Sem- Adventures Across Time

by T S Wieland

  “Yeah! I’m sure my dad could put out a search for them.”

  “No,” replied Ally. “I think we already found him.”

  She leaned over to pet the dog on the top of the head.

  “Well, if you ever need anything, feel free to ask. The guys and I owe you for a lifetime,” said Teech.

  “Thanks, Teech,” Sem replied.

  “Just stay out of trouble, alright?”

  “Same for you two,” Kyle replied, walking over to say good-bye. He shook Sem and Ally’s hands, as Gina offered them both hugs.

  The party slowly returned to normal around them as the music played on. Ally and Sem turned around and began to walk towards the main entrance of the ballroom, accompanied by their lost canine traveler.

  “Hey!” shouted Kyle with the others standing at his side. Sem and Ally turned back to them. Kyle wrapped his arm around Gina as he offered his words of wisdom. “Don’t you guys forget. No matter how dark things get for you guys, there’s always light somewhere in the darkness.”

  Sem and Ally smiled at him with warmed hearts.

  Chapter 21

  A Spirit of Worlds

  “Hey! They’re back,” said Merek from the stairs, shouting over the sound of the ARC cycling up. Leo rested on the sofa in the living room using his suit jacket as a blanket. Otto walked over and tapped him on the shoulder to wake him up from his long rest.

  “Vila! They’re back,” hollered Otto towards the kitchen. “Glad that took less time than I expected. They still had three hours left.”

  Leo yawned and sat up. He rolled his suit jacket into a ball and placed it on the couch to rest his head on. “Have them come back in three hours in that case.”

  Otto walked over and tipped the couch over, forcing Leo to roll over onto the floor.

  Vila hurried with her icing covered cake in hand towards the stair doorway. The light from the ARC filled the basement in its radiant glow as Merek hurried upstairs.

  Otto stood waiting near his doorway, seeing the shadows of someone coming through the ARC below. A small shadow ran in through the basement and scurried up the stairs. The shadow leapt at Otto’s waist as it reached the top of the stairs, forcing him to the ground. The hairy black and white dog continued to lick him with it’s rough dog tongue across his cheeks.

  The others watched Otto get knocked to the ground as two human-like shadows walked up the stairs with the ARC light fading behind them. Ally adjusted the goggles over her forehead to suddenly see the celebration that awaited her and Sem at the top of the stairs.

  “Surprise!” hollered Vila, Leo, and Merek.

  Otto still struggled to protect his face on the floor, trying to push the dog away from him. The foyer was decorated with a few small blue and red paper streamers and balloons tied to the base of the stairs and dining room chairs.

  “Wow,” replied Ally looking around at the few decorations with a smile on her face. “Thanks everyone.”

  “Will someone help me?” said Otto, trying to push the border collie off his chest.

  “Oh, shoot! Sorry, Otto. He’s really friendly,” said Ally as she hurried over to pull the dog away from him.

  “I can see that,” Otto replied, clambering to his feet.

  “How long you all been waiting?” asked Sem, taking his goggles off from around his neck.

  “Too long,” said Leo yawning. “The food’s all probably cold now, and I’m starving.”

  “I ate. Why didn’t you?” asked Merek.

  “What?! You said wait for them!”

  “No, I said we could wait. There was no telling how long they would be. Why did you think we went and got decorations?”

  “Aww, great,” replied Leo, in a hungry and angry voice.

  “Relax. I’ll go heat it up. Sem and Ally haven't eaten either,” said Vila, walking over to Ally handing her the cake.

  “Welcome back, dears. And welcome to into our little family, Allison.”

  “Thanks,” said Ally, taking the cake from her. Ally looked down to see the cake decorated with a thin layer of frosting, spelling out the words “Welcome Ally!” written in red and white icing. Ally felt thankful, but conflicted hearing Vila’s friendly greeting using the term family so loosely. She offered everyone her best look of appreciation.

  “Where’s the traveler?” asked Otto, striding over to Sem with a concerned look.

  Sem nodded down at the dog, who sat on the floor next to Ally.

  “The dog?”

  “Mhmm,” replied Sem, hanging up his backpack on the stair banister next to him.

  “You sure?” questioned Otto.

  “Positive,” replied Sem.

  “I feel more like I’m at home every day. You guys are like my daughters bringing home that mouse they found outside, thinking it was a hamster. What? You guys just decide finding animals is better than finding people?”

  “What’s his name?” asked Merek, leaning down to pet the black-and-white canine traveler.

  “We don’t know. He never had a name tag,” said Ally.

  “Probably lost it when he jumped worlds,” Otto replied.

  “How about . . . Buddy?” suggested Leo.

  Ally, Leo, and Vila all looked at him, all sharing the same unenthused expression. Leo looked at their faces, clearly unsure of any other good names. His shoulders drooped.

  “What about Dublin?” suggested Merek, looking down at the dog. The dog showed all his teeth with a panting smile.

  “Dublin?” questioned Ally.

  “Sure. My family lived in Ireland for a few years when I was a kid, and my brother and I always talked about how he wanted to name a dog Dublin after our roots. He’s a lucky dog after all since you two managed to find him, so why not give him a name with some luck of the Irish behind it? Besides, he’s a border collie. Irish farmers use them as sheepherders all the time.”

  The dog wagged its tail. Merek leaned down to pet him, as Ally pondered the name.

  “Yeah, I guess that’s a pretty cool name for him. He did push a guy into a buffet table who was trying to kill someone. Sounds like a good luck charm to me.”

  “He did what?” Otto asked, wiping dog hair from his shirt.

  “Tell us about it over dinner, dear. Everyone, come upstairs, and I’ll warm dinner for you again.” Vila marched towards the kitchen as Merek shook his head at Ally, expressing almost a desperate look for her not to eat Vila’s cooking. Leo snickered and followed them.

  “How’d you two manage to find your lucky traveler?” asked Otto.

  Sem grabbed Otto by the arm, waiting for the others to clear the room before pulling him away to the living room. Otto watched everyone walk away, then turned back towards him.

  “It was Erland,” muttered Sem quietly.

  Otto’s smile turned serious. He looked at Sem, clearly hoping he was joking.

  “Run that by me again?”

  “Erland was there.”

  “When I said you needed to move on, I didn’t mean start making jokes about it. Seriously though, kid. How’d you find the dog?”

  “No, I’m not joking. We saw him, living and in the flesh, as real as you or me standing here right now.”

  “Maybe it was someone you just thought looked like Erland.”

  “You think I’d mistake the man I looked up to for half my life like my own father for someone else?”

  “He’s dead, kid. Like, dead dead. Long gone, never coming back dead. So dead, we didn’t even get to bury a body. You can’t get any deader than that.”

  “I’m not the only one who saw him, though. Ally saw him, too. I had to ask her for confirmation that I wasn’t losing it. I couldn’t believe it myself.”

  Otto looked away for a minute, presumably reflecting on the strange news. “He say anything to you?”

  “No. Not a word. He just waved at us with that cheesy, bearded smile of his. I could practically hear that Australian voice of his lecturing me in my head. He’s the one who pointed out the dog to us. I
think I even saw him once before that, when Ally and I were in Babylon. He picked me up after I fell in the crowd, only he had his face covered.”

  Sem stood silently for a moment. Otto lifted his thumbnail to his lip and bit at it. “You think if he’s still alive, maybe she is t—”

  “No. Stop right there,” grumbled Otto, glaring at Sem. “You need to let this go, kid. You don’t need to start tormenting yourself with those kinds of thoughts. Erland is dead, and so is Aria. You and I have bigger problems on our plate right now, and we can’t afford to get sidetracked. Raz is already looking for a reason to push us aside, and if you start telling everyone such nonsense, he’ll write us both of as having lost our minds,”

  “But if he’s alive—"

  “Enough, kid! Alright? You need to keep this between you, me, and Ally. No one else needs to know about this. One word and it’ll give Raz one more reason to do away with us.”

  Otto pointed towards the basement doorway with a frustrated expression. “We haven't even scratched the surface of what that machine is capable of downstairs. For all we know, it could have been a mirage pulled from your own head into the moment. Too many trips causing hallucinations or burned images in your mind spilling out into reality. Maybe it was an echo of him. Either way, you don’t need to go slipping backwards after you just started getting over what's happened. We need to keep our attention on the here and now.”

  Sensing his friend was still hurting as much as he was, Sem held back, not wanting to push the matter any further. “Alright...”

  “Good. Now, let’s go eat. And not another word about this,” said Otto, making his way over to the dining room.

  Sem followed him, feeling torn by the image of his mentor’s ghost greeting him from a distance in his mind. He was positive he had seen him, and he knew he wasn’t crazy. Or so he hoped. Sem stopped at the doorway to the basement. He gazed down with the vision of the ARC clear in his mind, wondering to himself what he had really seen.

  He was starting to gather questions. Questions now backed by a newly planted sense of hope, or possibly madness…