The guy in the orange vest looks both directions, leans in, and whispers, "I'm a guard of the crossing."
"You mean you're a crossing guard?"
"Shhh!" says the guy. His eyes keep flicking to Bernard. "As I said, a guard of the crossing. Let's get out of here," he says.
I don't know if it's because he's the first human I've seen in -- has it only been a day? Wow. But I follow him down a path in the woods. As we walk, the snapping of twigs under my feet is replaced by the occasional rough tap. I look at what we're stepping on -- broken black and white floor tiles that look like the tiles in my bathroom at home.
"Are these... bathroom tiles?" I ask.
"What?"
I kick one of them toward him.
"Stop that," he says. "This is the secret path to the fortress. If you kick it around, it will be too secret."
"Even for a guard of the crossing, whatever that is?"
"Yep." He pauses. "But you can call me Jake."
"Jake. Thank goodness it's something normal. I was worried your name might be something like Stickwillow, or Nickblender, or Thor--"
"It's short for Jakellianor," he says.
"Oh."
We keep walking. Bernard naps in my bag. Jake pushes through branches.
"Wait, did you say we're on a path to a fortress?" I say, stopping again.
"You talk to much," says Jake. He grabs my arm to pull me forward, but I swing out of his grip and thump my palms into his chest, pushing him backwards into a tree trunk. I keep my eyes on him and let my right hand fall to the handle of the fire poker.
He grimaces. "We don't have time--"
"Make time," I say, disengaging the poker from my belt.
He rolls his eyes. "We're on our way to the crossing of the ways, or the Fortress of Glass, as it's known to some."
"It's made of glass?"
"Not at all. We, um, named it after you."
I shove the poker in his face. "Explain."
"Look," he says. He holds up his empty hands to show me. "Your world and our world," he presses his hands together. "Married. Two sides of the same coin. But there is a hole in our worlds, going from one side to the other. We call it the crossing of ways. You, Glass, were born on top of it. So you can cross both ways."
"So?" I say, annoyed that everyone here seems to already know my name.
"So nobody else can. So there's a lot of people who want to use your gift themselves."
"Like the people who brought me here."
"Yes," says Jake. His gaze shifts to the trees around us. "We better move quickly. They live in the woods."
I look around too. I see no one, but my ears become suddenly alert to every snapping branch and every rustling leaf.
"Okay," I say. "If this 'crossing of ways' place will get me home."
"It will," says Jake. I lower my poker. He looks relieved. "That is the plan. We have to send you home before the others can catch you."
One day left until my audition. I hope he is right.
I follow Jake through the woods down a path traced out by broken bathroom tiles, thicker in some places than in others. The farther we go, the sparser the tree coverage becomes until the gaps between them span about twenty feet.
A thunder clap invades my ears.
Jake hops, ducks, and looks ahead. Now that the leafy canopy has spread out to show the sky, we can see black clouds rolling our way.
"Lightning," Jake whispers. To my surprise, he stands on his toes and looks at the ground. Leaves and grass are blown about by a strengthening wind. The air feels electric.
Lightning storms were survival training 101. I drop the poker and run to the middle of a gap between trees, keeping as low to the ground as possible. Jake sprints the opposite direction, but hurries back when he sees I haven't followed him.
"What are you doing?" he cries, tugging on my shirt, my bag, my arm. "Get to a tree!"
I hear more thunder. "Get off!" I say. This crossing guard can be strong when he's determined. I will have to remember that. "Don't you know anything? You don't go near a tree in a lightning storm. We have to stay as close to the ground as possible."
"Are you insane?" he says, throwing his arms all the way around my waist with a ferocious grip. "That's where the lightning comes from!"
CRACK! Ten yards ahead, a bullet of electricity springs out of the path and bounces off the nearby tree roots, incinerating any dry leaves it touches, then disappears into a puff of black smoke. The black smoke rises above the treeline and joins the cloud moving above our heads.
"What?" is all I find time to say as I let Jake drag me towards the nearest tree trunk and push me at its lowest branch. Climbing is as natural to me as walking. I swing upwards. Jake scrambles up below.
When we've each settled into a branch, we watch the ground below us light up like an upside down fireworks show.
"This is incredible," I whisper.
"I'm sorry. I forgot you didn't know," says Jake. "Your world is upside down. Where lightning comes from the ground here, in your world it comes from--"
"Shh!" I say. A figure moves below between the lightning cracks. "Someone's down there."
"Poor soul," says Jake.
I squint and cough, waving a puff of smoke away from my eyes. The running figure takes the form of a big, brown bear.
"Spindlewind!" I cry.
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