Fall Thru

A vampire, a serpent, a human, and two mages walk into a room . . . . I'd been trying to finish the joke for the better part of ten minutes. There was one there, I knew it.

The marshmallow heads were Milan and Rowan. They were mages, though I still wasn't sure what that meant. The pair had been great at explaining the world I was in without being overwhelming: Yes, Tilly, you are in another world. Yes, there is magic in this world. No, you can't hear us because you now have magic powers; you hear us because your ears and mind have tuned to our language, allowing the organs to translate as quickly as you hear. No, Milan and Rowan our not our names exactly, just the English equivalent.

More shocking was that mages didn't have gender. Milan and Rowan weren't men or women, they just were.

"So it was the dream catcher," I mumbled sourly as I handed the necklace back to Milan. I liked the piece too.

"It's not a dream catcher," a mage corrected. I knew it was Milan from the eye discoloration; one eye was blue, the other orange. "It's a portal key. The balls are tiny replicas of our solar system held together with a thread that never ends."

"Which solar system? The Milky Way?"

"Narpum Del." Milan pointed to each of the swirling balls hanging on the thread, naming them in turn. "This is Yenos, where we are now. Then Janos and Nagios."

"Uh, okay." Astrology never was my strong suit.

I crossed my legs, bumping knees with Duke. I blew out a frustrated breath and wiggled on the cramp furniture. Duke, Cherry, and I sat on one couch, while Milan and Rowan sat on the other.

Cherry, the serpent who was indeed a male and sounded about as surfer boy California as they came, took up most of the couch. Duke and I were pressed together, his chilled skin against my heated one.

"So, if I fell through the portal using that key, can't you just give me a reverse key and send me back to Earth?"

There was an awkward pause before Rowan spoke, thin lips pulling down in the slightest frown. "Today was the last day of the Los Angeles Comic Convention, yes?"

I nodded.

"And what time was it supposed to close?"

"Dunno."

Milan and Rowan exchanged a glance, and sparks literally flew between the pair. I flinched, not nearly as startled as I'd been the first few times they'd done it.

Rowan turned back, coughing uncomfortably. "5pm. The portal closed the minute the convention ended."

"Well, when will it open again?"

Rowan held silent, and Milan took up the conversation. "A year."

I shot to my feet. "What?" I shook my head. "No, no, no, no, no. See, I have school—midterms! And I'm a nanny. I mean, I left Brandon and James at the convention and I'm sure the Lerous fired me already. But if they didn't, I still have a shot. And stuff, and a life, and I—I just need to know when the next portal opens."

Comic-cons went on all year round. I knew that for a fact. So they had have more portals.

"We have a deal with the humans—specifically the American government," Milan continued. "We are allowed passage once a year at a neutral site selected by the government. We plan this trip all year around, coordinating with them on the specifics."

That would explain all the technology. "So you have electricity, and access to Earth's resources."

"We do not have the resources you think we have. Our people bring pre-recorded videos back with them from Earth, and the electricity is our own from underwater windmills controlled by the merfolk. Some have gone to Earth to help humans in the same endeavour."

I wasn't going to touch the "mermaids do exist" thing with a ten foot pole. I navigated around it. "Call the president then. Tell him one of his citizens is trapped in your world and that she needs to get back."

Another sparking glance between the pair, and Rowan joined back in the conversation. "We have. It is why it took us so long to come to you, we were in negotiations."

"And?"

"It's harder than you think to traverse universes, Matilda. Even if he had given his approval, it is unlikely we would have been able to get you back."

"Super," I mumbled pacing. "What about a spaceship or something. Can't I take one of those?"

Cherry snorted. "You'd die before you got there."

I whipped by head to the serpent thrown off by his voice. When I heard it in English, translated through magic and whatever else to my ears, it was pre-pubescent high. It totally contradicted with the hulking mass he was.

No space ship. No portal. What else was there?

"I have a life," I groaned, stomping my towel-covered feet across the floor. "My mom and my three brothers and my dad. My job and my school and my friends. What's going to happen to my fish?" I wailed.

Duke pushed to his feet and strode over to me. He grabbed my arms and spun me around to him. "I have a phone you can borrow to call your job and family. You can make all the arrangements, but the fact remains that you will be here for a year."

He wasn't exactly making me feel better. "But why? Why me?" I was Normal with a capital N. I may have had some interesting adventures growing up, but those were few and far between. There was nothing—nothing about me to suggest I should be transported to another world.

I knew who my father was, and who his father was, and who his father was before him. I could trace my lineage back almost to the source. Same with my mom. I wasn't in any experimental group, taking weird drugs (that I knew of), or signed up for a Top Secret programs. My friends weren't strange, didn't talk about other worlds or stuff like that. We gabbed, bitched, and laughed about teachers and classmates we'd fuck, marry, or kill.

I shrugged off his hands and squatted down, a childhood coping mechanism. Make yourself small and your problems become small. Small problems, small problems. I was on another planet. But it had water, TV, toilets, and nice people. Uh, nice so far. I couldn't return to Earth for a year. More time to study for my midterm—

I barked out a laugh and covered the sound with my hand.

—More time to figure out what I want to do with my life. And I could like it, I didn't know. I wouldn't be able to see my family. But I could talk to them everyday. Maybe I could Facetime or Skype them.

Suddenly, all my large problems—which actually were big deals—grew manageable. The fear, the uncertainty, the despair I felt ebbed away. If my father could survive the Nigerian Civil War, my mother growing up in Buttfuck nowhere Ohio, and survive having a gun pointed at me in Egypt, living on Yenos should be no problem.

I uncurled from my ball, feeling as steady as I could on a rocking boat. "Where am I going to stay?" I asked, looking at Duke.

He answered smoothly, "Here, if you like. In this room."

"Okay." I cast another quick glance around. "I like it. I could do it. Uh, thank you."

He smiled. Again, I think he was going for reassuring but the big ass, werewolf-ish fangs ruined it. "My pleasure."

I turned to Milan and Rowan. "What am I going to do? I can't just sit on my butt all day, and my major doesn't offer any online classes." Women's Studies was an inter-personal thing.

"Whatever you would like as long as it didn't disturb the order of this world," Milan responded.

"Mm-hmm."

A year. One very long year in a world that had no humans. I could do that. I blew out a sigh and ran a hand through my hair. Maybe not, but I'm gonna have to.