I was tripping. There was no other rational explanation. I thought back but I couldn’t remember getting high. That didn’t prove anything, but… why would I get high when I knew I had a babysitting gig?

I inhaled hot, humid air… which was weird for late Autumn in Minnesota, and took in my surroundings.

What I had originally thought to be grass was too soft and warm, and I realized it to be moss. It covered everything; overturned logs, tree trunks, water. The trees themselves were massive, with branches that drooped down in a canopy of green. Everything was green, except the flowers.

I didn’t have enough words to describe the colors of the flowers. They ranged across the rainbow and from snow white to the darkest black. I had never seen anything more vibrant and beautiful in my life.

I turned around and the coat closet was gone, with nothing left but a tree trunk.

“What the fuck did I just walk into,” the words escaped my mouth before I could remember I was talking to a five year old.

Elsie, who had been walking ahead without me realizing it, turned back to me and cocked her head. “What’s a fuck?”

I knew better than to tell a five year old to not say something, so “I didn’t say fuck, I said duck. It’s an expression people use…”

“Oh. Okay. What the duck, what the duck, what the duck duck duck!” She started skipping and chanting in a sing-song voice before she abruptly stopped and froze in place.

“Elsie? What’s wrong?”

Slowly, she turned her head back to stare at me and raised a finger to her lips. Then, wide-eyed, she pointed. I followed her finger with my eyes and screamed.

It was monstrous. The closest thing I knew of in my...world…would be a crocodile. It was scaled and seven feet long, but its hind legs were monstrous. Its tail split into two and its maw was large enough to swallow me whole.

“I just said to be quiet!” Elsie ran back to grab my hand and pull me into a sprint as the monster looked up and made eye contact with me. Those glowing yellow eyes would haunt me for the rest of my life, assuming I lived long enough to be haunted. It seemed to smile, and I learned what the huge hind legs were for as it shot like a frog through the air and halved the distance between us instantly.

In another leap, it was where I had been standing a second before. Elsie stopped running to turn and face the monster. Elsie pushed me behind her--wait wasn’t that my job?-- and I prayed to every god I knew of that the afterlife would be better. I was ready to die when suddenly the monster reeled back as if it had been shot. It snarled and lunged for us, suddenly much angrier, but bounced off the air between us as if there was a barrier.

That's when I looked at Elsie. The five-year-old stood with her legs apart, knees bent, beckoning the monster forwards like a bullfighter. She was chanting something in a language I didn’t recognize as the monster rammed itself against the invisible barrier over and over.

Without looking away she yelled at me, “Miss Anna please grab my hand, I need to anchor the spell to you.”

Spell?

Well, seeing as she was the only thing standing between me and death, I grabbed her hand and felt something rush through me. It felt like I had just drunk three red bulls and pulled an all-nighter, but it wasn’t a bad feeling. I didn’t even realize words were coming out of my mouth until I focused on them.

“...sasunt’vath fur van. Nerunt’vath fur van ab jas. Sasunt’vath fur van. Nerunt’vath fur van ab jas. Sas’vath fur…” the words involuntarily spewed out of my mouth. I had no idea what I was saying, but I neither wanted to nor could stop them. They seemed to be what was holding the monster at bay while Elsie did whatever she was doing.

Translation: "You provide for your children. You protect your children from harm."

I couldn’t fully focus on her, but the monster kept reeling back, as though shot by invisible bullets. At first they seemed to only annoy it, but as Elsie fired more and more it eventually began to slow. Black blood ran from hundreds of holes which Elsie had spread across its body, and a final shot through its open mouth caused it to stop.

Elsie’s tiny hand let go of mine and all the energy was sapped from my body as the spell dispersed.

“What was that? You have a lot of explaining to do,” I mumbled before my knees buckled and I sank to the mossy ground.

“Sorry Miss Anna. I’ll explain later, but first we should go somewhere safe. Miss Arantia can help, she lives nearby. She might also know where Carter is!”

Shit, in all the commotion I had forgotten that Carter was missing.

“Who is this Arantia? You and Carter should not be talking to strangers from another world!”

“But she isn’t a stranger. She’s our magic teacher!” Elsie smiled gleefully and began to skip away again. I pulled myself up and followed after her, clenching my jaw closed so that I wouldn’t scream again.