It was dark when she stumbled away from the castle. There was something wrong with her leg. She glanced down, lifting her skirt to peer at it. Her thigh was cut and bleeding. It looked like a knife wound with sharp edges, a clean cut. She should probably stitch it up, but this wasn’t her castle and she didn’t know where things were. How had she managed to do that much damage to herself? It seemed like something she would remember.

Something had happened to this castle, but she wasn’t sure what it was. There was a hole in the wall. She could hear voices coming from behind her, but she didn’t want to talk to anyone just then. She wanted to go home. She looked at the ground. She couldn’t jump without hurting herself.

She jumped anyway, slowing her fall so that she landed softly on her uninjured leg. The grass was covered in dew and it splashed coldly on her ankles as she walked. The sun was not up yet, but it was starting to turn the sky a gray color.

Why was she here, though? She couldn’t remember but she did know the way home. She had been this way before. Her leg throbbed in pain. How was she going to make it all the way home she it hurt so much to walk? But then she remembered and the walk didn’t seem as long as it had a moment before.

People were running toward the white castle. They were making a lot of noise, as if they had come to see a spectacle. Maybe they had done this to her. Anger flashed through her mind and she almost turned to show them that they couldn’t just hurt her like this. They had tried to hurt her, had almost killed her. No, that didn’t make any sense. She didn’t know who exactly had hurt her, but she was sure someone had now. She hadn’t cut her leg. It was someone else. She decided to ignore all the people until she was sure what had happened. Then she would track down whoever had hurt her and make them pay.

But what had happened? She had memories of screaming and fire, but no, those had to be a dream. Right? It didn’t make any sense. She lived alone. She did not belong here. This place brought her pain. She had to get away. That she remembered for certain. She stepped too hard on her leg and gasped. It throbbed in pain and she almost screamed but then the people would notice her and maybe whoever had tried to kill her would be among them. She held her breath until the throbbing dulled and continued her hobbling walk.

She found a long stick under one of the trees and carried it in one hand, leaning on it to take some of the weight off of her leg. It wasn’t too long before she found her glyph. Relief welled through her as she created her portal home. There, she would be able to take care of herself and figure out what had happened to her.

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Amberly had a headache. She grabbed a strip of cloth that her mother had kept for bandages and tied it tightly around her head. It probably looked ridiculous, but it made her feel better. “Going out to gather eggs,” she shouted to her mother. She didn’t wait for a reply.

Their house was small and she had to share a room with Carlton. It wasn’t like she spent much time inside. There were chores to do and she was supposed to and ‘the chickens won’t stop laying just because you feel sick that day.’ Her mother had told told her so many times that Amberly could mimic every word perfectly and make her brother giggle.

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She stepped outside into the cool morning air with the egg basket in her hand. The handle was beginning to fray. Too many trips to the hen house and back.

She glanced out to the garden and saw her papa bent over his perfect row of potatoes. They wouldn’t be ready yet, but he would be checking for bugs and weeds. From her front door, she could only see three other houses. Her neighbors were up and moving about their chores but they were small in the distance. One of them paused and waved at her and she waved back.

The chickens crowded the gate when she got near it. “You’ve already been fed,” she told them. She shoved her way in, trying to get past them without letting them free. Chasing down chickens was something she had become good at, but it wasn’t something she wanted to do today. One of them pecked at her boot as she slid in and closed the gate behind her. The hens laid everywhere in the enclosure. Many of them laid in the box her papa had built for them, but others laid against the fence, under their roosting pole, anywhere that didn’t make any sense.

Climbing back to her feet, she let herself out of the pen and headed back to the house. She would need to take the goats to pasture and maybe help her mother churn the butter later. There was always something to be done on a farm. Her thoughts were so full of her morning tasks that she almost didn’t see the woman standing in her yard.

She gasped. She hadn’t been there a moment before, or maybe she walked up when Amberly was trying to find eggs. Either way, she didn’t know this woman and Amberly was unaccustomed to strangers. “Hello,” the woman said. She was tall for a woman with dark hair and white skin. She was very beautiful even if she was wearing boring colors.

Amberly backed away, keeping the basket in front of her, as if it would protect her from this stranger. She may have been beautiful, but Amberly didn’t know her and something about her made Amberly feel nervous.

Her heart thumped in her chest. “Who are you?” She finally managed to get out.

“Oh, I don’t think that matters as much as who you are.”

The woman waved her arms around like she was doing a dance and Amberly watched her, unsure of what to do. Maybe if she called to her parents, they could help her. Suddenly, she didn’t want to call for them. There was nothing wrong here. Her head didn’t hurt anymore. Everything would be fine.

The stranger held out a hand and Amberly took it. She wondered where she was going. Belatedly, she remembered that she was holding a basket of eggs. How strange. She put down the basket so that the eggs wouldn’t crack and walked with the woman.

“Amberly, come back!” It was her mama, shouting at her for some reason. She glanced back at her mother. She was wearing her blue dress today, the one papa seemed to like. She had her apron on and her hands were dripping something. She looked really worried. “Who is that, Amberly? Come back!”

But Amberly didn’t want to come back. She wanted to go with the pretty lady somewhere. The lady hadn’t said where, she realized, but she was sure it would be fun. It felt like it would be. The lady made something beautiful then. It was a shimmering image of another place. “Go on, said the woman, “step through.” Her voice was musical.

Amberly stepped through and the woman followed her. She glanced back to see a shimmering image of her home. Her mother was running and screaming and crying but Amberly didn’t know why. It was going to be ok. She opened her mouth to tell her so, but then the image started to shrink until there was nothing there, just trees that were bigger than anything she had ever seen before. She forgot about her mother and looked up at the lady, who smiled at her. It was all going to be fine.