Rough hands grabbed Bridgette by the shoulders and marched her through the twisted streets. Left, then march. Right, then march. Stop for ten minutes while orders are barked out, then march again. Finally, she heard the scrape of metal as a great gate opened. She found herself led inside, and an odor of sweat and urine struck her nostrils like a punch in the face.

Someone ripped her hood off. A foul-tempered, middle-aged woman scowled at her. “All right pretty thing,” said the woman. “Get that off.”

“What?” said Bridgette. Looking around her, she saw stone, cold walls, slick with mildew. A pile of ill fitting, striped uniforms sat in a pile nearby, a stereotypical prison outfit that was almost comedic.

“Off,” said the woman again, as she leaned forward until Bridgette could smell her stinky breath. “The pretty dress. Now.”

Slowly, Bridgette took off her dress, gently so as to not damage the fabric. Her careful movements angered the matron; the woman grabbed her chin and squeezed, her fingers painfully digging in. “Don’t bother keeping it safe; you’re never getting out of here alive.” She tore the raiment from Bridgette’s hands, and a loud rip sounded in her ears. She stepped back and gestured towards the prison garb. “Get one,” she ordered.

Humiliated, Bridgette put on the ill-fitting prison garb. The fabric was coarse and itchy, and it hung off her body like a circus tent. No sooner was she finished than the prison matron grabbed her painfully by the arm and led her down the hall to a barred cell. Bridgette was rudely shoved inside, and she soon heard the clink of the lock, and found herself alone.

Of all the places Bridgette had ever imagined she would visit, prison was the last, let alone prison in a fantasy world. A skylight, like a window, was above her in the middle of the ceiling. It had no bars, but there was no way anyone could reach it, even were they able to climb the walls like a spider. Cold air drifted down from the ceiling, and Bridgette realized it would give no protection should it rain.

She sat on the cold floor and inched away from the skylight. She had no furniture, and nothing but a bucket to relieve herself. How long they planned to keep her here, she had no idea. There was no word of a judge, jury, or sentence. Was this the end of her trip through Shard?

It is time to go home, she thought. If there was ever a time she wanted to leave Shard, this was it.

She closed her eyes to concentrate. Send me home, she thought.

A cool wind brushed against her cheeks. She opened her eyes to see, and saw that nothing had changed. She still sat on a cold and damp floor, with freezing air caressing her face. She shivered. Send me home. I wish I was home. Quit! Command Q! But nothing happened. No command, no wish, no hard-thought order was sufficient.

How did she get home before? The first time, she was wrapped in Alain’s kiss. The other was when she conjured the ball of light. She was happy then. Would happiness would send her home?

“Raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens,” she murmured, trying to focus on the cheerful parts of life. But nothing changed. It was insincere. She couldn’t even convince herself. I can leave when I want to stay, she thought bitterly. And when I want to leave, I’m stuck.

Clang! Clang! Clang! In the distance, she heard a bell ringing. It was modestly loud, probably on account of the distance, and gradually faded as it went away. A ship, going out to sea, she thought. Perhaps it was the ship that Alain and Bickle Wa planned to take to Siram Port and defeat the Scarlet Tempest. Would they rescue her, or leave without her?

It doesn’t matter, she thought. It’s like worrying whether Darth Vader will conquer the Galaxy. Darth Vader isn’t real. And neither is the Scarlet Tempest.

Rosie was right on this, she realized. Worrying about the politics of a fantasy world was silly, unless you just had a taste for adventure. Rosie would rather be admired. Admired by whom? By a farmer and an audience in a tavern that also weren’t real?

Tears filled Bridgette’s eyes as her heart hollowed itself out, filled with the most empty loneliness she could imagine. Was Alain real? She loved him so much. She felt his warm lips, his hot breath, his strong arms. Did he have no more reality than the Scarlet Tempest? Rick was far more real than Alain. Rick laughed when Ashley called her a fat cow. And she was a fat cow. Her beautiful and thin body was no more real than Alain.

Bridgette lowered her head to her hands and wept. She had never felt so far away from home. Or felt that she had run to any place as horrific as the one she had left. There was nowhere. Nowhere in the cosmos for her.

Night passed by. Bridgette never quite fell asleep, but half-dozed into nightmares that were no more comforting than her waking hours. The black slip of sky, the only piece of the outside world that belonged to her, turned light. She heard the clang of the bell of the ship that had left the night before, returning to dock after a cold night. She imagined the men on the boat. Perhaps they were fishermen who found it more comfortable to fish during the cool night hours than the stifling heat of day. Perhaps they sold their fish at the morning markets, for people who liked their catch for breakfast. She even daydreamed a nefarious plot, where the fishing boat had a captain that was secretly a smuggler, and while some men fished in the rear of his ship, he met with shadowy criminals on a dingy at the other side, to buy and sell contraband.

But all she knew of the boat was the clanging sound of its bell, as it left and returned to the dock, ringing twice each day.

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A burning urgency led Bridgette to relieve herself in the bucket. She ripped off a piece of her prison uniform from off her pant leg to use as a wipe. The whole process stank, and she scrunched up in a corner of her cell, opposite of the bucket, trying not to gag from the odor. She grew hungry and thirsty too and wondered if she would ever be fed.

The sun came up in the sky, and her cell changed from a freezing chamber to one of scorching heat. One end of her cell was shady during the morning, the other in the afternoon. But in mid day, the sun shone right down on top of her, and there was no escaping its burning wrath. Lying face down to keep it out of her eyes, she felt the sweat trickle down her back in the unforgiving rays. And it was around then that the door to her cell creaked open.

She looked up, hoping beyond hope to see Alain opening the door, with his sword drawn and hand outstretched, rescuing her from imprisonment. But it was a short and ugly man, covered with warts, with barely a few scruffs of hair.

Bridgette shrank away from him, but he paid her little notice. He replaced her full bucket with an empty one, and left a bowl of stale-smelling gruel. Even hot soup would be welcome, but the bowl felt lukewarm at best. The little jail keeper turned and locked her in again.

“What’s going to happen to me?” Bridgette asked him. “Do I get a trial? How long will I be here?”

Her jailer looked at her with watery eyes. Opening his mouth, Bridgette winced as she saw half his tongue was cut out.

After he left, Bridgette tried the gruel. She was hungry enough to find it barely bearable. When she finished, the Sun had gradually shifted to its afternoon position, and she scrunched to the shady side of her cell. She hoped to keep the gruel inside her as long as possible before using the clean bucket, to avoid dealing with the smell for too long. But with nothing in her, it didn’t take long for the food to pass through.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Again, she heard the ship press out to sea, as night made her way in. How odd that the loudest ship would go out at night. Or perhaps it wasn’t. She imagined that the bell was to warn people who could hear what they could not see.

If only I could fly out that skylight, thought Bridgette. Fly like a bird, and meet the crew on that ship. To catch fish and sell them and catch fish again sounds like the most wonderful life compared to where I’ve been.

She fantasized for hours about life on the ship, as it seemed the only part of the world that still had contact with her. But as she saw the tip of the moon in the sky, she grew even more concerned. Where was Alain? And Bickle? Shouldn’t they have tried to rescue her by now? Did Rosie tell them not to? Or perhaps Rosie had found friends of her own that were running interference.

What a waste of this rescue attempt! Here she was, trapped in a world she had come to, to rescue a girl who didn’t want to be saved. I should leave her here to rot, thought Bridgette. Though the desperate look in her father’s eye made her rethink this. I wanted to help her. Dad said to rush to someone who needed help.

And he also said that they may not want it, that they may even hate you for it. What a world, where people would be angry for receiving help! Fine; if Rosie didn’t need help, if she didn’t require it, then Bridgette would go home and forget the whole thing ever happened.

Except she still couldn’t go home. Another hour of intense focus, replaying the previous scenes in her head, imagining every command and spell she could think of. Nothing worked. She just couldn’t catch the right method.

“How can I get home?” she finally said, aloud.

“I’ve been asking that for years.”

It was a strange voice, a shy voice. “Bickle?” she said as she looked up to the skylight. A young, but rough face looked back at her, with twin, terrified eyes.

“I heard you needed h-h-help, Lady Bridgette.”

“I know you,” said Bridgette, though she could barely make out the face in the dark of night. Slipping through the hole in the ceiling, the young boy drifted down to the floor, falling as slow and gentle as a feather.

“How did you do that?” asked Bridgette.

“I can still fly, sometimes,” said the boy. “When the mood strikes. You gave me hope to see London again. It was enough to reach the roof.”

“Who are you?” said Bridgette staring closely. Finally she realized. “You’re the farmboy! The one who was picking strawberries! Peter!”

The farmboy, opened his mouth and tried to speak. “No. Yes. I mean, yes, I’m Peter. N-n, no, I’m not Peter. I’m- I need help. But- no, no, no, you need help. Maybe I can help you, and then you can help me? Please, I- I- I- I- want to see London. It’s been so long since I’ve been there, and I’ve been here, and- the farm was the best I could find, I-”

Bridgette reached out and took his hand. “There,” she said in a gentle voice. “Calm,” she must have been a ludicrous sight, comforting Peter while dressed in the ill-fitting prison garb. But did clothes matter when helping a troubled soul?

Peter took several deep breaths. “I’m sorry they put you here,” he said. “I don’t know how it happened. I don’t know anything, I don’t understand anything. I don’t know if I can help you, but you are an Earthling, and I- and I- and I-”

Bridgette fought the urge to get frustrated, seeing that her guest whom she hoped would rescue her was more concerned with his own issues than her predicament. Getting angry won’t help, she thought. He can fly, and I cannot. “Start from the beginning,” she said. “It’s not about the prison.”

“You’re an Earthling,” said Peter.

Bridgette nodded.

“From where?” he asked.

“America,” she said. “Across the sea from Britain.”

Peter nodded. “I- I- I- I have a secret, but you must not let them know I told you.”

Bridgette lowered her voice to a whisper. “I won’t tell a soul,” she promised.

Peter spoke in a tiny puff of air. “I was an Earthling too.”

“And now you’re not?” asked Bridgette.

“I don’t know,” said the boy. “I’ve been here so long- so long- I don’t know if I am from- from home- or if I became one of them. My sister and brother made it home. I went home too, for a time, but came back. And I couldn’t- I never- nevernevernever- never made it back to my own land.”

Bridgette looked him up and down. “What’s your name? It isn’t Peter, is it?”

The boy shook his head. “Names have power here. No one who tells you their name is really telling you their name. The truename… the truename and you are at the mercy of those who know it- or those who learn it.”

“I’ll be merciful,” said Bridgette. “Bickle isn’t here, Alain isn’t here. Even the guard without a tongue isn’t here. It’s just me. I’m lost here, and I need to know why. I need to know how to get home. I came through a computer game, and I can’t seem to return. How did you get here?”

The farmboy spoke softly, as if it was a painful and long-suppressed memory. “My sister told us stories of adventure and treasure,” he said. “Papa had no patience with our imagination, especially when we drew a treasure map on his shirt. He left with Mama for a function, and he came. He wanted my sister to be his mother, and he took us all to that place of death and boys forever lost, and the cruel pirates.”

It all sounded dreadfully familiar to her. “No,” she said. “You can’t be one of those children.”

But the farm boy bit his lip tight and nodded. “My name,” he whispered. “Was Michael Darling.”