When Dara had first come to the college, she’d make the mistake of accepting an invitation to a welcoming party, where Red Joy flowed freely.

The next morning, she’d wanted to die.

Right now, she felt about the same way. Dara was lying on some kind of soft material, but her eyes were gummy and she could barely think, given the pounding headache she had.

What happened… Did I… Had I gone to a party? Dara tried to think back, remembering the library, the chase, the… fall. She’d fallen. She’d fallen and…

She was here! Dara shot upright and tried to look around—

And then her head fell off.

Or that’s what it felt like. Dara whimpered and fell off the furniture, hitting the ground and just rested on the floor, groaning.

“Hey, are you okay?”

A woman’s voice. Dara blinked the flashing blobs out of her eyes and looked up. She didn’t recognize the woman leaning over her. She was wearing work pants, not a robe. And the lights… Dara closed her eyes in pain. Those weren’t torches, or mage lights, or anything she’d seen before. Instead of the natural flicker of a mage light emulating a bright candle or torch, the lights in the ceiling blazed down with an unnatural white light that sent stabbing lances of pain through her head.

“I—where am I?” Dara swallowed, trying to stop slurring her words. “I was in the air, and now…”

What happened? She was in the air, falling, fighting to get her spell working, and now she was here!

“Yeah, you know, normally people falling out of the air use a parachute.”

“Para…chute?” Dara blinked. “I used a spell.”

“Oh, great, you are definitely suffering from brain-to-asphalt syndrome. I’d hoped I’d make it through the day without being arrested, but let’s get you to the hospital.”

Arrested, what is she… “Wait!” Dara said. “Where’s my belt pouch?”

“Over there with your other cosplay stuff.” The woman raised her hands. “I didn’t look in it, just wanted to make certain you weren’t packing.”

“Packing?” What is she talking about? Dara got up and staggered to the little table where the pouch was. Please don’t be broken, please don’t be broken… She rummaged through it before she just let the contents fall onto the table. The keys to her dorm room, some notes, her favorite runescriber…

And the potion vial. Thank the gods… she uncapped it and quickly drank the glowing elixir.

“Whoa, you know, drinking glowing stuff isn’t a good idea.”

“What? It’s a potion,” Dara said. “I made it myself.”

“Really. Let me guess, you were taught by an angry potions master?”

“What? No!” Dara put her hand to her head as the painful headache subsided and she could see without flashing blobs of light filling her vision. And then Dara looked around. The room was…

Untidy. Between the unnatural lighting and the strange… Dara reached out and touched the table next to her, the material strangely slippery. The woman had curly brown hair and was wearing a sweater and… leggings. Dara blinked at that. Why isn’t she wearing robes? Is she a laborer, or did I catch her when she was going home?

“What’s this?” she asked, running her finger along the top of the table.

“What, you don’t have plastic in the sky?”

Dara looked at the woman, narrowing her eyes. “No. Where was the man I was chasing?”

“Didn’t see him. Just saw you fly out of the sky and stick the landing like a drunk superhero in the middle of the road before I hit you with my car. Sorry about that.”

“I… It’s okay,” Dara said. “But he had to be here. I chased him through the portal, and then we were…” She glanced around. “Wherever this is.”

“Welcome to Anaheim, California, home of Disneyland.” Then she folded her arms and frowned.

“Disneyland?”

“Okay, c’mon kid.” The woman stared at Dara. “I don’t know what kind of stunt you were playing, but it came damned close to getting you killed, and I bet whatever happy juice you just sucked down probably had a little impact on your mind, as in ‘were you out of it?’” She shook her head. “I almost called the ambulance for you, which would have led to the cops showing up, which wouldn't be good for your Aunt Millie. So since you didn’t have a camera with you, where are your friends? I want to tell you all that this is not the way to get likes on Youtube.” Her voice became a little more threatening. “Or were you intending on faking an accident and claiming I ran into you?”

“What? No!” Dara replied. “I was guarding the library, and someone stole a gem.” She paused. “He stole it from a statue. But then he opened a portal in the old temple, and I ended up here! I didn’t have anything to do with your tubes or faking anything! I need to find the thief!”

“Really. Kid, I think you may need to sit down. Because if you aren’t lying, you need to go to the hospital, where some nice men are going to figure out how hard you hit your head.”

“You don’t believe me?”

“No, sure, I believe you. Hey, you know, I have a little problem with money. Could you conjure some gold?”

Dara stared at her. “Alyson’s Fourth Theorem demonstrates that is impossible. Everyone knows that.”

“So you can cast magic, just not here, right? Let me guess, it requires something that you conveniently don’t have. C’mon, kid. A scam like that isn’t even a good scam, unless you believe it, which gets back to going to the hospital.”

“I—“ Dara bit off what she was going to say. She’s looking at me like I’m insane. “You don’t have magic.”

She woman started clapping, and Dara could feel the sarcasm rolling off of her.

“None of you have magic. Nobody knows magic.” Because if they had magic, everyone would know about it… unless… All those vehicles, those lights. How can they not have magic?

“Still going with that?”

“I…” Dara hadn’t been called a liar since she had been a little girl. “Fine! You want magic? I’ll show you magic!”

She held out her hands, and suddenly fire bloomed in them. She turned her hands over, letting the fire rest in her palms, as the two figures danced before one produced a sword and started dueling the other. Slowly they grew bigger until they hopped out of Dara’s hands, the heatless fire sending flickering shadows across the room.

“See now I—“

“AAAHH!” Millie screamed, and before the sound faded, the end of a broom swept across the figures, disrupting them as they vanished in a flash, and then… Dara fell back as she was…

“Did you hit me with a broom?”

“You know what brooms are—do you ride them?”

“What—no, I don’t ride brooms. Why would anyone ride a broom? Why did you hit me with a broom?”

“You cast a spell!”

“Because you didn’t believe me!”

“Well, why should I believe you? You show up with your blue hair and your cosplay clothes, and then talk about magic in English, and you can’t tell me people spoke English back home.”

“What are you talking about?” Dara said. “I’m not speaking Eng…lish…” She blinked. The words had come so naturally that she hadn’t even noticed she was speaking a different language. A language she’d never heard before. “That’s… that’s impossible!” Dara jumped up and started walking around, staring at her hands. “I can’t speak this language! I don’t know it! But it feels natural. How does it feel natural? Have I been possessed? Did something take my memories? Am I—” Her breath started coming faster.

“Whoa… okay, putting the broom down here. So you don’t have a magical spell that translates language?” True to her word, Millie put the broom down next to an overstuffed chair with lots of patches.

“What? No, that’s insane. Why would we have language classes at college if we could just cast a spell?” Dara could now hear how alien the words were, but they still flowed naturally as she spoke them. “I mean, you can summon a spirit, but that’s not something most people do because it’s easier to learn a language the normal way.”

“Right, so now, assume I didn’t bother to listen to anything you were saying because you were either a nut or someone looking for Youtube fame.”

“What’s… Youtube.”

“You speak English like a local, and you don’t know what Youtube is?” She paused. “What about my phone?”

“Um…” Dara stared at the small glass and metal tablet she’d produced. “No?” She looked away from Millie at the other objects. Some of them were obvious, and others, like that other big glass rectangle attached to the wall… It’s a TV. I know that, but I don’t know what a TV does… Then she inhaled. “The gem! The ritual! They really were going to other worlds!”

“Ah-huh, and that means?”

“Well, it wouldn’t make any sense to go to a world if you didn’t know the language, so somehow it gave me your language, but it didn’t give me the context behind it! I know the words, but not what they mean, unless I already knew it!”

“And why not?”

“I…” Dara sighed. “I don’t know. Until I got here, nobody believed going between worlds was possible, until that thief got the gem and somehow triggered the ritual.” She shook her head. “You really don’t have magic, do you?”

“Well, I knew a guy who could work magic with his tongu—” Millie stared down at Dara. “Maybe a story for later. Nope, I mean, people talk about magic, but it’s always something someone else saw, or they put it on the Internet, or a TV show where they can do special effects. Then we have magicians, but they don’t use magic—they do stage tricks and call it magic.”

“How… how are you even civilized?” Dara asked. “Without magic, how could people form…” She shook her head. “I need to get back home. I need to find the gem and get back home. Thank you for your help, but I need to go find that thief.”

Millie sat down in the big chair and stared at Dara. “How old are you?”

“I’ve seen seventeen summers.”

“Okay, I’ve ‘seen’ forty-five summers. And you’re just going to go running out into the night to find your thief. Do you know what he looks like?”

“Ah… no.”

“Where he landed?”

“No.”

“IF he landed? I mean, what if he just hit the pavement at terminal velocity or popped out over the ocean?”

Dara blinked. I hadn’t thought of that. They were right next to each other when they’d been pulled into the portal, so he should have been near her when Dara had appeared…” And since he didn’t, I have no idea where he might have gone. Which was bad because—“ The gem! He still has the gem!” Dara looked at Millie, eyes wide. “I can’t get back without the gem!” She jumped up. “I have to find him!”

“And we back to how are you going to do that?” Millie asked. “Look, kid, he didn’t go splat next to you, and let me guess. He’s probably never been here before.”

“No…”

“So he’s likely to stand out. Which means that you need to calm down and wait, and since you’re already at my house, you can eat, sleep and then start looking for your thief, and I can help you.”

“Help me.”

“Hey, you fell in front of my car. So it was fate that drew us together, to say nothing of making me a little money.”

“What?” Dara asked. “I can’t turn—“

“Don’t worry your little head about that. Millie will show you how to make an honest day’s wage.”

“Right…” I’m beginning to wonder about you.

“Besides, what are you going to do? Stay in a hotel?”

“No…”

“So let me get some food, and you can stay here. Tonight. Tomorrow, you’ll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and we can figure out what to do.”

“… I don’t have a tail.”

“Figure of speech.”

Dara looked at the woman. How can I trust her? On the other hand, she was right. It wasn’t like Dara could just go walking out. They don’t have magic. How can that be? Everything would be different, and from the way Millie had reacted…

“Fine.” Dara nodded. Then her stomach made an embarrassing gurgling sound.

“When did you last eat?”

“Ah, um… this morning?” She paused. “Wait, does this world even have the same time cycle?”

“Well, it’s nighttime here, so maybe?” Millie glanced back at her. “And it’s time for me to show you my magic.”

“You don’t have magic.”

“You haven’t seen my skill with the magic microwave!”

“Magic… microwave? Is that a ritual?”

“Sort of.”

With that, Millie led Dara out of the room to another room, this one full of mysterious objects. Dara stared at them. She knew the names, but… not what the names meant. She pulled a door open to a white box, and cool air played over Dara’s face as a light came on in the interior.

A refrigerator. Cool air… how is it doing that? It was humming, but Dara didn’t see any other sign of how it was kept cool. Maybe she buys ice? Some people who couldn’t afford spell-preserved food did that, but then why was it humming?

“Right, what TV dinner do you want? Turkey or teriyaki chicken?”

“Ah… Turkey?” Dara had no idea what the other was, so she went with the safe choice. The next thing she noticed was Millie opening two small paper boxes with oblong objects made of the same strange material she’d seen elsewhere. There was a transparent film over it, and Dara bent down. “This is… plastic? How is it different from the table?”

“Oh, you can make just about anything out of plastic,” Millie said. “I’m surprised you don’t have it.”

“No… what’s it made from?”

“Oil.”

Dara blinked. She understood the meaning, but… “Black water? This is made from black water?”

“Yeah, why?”

Dara stared at the food, sitting in the depressions on the platter. “Black water is… horrible! It stinks, it poisons everything around it—how can this…”

“Hey, I’m not a scientist. I’m a cook. And with that…” She cut a slit in the transparent film, and then put both objects in another box, this one with a transparent door. She closed the door and touched a few places on the front of the object, whereupon lights came on inside it as the food rotated. A microwave. But once again the word really didn’t mean anything.

How is she doing this? How is she doing this?

And just a few moments later, the door popped open, and the food, now steaming, was pulled out and put onto another table, this one thankfully made of wood.

Even if it looked like it was about to collapse.

“You know how to use forks?”

“Yes,” Dara said. Even if our forks look a little different. The turkey was… strange, the cuts different from what she was used to. And we have turkey, just like you do. How? Was there a gate that connected our worlds, long in the past? Dara shook her head as the need to fill her belly took over. Millie handed her a glass full of cold milk. Dara didn’t hesitate to eat it. She hadn’t realized how much she’d looked forward to getting something to eat after her shift in the library, and now… She stared at the empty plate.

Now I have no idea what to do. Dara shook her head and then yawned.

“Looks like you’re ready to hit the sack.”

Dara understood that. She shook her head. “No, I can…” Another yawn interrupted her words.

“Really.” Millie grabbed her plate and tossed it into the basin, where it competed for space with a pile of other plates. “Looks like you’re about to fall over. Since we’ve established I’m not going to call the cops or send you to Area 51, let me pull out the bed, so you can get some sleep, and tomorrow, we figure out what to do.”

“But I—” Millie didn’t let Dara finish her words as she got up and walked back into the bigger room. Bending down, she grabbed a handhold on her couch and pulled, a complex mechanism of metal and cloth folding out to reveal a bed. Dara wanted to ask another question, but a tremendous yawn interrupted her words once again, and she could barely keep her eyes open.

Healing potions often take a great deal out of the individual using them, this most often manifesting as sudden fatigue. The words of one of her teachers. Dara had never suffered that before. But I’ve never been hurt like that before either. And the bed looked very comfy. She could lay down for a moment and then get up and explain to Millie that she had to move fast.

Just one moment.

Just lie down, for one moment…

Millie stared at the strange kid who was now sleeping, her body half on, half off the bed.

Okay, strange girl falls from the sky and is now asleep. Guess it was a big day for her.

Not to mention the fact that she could do honest to God magic. Millie had dealt with more than a few scammers, and this girl wasn’t one of them. That spell she’d pulled off…

That had been real.

“Kid’s not a player, that’s for certain.” She’d said way too much and been way too trusting. A student, probably from the good part of town, or at least what counted for the good part of town, wherever it was she came from. If I just let her go, ten minutes tops until the cops get called on her. And then who knew what would happen? If she pulled that trick at the station, presuming nobody shot her, then she’d come to the attention of the government.

Millie wasn’t any conspiracy theorist, but you didn’t have to be to know what the government would do for actual magic.

“Well, first thing, we need to get you on the bed,” Millie told the sleeping girl as she grabbed her by the legs, lifting her up and moving her, so the girl’s body was fully on the bed. Next, she grabbed a blanket and put it over Dara.

Dara murmured something but didn’t wake up.

“Wow, you are really out of it,” Millie told the sleeping girl. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

With that, she turned the lights down and headed to her room. No need to freak the kid out by lurking over her like a vulture.

Especially if she might respond by turning Millie into a toad.

“Tomorrow is going to be interesting…” Milly murmured, but it was time for her to get to bed. Because tomorrow was probably also going to be exhausting, and she needed her beauty sleep.