The portal opened up the next morning in the middle of the back yard. It was like a white sheet hanging in the air, rippling softly, with the edges faded, and as if looking out a dirty window, they could see a room through it. Julia gave a quiet sigh. Falcon wrapped an arm around her waist, but still kept a firm grip on Gavin, who was also upset that he couldn’t go. Tess smiled at her family before taking Ayden’s hand and stepping through the gateway.

Everything went fuzzy and their skin tingled for a few seconds, but then new surroundings came into focus. They turned to see the portal pull in on itself until it completely disappeared. The room they were left in was square, with white walls. It was full of bookshelves holding the Dungeons and Dragons manuals they were told about, fantasy books, and games. There was a desk with a thin, black box sitting on top, though they knew it was called a monitor. There was also a set of keys, what must have been the phone, and a small silver picture frame.

Tess picked up the picture and wiped the dust off of it. “Look.” It was of a woman in her forties with long brown hair and very pale skin. Sitting next to her was a teenage boy with messy brown hair. Tess instantly recognized him. “It’s my dad,” she said. “That must be my grandma.”

“You look a lot like her,” Ayden pointed out.

She smiled at that. “Guess it fits that I’m named after her.” When she set the picture down, she bumped the desk and the screen on the monitor suddenly lit up. It was just black with the word PLAY on it.

Ayden pulled out the keyboard tray and smiled down at the objects there. Tess tried to touch the keyboard, but he grabbed her hand. They didn’t want to touch it yet, they weren’t ready to go home. And Ayden wasn’t sure what pressing one of the letter or number buttons would do. The only thing Falcon had told him was, “Ignore the thing with the letters, next to that is a mouse, not the animal…” Ayden pushed it tentatively and watched the little white hand on the screen move. When it hovered above PLAY, the word lit up with a red glow. “Cool,” he murmured and pushed the tray back in.

He picked up a folded piece of paper that was sitting on the desk and opened it up, though he already knew what it would be from listening to Falcon and Julia’s stories. It was the note they had sent back through the portal after they had defeated Kieran. He read it out loud anyway for Tess, “Dear friends and family, please know that we are both safe and happy where we are. However, we won’t be able to see you again. We love you all. Goodbye, Julia Clark and Greg Bennet.” He laughed. “Look, he almost wrote Falcon.”

“Sad that it’s still here after all this time.”

“It’s only been eight months here,” he reminded her.

“Still…” She sighed. “I’d want someone to realize I was gone sooner than that.”

“They might not have taken the note.” He shrugged. “But I don’t think either of your parents had many friends here anyway. Your dad had no family at all and your mom’s are far away in that town… Washington I think it was.”

She nodded. Then, not interested in anything else in the room, since it was mostly books, she headed out into the hallway. She glanced around, overwhelmed, not knowing where to start.

Ayden came to stand beside her. “Left should be your grandma’s room and the bathroom. Straight ahead is the living room.” They could see that. “And right is your dad’s room.”

She decided to check out her grandma’s room first. She pushed the door open and found a very barren bedroom. Aside from a dresser and two night tables, there was just a bare queen-size bed with a large brown box on top. Tess brushed off some of the dust and pushed on the top of the strange box curiously, then grabbed a flap and pulled. She gave a small-amused huff at how it opened. Inside was mostly clothes, she seemed to have been the same size as Tess. She picked up a soft shirt and smelled it. It was interesting, not good or bad, but she smiled at holding something that belonged to a family member that she had never been able to meet, but who she had heard so many wonderful things about. Finally, she put it back and went to her father’s old room. Ayden continued to follow.

It was a typical bedroom; plain, white walls, beige carpeting, and all the furniture, like in her grandmother’s room, was made out of oak. A large shelf, filled with clothes, took up most of the wall next to the doorway they were standing in. She noted that her father had been smaller when he lived here. The full sized bed sat against the far wall with green blankets matched the curtains on the windows. Next to the bed was a nightstand and on top was a little box with a black face and red numbers.

“What’s that?” Tess asked.

Ayden just shrugged.

Next, they checked out the living room. This room, like the rest of the house, had the same smooth white walls and beige carpeting. A very large black box stood against the wall on the opposite side, next to it was a shelf with lots of colorful cases. In the middle of the room was a long blue couch with a coffee table in front of it. Ayden pointed to a door on the right wall, “That’s outside,” he said, then pointed to the door on the left wall. “And that’s the kitchen… or the other way around.”

They walked through the door on the left and into the kitchen. Ayden started opening drawers, while Tess pushed and turned things. She quickly figured out the electric stove. Sucking on her burnt finger, she pulled a door open. “I thought there wasn’t magic here.”

“There isn’t,” Ayden told her, pulling a large stack of manuals out of a drawer. “Trust me, I can feel it, or rather not feel it.”

“Well there’s a light spell in here.”

“It’s not magic, it’s electric light,” he told her. When she looked clueless, because of course she hadn’t listened to anything her father had said, he just told her, “It’s this world’s version of magic.”

“It’s cold in here, too.” she asked, then opened the smaller door on top. She gave a short surprised laugh. “It’s colder in this one.” She picked up a container that said ice cream on it. “This stuff is frozen. But not magic?”

Ayden came over and looked in. “Electric, too.”

Tess moved on to something else. She pushed a button on a box and it made a beep sound, she smiled and pushed it again. “This thing has numbers, too.”

Ayden shook his head as he closed the refrigerator and freezer and turned to her. “Stop touching stuff until we know what it is.”

She sighed and continued looking around. “So what thing is the TV?”

“Living room. Big black box,” he answered, and led the way. He sat down on the couch and was distracted for a moment by how bouncy and cushy it was, then put the manuals down on the coffee table and started shuffling through them.

Tess touched the large black screen. “Is this it?”

He nodded though didn’t actually look.

“Are these those moving story books?” she asked, running her fingers along the colorful cases on the shelf.

“They’re called movies.”

“I wanna see one.”

“Gotta figure out how it works first,” he told her.

“Oh look!” she said excitedly. “Xena, Warrior Princess!” Her father called her Warrior Princess sometimes, he told her it was a name he had gotten from a hero story on Earth. “Let’s do this one.”

Ayden shot her a smile. “Come here and read some of these. It’ll go faster.” He wasn’t surprised when she ignored him. Tess, as a general rule, didn’t read if it could be helped. According to her, that was his job. He just shook his head as he started reading about the cordless phone.

Still holding the Xena box, she wandered over to the left side wall and looked at three landscape pictures hanging there, then moved to the door next to them and opened it. “By the gods!” she breathed.

“What?” Ayden asked, not looking up.

“Outside.”

“One thing at a time Tess, just stay in here,” he told her. “Can you go get the phone off the desk please?”

It took her a few minutes to pull herself away from the strange sights. She closed the door and turned to him. “What?”

“Phone. Desk. Get.” He smirked. “This thing,” he said, pointing to the picture in the manual.

She rolled her eyes at him before going to retrieve it.

“It goes on that thing.” He pointed to the cradle that sat on a small table next to the kitchen door. “No, the other way. Yeah, that’s good. Thanks.”

She pulled the drawer underneath it open and grabbed a yellow stick with a glass top from inside. She pushed a button on the side and the end of it lit up, startling her a bit. “Ayd look, a portable light.” He squinted as she shined it at him and laughed softly. She turned it off and looked it over. After a moment she found that she could unscrew the lid. Two small cylinders fell out, she picked one up. “AA battery, super heavy duty.” She pressed the button again, but it didn’t light up now. “Huh, guess this is their magic. Can they go in anything?” she wondered.

“I don’t know, just put them back.”

She ignored him and looked around for something else to put the batteries in. “Hmm…”

Ayden looked over at her. “Tess, please leave it alone.”

His worried tone got her attention and she frowned at him. She suddenly realized what she was doing and what he was thinking. His mother had died while playing with magic that she knew about, now Tess was messing with a kind of magic that they didn’t even understand and it scared him.

“Sorry,” she said and put the things back.

“Thanks.” He gave her a smile before returning to reading.

She pulled a thin black book out of the drawer and flipped through the little tabbed pages until she got to G. “I found Gabe’s numbers,” she said. “How do we use them again?”

“By pressing the numbers on the phone. But your dad said it had to charge for a few hours first,” he told her. “And this manual says it charges by sitting there.”

“They sure use a lot of numbers here,” she noted as she set the book down and went to sit beside him. “Read about how this works now,” she said as she started opening the Xena box.

“Patience,” he told her, taking the box away from her and setting it on the table. “Look around some more, I’ll let you know when I get to that.”

Seconds later she was back to wandering. “Hey Ayd, check it out.” She pushed up a tiny lever on the wall and a ball on the ceiling lit up, she pushed down and it went dark. “Where’s the AA batteries for this?” she wondered and started pulling lightly on the plate around the switch.

“I don’t know,” Ayden said. “But stop trying to open things.”

She nodded and left it alone. “So anyone can use magic here, huh? That’s pretty cool.”

“Yes. But it’s not really magic, it’s called electricity.”

“Like your shock spell?”

“Yeah, except theirs is non-magical.”

“Huh.” She picked up a black stick from on top of the TV. “Geez, more numbers. Oh wait… menu, guide, info,” she read under her breath, “Power. Ah!” She pushed that one and then jumped back with a gasp as the TV screen lit up and sound came out of it.

“Tess,” he grumbled.

“Shut up, I figured it out,” she said proudly.

He rolled his eyes but just let her go.

“Look, it’s like watching people through a window. It’s so real.” She cocked her head to the side, studying it. Tentatively she touched the screen, then backed up a few steps and sat down on the coffee table.

Ayden looked up and was instantly mesmerized by it too. “Let me see that,” he said, leaning forward and grabbing for the control stick.

“No.” She smacked his hand away.

He acted like he was going to sit back, but then snatched it from her quickly.

“Hey!” She got off the table and tackled him. He laughed and held it closer. He automatically tried to cast a shield, but then grumbled. There was no magic.

“Hah! Not so mighty without your spells.” She laughed and wrestled the control away from him.

“Brat.”

“Goober,” she said, then squealed when he tickled her. “Stop it. Go read.” She pushed him toward the center of the couch so that he was in front of the manuals again. 

She pressed random number buttons and watched the pictures change. It wasn’t long before she figured out the CH and VOL buttons and was flipping through the moving pictures. “This is so cool.”

“Stay on one for a second,” he complained. “Go back, no back again.” They watched for a minute and listened to a male voice talk about mining oil.

“That’s boring,” she said and started flipping again. She finally found something that looked like moving paintings and stayed there. She laughed as she watched a talking gray rabbit and a man with a long red mustache.

It was awhile before Ayden finally told her to pick a Xena disc. He put it in the DVD player and she chose an episode called One Against an Army. “I want one of those round blades.” she said, a few minutes later. Then came the questions. “What’s a Greece? Why does it look like its real people?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re sure it’s not real?” she asked as the blond woman got hit with an arrow.

“According to your parents it’s not.”

They watched for a while in silence until it got to a fighting scene. “Finally!” She grinned, but it was over quickly and she frowned.

“When I reach down inside myself and do things I’m not capable of, it’s because of you,” Xena said to her friend.

Tess rolled her eyes. “Get back to the fighting already,” she complained. She was soon smiling again when she got her wish. “How did she do that?” she wanted to know. “There is no way someone could flip like that.”

“It’s not real,” Ayden reminded her.

“Sure looks real,” she said, then laughed. “Okay, it’s totally fake. Look how all the bad guys wait until she’s ready to fight them. There’s like forty of them and they only attack a few at a time. Like that would ever happen.” Then a minute later, “That’s so stupid, she would so be dead already.”

“It’s not real,” he repeated.

They watched three more episodes, all with commentary from her, mostly on wrong flips and fighting moves. Finally, he got up and went to find some food. She barely noticed. He opened the cupboards and looked at a bunch of colorful labels with pictures of food on them. “Hey Tess, they have soup that’s already made in these metal containers. And they have a little pull on top to open them. Huh. It even has cooking directions written on it… cool.” Having read the microwave manual, he used that to heat two bowls of soup. “Come eat,” he called.

“Bring it in here.”

He set hers down in front of her on the coffee table and handed her a spoon. “That microwave thing is great. It cooks so fast. I see why your mom misses it.”

“Uh huh,” she said off-handedly, still focused on the TV.

Several episodes later, Ayden remembered their purpose and took the phone out of its cradle. He pressed the talk button and then the numbers he found in the black book next to Gabe’s name. He put the phone to his ear like Falcon had told him and listened to the ringing sounds. Finally, it stopped and a male voice asked, “Yeah?”

“Is this Gabe?”

“Yeah.”

“My name is Ayden,” he said. “I’m from Kelstone—”

“Not interested in buying anything,” the man told him.

“Um, I’m not selling anything.”

“Oh, sorry,” Gabe said. “So, what’d you want?”

“We need the orb that you took from our world. It’s extremely important so if you could—” Suddenly, there was click sound and then a low steady tone. “Gabe?” There was no answer. He stared at the phone for a moment, then hung up and tried again. This time it just continued to make the ringing sounds. Finally, he put the phone back in its cradle and rejoined Tess on the couch.

“What happened?”

He shrugged. “No idea. I’ll try again in a bit.”

He tried again several more times, but Gabe never came back. After a while, he gave up for the night. Tess spent the rest of the evening watching Xena episodes while Ayden read everything he could, except for all the fantasy books in Falcon’s office. Then he tested all the electronics, not including the computer, until he was satisfied that he understood them well enough.

“Let’s go to bed Tess, it’s late,” he said finally. It had gotten dark several episodes ago, and in spite of the bright ceiling light, Ayden was yawning.

She yawned as well and nodded, then pushing the power button on the control, she followed him into her father’s old room. She sat down on the bed and smiled. “Wow. This bed is bouncy.” Unable to resist, she got up and jumped on it. Ayden smiled and joined her for a moment and then fell back and pulled her down with him. She rolled onto her side and gave him a suggestive half-grin.

“A bit weird isn’t it?” he asked.

“What?”

“This is your dad’s bed.”

“Not anymore,” she said, then leaned down to smell one of the pillows. “Still sort of smells like him though.” She shrugged, then slid her hand on to Ayden’s waist, pulling him closer and kissing his throat.

“You don’t feel weird doing this in your dad’s bed?”

“Do you really think I’d feel weird doing this anywhere?” she asked. “But it would be nice if you wouldn’t talk about my dad anymore. He’s not who I want to be thinking about right now.” He hesitated and she rolled her eyes at him. “Oh stop it and get over here,” she ordered, rolling on to her back and pulling him on top of her. “Are you really gonna tell me no?”

He grinned. “As if I could.” He kissed her and the ownership of the bed was quickly forgotten.