In the last eight years, the MacTavish family had moved 21 times. The first happened with very little fanfare. One night, Jason and his parents were sitting around the dinner table eating macaroni and cheese; the next, they were discussing the differences between Iowa and Illinois. The night after that, the five year-old boy was in the backseat of the family’s Toyota hatchback, surrounded by boxes and halfway to Des Moines.

As far as Jason could tell, there was no reason for their sudden departure. It wasn’t as if his parents were military officers, or top-secret government scientists, or hawkers in a traveling freakshow. His dad Paul MacTavish was a dog food salesman. He bought surplus from dog food companies, then sold it direct to pet stores. He could name and price over 40 different varieties of dog food. He liked to joke that he knew more about dog food than the animals themselves.

Jason’s mom Patricia, meanwhile, was a Certified Public Accountant, which meant she managed other people’s money. It was an occupation that required very little imagination, and Patricia excelled at it. Jason would find her sometimes staring off into space, and when he’d ask what she was thinking, she’d say, “Oh, I was just doing sums.”

After that first move, the MacTavish family became as transient as a tumbleweed. Every few months or so, they’d bounce to a new city or state, his parents always citing a perfectly reasonable excuse: Patricia’s CPA license had expired, the dog food manufacturers had switched recipes, the Arizona climate would be better for their son’s allergies. Jason’s life became a blur of teachers, classrooms, and unfamiliar faces. He was perpetually known as ‘the New Kid’. He had to carry his locker combination and home address in his pocket because they changed so often.

The constant moving and his poor health made it difficult for Jason to find friends. His weak constitution prevented nearly all outdoor activities, and his food allergies made eating anywhere a challenge. The minute he did manage to befriend someone, his parents seemed to pick up and move again. His classmates promised to stay in touch, but their emails and text messages soon dried up. Eventually, Jason didn’t even bother to meet new people. Instead, he would play video games, or spend hours reading at the library, or draw complex blueprints for tree houses he would never get to build. It was a lonely existence, but by the time he turned 12, Jason had grown used to it.

There was only one person the boy considered a real friend: his Uncle Mike. Michael Lewis Stevenson was in his mid-thirties, and made his living as a photographer. He was a big, chubby man who always kept his curly red hair tied in a ponytail and had a booming, confident voice. He traveled to exotic and dangerous locales, spoke more languages than Jason could count, and wore a triangular black patch over his left eye socket. His arms were inked with strange tattoos, and a silver ring dangled from his right ear.

Despite his busy schedule, Uncle Mike went out of his way to stay in contact with his nephew. They had regular conversations via Facetime, and he sent monthly emails inquiring after Jason’s progress in school, his impressions of his most recent home, and his interest in books. He was the only adult Jason felt he could talk to as an equal.

So it was only natural that, after he’d found his way out of the woods, made the long walk home, and eaten a gluten, peanut, and corn-free dinner with his parents, Jason called his uncle on Facetime. Mike was in Africa at the time, so Jason hoped he wasn’t still asleep.

“Habari za asubuhi, kiddo!” his uncle’s bearded, smiling face appeared in the window. “That’s Swahili for ‘good morning.’ How’s it hanging over there in … Kansas? Iowa?”

“Ohio,” Jason replied sourly. “We moved here a couple weeks ago.”

“I know it’s no fun, but trust me, your folks have your best interests in mind. Don’t tell me you’d prefer Pennsylvania?”

“It’s not that.” As quickly as possible, Jason told his uncle what he’d seen in the forest puddle, leaving out the part about being chased by three bigger kids on dirt bikes. “So what do you think?” he finished. “Have you ever, you know – seen stuff like that?”

Mike’s face froze. Jason couldn’t tell if his uncle was stunned, or it was simply a poor connection. He was just about to ask when Mike spoke. His voice sounded strangled. “You’re positive it was a seaport you saw in that puddle? Buncha pipes criss-crossing through the buildings? Ships in the background?”

“Yeah. I could smell the ocean and everything.”

Uncle Mike whooped, clapping his hands. “You know how long I’ve been waiting for this?! I was beginning to think you might never catch a glimpse of Tellis!”

The strange word vibrated in Jason’s head like the clang of a bell. “Tellis?”

“Tellis,” said Mike. “Tellis and Earth, they’re like two sides of the same coin. The tails to Earth’s heads, the yin to its yang, the chocolate to its peanut butter. But instead of science and reason, Tellis runs on magic.”

He paused for a reaction. Jason merely blinked, so Mike continued. “Everything there has some magic in it. The people, the food, but above all, the creatures. We have office buildings and automobiles; Tellis has flying castles and sea monsters. Matter of fact, every weird, mysterious, fantastic notion on Earth – gnomes, fairies, vampires – they’re all based on something that comes from Tellis.”

Again, Jason simply stared. Doggedly, his uncle pressed on. Unlike the fantasy stories his nephew had read, the magic of Tellis came from a single source: flow. As Mike explained it, flow was a basic element there, along with the usual fire, water, air, and earth. It moved through the ground, twisted through oceans, even floated in droplets on the air. Flow could also be found in every living creature born in Tellis. The more flow a being contained, the more strange and powerful it was likely to be. It was the most valuable, versatile substance in that world, able to be converted into food, used as a weapon, or combined with other objects to give them special properties. It all depended on how it was processed.

“Hellooo?” said Uncle Mike when his nephew still didn’t respond. “You takin’ all this in, kiddo, or did somebody zap you with a freeze ray?”

Jason blinked. His uncle always told fun stories, but magic? Sea monsters? Flow?? It was ridiculous. As he was trying to formulate a way to say that without hurting Mike’s feelings, the big man spoke.

“I know, it sounds ridiculous. You’re thinking, ‘Uncle Mike’s finally gone ‘round the bend, spewing this nonsense about some magic world that no one’s ever heard of.’ Am I right?”

The eighth grader was torn. He’d read plenty of books, had a B average in school, and even listened occasionally to NPR – he knew if there were some kind of portal to a magic world out there, it would have been placed under lock and key long ago, most likely by the military. A normal kid like him, with a dog food salesman and a CPA for parents, would never get the chance to actually see it. But he liked his uncle. “Uh … I wouldn’t say ‘around the bend’, exactly, but maybe … nearby it?”

“Ha! A politic answer if I ever I heard one. I see my sister’s been raising you well. But what if I were to show you, O Cynical Nephew, that Tellis actually exists?”

Jason snorted. Clearly, Mike was trying to pull his leg now. But the look on his uncle’s face was deadly serious. “Think I’m trying to prank you, huh? Okay. How ‘bout I come out for your 13th birthday, and take you to the port of Nauticaa myself?”

“Seriously? That’s in, like, five days.”

“Not a prob, nephew. There’s a whole lot more I need to tell you about Tellis, anyway, and your relation to it. But that’s more of an in-person convo.” His uncle checked his watch. “Shoot, I’m late for the tribal protest. Let’s keep this between you and me for now, huh? Your mom isn’t a big fan of Tellis. In the meantime, keep your weather-eye peeled and your ears pricked.” The big man waved, and the tiny computer window went dark.

Three days passed, but there was no more word from Uncle Mike. Not about Tellis, Jason’s birthday, or anything else. Emailed questions to his uncle got no response. The teenager tried to look up ‘Tellis’ himself online, but couldn’t find any mention of the name. He returned to the puddle several times, but never saw anything other than evergreen branches in its glassy surface. He began to question whether his uncle wasn’t playing some elaborate hoax on him after all. The hours ticked on by, and soon Jason’s birthday was only one day away.

Desperate, Jason pumped his parents for answers over dinner. “Have you guys heard from Uncle Mike? He said he was coming for my 13th birthday.”

His parents looked at each other. “I don’t want to burst your bubble, honey,” Patricia said carefully, “But you know how … busy your uncle can be. I haven’t heard a peep from him in weeks, so don’t be disappointed if he doesn’t make it.”

Jason took a pull off his inhaler, staring glumly out the rain-spotted kitchen window. His mom wasn’t wrong; Mike had always called before he came to visit. Perhaps, after all his travels to dangerous parts of the world, Jason’s uncle had finally gotten into real trouble. Maybe he’d been arrested. Or taken for ransom. Or maybe he was laying in a ditch somewhere, blind and bleeding and unable to contact anyone. The image was chilling, and it stayed with Jason all through the night.

His 13th birthday dawned gray and rainy. Jason spent the entire school day on pins and needles, hoping every time he turned a corner to see his uncle’s curly red hair, or suddenly spot the big man’s burly silhouette waving at him from outside a classroom window. But it never happened. Jason went home, ate lactose and wheat-free pizza for dinner, then opened a few presents from Paul and Patricia. He trudged upstairs, took his usual complement of almost a dozen vitamins, pills, and allergy meds, then spent the next two hours watching his clock. By 11:55 p.m., it looked like his mom was right – Uncle Mike wasn’t coming.

Crushed, Jason crawled into bed, staring at the steady fall of rain outside his window. His uncle was unpredictable, to be sure, but he had never failed to deliver on a promise before. And yet here it was, only one minute until Jason’s birthday was officially over, and there was still no sign of –

SLAP! Something heavy and wet hit the window pane, making him jump. It had sounded suspiciously like a fin. But that was impossible; his bedroom was on the second floor and the nearest body of water was –

SLAP SLAP! There it was again. His heart pounding, Jason reached over and pulled back the curtain. Something pulsated on the outside windowsill. It was about a foot and a half tall, bell-shaped, and covered in a delicate, see-through membrane. It looked like a jellyfish, if a jellyfish could fly through the air. The creature slowly expanded and contracted. Breathing. Whatever it was, it was clearly alive.

Slowly, the eighth grader scooted to the edge of his bed. So far, so good. The creature remained where it was. Jason put one foot on the floor, then another. He stretched a hand toward the window –

And the jellyfish sprang away, flying off into the rain. Jason threw open the window. Rain poured into his bedroom. “Hey!” he shouted into the dark. “Come back!”

But whatever the thing was, it was long gone. It had, however, left something behind on the windowsill. It was the size of a textbook, and wrapped in a water-repellant, blue-green oilskin. Exotic, strange stamps covered the top corner – a spine-covered sea monster, a grey-skinned merman, and a haughty but beautiful woman with acid green hair. Jason brushed raindrops from the paper, peering at the return address. His eyes widened in shock.

The package was from Uncle Mike.