Emily almost missed the forest. The trees weren’t the towering ones she’d fallen out of and eventually learned to climb with Claire as children. They were short and airy, hugging the town, rotting houses melting in.
The boy didn’t make it very far. Emily saw the way his whole body trembled as he struggled to hold himself upright, but it was futile. Seemingly choosing a tree at random, he collapsed against its thin trunk, gasping. Emily stared, feeling just the tiniest bit of concern creeping in—he hadn’t been nearly as out of breath after literally falling on his back earlier.
Of course, her concern was mixed with a healthy dose of not-unjustified fear about the ground suddenly exploding. Whatever had just happened, whatever it had been, the boy had done it. On the other hand, she hadn’t ended up in the air and he had invited her along… sort of.
So she stood there for a while, at a safe distance, waiting for his breathing to even out. As her own breathing slowed, she noticed again how alive everything seemed. In the fading afternoon light, birds chirped in a nest not five feet above where the boy sat. Weeds and bushes competed with flowers and trees for patches of ground, covering all dirt and creating a patchwork of greens, browns, purples, and pinks that just felt so alive. She felt it then, nostalgia for something she’d never known. Even summers in Nevis felt barren by comparison. Was that why she ended up here? To see what she was missing out on?
Something told her that wasn’t quite it.
The boy was still breathing hard. He’d been defiant, arrogant even, against those knights, so the complete lack of either was unsettling.
Okay, time to say something… Claire had had it from the moment Emily had met her, this unabashed, dry humor that could always cheer people up. Now, it was something the two of them shared. Something that Emily reached for then.
“So I take it you’re not really a runner either then.”
A beat, then the boy cracked an eye open, “what?”
Well, she tried.
“Well, you just seem,” Emily gestured haphazardly at all of him, “… a bit low energy.”
He rolled his eyes, a hint of that boredom returning. As with the knights, he didn’t seem concerned with her presence, just… standoffish. Emily wasn’t necessarily surprised, arrogance and standoffish-ness seemed to go hand-in-hand, but she’d hoped he’d be willing to talk to her. She really, really needed an explanation for what the heck was going on.
Emily sat, fingers twisting in her shirt, “so why’d you invite me along?”
The boy made a semi-successful attempt to sit straighter against the trunk, “I owed you. Now that we’re both out of there you can be on your way.”
Her shoulders shrunk out of reflex. The first person she’d been able to properly converse with and he didn’t want anything to do with her. Wonderful. Okay, she sucked in a breath of suddenly thin air, one last try.
“.... What were they after you for?” Please.
She waited, pointedly staring at the flower twirling between her thumb and pointer finger. The silence, well, their silence (their surroundings were quite loud) seemed to bore into her from all sides.
“What’s it to you? Trying to turn me in?” His voice, struggling for sound, shouldn’t have been so biting.
“No!”
This was it. She was going to wander around a dark forest with no supplies and even if she went back into town there would be no one to explain anything to her because they’d all be too busy staring at her and her funny clothes and she would wander around in this foreign place and Sylvia would never know what had happened to her and she would never know what happened to Sylvia and Claire—
“What are you wearing?” She startled upright, unaware of how shrunken in she’d become. The boy was squinting at her, his eyes seemed clearer now. The question was so out of nowhere she didn’t even register he’d asked it for a moment. It wasn’t an answer, but it was something. Hope flared.
“Uh,” there wasn’t really a way to explain it other than, “clothes?”
He snorted. Cautiously, she ventured on.
“I guess… I’m new around here,” so to speak, “And you seem to know what’s going on, exploding things and all of that.”
The boy raised his eyebrows, “Right. Because I’m sure my ability to “explode things” would come in handy for you. Magic users have quite a bounty on their heads, don’t they?
Emily felt her eyes triple in size. Okay. That was a lot to process. She focused on the magic part first because, well, who wouldn’t? She almost wished Claire was here (almost). This was all way too similar to a movie they’d watched once. Now that she thought about it, if this wasn’t a hallucination—she still hadn’t ruled that part out—then magic, in its weird way made sense. The portal that took her here either had to be some crazy as-of-yet-undiscovered science, or it had to be magic. Magic. Suddenly, talking felt a lot easier. Nerding out tended to have that effect on people.
“Did you say magic? That explosion was magic?!”
Was that how she’d gotten here? How had Sylvia known? She’d something had spoken to her….
“Yeah. You know, magic?” The sun had begun to set, ushering in orange light. The chirping of the birds in the nest above the boy’s head was quieting and new noises filled the silence. Emily recognized the crickets, but plenty were unfamiliar. With a gradual return of energy came a scowl to the boy’s face. “Magic magic? Energy-transfer-that-exhausts-people magic? Illegal-across-half-the-continent magic? Have you been living under a boulder?”
Magic exists, I’m alone in an alternate world where magic exists, I have no one to geek out with over this, and the only person who will talk to me doesn’t seem nearly as thrilled about it as I am.
She looked down at her lap in the dimming light. “I won’t turn you in,” she exhaled a (slightly hysterical) laugh, “I wouldn’t even know how to…”
Emily explained everything. She talked about her cryptic grandmother, Wisconsin, movies, the whole internet thing, and the last words her grandmother had spoken to her, hoping that all of this wasn’t completely a lost cause because she’d been completely stranded up until now, and actually talking to someone was an unbelievably nice experience. All of that explaining only to be met with a—
“You’re crazy. Magic can’t create portals, at least not anymore."
Emily sighed, “what about these,” she gestured at her clothes, “you seem to find them pretty strange. Don’t these look, I dunno, otherworldly to you?”
“They could be from another continent.”
Great. Emily’s eyes suddenly felt hot, “Look. My grandmother was going to explain something important to me, but she never got the chance. I have no idea what’s going on, and you’re the only person who I’ve been able to talk to,” she took a breath, “you live here, on this planet or continent, or whatever this place is. I need someone to help me figure things out.” Please.
The boy sighed, “Fine. Since you apparently don’t know where we are, we’re at the edge of Raziet. It’s a kingdom dead center of the continent.”
Okay, that was a start. “Magic? History?”
“Some kingdoms do tolerate and even encourage magic. But some don’t; including Raziet, Beauvais, and a few others. Some of them kill people for using it. There was a war between those two factions. I’m lucky those knights didn’t know about my magic or they wouldn’t have wasted so much time” not great, “I’m trying to get somewhere where that doesn’t happen.”
Emily sat there in shock. Being killed for what you are. It existed of course, in her world as well, but now it all seemed so much closer, more personal. And all from a boy who she’d just met. The air was humming again, mixed with crickets and bugs and silence. In the utter darkness, the constellations were nearly blinding. Emily even spotted a small galaxy here and there. This nature was more vibrant than anything on Earth. And yet, terrible things still happened. Even in fantastical worlds.
“You didn’t tell me why those knights were after you.”
The boy pulled his back upright against the trunk, drew his legs in, “I looked at him.”
“What?” Emily’s fidgeting hands stopped.
“You heard me. I was in a plaza and made eye contact with the leader of that group of knights, the man who was harassing me. It set him off. That group was chasing me for a while; they got me a few times too.” His injured eye, closest to her, had swollen shut.
Oh.
Maybe it was a split second reaction to the inherent wrongness of it all, or maybe it was because some part of her subconscious still believed none of this could be real, but she said it anyway.
“Wanna team up?”
The boy, eyes reflecting the starlight, snorted. ”What’s in it for me?”
“You never know—you might end up needing help, at some point.” Barring the fact that Emily had no idea how she would help.
“No.”
“C’mon, I don’t know what’s going on, you do. Please?”
The boy opened his mouth again, seemed to decide it wasn’t worth the effort, and closed it. Thank you. She decided to ignore the fact that he hadn’t answered per se, or the ramifications of whatever she may or may not be committing to for now.
“So, uh, should we make a fire or something?”
“Sure.”
“Okay then,” She pushed herself to her feet, feeling the blood rush back into her legs. Just how long had they been talking? There was the momentary creaking of tree branches to a stray gust of wind. Emily walked over to the boy, still sprawled against the tree-trunk with hesitant steps.
There was an awkward pause as she looked down at him, “you gonna help?”
Even in the dark, she could see another eye roll. Emily ignored it, for now.
“I’m drained.”
“You’re what?”
“I just used a ton of magic to create that shockwave.”
“So doing that made you tired?”
“Yep.”
“So you can’t help me get wood.”
“Nope.” He broke eye contact, reaching a shaky hand to his discarded pack.
“You know my world doesn’t have magic, but when it’s depicted, it’s a bit more epic than this.” Nothing.
Well, she tried.
Emily began scouring the bases of nearby trees, bringing back kindling and a few larger sticks. She was in the middle of arranging them into a neat, campfire-shaped pile when she stopped. She’d forgotten something vitally important.
She turned to the boy. “My name’s Emily. What’s yours?”
His hand froze, opened pack on his lap. His back straightened, just a little.
“Leo.”
Campfire base perfected, thanks to many nights of camping with Sylvia spent teaching Emily how to do this exact thing, there was only one thing left to do.
She looked across at Leo, able to make him out thanks to the bright starlight. He seemed to have recovered, having laid a bedroll lined with fur. In her flurry of activity, she hadn’t noticed. He sat on it cross-legged, nose nearly touching some paper he was pouring over. To Emily, it seemed like an oddly... comfy setup for someone on the run.
Emily sat back on her heels. Leo had mentioned a war when talking to the knights, was there one going on right now? Here? She couldn’t put them together, fireflies like the ones blinking in and out by Leo’s still head and gunfire. Sword fights, probably some catapults, she amended. Again, there didn’t seem to be any tech here. She wished she had her phone. To take pictures. To show Leo she was telling the truth.
“Hey, uh, do you have a match?” Her words came far too quiet, so she repeated them.
Leo’s face was too dark to make out now, only the tips of his hair and shoulders, thrown into harsh relief by moonlight. “A what?”
So that’s a negative. “Thing to light this fire?”
Leo didn’t move. “You seriously don’t know what magic is, do you?
“That’s what I’ve been telling you. I’m not from here. I have no idea what’s going on.”
Leo sighed, like lighting a fire to keep them warm—Emily really was getting quite cold—was some monumental task, “I can light it. Magic, as it is now, is just a... transfer. So if I put enough into the wood I can start one.”
He stood, walking to the bundle of sticks between them, then furrowed his eyebrows like she’d asked him to level a city. Though with how exhausted he probably still was, maybe she had.
“You don’t have to.”
He froze, arrogance faltering for just a moment. Before, silently, he did. Leo reached out to touch the kindling at the bottom, and, despite her concern, Emily watched closely. Magic, after all, wasn’t something she saw every day. It was, as it seemed magic was in this world, not some fiery explosion (which, admittedly would’ve been bad). Leo didn’t glow or mutter a spell. It seemed unwieldy, forced. Leo had said it was like energy, that he was “drained.” How long would it be before it returned?
The dry leaf under Leo’s hand caught and he retracted it quickly. His face, watching the brightening glow, was schooled into that same arrogance. She wondered where it came from. Her stomach growled, that’s another important thing.
“You don’t happen to have any extra food do you?”
Her voice seemed to startle him out of whatever stupor had been forming. He grunted, which she hoped meant yes, and turned to rummage around in his pack.
Emily huddled close to the fire, pulling the drawstrings on her head tightly closed. She stared at the growing flames and thought of that tiny spark they’d sprung from. Leo’s hand, thrown into harsh relief by the fire, shakily tossed an apple to her.
“It seems like magic takes a lot of effort for you.”
Leo rolled his eyes—he did that a lot. “It does for everyone. It gets absorbed into the body from the person’s surroundings and, by using it, is returned.”
Like energy, she thought. “So is this all that magic can do?” It wasn’t what she should be focusing on, but childhood dreams of summoning lightning were more welcoming than wondering what Claire and Sylvia were doing. Did Claire know where she was? Did Sylvia even?
“No. There was a language. People could talk to magic. They asked it to do things which apparently it was willing to do. It was lost centuries ago though, and now people who can use it go through a lot of effort to force it to do anything at all.”
“Wow, that… sucks.”
“Yeah.” No summoning lightning then, though Leo’s miniature earthquake had been pretty cool. Childish disappointment that might’ve been shoved aside under any other circumstance added a little weight to the pile, but Emily felt something give a little there. Some thick wall, cracking just a tiny bit. Because in that moment, she knew that he was disappointed too.
That night, Emily startled awake under a bright moon, neck aching from using flowers as a pillow. With the fire dead and Leo asleep, Sylvia and Claire somewhere too far to reach, Emily let one tear go, then another.
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