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“You’re still coming over later, right?” Christine asks. She tucks her blonde hair back behind her ears and checks for messages on her phone.
Darcy scrambles out of the passenger side of Christine’s car, shutting the door.. They were both sixteen, but Darcy’s folks just didn’t have the money to buy her a car, and she’d so far failed in her endeavours to get a job that paid more than stale peanuts. But for all that Christine looked like she was an ice queen she was generous beyond words. Her taste in music was a little suspect though, no matter how many mixes Darcy made for her.
“I can’t, I need to borrow some books from Dr. Foster,” Darcy says. She rocks up on the toes of her purple converse and back down, rolling her shoulders back and adjusting the strap of her satchel and her bra where they dig into her skin.
“Gawd, Darcy, Foster is a total weirdo. I don’t know how you can stand to go over there.”
“She’s not a weirdo. Dr Foster is a genius, she has three degrees and two doctorates. She’s also my friend.”
“I thought I was your friend.”
“You are,” Darcy says fighting not to roll her eyes. Christine Everheart was one of her closest friends, but sometimes they didn’t see eye to eye, and not just because Christine had grown a good head taller than Darcy. “But I need to get my paper done on alternate universes and Einstein-Robespierre bridges.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“You should watch the Discovery Channel sometime and not just MSNBC,” Darcy says. “Okay, fine, like, the theory is that there could be thousands of different dimensions and each one has a different earth. An earth where science is magic or superheroes are real.”
“I’d rather watch the news.”
“You would.”
“Text me when you’re done with your mad scientist.”
“She’s not a mad scientist.”
Okay, Jane Foster was kinda a mad scientist, it was why Darcy like her so much. Jane lived in the big house at the end of Darcy’s road with her orange cat Selvig. Foster was tiny, barely taller that Darcy herself, and she forgot to shower sometimes, and liked to pretend that she didn’t have pink puffy heart eyes whenever the hottie from Thor’s Hammer: Lawn and Home Maintenance Specialist came around to tend to her garden (‘It’s not a euphemism, Darce.’).
“Dr Foster?” Darcy calls out letting herself into the scientist’s house. “I came to borrow those books for my paper.”
“Darcy? Just a minute, I’m in the lab,” Jane shouts back. Of course she was in the lab, Dr Foster was always in the lab, or on the way to it. The scientist often slept on a old green chesterfield sofa that sat glowering along the back wall of the lab, draped in an old orange and brown afghan.
The lab was also the garage, and somehow managed to bleed over into the kitchen and the dining room. Bits of equipment and taped together machinery was scattered on every available surface. Sometimes Jane left things in the fridge. Last week when Darcy visited she’d found a screwdriver in the peanut butter and a roll of electrical tape in the breadbox.
“Hey, Doc Foster,” Darcy says, stepping over Selvig the cat and into the lab space.
In the corner of the lab, beside a rack of dusty canned goods, stood a shiny rectangle that looked like a doorway waiting for a door. Jane is hovering beside the rectangle, a wrench in one hand and a roll of duct tape on her wrist. The rectangle hums, and Jane adjust a dial on the side and presses a few buttons. Electricity arcs from one side of the rectangle to the other, and the whole thing glows with swirling blue light.
“It’s working,” Jane beams. The scientist throws a fist in the air.
“It’s certainly glowing. What is it?” Darcy asks, stepping closer to the swirling blue frame. It kinda looked like clouds, thick clouds that went on without end. She couldn’t see the wall behind it, it was as if the rectangle had become a window, or maybe a doorway. Her feet move forward without her instruction and Selvig the cat weaves between her legs. Darcy stumbles, pitching forward into Dr Foster’s invention.
“Darcy, no!” Jane screams.
Darcy glimpses Jane’s terrified face and then she falling. Falling down and down through blue sky and white clouds.
….
Something is ticking Darcy’s face. She brushes it away with her hand, “Five more minutes, mom.”
The tickling continues. “Selvig, no, bad kitty.”
“Ugh, fine, whatever,” Darcy says pushing herself up. She isn’t in her bed, or at Jane’s house. A sea of long grass waves in a soft breeze. “What?” She pulls her glasses off and wipes them free of fingerprints. Shoving the frames back on she stumbles to her feet. The world tilts and spins before righting itself.
Darcy turns in a circle. Grass, grass, and more grass.
“Oh my god,” she whispers, as a dark shadow passes over her. A large bird circles overhead. Like a really big bird. The bird looks like an eagle or falcon, wings spanning as big as a small plane, feathers a golden brown with red and white on the tips of the pin feathers. The bird screams. It sounds like it's laughing at her. It probably is.
Darcy curls her hands around the strap of her satchel and starts walking in a random direction. She’s barely been walking long enough to get her heartrate up when the ground shakes beneath her. A dust cloud is rising from the earth and Darcy stops in her tracks, ice fear dragging down her spine.
It wasn’t a storm chasing her down but riders kicking up dirt in the long dry grass. Riders that were come closer and Darcy had nowhere to hide. She dug out her keys from the bottom of her bag and held them tight in her fist as the horses and riders drew nearer.
They weren’t horses at all. They were unicorns.
“What the-”
The riders were women. Darcy wasn't sure who looked more dangerous, the unicorns with their sharp horns glinting in the sunlight or the warriors riding them.
Darcy’s head is still trying to wrap around unicorns when a woman with long red hair slides off the side of her chestnut unicorn. The woman is dressed all in black. Linen and leather faded by the sun. Golden gauntlets glint in the sunlight and match the chain of golden discs circling the woman’s waist. A golden chain hangs from her neck with a pendant of two red stone triangles forming an hourglass.
The woman speaks, a knife blade smile curving across her lips.
“Um, what? Look, lady, I don't know who you are or what you are saying but I need to get home and not be-”
The woman grabs Darcy’s wrist, swinging her arm behind her back with little effort. “Hey, no.” She twists to try and break free, but the woman is too strong.
Darcy swings her free hand up but the redhead is quicker, knocking Darcy face down in the tall grass and binding her wrists behind her back with a piece of rope. “Dude, you guys take LARP way too seriously.”
The redhead says something that means ‘Shut up’ and beckons two other warriors down from their unicorns. One is dressed in a loose green tunic, with long auburn hair streaked with white. The other is dressed in a pale blue tunic, black hair pulled back from her face.
“Hel,” the redhead says dragging Darcy up to her knees. The language they speak is rapid fire, almost musical and reminds Darcy of all the times she's watched the Lord of the Rings movies with her parents, or read the books Jane left scattered around the house. Everything felt weird, like dream and reality had been all smashed together. Her head still hurt and there were women dressed for Comicon riding actual unicorns.
The woman, Hel, smiles, warm and soft. Lifting up a blue gemstone between slender fingers she touches the stone to Darcy’s forehead, mouth, and heart.
“Can you understand me now?”
“No, wait, what...yes,” Darcy says stumbling over her own words. “How?”
“Magic,” Hel says.
“Helen is our healer, spy,” says the redhead.
“I'm not a spy, I'm a student,” Darcy says. She tilts her chin up in defiance, though tears prick at the corner of her eyes. “A really lost one.”
“Why are you here if not to spy, spy,” says a woman with short dark hair and a Roman style leather skirt.
“I don't know where here is,” Darcy says. Her voice is nearing a wail in pitch. One of the unicorns, a palomino, tosses its head, and Darcy leans back
“She could be a witch or a sorceress,” says the girl in purple with a bow strung at her back. Her eyes dart to another girl wearing a tattered scarlet cloak, sparks of red trailing from her hand. “Forgive me, Wanda.”
The girl, Wanda, tilts her head to the side, curls her fingers into a fist extinguishing the spark of red flame.
“We should kill her and be done with it, Natalia,” says a woman with short cropped dark hair and dark blue leather armour.
“There will be no killing this day, M’aria. The falcon did not fear her, nor do the unicorns,” says a woman astride a white unicorn stallion. The woman is beautiful, silver white hair contrasting with her black skin beautifully.
“She’s my prisoner, Ororo,” Natalia says, green eyes narrowing. “There has been enough blood spilt on the land, I need not spill this child’s.”
“Thanks, I think,” Darcy mutters under her breath tugging at the binding on her wrists.
“You are welcome, child,” Natalia smirks.
“It's Darcy,” she says.
“Darcy child, how is it that you came to be so close to our camp?”
“Science.”
“What is that? A form of alchemy?”
“No, just science.”
“Magic.”
“I guess.” Darcy shrugs as best she can with her wrists behind her back.This is probably all a banana balls crazy dream anyway, right? Unicorns weren't real and big bird was only a big yellow puppet.