My stomach was tying itself in knots as I stood in front of Darius’ keep. Aidan took my hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “You know that if you want to change you mind, you can.”

I shook my head. “No. I feel like this is the right thing to do. I’ll miss it here, but… I just feel like it’s time to go home.”

Aidan merely nodded and gave my hand another squeeze. Then he turned to Darius. “We’re ready.”

“Remember Flame Song, concentrate on your home. Let nothing else enter your mind.” I nodded again. My nervousness increased, and I wondered if throwing up in the middle of it would ruin the spell, but I still felt that it was the right thing. Trying to put my fears out of my mind, I focused on my long-ago home world. Darius began to chant. I tried to remember growing up among the Phoenix Clan, the love of my parents, the affection of Ghost Flame and Cloud Singer, and the warm support of the clan. I remembered running across an apparently infinite stretch of tundra, headed for where the sky touched the ground. At times it had seemed as if I might actually reach the horizon.

Then in front of me I saw a portal open, swirling with phantom fire. With one last glance behind me at where my Mysterian friends stood, I stepped forward. I wondered as we passed through whether Aidan had been thinking of his distant home, and then the world faded and we were falling…

It has all started a few months back. Aidan and I had been married for nearly a year. We were happy together, and I could still at times hardly believe my good luck. But for some time I had been feeling a faint sense of discontent. We had missed the latest clan quest. Brianna has said we deserved a honeymoon, though I had felt guilty about it. But they had succeeded admirably without us. And there was part of my problem. The clan had so many new people joining it, I felt that Aidan and I were not truly needed. But that alone was not enough to bother me like this. No, the thing that was eating at my heart was, to put it simply, homesickness.

I missed my home, but more than that, I missed my family. My parents should have been there to see me marry Aidan. They should be there on the day my fist-born enters the world.

This feeling persisted; no matter what I thought of, or what I was doing, my family was in the back of my mind. Finally I decided I needed to discuss it with Aidan.

He was sitting on a cushion in the front room. I padded up behind him and sat down by his side. “Aidan, I…”

“What is it?” His expression was one of concern. Not many saw the deep and caring person behind his happy-go-lucky exterior, but I knew that he truly cared what I felt and thought.

“I, I’m not sure what it is. I just feel… I don’t know, I feel homesick, I guess.”

“Homesick? For your old world?”

“Yes. I miss my family.”

He put his arm around my furry shoulders. “I understand. There isn’t really anybody for me on Earth anymore, but sometimes I miss my family too.”

“I’m sorry Aidan. Here I’m just thinking of myself. At least I know that my family is still there.”

“It’s Ok. I dealt with it long ago. And I’d wondered. You seem to be so sad lately. Is this why?”

“Yes. I don’t know what I can do about it though. It’s not as if I can just go home and visit.”

“Maybe you could.”

“What?”

“Well, the way I understand the portals, they’re fairly permanent. The one to your world might still be there.”

The thought seemed to take hold of my heart. “I… I could go home. Home!” Suddenly the sadness seemed to vanish. I knocked Aidan over and licked his face.

“Whoa, don’t get carried away.”

“Let’s head for the keep right now! We can ask Darius about where to find the portal.”

And so we set off. My own common sense dictated that we wait for the next day, but the sun wasn’t even over the horizon when Aidan and I, both in Aerian form, winged our way southward.

We landed in the courtyard of Darius’ keep. Immediately I dashed up the stirs and into the main hall. Darius was sitting in his usual chair by the big fireplace. “Hello Flame Song, Aidan. It has been a long time since I last saw you. What can I do for you?”

“How do you know we didn’t come here just to enjoy your company?” Aidan asked with a grin.

“I doubt you flew down all the way from Coppertop just to visit an old man, you rogue.”

“You know me too well. Yes, Flame Song and I have come to ask your advice. She wants to return to her home world.”

Daruis’ expression was somber. “Ordinarily that might be possible, though few that come here ever wish to leave. But in her case I do not know. The portal to her world was a fluke. Though portals to worlds like Earth are always available, her world is not. The gate stayed open for some time, of course, but by now it is long gone.”

I blinked. Tears threatened to form. I had hoped to go home and now it seemed it was in vain.

“Don’t despair, Flame Song. I can see this means much to you. There may be a way yet.”

“I don’t understand,” said Aidan. “If the portal is gone, how can she reach her world?”

“There is a fairly common spell, a transportation spell, that may be altered to reach to her world, if we can give it sufficient power. But you must know this Aidan. The trip will be one way. You can never return to Mysteria.”

I saw Aidan’s eyes cloud. I knew that he loved this world. It had given him all he had ever dreamed of. “Aidan, you don’t have to…”

“No, I don’t have to, but I want to. I know that your world isn’t Mysteria, but it’s home for you, and I want to be at your side when you go there. I just need to know one thing.” He turned to Darius. “In her world, will I return to being an ordinary human, or will I still be an Aerian?”

“You will remain as you are. Coming to Mysteria has changed you, but that is one spell that is not easily undone. Not permanently anyway.”

Aidan nodded. “Then I’ll go. What do we need to do?”

Darius explained the nature of the spell. He knew how to cast a transport spell so that it could span worlds, but it required greater power than he could summon. But that power could be found. Power can be drawn from many things, including emotions. The power of love and of friendship was as great as that commanded by any wizard. “I will call the clan here. They will be willing to help you return to your world, I am sure. And,” he added, “They will want to say goodbye.”

It was not long before the clan had gathered. Darius explained the spell. The other clan members would need to do very little. They were to think of their friendship for each other and for Aidan and myself in particular. Darius would draw the power for the spell from them and aim it using my thoughts of home. If all went well, it should create a kind of temporary portal to my home.

And so it had happened, and now the sense of falling was slowing gradually, and the next thing I knew Aidan and myself were standing together in a leafy forest. I looked around. “This sure isn’t the tundra. Where are we?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been here either. Let’s go take a look around, see if we can find anything. Over there,” he pointed, “There seems to be some kind of path.”

“Let me shift first. That way I have a better chance of hearing danger coming.”

Aidan nodded, and I shifted, or tried to. Instead of the usual easy flow I felt a painful resistance. I stopped. With a puzzled look, Aidan asked, “What is it?”

“I don’t know. Let me try again.” With a mental breath I tried again. The same painful barrier appeared, but I continued to push against it. Slowly and painfully I could feel myself changing. Then with a rush I was done. I looked myself over. Everything seemed to be in order. My orange striped white fur was properly in place, paws, tail, ears, all there.

I sniffed the air. I could smell the usual forest scents, the past scent of the humans who had made this trail, and overlying it all a fait smell the like of which I’d never smelled before. It was acrid, chemical, and strange. With a mental shrug I set off down the path. “Come on Aidan. Let’s see where this goes.”

The trail wound through the forest. Before long it began to slope upwards. That was good, with luck we would be able to get some idea of where we had landed. A few minutes later we came out of the forest into a pocket meadow on the side of the hill. Aidan, whose vantage point was higher than I caught a glimpse of what was below us first. “Oh no…” I moved further up the hill to gain a better vantage point. Then I saw the scene spread out below us. It was a small town, with the ocean rolling just beyond it, but a town such as I had never seen. The buildings were strange, the roads were of some level blackish stuff, and on them were odd vehicles that moved without any sign of horses. I had never seen anything like them, but at the same time there was something oddly familiar about the whole thing. What was it? “Aidan, do you know where we are?”

He nodded. “I know. This is all too familiar. We are on Earth.”

“Earth… Then the spell went wrong somehow. But how? I thought of home while Darius created the portal. He said that would key it to my world.”

“I don’t know. I tried not to think of anything. But I couldn’t help thinking of home a little bit too. Could I have thrown it off?”

“Maybe it was my fault. I didn’t think of my home when we actually went through. Maybe it was that moment that the portal keyed to it’s destination.”

“Umm… If that’s the case then I know exactly where we are, and it’s not good. I was thinking of things that I’d always wanted to do on Earth and never had. Probably never would, I thought. One of them was visit Ireland.”

“What is so bad about being in Ireland?”

“Well, if we had come out in the United States, there are people I could get in touch with. I could find a place for us to stay, maybe even find somebody who could help us get back to Mysteria. But Ireland is an island halfway around the world from the U.S. and I don’t have any contacts here. Though in either case we’re still in bad shape. I mean look at me!” I looked. He looked just like he always had.

“What’s wrong with the way you look?”

“Well, on Earth there are no Aerians. I look like a freak. I can’t go out in public, I’d cause I scene. And right now you’re not much better.”

“We’ll think of something. And besides, this does mean one thing. If this is Earth, there will be portals. It’s not a one-way ticket after all.”

“Trust you to look on the bright side. All right. We will think of something, somehow.”

And we did. There truly isn’t much more to tell. We found a place to stay, Ireland is an old country and it is dotted with places where people once lived. We avoided the ruined castle nearby, too much human smell. (Aidan said they were something called “tourists.”) But an abandoned farmhouse proved to be just what we needed. Our food came partially from my hunting, though Aidan said it was illegal, I said that starving would be worse. But gradually we came into contact with a few of those who lived nearby. There were other farms, though few of the old-style farmers remained. I ended up taking care of all our contacts with others. I could, with great effort, change shape into my human form, but Aidan was stuck with his wings. So I gradually began to become familiar with Earth culture, or at least Irish culture.

They are a strange people. Earthy and noble all at once. They live life large. Their vices are legendary, as are their virtues. They are suspicious of strangers, but hospitable to a fault. Pugnacious, philosophical, contradictory, heirs to a rich heritage, and people of a modern age, I found myself warming to them. I don’t know what they thought of us. We were strangers, and very strange ones at that. A fire-haired girl, dressed in medieval style and her husband that nobody ever sees who live in a ruined farmhouse. I did odd jobs to earn a little money here and there. There’s not much call for the talents of a shape-shifting adventuress in everyday small town life, but I managed to find things I could do. And I always asked if anybody had seem anything odd, anything strange, or magical. I hoped that I would receive word or a portal, but all I got was a reputation. I started to get visits from people who thought I was a witch. At first I didn’t realize what they meant. People are sometimes reluctant to talk about such things openly, especially in an age when magic is derided as a children’s story. At first I merely turned them away, but some of them seemed almost desperate, and Aidan hit on an idea.

“Flame, just give them some little gee-gaw, say a few words in Fire-cat or something and ask them for a few pounds. We really need more money. There are only so many rabbits out there and if you hunt them out what will we do?”

I was reluctant to deceive people, but Aidan talked me into it. Explaining about something called the “placebo effect” he said that my fake charms would help people have the confidence to solve their own problems. Deciding that at least I couldn’t do much harm, I tried. And it seemed to work. We finally had enough to leave the Irish rabbits alone.

So time passed. Days mounted into weeks, piled into months, and then a year had gone by and we were still there. We had had trouble, governmental types that had tried to find us. Aidan said that he didn’t have any idea what they would do with us, but since we didn’t have permission to live in the house or even be in the country it probably wouldn’t be good. We managed to avoid them, and I suspect that the village people, contented with their local witch, helped to distract them.

Other than that the time passed uneventfully. But I could feel despair creeping into our lives. There was no word of a portal, and we couldn’t mount much of a search for one. With all the modern powers of satellites, helicopters, cameras, and other such devices, traveling any distance was risky. So we waited. I handled it well enough, I think. At times it was maddening, to be stranded in the strange place, restricted to occasional forays to the village. But Aidan could never go out. He never saw anyone except the occasional villager seeking some charm. Even then he could only peer at them from the shadows of the next room.

Months more slid by and I feared the Aidan would sink wholly into depression. He spoke less and less, and spent a lot of time curled up in a dark back room in the ruined house. I tried to draw him out, but more often I ended up sinking into depression myself. And then it happened. A little girl knocked on the improvised door we had hung. I recognized her as being the youngest daughter of one of the near-by farmers. They were an old family that had lived on the same land for untold generations. They had refused to sell out to anyone, no matter how wealthy, counting the weight of tradition and home as more than money.

“Song, Mom says that you should come. There is something really weird in our barn. She said you wanted to know about weird things like that.”

Without waiting to hear more I rushed out the door. I ran to the neighbors. Most likely it would turn out to be nothing, but if there was the least chance of it being a portal… I increased my pace at the thought. I arrived puffing. The girl’s mother pointed the way to the barn. “I don’t know what it is. It’s like there’s some kind of fire in the barn, but it’s not burning anything.”

Fire… Could it be? The portals looked a little bit like fire. Oh let it be a portal! Almost hesitant to lose the hope and find something else entirely, I opened the door. Inside in the center of the room a ring of fire hovered in the air. It was a portal! With a whoop of joy I dashed back the way I had come. “What is it?” The woman called after me.

“I can go home!” I shouted, joy overtaking anything resembling caution. “No time to explain! I’ll be right back!”

I was puffing even harder by the time I got back to the farm. “Aidan! We’ve found one! A portal! Come quick!” Before I could even finish speaking, Aidan was out of the house. I spun around and headed back the way I had come. This path is getting to rather familiar, at least at high speed, I thought to myself. When we arrived at the barn, the whole family was gathered. Gasps arose at the sight of Aidan, but neither of us cared, at that point. We ran, side by side, into the barn, and without pause for thought, we were through the portal.

My last thought as I dashed through the swirling pseudo-flames was “At last, I’m going home.”

Some time later, back in Mysteria and busily cleaning out our old house, Aidan asked me, “Flame Song, do you regret not being able to go home?”

“A little bit. I still miss my family. But I think I would miss Mysteria more. Being away from it let me see that. I still would like to be able to visit my world, but I wouldn’t want to stay there. I’ve learned where my real home is.”

And somewhere on Earth, in a little country called Ireland, in a little farm a little girl asked, “Mommy, was that an angel?”

“Dear, I think it might have been.”

“Where did they go then Mommy? Where did Song and the angel go?”

“I…” The woman thought of what the woman known as Song had said when she saw the portal. “I think they went back home to heaven dear.”

It is quite possible that she was right.