Zaria allowed herself to be pulled into the front door of a small apartment building. The woman had insisted that she come home with her. She had the space since her granddaughter moved out and didn't mind the company. After a block, Zaria gave up protesting and went along quietly. Kind-hearted people were not fantasy creatures. She had met a few genuinely selfless people in her almost 20 years of living.
But it had been her experience that if you did not look like everyone else, you would usually be treated differently, and not usually in a good way. The feeling of being cared for felt odd. As did the feeling of being tall. The woman could not have been more than 150 cm even if she were standing up right. Salt and pepper hair was styled in short curls around her face, and dark eyes sparkled from beneath thin brows.
"Come in, come in," she was told as she stood in the hallway, looking into a small but tidy apartment. Zaria stepped inside and bent over to follow the example given and remove her shoes. "I will get you slippers after you shower. I am sure you don't want to be covered in that even a second longer. I can't believe a roof fell on you, you poor dear..."
Zaria made a sad noise. When she said that she was covered in ceiling tiles and dirt, the woman thought she was saying that the tiles had fallen on her. Her lip was no longer bleeding, but there was dried blood leading from the obvious split in her lower lip and down to her chin. It was too hard to explain. So she gave a sad face and nodded, figuring that it was easier to go along with it.
She was pushed into a small bathroom to get undressed. With each piece of clothing she removed, she winced at the mess she was creating. Old dirt and ash were covering the small bath mat by the time she was done. As if her thoughts were being broadcasted, a voice called through the door to leave them all in a pile and forget about them. Turning away, she gingerly walked over to the shower, opened the frosted door, and stepped inside.
For several minutes, Zaria stood under the water and let it take away all the dirt and worries that were caked on her skin and in her mind over the last month. Before even beginning to scrub her body, she first started with her hair. Straightened out, it was only a few inches long, but at that moment, it was so dry and filthy and knotted that it looked like a helmet. She could not even get her fingers through it. So she just stood there as the water beat down on her head and let the water help carry away the excess dirt. And then, she scrubbed.
The shampoo she had been given had a subtle flowery scent. The room soon filled with the smell as she massaged it into her hair a second and third time, stopping once her scalp no longer felt so horrible and she was no longer pulling up dirt under her fingernails when she scraped the scalp. A knock sounded at the door, and she called out in acknowledgment.
"Is your hair washed?" The kind voice sounded loud in the small room. " I brought you some oil. My hair was very curly when I was younger, and I used coconut oil on it when it was dry, so it wouldn't break. You should put this on while it is hot and let it sit there for a few minutes. "
Through the frosted glass, she could make out a bowl being held up near the sliding door, so she opened it enough to pull the bowl in with a thank you. She already felt touched that this woman would go through so much trouble for a complete stranger. Even going so far as to think of something small like her hair...
Zaria used every drop, massaging it into her short curls before scrubbing the rest of her body and rinsing everything off. When she was done and feeling clean for the first time in too long, she slid open the shower door and grabbed the pink towel that was sitting on the toilet waiting for her. She gently squeezed the extra water out of her hair but left it damp so that she could comb her fingers through it easier. The coconut oil left her feeling refreshed, and her fingers slid in with no real resistance. Once she was sure there were no more obvious tangles, she turned toward drying her body and looking around for her clothes. She had no interest in putting those filthy things on, but it didn't matter since the clothes and the mat they had been laying on were both gone. Wrapping the towel around her body, she opened the bathroom door and poked her head outside.
"Excuse me, could I have my clothes back?" Her voice sounded rough as it passed through her lips, and she cleared her throat self consciously.
"Those were much too dirty, I put them in the wash. You can wear some of the clothes my granddaughter left, she will not mind. I will bring them to you." The voice carried from somewhere down the little hallway and not a minute later the small woman appeared holding some folded clothing, which she placed into Zaria's surprised hands before turning her around and pushing her back into the bathroom. "Go, get dressed, I will finish making us something to eat, and then we can rest!"
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The door closed again, and Zaria stared at the clothing in her hands before setting them down on the sink counter and unwrapping the towel. The cute panties with pink bunnies were a little too small, obviously meant for a smaller derriere than Zaria had, but they were better than wearing someone else's pajamas with no underwear on. She pulled them up over her hips before putting on the rest. The bunny patterned pajamas were stretchy enough that they looked okay. She hung the wet towel up on a rack, not sure what to do to clean up the mess that had been made. Finally, she turned the shower back on and aimed the nozzle around to rinse out the dirt left behind so at least there would not be a ring that would be hard to clean later.
A pleasing smell pulled her back into the main room. A small kitchenette filled one corner of the room, and the rest looked to be what Zaria would expect from any living room. A small couch, a coffee table, and a television on a stand. Sliding glass doors led out to a small mudroom overlooking an enclosed patio. Through the glass, she could see a washing machine running.
"I found a phone in your pocket, I put it here on the table," the woman called to her as she emptied a small pot into two bowls on the counter. "Come, sit down! It's only simple noodles, but it will fill our bellies."
Zaria smiled and pulled out a chair as instructed. "Thank you very much. I don't even know your name..."
The woman stopped, her chopsticks and noodles halfway to her mouth. "I didn't say? So rude, please forgive me. My name is Wang Xiang, but you can call me Auntie or Auntie Wang but there is no need to be so formal. And what is your name?"
"My name is Zaria, Zaria Joseph. Please, call me Zaria."
"Ah, Joseph, is your family name? I watch a lot of telelvision, I know that in other countries the family name is said second." Auntie Wang patted her chest proudly. " I will call you Little Zaria then!"
"Thank you, I am pleased to meet you," Zaria said with a smile. She felt the lip pull apart a little, and she winced.
"No more smiling, you will hurt yourself more! Eat, eat! It is late, you should sleep soon."
The two of them ate quickly. For Zaria, the taste of the simple noodles in their vegetable broth was astounding after eating those tasteless food bars for every meal. She closed her eyes and savored the flavor of each bite. Her hunger was too strong, and she ate quicker than she would have liked to, and soon the bowl was empty. She insisted on helping the Auntie wash the dishes and clean up the table afterward.
"I don't want to intrude," she said as she was led down the little hallway and past the bathroom. "Is it really alright for me to stay the night here?"
"Yes, then we can talk more in the morning. Do you have things planned?" The silver and black curls bounced as they stopped in front of a small door. She opened it to show a neat little bedroom with a narrow bed and a small desk to the side. Light pink wallpaper with little white dots covered the walls.
"Oh, no, I don't. I don't know how long I will be here but I don't have any plans per se..." Zaria allowed herself to be nudged into the room.
"Then tomorrow you will come with me to my shop. Go to sleep, I will wake you in the morning!" And with that, the little door closed, and Zaria was alone.
Had Zaria known that the morning mentioned was only a few hours a way, she would have laid down immediately and not sat on the edge of the bed to think for a while. But, she didn't know, so she let herself go over everything that happened that day. The pendant was cool against her skin. She opened the top two buttons of the pajama top to look at it. There was no dizzying movement anymore. The coils were still and looked just like a piece of polished jade instead of something magical. The strange man said that it would need to recharge between uses, but how long would that take? Her imagination wandered. If it needed to pull in magic from the air around her, what if there was not much magic? Or, what if she was sucking in the magic it was pulling since it was so close to her? And what if she ended up somewhere without much of the energy that was needed? Could she be there for years waiting? Maybe she should look into getting a job so she would have money to prepare. The next universe could be like the volcano one. She would need food and water.
Her head began to ache. She wasn't sure it would even be possible to carry enough water with her to last like that for years. How much would that be? A truck's worth? Maybe this universe had something like those little filtered water bottles. It wouldn't help her with salt water, like the only water she saw in that last universe, but maybe it would keep her dying from some tainted water source. Of course, it was possible that the next universe would be the right one. She shook her head and laid back on the bed.
The ceiling was covered in little stickers shaped like stars and rainbows. In the light from the window, they seemed to glow. They reminded Zaria of her bedroom as a child. Every notebook and surface that she was allowed to decorate was covered in stickers. A small smile crossed her lips, and she closed her eyes.
Her mind drifted to the moment in the hotel room. Something about the whole scenario had seemed so familiar, but she was too tired and could not put her finger on it. There was no chance at all that she had ever been in a similar situation. The only hotel rooms she had ever seen were in movies and tv shows. Once, they had gone on a vacation to Vancouver, but there was some big convention in town and all the hotels were booked and they ended up having to stay on the living room floor of an old friend of her dad's. It was still fun, but she had been looking forward to those little soaps that were kept in dishes on the counter, the ones shaped like flowers. Actually, the hotel bathroom she arrived in didn't have those soaps at all. So that was kind of a letdown.
Then there was the beating someone up and running so they wouldn't catch her, not really part of her hotel fantasy. And what were the chances that she would stumble across someone who could help her out after she ran away? At least sleeping in the narrow little bed under the star stickers would be much more comfortable than laying on broken tiles.