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Isabella falls from her horse first, caught by a low branch she didn't see. She's a better rider than that, she ought to have - ow - she reaches for Jamie, grabs her hand, but while they clasp hands Isabella's got too much momentum and Jamie falls too -
Something snags Isabella's cloak, something snags her bag, she's got a heap of pine needles prickling her face and can't see. She flails a leg but only loses her shoe for her trouble, and the other slips off when she twists, trying to find 'up' before her horse steps on her - when did it get this dim, the sun was only just setting a moment ago - she can't see anything - "Jamie -"
The next time she inhales it's not the smell of pine needles, it's old fur. Not the hay-sweet shallow pile of having somehow planted her nose in her horse's flank; like a coat. Smell jogs memory. Coats - and wood, not the pines but old treated planks -
She's lost Jamie's hand somewhere along the line. She was wearing gloves against the cold and her hand's bare on fur, on wood.
She feels dizzy and small and something's gone wrong with her clothes and she can't hear the horse breathing or feel the wind anymore.
She fumbles around in the dark, looking for Jamie, the horse, a tree, anything.
She finds a shoulder, too small and skinny to be Jamie's, and then with her other hand she finds a door and blinding light and tumbles out of the wardrobe onto the floor.
deepest_magic
deepest_magic
"I'm going to - look more places. Coat pockets and stuff." Isabella goes back in the wardrobe and checks the pockets and hangers of each coat.
neverbeatme
James checks the rest of the room. She helps Isabella budge the wardrobe to look behind it. She looks in her own pockets.
She sighs.
She sighs.
deepest_magic
Isabella's pockets are likewise empty.
"Okay, so, notebook and that's it. And we're kids. And it can't have been that long since we went in, this end, there's not enough dust..."
"Okay, so, notebook and that's it. And we're kids. And it can't have been that long since we went in, this end, there's not enough dust..."
neverbeatme
"Yeah. So. I guess we just... go back," says James. "I don't even know if I want to tell Chris. I could, if you showed her the notebook, I'm pretty sure she'd believe us..."
neverbeatme
"Okay, point in favour of telling Chris: it'll be really easy to convince her to move to Arizona if she knows why."
deepest_magic
"I could probably convince my parents if I had to but Charlie's definitely not moving if I remember him as well as I think. And Renée might move but not to here or anything. So that's still a gap every year, but we can live with that, I guess."
deepest_magic
"We have accents. I'm not sure I can even affect an American accent on purpose now, it's been so long." She coughs. "I have definitely spent the last ten years in the United States," she attempts. It's not too terrible.
neverbeatme
"I don't think I can do it now but I can probably get used to it again after I spend some time around people who have spent the last ten years in the United States..."
neverbeatme
Hug.
"I don't even remember if Chris was supposed to come pick us up at some time or other... it didn't seem important to keep that after the first few years."
"I don't even remember if Chris was supposed to come pick us up at some time or other... it didn't seem important to keep that after the first few years."
deepest_magic
"I don't remember if I wrote it down." Isabella flips through her notebook. "No, I just have speculation about what would happen when we we were found missing, not when or how."
neverbeatme
"It hasn't been weeks but it might have been days... we should probably go wait in front of the house," says James. "And maybe try to go back from there, but I'm not sure I remember the way."
deepest_magic
"I don't remember either and never drew myself a map," sighs Isabella. "Yeah. We'll have to say we lost the stuff we brought, I guess."
neverbeatme
"Yeah. 'Lost it where?' 'Well, we're not sure, that's what happens when you lose things.'" Sigh.
deepest_magic
"Do I have a list..." Isabella does have a list. "Okay, I don't remember any of this being horribly expensive, they probably won't refuse to let it just be lost."
neverbeatme
"I'm not sure how we could've managed to lose it in the first place but I guess we're ten and eleven and not expected to be that responsible about what we do with borrowed things."
deepest_magic
"I guess. I don't want to have to lean on that too much but we can't produce the backpacks, so." Pause. "We have to go to school. With other ten-and-eleven-year-olds. We're going to have to ask permission to go to the bathroom. And I could probably convince Renée to homeschool me but I legitimately need the re-acculturation."
neverbeatme
"...I might convince Chris to homeschool me... I won't if you'd rather have me there as an ally against the genuine Earth schoolchildren," says James.
deepest_magic
"Maybe there's some less humiliating way to re-acculturate? We could... watch a lot of movies."
deepest_magic
"Are you going to ask her what it is that Earth schoolchildren do, or just say you're bored...?"
neverbeatme
"At this point I think I'm going to have to explain the whole thing and then ask how to be a minimally inconvenienced Earth schoolchild."
deepest_magic
"So - I'll go with you and prove and corroborate things for that and decide from there, I suppose."