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PROLOGUE
My heart thundered in my ears as I raced frantically up the hill. Behind me, I could hear the monster roaring. He was crashing through the trees as I tried to keep ahead of him, his heavy footsteps shaking the ground and making me trip over my own feet.
“Get back here! Intruder! Trespasser!” he thundered, hurting my ears with his deep voice.
I gasped in terror as I tried to keep ahead of him. But he was at least seven feet tall and his legs were so much longer than mine! Oh God, what did he want with me? Why wouldn’t he leave me alone?
I had never dreamed when the magic door appeared in my apartment that it would lead me into such danger. Why had I opened it? Why hadn’t I stayed home?
I had no answers and the monster’s roaring was getting louder in my ears. If only I could go back in time—just an hour ago I had been safe in my own apartment, wondering how in the world I was going to pay my rent. Yes, it was stressful, but it was a hell of a lot better than being chased by a huge green monster with glowing green eyes and tusks!
If only I could go back, but it was too late now—I was through the looking glass and my dull existence in the human world was nothing but a distant memory…
CHAPTER ONE
It was only February but I was already over everything.
To be fair, it had been a rough year so far. The month before, I had lost my main job, copywriting for The Home Shopping Network. (Yes, they are still around.)
I used to write smarmy little blurbs for tons of their crappy products. “Rugged, yet luxurious, this durable tote duo, made with rich Corinthian leather, will be the last luggage you’ll ever need to buy. Available in Brawny Brown, Elephant Grey, or Bible Black.” Or, “Sleep like a baby in this Concierge Collection Three Piece Stonewashed Cotton Coverlet set. Edged in hand-finished lace, this set is both the essence of elegance and the soul of slumber.”
There was a little more to it than that, but you get the idea. Anyway in the beginning of January, the Powers That Be at HSN decided that they didn’t need me—or any of the other copywriters—anymore. They fired us all and installed an AI program which saved them a ton of money. Happy New Year!
The deal might have saved my old employer a ton but it lost me most of my income. I still had some web design gigs I was working, but they weren’t enough to pay my rent—especially when it was set to double at the end of February. That’s right—double. So by the end of this month, I was going to have to come up with twice as much money to stay in my crappy studio apartment with half as much income coming in.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage it and the stress was keeping me up late every night. If I didn’t find some new online gigs soon, I was going to have to go out into the big, bad world and get a job dealing with people in person.
The thought twisted my gut into knots. I have social anxiety and just the idea of working on the outside made me feel sick. Hell, I can’t even manage making phone calls—let alone talking to people face-to-face. It’s my worst nightmare.
Okay, so I’m kind of a shut-in, but it’s not like I’m some crazy old hoarder lady who talks to herself. My tiny apartment is reasonably neat and I don’t collect cardboard boxes or old magazines. I just prefer my own company—that’s all.
And anyway, there’s nothing worth seeing outside. I live in Central Florida where it’s hot and humid ninety percent of the year and the minute you go out of the door you feel like you’re melting. Seriously, the under-boob sweat is no joke, especially for a top-heavy, curvy girl like me. So I just stay in my apartment with my AC cranked up and work remotely on my laptop. I have my cat Sebastian for company and that’s as social as I want to get.
If only my rent hadn’t doubled, I might have been able to make it. I had a little saved back—a very little—in case of emergencies. But my emergency fund wouldn’t last long under the current conditions.
And it wasn’t like I could appeal to my landlord—my apartment building was managed by a corporate conglomerate—a faceless, soulless entity owned by some billionaire who was probably using the rent increase to build his fourth mansion in the Bahamas or buy his fifth yacht. If I didn’t manage to come up with the money, I would probably get a form eviction letter in the mail and find my locks changed the next time I ventured out for groceries.
Yes, I do go out for groceries. You can get them delivered, but that costs a lot more. Ditto for take-out—not that I can afford it very often—but I go out to pick that up too. (Have you seen the price of Door Dash and Uber Eats lately?)
The point is, I’m not a total shut-in. Poverty forces me out into the world—I just hoped it wouldn’t force me into getting one of those dreaded face-to-face jobs. Ugh.
But the job search on-line wasn’t turning up very much—I’d picked up a few more gigs but nothing that would totally make the rent at the end of the month, even if I lived exclusively on Ramen noodles.
At that moment, when I was just about to totally despair, I heard a knock at the door of my apartment. The sound made me flinch and my heart immediately jumped into my throat. I don’t like people at my door—most of my regular delivery guys know to just knock once, leave the package, and go.
The knock sounded again, however—an impatient rat-ta-tat-tat—letting me know that whoever it was, wasn’t going to take “no” for an answer. I would have to take a deep breath and just hope they didn’t want me to talk much—or at all.
As I went to the door, I passed by the small oval mirror which was one of the few things I had left from my Mom’s house. A curvy woman with a long nose, thick dark hair, and pale grey eyes looked back. My Dad was Greek and I inherited my hair from him—it’s coarse and wavy and so thick that I get it thinned when I can afford to. But I hadn’t had any extra money to visit my regular stylist lately, so it was kind of a long, wavy mess around my head.
The woman in the mirror looked pale and unhappy—exactly how I felt. Lately the whole damn world was beginning to feel like a trap. Or maybe more like one of those hamster wheels where you’re running and running and never getting anywhere—just wearing yourself out trying to stay in one place and not get flung off.
The knock sounded a third time—even more impatient this time. Whoever it was, they were getting pissed off. Dealing with an angry stranger was even worse than dealing with a stranger in the first place. I took a breath and put my hand on the knob.
I can do this, I told myself. I can do this, I can do this…
When I opened the door, an irritated-looking little man with bushy eyebrows drawn low was staring back at me. And I do mean little. I’m only five-four myself and he was at least a head shorter than me. He had sharp eyes so green I wondered if maybe he was wearing colored contact lenses. There was a thick red beard on his chin, but no mustache. The strange facial hair configuration made him look oddly Amish and he was wearing a green uniform.
“About time!” he barked in a surprisingly deep voice when I finally opened the door. “I was thinking maybe you were after making me wait all the live-long day!”
