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The glasses aren’t correct.

It’s not-

It’s not important, not really, but it still doesn’t sit right with me. Because I know, you know? I know what those glasses are supposed to be used for. They’re whiskey tumblers, with their softly curved squareness. I’ve never pretended to understand why those glasses specifically get used for whiskey. I’ve never understood why there are specific glasses for any type of drink. Other than mugs, because handles are in fact useful for holding hot drinks.

There are so many different glasses, though, for every kind of drink imaginable. Goblets and snifters and steins and so on. There are different kinds of wine glasses even, stemmed or unstemmed, that you’re supposed to choose based on whether it’s a wine you drink warm or cold, because that matters in the way you hold a stemmed versus unstemmed glass, which, what??

And hell, I don’t even like whiskey, it’s too dry for me. It’s a liquid, how can it be dry, Jess? shut up you know what I mean. Like you’ve never had one of those not-quite-right grapes that sits and coats your tongue and makes the whole of your mouth just… dry.

Whiskey is dusty and dry and it burns going down and I’ve never understood the appeal. I don’t drink it and I don’t want to learn to drink it. Whiskey and I are casual acquaintances at best—but I still know what those glasses are for.

And she just poured apple juice into them and handed one to me. She’s looking at me like she knows, like she knows I know, like-

Okay the way she’s actually looking at me says that my internal monologue has gone on a bit too long. Get your shit together, Jess, geez.

“Thanks,” I say, feigning nonchalance and casting around for some casual topic that I could start a conversation with. The apartment is a little on the bare side, like maybe she just moved in. “Have you lived here long?” I ask, twisting the glass around in my hand awkwardly.

“Not this time,” she admits, quirking her mouth up in a smile. “I haven’t gotten around to fully decorating yet.”

“Sure, sure,” I say agreeably. “Wait- this time? Oh, did you used to live here and then moved away for college or something like that?”

“Something like that,” she repeats in her lovely, deep voice. “It’s a beautiful town,” she goes on with a sigh. “I’ve missed it dearly.”

I hum vaguely, pretending like I understand. I mean, I do understand the general feeling of missing somewhere—I’ve gotten homesick a fair few times for a place I’ll probably never go back to—but not the specific feeling of liking this dinky little town. It’s not one of those cute places you stop in for lunch while taking a leisurely road trip, it’s all chain stores and fast food joints. I’ve never met anyone who moved here because they liked it. But I guess if she likes this town enough to come back to it, good for her?

“What’s your favorite thing about this place?” I ask, aiming for playful curiosity in my voice.

“The people,” she says, her lips curving over the reply. There’s a hint of laughter dancing behind her eyes, like it’s a joke. It has to be a joke. The people in this town are… well they’re probably not very different from the people in any other town if I’m being fair, but they’re certainly nothing to write home about. Or come back for. Or-

Wait.

She’s flirting with me isn’t she.

Goddamnit.

“I see.”

She grins a little wider, and I can feel a blush creeping its way up my cheeks. Ugh. I fiddle with the glass in my hands again, like I can offload my embarrassment through the glass and into the apple juice and throw it away. Or something.

The movement catches her attention.

“Something wrong with your drink?” The question is almost casual, but I’d seen the flash of emotion that crossed her face very quickly before she’d caught herself. I’m not, like, great with reading people’s faces or catching the undertones of how they’re feeling when they’re trying to hide it, but it’s easy enough to tell that she wants me to drink the apple juice. The apple juice that she’d served me in a whiskey glass. That she’d served us actually because she also had a whiskey tumbler full of undrunk apple juice in her hands. Bit hypocritical of her, really.

“Something wrong with yours?”

“No.”

She brings her glass to her lips and drains it one long, smooth drink. Her eyes never leave mine. It feels like a dare. It feels like a challenge.

But… what a strange kind of challenge.

It’s apple juice. I love apple juice. So why am I so reluctant to drink it? Is it because of the glass it’s in?

Or is it because of the way she’s staring at me?

Her brilliant blue eyes are focused on mine. Her long brown hair is no longer in a ponytail but draped elegantly around the curve of her neck, of her throat. Her teeth are gleaming with reflected light from the windows.

“What is going on?” I whisper.

“Do you really want to know?” she murmurs back, eyes crinkling at the corners.

Did I?

On the one hand, I could smell a secret begging to be uncovered. I love secrets, I always have. Usually the secrets I encounter are boring, mundane little things. Good enough to appease my desire, but not enough to satiate me.

On the other hand, this entire day is creeping close enough to ‘stranger danger’ territory that the baby hairs on the back of my neck are straining towards the sky. I should decline. I should leave this place and this strange woman without looking back.

But what is life without a little bit of risk, after all?

I drink my apple juice and the world tilts.

Finn pauses when he reaches the bridge.

His journey so far has been quiet, his footsteps falling lightly on the soft-packed dirt of the path, his breath muted and softened by the whispering winds in the moss-covered trees.

Stepping onto that bridge would be an announcement.

The people who live in these woods are a secretive bunch. Finn has never seen any of them, not before the war broke out, not since the war broke out, and not since he first walked into their domain two days ago.

He knows they’re around though.

Or, he assumes they’re around. Assumes they’re watching him, hidden and wary, from the trees, from the ferns, from- from anywhere, really. These are their woods.

Rayn had scoffed at his hesitation to approach the people of the forest. Not rudely – Rayn rarely if ever did anything rudely – but he’d conveyed a disdain for well-worn superstition that had surprised Finn. And it was superstition. Finn had never seen one of the woodsfolk and he didn’t directly know anyone who’d had any interaction with any of them, but still. It was surprising that Rayn had been so dismissive of the rumors.

Although, his folk were mountain through-and-through.

Maybe they simply didn’t have the kind of first-hand or passed-down knowledge about the lowerlands that left Finn and so many others wary and deferential towards certain people and places.

Not that it was important most of the time. Not that it was important in this fight for their home.

Rayn’s a good leader, and Finn is selfishly relieved about that since if he wasn’t, Finn would probably have had to shoulder that burden of command. And Finn is not interested in commanding their small but skilled band of warriors. Making decisions and offering opinions? Absolutely. Shouldering the burden of leading people into battle knowing they won’t all make it out? No thank you, no thank you, and no thank you.

Finn isn’t a particularly diplomatic person either, but there was no way he was letting Rayn come down to attempt to parlay with folks when he had demonstrated such a lack of deference for their rumored…skills, means, ways, whatever you wanted to call it. Finn didn’t call it magic. Not out loud.

There was no magic on the mountain, everyone knew that.

Down in the flatlands it was everywhere.

But where that line fell between the two was contested. There wasn’t a consensus around how far up the slopes magic extended, or which lowerland folk were able to see it and harness it.

Finn is confident the people in these particular woods have something that keeps others out of their woods. An ancient warding, perhaps, or a deal with a god. Finn doesn’t know. Finn hopes this foray doesn’t go sour enough that he finds out the details, either.

They want these people to help them. That’s the whole reason for Finn’s expedition.

He steps onto the bridge and winces at the dull clonk of boot-sole on old wood, but presses on anyway.

The bridge is long and meandering, and Finn’s not immediately sure of its purpose. There’s no obvious bodies of water that he’s walking over, no streams or rivers or patches that might turn marshy with enough rain.

The other end of the bridge, a circular wooden platform, makes him realize this might be a version of an entrance hallway, though. He looks around the space, surrounded by tall, looming trees, and wonders what he’s supposed to do from here. There’s nowhere else to go, and no one in sight.

He clears his suddenly dry throat.

“Hello.”

Finn startles and looks around.

Directly across from where he’s standing there is a being sitting on the railing that lines the platform. They’re leaning back against a tree with one leg bent so the foot rests flat against the crossbeam and the other leg hanging down and swaying back and forth gently. Their skin is the color of pine bark and their close-cropped hair is the same dull green of the forest moss, as if one of the trees had taken the shape of a person so they could speak to Finn directly.

He suppresses a shiver at the thought.

“Hi. Err, hello. My name is Finn.”

The being tilts their head to the side slightly.

“Why are you here, Finn of the Mountains?”

This time Finn can’t avoid the involuntary shudder, but he quickly regains his composure.

“I’m here to ask for your help,” he replies. He’d thought about what he should say during his entire journey here, drafting arguments and angles for his cause and discarding them just as quickly.

“Fighting has come to the slopes,” he says simply. “Any assistance from you or your people would be greatly appreciated.”

The being nods slowly.

“We will not go to war. We cannot go to war,” they say, and Finn doesn’t think he’s imagining the hint of regret in their voice. “Any who wish to flee the violence will be welcome among us, if they are willing to follow our ways.”

Finn inclines his head. It’s a generous offer, though he’s still a bit disappointed at the lack of more direct help.

“Thank you. I will relay that offer to my people, though I think it unlikely that many will take you up on it,” he says with a wry smile and a small shrug.

“Unlikely,” the being agrees.

They climb smoothly off the railing and walk towards Finn, stopping only when they are a scant few inches in front of him. He holds himself perfectly still as they reach up and gently tuck a strand of his hair behind his ear.

“For when there are no other options,” they tell him quietly.

“Thank you,” Finn whispers. The being smiles at him, then walks away, vaulting the railing and disappearing into the trees within moments.

Finn reaches up to touch the leafy sprig nestled behind his ear and wonders what exactly this gift is that he’s been given.

You walk through the woods, kicking up leaves and watching your breath make short-lived clouds in the crisp air of the early fall morning. You don’t come out here often, but you’ve been thinking maybe you should.

Not just because walking is good for you even though it is and you already know that and you always try your best to get your ten thousand daily steps in – or four thousand steps, or sometimes just a hundred or so on the days when all you can stand to do is go back and forth across your apartment.

There’s something different out here though. A reminder.

Because sure, most of the time you do what you’re supposed to do: go out with your friends, say hi to your neighbors, make small talk with the person working the checkout. You’re part of a community, after all. You go to the farmers’ market on Saturdays to pick up produce and make your own dinners and meal prep for the weekdays when you won’t be home until late, but also take the time to check out the cute new cafe and support local restaurants.

You keep up with social media – but you don’t spend too much time on it. No scrolling in bed, no screens in the bedroom. You like and comment on your friends’ posts, take the quizzes they send you that predict your life based on your favorite color. You watch the latest trendy shows and listen to the new music that comes out and talk about it with your coworkers over lunch.

Then you volunteer your time at and you donate to the fundraisers at the homeless shelter and the animal rescue and the food bank. You go to your local library to check out books and you work your way through the neverending lists of bestsellers. Your sister recommended a famous comedian’s autobiography and you have it sitting on your nightstand, a bookmark conscientiously marking that you just started the third chapter.

You make sure to keep up with all of your appointments. You go to your doctor for an annual check-up (physical and a bloodwork panel), you visit the dentist every six months, you stay up to date with vaccines. You get the emissions check on your car so you can update your registration on time, you fill out your lease renewal promptly and check your smoke detectors when you’re told to, you show up to your yearly evaluation at work. You call the maintenance line when something breaks, because it’s better to get it done immediately than to sit on it and have it get worse.

And of course you go to the gym a couple times a week – cardio, yoga, weight training – to keep active and keep your body working. You fold and put away your laundry as soon as it’s done and vacuum the carpets once a week but never during quiet hours. You clean the bathroom and scoop the litterbox and never ever leave the kitchen sink full of dirty dishes overnight. You keep track of birthdays and holidays and anniversaries and make sure to send a text or an email or a card for all of them.

You do all of this for years, for decades, as you move through the world. It’s part of life, after all. It’s what you’re supposed to do. Isn’t it?

Because when you get out into the woods, none of it… matters.

You’re lucky, you know you are, to live close enough to get to a place like this, a bit of natural beauty. A place of peace and quiet and solitude. You love living in the city but out here there’s not a single other person in sight. No cars honking. No music or sirens blasting down the street. No unpleasant smells wafting by.

It’s just… nice.

Here among the trees and the shrubs, the birds and the squirrels, the leaves and the pine needles that carpet the ground.

You know what you’re supposed to do – you should walk the well-marked path around the scenic pond, take in the views, snap a picture of the geese that winter here to share with the world.

But it’s easy, here, to step off the path.

You slip around one of the pine trees – the big one, the one three people wouldn’t be able to wrap their arms around – and head up the mountain. You duck under the branches and climb over the logs and walk up and up and up.

Not quite up to where the trees thin out or even to where the pines rule the heights, just far enough to where the oak trees have all lost their leaves. Some days you climb one, the thick branches comforting in their sturdiness, the squirrels and birds more than willing to share a perch with a quiet interloper. Some days you sit beneath a tree, watching as the breeze whirls the leaves around on the ground in strange and meaningless patterns. Some days you just keep walking.

It’s quieter out here. Not just externally, but internally, too.

Your thoughts come more easily. More naturally, maybe, but you shy away from that idea. Out here you don’t have to think about all of the everything in your life. The daily, weekly, yearly, mundane upkeep that makes you a person.

You can just keep walking. One foot in front of the other. Breathing in and breathing out. Up the mountain, through the trees, over the leaf-strewn ground.

You always go back eventually.

You’ve got a job after all. An apartment and a cat and a few house plants. Commitments to honor, promises to keep. A life, a family to get back to.

But what if you didn’t.

What if you just kept moving forward, no particular destination in mind, no goal to achieve.

What if you just kept walking, on and on and on into the horizon.

What would that be like?

Where would you end up?

Who would you be?

Running through the forest was dangerous, especially as the days cooled and the leaves fell and the autumn rain turned them all from crunchy to slippery.

Not running was more dangerous.

He had to get out of here.

Finally, finally, he was leaving and he wasn’t coming back. Not ever. No matter if they found him and tried to drag him back, he’d make them kill him first.

They’d gotten halfway there anyway, he thought miserably, feeling one of the cuts on his leg open back up and start bleeding as he pushed himself to his limits.

Past his limits, even, as he slipped and crashed into a pine tree.

He landed heavily on his side and laid there for a minute, slowly regaining the breath that had been knocked out of him while the moisture from the ground soaked immediately into his thin clothes.

Muffling the groan he wished he could let out, he pushed himself up to a sitting position, fingers curling into fists. Knowing he needed to be back on his feet as soon as possible, he listened intently for any sounds of pursuit. Nothing. He could take a moment longer.

As he went to brush the dirt off his hands, a small key he hadn’t realized he was holding tumbled to the ground. For a heart stopping moment he thought that this was it, that the reason they weren’t in pursuit was because they didn’t need to be. They were powerful magicians, strong enough to easily put a tracking spell onto such an easily overlooked object and wait until he let his guard down before coming for him.

He swallowed back bile and looked closer at the key, searching for any hint of magic, no matter how faint.

It seemed to be clean.

It seemed, honestly, a bit boring. Old-fashioned with a hint of tarnish and buildup of dirt that all pointed towards a long residency on the forest floor.

Must’ve fallen out of someone’s pocket as they traveled through the area. Or maybe it had been deliberately tossed aside, no longer of use to its previous owner.

He felt a brief pang of sympathy for the little key which he quickly smothered. Now was no time to get maudlin. Yet he found himself clutching it as he stood up, unwilling to leave the key behind. Maybe he could find some use for it later.

Or maybe he’d just keep it as a memento, a reminder of how far he’d gotten in his bid for freedom.

He kept moving, a little slower this time, a little more careful.

The deep forest was dangerous, everyone said so. Rumors of horrible beasts and eldritch creatures had always swirled around the palace, mostly stories told in the dark by small children trying to scare each other, but even the adults only spoke of this place in hushed whispers.

It wasn’t clear which, if any, rumors were real, and which were exaggerations meant to keep children out of trouble.

He hadn’t collected the stories on purpose but they swirled through his mind as he walked. The horrible beasts who feasted only on the youngest babies. The mad old wizard who’d been banished from the kingdom over a century ago. Winding paths that led to another realm entirely. And the unusual folks that were said to live in that realm…

A shiver made its way down his spine.

Between a place he knew was dangerous and a place that only might be dangerous, he knew he’d choose the latter a hundred times over.

He couldn’t think about all the ways this could go wrong. He had to believe that whatever he found at the other side of the forest would be better than what he was leaving. He had to.

One step at a time.

The forest got dark as the sun went down, the trees casting deep shadows across the ground. He slowed his pace even more, picking his way cautiously to prevent another fall.

His heartbeat pounded in his ears, nerves jangling at the eerie silence of the forest at night.

It shouldn’t be this quiet.

The start of his journey had been a helter-skelter frenzy, crashing through without heed for how much noise he might be making, and it wasn’t surprising he hadn’t seen any other creatures then.

Now he was stepping lightly, choosing his steps carefully, blending in with his surroundings.

And yet.

He still heard no animals.

No nighttime insects chirping away.

No birds rustling the branches.

He was alone with the trees and the leaves, not even a breath of wind for company.

At first, it was unnerving. The silence might be an indication that something was wrong, some magical hold on the forest, perhaps, or an unseen threat that had driven everything else into hiding.

As he kept moving, though, he found he didn’t mind it so much.

The palace had never been silent, not really. The quietest it got was at witching hour, deep in the night, but even then he would hear the mice scratching in the walls, or the breathing of the others in the dormitory, or the distant call of the changing guard.

The stillness of the forest made its way into his bones, slowing his breathing and relaxing his aching muscles.

He wouldn’t mind staying here forever, he thought idly.

It was so peaceful, so much more pleasant than his life so far.

The fear that had possessed him for so long, the stress that had likely taken years off his life, the urgency that had driven him this far, all of it melted away.

His pace slowed further as soft music wound its way into his ears.

Drawn to the melody as if pulled by a rope, he followed the tune to an inconspicuous tree with an inconspicuous keyhole.

The sound of clinking dishes and joyful laughter leaked through with the music.

He placed the key in the lock, turned it, and pushed through to the other side.