Natalia

My wrists and ankles are bound to the bed. As much as I pull and yank, there’s no chance of breaking free.

I take in my surroundings instead, recalling Dad’s words all those times I came home, scuffed up from too many schoolyard brawls.

You can’t win unless you know exactly what you’re fighting. Sometimes it’s better not to use your fists, he’d say. Sometimes, the key to taking down an opponent is knowing them inside and out.

A door opens, and a third woman enters, dressed in an unusual outfit. It looks formal and expensive, and as she approaches, the nurses flutter toward her with questions and updates on their patients. She seems to be a person of authority.

I’m speechless as I watch as the well-dressed woman approaches the cot nearest her and passes a hand over the sleeping face of the unconscious patient.

The patient’s fingers begin to twitch. Their eyes open and they lift their head from the pillow. As they stir, disoriented and confused, the woman places a hand on theirs and asks a few questions in a soft and hospitable voice. Then she floats a hand over their eyes again, and they snap back into a deep, inescapable sleep.

Maybe she’s some kind of hypnotist. That’s the only logical explanation for how easily she’s able to snap them awake and back to sleep again. At least from where I lie, I can’t see any tools or medical equipment in her hand. I stay quiet and watch as the woman continues her rounds, approaching patient after patient until she reaches my bed.

As she stands over my side, I lie still and glance at her. “I’m awake.”

“So you are,” the woman replies.

Then she places her hand on mine. I watch, eyes wide, as a blue pulsing light begins to bleed through her bones and flesh, illuminating all the veins and tendons in her hand. Her touch is a warm breeze on my skin. Almost hot, like the dangerous glow of a candle. It runs up the length of my arm before fading into the side of my neck.

I gasp, but I can’t move my hand away. It’s bound in place. Trapped like the rest of me.

“What are you doing?” I demand.

The woman frowns and releases my hand. “You’re perfectly safe here. Don’t be afraid.”

But there’s something else peculiar about the woman. If the glowing blue light emanating from her hand isn’t enough, I find myself squinting at the sight of her ears. The cartilage stretches upward to a point, and sticks out from beneath her brown hair.

They’re impossible to miss, poking out between her strands of brown hair. They’re subtle, but they’re there.

Maybe I’m still in shock.

“What’s wrong with your ears?” I blurt. I’m too groggy and confused to care if I’m being rude. I’ve never seen a place like this, and I’ve certainly never seen ears like those outside of Star Trek reruns my parents watched.

“Not a thing,” the woman says, a slight smirk on her lips. “What’s wrong with yours?”

I want to reach up to touch them—to make sure they aren’t pointed like hers. But I can’t move my hands.

“Nothing,” I say. “My ears are normal. I’m normal. This place…isn’t normal.”

“Well, in this place,” the woman says softly, “I’m normal, and you’re the odd one out.”

“What do you mean?” I ask. “What place? Where am I?”

The woman turns away from me to look over her shoulder at the nurse hovering by. “You haven’t told her?”

The nurse shakes her head, picking at her fingernails fretfully. “I was waiting to tell them all at once.”

“Very well,” the woman says. She turns her attention back to me and smiles warmly. “What is your name?”

“Natalia,” I reply, trying to get a good look around me. The room is quiet, but for the footsteps of the nurses. All the other patients seem to be sleeping. “Where am I? What is this place?”

“Natalia,” the woman repeats. “To answer your question, this place is nowhere that’s ever existed to you before.”

I look the woman in the eye. Even her irises seem different. Like they hold an iridescence that normal eyes don’t. “What do you mean? Where am I?”

“You’ve left your realm, dear,” she says. “You’re in mine now. This is Tír na Séasúr, the Land of the Seasons. Home to the Realm of the Faeries.”