by Beca Lewis
“Only what Link said to me when he gave it to me. He said he was returning it. But I didn’t understand then, and I still don’t.”
“It’s time, then,” Sarah said.
She took my hand, and we went into the meditation room where I had first gone to meet with the Oracle. Then it was a little blue light inside of a tree trunk. Later I realized that the Oracle had been Sarah all along. It made sense to me. She was the wise woman everyone went to back in the Earth Realm. But in Erda, she was more than that. She had restored most of my magic abilities or at least opened the door for me to find them again.
I knew that there were still some hidden from me.
I was hoping that perhaps Sarah would be opening doors to more of my skills. The thought that I would learn more about the bracelet that I wore got me moving. Instead of shuffling along, I almost flew to the room with her.
The door with the wolf head knocker was there, and I still had to duck to get inside. This time I knew that the different size door was there to make me aware I was entering a different kind of space. If someone walked into the room as if it was a standard size door, they would whack their head. Needing to duck broke the spell of being unconscious about entering a new place.
Inside, Sarah motioned for me to sit on one of the pads on the floor. It was dark as it had been before. There was still a blue light in a tree trunk, but now Sarah sat opposite me. I realized that she had probably done the same thing the last time that I had been here, I just hadn’t seen her.
“Yes, I was here with you, Kara, and I had to let your memory of what happened slowly return. Sometimes our thought processes get in the way of everything. We get caught up in trying to figure things out. Better to listen and let memories and information filter up and become visible in their own time.
“So, you might not remember everything this time either. But you will in time. When you need it, the information will be there.”
I wanted to protest. I needed to know now. I needed to be in control. At the same time, I knew those needs would work against me. What I wanted most was to be whole, and in my heart, my deepest wish was to be part of liberating Erda from Abbadon. Whatever that took, I was willing. Even if it meant I didn’t remember everything that happened.
“So you trust me?” Sarah said.
Those words brought back so many memories of things Sarah had done for me and my friends and family in Earth and Erda, that tears started sliding down my face. I couldn’t brush them off. Sarah was holding my hands.
“Then you are ready. Let’s talk about this bracelet.”
Those words were the last thing I remembered.
Deadsweep Thirty-Two
The next day we went back to the Castle. We got there using the underground passages instead of walking outside. I wanted to go topside so badly I felt as if I was going to explode with the wanting. It’s not that the tunnels and rooms underground are terrible. They aren’t. They are warm, cozy, surprisingly clean, and have everything we needed.
What they didn’t have was sunshine, breezes, trees, and flowers scenting the air. Usually, this isn’t a big deal. No one stayed underground all the time. And we hadn’t been underground long either, but with all that was happening it felt as if we had been there for a few years. I had that claustrophobic feeling where everything seems as if it is closing in. I knew I was having that reaction because of what we had learned about Deadsweep, but it didn’t change the feeling.
To keep myself from going stir crazy on our walk back, I decided to ask questions about things that had been piling up in my head—unanswered questions. I didn’t think any of them pertained directly to Deadsweep, but at least that little corner of my brain where things were that I didn’t understand might get tidied up a bit.
My biggest problem was deciding who to ask. Should I move from person to person asking questions, or badger just one? I decided on only one. My first thought was Teddy. But he and the Ginete brothers were staying in their labs and weren’t coming to the Castle with us.
Then I thought of Suzanne. But she had left the tunnels in her dragon persona and was meeting us at the Castle. Sarah and Leif were not around. They were two of the few people in Erda that rarely walked to where they wanted to go. They projected themselves there instead. I had already asked how they did that. How did they appear out of nowhere? But no one would tell me. I was aware that Zeid and Aki could also do that, but I rarely saw them use the skill.
That was one of the questions that I wanted to ask. Why not? If you could project yourself, why walk, or ride a dragon or maybe a horse? That thought made me wonder. Were there horses in Erda? Why wouldn’t there be? How come I had never seen them?
I had a head filled with questions, and I decided that the person who was going to answer them for me was Zeid. He was the one usually walking with me after all, making him easily accessible. Besides, we were betrothed, shouldn’t he be answering questions for me? That was my reasoning.
“Okay, I’ll answer most of them, Kara. But I don’t guarantee that I will answer all of them. Some I may not even know the answer to. If you agree to those terms, we can begin,” Zeid said coming up beside me.
“Look at that. I didn’t even have to call you!” I said. “Turns out I have a great first question. Are you always listening in on my thoughts?”
“Zut. You know better than that, Kara Beth. I have to sleep sometime.”
At my sharp intake of breath, he laughed, “Of course not. But your head was boiling over with unanswered questions, so all of your friends decided that it was me who should answer them.”
Zeid had gestured behind us to the group that was walking far enough behind us to keep out of trouble. It was evident that they had dropped back to keep me from turning and talking to them.
“Cowards!” I yelled back at them. The Priscillas each gave me an obscene hand gesture which was spoiled by them laughing so hard they almost fell out of the air. “Now where did they learn that?” I asked Zeid.
“Is that one of your questions?”
“Okay, it is.”
“Can’t answer. I have no idea. You will have to ask the Priscillas.”
By then I was getting the idea of where this was going to go, but it was still worth a try. Before I began, Zeid held up his hand. “One more thing. I will not answer any questions about us. Those memories will have to come back to you on your own.”
“Fair enough,” I said. Zeid was right. I was planning to ask him those questions first. I sorted through my questions in my head and decided to ask whatever was up next instead of trying to pick which one was the most important.
“Okay. Why don’t you use that projection thing you guys can do more often?”
“I am not as good at it as you might think. For me, it takes up quite a bit of energy, which unless it is necessary I prefer to save for other things. However, if it is needed, I will do it. Other people find it as easy as walking. I prefer walking. I like to feel the movement.”
Zeid finished and looked at me expectantly.
“Okay, here’s another. Remember after one of the battles with the Shrieks, I was told that Ruta traveled by tree? No one ever told me what that meant.”
Zeid turned around and looked back at Ruta who gave me a look which I guess Zeid knew to be a yes because he answered me. “Ruta is related to trees.”
That didn’t surprise me. Ruta always reminded me of a block of wood with elf-like qualities. But that raised even more questions. I left those questions alone and asked again, “But how does he travel by tree?
“He steps into the tree and goes with the flow. The flow could go up, or across the forest tree to tree, or down into the roots.”
“What? How can he do that? Does he melt into the tree?“
“Kind of like that. But I don’t know more about how. And if you
are going to ask how Ruta became a healer, or anything about his past, or family, that is for him to answer.”
“Okay. Here’s a simple one. When I first came to the Castle, Earl and Suzanne were talking about the metal toadstools not being on the grid. What grid?”
“You’re right, that’s an easy one. They were talking about the communication systems that we use. The metal toadstools, as you call them, can’t tap into those systems. That’s because we worry that Abbadon might make use of them. As you know, he seems to have a way with machines.”
I nodded—that made sense. “Now I have one I can’t work out at all. I was gone only two years from Erda, but I remembered two lifetimes (although short ones) in the Earth dimension. How do people travel through the portals when they would keep ending up going backward or forwards?
“For example, if I ever got to revisit my Earth home, everyone would be much, much, older. I don’t get it. When Suzanne or Leif visited, it was the same time in both places when they returned.”
While I was talking, I could feel Zeid tensing up. When I was done asking the question, he turned to Niko who was now right behind us and said, “Not one I can answer. This question is all yours.”
Niko smiled and came up beside us and said. “It’s tricky. The portal adjusts the time.”
“Every portal adjusts the time?” I asked.
“As far as we know,” Niko answered. “And yes, if the timing didn’t work that would be a bit of a mess, wouldn’t it?”
For the rest of the walk we were all silent. Niko hadn’t really answered my question. And something about portals and time was nagging at me, but I didn’t have the question yet, let alone the answer.
Actually, that was the problem with everything going on with Deadsweep. We didn’t know the question yet. Maybe we should start there.
Deadsweep Thirty-Three
On the surface, everything at the Castle looked pretty much the same as it did before we left. Before we discovered the horrible things going on in Dalry.
The Castle is so big nothing changed when all the Castle staff and their families were brought inside. Once everyone was in, the doors were shut until further notice. That was one reason we arrived through the underground tunnels. The outside doors were bolted.
Until we popped up in the atrium, I didn’t even know there was an entrance to the tunnels in the Castle. It was probably one of the many secrets hidden within those Castle walls.
I didn’t know who arranged it so that we popped up inside the atrium, but I sent them a blast of gratitude. I suspected it was Teddy’s doing.
Being in the atrium was almost as delightful as being outside. The sides of the atrium were four stories high and was filled with trees and flowers. The atrium was so beautiful I laughed out loud with happiness. Although the glass ceiling was closed, the sun was streaming in through the glass and felt warm and soft on my face.
I remembered the first time I saw the atrium’s garden. It had reminded me of Sarah’s garden in the Earth Realm. It still did, and I wondered if perhaps Sarah had a hand in its creation.
It was lunchtime by the time we arrived. The table was loaded with food. The metal toadstools stood by as always to bring us more if we wanted it. Although everything looked the same, the atmosphere in the Castle had changed. I knew everyone felt it. But we all ignored it as we sat around the table laughing and enjoying each other.
We were buying time, just as the walk to the Castle had bought us time. Every one of us needed time to think about what Pita and Teddy had told us and what it meant.
Plus we needed to rest. Based on what we had heard, we were going to have some traveling to do. But first we needed a plan, and that’s what we didn’t have.
After lunch, everyone went their separate ways. We were to meet in a few hours in Professor Link’s classroom. It was the same room where he had tried to teach me magic. I guess he showed me something because I did have some magic skills now. At least I had more magic skills than I had a few months ago.
But I knew what Link would say. He would say that I didn’t get them—I remembered them. He would add that the need to remember was true for everyone. You didn’t get your skills. You had them. And then sometimes forgot them, or ignored them, or put them down as not useful or not spectacular enough.
Link told me that the labeling of skills, making one more important than another, is dangerous. Well, Link says it’s idiotic, which kind of sounds like labeling to me, but I know what he means.
This is the man who can step into a fire and then pull flames out and use it to light the herbs in a ceremonial bowl. When I once talked to the Professor about the time I saw him do that and remarked how awesome it was, he made a face like something was stinky and slapped that idea down immediately.
“What about the person who cooks your meals, Kara Beth? Or plants the flowers you love and helps them thrive? Or built the houses we stay in? Or the stone smith, the storyteller, or the person who takes care of the sick?
“These skills may not be flashy, but we need them. Wishing you could step into a fire without being burned is wishing for an illusion. It means nothing. Wish to be of service. Know that what is needed at the moment is something you can provide. Perhaps it is a flame, but just as important it might be a bowl of food or a song.”
I had stayed in the garden while I waited for the meeting thinking about that, and that’s where Professor Link found me.
“So you are thinking about the conversation about magic and skills?” he asked.
“I am. I’m also thinking about what Suzanne said as we were preparing our plan to stop the Shrieks and Shatterskin. She reminded us that it is the community that will defeat Abbadon. Not just one person. She was right. When we stopped the Shrieks and Shatterskin, it was all of us doing what we do best, but not by ourselves.
“I am beginning to see how it is impossible to do anything on our own. Everything, literally everything, is connected. How can Abbadon not see that?”
Link squinted at me. I used to be afraid of that squint. Maybe I still was, but now I knew that sometimes the squint was a good thing. “Kara, I think he does know that everything is connected, but doesn’t like it. It’s part of his driving force to rip that connection apart.
“The fact that the infection he is sending across the planet does rip friends and families apart is delightful to him. He can get us to attack each other, while he sits back in his version of a Castle and gloats. I think he is trying to prove to himself that connection is what is evil and not him.”
There wasn’t anything I could say to that. It was inconceivable to me that someone could believe such a thing, and then make it his life’s mission to destroy connection and then all life forms. It would leave him on a dead planet. What good would that do? Abbadon uses his victims as sources of power. Once he depletes them, they die. Sooner or later there would be no one left. Had he not thought this through? He would die too without life around him.”
“Perhaps he thinks he can reinvent life,” Link said.
I looked at Link in bewilderment. But there was nothing to say. What if he could? Was it possible?
Link and I sat in the garden together watching the butterflies and bees move from flower to flower. They were a beautiful symbol of our interconnection and need for each other. If Abbadon thought he could reproduce that, he was delusional. But then we all knew that he was. The question was, how do you stop a crazy person?
Link answered my unspoken question. “In Abbadon’s case by stopping his latest monster, Deadsweep. Then we will go after him.”
I nodded at Link and then lay back onto the mossy ground, felt the breath of the earth moving through me, and fell asleep.
When I woke, Link was gone, and I was refreshed and ready. I knew there was a solution, and I knew we would find it. We had to. There was no room
for failure.
Deadsweep Thirty-Four
The Priscillas were waiting for me in my room when I stopped in to splash water on my face in preparation for the meeting. I hadn’t seen them all day. Usually, they were hanging in my pocket or riding in Cahir’s fur. Come to think of it; I had no idea where Cahir was either. Or Beru. I had been so caught up in the Deadsweep problem I hadn’t realized they were missing.
What was wrong with me? How could I not have noticed that my friends were not around me as they usually were? It was a rift in my thinking. Maybe that was how the infection began. It made you forget your friends?
The idea that perhaps I was already infected with Abbadon’s Deadsweep made me feel like throwing up. I tried to sit down on the bed and missed, ending up on the floor. In the middle of being upset about Deadsweep, instead of doing something useful, I was as clumsy as ever.
Maybe someday I wouldn’t be as awkward. Maybe. On the other hand, perhaps I would be known as the Clumsy Princess. The one who no longer lived because she died in the Deadsweep epidemic.
Usually, my clumsiness would cause the Priscillas to break out into their tinkling bell laughter. This time they barely smiled.
“Ziffer. I am infected, aren’t I? That’s why I haven’t seen you, and you look so miserable. Did the Whistle Pigs prepare another jail room? You better put me in jail, right now, before it gets worse.”
“Oh for Pete’s sake, Kara, snap out of it,” Pris said. “You’re not infected with anything other than human idiocy. Some days you display worse stupidity than others. Perhaps you’ll grow out of it. But right now you are acting ridiculous. Everything is not all about you.”
“Oh. An idiot. No big deal,” I said as I picked myself up and sat on the bed. I did notice that Pris didn’t pull my hair to emphasize her point. That too was unusual.