by Beca Lewis
It was one reason that Abbadon wanted to destroy it. He did not believe in collaboration or community. Instead, he destroyed nature and then harvested the power and energy that he needed from the creatures of Erda that his monsters captured. He used them and then discarded them. The horror of that discovery would never leave me. What terrified me was that there were probably many more manufacturing plants in existence, other than the one we had destroyed.
I tabled that thought and arranged my face to be happy and pleased as I entered our home. This house wasn’t any different than any other home in Eiddwen. There was no sign that the King of Erda lived here. That is, if you could call it living. My father had taken to staying in his bedroom all day staring at the ceiling, willing himself to leave.
Since my return, he had stabilized but was not getting better. It was as if he was living in two places. I had to convince him to come back to Erda and help me save the Kingdom.
Once the people who took care of my father learned that I had not deserted them, but had been sent away, they stopped pretending that I was invisible, and I became the person they were most happy to see. That happiness had much to do with their desire that their King recover and the knowledge that I might help with that process. In the absence of my friends, I had come to rely on their friendly faces.
Today, my father’s head of the house, Berta, met me at the front door and asked if she could speak to me in private before I went in to see my father.
I followed her to her office, a little room to the right of the front door. From there, Berta had a view of the street in front of the house, the front door, and all the hallways that led to the rest of the house. She also had a view of the kitchen because she had installed a window that looked into that room. Berta had her finger on the pulse of everything going on in that house.
Like every dwelling in Erda, the room’s light changed as we entered her office to match what was needed. The trees handle all the lighting in my father’s Kingdom through their roots. This was unlike the homes of the beings that lived underground where the tree roots are visible as they hold up the dirt walls. Homes in the towns do not have visible roots in the walls, but I know that they are there anyway. Now that I had begun to understand the trees of Erda, it never fails to feel comforting to go into a room and feel their presence inside as much as outside.
Berta gestured to the chair in front of her desk made of a large slab of wood polished to perfection. Only one piece of paper was on it. If she needed anything, I knew Berta would wave her hand and it would be there. Berta was a master of practical magic. As I watched her sit behind the desk, I realized that even though Professor Link was not there to teach me more about magic, Berta was. I was embarrassed to realize how much time I had wasted by not taking advantage of what was around me.
I curled my feet up under me and waited. I could feel my heart race faster and faster as Berta merely sat and looked at me. It was the silence that was killing me. Back in the days when I was training at the Castle, almost all my teachers used the tool of silence on me, waiting for me to discover what I needed to find out, or make a fool of myself, and here Berta was using it on me now.
“I’m sorry, Berta,” I said.
“What are you sorry for, Kara Beth?” Berta asked, not that unkindly. Berta reminded me of my friend Grace from the Earth dimension, and I wondered if they were related. That thought took me down another path. I remembered what Suzanne had told me about the same people being in different dimensions. What if Berta was the Grace of Erda?
I tabled that thought for the moment and answered, “For moping around wishing for what isn’t instead of enjoying what is.”
Berta stood and walked to my chair and gestured for me to stand up. Confused, I stood, afraid of what was going to happen next. Instead, Berta reached out and pulled me into a hug just like the ones that Grace used to give me.
I burst into tears and sobbed just like a little girl. Berta held me and patted me on my back saying, “There, there, let it out, little one.”
Hearing her say, little one, made me cry even harder. I had been trying to be so grown up, and yet in my heart, I yearned to just be loved because I was me, and not because I was supposed to save the Kingdom. It was a relief to be only Hannah from the Earth Realm, or even just Kara Beth, instead of a princess.
When I was all cried out, Berta produced a cool cloth, which she simply plucked from the air, and dabbed it all over my face. I hadn’t felt so good in ages.
“Okay, now we can go see your father. It’s time for both of you to stop pining away and start living again.”
When I started to say thank you, she shook her head, and said, “Not necessary, my dear.”
She held my hand, and we walked down the hall to my father’s room together. Berta was right. It was time to start living in Erda. I was ready.
Deadsweep Three
Berta and I found Darius in bed with all the drapes closed and a washcloth across his eyes. It was precisely how I expected him to be because that was what he looked like every day. The man I remembered, whose presence was so huge that it filled rooms when he walked in, was no longer there. He had been replaced with a shriveled version of a man.
When I first returned home, I had some sympathy for my father. I tried to understand why he didn’t bother to greet me, just lay in a dark room, barely breathing. After all, he had lost his wife.
But once my friends deserted me, and my father made no effort to talk to me or get better, I found myself getting mad at him. It was his choice to leave, to let himself become a shrunken version of the man that he used to be.
Being angry at my father didn’t make me like myself very much, but as hard as I tried to let it go, I couldn’t get the resentment to go away. Every morning I would stop in his room and say hello. Hold his hand. Tell him that I had returned.
At night I sat with him and read from one of his favorite books. But he didn’t acknowledge me at all. I wanted to scream at him. “Here I am, your daughter. Why are you choosing to leave me? Why are you not helping save your Kingdom? Abbadon wants to destroy all life on the planet, for zuts sake!”
Sometimes, I would remind him that I lost someone too. I lost my mother in Erda and all my friends in the Earth dimension. I couldn’t understand it. How could he desert me? How could he abandon his people?
As we stood in the doorway together, I knew that Berta wanted me to try again to reach him. I was willing to try to give up my anger and resentment, but was he willing to let go of feeling sorry for himself? Berta gave my hand a last squeeze and left me to enter the room by myself, but not before whispering to me that it was alright to be mad, and perhaps I should tell him why I was. It might help us both.
When I looked at her to make sure I had heard what she said correctly, she gave me an encouraging nod before returning to her office.
I stood by my father’s bedside looking at the man in the bed. No, he didn’t look anything like the father I remembered, but the fact that I remembered him at all was something to be happy about.
Until recently, I hadn’t even remembered my mother and father’s name, let alone my life with them. Being sent away to live in the Earth dimension had wiped my memory of all things Erda, including my parents and all the other people I loved. Over time, some of my memory and magical skills had returned. For that, I was very grateful.
I pulled a chair up beside the bed and started talking. I told my father everything that had happened since I came through the portal and returned to Erda. How I almost died inside of the monster Shatterskin but was saved because my friend La had escaped and brought help.
I told him about my time in the Castle, where he was supposed to be, and the training I had received from Niko, Aki, and Professor Link.
I described the help that the Ginete had been in building shields so we could get close enough to d
issolve the Shrieks. I told him about how the Whistle Pigs had dug a hole big enough to drop the disabled Shatterskin down into the earth where he could never hurt anyone again.
Describing the manufacturing plants where Abbadon made the Shrieks by draining his prisoners of all their life force brought me to tears. We rescued some of them, but hundreds more had died. I told him how happy I had been when Leif and Sarah had stepped out of the Sound Bubble and embraced me. How for two days all of us celebrated together. And then a few days later all of them were gone, leaving me alone in Eiddwen.
By the time I was done telling him the whole story, I was exhausted. But more than that, I was furious, and I told him so.
“What right do you have to give up? The fight is not over. Mother would never, ever, have given up like you are!” I screamed at him.
The figure on the bed didn’t move. “You can’t possibly be my father,” I whispered to him. “You don’t look like him. He would never leave his Kingdom and me this way. Whoever you are, I give up. My father must already be dead.”
Something inside of me broke when I said those words. It was true. The man in the bed could not be the King. I could not waste one more minute of my life moping around because whoever was lying there refused to live.
There was a light knock on the door, and one of the women who took care of the man on the bed poked her head in the door and asked if she could come in.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m done here.” And I meant it. My father had made a choice.
Now I had to make one too, and it was not going to be the same one he was making. I was going to stop moping around. I was not going to wait until everyone returned. I would resume my training with who and what I had.
But it would have to be the next day. Telling my father the story, and then making my decision to let him be, had wiped me out. Too tired to eat, I stumbled into my bedroom and fell into bed without bothering to take off my clothes.
Right before I fell asleep, I whispered a little prayer that all my friends were safe, and just before sleep took over I thought I heard Leif’s voice, telling me that all was well.
Berta must have come in during the night and covered me, because when I woke up I was snuggled under the covers, still clothed, but no longer angry. I was determined.
If I had to be Queen, I would be. But first, there was a monster to rid the world of, and I needed to be prepared. And I knew just what I needed to do.
Deadsweep Four
Berta was waiting for me in the small breakfast nook tucked into a corner of the kitchen. Food was already on the table, and a cup of steaming hot coffee was waiting for me. I had no idea how coffee ended up in Erda, but I was delighted that it did. On the other hand, Berta was the queen of practical magic. Perhaps she just pulled it out of the air.
When Berta laughed at me, I knew she had heard what I was thinking, and maybe that was what she had done. It was time for me to access the resources I had at my fingertips and Berta was the place to start.
“Didn’t get very far with your father, did you?” Berta said, slipping into a chair opposite me. We were the only two at the table. Caretakers came and went in the house during the day, but the two of us and my father were the only ones that lived there. Berta took care of everything. I knew nothing about how things worked in the “real world” of doing things in Erda.
Since I had returned to Erda, other than the two weeks I had been moping around my father’s house, I had been training to fight monsters. That was not your everyday kind of living. It was certainly not the kind of life that I had lived in the Earth Realm.
But since my return to Erda, I hadn’t had much time to learn the basics of Erda living. Sure I had an excuse, but it sucked. And I was tired of myself and the excuses. What I had decided after talking to my father was burning inside of me.
It could have been anger. But my friends Niko and Beru taught me how to use anger, and that was what I was going to do.
“Nowhere, Berta, but it helped me to tell him everything, just as you said that it would. It helped me make a decision.”
“What decision was that?” Berta asked as she pulled the most amazing-smelling cinnamon rolls out of the oven.
The steam from the stove made her little gray curls that were peeping out from the cap she wore on her head, curl a bit more. She slapped my hand as I reached for a bun even before she had a chance to put them on my plate. What can I say? I was hungry from not eating the night before.
“To train. While I was at the Castle, Professor Link taught me magic. Niko taught me how to fight, and defend myself, and Aki taught me how to be calm, still, and listen. At least that was their primary focus, although everyone was trying to teach me.
“Since they left me here in Eiddwen, I haven’t done anything other than mope around wanting them to come back. However, it’s been radio silence. I haven’t heard anything from anyone.
“Last night I remembered that they all used silence on me from time to time. They sometimes left me alone until I figured something out on my own. So, what if that is what they are doing now?
“Sure, they could be out researching what Abbadon is doing. But they didn’t need to all go. My fairy friends, the Priscillas could have stayed. Or even Beru, or maybe Ruta. For sure Cahir could have stayed with me.
“Why would a wolf need to go with them? But they all left except Lady who won’t talk to me. Why would that be unless it is because they want me to do something while they are gone?”
“What do you think they want you to do?” Berta asked. I didn’t know Berta that well, but I could have sworn I saw her try to stifle a laugh. It was okay. I deserved to be laughed at.
“Train on my own. Starting with you!”
This time Berta did start laughing. She laughed so long I started worrying that she would never stop. When she finally gathered herself together, her face was bright pink, and tears were running down her cheeks.
If anyone else had laughed at me like that, for sure I would have gotten huffy and either stomped out of the room or started crying. It all depended on who had done the laughing.
Instead, I stared at her, and then as calmly as possible asked her why she was laughing.
“Oh, my darling girl,” Berta said. “I can’t teach you anything that you don’t already know. But I appreciate the thought that you think I can. However, I do believe you are on the right track with the listening piece. And the decision to stop moping is a great one.
“Your father may or may not recover. There is nothing you can do now but be willing for it to be okay with you either way. And I think you came to that decision last night, didn’t you?”
I nodded at her, and she patted my hand as she put another roll onto my plate. She put the rest of the food onto a platter which I knew was for anyone who came to the house that day. No one went hungry in Berta’s home.
I stared at the roll wondering if I had room to eat it or if I was making a pig of myself. Like all of Berta’s cooking, they were delicious.
“If I were you, I would eat up. I think you are heading for a busy day. I’ll be in the garden if you need me.”
I remained in the kitchen finishing my roll and coffee and thinking about what Berta had said. If she wasn’t going to train me, I would have to teach myself. I wondered if that’s what she meant when she said I was heading for a busy day.
Today I was not going to the hill to wait all day for people who may not come. They would return someday, and they would be disappointed in me if all I did was wait for them.
Instead, I was going to see what I could do on my own. If I had to fight Abbadon’s new monster by myself, I would. I said that to myself with all the bravado I could muster. At the same time, I knew that my friends, the team that had defeated the Shrieks and Shatterskin with me, would return and they would want me to be r
eady.
I decided to begin the day the same way I would have done if they were there. In quiet meditation. Berta had shown me a small side garden that she told me my mother, Rowena, had used every morning. There was a tiny hut inside the enclosure that she used when it was raining or snowing, but otherwise, she placed a mat on the grass and sat there.
After changing into clean clothes, and brushing my hair back into a ponytail, I opened the door to the meditation garden. I could almost feel my mother’s presence. It was the perfect place for me to begin.
Deadsweep Five
That day was the turning point for my time in Eiddwen. I had made a decision. I could still be Hannah who felt loved and cared for by the people in the Earth Realm while becoming the strong woman I knew I had to be in Erda. I would embrace the fact that in Erda I am Princess Kara Beth.
I developed a training routine based on what I had learned during my time at the Castle. Since no one was going to do it with me, I could do it myself.
Niko had taught me that having a routine helped to accomplish anything, so I made one for myself that I was determined to follow every day no matter what the weather was, or how I felt.
First, I visited my father every morning on my way to breakfast. I stopped to read to him every evening on my way to bed, no matter how tired I had made myself that day. I worked on not letting myself get pulled into what he was doing.
Although it was ironic that while I was building a routine to make myself better, my father had developed a method to make himself worse. Every morning I wondered if he would still be there when I went to visit in the evening. The fact that he was still hanging on gave me a modicum of hope that he would recover, but I wasn’t expecting it or waiting for it.
After seeing my father in the morning, I had breakfast with Berta and filled her in on what I had done the day before. If she hadn’t been there, I am sure I would have gone crazy.