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Selected Works 2025-2026
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There is something so beautiful about the carcass
of the bug on my bathroom floor:
Crisp and brittle.
A delicate, empty husk that once contained life.
Leftover.
Shiny and sleek.
So still,
so intricate.
You can finally appreciate
its prismatic colours
When it is dead
on its back.
I wonder why
People think bugs are scary.
I wonder if
its stillness is peaceful
I wonder why
people fear death.
This is an Ode
to the dead bug on my bathroom floor.
I hope it lived a good life.
If only I noticed its beauty
Before it was dead.
They say, I'll be beautiful once I lose ten pounds,
I’d be beautiful if I were blonde,
I’d be beautiful, but my nose is too big, my skin not smooth, my lips too small.
But I say beauty isn’t a concrete thing, not even a little bit, not at all.
To me, beauty is the mountains.
To her, Beauty is the sea.
For me, Beauty is the redwoods,
Freckles,
Sunsets,
My family,
Snowflakes,
The autumn leaves of a tree.
What’s so special about nature is
No two snowflakes are the same,
There is a variety in tree leaves,
And in the grains of sand.
The world is full of beauty,
It's in things you can and cannot see,
What I might see as beautiful
She might find ugly.
What is “pretty” is subjective.
We are all unique,
And we are all human.
To be human is to be beautiful.
July 23rd, 2009
Dorothea stood outside a public restroom in Sheep Meadow Central Park with a stony expression etched on her weathered face, a key lime green umbrella in one hand, and a cigarette in the other. She was a peculiar sight, with her large trench coat, silver chain girdle, lace bonnet, floral-patterned trousers, and turtleneck sweater, all worn on a stifling, cloudless day; her umbrella was the cherry on top that completed the look. Her appearance should have been enough to make passersby stop and stare, or at the very least, turn their heads, but luckily, she was in New York City.
She tapped her foot impatiently while inhaling a puff of smoke. Frank was running extraordinarily late. He was supposed to have been back three hours ago, and Dorothea held tardiness in absolute contempt. Her mind churned a slurry of vexation and unease. Her jaw clenched tightly as her grip on the handle of her umbrella grew taut. What if something had happened to him? What if he had run away or changed his mind? Indignation bubbled beneath her stoic exterior at the thought.
Dorothea Ward abhorred a multitude of things: gospel music, sweet potatoes, plaid pants, perogies, and 16th-century paintings, to name a few.
Frank often claimed she had a negative outlook on life. Dorothea refuted this, arguing that if he had been alive as long as she had, he would feel the same.
“For five hundred and sixteen years, I’ve experienced life,” she recurrently told him, “I’m bound to be opinionated on things. Plus, the amount of good in the world is negligible. Therefore, it is harder to love, than it is to hate.”
A lady in an “I Heart NYC” sweatshirt was walking toward her. An uncomfortable expression appeared on the woman’s face as she propelled herself forward, heading for the bathroom. Dorothea’s grip tightened instinctively on the handle of her umbrella as the woman approached.
“You can’t go in there,” she growled at the women, her voice withered away from centuries of smoke. Dorothea’s tone had come off a bit more combative than she intended. The cadence of her voice, combined with her frazzled, frosty white hair and choice of dress, made her a frightening sight. The lady’s eyes widened as she stepped away from the bathroom door.
“Oh…” the lady said with slight trepidation, “is it out of order?”
“Something like that,” Dorothea muttered, taking a menacing step towards the lady whilst stretching out her arms to further block the door. The draping of her trench coat sleeves made her look like an oversized bat.
The woman waddled away rapidly, clutching her stomach while cursing under her breath. Dorothea smiled, relishing in her success of a job well done.
Her career was one of the few things she actually enjoyed in life. For the fifty decades that she’d been a portal keeper, Dorothea had never once failed a mission; she even took pleasure in the work. It was fun! Locating the portals, protecting them, and then closing them. She felt as if she was doing a true service to her world and the Realm.
Dorothea even loved her job whenever she got an opportunity to complete a mission with Frank, and she never used that word haphazardly.
Frank’s personality was the epitome of joy. He was young by Dorothea’s standards, a new portal keeping apprentice from the Realm capital, Rusons. Frank found hilarity in everything and had an unbridled fascination with the commonplace world.
Frank’s obsession was precisely why Dorothea had been terrorising park-goers and picnickers who needed to use the bathroom to go elsewhere for the past three hours.
She had agreed to let him explore the city while she located and guarded the portal, so long as he was back by nine. It was now twelve fifteen, and Dorothea was cursing herself for her altruism; if Frank had been any other person, she would have sealed the portal and abandoned him three hours ago, without a second thought. Easily leaving him behind. Untouched by remorse or regret.
But Frank was special. So, she waited, resuming the impatient tapping movement of her foot, scanning her surroundings for incoming threats. Dorothea’s irritation toward Frank grew, slowly but surely, with each passing minute. Until finally, she truly considered ditching him.
Right as she had given up hope, Dorothea spotted a gangly, raven-haired boy frantically running toward her across the park lawn.
“I’M HERE, I’m here!” Frank panted red-faced as he stopped next to Dorothea, clutching a stitch in his side.
“You are three and a half hours late.” Dorothea scolded, crushing out her cigarette with the heel of her leather cavalier boots.
“I’m so sorry!” Frank breathed, still flushed and sweaty. “I was going to go to a place called the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but it wasn’t open and— Oh! I walked over this cute little bookstore— then there was this man selling something called a hot dog on the street! I ate one and it was SO GOOD, but I don’t think it is a breakfast food because the guy who I ordered it from looked at me funny. But anyway, I got distracted and—”
Dorothea used the front of her umbrella to strike him in the shin. Frank reacted to the blow in a seemingly more dramatic way than he should have; the force of her hit actually knocked him off his feet.
“Ow!” Frank moaned as he fell to the floor. He massaged his shin gingerly and glared at her. “That hurt!”
“I waited for three and a half hours because of a hotdog?” Dorothea cried, indignant. “I hate hotdogs! They are terrible!”
“You hate everything,” Frank muttered inaudibly.
Dorothea dragged Frank off the ground by the corner of his shirt sleeve and marched him into the girls’ bathroom.
“We are closing this portal now,” she commanded as she shut the bathroom door. “Before you find another way to ruin my day.”
Frank looked sheepish, which only aggravated Dorothea more. She steered Frank by the shoulders and stood him in front of the mirrors and sink.
Dorothea inhaled deeply, then instructed, “I want you to think of everything that could have gone wrong today.” She paused, waiting for Frank’s reaction. There was a slight flicker of guilt in his eyes. “In those three and a half hours, magic could have escaped! the wrong person could have gotten past me and discovered it!” Dorothea’s voice grew louder as Frank shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “Another portal could have opened, effectively tearing a hole through time and space! Horrific things could have happened and it would have— All. Been. On. You.”
“If it is so dangerous why didn’t you just shut it and leave me behind?” Frank snapped.
“I– I don’t know why.”
Despite Dorothea’s practiced indifference, she truly cared for the boy, and it scared her. The vulnerability stung; Dorothea didn’t like to deal with positive emotions. It was not only harder, but it was also dangerous. Today, it almost cost her her job and potentially her life.
“Dorothea,” Frank whispered, his face softening, “I’m sorry that I got a hot dog, and I took so long.”
“Stop talking and help me close this portal,” Dorothea barked as she opened the handicap stall door.
She carefully approached the toilet, lifted the seat, and peered inside with cautious deliberation. It was just as she suspected; the water inside was shimmering, a filmy iridescent blue, sizzling with energy. The liquid simmered and congealed, causing thousands of tiny ripples to appear on its surface. Then, in an exquisite surge of motion, it soared out of the bowl, held aloft by an unseen force, as it elegantly stretched itself thinner and thinner, bending and free twisting ethereally into the shape of an arch, translucently glowing with otherworldly luminescence. The portal pulsated ominously, a threatening breach that, if left unattended, would unleash certain dangers; beasts or currents of magic could burst through, simultaneously wreaking havoc on both this world and the Realm.
Dorothea urgently unravelled the tie wrap on her umbrella, then popped it open; the air around her umbrella thickened and then dissipated. The original object was gone, and in its place was an ornate copper shield, inlaid with diamonds.
“Frank, come on. Let’s close this thing and be done with it.” She called to him, reaching into the depths of her trenchcoat and fishing out a cigarette lighter and a feathered quill.
“Frank. Come on.” she repeated, louder. “It is time to go! We should have been gone almost four hours ago, and the next portal is predicted to open at one ten.”
Dorothea was outraged by Frank’s inaction. He was treating his job, his realm, and her with complete and utter disrespect. How could he not comprehend the urgency of the situation? Dorothea despised incompetence. Did he not understand? Or did he just not care? Her blood boiled as she stormed out of the stall to see what was taking him so long.
Frank hadn’t moved a muscle. He stood in front of the mirrors, pensively staring at himself, lost in thought. He stayed like that while Dorothea inwardly seethed; she had no clue what was wrong with the boy. Silence stretched on, strained and expectant, broken only by the mystical buzzing sounds reverberating from the portal.
“I don’t want to close it.” Frank said, finally, his voice barely a whisper.
Dorothea’s eyes went wide as her heart filled with despair. She opened her mouth, then closed it, unable to formulate a sound. She was too shocked to be angry or say anything at all.
“What?!” she sputtered, recovering from the horror of his words, anger creeping into the cadence of her voice.
“I don’t want to close it!” Frank repeated, louder and more confident than before.
“Get a hold of yourself!” Dorothea said, walking over to Frank and slapping him on the wrist. “That portal will be closing— we are closing it!” She tugged him by his hand and pulled him into the handicap stall.
“We should let some magic escape!” argued Frank, “It could help people!”
“Help people?” Dorothea mocked, deciding her apprentice had gone completely insane. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“While exploring the city, I saw so many people suffering— homeless and poor on the streets! If we let some magic escape, it could help them and—”
“Frank. No! Have you lost your mind? We can’t just leave the portal open—”
Frank shook himself free of Dorothea’s grasp.
“This world having magic would benefit so many!” he exclaimed. “These people have to walk and drive to get to places, they have to cook their food!”
“Frank—” Dorothea started, desperate to get through to him.
“It is selfish to keep magic just to ourselves!” Frank plowed on, ignoring her interruption, longing for Dorothea to understand. “I mean— You are from this world! You grew up without magic, don’t you remember how terrible your life was before? How can you not realize—”
“No!” Dorothea hollered like a wounded animal, sounding physically pained. “We cannot share with others. First off, it’s dangerous. In case you have forgotten, leaving this portal open too long, or having multiple open at once will cause the universe to slowly erode into itself, effectively ending all life! and—”
“How do you know?” Frank questioned, “You have never not closed a portal, or let magic escape, so, how do you know?”
Dorothea glowered at Frank; he was being an utter nuisance, and a dangerous one at that. If he kept acting like this, she was going to leave him behind— and she didn’t want to.
Frank was the mirror image of somebody she used to know five hundred years ago, someone she used to love. Her brother had been a joyful, compassionate, careless idiot whom she abandoned for the Realm a long time ago. He died, and it was all her fault; Her relationship with Frank felt like a second chance. A chance to be a good sister, to do it right. She wasn’t ready to let him go.
“I don’t know.” She breathed, “I have never let it happen because I am not stupid enough to want to find out! Secondly, Frank, there isn’t enough magic to go around!”
“Dorothea—”
“If everyone had magic, it wouldn’t be magical anymore, and it could kill us all! Even if it wouldn’t destroy us, I would still keep it safe, people are terrible, and cannot be trusted. That is why we guard it, Frank! That is why we close the portals! That is why we do our job. To keep us, and magic, alive. It is better for only some of us to have magic, then for there to be zero magic at all.”
Frank was standing there, brows furrowed. Determination still burning in his eyes.
“I’m not closing the portal.” He repeated a third time.
“You’re the one being selfish, Frank.” Dorothea sparked the lighter, igniting the feathered quill in her hand. “I’m leaving, with or without you. I’m not risking the fate of the universe, and my job over your childish fantasy!” she spat.
“Fine! Leave without me! Magic deserves to be shared.”
“But, it can’t be shared.” She threw the burning feather into the portal. Instantly, the portal transformed from a glowing, semi-liquid blue into a silverish mist. “Please, Frank. Come with me.”
“Do what you wanted to do three hours ago, leave me. I know you hate me anyway.”
Dorothea immersed herself in the mist, swung down her shield, and left him behind, with so much left to say.
August 3rd, 1509
The damp air was thick with the fog of the Thames, as the fused smell of river mist and horse manure wafted about the city. Grating sounds from iron-shod hooves against cobblestones echoed about the street, reverberating, intertwined with the hum of urban life.
“Tenny, come back!” Dorothea called out in desperation, watching helplessly as her idiotic brother’s blonde head bobbed upstream through the pedestrian sea of London.
Tenny darted and weaved his way farther up the street, nearly getting murdered by a horse-drawn cart that clattered by in his eagerness to beat his sister to the market. With a sigh, Dorothea sprinted after him, determined to catch him before he did anything stupid. She strained to keep her brother in sight as he darted through the throng of people.
He always did stuff like this, whether it was their daily chores, eating breakfast, or helping their father in the market on Mondays. Earlier this morning, for example, Tenny had nearly knocked a tooth out while he was supposed to be milking the family goat; he decided it was a good idea to mount himself on her back and pretend to be a chivalrous knight, going into battle. Unlike Dorothea, Tenny always had fun, recklessly turning everything into a game, finding joy in the mundane, at the cost of disregarding his safety and surroundings. She often found herself stuck between feeling exasperated and entertained just watching him; though she would never admit it out loud, his antics seldom failed to put a smile on her face.
The only joy in Dorothea’s life was time with Tenny; she found everything else to be abysmal at best. She was envious of her brother’s ability to turn the most tedious tasks into grand adventures. It wasn’t that Dorothea was a negative person, but rather that she simply craved something more. She wanted to learn to read, do arithmetic, fish like her father, just do something besides sewing and cleaning. She knew she had potential; however, that potential was thwarted by rules entrenched in strict church edicts on women’s roles. Dorothea felt the weight of societal pressures compressing her ambitions with a constant, silent denial. She wanted the same opportunities as a man.
Passerbys stared nonplussed as she sprinted by. Being considerably more conscious of her environment than her brother, Dorothea’s cheeks grew hot; it was situations like this that made her hate her life. To them, it was perfectly acceptable for Tenny, a boy, to scamper through the street, but not Dorothea. It was as if society expected her to be proper and perfect all the time— she felt constantly judged.
Conformity crushes the soul, she thought bitterly, quickening her pace. The life that British culture had laid out for her was a repulsive, depressing hell. Though she was just sixteen, her father had already begun looking for potential suitors. Marriage was the exact reason Dorothea was expected to help out at the market on Mondays; her father hoped some wealthier man would take interest and that Dorothea would attract a mate. The very idea made her sick.
After circumventing a gentleman in lavish breeches and hurtling over a trash heap, Tenny whirled around, running backwards, and tauntingly stuck his tongue out at his sister, a playful smile on his freckled face.
This gesture turned out to be an extraordinary mistake, for when Tenny turned forward again, he tripped and crashed headlong into a man. Dorothea rushed over to the two of them, collapsed in a heap, piled on top of each other, Tenny’s limbs entangled in the man’s belt chain and kilt.
“Tenny are you okay?”
“Yeah!” her brother responded, much too cheerfully, “Just a little stuck, can you help me?”
Dorothea did a double-take, blinking dumbfounded as she freed her brother from the jumble of fabric and gold chain link he was entrapped in, and helped him up onto his feet. The man Tenny knocked to the ground was wearing nothing but a kilt and gold jewellery. It wasn’t a typical Celtic-style kilt either, but rather a white linen sheet, tied at the waist—he was the strangest sight she had ever seen.
He was tall and archaic-looking, with tan, shrivelled, papery skin that folded in on itself like an underfilled sack. Sun-damaged spots added to his prune-like complexion, and spider web veins crept up his hairy legs. The vast majority of his body, his arms, ears, stomach and chest, was covered in wispy grey tufts of candyfloss—except for his head, which was completely bald.
The man plucked himself off the ground with surprising vigour, his various golden cufflinks and chains rattling as he wiped mud from his body and observing the siblings with overlarge, milky, cataract-filled eyes, outlined in kohl. His mouth contorted into a cruel, toothless smile, leaving Dorothea perturbed.
Instinctively, she pushed Tenny behind her, using her body to shield him from the wizened man’s icy stare. An uncomfortable feeling crept down the nape of her neck and through her spine, as if her bones were buzzing. The man in the kilt was no longer looking into her face but instead staring intently at her stomach. Making Dorothea feel as though he were attempting to look through her exterior and locate Tenny.
“Watch where you’re walking, boy.” The man snarled, leaning on an ornate, lime-green walking stick.
His voice boomed, strangely coherent despite his lack of teeth.
“He will, we’re sorry—” Dorothea apologised hastily, grabbing Tenny by the arm and sidestepping past the kilt man, trying to escape their conversation.
Between his eccentric appearance and aggressive, eerie demeanour, simply being around the man made her uncomfortable, but Tenny’s crash with the combination of the elderly man’s choice of outfit—people were beginning to stare, and with every second, Dorothea felt increasingly humiliated.
As they left, Tenny gaped amazedly at the aged man, an inquisitive expression on his face as he fully took in the man’s ensemble for the first time since their collision. A jovial smile spread across Tenny’s face, growing wider and wider the longer he basked in the geriatric man’s absurdity. Eventually, his unbridled curiosity took over, and he broke free from his sister’s grip.
“Why are you dressed like that?” Tenny probed, walking back over to the man. “Is it for some sort of religious thing, or something? If not—can I join? Also, your stick is of very excellent fashion— where did you get it?”
Dorothea panicked, noticing the anger that flushed into the strange man’s hollow cheeks at her brother’s words. The ludicrous-looking man grew terrifying; his face convulsed violently, his lips curled into a rabid snarl, as he stood there in a towering rage.
“Tenny!—” she began, then suddenly stopped. It was as if the air had been sucked from Dorothea’s lungs; the same buzzing sensation as earlier reverberated throughout her whole body as her words caught in her throat, leaving her gasping for breath.
Dorothea was immobilised, rendered speechless, and slowly turning blue as the cloudy-eyed man leered at her brother, tapping his walking stick menacingly against the palm of his hand, all while Tenny grinned up at him obliviously.
“Are you mocking me, boy?”
Drones of people had paused, befuddled in the street, to watch the escalating scene. Whether disturbed or concerned, their eyes were fixed on the two children and the shirtless bald man, though no onlooker dared to intervene.
They were going to die—not just die, but publicly, in front of everyone. The world’s last memory of her would be Dorothea asphyxiated and swollen next to some murderous, seemingly demon-possessed buffoon. The buzzing in her body intensified, the pressure on her throat increased, her vision dimmed— yet, rather than thinking of ways of survival, the single thought on her mind was how mortifying her death was going to be.
Tenny’s expression faltered at the old man’s words, the excitement on his face evaporating as unnerved dismay took its place; his eyebrows furrowed, and his pupils dilated with fear.
“No… I— I wasn’t! I swear! I just think you look—”
The man raised his stick, swinging it up around his head, thrashing it through the air like a whip; tumultuous bumbling filled the air. Dorothea knew— even before he brought down his cane— she was going to watch her brother—her sunny, innocent, humorous brother—die.
She had to do something.
Fighting the compression on her throat and the paralysing pain, Dorothea pushed back against the vibrations coursing through her bones. A thunderous snap rippled through the city streets; she was free.
Panting and spluttering, Dorothea launched herself in front of Tenny as the ancient man hurled his stick forward; she closed her eyes and waited for her life to end.
Nothing happened.
A sharp, cutting, bitter heat bombilated down Dorothea’s arms, shooting out her fingertips. Eyes still shut, tears rolled down her cheeks as the feeling scorched through her veins in an agonising fury. Yet, it hurt so good— For the first time in her life—Dorothea was alive— truly alive! She felt powerful.
A warm smile spread across her face like butter as, cautiously, she opened her eyes.
The wrinkled man stood there, astounded, surveying Dorothea with a curious twinkle in his murky eyes; for his walking stick was floating in mid-air, inches from her nose.
Somehow–by magic or some other means– Dorothea had stopped the stick! It hovered above the ground, completely motionless, as if time itself had gone still. The mob incredulously gawked at the miracle.
“Dorothea, you’re a witch?!” Tenny exclaimed, his voice mingled with apprehensive interest.
At these words, reality came crashing back in; the walking stick thudded to the floor. Her smile dropped as any jubilation Dorothea felt surrounding her newfound abilities dissolved away. Dorothea couldn’t be a witch, not in England, not anywhere; for witchcraft was a heinous sin— and witches were hanged.
Before anyone else could move or react, the absurd-looking man swiftly picked up his walking stick and encircled the siblings, breaking into a nonsensical dance. The air encompassing the three of them thickened, then dissipated. When the air reverted to normal, nothing was the same.
Dorothea was both puzzled and relieved to discover that people were no longer paying her any attention. In fact, it was as if no one could see her at all. The school of people went about their merry ways, not giving her, Tenny, and the strange old man any mind at all.
A skeletal hand enclosed Dorothea’s arm and dragged her from the street. The man clamped down on her in one hand, and Tenny in the other; he hurriedly tugged them past a timber-framed building and into a side alley.
“Move faster,” the man hissed in Dorothea’s ear, “I’ve cast memory and invisibility jinxes—but they won’t last long— plus I need to close this portal in the next fifteen minutes if I want to maintain the schedule— we have no time.”
Memory and invisibility jinxes? The strange man in the kilt? Making his walking stick fly? Dorothea was convinced she was in the midst of a very peculiar dream; she began to repetitively pinch herself in order to wake up.
“Are you from the commonplace world?!” the man questioned, throwing Dorothea and Tenny up against the alley wall, next to a rainbarrel.
“What?”
“Are you from here? Or The Realm? If there is another portal open I need to know. Have you ever done magic before?”
“Magic?” Dorothea echoed his words, slightly frightened by the urgency in his voice, “The Realm? No, I’m from here— from London.”
The old man took a deep, calming breath, reassured by Dorothea’s words.
“What are your names?”
“Tennyson and Dorothea Ward!” her brother answered for both of them, excitedly bewildered, “What on earth is going on?!”
“I am sorry for trying to kill you earlier; I thought you were just common children poking fun at me—I do not take insults well.”
“Wait, you were trying to kill me—”
“My name is Khufu,” he continued, ignoring Tenny’s interruption, pointing a gnarly finger at Dorothea, “You are special—I need you to come with me.”
Khufu kicked over the rainbarrel, spilling its contents in a puddle onto the ground. Dorothea had never seen anything so beautiful.
The water shimmered—a cloudy, pearlescent blue—sizzling with energy. The liquid coagulated; thousands of tiny ripples appeared on its surface. Then, majestically, it levitated off the floor, stretching itself gracefully into a delicate arch, glistening with unearthly luminescence. A portal door appeared.
“Go with you?”
“Yes, both of you. Now.”
She and Tenny looked at each other, simultaneously answering,
“Yes.”
Khufu raised his tufty eyebrows, further creasing his extraordinarily wrinkled head. He tapped his walking stick aggressively against the ground; the air surrounding him condensed, then dispersed once more.
Dorothea’s eyes went wide, and Tenny let out an audible gasp; Khufu’s stick had transformed into an elaborate copper shield, sparkling with diamonds.
“How did you do that?” Dorothea asked greedily, longingly staring at the armour in his hand. Her body was itching for more of that buzzing feeling; She wanted—she needed—more of that pleasant pain.
“I can show you,” Khufu responded, “both of you—that is, if you choose to come with me.”
“Oh, we are going with you!” Tenny chirped enthusiastically.
“I need you to understand,” Khufu explained, fishing a flint striker and a feather from the depths of his kilt, “if you choose the Realm—if you walk through this portal—you can never go back. You can never just live your lives, rejoin society, or ever see your parents again.”
Dorothea contemplated for a moment, her heart turbulent with desire and doubt: never see her parents again. She loved her parents; her mother’s boisterous laughter and homecooking, her father’s positive attitude and constant dedication to his family—but—they expected her to fulfill a role as a bride, a wife, a mother—and she could not do it—she would not do it—so, in a way, abandoning them was sparing them disappointment.
Khufu had said she was special, that he could show her things; Dorothea had manipulated the stick so easily—her mind raced at the thought of what more she could do, what more she could learn! In this ‘Realm’—whatever it was—Dorothea imagined that her life could actually mean something, that she could actually satisfy her soul; forever free from society’s demands.
As if Dorothea wasn’t already convinced enough, she suddenly remembered the fact that a large crowd of Londoners witnessed her magically suspend a stick, and, although they were currently enchanted into forgetting this event, Khufu had said his jinxes wouldn’t last long; if she stayed, Dorothea would inevitably be tried as a witch and hanged.
Dorothea had made up her mind; she would be alive, have autonomy, and Tenny. That was more than enough.
“I’m going,” she announced defiantly, stepping towards the baldpate man and his iridescent arch; an ugly, toothless smile cracked onto Khufu’s face.
“You are?” Tenny’s voice rang out, disconcerted by his sister.
“You’re not?!”
“I want to go,” Tenny started, “but Dorothea, he said we would never see mother and father again, if we left, they would be so worried— and mad.”
“I don’t know if you realize this Tenny; but a whole bunch of people just saw me levitate a stick— you yourself called me a witch!” Dorothea snapped, her voice escalating with frustration, “If I stay here Tenny, I am going to die!”
“Dorothea—”
“Tenny, please. I need you to come with me.”
“Dorothea.”
“Please—you are the best thing in my life, I can’t do this without you. Please don’t make me leave everything behind.”
“I’ll–”
“Come on, just think of this as another one of your adventures! Except this adventure is the epic adventure of your life! It will be—”
“Okay! I’ll go!” Tenny interrupted, mollifying his sister into silence, “We will go.”
Dorothea embraced her brother with a tight squeeze—she always knew she was destined for more—her life’s journey was about to begin.
“Excellent,” Khufu purred, lighting the feather in his hand on fire with the flint and tossing it into the glittering archway, converting the portal into a silvery mist. “Grab onto my arms.”
The siblings obeyed, and the three of them walked forward together into the swirling portal’s mist. Khufu’s shield gleamed as he brought it down, and the silver haze swallowed them whole—leaving nothing behind.
The street sounds of London resumed as if nothing had ever happened. What awaited Dorothea and Tenny on the other side was unknown, but as they vanished, a whole world of possibility shimmered before them—an adventure neither would have dared to dream, and a future that belonged entirely to them.
Elena ran as fast as she possibly could, darting between trees, not daring to look back. Her bare feet bled, as branches and twigs on the ground snagged at her skin, but still she kept on—her life depended on it.
In the distance, she heard the shrieks of the Gorfdaot’s hunting call, their low guttural hissing, and the heavy stomping of their feet. They tore after her, hot on her trail, ripping out trees by their roots in the process.
Out of pure desperation, Elena scrambled up a rickety sycamore tree, almost smashing the large, potato-sized, translucent egg cradled in the front pocket of her overalls in the process.
It had been reckless—stupid, stealing the egg. She didn’t know why she listened when Monte dared her to do it. Well—she did know why—he was so cute, and she was an idiot. But, as she stood, perched, shaking with fear in a tree, she couldn’t understand how she had rationalized her actions as a good idea. She was extremely fortunate to have climbing experience, or else she would have surely been the Gorfdaot’s lunch.
The creatures’ pounding footsteps grew louder, shaking the forest floor, nearly knocking her from the tree to which she so desperately clung, as Elena’s nostrils were assaulted with the putridity of the Gorfdaot’s rotting breath. They had to be close.
Daring to look down from her sycamore for a fraction of a second, Elena caught out of the corner of her eye a horrific sight.
Her tree was surrounded. A tribe of seven Gorfdaot, with their spider-like eyes, long necks, sleek spikey torsos, thin, boney tails, clawed, muscular, human-like arms, and disproportionately large feet. Their translucent hair stood up on end as they throatily hissed up at Elena, their lips curling backwards to reveal a forked tongue and multiple rows of sharp, jagged teeth. The only things about the Gorfdaot that weren't transparent were its blood and bones. She saw a chewed, partially digested doe in the largest one's stomach.
“Shit!” Elena screeched.
Looking at the Gorfdaot made her want to pee her pants. She was eternally grateful that she had thought to climb the tree when she did, but now, she was indefinitely trapped.
Almost in slow motion, she watched, terrorised and rooted to the spot, as the largest Gorfdaot, the one with the deer in its stomach, gripped the trunk with both its hands, and began to snake its way up the tree.
Elena actually did pee her pants as she retreated further up the sycamore, the branches getting thinner and thinner. Before long, the branches would be too thin to support her body weight, and Elena was sure that she would fall and die. What an embarrassing way to go, she thought bitterly, frustrated by her past self's impulsivity, Dirty, covered in piss, and about to become a monster meal.
The Gorfdaot drew closer, as its contemporaries yipped encouragingly below, egging it on. The monster snapped at Elena’s ankles, having nearly climbed the tree branch where she clung. Accepting her fate, closed her eyes and said a silent prayer to any god that would listen, repenting for her sins—for only being fourteen, Elena had a lot to be sorry for.
In either a stroke of sheer luck, fate, or perhaps a gift from whichever deity had been listening to her prayers, when the Gorfdaot made its way to perch itself on a branch level with Elena, its weight became too much for the trees spindly, twiggy branches to carry, and the wood snapped—as the Gorfdaot and the tree brach it attempted to climb on both came crashing down onto the forest floor, plummeting at least twenty feet. Elena let out a shaky laugh, sighing and grinning with relief.
“Fatass!” she called down tauntingly to the Gorfdaot as it writhed on the ground, injured but still very much alive.
The others in its tribe surrounded their fallen friend, producing hollow cooing sounds as they consoled and comforted the Gorfdaot on the ground. The largest Gorfdaot dusted itself off and got to its feet, all eight of its eyes narrow, staring at Elena, and its teeth bared.
Elena’s smile was wiped clean off as the dread of her impending doom resurfaced with the monster's snarl. Repositioning herself in the tree, Elena looked around for a potential route of escape.
The Gorfdaot balled up its fist in anger and punched a sweetgum tree nearby. The brute force of its blow caused the tree to be uprooted from the forest ground and fall. Elena saw a sinister lightbulb go off in the monster’s tiny mind and knew she needed to evacuate her sycamore, fast.
squatting like a leapfrog and balancing precariously on her branch, she propelled herself forward, attempting to vault herself into the canopy of a neighbouring tree. Elena had no time for fear or to question the feasibility of her plan—she simply jumped.
Her timing was impeccable. Elena smacked, face-first into a cottonwood tree just as the sycamore that had been her sanctuary came tumbling down, descending into adjacent trees like dominoes—fortunately in the direction opposite of the cottonwood.
Hugging the trunk tightly with her hands and knees to slow her fall, Elena carefully slid down the cottonwood, painfully scraping her skin on its bark throughout her descent. Elena's mouth filled with blood; her nose was definitely broken. Blood dripped down the right side of her face, blocking vision in that eye; her entire head felt dizzy and faint. Nothing hurt, though—it was probably just her adrenaline blocking out the pain.
Reaching the base of the trunk, she stood up—wobbily on her feet—and turned around. Elena’s heart leapt for joy, for out of one eye, she saw the trees knocked down by the sycamore had fallen in such a way that not only blocked the Gorfdaot's path to her, but pinned a couple of them, including the largest one, underneath its branches. The tribe was busy at work, freeing each other, much too preoccupied with the disaster they caused to continue to pay her any mind. After taking a moment to orient herself, Elena took off at a run.