They forgot me. Mom had a medical reason, but what about Nate and Nico? Rio had kidnapped me a little over a week ago. How could my family forget me that quick? As I shuffled back with my alien warden to her underground lair, shock numbed my thoughts too much to figure it out. When I got to that cot, I sagged into it and crashed as Rio tucked the corners of the blanket under me.
My new roommate kept creepy quiet, leaving the balmy air dead. No sirens or car horns jolted me me up at noon. No cell phone fired off text message alerts or alarms. There weren’t any new email notifications or piles of unopened envelopes waiting for me. Any final notices and hospital bills hanging over my head were last on my list of priorities. I should have slept a solid eight to ten hours.
A short ways in my brain kicked in, sending me rolling and twitching. Mom was okay, for the most part, but something still wasn’t right. I’d wanted a break from calling to check up or making sure she took her medication, but I still wanted her around. Cravings for her silly romantic movies turned my stomach. Memories of her dancing around the house while she did chores played until I could count her steps. The empty chair in that Poker game with Mom, Nico, and Nate should’ve had me in it.
Could Rio’s brother help me? Rio had said I couldn’t trust him, but what made trusting her any smarter? Was Daire, Lord of Ivy, my way out?
When I gave up tossing, “Queenie” lay curled in her tail at the foot of the cot. She let out a high pitched yawn, all those pointy teeth exposed, before blinking her beady eyes at mine.
“It’s nice that you’re keeping my feet warm, really, but it’s kind of weird.” I sat up on my elbows and rubbed the hardened chunks of sleep gunk out of my eyelashes. “You have a room, don’t you?”
I enjoy resting in my fur. Rio’s voice came inside my head like a thought. The fox’s attention stayed on me, her left ear flicking back. Don’t you prefer this form?
“It’s not that.” I shuddered and rubbed my ear. “Let’s keep the talking to when you look like a person.”
Rio rose on all four paws and slunk up my legs. She plopped on my lap with a delighted squeak on impact, then pricked her ears twice and whined.
“Look, I’m not okay with petting anymore.” I closed my fingers to fists, burying the temptation to scratch that special place under her chin. I wouldn’t do that if she were a lady, tilting her head sideways so I could reach a new place on her neck, flashing me an admiring smile. And those chest rubs Queenie had liked so much? Heat seared up my whole face. Part of me missed the ignorant bliss when I still thought I was trapped with a super smart fox, not my kidnapper in disguise. Did she miss it too?
Queenie sat up, tucking her paws against her belly. The air around her electrified, popping with an invisible energy that made the hair on my arms stand up with goosebumps. All of her parts became fluid, like an animated sequence of one shape flowing into the other. The bright fur spilled from her scalp to wavy hair while her torso swept toward the ceiling. All four brown paws poured out to delicate hands and dainty feet. White fog gathered, smoothed into something like silk, and draped over her lithe curves. It left Rio sitting on my calves, her arms crossed over her chest like a perturbed little girl trying not to throw a tantrum.
“What’s wrong?” Rio pursed her lips and her thin eyebrows made a crooked line, not a wrinkle in sight. “You’re so flat.”
“What do you think? It’s going to take longer than a nap for me to get over my family forgetting about me.” I tugged my legs from under her and crossed them. “I’m not a dog. I can’t happy up on command.”
“But your mother seemed content, not in any danger. ”
“Well yeah, that’s always good.” I crushed a section of the blanket between my fingers, wrinkling it worse than my tossing had. “It doesn’t change that I’ve been stuck here for a little over a week and they’re laughing their asses off over Poker. It doesn’t make sense. Something’s off.”
“Perhaps you are correct…” Rio trailed off, glancing at her knees and smoothing out her skirt. Oh great. Something else she wasn’t telling me.
“Just say it.” I slouched over my lap. What else could possibly surprise me?
“Time passes differently between our worlds.”
“What?” I blinked. “How?”
“I will explain everything tonight.” Rio hurried to her feet. The black curtain in front of her boyfriend’s mirror—the one with the boar and the bulls—had a gold, pulsing glow behind it. “I’ve tarried here later than I should. My visit with Bodb won’t take too long. I should be back before the day is out, and then we shall speak more of this.”
“Wait, you’re leaving me on that cliffhanger to see the creep again?” It wasn’t my business. I shouldn’t have made it my business. But could I really let her go without trying to say something?
Rio cocked her head to one side, like Queenie’s when I asked a question. “What do you mean?”
“You forgot what he did?” I fisted a clump of the blanket and lorded over it, frowning at it hard enough that my mouth ached. “Throwing you around? Treating you like a kid he had to punish?”
“He’s always been overbearing.” Rio rubbed her neck where he’d grabbed her. Funny thing about aches and ideas, though, they always came back later. “At times it makes for uncomfortable bed play, but it’s his nature.”
“Still doesn’t mean you should let him treat you like that.”
“Your concern is touching, but unnecessary.” She gave me a little “drop it” smile. Mom did the same thing when I pried too much. “I can handle him.”
“Alright.” Maybe underneath the messy relationship and warped views on kidnapping, she was someone trying to make the best of a bad situation. But she still had a part in what happened to Mom. “I guess I’ll sit here for the day and entertain myself with something.”
“We shall have some dinner when I return. If you get hungry in the meantime, use the cabinet.” She started for the hallway. “And you’ll listen to my warning about the mirrors this time?”
I’d keep it in mind this time, now that I had an idea how to use them. “I’ll keep myself busy.”
Rio turned and headed down the hall leading out of the cavernous room. Even in the dark, she stood out like a glow-stick at a rave. When she stepped through that mirror and disappeared behind its black curtain, I shot up from my cot. We had gone through a mirror across from her boyfriend’s to get to the garden where we met Daire. Her half-brother had said to find him if I wanted more info on his offer. The question came up again: trust Rio or trust Daire?
Daire had seemed model pretty, same as Rio, but with something missing. He was beach blond with a nose like Marilyn Monroe and blue eyes most teenagers would call dreamy. Lean enough to be athletic, but too wiry to be a fighter. That might work for ditsy arm candy, but next to his sister’s femme fatale edge or Bodb’s primal bulk, he came off more safe than scary.
That didn’t mean I should go along with him.
Then again, why was Rio so much better? She’d become a nicer kidnapper, but she still kept too many secrets and treated me like a house pet. While she claimed I was stuck without a way home, her brother offered another option. If it meant having Mom in my life again, even if she never remembered me, why shouldn’t I take the chance?
Altogether there were a dozen or so black curtains total lined up on either wall of the tunnel. There had to be a reason Rio covered them up, something else she hadn’t told me. I lifted up the dark veils one by one, inspecting the frames. Each had the same long oval shape, tall enough for any basketball player to walk through without bumping their head. That first mirror was the one that went to that king’s hunting lodge of a bedroom. The others had similar, mish-mashed themes: waves breaking against a trident, two hammers in a nest of plants, horses galloping with naked women, tiny birds flying under a sun and moon.
I came to the gaudiest of them with a ram’s head surrounded by stampeding chariots, as gold as polished costume jewelry. Rio and I had gone through that one to meet Daire. She’d called it “the portal to her father’s estate.” Last time we’d walked through a garden, but finding her brother there was a long shot. Wandering around her dad’s place would get me caught for sure. There had to be another way.
At the end of the row, right beside the ram mirror, was the simplest of the set. Embossed ivy vines wrapped around its frame, the leaf-corners making sharp points on the smooth metal. Her brother had a title, didn’t he? Daire, Lord of Ivy. If they shared a father, and the ivy mirror was right next to his…
I ran my fingers over the reflective part, held my breath, and pushed. It stayed cool and hard. How had I gotten through the mirrors before? With the ram mirror, Rio held it open and waved me forward, no explanations. At my accidental meeting with Bodb, I was looking for a secret tunnel or door. Each time, I wanted to get out of that hole and go somewhere else.
The glass turned to soft pudding and my hand sank into it. I jerked back. My fingers came away clean, no broken shards or molten metal. Good. I reached out again, quicker this time. The all too solid surface jammed against my knuckles. They throbbed, hot and achy, while I glared at my reflection.
What had activated it? I was remembering the other times where I tried going somewhere else, then I sank in… So that’s how it worked: think of leaving and it opened. Rio had given me good advice when she said to stay away from the mirrors, but it wouldn’t have killed her to explain the whys.
I pushed that thought away and focused all my attention on going through the ivy mirror. It would suck if half of me got stuck in Rio’s underground tunnel because my thoughts wandered. When I slid in that time, it rippled like liquid mercury. A chill seeped up to my elbow and a soft vacuum sensation pulled at me, urging me on. This was it: take a chance or stay a lapdog.
I dove the rest of the way in.
* * *
The slick mush washed over me like cannon-balling into a pool in the dead of a sticky summer. After the rush of crashing through, my body floated for a hot second in the muffled quiet. Could I stay in that in-between place and swim around? But it spit me out toward my mystery destination too fast to find out.
I broke the surface, sucking in balmy air. The glow of a whole layer of neon globes flashed at me, so much brighter than Rio’s subterranean candelabras. I squeezed my eyes shut and put my arms out, bracing myself for the roll into a hard floor like the last time I tried a mirror without Rio’s help.
“Oof!” someone else said.
I landed on something firm but pliable with rows of long bumps, covered in a soft linen. It deflated all at once and tensed. Muscles? Ribs? Someone’s chest?
I opened my eyes and looked down.
A beach blonde pretty boy stared back.
Daire. Hot damn, I’d actually found him on the first try! I should’ve taken an extra couple minutes to plan what I was going to say before barreling in. Part of me had figured I’d miss him and have to wait until the next time Rio went away to catch him. There were so many questions I had to ask, but I couldn’t yank one out for the life of me.
“This has to be a hallucination conjured by lack of sleep…” He patted the sides of my legs, too high for comfort. “A very solid one. And heavy.”
Blunt corners dug into my thighs as he squirmed. Hip bones? Of course. I was sitting on him—straddling really—an alien stranger I’d met a grand total of once. I scrambled off and tripped my way back to the mirror.
“The hell was that?” I wiped at my legs where he’d pawed around.
“Don’t flatter yourself. I was trying to see if you were real or not. Besides, you were the one who landed with your nethers flush against mine.” He snorted as he stood, smoothing out imaginary wrinkles in his shirt, long enough to be a party dress. “Too convenient for coincidence.”
“Don’t waste your time trying that reverse psychology crap.” I groped at the mirror behind me, my life raft out. If I thought about going back to the tunnel it should get soft. The glass stayed hard. Again? “You’re not my type.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“That’s ludicrous. I’m everyone’s type.” Daire flipped his hair over his shoulder and cocked an eyebrow at me. “What horror stories has Riona fed you to suggest otherwise?”
I had to get my bearings. Where did I end up? The light came from the sun shining through a hole in the roof and reflecting off glowing gems set into the rest of the ceiling between webs of roots. After being in Rio’s bare hole in the ground for so long, her brother’s gaudy circus tent of a room gave me visual whiplash. He had decorative rugs displayed across the curving wall. Instead of plain, repeating patterns, they had embroidered scenes of shining lords and ladies surrounded by different nature motifs. All of them featured at least one swan and butterfly. A circular poster bed with gold pillars and gold-fringed cushions was set smack dab in the middle of everything. The plainest piece of furniture was a desk piled high with stacks of browning papers.
“Let’s cut the crap. I’m here for one thing, and that’s not it,” I said, squaring my shoulders at him and setting my fists on my hips. My pulse raced a mile a minute. If watching Rio had taught me anything, it’s that I couldn’t play nice with these people. I didn’t have a way out, but he didn’t know that. Years of faking smiles at drunks had to be enough practice to pull off that bluff. “If I don’t like what you tell me, I’m going right back to your sister and snitching.”
“Not what I had in mind when I offered my help.” Daire froze, his mouth drawing tight. He held up his empty palms in my sight at all times. “Answer me this, how did you find me?”
“The mirrors.” I tried a shrug, but it came out stiff. “She has a bunch, and one happened to have your title on it. I guessed.”
“Lucky for you that vixen has a secret gate into my quarters.” Daire edged around me toward the mirror and squinted at the glass. “Sure enough, there are gaps where she’s stretched my spell-work from her little trips. How could I not notice these before?” He bent over my shoulder, hovering inches away.
I flinched away a step. “What’re you doing?”
“Making you a way back so your absence isn’t discovered. No doubt Riona crafted this gate to prevent people from this side getting through.” Daire traced a series of swirls over the frame, making invisible connections across its sharp gold leaves. “You waited until she left you alone, correct?”
I glared needles.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Nice to know your mind is keener than your appearance. And she won’t return for some time?”
“Duh.”
“You have no need for that attitude.” Daire’s lips pursed as he paused, then he beamed. “Aha! Unlike Riona’s wards, this spell isn’t soaked in her irony residue. If I twist this magic to make it a two-way portal, but mimic her design so it goes unnoticed…” The tip of his finger drew a final circle, then tapped the center of the glass. “There! Now you may come and go as you please.”
I stayed near the mirror all tensed and ready to bolt. Making me a way out was a step in the right direction, but he’d have to try a lot harder to seal the deal.
“You had an interrogation in mind.” He backed away from me and rested both hands behind his back. “What would you like to know?”
I gaped. The short answer: everything. But where would I start? Rio’s warning kept floating back, the pretty little voice of the evil I knew telling me not to bother with one I didn’t. She knew the world a lot better than I did and seemed to care in her warped way. Should I use that instead of trying Daire’s mysterious option? How could I make an educated choice when they held all the facts and I had squat? I ground my teeth, thinking until my jaw got sore, trying to swim upstream against the steady current of questions crowding my headspace. When I touched the mirror like a little kid clinging to a security blanket, the shiny middle rippled and tugged at my fingers. It must’ve been responding to my half-thoughts about running back to Rio. At least I knew Daire’s way back worked.
“It’s clear you aren’t convinced you can trust me. Yet you still sought me out.” Daire waltzed over to his desk full little white flowers and swept his hand through the air. The folding chair across the room skidded toward me. He waved to the empty seat. “Take a rest. Perhaps it will help you collect your thoughts.”
“I’m a server. I can stand for hours.” I did take my hand off the mirror. It went back to flat glass so it showed the room around it instead of taking people places. I crossed my arms over my chest instead, needing something to do with them. “Let’s start easy. How can you get me out?”
“That isn’t as simple an answer as you think.” Daire plopped into the chair instead, crossing one leg over the other. “How much has Riona told you about our world?”
“Not a lot. Something about time being different.”
“Lovely. The less you know, the longer this will take and the likelier Riona will be to discover her changeling missing. Still, it’s easier to paint over a blank canvas than scrape away a portrait by someone else.” He sighed, his eyebrows pinching together and digging a furrow in his forehead. When Rio did that her skin stayed smooth. What was different about him? “I thought she would have explained a few things if she wanted to keep you here forever.”
“Forever?” My throat closed up when he said it aloud. I’d figured Rio wanted me to stay with her a while. Actually hearing what that meant… My knees went wobbly and I had to lean against the wall for support. So much for standing for hours.
“Let’s start from the beginning.” Daire folded his fingers together in his lap. “What do you know of Irish myth?”
I swallowed my rising panic. A different subject. Ireland. It’d be nice to listen to the Dropkick Murphys or Flogging Molly, but I doubted that’s what he meant. If he’d asked me about the St. Patrick’s Day rush and how much specialty green beer and Guinness Nico stocked for it, I could’ve given him a better answer. The only “mythology” I’d ever heard of came from a Lucky Charms box. “You mean like leprechauns and clovers?”
“Of course you would only know that stereotype.” Daire winced, his lip curling. It made the bridge of his nose scrunch up, something else I’d never seen on Rio. I hadn’t even seen any of that on Bodb behind all his beard. With how mad he was, I should’ve. “That means you have never heard of the Aos Si or the Tuatha De Danann?”
I blinked. “Easy Shee and Too-ah-ha what?”
“That would be a yes. How best to compress millennia of history into something concise?” He pursed his lips and stroked his chin. Was he always that theatrical or was I only noticing because of his weird ability to wrinkle? “Perhaps a story. Once upon a time, a race of great magicians, poets, and warriors flew to the shores of a little isle that is now known as Ireland. This people were called the Tuatha De Danann, the Children of Danu, and are the ancestors of everyone who lives here. Upon arrival, they liberated the small island from its former conquerors, the Fomor. However, the former rulers were not quashed so easily. The Tuatha De were defeated and enslaved a number of times in the ensuing wars for dominance. My aunt and her late husband reigned during that time, as our High King and Queen, but the Tuatha De overthrew them and a final war broke out. In the end they drove the Fomor into the ocean, victorious at last. Their absolute rule was short lived, though, when humans arrived shortly after.
“Rather than flee to the ocean with their bitter rivals, the Tuatha De Danann crafted their own paradise from part of a separate, parallel dimension called the Otherworld. They called that paradise Tir Na Nog and placed it underneath the hills of Ireland where they made their home from then on. They gave themselves a new name: the Daoine Aos Si, or People of the Hills. We usually shorten it to the Aos Si, for brevity’s sake.”
I nodded along as he talked, soaking everything in. If only I had something to write with. I was half tempted to interrupt and ask him for a piece of paper from his desk so I could take notes, but then Rio might see it and ask where I’d gotten it.
“Peace reigned between the Aos Si and humans for a time where they flourished alongside each other. It was a coexistence that cultivated much of Ireland’s folklore and culture. The Aos Si believed the years of war were behind them. Then sects of a new religion cropped up—you would know it as Catholicism—that shunned the old ways of worship where humans treated the Aos Si as gods and paid them tribute. There were some who became so fervid against us that they somehow gained magic laced with iron, a substance toxic to us, and began campaigns of slaughter against any of our number who chose to live in the mortal world.”
“Wait, what about your sister?” The iron magic would explain the dark field Rio used to burn Bodb and why she kept swinging her chain bracelet around at Daire like a biker gang enforcer.
“She wields the very same power. It’s made her quite the pariah.” Daire twirled the ends of his hair around his finger. “How either mortals or Riona got a hold of this magic remains unknown. But it’s common rumor that their source is the Fomor.”
“Makes sense.” That explained why Bodb wanted their relationship to stay secret. “What happened next?”
“Word traveled fast to our supreme leader, the High King, Bodb Derg. He called his kin together and they crafted a power known as the Key. They endowed it into the newest born of their kind, a mere babe at the time. This power locked the walls of Tir Na Nog from anyone who would want to get in or out unless they gained access through the Key Bearer.”
“Okay. War, Tir Na Nog, Aos Si, Catholics, Key. Got it.” I repeated that string of words in my head until they made a tune. “So, you’re saying if I find the kid with this Key thing, they can let me out?”
“Keep in mind, this all happened well over a thousand years ago.”
“So the kid grew up. Same question.”
“We used to be able to see the mortal realm from here through scrying, like the vision of your mother,” Daire went on, his tone lilting up, hinting at something. “The Key put a stop to that as well. Now only its bearer can perform such acts.”
“But you were the one who showed me my mom…”
Daire raised both eyebrows.
“Of course it’s you.” I groaned and raked my bangs out of my face. The headache from information overload was nice for a change. That still didn’t rule out Daire feeding me a line of crap. “This makes a little sense. But for all I know, you’re making it up.”
“No one with Aos Si blood can lie, for one. Deceive by weaving unrelated truths into implications, yes. But outright telling a falsehood is beyond our ability. It’s the same force that binds us to keep our oaths.” He waved at the mirror beside me, the way back to Riona. “Ask my sister if you are so eager to check my story. There is no love lost between us. Be wary of trusting her too much, though. Her symbol is a fox for a reason.”
“Funny, she said the same thing about you.” Both of them bad mouthing their sibling to me made my head throb worse. “And your story doesn’t line up with the bits I figured out on my own about this place. I’ve heard about this Bodb guy. Isn’t he the only one who can let people in and out?”
“You are right. There’s a well known catch with having such a stupendous power.” Daire’s jaw tensed. “I’m not allowed to use the Key unless I have permission from the High King. And others must ask him first before making a request of me.”
“Damn it.” I pounded the wall and shook my head at the floor. “Another dead end.”
“Not quite.”
That snapped me right up. I rushed over, abandoning my safe spot by the mirror and invading his space. My shadow loomed across him almost as well as Rio. “Stop yanking me around and spit it out!”
“Be aware, if word of this gets out, especially to Riona, the punishment would be dire.” He flinched, scooting away some. “You will lose what small chance you have for escape.”
“I know better than to shoot my mouth off about leaving a place where I’m not supposed to be.”
“Very well.” He gulped. “I found a spell that will eliminate Bodb’s control of my power and pass it to me. Which means I can open whatever portal I want to the mortal world and send you through. The catch is that I require a human’s cooperation to perform it. I need your help.”
“Why?”
“That’s how the spell was made. It was nigh impossible since the High King’s hatred of humans made him banish them back to the mortal world. That is, until you came along.”
“So I’m the only human in this place?”
“There’s one other, but she is…compromised.”
“If I say yes, which I’m not yet, what do I have to do?”
“We must complete everything by Samhain, your Halloween. That leaves us only a few months. Then the Key’s power will fade out of existence and seal you here.” Daire wiped his palms on his leggings. “My source hasn’t revealed the how just yet, but it will soon.”
“You want me to help you without any idea what I’m doing? On blind faith?”
“More or less,” he said through gritted teeth.
“No deal.” I swiveled around and started to the mirror. “I’ll take my chances with the redhead.”
He grabbed my arm. “Wait!”
“What?” I jerked out of his grip and turned around. He was a loose end, and if I left him scared I’d reveal his big secret to somebody, it’d come back to bite me. “If you’re so worried I’ll tell your sister, saying something hurts me same as you. As far as I’m concerned this never happened. Happy?”
“Do you not realize how dire your situation actually is?” Daire let both hands fall back to his sides, his fingers clenching like he was resisting the urge to pin me down. “You struck me as someone who valued your freedom. Time is not a luxury you have in this world. How much about its flow did Riona tell you about? Did you notice in the vision how stilted it seemed?”
“She didn’t explain that much. What about it?”
“Time is an artificial construct here in Tir Na Nog.” He pointed at the skylight and the sun shining through. “The place where Riona and I live is called Bri Leith. It lays within the province of Midhe, one of five territories that resembles the states of your country. Tara, where the High King Bodb sits, is the Washington D.C. that’s nestled inside its borders. Because of that, it is the only region that has heavenly bodies: our sun, moon, and stars. Everywhere else fluctuates with its ruler’s whims. Something like days pass, but the only seasons are the ones we make. Nothing dies unless it’s killed. Everything is forever young and eternally at its peak. The magic that creates that effect has been even more erratic since it lost touch with the mortal realm. It never perfectly lines up with it at a steady pace. Sometimes a hundred years may pass in the human world when only a day has passed in Tir Na Nog, and visa versa. It seems like a week here when it’s been a month there. There have even been instances where a few minutes in either world has meant a millennium passing in the other.”
“The hell does that have to do with me?”
“You will stay frozen as you are in this world. If you don’t take my escape, one of two possibilities will happen. If you stayed here forever as Riona’s pet, your mind would deteriorate until there was no hint of you left. If, by some miracle, you found your own way out before that, only after decades of searching, you would find everything you ever knew long gone. Those charming bar-owners of yours, your mother, all dust. Then all that you had left would be waiting until you joined them.” Daire tilted his chin up, making his full basketball player height that much more ominous. “How lucky do you think you are?”
The truth? Not very. I kept my mouth shut though. Had that been why Rio was nervous to talk to me about that? If Daire was telling the truth, then he was right and I couldn’t afford to put off getting out, especially if his offer had a limited window. How the hell could I verify any of that? I could check out the history, whether they couldn’t lie, and the time difference with Rio. But I still didn’t have any other way to verify anything else he said or if it would screw me over. He’d given me more information than Rio had and he needed me for something. He’d tell me what he had to so I’d cooperate. I had to have more than his word…
“Prove it.” I stayed planted and crossed my arms in my best impression of security guard that meant business. I had a little weight to throw around: the leverage of knowing his scheme and the fact he needed me for it. If I had to launch that nuke and tattle, Rio would take out more anger on her annoying kid brother than her precious pet human. As long as Daire had more to lose, I could risk talking to him. “You’ve got one more shot to convince me to go along with this or I’m gone. I’ve got no idea what’s in this for you, but at this point I don’t care as long as it gets me back home.”
“How?”
“That’s on you.”
“Very well. I suppose I can show you the other mortal.” He sighed, throwing me a side scowl as he stepped up to the mirror. When he tapped the edge of the frame, a gold ring appeared around the glass. “It means taking you somewhere neither of us is allowed, especially you. I can hide you if you do as I say.”
“No promises.”
“This girl is going to be the death of me,” he muttered, switching to the same language Rio used where the actual words echoed underneath the English. Daire stepped into the mirror first, the surface rippling around anything it touched as he passed through.
I saved my whispering for a prayer that whatever he showed me would work. His plan was the only sliver of a chance I had right then. I followed him in.