Enjoy the opening chapters of my new ongoing mega-story. I think it's one of the best things I've ever written. Just a warning: some dark themes to start with.

By FoxFaceStories

A Commission for Slayerangel

Darian Mitchell is a depressed young man with zero prospects and a hidden desire to be a woman. Struggling with a toxic family and an uncaring girlfriend, Darian’s life changes when he receives a fantasy novel that seems far, far too real. In fact, Darian begins to find himself transported into this other world, where he is a gorgeous redheaded princess named Dinah. But as reality starts to become uncertain, which world will he choose? And which life?

Next Part

The Princess I Was Meant To Be 

Chapter 1: The Man I Was Not Supposed to Be

There is something uniquely dissatisfying about seeing yourself in the mirror in the morning before a long day at work. The already-tired eyes, the hair that refuses to cooperate, the early wrinkles that start showing in your early thirties and then seem to spread like an infection across your face with each passing day. The only thing worse than seeing that reflection at the start of the day is then seeing it again at the end of it.

Such was the case for me. I won’t claim that I was ever anything more than an average-looking guy, but I certainly didn’t look like a zombified husk, a member of the walking dead. I was only thirty-three years old, but I swear I looked like I was going on to forty already, though perhaps it was just because of the tired blue lines beneath my eyes, not to mention the way my brown hair was starting to thin and form a widow’s peak. God, was I developing a bald spot already? I felt at the back of my head and cringed. Shit, I was definitely heading towards male pattern baldness territory. Go fucking me, I guess.

“Jesus, Darian,” I said to my reflection. “What the fuck are you doing with your life? Who the fuck even are you?”

The answer was, as always, completely unclear to me. I had been trying to grow a bit of scruff lately, perhaps to emphasis to make up for the usual feelings of inadequacy, but it wasn’t progressing so well. I had mixed feelings about that. Sometimes I preferred to have smoother skin, a kind of softness that just felt . . . right.

But those weren’t the desires I liked to think about often. When a man is down on his luck, he always ends up going a bit kooky, a bit strange. Sometimes he indulges in fantasies that just plain aren’t realistic, stuff he thought about when he was a growing boy or a teenager still sorting his shit out. I couldn’t even say why I’d purchased that wig, and that wasn’t even getting into the dress and the lipstick, both of which were hidden in a back compartment of my bathroom sink cupboard. For reasons I couldn’t even say, there were just some shitty days where locking myself in my room and throwing them on, making my lips look nice, and flashing a smile in the mirror gave me that little rush of confidence I needed. A shot of dopamine that made me feel less like Darian Tanner, loser with no prospects, and more like . . . something else. Something beautiful.

Like I said, stupid fantasies, stupid desires. I’m sure other guys did it in the privacy of their own homes, too. Or maybe I really was just a total fucking weirdo and loser who got his kicks being a total perv. I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I had no desire to let anyone else know, or I’d damn well take the quick way out. 

“Fuck, stop with the thoughts. Stop with the fucking thoughts.”

I slid my hands down my face, as if trying to pull the skin away to find the real me underneath. Instead, I just ended up looking even more damn haggard than before.

“Marketing, marketing, marketing.”

God, I could still feel the grease on me. Not the literal grease, just the awful oily sensation of shilling shitty pills to desperate people. I could barely believe I once wanted to be a surgeon, or an astronaut, or some kind of paleontologist. Now, I tried to justify to people why they definitely needed yet another pill for their liver, one that wasn’t even goddamn FDA-approved. Worse, I was actually good at it. 

“Get a grip,” I told my reflection in the mirror. “It was one bad day. Just one bad day. Remember what your therapist said? Ha, from that one free session before you were priced out . . .”

Everyone remembers the one bad thing that happened to them that day, and not the ten good things that happened. Be aware of this, and focus on the good things that happen.

The only problem was . . . what good things? I’d woken up tired, I’d gone to work tired, I’d functioned in the office while exhausted, and yet somehow sold fake-panaceas with surprising panache, which only made me feel worse. And then I’d come home to this crummy existence, with an apartment that I was getting increasingly priced out of, and a girlfriend who-

The door opened, and I heard her walk in. A dark shiver ran down my spine, and I found myself swallowing my spit. I washed my face quickly and excited the bathroom right as Selina’s singsong voice carried through the apartment.

“Sweetie, I’m home! Where’s my welcome?”

I emerged, putting on the most handsome smile I could and already knowing that I was failing to pull it off. “I’m right here, Selina!” I said a little too enthusiastically. “Sorry, I was just freshening up.”

Selina folded her arms as she looked me up and down. She’d dyed her hair again, this time black, and was wearing a stylish new shirt. No mystery as to how she’d managed to pay for that. I knew there was a reason my wallet felt lighter lately. But God, she was beautiful. The kind of beautiful I wished I was, during my freakier episodes. Sometimes, I wondered if I kept her around just so I could look at her and imagine in my own pathetic way.

“Well, whatever you were doing, it didn’t work, Darian. You look like utter shit. Why you gotta greet me this way? I told you that a gallant man would be right there at the doorknob. I knocked twice, sweetie.”

I managed to push down my contempt for this woman. I needed her. God, I needed her, no matter how badly she treated me. I needed someone, damn it, and Selina had stuck with me for two years, even as my self-worth plummeted. Of course, she had her part to play in that particular descent as well.

“S-sorry,” I said, scratching the back of my head a little awkwardly. “How was your day, honey?”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, it was going well until someone wasn’t a proper gentleman. But don’t worry, I can forgive you. After all, you bought me some wonderful dresses today. Get a look!”

Sure enough, she held out a bag and took out a zebra-patterned summer dress, followed by a matching broad brimmed hat.

“Fetching, isn’t it?” she said, holding the dress in front of her and the hat atop her head while I held the bag for her.

“You’ll look amazing in them, Selina,” I told her. “But, um, do you mind if I ask the cost?”

She shot me a look that made me wither. “Darian, I thought we’d gone over this, silly. Never ask a lady what the cost of her fashion is! Just learn to enjoy it.”

“It’s just that the rent is due this Friday, and I’m a little behind on-”

Selina groaned. “Honey, I swear we’ve had this conversation before. Take on some overtime at work. Get a side hustle or something! You’re the man in the relationship, and that makes you my wonderful breadwinner. You know I love you for it . . . and I always show my appreciation.”

She moved closer to me, pressed her hands against my chest. With a smile upon her perfect lips - God, what would it feel like to have lips like that? - she then lowered one hand down to slide over the crotch of my trousers. Despite how shit I felt, despite how shit I looked, Selina licked her lips and let out a pleasurable moan.

“You know, you don’t look half-bad in this light. Why don’t I show you why it’s worth you being my sexy breadwinner, hmm?”

I gulped a little nervously. She always did this. I knew she always did this. It was her primary tactic. Whenever I was hesitant about her behaviour, or when she knew she’d gone a little too cruel, she offered sex. And I fell for it everytime 

***

Selina was always on her phone after sex. Once I’d finished inside of her and she’d stopped wailing like a banshee, she was quick to shove me off of her, have a quick shower, then return to bed and check her socials. I’d foolishly asked if she wanted to spoon a little, just hold one another - I wouldn’t even annoy her by talking - but instead she just huffed and rolled her eyes again.

“What am I doing, dating a gay man or something? Just enjoy the sex, goddamn it.”

The truth was, I often didn’t. I knew how to make Selina climax, and I almost always finished as well, but God it was a process. Whenever I was thrusting into her, I had to close my eyes and imagine a different scenario. I had to try and think of what she was feeling; hands upon her beautiful breasts, a hard dick thrusting into her passage, the way she moaned as if it was my own voice. Sometimes even that wasn’t enough, and instead my mind went to even deeper places, areas of desire I never let anyone know about. 

‘You are not Selina and Darian,’ I told myself. ‘You are Narene and Petyr of the Frosted Isles, finally making love beneath the Twilight Dawn after the defeat of the Dread Horde. You are in love, you are aroused and desperate. Destiny and prophecy has brought you together. You are one, and you feel what she feels thanks to the primal magic that connects the pair of you. Her skin is your skin. Her breasts are yours, her passion and her love. She moans and you moan. You are man and woman. You are something more, and there is no pain here, only discovery and love.”

That got me over the line; my obsession with fantasy novels, especially my secret obsession with the sexy ones. The Romantasy genre, if you will. The descriptions of them often drove me wild, and I’m not always talking about arousal. It was like going to another place and another time, a new dimension where everything was better. The heroines especially fascinated me in those other worlds. They were strong and powerful, determined and yet so feminine. Compassionate, yet passionate. And God help me, it was them who helped me get through sex. I closed my eyes, thrust into my girlfriend, and let my mind wander to a world where such connection meant something.

“Hey, Selina?” I said, trying to get her attention as we lay in bed together, so close and yet so far apart.

“Mhm?” she said, not even looking in my direction.

“Do you ever feel like . . . you’re not the person you’re supposed to be?”

“Yeah, sure,” she said, still staring at her screen. “Grab me a supreme, not a meatlovers. Your treat, okay?”

Another little piece of me died inside. Why was I with this woman? Why did I let her take advantage of me and give no emotional support in return? The answer was obvious, of course. I knew the answer in my heart already.

Because if I didn’t have her, I’d have no one at all. No one but my family, and I was . . . trying to keep my distance from them. 

“Fuck yeah!” Selina suddenly exclaimed, loud enough to make me jolt. “There’s a party at the Elk Club tonight! Oh my God, I hope Betty is there. I bet she is, that bad bitch. Her and that hot boyfriend of hers. I simply have to go.”

I perked up. “I could go with you?”

But the look she shot me immediately gave me the answer. “Oh, sweetie! I don’t think that’s a good idea. It’s not your scene. Besides, you gotta work tomorrow. Don’t worry, I’ll have twice as much fun for the both of us. I’m always so thankful for my wonderful man!”

Twenty minutes later she had changed and gone, and I was left alone in my room, though, really, I’d been alone the whole time. I sighed, and felt my soul leave my body, and then I went to my book collection and retrieved The Cycle of Seasons, Book 2: The Thawing Heart. I settled back into bed and caught up to where I’d been reading last.

No, not reading.

Devouring.

Narene and Petyr had just made love, preserving one another in the Frosted Isles after defeating the advance of the Dread Horde. But there were many trials ahead, and beautiful bright-haired Narene was still doomed to die with the turning of the season unless the handsome reluctant hero Petyr could save her. I found myself cast into the story, stepping into it. There was no other way to put it. The world of fantasy, of escapism itself, was calling, and it peeled away the woes of my own sad and pathetic life and substituted it with excitement.

“I don’t understand,” Petyr said as he furrowed his brow, his dark hair falling near his eyes as he looked over Narene’s still naked form. “We just made love. We confessed our feelings. Narene, if that isn’t reason enough to fight for your life, to undo the Dread Horde once and for all and heal your sickness, then I might as well give up and sail home right now!”

Narene shifted, and in the act pressed her warm flesh against him, such a contrast to the icy tomb around them. It was only thanks to the elven woman’s ember spell that they did not feel the frosty bite of the air around them. “Petyr, my loving Petyr,” she whispered. “I meant what I said when we came together. I meant every word. I love you as fiercely as the waves that crash against the rocky shores of the Hinterlands, and as deeply as the Great Pit in which we first met. Deeper, even. But . . . you cannot save me. There is no saving me. As ice thaws and flowers bloom with the turning of the seasons, so too shall I pass on to the next life.”

Petyr grit his teeth. He took Narene by the shoulders and stared into those pale violet eyes, seeing nought but resignation, but acceptance. “No,” he declared. “I refuse to believe that. How can you believe that? Don’t you care about what we have? About what we could have?”

“Of course I care,” Narene said. She caressed his cheek so softly it was like a whisper of the wind upon his skin, as delicate and deliberate as Narene herself. “But caring is not enough, Petyr. Caring won’t bring back your brother from the Well of Souls-”

“Don’t bring him into it. This is not about him. I made my peace with that a long time ago, Narene.”

“And I’ve made my peace with this. I knew from the day my Elder Mother finally gave me my name that I would not make it past my twenty-fifth year.”

“Darian was already dead, much as I mourned him. He was lost, and I couldn’t save him. He wasn’t . . . he wasn’t the man he was supposed to be. Or could have been. And it finally tore him apart. I will grieve him forever, but you are still alive, Narene. You are not Darian. You still have a chance to live!”

I threw the book across the room as a shudder hit my spine. 

“What the fuck!?”

No, it couldn’t be possible. I was reading into things. I was . . . surely that hadn’t just been my name in the book, right? I took a few breaths to calm myself - four seconds in, six seconds out, and repeat - and then fetched The Cycle of Seasons. I quickly found my place again and reread the passage.

“Markus was already dead . . . you are not Markus. You still have a chance to live!”

I let out some air and calmed myself further. I had just been reading into it. Markus was a tragic character, the man who should have been the main hero of the series, but was consumed by his own personal demons before the events of the book had even begun. It’s one of the features that made the narrative so compelling to me, that the romance was born of the unexpected, but now something about it left a sour taste in my mouth.

I tried reading again several more times, but in the end it just didn’t hit the spot. Something about the tragedy of Markus’ character was hitting far too close to home, and now it was killing the romance and the fantasy of the series. Normally, I wanted to jump right in, imagine even living within the series.

Now, the escapism was simply gone.

Chapter 2: The Bridge

Thursday was Family Dinner Night, capitalised and everything for its officiality. I hated Thursday night. I dreaded it. I wasn’t even sure why it was still expected for me to attend. It was spaghetti bolognese, at least, which was one of my favourites, but I couldn’t help but feel like my family’s eyes were watching me and judging me closely as I ate. 

“Don’t eat too much, honey,” Mom said. “I want you to take care of yourself!”

“I am, Mom,” I said quietly. 

“Are you sure about that, sport?” Angus said. He was my stepfather, and possibly the man I hated most in the world. He was everything I wasn’t: sporty, jock-like, aggressive, and obsessed with the winners and losers of life. It was no surprise that he was a slick Real Estate Agent, what with his carefully curated black hair and his all-too dashing macho smile. He even wore a suit to dinner. Somehow, he’d turned my mother from the sweet and caring woman who raised me to someone who never raised a word against his cruelty.

“I’m sure,” I said, not looking up at Angus. 

“Dad says you should look a man in the eyes,” Robbie said. “Or you aren’t a man at all.”

I ignored my stepbrother, who was the spitting image of his father and was on the verge of turning twenty one, an event I dreaded for all the celebrations it was going to receive.

“Well, I’m looking my pasta in the eyes at the moment,” I replied. “On account of I’m eating it.”

Angus laughed. It sounded like ice breaking and knives clashing, and it had no real mirth in it. “I’m just a bit worried about you, Darian. No girlfriend. No real success. You’re even eating your dinner like you’re begging for scraps. Where’s the winning attitude?”

I shrugged, still not looking up. “I ‘won’ at paying my overly-expensive rent today, how about that?”

“Don’t be rude, Darian,” Mom cautioned. Her voice was just a whisper. She only ever whispered now. Angus did all the talking, it seemed. “Listen to your father.”

“He’s not my father,” I replied, perhaps a little too tactlessly.

“Nah, he’s right,” Robbie said. I could feel his smug grin upon me. “If Dad were his Dad, he’d actually be able to man up more than once.”

“That’s unfair, Robbie,” Mom said. “Darian is just going through harder times now.” Angus cracked his knuckles. “Because he needs to toughen up, dear. No offence, but your previous man left him as a real softie. He clearly didn’t have a good manly role model to look up to. It’s a miracle he’s got a girlfriend at all with the way your ex-husband raised him.”

That finally got me to look up and stare fucking daggers into Angus’ eyes. 

“Not ex-husband. Not ex-husband. He died. My Dad died, Angus. Show some fucking respect.”

The table jolted as Angus stood, staring down at me. But this was one argument I wasn’t going to back down from, not like all the others. No one talked down upon my Dad. No one. He had been kind and gentle, and I still remembered his voice as he made up all those wonderful fantasy stories to me when trying to get me to sleep. I had precious few memories of him, and I would not have them desecrated by this goddamn lout.

“Someone else needs to show respect, I think,” Angus said. “Otherwise you’ll get no help at all, Darian. No rent assistance. No safe port when you fail. Not if, when.”

Seething, I saw that he wasn’t bluffing. Slowly, I backed down, and then with an easy smile he sat. Mom hadn’t said a word, just looked down at her plate.

“You’re not going to defend Dad, Mom?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

“Phil’s been gone a long time, honey. Your new father is right. You need to start toughening up.”

“Otherwise your girl might think you’re some kind of tranny,” Robbie said. “Why are you wearing fucking makeup anyway? You some kind of fag?”

Fuck. Fuck fuck FUCK. I’d just been experimenting while Selina was away. Just a little try-on of a dress and the wig just to calm myself. It was therapeutic, nothing more, but I must have forgotten to deal with some of the eyelash extensions and soft mascara I’d been trying out. Heat flooded to my cheeks and I was suddenly hit with a wave of not just embarrassment, but utter humiliation. I could feel the eyes of everyone at the table upon me. I looked to Mom, and saw the same embarrassment upon her face as well. She opened her mouth, and for a moment I thought that she might actually defend me, but then she closed it just as quickly again and looked away.

“Oh, this is fucking rich,” Angus said. “I knew there was something off about you today, Darian. More than usual. Is this your attempt at disrespecting me in my own home? Is this some kind of sign you’re giving to show that you refuse to damn well man up? Or is this just some new girly style you’re trying on? Something your generation does.”

“I think it’s all three, Dad,” Robbie said, chuckling.

“Shut up, Robbie,” I spat. “It was just . . . Selina was trying on some makeup and needed to see how it would work on my skin tone.”

It was the dumbest, lamest, and most unbelievable lie I’d ever told, and I could tell instantly that no one believed me.

“I’m sure it’s nothing, dear,” Mom said.

“Yeah, sure,” Angus replied. “Nothing. That’s what your boy will be unless he can learn how to be a man, honey. He’ll be nothing.”

***

Nothing. Those words stuck with me as I walked home. I didn’t have enough money for gas, let alone an actual functioning car, and asking Angus for a lift would have been humiliation heaped upon humiliation at that point. So instead, I was left to traverse the busy freeway path back to my inner-city apartment. Suffice to say, it left me with a lot of anger in my heart to work out. I felt just like Petyr in book one of the Cycle of Seasons, when his lord stripped him of his citizenship for choosing to safeguard an elven woman within his home. The injustice of it all had rankled the would-be hero, just as it rankled me. Only I hadn’t just saved a beautiful elven woman’s life. I didn’t have a Narene to look forward to, only a Selina. And she was as cold-hearted as the Windfrost that gave rise to the Dread Horde. 

I stopped on the bridge that overlooked the freeway. Lights blurred past, a thousand lives all with purpose, and one overlooker who lacked any. I removed my backpack and took out the Cycle of Seasons. Beneath the light of the post above me, I could take in the artwork upon its cover. Petyr and Narene. God, she was beautiful. So slender and graceful, so feminine. Part of me wished I could look like that, and once more I had to force the feelings down. Perhaps Angus was right. Perhaps I needed to man up. God, Robbie had called me transgender, though not exactly in those terms. And here I was fantasising once again about looking softer, more feminine. 

“What is wrong with me!?” I yelled to the sky, though no one gave any indication of having heard me. “Who am I supposed to fucking be!?”

Nothing but an echo of my own wailing in response. I sounded weak and feeble, just like my family thought I was. Just like Selina knew I was. What kind of man was I? I clearly wasn’t one. At least not the man I was supposed to be. 

There was a pause in the traffic. I grabbed the book and tossed it off the freeway, letting it land heavily upon the road. In an instant, I knew I’d been an idiot. 

“Fuck!”

I moved to head down from the over-bridge to the freeway below, but then I hesitated. Quickly, I looked around. There were no cars on the overbridge I was on, and no traffic below on the freeway either now that the latest rush had passed. There was a little spot, just to the left, where I could stand and not land on the road directly. I wouldn’t hurt anyone, that way, or cause anyone to crash. I’d be on the sidewalk, out of sight and out of mind. The only concern was that someone might find me and be traumatised by the sight. That seemed cruel. Almost too cruel to go through with it.

And yet I started to climb onto the railing anyway.

I stood upon it, teetering a little, my legs spread. The ground below looked so far away, so welcoming despite its hard surface. It was high enough, wasn’t it? High enough that it would be quick. If not, then I’d just die a fuck-up, right? Not like I wasn’t one already. Hell, I doubted Selina would even miss me. Mom probably would, but not enough. Angus and Robbie . . . fuck them. I didn’t care about how they’d take it. I just wanted it to be over.

I closed my eyes, just barely managing to maintain my balance.

You are Narene. You stand upon the precipice of the Fallen Spire. Your own people are coming for you. They believe you have betrayed them, but you know that what you are doing is right. You know that Petyr is right. You clutch the Emberstone within your hands, the one you stole from the Archives of your own people, and you place a foot in front of you. You are not going to die this day, you are simply going to be reborn. You will find your Petyr again, and if not now, then in the next life.

I began to raise my foot.

“Would you like to buy a trinket?”

Suddenly, the perfect vision in my head evaporated, and I was left flailing. I almost fell forward, but fear hit me in a sudden wave, a fear of death that had been obliterated just a few seconds before.

“Gahh!” I cried out rather pathetically. I would have fallen forward - I should have fallen forward - everything about my momentum said I would, but instead something invisible seemed to pull me back instead, and I landed on my ass rather painfully, back on the overbridge’s sidewalk. “Ow! Fuck!”

“There are better ways to find a bit of escape, you know!”

I turned to see who had interrupted my one perfect moment, only to practically gape at the sight before me. A large, medieval-looking carriage had pulled to a stop on the bridge beside me. It was pulled by two horses - one black and one white in colour - and it was indeed adorned with numerous colourful trinkets, decorations, images of potions, creations formed from string and beads, and what looked like occult or pagan symbols. On the side of the carriage several words were stencilled in bright gold:

The Wandering Witch’s Travelling Carriage

Come and Purchase Magical Solutions to All Your Woes!

Suffice to say, it was perhaps the most unexpected sight I could imagine, and this was matched by the appearance of the owner, who looked like some kind of real-life witch, big pointy hat an all. She was leaning out of the side of the carriage, the windows of which had been folded out so that she was leaning on a sales bench. She had olive-skin and looked to be in her mid-forties or so, though she was startlingly beautiful, to the point where I felt oddly jealous for reasons I couldn’t quite understand. Her hair fell in dark tresses over her shoulders, and numerous trinkets were woven into them. Her witch outfit was a forest green in colour, and looked quite stylish. She smiled earnestly at me.

“You look like someone who needs a bit of a leg-up in life, Darian Mitchell.”

I almost pinched myself to check that I wasn’t dreaming. Slowly, I stood up and dusted myself off. “Who are you? How - how do you know my name?”

She leaned against her sales bench a little further, looking over me with some amusement. Then she gestured at the sign on the carriage beside her.

“Do you see the sign there that says I’m a witch?”

“Y-yeah.”

“Well, that’s how, Darian. You look like you’re in a bit of a pickle. Want to talk about it?”

“I - I don’t want to talk about it.”

She shrugged. “Fair enough. Do you want to talk about why you just threw this book off of the bridge, then?”

She held up The Cycle of Seasons, Book 2 and then threw it to me. I nearly didn’t catch it. How had she prepared that? Did she know I had a copy and that-

I paused as I opened it. This was my copy. It had the little coffee stain on the first few pages in the upper right corner, from when Selina had sat her drink upon it.

“I don’t - how did you get that? That’s - I just threw that off the bridge!”

“And yourself nearly as well,” the woman said. “Hold on a moment. Don’t go anywhere.”

She closed the shutters, and the sounds of someone pushing past a great deal of junk and disordered chaos in a very small space emanated from within the carriage. I almost contemplated running. Perhaps I had already fallen and died, and I just hadn’t realised it.

“There we are!” the self-proclaimed witch announced as she exited the carriage out the back door and made her way to me. She had taken off her hat and let her hair go free. I only noticed then that she had some faint violet shade dyed into it. “Now, how can I help you?”

“I - what?”

The woman rolled her eyes, but it wasn’t in the venomous sort of way that Selina did. Instead, it was an almost-motherly expression of impatience. “C’mon, kid. You were standing on the edge of a precipice with tears streaking down your face. Oh, that reminds me, take this.”

She passed me a handkerchief, and I started wiping my cheeks with it automatically.

“There you are, much better. Look, I’m known as the Wandering Witch, Darian, but you can call me Tila. Is that alright by you?”

“I - I guess?” I said. “I gotta be honest, I don’t really understand what’s happening right now. Is this some kind of marketing thing?”

“No, that’s your job,” she said, a statement of fact that startled me further. “I assure you, I’m the real thing. And you’re lucky I happened to be nearby when I sensed a spirit in trouble. Look, you haven’t heard of my business before, have you?”

I shook my head.

“Makes sense. I don’t have a marketing department, lad. But I do have magic, and a great deal of know-how when it comes to solving people’s problems. Trust me, I’ve been travelling all over the world with this carriage and my horses for a great many years, more than you can imagine. Usually, I charge a decent price for solving common ills; a girl in need of a boyfriend, a man who wants his aching back to go back to normal, a bored banker looking for a new lease on life, a tired housewife wanting her husband to understand what she’s going through, all that sort of stuff. I give them potions and tinctures and spell scrolls and pixie dust, whatever concoction is necessary to remedy their issue, and they go on their merry way . . . provided they follow the instructions right. There’s a more literal cowgirl than you’d imagine out there somewhere on account of mucking about with the arcane steps. But I digress. My point is, I might be in exactly the right place at the right time to help a young woman like you out.”

“Er, I’m a man,” I said, still utterly confused by this whole situation. 

Tila the Wandering Witch just cocked her head and narrowed her eyes, examining me for a few seconds. “I wonder,” she simply said. “It’s your own road to find out, anyway. I’m just a facilitator of magic goods that help solve problems, and as far as I’m concerned, there’s no bigger problem than for someone to feel like they don’t belong in this world.”

She touched my arm as she said it, and something about her voice was so warm and motherly like my own Mom’s used to be that it just broke something inside of me. I immediately started sobbing pathetically, the tears coming again in what felt like whole rivers flowing down my cheeks. I cried, and was ashamed of crying.

“I’m s-sorry! I j-just feel so pathetic. Everyone knows it!”

“Oh, hush,” she said, pulling me into a hug that I didn’t even fight back against. “There, there, Darian. There, there. I’ll tell you this right now, and I never want you to forget it; you are stronger than you think, and you are not pathetic. Not at all. And I have just the item for you that will let you know it.”

I pulled back a bit, getting my tears under control. Tila had something in her hand all of a sudden, and she was holding it out to me. It took me a moment to realise what it was beneath the light of the bridge lamp post, but it was a book. A fantasy book, to judge from the cover, though not one I’d ever heard of before.

“The Shards of Freedom,” I read out loud. “A Princess’s Journey.”

The cover had an illustration of a young, fiery-haired woman in a purple dress thrusting a sword up towards the title. She was surrounded by bramble-like tendrils reaching towards her, but a bright light was keeping them at bay. The book resonated with me, though I couldn’t say for certain why.

“It’s a good read,” she said, squeezing my hand gently. “Trust me. It will change your life, kid.”

“Who wrote it? It doesn’t say.”

“I guess you’ll have to find out.”

“There’s no blurb.”

Again, the woman smiled. “Some stories can’t be described, only experienced. Especially if they haven’t finished being written yet! Now, do you want it or not?”

“I . . . do,” I said, gripping the book more firmly. “This is all so weird. I mean, you can’t be magic, right?”

She shrugged. “You don’t have to believe in magic tonight. But I guarantee you will tomorrow, Darian. For now, keep the book, stay alive, and I promise you, better days will come.”

She started to move back towards the carriage. My heart skipped a beat, and I realised I didn’t want her to go.

“Wait, don’t I have to pay for this?”

She got into the carriage, but opened the side windows and smiled at me.

“You already did, Darian! You got a nice discount: I just wanted a warm hug for it, and you gave me just that. Now good luck! And don’t skip ahead to the ending; read it from start to finish. That’s my only instruction!”

She closed the window again, and the carriage took off, the horses shifting it back onto the road and moving away without any clear indication that they’d been asked to. Hell, they didn’t have someone on the reins.

“There’s no way,” I told myself. “Magic isn’t real.”

And yet still, I took the book into my hands and looked at it, examining its edges, its aged appearance, that strangely familiar cover. Carefully, I placed it into my bag, as well as the one I’d tried to throw away, and started walking home again.

I didn’t read that night, but I didn’t die either.

To Be Continued . . .