I was wandering along those congested streets with a lock of shoulder-length hair tucked behind my ear. Then, of course, the day would be just like an ordinary day—an unexciting Tuesday in my rather uneventful life. But something was going on; there was that unusual spark in the atmosphere, an electric thrill that sent the hairs on my arms bristling. That's when I spotted it, a jammed procession of people rushing in one precise direction while their shouts and voices coalesced into an obfuscating muddle of confusion. "What the hell is this mumble?" I grumbled, feeling strong curiosity breaking my composure as I drifted into the swelling crowd.
The crowd came to an end at what was probably the town square, but it wasn't that I gagged at the throng; it was something impossible standing then in the center of that open space: a portal shimmering with bluish and violet light, swirling in midair as if reality itself were being torn apart.
"How is this possible?" someone whispered nearby. "Is it some kind of government experiment?" another voice questioned.
But did I hear this? No, because my gaze was glued to something else: a very small figure hunched central to the phenomenon. A child, not older than five, was crying silently as those strange lights pulsated around him. The sight made something inside me clench. My fingers instinctively twisted nervously on the fraying seam of my jeans as I felt something strange wash over me.
"What is this feeling? As if that is something mine," I whispered, unable to explain the fierce protectiveness suddenly flooding through me.
Then I found myself running without a thought. Behind me, there were gasps followed by, "Stop! It could be dangerous!" from someone who tried to call out after me, but their warning would be drowned by the increasing hum of the portal in my ears.
Colors blurred, sensations melded—an impossible sensation of falling upward interrupted by my feet suddenly flopping against solid ground. But this certainly did not feel much like a town square. The buildings here were stone and timber and medieval-looking, and the air smelled of woodsmoke and something strange.
I had no time for thinking. The child-small, tear-filled eyes-was right there in front of me, and he was not alone. Figures in gleaming armor were coming from the other direction-swords drawn.
"K-Kiddo, hold onto my neck tight," I said to him and picked him up in one rapid motion. His little arms came around me instantly, as if he had been waiting for me all along.
I wouldn't stop to think; I ran along instinct's pull through cobbled streets I didn't know. The drumming of armored boots could only get nearer with every heartbeat.
"Who are these king's soldiers? And why are they after this child?" I gasped between breaths, ducking into a narrow alleyway and pressing myself against the cold stone wall. The boy trembled against me, his face buried into my chest while I kept my hand
It pounded- my heart had been pounding so much that I thought it was going to give the game away as the soldiers marched past our hiding place. Finally, when the footsteps fade away, I allowed myself to breathe.
"All right," I whispered to the child. "You are safe. I've got you."
The alleyway opened into a small courtyard, and as I stepped into the open area cautiously, something caught my eye-a broken piece of mirror leaning against the far wall. And coming closer, with the little child still clinging to me, I stood, shocked speechless, at the sight of my reflection.
The face was the same; same eyes, same nose, same lips; but the clothes had changed. I was no longer in jeans and tee, but a simple linen dress of detailed embroidery at the sleeves. And the child cradled in my arms... he looked up at me with eyes exactly like my own, his features a younger echo of someone I somehow recognized but couldn't name.
"This can't be real," I whispered, reaching out a trembling hand to touch the mirror, "Where am I? What is this place?"
The boy shifted in my arms, his small hand coming up to touch my cheek with unexpected tenderness. "You came back," he whispered. This was the first thing he ever said to me and sounded heavier than any emotion I could assign to it. "You finally came back."
I recoiled from a shiver that ran up my spine as I stared at our reflection that I was beginning to comprehend the impossible truth which was dawning on me. This was not some errant child I saved on a whim.
And this was definitely not another world I had blundered into.
Somehow, impossibly, it felt like coming home.