The Door (Part One)

  Chapter Eight

  Instead of home cooked breakfast the next morning, there were … bagels.

  I picked one up. I’d eaten a lot of bagels in my time and loved them, but I loved the Caretaker’s meals more. Puzzled, I studied the food in my hand, wondering if she was angry with me and punishing everyone in the house for it.

  “She’s sick,” Carey said, entering the kitchen from the direction of the office. “I had to kind of make due.”

  “Oh. Bagels are good,” I said and sat down to cut and slather it with cream cheese. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “Not sure. She’s in a coma of some sort. The Woli had a healer with them. She checked out the Caretaker and said she was resting peacefully.” Carey shrugged, concern on his features. “Exhaustion maybe. She’s getting up in years.”

  She’s at least a thousand, I thought bitterly. “Well let me know if you need help in here.” I took a bite of my bagel and rose, ready to return to my manual labor chores outside.

  “She may need some down time. You might have to take over for her,” Carey said.

  I raised my eyebrows. “You mean cook and do more chores?”

  “Something like that. I can’t be away from my assigned home for too long. Is that okay? If you take over?”

  “Yeah, why not.” This is hell anyway. “Just tell her you’re thinking of having me run things. Should wake her up fast.” I opened the screen door, bagel in hand.

  “You think she dislikes you.” Carey was amused. “She treats all her apprentices like that.”

  “I’m not her apprentice. I’m her prisoner.” I stalked off to finish what I hadn’t had a chance to yesterday: chopping that damn wood. I stuffed my mouth as I walked and didn’t notice the sounds of cheers and boos until I was around the side of the garage.

  The Tili and Komandi had cleared away an area of desert to create a rustic wrestling ring where they were gathered to watch matches between the clan members. I inadvertently found Teyan in the crowd of observers then looked away quickly, not wanting to draw his attention.

  Whatever had brought so many of the clan members here had to have been important if they weren’t all leaving this morning. Perhaps it was concern for the Caretaker. I had no way of knowing. I felt like I knew too much already and wasn’t yet able to wrap my head around the explanations the Caretaker and Carey gave me.

  I had never ruled out the supernatural, but to live in the midst of it was sort of crazy.

  I went to the wood and began chopping. My hands were soon numbed by the impact, and sweat popped up on my brow. In anticipation of the heat, I’d dressed in a tank top and cropped leggings, my hair in a ponytail.

  The two clans stayed outside until the sun began to get hot before they separated. One group retreated to the interior of the house while the other walked slowly a short distance from me towards the road. I absently listened to their guttural language as they passed and paused not far from me. With a glance over my shoulder, I made sure none of the Komandi jerks were checking me out. The four men appeared grave, their sole focus on the one speaking.

  I went back to chopping wood, able to hear their talk without understanding their language. After a few more strokes, I took a short rest to catch my breath.

  “… without the agreement of all the tribes.”

  “Since when have all the tribes ever agreed on anything?”

  “Not since the Discovery at least.”

  I blinked out of my thoughts and glanced back at the men. Why were they speaking in English now?

  “Gianna!”

  I shielded my eyes to see Carey at the corner of the garage, waving frantically at me. It was close to lunchtime; he probably couldn’t find a pizza place willing to deliver out here. Dropping the axe, I walked towards the house. I was soaked with sweat again and adjusted my hair as I went.

  “What, Carey?” I asked as I stepped into the air conditioning. My god it felt so good!

  “The Caretaker passed away in her sleep.” Carey was frowning.

  Shit. My PO is going to send me to prison if he finds out. “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” I didn’t sound sincere, even to my ears. I had no love for the old woman, and it seemed part of her larger plan to torture me to die off like this so I had to go to prison.

  Carey appeared too distraught to notice. I liked him, even though I’d only known him for a few days, and felt bad for him. He was losing his mentor and friend. For his sake, I tried to sympathize.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Carey,” I said.

  We stood in silence for a moment, each of us in our own deep thoughts. I was doubting I could convince the No Excuse for Crime judge to let me go somewhere else for probation. I couldn’t guess what Carey was thinking now that his mentor was gone.

  “I spoke to the others. We’re going to have the funeral pyre for her here tonight,” Carey said, shaking his head and focusing on me.

  “Funeral … you mean cremate her?”

  “Sorta. More like a Viking funeral without the water.”

  “Shouldn’t we call the police or hospital? Take her to a funeral home?”

  “It’s not how it’s done for Caretakers. They are connected to the property they take care of, so it’s only right for her to be returned to the earth here. Especially with the traditions of the Five Peoples. They may not agree on much, but they all burn their dead.”

  Was this weird to anyone but me? Carey seemed at peace with it and I started to think: if we didn’t actually tell anyone she was dead, then there was no one to alert my probation officer. Maybe I wouldn’t be sent away after all.

  I glanced around. Then again, this place was going to be a pain in the ass to maintain on my own not to mention cooking three meals a day for complete strangers. And how did I explain to everyone in eleven months what happened to the woman who was supposed to send in a report to the judge about me?

  Compared to a prison yard, though …

  “You’ll have to take over, at least temporarily,” Carey added. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but give it a week or so. I’ll have to talk to the Caretaker Council to see what they want to do.”

  A week wasn’t that long. I could manage the bed and breakfast for a few days, then if things didn’t work out, call my probation officer. I wasn’t exactly eager to be thrown in jail and needed some time to come up with a solution the judge might listen to.

  A call to my lawyer might be smart, though.

  “Okay,” I agreed slowly.

  “Really? You’ll become the Caretaker?”

  “Sure. Why not.” It was only temporary anyway. “What can I do to help?”

  “I was wondering why she had you chopping wood. Maybe she knew this was coming,” Carey mused. “We need all the wood you chopped. I can have the savages move it, though. There’s a certain pattern they have to make with the logs.”

  “Right.” A chill ran through me. I’d been cursing the Caretaker for forcing me to chop wood, and she’d been planning her own funeral? These people were definitely not the normal sort.

  “You want to cook food for the wake?”

  “Yeah. Easy.” I perked up at the thought of not being banished to the hot afternoon sun again.

  “Carey, we need you now,” said a tall, dark-skinned Woli with a whole row of gold ear cuffs. She glanced at me. “Does she know?” she asked Carey.

  “Not yet,” Carey replied. “We’ll tell her later.”

  Tell me what? My brow furrowed, and I watched them walk away, not at all understanding what they were doing. With a shake of my head, I went to the pantry and scanned over everything. I had never made food for a wake. Was dessert appropriate? Did people skip meat like during Lent?

  After a long internal debate, I decided to play it safe and make something I knew to be good instead of guessing at what I should or shouldn’t do.

  “Lasagna it is,” I murmured. I began collecting the food stuffs I’d need and placing them on the table.

  Th
e screen door slammed open and closed, and I glanced up from organizing everything on the table.

  “Do not grieve. She lived well,” said one of the two Komandi though his gaze was on my breasts.

  “Thank you,” I replied.

  They eyed me, as if I wasn’t supposed to respond, then walked off into the house.

  Those people are just weird. In fact, all of them are. Other dimensional beings or aliens, they definitely had some funky quirks.

  I paused in my movement. How did I tell my lawyer or a judge about there being a portal between worlds?

  This was going to take some thought.

  I spent the rest of the day in the kitchen preparing for the wake of a woman I couldn’t stand. I was surprised to realize I still felt nothing really positive for her, even though she died.

  Was that a sign of me being a bad person? Or of how miserable I was here? Whichever it was, it made me feel guilty enough to want everything to be perfect for the funeral and wake. I went on break once when everything was done to change clothing before joining everyone out back.

  The numbers of aliens had swelled, and I studied the clumps of people briefly in the flickering light of the bonfire they’d built beside the pyre where the Caretaker’s body rested. If I had to guess, each clan had sent someone of importance to the funeral. The man at the center of the Tili had vibrant purple tattoos and wore furs, and the head Woli carried a sword of gold. The guest of honor for the Komandi was dressed in a blue-dyed leather vest while the Nidiani leader wore a cowboy hat decorated with gems. The Bikitomani all wore grey jumpers except for the woman at their center, who wore all white.

  I stood back from everything. I had no real connection to the deceased, and the people appeared solemn at the loss of the Caretaker. I was out of place, a stranger among people who were in actuality strangers to my world.

  The affair was quiet. A member from each clan carried a torch from the bonfire to the pallet of wood where the enrobed body of the Caretaker lay. They simultaneously lit the kindling beneath the pyre and stepped away. One by one, the leaders of each group moved forward to toss something into the flames and offer words too quiet for me to hear. Once they were done, the rest of the people began filing forward to do the same.

  Seeing a dead body left me close to a panic attack. I watched her small frame burn. The smell made me sick to my stomach. Oddly enough, I didn’t feel it in me to leave. My presence went largely unnoticed, but my absence would probably draw attention when I was having a hard enough time struggling not to have a panic attack. I couldn’t deal with people or questions right now.

  It wasn’t the Caretaker dying that freaked me out. It was death in general. Ever since I woke up next to a dead body, I hadn’t been able to stand the idea of anyone dying. Even in movies. Even people I didn’t like.

  A meltdown was looming. Crossing my arms, I turned my back to the scene and closed my eyes, focusing on my breathing.

  The heat of the bonfire felt like it spread from behind me, to my side, to in front of me. Puzzled by the sensation, I cracked my eyes open. To my astonishment, the men and women of importance to the tribes were setting the house on fire.

  “What the hell is going on?” I gasped when I was able to register the insanity of what was happening before me. I started forward. My iPad, my clothes, my phone charger … everything I’d brought with me was upstairs, except for the locket I always wore.

  “No, no, no!” Carey called from nearby.

  Someone wrapped an arm around my waist to stop me from running into the house, and I pushed away instinctively before looking up into the face of Teyan.

  “I don’t understand!” I blurted out, close to tears.

  “Caretaker is burned with her home, her possessions,” he said. “She must have somewhere to live where she’s going.”

  “But that’s my home, too,” I managed. Fire raced along the bottom floor of the farmhouse with sickening speed, and all I could think about was how I was headed to jail when someone found out. “I can’t do this anymore.” The weirdness of this place had been kept at bay for almost six weeks. Knowing she was burning behind me, and everything of value I owned before me, I lost it.

  I ran. Not into the house, because the fire terrified me, but around it and down the driveway. My eyes blurred with tears until I could hardly see what was in front of me. My only thought was of escape from here, from my broken world, from my life and me. I didn’t care if every law enforcement agent came to get me the moment I stepped outside the property. They were coming for me tomorrow anyway, and I had nothing else in the world to live for.

  I sprinted to the end of the driveway and didn’t even hesitate to leave the property where I’d been trapped with aliens for a month and a half. I bolted into the road, away from my past and everything else, and into the desert.

  Chapter Nine

  A blast of cold air stung my lungs and sight while brilliant, white midday sunlight blinded me. I raised my arm in front of my eyes, certain it had to be car headlights and I was about to be hit.

  Silence surrounded me and coldness was everywhere. I blinked away my tears to see the frozen tundra before me and dropped my arm to my side. My breath rose in tiny puffs of clouds towards a sky closer to the color of tanzanite than blue. The ground beneath my sandals was cold enough for the chill to reach the soles of my feet.

  This wasn’t the desert. I stood on a plain with low hills covered in pristine, periwinkle-hued snow and edged in the distance by trees of a hue more blue than the green I was accustomed to. I was shivering from cold or shock or perhaps both, staring at the foreign world around me without understanding what the hell had happened.

  The world starts at the end of the driveway, one of the cheerful cowboys had said.

  It was so still, so quiet. Too cold to be peaceful, too different to be real.

  The snort from some kind of animal came from behind me, and I turned, expecting to see the burning house and the Arizona desert.

  Both were gone. A hill was directly behind me and something far worse quickly racing towards me. The creatures fast approaching were out of Jurassic World. Men rode atop them like horses, yet the beasts were unmistakably dinosaurs. One man rode a triceratops the size of an elephant while two others sat atop truck-sized dinosaurs with long tails and the fourth man rode a giant lizard. The smallest of the mounts, the lizard was low enough to the ground for its belly to scrape the snow. All four beasts wore harness contraptions over their heads. The men atop them were Komandi – and they looked pissed.

  I’ve finally lost it.

  Running had gotten me wherever this was. Would it get me back as well? Because I wasn’t about to wait for the unfriendly riders or risk their terrifying dinosaurs trying to eat me.

  I sprinted. Snow crunched beneath my sandals. The air burned my throat as I sucked in quick breaths, and I had the urge to breakdown where I was and sob until someone took me home.

  Something tripped me, jarring me out of my thoughts once more, and I slammed onto my knees and face planted. It took me a few seconds to recover my senses. I sat up and started to rise only for my sandal to snag on something. Twisting to see if I’d hit a branch or something, I froze in horror.

  The wormlike creature biting my sandal strap was the size of a can of soda and five times longer. It was pulling me with strength I didn’t expect it to have in the direction of several more of the worms.

  In fact, the ground was covered with them. What I thought was snow and ice was worms, and they were starting to wriggle and shift beneath me.

  With a strangled cry, I scrambled up only to realize the creatures had a hold of more than my sandals. My braid was clutched by two, my shirt by three more and one was nipping unsuccessfully at my leggings.

  I panicked and kicked at those near my feet then struggled to be free.

  A shadow passed over me. Something smashed into the one holding my sandal and someone wrenched me off the ground, smashing a flat club against
the worms to free me. He held me tightly against his warm body, smelling of espresso and bonfire, and I watched the worms nearest us scurry and roll away. They shied away from his boots, as if there was something about them that didn’t taste good.

  “Did they bite you?” came the low, urgent question.

  I struggled to catch my breath, uncertain if I was mid-psychosis or if something even worse had happened. “N…no,” I panted.

  The club lowered to his side, and I twisted my head, risking a look up at whoever had killed the creatures to save me. Teyan’s eyes were the same shade of light tanzanite as the sky, his skin midnight in hue. The stark combination of color was the most beautiful I’d ever seen, and I stared up at him.

  “You should not have come,” he said gently, his grim expression on the ground around us.

  “I didn’t mean to,” I whispered, stricken. Being in his arms made me panic a little inside, but not as much as facing the worms again. “What is this place?”

  “Komandi.”

  “Oh, god.” I squeezed my eyes closed. I’d gone to a different planet, a different dimension, by accident.

  “Stay behind me.” He released me.

  I wobbled, my attention dropping to my feet. No worms ventured closer, even when Teyan moved away to greet the men on dinosaurs I had forgotten about.

  I turned to watch him, shivering in the frigid air. Unlike me, Teyan was dressed for the cold in his layers of velvet and leather. The Komandi likewise were prepared. They drew to a halt about twenty feet away. One slung himself off the giant lizard he rode and approached.

  Teyan extended both his hands, palms up, and spoke a few short words with a bow of his head.

  The leader of the Komandi glanced at me, his gaze lingering for a moment before he responded to Teyan. The exchange was brief and stoic. I wasn’t able to tell if it went well or not from their expressions. But after a short conversation, Teyan returned to me.

  I was struck again by his confidence and the way he carried himself. These weren’t his people, but he wasn’t afraid.

  “I have no alliances with his people. We will have to go to their village,” he reported.

  “Is that b…bad?” I asked through chattering teeth.

  His tanzanite eyes fell to mine, and the skin around them softened. “Not necessarily.” He detached the long, bulky cloak that added size to his frame and draped it around my shoulders. The soft velvet was warmed from his body. I huddled into it. “But they will have to contact someone from my clan who has an alliance with them before they can consider freeing us.”

  “Sounds complicated.”

  His brow furrowed. “It is not.”

  We gazed at each other, and I realized he didn’t quite get my world and its customs, even if he was a regular visitor.

  The lizard got a little too close. I started to back away when its rider snatched my arm. I pulled away, eyes flying to Teyan.

  “We are guaranteed safe passage,” he said quickly. “They believe you to be a lost Caretaker, and I have told them we are allied. They will respect you as they do me, as cousins.” He nodded his head towards the Komandi warrior close to his size who still had hold of my arm. “We are near a Komandi outpost. They will take us there.”

  I had no reason to trust anyone, but there had always been some connection between Teyan and me since the night I didn’t pass out trying to keep him alive.

  I went with the Komandi warrior. He lifted me on top of the lizard and climbed up behind me. He was warm, and combined with the cloak, my shivering soon stopped.

  The lizard ride was much smoother than I expected. The rider guided the creature over the tundra and into the forest whose leaves were indeed blue. Tree trunks were white or black, and the occasional shrub crimson. The colors were vibrant, rich, astounding.

  And completely abnormal. My heart was flying as we followed a wide path through the forest and across a set of snowy hills. The ride ended at a small village consisting of large, rounded igloos squatting beside a slowly moving river whose waters were the shade of green the trees should have been. Boats made of blue ice floated in the river.

  The Komandi lowered me to the ground and dismounted before freeing the lizard. The creature ran away, towards a snowy enclosure of hills, and joined a herd of dinosaurs that appeared to be eating the ice worms.

  My skin crawled at how foreign this place was and yet how normal the people looked. Aside from Teyan’s Technicolor eyes and skin, he appeared to be a normal guy my age.

  He motioned for me to follow him. We were escorted by the warriors to one of the smaller igloos near the center of the village-sized outpost, past a great many Komandi warriors, both men and women dressed for the cold and armed to the teeth.

  Teyan entered the igloo, and I trailed him. The inside was warm and lit not by a fire but by what appeared to be a glowing ice block at its center. The small house contained a main section with beds whose mattresses resembled long pillows and a sitting area and what looked like an ice bathroom behind a curtain.

  We were left alone in the igloo. I glanced around at the colorful rugs and blankets piled everywhere before sitting down with my back against the wall. I was close to an anxiety attack and fighting it hard.

  I felt Teyan’s gaze on me but didn’t look at him, not sure what I was supposed to say or do at this point.

  “Why did you run?” he asked.

  I hugged my knees to my chest and breathed in his scent from the cloak. “I was scared,” I admitted. “I didn’t know about any of you until recently. That you weren’t from my … world. And we don’t burn people and their houses.”

  “Where will they live when they cross over?”

  “They don’t take their bodies. So they don’t need a house.”

  His brow furrowed. “This is an interesting belief.” By the way he said it, he wasn’t buying it. For some reason, his skepticism helped me relax, perhaps because I knew I wasn’t the only one confused at that moment.

  “Do you live in a place like this?” I asked, gazing around the igloo.

  “No.” He smiled. “The Komandi are honorable but they are also barbarians.”

  “I’ve heard the Tili described as the same,” I replied, puzzled.

  “By the visiting Caretaker?”

  I nodded.

  “He has no warm feelings for the Tili, even if our people are allies.” Spoken with candidness, the words were nonetheless terse.

  “You don’t like him,” I murmured.

  “We are allied with his kind out of necessity.”

  I recognized a touchy topic when I saw one. I had no interest in politics whatsoever, not those of my world or anyone else’s. I wondered, though, if being barbarians was on a sliding scale. The Tili certainly gave off the appearance of being little more civilized than the Komandi.

  “Can I go home?” I whispered.

  “Yes,” Teyan replied without hesitation. “They will want to talk to my people first.” He pulled out the chain with five tokens from a pocket. “None of these are Komandi. They will need to speak to someone they trust about me.”

  “Because you don’t have many alliances,” I said and gazed at the charms. “Are you poor?”

  He lowered them and stared at me.

  “Sorry. I’m not trying to pry or offend you,” I said, my cheeks warm. “You only have five and everyone else who visited the house had dozens or hundreds.”

  His mouth was open but nothing came out. He didn’t seem to know what to say.

  “Carey … the visiting Caretaker … said wealthy men collect them,” I continued. “So I assumed, because you didn’t have many, you’re, uh, …”

  “Poor,” Teyan finished.

  I nodded.

  “And this bothers you.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t care. I’m the Prisoner. I don’t judge anyone else because I know how it feels. I felt bad when I took your penny because I didn’t want it to be what you needed to buy food or somethin
g.”

  He cocked his head to the side.

  I had the impression we were speaking two different languages, even when …

  “Wait,” I said. “How can you understand me? How can I understand you? When we met, I couldn’t.” My mind raced. He had spoken to me before we left my world for this one, and I understood then.

  “Because you are a Caretaker.”

  “No. Definitely not.”

  “Caretakers have the natural ability to understand and speak the languages of those they host. When the existing Caretaker died, she passed this ability on to you, her apprentice. If you were not a Caretaker, we wouldn’t be talking,” he reasoned with a faint smile. He seemed more at ease with this than me asking about his finances.

  Why hadn’t anyone told me this? Was this the Caretaker’s final act of messing with me? I had the feeling this wasn’t temporary, as Carey implied.

  At the moment, it was the least of my concerns. I wrapped the cloak around me more tightly then stood. “I can’t handle that right now,” I said and began pacing. My breathing was soon erratic, my panic attack close.

  “You are distraught. You must sit,” Teyan said and stood, crossing to me.

  I moved away quickly.

  “We are allies. I will not hurt you,” he said and held his hands out, palms up.

  “Just … just stay there. Please.” I hunkered down to the ground and held my head.

  “You are ill?”

  “No … just … give me … a minute.” I covered my head with my arms and let the attack take me. It was a mild one. No crying and only some trembling. My heart didn’t feel like it was going to explode, but my head did. When it passed, I steadied my breathing and lifted my head.

  Teyan was crouched too close to me, watching with a concerned expression tightening his exotic features.

  I pushed myself away. “I need some space.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “Nothing I want to discuss.”

  He appeared troubled by my refusal to say more and returned to his side of the weird ice block warming the igloo. We sat in quiet for a long time, until I grew drowsy rather than scared. He rested back against a pile of blankets, his hard features facing the ceiling. The guy had a seriously chiseled profile. He was too stoic to read, too quiet for me to be comfortable.

  “Did I offend you?” I asked when my emotions felt settled enough to talk.

  “No,” he answered.

  “Is it rude here to ask why someone has a lot or a few alliances?”

  This drew a snort of amusement. “No.”

  Whatever. I still had no clue why he reacted so weirdly to me thinking he was poor.

  “Your world does not have alliances like mine does,” he observed, twisting his head for his eyes to find me. They were the color of black ice, opposite his pale skin.

  “No,” I said, distracted. “How do your eyes turn colors like that?”

  “How do yours not?”

  “Because I’m …” normal. For my world at least. “Okay. Never mind.”

  “Why are you a prisoner in your world?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I mumbled.

  “In my world, an alliance means you don’t have secrets. Anything you tell me can never be passed on,” he said with such gravity, I started to smile.

  I considered him. He was my ticket out of here. It wasn’t this that made me want to talk to him. Teyan’s intensity was unsettling, but I sensed, beneath it, he was a good person. He’d tried to help me learn to chop wood and given me what might have been his only possession and … I’d been drawn to him since the day he almost died.

  I liked Teyan in a very different way than I liked Carey.

  “I killed someone,” I said quietly.

  “Just one?”

  “Um, yeah.”

  He sat up and unbuttoned the cuffs of his sleeves. “It is a crime in your world?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  He pushed up his sleeves to display round dots tattooed along the inside of his forearms. Most were black, though several were yellow. “I have killed more than one.” He indicated the dots.

  My eyes flew up to his. “Those … each one … my god. How many?”

  “Two hundred and eleven.”

  My mouth dropped open. “No.”

  He was studying me once more. “The first is the hardest.”

  I wasn’t physically ready for another panic attack, but I wasn’t about to sit here with a mass murderer, either. I leapt to my feet and bolted for the door.

  Teyan caught me with speed that scared me as much as the dots on his arm. He wrapped his arms around me, and I struggled to be free, hating the feeling of being caged.

  “You run when you are frightened,” he said, grunting with effort to hold me. “I understand. I have scared you and I ask your forgiveness.”

  What did I say to that? I felt like I’d just run a marathon. My body was weak, and I wanted to cry. I stopped fighting him and went still.

  “Why … how did you kill so many?” I gasped out.

  “My people have been at war for many generations. I take life only in defense of my family. Can you understand this?”

  Not really, but I nodded, not wanting this to turn ugly on me.

  He bent and scooped me up. Teyan carried me to one of the pillowy mattresses and set me down then knelt beside me, as if to ensure I didn’t run again.

  I sat up. With my back to the wall, I had nowhere to go. He didn’t seem aware of the fact he was crowding me. If anything, he appeared concerned.

  “We only kill when necessary,” he added.

  How could killing over two hundred people ever become necessary, especially for someone my age? Unaware of my thoughts, or how close I was to panicking, Teyan pulled his chain of charms free from a pocket.

  “You have nothing to fear from me, Gianna. This,” he held up the five tokens, “means you are mine to protect in my world, and I am yours to protect in yours. I know it is different in your world, but do you understand this? That I cannot hurt you, or I will be tried and hanged by my people?”

  He was so sincere, so concerned, I found myself nodding.

  Teyan relaxed some.

  “I’m sorry I don’t understand your world,” I whispered. “We don’t kill like that in mine.”

  “But you did.”

  “He attacked me. Tried to …” I drifted off and looked away. “Never mind.”

  “They imprisoned you for it?”

  I nodded once more, my throat tight. I focused on calming my breathing.

  “That would not happen in my world. You had a right to his life, if he hurt you.” He eased away, and I released my breath. “I am not poor.”

  I lifted my gaze, uncertain how being poor was so much worse than murdering two hundred people. It was a touchy subject. That much I could hear in his tone. “It doesn’t matter to me if you are,” I said.

  “Is it normal in your world not to care for another’s treasury?”

  “Um … I don’t know how to answer that,” I replied. “Many people care about money more than anything else, but it’s not supposed to be that way. I’m not like that because … because my mother is a good person who taught me there was something more important. Like family. And friends and exploring our world and being a good person.”

  Teyan nodded slowly. “Your mother is very wise.”

  More of my fear melted. “Yeah. She is.” I agreed and then frowned. “Are you sure we’ll make it home?”

  “Yes.” His confidence stilled some of my fear. He shifted and moved to sit beside me, his rich scent reminding me of Saturday mornings, when my mother and I went to the local coffee shop for breakfast. It was one of our silly traditions I didn’t realize how much I missed until now.

  Teyan’s shoulder rested against mine, and he pulled a pouch from his belt and opened it, peering into it.

  I gazed at his profile, a little intimidated by him, when another thoug
ht occurred. “You followed me here, didn’t you?”

  “You have no Komandi allies.”

  “So you came to help me.”

  He nodded.

  “Because that’s what allies do?”

  “Yes.”

  He seemed to find this all simple, but it was far more complicated than just calling the Komandi and telling them to bring me back. Then again, this wasn’t my world, and I definitely didn’t understand their traditions. “Why don’t you have more allies?”

  Teyan lifted his gaze from his pouch and studied me for a long moment. Our faces were inches apart, and I was trying hard not to notice how close we really were.

  “No secrets,” I reminded him, just a little facetiously.

  He tugged his chain of alliance pieces out of another pocket once more and held it up in the space between us. “I rarely leave my village. The first time I did was when I met you. I was on a hunting trip when I was injured. My people brought me to the nearest place for help, which was the Caretaker,” he explained. “I have not the chance to make many allies, and my father has instilled in me the need to be cautious about those I do choose. Some great men will collect alliances like prizes. I do not do this, and neither do the others in my family. This,” he shook the ring of random treasures on the alliance ring, “is for the extent of our lives. You cannot make such a promise without great thought.”

  “No, you can’t,” I agreed, once more mystified by how the charms stayed on the ring with no visible attachments. “Who are the other four?”

  He smiled and dropped the pouch he’d been digging through onto his thigh. He touched a charm that appeared to be a chunk of silver. “My brother’s wife. She was from a lesser tribe but one with many resources we needed. We all took an oath to protect her people from our enemies, and then she chose to wed my eldest brother and unite our tribes,” he replied. “This was my first alliance.” He touched an intricately carved piece of wood and the metal ring beside it. “His name is Syklyn, and he is my closest friend. We grew up together and have gone to battle together on many occasions. I took two oaths to him, one of friendship, and the second signifies we will always come for the other, if one of us is captured by our enemies.” He moved onto one resembling a miniature knife. “This is my mother’s brother, who was killed in battle. With his last breath, he made me swear I’d protect his children until they were of an age to fight.”

  Struck by the nearness of these people to him – family or friends he’d grown up with – I was quiet for a moment, confused. I offered no resources, long term friendship or ability to protect him from anything. He owed me no loyalty whatsoever.

  “Why did you choose me?” I asked finally, eyes on the misshapen penny we had exchanged.

  “I like you,” he said simply.

  My cheeks grew hot and I ducked my gaze. Did he mean like or like-like? Without knowing him, it wasn’t possible to guess.

  The quiet that stretched between us was awkward. He cleared his throat and fiddled with the charms before putting them away. I sensed he didn’t know what to say anymore than I did.

  “Well you shouldn’t like me. It’s a mistake,” I said with a sigh.

  “It is not a mistake.”

  “It is. I hope your other allies were better choices.”

  Amusement flickered through his gaze. “You are not a bad choice.”

  “You know nothing about me, Teyan,” I returned with more heat than I intended. “Unlike you, I am poor, a criminal and the Caretaker hated me.”

  “I do not care for these things.”

  I frowned at him. He was more confident about me being a worthy ally than I was about anything in my life. He really had no clue who I was, though, or that I hadn’t planned on him being an actual friend. “I’ll just disappoint you, Teyan,” I said.

  “It is not possible.” His gaze was steady, intent as always, and his tone firm enough I wanted to believe him.

  It was nice to have someone look at me without finding every fault I was already aware of, even if it didn’t last, and even if he was an alien. I had a way of screwing up my life beyond repair, and I wasn’t at all clear how the knowledge of alternate universes and Teyan fit into anything.

  “Thank you,” I murmured and dropped my gaze. My eyes settled on his arms, where the markings of each life he’d taken were prominently displayed. “Those people. They were bad?” I asked.

  “These are enemies, not people,” he corrected me with the same firmness and touched the black marks, which made up probably over two hundred of the tattoos.

  “I don’t understand. Your enemies aren’t people?” I asked.

  “No. They are beasts.”

  My brow furrowed. “You mean animals?”

  He shook his head. “Monsters.”

  I almost told him monsters didn’t exist then recalled I was sitting in another dimension talking to an alien.

  “Not people,” I said, somewhat relieved to realize he wasn’t running around massacring people. “What are the yellow ones?”

  “Traitors.” This answer was softer, and he touched his arm, rubbing long fingers the length of his forearm. “The Five Peoples have been allied since shortly after my birth. But often, there are some who defect, or who turn on us under the influence of mind madness or false promises from our enemies.”

  I didn’t exactly follow how monsters could promise anyone anything, but clearly, there was much I didn’t know about these worlds. “You have to kill traitors,” I murmured.

  He nodded. “Carey’s people tend to betray us often,” he added. “They wish to be on the winning side, and will sacrifice who they must to ensure it is so.”

  Carey’s not like that. I almost said the words aloud, but something in the sudden hardness of Teyan’s features stopped me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said lamely instead. “We don’t have monsters or war on this scale in my world.”

  “We know this.” He drew a deep breath and shrugged the tension out of his shoulders before reaching for the pouch on his thigh. “Your world is very young. We protect you from them.”

  “From the monsters?”

  He nodded. “Your people would not survive a week if our enemies came through the portals. We hide the existence of your world from them and defend the portals should they find them.”

  It was hard for me to understand this logic, when I considered the Komandi rode dinosaurs and I had an iPhone. Even Teyan’s style of dress seemed … antiquated and uncivilized to me.

  Perhaps, though, whatever threat they fought, they were better suited to do so than we humans were. I didn’t know – and I was afraid to learn more about monsters existing. I felt fragile enough seated beside him in a space igloo.

  “So you all protect us,” I murmured.

  “Yes. We have seen them destroy other worlds. It will not happen to yours.” He fished what he sought out of the pouch and held it in the center of his palm. The smooth, plain rock was round.

  He offered it to me, and I picked it up, uncertain what I was supposed to do with it.

  “Like this.” Teyan took one of my hands and flattened it, then placed the rock in the center of my palm.

  He likes me. His touch made me freeze, and my thoughts scattered, leaving me staring stupidly at the rock and trying to gather my faculties again before he noticed.

  “It will show you your dearest memory,” he told me. “The one that will help comfort you while we are here.”

  “How …” I gasped. No sooner had the word left my mouth then a holographic type image of my mother and father appeared on the rock. They were about four inches tall, smiling and laughing. I recalled this scene as if it had been only last week and not almost ten years ago.

  It was the day before we learned of my father’s stage four cancer diagnosis. We had gone upstate and spent the day on my uncle’s boat, anchored half a mile from shore, fishing. It was the last happy day of my life.

  “Your parents?” Teyan was looking from me t
o the three dimensional photo and back again.

  Unable to speak, I nodded. Tears blurred my eyes, and I wiped my cheeks hastily. Afraid to break down sobbing in front of Teyan, I squeezed my hand around the rock. The image of my parents disappeared.

  “I will ensure we leave here,” he said. “You do not need to worry, Gianna.”

  I nodded once more, buying into his conviction. “Thank you,” I whispered. Struggling to regain my composure, I was too aware of his intent gaze scouring my face. “What … what do your tattoos mean?” I asked, needing to keep him talking while I put myself back together again.

  “Mean?” he echoed. “We are born with them. They appear on our faces first, and when we are of age, they appear on the rest of our bodies. It is a day of celebration when the tattoos emerge.”

  I listened. I wanted to see the memory again, but I was afraid of my reaction.

  “You have none at all,” Teyan said with some disbelief. His fingertips touched my cheek, and I blinked out of my heavy thoughts.

  He seemed intrigued by the fact I had no markings, his gaze roving across my face while his warm fingers rested on one cheek.

  “It is very strange to me,” he said finally and dropped his hand with a shake of his head.

  “You are very strange to me,” I replied.

  He smiled and met my gaze. At once, I wished we weren’t sitting so close. Handsome, strong and brave, Teyan was incredible – but I didn’t need an alien complicating my life.

  His intentness, and the warmth in his eyes, left me no doubt as to what he meant when he said he liked me. He didn’t take an oath of alliance out of fleeting admiration for someone different. He liked me enough to swear his life to help me, if I needed it.

  I had no idea what to think of this.

  My face felt hot, as did my insides, and I found myself yearning to know what it was like to trust someone again, to spend time with Teyan and maybe, even go on a date or something.

  The thoughts made me uncomfortable, because of the heat and thrill working through my system, but also because I couldn’t let go of the fact we were so different.

  I looked away, confused by my body’s reaction, and how Teyan’s kindness left me an emotional mess.

  “Forgive me,” he murmured. “You are a Caretaker. I should show you more respect than I have.”

  “It’s not you, Teyan,” I whispered. “You are … amazing. I wish I was more like you. You’re not afraid of everything like I am.”

  “Do not worry, Gianna,” he said again. He shifted and wrapped an arm around my shoulders then pulled me into his body. “When my little sister is sad, I hold her like this.”

  My pulse raced, and I was afraid to move for a long moment. I hesitated then carefully let my body weight rest against him. “How old is she?” I asked.

  “Eight winds, and she can already carry a weapon,” he said with some pride.

  Uncertain what to do, I let my head rest on his shoulder.

  I liked this. A lot. Should I have been this comfortable with a stranger?

  “What’s her name?” I asked.

  “Sayla, and she will be twice my size if she doesn’t stop growing.”

  I smiled, touched by the affection in his tone.

  Teyan began talking about his sister and how, as the second youngest, he had been the one to raise her after their mother’s death when he was twelve and his sister two. Exhausted and comfortable with him, I wasn’t able to keep my eyes from drooping closed before long.

  It was kind of creepy to fall asleep on a different planet with an alien stranger holding me. Teyan was different, and I felt at home with him, even though we were literally worlds apart.

  Despite my worry, I fell asleep quickly to the sound of his low voice.