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Guillermo liked the park, he really did. It was a nice place to go for a stroll, get away from the city and get a breath of clean air. It was great for picnics and playing and even ice skating in the winter.
It was not great when it was almost midnight and you were on your way home from the closing shift, and you were bone tired and cold and would have to go up and around it to get home.
Or he could cut through the park.
It wasn’t a great idea, this late at night, but he knew the paths well and it would cut ten minutes off of his walk, and every minute counted when the weather was this bitter.
Guillermo shoved his hands further in his pockets and shivered, picking up the pace. Two pairs of socks in his winter boots, and his toes were still going numb. He didn’t usually mind winter, but New York usually wasn’t this cold.
And then, very suddenly, it wasn’t.
As if he’d walked into a greenhouse, Guillermo was slapped in the face by a blanket of almost oppressive heat. Not the close, wet heat of a heatwave, but the heat of a perfect summer’s night—except ten seconds ago it had been January and now Guillermo was suffocating in his winter layers. In seconds the back of his shirt was soaking wet.
Where he was expecting the well beaten path of the park he’d known his whole life, he was instead in a wide clearing he’d never seen before.
Moonlight poured in, turning the place almost as bright as day. The ground was a thick carpet of green grass, dotted with wildflowers. The trees that circled the clearing had their branches adorned with leaves the dark green of late summer—but only the side facing the clearing.
On the other, the trees were as bare and icy as they had been before. In fact, if he looked closely, he could see that beyond this ring of trees, the world was as dark and cold as it had been when he first stepped into the park. It was as if Guillermo had wandered into a little bubble of summertime.
Someone was having a picnic. A low table had been set up, and it was covered in a spread of food—some he recognized and some he didn’t. Perfectly red and round apples beside slices of candied pear oozing sugar beside something that like looked like a heart cut in two, fruit like little rubies gleaming within. Icy mist rose from half a dozen glass pitchers filled with brightly colored liquid he—for some reason—was hesitant to assume was juice.
The table was surrounded by thick cushions and placed in the exact center of a large rug. The colors were rich and bright, and the rug’s design was so intricate—a great battle between armies. As Guillermo looked, the design seemed to shift, the horses to rear, the arrows to loose from bows.
“Laszlo,” said a voice, calmly. “There is a human in our forest.”
Guillermo’s head snapped up.
He was sure—sure—that when he walked into this place, he’d been the only one there. Even with his initial confusion, it was impossible to him that he could have been so overwhelmed that his eye would skip over the three figures now lounging around the table.
The three of them—two men and a woman—watched him with dark eyes, expressions varying between suspicion, contempt, and curiosity. Guillermo couldn’t help but stare back.
He’d seen clothes like these before, but only in museums and period dramas—and even then, there was something strange about them. The woman was wearing a summer dress, a high collar and short sleeves, white ruffled underskirts wrapped in a gauzy outer layer—but the colors of that fabric shimmered opalescent in the moonlight, and moved to a breeze Guillermo couldn’t feel.
“Yes,” Laszlo said. “There certainly is.”
Guillermo began to sweat. He was already sweating from the heat, trapped in his winter layers, but now the sweat turned cold and prickling. Something was very, very wrong here.
“Are you going to do something about it?” the woman asked Laszlo. None of them so much as stirred in their seats.
“What am I supposed to do? He’s all the way over there.”
“I’m sorry,” Guillermo said, forcing the words out. “I must have made a wrong turn. I was just talking a walk through the park, I don’t even know how I got—This isn’t your forest, is it? You’re in the park."
“Yes,” the woman said. She pointed rather dramatically out of the clearing. “That is your forest.” She pointed at the ground beside her. “This is our forest.”
“Oh,” Guillermo said. “Well I’m, I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude. I’ll just—” He took a step backwards.
“Wait,” said the second man, speaking for the first time. He was handsome—they all were—but when Guillermo met his eyes there was something very unusual about them. Older, stranger. Deeper. As if the pupils were dark wells that could pull you in. “What is your name?”
“Oh really, Nandor,” the woman complained. “He is just a grubby little human.”
“Nadja,” Nandor chided. “Be polite.” Turning back to Guillermo, he asked, “What is your name? I’m not going to take it,” he said, reassuringly, when Guillermo hesitated. “I am not asking you to give it to me. I am only asking what it is.”
Guillermo didn’t think that’s insane or I must be hallucinating. He thought oh god I’ve wandered into a fairy tale and I’m going to die. He wasn’t sure how he knew, or why that was what his mind had jumped to. But it was, and he tried desperately to remember every story he’d ever read or heard of.
Wasn’t it enough for a fairy to know your name, even if you didn’t lose it to them, to get power over you? Guillermo couldn’t remember. But he couldn’t think of a polite way to refuse, and he did remember from all the stories that good manners would keep you alive much longer.
“Guillermo,” he said. “My name is Guillermo.”
“Perhaps you would like to join us,” Nandor said. The other two groaned and grumbled, but didn’t say anything.
“I appreciate the invitation,” Guillermo said, watching every word. “But I really need to get home.”
He turned, and stopped.
There was no snow beyond the clearing. The trees were alive and green, arranged in long, orderly lines as far as he could see, as soaked in moonlight as the clearing.
The park was well and truly gone, and Guillermo was trapped.
“Come join us,” Nandor offered again. “I will take you home at the end of the night.”
“At the end of my night, or the end of your night?” Guillermo said, trying not to let his growing panic show. “Because I’d like to go home today and not a hundred years from today.”
“Not as stupid as he looks,” Laszlo said, almost impressed. He brought a long pipe to his lips and puffed on it, exhaling a stream of lavender smoke. “I give you my word that we will return you to your hovel by the rise of the next sun, your time.”
Guillermo’s eyes narrowed slightly at hovel, but it sounded promising. When he turned back to Nandor, the—man? fairy?—sat up and patted the cushion beside him.
“Come, sit.”
“Take off those puffy things,” Nadja said. “I don’t want your sweaty human stink mucking up my outing.”
Guillermo struggled to get out of his winter clothes. It wasn’t an activity that leant itself to dignity anyway, but it was made even more awkward by the keen awareness of three pairs of eyes watching and judging. He stumbled and nearly toppled over trying to get his second pair of socks off one boot at a time.
For one last humiliation he tripped over his own bag trying to get to the table. It was only by the mercy of the universe that he managed not to fall on his face.
He sat down on the pillow, which was extremely comfortable, almost too comfortable. He had to resist the urge to check and make sure he was actually sitting, not floating. Although it wouldn’t have been a surprise if he was. Even the table was a work of art—white marble on gilded legs, gleaming in the moonlight.
Guillermo dragged a sleeve across his face. It was so hot.
“Do you want something to drink?” Nandor asked.
Guillermo was hot and he was thirsty and he knew as much as he longed to chug down the entire contents of those pitchers, he very much could not.
“No, thank you.”
Nandor frowned.
“Yes, you did say you wanted to go home. Okay.” He flicked his fingers at the table. One section of the air above the table began to shimmer and waver and then, with a shumm sound, a bottle of water—the thin, crackly plastic of Poland Spring--thudded onto the table.
Guillermo stared at it. Beads of condensation slithered down the sides and dripped onto the table. There was a little orange price sticker on the cap.
“Go on. It is from your realm; nothing will happen if you drink it. It is not a trick.”
“Would you tell me if it was a trick? And I don’t have anything to trade for it. I don’t want to owe you.”
Nadja and Laszlo groaned in unison.
“Ugh, you people are so boring when you know the rules,” Nadja complained.
“We don’t want to keep you, you little shit,” Laszlo said. “There are no favors we could possibly want to ask of you, no possessions we desire to steal. Drink the fucking water.”
“How about this,” Nandor said, pressing cool fingers to Guillermo’s wrist. “It is my payment to you, for inconveniencing you like this.”
That sounded safe enough. And Guillermo was really, really thirsty. He practically ripped the cap off the bottle and slugged a third of it in one go. It tasted like regular water. Guillermo didn’t feel any different, except less thirsty.
“There, see?” Nandor said, pleased. “Now, tell me about yourself.”
“Nandor is obsessed with humans,” Nadja told Guillermo in a stage whisper.
“I am not!” Nandor objected, going rigid. “I just think they are interesting!” He turned back to Guillermo, expectantly.
“You don’t want to hear about my life,” Guillermo demurred, with a deprecating smile. “It’s pretty boring. I don’t do much.”
But Nandor insisted, and it would be rude to refuse to answer his questions, so Guillermo talked anyway. To his surprise, he found he was interesting—at least to Nandor. Even the most mundane parts of his life were fascinating. Nadja and Laszlo would butt in occasionally with snide comments, but Nandor listened with rapt attention and only ever asked more questions.
“Do you travel often in your realms?”
“Not really. It’s expensive. I went on a few trips upstate, but I’ve never really been anywhere new.” He gave Nandor a self-deprecating smile. “I told you. My life is pretty boring.”
Nandor rose instantly and proffered his hand.
“Then let us go someplace new. It won’t take long,” he insisted. “I said I would bring you to your home by dawn, and I am bound by my word.”
Guillermo glanced at Nadja and Laszlo. They were stoney faced, but it was on Nandor that their eyes were fixed.
God, Guillermo thought, just once in your life, take a risk. He’s not a vampire but he is a tall dark supernatural creature. And even if he wasn’t, how often do handsome strangers invite you out?
Guillermo took Nandor’s hand, and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.
“Come,” Nandor said, and led the way to the edge of the clearing. They had barely passed through when Nadja called his name.
Laszlo held up the bundle of Guillermo’s winter clothes and bag.
“Get your shit out of our picnic.”
Guillermo jogged back. He reached out, but Laszlo did not turn over his things immediately.
“Be gentle with Nandor. He…breaks easily.” Then Laszlo dumped everything in Guillermo’s arms. “Go on, get the fuck out.”
Nandor waited patiently while Guillermo unzipped his backpack and did his best to cram his clothes in as far as they could go. He still had some sleeves sticking out of the top, but it was zipped up pretty far, so it would have to do.
He half-jogged back to Nandor.
“Sorry,” he said, but Nandor brushed away the apology.
Nandor offered his arm, and Guillermo took it.
The way they walked seemed…strange. They weren’t running, and the landscape wasn’t rushing past them. The trees were large and had considerable distance between each other. And yet, it seemed every step jumped them to the next tree. The forest had given the impression of being immense, even endless, but to Guillermo it seemed less than a few minutes before they were at the edge.
And it was the edge.
As if someone had drawn a line with a ruler, or sewn patches on a quilt, grass and undergrowth ended and hard packed dirt and rock began. Large stones rose before them, lining a path that turned a corner and out of sight.
“Is this a desert?” Guillermo asked as they walked on. The closeness of the rock walls was making him nervous, and he stuck close to Nandor’s side.
“More of a garden,” Nandor said. “The crystals are fed so they will grow, and as they grow they are encouraged to grow in certain shapes.”
“What crystals?”
They turned a corner in the path. The wall ended, the path continuing in open air. Nandor pointed. Guillermo’s jaw dropped open.
The landscape was dotted with giant boulders, made of what Guillermo would have called “generic rock”, dirty and brown. They were varying shapes and sizes, but the tops had been lopped off to make them perfectly flat.
From each and every rock jutted a massive crystalline structure in gleaming in pale shades of every color he could think of. None of them were smaller than Guillermo; some were so tall their tops seemed to disappear into the sky. Some were curved, some were straight. Two had been shaped into jagged edges and were locked around each other like cogwheels. They all gleamed in the moonlight, and they were all the most amazing things Guillermo had ever seen.
“Look, here,” Nandor said, drawing him up a small path to the top of a nearby rock. He pointed at the crystal. “Go on, look closely.”
Guillermo cupped his hands on the crystal’s flat side and peered in. Light pulsed within, almost too dim to see. The crystal, he realized, was clear and white like quartz. These lights gave them their colors.
“It is most beautiful in the sunlight.”
“It’s beautiful now,” Guillermo insisted, but Nandor shook his head.
“The sunlight shines through them, and the world becomes like stained glass. If you stayed until the morning, I could show you.” It was a statement with a question inside.
“Shame,” Guillermo said. It was a statement with an answer inside.
Nandor nodded, with no sign of anger, and took Guillermo’s hand in his.
“Then I will have to show you everything I can while I have you.”
“Why?” Guillermo asked, as they headed out again.
“There are many beautiful things in my world. I have no one to show them to. Solitude is nice, but it gets old. It is nice to be able to share them, even if only for a night.”
“What about Laszlo and Nadja?”
Nandor hesitated, then shrugged.
“It’s different. They are my friends, but they are more each other’s friends.”
“Sometimes—” Guillermo said, and cut himself off. “Sorry. Nevermind.”
But Nandor stood there, waiting. It quickly became clear they weren’t going anywhere until Guillermo finished the sentence.
“Sometimes, the more people I’m around, the lonelier I feel,” Guillermo said at last. Nandor smiled, but it was a sad, understanding smile. Wordlessly, he took Guillermo’s arm again and led him back down the path. They meandered through the rock garden, occasionally remarking on a particular shape, complimenting or criticizing.
“So how do they do it?” Guillermo asked. “Make them grow? They’re rocks.”
“I don’t know,” Nandor said. “Do I look like a rock guy to you?”
Guillermo laughed. They came to the end of the garden—two posts of crystal growing from the ground, curved inwards to form an arch, twining around each other like ivy vines. A breeze drifted by, carrying the smell of the sea, so thick Guillermo could taste the salt on his tongue. They passed through the arch and sure enough, now stood on a stone path beside a pebbled beach and a sea turned silver by the moonlight.
“Wow,” Guillermo whispered.
“It gets better,” Nandor said, mysteriously. “Come.”
Down the path they went, this time silent, Nandor lost in thought and Guillermo awed by the sight of an ocean so vast, uninterrupted by buoys or sail boats or lifeguard towers. Very, very slowly, Nandor began to lower his arm. Guillermo thought he was going to let go, but instead Nandor took his hand. He moved so slowly to lace their fingers together that Guillermo wondered if Nandor was afraid he’d spook and run like a frightened rabbit.
Laszlo’s words came back to him. He…breaks easily.
Guillermo shook the thought away. What was that even supposed to mean?
They walked through a forest of silver trees that rang like little bells when the wind rustled their branches. They walked through a grassy field and watched a herd of unicorns galloping in the distance (“They are not that impressive up close. You would not believe how much they shit.”).
They stopped in front of a palace. Arched doors and double columns of stone, swooping windows that seemed to glow in the moonlight.
“Do you like it?”
“It’s beautiful. What is this place?”
“It is my home.”
Nandor gave a pleased little smile at Guillermo’s open mouthed surprise, and tugged him along up the stairs.
It was just as beautiful inside as out, maybe even more so. Every inch of wall and ceiling was decorated in dizzyingly complex geometric patterns. Bright tapestries hung from every wall, depicting scenes of battle—or just horses—in designs that reminded him of the rug from the clearing. Their footsteps rang on the marble floors.
But, as Nandor led him down those sumptuous halls, Guillermo began to become aware of how empty it felt. Each room was more breathtaking than the last, and as empty as the next.
“Are you the only one here?”
Nandor’s smile became slightly sardonic.
“Yes, I did not think that through when I built it.”
“You built this place?”
“It was easy. This is my realm. It does as I wish.” Nandor paused and waved a hand at a wall. The hanging tapestries shuffled aside; the stone parted like a curtain and solidified into an open archway looking out into a garden. “It wasn’t until after I made it that I realized the real one was built so big because it was full of people.”
“The real one?”
Nandor began to walk again, leading Guillermo up a sharp flight of stairs.
“I was human once, very long ago. I ruled a kingdom, led an army, had many wives.”
They turned down another hallway, but Guillermo wasn’t paying attention to the palace anymore.
“How did you end up here?”
“More or less the same way you did—I wandered in. One day I was taking a walk along the beach, and suddenly I could not find my camp. I wandered around until I met Laszlo and Nadja, and I decided to stay.”
“Really? You gave up your life, everything you had?”
Nandor was quiet for a moment.
“I had…recently lost a very dear friend. I was very unhappy. This place,” Nandor shrugged. “I like it much better.”
Suddenly Nandor stopped and pushed open a door. Guillermo’s eyes went wide again.
“This is my room,” Nandor said. “It has a very nice view from the balcony.”
It definitely did. The bed itself was low and wide, decorated with masses of pillows and half-hidden behind gauzy drapery. The far wall comprised of doors that had all been left open to let in a warm breeze. Through the doors, there was indeed a balcony, which overlooked a massive, rectangular pool, ringed in a pathway surrounded by strange trees and nightblooming flowers, the scent of which Guillermo could smell even this far away.
Guillermo leaned against the railing, chin on his hand.
“This place is amazing,” he sighed. “I’ve never seen anything like this in my whole life.” He felt a sudden pang, a sense of longing so powerful it almost choked him. He’d never see this place again. Tomorrow he’d back in the real world, in his boring little life.
“You haven’t seen even a fraction of it,” Nandor said. “There are hundreds of realms, hundreds of worlds.” He pressed a hand over Guillermo’s where it rested on the railing. “Stay. Just for one more night. Let me show you this place.”
Guillermo forced himself to straighten up and pull away.
“I can’t,” he said. “I’ve got my job, my apartment, my mom…”
“If it were not for those things, you would stay?”
It seemed a risky question to answer. If he said yes, would Nandor make those things go away? Okay, if he lived here, he wouldn’t need a job or an apartment, but his mom…
“You could visit her whenever you liked,” Nandor said, and now was beginning to sound pleading.
“I can’t just walk away from my entire life and live in fairy land forever!”
“Why not?” Nandor demanded.
He should have stopped at that. The moment Nandor said it, Guillermo realized he didn’t have an answer. Why couldn’t he? What was holding him back? What about this wasn’t the ultimate fantasy, an escape from the grinding drudgery of his life.
But Nandor did not stop at that.
“You don’t even like your life! You hate your job; you complain about it all the time! Yesterday you told Jeremy you wished you could quit!”
Silence fell.
It stayed. It lingered, two pairs of wide, horrified eyes staring into each other. Two different kinds of fear, equally strong.
“You’ve been watching me?”
“No!” Nandor said, and then fidgeted. “Yes.”
“This wasn’t a mistake at all, was it? You did something to bring me here on purpose!”
“Only for a little bit!” Nandor insisted. He raised his hands as if to reach for Guillermo, and froze when Guillermo hurriedly backed away. “Only as long as you wanted to!”
“A bottle of water to make up the inconvenience,” Guillermo said, bitterly. “The inconvenience of being kidnapped?’
“I didn’t kidnap you!” Nandor said, desperately. “If you had said no, I would have sent you back! I didn’t want to trap you, I just…” His voice faltered. He reached out again and cool fingertips brushed Guillermo’s cheek so delicately, as if he was blown glass. “I just wanted to pretend.”
“Pretend what?” Guillermo asked, and it wasn’t as angry or demanding as he’d intended it to sound.
Nandor took a step forward. Guillermo did not step away. Slowly, Nandor lowered his head and pressed his lips to Guillermo’s.
Guillermo was surprised at how normal of a kiss it was. No magical sparkles, no mysterious sounds or sensations, just a kiss.
Guillermo stepped back again, further, heart pounding, until his back hit the balcony railing. How could he know if this was really what he wanted? What if Nandor was putting some kind of spell on him, to make him think he wanted to run away from his shitty life to live in a fantasy world with the handsomest man in the world—a man who dropped to his knees and begged.
“I can give you everything,” Nandor said, desperately. “I can give you gold, more than mortal eyes have ever seen. Choose a realm to rule and I will make you a king. I will give you everything that is within my power to give, if you stay with me.”
“Will you give me you?”
Guillermo hadn’t meant to say it—he wasn’t even aware he’d been thinking it. Nandor went very quiet. After a moment, he rose slowly to his feet.
“I cannot give,” he said quietly, “what you already possess.”
He took Guillermo’s hand and placed it against his chest, over his heart.
“Time is different here. Sometimes it is slower, yes, but not always. A year can be a heartbeat, or an age. For six months, I have watched you. For a thousand years, I have loved you.”
He raised Guillermo’s hand to his cheek. The word was a whisper, a plea, a prayer that Guillermo was compelled to answer.
“Stay.”
The moon had sunk low, and the picnic clearing was now lit by dozens of glowing bubbles, each shining a warm and steady golden light.
Laszlo’s head, half tangled in the silk of Nadja’s skirts, popped up from behind the table. He cocked his ear and listened.
“They’re coming back,” he said. “Better clean up. You know how he gets when we fuck near the food.”
“It is unhygienic,” Nadja mocked, sitting up. “It wasn’t like we were going to serve the pudding after fucking in it.” In a very different tone of voice, she said “How long until sunrise?”
Laszlo pulled out a pocket watch and flipped it open. There were no numbers or symbols, only pictures of suns and moons spinning slowly around each other.
“Fifteen minutes.” He tucked the watch away, eyes watchful for the men’s return. “So brace yourself for the shitstorm of the century.”
“One of these days I am going to find that old witch and shove that magic mirror right up her—”
“I liked them!” Guillermo’s voice insisted. There was a dismissive grunt from Nandor. They appeared abruptly, meandering down the forest path towards them. “I seriously do not understand why you hate unicorns so much.”
“Does Nandor look very…relaxed to you?” Nadja murmured, her eyes narrowing.
“Suspiciously so, my darling.” He raised his pipe to his lips. “Perhaps the storm of shit will pass softly over our shores, and break upon some distant rocks.”
“They think they are better than horses,” Nandor sniffed disapprovingly, stepping into the circle of trees. “Just because they are shiny and have a piece of bone sticking out of their skulls.”
They settled down at the table, their expressions aggressively innocent.
“It is almost dawn,” Nadja said, flatly, as if she didn’t know it was now irrelevant.
Guillermo didn’t answer. He thoughtfully examined the spread of food before him. Gently he reached out and plucked a single cherry from a bowl. The forest had gone completely still and silent, breathless in anticipation, as he raised it to his lips. The pop of teeth breaking skin was almost deafening. A drop of cherry juice spilled over and down the corner of his lips.
Guillermo’s eyes locked with Nandor’s. He raised his thumb and wiped the drop away. Nandor, not shifting his gaze for a moment, took the hand and lifted it to his own lips.
“Well,” Nadja said, mildly, dropping her hands into her lap. “I suppose we’ll set another place at the table.”
And then, indignantly,
“Hey! If we cannot fuck at the table, neither can you! Hey!”