Wide windows allowed light to filter onto stone floors, the interior just as colourful as the outside. He felt like a children’s toy wandering around a mansion. Generally, the stories told of giants living at the top of beanstalks, but that would be too obvious.

Table legs as tall as buildings didn’t fill him with confidence, though.

Off the disproportionate hallway were several doors, equally massive. Managing to push a few open, he discovered a mound of gold and jewels, a closet of literal skeletons—these were normally sized, some still armed and armoured—and a gargantuan hole in the ground full of what he could only assume was foul-smelling building material.

The rest of the place smelled fresh, of nectar and honey wafting through the window slats. Stone walls were smooth to the touch. His exploration showed him a basic kitchen with a dining room, though the proportions left him increasingly convinced the chimp was playing something straight for once. This was a giant’s abode.

But it was also Laputa, so he didn’t care. Dreams were made of this.

He almost checked a door off the kitchen, but thought better of it. There was no need for him to know the contents of a giant’s pantry, especially if the skeletons were anything to go by.

The rest of the doors proved immovable, so he sidled to the end of the hallway where one stood ajar. Though he tried to remain nonchalant, fear stabbed at him—everything was so huge. He kept imagining ants the size of horses swarming and attacking him, sucking all the fluid from his body. He shuddered.

“Don’t be stupid,” scolded Razor. “You’re not smaller; everything else is bigger.”

So to the occupant, he was probably an ant. Great. You’re not helping.

She quieted as he stepped into what appeared to be a sitting room: wide and airy, a throne the size of a battleship in the centre, surrounded by mountains of junk. Old children’s toys, discarded clothing scraps, and even a few books littered the floor. Wading through it, Jack approached one of the windows. The bottom ledge was twenty feet high. After a rocky climb and several jagged scrapes, he heaved himself up. He looked out.

He stopped breathing.

The spring meadow that had sprouted on top of the stalk was beautiful enough, but the sight beyond it inspired him. Wispy white clouds rolled across the sky, shielding from view the vast expanses of farms and woodland below. Everything was tiny. Like looking at a map, with only broad outlines and no discernable details. Was that speck of dots the village? He couldn’t tell.

A rumbling broke him from his reverie, the shaking of the floor almost sending him tumbling from the ledge. Catching himself, he scrambled down, jumping the last few feet and groaning as his ankles crunched.

From behind the throne, a figure emerged. At least thirty feet tall, a woman with brown hair and freckles and wide eyes glared down at him, stifling a yawn. She wore what looked like massive blue curtains wrapped to make a form of toga.

Stretching, she didn’t take her eyes off Jack, who stood gawking. He’d suspected this, but that didn’t make the encounter any less disturbing. His knees trembled as his heart cut off the escape path for his words, skin freezing as though encased in ice.

The giant stepped forward. Her massive foot shot up a cloud of dust, and Jack fell backward, jaw clenched. She reached down—giving him a view of hands bigger than a list of America’s war crimes—and plucked him by the back of his shirt.

He screamed, muscles going slack as he flailed. The giantess pulled him ever upward—though he was certain he’d left his stomach behind—and held him level with her face.

This set into a pout as she said, “here I am, trying to take a nap, and I find yet another intruder. Haven’t you people taken enough from me?”

Yet another? Taken enough? What the bloody hell was this woman on about? His jaw trembled.

“Well?” she demanded, pout becoming a scowl. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

There were a million and one questions running through his head, but running the rest of his body was the sensation of his skeleton trying to escape his skin, so he only managed to say:

“Uh, fee-fi-fo-fum?” He gave a lop-sided smile.

She continued glaring, lip quivering as her grip threatened to tear his already-abused shirt.

“Isn’t the giant supposed to say that?”

He threw his arms up. Well, I’m open to suggestions!

With a sneer, the giant pulled him closer, staring deep into his eyes with a single one of hers. “Aren’t you supposed to be trying to slay or threaten me by now? You’re not very good at this, you know.”

“I think you have me mistaken,” he said, scratching his head. “I didn’t even know you were up here. Just looking for some magic, then I found Laputa and you know, when you find Laputa you kind of have to go inside. It’s tradition.” He gave a nervous chuckle.

Razor returned with an aggrieved sigh.

The giant furrowed her brow. “What is a ‘Laputa’?”

Jack grinned. “I’m glad you asked.”

***

Everything was so alien.

Aside from the fact there weren’t actually any aliens, but still. Hannah had never seen anything like it: from the vast metal amphitheatres to the fully digital displays, it was like something from a sci-fi novel.

Which, she supposed, wasn’t entirely inaccurate—she wasn’t sure what genre she was meant to be in anymore.

Her chest burned, and she fought to keep from mauling Dr. Wen. She walked alongside him, through a maze of cramped metal corridors and doors marked with assignments that meant nothing to her. The time traveller ummed and ahed, gesticulating before turning every corner. He pressed a couple of displays before continuing.

“We’re lost, aren’t we?” she said, a vein throbbing in her forehead.

“Of course not!” He spun around, brow furrowed, and surveyed the area. It was another corridor, full of silver and screens and buttons and doors. He tapped the panel for one, at the end, and it slid open with a whirr. Face brightening, he turned to regard her. “See! Come and take a look.”

She followed him into a massive room with wall-sized windows on the other side. These showed a vast shipyard, futuristic clamps holding spaceships of various sizes and colours, an open hatch revealing the inky black of space. Stars lit up the vista, a million pinpricks in the distance. Clamps whirred and moved, ships docking and leaving.

The observation deck was wider than it was long, the metal walls painted white, the floor the same colour. Lighting was dimmer here, as if to show off the beauty of space. A smattering of people milled around or stood watching.

She found it pretentious.

“Magnificent!” Dr. Wen held his arms wide as he backed in, drawing the attention of a few people within. “The beauty of a space station. In my time, we still hadn’t gotten this far—a breathtaking sight, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yeah, sure.” Folding her arms, she glared at him. Maybe in different circumstances, she would have marvelled, filled by a sense of wonder. All that filled her now was a prickly feeling in her stomach.

Dr. Wen skipped over to a tall man with dark hair and a jumpsuit, and she trudged after him.

“Good, er, day!” he said, hands behind his back. “Is one of them yours?”

“Yeah,” said the man, pointing through the glass at a sleek black cruiser. “The Don Quixote.”

Purring, Dr. Wen smiled. “She’s lovely.”

“Yeah,” said the man. “Wonder what she’ll be when she grows up, though.”

Hannah’s eye twitched. “It’s not a damn baby.”

“Dr. Cornelius Wen,” said the doctor.

“Captain Jim Golden,” Golden replied. “Pleasure.”

“Oi, Jim!” came a rough female voice from the side. “Who’s this, then?”

A pair of figures approached. One was a dark-skinned woman—impossibly tall with hair that stood in curls—and the other was… well…

She clenched her jaw. Never mind finding Jack, they’d have to avoid a lawsuit first.

“These are my crewmates,” said Golden, gesturing to the woman. “Naomi.”

“Is the author even trying anymore?” said Hannah, hissing.

He turned his hand to the other figure. “And an engineer I picked up along the way. His name’s Winnie. Winnie the Pooh.”

The yellow bear reached a hand into its clay pot, withdrawing a handful of honey and sucking on it.

Steam could have escaped her ears. “Haven’t we already done this joke?” she whispered to herself.

“Forgive me,” said Dr. Wen, “but isn’t that just a rip-off?”

Naomi’s nose twitched. “Aren’t you a rip-off?”

Stifling a scream, Hannah said, “this entire novel is a rip-off! Most importantly, does anyone know anything about runes?

Naomi and Golden shrugged at each other. “No clue,” said Golden, “but Winnie might know.”

The bear held his pot up to his face, eyeing the inside.

“Like hell!” said Hannah, growling. “He doesn’t know anything; the only thing that fat fuck can do is eat honey!”

A clattering rang out as the clay pot dropped to the floor. Whining, Winnie plodded over to the corner and sat, wrapping his arms around his knees. She could almost see the rain cloud over his head.

Golden scowled. “You should probably go.”

She sputtered, shouting incomprehensibly as Dr. Wen dragged her through the room and back to the corridor.

“My dear,” he said as the door slid shut, “I understand that you’re angry, and worried for your friend, but that doesn’t mean you should take it out on others.”

A bitter taste flooded her throat. “You don’t understand anything. It’s not just my friend that’s missing—he’s my inspiration. That man wanders round saving everyone just cause it’s the right thing to do. And that’s what I wanna be. But for a person who saves and inspires everyone else, who’s supposed to save him?”

“I will,” he said, clasping his lapels. “You have my word, I will save your friend.”

“How? By running round doing whatever, like a child?”

Chuckling, he said, “we are all children, really. Floundering in the endless unknown and deceiving ourselves into believing that we have any control at all. But we don’t. All we can do is decide, one moment after another, and see where it leads us.”

He strode off, but she remained. Who did he think he was? Where did he get off spouting pseudo-philosophical bullshit like…

Like…

Like Jack. She scrunched her face and plodded after Dr. Wen. Maybe she could have retorted, but she couldn’t help considering his words.

Wherever he was, did Jack have any idea what he was doing?

***

“And then the kids took the kite to the pirates and left each other.” Sweat poured down Jack’s brow, and he panted. His retelling had gotten animated, and the giant had put him down before sitting cross-legged, eyes glued to him.

“Excellent, story time is finished. Shouldn’t you probably be getting to the point of our visit?”

She cocked her head, sniffling. “But that castle could fly, right? And this one can’t. So it can’t be Laputa.”

Tears threatened to burst free. “Don’t kill my dreams, dammit!”

“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling softly. “Maybe we can call it Lap*ta instead.”

His lips parted, eyes widening. “That asterisk, don’t tell me… you can break the fourth wall too?”

Looking around, she narrowed her eyes. “They have numbers?”

Well, that was annoying. The format of her dialogue screamed self-aware, for crying out loud.

“Shouldn’t you be more worried about, I don’t know, being eaten? Or, you know, the actual reason you’re here?”

“Which one would be the fourth wall of Lap*ta?” she asked.

“You did it again! What’s with the asterisk?”

“What asterisk?”

“Augh!” He gripped his temples.

She giggled. “I’m Salia. What’s your name?”

He told her.

“Jack,” she said. “I like you.”

“That sounds like you’re going to end up in an oven.”

Something fluttered in his chest. “You’re not so bad yourself. In that case, think you could answer a couple of questions?”

Straightening, she said, “in return for that beautiful story, I’ll give you any answer I can.”

“Right then. First, you know anything about magic?”

She smiled, closing her eyes. “Not a thing!”

His face fell. That had been his entire reason for ascending the beanstalk, and it was a bust. How was he supposed to get home now?

“Oh well,” said Razor. “I suppose you’ll just have to keep looking. On the surface.”

“What was the second thing?” asked Salia.

“What’s with the skeletons?” He swallowed his apprehension. She seemed sweet, and with what she’d said on their first meeting, curiosity overrode him. “Did they come to kill you?”

Frowning, she looked down at her knees. “No, they— they were my friends. I loved them. When they found me up here, we were all scared of each other, but we got to know each other. We lived out beautiful days in this corner of paradise, but I forgot how fragile humans are.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound suspicious at all.”

Would you shut up?!

A tear fell from Salia’s eye, her voice quaking. “When they started going all grey and wrinkly, I thought it was just a little human quirk and thought nothing of it. But one day, they wouldn’t wake up.”

“I’m sorry,” said Jack.

“Rather than her, say sorry to the readers who have to sit through this!”

Please, he thought, no-one’s still reading this nonsense.

“I know humans have rituals and things for dead ones,” Salia continued, “so I thought I’d follow one of them.” She wiped her eyes. “I dressed them up in their armour, like they were going on an adventure, and put their bodies on display for eternity—I think it was called a skeleton crew, or something.”

He blinked. “There’s so many things wrong with that, I don’t know where to start.”

“You could start with leaving.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, leaning down so her face was inches from his, “I won’t hurt you. Life is precious. And you’re really nice and you listen to me and don’t try to steal my stuff, and it’s been really lonely up here for a long time. Will you be my friend?”

Cocking her head slightly, she flickered eyelashes the length of a tree branch and fixed him with a wide, doe-like gaze.

How could he say no to that?