Chapter 16 - Surprise
“Are we back? Is this really home?” Sarah ran to the window to look outside. Sure enough, she could see the beginnings of the Victorian garden on the southern side of their newly inherited mansion. There, parked out front, was their SUV. Turning, she saw the young prince waving enthusiastically at his parents, still visible in the open portal. The Kri’yans, however, were snapping out last minute instructions to their son.
“Ye are to be on yer best behavior at all times, young man. Do ye understand?”
Mikal sighed. “Yes, father.”
“Do as ye are told. I do not want to hear of any disobedience, is that understood?”
Another sigh. “Yes, father.”
The king’s tired eyes swiveled to Steve’s. “Keep him safe.”
“Count on it, your majesty.”
With that, the portal faded back into the carved likeness of Lentari. The sudden quietness of the house spooked Sarah. Nervously, she looked around.
“This feels so weird! After all we’ve been through, I can’t believe we made it back. I mean, we must have been gone at least two or three weeks, right?”
Steve was nodding. “I’m figuring at least a month.” He absent-mindedly patted his pockets. “Without a watch, I really have no idea how long we were gone. I usually just check my cell for the date and time, and I don’t have my cell anymore. We need to find a phone. We have some serious damage control to do, my dear.”
“Could your cell be in the pack?”
He thought a moment. No, he was pretty sure his cell was still a resident of that shabby cottage where they were temporarily held prisoner.
“No, it’s gone. Gonna have to get a new one. What about yours?”
“It’s not in my purse, or else I would have seen it. Wait! We had it charging in the car just before we got here, remember?” Sarah took Mikal’s hand as she moved to follow her husband down the two flights of stairs. Blinking profusely, they emerged into the bright sunshine. Without stopping to admire the scenery, Steve went straight to their SUV, checking the interior. With a shout of triumph, he emerged with her cell. However, as was the case with most car cell phone chargers, when the car’s engine was turned off, the ability to charge the phone was turned off, too. The cell phone was dead.
“Not a problem. We can charge it for a bit.” Certain he wouldn’t be able to find his keys, Steve climbed behind the wheel and reached beneath the seat to retrieve the spare. The black SUV purred to life as soon as he twisted the key. Plugging the phone back into the charger cable, he was rewarded with a soft musical chime as the cell recognized a valid power source. Mikal was staring open-mouthed at Steve. He climbed out.
“What?”
“What is that?”
“What is what? The car?”
“You’re talking to someone who has never seen a car before, honey.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry about that. This will take some getting used to. You see, a car is –”
At that moment shouts could be heard coming from within the house. Alarmed, Steve bolted back inside, igniting both hands as he did. Impossible! There’s no way someone could have followed them through that portal!
Sarah, however, had skidded to an abrupt stop. She was staring at her husband.
“Good, stay there,” he called as he disappeared inside the house, bolting up the stairs two at a time.
Several moments of silence ensued, followed shortly thereafter by Steve’s laughter. Sarah blinked. He was laughing? What now?
“What is it? What’s going on?”
“Stay there,” Steve called down, still chuckling. “We’ll come down to you.”
“We? Who’s there with you?”
Emerging back out of the house, Steve was shaking his head. Someone was moving behind him. It was –
“Tristan? What are you doing here?”
“As I understand it,” the soft-spoken soldier said, “the reason the two of ye went through so much turmoil in Lentari was that ye activated yer portal and then went through without the key to return, is that right?”
Sarah stared at her husband. “You forgot to take the key, didn’t you?”
Sheepishly, he handed her the sparkling purple key. “Okay, we can call this even.” He smiled at Tristan. “We still have another one. We could have just gotten the new one when we report back in, what was it? Six months? Nine? A year? Man, I can’t believe I don’t remember.”
“You can’t believe you forgot already?” Sarah giggled. “I can. I married an old –”
“Hey! Play nice!”
“The whole purpose of having young Mikal on this world,” Tristan interrupted with a smile, “was so that no one from ours could make it here. If we have a key to yer world on ours, then he would not be safe. Besides,” he continued, “it has been decided that it is very important for the prince to maintain his studies, and since he is destined to be ruler one day, he will need to have an adequate understanding of our kingdom and its laws.”
“So you’re going to be his tutor, is that it? Sure, why not? Join the gang!”
“My thanks, sir Steve.”
“While you’re here, you had better just call us Steve and Sarah so that you don’t stand out,” Steve explained. More than you already do, he silently added.
“Aye, I will try to remember.”
Sarah grabbed her husband’s arm, spinning him around.
“You just ignited your hands!”
“So? I’ve been doing that for a while now.”
“Not here you haven’t.”
Realization sunk in. His jhorun was working here? How could that be? Bewildered, he looked at his hands and ignited them again. Sure enough, both hands became engulfed in flames. Snuffing them out, he looked at his wife.
“You try something.”
Sarah paused, thinking of a location back inside the house. Moments later, she vanished. The upstairs window opened. She poked her head out.
“Am I supposed to be able to do this?”
“Come on back down here.”
Pulling her head back inside, Sarah closed the window and then materialized next to her husband. Steve turned to Tristan.
“No one ever told us that our jhoruns would work here.”
“Because they do not, sir Steve.”
“You just saw it work. Both of us can still use our jhoruns. Can you?”
Tristan was silent a moment as he asked his jhorun to summon a small dagger. Nothing. He again ordered his jhorun to summon a dagger, dirk, anything. Nothing appeared.
“See? I told ye that jhorun is ineffective here. The Scribes have long told us that their own jhoruns did not work here, either.”
Steve ignited his right hand, holding it before Tristan’s face. “And what do you call this, then? Think I can spontaneously combust that often?”
Tristan looked at the flaming hand in front of him. “I cannot answer ye, sir Steve. That goes against everything I was ever told about yer world.”
A car’s engine revved in the distance. Then they all heard the faint, but distinctive clang as a set of iron gates were pushed open.
“There aren’t any other driveways with gates,” Sarah recalled, eyeing her husband. “Someone’s coming.”
“Someone has keys to this place? Mikal, back inside the house. You, too, Tristan.”
Boy and tutor scrambled inside the mansion, closing the front door behind them.
The sound of crunching gravel steadily increased as the car moved closer, finally rounding the bend and coming into view. Of all the vehicles he imagined he could be looking at, this one wasn’t anywhere on the list.
The old, beat-up blue and white truck came to a stop just before the house. Stan Miller emerged, staring hard at his son and daughter-in-law.
“Steve? Sarah? What – where have you been? Where’d - you were not here last night. I searched that house from
top to bottom!”
“Well, we just got back. Literally. What are you doing here, dad?”
“What do you think I’m doing here? You vanish for over a month and you think your mother and I aren’t going to worry?” He stared at his son, as if seeing him for the first time. He looked at Sarah. Had they been to a costume party? “What are you wearing? Where were you?” he repeated.
“You wouldn’t believe me. Not by a long shot.”
“Hold on, we need to call your mother. And, you get to do all the talking.” Stan pulled out his cell and got his wife on the phone. “Hon, there’s someone here that you are going to want to talk to.”
Steve took the phone. Wincing, he held it up to his ear. “Hi, mom.”
Even though Sarah was standing a full five feet away, she could still hear the distinctive squawk his mother had let out.
“No, I’m fine, really. Sarah, too. What? Ummm, I don’t think you’ll believe me. You see, we… what? WHAT?! What the f-… How could you possibly know that??”
Perplexed, Sarah studied her husband’s face. Did his mother actually suspect where they’ve been? How could that be??
“What is Steve doing, holding that thing to his ear?”
With the unexpected appearance of Steve’s father, Sarah had momentarily forgotten about Mikal and Tristan, who had just now emerged from the house. Sarah looked down at Mikal, then over at Stan. Her father-in-law stared at the boy then at the strange man.
While Steve held a fast and furious conversation with his mom, Stan sidled closer to Sarah. “Who are these two? Are they friends of yours?”
“I’ll answer that if you answer me this: what are Steve and his mom arguing about? Do you know?”
Stan scoffed. “Bonnie had some outrageous notion that since this was my parent’s house that you two might have been unarguably out of the country. Horse crap, if you ask me. What is that supposed to mean, anyway? How could you two have been out of the country?”
“Stan, what if I told you that not only were we out of this country, but out of this world, too?”
“Not you, too,” He groaned, running his hands through his hair. “Why would you go along with this charade? What you suggest is impossible.”
Sarah was nodding. “And if I can prove it to you?”
“How? How can you possibly prove it?”
Sarah turned, pointing to the third floor window overlooking the garden that she had previously stuck her head out of. “See that window up there? Top floor with the white trim?”
Stan gazed up at the closed window. “Yes, I see it.”
“Keep watching it.”
“And what am I looking for?”
Suddenly the window opened. Sarah leaned out and waved to her father-in-law.
Stan’s neck actually cracked as he snapped his head around to the spot Sarah had just vacated. “What the hell?” Stan rubbed the painful kinks that were beginning to form in his neck. “How did you get up there so fast?”
“Teleportation,” Sarah called down. “A gift I was given upon setting foot in Lentari. One I didn’t think I’d still have once we returned. But, there you go.”
“You expect me to believe that you magically appeared up there?”
“Look around you. Clearly I’m not down there, right?”
“Not unless there are two of you,” he admitted. Returning his gaze to the window, he was startled to discover Sarah was gone. A soft tap on his shoulder had him spinning around yet again. There she was!
“But…you… Do that again.”
“Let’s try this. I’ll stay in your line of sight. See that stone bench in the middle of the garden over there?”
Stan looked beyond his daughter-in-law and saw the bench about fifty yards away. “I see it.” He blinked. A figure had just materialized out of thin air and was waving at him.
“Stay there,” she shouted to him. “I’ll come back.”
Deciding to watch the spot that she kept disappearing from, Stan reeled in shock as Sarah materialized beside him. His look of disbelief was very rewarding.
“You teleported yourself! You actually teleported from here to there!”
Sarah smiled, nodding her head. “Trust me, no one was more surprised than I was once I learned I could do it.” She took Stan’s hand in her own. “Please believe me when I say that Steve and I were stuck on another world for the past month or so. Once we learned we had inherited this house, we came up to take a look. We discovered the portal, and without realizing what we were doing, activated it and stepped through, without having any way to return home.”
“What was it like?” His voice had changed. There was no malice, no venom, just sheer unbridled curiosity.
“We’ll have to take you there. It’s very picturesque. It can be dangerous though, if you don’t know what you’re doing, but as long as you have Steve around, you’ll be fine.”
Stan looked over at his son, still deep in conversation on his cell. “Why do you say that? Does Steve have some magical ability, too?”
“Steve has the ability to summon and control fire. Very handy to have when being attacked by griffins, or trying to impress dragons, or battling huge bugs.”
“Griffins? Dragons? Are you serious??”
“Yeah, I am. Apparently us showing up there was foretold in some ancient prophecy of theirs. We have the ability to protect their future king, which reminds me. May I present Kre’Mikal, prince of Lentari. Mikal, this is Steve’s father, Stan.”
Stan looked down at the small boy, who returned his gaze with equal fascination. Pausing only a few moments, Stan extended his hand. His manners kicking in automatically, Mikal grasped the forearm of the father of one of his two protectors. “Pleased to meet ye.”
“Nice to meet you as well, Mikal,” Stan answered, noting the strange manner in which the boy spoke.
Tristan stepped forward, giving a slight cough.
“Stan, I’d also like you to meet Tristan, who will be Mikal’s tutor while he’s here.”
“And are you going to be taking care of him?” Stan asked, after shaking hands with the silent, bald man.
“We are his official bodyguards,” Sarah confirmed. “Until things are safe again in his kingdom, we will be looking after him.”
Amazed, Stan looked at the boy again. At that time, Sarah heard her husband finally say goodbye and then heard the distinctive snap of a cell phone being closed. Steve joined them moments later.
“You’ll never believe this,” he told his wife, momentarily forgetting that his father was standing quietly nearby. “Mom knows about Lentari. Apparently the Scribes, I mean grandpa Simon, actually told her a little about -”
“Did you just call your grandparents ‘the Scribes’?” Stan interjected.
Realizing his father was still present, Steve grinned. “Yeah, that’s what they were called in Lentari. They were the court scribes, restoring ancient Lentarian manuscripts and cataloging the royal library. They’ve been performing tasks for the king and queen there for years now. That’s where we’ve been. We were stuck there until we could get the key to come back. Long story.”
Stan’s head was spinning. All those stories his parents had told him were true? He had just figured they were pathetic attempts to excuse their behavior for the past thirty or so years.
“Sarah says you can control fire?”
Amazed, Steve stared at his father, and then at his wife, who nodded her encouragement for a demonstration. “Yeah, I do. How did you - never mind. Wanna see?”
Without waiting for a response, he ignited both hands, holding them up for his father’s inspection.
Stan blinked. Both of his son’s hands were now completely engulfed in flames, yet he didn’t appear to be in any pain! Incredible! Realization finally started to settle in, and a profound sense of guilt slowly reared its ugly head.
Steve shared a glance with his
wife. He suddenly knew what the rift had been between his father and his grandparents. The guilt his dad must now be suffering had to overwhelming.
“There’s no way you could have known that they were on another world, dad,” Steve said softly. “I wouldn’t have believed it, either.”
Nodding appreciatively, Stan met his son’s eyes. “I just felt that they had to be telling lies. All those attempts at telling me stories about griffins, and magic.” Sighing heavily, he leaned up against his son’s Santa Fe. “You actually met a live griffin?”
“About thirty of them,” Steve confirmed, smiling at his dad. “Would you believe some can actually speak? I even made friends with several of them.”
“I wish your mother was here.”
Looking closely at his father, Steve gave his wife a sidelong glance, raising an eyebrow. Taking the mimet from Steve’s outstretched palm, Sarah closed her eyes.
Let’s see, Sarah thought. If my jhorun truly works here then I should be able to picture something to reference. An image formed: a quaint living room in Bonnie and Stan’s house. She’d been there a few times, enough to be able to visualize where everything was. Taking a deep breath, she teleported.
Sarah vanished, right before Stan’s eyes.
“Where’d she go?”
“To see if she can bring mom here.”
“What?! Can she do that?”
“She was teleporting people across the kingdom of Lentari not three days ago.”
“How? How can she move people around like that?”
“Essentially, it’s magic. Whether you believe it or not, it exists. You watched me light my hands on fire. Sarah just teleported right in front of you. Take it from someone who had a very difficult time believing in all of this. Magic is real, and exists on Lentari.”
“And here, too, apparently,” Stan observed.
“Yeah, I can’t figure that one out,” Steve said, shaking his head. “Why are we still able to –”
Sarah materialized then, with a short, middle-aged woman clutching her arm, eyes squeezed tightly shut.
“Hi mom.”
Bonnie Miller cracked an eye open. Good lord! There was her son! It worked! Sarah had just teleported them over thirteen hundred miles north! Rushing to hug her son, Bonnie caught sight of a small boy with a strange bald man standing silently nearby.
Introductions were made while Sarah snuck off to call her sister. Much to Sarah’s surprise, before she could get a word out edgewise, Annie hit her with, “Must be nice to be able to take such a long vacation! Coeur d’Alene must be very pretty.”
“You weren’t worried?”
“Should I have been? Mom got a call from Steve’s mom, saying that you were probably going to be gone longer than planned and that they don’t have cell service there.”
“She did, did she?” Clever woman! She had surmised, correctly, that when they were gone longer than anticipated, that they were more than likely out of the area. Way out, Sarah thought with a chuckle. A quick phone call to her mother confirmed Annie’s story. Her mother was pleased she that she had a good time and to call later that night to hear how things went. Her mother-in-law had just saved her from a major headache!
Rejoining the rest of the group, she was shocked to see Steve’s parents embracing, with his father doing his best not to get teary-eyed.
“How’d it go?” Steve inquired. “Were they all freaked out?”
“Nope, not at all. And I have your mother to thank for that.”
“Excuse me? What did my mom do?”
Detaching herself from her quietly grieving husband, Bonnie approached her daughter-in-law. “I do hope you don’t mind, dear, but I had told myself that if we ever lost contact with the two of you, especially going up there, that there was a chance that you could have found the portal. You two are the most intelligent people I have ever met, so if anyone would have been able to figure out how to activate it, it would be you two.” Smiling warmly at her son, standing next to his beautiful wife, Bonnie continued. “After two weeks with no contact I just knew the stories were true. Lentari did exist, and you two managed to find your way there. So I called Sarah’s family, assuring them that that you were okay, and chose to extend your stay.”
“And that we were out of cell phone range,” Steve said, nodding his head.
“Like that trip you two took to that small town in Oregon,” his mother confirmed. “They didn’t have cell phone service there, either. Sarah, your mother was very understanding. If she would have called to inform me that you two were out of cell phone range, and taking even more time, I would have panicked.”
“That’s my mom,” Sarah laughed. “She’s very laid-back.”
Assuring her in-laws that they were fine, Sarah set about preparing to transport the both of them back to Phoenix, with Steve’s father agreeing to leave his truck behind.
“I can drive it back down at Christmas, if that’s okay,” Steve had told his father.
“Son, that’s fine with me. You just saved me a twenty hour trip. Your mother and I can use the car for a while.”
Tucking several mimets into her pocket, Sarah returned the Millers to their home. Moments later, she reappeared, smiling at both Tristan and Mikal.
“You are gonna come in really handy,” Steve observed, giving his wife a hug.
“I can’t wait to tell Annie all about what’s happened to us!”
“How much are you going to tell her?”
“Everything. I don’t keep secrets from her.”
“Sorry, I knew that. What I meant was, how much are you going to hit her with at one time?”
“Oh. Probably all of it. She’s a smart girl. She can handle it.”
“We’ll have to set up some type of get-together, really freak her out. Just show up suddenly on her doorstep. What do you think she’d do?”
“We’re not going to do that,” Sarah shook her head. “You want to surprise your family all the time, that’s fine, but we’re not doing that with mine.”
“Spoilsport.”
The two of them took the remaining part of the day to set their affairs straight. Steve had indeed been let go from his job for his extended absence, a fact which didn’t trouble him in the slightest. He had been itching for an excuse to leave and start his own computer consulting business for quite some time. Sarah’s employer, a medical billing company, had a much more mom-and-pop feel to it. Her company had no choice but to fill her position with someone else. However, not only were they thrilled to learn Sarah was safe, they even offered to let her work remotely when they were finally settled in Coeur d’Alene. All she needed was a computer, a high-speed Internet connection, and a phone. She thanked her bosses profusely, but declined, explaining that she and Steve needed to focus on their family.
A phone call to their apartment manager confirmed their apartment was still in order, with action just now ready to be taken to locate the missing tenants. They gave their notice and promised to move out in thirty days.
Draining the cell phone battery for the second time that evening, Steve finally took a seat in the huge, luxurious sitting room on the ground floor. Mikal followed suit moments later. Sarah and Tristan rummaged through the kitchen, finding not one crumb of food in the entire house. Squeezing enough power out of Sarah’s cell to make one more phone call, Steve delighted the young prince with his first pizza. Tristan was less than enthused, but politely ate a few slices.
“We’ll get some proper food soon,” Sarah promised. “As soon as we find a grocery store.” Tristan nodded his appreciation.
Mouth full of pepperoni, Mikal grinned. “I like pizza! Can we have this again?”
“Pizza is only the start of it,” Steve promised. “There are hamburgers, fried chicken, and burritos, just to name a few. Then there are video games, which, just to give you fair warning, I am the king. And movies! Don’t get me started!! Trust me, sport,
you’re gonna love it here!”
THE END
The Prophecy Page 53