Daphne opened her eyes and then closed them again. The bright light was gone, but it was replaced by the mother of all headaches. She sat up and pushed her blanket off and put one hand to her eyes. There was a steady throbbing in her head, as if she had hit it on something.
And then she realized -- she had pushed away her blanket. Her blanket.
She opened her eyes and ignored the pain. She was in her own bedroom, in her own house, in her own world.
She stood up and then was hit with a bout of dizziness. Luckily, her mother was passing by and caught her before she fell. "Whoa, there, Daph," her mother said. "You should still be in bed. You took a nasty tumble."
"What?" Daphne said. "What happened?"
"You tripped," her mother said, "and fell at the front door. You're lucky, there wasn't anything broken or sprained or anything. We even had a doctor check you out to see if you had a concussion. I can't tell you how relieved I was when he said you were just sleeping."
"But what about the Storylands?" Daphne asked. "What about Jenny and Leicester and Trafalgar?"
"I don't know who that is," her mother said. "I think you were just dreaming, dear."
Her mother led her back to her bed and tucked her. "Now," she said, "I know you're confused, but I think it's better that you stay in bed. Everything'll be alright, you'll see. We'll even pick up your homework from school, so you won't miss anything."
"Okay," Daphne said.
Her mother kissed her on the forehead and Daphne shivered. Then her mother walked to the door of her room and turned off the light. "You rest now," she said. Daphne nodded.
As soon as her mother left and closed the door, Daphne was up and walking around her room. Everything was just how she left it, but it all felt...wrong somehow. As if it wasn't really her room, but it just looked like her room. She felt the walls and looked out the window. Nothing was out of place.
She ventured out of her room and tip-toed down the stairs. Her mother was in the kitchen cleaning. Did she clean often? Daphne couldn't remember the last time she had cleaned the kitchen.
Daphne walked towards the front hallway and the front door, the place where she had supposedly tripped and hit her head. There was the space where the door in the floor had been. She felt the floor, but she knew she wasn't going to find any hinges or any evidence of there being a door at all. She stood up and opened the front door.
It was night outside. Upstairs, when she looked outside, it had been day. Had the sun set in the minute it had taken her to tip-toe down the stairs? No, of course not.
"What gave us away?" her mother asked.
Daphne turned around. Her mother stood behind her, her hands in rubber gloves, a wry smile upon her face. "You said you would pick up my homework," Daphne said. "It's summer vacation. There is no homework."
"Ah," her mother said. "All these different rules and regulations for your world. No wonder you wanted to escape. No wonder you wanted the freedom of the Storylands."
Daphne tried to run, but her mother grabbed her and slung her over the shoulder. "We made this from your memories," her mother said. "The ones you traded away for food. We used those to establish the world you see, but of course, there were always going to be mistakes. There's still no escape though." Her mother held her as she struggled and walked up the stairs, finally opened the door to Daphne's room. She dropped Daphne in her bed or, rather, the facsimile of her bed. "One of the memories we came across was of a television show. The Outer Limits." Her mother's smile grew wider. "Remember? We control the horizontal. We control the vertical. We can delude you with a thousand images or expand one to crystal clarity and beyond. We can make this room into anything we want. Right now, we wanted you to be relaxed. We wanted you to think you were home. That can change."
"Why?" Daphne asked.
"We want Nothing," her mother said. "You know the way to Nothing."
"I don't," Daphne said.
"You do," her mother said. "Perhaps not consciously, but you do. And you shall stay here until we know as well."
And so the Discordant Symphony in the form of her mother left her there, in her fake room, in her fake house, in her fake world. She sat at her bed for what seemed like hours. She didn't know how much time had passed since she first entered the hole in the mountain. Time in the Storylands worked differently, she remembered, and she wasn't exactly in a position to see where the sun was so it might have been days or weeks or minutes.
She had nowhere to go, nothing to do. There was no escape for her here.
And then she heard a noise. It sounded like a bird screeching. It was soon joined by others, a large number of birds screeching, a flock of birds, a Parliament. They were screaming.
The window of her room, the window that looked out on a bright sunny day, was then cut in two. Behind the window was darkness, a sword, and a face.
It was the face of Stormalong Jenny.
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