by Imogen Rose
“Simla went to meet with her father, to give him the blueprints to the portal,” he offered, looking at his mother intently.
“Why would Mom give her the blueprints now that we’re all safe?” I asked.
“She was blackmailing Mom with other stuff,” Rupert mumbled.
“I get that! What other stuff?” This was like bleeding a stone!
“Simla had apparently contacted Dillard Stevens in Leeds and threatened Olivia that she would tell him about you and Ella if she didn’t hand over the blueprints.”
“Ah.” I had to hand it to Simla. Good move on her part. Telling Dillard about us would certainly have turned Mom’s life into a circus.
Gramadea continued. “So Raj now has the blueprints, except they aren’t the real ones. Olivia gave Simla a set of fake prints. However, it will take Raj some time to figure it out. Olivia told Constance that Simla had made arrangements with her to be taken through the portal again in a week, as she had arranged to meet her dad again. Simla didn’t tell Olivia for what. When Simla doesn’t turn up to this meeting, goodness knows what Raj will do. The concern for us is what, if anything, he can do to you. So, my reason for telling you all this is to warn you. You all need to be vigilant. Not only may we have Raj to contend with again, but we may also have Simla, with or without the rogue faction of the Sigma-W. It’s the uncertainty that’s particularly scary.”
“Geez, no kidding!” I spluttered. “You’re basically saying that we could be kidnapped once again!”
Kellan grabbed hold of my hands to calm me. “Tell us more about the rogue Sigma-Ws and how they concern us,” he asked Gramadea.
“The rogue group was formed by a Sigma-W called Potomal after a power struggle between himself and the present Sigma-W leader. The main aim of the group is to overthrow the present regime. The group is very small. Due to our basic nature, becoming rogue is unnatural.”
I couldn’t help but catch the word our, but I let her continue.
“So, Potomal only has a handful of allies. He’s always looking for new recruits and his interest is obviously piqued if he hears of a Wanderer with less than pure intentions. Word of Simla’s defiant nature has obviously been picked up by his Intelligence team. Simla is a special case. She was born to a regular Wanderer and her father is human. She seems to have inherited some of his traits. We are still not sure that Potomal got to her, but we’ll find out soon enough. It could well be that he had her taken from the portal.”
“How would he take her?” Kellan asked.
“Oh, he would have transported her through to another dimension, just like you were, last year. So, we think that, however it happened, Simla wandered away when she was in the portal.”
“Gramadea, you said our,” I finally got out.
“Our?” Gramadea asked, looking decidedly puzzled.
“Yes. You said our when you talked about Sigma-W. Are you a Wanderer? A Sigma-W?”
Gramadea nodded.
I wasn’t the least bit surprised that she was a Wanderer. Not a lot surprised me anymore. I guess I would have been a bit more surprised if she’d said that she was a werewolf or something. I looked over at Rupert. I had always wondered about him. That whole story, the one that had started all this–come find me two years ago–only really made sense if he was a Wanderer of some kind. He didn’t look like one and he didn’t exude the same serene quality the rest of them seemed to. Still he was Gramadea’s son, so it kinda followed that he was one as well. “I’m guessing you’re some kind of Wanderer as well?” I asked, looking directly at him.
He shook his head, but remained silent, looking over to his mother.
“Arizona, the wanderer abilities of the offspring of Sigma-Ws lie dormant until activated. Once they are activated, the Sigma-W must serve the cause. Rupert chose to not have his abilities activated so that he could remain with your mother.” Amadea hung her head in sadness.
I could see Rupert’s jaws clench down as he comforted her by putting his arms around her.
“Does Mom know?” I asked. When Mom and I had our heart-to-heart chat she wasn’t able to explain how Rupert had known to ask her to come and find him in the past. This sort of explained it, but just sort of.
“No, Arizona, not yet. I was hoping that she would accept the Wanderers before I tried to explain this to her.” Rupert looked to his mother. “We need to tell her.”
“She’s been told, I hope. I asked Constance to explain it to her,” Amadea offered. “However, by all accounts, Olivia didn’t absorb it. She still thinks it’s a lot of hogwash. She thinks that Simla has disappeared within the portal somehow. She and Larry are going to return to Ames to try to examine it.”
Kellan sighed. “Can we backtrack for a moment? So, to get this clear… Raj made contact with Simla, how?”
“We don’t know, we suspect it was a prearranged meeting from the last time they saw each other,” Rupert mused.
Kellan continued. “So Simla heads through the portal with Olivia and meets her dad. Then she comes back to return here. Olivia and she start to transport, but somehow Simla disappears during the procedure. And we are now hypothesizing that this was caused by one of two methods. She may have spontaneously gained the ability to wander since her mom was a Wanderer or a rogue group of Sigma-Ws took her. Geez.” He shook his head. “If the rogue group took her, what do you think will happen now?”
Amadea shrugged. “I’m not sure. Potomal’s only motive is to strengthen his group and ready them for a takeover. He would develop Simla’s wandering abilities for that purpose. However, Simla has a mind of her own. I’m sure that as soon as she learns what she can, she’ll be back to help her father.”
“What if she spontaneously gained the ability to wander? Then where do you think she went?” Kellan asked.
“She’s had no training, so she will have no control over her ability. She could have disappeared anywhere,” Amadea explained. “It will be very disorienting and frightening for her.”
“Wow. This is hard to absorb. What are we to do now? Will you start a hunt for her? What about Raj?” I asked.
“We have no answers yet. Sigma-W Intelligence is trying to find out if Potomal has her. We are standing by until we hear from them,” Amadea replied. “If he doesn’t have her, we’ll need to start a search. We will at least know that she is at the same geographic point, but even a time/dimension search could take forever. We may never find her. We can only hope that she manages to take control of her abilities and transports herself back here.”
“Kids, I’m going to head off to Constance’s house now and then perhaps over to Ames. Kellan, you will stay over. Your dad will come by later. Hopefully we’ll know more by morning,” Rupert said. “My mom is going to stay here and watch over things.”
The doorbell rang.
“It’s probably Grandma, she’s staying over, too.” Rupert went through to let her in.
“Grayson, hello!” Amadea said, looking over me as Rupert came back into the kitchen. “I thought you were going to wait over at Constance’s house.”
“Justin’s disappeared,” Grayson said, his voice cracking.
“Disappeared? How?”
“I was bringing him with me to Constance’s house. We were in the car, I was driving, he was sitting in the passenger seat with his ear buds in listening to his iPod. Then he just vanished. One moment he was there and then he was just gone. I don’t know how. He can’t wander–at least I don’t think so. I’m very worried. I was driving fast when he disappeared.”
As we stood there listening to Grayson’s strange story, his voice seemed to fade a little bit. Then I felt something pull at me from above and everything in the room began to fade. The last thing I saw was the desperation and shock in Kellan’s eyes as he tried to grab hold of me.
Through my tightly closed lids, I could feel the bright sunshine, which glowed a bright, orange-red. I was afraid to open my eyes. I felt disoriented, I wasn’t even sure if I was stationary. I could feel a
pressure in my shoulders and my feet felt light. I was definitely not standing on them, but I wasn’t lying down either. I felt weightless. The closest I had come to a similar sensation was when I wandered with Morgana. However, the feeling of warm euphoria was missing. I felt frightened and unbalanced, like I could fall at any moment.
There was a passing calm as I felt a pressure on my back, like a support, while I was maneuvered to what felt like a horizontal position and then I hit a firm surface. The back of my head ached from the impact, but I was okay. I couldn’t have fallen far; it was like being suddenly placed on a hard floor after having been carried around for a while–unexpected, rather than traumatic.
The bright sunlight–at least that’s what I assumed it was–still shone through my eyelids, which I still had firmly shut. My olfactory senses were assaulted by a circus of smells I had a hard time analyzing. It was mostly pleasant. Fresh bread and strong coffee dominated the mix. There was an underlying whiff of stale tobacco and… pee, yuck. The aroma was unmistakable. I have been here several times, even spent a whole summer here when I was younger. Paris. The aroma was much stronger than I remembered. Different neighborhood, I guessed. Of course, it couldn’t really be Paris. I couldn’t have traveled for more than half an hour, probably less. Wherever I was, it had that distinct smell.
“Where am I?” I whispered, with my eyes still firmly shut. I listened with my ears wide open, at least that’s how I imagined them to look. I could hear faint sounds, mostly the sound of engines–cars. A muffled undertone of chatter could be heard through the sound of the traffic. I listened for a response to my question and when I felt like I had waited long enough, I opened my eyes to the world. I was immediately blinded by the rays of the sun coming through the skylight above me, so I shielded my eyes with my palms, turning away from the light to face the large window that dominated the wall to my right. The window was trimmed with heavy auburn velvet and gold tassels–for whatever reason they reminded me of Grandma, she was fond of tassels. I quickly scanned the room, I was alone. The room itself was fairly large and decorated with old-lady furniture–heavy, dark fabric on dark polished woods, ornate mirrors and oil-on-canvas paintings of country scenes. I had been placed in a large four-poster bed, trimmed with the same velvet and tassels as the window. My head must have hit one of the posts on my descent, hence the pain. I moved over to the luxurious pillow and slumped down on it, looking over to the window. I could make out the dark outline of something through it, but couldn’t make out what it was. So, I got up and walked over. The Eiffel Tower. Well, it clearly didn’t look or smell like Vegas, so, good grief, I must be in Paris after all! But how?
I had a good look out the window. I was clearly on the north side of the Seine, I could spot the river, which was fairly close and the Eiffel Tower was slightly to the left of me. Beyond that, I had no idea where I was. I turned around and headed for the door situated on the opposite wall. As I was about to turn the gilded knob, something clicked and then it turned. I made my way to the opposite side of the room and waited.
The door opened slowly to let a familiar face through, Well two, actually–Simla and Justin. I wasn’t entirely jaw-down-on-the-floor surprised to see Simla, but the sight of Justin walking through that door, well my jaw did hit the floor, metaphorically, of course.
Both of them walked in with their fingers over their lips and closed the door quietly. They waved at me to follow them to the couch at the far end of the room, while making it clear for me to hush, which I was less than thrilled about. However, I decided to give them a chance to explain before I bit–can’t imagine where that rabid thought came from–them or whatever.
Once we were huddled together on the couch–which had a nauseatingly strong smell of cigarettes–Simla looked me up and down and then spoke.
“Where are we?” she whispered.
“Where are we?” I hissed right back at her.
She nodded.
“You don’t know?” I snapped. Beyond incredulous.
She shook her head.
“Do you know?” Justin whispered.
“Well, yes. Duh. We’re in Paris.”
“In Paris?” They both exclaimed in unison. “How? Why? How do you know? Are you sure?”
“Well, yeah. I’m sure,” I said, pointing to the window.
They both got up and walked over and gazed outside. I could hear them gasp.
“Sure it’s not Vegas?” Justin whispered, as he walked back to the couch.
“Yeah. I’ve been here before. Not here, as in this room, but here in Paris. Besides it totally smells of Paris.”
“What are you? A sniffer dog?” Justin mumbled. “What do you mean it smells like Paris? All I smell is that disgusting smell of tobacco or whatever.”
“Oh, never mind,” I said, shaking my head. It was so typical of him not to be able to concentrate on the nice aromas instead. “What are you two doing here? How did you get here?”
“Well we obviously don’t know what we’re doing here or we wouldn’t have asked you,” Justin replied sourly.
“Well, do you know how you got here?” I persisted.
Justin shook his head. “Not really. I was in my dad’s car, listening to my iPod when I felt something pull at my shoulders. Then Dad began to fade and I felt like I was wandering, but it was different somehow. It took much longer for one thing and I was cold. The next thing I knew I woke up in a room, similar–but much smaller–to this one but on the other side of the apartment.”
“We’re in an apartment?”
“Yeah, quite a nice one, too. It’s huge,” Simla added. “I was delivered to the room beside Justin’s. I must have gotten here first. I heard a commotion through the wall and went to investigate, and found Justin in there on his own.”
“I understand that you were taken from the portal?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yup, I’ve already told Justin. Did your mom get back okay?”
“Well, she did come back through. I haven’t spoken to her yet. She went over to Constance’s right after she came back. They are trying to figure out what happened to you.”
“Where were you taken from?” Justin asked me.
“From home. I was taken from the kitchen. Your dad had just arrived and was telling us how you disappeared when I felt some kind of pressure to my shoulder and then everything faded.”
“Did anyone see you fade?” Simla asked.
“Yeah. Kellan saw, but the others–Rupert, Grayson and Rupert’s mom–were busy talking.”
“What did he do?”
“Do? There wasn’t much he could do, it all happened so fast. He tried to grab hold of me, but I seemed to fade right through him.”
“Shit.”
“Yes, no kidding,” I agreed.
“Anyone got any ideas? Why we’re here?” Simla shrugged.
I shook my head. I had no idea whatsoever. “Did you guys search through the rest of the apartment?”
Justin nodded. “Yup. The front door is locked. In addition to the three bedrooms we have, there are another three bedrooms. One of them is locked, so I guess I don’t know for sure if it’s a bedroom. The two that are unlocked are empty. We did knock at the locked one, but there was no reply. There’s a kitchen with lots of food–I’m kind of hungry. There is a huge room with a big conference table in the middle with seating for at least twenty people. Then there is a living room with comfy seats, huge TV and game station. And the usual, bathrooms and all,” he added.
“No other people, other than us?” I asked.
“Not as far as we can tell, but let’s be careful and quiet. We didn’t get here on our own,” Simla responded.
“Well, I need some grub. Let’s head over to the kitchen.”
I nodded. Whoever brought us here had locked us up. They left us in an apartment that seemed fairly respectable. So it was probably okay to get some food, best to keep our strength up while we waited for someone to come to us with an explanation.
Justin opene
d the door to my bedroom hesitantly and peered into the hallway. Then he turned and beckoned to Simla and me to follow him. We followed him through the apartment to the kitchen, which was unexpected. I had expected an old-fashioned, dark-wood kitchen with a large, old cooking range. The stainless steel vision took me by surprise. This was a high-tech, gadget-overloaded, sci-fi kitchen. I made my way to the triple door fridge/freezer and couldn’t help but smile as I opened it–none of that fancy-schmancy French stuff. Pastrami, cheese, burger meat, fruit, veggies, a nice selection of Starbucks Frapuccinos, Coke, you name it! This was full of real food. In the middle, there was a huge strawberry cake, which I rescued and placed on the stainless steel counter. I immediately dug in, as did Justin.