The Thousand Kingdoms

That night (October 6, 2021)

Harlem, Manhattan, New York, United States

In the stairwell, Ella’s eyes were glowing brilliant white, and — despite the utter darkness — she climbed the stairs gracefully in a serene daze. As she crossed each flight, she didn’t notice how her jeans and tunic shirt seemed to shift, into a trailing dress with long velvet gloves. Cresting the third floor, a band of light circled her head, hinting at a tiara, started to form.

She approached an apartment door which swung open unprompted and, holding open the door, was a man with white butterfly wings and rose-gold skin and eyes, much shorter than Ella’s 5’6", he bowed deeply.

The doorman, standing straight, turned to the room, and announced, “Her Royal Majesty, heir apparent to the Thousand Kingdoms, Eesha Jindal-Witten.”

The room was warmly lit, crowded and filled with people both human-like and not. The figures parted with all formally bowing or curtsying. Ella saw a muscular, naked man with a bulls’ head, seven feet tall at least, bow in front of her, and with trouble, kept her eyes focused straight instead of taking a peek. Next to him was a woman with light green scales and shockingly purple hair and slitted eyes curtsying. Another figure appeared human but when they moved to bow, there was a series of ghost images that trailed its movement. And those were some of the easier to comprehend figures.

“Ella… please.” she quietly said in the silence.

The golden man nodded, agreeing, and announced to the room, “Her Royal Majesty Eleanor Jindal-Witten,” again reading something deeper into her without it being said.

Suddenly the lights darkened, and started flashing green. Music started and the crowd began dancing. Ella started coming out of the fugue she was in and looked up to see something similar to the figure from her last dream, except light grey skin, yellow cats’ eyes, fangs peeking from the mouth. And it… he? was DJing.

Another golden figure, a woman this time with brilliant blue butterfly wings, reached out and grabbed her hand. “Come on, let’s dance!”

Ella, still bemused, found herself following this figure into the middle of the dance floor, and if she had been able to see behind her, she would have seen her trailing dress moving through the crowd on its own, deftly avoiding being stepped on. The girl in front of her, the fairy perhaps, began bouncing up and down with the beat, moving in a lot closer than Ella felt comfortable with but something inside of her just went with it. Perhaps it was the unreality of a dream.

Two hours later, Ella was covered in a sheen of sweat and seated on a velvet couch, surrounded by more of the fairies. She had a drink in her hand that every time she sipped tasted different and was laughing along with a joke that she couldn’t even remember. Each person next to her varied in shades of gold and silver metallic skin and their butterfly wings sparkled in different colours.

A stern voice cut through the haze, “Aoife, already back to plying your wiles?” Aoife, the fairy that had first grabbed her hand, pulled her hand away from where it had made its way far too high and inside Ella’s thigh. Ella chased the source of that voice to a figure that was all rough cut planes, even shorter than the fairies at maybe four feet. A long beard made Ella think dwarf easily.

“Kothin, you eroded, piece of crap, we were just having some fun, and you came just when it was about to become real fun!” Aoife smiled wickedly at the last, and Ella, at that moment, wanted to see what real fun looked like.

The dwarf, Kothin, scoffed a bit and waved his hand in front of them, a small breeze followed, and suddenly Ella felt a wave of heat. The thought that Aoife was a bit too close for her comfort passed through her head.

“You aren’t practising glamours on our young, naive princess here, are you?”

As if the whole room heard, the music stopped, the lights switched back to that dim formality, and every head in the room swivelled to focus on Aoife. Ella could see the hunger in that look, could see that green scaled woman licking her fangs as she looked at the fairy next to her. A furred creature who had been entwined with the green scaled woman, unsheathed its claws.

“No… no… nothing like that.” Aoife stammered, her wings curled around as if to shield her.

Ella saw the raw terror in her eyes, “It is fine… everyone, please, go back to the party.” Her voice was more pleading than commanding, but she could see disappointment in the faces around her as the lights changed back, fog started flowing back into the room, and a new song started back up.

With her head cleared, Ella stood up and took the proffered hand of Kothin, which was cold and hard like granite. She briefly wondered how he moved with such fluidity, but given her circumstances, it was not the most important thing on her mind. He led her to the front door and out into the apartment hallway. The door shut, and she could hear one of the neighbours yelling that they had called the cops and to turn down the music.

Kothin regarded her, his eyes, solid black gemstones, “Aoife would not have harmed you and violated hospitality, and her glamour was more along the lines of a few drinks than true compulsion, but you are a lamb among wolves here. And your crown…” and he pointed to her head, where she could now feel the weight of the tiara, “will make you a power one day.”

He paused before going on, “But the fae are not to be trusted. Old habits die hard even in this day and age.”

“What is going on? I thought it was all a dream. Well, except for my eyes,” Ella was trembling.

“As in all great stories, there is not enough time for me to tell you. I do not like playing the enigmatic oracle though.” he said kindly, with a hint of a smile. “The Hunt rides out tonight for the first time in millennia. This is… the pre-party, as it were. And you are far too green to be here. You will either be swept up in it or be prey.Both of which, I assure you, you will regret.”

His hand reached out to her chin and moved her head up to face him, her tears glistening in the dim hallway light.

“Go back to your world for now, it is right down the stairs. Go back to your life for a little while longer, while you can. Go now… midnight approaches.” The urgency of the last statement brought Ella fully out of the dream-like state she had been in.

Ella looked around and she saw the faeries and other creatures’ excitement. She saw Aoife lick her teeth which now had fangs where there had been none before. Another creature pulled out what looked like a spear but next to him was a lizard creature with what looked like a rifle.

She grabbed her dress to hike it up and started running down the stairs, feeling the fabric disappear, as her jeans and shirt reappeared, the weight of the crown fading from her forehead. In the first stairwell, her preternatural vision faded and left her stumbling in the dark.

When she came out the door, she looked back to the black maw of the entry, the legend of Orpheus for some reason coming to mind, but there was nothing drawing her back in. Suddenly she heard an electric hum and the street lights and entry light flickered on to a small cheer from the neighbouring apartments.

She could see in the restaurant, it was empty now and closed, the waiters were bussing the tables and cleaning up.

Ella ran to the subway station and managed to squeeze in, grabbing a pole as the train lurched out of the station. She warily looked around at everyone, still caught up in what had happened, looking for strange, unreal creatures, but even as her imagination ran wild in fear, she slowly settled into the rhythm of the train moving, the announcements of stops, and she took her time walking back to her apartment.

Her roommate, Jade, was sitting on the couch working a hair pick through her very now large, very retro afro she had been growing for a while.

“Yo, Charlie has been blowing up my phone - she is at Connor’s. She asking about Ella…”

Ella pulled out her phone to find a couple of texts from Charlie wondering where she was; bitching her out for abandoning her; letting her know Charlie was at Connors; and, finally, a worried “Haven’t hear from u, txt me.” Ella texted an “all good” back to her and flopped onto her bed.

Later, unable to sleep, Ella replayed the night’s events. Unlike the first time in the subway, these memories stayed with her and felt more “real.” Everything from whether she was going crazy to the strange green lights, being able to see in the dark, to how close she had come to almost sleeping with Aoife and the other fae ran through her head. And Kothin, who had been kind and scary at the same time.

Ella wondered what the hell was happening to her.