---=Chapter 58: You Liar---=

My mind reeled at the cascade of realizations. Nia's mom had the Shadow. She was also out of her goddamned mind. For some reason, I was back on the stone ship, and not alone. Sori had interrupted my viewing of Nia's memory and, I could only assume, brought us both here for some reason.

"Jesus, Sori, what the fuck?" I said, putting my hand on the rail as I turned away from the ocean. I wasn't going overboard again if I could help it; last time had been too close.

Nia's eyes were wide, and she backed away as she looked around frantically."Who are you? Where am I?" Nia asked. It was a perfectly understandable reaction, considering nobody apart from Sori had ever seen my inner projection— body or ship.

In fact, to her, it probably felt like she'd been teleported to a strange plateau of an island, surrounded by an impossible sea just before a storm. The floating eyeball and my own unfamiliar appearance wouldn't offer any comfort.

"I'm doing what needs to be done," Sori said in an over-dramatic, gravelly voice— as if pretending to be Batman.

Walking backward in a strange place is a bad idea. Nia's foot stepped off the lawn in front of the cobblestone cottage and onto the paving stone path. Sand coated the stones, likely blown over from the zen garden, and Nia wasn't ready for the change in traction. Her feet went out from under her, and she fell hard on her butt.

Ignoring Sori, I winced on her behalf. "You ok?" I asked, trying to sound soothing.

The three of us formed a triangle. Nia was to my left, backing up toward the cottage/cabin at the back of the ship. Stern? Sori was to my right by one of the tree-masts. It made me wonder about his original entrance using the clouds and ocean, but then maybe that was all theatrics.

Nia, who didn't seem soothed at all, scuttled backward like a crab. "How did–" she began before running into the cottage door. She abandoned her question, quickly standing up and pulling on the door. Apparently locked, it didn't open.

"Nia, it's ok," I said gently. I wasn't sure that was actually true. I shot Sori a glare. I'd never trusted the eye much, but I also hadn't attributed any maliciousness to it. Events lately had me worried I was wrong.

"I know that I look different, but it's me, Sam— Oberon," I added, my hands spread out to my side as though inviting her to look and see. It didn't really make sense, considering I didn't look anything like the wolf, and she didn't know my pre-apocalypse self well enough that she was likely to recognize the similarities. Not that I knew for sure there were similarities. The only mirror I'd seen in this place was Sori's eyeball, and I hadn't exactly examined myself in it.

"And I'm Sori," Sori added, with a little bob in the air as if curtsying. At least, that's how it looked to me. Nia seemed to take it as a threat.

"Why?" She asked, sounding more scared than ever. "What are you going to do?"

"Ah," I said, thinking—not for the first time—I may have made a mistake choosing Sori's name. "That's the eye's name. Sori. S-O-R-I." I was just glad the silver orb hadn't manifested from columns of spinning plasma and storm cloud, like last time.

"What is it?" she half whispered at me, never letting go of the locked door, as though hoping it would pop open for no reason.

"I'm the one and many-" Sori began.

"No, you're not." I interrupted him, stepping away from the rail to interpose myself between him and Nia. "Stop telling people that." Nia had told me she didn't share her mom's beliefs, but I doubted any child would know what to believe when a chrome eye claimed divinity.

"What?" Nia asked, her voice quivering with uncertainty.

"You don't know, I might be!" Sori protested, sounding petulant. "You're not the only one allowed to have memory problems."

"I don't know what he is, if I'm honest," I said, ignoring the eye again. "Except that he's a liar, or confused, or both."

"I'm scared," Nia said, trying the handle again. "Why do you look different? Where are we? How did we get here?" She no longer sported the wings or horns. She was just a scared kid who'd rather get away than get answers. Unfortunately, I couldn't really help her much with either. Which wasn't the same as not being able to help at all.

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"This place is like a dream. This is just what I look like in my own head. It's the same for you," I said, pointing to my own head, where horns had been on 'Titania.'

Nia's hand slowly felt at her head, and she checked for wings. She still looked afraid, but her eyes darted around, taking in the ship as she tried to decide what to do. "It doesn't feel like a dream," she said, sounding unsure.

Sori snorted. "Please, this place isn't the dream. That's where you just came from."

I took a few more steps between Sori and Nia, not trying to approach her so much as trying to act as a buffer between her and the eye, as well as the more surreal aspects of this place. "Like I said, you can't believe everything Sori says. What are you doing, Sori? Why'd you bring me here, let alone Nia?"

"Bah, even without your Shadow, you're harder to spot a leopard; those guys always wriggle free before I do more than a couple!"

"Wait? You tried to actually 'spot' a leopard?" Nia asked, her bafflement overcoming her fear for a moment.

"Well, I wasn't going to do stripes—Hey, don't distract me," Sori said in the mother of all hypocrisies. To answer your question, Sam," Sori said, turning away from Nia and back to me. "I needed to use Nia as a reference point. The memory crystal helped too, but that was pretty much just coincidence— unless, of course, I'm god, which doesn't seem that far-fetched if you think about it."

"Wait? God?" Nia interjected, hope in her voice. I could only groan as she went on. "Can you fix everything? Can you save the world? Can you make it go back to like it was. Bring everyone back? Please? Please!"

I gave Sori a baleful look. "See, this is why you can't go around pretending to be god."

Sori scoffed, though I wasn't sure who at. "The two of you. Why do you keep asking me to save your world? It's fine!"

"My mom… She– she's broken. My dad is gone, dead." Desperate, fearful hope filled her voice and eyes as she looked past me at the eye.

"No he's not. Well, yes, I suppose he's gone, but he's not dead. Or I guess— I mean, it depends on what you mean by dead. Is your hair dead? If so, then I suppose, in that sense, he's dead. Fine, from your perspective, he might be dead and gone. That's such an egocentric view, though."

"What do you mean? Dad's not dead? He–No, I saw–his arm? But," Nia stammered, disbelief and pleading filling her voice in heartbreakingly equal measures.

"Sori," I barked, my voice hard, and my back to Nia. "She's twelve; don't play with her. Why are we here?"

"Who's playing? Well, whatever, you don't want to listen? Fine, I'm not supposed to be talking about that anyway. We're here," Sori said, moving on, "because you've found your Shadow. And I need it. Strictly speaking, it's only your Shadow because you got in the way of the light, which was really rude, by the way. Anyway. Give it to me."

The trees whispered in the breeze, and the hull creaked as I gave the eye an incredulous look. "Even if I had it this very moment, which I don't, just so you know. I feel like that'd be a pretty terrible idea."

"Or would it be a genius idea!?" Sori said, excitement in his voice. "Think of it—"

"Is he really alive?!" Nia shouted in distress.

"No, like I said, he's really dead. It just doesn't matter." Sori said, bobbing up and to the side to see over my shoulder.

"Sori!" I snapped. "Stop. You're being cruel. Leave her alone and speak to me."

"Oh, I'm Sorry," Sori said sarcastically. "Here I was, thinking it'd be rude to ignore or lie to her."

"Not as rude as abducting her and taunting her pain." I half turned to look at Nia and give her my gentlest look. "Nia, Sori gets confused. I don't think he knows what's real. All I know about him is that he's got his own agenda, and he'll say whatever pops into his head.

The floating eye rolled up and around. "Wow. Do you know what a jerk you sound like? You don't want to be here? Say the word, and I'll send you back. And by 'word,' I, of course, mean your word that you'll give me the Shadow."

"Sure. It's all yours," I lied. "Send Nia back."

"Rude, you liar," Sori said without skipping a beat. "What do you really want? Let's make a deal."

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