Now's your chance

Last night I was kidnapped.

All things considered it was a pretty polite kidnapping. I was headed home from work, wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking, and bumped into a woman in a Burberry trench coat going the other way. I apologized profusely but was caught off guard as I looked at her face. The woman’s complexion was the soft white of buffed marble. She had eggplant colored hair and the brightest green eyes I’d ever seen. In fact I was so mesmerized by them that I didn’t notice the needle in her hand until it was too late.

I felt the prick and things started to go fuzzy at the edges of my vision. I vaguely remember her apologizing for...something...and that was the last thing I was aware of until now.

Now, I am in a windowless room. Both the floor and the walls are made of concrete and the only way out is a rusted iron barn door in the corner. I know that I should rush to the door and see if it’s unlocked. But I’m distracted by the other objects in the room.

There's a metal table--maybe from a lab? On the table is an envelope and when I open it, I am shocked to find $20,000 in cash. What kind of kidnapper gives someone $20,000?

But the truly bizarre thing about the room? There are nearly thirty TVs on rolling stands crammed into the space along with me. Without warning they spring to life.

Every screen plays the same thing. Nearly. It’s 30 videos of me walking to work on 30 separate days. I watch as I pass by familiar trees and nod to familiar people. They all start three blocks from work and end with me scheduling people’s dental appointments and processing payments.

I am...confused, and alarmed. Someone has been filming me and I hadn’t even noticed?

Suddenly the screen switches from my office to static to a video of me at my eighth birthday party. My gut twists in panic and dread. Someone--my captor--also has access to my family’s home videos. My thoughts are spinning and I’m wondering if my parents are okay when I hear their voices in the movie. They are asking me if I’d gotten everything I wanted for my birthday. Childhood me looks seriously at the camera. Hands on hips I stated that no, I had not. I wanted to go on an adventure. I could hear my parents chuckle off camera and say, “maybe next year, honey.”

Words flashed on the screen.

You never had that adventure.

But now’s your chance.

Pick up the book.

Book? What book?

I searched the whole room before returning to the table. I picked up the envelope and found a small, black, leather-bound notebook also enclosed. (See if you keep looking for more stuff after finding $20,000 in cash).

My body felt weak from an excess of adrenaline. With trembling hands, I pulled the book out of the packet, freed the elastic on the cover, and opened it up.

On the first page was a story.

Once upon a time there was a young girl who yearned for adventure. She spent her days looking for secret passageways through wardrobes, in the trunks of trees, and reflections in puddles.

As she grew, the interest in adventure never waned. When her friends had given up on fairytales in favor of makeup and love and reality TV she remained secretly steadfast in her hope that she would, one day, be swept through a portal into another world.

And it nearly happened, though she doesn’t know it.

It was the day of the accident. She was exploring an abandoned Victorian mansion. The building was condemned, and she’d been forbidden to enter it, but there she was anyway. Something at the top of the staircase caught her eye. The glint of a jewel, perhaps? She took the stairs two at a time, rushing to get a better look. Suddenly, one of the stairs beneath her gave way. She tumbled, bumped, and banged, her way back down. She awoke in the hospital with a broken arm, a broken nose, and two livid parents.

After that, she gave up on adventure. Too dangerous. Too likely to upset her folks. It was like a sign from the universe: let it go.

But the thing she did not find that day was a door. The one she’d dreamed of all her life. And all she needs to do now is turn the page, and she can find it again. She can enter another world. She can finally have her adventure.

It was my story. I rubbed my nose where it hadn’t healed properly after the fall. The girl I’d been before the accident was screaming for me to turn the page. But my post-accident, adult heart was beating out a nervous tattoo in my chest. What should I do?

Obviously, I turned the page. I waited to be pulled into another dimension. But all I saw was a balance sheet.

Lunch tab - $25.00

Rent cab to Lincoln Park - $45.00

Pay Hugh for memory charm. 1113 W Altgeld St. - $1,500.00

Rent cab to Navy Pier - $75.00

The costs went on and on. The entry ended with, “the rest is for unforeseen circumstances,” and suddenly I realized what the $20,000 was for. There were other instructions, too: why I needed the memory charm, what to do once I had it, how much was needed to bribe a ticketing agent...all sorts of stuff. I was examining one of the entries when a knock at the door made me jump. I fell over and slammed into the table on the way down. Sprawled on the floor, rubbing my arm, I called, “Who is it?”

“Pizza boy. Who else?” came a bored voice from outside the room. I walked over, still holding my arm. I took a deep breath and tried the door. It was unlocked. Bracing myself for what I would find on the other side, I slid it all the way and saw…

“One Giordano’s Chicago Classic Deep Dish Pizza,” said the man before me, sliding the pie out of its heat sleeve. “That’ll be $25.”

“Oh,” I said, bewildered by the normalness of the pizza delivery routine. “Right...I’ll just...give me a sec.” I walked back over to the table and reached into the envelope. “Can you make change for a $100?”

“Nope,” came his swift, indifferent response.

Great. I’m already off budget.

“I guess it’s your lucky day then,” I said, handing him the shiny, new Benjamin as he handed over the pizza. He flipped it back and forth in his hand looking at both sides with wide eyes. Then he flashed a look of surprise and took his leave.

Outside the door I could see that I was on the second or third floor of a mid-construction building.

But exploring could wait. I was starving.

I slumped down against the wall and opened the box. The scent of warm bread, tomato, peppers, mushrooms, and cheese wafted up towards me. Taking a bite, I closed my eyes and rested my head back against the wall. Hunger pangs quelled, I paused to consider what I knew.

I had $20,000. Well...I guess now I had $19,900. I was supposed to use it to travel the country looking for spells and entering magical doors. The way I saw it I had three options:

1. Do what the book said to do. (The dangerous, ambiguous, and possibly insane option).
2. Take the $20,000 and go home. (The stupid, crime-riddled, thievery option).
3. Leave and contact the police. (The boring, law-abiding, sensible option).

Who was I kidding?

I’m not a thief so option two was out. Before I watched that video, I would one-hundred-percent have gone with the option three. But the longing for something else (an urge I thought was scrubbed out of me entirely until I’d seen my indignant, disappointed eight-year-old self again) was as strong as ever. Did I really want to go back to making people’s dental appointments when there was a chance for something more?

I ate another slice of pizza to give myself time to mull it all over. After that I stood up--unsure if the sick feeling was from eating half a deep dish pizza or from my decision. I marched over to the table, grabbed the book and envelope, and ran out the door to find the stairs. I was off to rent myself a cab.

The book had laid out an itinerary for me and the journey went mostly to plan. Based upon the pizza delivery I was unsurprised to find that I was in Chicago so it was a short cab ride to Lincoln Park. Once there, Hugh claimed his rates had gone up. Either that or he could see that I was a sucker with a wad of cash. So that cost me an additional $1000. Oh, and remember how I said I’d been kidnapped yesterday? I bought some new clothes and a toothbrush which were also not in the original budget.

It turned out the memory charm was for “putting the minds of my loved ones at ease in my absence.” I was supposed to “cast it upon a body of water.” So I made my way to Navy Pier and tossed it into Lake Michigan.

There were a lot of tasks like that to “tie up loose ends.” Pretty soon the chunk of change I’d started out with was greatly diminished.

All told, the trip back to the Victorian at Washington and 11th cost me $15,273.60. I wasn’t sure if I’d need the leftover cash wherever I was going but best to be prepared. I tucked it into my new jacket along with the book. That precious, life-altering, little black book. I’d started writing a chronicle of my journey in the back. You never know what you’ll want to remember some day, right?

With a deep breath, I walked steadily up to the decrepit front door. I thought for a moment about backing out. I had this flash vision of someone jumping out from the bushes yelling, “Surprise! You’re on Candid Camera!” But nothing happened.

I marveled that the building was still there. It’d been condemned back when I was a child. Now it looked like a slight breeze would topple it to the ground. But if the events of the past two days had taught me anything, it was that magic was real. And it was here.

I tried the door I found that it was locked, but it didn’t take a lot of strength to...encourage it to open anyway.

When I passed over the threshold it was like going back in time. I felt young, and curious again--unwilling to believe that some things were, by their very nature, “impossible.” Everything seemed possible now.

The same glint caught my eye and this time I could see a full-length mirror half covered in black cloth. I picked my way carefully up the staircase, feeling for rotten wood or broken supports with every step. When I got to the top, I stood in front of the mirror and grabbed the velvety fabric with one hand. As I pulled dust flew up around me in a great billowing cloud. It was a moment then, before I realized that the scene on the other side wasn’t the reflection of the space I was in. In the mirror was a pale woman with eggplant colored hair and bright green eyes. She was wearing a golden crown and a bewitching smile.

“It is time,” she said.

Tentatively, I touched my finger to the mirror.

A ripple appeared on the glass surface.

I grinned like an eight-year-old getting everything she wanted at a birthday party.

And stepped through.