The Moomins were long awake before Sam was and when she did wake up and came downstairs, instead of wearing the dress she was wearing yesterday, she was wearing her pants and shirt that the two kids found her in.
"Thank you, Mrs. Moomin, for cleaning my clothes," Sam said, finding the family hanging out in the living room, "I'm sorry to say that, that dress just wasn't very comfortable."
"Yes. Later I will ask you to let me take your measurements so that I can make you some new clothes," Moominmamma said.
"Oh, there's no need for that," Sam said, "I'll be leaving your guy's care soon after I book a flight back to Germany. Mr. Moomin do you happen to have a phonebook? Hopefully?"
The Moomin family looked between themselves.
"You should probably sit down," Little My said as she hopped off the couch and stood next to where Moomintroll was sitting.
Sam went to sit between Moomintroll and Moominmamma on the couch and as she did, she scrutinized the family.
"What's going on?"
"First we want you to know that you are welcome to stay here for as long as you like," Moominpappa said.
"But if you want to leave, you can of course," Moomintroll said.
"Alright, what bad news are you guys trying not to tell me," Sam asked, her annoyance covering up her anxiety.
Little My looked at the three Moomins then she sighed and said, "Alright. I'll tell her then."
Little My then told Sam that she was stuck in this universe according to The Witch.
"I don't understand," Sam said, her face blank.
"Oh, honey," Moominmamma said as she took Sam's right hand in both of hers, "I know this is going to be difficult for you, but The Witch is a wise and powerful woman. If she says you are incapable of leaving our universe then that's that. How are you feeling?"
Her face still blank, Sam said, "I'd like to visit with this Witch."
"Well, that's good, cause she wants to visit with you too," Moomintroll said.
She stood up, took her hand back, and said without any emotion, "Alright let's go."
As she was walking towards the front door, Moomintroll asked, "Wait? Don't you want to eat anything before—"
"—I said let's go," Sam said more aggressively, prompting Moomintroll to stand up and run to the front door that she was already walking out of.
Moominmamma and Moominpappa looked down at Little My who was watching the two teenagers leave. She felt their eyes on her and she gave them a questioning, what, look. They motioned for her to follow them.
She clicked her tongue, then said, "Alright. Fine." Then she walked out the front door and closed it behind her, leaving the two adults alone.
Moominmamma got up from the couch and said, "I suppose I'll pick out the cloth I'll make her clothes from."
Moominpappa got up too from the lounge chair and said, "I'll go chop some wood then."
Snufkin was fishing on the bridge when he saw the strange human, he's heard so much about yesterday. He saw how mad she looked, and he felt compelled to move out of her way, but he stayed put. Following behind her was Moomintroll and following behind him was Little My. As she stomped behind him over the bridge Snufkin tried to ask Moomintroll if he was alright but was interrupted by the human angrily asking which way The Witch was. Moomintroll stumbled to answer her question, clearly scared, and Snufkin didn't like that.
As Little My walked up to him, he said, "I take it that you told her about her situation."
"Yep," she said as she walked past him.
"I don't like how she's treating Moomin," Snufkin said, "I don't care what her situation is."
Little My could only shrug as she continued to follow the duo.
It was past noon by the time it took them to reach The Witch's Cabin.
"Okay so what we have to do next is—Ack!" Moomintroll shouted in panic when he saw Sam walk straight up to The Witch's Cabin without the proper etiquette of walking backwards first.
"This'll be good," Little My said while Sam banged on The Witch's front door.
The door opened and The Witch said, "Who dares to bang on my front door!"
The Witch then looked up at Sam, surprised by her height and surprised by how trollish but not trollish she looked. The stories from her youth described a man who looked like a beast and she was expecting that of Sam as well, and she thought that those human fossil museums that she's been to are wrong about what humans looked like as living beings.
"Why would you say that I can't get home," Sam asked, her voice raised, "I got here easily, why can't I just leave just as easily?"
The Witch closed the door behind her and looked back up at her, saying, "I'll let your rude attitude slide this once, since I understand that you're upset and the fact that you are not from around here, but however you managed to get here, it was an accident. Whatever type of door you fell through to get here was only one way. There's no magic, no money, no blood, and no sacrifice that will allow you to get back to the universe that you came from. You'll just have to get used to living here."
Sam crossed her arms and glared straight ahead, thinking hard.
"What's your name," The Witch asked.
Little My was starting to get board at this point and Moomintroll was watching on with baited breath, worried that Sam might get cursed.
"Sam," she said.
"Right. I remember now. Are you wondering why I wanted to visit with you?" The Witch asked her.
"Not really, I'm still hung up on trying to figure out a way back home," she answered.
Little My snorted. She was hoping Sam would get cursed at this point.
"I see," The Witch said, far too patiently, "I wanted to visit with you to ask if you'd like to become my apprentice and learn magic from me."
"And why would you want a complete stranger to learn magic from you, Ma'am," Sam asked, finally looking down at the old woman.
"Ever since I was little, I liked the novel idea of having an interdimensional being studying under me," The Witch said
"Mmm. I'm not really in the mind set for wanting to learn magic," Sam told her.
"That's fine. I'm willing to wait for you. Just don't take so long that I'll end up dead in my bed by the time you come back to visit with me," The Witch said.
Sam nodded her head at her then turned around and walked towards Moomintroll and Little My. Moomintroll immediately grabbed Sam's arm to fling her in front of him quickly, then he started pushing her down the mountain side to get her to move away from The Witch's property as fast as he could. While that was happening, Little My was laughing at his antics and Sam's lack of a reaction towards him. Once the three of them had walked a mile away from The Witch's property, Moomintroll felt a bit better but he knew he'd feel a whole lot better once his home was within sight.
"Remember how to get to her place, okay, Sam, cause I do not want to go to her home more than what is necessary," Moomintroll said.
"Ah, you big baby, she didn't do anything," Little My said.
The two siblings talked to each other about what happened, with Moomintroll mostly being teased by Little My for another mile. Eventually Moomintroll asked Sam what she was going to do now and noticed the vacant, dead look on her face. He stopped walking and so did Little My, but Sam kept on walking and would have kept going if Little My hadn't of pulled on her pants leg.
"Sam," Moomintroll asked, trying to get her attention.
Sam looked at him and tears started to well up in her eyes. Then her voice cracking, she asked, "Is there really no other way for me to get home. I thought—I thought if…"
"Well," Moomintroll started to say.
"Don't be dense," Little My said, "You heard The Witch. You can't go back to the universe that you came from."
"Little My," Moomintroll said, chiding her.
"What!? She's going to have to go through this eventually," Little My said, "Might as well be sooner than later."
Moomintroll was about to say something but they were both interrupted by a raspy squeak as Sam strained to exhale from crying so hard. Hot tears were pouring out of her eyes and out of her left nostril as she mourned five different things at once. Sam was crying so hard that it was obvious that she could barely see the road in front of herself.
Little My grabbed Sam's left pant leg and said, "Come on. Grab her hand. We still have a long walk ahead of us."
With a sad sigh, Moomintroll grabbed Sam's right hand and they all walked together while Sam cried the whole way to the Moomin home.
The sun had almost finished setting. Snufkin was sitting on the railing of the bridge while playing on his harmonica. He was playing his harmonica through muscle memory, since ever since Moomin, My, and the human left for The Witch's place, he was thinking about what he was going to say to the human about her mistreatment of his best friend.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the three of them walking down the path. Snufkin put away his harmonica, hopped down from the bridge railing, adjusted his hat, and got ready to speak his mind as he walked up to them. As Snufkin got closer, he started to slow down until he was stopped in his tracks by how wretchedly the human was crying.
Moomintroll said a quick hello to him, but he continued to hold the human's hand to lead her back to his house. Little My let go of the human's leg to stand next to Snufkin as they watched them finish their last leg home.
"What happened," Little My asked smugly, "I thought you didn't care about her situation."
"It seems that anger is easier to keep when the other person is also angry," Snufkin stated after a pause.
"Welp. I don't know about you, but those berries we ate on our way back wasn't filling enough," Little My said as she started walking to the Moomin house, "I wonder what Moominmamma is making tonight."
Moominmamma was laying out bowls for the cream pea soup and baked potatoes that she made for dinner that night while Moominpappa was sampling the soup straight from the cooking pot when Moominmamma was distracted. They heard their front door open and together they went to greet the kids back.
"Welcome back kids," Moominpappa said.
Then they saw Sam crying.
"Oh dear," Moominmamma said.
"Help me get her to stop crying," Moomintroll said as his mother came over to hold Sam's other hand and they lead her to the kitchen, "She's been crying like this since we left The Witch's Cabin and I'm starting to worry if this is bad for her health."
"Dear, do you mind getting her a glass of water," Moominmamma asked her husband.
"Right away, Love," he said.
As the mother and child sat Sam down at the kitchen table Moominpappa made the glass of water and sat it down in front of Sam. The two adults looked at her and her face was wet, messy, and swollen from her crying. They felt terrible for her situation.
"Come now, Dear, drink up," Moominmamma said gently.
Sam picked up the glass and started chugging the water. Once she finished, Moominpappa took the glass back and filled it back up again then handed it back to Sam.
As she was drinking the water, Moomintroll said, "I feel bad that she's so sad about this."
"I would be concerned if she didn't react like this," Moominmamma said as Sam finished the second glass of water and Moominpappa took it to refill it again.
"Why?" Moomintroll asked.
"It means that she loved the people that she was with and she was loved by the people she was with," Moominmamma said.
"Quite right," Moominpappa said as Sam was downing her third glass of water.
Sam only finished half the glass of water and she was calmer, but her face was still scrunched up and puffy. Moominmamma used her apron to wipe away Sam's tears.
"Oh, cream pea soup," Little My said, appearing in the kitchen and sniffing the air, "My favorite."
"Yes. I felt like having soup today," Moominmamma said as she finished cleaning off Sam's face.
Little My sat down next to Sam and Moomintroll sat on the other side of Sam and Moominpappa sat down by his son. Moominmamma got the cooking pot and started serving up the soup and the baked potatoes.
"Glad to see you finally stopped crying," Little My said, "It was starting to get annoying."
"Little My," Moomintroll scolded.
Sam sniffled, then said in a froggy voice, "I was getting annoyed by me too."
Little My gave Moomintroll a smug look that said; ha, ha, she took my side. In response, Moomintroll just glared at her over his soup. The four of them heartily ate their food while Sam only took a few small bits at a time and mostly played with it. Little My was the first one to finish her plate and as she asked for seconds Sam asked to be excused from the table.
"You hardly touched your food," Moominpappa said, then asked, "You left without eating too. Aren't you hungry?"
"Not really," Sam said as she got up.
"Well, that's quite all right," Moominmamma said, "I can just put that back into the pot and ice the potato and you can come back and eat whenever you want."
"Thank you, Mrs. Moomin," Sam said as she did what Moominmamma said. Then she staggered up to her room on the second floor.
"I would have done that for her," Moominmamma said once Sam was gone.
"I hope she gets over this soon for her sake," Moominpappa said as he got another potato to eat with his soup.
"I don't think coming to terms with being in another universe and never leaving it, is something you get over," Moomintroll said as he played with his soup.
"I quite agree," Moominmamma said, "She just needs time to mourn and time to adjust to being here."
"That looks like it might take forever then," Little My remarked.
It's been three days since Sam, Moomintroll, and Little My got back from The Witch's Cabin and Sam hasn't left her room that entire time, as far as any of the Moomin family members are aware of. Moomintroll was walking downstairs after getting a flower basket from his room so he could have something to hold all the mountain avens flowers that he was going to gather to make flower crowns out of, when he saw Little My trying to get into Sam's room.
"Will you leave her alone," Moomintroll said as he grabbed her by the back of her collar like he was picking up a kitten by the neck, "She needs some time to herself."
"I want to know if she's dead or not," Little My said, "I think it'd be cool if we dissected her to see how different her insides are to us."
He gave her a disbelieving look, but he sat her down, then said, "I am a bit worried about her though. Mama says that she hasn't been eating any of the food she sets by her door."
"So let's look then," Little My said.
Moomintroll sighed, then he knocked on Sam's door, "Sam?"
There was no answer.
"Let us in you giant," Little My shouted through the door.
Moomintroll rolled his eyes at her.
The door then slowly creaked open to reveal a bunch of blankets floating in the air.
"Sam?" Moomintroll asked the bunch of floating blankets.
"Yes?" she answered in a small and froggy voice.
"Whoa! You're invisible," Little My said, "Hold on. I'm going to get an apple and I want you to take a bite out of it." She then raced off.
"I'm sorry," Moomintroll said, "We should have come to speak with you sooner. Do you want to tell me anything?"
"Like what?" she asked, the blankets shifting around her shoulders.
"I don't know. Whatever you want," Moomintroll said as he rubbed the back of his neck.
Little My raced up the stairs with her apple in hand, then she gave it to Sam and said, "Eat it. I want to see if I can see the food go through you or not."
Moomintroll sighed and said, "You don't have to listen to her." But the apple was already floating up by itself and they heard the crunch from the apple.
They saw the bite happen, but they didn't see any food being munched up into mush and then go down anything as Sam swallowed.
"Awe, that's boring," Little My said.
Sam wordlessly kept eating the apple.
"Since your up, you should come with me," Moomintroll said, "I'm going to pick flowers and make flower crowns."
"Oh! Can I come," Little My asked.
Moomintroll sighed, a bit irritated, but said, "I'm not going to stop you if you do follow."
"Alright. I'm going to go get my basket," Little My said before she ran up to the third floor to Moomintroll's room. Once Little My was gone Sam started closing her bedroom door.
"We'll wait for you on the front porch," he told the closing door.
Moomintroll and Little My waited around for five minutes before they saw a set of shirt, pants, and socks walk out the front door. They then watched invisible Sam slip on her shoes that she left by the front door.
"Great. Let's go," Little My said as she walked ahead.
The three of them passed Moominmamma who was digging in her garden.
"Oh my word! Sam?" Moominmamma asked when she looked up to tell her kids to have fun, "What happened? Why did you go invisible?"
The shoulders of the shirt shrugged.
"Don't worry Mama," Moomintroll said as they continued to walk on, "I'm sure we can sort this out now that we know about it."
"Okay, well, be safe then," Moominmamma called out.
"Okay," the two of them shouted.
As they all walked through the trees to find a good flower field to pick flowers at, Moomintroll said, "I think it's kind of strange that you're able to turn invisible. I wouldn't think a being from another universe would be affected."
"I think the concept of, "under your house, under your rules", kind of thing applies," invisible Sam croaked out.
"Mmm."
"Guys! Over here," Little My shouted from between some thick trees, "This field looks great."
They followed her voice, Moomintroll got stuck between the trees and needed Sam's help to push him out, and once they were through, they bared witness to a field completely full of white flowers. Little My was already filling her basket.
"Let's go over here," Moomintroll said as he pointed at a random spot.
Invisible Sam followed him wordlessly.
As the two of them started picking flowers, Moomintroll asked, "So. What do you want to talk about?"
"What do you want to hear?" she asked.
"I—I… Well. Whatever you want to tell me," Moomintroll said.
"I need you to be more specific," Sam said.
"Uh. Um. How about you tell me what you were going to be a scholar for," Moomintroll asked, thinking this is more difficult than when he tried to help Ninny.
A flower was picked, and it floated in the air as it twirled side to side, "I wanted to sell flowers," Sam said, then her hands appeared.
Moomintroll frowned, then said, "You have a whole college dedicated to learning how to sell flowers?"
Sam laughed, full and loud, prompting Little My to walk over and she asked, "What?"
Moomintroll shrugged.
After calming down she sniffled and wiped her invisible face with her visible hands and said, "No we didn't have a college entirely dedicated to learning how to just sell flowers. It's more complicated than that. Specifically, I have a double major in business and botany and a minor in art. I wanted to open my own store and sell all kinds of plants and fugus and moss," The movement of her shirt suggested that Sam was looking around as she said, "though, I suppose I could do that here, I just won't have any formal training for it." As she said that, her forearms appeared.
"Your universe seems complicated," Little My said as she crossed her arms.
"Your universe is complicated to me," Sam said, "No one can turn invisible back home."
"Eh. That's fair," Little My said before leaving to grab her full flower basket.
It didn't take long for Sam and Moomintroll to fill his flower basket up, then the three of them left the flower field to find a non-grassy place to sit at. Sam found an outcropping of large flat rocks that was warm to the touch from the sun, and they all sat down in the area. Moomintroll and Little My helped teach Sam how to make flower crowns and soon they were busying themselves with their craft. Sam's flower crowns looked sloppy while Moomintroll's and Little My's flower crowns were neat and nice looking.
"What were your best friend's names again," Moomintroll asked.
"Britney and Jake," Sam said.
"That's right. How did you guys meet," Moomintroll asked.
"Well, I met Jake on my first day at my new grade school," Sam said, "My family and I just moved out of the reserve during the summer and my English wasn't the best. Jake made me feel welcome and he was interested in what my life was like before my family and I moved, and we've been friends ever since. Britney got added to the team when we were fifteen. She's been going to the same school as we've been for years, but we didn't really become friends with each other until she joined my swim team and I helped her out with her training, and we found out that we pretty much have the same type of humor. We all got into the same college and became dormmates. It was fun," Sam said, and as she talked her neck appeared.
Little My laughed as she said, "You look ridiculous."
Moomintroll was going to scold Little My for being rude but Sam laughed along with her, then said, "I bet I could scare a lot of people like this."
"Oh! We should go to Mrs. Fillyjonk's place and you should lay at her doorstep and pretend that you're a beheaded corpse that suddenly comes back to life," Little My said maliciously.
"Okay. What did Mrs. Fillyjonk do to you this time," Moomintroll asked.
"One of her little brats stole my cookie that Moominmamma gave me, and I was about to teach the brat a lesson when she came in and stopped me. She didn't even discipline him for stealing from me," Little My said.
Sam leaned over to Moomintroll and said under her breath, "Remind me to never cross her."
"That's impossible," Moomintroll whispered back.
The three of them finished making their flower crowns and in total they had made eight white flower crowns. They then started walking back to the Moomin household.
As they walked Moomintroll asked, "How big is your family?"
Sam place one of her two flower crowns on her invisible head, then said, "There's my mom and dad. Then there's my four younger siblings. When I was seven Mom gave birth to the first set of twins my sister Windy and my brother Terra. Then when I was ten Mom gave birth to another set of twins my little brother Sol and my little sister Luna. I basically raised the four of them with my parents. I miss them so much."
Then her head turned visible, returning her back to her normal self. The two of them could finally see just how tired Sam looked and how messy her hair had gotten but the two of them were happy to see her face again.
Little My said, "You look terrible."
Moomintroll groaned internally.
Sam gave Little My a tired smile, then said, "I feel terrible, and tired, but I also feel light. Thank you for inviting me. I guess I kind of needed this."
"You're welcome," Moomintroll said.
"And you can talk to us about your old life whenever you want," Little My said, "We won't mind hearing about it."
Sam's tired smile grew wider at them from their kind words.
Once they were back at the house, Little My gave a flower crown to Moominmamma and Moominpappa and she kept her third one to herself. Moomintroll gave a flower crown to Snufkin and left the property to give his second one to Snork Maiden while keeping his third one for himself to wear. Sam kept wearing her flower crown and threw her second one in the stream next to the house and watched it float away. Once the flower crown was gone, Sam went to Moominmamma to be measured for those clothes that she was in the process of making.