And so here I am with the 5th chapter. Suz, I know you'll love it...
Chapter 5
“Is Travis your father?” I asked Riley who was still holding my hand. It was warm and calloused and for a moment I wondered if it had gotten that way by physical labour or . . . padding around as a dog.
“No. Why would you think that?”
“Well, my parents seem to know your father and they know Travis and I thought that . . .”
“Your thought process is excellent,” Riley chuckled. “But Travis is what we call a Portal. He transports people from our world to here. He had been friends with your parents before they left all those years ago.”
I nodded, thinking of what he said. It was shocking to realise that my parents had had a different life completely before me. They said I was born there, in Rydon, and I believe them because why would they lie? But . . .
Riley squeezed my hand slightly and I stopped, turned to him. It was a warm night and I could barely make out the lightening of the dark sky, telling me without words that dawn was close. My gaze locked with Riley’s, his brown eyes strangely familiar. Of course, I knew those eyes, knew them because they belonged to the dog who had kept me safe this past month. But during those nights, there hadn’t been a beautiful smile to accompany those eyes. The dog, although big, had reached up to my waist; he hadn’t towered over me. Riley –human- was as big a man as he was a dog. He was wide and tall and well muscled. He looked hard, and dangerous but his eyes and hands were soft.
Images of my guardian dog kept imposing themselves over the man who kept my hand warm and I felt the overwhelming urge to hug him, to hold him close. To thank him for having been a friend to me this last month. To express my appreciation in ways more eloquent than even words. I took a step toward him and our bodies were only a breath away. He smelt musky and very male. He inhaled sharply and his nostrils flared. Was that a man’s reaction to a woman? Or a dog’s to a bitch in heat?
A clearing of a throat slammed us back to reality more sharply than a slap would have. We both turned to face my father who stood there, arms crossed over his powerful chest, an eyebrow raised. “You two ready to go?”
My first reaction was to say no. I didn’t want to go, didn’t want to leave all that was familiar in my life. But I sensed in my father the same wonder and anticipation I had seen in my mother’s eyes earlier and I found myself nodding. “Sure, let’s go.”
Travis said, “Okay, everyone in the car.”
“You’ll transport all of us plus the car, Travis?” My mother looked alarmed. “Isn’t that too much?”
Travis chuckled. “I’ve grown in twenty years, Cassandra. Don’t worry, everything will be alright.”
She didn’t look convinced but she climbed in the car, backseat with Riley and I. My father sat up in front with Travis. My father didn’t start the car; he turned and studied Travis who had his eyes closed and was frowning in concentration.
I turned to my mother to ask her how we were supposed to get to Rydon but she shook her head and gestured to Travis with her chin. Okay, I got the message; he needed to remain focused. Riley leaned toward me and I shivered when I felt his hot breath on my ear. “Just hold my hand and you’ll be fine. Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt.”
If I cocked my head just a little, I’d be leaning on his shoulder. Every single nerve in my body demanded I do just that. My blood was pounding so hard it was a wonder no one could hear it. To me, it sounded like Niagara Falls. I shivered again as I felt more than heard Riley inhale deeply, his nose tracing a path from my neck to my ear.
My breath hitched. He was making me feel things . . . Things I’d never felt before. I felt my neck arch, as if it had a mind of its own, reaching for him, for his touch. I felt tiny goose bumps where his nose had touched the sensitive flesh of my neck. Warmth spread in my tummy and my hands were suddenly clammy. I felt my nipples harden, straining the thick fabric of my work shirt. His hand was gripping mine hard and my hand seemed to revel in the roughness of it.
“We’re here.”
I gasped and Riley pulled back, a twinkle in his eyes. Had he done that to distract me?
I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or kick someone while I tried to control my raging hormones. I glared at Riley then ruined the effect by bursting with laughter. Travis, my mom and my dad turned to us but we shook our heads and clambered out of the car. Even if I didn’t like change, I was excited to see where I had been born. It might make an excellent setting for the next book I would be working on. I looked around excitedly and noticed . . . Blur. Everything was blurry, foggy. “Hey! What’s wrong with this land? It looks . . . Fuzzy.”
My mother chuckled and rounded the car. She reached for me and pulled the glasses from my face. “Hey! Mom, you know I can’t see . . .” I blinked. The sun was rising over the land and its yellowish glow lit the world. For as far as I could see, everything looked dead; what trees there was had gnarled branches, like the arthritic fingers of old folk. The grass was yellow and sickly, there was no blooming flowers, no greenery whatsoever. The land looked dead, desolate. But it looked beautiful to me because I could see everything! Everything without my glasses!
The land became blurry again but this time it was caused by my tears. “Mom . . .?”
“As I was saying, sweetie, we are Royal Magicals. We are essentially pure magic and our bodies heal quite naturally. If you chip a tooth in your life, your body will take care of growing it back for you. If you cut yourself, or break a leg. If you skin your knee or lose a nail, any small detail will be healed. You cannot grow back a limb; it would take too much of your energy but repairing your eyesight falls in the category of minor details.”
Without my glasses, I could see my mother’s wide smile and I cried. I’d worn my glasses since I was ten years old and my eyesight had never stabilised. The doctors tested me yearly to make sure I didn’t have some kind of rare eye disease but they never found anything.
My father came up behind my mother. “You have no idea how much it hurt us to see you so blind when you naturally should have been able to heal. We’re very sorry honey.”
I nodded, wiping the tears from my eyes with my free hand. Riley was still holding my other. I gently disentangled myself from him and I walked straight into my parents outstretched arms. They hugged me tightly, hugged me for all the lies and the non-truths, hugged me for all they were worth. I wasn’t angry at them for hiding my real identity, really I wasn’t. How could I be? I didn’t know the specifics of what had happened but I knew my parents. Knew they were good, caring people who loved me deeply.
Arms around each other’s waist, we turned and studied the scenery.
“What happened here?” I heard the tremor in my mom’s voice and I turned to her. Her expression was one of complete shock.
“The RM’s have almost all disappeared, Cassandra. That’s why we’d been looking for you.”
“RM’s?” I asked.
“Royal Magicals,” Riley answered. “It’s the abbreviation that was given to them years ago when saying the whole title became too tiresome.”
“Oh. This isn’t what the land is supposed to look like?”
“God, no! It was once beautiful. The trees blossomed all year long; there were meadows full of thousands of flowers. It was enchanting, it was serene. And now . . .”
“Everything is gone,” My father whispered. He released my waist and pulled my mother to him, hugging her tight.
A thought occurred to me; when I’d head back home after all this was settled, I wouldn’t have to continue with my sheltered life. My true identity was now out in the open and I could buy my own home and live off my writing. A wide smile spread across my face, stretching my lips to their fullest capacity. I felt a giddy laugh bubble inside me but I slammed a lid on it; my parents would not appreciate my thoughts right now.
I noticed Travis was leaning on the car and I realised he was using it for support; his shoulders were slumped and his knees were bent as if carrying the weight of the world on them. “Dad?” I said softly. He turned to me and I gestured to Travis with my chin. My father headed for Travis, helped him around the car and got him in the front seat. I could hear Travis’s sigh of relief from several feet away.
We all piled back into the car, my dad started it and said, “Where to now?”
“Castle Kimera,” Travis said weakly. “It’s where all the RM’s have shacked up.”
Riley leaned forward. “Do you remember where it is, Logan?”
My father nodded, a small smile playing on his lips. “I think so. I’ll head in the direction I think, if I’m wrong tell me, okay?”
“Sure.”
Riley leaned back.
“If my real name is Shayna, and I assume my mom’s is Cassandra, why do you call my father Logan? It sounds nothing like Gabriel.” I had asked Riley but my mom answered.
“His name is Logan Gabriel Cambridge. Gabriel is a middle name that he hadn’t used in a very long time and he decided to take it up when we went to the other realm.”
“What is that other realm called?” I asked curiously. After all, it was my realm. “Earth?”
“Not quite. That’s the planet’s name and we are on the same planet. Only, it’s a different reality, if you will. We call the other realm ‘Terra’.”
I frowned. “But ‘Terre’ is earth in French. Any connection with Terra?”
My mother smiled. “No, there isn’t. Terra was named after Lord Rydon’s daughter. He named it so because Rydon and the other realm cannot live without one another. They are so intertwined that if one dies, the other will also die. He said that the connection between the two reminded him of his love for his only child, Terra. And so it was named.”
“Huh, that’s actually sweet. So who is Lord Rydon?”
My father’s eyes caught my own in the rear view mirror. “Harvey Rydon was the creator of this land. In this realm, he is considered what God is in the other. The maker of all.”
“So how did that work? Was Rydon here first, or was Terra?”
“Both, we think. The theory is that God and Rydon worked together to build this Earth and the trees and everything else. Then they each went their separate ways to create both realms. Only, something happened to it and the realms are like conjoined twins. One will die if the other does and vice-versa.”
“But. . . That doesn’t make sense. This land looks dead. Terra looks . . .”
“You think Terra is any better, sweetie?” My mother’s eyes were very wise at this moment. “Think of what you hear on the news everyday, of what you read in the newspapers you get at work. Think about the fact that although you were locked in your store all night, you still needed the protection of a dog. Think of the wars, the bombings, the earthquakes and the hurricanes. They may be ‘natural’ but they are directly linked to the death of this land.”
I gasped. “It’s true! Things just keep getting worse for this world with every passing year. The seasons have gone haywire; raining when it’s supposed to snow, snow storms in late spring. The frequent earthquakes, everything works! But . .. There’s nothing we can do about it?”
My eyes were wide as I searched my mother’s eyes. My father answered, “We as Terrans, no, but as Royal Magicals, yes.” I could here the pride in his voice and it made me smile. I didn’t know this side of my parents. They didn’t sound quite as boring when they spoke like this. They were proud and regal and confident.
We arrived at a fork in the road and my father asked Riley, “It’s right, isn’t it?”
Riley smiled. “Yes it is. You have an excellent memory.”
My father beamed and turned right. The inside of the car was silent, each lost in their own thoughts. My father was concentrating on the road and Travis appeared to be asleep. My mother kept glancing from outside, to my father and then to me. What was she thinking? Did she regret not telling me about my past? Was she glad to be ‘home’ even if it no longer looked like the place she left years ago? Was she wondering how I’d react to this realm? To the change?
I glanced at Riley who was leaning against the head rest, eyes closed. I didn’t believe for one second that he was actually sleeping. The Riley I knew might appear to be resting but he was up and alert the second he heard a suspicious noise. As if feeling my stare and hearing my thoughts, Riley opened his eyes lazily, winked and smiled, then closed them again.
I felt a smile tugging at my lips and a blush creeping up my cheeks. I turned my gaze out my window so my mom wouldn’t notice the effect Riley had on me. As I stared at the passing scenery, I raise my hand to push back my glasses. Force of habit. When my hand met only air, I froze. I would never again have to clean or push back my glasses. Never have to grope for them during the night when I wake up and head to the bathroom. I wouldn’t have to keep monster-sized alarm clocks by my bedside to allow me to see without coming an inch to the glowing digitals. I wondered what would happen when I would return home to the Terra realm. Would I need my glasses or were my eyes completely healed? If they weren’t, at least I got to spend some time seeing the world as it really was, without the distortion of inch-thick lenses.
I felt tears of gratitude fill my eyes and I discreetly wiped them away. No more tears to shed for my eyes; they had caused me more than enough pain.
Trying to keep my mind on something other than my eyes, I focused on the landscape. Try as I might, I couldn’t find anything to redeem the dreary land. It was cold, lifeless and unwelcoming. Now, more than ever, I missed my home in the woods. With its deep greens and colourful leaves, in every season it was truly a sight to behold.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” I murmured.
I straightened when I made out what seemed to be a small village a few hundred feet away. I was going to point it out to my family but something was off about it. I squinted my eyes, straining to see . . . something. But I couldn’t; there weren’t any children playing or adults hanging around. There was no smoke in the chimneys, no animals sniffing around.
“It was abandoned a few months ago,” Riley said leaning closer to me. “This is one of the last villages to have joined the rest of us at Kimera.”
“What do you mean?” I turned to him and held my breath when I discovered just how close to me he was. A breath away.
He slowly leaned back, away from me. “Like your father said earlier, this realm is attached to Terra and over the centuries, both have evolved. Terra has advanced in a technological way and Rydon has evolved magically. This land needs its magic to survive and it is a hard life when the magic is gone. Since the Royal Magicals began getting killed these past decades, the people of this land have fought long and hard to enhance their magical abilities and help those in need but it was pointless. One after the other they left their villages and headed for Kimera where they could have as much safety as was possible.”
I frowned as I thought about what he’d just said. Then, “But I don’t understand -”
“Shanna, look,” my mother said and pointed.
I looked up through the windshield and gasped. In front of us loomed a ginormous stone castle with towers and turrets and even a huge wooden bridge that lowered as we approached, giving us access to inside the courtyard. It was all straight out of a medieval book or movie! Educational, of course. Yes, everything looked perfectly medieval . . . Except for the small fact that the castle was pink. And not a shy pink either; it was a very bold, vibrant shade of pink.
I felt my jaw drop. “What in the world . . .”
I heard Travis chuckle and I turned to him. He was blinking repeatedly and rubbing his eyes. “I wasn’t sure if my eyes were deceiving me or not until I heard Shanna expressing her bewilderment.” He winked at me then glanced back at the castle. “Ah! I see that today the castle actually looks like one.”
“Looks like one? Are you kidding me?” I sputtered.
We pulled to a stop and clambered out of the car. I craned my neck to get a better view of the castle and was appalled to discover that flowers had been painted on the surface. Who would spend hours painting the stone walls of a castle? Someone who had nothing to do, that was obvious. Wasn’t a castle supposed to protect the inhabitants? Wasn’t it supposed to be dark and forbidding? Who would take this castle or its defenders seriously if they had to camp out in front of here and watch this pretty castle every day.
Then again, maybe the attackers laughed so hard when they saw this fortress that they busted a gut laughing, then died. Suddenly, I had to look at this unique fort in a different light.
By the grins on my car-mates’ faces, I had to assume this was nothing new to them. But what had Travis meant when he’d said that today it looked like a castle? Hmm . . .
I realised abruptly that there was no noise in the courtyard. No bird chirping or dog yapping, no children chattering or adults talking. Was the courtyard empty? I shielded my eyes against the glaring sun and turned to see where we had come in from. I hadn’t noticed anyone there –I mean can you blame me? I couldn’t unglue my eyes from all that pink! – but now I saw hundreds of people standing there, completely still, with eyes wide and gaping mouths.
They were all obviously in shock. Had they just noticed the castle? No, I realised, they weren’t staring at the castle, they were staring at all five of us. I glanced down at myself, then behind me; I burst out laughing. I was still wearing my Shelco uniform and so was Riley. But unlike my own, his didn’t fit him. The pants arrived mid-calf and he was shoe-less and sock-less. The shirt was too short and exposed the bottom part of his belly – hmm, why hadn’t I noticed that before? My parents were wearing matching pyjamas, a short and t-shirt outfit I had bought them a few Christmases ago. Travis was dressed simply in a black shirt and pants.
Realising the reason for my hilarity, the four others also began laughing until they were almost as hysterical as I was. Soon, my laughter became sobs and I wasn’t sure why I felt so out of control. Then again, I had found out just a few hours ago that my guard dog was actually a man and that my whole life was a lie. If that wasn’t enough, I was suddenly in another realm I hadn’t even known existed, I was standing in front of a pink castle and I was being stared at by hundreds of people. Right, I had no idea why I was freaking out.
