Fall Thru

I waved at the black scaly serpent in front of me thinking that it was one hell of a costume. I couldn’t even see the seams. “Hello. I’m looking for two boys. One’s wearing a yellow cape and—”

It chittered, scales clicking.

Had to hand it to whoever was in the suit, they were really playing up the part. I ran a hand through my dark brown rat’s nest bun. I needed to get back home and shower. Maybe have a shot—I glanced at the serpent again—definitely have a shot.

My eyes moved from black scales to gold floors that looked slippery and shiny. They reflected the white crown molding of the ceiling, which was not nearly as tall as the convention center housing the 2015 Comic Convention. I decided that I’d just slipped into one of the V.I.P. rooms in one of the hotels attached to the building. There had to be one, though I hadn’t seen any hotel that close. I just couldn’t believe the photo booth I’d stumbled into while chasing Brandon transported me to—

I didn’t say it. Didn’t dare think it. This was the LA Convention Center, and I was still at Comic Con. Brandon and his little friend James were going to hop out and yell, “Gotcha!” any second now. Any second.

Seconds faded into minutes, and still no fourteen year-old boys jumped out to laugh at me. The fear burning its way up my throat laced with the digested Big Mac I’d had for breakfast didn’t help the situation.

The scaled serpent chittered again, tail swiping across the floor to my outstretched legs. I yanked them toward me and wrapped my arms around myself, resting my forehead on my bent knees.

I went back in my memory, trying to pinpoint the exact moment I lost my mind. I woke up at four, brushed my teeth, dressed. Woke Brandon up. Made coffee. Begrudged the fact that I agreed to drive the boys to a convention when I should have been studying for my midterms. Put the coffee down, cracked open one of the books still scattered on the dining room table, and studied. Brandon came out of his room later in a yellow cape, black mask, green tights, and red leotard with a giant R across his left breast pocket.

“Who are you supposed to be?” I asked.

He frowned. “Robin from Teen Titans.”

I grimaced. It was one of the shows he made me watch. I was his nanny, but sometimes I felt more like his prisoner. I was also his family’s go-to gal for last minute changes. Which was how I ended up driving Brandon to a comic book convention at the asscrack of dawn—Mr. and Mrs. Lerou had been called to a last minute award ceremony in London. A nice bribe from the couple ensured I drove the boys and picked them up, so here I was.

A quick stop at James’s house to pick up Robin’s sidekick Beast Boy, and then we headed into LA proper. The city was jam-packed and sweltering at seven in the morning, so I stopped at McDonalds to wait out some of the commuters heading into work.

An hour or so later the traffic became bearable and we moved turtle-slow to the venue. One outrageously expensive parking ticket later and we were in line with the rest of the superheroes and fantasy characters. I looked out of place in neon pink Disney sweats and a white wife beater, but the black circles under my eyes declared I didn’t give a fuck.

“Do you need me to stay here with you guys?” I asked the boys.

James wiped a green painted arm across his runny nose. “Nah, we’re good.”

I eyed the pair dubiously. Brandon was just starting to grow and was a proud five foot eight, still a few inches shorter than my five foot eleven, and James looked like a Hobbit at five three. They were easy targets with their wide eyes, naive bearing, and limited edition Nikes.

I shook my head and squinted at the blazing sun. “I’ll stay.”

“Then why’d you ask?” James whined.

“Because I like hearing myself talk,” I snapped, feeling less than generous. I had picked him up and driven him without so much as a “Thank you, Tilly.” Hell if I was going to be nice to the kid.

A half hour later we were twenty feet from our original spot and no closer to the entrance. My foot was tapping, arms akimbo, and my hair was itching like crazy. My mind was swinging between, leave them, they’ll be fine and you can’t leave. You're the nanny and liable for anything that happens to them!

I blew out a hot breath and kept on tapping.

Couple more feet and we came to a gypsy-man wannabe. He gestured to the knickknacks laying on a tie-dyed scarf in front of him. “See something you like? Special price, buy two get one free,” he said in a thick accent that I bet came from old Dracula movies.

I rolled my eyes at the ploy and turned back to the sun. It was more interesting.

“Cool!” Brandon said beside me. “Is that a dreamcatcher?”

I turned to the kid, about to tell him that he could get a dreamcatcher from an actual store and not some fishy dude sitting on a sidewalk, but a glint of silver caught my eye. Laying on the far left on the scarf was a necklace that looked like a dream catcher. I could see why Brandon was interested. There were a bunch of them, all different sizes and shapes. I looked back to the silver one. Inside its web of silver string were multi-colored balls that shined in the sunlight like tiny universes. I reached for it before I could stop my hand. The boys had done the same thing and we each held a different dreamcatcher in our grasps.

“That one’s special,” the gypsy rumbled. “You pay extra.”

I snapped my eyes up to him and glared. “Looks like I’m not getting—”

“Come on, Tilly!” Brandon chirped, ruining the haggling battle I’d been seconds away from. “My dad can always give you the money back. I really want it.”

And the son of a multi-millionaire always got what he wanted. “Fine.” There was no sense fighting with him or trying to haggle now. “How much?”

He gave me the number and I blanched. “You’re kidding me?” I whipped my head to Brandon and James, flapping my free hand. “Put that down. We’re not buying—”

Brandon handed a wad of cash to the man and pocketed his charm. He turned his head and caught up with the line that hadn’t waited for us to make our purchase.

I gaped after the boy, feeling even poorer. What I wouldn’t have given to be able to do that as a kid. Closest I’d ever come to parting with a lot of money easily was a dollar at a lemonade stand. I’d worked my ass off on the spelling quiz to get that dollar too, and for about thirty minutes I’d felt rich.

The gypsy nodded to the dream catcher necklace still in my hand. “Thank you for your patronage.” Suddenly he had an LA accent. Amazing how that happened.

“Yeah, whatever,” I muttered sourly as I dragged my feet to Brandon and James’s sides.

Another uneventful hour and we were finally in the air-conditioned convention center. I closed my eyes and melted as the industrial fans blew arctic winds at me. “Magic.”

“Okay, you can go now, Tilly,” James announced.

I snapped my eyes to the boys. “Before I go, there are a few things you need to—Where’s Brandon?”

I stared at the spot Brandon should have been then turned back to James. He raised a shoulder. “Dunno. Bathroom?”

I rolled my eyes and pointed at him. “You. Stay. Don’t move.”

He stuck out a tongue. “You’re not my mom.”

I mimicked him. “Don’t want to be either. I’m too young to have a fourteen year-old.”

“Aren’t you thirty?”

I gasped and placed a hand to my chest. “Twenty-two. Just, stay here.” I turned on my heel, searching for a restroom sign or a yellow cape. “Thirty? I look thirty?”

I spotted the cape first, billowy material making an escape through the black curtain of an old-timey photo booth. I stalked over to the machine and pulled back the curtain. Brandon wasn’t sitting taking goofy pictures of himself and I frowned.

I stepped fully into the machine as if the confined space could house a gawky teenager. The floor shifted, the dream catcher necklace I’d pocketed started to burn a hole through my sweats; and suddenly I was being pulled a million different ways, ripped apart by unseen hands.

I opened my mouth on a soundless scream as the hands pulled me as far as my skin could go then pushed it back into me, all at once. There was a quick succession of pulling and thrusting back. I fought the hands off and stepped right out of my skin. I turned my neck, looking at a million reflections of myself pulling the exact same move.

Huh? What the hell is—

The floor dropped out and I was free-falling for a split second before something cool and hard greeted my butt. Nausea climbed up my throat, but I swallowed hard. I hated rollercoasters, and that one had felt like the Hulk at Universal Studios. Last rollercoaster I’d ever been on.

I swallowed again, eyes closed until my stomach settled back into place. A few seconds later, I opened my eyes and gawked at a giant serpent, upright in front of me.

I scrapped my forehead against my knees as I replayed every memory and found nothing that made me think I was still at Comic Con. Which meant I was—the words felt sticky and foreign in my mind—somewhere else.

The chittering from the serpent only confirmed it.

I groaned, “Alice in Wonderland Sci Fi shit.”



A few minutes later a horde of creatures strode down the hallway toward me and the serpent. It was then that I realized that the thing in front of me had probably been guarding me to make sure I didn’t run amok.

So, I’m not at the convention center anymore. The thought didn’t freak me out as much as it should have. I treated the experience like the trip I took to China.

Single, black girl walking around the Summer Palace in Beijing hadn’t exactly been the most usual thing for the natives. People took pictures of me, and at one point a photographer even followed me around and made me pose with random Chinese people. Instead of getting freaked out and offended or leaving and going back to my hotel, I’d run with it. Sometimes the only thing in life you could do was run with the strange until it became normal.

I stretched out my legs again, arched my back, and slowly climbed to my feet. Joints popping, neck stiff, I regarded the group of creatures coming to a slow halt in front of me. The leader, a man with strong feminine features whose hair was longer than mine by a good foot and swayed in yellow waves to his ass, looked the most human. Which was relative to the green dragon lady on his right, the satyr to his left, and the merry band of misfits, fairytale creatures, and Greek mythology myths come true behind him.

The blond spoke with the smooth notes of someone cultured and used to the finer things in life. If I understood his language, I was sure it would have been very James Bond-esque.

I shrugged helplessly. “I can’t understand you. Sorry.”

He frowned, full peach lips turning down. The look didn’t diminish his beauty an inch. High cheek bones, big cornflower blue eyes, lithe ice skater figure. The tight blue cloth wrapped around his body like a better-planned out mummy outfit only enhanced his assets. Muscles, height, and a sizable package. The only things that let me know he wasn’t human were the fangs poking out from his upper lip and the slight point to his pale ears. Elf or vampire, maybe a hybrid. I wasn’t sure.

He spoke slowly, clearly, with vocal chords I was pretty sure I didn’t possess. I heard every sound, tongue wrapping around letters that I’d never heard a human language use. It seemed to come up from his diaphragm, deep, but flattened out and smoothed over his tongue. It was like metal being worked, bent with each sound.

The creatures behind him began to talk, voices as hushed as their language allowed. The serpent in front of me twisted its head completely around and joined in. I shivered from head to toe, finding it more and more difficult to go with the flow.

I thought back to China. Different language, different culture. But if I was able to get here, they had to at least have one human right? Preferably someone who spoke English—er, American English.

“My name is Tilly,” I said carefully, drawing their attention again. “I’m human. American. Does anyone speak English?” I made sure I was much higher at the end, indicating that it was a question.

Blondie issued something at the green dragon lady next to him. She broke away from the group and went back down the hallway. I grimaced as her clawed toenails and heels scraped the floor. Knobby bones raced up her legs and back, shifting subtly with her long strides.

I looked back to the Blond and his group, finding the vampire-elf much closer to me than before. I flinched hard when his long-fingered hand brushed me. I hastily crossed my arms over my chest in a giant X. “No touching.”

One corner of his mouth lifted in a smile exposing the full extent of his fangs, much wider and longer than human canines in a mouth with about eight less teeth to accomplish the feat. I’m going with the flow, I reminded myself as he gestured to the hallway he’d come from and said what I assumed was “After you.”

Go further away from the only chunk of floor I knew people from another, uh, place landed on or stay and sit. I remember having a similar dilemma on my way to the nanny interview for Brandon’s parents. I was stuck in East Central waiting for a bus that ran on its own special schedule when a man my father’s age pulled up and whistled at me. He flirted, and I announced my age. The look of dread that crossed his face made me feel better.

“That’s my daughter’s age,” he whispered.

And as he turned back around, ready to drive off, I impulsively asked him to drive me as close to my destination as possible. He reluctantly agreed, telling me I was stupid for getting in a car with a stranger, especially one who hit on me. He fussed and parented me the entire twenty-minute drive and then made me promise to never hitchhike again when he dropped me off. I’d promised with fingers crossed behind my back.

I could wait, see if another human fell through the portal and hopefully spoke American English, or I could take my chances with the monsters. I decided on the latter because . . . well, the unknown was exciting. Not smart, not even well thought out or planned, but damned if it wasn’t exhilarating.
I walked past the blond vampire-elf, and he fell into step beside me. The rubber sole of my boots squeaked on the shiny, marble-ish floor while his cloth-covered feet made barely any noise, and the hoard behind us was louder than fireworks on the 4th of July.