The Welcomer

The first thing Emily saw was the sea, blue and green and sparkling in the warm sunlight. Without a thought she let the door close behind her, taking in her surroundings with awe. She stood on a tiny grass-covered island where little white daisies poked their heads up and nodded contendtedly in the salty breeze. At the base of a gentle slope a wooden dock jutted out into the water and a pair of beautifully decorated boats bobbed beside it. And, beyond a stretch of placid ocean, a shining city rose, layer upon layer out of the sea. The buildings were made of a smooth white stone flecked with silver, twisting and merging with one another like salt crystals grown on the rock.
"I don't believe this," Emily muttered, turning back to the door. It sat behind her in the trunk of a gnarled tree, but when she tried the handle it wouldn't budge.
"It's locked," said a voice from behind her, and she span to see an old man dangling his feet in the sea. "You won't get through that door in a hurry."
"What you you mean? Who-"
"Who am I?" He interrupted. "And then you ask, 'What is this place?' and 'Why won't you let me leave?'."
Emily scowled as he listed all the questions she'd been about to ask. He tried a smile on her but faltered when she merely frowned back.
"Why do they always become hostile?" He asked the empty air. "I am the Welcomer, you are at the Doors, and you cannot leave because it was magic that brought you here and magic is a fickle fiend at best."
"That didn't tell me anything!" Emily cried. She was in a state of shock, she supposed, as her mind numbly sat back and watched her body throw a tantrum. "Why are you being so difficult?!"
The Welcomer watched her wearily.
"It is my job to welcome newcomers - that's you - to Squid City. Through a network of magical portals, people like yourself are transported here. The doors only open on our side at the Festival of Lights, so if you're going home it will be then. Unless of course someone else finds the same portal you did, assuming it's still there, and that we manage to keep the door open. The longer they're open the harder they are to hold onto," he explained to a wide-eyed Emily. Now that he'd mentioned it, she could see that there were in fact many more doors than the one she'd come through. They were of all shapes and sizes throughout the tree's massive trunk, and all of them were locked tight.
"What is Squid City?" She asked finally, deciding that this had to be a dream or a hallucination. She would play along, for now.
"Squid City!" The Welcomer repeated brightly. "City of Heroes! City of Adventure! City of Squid!"
"Do they pay you to say that?" She asked. He shrugged.
"It's all part of the job." He brightened, and pointed to the boats. "Ready to go to the City?"
He moved very nimbly for his age, she noticed, as he helped her into the smaller of the boats. Seeing the question in her eyes he smiled sadly.
"The other one's grander, but it's too big for us. Couldn't do it even if I made you take an oar, and that's no way to welcome anybody." They both watched it as they pulled off from the dock, and Emily could see that it was faded and dusty. "Back in the day, there was a whole team of us Welcomers, ferrying people too and from the Doors. There were grand welcoming parties every day! Guests are rare now, though."
He sounded so sad that Emily could tell how much he'd enjoyed his job.
"I can tell people about Squid City," she offered, "I'm sure lots of people would like to come here."
"No!" He shouted, and she shrank back involuntarily from the strength of his reaction. "You can never tell people - we know what your 'government' is like. One of them came here, once, and got all agitated about our presence being a 'threat to national security'. We had to seal up that door after he went back."
Emily nodded. The Government would be interested in Squid City, and probably in a bad way for its people.
"Don't worry about that," the Welcomer said kindly. "Squid City is about having a fun time! The Festival of Lights isn't so far away, and then you can go home. Just think of it as a holiday."