I was cold and uncomfortable. Two thing which I’d never experienced before and didn’t want to experience again. They were also two things I felt as though I was going to have to get used to. Especially since I was still unable to access my powers and the only creatures I could sense was Ant and nothing else.

There was a sense within me that suggested I should have better access to the creatures of the forest, more of the jackalopes, than I did and at the same time I was a bit surprised to have come in contact with Ant or had what amounted to a confusing conversation where, after far too much talking and not enough fucking, I understood that I needed to head to where the castle had been and Ethan was somehow an unknown and unwanted commodity in the forest.

Ethan was already at the table he’d set up and was cooking what smelled like bacon and eggs. I didn’t know how that was possible as I’d not seen anything that would store or preserve bacon or eggs, but then Ethan seemed to have access to things that weren’t visible and also not magical. Which really meant he was a practitioner of the other arts, science and thinking, but I didn’t want to think about that any more than I wanted to think about cold or tired or hungry.

“How’d you sleep?”

I grunted and he smiled and set in front of my a cup filled with dark liquid. When I smelled it, I got that it was coffee, but sweeter and less dense than I was used to. I picked the cup up and took a sip and then set it down only to pick it up almost immediately and drink a bit more. What surprised me about the coffee wasn’t that it was good. It was. But that it was really good even if it was too thin and watery.

The second thing that surprised me was that my still tired body quickly stopped feeling tired and started feeling like I actually had some energy. For a moment I thought this was about my powers, but quickly realized, when I mentally tried to turn Ethan into a frog or a were-mosquito, that I was still less-than-remarkable. Except for my appearance. Come on. It would require a million years of Sisyphean suffering for me not to be hot.

When Ethan placed the plate of bacon and eggs and pancakes in front of me, it took all I had not to grab things with my hands and shove them into my mouth. I slowed down enough to use a fork and knife, but not by much.

“What did you say you were doing in the forest?” Ethan asked as I was eating.

I looked at him, over my plate and with a mouthful of food, said, “I don’t know.”

“That’s what I thought,” he said and continued to cook, making himself a plate of food while he drank his own cup of coffee.

“It took me six months to get into the forest,” he said. “It takes at least six months for anyone to make it through whatever it is that blocks the outside world from inside here.” He used his spatula to indicate the trees and by extension everything else.

“I don’t know anything about that,” I said.

“I did some reading last night,” he said, continuing as though he’d not heard a thing I said, or cared. “And I did find some weird references to a Flora Rose, from before antiquity.”

Before antiquity? “What does that mean?” I asked.

He smiled. “Antiquity is a period before people kept really good records. A lot of people couldn’t read or write. There were lots of wars, plagues, diseases, and things like that. It was a period many consider pre-dark ages, but also uncivilized and without a lot of intellectual thought or understanding.”

Through his definition I knew he was staring at me to see how I would react. I didn’t know what he was getting at, but I did have a sense of other people questioning me or dismissing me as just a woman. Just a woman. I could feel the heat rising inside of me as I considered trying to change him into a very small woman.

“There were philosophers,” he added.

“There are always philosophers,” I said, more as an offhand thought than anything else.

“You’ve heard of them?”

“Probably not,” I said. “Good people to fuck with when you do find them. They’re not always easy to identify in the moment.”

Stolen story; please report.

He nodded.

“There were stories from one or two that referenced someone who might be Flora Rose, though those are tenuous at best. It seems that Flora Rose was more trickster god than a beautiful woman.”

“Are the two mutually exclusive?” I asked, I could tell I was getting really mad and even if I couldn’t use powers or magic to do something to him, he really needed to watch himself before I did do something to him. Not sexual.

“No,” he said and laughed. “But from what I read, Flora Rose just sort of stopped being Flora Rose after a while and then the records, what few still exist, dry up and there’s no description. No confirmation she was ever real. I mean, it’s like reading the ancient philosophers and believing some of them were more than another philosophers made up character designed to offer legitimacy and meaning to his …”

“Or her.”

“… or her thoughts and writings,” he finished.

“So?”

“I’m not saying you’re not who you say you are,” he said and I had to wonder how long he worked on a sentence with that much positive negation. “I just don’t have any experience or research that actually proves you are who you say you are.”

There was a quick and far too easy rejoinder, “How do I know you are who you say you are?”

He set in front of me several pieces of paper and identification. There was a birth certificate and his degrees. Photos of him as well as pieces of plastic with his face and name printed on them. The small pile suggested that Ethan was exactly who he said he was.

Whereas I had nothing.

After going through his identification, I looked at my plate and felt my stomach rumble and realized I was still hungry, and then looked at Ethan to give me more food. He stood up and as though by magic filled my plate up a second time and sat down.

“I’m missing my satchel,” I said.

“Okay.”

“Everything you would need to know I am exactly who I say I am is inside the satchel. We find that and we find me,” I said.

“What does this satchel look like?”

“It’s brown and leather and has a long strap that goes over my shoulder. Most people think it ridiculous, but I found it useful as I was always traveling. I could shove my storage space inside and from there pull out whatever I needed when I needed it.”

“We find the satchel and we find you,” Ethan said.

“Is that funny,” I asked.

“No. No. I’m sorry,” he said, a little too quickly. “Where might we find the satchel?”

I thought about that for a moment and for the first time wondered if I’d actually left the castle with it on me. I mean, yes, normally, but the night with the princess was a bit blurry and if she was able to lead me directly into a faerie trap the possibility also had to exist that I didn’t bring the satchel with me.

“The castle,” I said. Even though I knew it was a stretch to suggest the castle, a structure that apparently didn’t exist anymore, I somehow knew that was exactly where I’d find it, if it still existed at all.

“Now that is funny,” Ethan said. “The forest is off limits to everyone. The castle island hasn’t been accessible in far longer than the forest. If what you’re saying is true, then I’m afraid we’re out of luck on ever identifying you beyond a lot of reasonable doubt.”

I glared at Ethan, having finished my second plate, and considered demanding a third before I decided I was full enough and went back to my tent. Once inside I sat down on the cot fairly hard and started to think. Ant said go to the castle. Ethan said no one could go to the castle. Somehow I knew my satchel was there and while that didn’t mean there were also answers to my troubles, getting there had to be a priority. For me. Getting to the castle had to be a priority for me.

From outside the tent, I heard Ethan talking to himself. Not something as uncommon as people think. He was also cleaning things up, which made hearing his self-talk hard. When he was done, I could hear him walking across the campsite to my tent.

“One of my research goals is to try and access the island or figure out an experiment to see if we can test why no one has been able to get there.”

“Design an experiment?” I asked from inside the tent, I didn’t want to look at Ethan because that would cause a whole different problem that was kind of related to me and my powers and getting angry and other things.

“Yeah. It’s a series of tests to see if we can find a reason behind something. These kinds of experiments are a bit harder because there isn’t any clear or identifiable reason for the island to be inaccessible. As a result, I need to begin examining and figuring out how to test the phenomenon, which will become the basis of some of the future research being done.”

I stood up and was out of the tent door, stopping as I bumped into Ethan’s chest, and said, “You were already going to the castle?”

Ethan showed me where he’d put a backpack, one similar to but smaller than the one he had been using the day before. “We’ll put the things we need in here, a midday meal and tools, and if we find anything edible we’ll collect them as well.”

I nodded. Not that I actually cared about what he was saying. Blah. Blah. Blah. What I cared about was getting to the castle, which I knew I’d be able to reach. Though part of me was silently curious why people hadn’t been able to make it to the island in so long. The place, as far as I remembered, which was pretty far and recent, was mundane. There was no magical protections. The island itself wasn’t special, other than being a natural rock island.