Forget-Me-Not Release Day: Interview with an invisible girl on the run

Do you have any idea how hard it is to create a pocket dimension?

It takes more than a little newt blood and bubble bubble, that's for sure. But the girl I'm about to interview just landed herself in so much bad juju, there's literally nowhere in her world I can pop in for a little Q&A. Anamae's a senior in high school who works part time at a local diner, Joe's, and when you first meet her in the book she's at home with her Dad—but all those places? Totally off-limits and guarded by a mysterious, evil organization called the Collective. She's holed up now in a protected area with an interdimensional shield, so I've had to make a pocket dimension to get in touch with her for this interview. See how hard I work for you?

Hey, shut up, here she comes.

I rise as Anamae enters the little study, her steps muffled by thick wine-colored carpet. The curious teenager glances around for a second at the mahogany bookshelves covering the walls, and at the two overstuffed burgundy arm-chairs, before shaking my hand.

“Sorry,” I say. “It's not usually this formal. I just like old-fashioned studies. Have a seat! Anything you say isn't real, anything that happens here isn't real, and everything you see is less than a dream to you, so you can, you know, cut loose. Or not! No pressure. I'm a big fan by the way. So.” I grin as we both take a seat—“What's the craziest thing that's happened to you lately?”

“Now that's a loaded question.” She leans in and lowers her voice to a whisper: “The other day when I was having a bit of fun with Will, we found this old pendant and, oh my gosh, it turned me freaking invisible. Can you believe that? I put it on and poof, gone. 

I still can’t believe it. Who knew stuff like that actually existed.”                    

“Apparently you're not supposed to, huh? So, we couldn't meet at your house because of the Collective. But your father's still at home, so what do you think is happening with him?”

“Gosh, it’s so hard to tell,” she sighs. “The whole pendant thing led to a whole slew of trouble. I’m scared that may have caused the weirdness. I don’t know though; there’s something a bit...not right going on.”

She looks stressed—obviously, I mean, who likes saying something's wrong with her dad?—and as guarded as she is I'm not ready for the interview to get stressful yet, so I stand and pull two books off the shelf. “Coffee or tea?” I ask.

“Coffee,” she says, glancing around for a clock. There is none. “Only in the mornings though, I can’t wake up properly without it. Any other time of the day, I prefer water.”

“Is it morning here? Let's pretend it's morning, do you feel morning-ish? I do. Here.” I open the fattest of the two books and from its hollow innards pull out a steaming mug of Colombian roast to hand her. I open the other book for a chai tea and sit back down. “So who do you live with usually, Anamae?”

“I live with my Dad, there’s just the two of us. But after the incident with the invisibility...” she shakes her head. “Sheesh, home’s not all that safe. I’m hiding out at this place Al calls a ‘safe house’.”

My eye sparkles like a fangirl's. “Any potential romance there?”

“Ha! Now there’s a likely story. The dog’s pretty cool,” she winks.

You do know you're in a scifi romance novel, right? I'm laughing inside. “Heh, well I guess you've definitely got bigger things on your mind right now,” I say. “Let's talk about that—what's your dearest dream for the future, Anamae?”

“That somehow my family is reunited. I miss my mom something fierce.” She answers without a droplet of doubt—but then pauses. “There’s not a lot of hope that she’s still alive, but deep inside, I kind of feel like she is.”

“What's your sweetest memory from the past? Is it—about her?”

“I have a few. Mom and I used to visit central park a lot when I was younger. She’d always order a takeout coffee and we’d sit on one the benches talking, or I’d play.”

My tea tastes heartsick for a moment; I put it down. I always want to console my interviewees and don't usually know how, and now I gotta bust out the big one. I force down another sip. “Anamae, what are you most afraid of?”

“Boy, that’s another tough one.” She takes a second to respond, but when she does, she sounds pensive, not tremulous. “I think I’m afraid of being alone. That this thing with my Dad won’t get better, that Mom will never be found, that I’ll lose Will too. Without the people I love, I’m not sure I could go on.”

That's that. Nothing fancy, just quiet honesty and a soft, faraway glance into the coffee mug.

“Wow,” I breathe. “You are by far the calmest person I have ever interviewed. With everything you're going through, I think I call that bravery.”

Her face colors just a tiny bit as she shrugs; I smile and gesture with my cup towards the blue pendant she's wearing. “So you've got the little thing that started the trouble here with you. I wanted to ask: turning invisible is kind of cool, but it's not exactly something you chose—if you could choose one superpower, what would it be?”

“You know, that question is kind of irrelevant considering all the cool tech around. Anyone can be a superhero if you know where and how to find it,” she grins. “Just don’t let the Collective catch you. Yeah, that wouldn’t be very good. All of that aside though, I wouldn’t mind being able to travel through time. There sure are some things I’d do differently.”

Like what?

But she stands and whirls, as if she hears someone calling her name, and before I can ask the bookshelves begin to morph into stardust. I'm not a very good pocket-dimension-maker, apparently: the chairs dissolve into piles of sand, grass shoots out of the carpet, and my tea begins to bubble over out of my cup, and before I can become some kind of Alice-in-Wonderland knock-off I smash my mug on the coffee table to close the dimension. Interview over.

And Anamae's gone, back to the world where she's a criminal for knowing something.

If you want to find out what Anamae would do differently, you'll have to follow her into that world. You can check out her story at Goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18130928-forget-me-not), on Amazon and through the Entranced Publishing website. You can follow Anamae's author, Stacey, on twitter, or on Facebook. Anamae is part of a whole series, so you'll probably want to follow her author to find out when the new books come out!

I leave you with one last little tidbit.

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXQ1SigOhx0&feature=youtu.be)