to go with the 'I forgot' defense. I look down at the white blanket covering my legs and then up, into the doctor's eyes.
"I don't remember."
She gives me a tight little smile and writes something down. "You don't remember anything? Do you remember last night, at the pharmacy?"
"I, uh – yes. I think so. I remember one of the officers lifting me over the counter."
"And do you remember why you were at the pharmacy?"
Yes. I was there to steal antibiotics so I could take them back to the 9th century and give them to the Viking who fathered the child I am pregnant with. "Uh, no. I don't. I'm sorry."
"You had antibiotics in your bag when the police caught you. Some food, too. Is someone you know injured? Were you trying to help somebody? Has someone threatened to hurt you?"
When the doctor fails to get anything out of me with regard to the pharmacy visit, she asks me what the last thing I remember is, from the time before I went missing. I tell her I remember coming back to River Forks, that I think I recall being in the house, but that's it.
"So just to be clear," Dr. Lawson asks, just before leaving. "You remember events leading up to the day you went missing, and you remember events after the police found you at the pharmacy last night, but you remember nothing in between?"
I hesitate before answering because I sense she's trying to catch me in something. But what can I do? I don't know a single thing about real amnesia or how it manifests, I don't know if what I'm claiming is true is possible or not. I do know she can't force me to talk about specific things, and if I don't talk about them then they cannot be used against me.
"Yes," I reply softly. The doctor makes another note and then looks at me. "Thank you, Paige. I'll let you get some rest now but we'll be seeing each other again."
But there's no time to rest because after Dr. Lawson leaves a female detective comes to question me. She's kinder than the doctor, but just as full of questions. She wants to know if I understand that I'm pregnant, if I remember how I got pregnant, who got me pregnant, when they got me pregnant, where it happened, if I wanted it to happen and on and on and on and all I say in response is that I don't remember.
It goes on like this for a long time. I don't mean hours, I mean days. Everybody keeps telling me it's time to rest and to recover, but I keep getting bombarded with the same questions from the same people, until my own frustration seems to match theirs and I get the distinct sense that nobody has a single clue about what should be done with me. The police aren't going to charge me with anything for breaking into the pharmacy, because they're worried about how it's going to look to the media, who are hanging on every detail – or so I'm told, I haven't been allowed to access the internet or talk to anyone who isn't my dad or somehow involved in the case since they brought me to the hospital.
Finally, after almost three weeks, I start refusing my food. There's no intention to take it far enough to hurt myself or my baby, but I don't tell anyone that. In fact, I try to give off the specific vibe that I'll keep it up for as long as I have to. A few days later, I'm free. I mean, I'm 'free.' Free to go home. Not free to do as I please. Not free to leave the house. Who's keeping me inside? Not the police, not my dad, no. My new jailers? The media. When I am discharged from the hospital there is a hoard of them waiting outside the doors – more than I have ever seen, even for a movie star or a disgraced politician. My dad and two of the guards – both of whom are coming home with us to 'keep an eye on me' (whatever that means) use their bodies to shield me, hustling me quickly to the car as camera flashes and shouted questions fill the air.
"Who's the father of your baby, Paige?" "Do you know who the father is?" "When are you due?" "Do you remember anything?" "Are you a member of a cult?" "Have you experienced alien contact?"
I'm too shocked to notice how outlandish some of the questions are. They don't enter my mind. All I want is to be far away from the bright lights. Once I'm in the backseat of the car I cover my head with my arms and think of Eirik. Eirik wouldn't have let any of that happen to me. None of those reporters would even have dared to show up if they'd so much as gotten a glimpse of the Viking Jarl in all his fur-and-leather finery, staring them down.
But Eirik isn't here. Eirik probably isn't anywhere. He's probably dead, Paige. Because you screwed up. You got caught.
The media follow us home. They follow us home and then they set up camp at the bottom of the driveway and in the empty lot next door. And once they've set up camp, they don't leave. There's so many of them they don't even seem to sleep – even at three, four o'clock in the morning, all that has to happen is for me to open the front – or even the back – door, and the shouted questions and flashes resume.
I go online almost immediately, and am horrified to discover that the mainstream media camped outside the house are the least of it. There are whole websites dedicated to the theory that I'm an alien being, that my disappearance – and now my return – is the first step in a process that ends with the rest of the aliens coming to earth and enslaving the human race. There are countdown clocks to this 'invasion.' Grand Northeastern has had to ban reporters from campus, after they started harassing my fellow students for stories. There are whole message-boards convinced I'm lying, that my father and I have made the whole thing up in order to secure a lucrative book deal – that my baby is a pillow, or, disgustingly, the product of incest.
There are months and months of these stories, pages and pages on these message-boards. The volume alone of the incorrect information just makes it seem that I could never say enough to counter it.
I go to sleep that night with a creeping sense of horror. I'm stuck here. Stuck as the seeming star of an almost infinite number of stories, powerless to correct the role I've been shoved into by strangers all over the world. This can't be my life now, can it?
And just before I drift off, the certainty, again – if Eirik were here, he would do something about this. He would not allow any of it to happen. But Eirik isn't here, and I fall asleep with an aching emptiness in my heart.