Time Slipping

by Elle Casey

  A giant, grayish brown tongue came out of the troll’s mouth and licked me from stem to stern. And when I say stem to stern, I mean from the tip of my moccasins all the way up to the top of my head.

  “Me lick little peoples. Not eat. Lick.”

  Oh, hell-to-the-no-way am I going to be turned into a troll’s lollipop. I wiggled my non-sword arm out and slapped him on the face. Surely it hurt me more than it did him, but it did make him put his tongue back in his mouth, at least.

  “No! No licking! Do you hear me?! NO LICKING!” The smell that now coated me was making me ill all over again.

  I heard giggles behind me, and twisted around to see who the culprit was. Of course I found Becky holding her waist and turning blue in the face with her efforts to hold it in.

  I pointed at her and then looked up at the troll. “You can lick that one.”

  The troll dropped me in a second and reached for her.

  She was there one second and gone the next.

  The troll grasped air and then looked in his empty hand confused. “Where go little people?” He looked around, totally mystified.

  “Becky?” Finn asked, wandering in circles.

  She reappeared a second later and grabbed her partner’s hand. “Here I am.” Her face was flushed and she looked very happy. “Oh my goodness, you have no idea how amazing this place is!” She looked at me. “Jayne, I just moved through the air like it was made of air!”

  “Uhhh, yeah. Because it is.” I rolled my eyes. Goofy water sprites.

  “No, it’s usually full of water, so it’s a little harder to move around in, but here it’s different.”

  Ish spoke up. “Did she just … disappear?”

  Becky disappeared from Finn’s side and reappeared behind Ish, tapping him on the shoulder.

  He turned around and then leaped back in fright when he saw her there. His eyes were as wide as they could go and he spoke with a hiss. “Witch!”

  She grinned. “No, silly. I’m a water sprite.” She pointed at Sam. “She’s the witch.”

  Ish moved away from both of them, his hands held out in front of him.

  “Hey, he’s got one o’ them dragon scale thingies too,” Finn said, pointing at Ish’s palm.

  Ish turned his hand to face him and then stood straight again. “I am like you,” he said to me. His backward movement stopped.

  I shrugged. “More or less.”

  “Are you a fae?” Becky asked in a gentle voice, moving toward him.

  He didn’t back away again, but he didn’t exactly look comfortable with her getting into his personal space, either. He waited until she was a foot away before he answered. His response did not sound very confident. “Why are you people so concerned with what I do in my chamber?”

  Becky cocked her head. “What?” She looked at me. “I don’t get it.”

  “He thinks you’re callin' him gay is all,” Finn said. “He don’t understand the word.” Finn raised his voice and spoke even slower than he normally does. “She ain’t asked if you were gaaay. She asked if you were faaae. Biiig difference.”

  “Maybe,” Spike said, sidling up to Finn, “maybe not.”

  Finn jumped a little when he realized how close Spike was and then punched him. “Speak for yerself, suck-you-bus.”

  “That’s incubus to you, elf.” Spike punched him back and they entered into a short wrestling match that ended with Jared walking up and putting his hand on their shoulders. Scrum was right behind him. The two wrestling dopes stood slowly and dropped their heads, looking as if they’d been approached by the principal at school and publicly shamed.

  “Am I right in assuming we’ve been delivered to another time? Maybe even a place our history doesn’t recognize?” Tony asked.

  I shrugged. “Could be. They don’t have calendars here, I know that. They use the seasons to track things.”

  “All ancient civilizations did.” Tony moved closer to Ish. “My name is Tony, and I come from The Green Forest in a country called France on the European continent.” He held out his hand.

  Ish stared at it for a few seconds before slowly putting his hand out stiffly. He knocked the back of Tony’s knuckles with the back of his before responding. “I am called Ishmail. You may call me Ish. I am from the village of Kenrack at the base of the mountain Mortan. I am a dragon-rider, and my dragon-partner is Othello.” He looked up at the sky. “I believe he is coming back soon. Perhaps you will meet him.”

  Tony looked over at me, concern in his eyes. “Are we sure that’s a good thing? Meeting a live dragon here, up close and personal?”

  “I have no idea.” I looked over at our friends. “What do you guys think?”

  Everyone but Scrum was looking at me. He, instead, was staring at the ground near the troll’s feet. I assumed he was fascinated by the disgusting toenails, so I ignored him.

  “I think we should get the hell out of here,” Felicia said, looking around her while moving closer to Tony. “I don’t like the vibe in this place.”

  “I’m with Felicia,” Sam said.

  Jared came closer, glancing at the troll. “We have the small problem of a troll in our party. It’s going to make it kind of hard to hide anywhere or move without attracting a lot of unwanted attention.”

  “He’s not in our party,” I said, scoffing at the very idea. “He’s on his own.”

  Jared looked at me with his eyebrow raised. “Do you really believe that?”

  Before I could answer, Scrum’s alarmed voice rang out. “Jayne…”

  “Yes, Scrum?” I sighed. He was just now worrying about the troll coming after me? His daedar was seriously off.

  “I think you’d better come over here. And bring your sword.”

  My friends were blocking some of my view, but the troll seemed to be acting fine. He was busy picking his nose and eating whatever he found up there. I looked away from that nastiness and focused on Scrum instead. He was pointing at something on the ground.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  THE COCOON WAS MOVING.

  “OH boy.” I walked through my friends with the sword out in front of me, expecting a seriously evil vampire moth to come out of the thing. That witch was mean … much meaner than Maggie; she was going to play a nasty-ass trick on us with this cocoon thing, I knew she was. I kept The New Green element force on standby, hoping I wouldn’t have to use it again. I’d already proven I wasn’t really up to the task of controlling it very well.

  “What is it?” Becky whispered at my back.

  “Maybe it’ll be a pretty butterfly,” Scrum said, moving to stand next to me.

  Jared took up a position on the other side of me. “Not likely,” he said.

  I felt Spike’s breath on my neck. “I’ve got your back, Babe.”

  I smiled. “You’re so brave.”

  He pinched my butt, making me jump. “If you want me out in front holding that sword, just say the word. I’ll be happy to give it a shot.”

  A quick vision of the last time he tried to mess with the sword that he had no right to wield assailed my mind. I shook my head. “No thanks. I like you better without demon side effects, thanks.”

  “Me too.”

  “Jayne, what do you want us to do?” Tony asked.

  I wasn’t taking my eye off that cocoon for anything. It was really moving around now; whatever was inside definitely wanted out. “Try to figure out how to get us the hell out of here. Can you walk the Gray from here?”

  “Maybe. To be honest, though, I’m a little afraid to try. Everything’s … different.”

  “Don’t do it then. Trust your instincts. The Green doesn’t act normal here, so there’s no reason to think the Gray will, either.”

  “Me hungry,” the troll mumbled, bonking himself gently on the head over and over with his club. His cranium sounded hollow, making me think his brain was probably the size of a pistachio.

  I shook my head at him but was quickly distracted from his misery when a rip appeared in th
e clump of grayish-white threads on the ground. When the tip of a very tiny wing appeared from inside that tear in the material, my heart leaped in my chest. Could it be …? I was too afraid to really hope it was what I thought it might be. I pushed my sword out further, the point of it just a foot away from the thing about to be revealed. It would be just like an evil witch bitch to trick me into thinking Tim was coming when it was really a vampire moth.

  “Holy mackerelandy, do you see that?” Finn asked, leaning past Jared to look closer. “That’s a pixie in there, ain’t it? Is it Tim?” He looked at me for confirmation.

  “I have no idea. Don’t get too close.”

  “What is in the web?” Ish asked from far behind us.

  “That’s a web?” I asked. “I thought it was a cocoon.”

  A second wing appeared and then a tiny butt. I smiled when I recognized the shape of it. Tim was very proud of his gluteus maximus and had shown it off in mid-flight right up in front of my nose enough times for me to recognize it immediately.

  The sword dropped to my side, the point of it quickly burying in the ground. “My, oh my, oh my,” I said in a loud voice, “would you get a look at that butterfly coming out of that cocoon.”

  The rest of Tim’s upper body came out followed shortly by his head. My smile faltered when he turned around.

  “Ha, ha, very funny, Lellemental. I wish you could see your hair right now.” He started brushing dust off the front of his pants and then became preoccupied with a stain on his tunic. He licked his finger and tried to wipe it off, scrubbing like a maniac when it refused to cooperate.

  “Do you guys see what I see?” I asked out of the side of my mouth.

  Tim’s head jerked up. “What’s that?” He tried his wings out, first fluttering the left and then the right, and when he was sure they were fully operational, he lifted off.

  “Dang, he’s green,” said Finn, his voice full of awe.

  “What happened? Is he sick?” Becky asked.

  Tim hovered in the air in front of me, his shiny, verdant green complexion making him look like he was about to spew in a major way. I backed my head up just a little.

  “What are they talking about?” His hands were on his hips and his fanny pack was twisted sideways. I didn’t have the heart to tell him his skin was shot, hoping it would go back to normal before he saw his reflection. He could be really touchy about his complexion. He was never happier than after he’d enjoyed a cucumber facial mask applied by his loving wife Abby.

  I pointed at his waist. “Your fanny pack is messed up.” I angled my finger up a little. “And so’s your hair.”

  He rolled his eyes. “My hair? You should see your own ‘do. You look like you were eaten by that troll over there and regurgitated an hour later.”

  I grinned, so very thankful that he hadn’t been eaten by that troll and regurgitated an hour later. Tim was back, attitude and all, and that meant we had a hope of surviving this mess. He was, after all, some sort of super spy who’d apparently saved faekind too many times to count over the past few centuries. “If you were any bigger, I’d hug you until you couldn’t breathe anymore.” I held my hand out and he landed on it.

  “I missed me too. What the heck happened? One minute I was fighting off evil left and right, and the next everything went white.” He turned around and scowled at the web he came out of. “Must have been an arachno spell. I hate those things.”

  “She spider-manned you?” I giggled, imagining the witch with her wrist pointed at Tim, her tongue sticking out of her mouth in concentration as she spun her web.

  “Funny isn’t it? When you’re not the one being tangled in sticky witch stink breath?” He brushed his arms off. “Oh well. At least I still have my dignity, unlike some people around here.”

  Man, it was so, so tempting to tell him his face was the exact same shade as the troll’s asscheeks, but I just couldn’t do it. Adding a heartbroken pixie to our mix would have been a really bad idea. Even I knew that. He tended to go into hibernation when he realized he wasn’t the hottest pixie in town anymore.

  I turned around. “Okay, then. We’re ready.” I liked that I sounded uber confident when in reality I had no idea what the hell I was going to do next. Fake it until you make it, baby.

  “Ready for what?” Tony asked.

  “Ready to find the portal to the Underworld so we can get the hell out of here.” I smiled really hard so they’d agree it was an awesome idea.

  Everyone looked at each other and then at me. None of them were smiling.

  “Are you kidding?” Tony asked.

  I was back to being cranky again. I hated having our only plan pooped on by the smartest person I knew. “No, I’m not kidding. Why would I be? Can you think of another way to get back?”

  Tony looked at Sam. “Can you get us out of here?”

  Sam’s eyes bulged out. “Me? Now who’s kidding? I’ve never messed with time. I have no idea how to move from one realm to another like that, especially from a realm no one even knew existed.” She shook her head, looking pointedly at my injury. “If I were you, I’d be more worried about her arm first before worrying about finding a way out of here.”

  Everyone including me looked down at my bandaged appendage. A black goo was seeping through the cloth wrapping. “Ew,” I said, lifting it to my nose. I had no idea why I felt the need to do that, but the minute I did, I regretted it. “Ack. Double ew.” I’d never smelled an orc’s feet, but I’d been kicked in the head by one once, and I figured that gave me all the authority I needed to determine that my wound smelled like some kind of sweaty orc foot fungus.

  “Is it infected?” Tony asked, getting closer and taking it in his hands. He pushed gently on the edges of it, making me flinch from the pain. It was getting worse.

  “I think so,” I said, mad at myself all over again.

  “Where’s the injury from?” Jared asked. He looked over at Sam. “Maybe if you know the origin, you can do something to help her.”

  “Maybe.” Sam’s shrug did nothing to engender confidence.

  “She claims to have self-harmed,” Ish said from behind the group.

  Everyone looked over at him, confused. He was staring at me, though, which made them all turn around to join the party. My face went red and started burning. I felt like a stupid girl at the vice principal’s office again. Would it never end? This feeling of inadequacy? My anger at myself made me sound defensive, my voice going up an octave.

  “I didn’t think I had any choice! You were all turned into zombies, I thought the troll had eaten Tim, and the witch was going to keep us trapped in her house forever. It was over. I was the only one still alive.”

  Tim left my hand and went to my shoulder, patting my ear. “I understand, roomie. You’d lost all hope. I would too if I thought I’d lost me in the belly of a troll. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

  I swatted him away. “I’m not saying I was committing suicide, jerks. I was just trying to fulfill the prophecy or whatever.”

  “What prophecy?” Tony asked, perking way up. He was such a gray elf wannabe, getting a boner over a stupid riddle. I scowled at him before continuing.

  “I don’t remember it now. The witch started doing some slam poetry or whatever and it sounded kind of prophetic, so I figured it couldn’t hurt to try and fulfill it or whatever.”

  “Which part were you fulfilling?” Jared asked. His voice was free of censure, so I lightened up on the attitude and tried really hard to remember. I traveled back in my mind to that moment when we were standing in the ballroom and all my friends were frozen around me…

  “She said something like … my blood would bring them late.”

  Finn threw his arms up and let them flop down. “Well, that’s it then, y’all. We’re late, I can see that.” He looked around and then at Ish. “I know he ain’t from our time.”

  Everyone’s head swiveled over to stare at my savior. He looked away, squirming uncomfortably under the attention.
<
br />   “Ish saved my life and probably yours too. He’s cool. Leave him alone.”

  “I wasn’t sayin’ anything bad about him. Just that he’s not from where we are. You can tell from his clothes, and his way o’ talkin’, and his … his …” Finn just gestured at him, but I knew what he wanted to say but couldn’t. His lack of hygiene.

  “People in glass houses should not throw stones,” I said, staring at the top of Finn’s head where a knot of red hair rested.

  Finn’s eyes traveled upwards and then so did his hand. It rested for a moment above the knot and then touched the top of it gingerly. “Oh, shee-it…”

  Becky stood on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Don’t worry, baby. I still think you’re gorgeous.”

  He turned to look down at her with a smile. “Really?”

  She shrank back and waved her hand in front of her face. “Except for your breath.” She looked around. “Does anyone have a mint handy?”

  He went to grab her, but she disappeared and reappeared on the other side of Ish.

  Finn closed his eyes, raised his head to the clouds, and sighed. “I ain’t never not gonna be jealous o’ that.”

  We all laughed, finding comfort in things that would never change, no matter how fucked up things had gotten.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  WHEN WE WERE DONE LAUGHING at Finn, Ish raised a finger. “I have a suggestion.”

  “We’re listening,” Jared said, hands on hips. I admired how he was able to stand there so cool, even while everything was completely and totally messed up around him. Must come from being a few hundred years old. I looked forward to the day I could be that chill, hoping I’d make it that far. Unfortunately it wasn’t looking good for that right now, what with me and all my friends trapped in a realm none of us knew existed before we arrived in it.

  “I suggest you come back to my home and have a meal. Perhaps when Othello returns he will have some ideas.”

  “Who’s Othello?” Scrum asked. “Did I miss something?”

  I held up my dragon scale palm. “Talk to the hand, Scrum.” I snorted at my stupid joke.