One Foot In

Chapter Nine – When Everyone Hates You


It seemed indeed that I had burnt my bridges. No one understood what I had been doing with that Demon, least of all the two men involved with me. But more than that, I had managed to alienate Sadie and my daddy.

I’m still not sure what had Sadie so pissed, after all she and Alar were going at it all the time. Her remark to me was “Oh, Cinders, if you have to ask, what’s the use?”

My father, on the other hand, was mortified that I had given up my virginity (yes, he insisted that I was a virgin) to a demon-possessed human by the name of Thor. Didn’t he know that I was supposed to be pure for my betrothal to Leo Rosen? Had I no consideration of family honor or my future husband’s feelings? Obviously not!

It seemed quite clear to me that the Elfish race, unlike humans, did not appreciate initiative! And therefore, they all highly resented the initiative I had taken by taking the demon, so to speak, by the horns.

I knew what I had to do, and went out to Chelsea Market to get the best quality, finest, top of the line jar of honey that money could buy. It was time to suck up to the Common Folk of the building and get an alliance going.

I wrapped up the jar in a beautiful little golden ribbon and headed down the stairs to the Weird Sisters. Both of them were in and had no company for a change.

“Cynthia, what a delight it is to see you.” I kissed the air in Sarah’s general direction. After all I knew what she really looked like, it was difficult, very difficult to even be in the same room with her.

The other sister took the jar from me with eager hands and went off to make some herbal tea.

She looked at me with her odd wall-eyed look and grinned. “And what can I do for you my dear?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about what you said about my father being a yellow coward, and—I agree with you.”

Both sisters chortled to themselves and I continued. “It seems to me that the Elfish have really got a lot of explaining to do and truly owe a huge debt to the Common Folk.” There I had said it. I betrayed my father, my cousin and Leo. I was out on a limb, all by myself and now it was either going to happen or not.

Sarah’s sister took my arm and sat me down in the best chair. She handed me a cup of tea, laced liberally with the really, really expensive honey and a plate of cookies.

“We are so glad,” simpered Sarah, “that you have such wisdom as to come to an understanding of how things are. I expect it has something to do with the congress you had with that demon.” I kept a straight face in spite of the tea going down the wrong way.

“Yes, actually, it was.” I confessed, giving up any pretense to pride. The two sisters gave each other a look.

“And what can we do for you?”

“I need to find the mage or mages responsible for bringing in all those Summoning Demon Boxes. They seem to be the ones in control and have, for some reason, been manipulating the Elfish and destroying their lands.”

The two sisters went quite still. I waited patiently for a while. And then I took a bite of my cookie. When will I ever learn? The cookie, sweet and chewy, exploded my brain once again. The room took on the look of a forest glade and there I was sitting with the spider sisters once again.

“Well, my dear, how can we help with that?”

I didn’t immediately answer. I was staring at the cookie; it was made of flies! Oh! Squick me out! I put down the plate very carefully. I didn’t want to look at the tea, just in case. I looked off into the distance trying not to throw up…

“I’m sorry? Oh yes, how you can help? I need a guide, I need to find out if there are any modes of swift transportation, and I need a map. I think I can handle anything that a Mage chooses to throw at me.” Oh, Cindy, the hubris, the hubris…

They began twittering to each other, in high-pitched voices. I tried to adjust my eyesight to get them to look human again, but that cookie… Damn. Never, ever eat food from these two chicks, I reminded myself, it’s deadly.

Sarah looked at me, “Well, Cindy we think you are very courageous and we have decided that the best man to help you is Mr. Madalensakay.” Again, the man with the unpronounceable name, I smiled and tried to look happy.

“Well, I thank you, Sarah. But tell me, does he have a shorter handle, I mean, a nickname?”

“Jimbo.” That was Sarah’s sister, Maybelle who piped in.

“I’ll go bring him in.” Sarah toddled, or rather scuttled off, to fetch Jimbo. Within a few minutes he had come back with her. Since I seemed to be stuck in this mode for a little while, all I can tell you was that my new friend was a dragon, an oriental style one-- looking like a cross between a snake and a furry walking stick.

“Um, I was wondering if it would be okay with you if I called you Jimbo?”

“Of course, I extend my hand in friendship.” I took his claw/paw/hand, it was quite warm for someone who looked so reptilian and shook it. I sat back and relaxed while Sarah explained why I was here and what I wanted to do.

Jimbo made a slight hissing sound when he gasped. He turned to me and said, “You are very ambitious, Miss White, oh, I mean Cindy. If your are correct and it is a mage or the mages’ fault, how do you propose to make things right?”

“Simply by asking them to stop.”

The three of them looked at each other. There was some head-shaking going on and I tried not to feel too ridiculous.

“Why do you believe that would work?” asked Jimbo.

“I don’t believe anything. But shouldn’t that be the starting place for all negotiations? Hasn’t your world suffered enough by people not being open and above board about what they want?”

He slowly nodded. “You are not as stupid and naïve as you appear.”

“Thanks, I guess.” You know, for someone who isn’t a blond, it seemed like a lot of people liked to make really harsh assumptions about me. Still, I let it go by. “Anyway, Jimbo, when can we get started?”

“Right now, if you choose.”

“Good by me. I’ll get packed and meet you in a few moments.” It seemed rude to ask about maps and transportation. I trusted these people, these folk, much more than human or elfish or demons for that matter. I could only hope that my faith in them was not misplaced.

I wrote a short note to Sadie and left it in the teapot. I figured that that would give me a good head start. She wasn’t in that afternoon, and I remembered that she and Alar had plans to go to a museum. I packed lightly, now knowing that it never got much lower than 40 degrees F in the other place. I annoyed me that the place didn’t have another name. One got tire of calling it the other place. Shouldn’t it have a name like Narnia or Never-never Land or Fairyland, ooops, now that would really piss off daddy. Then again none of them were talking to me, so maybe I shouldn’t care too much what they thought.

I headed down the stairs and stopped on the landing. Thor was walking out the front door and I didn’t want him to see me. I think it really hurt the most that Thor and I were not on speaking terms. I mean, all right, I understand about Leo, he and the others considered us practically engaged. But Thor, I freed him from slavery to yet another demon. Where was the gratitudAnd And it wasn’t like I was doing it with some smelly demon’s body-- it was with Thor. You could never convince me that he wasn’t having some fun in there while Zanzo and I went at it.

Thor exited the building and I snuck down the stairs to the basement. Jimbo was waiting for me. I didn’t see anyone else guarding the place.

“Hurry, Thor will be back in about ten minutes.”

“How did you get rid of him?”

“I gave him a twenty and asked him to buy lunch for himself and me at the Deli. I told him I’d been busy this afternoon, so to just leave the hero sandwich outside my door.”

That was pretty typical of how things went in the building. Everyone ran little favors for each other all the time. One hand washed the other. Shocking, considering that it was the Elfish who had brought so much misery down on the heads of the Common Folk. Then again, no one seemed to hold it too much against Thor that he’d been a demon’s lackey for so many years as well. I liked it here for those reasons; however, it was getting uncomfortable with my Elfish relatives and I had thought of finding new digs.

We started the long walk down the tunnel. I wore two pairs of socks and packed more sweet stuff along with carrots this time in case I ran into more rude unicorns. The walk didn’t seem as long this time, perhaps because I knew what to expect. We emerged into nighttime and I felt a bit scared of what might be out there.

“Don’t worry, little one, nothing will attack us.” I turned around and saw that Jimbo had, well, gotten larger. He wasn’t human sized anymore, he was err… dragon sized.

“Wow.” He chuckled, at my excitement.

“Hop on my back and we shall fly to where I last remember a Mage being. With any luck I’ll be able to sniff him out.” I touched him and drew my hand quickly back. Those scales were sharp! Beautiful, too. They gleamed a deep iridescent blue and green in the moonlight, where back at the building they had seemed black. I took a blanket and threw it behind where his front legs were and climbed on. I didn’t know if I’d be able to stay on once we were up.

“Jimbo?”

“Yes?”

“Is this going to work or am I going to fall off and break my neck?”

“Not much purpose in coming all this way if that happens, is there?”

“No.”

“So hold on tight.”

Now Chinese dragons have whiskers and he sort of flicked them at me. “I don’t want to hurt you.” I said gingerly grabbing hold of his ersatz reins.

“Then be gentle, Cindy.” He was starting to sound a bit annoyed so I shut up, and took hold and just prayed I’d be able to stay on.

He ran a little and then we were up in the air. He didn’t have wings-- he just sort of wiggled like he was swimming through water. I didn’t care for the wiggling, but I stayed on. It was a clear night and the moon was almost full. I watched the trees disappear as we left the mountains. Soon all I could see was wasteland. There was an eerie silence, just the sound of air going past my ears and Jimbo’s labored breathing.

I tried to imagine why the ground was so desolate beneath us. Was it like that naturally? Or had this been the result of some scorched earth policy in the war? I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing and started to lose my balance. The scales were sharp and cut into my hands as I steadied myself and tried to renew my grip on his whiskers. I made a mental note to self to stop thinking and just concentrate on staying on. Fortunately, I thought I saw something in the distance, which might be our destination. I had sliced up one of my hands rather badly and it was bleeding, making my grip even worse. I prayed that I was right.

We landed on a rocky bleak plain near some caves carved into a hillside. I got down and got out my first aid kit to patch up my hands.

“So Jimbo, can you tell me where the Mage is?”

He swung his massive head from side to side with his nostrils opening and closing. You could hear him snuffling and I was assured if any creature magical or otherwise could find him, it would be Jimbo.

I didn’t know what I would do when I found him; I guessed I’d just play it by ear. Since I believed that all of this was being done on purpose, I’d find out that purpose and then make a deal.

Jimbo looked over his shoulder, well, I supposed it was a shoulder, at me and replied, “He’s that direction about 400 yards.” And he nodded toward some distant cliffs.

“So why can’t they build houses or huts or something in this place?”

“In case you haven’t noticed, there isn’t much one could use to build with.”

“It’s all like this?”

“The war’s been going on a couple of generations.”

“I’m surprised that there aren’t more places like our building. Why do Common Folk like Lu stay here?”

“It’s their home. Also, if we leave for too long, we start to die. We need the food and water from this place; it’s magic is necessary for our survival.”

That really sent a chill down my spine. Oh damn, the stakes seemed to continue going up and up. I started to walk by myself towards the caves that Jimbo had pointed out. I turned around and saw him back in his semi-human form. “Aren’t you coming?”

“Nope. Too dangerous. I’ll just wait right here for you.”

“Dangerous. Loverly! Great! So how long will you wait for me?”

“Until I hear screaming or something that tells me you are dead. Don’t worry, I have very good hearing and I am very patient.”

“Yes. I FEEL so much better now!” I continued to walk. My feet at least weren’t hurting now, but my hands were throbbing. I just hoped that Jimbo had taken a bath or something before we left. I wouldn’t like an infection to set in and really there was just so much Bactine spray and antibiotic ointment could do. In fact, I didn’t even know if the stuff would work here.

I walked. Why was it no matter how much I tried, I still got stuck walking? How come nobody in Lord of the Rings complained? Oh wait, I think Bilbo did. My fault for not reading the stories since I was ten years old, I only have the movie versions to go by.

When I got close to the caves I started looking for signs of life. One of the caves seemed to be inhabited, judging from the amount of rubbish spread out around it. Who ever this jerk was, he was messy.

“Hello. Hey, anyone in there?” I got a little scared, but I could see dawn was coming up, so I figured it was time to be hopeful, right? -- Dawn coming up all all?

“Good grief and gravy, who’s the idiot waking me up?” He managed to sound both groggy and grumpy at the same time.

“Oh great and wonderful Mage, it is only I, a poor and simple supplicant.” There and totally unrehearsed, too. Well, a little bit cribbed from Wizard of Oz, but you just can’t go wrong with the classics.

“Oh cut the crap! Do you know what time it is?”

“It about time for lazy bags of bones to up, I’d think. That’s what time it is! I’ve been traveling all night to get here and I’ve sliced open my hand on a Dragon’s Scale and I am just about ready to plotz.”

“You’re kidding, aren’t you?” He came out. “Cindy White? Small world.”

“Denny Gottlieb, is that you?”

“Looking good, Cindy. I see you lost the baby fat.”

“I wish I could say the same for you, but you’re still as skinny as a rail.” I stared at him. I hadn’t seen him since our Junior Prom. He still had red curly hair, freckles, black-rimmed glasses and buckteeth. He was tall and totally geeky. Part of the Dungeons and Dragons crowd, and the only reason I had gone with him was, well, he asked!

“So Cindy, what? you traveled on a dragon to get here?”

“Yeah, one of the Common Folk, he’s over there.” I waved in Jimbo’s direction and I saw a glint of something seem to wave back.

“Sooooo. What’s happening, babe?” He was giving me the eye.

“Well, do you have any Java, I’m kinda of thirsty after the trip.”

“Oh, how rude of me. Come on, I got a Starbucks just a block away.”

“No! You don’t. Where?” My mouth was hanging open ready to catch flies.

“Well, I moved to Sag Harbour after making a killing on the stock market and I pretty much bum around. It’s not a bad life.”

“Wait a second, there’s a Starbucks in Sag Harbour? Didn’t they like pass a zoning ordinance or something to prevent huge, evil corporations from so much as putting a toe into their sacred domain?”
u meu mean like no Ben and Jerry’s, no McD’s, no Barnes and Nobles.”

“Right.”

“Right. But I got a friend on the zoning commission. What we did was called the place Karma Kasbah and we buy the beans and equipment directly from the corporation. It all looks homey and rustic, like Green Mountain Beanery.”

“Wow. That’s incredible. And it’s just a block away?”

“Yeah. Tell your friend you’re leaving.”

That this is one of those moments, when you gotta ask yourself, “What are the chances?”

In the middle of nowhere, in the middle of some magical, alternate reality you meet your old Junior High Prom date AND he has a Starbucks serving café just one block away?

I thought about it. I thought hard. He could be evil. This could be an illusion. He was reputed to be a Mage, maybe he had something wicked planned.

Feh! It was morning and I really needed the Java! I waved to Jimbo and yelled, see ya later, he’s an old friend and I took Denny’s arm and went into the cave.


I like Sag Harbour. Where has it been all my life? And the coffee was great! I was sipping pure liquid heaven.

I looked up and into Denny’s chocolate brown eyes. “So how did you find the other place?”

He grinned. “I was going to ask you the same thing? Didn’t you move to New York City with some handsome cretin, called Josh.”

“I haven’t seen you since junior High? How did you know?”

“I’m on the Junior High School reunion committee and I called your mom. I was really disappointed when you didn’t come to the tenth reunion or the fifth one for that matter.”

“You wanted to stay in touch?”

“Yeah. You were the most beautiful girl in Junior High.”

“Me?” I was giggling.

“Anyhow, how are you connected with Dennisland?”

“Is that the name of it?”

“Or Cindyland?”

“Well, I thought that the land maybe should be named by the people who live there?”

“Oh, the cute little Animals, like in Beatrice Potter.”

“Yeah, I guess Potterland?”

“Well, it’s not really real, is it?”

“Isn’t it? How can you say that?”

“Cindy, you are taking all of this very seriously.”

“Yeah, well, it has to do with family. As in my father’s family.”

“He’s not one of those animals? Not if I remember meeting him when I picked you up for the Prom.”

“No, he’s the head of the White Moon Clan of the Elfish.”

“No shit!”

I shook my head. “So, you can understand that I do take this all rather seriously. And you?”

“I was exploring and I found this portal.” I felt a sudden wave of relief. “So you are not a Mage, after all.”

“I’m one of them.”

“And you know who the others are?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Why? Because someone’s been bringing in these boxes which let demons in, and my grandfather was suckered into opening one of them and almost all of my family went bye-bye.”

Denny looked upset. “But none of this is real, so why are you so upset?”

“It’s real, Denny. How could you think it’s not?”

‘Because it’s like a game, Cindy?”

Okay, we were doing an old riff, from those times we hung out together. But I couldn’t afford to get relaxed.

“I don’t know how deep you’re into this, Denny, but you’re one of the good guys. Or you always used to be. The demons have got to leave the, here, I got it-- the Place of the Common Folk. Good name? It belongs to them, not the Faerae or Elfish or humans or demons. They were here first. Everybody should butt out and leave them alone.”

“Cindy, what are you tripping on? It’s a game, like Dungeons and Dragons, like the stuff I played since I was ten years old.”

“My family Denny. You don’t mess with family.”

“Okay, someone here is really wrong. Let me prove to you that you’re fantasizing, okay?” Dennis got real intense and adjusted his glasses on his nose.

I nodded my head. And ordered a second double latte.


A/N: I’m way behind on the planned schedule of updates here. I apologize for that BIG TIME. My DS has been ill for the past week and I’ve been running myself ragged. Anyhow, I’ll do better, now. I hope!