Directly below me—I must have been on the second or third floor of a brick house—there was a lawn. It was wild and overgrown, some patches burnt by the sun, the grass growing tall and unchecked in others. Around the edge of the lawn, the grass was overtaken by swampland. Trees grew from the muddy earth, their thick roots dipping down into the murky waters, vines strangling their trunks and moss hanging limply from their branches, looking like wet rags.
Where am I?
This place looked like a strange dreamland, the colors and humidity far removed from what I was used to. Turning away from the window, I studied the room I was in, hoping it might provide more clues. It was old, that much I could gather straight away. The room had been painted white, once, and now was yellowing in places with plaster coming away at the corners. The wainscoting, in a pale blue paint that matched the sky, was bubbling and peeling in the heat. The decoration in the room was simple and sparse, a large, iron-framed bed in the middle with mildew-stained white sheets. A cupboard stood in one corner, made of polished pine, next to an old-fashioned dresser. I inspected them, the creaking of the wooden drawers echoing too loudly for comfort, but both proved to be empty anyway. There was a small fireplace at one end, not swept clean—the ashes were so pale with age that they resembled little more than dust.
Finding even fewer answers in the room, I picked up an old poker by the fireside and decided to explore the rest of the house. My one small, iota of hope was that I wouldn’t be alone here… I couldn’t hear anyone, the silence had so far been almost deafening, but that didn’t necessarily mean I was alone. With a slightly shaking hand I held the poker as firmly as I could, and pushed the door to the bedroom open.
It opened into a corridor, about eight yards or so in length. It was gloomy here, with no windows opening out into the sunshine. It was cooler though, and I stepped out of the bedroom. I waited, trying to hear something, anything, that might indicate the presence of another.
When only silence remained, I moved further along. As my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, I started to notice more evidence of a once-grand home turned shabby and worn from neglect. I also became much, much more afraid.
The hallway was wide, and on either side of me objects and bookcases were piled high so that the house started to resemble a junkyard. I jumped as I caught sight of two beady-looking eyes staring down at me from a shelf, only to realize, in disgust, that it was an animal that had been preserved and stuffed—it looked like a fox, its body frozen mid-jump, its teeth and claws out and ready to pounce on its prey. I started to notice more examples of foul taxidermy, creatures that I recognized as belonging to Earth: snakes, lizards, owls, even a yellowed swan. I peered more closely at the books on the shelves. The volumes were thick and old, their pages yellowed. My heart sank as I made out the text. These were written in a language that I didn’t recognize, and didn’t perceive as belonging to Earth—unless it was some ancient text I wasn’t familiar with, like Sanskrit. I slid the book back where I’d found it, and froze.
I could hear footsteps coming from the opposite end of the corridor. As I couldn’t see anything, I assumed it was coming from one of the rooms. I used True Sight, searching the rooms on my left. The first two were empty of occupants, but in the last, I saw a familiar figure and almost wept with relief.
Serena
[Hazel and Tejus’s daughter]
Hurrying along the corridor, I opened the door, causing Jovi to spin around in surprise, wielding a glass vase as a weapon.
“It’s me!” I hissed. “It’s okay.”
Jovi lowered the vase with a huge sigh of relief.
“What is this place?” he asked me. “Are you okay? I was trying to help Aida, then was practically blinded by the light—”
“Same here,” I replied. “When I opened my eyes again, I was here. And I can’t tell for the life of me where ‘here’ is.”
His room was the same as mine had been, though slightly larger, with a fireplace at either end. It also had velvet curtains hanging from each of its windows, half-eaten by moths and decay.
“Wherever we are, I want to get out.” Jovi made a move toward the door I’d just arrived from, and together we stepped back into the hallway.
“Do you think the others are here?” I asked hopefully. If Jovi and I had both arrived in the same place, then there was a chance the others had too.
“Did you look in other rooms?” he asked.
“They’re empty,” I confirmed, “there’s no one else on this floor. We should try downstairs. I passed a staircase. This way.” I led him on, back down the gloomy corridor.