Not in Kansas

by bluemoonperegrine

Summary:

After surviving her father's funeral and drinking herself to sleep in one of Bloodstone Manor's guest suites, Elsa wakes up in the same room... sort of. A glance out the window shows a charming Italianate village that couldn't be more different than the manor's grounds in late autumn. She's got her work cut out for her once she wrangles her hangover under control.

---

This was inspired by my recent watch of the groundbreaking, bizarre British sci-fi/spy series The Prisoner, which debuted nearly sixty years ago. You don't have to know anything about the series to follow this story.

I'm not sure if the original Number Six will show up. We'll see!

Chapter 1: Reveille

Quiet, repetitive banging and crashing roused Elsa from a fitful sleep. Groaning, she pulled a pillow over her head so the noise didn’t make her headache any worse. The satin-covered down muffled what Elsa realized were drums and cymbals playing a slow march.

Who in Bloodstone Manor would be playing “Scotland the Brave” at this hour?

Brass instruments joined the percussion as Elsa wondered what the hour actually was. Once she’d brought her suitcase to the guest suite she’d claimed for herself, she’d had liberal amounts of the excellent bourbon she’d found in a well-stocked liquor cabinet. After surviving her father’s funeral and helping a werewolf and a swamp creature escape, she more than deserved it.

The bloody march was getting louder.

Elsa dragged herself up to a sitting position, wincing from both her headache and the mostly healed wound on her leg. Once she got her wits about her, she’d retrieve the Bloodstone from its hiding place and put its gold chain around her neck. The gem’s magic would make quick work of the now-shallow cut and her hangover.

Straightening her oversized T-shirt with one hand, Elsa grabbed the handset of the ornate phone on the bedside table with the other. “Swan,” she croaked, then worked some moisture into her mouth and tried again. “Turn it off!”

A woman’s curt, British-accented voice returned, “I beg your pardon?”

“Whoever you are,” Elsa snapped, “turn off the bloody music, or find Swan and tell him to do it.” The din was carrying through the heavy drapes covering the windows, she realized.

The line was quiet for a few moments.

“Shall I ring the ambulance for you?”

“THE AMB—” Elsa began, but cut herself off; yelling had made her head throb. Grimacing, she slammed the phone into its cradle, then turned her attention to her breathing. Slow breaths eased the pain, even with the sodding march in the background steadily growing louder.

As if a band were approaching.

Careful to not disturb the wound on her thigh, Elsa swung her legs over the side of the bed and padded barefoot to the windows. She pulled aside one of the velvet drapes, squinting from the brightness outside.

A story below a dark-uniformed, twenty-member band now playing “The Minstrel Boy” made its way down a cobbled path. While bizarre, it wasn’t completely unexpected.

The verdant, sun-drenched panorama was.

The stone footpath joined others meandering across a village square better suited for the Italian Riviera than Massachusetts in November. Landscaped areas boasting an array of flowers, shrubs, and a few palm trees bounded manicured turfgrass and 100 feet away, a giant chessboard. Beyond that were a wading pool with a fountain in its center, a colonnade, and pastel-hued buildings ringing what could only be called a piazza.

These were not the Bloodstone grounds.

Elsa rubbed her temples with her fingertips as her thoughts whirled. I’m still drunk, she concluded. I’m hallucinating.

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to focus on her breathing again, but the sodding hallucinatory band kept distracting her. 

The march grew quieter, like the band had rounded a corner.

Perhaps it wasn’t a hallucination.

Again Elsa opened her eyes and found the same lush landscape. More details registered: men and women wearing dark, similarly tailored suits strolled along the paths and chatted near the fountain. A ginger man wearing beige coveralls trimmed a topiary. The marching band, led by a dark-skinned woman playing a bass drum, moved back into view. They seemed to be headed for the colonnade.

Elsa turned to sweep her eyes over the room she’d fallen asleep in. The dark, wood furniture and formal decor were exactly the same as last night.

Outside looked like summer in Portofino. Inside looked like the luxurious, if heartless, mansion she’d returned to after escaping twenty years earlier.

What the fuck.

Since standing in front of the windows in only her nightshirt and panties was accomplishing nothing, Elsa willed herself to the suite’s bathroom door. Debating whether to shower or just wash up before getting dressed to demand answers from the first person she found, she pulled the door open and gasped.

The elegant marble bathroom had been replaced by a retro-styled living room. Clean lines and muted greens, yellows, and oranges took the place of Bloodstone Manor’s jewel tones and Victorian ornamentation. The style of the couch, armchair, coffee table, and light fixtures seemed to be an homage to the mid-1960s.

At least it’s not the seventies, she thought idly.

Elsa closed her mouth and shook her head. Although the motion didn’t help her hangover, it renewed her resolve to pull herself together and figure out what the hell was going on.

A small, efficient full bath with sky blue porcelain fixtures was off the far side of the living room. After washing up and drinking water from the tap with cupped hands, Elsa checked under the bandage she’d wrapped around her right thigh. The shallow cut had bled a little but wasn’t infected. Good enough for now.

Favoring her injured leg, Elsa moved to the pass-through separating the living room a small kitchen. It was similarly retro-styled, but modern. Whatever.

A dozen steps brought her back to the portion of Bloodstone Manor that somehow was attached to a pseudo-1960s flat. The transition was jarring, if irrelevant. Once she got dressed…

Her suitcase wasn’t on the side table, nor were her keys, cell phone, and wallet. 

Elsa whirled around. With her heart in her throat, she looked for wherever her leather jacket, boots, and other clothes she’d worn to her father’s circus of a funeral had landed last night.

Gone. All of it.

Even Jack’s tie.

She shook her head again, grateful for the rush of adrenaline prompted by her alarm. Her hangover was barely noticeable now.

Focus.

Someone had taken all of her belongings, or at least moved them out of sight. Feeling foolish, she raced to the closet door and threw it open, half expecting to find another piece of the 1960s.

Seeing a navy blue suit jacket, trousers, and a white dress shirt on hangers was a pleasant, if unnerving, surprise.

On the closet floor were a pair of brown leather boots and a small cardboard box with a simple, black-and-white design on the lid.

Elsa picked up the box, studying the design as she straightened. Two concentric circles enclosed a simplified rendition of da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man with only one set of arms and legs. 

She shrugged and pulled off the lid. 

Inside the box were a pair of navy blue socks, panties similar to the ones she wore, and a bra.

“The fuck.” 

Her skin crawled from the invasiveness of it all.

Since her choices were to walk up to strangers in a nightshirt and panties or the clothes her abductor had supplied, Elsa opted for the latter.

Each item fit perfectly. The suit’s cut was flattering while allowing a wide of range of movement. The oxford-styled boots provided plenty of ankle support and traction from textured soles.

Again Elsa moved to the window, pulling back the drape that she’d drawn shut before getting changed. The scene outside remained Italy, not Massachusetts. 

At least the band had stopped playing.

The only door she hadn’t tried was the one that should lead to the Bloodstone Manor hallway. Thanks to whatever magic or elaborate operation had brought her here, that door should let her outside.

After secreting a fork and a butter knife in her boots—What sort of kitchen didn’t have sharp knives?—Elsa took a deep breath and opened the last door.

Warm, dry air and the sounds of birds singing and distant conversation washed over her. Cobbles paved a plaza just outside, with a pink and white building forty feet ahead and a yellow-stuccoed building to the right. In the middle of the plaza was a small fountain with a brass eagle perched on a globe. 

Standing in front of the fountain was a four-foot-tall humanoid wearing a navy blue suit tailored to fit his short legs, thick torso, and long arms. His bare, hairy feet ended in black talons that matched those on his long, skinny fingers. The black and white umbrella he held over his head shaded bulbous red eyes that locked with Elsa’s.

Fae.

She didn’t know what kind, but every instinct screamed fae.

The faerie’s lips pulled back to form a square-toothed leer. “Number Two will be seeing you now.”

Elsa gulped, then nodded.

Notes:

Elsa has woken up in the Village, which looks a heck of a lot like the small Welsh resort town of Portmeirion, where most of the exterior scenes of The Prisoner were filmed. This webpage is a nice overview with lots of photos.

In this AU the Village is not in the UK.

Where is it, you ask?

That would be telling. 😈

Chapter 2: Get Villaged, Idiot

Summary:

Waking up with a werewolf hangover is one of Jack's least favorite experiences.

Waking up with a werewolf hangover in what looks like one of his crash pads but definitely isn't ranks even lower.

Notes:

See end notes for translations.

Jack hurtled through the air until his back slammed into something solid. The unearthly red energy, a seeming manifestation of pain, kept coming, pinning him as he writhed in agony. 

The energy vanished and Jack fell on to hard, cold ground. Its surface leached heat from his skin unprotected by fur.

Light footfalls approached.

He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, and his attacker was closing in.

Willing his spasming muscles to work, Jack shifted his arms under his torso. He must get up. Stillness brought death.

Clawed hands pushed against stone. He felt cool air touch his chest as he slowly brought himself up to hands and knees.

The ground turned soft. 

He wobbled, trying to get purchase with claws that no longer existed. 

The soft surface under his right hand and knee slipped down, and he was falling, again colliding against a hard surface with his back.

Jack snapped awake with a shout. Panting, he tried to sit up, but every muscle screamed protest so he stayed on his back and inhaled. Darting eyes searched for his attacker.

A chrome and faux-wood ceiling fan hung from a popcorn ceiling eight feet overhead. Its five blades were still. Diffuse, dim light came from somewhere to his left.

Frowning, Jack listened as best he could over the blood rushing in his ears. Water gurgled in pipes somewhere nearby. He heard muffled bits of conversations happening  outside. Leaves rustled, birds sang, and… a military band played?

The ceiling fan looked familiar, as did the gray, textured microvelvet upholstery of the sofa beside him. Both objects had been in his duplex in Lemon Grove, California for years, but this wasn’t his favorite crash pad. It didn’t smell like it.

This place smelled new, and faintly of blood.

He felt dried blood on his face and on his hands and Dios, what had he done? Where was he?

Since there was no immediate threat and he was close to panic, Jack held still, drew measured breaths, and sensed. He was hungry and thirsty, and his muscles ached. Black fabric covered his arms and was between his back and the short-pile carpet he felt under his hands, bare legs, and feet. His only other clothing was a pair of trousers that ended mid-calf.

He groaned; the nightmare he’d woken up from was likely one of the wolf’s memories. 

Flashes of the previous night surfaced: arriving at Bloodstone Manor, talking his way inside, finding Ted, the eruption of pain and crimson energy when he’d grabbed the Bloodstone to give to Elsa—

Elsa.

She hadn’t looked away.

Trapped with him in a cage, her dark eyes had stayed locked with his as her sadistic stepmother awakened the wolf with the Bloodstone.

The last thing Jack remembered as him was Elsa’s terrified, beautiful face.

He’d killed her. 

He’d killed them all, probably.

Tears flowed. 

Eventually Jack sat up. Covering his bloody hands with the sleeves of the hunter’s cloak he’d somehow acquired, he scrubbed at the dried blood around his mouth. 

How much of it is Elsa’s?

Jack shoved the thought aside. Now was not the time.

Using the arm of the couch for support, Jack got to his feet and looked around. Unless his sense of smell had gone haywire, he seemed to be in an exact replica of his apartment’s living room, including the antique steamer trunk where he stored one of his sets of camping gear.

Moving slowly, he crossed the short distance to the trunk and reached for one of the clasps with a bloodstained hand. 

He undid the clasps and opened the lid to find… nothing.

Not only was the trunk empty, but it smelled like glue and particle board. Despite his best efforts, his steamer trunk retained a bit of the mustiness it had come with when he’d bought it at a flea market fifty years ago.

Who had created this place and brought him, unconscious and bloody, to it?

The band’s somber march had grown louder. Jack eyed the closed Venetian blinds covering the picture window and decided to not look outside. The band was there, of course, as were others he’d heard conversing. 

He couldn’t be seen like this. He needed water, both to clean up and drink.

Feeling a bit stronger, Jack trudged toward the darkened kitchen, hoping that the replica apartment had running water. 

Six feet from from the familiar entryway he stopped short; it was too dark. Even if the curtains were drawn across the window over the sink, the kitchen should be dimly lit by indirect sunlight. Yet this space was nearly pitch black.

Ignoring his racing heart, Jack inhaled through his nose and listened.

No sound came from the dark room.

Carefully watching the vague shapes his wolf-keen eyes could make out, Jack padded to the entryway, fumbled for a light switch on the wall, and turned it on.

Fluorescent lights revealed a small, windowless, modern kitchen with mid-century maple cabinets. The aqua refrigerator with rounded edges prompted a double take; he’d had a Kelvinator just like it at his place in Portland in the 1950s.

His Lemon Grove kitchen had a nothing-special white fridge circa 2010. This room wasn’t even trying to look like his duplex. 

He didn’t know what to make of that.

Jack’s parched mouth and growling stomach urged him to attend to more pressing matters. He shrugged off the pinche cloak on his way to the sink and turned on the faucet full-blast. Clear water poured out, gracias a Dios. 

Jack put his hands in the stream and scrubbed, adding a squirt of dishwashing liquid from the small bottle on the counter beside a neatly folded tea towel. Whatever madman had set up this facade had been thorough.

When he’d washed away all traces of blood from his hands, arms, and face—the smears and splatters elsewhere would have to wait—Jack cupped his hands and gulped down water. 

Once his thirst was quenched, Jack grabbed the tea towel and dried off, breathing a sigh of relief. He felt more human now.

Turning around and leaning against the formica countertop, Jack took a closer look at the small kitchen. The enamel of the retro-style stove with electric burners matched that of the refrigerator, as did half of the linoleum floor tiles. The other tiles were white, creating an old-fashioned checkerboard pattern. An enamel-topped table with chrome legs and matching chairs sat against the far wall. The apples, oranges, and bananas in a bowl on the tabletop looked and smelled perfectly ripe.

Despite his rumbling stomach, Jack didn’t sample the fruit. Someone who likely knew he was a werewolf had brought him to this bizarre place. He’d needed water. He didn’t need food yet.

Moving more easily now, Jack opened a few cabinets and found them empty. The fridge was similar, if cool inside. 

Next he tried the door in the living room that should open into the garage. 

He found a blank wall.

Shaking his head, Jack closed the useless door and walked to the short hallway that would, if this were his apartment, lead to the bathroom and the bedroom.

An unfamilar, windowless bathroom was more or less in the same place. This one was nearly all celery green, with 4-inch-square wall tiles and matching porcelain fixtures. Everything looked clean and functional, if out of a 1962 Sears catalog. Fluffy white towels were stacked neatly in a built-in cabinet. A bottle of hand soap sat on countertop beside the steel-rimmed sink.

The bedroom was also windowless, but more vaguely retro with tan wall-to-wall  carpeting. The dresser, chest of drawers, headboard, and matching nightstands on either side of the queen bed were unornamented, dark-stained wood. Twin lamps with rust-colored shades presumably would supplement light from the uninspired ceiling-mounted fixture. The lampshades matched the quilted bedspread’s geometric pattern, well as the push-button phone on one nightstand. A sliding closet door broke the beige drywall to his left.

Jack allowed himself a few moments to take it all in. He felt like he’d stumbled into a model room in a 1980s Ikea. 

None of it mattered; he had no intention of ever sleeping in that admittedly comfortable-looking bed.

Curiosity prompted Jack to move to the closet. He slid one of the doors aside and stared. A well-tailored suit, crisp white shirt with a starched collar, practical but stylish leather boots, and a cardboard box with a black-and-white symbol were not what he was expecting. 

Jack looked down at himself. His abdomen and what remained of his suit’s pants were a splatter painting of dried blood. Despite not knowing what the hell was going on, he really wanted a shower and to don that suit, which he suspected would fit well. After all, his abductor had recreated the living room of his favorite crash pad.

How much did his abductor know?

Deciding to not ponder the question, Jack opened the box instead. Inside were navy blue socks that matched the suit and a pair of men’s briefs in his size. 

“Thoughtful,” he murmured, suppressing a shiver. 

Also thoughtful were the lightly scented body wash and shampoo he found in the shower. Most grooming products were too strong for his nose, with the worst of them triggering sneezing fits. This shea butter scent was pleasant, and the hot water soothing for his sore muscles. 

Ignoring his empty stomach, Jack returned to the Ikea bedroom and tried on his new clothes. They fit like a glove, with a quality equaling the silk suit he’d worn to rescue Ted.

He—and Elsa, Jack thought guiltily—had succeeded in that, at least. At his first opportunity Ted had portaled to his home in the Everglades, Jack was sure. 

Jack managed a small smile for his reflection in the mirror over the dresser. The suit was flattering. He’d look great if his hair were dry and dark circles didn’t shadow his eyes. They’d clear after he’d rested more.

In order to do that he needed to figure out where he was and find food and a safe place to recuperate.

Jack returned to the living room and went straight to the blinds hiding the window. Knowing full well he wouldn’t see the small, mid-century homes lining the streets of Lemon Grove, he pulled one of the blinds aside.

A pair of small, two-over-two-paned windows occupied the space where his apartment’s picture window should have been. On the other side was a sunny bit of Europe, possibly from one of the Mediterranean countries. 

Directly across a narrow, asphalt-paved street with cobbled sidewalks was a muted yellow, stuccoed, three-story building. Jack was eye-level with its second floor, facing one of its three single-hung windows. Three evenly spaced arches on the ground level allowed entry to a covered section, including doors that led to a coffee and tea shop.

Men and women of a variety of ages and ethnicities wearing navy blue suits milled about. Some sat at outside tables sipping beverages. Others stepped off the cobblestone sidewalk to ascend a curved walkway through a lush, informal flower garden to a building with salmon-painted stucco and arched windows. A tree-covered hillside rose up behind it. 

Despite having travelled extensively in Europe, he didn’t recognize this place.

Jack unlatched one of the windows and pushed it open. A gentle breeze brought fragments of conversations on warm, dry air with a hint of brine. He wasn’t seaside, he suspected, but was close.

Since no one had seemed to notice him, Jack stuck his head out to take a better look.

A few more vaguely Italian buildings stretched to the left and right. Most of his building, which formed an odd angle between two others, was painted purple. The stately, three-story one to the left was terra cotta. Its bank of narrow, Gothic-style windows clashed with the informal feel of the rest of the street, yet somehow seemed to fit.

The marching band had stopped playing, Jack had realized, when movement across the street caught his eye.

A tall, slender white man with short salt-and-pepper hair stepped out from one of the arches on the ground floor of the building. His navy blue suit bore a white, three-inch-diameter button on one lapel.

The man’s eyes met Jack’s.

Despite a spike of anxiety, Jack held the man’s gaze.

The thin man cant his head to the right, then walked in that direction. Moments later he turned left into an alley and out of sight.

Jack stared after him. The man had all but said “Follow me!”

Why not?

He could practically hear Ted’s aggravated sigh as he sprinted to the front door of his replica apartment and pulled it open. On the other side was a tidy, narrow hallway with three other doors, all purple with white numbers at eye level.  A quick look showed no one else around.

Jack took a moment to observe more details. The other doors were numbered 72, 101, and 26. The exterior of his door was also painted purple, with “13” in same serif font. 

Non-sequential apartment numbers seemed par for the course for this bizarre place, he supposed, hurrying down the stairs at one end of the hall and outside. The handful of suited people he passed on his way to the alley paid him no mind.

Jack inhaled as he peered down the empty, narrow alley deep in shadow due to the tall building to the left and the hill rising up a short distance ahead. The scents of several humans mixed with those of flowers and forest and not-quite-seawater. Which of the human scents was the man’s was impossible to tell.

Despite the alley seeming to be a dead end, Jack strode into it. Soon only one human scent remained. He committed it to memory and pressed forward.

The scent trail continued to the end of the alley, where flat stones set into the hillside formed stairs on a narrow trail through groundcover and underbrush. Still there was no sign of the thin man, only birds and squirrels in the rhododendrons and young trees. 

Footfalls crunched leaves near the top of the hill.

Jack sprinted up the trail, making no attempt to move quietly. 

Three-quarters of the way to the top, the slope grew shallower and the man’s scent stronger. Jack slowed to a walk, keeping his eyes and ears peeled. 

A short distance off the trail the soft sounds of fabric rustling and paper crinkling  competed with birdsong and the whispers of leaves. The aroma of food—beef, chicken, and hints of salt and sour—carried on the breeze, making Jack’s mouth water. His ears caught a quiet hiss followed by a pop: a can being opened twenty or thirty feet away.

Jack pushed through pines and birches toward the sounds and smells, noticing the broken twigs and disturbed leaf litter that indicated the man had followed the same route minutes earlier. 

The sunlight seemed brighter just ahead, so Jack wasn’t surprised to step into a small clearing. Seeing the thin man kneeling on a blanket with two styrofoam take-out boxes and an unopened can of some sort of beverage was unexpected.

The gray-haired man who held a white-labelled can in one hand gave Jack a polite smile. “Hello,” he said with a neutral American accent. Gesturing at the space opposite him with his free hand, he continued, “Have a seat, if you like.” Then he took a swig from the can.

Jack eyed the man from the clearing’s edge. He smelled something sweet like cola, as well as corned beef and chicken from the take-out boxes. His stomach growled audibly.

The man, whose lapel button read “61”, gave Jack a sad smile. “Many of us are hungry when we arrive. That’s why I brought food.” He turned his attention to the styrofoam boxes, opening the lid of the closer one. “This one’s the reuben on marbled rye, and the other—”

“Where is this place?” Jack demanded.

The man calmly met his eyes. “Somewhere in the southern quarter of the Northern Hemisphere.”

Jack blinked at him a few times. “What?”

“That’s the closest I’ve been able to determine.” He flipped open the other container’s lid, revealing a croissant with what smelled like chicken salad, potato chips, and a pickle. “Reuben or chicken salad?” he asked. “I’ll take either.”

“Who are you?” Jack said, moving a few steps closer. “What is this?” 

After setting his soda aside, the man plucked a potato chip from the croissant sandwich’s box. “This is the Village, and I’m Sixty-one.” Then he popped the potato chip in his mouth.

“Sixty-one,” Jack echoed, resisting the urge to devour both sandwiches. “Your pin says that.”

The man nodded and reached into his suit jacket. Jack tensed, and the man froze. “I’m not armed,” he said evenly. “Number Two knows that I like to welcome newcomers, so they gave me this. All right?”

Jack nodded.

The thin man’s hand emerged holding something round, flat, and metallic. A thin piece of wire spanned the middle of it. His fingers turned it over, revealing a white disk with “13” in printed in black. The lettering matched that on the man’s button as well as the door of Jack’s mock apartment.

His stomach dropped. “Thirteen,” he murmured.

“Yes,” Sixty-one agreed, his expression all sympathy. “It’s good to meet you.”

Notes:

Spanish
Dios = God
pinche = an intensifier like damn or fucking
gracias a Dios = thank God

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of The Prisoners