Page 13 of Curse the Flame

The hard ground.

Ow.

I hit my side, staying curled up in the fetal position for a few seconds while I make sure that I’m still breathing. That I didn’t break anything, even though the fall was no picnic. I’ve been cushioned by something somewhat soft. The air around me has enough of a gentle breeze carrying the scent of flowers and earth and outside that I know that’s where I am even if I have no idea where I am.

I groan, staying on the ground. I hear something rustle… the grass under my ass, maybe… before a familiar yip.

The puppy, I think. Well. If I’m going to pull an Alice and fall through a looking glass, at least I managed to make my way to the poor pup that was stuck inside.

I flutter my eyes open just in time for a scaling hot tongue to swipe its way up my cheek.

“Sir?” I croak because, well, my parents spent a lot of time in my youth instilling manners into me. I don’t know what his name is—or if he even has one—but something tells me that he’s a boy dog, and he seems pretty sweet and eager. He’s a precious little sir, even if his hot breath stinks like rotten eggs as he pants inches away from my face. “A little personal space, please.”

A little personal space while I figure out if I lost my mind…

Sir drops to his rump again, tongue lolling out of his mouth. This close, I can see the slight puff of smoke that escapes it. His eyes flicker, and I blink. When I open my eyes again, they’re still orange, though the fire—and the smoke—is gone.

For now.

I push myself up to a seated position, shocked that my dull ache is already fading. It’s adrenaline, I decide. The adrenaline that coursed through me when I started my tumble must be hiding the fact that I, like, broke my collarbone or something.

Just in case, I give it a casual rub while taking in my surroundings.

After a long, quiet moment, I have no choice but to admit that fate has a funny sense of humor. I told Mr. Z that I wanted adventure. That I missed the outside. That I basically wanted to commune with nature.

That’s exactly what I’m doing now.

The ground I landed on? It’s a patch of pretty wildflowers, grown so closely together in a variety of colors—purple, gold, blue, red, orange—that they were an impromptu mattress for me on top of the grass in the clearing I’ve found myself in. In every direction, I see trees. Tall, slender trees with some bare branches, others blooming with new leaves.

Weird. It’s the end of July, but these trees look like it’s the end of winter.

How is that possible?

I don’t know. Instinctively, I can tell that I’m nowhere near my condo. I don’t even know if this is New Jersey; at least, not New Jersey when I left it, based on the coloring of the trees. It’s pleasant out, not hot, which makes me wonder what it’ll be like when the temperature drops and I’m wearing nothing more than a basic yellow tee and short shorts.

Assuming I’m stuck here—wherever here is—once it gets dark out.

Oh, boy.

It’s definitely not dark now which is weird because, yeah… I was getting ready for bed when I saw the puppy in the mirror. As much as I exaggerated how long that fall took, there’s no way that twelve hours passed, but it’s definitely late morning where I am. I can just sense how early it is, though it’s hard to tell thanks to the way the trees blot out the sun.

There are still enough sunbeams filtering through the leaves to guess at the time, and that it’s morning instead of late evening is just one other weird thing that I don’t want to think about right now.

Instead, because he’s the only living thing in sight in these strange woods, I reach down, extending a careful hand toward Sir’s head. He gives me another encouraging bark, and as though I can understand him, I know he’s giving me the all-clear to reach down and pat his head.

So I do.

“Where are we, boy?” I murmur. “And how do I get home?”

His floppy ears perk up at the word “home”.

Ducking out from under my hand, he does this odd little half-run, half-jump, gallop thing as he runs about ten feet away. He stops, rearing back on his hind legs, ears flopping as he uses his paws to bat at… at…

Huh. I don’t know what that is. It’s shimmering, wavy, kind of like exhaust in the summer or an oil slick in the condo’s parking lot because Mr. Singh’s car is leaking. About the size and shape of the mirror in my room, I’m just wondering if it could possibly be the other side of the mirror when, the instant Sir’s paw hits it, it winks out of sight before I could check it out.

Hmm. Okay, then.

Don’t know what that was about, but seeing the strange portal thing only makes the super improbable thing I was secretly thinking just a little more likely.