Mia Foster stared at the sky with eyes blue enough to mirror it. Her feet dangled at least twenty feet above the ground. From her spot on the balcony of her tree house she could hear her parents yelling at each other. There was the sound of a door slamming and then the shouting moved outside. Another slam and the sound of a car starting; Mia just sat and listened. This happened so often that she didn’t even process it anymore. She blamed herself for the fights. Every time she got a bad grade, every time she forgot to do her chores, something like this would happen.
“Mia dinner!” her mother called her voice cracking.
“Coming,” Mia called in return.
She climbed down the ladder. A few feet above the ground she jumped. The grass crunched under her feet. It was mid-August and all ready dry. She brushed her hands on her jeans and walked towards her house. It was a single story two bedroom building with plain white walls and dull tan carpeting. Besides the bedrooms there was a bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room. They weren’t exactly rich enough to afford anything better. She opened the screen door and walked into the kitchen. Her mother was at the stove stirring something in a pot. She was a thirty-seven year-old housewife with green eyes. She looked up from the stove and brushed a stray strand of brown hair behind one ear.
“What do you do out there?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Mia told her.
Her mother sighed and set plate of reheated pasta in front of her. As long as Mia could remember she spent most of her time day dreaming. It was mostly about if her parents hadn’t fought so much, but part of it was about what if she had never been born. Maybe her parents would have had a more talented child, maybe the fighting would have never started, maybe they wouldn’t have been so poor, maybe, maybe, maybe; it was all she thought about.
“How was school?” her mother asked abruptly.
“It’s Saturday,” Mia scoffed.
“Oh, well then how was your day?” she probed.
“Fine,” Mia sighed.
“What did you do?”
“Same thing I do every Saturday.”
“Which is?”
“Nothing!” Mia exploded. “I did nothing! I always do nothing, so stop bugging me.”
Her mother looked shocked. Her mouth was opened in that stunned fish expression. Mia’s stomach dropped. That was a face her mother had never made at her. Behind the shock she could see hurt and a bit of sadness. She closed her mouth in a tight line and began to eat again.
“Mom, I didn’t…” Mia fumbled.
“Save it Mia,” her mother said coldly, “I don’t mean to pester; I just like to know about you. You’re interesting, so I want to know about you. I guess that’s too much, so I’ll try not to pry from now on.”
With each word Mia’s stomach ached a little more. She hadn’t meant it like that. She had spoken without thinking. Maybe if I didn’t have a tongue, she thought. Then I wouldn’t ruin everything. She picked at her food, too miserable to eat. More maybes ran through her head. A bit later she looked up from her food.
“I’m going to take a shower,” she told her mom.
She got up. At the doorway she turned, ready to apologize. Her mother looked at her expectantly, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead she turned away quickly and went to her room. Once there she slammed the door and flopped face-first onto her bed. Her eyes burned. She mentally punched herself as she clutched her rainbow comforter. Tears leaked out and spilled onto her pillow.
“I didn’t mean it,” she whispered. “I wish that I was far from here where I couldn’t do any more damage to my family.”
It was a wish she had been wishing as long as she could remember. She heard the front door open and close, and then her parent’s whispers. Her stomach twisted and she knew that they were talking about her. To distract herself she gathered her robe and shower stuff and then headed to the bathroom. Once there she stripped and tossed her clothes into the hamper. She turned the water on and waited for it to heat up. She stood on the rug while the bathroom slowly filled with steam. Stepping under the stream of hot water she sighed in relief. The stream of hot water emptied her head of thoughts, giving her some temporary comfort. She washed her hair, glad for the few moments of mindless action.
She shampooed and rinsed feeling the grit loosen from her hair. As she was rinsing out the conditioner she felt the ground drop out from below her. Suddenly she was falling, only she didn’t land on the bottom of the shower. Instead there was a splash. Mia opened her eyes and saw the moon. She tried to take a breath, but instead sucked in a mouthful of water. She fought to get back to the surface, but without air she was quickly weakening. She eventually gave up. As her vision started to go black she saw a hand reaching for her. Everything went dark.
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The Scarlet Emperor sat on his throne tapping his chin. He was leaned to one side, his feet draped towards the other. A peasant knelt on the black marble floor in front of him. He narrowed his scarlet eyes at the frightened man.
“This is my problem?” he asked coldly.
“No sire, it’s just that I don’t have the money to pay your tax at the moment,” the man said clenching his shackled hands until his knuckles turned white. “Please sire, just give me some time.”
“I gave you time, that time is now up,” the Emperor snarled. “Now take him to…”
His voice trailed off. He felt a surge of power and his stomach reeled. Someone had just opened and closed a portal. He flicked his wrist at the guards and stormed from the chamber. He entered a room that was all but empty. In the center was a small pool, and there were six doors painted with symbols around the walls. He went to a mirror on a dais and touched it. The glass seemed to ripple. His reflection faded and that of a sleeping girl appeared. She was lying under a blanket as another checked her over for wounds.
“That girl,” he said quietly, and then shouted, “No it can’t be her! I must summon my mages!”
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Mia heard chirping. She cracked open her eyes and instantly ached all over. Her throat burned especially badly. I can’t be dead, she reasoned. Being dead would hurt a lot less. She looked around. She was in a clearing. A small fire burned a few feet away, and there was a pile of leather satchels next to a grazing horse. Mia herself was lying on a blanket, wrapped in a blanket. To her horror she was absolutely naked.
“Awake at last I see.”
The feminine voice came from behind and above Mia. She spun, careful to keep the blanket wrapped around her. She saw a girl of about eighteen up in a tree. She was plain enough with jet black hair tied in a braid and tanned and freckled skin. It was then Mia noticed her eyes. They were the golden eyes of a cat, and her pupils were slits. Black cat’s ears sprouted from her head, and a matching tail swung lazily back and forth below her. Her lips curled into a smile and Mia saw fangs where her canines should have been. Mia’s mouth dropped open as the girl leaped a good fifteen feet from the tree and land just a few feet from Mia.
“Close your mouth, it’s rude to stare,” the girl snapped.
Mia did what she was told, and then asked, “Who are you?”
“Your savior,” the girl responded spreading her arms regally, “but everyone else calls me Lume.”
“What happened? Where are we?” Mia demanded. Now that she was getting her senses back she wanted answers. She wondered why she was asking. This is probably just a dream, she reasoned. I have to ride it out.
“As for what happened I’m not entirely sure,” Lume began. “I was setting up camp when I saw you drop into the lake. You came out of nowhere. When you didn’t come back up I dove in and pulled you out. As for where we are, that’s easy: we’re in the Dark Forest in Other World.”
“Other world?” Mia said with disbelief, “I’ve never heard of it.”
“How have you not heard of it? It’s where the Scarlet Emperor, Lord of Chaos dwells. He rules the other six worlds from here,” Lume said matter-of-factly. “You must be from far away indeed. Who are you? Where are you from? Why were you naked?”
“Mia,” Mia told her, “I’m from Denver. I have no idea why I was naked.”
“Denver? Never heard of it,” the older girl said. “How did you get here?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” she said. “I was taking a shower one moment, and the next moment I was drowning in a lake.”
“What’s a ‘shower’?” Lume asked.
Mia was taken aback. Who didn’t know what a shower was? She looked around again, more closely this time. Everything looked like something out of a history book. She now realized the satchels were saddlebags, and handmade by the look of them. The blanket she had wrapped around herself and the blanket she was sitting on were worn and also handmade, in fact everything looked homemade.
Have I gone back in time, Mia wondered. No, people didn’t have cat ears back then. Then maybe I’m in a coma and dreaming… As Mi sat and pondered this Lume examined her more closely. She saw a small curvy girl with bright blue eyes, fair skin, and wavy brown hair. She wasn’t from this world; that was clear. Strangely enough she had a vast amount of power for such an average girl. It was undiscovered by the feel of it, which was highly dangerous. She felt out of place in this world. She had a strange accent and she spoke of odd things. Maybe, maybe she was the girl from the prophecy.
The prophecy was as old as time itself. It spoke of a girl who would come from the Magicless World and kill the evil that had ruled the land for centuries. There would seven who protected her and seven who protected the evil. Each of the seven would be from each of the seven worlds, one from each world. The evil was the Scarlet Emperor. He had taken the throne through murder and deceit over five centuries before. Black magic kept him alive and young. He had seven mages, one from each world. And there was the mark, the one on the small of Lume’s back; the star within the circle, the symbol of the girl.
Lume looked at Mia again. She inhaled deeply. Mia reeked of magic. She was full to the brim and overflowing with power. Lume was willing to bet she had the symbol on her somewhere. She was tempted to look, but decided against it. The younger girl would find it odd; that was for sure. She bit her lip and closed her eyes. She breathed deeply focusing her powers. When she opened her eyes everything was glowing with different colored auras. Mia had a blazing white light around her shot through with silver and gold. That could only mean one thing: the girl was a mage and the girl in the prophecy. At the same instant that Lume made her realization, Mia snapped out of thought and back into reality.
“Do you have clothes?” she asked breaking the silence. “I mean, I’d rather not be naked.”
“Yes, in fact,” Lume said. “I was waiting for you to wake up. You’ve been asleep for a bit over a day.”
“Thanks,” the younger girl sighed. “I can’t believe I slept that long.”
Lume dug through one of the bags. Mia sat wrapped in the blanket wondering if there were any creeps lurking in the woods. Lume rose a few moments later and tossed Mia a bundle. She unrolled it. It was a breast band, a loincloth, a cream colored shirt, an earthy green vest, brown leggings, white stockings, worn leather boots, and a gray cloak. The older girl turned her back while Mia attempted to get dressed under the blanket. Afterwards she stood and looked at her reflection in the lake that she had nearly drowned in the night before. She looked Medieval, it was wicked. Her lips twisted into a small grin.
“How old are you anyways?” Lume asked. Surely no older than thirteen, yes she was curvy, but she was extremely short and young-looking.
“Fifteen,” Mia said defensively. “Why does it matter to you?”
“Just wondering,” Lume told her coolly covering her shock. “I’m eighteen, just so you know.” She glanced up. They sun had risen a bit since Mia had woken. “We should be going,” she added.
“Where are we going?” Mia asked.
“To my village, I need to visit our fortuneteller,” the older girl told her.
As she spoke she quickly picked up the camp and extinguished the fire. She strapped the saddlebags to her horse. He was a strong bay with white socks and a white mane and tail. He looked at his mistress and the strange girl with knowing brown eyes. Lume beckoned to the younger girl. She then boosted her up onto the horse. He stamped offset by having a new rider on his back. Lume handed the reins up to Mia.
“How do you ride without a saddle?” Mia asked.
“Better than if I had one,” Lume joked jumping on behind her. She took the reins and said, “Yah, Windrunner!”
He lurched in a motion. Lume skillfully guided him onto the road that cut through the forest. She mapped out their journey in her mind. They’d have to pass through the Silent Plain. It was a dangerous stretch of grasslands that slavers ruled. They filled the place with listening spells and caught anyone who so much as sneezed. The Scarlet Emperor had eradicated the laws against slavery, and it had become common practice since then.
Mia on the other hand was looking everywhere at once. The plant life was similar to that in her world. Her imagination was wild indeed when it came to the animals though. She saw bugs that looked like tiny winged horses, or tiny multicolored dragons. She saw men and women about six inches tall with rainbow skin and shimmering wings walking or flitting amongst the trees. A single ghostly fox stood on one side of the road. He looked at her with intelligent icy eyes before fading into nothing.
She looked forwards at Lume. She wondered what the older girl was, she clearly wasn’t human. Humans didn’t have an animal’s ears or tail. Speaking of her tail it was hypnotizing to look at. It hung just in front of Mia’s knee. Every so often it twitched. She was tempted to reach out and touch it. She moved her hand towards it, but then thought the better of it. Instead she decided to ask about it.
“Why do you have a cat’s ears and tail?” she said aloud.
“I’m a Cat Aminala,” the older girl explained. “Unlike the race of humani the gods gave us animal traits and abilities. In fact we were created before the humani. Also, I’m part panther, not some tame housecat.”
“Is there magic here?”
“‘Is there magic here?’ she asks,” she scoffed. “Of course there is silly girl! There is no place in all of the seven worlds without it. The Magicless World is just called that because its people stopped using magic centuries ago. Now it’s a lost art there.”
“What about magical creatures?”
“You saw some yourself earlier. There is a variety.”
“Can I have some examples?”
“Mist cats, dragon flies, pixies, sand wolves, spirit foxes, and dragons.”
Mia continued to question her for the rest of the day. While they were setting up camp and Lume was cooking dinner, Lume became the one asking questions. She learned as much as she could about the Magicless World before they went to bed. The next two days passed in much the same manner. On the third day they reached the Silent Plain. Mia noticed that as the trees got thinner Lume got more anxious. Eventually she had to know what was wrong.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“We’re in slaver’s territory,” Lume told the younger girl indicating the grassy plains. “It’s called the Silent Plain, speaking of which we have to be silent from now on.”
“Why?”
“They use listening spells,” she explained. “If you sneeze they’ll be on you like flies on honey. Careless travelers make too much noise or light fires and are caught. It’s a terrible fate.”
“Oh,” Mia sighed.
They left the tree line and even the animals went silent. Windrunner’s hooves on the dirt felt as loud as thunderclaps. Lume was trying to look everywhere at once. She was focused on keeping watch. Mia was focused on keeping silent. She watched the looked all around. In the sky she could see dots. She wondered if they were dragons. She started to daydream. After awhile she snapped out of it. Questions tingled at the back of her mind. Lume noticed her getting more fidgety. She dug in a saddlebag and pulled out a wooden cube. She gave it to Mia and went back to watching all around them.
Mia’s interest turned to the cube. She twisted it this way and that trying to figure out what it was. She found it out completely by accident. When she pressed on one corner the whole thing fell apart. Her jaw dropped. She loved puzzles. She quickly put it back together. She pressed the corner again, thinking that it would be the same puzzle. It wasn’t. She twisted it this way and that wondering why it wasn’t the same. It must be magic, she thought excitedly. She solved it several more times, and each time it got harder.
Mia was so mesmerized by it that she didn’t realize that hours passed while she worked on it. When Lume slowed Windrunner to a stop Mia glanced up sharply. She was surprised to see that it was already dark. They set up camp, but instead of lighting a fire and cooking something that Lume got with her sling they ate bread and jerky occasionally drinking out of water skins. Mia fell asleep curled up on Lume’s spare bedroll.
Lume lay awake staring at the sky. She was scared that if she slept
she’d speak and get them caught. Windrunner sensed his mistress’s distress and came to lie by her. His breath in her hair calmed her. Soon enough she fell asleep with her hand tangled in his mane.
Mia woke first. She stretched a bit and stood up. She saw Lume curled up like a cat with one hand on her face and the other in Windrunner’s mane. She shook the older girl awake. They fell into their morning routine of cleaning, doing their business, and eating a bit of bread. Windrunner grazed as they got ready. When they began to ride Mia took the puzzle box out of her vest pocket. She started working on it again. Around noon they came to a lake. Lume took the water skins and went to refill them, Windrunner grazed, and Mia went to explore around the lake.
A fish as long as her arm leaped out of the water. Some deer that had purple streaked fur grazed in a small gathering of trees. They were reflected flawlessly in the pure blue water of the lake. A breeze rustled the deep emerald green grass. Rainbow colored flowers peppered the grass around the lake. The breeze sent them waving causing petals to rise into the air and fall on the water. It’s so beautiful, Mia thought, we don’t have anything like this back home.
She began to pick flowers. Soon enough she had a bouquet of flowers with oddly shaped and colored blossoms. She brought them to her face and breathed in. The perfume that they put off was intoxicating. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the scent. She saw Lume halfway around the lake with her forehead to Windrunner’s. She brought the bouquet to her face again and inhaled. She felt a tingle in her nose, and sneezed.
“Bless me,” she said to herself, thinking nothing of it.
Lume jumped. Mia’s words echoed in the silence. Oh no, she thought, oh no! She twisted around and leaped onto Windrunner’s back. She whipped him to a gallop. Mia was halfway around the lake. She looked up when she heard hoof beats. She realized her mistake a minute too late. As she moved her hands to cover her mouth three gruff looking men dressed in leather materialized around her. They moved closer quickly, reaching for her. As they came more men rose from the grass and rushed towards Lume.
“Mia, run!” Lume shouted.
Instead of being paralyzed in fear Mia shot through a gap between the men like a bullet. She ran towards Lume, who was riding furiously to meet her. Lume let out an inhuman yowl and reached for the battered sword strapped to her side. They met; the men right behind Mia. She jumped reaching for Lume. The older girl wheeled Windrunner. She caught Mia’s hands and grinned: they were going to make it. Suddenly Mia was yanked from her grasp. A man was holding her ankles. She fell to the ground with a thump, the breath knocked out of her.
Lume continued riding. She knew that if she went back she’d be caught as well. Cursing herself she dodged men and rode into the plains. She glanced behind and saw at least twenty men gathered around Mia. A few of them turned and chased after her. It was her best chance to follow the slavers from afar and rescue Mia after she was sold. Sorry Mia, she thought, hold on until I get back.
“Let me go!” Mia demanded. “Let me go! Let me go!”
She repeated this over and over while biting, kicking, hitting, and clawing. The men tried to pin her down, but she always managed to fight her way back up. She landed hard after an especially hard shove. The next and last thing she saw for awhile was a booted foot headed towards her face.
