Seven

The Bridge

It took Natalie a minute to remember to breathe. 

He vanished, out of thin air, as if he'd never been there. What the hell. 

Suddenly, his hand appeared, just a detached hand, gesturing for her to follow. 

She took a deep breath. "Please, whoever's out there, please don't let this be the way I die." And lept. 

Nathaniel caught her. Barely maintaining balance on the large flat stone they now stood on. She hadn't been able to see it from the other side. Now that she was looking around, she realized she hadn't been able to see any of this from the other side. 

The forests near home were sparse, with multicolored leaves falling–winter close at hand. Here, Natalie could have sworn it was early spring. 

All kinds of trees, kinds she had never seen before, bloomed a bright green. Warm sunlight streamed onto stringy grass scattered with wildflowers. The river on this side thinned into a bubbling brook that curved away and wandered into the woods. The rock they were currently standing on was attached to the shore, which was where Nathaniel now led her. 

Once on solid ground, Natalie took the opportunity to half collapse into a seated position, so she could take it all in without having to worry about standing. 

"We're actually in another world?" Natalie asked, unable to say it as fact quite yet.

Nathaniel smiled. "Yup."

She didn't know what to say, there was nothing to say. She watched bees buzzing between the flowers. The sounds of birds chirping from the trees. This place was alive and real and quite different from where they had been only moments before. But this was only one place, was there really a whole world here?

"How far does this go?" She wondered out loud.

"Around the globe as far as I know." Nathaniel replied. "According to my mother the maps here only stretch to the edge of mainland Europe, up to almost the North Pole, and then just to the tip of Canada. The locations of land versus sea don't quite match up, but that could be geographical measuring errors. The technology here is a ways behind where you're from, though there is a reason for that as well."

Natalie chose to ignore the 'where you're from' comment for the moment, there were more important things to be addressed right now.

"What reason is that?"

Nathaniel walked toward the woods,  picked up a small stone and brought it back to her. It seemed normal and gray on one side, then he turned it over. It glowed blue through little cracks on the surface.

"Usually these are a little harder to find." He admitted. "But I seems to have a knack for it."

"What is it?"

"It's a rune stone. Or at least a stone that couple be made into a rune. I don't know exactly how it works. Apparently the blue glowing is a sign of magic." He sighed. "Please remember though, that everything I'm telling you is stuff I've been told. I have very little real experience here. I don't know anything about everyday life or the demographics of ordinary people. I only know the stories my mother and uncles have told me and the little that can be gleaned from this clearing."

This, Natalie was surprised at. "You have another world in your backyard but you've never gone more than a couple of feet into it?"

Nathaniel furrowed his eyebrows and looked sadly resolved. "I want to. I always have, you have no idea how much, but I can't. Crazy aunts, remember? I don't know how easy it would be for them to find me if I stayed here for an extended period of time... Mother said they've managed to get some magic on their side. She tried to make me afraid of this place. But I can't be. No matter what she said, I always felt more at home in this little clearing then anywhere else I've been."