He nodded. “Same with me—everything went black, then I was here. What I think we saw was a portal.”
“So we’re wherever that portal went? Which is apparently the universe of bad romantic comedies. Why couldn’t I get Narnia?”
“Romantic comedies?”
“That’s what I seem to have been living, which would explain why I kept thinking I heard a musical soundtrack in the background and why my life seemed to go by in a series of montages. It even fit the plot. I had the safe, seemingly nice guy who didn’t fulfill me, and then you came along and I was torn. I had the snarky best friend giving me romantic advice—she was pushing me toward you, by the way. I even did the mad dash across town when I realized you were the one for me. It was right out of that movie Nita and I watched the other night. Or however long ago that was. We’ve been here at least a month, it seems, but with all those montages, it’s hard to tell.” I was babbling again, but it was better than screaming, which was what I wanted to do.
Someone entered the map section and browsed for a few minutes, forcing us into silence. I tried taking a few deep, cleansing breaths since I was afraid I was on the verge of hyperventilating. I’d been kidnapped and my mind had been messed with. I didn’t know where I was or how long I’d been there. It was a lot to take in.
The shopper was still pondering two different tourist maps of the city, and I got the feeling he was memorizing the information so he wouldn’t have to buy one. Owen must have had the same thought, for he rolled his eyes and gestured with his head. We slipped out of the alcove below the stairs and headed for his office. By this time, the small crowd that had watched our romantic moment had dispersed.
As soon as we were safely inside with the door closed, I flopped down into a chair and kicked off my high heels. “Now, where are we, really?” I asked. “I’m pretty sure we’re not in the real New York.”
Owen leaned against the edge of his desk. “No, we’re not. I know every bookstore in the city, and this isn’t one of them.” His voice grew wistful for a moment. “Though I kind of wish it was. We must be in the elven lands.”
“And where’s that?”
“It’s, well, you weren’t too far off when you said Narnia. It’s another magical world that exists on a different plane.”
“You mean there’s a whole fantasy world in some other magical dimension—and it looks a lot like our New York, but without the magic?”
“I don’t think this is the way the whole world looks. It was probably created just for the people they took out of New York. The elves have ways of pulling your fantasies out of your head and giving them to you. And of making time do funny things.”
“You wanted to live in a bad romantic comedy?” I asked in surprise.
“I sometimes wish I could run a bookstore and not have to worry about saving the world or being suspected of being the next great evil. I might have been thinking along those lines that night. That’s what they seem to have given me. But is this what you want?” He sounded surprised and skeptical.
“I wouldn’t say that I normally want this kind of thing,” I said, feeling a little uncomfortable about having my psyche exposed like this. “I was just thinking about it, so I guess it was at the top of my mind when they hit us with the whammy. Like I said, Nita and I had just watched a movie like this, and maybe for a moment I thought life might be easier if it went that way. But why do this to us? Is this their idea of torture?”
“Lots of people have been disappearing, so maybe they’ve been getting inconvenient people out of the way.”
“Or people who’ve seen something they shouldn’t.” I thought back on my time in this place, then said, “Perdita’s here—she’s the waitress at the café I pass on the way to work.”
“Earl runs the science fiction department, and I think my Council watchdogs have been playing chess across the street.”
“I wonder what fantasies they’re living out, and what they know that got them sent here.”
“You have to admit, this is a brilliant concept for a prison. If you think you’re where you belong and if you’re living out your dreams, will you try to escape? Your brain might even resist the truth because it’s not something you want to know. You’ll try to escape from a miserable prison, but not your dream life.”
“Then why did we remember?”
He smiled and gave me a look that made me melt. “Maybe our real life is our dream, when it comes down to it. This world tried to keep us apart, and we resisted that.”