Daire pushed me out of the world of green trees, hills, and balmy breezes. I sank into sticky humidity and weak air conditioning. My elbows rammed into laminate floor and my head thumped against a springy, padded edge. I gaped at white walls and black dresser drawers. Where was the sky and the forest canopy? Where was Rio with her world falling apart?

I grabbed at my cloak, but found buttons instead. My work polo. What happened?

Daire groaned on top of me as he sat up. I laid across both Brigid’s thick legs. Her pupils narrowed and widened as she took in the bedroom’s boxy architecture.

My apartment. Home.

“Mom!” I pushed Daire off and scrambled up. I had to see. I burst into the living room. “Mom!”

There was the open living area with the stretched out old futon, the TV with the smallest screen Abuela could find, and the kitchenette whose counterspace got gobbled up by every small appliance we owned. Our one big window in the painted over brick wall had dark clouds on the other side of the glass and a genuine summer shower starting. But no Mom.

My steady breathing came out shaky. I set my jaw against my swelling thoughts. No more crying, no more tears. I was in the real world again, my real world.

The deadbolt rattled on the door. I crept to the futon, knelt down, and felt around the underside until I found our security system: a metal baseball bat. Wait, how long had it been? All of my stuff might still be there, but what if somebody from the main office was coming in to clean it out? Better safe than sorry. I picked the bat up like a sword and focused all the violent energy I’d pent up over the last few months on that deadbolt.

The lock twisted and the knob opened. I swung for the person walking through.

A big hand caught the bat before it hit. It was a guy with tousled black hair, olive skin, and a prominent bridge to his nose. Nate.

We stared at each other for a second, neither really believing I’d just tried slamming my best friend’s face with a bat. I let go of it and threw my arms around his waist instead. His button down shirt smelled like the same old grease and stale beer I could never wash out of my own work clothes.

“Maya? Where the hell have you been?” Nate asked. He didn’t have the double layer I got so used to hearing. Just straight, colloquial, American English. “It’s been days.”

The adrenaline died and it came down hard. I’d been running, walking on so many egg shells, questioning so many feelings. I didn’t know whether to be ecstatic I saw a flesh and blood human friend again, or to freak that everything that happened to me was real. I’d gotten kidnapped, might have fallen in love with my kidnapper, killed a man thousands years older than me, and dragged back living proof that magic existed. All that happened in only days?

“How many?” I stretched my neck up to see him better as I let go.

“Two or three, I don’t know.” Nate frowned. “Your mom…”

“I know.” I tugged my bangs away from my face, hard enough to hurt. A sharp cramp tore through my stomach right where that magic spear slashed my ghost-self. Reality dawned on me, piled high with responsibility and the fact I was all alone. “I…I have to plan a funeral now, see how much it is for a cremation or an urn or something. Oh God, I don’t even know where her body is. I can’t…” My breaths came in and out too fast.

“She’s not dead yet.” Nate grabbed my shoulders and shook me. It snapped me out. “What were you doing all this time? I’ve called you, texted, and then I found your phone in here. You fell off the face of the earth.”

“What?” I wasn’t sure I heard him right. “But she ran into traffic. The car…her head…all that blood.”

“EMTs got her to Tampa General. Nico’s there now.” Nate got unsure as he looked at me. I couldn’t imagine how much I’d changed. “She’s in a coma. That’s why they’ve been looking for you. You’re the next of kin. You’ve got to decide if she stays on life support.”

“I have to?” It was too much too fast. I wrapped my arms around myself, backing up until my knees hit the edge of the futon and I let my ass fall. Out of one frying pan and into another.

Nate knelt in front of me. Suddenly I was back on my cot in the burrow, Rio holding my hands so tight and begging me not to leave. I flinched away from him, shaking my head, holding it as my breathing picked up even more. Too much, just too much.

“Maya?” That voice, Daire’s voice. He ran over to me while Brigid peeked from behind the door. She white knuckled her hammer as her attention darted to everything in my apartment like it was a potential threat. Her eyes centered on Nate and turned maroon as she leaped on him.

She pushed the hammer against his neck, just under his chin. His mouth dropped open and he got the strangest look. It wasn’t fear. Nate didn’t get scared. It was shock, surprise, disbelief. I couldn’t blame him.

“Mom’s alive. We’ve gotta get you guys to her.” My thoughts went to Daire, though. He knew where I’d been. He knew what I was talking about. Maybe him and his aunt could help my mom. They had their magic, they could fix people. Rio had said Daire’s aunt could fix those crazy burns my hands got when I stole the sword. Maybe she could fix my mom. “We have to get your aunt to her.”

“Cad atá ag tarlú, Daire?” Brigid asked. The translation spell must have worn off after we left Tir Na Nog. I couldn’t understand her gibberish anymore.

Daire did, though. He fired off more of the same, a short explanation if I guessed his tone right. Brigid tilted her chin at Nate.

Daire looked at me for an answer.

“Remember me telling you about Nate, my friend? He’s safe.” I huffed and tried to pull Brigid’s hammer up to keep it from crushing Nate’s windpipe. “Did you tell her about my mom?”

Daire translated, though it stretched longer than what I’d said. Brigid still narrowed her eyes down at Nate and she asked a question to Daire while looking at me.

“Why does he have such a strange aura?” Daire pinched his eyebrows at Nate.

“Cazz—” Nate slipped into his favorite Italian swear as he scurried out from under Brigid. “Who’s the crazy muscle chick? What are they doing in your apartment? Why are they dressed so funny?”

“I’ll explain that when we get to the hospital.” I sped walked to the door. Mom first. Everything else could come later. “We’ve got to get the crazy chick there ASAP and the blonde with her to interpret. Come on!”

Nate opened his mouth, probably to argue, but he shook his head. After knowing me that long, he should figure it was easier rolling with the punches until things calmed down. I thanked God for that as Nate followed me out the door and Daire led Brigid out after us.

* * *

Nate drove us across town to the hospital. Brigid held her hammer like a security blanket and Daire’s hand like a lifeline in the back seat. Daire gaped at everything that passed by the window while squeezed into Nate’s little Prius. When we got out, Brigid breathed easier until she saw Tampa General’s rows of windows.

Getting past the waiting room on Mom’s floor was a chore. I hugged Nico just as tight as I’d done to Nate when he stood up. The husky Italian lifted me off my feet when he hugged back. I was never so glad to see plaid in my life, even if it made him look like a lumberjack. Getting me past the front desk wasn’t the problem. Sweet talking the nurse into letting Brigid and her hammer in the room was another story. I let Nate deal with it as I abandoned my foreign visitors to the mercy of the American medical system. I had to see her for myself.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Mom’s head had a large gauze bandage wrapped around it, most of her hair sprawled out across her pillow and her blue hospital gown. I.V. tubes hung out of the underside of her elbow to a clear bag hanging from a hook. Another tube held her mouth open and it hooked to a breathing machine. I dove for the first empty chair at her bedside, not caring if I woke up the sleeping roommate on the other side of the curtain separating them. I held her hand where a was monitor clipped to her middle finger. That science fiction experiment wasn’t Mom. She danced around the house while she cleaned, flicked my nose when I got too sassy with her, bawled buckets during a sappy movie, and cuddled into me when she was ready to sleep. That was my ball of nerves teenager of a mother.

“Mom.” I squeezed her hand between both of mine. “I’m back, I’m here. I got back to you and I’ve got so much to tell you. You’ve gotta wake up so I can say it all. I brought you a pretty guy to gawk at and his scary aunt, but she’s not all that bad. She can help you. I hope she can.”

Pretty soon Brigid ducked into the room, her nose wrinkling. Probably from the urine smell underneath the too clean antiseptic. She went to the other side of my mom’s bed and bent over her. Daire settled beside her not long after. Nate and Nico chattered outside with the nurses and kept them busy. Brigid muttered more gibberish words under her breath and I wished so bad for that translation spell so I knew what she said. The giant of a woman glanced over her shoulder toward the snoring roommate first, then the open door to the room. Both clear of conscious people. She passed her glowing hand over my mom’s body until it came to her head, then she pressed her palm on the left side of the bandage.

I looked over to Daire, not hiding the desperation in my eyes to find out what was going on.

“She said she will do what she can for the head would. She cannot promise that Jennifer will wake up.” Daire reached across my mom’s stomach and put his hand on top of mine. “You should talk to her. Give her wandering spirit something to follow.”

“Okay, it’s worth a shot.” I gulped and licked my lips to make my voice less scratchy. She barely resembled herself with all the purple bruising around the left side of her jaw and high on her cheek. There were those freckles she smeared concealer over and the beige eyelashes she always complained were never dark enough. “How about I tell you a bit about what happened now. You see, the lady that kidnapped me comes from this magical fantasy world, but it’s all real. Everything stopped back in medieval times and nobody moved on from it. I met somebody there a lot like you actually. If you two met in real life you would have gotten along good. I went on…let’s call them adventures, and did everything I could to get back to you so we could be a family again. I missed you so bad. Now I’m back, but you’re not here. I need you to come back, Mom. We both lost Abuela. It was hard. We were moving on okay, though, right? I want to get back to that. I want to go to family therapy together. I don’t want to work so much. I want to find a way to go to school. I don’t know what for yet, but life’s too short to wait.” I wiped my nose on my sleeve. “The point is, Mom, I can’t do that without you. So please…please come back and wake up.”

The monitors beeped and the equipment whirred. I could only hope she heard me.

Brigid took Daire’s arm and led him out to join Nico and Nate. I couldn’t tear myself out of that chair.

I spent an hour watching the black hands of the clock and captioned sitcom reruns on the mounted TV. I had gone through a whiplash of too many emotions to feel anything but tired and numb when the doctor in navy scrubs came in with her clipboard. She introduced herself. I nodded along as she talked about Mom’s condition and the options I had. She might be able to breathe on her own, but she would stay a vegetable for the rest of her life if I kept her hooked up to life support. I didn’t need much time to think. We’d talked about this before. She never wrote a last will, but she wouldn’t want to be stuck like that. I told the doctor to make sure she was comfortable after they took everything out, then let go and left so I didn’t have to watch them remove the tubes.

I sat between Nate and Nico in the waiting room, dreading when someone came out to tell me it was over. My stomach kept clenching, aching over and over in that same spot. Nico put a burly arm around my head and crammed it into his chest. He had pushy moments, but that time the invasion of my personal space helped.

I spent another half hour bundled in that smelly place, but my nose didn’t care after so long without it. Nate didn’t ask anymore prying questions and stayed close. He’d save the onslaught for later. His timing was always right when I needed it most.

Mom’s doctor came out from down the hall, chart in hand, but bewildered. “Miss Alvarez-Diaz?”

“Yeah, what is it?” I looked up from under Nico’s arm, my neck stiff as hell.

“It’s…I don’t know how to explain it,” the doctor stammered. “As soon as we dismantled all the equipment, your mom opened her eyes and started talking. I ran some preliminary checks. Her brain activity seems normal. She’s functioning and asking for you.”

“Can I see her?” I jumped up.

“I’ll send a nurse to get you when we’re ready. I wanted to tell you the good news myself.” The doctor turned away from me, brown hair bouncing as she walked away.

I got a win. I had no idea if Brigid’s interference worked everything out or if it was just one of Abuela’s constant signs that God existed and gave a damn about me. I beamed at Daire. His soft smile back was all the congratulations I needed.

* * *

It wasn’t long before a nurse came to the waiting area to get me. Neither Nico or Nate had started asking about Brigid and Daire, yet. Thank God for that small mercy. I wasn’t ready to answer them except for using those two as my excuse for being gone for…however long I’d been gone. One step at a time. First I got to talk to my mom, my alive and not brain-dead mom.

I stayed on the nurse’s heels as she led me to Mom’s room.

Mom sat back with an extra pillow behind her. She had a clip on her finger and an I.V. in her arm, but the mishmash of other tubes and wires had been taken off of her and away from the room. She gave me a small smile, her eyes shining and red with how much she’d cried earlier. I burst across the the room and hugged her again. My eyes welled up, ready for another reunion crying fit.

“Too tight, hun.” Mom let out a wheezy laugh and patted my back. “You give hugs like Mercedes.”

I sniffled as I let her go. The nurse slid a chair by me and slipped from the room. “What’d you want to talk about?”

“A couple things I’ve been thinking about since I woke up.” Mom kept a firm grip on my hand, tight enough that her nails dug. I didn’t blame her. I was half-scared I’d slip away again with how crazy my past few months had been. “First, I’m Baker Acting myself again. They have good psychiatrists here and I need some time away to get my head straight.”

“I’ll handle the paperwork and the place will be ready for you when you get home.” That lump in my throat made my next words come out in a rush. “I’ll make any therapy appointment you need. I’ll take you wherever you want. I wasn’t ready before, but I am now. I’ll do whatever it takes to support you, Mom.”

“I appreciate it, really.” Mom gave me a warm smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “That leads me to my next thing. I want to move out.”

“You mean like closer to the bar or closer to the beach?”

“I mean you keep the apartment and I find a roommate. Maybe Nico and Nate if they have extra room in their place. Me and Nico were playing with it before. But then Mercedes happened and…” Mom’s voice cracked and she wiped her eyes on her hospital gown. “You know what I mean.”

“You don’t have to.” I clung to Mom’s fingers a little tight. I’d only just gotten her back. I didn’t want her to leave again.

“Maya, I put myself in a coma because we couldn’t handle a major hallucination and delusion episode.”

I opened my mouth to reassure her it wouldn’t happen again, that I’d be more prepared next time. But it wasn’t delusionary, it was real. Some of the stuff she had episodes about actually existed. It would come back at her through me if she stuck around. Should I tell her what I knew? Should I confirm somebody had taken me, months had passed while she’d been brain-dead, and the reason she was even awake was because a magic woman fixed her? How would she be able to manage fiction from reality on her own? Would it only make her condition worse if I fed into the delusions with real stuff that everybody thought was fake? Would she not believe me and try to have me diagnosed with something?

Nothing came out.

“It’s okay. Me and Mercedes always forgot how young you are. It’s not fair to expect you to be her when you’re not even done figuring yourself out yet.” Mom cupped my cheek with her free hand. “We’ll still see each other on the regular. But the best way to be your mom right now is to let you fly. I’ve got to fly too. I’m thirty-something and I’ve never tried living independently. I gave up my guardianship before I knew what was out there for people like me. It’s time for me to grow up, and it’s time for you to act your age.”

“Yes Mami,” I said, using what I used to call her when I was little. “If you’re sure.”

“I am.” Mom took a deep breath and fanned her face. “Ugh, if we don’t change the subject, my waterworks are going to start up again. What did you get up to while I was out? The doctors said they had a hard time finding you.”

“A lot.” I realized she was right and my teenage self needed to break down to somebody. Censored or not, I just needed my mom. “I have to figure out how to house some overseas friends staying over and I had my first train-wreck breakup while you were in the coma.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

I shook my head and my lower lip quivered.

“Oh, Maya.” Mom pulled me against her lap as far as she could. I cried into the blankets while blubbering all the emotional nonsense on my mind. It was the first time I’d felt secure since Abuela passed. And I knew right then no matter what happened, Mom and I would be okay.