Margo’s eyes are incapable of leaving his hand. The brown cluster of scars screams for her attention. She feels a strong connection to this stranger, certain she is not alone in her suffering.

“Well,” he says after a moment or two. “First of all, I’m Nick Thomas.” He waits, but when Margo does not reply prompts, “And you are?”

“Margo Grisby,” she blurts, breaking her gaze from his hand. “What happened to your–” She stops herself, flushed in embarrassment by her audacity.

“We’ll get to that,” he promises. “But first, tell me what happened to you. What can you remember?” He leans forward, eyes intense, and crosses his arms so he can tuck his partial hand into his side.

Margo thinks this over for a minute. “Well, the last normal thing I remember was walking home from school.” Had that walk down the dirt road been merely a few hours ago?

“Yes, good! What next?” He asks it as if he already knows how the story will unfold, which Margo is certain he does.

“There was a bright bird, as bright as fire. I followed it through the woods.”

He and Janie turn to one another in confusion, as if thrown by something she’d said.

“A fiery bird?”

“It led me to where it was guarding a globe.” Margo’s eyes dart to Janie just in time to see her spilling hot water onto the counter as it overflows from her cup.

“Guarding it? As in keeping you away from it?” asks Nick.

“More like it was trying to bring me to it. Like it wanted me to…” Her voice trails off as the flash of a memory stirs her. Touching the globe, all the pain in that instant. The icy splinters under her skin. Muscles so strained they could have peeled from her bones.

“Well,” says Janie. “That certainly is…different.”

“Different, indeed.” Nick’s face twists up in concentration. He paces back and forth in the tiny kitchen. It only takes him two steps to reach each side, and he nearly knocks Janie out of the way in each passing.

“Is something wrong?” Margo asks nervously. The weird parts are yet to come, and she is surprised to find that this part of the story has set their minds turning.

“It’s just that I’ve never heard of one of this world’s creatures crossing over to the Real World. It’s quite strange.”

Janie is silent in the background keeping her eyes on the floor. Both are in deep thought. Margo almost dreads telling them the rest of the story. Almost.

Then his words hit her a little harder.

“I’m sorry,” she says too harshly, tensing her back. “Did you just say that we’re in a different world?”

Nick chokes, turning slightly green. “Oh, dear… Janie I thought you’d already gotten that far.”

“No, I —”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Margo says quietly, placing a hand over her heart. “I was afraid I was losing it.”

The tension lifts. Nick chuckles. “I’m impressed, actually. You seem to be adapting pretty well. And fast. Most new enterers have trouble accepting even pieces of what’s happening, but you seem to really have a knack for this.” He smiles crookedly to himself.

Janie shoots him a nasty look.

“I’m serious,” he goes on. “She hasn’t once asked when she gets to go home or anything. Like she already knows why she’s —”

“Nick,” Janie says firmly.

He clears his throat and is back to business. “So after you saw the bird guarding the globe, what happened?”

“Well, I felt funny. Like I couldn’t escape from it. Something felt very wrong, but I had to shake it.” She skips over where her memory clouds. “Then everything grew bright, and I woke up in the snow.

“Then, there was this huge cat.” They exchange another nervous glance. “It was all white and tried to attack me. I couldn’t outrun it. I thought I was going to die but… There was an icicle in my hand — I don’t know how it got there — but I… I killed it.”

To Margo’s surprise, Nick bursts out into a hysterical laugh. She grimaces.

“Well, that’s something we didn’t see coming,” Nick belts out.

Janie nods back, joining his laughter.

“Sorry, but you lost me again.” She fails to mask her irritation.

“We’ll explain it all, I promise. Now, please continue.”

She sighs, and continues to tell them the rest. Without any more interruptions, she tells them of the nagging cold and spotting the village from above the valley. How the circle of light cast down upon her and somehow cut her arms and neck. They listen intently to every word and even after Margo has finished they wait patiently in silence for more. “So then I just came down here to find help after the ice was gone.”

Nick’s pacing finally stops, his face still scrunched up in concentration. “Can I see them? Your marks?”