Of the visitors we get to Griffin’s Edge, the majority of them aren’t human. I’d say probably something like seventy-thirty.
This is for two reasons, mostly: 1) humans are less open-minded, and most of them don’t believe that anything otherworldly exists at all, so they don’t seek out the bar as often, much less successfully find it, and 2) the inhuman dimension sucks significantly more than the human one does, so beings from that side are more desperate to escape for a while.
Trust me. I’m probably the only one alive who’s seen both dimensions enough to fairly make that statement.
Since I was little, I’ve called the inhuman dimension Neverland. Henri read a lot of fairy tales to me as a kid, and Peter Pan was one of my favorites. The name Neverland just kind of stuck. Although in this case, it’s not because beings never grow up there. It’s because they never want to stay there.
It’s a very dark land. Like I said in my first post, it doesn’t really do sun. Henri says it had one once, but that was long ago. Its sun burned out centuries before I was born. Now it sports a heavy gray sky, broken occasionally by lightning storms.
The rest of it isn’t too pleasant, either. I mean, not all of it is as depressing and deadly as the dark forests where monsters take up residence. But it’s not great. Most of the world is, quite literally, black and white. Trees with bark the color of night, grass as gray as the sky, lakes that are either black as ink or completely clear, like glass.
Its inhabitants do their best with what they have, though. They live in color. Villages and cities are built with as much vibrance as they can manage, in efforts to counteract the natural grayness of their surroundings. I don’t know how they do it, but they create buildings with blue bricks, sidewalks made of sparkling red stone, stained glass infinitely brighter than anything humans have created. Magic can be pretty cool.
So, yeah. They do what they can to make it better. But all the colorful homes and clothes they can make aren’t enough to keep out the monsters that prey on them. Purple shoes only do so much to improve quality of life when your children regularly get eaten in the night.
Which means our bar is still a desirable destination. Sure, they can’t stay forever. But an escape from reality for a while—and a few drinks to boot—is exactly what they need to keep going.
It’s part of why Henri founded this place, decades ago. He’s from Neverland; he knows firsthand how bad it can be. He had a pretty rough childhood there.
Remind me to tell you his story sometime.
Today, though, let’s talk about me. Well, me and one of my oldest friends, Milo. He’s a merman.
Speaking of, we’ll start off by breaking some common misconceptions. Merpeople, like many of the visitors we get from Neverland, can appear relatively human when they want to. On dry land, their fins turn to legs, their gills turn to lungs, you get the idea.
They hardly ever put on shirts, though. That stereotype is true.
When they’re on land, the easiest way to tell what they are is their skin. It shimmers in the light, reflecting whatever color their fins would be. In Milo’s case, under the string lights of the bar, his skin shimmers with a deep blue, which dances across his chest as he moves. It matches his hair, which is also dark blue.
He dyes it, though. He likes the dramatic flair. It’s naturally brown. Just don’t tell him I said that.
Merpeople also don’t like to stay out of the water for long stretches of time. They’re the main reason we have a pool out back. Well, them and a few others: selkies, water sprites, sea dragons. I’ve carried endless trays of drinks out there for rowdy merman bachelor parties before. Can get pretty wild.
I first met Milo when I was thirteen. He visited with his older sister, Selene, who was meeting up with a human boy for a date. When I went out to the pool to drop off an order of mozzarella sticks with a pair of selkies, I nearly tripped over him: a boy about my age, sprawled out on the concrete, half-asleep under the sun.
He sat up indignantly, eyes snapping open behind his round glasses. They were as blue as his hair. Like his shimmering skin, too, though I’d only realize that later, because for the first and last time since I’ve known him, he was wearing a shirt. “Hey! Can’t a guy sunbathe in peace?”
I delivered the mozzarella sticks absentmindedly, already turning back to face him. “Can’t a guy do his job in peace?” I countered.
He squinted at me, took in the bar’s crest on the front pocket of my t-shirt. “You work here? Are you human?”
I hesitated. He had blue hair, so I kind of assumed he wasn’t human, but I wasn’t 100% sure. And I’ve never known how to answer that question about myself. I have no idea what I am. And unfortunately for him, in my angsty teenage phase from ages twelve-fifteen, I really wasn’t a fan of strangers asking me about it. (Bothers me less now. Eighteen years of getting looked at confusion by otherworldly beings and humans alike kind of desensitizes you to feeling embarrassed).
“Yeah, I work here,” I finally settled on. “My uncle owns the place.” A good answer. A safe one.
“So not human,” he said.
“Not any of your business,” I corrected, beginning to walk past him.
He jumped to his feet and grabbed my arm. “Hey wait, I—”
I shouldered him off, and he stumbled backwards—I saw it as if in slow motion, and I tried to reach out for his shirt, but I wasn’t fast enough, and my fist only clutched air—and then he fell into the pool.
I barely had time to feel guilty and think God, I hope he can swim! before I saw the swirl of color beneath the surface. Seconds later, his head popped up, glasses askew, and through the glassy water I could see that his sweatpants had been replaced with fins, his tail a striking shade of midnight blue.
Guilt turned to relief, surprise, and a little bit of awe. “You’re a merman!”
He grinned at me, holding an arm out of the water to show me the fins along the forearm. “What gave it away? Now, come on, help me get out.”
I put down the empty platter and knelt by the side of the pool, reaching down to grab his outstretched hand. Our fingers connected—
And I realized what was about to happen a split second too late. He smiled wickedly, eyes twinkling—and pulled me into the water.
I somersaulted into the pool, coming up to break the surface a few seconds later, spitting out water. We stared at each other in silence for a minute. Then we both burst out laughing. “What was that for?”
“Had to confirm you weren’t a merman too,” he said, still grinning.
I gestured to my wet jeans and my frantically-kicking feet. “Clearly not.”
I doggy-paddled over to the wall and heaved myself out of the water; he followed. Just as he swung his tail onto the concrete—it immediately transformed into a pair of legs, the sweatpants over them miraculously dry—a large shadow fell over both of us. In its darkness, the air seemed to spontaneously drop ten degrees. I shivered.
And looked up to find a rather menacing man standing over us—well, not man, per se. Vampire. I know I say that a lot of beings don’t necessarily look like the stereotypes you’ve grown up with. That’s true. Vampires, though…well, let’s just say that some stereotypes exist for a reason.
This particular guy was tall, nearly as broad as Henri, and didn’t appear to be a day over thirty, though if I had to guess, he was probably more like three hundred. He had red eyes, and the way he smiled at me definitely gave off an air of sizing me up for a meal.
“Ian, I presume,” he purred. “Just the child I was looking for. Your uncle said you could assist me.”
Ugh. Vampires always gave me the creeps, but hey, money was money. I got to my feet, wringing the water out of my shirt as I did. “That’s me. What can I help with?”
He reached under his dark cloak—yes, *cloak—*and grabbed something. Then he held out his pale hand to me. In it was a photograph of a house made of purple brick, with a glittering gold roof. Between that and the starkly-contrasting gray background, it was clear the house was in Neverland.
“I was hoping you would go here and retrieve something for me,” he said, still sounding hungry. I don’t think he was considering eating me—I’m pretty sure vampires just always sound hungry—but it didn’t make me feel any better.
I looked at the photo and frowned. “Why can’t you go? It’s not in the human dimension.”
“Yes,” he agreed smoothly. “But alas, I have not been invited inside. And the one who lives there would not be kind enough to do so should I appear at the door.”
Was this suspicious? Sure. But like I said, money is money. And I’ve taken plenty of strange requests. Really, the personal relationships or reasons behind these errands is none of my business. Part of my appeal is that I don’t ask too many questions—inhuman beings tend to value their privacy. So I simply smiled through gritted teeth. “What do you need from there?”
His own smile widened, enough that I swear I could see his molars. Unease trickled down my spine. “A music box. You’ll know it when you see it.”
Internally, I sighed. Come on, Ian, it won’t take that long, and you never know, maybe he’ll tip better than you’d think. “Alright. I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”
“Most kind of you,” he purred. “Every bit as helpful as Henri said.”
I suppressed an eye roll as I took the photo from him. Thanks for this one, Henri. As soon as I had the photo, the vampire vanished in a puff of black smoke, and I watched as a small bat flew away and back into the bar. Well, at least he wasn’t going to watch me leave.
I had already started walking away, towards the paths, when I saw a flash of blue and realized that the merman was keeping stride with me. “So you’re an errand boy? How can you go to—”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, quickening my pace. He easily matched it.
“Can I come?” he asked eagerly. “I mean, my sister’s on a date, I’ve got nothing better to do, and you seem super interesting.”
I glanced over at him, wondering if he was joking, but all I saw on his face was sincerity and excitement. I almost felt like blushing. A lot of people were interested in me, of course, but mostly for my usefulness. No one except the adults in my life had ever volunteered to accompany me. I was oddly kind of flattered that he wanted to come.
And, if I was honest, it wouldn’t hurt to have him along. Not with the weirdness of the vampire’s request.
“Okay,” I said. “But I promised twenty minutes, so you better keep up.” He grinned and nodded.
The path through the fog was no more eventful than usual. I took the fork to the right, which led to Neverland, and focused on the house in the photo, making the merman hold my arm so that he followed. And a minute later, we passed through a gap in reality and found ourselves on a gray street, wind whipping around us, under a stormy sky.
Luckily, we’d had good timing. The tear had let us through just down the street from the house. I made my way towards it, and the merman walked beside me. “You do this a lot?”
“Every day,” I said.
“Cool,” he said. “I wonder what the deal is with the vampire and the house’s owner.”
“Me too,” I answered honestly. “But I’ve found that most beings don’t like it if I ask too many questions. He’d probably tip less if I pressed.”
The merman sucked in a breath. “Oof. Wouldn’t want that. He looked like the hardly-tip-at-all type to begin with.”
I laughed. “Tell me about it. I’ll be lucky to get five bucks.”
We’d made it to the steps in front of the purple and gold house. With another deep internal sigh, hoping this was going to be easy, I went up on the porch and knocked.
Well, the being who answered the door was, quite literally, a troll. For those of you who haven’t seen one before, they’re quite jarring. Misshapen features, often half-naked, and a very…unique smell that hits you like a freight train.
I immediately started breathing through my mouth and tried to smile at the same time. The merman, though, wasn’t as prepared. He squeaked and grabbed my arm.
Maybe the troll hadn’t noticed. “Hi, I’ m here to—” I started. Only I didn’t finish, because the merman’s nails dug in deeper to my skin, and I instinctively flinched—
And, that’s right, it was enough of a reaction that I jumped. Jumped, jumped. As in, I was suddenly standing on the Golden Gate Bridge, in the middle of traffic, and because the merman had been holding my arm at the time, I’d accidentally brought him with me.
“SHIT!” I shouted, as a car honked and swerved to avoid us. Of all the goddamn places! And with a merman in tow! I yanked him with me over to the side of the bridge, so that we were at least not directly in the path of oncoming traffic.
I realized then that he was staring at me, blue eyes panicked behind his glasses. He was also beginning to hyperventilate, probably because his skin was already starting to turn a sickly ashen color. “Are we—on—the human side?” he choked out. “How?”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, panic rising. If I didn’t find a tear right now, he’d probably spontaneously combust in front of me. And I really didn’t want that, because 1) it was looking promising that he might be my first real friend, and 2) I’m in the business of seeing as few beings self-destruct as possible. Really puts a damper on your day.
Not to mention that I’d let him come with me, so if he died, it was absolutely, 100% my fault.
Shit.
He coughed, and blood welled at his lips. “Well, as cool as it looks, I don’t think it agrees with me,” he said, flashing me a weak smile as another cough caused him to double over.
A car driving by slowed down and rolled down its window, looking at the blue-haired merman in fear. “Is he okay?”
“Just peachy,” insisted the merman, still bent at the waist, reaching up one arm to give a thumbs-up.
“He’s fine,” I said tightly, already more focused on sensing the air around us, trying to find a gap we could slip through.
The driver hesitated before driving on, but I barely noticed. Come on, come on! The merman was spitting up more blood on the sidewalk. I was running out of time.
There! I felt it. Thank God. I grabbed his hand and pulled him after me—he suddenly felt extremely light, like unnaturally light, which definitely wasn’t a good sign—as he coughed harder. Reality was splitting—we were nearly there—but his hand was slipping, slick with sweat—no, he needed to hang on, if I lost him as we stepped through, he’d die! —I squeezed his hand tighter—the world turned to silver fog—
And we were back at the bar, breathing hard, falling forward onto the left fork in the path. I found myself exhausted, lying there on my back with him beside me, gasping but immediately looking much, much healthier.
After a long few minutes of getting our breath back and processing how close he’d come to dying, he broke the silence. “Well, I was right. Hanging out with you is super interesting.”
I couldn’t help it; I laughed. That was his takeaway? “That’s one word for it.”
I was about to apologize when, for the second time in the last half hour, a shadow fell over us. My heart dropped. I had a feeling I knew who was here, and an even stronger feeling that he wasn’t about to be happy.
I rolled over and got to my feet. Sure enough, Mr. Stereotypical Vampire was there to greet us, and there was no smiling this time, even a creepy smile. He looked angry.
“What is this?” he hissed. “Where’s the music box?”
I cleared my throat. “Sorry, sir, things didn’t go as planned. I can go right back and try again—”
His red eyes flashed. “That won’t be necessary. I don’t do second chances.”
I didn’t even have time to react before he had flung himself at me, his eyes glowing even redder and his teeth sharpening into fangs. The merman shouted and tried to shove him off, but the vampire flung him fifteen feet like it was nothing. My own struggles were also proving utterly useless, and the vampire threw me back to the ground and followed, immediately sinking his teeth into my neck, one hand finding its way to my mouth so that I couldn’t make a sound.
Pain exploded in my throat. See, vampires drinking your blood isn’t the same as, say, a mosquito doing it. Not just because they have bigger fangs, either—although that doesn’t help. It’s also because vampires don’t just suck out blood; they also suck out your very lifeforce with it. Bits of your soul. They don’t have one anymore, and it’s the soul combined with the blood that sustains them.
So it really hurts. Enough that once they get their teeth in, there’s not much you can do besides be overwhelmed by pain. Which I was. My vision was darkening around the edges, and I swear I could hear my heartbeat slowing. And yet, even as I knew that he was seconds away from killing me, I couldn’t do anything about it. My limbs felt heavy, like they were held down by a layer of bricks.
Henri’s going to be so mad, I thought as my consciousness began to slip. I wonder what that merman’s name was…
And then there was a ear-splitting screech, and the vampire was thrown off me with such force that he landed halfway down the path. A flash of something dark brown flew over my head after him.
Wincing, holding a hand to my neck to slow the bleeding, I rolled onto my side to see what was happening.
The vampire was on the ground, flailing madly, and on top of him was a griffin. A real, honest-to-God griffin, just like how you’d probably picture one, just like the griffins on my uncle’s crest. It was beautiful, in a terrifying kind of way, and as I watched, it screeched furiously in the vampire’s face.
I almost expected it to tear him apart, and I think it considered it for a second, but after a moment, it shook its head and backed away. It glanced back at me—I saw the familiar lilac eyes—before dissolving into smoke of the same color, and then Henri, appearing as he usually did, stepped out.
He knelt over the vampire, who looked at him with wide eyes. “You have violated the number one rule of Griffin’s Edge: do not harm any patrons,” he said, his voice deeper and more menacing than I’d ever heard it. “You have not only harmed someone, but you have made the mistake of harming my nephew.” He grabbed the vampire by the neck, his large hand enclosing its throat hard enough that it made a strangled choking noise. “You are banned from this establishment. If I ever see you here again, I’ll finish what I started.” He leaned closer, though I could still his furious words. “I could kill you before you even get a chance to flash those fangs. Don’t you forget it.”
He released the vampire, who staggered to his feet and ran away, suddenly looking very pathetic as he glanced back at Henri in fear before vanishing into the fog.
Uncle Henri sighed and got to his feet, making his way over to me. He gently pushed my hand away to see my neck; my fingers were sticky with blood. “Could be worse,” he murmured. “He’s lucky he didn’t do more damage, or I’d follow through with that threat.” He rested one of his hands over the wound, and I felt warmth spread out from his fingers, a pleasant kind of warmth, as if I’d walked out into sunlight after hours of rain.
When he took his hand away a few seconds later, there was no more blood, and the fang marks were gone. I felt much better, too—the lightheadedness and pain in my neck had vanished.
“Thank you, Henri,” I whispered.
“Don’t thank me,” he said in his familiar gravelly voice. It was comforting to hear it. “Thank your friend over there.” He pointed behind us, and I looked—the merman! He stood there, looking sheepish, and gave a little wave. “I wouldn’t have known what was happening if he hadn’t come to get me.”
“Oh,” I said softly.
Henri pulled to my feet and gave me a stern look. “We’ll talk about what happened later,” he said, and somehow I knew he meant more than just the vampire attack. I had a sinking feeling he was also aware of me jumping again and endangering someone else by doing so. “Right now, I’m glad you’re okay. And I think you should thank your new friend.”
He strolled back inside, and I heard the snippets of laughter and music as the bar door swung open and shut behind him. This left me outside with only the merman.
Wordlessly, I sat down on the path, and he sank to the ground beside me. We watched as a human stumbled out of the fog ahead of us and continued on into the bar.
Finally, after several minutes of peaceful but awkward silence, we both tried to speak at the same time. “Thank you—” I started to say, simultaneously as he began, “Thank you—”
We looked at each other and burst out laughing. “I guess we saved each other today,” I said. “Does that make us even?”
“I think so,” he said. He grinned. “I’m Milo, by the way.”
He was holding out his hand to shake. I took it, finally noticing the way a shine of blue danced across his skin in the light from the bar. “Ian.”
We were best friends after that. Turns out it’s hard not to be, after you travel to two dimensions and both nearly get killed upon your first meeting.
He’s one of the only ones who knows as much as I do about, well, me. He visits Griffin’s Edge at least once a week, even though his sister long since gave up on dating humans and is now happily engaged to a fairy.
That was also one of the only times I’ve seen Henri in his true form. He’s a remarkably calm person; he doesn’t get angry very easily. But he takes the rules very seriously. He has to. They’re what keeps the bar civil, what allows all of our guests to coexist and drink together peacefully.
Plus, he cares about me. We may not be related by blood, but he is every inch my uncle.
And honestly, thank God for that.