A Thousand Memories

Warning: This Spooky is for adults (18+). The main character is drugged but she is unharmed.

 

Li woke, her head aching with an epic migraine. She’d last been at a concert, the heavy beat of Eddie’s drums carrying the band through each song with effortless fervor. It had been an amazing night.

Li woke up in a tent. How she’d gotten there made no sense. She hadn’t gotten drunk; she hadn’t been drinking. She looked for the person beside her. Instead of a hot anyone, there was an old woman draped in blanket-like fabrics. Her hair was a mix of dreads and tangles. Her teeth were crooked, blackened, missing, or gold.

“Wake up, Cat Girl.” She kicked against Li.

Li took in the sight. Time was moving at a nonexistent speed, but by the time her brain had caught up with everything, she was consumed by the high-pitched scream coming from her own mouth.

A man with his own mix of tangles and dreads, with dark skin, tackled her back to the ground and covered her mouth. “No. You will listen,” he said.

Li tried to bite into his flesh, but he had thick gloves on and didn’t move.

Her eyes flooded with tears. This was the end. She slumped back, and the guy released her from his grasp.

“Please, let me go. I have a family. I have a band. You can’t do this.”

“We not going to hurt you,” the woman grunted. “We not going to ransom you. You safe. Okay?”

She wasn’t safe. There was no way she was safe, she was kidnapped, and they’d restrained her.

“You’re not?” she asked. She had no idea what to do. What was the rule? She’d been personal, she’d told them she had family. “My name is Lisanne Sørensen. I have a søster, too.”

The man grunted. “We know.”

“Oh.”

“How are you doing?” the woman asked. She leaned closer.

“Who are you?”

“Rhoda. This Boamos.”

Li took a steadying breath and sat up. She wasn’t actively being murdered. There was a chance she’d survive. A small chance, but a chance.

“I’m okay,” she said. “I need to get home. Where’s my phone?”

“Not yet,” Boamos said.

“Your phone not work here. Is Glavnaya. Now.” She smiled, a smile that sent a shiver through Li’s body. “How you like to get married? We find you a good husband. One of the best.”

“Very funny.” Li glanced around. Suddenly, she realized, “This is a prank, isn’t it?” Niels would set this sort of thing up.

Rhoda laughed. “Put this on.” She gave Li a lacy cream wedding dress.

Li took the fabric and looked at it. Please be a prank. “Where?”

“Here.” Rhoda stepped out of the tent, bringing Boamos with her.

Li looked at the dress.

She stood and looked out of the tent. There were armed people everywhere, an impossible problem: She was stuck. There was no way out but forward.

Think, Li.

She put the dress on, her whole body buzzing and numb at the same time. She put the dress on. It had to be a prank. She needed it to be a prank.

Her hands shaking, Li stepped out of the tent.

“Is perfect!” Rhoda exclaimed. She smiled, showing her mess of dental work.

“You can come out whenever, Niels!” Li looked around.

She was surrounded by men and women with swords, all of them with longer hair with beads in it.

“How you can still love him, after all the magic I put on you?” Rhoda said.

“What? What do you mean, Niels?”

“He not for you,” Rhoda growled. “You want something drink?”

Boamos held a red drink out to her.

This had to be a nightmare. A nightmare, or a prank, or something…

Li inhaled sharply. “So, is this a game-show thing?” She took the drink and downed it. Alcohol burned her throat as she coughed. Her eyes blurred slightly, her mind fuzzy. She swayed slightly, but a hand steadied her. “What the hell?”

“Is rolo. You not like?”

“Next time, water.”

“Water not seal your marriage. Rolo what you need.”

Li was living in a nightmare and it smelled like the porta potty section of a fairground at four in the afternoon. She blinked. “Niels? Niels! Come out, please! This isn’t funny anymore.”

No one replied.

“You come to fire.” Rhoda started to walk. Guards swarmed around her followed, forcing Li to follow. She bumped against one of them, then moved faster. With every step, her skin felt more clammy. This was happening. This was real.

They walked through tents, across a muddy path, and toward a lake, dark and purple against the falling sun. The view, everything else aside, was stunning. Further down the hillside, near the water, was a large fire. People danced all around it.

The group walked to the edge of the fire where a man with soft golden blonde hair lay on a woven blanket, propped on his elbow.

Rhoda stopped in front of him, her dirty shoes coating the front edge of his blanket. “Stand up.”

The man stood, looking at Li. Her eyes darted around the space, focusing on the details.

“This is Lisanne Sørensen.” She shoved the alcohol toward him.

“Careful. It’s not water,” Li said.

The man raised an eyebrow as he swirled the bright red liquid. “I know what it is.” He sniffed it like a fine wine, then drank the entire thing.

“Oh good, are you…do they know you in the soup kitchen? Is this like a big gotcha? Or like a Big Sister thing?”

The man scanned her. “Did you drug her or something?”

“Only the rolo,” Rhoda said. “She Babylonian.”

“I know she is,” the man said.

“I know this is a prank. You don’t have to pretend,” Li said, losing hope.

“Now you dance,” Rhoda insisted.

The man leaned closer, his hand cupping her elbow. “Just play along,” he whispered into her ear. “I’ll get you out of here soon.”

Li knew there were two options ahead of her: He was lying to convince her she was safe, so he could hurt her more, or he was being honest. Logic said it was the first, but as she watched bodies smashing as they danced around the fire, she realized staying there wasn’t going to do her much good.

She had to take a small leap.

Even if it was dancing with a stranger until Niels, Jace, and Eddie could find her.

She nodded and went with the man. He pulled her into the crowd, and then a little further to their own spot. He moved with the music, his hands on her hips.

Li flipped around. “Hej.”

Except she wanted it. The drink must have been laced, because the feel — especially now that it was gone — was all she wanted.

The man held his hands up. “Okay?”

Li started to dance with him, his body a little more distant from her but still bordering on too close. Soon, she was moving herself closer, nestled against his hips, against the feel of his chest and thighs.

She was losing her mind, losing herself to whatever was in that drink, and she didn’t care anymore.

The man leaned closer. “Listen very carefully. You have been kidnapped. You are in a different realm, being forced to marry me.”

Li’s body went flush with fear. “But they said I wasn’t.”

Of course they’d said that. She was being trafficked.

“Okay,” Li breathed heavily. Now what?

“Keep moving,” the man insisted.

Li’s legs felt like lead. She wanted him, with every cell in her being, but her mind was fighting back. She forced herself, one sway at a time, to move. He was being kind. He was better than the others who lied, who forced the drink on her.

They’d forced the same drink on him.

“I’m Wiccan,” the man continued. “My name is Drew.”

“Is this some gypsy witch coven?” Li asked. “You are hot.”

His breath was warm on her neck as he whispered, “They’re distinct from either group, and distinct from what you know of them in your world.” He kissed her neck, his lips trailing in the most perfect places.

She should have run, but she wanted more.

The world began to flash before her eyes, shifting between lakes and rivers and mountains and forests and a desert even. They stopped in a glass room with an endless view of the ocean.

He stepped away from her. Too far away.

“When you’re sober we can talk,” he said. “You can sleep in here for now.”

Li kissed him. “I don’t want to talk. I want you.”

His lips were perfect, until he pushed her softly away. “You’re drunk. I realize that’s the purpose of rolo, but I like women who know they’re marrying me.”

Li squared her shoulders. “I, Lisanne Sørensen, consent to drunk sex with a really hot you.”

His lip twitched into a half smile. “Yes, but I can handle my liquor.” He led her to the bed. “Drunks can’t consent.”

He stepped away, toward an end table, then turned back and handed her black liquid. “Drink this if you want more.”

You’re ruining my night,” Li complained. “I thought this was supposed to be fun.”

“Drink it, it will un-ruin your night.”

“The last time I drank the funny water it burned my throat.”

“Do it for me,” he said, his eyes intense.

Li looked at it. She wanted all of him, every inch, naked on the bed. She picked the drink up and drank it. Instead of biting like the liquid, it was soft. She drank all of it, a weird feeling moving through her body. “It’s like I’m drinking a tar pit, and all of the people inside me are going extinct.”

He laughed. “Yes, but how do you feel?”

When she looked up she was sober.

“Oh shit. Oh fuck.” Li looked around, her heart racing. “Fuck.”

The man put his hands on her shoulders. “Li.”

She looked at him. “I need to get home, now.”

“You’re safe. This is my yacht.”

“Where am I?”

“We’re on my yacht, the Emily. We’re in Sylem, doing about twenty knots away from Skye.”

None of it made sense, even if she was sober.

“This is a nightmare,” Li said. “It has to be.”

“It’s not.” He met her eyes. “We’re married.”