Patterns Under Glass (A Yarn That Binds the Universe)

Jackie Hernandez was a normal teenage girl until she was zapped through a portal to a fantastical world of elves and sylvan and magic and other remarkable people and things. And now that she knows what the rest of the universe looks like, she can't go back home. Now she's in her late 20's and working at a museum and is still pretty gosh darn normal. Turns out the existence of magic doesn't preclude civilization, at large, from trundling along through the normal course of technological innovation. Working as a historian in one of the premier research museums on her current planet of residence, Jackie gets to see ancient history of the connected worlds of The District pass in front of her on a daily basis.

Her life of toolmarks and carbon dating is about to get a little more complex when a possibly universe-altering artifact appears in a private collection. A party invitation quickly turns into a quagmire of gray-market antiquities dealers, supremacist groups, and competing religious fundamentalists. With a new, scaled friend (maybe more?) can she rise above the ocean of new information without drowning? Because when whole civilizations can move between worlds through magical bridges, learning the true history of the universe becomes more than any one person can discover on their own.

First in a series. Roughly 30k words long.

Ashe Thurman's science fiction, fantasy, queer romance, and horror can be found in Flash Fiction Online, with anthologies produced by Cinnabar Moth Publishing, and other independent publications.

They enjoy telescopes, fresh herbs, and long-winded PowerPoint presentations about extremely dumb topics. They live in Texas with their husband and cats.