Page 62 of Sky and the Grumpy Troll

“Is there a theory behind it, do you know?” I asked.

“I’ve found several proposed theories. Some think that you’ve traveled through time, or from a distant, far-off land across the universe.”

“Like a wormhole in space,” I said, nodding.

“My favorite states that the world isn’t one world,” she said. “It’s many. Stacked. Like the pages of a book pressed shut. Every page a whole world, lying flat against the next, every one of them certain it’s the only page in the book. And here and there, where the binding wears thin, holes appear where people or objects can slip through.”

I frowned, stories from some of my favorite books coming back to me. “Okay. Where I’m from, it’s an entire literary genre, but no one has found any evidence that it’s true.”

“A fictional genre, though?”

“Yes. In books, stories, movies. Those are like… plays.”

“Fiction often mimics reality, though. Even the most fantastical tales have a basis in reality.”

“You mean how people think maybe the idea of dragons came from finding dinosaur bones?”

She frowned. “My dear, dragons aren’t a fantasy. Do you not have them where you’re from?”

“Of course not. Dragons only exist in books. Trolls, too, if you must know.”

She blinked. “What kind of magical community do you have, then?”

“That’s the thing. We don’t have magic, not really.”

“No magic at all? But it is in our very life force!”

“I suppose I can’t say no magic at all, because you never know. But it’s not like it is here, not like this necklace, where someone enchanted it, and I can see a real result.” I tapped my aetherwoven pendant. “Where I’m from, everything even a little bit magical seeming can mostly be written off as coincidence or a strange unexplained phenomenon.”

“Fascinating. I should very much like to see your world.”

I grimaced. “My world also doesn’t have trolls, so you might stand out a bit.”

“No trolls!” Her eyes went wide. “Who writes great literature, then?”

I chuckled. “Humans. Everyone is human.”

She frowned, like she doubted humans’ ability in this area, then sat and wrote a few more things down on her paper. “I suppose a world that only has humans in it would be lacking in magic, as humans have the shallowest magical well of all sentient creatures.”

“I beg your pardon, I am not shallow!” I teased.

She chuckled. “It’s not an insult, just a fact. Like you have black hair and mine is gray. The size of our well, the life force inside us that creates magic, is determined at birth and cannot be changed by ethical means, unless you match to a soulmate with a much greater well.”

“Oh,” I whispered. “That’s interesting. People have many explanations for life force where I’m from, but I’ve never heard that one.”

“I wonder if that’s how it is between worlds. A shift in the evolutionary timeline creates a different world.”

“That’s how it is in our stories. A world where some different circumstance made everything different. A world where an evil dictator never lived, for example.”

Kethilda nodded and jotted that down, then asked me a few more questions about how my world was different, taking detailed notes as I tried to explain things like computers and the internet as best I could. Finally, I worked up the courage to ask her the question that had been sitting heavy in my heart.

“In the accounts you’ve read, did anybody ever go through, and then come home again?”

She looked up. “That must be a truly frightening thing to worry about.”

I nodded and picked at a splinter on the table. “It’s a bit of a mess now, because I’ve grown quite attached to Moerrven. But I have a family back home, and the thought of never seeing them again—” My voice broke, and I blinked back tears.

Kethilda’s sharp eyes had gone soft. “Well. The Liminal Order does not want this out, but there seems to be a portal in Liminia that goes to a land where there are no people at all. They come and go freely, using it to search for resources.”