The coast was clear. The doors worked. The knobs were made of oversized gum drops but they turned. The windows weren’t real though. They were made of icing on the outside, but that was fine for us. It meant we’d be less likely to be spotted. I closed the door, and we sat on the floor. The entire place wasn’t bigger than a 20 X 20 room. I think it was a work in progress.

“Let’s wait here until we have some morning light and tomorrow, we’ll try to find our way back to something we recognize,” I said.

“Now I see why your father said that the scepter was useless,” Emily declared, “it was fine for this world, because there was nothing left and with Josephine neutralized there was no chance of evil making it to your world. But he didn’t want to take a chance of unleashing this kind of reality into other worlds.”

“Right, perhaps he could’ve been clearer in his journal entry, but he probably didn’t expect me to try and come here.”

“Thanks, by the way. For saving me,” Emily said.

“Of course. No telling what that thing would’ve turned you into.”

“I shudder to even think about it.”

“Ya know, I might make jokes, but I really wouldn’t want you to be any other way, Emily.” She smiled and leaned back against the wall.

I just sat there and looked at her. It had been a while since I observed how pretty she was. And I don’t just mean gawking at her beside the pond the other day. But how nice of a smile she actually had. And her beautiful green eyes.

“What is it?” she asked, noticing my silent stare.

“Nothing…I just…” I couldn’t think of an excuse for my gaze.

We just looked at one another for a moment before I said, “oh, screw it,” and dove in towards her. Our lips connected and we started making out. She draped her arms behind the back of my neck to signal consent to my action. We were going at it pretty hard and heavy, and I soon found myself feeling up her chest from outside her shirt. Them bad boys were a lot more firm than I would’ve thought they’d be.

This was by far the most action I’d seen in a long, long time. But before things got too out of control, she pulled back.

“What’s wrong? Are you worried I’m still hung up on Stephanie? Cuz I’m not. I’ve finally realized that it’s not gonna work out and I’d be much more worried about losing her as a friend if I kept pursuing her.”

“No, it’s not that actually. But I suspected as much,” she said.

“Then what is it then?”

“It’s Anabel,” she sighed, “I promised her a while back that if it became apparent that Stephanie was out of reach for you, that I wouldn’t try anything and get in the way of her getting a chance with you.”

I sat back on the floor across from Emily and let her return upright before saying, “yeah, that’s right. The poor girl. I feel bad for making her feel like she’s been left behind. Things were going really good for us when we met, and if I’m being totally honest with you, there’s feelings for her there. But things just started spiraling out of control with all that’s happened, and then Stephanie showing up raised the stakes. It’s like, I wanted her so badly to be there, but now that she’s there, I know for certain it wasn’t meant to be. I love her, but it's just not in the cards.”

“That’s a very noble assessment of things. You’re fulfilling your family name,” she said, as she smiled at me.

“But just as it’s not fair to Anabel, it’s not fair to you either. Maybe I’m getting this wrong and love works differently for you? But I do have feelings for you as well. It’s different with Arduwan, but everyone can see that. I guess I’m really just at an impasse with you and Anabel. I’m sorry to put you two there.”

“Hey, look,” she comforted, “I’m not going anywhere unless you want me too. We’ve been through that. Murk sucks, I’m staying on Earth. You have a good sit down with Anabel and see what happens. If things don’t work out, we can come back to all this later.”

“Thanks, Emily. You’re usually a voice of reason.”

“Usually?” she questioned, as she smirked.

I smiled back and we just sat in silence for a moment.

Finally, she said, “okay, you know what…your honesty is commendable. So I’m gonna be honest too…”

She sat up on her knees in front of me and tilted her head down and parted her hair to expose the back of her neck.

“What are you doing?” I asked, very confused. Then I saw it. She had a large row of stitches across the back of her neck,far up, just below her hairline.

“Emily? What happened?”

“The truth is…when I was seventeen. I was with my mom and dad and little brother in the car. I was learning how to drive. It was a dark and stormy night…don’t even say it…but I took a corner too quickly and wrecked. I killed everyone in the car…”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

She paused for a moment before continuing, “...including myself. My neck was damaged from the whiplash, and I was dead. I was discovered and rescued by a mad scientist, who took me back to his lair and gave me a spinal implant that brought me back to life. It froze the cells in my body to their current state and powered them to where, physically, I would never age. The truth is, I’m only a year older than you. But my body stays the same.”

“So that explains it,” I acknowledged.

“Yeah, that’s why I don’t drive, or ride in the front seat of cars. I used to call this stitch the

Devil's Mark until I met you and learned about the Seven Devils.”

“What about the scientist?” I inquired.

“He wanted a puppet. He revived me and wanted to use me as his sex plaything. But I killed him and destroyed his lab before he got that level of control over me.”

“So that's why you’re a nympho?”

She half laughed and said, “actually, no. I was like that before.”

“Okay, so that’s why you’re a super genius then?”

“No, I was a genius before that too. All the implant does is keep my body functioning.”

“Emily, I had no idea. I appreciate you confiding in me.”

“Well, you’re you and I know you’re the kinda person I can trust something like that with.”

I moved over beside her against the wall and said, “we should probably get some rest.”

We fell asleep huddled next to each other for who knows how long. Well past daybreak. But we were abruptly awakened by the door to the gingerbread house opening up and daylight bursting in.

“Finally, I found you, Negative Nancy!” shrieked Josephine, who was standing in the doorway holding the scepter.

“Nooo!!” Emily screamed as she shielded her arms over her face.

I leapt up from the floor with my multitool knife open and stabbed downward into the top Josie’s right shoulder, similarly to how Wraith attacked Davol. She dropped the scepter to the floor and reached for the knife. I wasn’t sure what would happen next, so I just stood there between her and Emily on the floor still shielding herself.

Josie looked at the blood on her hand, with the knife still sticking out of her. She fell to her knees and started crying.

“Wwaaahhhh!!!!! Why would you do that, Eric?! I only wanted to help her! Waaahhh!!”

We took that as our cue to leave, and took off from the Gingerbread house, leaving her crying on the floor. A wound like that wouldn’t kill her. But I think we had enough of Devil Queen Josephine for one visit.

After a while of running again, we started to see some features that looked familiar. Using the little makeshift map, we were able to figure out how to get back to the rock pool that would lead us back to my world by nightfall. Down below, I found the bright green stone and we wasted no time leaving World X.

As we came up from the well, we realized it was super late at night so everyone would be sleeping. We tried to make as little noise as possible since Higgins room was down in the cellar. He and Anabel always ensured there were fresh towels waiting outside the well, so we were able to dry off quickly. The two of us made our way upstairs and were about to put the towels in the laundry room and go to bed, when I noticed something.

“Hmm, well someone’s awake. The lights on in the laundry room,” I pointed out to Emily.

I went over and opened the door and to our great shock, there was Stephanie, making out with Anabel against the washing machine with her hand pressed against her crotch. They both turned and looked at us in shock as they backed away from each other as if to act like nothing had happened.

* * *

A Little while later, I closed the door to the study to have a private conversation with Stephanie.

“Just what in the world are you doing?!” I asked.

“What am I doing? What are you doing back so soon?” she tried to deflect.

“What was all that? In there?”

“You know, we got along really well, and one thing just led to another.”

“Stephanie, you just got done lecturing me about not keeping things from each other. When were you going to tell me that something was going on with you and Anabel?”

“I…don’t know. It’s pretty new for me too. When were you going to tell me you and her kissed a few times back in her world?”

I waved my arms around and shouted, “how is that relevant?! What is relevant is we’ve got a crying young woman from a time period where that sorta thing wasn’t exactly commonplace and Emily’s upstairs trying to convince her that she did nothing wrong.”

“Eric, I understand that. That’s why we were being secretive about it at first. You said you usually leave on these quests for at least a few weeks at a time. I didn’t expect you to come back after one day!”

Things were pretty heated, and we needed to calm down, so I didn’t immediately respond to that.

“Look, I care about you both a lot. You’re literally the number one and number two most important women in my life. Did either of you consider my feelings in all of this?”

Stephanie looked down and frowned. She tried to make a joke, “well, didn’t you at least find it kinda hot then?”

I replied, “Stephanie, I literally just escaped a crazy, overly happy clown girl, that kinda turned me on…and I’m not even gonna tell you what happened after that. Finding something ‘kinda hot’ isn’t exactly something that's a problem around here these days.”

I paused a moment before walking over to hug her and said, “hey, I’m not mad that it happened. I just wish I had found out a different way. I didn’t even know you liked girls.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve only recently accepted it myself,” she cried while reciprocating the hug, “It’s just…with our history and knowing you had feelings for Anabel too, we wanted to keep it between us.”

“It’ll be fine. I’m happy for both of you.”

She sniffled a bit and said, “I better go to bed. Do you mind checking in on Anabel? It’s probably best I keep away from her for tonight.”

“Yeah, no problem. But I’m leaving it up to you to tell Arduwan and Higgins there’s something going on between you two. It’s not right that they’re the only ones in the dark about it. Besides, better they hear it first than finding out the way me and Emily did.”

“Yeah, I can do that,” she said as she nodded in agreement.

We both made our way upstairs and she went off into her room first before I went into Anabel’s to check on her. When I opened the door, I saw her asleep in Emily’s lap on the bed.

Emily shot me a smile and I asked, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” she whispered, “she finally calmed down. I just stroked her hair and explained to her that some people feel that way about the same gender. She asked me if she was going to hell. I just told her to hold the door open for me if she did.”

“Thanks’, Emily. I appreciate it. I don’t want to wake her up. I just wanted to make sure everything was alright.”

“It’ll be fine. I don’t mind just letting her sleep till morning,” she said.

We wished each other goodnight before I made my way back to my room. What a crazy 24 hours. The following morning, Anabel timidly came downstairs. Her and Stephanie avoided each other at first but thankfully Stephanie had already spoken to Higgins and Arduwan, so everyone was being conscious of what they say. The next couple of days were a little awkward, but everyone was getting along nicely. Anabel even started sitting next to Stephanie at the dinner table again.