The Return To Erda Box Set

by Beca Lewis

  I used the same door that we had let the rabbits out of just a few hours before. Outside, a full moon bathed everything with a blue-gold light making it easy to see where I was going.

  Cahir said that they would be under the spreading oak that lived just outside the Castle walls. Even though I could see where I was going, I still tripped over my own feet as I rushed over to hug Cahir and see the family that he had brought with him. Cahir is a gray wolf that has been my companion for as long as I can remember. He doesn’t like to be inside of castles or buildings, or Sound Bubbles, or use the circles of the Whistle Pigs. If he has to, he will, but the howl he makes while doing so is horrifying.

  Cahir had been visiting his family. I was surprised but delighted that he had brought them with him.

  “Oh, Cahir these pups are so precious.”

  I lay down on the ground and let them crawl all over me. It was only then that I realized that Cahir was there with just his children. “Where is your wife, Cahir?”

  He hung his head as he pushed the answer into my head. “She is with our relatives in the great beyond.”

  “Oh, no. I’m so sorry.”

  I wrapped my arms around his neck and buried my face in his fur. Cahir lay down, and I lay with him, the pups walking over both of us as I mourned his loss with him.

  “Did you bring your children here to be taken care of while we travel to Abbadon?”

  “No, I brought them so you can see them before you travel.”

  “You won’t be going with me?” I shrieked. I know I shouldn’t have reacted, I should have immediately understood. But, Cahir was my eyes, my companion. I couldn’t imagine going anywhere without him.

  “Where you are going, I can’t follow, Kara Beth.”

  I pleaded with Cahir to tell me more, but he wouldn’t. I fell asleep out there lying on Cahir, his children snuggled up beside me. In the morning as the first rays of the sun began to lighten the sky, I awoke. Alone.

  Beru found me there, crying, cold, and dirty.

  “Get up. Now!” she barked.

  Looking at my tear-stained face, she softened for a second and then brought herself back to giving orders. Little flower girl Beru was someone to be reckoned with. “You can’t afford to do this, Kara, and if Cahir saw you now, he would not be proud of you.”

  I stamped my foot. And then stopped. I knew she was right. I sighed and followed Beru back to my room, trying to let Cahir’s leaving be okay with me. I had only a few minutes to get cleaned up and get to the planning room. I didn’t know who would be running the meeting, but it didn’t matter. Being late was never, ever, an option. Unless you were trapped somewhere, and that may not even be a good excuse.

  For once I was glad that there were no mirrors in Erda. People believed that Abbadon used them to see what we were doing. I wondered if they were right, or if it was a story they believed, a version of Snow White, where the wicked queen watched Snow White in a mirror so she could plan how to get rid of her.

  Either way, we didn’t have any, and for once I was glad. I didn’t want to see what I looked like because if it was what I felt like, I was sure I would scare even myself.

  A fast shower, clean clothes which once again lay magically on my bed, and a quick brush through my hair and I ran down the hall to the room, opening the door as the first ray of light hit the window and beamed its warm glow across the room.

  Zeid rolled his eyes, Aki shook her head, and the three Priscillas started to laugh. Beru patted the seat beside her, and I slid in as gracefully as is possible for me.

  It was Leif running the meeting. He didn’t need to say anything. Everyone knew I had made it with only a second to spare. Food and drink were in the middle of the table. I pretended that I hadn’t run the whole way and helped myself to a sweet roll, coffee, and some sliced mango.

  Whatever was going to happen, I wanted to be well fed first. I guess I had left that thought channel open because everyone started to laugh. Well, not everyone. But I swear Ruta winked at me, and that made everything all right.

  Abbadon Ten

  Looking at Leif sitting with Anne and Garth I figured it out. Suddenly it was clear what the plan was going to be. And as usual, I couldn’t control myself. I blurted out the question, “Did you know this all along?”

  Before Leif could say anything, I added, “Oh, that’s what Cahir meant when he said he couldn’t go with me.”

  “Yes, to both, Kara. We suspected this was going to be the answer, which is why we brought Anne and Garth here. And yes, Cahir was ahead of us all.”

  “Wait,” Teddy said. “I’m lost here. What are you talking about?”

  I looked at Teddy and said, “We can’t defeat Abbadon now. The only way to do it is to stop him before he starts.”

  If I could see through his fur, I’m sure Teddy would have turned pale.

  “Are you telling us that somehow we can go back in time? And back in time, we can stop Abbadon before he begins to destroy everything? How is that possible?”

  Leif looked over at Professor Link who took over. “Technically we do it all the time with the Sound Bubbles, and portals, and even those of you who can teleport. All of these use a form of time manipulation. Well, that probably isn’t the right word, but it’s close.

  “The portals open in different dimensions and different times, but they do it in a way that allows us to travel between these time zones without changing who we are in each. The way it works isn’t as important as the fact that we already know how to do it.

  “However, instead of sending you to another dimension we are going to send you to another time.”

  “So you knew about this too?” Zeid asked Link.

  “I knew it was a solution if we didn’t come up with another one. But it was Suzanne who came up with the idea. She talked it over with Leif and Sarah, and then brought it to me as a possibility.”

  I asked the next obvious question, trying to sound positive while feeling negative. “The fact that this seems like a simple solution means it’s not, right? I mean, it sounds like we simply hop into some kind of time portal, find Abbadon, do something to make sure he doesn’t start destroying everything, then hop back into the portal and return to this time when everything will be just hunky dory.”

  “Hunky dory? That must be something you learned in the Earth Realm, Pretty Girl,” Teddy said.

  “Yepper!”

  Everyone laughed. It wasn’t that funny, but we all needed some comic relief.

  Link actually smiled at us and then did his famous squint before answering. “Yes, it sounds easy. And it would be wonderful if it could be just hunky dory as you said. But it’s not quite that simple, as you have guessed.

  “We have to be sure that you go back far enough. We don’t know what caused the change. That in itself could be dangerous because whatever it was, doesn’t want you to interfere with it. You could run into yourself while you are back there, and finally, if nothing does go wrong while you are there, what happens when you come back to this time? Will it be what it is now? Will you have changed something so drastically that some of us aren’t here anymore? There are so many things that could be different. And, even if nothing has changed other than the planet isn’t being destroyed by Abbadon, what if we don’t get you back to the right time? The ramifications of that are something we can barely understand.”

  “Well, when you put it that way …,” I said, and we all laughed again.

  Professor Link waited until we had calmed down before speaking. “This is why we wanted you to be sure that there are no other solutions. This is a drastic one.”

  Zeid had been sitting quietly while we discussed the plan. He had barely moved and hadn’t participated in any of the laughter. I knew that his thoughts were further along in what the consequences of this action could be tha
n any of the rest of us. So when he asked the next question, I wasn’t surprised.

  “I think we all can see that this is the only way we can stop Abbadon, and save our Kingdom. If we do it right, it will restore it to what it was. People who died, won’t have died. That would make it more than a victory. It would be healing.”

  Leif and Sarah smiled at him and nodded at him to continue.

  “Obviously this will be an incredibly dangerous mission, so have you worked out who is going?”

  “Aren’t we all going?” I blurted out.

  When no one answered me, I knew that we weren’t. “Why not?”

  Ruta grunted, and Beru reached out and held his hand.

  “Okay, so everyone understands this but me?”

  “If we all go, Suzanne said, “Then there is nobody here in this time frame who remembers who we are or where we went. Somebody has to stay, hold the memories, and be the marker that we can find again. And if the mission is not successful, we will need people here that can try to stop Abbadon as he continues in his quest to destroy Erda.”

  It was so obvious I felt stupid, but I kept on going, “Then who is going, and who is staying?”

  This time it was Sarah who answered me.

  “That, Kara, is the next decision, and much of it will be determined by where each of us will be of the most use, back in time, or here. However, that has to come after each of you thinks about the ramifications of going back in time.

  “Is this something you could do if needed? No one is going to think less of you if you can’t. It can’t be about ego. It has to be about the team and what will work.

  “If you go to the atrium, you’ll find a bag of food for each of you to take while you do what you need to do to make this decision. You all have your own personal process for figuring things out. Just remember, even if you do decide that you want to be one of the ones that will go back in time, that still may not be the place for you. All you are doing now is examining if you would be willing. See you back here in a few hours.”

  No one said anything as we filed out of the room. Although we walked back to the atrium together, we remained silent, respecting that everyone needed to think this through for themselves. I knew that Sarah had asked us to think about it, but I already knew my answer. I was leaving. Cahir had told me the night before. I just hadn’t understood what he meant. Now I did.

  Abbadon Eleven

  Even though I knew the decision had already been made for me, I wanted to take some quiet time before we met again. I think that was Sarah’s plan all along. Make sure we had food so we could go anywhere and give us each the space to come to terms with our decisions. There was no doubt in my mind that everyone would be saying yes to traveling in time. If we didn’t, then with Abbadon on the move again, it was very possible we wouldn’t be able to stop him this time.

  My first thought was to go to the meditation room in the Castle. The Whistle Pigs always make a meditation space in their villages in the tunnels, and I often go into that quiet place when I am troubled. It was in one of those meditation rooms that I had first discovered that Sarah was the Oracle.

  The meditation room in the Castle was the opposite of the ones in the Whistle Pig’s tunnels. Although small and comfortable, it looked out into an enclosed garden. Because there were no curtains on the windows, the room changed with the seasons and the changing light of the day.

  It was Leif who had shown me the room. He told me that it was one of my mother’s favorite spaces and that she was the one who had designed the garden, planting it herself. No matter what the season, the garden was always beautiful.

  My mother had made sure there were birdhouses scattered throughout the garden, and watching the birds choose their homes and then build their nests, taking one little piece of building material at a time, always calmed me down. If those little birds could be so patient and accomplish so much one tiny step at a time, I figured that I had a chance.

  But today I needed to be out in the woods. I used the door in the training yard again. After Abbadon started his reign of destruction, that door had been bolted and continuously guarded. Since we had removed Deadsweep from the Kingdom, the Castle returned to its open door policy.

  Yes, there was always a guard in the courtyard, but anyone could come and go as they pleased. The guard was only a precaution. No one believed that Abbadon would be returning through the garden gate. If he wanted to, he could probably blast the Castle and the nearby town of Dalry out of existence with a flick of his wrist. No, he liked toying with us just a bit too much.

  The place I chose was not far from where I had woken up that morning. It was a grove of trees by a stream. I knew that if I followed the stream through the woods, I would eventually get to Dalry, but where I was heading was much closer. Cahir had shown it to me, and even though I knew he wasn’t there, I wanted to see it again.

  The grove of trees had arranged themselves so that there was a little open meadow between them. A rock lived in the center that was big enough to lie on and stare at the clouds going by in the sky. Today, the trees gave me a break and kept their limbs above my head and the roots in the ground. If it were a training day, that wouldn’t have been the case.

  Before lying on the rock, I walked around the circle of trees and gave them each a pat or a hug. I wondered if when we went back in time, I would see them as small trees. I guess it depended on how far back we were going. I knew if we returned, the trees and everyone else would have barely missed us. We were the ones who would be missing everything we knew.

  In Erda, everyone understood that all living things are sentient beings. In the Earth Realm, some people were beginning to learn that truth. But in Erda nature had always been treated as a partner instead of something to dominate. Wondering what could have caused Abbadon to turn so thoroughly against life, I lay back on the rock and fell asleep.

  Zeid found me there a few hours later. The sun was no longer directly overhead, and a deer was eating the lunch I had never gotten around to eating. Both of us watched the deer finish my food. When she was done, she nodded to us and strolled off into the trees, only stopping for a moment to give us one last look. Did she know we were leaving?

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “Just followed your trail,” Zeid laughed. “And I remembered that you used to like coming here when we were little. Cahir brought you back here when you didn’t remember it.”

  “Do you think I will ever recover all of my memories?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Zeid sat with me on the rock as I pondered that question. Did it matter? Or was memory something that would return when I needed it? And perhaps without it, I was free to rediscover things.

  “That’s an interesting way to look it, Kara.”

  Neither of us had spoken out loud. Telepathy between the two of us had become comfortable and second nature.

  A wind whooshed through the trees, and we looked up to see Lady circling the clearing above our head. It was Suzanne’s way of letting us know that it was time to return to the Castle.

  On the way back, we held hands as if we were just two people enjoying a beautiful late summer’s day. Not a princess or a future Queen and King. Not two people who were getting ready to leave behind the world that they knew. We were both choosing to be carefree for a few minutes more, taking in everything about the beautiful day to hold as a memory that might bring us back home. Because once we were called to do what needed to be done, I knew that we would do it together. Zeid would choose to be by my side no matter what I decided.

  However, I was sure that he was aware that the choice had already been made for me, which meant it was chosen for him too. With one last glance back at the woods, Zeid opened the door in the wall, and we were on our way to our next adventure.

  Abbadon Twelve

 
We were the last ones to arrive at the meeting room, but no one was seated yet. Everyone was milling around and talking. It looked like one of the parties my parents would have at their home in the Earth dimension. However, a somber thread underlay the chatting and laughing.

  As soon as Sarah saw us, she called the meeting to order. She didn’t do anything that I could see, but I felt it, and I knew everyone else in the room did too.

  The Priscillas who had so sweetly left me to myself to think things through flew to my shoulders and stayed there. No hair pulling this time. Zeid sat on one side of me, and Beru sat on the other. Across the table, Professor Link, Aki, and Niko stared at me. My teachers. I wondered what they saw. Did they think I could do it? Did they think that if I failed it would be their fault? They had to know I would never let them down. I am often an idiot, not the magical mage they probably hoped I would be, and often a clumsy person, but I am determined and that counted for a lot. Aki smiled. She knew. My gratitude for the three of them rose up and almost overwhelmed me. Now was not the time to get sentimental.

  Ruta was on the other side of Beru. I wondered what they had decided. I thought Beru would go with me, but did that mean Ruta would too? Anne and Garth sat beside Suzanne.

  Earl and Ariel were not there. I knew they were letting us decide, and they would support us if we needed them. Teddy and Pita sat beside each other too. Whatever happened, they would work as a team, either here or there.

  Once everyone was settled, Leif stood. “Before you give us your answers, let’s pause and let the power of this moment infuse each of our spirits. Nothing you choose will be wrong. Together we will restore the peace and harmony to Erda.”

  “So say we all,” sounded throughout the room. I knew that was for me. I loved that saying. It was Amen and So Be It wrapped up into one.

  Leif looked around the room. “I see that all of you are willing to go.” A chorus of nods was his answer. No one was surprised that he already knew. There was no need for a physical vote. He had read our decisions, probably before we were even aware of them.