Page 14 of Curse the Flame

I’m a teacher first, but I’m a reader always. I’m a huge fan of reading fantasy books, but one of my favorite genres is a well-written portal fantasy. Where the everyday, ordinary heroine finds her way to a world like any other because fate willed it. She has her adventure, maybe falls in love, and has to decide between staying in the world she came to save with her new friends, her new love, and her new life, or returning to the boring one she left behind.

A puppy with fiery eyes that breathes smoke sometimes? That’s not normal. That’s pretty fantastical if you ask me, but why am I here? What do I do now? Where do I go?

And, since I like to read fairy tales and fantasies, not live them, how do I get home?

I think about how I asked Sir and he showed me that portal-shaped whatever-it-was. If that was my way out, it’s gone now. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do at all, but it’s at that moment that it finally hits me that I’m missing one of my slippers.

It must have fallen off when I, you know, fell. Looking around the small clearing, I see the white slipper on its side not too far from where Sir is standing on all fours, waiting expectantly for me to notice him again.

He can wait. I need my slipper first.

I’ve got some tender tootsies. I don’t like bringing outside shoes into my inside space—something you learn to do when you think about what you step in on the New York streets everyday—and I’ve always kept a pair of slippers nearby to change into after I leave home and come back. I don’t like to be barefoot if I can help it, especially if I’m stuck outside.

I start to hop over to my slipper, but my balance has never been the best. I stumble and my foot lands on the ground.

A second later, there’s a small white-and-yellow daisy next to my big toe.

I lift my foot. Beneath it, I see a poppy that springs up without me weighing it down.

That was weird. Neither one of those flowers were there before.

I take another step.

Two little bluebells appear, sticking out between the space between my pinkie toe and the one next to it.

“What the…”

Slowly, I shift on my heel, looking at the spot where I fell. I thought I was lucky enough to land in the only area of this clearing where the wildflowers grew. They were thick enough to break my fall, but now that I’m looking at it…

Is it just me, or does it look like the flowers grew in the shape of a curled-on-their-side human body? Kind of like they sprouted into being an instant before I hit the earth?

I blink.

That… that’s not possible. Flowers bursting into existence wherever I touch the floor… that’s not possible.

Then again, falling into a mirror because I felt sorry for a puppy trapped on the other side? That’s not supposed to be possible, either, is it?

As if agreeing with me, Sir barks twice.

He barks twice, wags his tail, and, making sure I’m watching him, he turns and dashes off into the trees in front of me.

No. He’s so small, and this world is weird, and I came after him because I thought he needed help… what if he still does?

What do I do now? No clue, but that doesn’t stop me from jogging over to my fallen slipper, jamming my foot inside of it, and purposely ignoring each of the different blossoms that now track each of the steps I took to get to my shoe.

Here’s the deal. However it happened, I definitely fell through a mirror. I didn’t chase a white rabbit into another realm, but a dark brown puppy with orange eyes that smokes when he barks instead. He just took off, and because there’s nothing else I can think to do, I follow after him.

The puppy is trying to kill me.

Not intentionally, I don’t think. He seems far too happy about all of this to get the gist that I’m a human woman who hasn’t run since high school, and I’ve almost lost my house slippers twice more since taking off after him.

I have to, though.

Do you believe in magic…

Don’t know if my landlord was some kind of mindreader or what, but only just… today? Wow, that was today… only just today he reminded me how he asked me if I believed in magic and I had told him I did. I’d be a bit of a hypocrite if I pretended like there was a logical, rational reason why Sir’s eyes seem to flicker like fire or that every time my bare foot touches the ground, wildflowers spring up in my wake.

I need to keep my shoes on. In case someone is chasing after me as I chase after the pup, a trail of pink and purple and gold flowers would be a big ol’ neon arrow, letting them know I’ve gone this way.