Into the Inside

"Hey Gina, can you keep a secret?"

Ariel is standing directly behind me while I check the dates on the milk jugs in the refrigerator, her voice a conspiratorial whisper.

"What kind of secret?" I inquire, turning around to face her. I hope my tone doesn't sound as suspicious as I'm afraid it does. It's not that I don't trust Ariel. I just don't know her that well. In the two weeks we've worked together she seems to have taken more of a liking to me than to the rest of the employees, but at this point our relationship has not yet progressed from coworkers to friends.

Something of my thoughts must show in my expression because Ariel is hasty to assure me,

"Oh, it's nothing bad. I'm not stealing money out of the register or anything if that's what you think. I wouldn't tell you if I was, would I?"

"So what's your secret?"

"I...I don't know if you'd believe me if I told you." She pushes her jet-black dyed bangs back from her face with one hand. "Maybe you'd better come see for yourself."

"Come where?" I can't quite manage to keep the exasperation out of my voice. I don't have time for this. We both have work we're supposed to be doing.

"To the stockroom."

"Seriously?"

Our stockroom is down in the basement below the coffee shop, and I hate going down there. I don't like admitting that I get a serious case of the creeps every time I have to go down there for supplies, but I always do.

"Yeah. Come on."

"Hey Donnie," I call over to our coworker, "can you watch the front for a minute? I'm gonna help Ariel bring some stuff up from the stockroom."

"I'm comin' with," Donnie says with a wide grin, glancing up from the customer table he's wiping down. I know what he's thinking, as it is his own habit to disappear down to the basement on occasion to smoke a joint. He doesn't even try to hide it. "Hang on a sec, I'll flip the sign."

I make eye contact with Ariel while Donnie walks over to flip the sign in the window from 'Open' to 'Closed'. She doesn't look particularly enthusiastic about the prospect of Donnie joining us, but she gives her head a little nod.

"Remember, you guys can't tell anyone else about this," Ariel states as Donnie and I follow her down the flight of narrow stone steps.

"I don't even know what this is," I point out.

"You will. Just remember it's a secret between the three of us, okay?"

"Okay," I agree. Unless there's something illegal going on here. If that's the case I'm squealing like a pig.

"Donnie?"

"Yeah, my lips're sealed."

Ariel nods her head, satisfied with our response.

Although the basement is well lit, the cold yellow illumination of the fluorescents does little to alleviate the inexplicable sense of foreboding that always overcomes me down here.

Ariel leads us down the narrow hallway with the water heater on the right side and the door to the stockroom on the left.

Once she pushes the door open and switches on the overhead light she proceeds to wind her way through the maze of neatly stacked cardboard boxes until she reaches the back wall, followed closely by Donnie.

"Come on, Gina!" She motions for me to join them.

My claustrophobia is doing its best to get the better of me as I squeeze past the piles of boxes full of paper cups and coffee filters.

"What is this about?" I demand once I reach my coworkers. I'm past the point of being able to hide my irritation.

"That." Ariel points at a rodent sized hole chewed into the base of the back wall.

"Shit! We have mice? Ariel, that's not something that should be kept secret! We need to get an exterminator out here. How long have you known about this?"

"It's not mice."

"That's a mouse hole."

"No it's not."

"Maybe it's those scorpion things," Donnie muses more to himself than to us.

"The what?" I ask him.

"Don't you remember, Gina? Last month I told you I saw a giant scorpion with red fur down here."

"Yeah, I remember," I snort. "I remember you were baked at the time, too."

Donnie gives his shoulders a dismissive shrug. "I still saw it."

"Well, I haven't seen anything like that," Ariel chips in. "But it's not mice."

"Of course it is," I reiterate. "That's a classic mouse hol...what are you doing?"

Ariel in now down on her hands and knees in front of the mouse hole.

She glances over her shoulder at Donnie and me with a secretive little smile on her lips.

"Follow me."

"Foll..." my question is cut short when Ariel's entire head disappears into the tiny opening. Her shoulders follow as she crawls forward.

Donnie lets out an astonished yelp. "This is some serious sci-fi shit! Like a doorway into another world or something!"

This is impossible. That's what it is. Yet here I am watching my coworker crawl through an opening in the wall that should in no way accommodate something the size of a human being. It doesn't make sense at all. The mouse hole did not increase in size as Ariel went through it, nor did she decrease in size. She simply fit.

"Well, are you guys coming or what?" Ariel's impatient voice calls from the other side of the wall. Or is she inside the wall?

"Abso-fuckin'-lutely!" Donnie agrees. His grin looks like that of a little boy who's just been given a hundred dollars to spend at the candy store. He drops to his knees and scrambles through the mouse hole.

I stand rooted to the cement floor for several long moments, fighting the urge to run out of the stockroom and back up the basement steps to the sanity of the coffee shop.

Both Ariel and Donnie are calling for me to join them.

I take a shaky breath and lower myself to my hands and knees.

Even though I have only moments ago witnessed both of my coworkers crawling through the mouse hole I am still overcome with a sense of shock and disbelief at my own ability to pass through it without difficulty.

I stand up and gaze around, taking in my surroundings.

The three of us are standing in a lush flower filled meadow underneath a clear blue summer sky. Although the grass seems normal enough, the flowers growing in it are like nothing I've ever seen before. Their petals look like thin slices of precious gems, reflecting the sun in hundreds of tiny flashes of light. In the near distance, four or five yards to the left of us, is a densely wooded forest. The opening we had crawled through is visible a few feet ahead of us, but only as a vague multi-colored shimmer in the grass rather than a physical mouse hole.

"W...what the hell is all this?!" My voice catches in my throat, coming out sounding cracked and breathless.

"Who cares what it is!" Donnie replies. "It's fuckin' amazin'!"

Ariel is observing us with the indulgent smile of a seasoned veteran watching a couple of newbies experiencing something incredible for the first time.

"Welcome to the Inside," she tells us.

"The Inside?" I question.

"That's what the natives call it, anyway. If I understood them correctly, this is an alternate reality inside ours. Think of it like...like a soap bubble, I guess. Our reality, the Outside, is outside the bubble and in here is inside the bubble. That hole we crawled through is the bubble itself, the soapy skin part. No one really knows who put the doorway between the realities in the basement or why. It's probably been there for a really long time. Does that make sense?"

"Nope," Donnie replies.

"Not at all," I agree. "Wait a minute, did you say natives? There are people here?"

"Well, kind of. They're not people, exactly. They're...this is going to sound crazy."

"This whole thing is crazy!" I snap.

"But so fuckin' cool!" Donnie grins.

"They're fairies," Ariel states. "Or maybe they're elves or sprites, something like that. They don't have wings. Anyway, they're Fay."

"You're kidding, right?"

"No. Would you like to meet them?"

"Hell yeah!" Donnie is bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet.

"Gina?" Ariel glances at me.

"Sure, why not?" I agree with a sigh. "This can't get any weirder than it already is." I hope.

"We're not going into the forest?" I inquire when Ariel turns to lead us in the opposite direction.

"Oh, no," she replies in an emphatic tone. "They don't live in the forest. They don't go anywhere near it. They say terrible things live in there."

"What kind of things?"

"I don't know. They never told me. But I think we'd better not go looking."

Ariel leads us a short distance across the field to a packed dirt road lined with quaint wooden cabins. Each cabin has a neat patch of garden behind it, but I am unable to identify the variety of unfamiliar fruits and vegetables growing there.

As we walk past one of the cabins the door cracks open and a curious face peeps out. Upon seeing the three of us a smile spreads over the face and the cabin door is thrown open wide as a young woman with red hair and freckles rushes out to greet us.

She is no shorter than myself, maybe even an inch or two taller, and she appears completely human aside from the sharp point of her earlobes and the opalescent shimmer of her alabaster skin.

"Lady Ariel!" She greets my coworker, curtseying low to her.

Within moments and without warning we are surrounded by a number of these pale beings, all of them bowing and curtseying before the three of us.

"Lady Ariel, it is wonderful to see you again!" The red haired woman exclaims.

"And you, Jaliyah," Ariel responds. "These are my friends Lady Gina and Sir Donald."

"Call me Donnie," he requests. "Or Sir Donnie, if you want."

"Lady Gina. Sir Donnie," Jaliyah repeats, echoed by the others amid more bowing and curtseying.

"Lady Jaliyah," I reply.

A faint pinkish blush creeps across her face. "Oh, no, 'tis merely Jaliyah, Lady. Only those from the Outside are afforded such titles."

"I'm sorry," I apologize. "I didn't mean to offend you."

"I have taken no offense, Lady Gina."

"We must throw a feast in the Great Hall in honor of our guests!" Deems a young man with long deep brown (almost black) hair that provides a striking contrast to the iridescent pallor of his face.

"A feast! A feast!" Grows from a murmur to a steady chant among the Fay folk encircling us.

"That's very nice of you, but we can't stay that long," I decline. "We have to get back to work." I don't even know how long we've already been here.

"Oh, no. You must feast with us and stay the night, of course!" Jaliyah's tone is good-natured yet insistent.

"Thank you, but we really can't. We really need..."

Ariel cuts my protest short with a curt shake of her head.

"It'll be okay," she assures me. "Time passes differently here. "We'll stay for the feast and go back in the morning."

I'm reluctant to consent, yet I can't think of a legitimate reason not to.

The Great Hall is constructed like the cabins that serve as the Fay folks' homes, only on a grander scale. The interior is dominated by a long table loaded with all manner of foods, buffet style. A number of smaller tables are pushed up against the walls of the Hall for dining.

"What are you doing?!" I hiss at Ariel, grabbing her wrist as she reaches for a plate.

"Eating," she responds.

"Well, don't. If the Fay are real, then isn't what's been written about them real too? Everything I've ever read says that if you eat or drink anything when you're in their world then you'll be trapped there forever!"

Ariel laughs. "Relax, Gina! I've been back and forth between realities a bunch of times since I've discovered this place. I've eaten their food before and I've never been trapped here." She places something that looks like a roasted caterpillar on her plate.

I spin about on my heel upon hearing an amused giggle behind me.

"Everything I have read about the Outside folk suggests that they paint their faces with mud and clothe themselves in animal hides," Jaliyah comments with a sardonic grin on her freckled face. "Yet 'tis apparent that this is a fallacy as well."

"I'm sorry," I mumble, embarrassed. "I didn't know you heard me."

"There is no need to apologize. Here, you must try one of these succulent grubs."

"Um, no thanks."

"Hey, don't knock it 'til you try it," Ariel chips in, scooping a spoonful of the plump insect larvae onto her plate.

"Yeah, I...I think I'll stick with that melon, or whatever it is." Even that looks a little sketchy. The rind is a dull gray while the salmon colored fruit looks like some strange watermelon-grapefruit hybrid. The flavor, however, is exquisite beyond description. Sweet with just a touch of heat at the finish.

"Would you like some wine?" Jaliyah offers. "We have one distilled from the Ruby Flower, and one from the Amethyst Flower."

"Which one do you recommend?" I inquire.

"They are both pleasing. The Amethyst wine has a sweeter more delicate flavor but the Ruby is more potent."

"I'll try the Ruby," I state. Might as well.

"Good choice," Ariel giggles, saluting me with her own glass.

"Sir Donnie seems to be enjoying it," Jaliyah comments. She inclines her head toward where Donnie is apparently attempting to outdrink a table full of male Fay folk.

After four glasses of the Ruby Flower wine my head is reeling. I am typically able to hold my liquor well, but this beverage is as strong as it is delicious.

"You know, these grubsh're acshu'lly really good," I slur, popping one into my mouth. As long as I don't think about what it is I'm eating I am able to enjoy the chewy texture and subtle meaty flavor.

"You're drunk," Ariel giggles.

"Yep," I agree.

"Me too." She drapes an arm over my shoulders and burps.

I awake to find myself lying on the floor of the Great Hall. I must have passed out at some point last night.

"How're you feeling?" Ariel questions with a grin, standing over me with her hand extended to help me up.

"Amazing," I answer her. It's unbelievable but true. "I feel well rested. No headache, no nausea."

"Yeah. Awesome, isn't it?"

"Holy shit!" Donnie exclaims from the direction of the table he is still seated at.

"I know," I laugh. "No hangover!"

Jaliyah and the rest of the Fay folk are gathered in the field near the 'doorway' to see us back into our own reality.

"You are all welcome back any time you wish," Jaliyah states with a warm smile.

We offer our thanks and with a final goodbye we crawl single-file through the shimmering portal and back through the mouse hole into the stockroom of the coffee shop.

I spare a glance at my watch once we have climbed back up the basement steps. We were gone for an hour and a half. Too long to have been grabbing supplies from the stockroom, but not nearly as long as it had seemed.

"So what now?" Donnie inquires as he flips the sign in the window back to 'Open'. "Can we go back sometime? I'd like to go back."

"Whenever we want," Ariel replies. "But remember, it's our little secret."

"Our little secret," Donnie and I agree.