I'm so busy watching my younger self and Jack together that I don't even notice the fog until it's swept me away. I close my eyes again, trying desperately to cling to the warm feeling I had inside me as I watched myself and my step-brother bonding, the sense of family...
Still, I have to look at some point.
I'm surrounded by rock. The sky is a blaze of fiery orange and red and yellow, pink clouds edged with gold. The daytime is draining out of the sky, and I know that the fire between the clouds will eventually flicker away, and become black, filled with the pinpricks of stars. But until then, it's the most spectacular sunset I've ever seen.
I look behind me, down a slope that's covered in more high, sharp rocks. Down the hill a bit, I can see some figures moving. Before I have time to think, I'm running.
Soon, the figure closest to me becomes visible. Mousey-brown hair, green eyes, freckles. Jack.
"Hey," he says wearily.
I start to reply, then stop. This must be another dream. The memory of the day at the fair has made me certain that none of this is real, just a crazy nightmare.
But a little core of doubt inside reminds me of the searing pain I felt in my hand as I ran through the burning woods. You can't feel pain in dreams.
"Erin!" Suddenly I feel small, slender arms being thrown around me and clasping me tightly. Rosie steps back and looks up at me, her eyes brimming. "Erin, the dreams... I want to go home..."
"Pretty sure we all want to go,"mutters Adam, trudging up. "So how?"
"This is probably just another dream," I sigh. Three pairs of eyes bore into me from three directions. "This whole thing is a dream..."
Adam steps forward and punches me hard in the arm. I yelp and step back."What the hell was that for?"
"To prove that this isn't a dream!" he snaps. "It's not a dream, we can feel pain, and nobody has dreams this crazy-"
"Real life isn't this crazy!" I retort.
"In real life, rings can't repair themselves after they've been destroyed."
He's right.
I sit down suddenly on the rocky ground. "How do we get back?"
Silence. Jack sits down beside me.
"I don't even remember how we got here."
I describe the ring, the blue smoke, his blank, staring eyes... the whole story.
"So..." he says at last, slowly. "You... came to get me, then?"
I frown. "Of course we did! You're our brother!"
Jack's eyes widen. He doesn't speak fur a while, and my mind slides away, puzzling over our problem...
"You've never said that before."
I jump. "Never said what?"
"That I'm your brother."
I turn and stare at him, but he's suddenly very interested in the floor.
"But you are."
No reply.
"And... and you didn't think we'd come to save you? How could you think that?"
Jack tears his gaze away from the floor and his eyes, flashing green, meet mine.
"Six years. We've been a family for six years, and you still act like we're strangers. I've seen the way you look at and act with Rosie and Adam and Fred. You've never done that with me or Mum! You couldn't even say goodbye to her properly when she left!"
He stops and takes a deep, shuddering breath, then ploughs on. I let the words hit me, painful and hard, yet ringing with the truth.
"It's like we're not even family. I mean, I know we're not related, but we've been building this life together for six years. We're getting somewhere, I know we are, we're getting stronger. But whenever you hug us or talk to us privately or anything, it's like you close up and we're right back to the beginning all over again. Do you remember when we first came? You hardly even spoke to us, and Adam acted like he hated us for ages-"
Adam flinches. I remember the little moment we shared on the steps. We were certainly speaking then.
"Then eventually they asked us about getting married, and you didn't say a word. I've never known how you feel about it!"
"I don't even know how I feel about it!" I burst out suddenly. I can't look at him, his green eyes burning with accusation. I lift my face to the sky, looking at the sunset that's now starting to fade into darkness. "It had always been me, Adam, Rosie and Uncle Fred, then when you came everything was different! The change was hard, and-"
"-And you prefer your old family." Jack isn't shouting any more. His voice cracks with pain. "You liked it better when it was just you. You didn't like the change. You were fine before we started. You don't need us. You never wanted us as your family."
"That's not true!" And as I say it, I realise that it really isn't. "I did want you as my family. Uncle Fred is wonderful, but what I really wanted was a mum. And I didn't even know that I wanted another brother."
"Then..." Jack looks at me again. "Why have you always been so... distant? Why have you always pushed us away?" Tears slip down my cheeks before I can stop them. "Because I was scared, Jack!"
Jack's mouth opens slightly, but no words come out.
"I wanted it so badly," I whisper through the tears. "That it scared me. But my parents... they're gone, Jack! Rosie's mother left before she even heard her daughter's first words!" I take a deep breath, and it helps to calm me a little. "I was four at the time. I don't remember much about my parents or my aunt... Aunt Amber. But I do remember how much I loved them. And I remember how sad I felt when they left. It was the worst feeling in the world. And it hurt so much more, because I loved them.
And then you and Nikki came into the family... and I was scared to get too close. I didn't want to feel that way again. So I pushed you away, because I knew that if I let you in and you left, like my parents, like Amber, it would hurt more than anything."
Jack looks at me for a moment, and then we're hugging so tightly that I don't think I'll ever be able to let go. "And that's why you came to get me back?" he asks softly. "To stop yourself from getting hurt when I left?"
"No," I say into his shoulder. "I came to get you because I love you."