Claire found the hat half under a bush, half out. It was the sort of hat one might wear while working in the garden — woven straw and wide-brimmed. Claire turned the hat in her hands. The top had been torn out, leaving ragged edges and a large hole.

She flipped the hat over — and it took a moment for her mind to resolve what she saw. All around her it was broad daylight, but looking down through the hole in the hat revealed a landscape cast in night’s shadow. Night, in a place that was other.

It was like a window into another world, or maybe more like a periscope. When Claire moved, that other landscape moved in concert. When she turned, that other place turned, and she saw a world much like her own and yet different in some indefinable way.

She brought the hat down to the ground so to reach through, pluck a blade of grass, and pull it back when a voice, solemn and sad, caused her to gasp and nearly drop the hat.

“I wouldn’t do that were I you. Stuff really shouldn’t cross between our two worlds.”

[Originally posted on Ficly.]

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