Chapter 01: Recovery
Doris awoke. She could not remember the last time she had slept in her bed, and she had no recollection of going to it. She could smell the scent of her lilac shampoo, something she could not remember using but she remembered having it. She remembered seeing it last night, forcing her confused brain to focus. She saw it just as the pink fog shot toward her.
Doris sat bolt up right in bed, her eyes wide with fear. Her fingers flew to her body, finding it naked, her skin felt clammy and stretched over her bones. There was a warmth, too; something she hadn't even perceived in months, but it was otherwise unchanged. She could feel her ribs under the skin of her too-skinny body, and she felt warmth in her limbs; she even managed to tickle herself slightly as her fingers slid over her flesh trying to find any trace of injury. After finding none, the need to flee diminished in her and she began to take stock of things around her.
The bed was, for the most part, made. She had obviously been sleeping in it, but the covers were tucked in, the quilt spread neatly over the top, and the pillows were in their cases. The floor was clean. The mountains of dirty clothes, books, and discarded items that had collected after the worst months of Doris's deep depression were gone; stacked neatly in their niches or having been removed completely. The parquet floor had been cleaned, the Persian rugs covering the area next to the bed and at the foot of the bed had been cleaned.
In her peripheral vision, Doris caught an unfamiliar movement and it made her heart jump. Doris's focus shot to the source of the movement, to the corner of the room and there it was again; the long curtains of the bay window moving in the breeze. Fresh air was flowing into her room for the first time in a long, long time. It was only then that Doris noticed something else; she was not crying. For the first time since she could remember, her cheeks were not stained with tears, her eyes weren't sore. That in and of itself made the knot of panic twist in her stomach even harder, and her mind galloped trying to remember what to do in the absence of the tears.
Doris found herself wanting to get out of bed, but still afraid to do so. Her need to go use the bathroom began to overwhelm her fear, but she didn't feel safe going in there again. Still, the feelings of dread were being beaten down by curiosity and by the desire to keep her room clean, at least for a while. Doris stood on legs that she found a surprising amount of strength in and gingerly lifted a black silk robe from its place beside her vanity. She tied the sash fast and snug, moving uneasily to the bathroom, her hand finding a well-used and once-loved softball bat on the way out the door.
Moving air hit Doris like a sack of hammers, making her do a double take as she saw curtains moving lightly in the morning breeze all through the living room and off-set study. Doris became panicked beyond speech at the thought of a stranger in her house, but her darting eyes didn't see anything missing. She knew she didn't open the windows or make her bed, and that cold prickly sensation radiated from her stomach to her spine, encasing her heart as it moved through her. Doris's mind was screaming for her to shout "I've just called the cops, now get the fuck out of my house!" but her voice was unable to muster anything but a hoarse squeak. She shot into the bathroom quickly, keeping her eyes alert and her knuckles white on the handle of the bat.
The bathroom door locked with a heavy click and Doris was on the stool before she looked down and saw the thing from last night. She had time to study it now; the dark wood, the bronze dials, the strange runes. Doris searched her memory but could only remember her Grandmother mentioning the puzzle box only once, before the still-present haze of panic and depression clouded Doris's thoughts too much to remember what she had said. Doris knew the item was old though, centuries old, maybe even millennia. The wood had faint character marks in it, but the dials were polished to an almost mirror-like shine. It didn't look centuries old; to Doris's eyes, it looked like it was less than 50. Never-the-less, she couldn't remember seeing anything else even closely resembling the small puzzle box.
Doris's thoughts were interrupted by the fact that she was done going to the bathroom, and she couldn't believe she'd been staring at the object the whole time, fixated with it. It felt like only a few seconds had passed, but part of her mind told her that it had been longer. She wiped herself and grabbed her bat, not bothering to flush the toilet. Her right hand loosened and tightened on the bat, the rubber grip giving her comfort and a feeling of strength. No matter what she saw, she'd go out swinging for the fences. Doris took a deep breath, steeling herself. Her hand flew to the door knob, unlocking it and opening it with a single rapid twist and her hand went immediately back to the bat, found the bat, and both hands choked up, ready to crush the intruder and would-be rapist.
For the first time, she regretted not taking better care of the house. The bathroom door squeaked slowly open, sounding more like something out of an old horror movie than her Grandmother's home. Her attuned senses caught the sounds of what had to have been bare feet moving on the hardwood floors of the kitchen. She took a few steps and heard the heavy cast iron skillet set down on the stove, the burner knob must have turned as the sounds of the igniter sparked to light the natural gas.
Doris moved as quietly as she could through the dining room and into the kitchen, seeing just the back of someone moving. She caught a flash of a gray shirt, and it registered in her mind that who ever it was must have been almost her height. She took three steps, planted her feet and swung at what should have been the lower back of the burglar.
She stopped herself in mid swing. The burglar was cooking and the smell of bacon and eggs wafted into Doris.
"Morning, sleepy head," she said sweetly with what sounded like an Italian accent. She turned and faced Doris, and the two were identical in height. Doris noticed that this girl was about her age, too, wearing some of Doris's things. She had dazzling almond-shaped green eyes, and gorgeous red hair, tied in a loose bun. The shirt was rounded underneath by a decent body, and a pang of jealousy shot through Doris as her eyes traced the curves and she compared them to her own twiggy body. The sweat pants she wore belonged to Doris as well, and they flowed down into perfect little feet. Doris couldn't help but note that she was olive skinned, which helped to explain the accent.
"What? Who?" stammered Doris. She felt her grip loosen on the softball bat, but she didn't drop it, and it was still ready to be swung.
"Maybe over breakfast," the redhead said with a smile. Doris found herself nodding and her feet moved over to the table in the nook of the kitchen. Fresh flowers had been brought in from the garden. The tulips reminded Doris that it had been months since she'd even seen the garden. The intruder worked quickly, making two eggs for Doris exactly the way she would have asked for them. "The bacon will take longer," the intruder said and she carried the plate of eggs over to Doris, who was astonishingly finding it difficult to even formulate a thought, let alone a sentence.
"It is difficult to explain what happened," the redhead said, her accent strangely alluring. "I guess the easy way is to just say it straight out..." she started but was interrupted by Doris.
"Am I being kidnapped? What the hell kind of kidnapper makes someone breakfast after cleaning their house? Who the fuck are you?"
"I am a Genie," she said plainly. Doris nearly speared her own cheek with her fork, the momentary shock making her miss her mouth completely.
"Bullshit," Doris said with a confident, exasperated sigh. Something clicked, something was making sense in a whole line of things that just didn't fit together. Her house was clean, the windows were opened, but for months the house has been locked from the inside, and with some damn good locks. This "Genie" got in some how, and aside from wearing a Southmoore Community College shirt and sweats, she certainly looked like she could have been what she claimed to be. Even under the loose t-shirt and the sweat pants, Doris could tell the intruder had a knock-out figure. There was that accent, too. Doris felt a tingle run through her brain, like a million tiny spiders crawling over the top and through it all at the same time.
"I am not kidding.," the girl said, her face turning into a pout. "Last night you opened my vessel."
"I did what to your what?" Doris said, the bite of egg sliding off her fork before it got to her mouth. She saw her hand shaking and she decided to put the fork down before she put her eye out. Her mind flashed to the bathroom last night; wanting to die, the giggling, the puzzle box, the pink smoke.
"Bullshit," Doris said again, this time her voice sounding less convinced even to her own ears as dots started to connect in her mind. "If you're a fucking Genie, then I get wishes, right? For setting you free?"
"Well, yes!" the intruder said happily. "But..." she said, hesitating. Her perfect white teeth parted her pink lips as she started nibbling on her lower lip.
