The Fairy Portal Second Edition

Chapter Two

Blake didn't quite remember his dreams that night, but he did remember they were strange and vivid, full of colors he'd never seen and something like music, but not quite. When he woke up, he instinctively grabbed for his glasses. His hand landed on empty table. He turned on his lamp and squinted at the wood, but someone had moved his glasses in the middle of the night.

"Emily," he whined.

She shifted in her bed and rolled over, pulling her blanket closer to her chin. She didn't open her eyes. Blake stood, walking across the room to the doorway so he could flip on the light. Mom would be down to wake them up for school soon, anyway.

His glasses weren't on Emily's bedside table, or on the floor, or underneath either of their beds. Finally, Blake sighed and scrubbed at his tired eyes with the heels of his hands. He'd come back down and look for them later. Right now he was dried out from sleep and needed a glass of water.

He stumbled up the stairs, hands on either side of the stairwell wall to steady him and help him account for the loss in depth perception from his missing glasses. When he got to the top, he could have sworn there was one more step, but his foot went down fast and hard and he tripped on air, barely catching himself on the handrail.

"Ugh," he mumbled. "Stupid morning."

He shuffled to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. It was still a little warm. Someone must have gotten some and refilled it in the middle of the night. He opened the freezer for a few ice cubes and saw the blurred shape of his glasses staring back at him.

The lenses were fogged and icy and they'd clearly been there for a while. Blake pulled them out of the freezer and breathed on them to thaw the little ice crystals, and wiped them off on his shirt. He flinched when the cold plastic of the frames touched his ears. At least he was awake now.

It didn't occur to him to wonder why his glasses were in the freezer. It was probably Emily playing tricks or something.

He went back downstairs with his glass of water, a little more surely this time, to grab a change of clothes and get his school things together before he took a shower. Emily was still asleep. She'd be up soon.

***

All day, things went missing and other things went unexpectedly wrong when there was no reason for them to and yet other things just... weren't quite wrong but seemed off, somehow. His math homework was gone in second period and he fell flat on his face when the bell rang after English because his shoelaces had been tied together even though nobody had been under his desk and when he went to buy his lunch, his money was missing and instead his pocket was full of gravel and leaves.

Of course it wouldn't be as easy as simply getting dragged out of the forest. Something had followed them back to the city and was behind him -- or in front of him -- with every step he took.

They hadn't gotten to the change in his backpack, at least, and he managed to scrape enough together for a soft pretzel at the snack bar. He pulled off the grains of salt and licked them off his finger as he made his way to his everyday lunch spot under the trees. They'd be closing off the outside lunch areas, soon. It was starting to get cold.

Blake shivered at the heavy breeze that cut right through his clothes and he pulled his hoodie closer around his shoulders. He dropped his backpack and plopped into his seat -- right in front of the planter, with his back to the little brick wall. He munched quietly on his pretzel. It was dry. Maybe Emily or Benny would have a little extra money and he could get some cheese.

"Hey!"

Blake looked up with a grin at the familiar voice. It was Benny, in his favorite red hoodie that he always wore all season every autumn, with the holes in the sleeves he wiggled his thumbs through. Sometimes Blake thought about what it would be like to link his thumbs with his friend, if it would feel like holding hands or something different, but he never let those thoughts linger long because Benny was his best friend and also straight and also had a crush on Emily, which everyone knew wasn't going anywhere. Benny didn't care that Blake was bisexual -- far from it, he'd been the first one Blake came out to and the most supportive besides Emily and his mom -- but he didn't want to make anything weird. He'd find someone else eventually. He was only fifteen, after all. There would be plenty of other crushes in the future. His mother's patience with his moping about in the beginning helped him see that.