3

With the candle lit, the room was still dim, but the little flame made it feel cozier than the stark light of her phone did. The match had left a sulphuric stink that she couldn’t exactly open a window to air out, and it had sputtered so violently to life that she had almost dropped it, but at least it had lit easily on the first strike.

If this world had matches, she wondered if it had gunpowder. There wasn’t any doubt in her mind that she was somewhere else, not really. The thought that she had somehow slipped into another world was an impossible one, but so was being in Boston one second and somewhere completely different the next. The impossible had already happened, so she didn’t see the point in denying the reality of her situation.

She was very far from home, and she had no idea how to even begin finding her way back.

She gazed at the candle for a few moments before turning her attention to her remaining grocery bag, which she had set on the desk. The contents — a loaf of French bread, a box of macaroni and cheese, a somewhat squished donut, and two cans of tuna — were all she had to eat for the foreseeable future. She wished she still had her other bag; the milk was probably a lost cause since she doubted they had anything that passed for refrigeration here, but the oranges would have been nice to have.

She arranged her food on the desk, shoved the empty plastic bag into the drawer, then peeled off her rain jacket. Her keys, which were on a lanyard, she looped around her neck, and she slipped her slim card holder wallet into the back pocket of her jeans. If she ended up back in Boston as suddenly as she appeared here, she didn’t want to leave her keys and ID behind.

Her phone went in her other back pocket, but first, she turned it off. The battery was half drained already, and while the phone was pretty much useless without service, she wanted to keep the remaining charge for as long as possible.

She glanced at her rubber boots, wishing she had different shoes, and realized they were still caked with drying mud — mud which she had tracked down the stairs and likely across the clean stone floor above. Not sure how to clean them at the moment, she took the boots off so she wouldn’t make more of a mess, and set them on the floor next to the desk.

She stood in that dim basement room in her socks, jeans, and t-shirt and wondered what to do next. There was a part of her that wanted to lay down on the dusty bed in the corner and cry until she fell asleep with the scant hope that when she woke up, all of this would have been a dream. It wasn’t a small part, either. Figuring out how to deal with whatever was going on felt immense. Far too big for her to handle. She just wanted to hide until it all went away.

But the deepest part of her knew this wasn’t a dream. This wasn’t a problem she could ignore until it went away.

So she went upstairs to find the ghost.

It didn’t take her long. The grey woman was standing at the basin of water, gazing down into it — or at least, her face was tilted toward it. Lyra didn’t even know if she could see. She could talk without a mouth, somehow, so maybe she could see without eyes, or maybe she had senses that were completely alien to the living.

Lyra didn’t really care. She had more important things to figure out.

“Thank you for letting me stay here,” she said into the silence of the temple. The woman turned her blank face towards her. “My name’s Lyra, by the way. I don’t think I got your name.”

She thought it was probably her best bet to err on the side of politeness when talking to a transparent grey woman without a face. The woman shifted, turning toward her more fully.

“I am honored to meet you, priestess. You will find my inscription above the door to this temple. It has faded with time. If you were to fix it, I would be most grateful.”

That didn’t tell her what the ghost’s name was, but whatever. She had more important things to figure out. The problem was, she didn’t know how to ask things like “Am I in a different world?” or even “What country am I in?” without sounding like she had escaped from the lunatic asylum.

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Maybe she shouldn’t worry about it too much. She was talking to a ghost, after all.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to fix it, but I’ll take a look at it later.” She figured she owed this ghost woman at least that much for her kindness. Clearing her throat, she forged ahead. “I was wondering, what country is this? It’s not somewhere on Earth, is it?”

The woman cocked her head to the side. Her blank face made the gesture more disturbing than it would have been otherwise.

“Kyokami is located in the Helioclades, a province administered by the City-State of Heliotheopoli, under the watchful eye of the God-King Koval.” She paused. “The village is built upon fertile red earth.”

Lyra’s mouth moved with the unfamiliar words before she decided there was no way she was going to remember them and she promptly moved on to the woman’s last sentence.

“No, I mean, the planet Earth.” She sighed and dragged a hand through her hair. “Never mind. If I have to ask, I guess I already know the answer.”

“You are not from here.”

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even really an accusation. It was simply a statement of fact.

“No, I’m not.”

The true enormity of what had happened to her hit her fully, and she stumbled backwards, looking for somewhere to sit. There were no chairs in the temple room, just the basin of water and the floor. Since she didn’t want to get her jeans wet, she opted to sit on the floor next to the shelf the cat’s bed was on. The cat twisted over onto her back and closed her eyes, either unknowing or uncaring of Lyra's inner turmoil as she purred.

She spotted chunks of red dirt leading from the temple’s entrance to the stairs and idly flicked one away from her. She would have to clean the mess up later. The thought was so mundane that it helped her focus past the panic that was making her light-headed.

“Do you know how I got here?”

She didn’t have high hopes, but it was worth the breath to ask.

The grey woman bowed her head. “I do not know, priestess. I apologize. As I said, you have the feel of the Great God upon you. I do not know how or why He moves.”

“So, God brought me here?” Her face twisted of its own accord. She had never been partial to religion, but she supposed she was talking to a ghost after being transported to another world, so maybe she should lay off the skepticism for now. “How do I get back?”

“I am afraid I must apologize again, priestess. That is not within my lιən.”

The unfamiliar word stumped her. She had no idea why she couldn’t understand it when she understood everything else the woman said.

“I don’t know what that means. I just need a way to get home. I shouldn’t even be here. I have work in the morning and my dad’s going to freak out when I don’t answer his texts.”

“A larger temple may have the answers to your questions, priestess, though I do not wish for you to leave. You may be happier here than you expect. My temple is quiet, but the people here are kind. They will rejoice at your presence.”

“I got chased away by an angry old lady and some guy with a sword,” she replied, pulling her knees up against her chest. “They weren’t exactly welcoming, and even if they were, I don’t want to be here! I have a life to get back to. I don’t know why I’m here, but it’s some sort of mistake. I just want to go home.”

“My apologies. Even if it was within my lιən, I do not have the power to reverse what the Great God has wrought. You are where you are supposed to be, priestess. Do not doubt that.”

“What does that mean? Lein, or le-en or whatever. It’s the second time you’ve said it.”

“Perhaps there is not a word for it in your language, priestess. My lιən is my domain. It is all I can know and affect. It is the prayers that reach me, the gifts I offer, the sacrifices I accept. My lιən is knowledge and words and learning. I have no power over other worlds or the methods of traveling between them.”

Lyra blinked slowly, then turned her head to look around the room. The temple room, with the offering bowl outside. She thought about how the woman kept calling her priestess, and the times she had mentioned the Great God and the God-King. A cold sweat broke out on the palms of her hands.

“You’re not a ghost, are you?”

“I am but a simple god, priestess. My name is written in stone on the temple wall, though its true meaning has long been lost. I do not believe there are any lingering souls in Kyokami, if it is them that you fear.”

“Oh.” Dazed, she stared at the woman — the god, though what that meant exactly, she wasn’t sure. Once again, she felt the urge to go downstairs, hide under the covers of the dusty bed, and wait for all of this to go away.

But of course, it wouldn’t. Unless whatever happened to her reversed itself on its own, she was stuck here until she found her own way home.

She took a deep breath. All right, so this woman wasn’t a ghost, but did it really matter what she called herself? She spoke English, she had offered Lyra a safe place to sleep, and she had asked for nothing in return other than for Lyra to clean up the inscription of her name on the temple and to name her cat.

She was in a really, really bad spot, but she wasn’t in imminent danger anymore. This new knowledge didn’t have to change anything. She would just keep her head down, be polite, and try to figure out a way to get the hell out of here by herself… or find someone who could send her back to Boston where she belonged.