The longer Rube was gone, the greater the temptation became.  Jeanette really, really wanted to find out what was at the top of those stairs.  Or at least find out how high you could go before the air got too thin.

The air down here was warm and still around her.  The only sound was a few insects buzzing and a couple of birds squabbling in the distance.  Jeanette sat on the grass, resting her elbow on one of the lower steps, which felt nice and cool against her arm.  Rube was taking her sweet time getting back.  Sally must have wanted to talk about something.  Hopefully it wasn’t because the moth had died.

Rube hadn’t wanted Jeanette to put her weight on the staircase in case it collapsed and she hurt herself.  And Jeanette didn’t want to make Rube worry (any more than her natural baseline level of worry, which was honestly pretty high.)  But Rube wasn’t here.  And what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her, right?

By way of experiment, Jeanette pulled herself up against the staircase, using one the higher steps as a chin-up bar.  She didn’t quite dare to leave the ground- Rube had kind of had a point- but she got onto tiptoe before relaxing back into position.  She tried it again, pushing down on the surface of the step beforehand to see if she noticed any shaking or cracking.  Nothing.

Feeling a little guilty, Jeanette stepped away from the staircase and looked at the path to see if there was any sign of Rube and Sally yet.  She watched it for three whole minutes, counting out the seconds in her head, before turning back to the staircase and putting her foot on the bottom step.

Jeanette had spent the previous day hot, uncomfortable and sticky in the back of a series of cramped vehicles.  She’d spent most of the three months before that either in school listening to lectures about smart targets and positive attitudes, or sleeping over at Soraya’s and listening to Monessa sing that song about Yogi Bear having a cheesy knob for the eightieth time in a row.  Now that she finally had access to something new and interesting, she intended to make the most of it.

She went slowly, spreading her arms out slightly to keep her balance. If it started to creak or wobble, she could always turn around and go back the way she came.  And as long as it didn’t…

The thing was, Jeanette had imagined things like this when she was little.  Climbing up an enchanted beanstalk until you reached a giant’s kingdom in the clouds.  Shooting up to the sky on the back of a dragon or a Pegasus or a giant bird.  Leaving the land behind and climbing up to something better.  She’d never thought she’d actually be able to do it, but she’d always hoped.

There were no clouds in the sky.  There was nothing ahead of her but pure blue.

At some point, she stopped for a rest.  There still wasn’t any creaking or swaying, and the air still seemed breathable (Jeanette assumed that if it wasn’t, she’d find out pretty quickly.)  If her legs hadn’t started aching, it probably wouldn’t have occurred to her to stop at all.

At a guess, she’d have said that she’d been climbing for more than five minutes, but less than twenty.  She knew better than to swear to that, though.  Every story she’d ever heard about places like this said that they could make time work differently whenever they liked.

Supernatural places.  Magical places.

Jeanette sat down on the stairs, and looked over the side.  She could still see Uncle Colwyn’s house.  She couldn’t see the streets and roads that were supposed to be around it, though.  Instead, there were just walls, and paths, and the places they led to.

A lot of it was green- rolling hills and fields, like a solid background keeping it all together.  But to the left was a dark, tangled forest where the trees didn’t seem to have a single leaf between them, and a little way behind it was a wide blue lake surrounded by little cabins.  To the right were buildings that looked as if they were made out of diamonds.  Behind them were mountains, blending into the sky with blues and whites and purples, and cable cars travelling from peak to peak.  And all over the place, things were flying.  Jeanette could see colourful flecks trailing across the landscape, too far away for her to make out any details.

She thought, I want to stay here looking at this for the rest of my life.

She couldn’t, obviously.  She needed to get back down before Rube got back, and tell her and Sally what she’d seen.  But she couldn’t bring herself to move.  Because what if she left, and by the time she got back with Rube and Sally it was all gone?  And then she spent the rest of her life thinking about it, doing her best to remember every detail, but she never got to see it again?

She could just wait here.  When Rube and Sally got to the bottom of the steps and found her gone, they were bound to work out where she was and come up to find her.

No.  Bad idea.  Even if they did work it out eventually, Rube would have two or three nervous breakdowns before they did.  Jeanette didn’t want to do that to her.

She stared at the landscape for a few more minutes, committing it to memory.  Then she stood up and made her way back down.

Patreon!