Queen of Wands: Chapter One

    Doris shook her head and looked around the room. For a moment it was like she'd just woken up from a nightmare. There had been pain, so much pain. Then she was here. Wherever 'here' was.

    It was a large room with medium height ceilings, brightly lit. It clearly was in a big structure, maybe a hotel. There were various exits and signs, none of which were really penetrating right away. People were entering from a door behind her and going past her in twos and threes, most of them talking excitedly. From somewhere in the room a song was booming an electronic beat.

    She had to think. It was like her brain was filled with cotton wool. She was...

    She had a plastic bag in one hand and a backpack over her shoulder. Looking at the bag it said 'Dragon*Con' on the front with some sort of a symbol. It had...some books and papers in it. There was a sign across the room 'Hyatt Hotels Welcomes Dragon*Con!'

    So... Sure, she was at Dragon*Con. Of course. Bob had told her she could find 'people like her' there. People that didn't think she was weird or ugly or strange.

    Come to think of it, some of the people did look sort of strange. The music, she could finally find it's source, was coming from over by some tables half-way down the room. The people gathered them around setting up some sort of booth certainly fit the bill of 'strange.' Uber-Goths with bright colored hair and black clothes. The girls' hair was mostly an almost fluorescent red that bordered on purple while most of the guys had black. One of the guys had a skater cut with dreadlocks, black eyeliner and a weird slumped look. Strange. Stranger than her. Not...her sort. Not that there was her sort anywhere.

    "Miss, people are trying to walk here," a heavy-set man said as he dodged around her. He wasn't impolite about it, just sort of informative.

    "Sorry, sorry..." she answered and moved to the side. He'd almost bumped her.

    She hugged the wall and looked around. There was a sign that said 'Women' down the same wall about half way across the room. She stayed by the wall and carefully crept into the lady's, trying not to be noticed.

    She finally found the refuge of a stall, slid the bolt and sat on the toilet, trying not to panic. There were just too many people, too much chaos even though the large room had had barely thirty people in it. It was just like school. People meant bullies, boys and girls. The cheerleaders and the football players. The Names and the In-Crowd. The people that made sure she Knew Her Place every single day. And her place was right square at the bottom.

    Doris... She knew that much. And Bob had said to go to Dragon*Con. That there were people 'like her' there. But most of the rest of it was a blur.

    Okay, take stock. She was apparently at Dragon*Con. That was in Atlanta. She had a badge pinned to her shirt. It said 'Doris Grisham'.

    That was better. Okay, sure. Doris Grisham. She'd grown up in Mt. Union, Alabama. Her dad was a lumber cutter, worked for Weyerhaeuser til he got hurt then mostly just sat in the trailer and drank. Which was what momma did all the time.

    She'd gone to Hill Crest High. She knew that much. She'd learned her place fer sure in Hill Crest. The only place she was safe was the library. She'd lived in the library as much as she could.

    Near-sighted, too ugly to get a date, too dumb to pass a class. That was Dumb-ass Doris. She was a total loser. A nobody. She Knew Her Place. It was to marry some redneck as dumb-ass as her and push out another passel of useless kids that'd cut wood til they got hurt and lived the rest of their life on assistance.

    But that was then. Whenever then was. Who was she now? And why couldn't she remember, when Hill Crest was clear as day?