Barb was never bringing her brother lunch again. Ever. He’d just have to starve the next time he neglected to feed himself, and after this debacle, she was happy to let him.
Although, truth be told, this situation was a bit extreme, even for them.
The bizarre human-fox hybrid creature across the hut kept talking at her in some mishmash half-language. Were there actual words?
Her left shoulder was definitely out of socket. Again. It simply wouldn’t stay put after the first time she dislocated it years ago, but she’d been too busy keeping the fox-things away that she hadn’t had a chance to put it back in.
She pressed her aching back into the corner of the hut and kept the pole she’d found extended between them. It had been a while since she’d had to beat someone down with a pole, but it was better than nothing.
Assuming she could even hurt the animal.
Or—the person?
Animal-person-hybrid? Walking, talking fox-thing with horns? Why did it have horns?
What even was it? And where was she? This wasn’t San Francisco. No way. Unless there really were mutant creatures roaming around in the BART tunnels.
And where was Jim? He hadn’t been hovering around her like a worried mother hen when she’d come to in the dark, smelly hut. That could only mean he was hurt.
Or worse.
Her stomach turned over, and the room whirled in her eyes. The pole shook in her hand and dropped slightly.
The fox creature stepped toward her, and she braced her back against the wall again, forcing the pole level again in spite of how it made her shoulder ache.
“I said, stay back!” She pretended the pole wasn’t shaking as much as she was.
Something wet dripped down her face. It was sweat. Surely. Because she was stressed and the hut didn’t have good windows, even though the whole place felt completely chilled.
The fox creature spoke again, the growly half-language a bit clearer this time. Had it slowed down?
A clatter outside, made her jump, and the hut door pulled open, spilling light onto the dirt floor. Another fox creature poked its head inside and spoke to the first.
Barb blinked, trying to focus, but her vision kept blurring. Maybe she’d hit her head harder than she’d thought. Who knew how far she’d even fallen?
The horned-fox-person backed out of the hut. The new arrival stepped in further, and with the light from the outside, Barb could see—wings? This fox-creature had wings?
The bile in her stomach threatened at the back of her throat.
She wasn’t sure which was worse, the nausea or the pain of her injuries. Granted, they were probably connected, but until Barb could sort out whether or not these fox-people were going to eat her alive, neither were a priority.
The winged-fox-person faced her, clawed hands hands up with fingers spread. It flashed a toothy grin.
“Hello.”
Barb’s heart thudded. Did it just talk—English? She clutched the pole until her knuckles ached. “Hi?”
The grin widened in that fox-like snout. “You are among friends.”
Barb scoffed. “Really?”
The fox-thing—it sounded female—rolled her eyes, setting her hands on her hips. “Forgive Goran. He is Harna. He does not like making your words.”
Barb let the pole lower slightly. “Where am I?”
“You are not in your world.” The fox-woman leveled somber eyes at her. “But you are not in danger.”
The throb in her dislocated shoulder made it hard to focus on anything, and her right arm had been supporting the heavy pole for what felt like hours. But the fox-thing could be lying. This whole thing could be a trick to gain her confidence.
Would you listen to yourself? You’re delirious. Barb shut her eyes and leaned her head back. “I don’t trust you.”
“You do not know me. I do not expect trust.” The fox-woman chuckled, her wings shivering where they were folded around her shoulders like a cape. “But we would help you, if you would allow us.”
“What are you?”
“We are Josharon.” The toothy grin was back. “I am Malaka of the Avi.” She jerked her head at the doorway. “You have already met Goran of the Harna.”
Barb let the pole fall, relief tingling up her arm. “I’m Barb.”
“Yes, I know.” Malaka nodded.
Barb scowled. “You know?”
“Yes. Your brother is on his way.”
Barb snapped the pole back into position, hissing. “How do you know my brother? Where is he? What have you done with him?”
“Oi.” Malaka sneered. “Udasi.”
Barb shook the pole. “Where is Jim?”
“I told you. He is on his way.” Malaka laughed. “You are ill-tempered.”
“I fell out of the sky and landed on a rock!” Barb shook the pole at her in spite of how it hurt. “Take me to my brother, right now, or I’ll—”
“Hit me with a clothing rack?” Malaka laughed.
Okay. The fox-creature had a point. Barb let the pole fall again with a groan. “Fair enough.”
“Will you allow us to help you?” Malaka folded her arms.
Barb sagged against the wall, the sharp agony in her shoulder and back and ribs and head all conspiring against her. “I don’t know where I am.”
Malaka took a step, and Barb tried to raise the pole again, but it wouldn’t move. Her right knee shook. Bad time for it to give out.
Too late. She slid down the wall, and her backside hit the floor.
Stupid knee. Stupid leg.
More noise outside the hut made Malaka turn around, and the door swung open. A flash of blond hair, and for a moment Barb though it was Jim. But the figure that ran into view was far too small and female and—she was talking way too fast.
Barb’s eyes adjusted to the dimness slowly, and the girl took shape. Tiny. Five feet tall, maybe? Long blonde hair tied back in a leather cord. She wore feather-light skirts in pastel colors. And she was—human. Not a human-like fox-thing. She was just—human.
How does that work?
The girl fluttered toward her like a hyperactive butterfly, and Malaka’s wings flared out in warning.
“Jenny, savadhani!”
Barb grappled for the pole again, but the young girl snatched it away from her and knelt beside her.
“You are a terrible mess.” The girl grinned. “I’m Jenny, and I’m so glad to meet you!” She held out her hand. “You’re from Terran, right? Terrans shake hands when they meet each other?” Her dark blue eyes sparkled. “Here! Shake my hand!”
“What?” Barb gasped, her lungs refusing to take a deep enough breath.
“Oh, that’s okay. We can shake hands later.” Jenny cocked her head, long hair tumbling over her shoulder. “Is your shoulder all right? It doesn’t look right.” She grimaced. “I mean, you don’t look right overall. You’re bleeding.”
Barb sputtered incoherently, stumbling over the words that she couldn’t get out. And the girl kept talking. Chattering. Like a psychotic squirrel.
“I heard the call come over the radio that people were falling out of the sky, so I had to come see what was going on.” The girl pulled a handmade leather sling bag off of her shoulder and opened it up in her lap. “I mean, it’s not every day that people fall out of the sky. Lots of other things do, but not people.”
Did the girl breathe? Was she actually breathing between words?
“And then I heard one of the elders say you were from Terran, and I’ve never met a Terran before. I mean, other than my brother and sister. But we all got here at the same time, and they don’t know any Terrans either.” The girl pulled out envelopes from the bag and started mixing their contents—herbs and weeds—in the palm of her hand. “So I really had to come meet you. I’m Jenny, by the way. Did I say that? You didn’t tell me your name, and that’s really rude. But I forgive you, because you probably have a concussion.”
The girl reached toward her, her palm now slathered in herb-weed-paste, and Barb smacked her hand away.
“Get away from me.” Barb finally got a word in edgewise.
“Why?”
“Why?” Barb yelped.
Jenny beamed. “This will stop the bleeding.”
“Don’t touch me.”
“But it works. I promise.”
“Kid—if you touch me, I will punch you in the face.”
Over Jenny’s shoulder, the fox-woman Malaka released a quiet snarl, her wings trembling in the darkness. It was the first time the creature had made a sound that was anything but friendly.
“Aakraamak.” Jenny glanced back at Malaka. “She’s really aggressive, isn’t she?”
“Udasi.” Malaka nodded without a smile.
Jenny flashed a grin, bright and sparkling and completely real. “You can be as aggressive as you want, but the blood loss is going to knock you out really soon. So I’ll get to take care of you either way.” She giggled. “Do you like tea? I’ll make you some tea. I think we’re going to be friends.”
Barb let her good shoulder lean against the wall with a sigh. “Who are you?”
“I told you.” The girl laughed. “My name is Jenny Mitchell.” She held up her hand. “Would you please let me put this on you? I promise you’ll feel better.”
“What is it?”
“A salve of lace moss, winter cherry root, and chandan sap.”
“Why would I let you put that on me?”
“Because you’re bleeding out?” Jenny pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows.
Who is this kid? She’s ridiculous. And adorable.
And—adorable? Had Barb just thought that? She had to have a concussion.
The room was still spinning. The fox-woman had taken point behind Jenny, arms still crossed and teeth still showing.
“Fine,” Barb gasped.
“Yay!” Jenny surged forward and slathered and palm full of paste on Barb’s right arm.
Kind of surprising. That wasn’t where Barb thought she was going. Barb blinked at the girl’s strong fingers as they worked the past into her blood-stained skin.
Oh. She really was bleeding.
A lot.
I’m in shock. The thought resonated vaguely at the back of her mind. Of course, I’m in shock. I fell out of the sky and landed in a village of walking, talking fox-people.
“So, what happened?” Jenny looked into her face as she kept applying the salve.
“I don’t know,” Barb struggled to speak as a tingling, numbing sensation spread through her right arm. “I—just fell.”
“From what Goran has told me, it is much like what happened in Aushadha Village.” Malaka spoke quietly. “A hole in the sky. And a person falling out of it. But whereas the boy hit a soft patch of earth, this one landed on a boulder.”
Jenny winced. “On your arm?” She nodded at Barb’s dislocated shoulder.
“Yeah.” Barb lowered her head. “I’ll put it back in later.”
“You can do that?” Jenny sounded impressed.
“I do it all the time.”
“Wow, that can’t be healthy.” Jenny reached into her bag and pulled out a strip of white cloth. “Here, let me wrap your arm up, and then we’ll look at the rest of you.”
Barb didn’t stop the girl from binding up the salve-coated injury on her right arm. It had helped. Smelled awful, but hey—beggars couldn’t be choosers.
A loud rattling sound outside made Jenny pause. “That’s the wagon,” she said. “Meg’s here.”
Malaka backed up a few steps and stepped out of the hut.
“Who is Meg?” Barb whispered, the adrenaline from before wearing off.
“My older sister.” Jenny finished bandaging her arm. “Your brother is probably with her.”
Barb shifted to sit up, but the room rocked wildly. “Geez.”
“Not so fast,” Jenny said. “Wow, you’re impatient. I think you and Meg are going to be friends too, after you beat each other up first.”
“What?”
The door swung open.
“Barb?”
Barb’s breath caught in her throat as Jim ducked into the hut, crouching to fit under the low doorway. Jenny was suddenly not there anymore, and Jim’s arms were crushing her to his chest.
“Barb, are you okay? Please say you’re okay.”
Barb rested her forehead on his shoulder and clutched the back of his jacket with her good hand.
“I’m all right, Jim.” Her voice shook.
His arms trembled around her. “I thought I lost you.”
Barb hissed in pain, and Jim pulled back. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“What hurts?”
“Better to ask what doesn’t hurt.” She offered a smirk in hopes of wiping that worried look off his face.
It didn’t work.
“Shoulder?” His gaze focused on her left arm. “It’s out again?”
“You know it never stays in.”
“Here.” He carefully wrapped his arms around her lower back and slid her out of the corner.
“Jim.”
“Let’s take care of it now.” He took position behind her, bracing her back with his arm. “You’ll be less grumpy.”
“I’m always grumpy.”
“I said less grumpy. Not un-grumpy.” His fingertips stabbed into the dislocated joint, feeling where the bone was supposed to be.
“I can do it.” She swatted his hands.
“Then why haven’t you?”
“I had to fight the fox-people,” Barb snarled.
“You fought them?” Jim yelped. “Barb, they’re friendly.”
“I didn’t know that, Jim.”
“Why do you have to fight everybody? Can’t you just assume people are generally nice?”
Barb glared at him. “What in our history together tells you that I could ever have a worldview that naive?”
Jim rolled his eyes. “How were you born 85?”
“You’ve got three doctorates, Jim, how are you still six?”
Jim popped her shoulder back into place, and she shrieked in pain and surprise. Groaning, she cradled the aching joint in her hand and bent over.
“You’re welcome,” Jim said.
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” His hand rested on the middle of her back.
Barb took slow, deep breaths, trying to keep the initial nausea under control. It wasn’t fading as fast as it usually did, which probably meant she really was concussed. Unsurprising but inconvenient.
She’d been too disoriented when she’d first woken up to get much of an idea of the village layout. The hut had presented itself, and it was a viable option for defense when half a dozen shouting fox-creatures were chasing her.
“You got it?” Jim asked gently.
“Yeah.”
“How bad is it? Anything broken?”
Barb smiled to herself. “No. Nothing broken.” She carefully straightened, breathing deeply. “You?”
“I’m okay.” He gestured to a bandage on his head and around his ribs. “Nothing out of the ordinary for me.”
Barb took the side of his neck in hand. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
He nodded.
“I was scared,” Jim said. “It—this all went wrong.” He looked down.
“But it worked.” Barb nodded toward the door. “We’re in another world, right? That’s what you guys were trying to do.”
Jim bit his lip. “Can you stand?”
“Yeah. Why?”
Jim slid his arm beneath her and helped her to her feet. Weight on her aching knee made her wince, but she ignored it and let Jim pull her outside.
Barb shaded her eyes from the brightness of the sun, letting her eyes adjust. The hut she’d fortified was only one of at least a dozen in sight, all berm houses of grass and earth. Dense forest surrounded the village, although the trees that were closest seemed to be fruit-bearing. Barb spied apple, pear, apricot, peach, among others.
“There.” Jim stopped moving her and looked at the sky.
Barb traced his gaze and frowned at a patch of wavering air about fifteen feet over the center of the village. It was darker than the rest of the space around it, and it swirled with an occasional spark of static electricity.
“What is that?” Barb murmured, leaning on him.
“That’s where you came from,” Jim said. “I came out of one just like it apparently.”
Barb glanced up at him. “So, you opened that doorway thing in San Francisco, and two just like it opened here?”
Jim pressed his lips together. “Something like that.”
“Is that supposed to happen?”
“No, it’s not supposed to happen at all.” He sighed. “So it worked, but it worked—wrong.”
Barb stepped away from him and turned in a slow circle, scanning the huts and fences and larger structures of the village. She spotted Jenny almost immediately, bouncing happily at the wagon near the center of the village.
Malaka stood next to her, wings folded against her back.
But a new person stood with them now. Another girl, with her golden hair braided and coiled around the top of her head like a crown. She was taller than Jenny by several inches, and instead of fluttery skirts or robes, she wore sturdy trousers and an embroidered blouse.
“Who is that?” Barb touched Jim’s elbow.
He followed her gaze and smiled, blushing slightly. “Oh. That’s—uh—that’s Meg.”
“Meg.”
“I think—Jenny is her sister.” Jim nodded to the hyperactive wad of pastel wrapping paper that vibrated in place beside Meg.
Barb scowled. “Jenny Mitchell.”
Jim’s hand at her back spasmed. “What?”
“Jenny told me her last name is Mitchell,” Barb muttered. “So, her sister would be Meg Mitchell.”
Jim stared down at her, his face going slack and pale.
“Jenny mentioned a brother too.” Barb faced him, straightening her sore back and aching ribs.
Jim scoffed, shaking his head. “Yeah.” Jim gazed in wonder toward the two human sisters by the wagon. “A brother named Danny.”
Barb swallowed a laugh.
“Meg, Danny, and Jenny Mitchell,” she said. “Is it possible?”
Ten years ago, three orphans had vanished off the streets of San Francisco. It was a famous unsolved case, only made famous because the greatest detective in the world wouldn’t crack it. Actually, the case cracked her instead.
“It can’t be a coincidence.” Jim pressed his palms against his jaw and squeezed his eyes closed, blinking them rapidly. “It makes sense, even. It’s the only way they could have disappeared so completely that Phoenix Munroe couldn’t find them.”
“They’ve been here the whole time,” Barb said.
“From what I gather, this world is the next energy level up from our world,” Jim said. “Sort of like next door neighbors on the interdimensional scale.”
Barb turned back to him. “So, your little science experiment solved a cold case ten years old, that Phoenix Munroe couldn’t even break.”
It was the greatest unsolved case in the history of the Peregrine Agency.
“Yeah, Barb, it’s not as a great as it sounds.” Jim grimaced.
“What do you mean?” Barb rubbed her aching shoulder and made a mental note to change her opinion about foul-smelling herbal remedies, because her right arm was feeling much better.
Jim’s gaze shifted back to the disrupted space over the village. “It wasn’t me.”
“It was your research.”
“Yeah, but Dr. Fallen tweaked something.” Jim lowered his head, scowling. “And I don’t know what.”
“So?”
“So, we can’t shut those gateways until we know what he changed in my theorems.”
“Okay.” Barb rolled her right shoulder experimentally. “So, where is he?”
“That’s the problem.” Jim crossed his arms. “We have no idea. He could be anywhere in this world, although since you showed up within a similar area to me, there’s a good chance he’s close.”
“Great. So we find him.”
Jim’s face turned up in a half-smile. “We find him?”
“Yeah.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“It is easy.” Barb worked her right knee and swallowed a hiss of pain. Oh, stretching the knee was a bad idea.
She leaned on Jim’s arm, hoping that the throbbing would dissipate quickly.
Jim focused back on Meg and Jenny Mitchell, still standing by the wagon, deeply engaged in conversation. Or at least, Meg was deeply engaged talking at Jenny.
“I guess, if we found the Mitchell kids, we can find anything, right?” Jim chuckled.
“That’s the spirit.” Barb patted his arm. “And in that vein, Mister-We-Can-Find-Anything, how about you find me a chair?”

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