Speaker 1: Fate rarely knocks. Sometimes it just tosses a redhead at
you and hopes you'll figure it out. Colt's last issue
of Hot Chicks on Bikes before he crossed over. The
first time he saw her, Colt genuinely wondered whether he
had finally crossed the threshold into full blown isolation induced insanity.
Not the charming, rainbow chasing bohemian poet kind of madness either, No,
this was the naming squirrels and arguing with them variety.
She had appeared in the mist near the abandoned village, green, barefoot, soaked,
wild red curls clinging to her like a halo gone rogue.
Her clothing was unmistakably not from this century, a woolen dress,
a cloak, and the general air of someone who had
escaped a historical reenactment and was deeply unprepared to explain herself.
Then she ran straight into a metal railing. The metallic
clang echoed across the empty square, and Colt winced so
hard he felt it in his teeth. When she clutched
her arm and he saw blood, real bright, undeniable blood,
something in him clicked sharply into place. She was real,
not a ghost, not a hallucination, not loneliness manifesting itself
as red haired forest nymphs, a breathing, terrified woman. He
opened his mouth to speak, still uncertain whether he remembered how,
but she bolted into the trees and vanished like a
startled deer, and Colt, being a calm logical man with
excellent survival instincts, did the only reasonable thing. He ran
away too. Colt had been trapped in this strange in
between place for almost two years, a place where paths
looped back on themselves like a cosmic joke told by
someone with a questionable sense of humor. He had tested
every direction, every road, every theory. No matter where he walked,
he always ended up back at the empty village. The
only other living creatures here were birds, a few barn animals,
and one extremely judgmental gray cat. Henry did not me ow.
Henry made disappointed sounds, the kind that suggested he expected
better from someone. Before all of this, Colt's life had
been painfully normal, boring. Even he'd spent the summer herding
cattle on his uncle's ranch because, according to his mother,
he was wandering without purpose, which was southern politeness for
emotionally disheveled adult with no plan. His grandmother, the matriarch,
mystic and undisputed Queen of Polite Menace, had sat beside
him on the porch one cool Sunday morning. They rocked
in silence until she finally spoke. Your mother says you're lost,
she murmured. He stared into his coffee, hoping wisdom resided
somewhere among the grounds. I don't know what I'm waiting for,
he admitted, but I feel like something is coming, something
that will explain all of this. She nodded, not surprised,
more like expecting, they say, she whispered. The third born
son of the McMillan line, if born under a full
moon walks between worlds, keep her of moon and memory.
Colt blinks slowly. He wasn't sure whether to laugh or
ask if there was a handbook titled So you might
be a Mythical astral Gatekeeper, a beginner's guide. Instead, she
placed a small wooden box in his hands. Inside lay
a pendant on a leather cord, a tiny silver cottage
between two pines, A small silhouette visible in the window.
This is your legacy, she told him, don't take it off.
He didn't dare argue. No one argued with a McMillan grandmother,
and lived to tell the tale. He wore the pendant
right up until the day everything changed. Neither of them
knew that on the same morning, three centuries earlier, twelve
year old silver Fern would slip the twin pendant over
her head in a drafty cabin on the edge of
a Puritan village. Destiny rarely whispers. Sometimes it prefer symmetry.
Back in the present, or whatever this was. Colt reached
his cabin, unsaddled thunder, and dutifully ignored the horse's judgmental snorts.
He stepped inside, shut the door, and sat heavily at
the table, simply trying to exist without combusting. Who was she?
Where had she come from? And the most important question,
could she leave? Because if she arrived here, somehow, maybe
she knew how to get out. Eventually, hunger pulled him
from his stupor existential spiraling. He reminded himself required calories.
He opened the fridge, retrieved cold chicken and a dubiously
optimistic head of lettuce, and made what could charitably be
called dinner as he ate. His mind circled back to her,
the fear in her eyes, the confusion, the bone deep disbelief.
She didn't look like she belonged to this world, not
the way he had slowly reluctantly learned to. When he
finally crawled into bed, he made himself promise he would
give her time space, a night to breathe. If she
was still there in the morning, he would find her.
His quiet life, built on routine, solitude and unanswered questions,
had just cracked open. Something had arrived someone, and for
the first time in two years, Colt was not the
only soul walking the space between worlds. Fate does not knock,
It walks right in, rearranges the furniture, and demands tea
old McMillan, saying Colt's journal entry number thirty eight, Well,
I either saw a woman made of moonlight and red
hair or I'm officially out of fresh produce insanity. She bled,
which means she's real. She ran, which means she saw me.
She stayed, which means I'm not alone. Henry keeps staring
at the door like he's expecting her. Thunder's restless, and
I can't shake the feeling that whatever just happened was
an accident. Name cult Elias McMillan, age twenty seven, the
kind of twenty seven that has opinions and emotional backstory.
Born full moon, late autumn lineage McMillan rumored, Keepers of
the liminal occupation before reality broke, ranch hand, professional avoid
of emotional conversations, current location, the in between village skills,
horse whispering, brooding, esthetically, accidentally fulfilling, prophecy making questionable, survival
meals weaknesses, cats glaring at him, red haired witches from
another century. Prophecy pressure feelings signature expression, What fresh magical
nonsense is this