Lily squeezed Anya’s hand in support before moving to the empty wall after Sam. The wire crown was placed on top of Sam’s head.

Anya stared after her friend for a second before focusing back on her task. Go through the contents of the box, currently strewn out next to her. Right, she could do that. She could do that.

Anya started by eliminating the locket. She remembered it having a blurry picture in it the last time she had looked in it, but she didn’t dare check inside now. Anya doubted that it would be of any help, but she did pocket it for safekeeping. All the items were technically hers since the box had been labelled with her name, right? That was the explanation Anya gave herself to at least feel a little less like she was stealing, completely ignoring the fact that she had technically stolen from the box twice already.

The book was by far the most promising object. Taking a deep breath and hoping the text wouldn’t look like scribbles again, Anya reached her hands out and grabbed it. After a few moments of blinking her eyes, the text cleared out and she could distinguish the words now.

She knew for a fact that the first letter was N. But it was taking Anya ages to understand what the hell the rest of the word said, at least compared to how fast she usually read things. It took her a whole five minutes of staring just to figure out the letters, with many sighs of frustration and many thoughts about throwing the book to the other side of the room. The word, nathri, just meant thirteen and gave Anya absolutely no clues as to what the book was about.

Deciding that opening the book would be way too frustrating and probably make her actually throw it to the floor, she gently placed it back in the box. She would get back to it when she could read the scribble faster than a five-year-old.

Anya moved on to inspect the letter.

The front said, with beautifully curled letters: Anya, mani meh. After staring at it for a while, inspecting it both close and far, Anya determined it was probably for her. If she remembered correctly, mani meant daughter or son, so she guessed the letter was probably from her mother.

That made her stop. Was this the last thing she had left of her mother? The last real thing she had left of the woman that had loved and taken care of her for as long as she could? Suddenly, Anya didn’t want to open the letter anymore. It felt too special, too personal, too much like an artifact she should protect. With shaking hand, she laid it back in the box. Not today, not when she couldn’t even read the damn thing properly.

Staring at the letter, her mother's curly handwriting and the rich blue ink for a moment more, Anya flipped it around. No point in dwelling on it when there was nothing she could do.

There was text on the back, however. It was longer than the text on the front, and ended with a heart drawn after it. Anya picked up the letter once more, intrigued. Could this be a clue? She hoped so.

In disappointment Anya realised she couldn’t understand most of the words, at least not at the moment. She could pick out the word nami, and the word aske. Nami merei aske, the box includes bottles? Anya quirked an eyebrow, letting the letter fall back into the box. There were no more bottles in the box, as Anya had drank the contents of the only one. Unless there was another box?

Anya dared to hope and started looking around. None of the labels on the boxes had anything to do with bottles, and there were no loose bottles around. Had there been another box she didn't know about? Anya was sure her mother didn’t mean the one she already drank empty. The letter would have been unreadable to Anya before she drank the potion, so it had to mean some other bottles.

Anya jumped off the desk, carefully setting aside her box and looking around.

“We can’t find anything, how is it going with the wall?” Felicity asked, setting down the Christmas ornaments she had pulled out of the current box she and Carla were going through. No bottles there.

“Wall is empty save for some cute ass stickers,” Sam answered from the floor where he was massaging Lily’s back, with the crown still sat upon his head. No bottles there, no swirly glow either.

Glow.

There had been a glow from the portal.

“Leather box!” Anya exclaimed, quickly looking around the desk to find the leather box she had dismissed the last time. The one that included glowing bottles.

“Is this code for ‘let’s give up’ or did you actually find something?” Lily eyed Anya quizzically. Anya didn’t let that bother her, making a noise of triumph as she found the small-ish box and pulled it to her. Opening it, the bottles inside emitted a swirling colour scheme all over the room, exploding out of the box like dust from an old chest. Anya grabbed one and carefully removed it from the box, showing it to her friends.

“Glowy portal liquid from a leather box.” she said, determined.

Moving from their various positions, Anya’s friends made their way to her. In awe, the whole group stared at the swirling, multicoloured lightshow going on inside the bottle. Like galaxies made from rainbows melting together, it seemed to be in a constant state of moving despite Anya holding it relatively still.

“So do we just… Sprinkle that onto the floor or?” Sam asked, poking the bottle.

“I don’t know, let’s try.” Anya walked over to the wall and took a deep breath. The cork wasn’t sealed with wax like the previous bottle she had handled in this room, so removing it was a piece of cake. Tilting it and letting a few drops fall to the floor. She held her breath, and braced herself.

Nothing happened.

“Okay, let’s try something else. Throw it against the wall maybe?” Lily tried to help and also not laugh at Anya’s pout.

“Dude, it’s a glass bottle, don’t make her throw it against a wall?” Carla looked at Lily as if she had lost her mind.

“I don’t know! I don’t do magic, I do physics!” Lily answered, sitting down on the desk and wiggling a bit to make herself comfortable. Anya thought it was adorable, but now was hardly the time for that.

“If it doesn’t work, we still have three bottles left, I say go for it.” Sam said.

“Glass! Flying! Everywhere!” Carla yelled, clapping after every word.

“What if I throw it with the hot rock?” Anya asked, remembering how Cora had talked about using the crystal to make the portal that took Anya home. Granted, she had no idea if this was how her cousin had done it. Idly playing with it in her pocket, she looked up at her friends.

“What difference would a rock make?” Carla asked back, clearly not keen on slamming glass bottles into a wall. Felicity rubbed their upper arm comfortingly, which seemed to be the only thing keeping Carla from a full on fit.

“I don’t know, I’m gonna try it.” Before Carla could react or stop her, Anya took the rock out of her pocket and threw both the bottle and the crystal right at the wall.

What resulted was an explosion of light. Barely a second after both objects hit the wall at the same time, a blinding white light erupted from the wall towards the group. Anya threw her hands in front of her face, shutting her eyes as tight as she could. She hoped her friends had done the same.

A pleasant warmth reached Anya, staying there for a second and making Anya’s hair stand up before retreating in the direction of the empty wall. Something rolled towards Anya’s feet, and after it stopped everything seemed to go back to normal.

Slowly opening her eyes and lowering her hands, Anya recovered from the shock of the slowest three seconds of her life. Keeping her gaze towards the floor, she saw the fire opal laying at her feet, unassuming yet swirling with fire. Anya kneeled to pick it up, finding it a bit hot but not too hot to hold. It still went back into her pocket almost immediately.

“Holy shit. Anya, holy shit.” Anya heard Lily’s voice behind her say, which made her look up.

In front of them, on the empty wall, was a giant glowing portal. It looked the same as the last few times Anya had seen it, albeit a bit heavier on the red shades. The remnants of the glass bottle had formed a kind of edge around the portal itself. It seemed to be pulsating warmth, moving more like a heartbeat than a swirl. But it was a portal, and Anya had made it. She had made a portal.

Taking a few steps forward, Anya turned towards her friends in a flourish and bowed dramatically.

“A fresh, home grown portal, as requested.” She said with a smirk.

Lily immediately smiled back, as the others seemed to be too distracted with the portal itself to react. Jumping off the desk she almost ran to inspect it. The rest stayed behind. Anya decided to go through what she had packed in one of Lily’s old backpacks.

“Sam, its warm come look at this,” Lily said with a wave, making Sam wake up from whatever trance he was in and move to look at the portal with his sister.

Anya looked over at them with a smile, then back at her things. First, she grabbed another bottle of portal juice, wrapping it in one of the band tees she had left at Lily’s ages ago and she had now brought with her. She carefully placed the letter from her mother between the pages of the book, which went into the backpack behind all her other things. They were mostly soda cans and instant noodles, but you could never have too many of either with you at all times. Then she turned to Felicity and Carla, who were still frozen in place.

“Are you guys ready to go?” Carla mutely nodded and went to get their own backpack.

“Anya, you’re amazing. Truly.” Felicity said to Anya with a smile. Anya smiled and nodded back.

“So are you.”

Picking up the last backpacks from the floor, belonging to Lily and Sam, Anya went over to said twins and handed them their luggage.

“Let’s go through a portal!”

Anya took a cautious step, just dipping the toe of her shoe into the portal. The colours didn’t change, just started swirling around the new object. Feeling no discomfort, Anya looked back to nod at her friends before stepping through completely.

The first thing Anya registered was the pleasant warmth. It felt like being hugged, like a warm cup of tea, like a sweater in the fall. It wrapped the teens in its embrace and pulled them towards the exit.

Around them was space. Stars and galaxies littered wherever they were walking, moving around them slowly. But whatever they were walking on felt firm, and stable enough that they wouldn’t fall into the vastness of space. If what they were seeing was actually space.

Then it was over. Only a few seconds later the warm embrace disappeared, the colours of the galaxy going away to be seen another time. Under them was grass, slightly damp from dew and rain. Right behind them was a vast forest, with tall trees that had stood there for centuries. The ocean in front of them continued it’s slow waves, the moonlight breaking on the water and basking everything in a light blue glow. The stars burned bright, brighter than any of them had ever seen. Yet it wasn’t completely dark, they could see the start of the sand beach, the leaves on the trees and most importantly, each other.

Anya felt strange. It felt a bit like the homesickness she used to get at sleepovers as a child, but not exactly. It was like she was and wasn’t supposed to be here at the same time. The ocean seemed welcoming, as did the forest, but their air around her felt tight and heavy.

She couldn’t voice her concerns or think about it too much before they heard a rustling noise behind them. The group quickly turned around in alarm to see a person, about the same age as them, exit from the forest and then freeze at the sight of the other teens. The two sides continued staring at each other in silence.

The person in front of them was dressed in all black, probably to hide. Their face was round, and their wide eyes seemed to contain the entire spectrum of colours. From under the black hat they wore peaked a small tuft of blue hair.

The same blue as the teen Anya had seen exiting the bus that morning. Both Anya and the person seemed to be assessing each other, looking up and down. Anya was almost 100% sure this was the same teen from this morning. But why? And why were they here?

The silence was broken by the person, whoever they were.

“What the fuck.”