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Speaker 1: Fate rarely knocks. Sometimes it just tosses a redhead at

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you and hopes you'll figure it out. Colt's last issue

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of Hot Chicks on Bikes before he crossed over. The

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first time he saw her, Colt genuinely wondered whether he

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had finally crossed the threshold into full blown isolation induced insanity.

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Not the charming, rainbow chasing bohemian poet kind of madness either, No,

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this was the naming squirrels and arguing with them variety.

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She had appeared in the mist near the abandoned village, green, barefoot, soaked,

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wild red curls clinging to her like a halo gone rogue.

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Her clothing was unmistakably not from this century, a woolen dress,

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a cloak, and the general air of someone who had

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escaped a historical reenactment and was deeply unprepared to explain herself.

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Then she ran straight into a metal railing. The metallic

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clang echoed across the empty square, and Colt winced so

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hard he felt it in his teeth. When she clutched

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her arm and he saw blood, real bright, undeniable blood,

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something in him clicked sharply into place. She was real,

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not a ghost, not a hallucination, not loneliness manifesting itself

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as red haired forest nymphs, a breathing, terrified woman. He

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opened his mouth to speak, still uncertain whether he remembered how,

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but she bolted into the trees and vanished like a

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startled deer, and Colt, being a calm logical man with

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excellent survival instincts, did the only reasonable thing. He ran

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away too. Colt had been trapped in this strange in

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between place for almost two years, a place where paths

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looped back on themselves like a cosmic joke told by

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someone with a questionable sense of humor. He had tested

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every direction, every road, every theory. No matter where he walked,

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he always ended up back at the empty village. The

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only other living creatures here were birds, a few barn animals,

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and one extremely judgmental gray cat. Henry did not me ow.

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Henry made disappointed sounds, the kind that suggested he expected

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better from someone. Before all of this, Colt's life had

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been painfully normal, boring. Even he'd spent the summer herding

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cattle on his uncle's ranch because, according to his mother,

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he was wandering without purpose, which was southern politeness for

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emotionally disheveled adult with no plan. His grandmother, the matriarch,

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mystic and undisputed Queen of Polite Menace, had sat beside

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him on the porch one cool Sunday morning. They rocked

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in silence until she finally spoke. Your mother says you're lost,

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she murmured. He stared into his coffee, hoping wisdom resided

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somewhere among the grounds. I don't know what I'm waiting for,

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he admitted, but I feel like something is coming, something

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that will explain all of this. She nodded, not surprised,

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more like expecting, they say, she whispered. The third born

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son of the McMillan line, if born under a full

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moon walks between worlds, keep her of moon and memory.

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Colt blinks slowly. He wasn't sure whether to laugh or

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ask if there was a handbook titled So you might

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be a Mythical astral Gatekeeper, a beginner's guide. Instead, she

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placed a small wooden box in his hands. Inside lay

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a pendant on a leather cord, a tiny silver cottage

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between two pines, A small silhouette visible in the window.

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This is your legacy, she told him, don't take it off.

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He didn't dare argue. No one argued with a McMillan grandmother,

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and lived to tell the tale. He wore the pendant

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right up until the day everything changed. Neither of them

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knew that on the same morning, three centuries earlier, twelve

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year old silver Fern would slip the twin pendant over

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her head in a drafty cabin on the edge of

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a Puritan village. Destiny rarely whispers. Sometimes it prefer symmetry.

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Back in the present, or whatever this was. Colt reached

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his cabin, unsaddled thunder, and dutifully ignored the horse's judgmental snorts.

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He stepped inside, shut the door, and sat heavily at

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the table, simply trying to exist without combusting. Who was she?

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Where had she come from? And the most important question,

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could she leave? Because if she arrived here, somehow, maybe

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she knew how to get out. Eventually, hunger pulled him

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from his stupor existential spiraling. He reminded himself required calories.

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He opened the fridge, retrieved cold chicken and a dubiously

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optimistic head of lettuce, and made what could charitably be

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called dinner as he ate. His mind circled back to her,

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the fear in her eyes, the confusion, the bone deep disbelief.

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She didn't look like she belonged to this world, not

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the way he had slowly reluctantly learned to. When he

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finally crawled into bed, he made himself promise he would

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give her time space, a night to breathe. If she

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was still there in the morning, he would find her.

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His quiet life, built on routine, solitude and unanswered questions,

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had just cracked open. Something had arrived someone, and for

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the first time in two years, Colt was not the

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only soul walking the space between worlds. Fate does not knock,

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It walks right in, rearranges the furniture, and demands tea

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old McMillan, saying Colt's journal entry number thirty eight, Well,

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I either saw a woman made of moonlight and red

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hair or I'm officially out of fresh produce insanity. She bled,

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which means she's real. She ran, which means she saw me.

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She stayed, which means I'm not alone. Henry keeps staring

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at the door like he's expecting her. Thunder's restless, and

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I can't shake the feeling that whatever just happened was

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an accident. Name cult Elias McMillan, age twenty seven, the

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kind of twenty seven that has opinions and emotional backstory.

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Born full moon, late autumn lineage McMillan rumored, Keepers of

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the liminal occupation before reality broke, ranch hand, professional avoid

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of emotional conversations, current location, the in between village skills,

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horse whispering, brooding, esthetically, accidentally fulfilling, prophecy making questionable, survival

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meals weaknesses, cats glaring at him, red haired witches from

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another century. Prophecy pressure feelings signature expression, What fresh magical

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nonsense is this