Time Flux

Unfortunately, when I return once again, eager to take up my old travels, I find that this realm works by non-sequential, apparently random, "wibbly-wobbly" time-flux. It is not merely my doing, to spontaneously rearrange Time and Space. So I arrive on a street corner in a strange city with no knowledge of where I am, or how old I am--though I seem to be older--and no thought of where to find the nearest food, which my stomach alerts to me is more important than saving worlds at the moment.

I go into a tall skyscraper with the neon placard "Everything Store" hanging over the grand front entrance, hoping to find a food court and scrounge leftovers discreetly from garbage cans. On the eleventh floor I come across the Bathroom Killer whose face was plastered all over the town. He is facing a large window, signaling across the space to another skyscraper with a strange red light. This could be my first big crime bust! Excited, I creep up behind him, but then realize I have no known tools, aside from flight. How exactly had I planned to pull this off? Too late, though. The murderer sees my reflection in the glass and turns, smiling a grey smile in the darkened light of this vacant conference room. He advances, as I begin to slowly step backward.

"Did you just come up from the mall?" he asks innocently, turning off the light and setting it on a nearby glass-topped table. "It ends on the tenth floor, I'm afraid. Upper rooms are strictly for business." His suit is shabby, his visage haggard, as a small-time criminal might look, but his eyes--his eyes hold a fire which portrays a deeper pathological drive. Thinking I've jumped in a little over my head, I pray fervently for someone to rescue me.
 "A-actually, I was just coming to meet my father. I-I must have the wrong room. My apologies."  I step backward once more, and he also progresses- like a dance.
"Why leave so quickly? Tell me about yourself. Does your father work here?" He leans one arm against the long, polished table, sliding his fingers along the smooth surface.
"N-no, but he's very important in town. He's...um...an architect." I am still a few feet from the door.
"Really? What buildings has he designed? I happen to know quite a few influential company executives, mostly modernists, but none of them do I recall having young children."
"Uhh, well, he's not part of a company, he's independent. Now, if you'll excuse me, I really must be-"

He grabs my arm, closing and locking the door in one swift motion. Roughly dragging me back to the table, he pushes me into a chair and declares, "No, I'm afraid you're not going anywhere. You see, your father cannot be waiting here, because the entire upper section of this building has been cordoned off for a little project of mine. So, who sent you? Who are you spying for? And, for goodness' sake, how did a little girl get through the security block on the elevator and all the guards in the hallway??"
"Guards?" I ask innocently. "I didn't see any guards."

His eyes change, looking up in thought, and something dark crosses his brow; then a shot of what looks like fear enters his eyes, and he mutters, "Someone has disabled the security system..." And in a flash, before he can do anything, a spotlight shines into the large window and a flying van crashes through. Punk-looking kids in supersuits crash out and surround the killer, countering his every escape move with flashes of different powers till he drops, exhausted, and a somewhat disgruntled city sheriff who was riding with them steps out of the van and handcuffs him, reading off miranda rights in weary monotone, leading him downstairs to increase the public spectacle of it all and fatten his paycheck for catching the notorious criminal. The excited teens high five each other with a job well-done and prepare to leave, but as they start up the van and back slowly out the broken window, I cry "take me with you!" and leap out into the air, diving through the open window onto the carpeted floor of the large supervan. They all grow silent, staring at this strange child emerged from the shadows. I look around at them all: the skinny Asian who threw force fields around the killer to prevent him from escaping; the tough Indian girl who absorbed the energy of the gun he randomly pulled out, and the Russian boy who extended his contortionist's arm and pulled the gun out of the shocked murderer's grasp, flinging it away into the night; the ginger-haired kid who ran circles around the villain, wrapping him in thick black cord, until the policeman could get to him and deal with him in the traditional manner. The driver, a tall African girl, turns sideways in her chair and asks, "We got trouble?"

The Russian boy smiles and says, "Looks like we got ourselves a stowaway. I vote we should keep her."
His Indian companion snorts, turns to me, and asks, "What's your name, kid?" I shift uncomfortably, then respond: "Hannah." She shakes her head, but smiles at my eagerness, seems to have decided something for the group, and motions to the driver. We shift out of neutral and drive off down the sky.
"Well, if you wanna travel with us, first rule: never tell somebody your real name. Even part of it. Not in our profession...pick something different. I'm called Raybender, this here ragamuffin's Chaser, this is Cirque, our driver's called Epiphany, and he's Manuel."

I giggle a little, remarking, "Some of those titles sound a lot more heroic than others."

 Manuel looks a tad affronted, but shrugs and says, "I couldn't think of anything else."

"Well...I've always loved Artemis, from mythology...and I love the pirate captain whose first name was Artemesia...and I love the moon..." I stare out the window as we drive past the full, rising moon. "I think that I would like most to be called...Artemesia Moone. But, the Weaver for a proper title. I like to weave together dreams and other realities outside of the waking world."

"Well, sounds good to me," Manuel smiles shyly. "So where are you from, Weaver?"

I look once more out the window. "America." I say. "A long ways from here, I think. But then, I get lost in my own little city all the time. We could be in Portland and I wouldn't even know it."

The girl driving laughs. "We are indeed in America. Or did you think we all speak in English just for fun? We actually came down here to relax, near Laguna beach, and we discovered this scandal while we were in town and figured, hey, why not work a little; you don't exactly have set vacations when you're a superhero..."
We talk for a long time, landing hours later in the underground base of their newly founded operation in Helsinki, and the kids who are not ten years older than myself agree to train me in the basics of self-defense, tech warfare, mind exercises that may help bring out latent powers--things that they learned from a good mentor who, sadly, passed away two years ago after training many generations in the art of heroism. I have a few more dreams with them, interspersed with training and random travels, and develop many powers simply through concentrated observation--it seems I have the ability to do many things, if I would just pay attention- and one day, I thank them for all they have done, and depart again to visit all the worlds this dimension may present to me, ready to help in any way I can, growing in knowledge with each step- ready to step alone once again. Perhaps, if I make it through to my adulthood, I will found my own team one day...

The Immigrant

Having discovered my new talent, I depart from my family and forest and friends, setting off in search of people to rescue. And getting my own scrawny neck saved. Many times.

Near a police station, a bearded man with a guitar and two Arabian women give me a ride. Slowly I make my way across the map, staring in avid fascination at vagabonds camped out on border hills, fashioning houses of cards, playing grand pianos, dancing to the rhythm of giant tambourines. I am too little to be noticed. I slip between their legs and dive into a tent pitched in the hot, pink-orange sand for a day's rest from hitchhiking.
Flying over the ocean, I see the logs tumbling from a clear-cut site and falling into the river, carefully guided downstream to the mill. Two images are overlaid in my mind: the river and the crashing waves of the sea below me. As if I were gazing down at a double-exposed photograph. In confusion, I focus more strongly on the mill, and suddenly the sea is blotted out from my surroundings. Having lost the wind that propelled me, I crash noisily into the water- just as a fresh batch of logs is pushed in. It slides toward me with inexorable, ominous speed...
I scream, thinking myself doomed before I've even gone to college, when a rough hand jerks me backwards onto the bank. A hefty logger hooks me by the collar, and looking me square in the eyes, reprimands, "What on Earth were you thinkin', lettle gurl? Yeh can't just jump inteh the river loike thet! This' a dangerous place fer a childe!" he looks at me suspiciously. "How'd ya get in here, anyways?"
"I...uh..." dripping and quite shocked, I search for the answer that might satisfy curiosity. I think to myself that perhaps I have discovered a new talent- some sort of transport- but then I see the plaque over the mill entrance which reads, "Carson Mills, founded this Year of our Lord 1862"- and I know this isn't just a teleportation technique. I am traveling in time.
I look hard at the river. I can see how the soil beyond might have eroded, until this bank became the last defense against the open sea. Then I glance back at the logger. He is still waiting for an answer. "Pardon me, sir," I say in a small and breathless voice, "But could you please put me down? You're choking me..." His eyes widen, and just as he releases me, I fade out once more...into awakeness.
So much for grand travels all in one evening. Waiting for the next night to resume adventures is so unbearable...

The Beginning

The start of all the adventures to come in my life began when I was five years old.

The only earlier memory I have is looking up into the pepper shaker, and getting pepper in my eye. But, in the matter of significant things not related to the dull thuds of Reality, the memory that changed my existence from the mundane to the paranormal was a dream...

I dreamed I was watching my mother in a hot air balloon floating down the Grand Canyon. A shadow of evil grew from the sky and spread over her, and in the oily blackness I heard the balloon's canvas pop, hot air escaping quickly. She was falling, and there was no one there to save her.
Unless...
Without really thinking of the consequences- for, as a child at that age I rarely did- I leaped from my perch on the rim of the canyon and fell into the abyss, landing on the torn canvas, grabbing the thick edges with my hands, trying desperately to pull them back together. It was too late, though. We were plummeting rapidly to the bottom, the sides of cliffs blurring in our haste. With my last reserve of strength I pulled up with all my might, willing the balloon not to fall- and found our descent gradually slowing. And stopping. Rising once more on the wind, the canvas still in my tiny grasp, I discovered- or, perhaps created- the first of my powers.
The first of the gifts that would enable me to rescue civilizations from the cold censure of Reality and the lurking evils of this new universe, a place I have simply termed Dreamworld because its adventures originate in the patterns of REM sleep.
I am chronicling these tales that they may be a respite, aid, and inspiration to any and all who chance upon them. As the Faery Queen in Neil Gaiman's Books of Magic eloquently states: "For there are only two worlds- your world, which is the real world, and the other worlds, the Fantasy. Worlds like this are worlds of the human imagination: their Reality, or lack of Reality, is not important. What is important is that they are there. These worlds provide an alternative. Provide an escape. Provide a threat. Provide a dream, and power, provide refuge, and pain. They give your world meaning. They do not exist; and thus they are all that matters."
Here is my alternative.