2- Inside the Magicians Tree

James and Leon stood in the center of the large space provided within the tree, Leon stared at James with the corners of his mouth curved upwards in a smile, as if oblivious or indifferent to the exhaustion spread across the man in front of him.

“This isn’t real,” James said, more to himself than Leon.

“Seems awfully real to me.” Leon frowned.

“It can't be possible. You’re not real.”

“And I must repeat myself, it seems awfully real to-“

James walked off before he could finish, his head was in his hands, which grabbed clumps of his long black hair.

“What is this?” He muttered to himself when he reached the wall which had just created an opening for them.

It looked nothing like the inside of a tree, James thought to himself, the wall didn’t seem to be made of wood when he knocked against it, it was harder on the knuckles and sounded more akin to metal. Though it likely wasn’t that either for the ringing that knocking on it left wasn’t a clink or clang, but more of a resonant bang loud enough to make you think James threw his entire body against the wall.

“It's a tree,” Leon said as if it was obvious, now directly behind him.

“How is this possible?” James asked, again mostly to himself.

“Well, it was nothing but a spell.”

James turned around to look at the magician again, who now held his wand and lightly tapped it against his own shoulder.

“Where am I?” He asked, for the moment ignoring the peculiar qualities of the character in front of him.

“I suppose it doesn’t have a name.” Leon arched his eyebrows and tilted his head to the side as he looked around. “But what matters most is that it is safe, wouldn’t you agree? That safety surely takes precedence over knowing every little detail of every little second that belongs to every little minute?”

“Safe from what? What was that out there?”

“Heavens if I know, that beast was after you.”

“You’ve never seen it before?” Whatever relief he had when initially saved diminished more by the second the longer he observed the character in front of him.

“Nope.” Leon shook his head before pressing the tip of the wand against his chin and continuing. “In Everseen, we have fairies and dragons and griffons and magicians and elves and dwarves and goblins and-“

“Please.” James lifted an exhausted hand in objection. “Just stop.”

“The point I’m making is even in the most ruthless of dragons and barbaric of goblins, never have I seen such a creature. And I am quite well-traveled.”

“I don’t think I’ve heard of that place you said, Everseen. But none of those things you’ve mentioned are real” James spat out. “Who are you?”

“Must I repeat myself?” The most phenomenal magician known to man? The-“

“This can’t be real.” James interrupted again. “I’m asleep. I dozed off on the subway and dreamed of this.”

“A compelling story.” Leon rubbed his chin. “But would things be this vivid? For this long, without you waking up?”

“Maybe. It could.” He said uncertainly as he hadn’t experienced such dreams ever before.”

“Well in that case.” Leon waved his hand at the wall behind him, and a slit began to form again, showing the green landscape beyond the walls.

“What are you doing?” James asked, but Leon’s response wasn’t heard, it was felt when
Leon jabbed his hand at James’ back and shoved him to the outside, then skipped over the wall and closed his eyes, tilting his head and allowing the corners of his mouth to pull upwards at the sunlight he bathed in.

“I’m helping. Do people not wake up from their dreams when killed? Oh! There they come.” Leon pulled the brim of his hat further over his eyebrows to shield himself from the sunlight and pointed in front of James.

In the distance, approaching rapidly, so rapidly that a storm of dirt had been activated behind it, James through squinted eyes saw the cloaked figure from before running towards them on all fours.

“We need to go.” James grabbed at Leon’s sleeve and pulled him back towards the large tree.

“No, no. If you fell asleep on the train you'd best not miss your stop.” He pressed his hand between James’s upper back and coaxed him forward.

James wriggled out of the magician's touch and spun away.

“You’re insane.” He said, looking frantically between the magician and oncoming charge., slowly becoming aware that the quickened pace of his heartbeat, the scents of freshly trimmed grass, and the emotion itself felt all too real for a simple dream.

“So is it a dream or not, James? Make your choice.” He held his wand out and pointed it towards the cloaked figure, who grew closer by the second. James estimated it wouldn’t be any longer than fifteen seconds until he would be attacked and quickly made his decision.

“It’s real.” He held eye contact with Leon, who flashed a smile.

“Very well.” Leon, who still pointed the wand at the figure, rotated his wrist in short circles. James watched, panicked, as the figure grew closer, and flinched back when it leaped towards him, and while it was airborne James saw her face.

She was a woman, James could tell that much, with matted brown hair, and strands of it that clung to her cheeks and jaw, but that was hardly what James focused on.

The woman’s eyes had sunken in to where they were hardly visible, and black spots surrounded her eye sockets in a stark contrast to her ghastly pale skin, which had the same appearance of porcelain on a doll.

And then she was gone. Not before an invisible force slammed into her midsection and sent her flying backwards. But before she could even land Leon had already grabbed hold of James and dragged him back inside, with the wall resealing itself shut shortly after.

“Wow,” Leon said and laughed aloud. “What a fright.” He said in between breaths.

“It was a woman,” James said leaning back against the wall and letting out a deep breath.

“Yes, you haven’t seen one before?” Leon said with a light chuckle, which slowly quieted itself when James glared at him.

“It’s just, she looked human.”

“She likely was, before being cursed by whatever witch she must’ve offended. Or devil she dealt a deal with.”

“That doesn’t happen in my world, only in books.”

“I’m not so sure you still are in your world, James.”

“And where else would this be?”

Leon stared at him for a prolonged moment before shrugging his shoulders carelessly.

“What matters is you’re here and seemingly being hunted, by whoever that may be." He waved his hand towards the outside.

“Will you help me get back, then?”

“Your home,” Leon asked, without needing to see the nod from James. “I suppose it would be a magician's duty to do so.”

James allowed himself to smile, one that showed traces of the immense relief that flooded his body.

“Thank you.” He nodded once more and loosely shook his arms, trying to release any lingering worries.

“We'd better leave without wasting any more time then, she’ll likely be stunned still and we can get a good head start.”

“What will we have to do?”

“Find where you first appeared here. I can likely reopen the portal, or at least create a new one that will send you back.”

“And it will work?”

“You'd better hope, unless you wish to be stuck with me.”

James buried the desire to shudder at the thought, deciding that Leon was much better as a stranger to reminisce about thirty or so years from now instead of growing old alongside.

“Are you ready?” Leon asked, in front of the wall with his wand extended.

“Let’s go.” James fixed his eyes on the spot at the wall that began to open, burying the various emotions that fought to overcome his being.

A silence greeted them both as they re-immersed themselves outside. And James stood still once the tree sealed behind him, staring in the direction that the stunned woman was sent. He couldn’t hear any rampant approaching footsteps nor see any bloated clouds of dust and dirt, and once fully confident they were alone- at least for the moment- he rejoined Leon’s side.

They crept through the grass quickly, their knees slowly bent as they hurried towards where Leon had first found him. But everything had seemingly changed, as become a small pattern in James' life recently.

There were once bushes, but now, thin trees with branches of the same caliber took their place. And where there were once trees, there were now beds of lilacs and roses and teal flowers James had never seen before.

But regardless Leon had moved as if not a thing was different from before, and effortlessly maneuvered through swaths of flora and rows of trees with jutting branches that served as small obstacles in their own right.

“Should be easy,” Leon remarked with a smile. James hid a smile too, when Leon waved his wand again and the branches that blocked them had twisted in their own unique ways, all removing themselves from the path, with some wrapping around the tree they were attached to and others taking sharp rights or lefts.

Leon delivered a bow and remarked about how great he was as the magician from Everseen before leading James down the path.

James’ heart began to race, and murmurs of excitement manifested in the form of goosebumps that traveled up his arms. He hadn’t woken up that morning expecting to end up in a mysterious forest where a magician whom he still wasn’t sure was a figment of his imagination or just a man from a completely different world, but there was a very quiet excitement about it all.

It was a small clearing that they ended up in, trees circled it and while none were as impressive in size as the one James had sought refuge, they were all the largest batch James had ever seen.

“This seems to be right.” Leon pointed his wand at a part of the ground which seemed otherwise prosaic to James.

“How can you tell?”

“There are traces of magic practically screaming for me to find it. Think of it like a beacon.”

James nodded his head although he had virtually no energy left to even try understanding what he meant.

“Alright,” Leon said quietly to himself. He went through the motion of small circles three times clockwise, then after three counter-clockwise, and to finish the dramatic movement poked it forward the way a swordsman would with their weapon.

And nothing happened.

James watched as Leon raised his brows and his lips parted slightly.

“Any second now.” He said with a nod, though his efforts did little to reassure James. “It sometimes takes a moment, if a magician my age is tired and all.” He added, more quietly.

And moments passed, and again nothing happened.

“I suppose it’ll be best to try again.” And again he tried. And again, nothing happened.

“You said it would be easy.” James looked around nervously.

“Yes, and this is as easy a spell as any for someone with my experience.” James could hear the slight bits of annoyance in his voice.

And then something happened, a loud, startling something. Quite the opposite of what either man would’ve wanted. Branches and twigs snapped and crumpled off behind one of the trees.

“Leon.” James heard his voice waver.

“I know.” He turned around and held the wand in the direction of the noise. And then another one came, from behind both of them this time. And then again, from one of their sides, and then again, from the opposite side.

And James saw the woman they had run from crawl forward into the clearing while the noise around them still rang out.

They were surrounded.