Midrealm

by Garrett Robinson

  Then the lady stepped forward again, in between the horses, and held up two more apples for me and Blade. “And two more for you, my Lord and Lady,” she said, beaming.

  Blade took his and bit into it hard, tearing out a huge chunk from the apple’s side and swallowing it with barely two chews. “Thanks,” he said, turning our horses and beginning to ride away.

  I turned backward in the saddle as we strode off. “Thank you!” I called out quietly. The lady smiled and waved as we rode away.

  It never ceased to amaze me how friendly the people of Morrowdust were. It was an odd thing about the place. It felt less like a city and more like a haphazard town that had simply continued to expand its borders until people felt like they had to start calling it a city. But it still had a tight-knit feel, as though everyone knew everyone else. It was a startling difference from Earth, where I lived in a small town but still didn’t know my next-door neighbors.

  Of course, there was more than one reason for that.

  The horses reached the front courtyard of the Runehold and stopped with a clatter of hooves on cobblestone. Nora helped me from my horse and then followed me inside. We found our chairs in the Runehold and were immediately greeted with servants who swept in and placed plates of food in front of us. Today it was seared meat, which I assumed was beef but could have been venison, and boiled vegetables. I ate eagerly, more out of habit than because I was really hungry.

  Calvin, ignoring his food, leaned forward and looked at Greystone. “So, I have a quick question.”

  “I am on pins and needles,” said Greystone.

  “When are we going to look for the other tombs?”

  Greystone gave him a quick look from under his hooded eyelids. “And what gave you the impression that that was our next move?”

  Calvin shrugged. “I don’t know. It just seemed like the next logical step. Honestly, I don’t care what we do next, but I don’t think I’m the only one who’s getting a little antsy.” He looked around the table for support.

  Blade, who was munching on his meal with his feet up on the table, nodded. “It is getting a little restless in Paradise these days.”

  Miles swallowed and spoke sternly to the two of them. “Guys, we’ll make our next move when Greystone says we’re ready.”

  “Ooh, look who’s all goody-two-shoes, yes sir, no sir all of a sudden,” said Raven with a smirk. “The born-again attitude suits you.”

  Miles’ nostrils flared. It looked like an argument was about to break out.

  “They’ve got a plan,” I said quickly.

  Miles and Raven stopped and looked at me. The others’ eyes all swung in my direction.

  I felt heat creeping up my neck and into my cheeks. “Sarah and Greystone, I mean,” I said nervously. “Haven’t you guys seen them off by themselves talking? They’re making a plan. A plan to find the other tombs.” I looked over at Sarah with my uncovered eye. “I mean, that’s what you’re planning, right? What else could it be?”

  Suddenly I saw the look of shock on her face, and the burn of my blush turned into an inferno. “Um…oh my gosh…were the plans supposed to be, like, secret or whatever? I’m sorry. I totally didn’t…um…”

  To the plain shock of everyone at the table, Greystone saved me with a deep, hearty belly laugh. He turned to Sarah as his guffaws turned to chuckles. “We should have known that our designs would be spoiled in the end. And I find myself unsurprised in the least that Lady Tess should be the one to do the spoiling.” His ice-blue eyes turned to me with a twinkle. “I have said before, and shall say again, that the quietest among us often possess their own kind of wisdom, one that can often be greater than my own.”

  Calvin looked utterly confused. “Wait, what? What secret plans? When? I’ve never seen you two go off together.”

  “Yeah, but you also thought the rock was real,” Blade observed.

  Calvin thrust an accusing finger at me, making me flinch. “That was a Jedi mind trick!”

  “Okay, the cat’s out of the bag,” Raven said, ignoring the two of them. “So what’s the deal? What have you two come up with?”

  Sarah looked at Greystone uncertainly. Greystone shrugged, as if conceding to her judgment. It would have looked odd for such an old guy to be deferring to a teenager if Sarah didn’t fit the role so naturally.

  She pushed her plate aside and looked steadily around the table at us, her eyes lingering on me for a bit longer than the others. “All right. We’re still trying to figure out a lot of this. But basically, we have to take another trip beyond the barrier.”

  There was a notable drop in mood. Raven shifted uneasily in her seat. Miles stared stonily at Sarah, clearly restraining any reaction. Even Calvin dropped his gaze, beginning to inspect his fingernails.

  “Yeah,” Sarah said, an acknowledgment of our unspoken wariness. “Most of our planning has been figuring out how best to do it. This isn’t a one-day trip like when we went to Malus’ tomb. We’re going to be out on the road for six days, three in each direction.”

  “Six days?” Blade asked skeptically. “Sleeping on the road for sixteen hours a day? Why don’t we just douse ourselves in barbecue sauce and hang a big neon sign saying, ‘Dire Wolves Dine Free?’”

  “That’s what we’re having trouble figuring out,” Sarah said. “There’s a place to stop along the way — a friendly city. But on the first night, it looks like we’re just going to have to suck it up and sleep on the road.”

  I darted my eyes at her uncertainly. “We could do it on the weekend,” I said quietly. “We could sleep longer. Spend sixteen hours here instead of eight, and make it so we only have to spend one day in the open.”

  Sarah’s jaw clenched, and I saw Greystone look at her craftily. If I had to guess, I’d say that they’d already had this conversation before.

  “I said at the start of this, our lives on True Earth take priority,” Sarah began.

  To my disbelief, it was Miles who answered her. “But we’re risking our lives on Earth if we don’t do like Tess said. It’s just one day, Sarah. I think it’s a good idea.”

  Sarah stared at him, dumbfounded. “You, of all people, Miles? I mean…this weekend, especially. You’ve got a ton of cramming to do. I’ve got two volleyball practices.”

  Raven snorted loudly. “Wait, are you hearing the same words coming from your mouth that I am? You’re weighing risking our lives against homework and volleyball?”

  I thought Sarah wanted to snap back at her, but she held it in. Instead, she calmly stated, “I know how it sounds. But more than all of that, I don’t want to set a precedent.”

  “We won’t,” Miles reassured her. “This is a one-time thing, and only because of how important it is that we find the tombs. Just to get us from safety to safety on our way to…wherever.” He looked over at Greystone. “Where are we going, anyway?”

  “To someone who may possibly be able to tell us where the tombs of the Six are located,” Greystone answered. “But I will say no more than that until we are certain of our plan. And for now, I believe it is time for the six of you to retire.”

  I looked up at the window. The sun was slanting through it, striking the bricks on the opposite wall. Over the weeks we’d spent here, I’d been paying attention to where the sun lit the wall at various times of the day. I could see that what Greystone was saying was true — we had about a half hour to take our sleeping potions, or we’d all be late for school.

  I almost giggled at the absurdity of it. School. I still couldn’t get over the insanity of my new life.

  “All right,” Sarah said heavily. “The weekend is three days away. That gives us three days to work out our schedule.”

  “We should start acting sick, too,” I said.

  “How do you mean?”

  “We should start acting tired. To our parents, at least. That way it won’t come as a total shock when we’re asleep for sixteen hours this weekend.”

  “She’s right,” Calvin said with a nod. �
��They’ll freak out otherwise.”

  “I don’t want to freak them out now,” Raven said, visibly upset.

  “It’ll be worse if it comes as a surprise,” Miles told her. “It’s like a vaccination; giving a little bit in advance will prepare them for the real thing.”

  “Okay, that’s settled,” Sarah said. “Now we’ve got to go home.” She pushed her chair back and stood from the table. The Runegard, leaning against the walls and posts behind us, stepped forward attentively and followed us up to our rooms.

  Once I was closed in my room with Nora, she put her hand comfortingly on my shoulder with a smile. “You’ve got nothing to worry about,” she said. “We’ll keep you all safe out there.”

  “I know,” I said with a small smile. “Thank you.”

  “I wonder where we’ll be traveling,” she said excitedly. “I hope we go North. If we can stop off in Linsfell, I want to introduce you to my family.”

  I blinked. “Your…family? Like, a husband? Kids?”

  She laughed, a tinkling sound that echoed through out the room. “Oh, no, of course not. I don’t even have a beau, much less a spouse. I meant my parents and my brother.”

  I smiled. “Oh. That would be great. When was the last time you saw them?”

  Her smile grew a little sad. “It’s been five years. We write often, but Runegard are not allowed holiday during our training. And now, of course, my duties make visiting impossible. And since the war, letters have been uncertain. I haven’t heard from them since it began.”

  That made me sad. It didn’t seem right for her to be so far removed from her family, never able to spend time with them. “Why don’t they move to Morrowdust?” I asked her. “Couldn’t they stay here with you?”

  Nora’s mouth twisted wryly. “My mother never would. My father’s a carpenter. He can move and work where he wishes — everyone needs houses repaired and furniture built. But my mother is a merchant, and her business is too firmly entrenched in Linsfell. Besides, she’s a proud woman. If she came here, within the barrier, she’d feel like she was fleeing from danger. She’d never agree to it.”

  I nodded. “I know something about proud family,” I told her. “I do hope I get to meet them, now or sometime in the future.”

  Nora smiled. “Thank you. I’d love that. And now it’s time for you to rest, my Lady.” She picked up the sleeping potion from my dresser and pressed it into my hand, folding my fingers around it. Then she surprised me by reaching out and pulling me into a hug, squishing me awkwardly against her armor.

  “I’m very excited for this trip,” she said. “You watch. We’re going to win this war. This is the beginning. I can feel it.”

  She released me and stepped back, leaving the room as I stood there confused. I undressed and lay in my bed for a couple of minutes. I drank the potion and prepared to drift away.

  I wished I felt as confident as Nora that everything was going to be all right.

  TESS

  IT HAD TAKEN ME A while to get used to waking up from my trips to Midrealm. The feeling was so strange that at first it was utterly jarring, disorienting me for hours after I woke up. One minute I was falling asleep, hardly able to keep my eyes open due to the sleeping potion. The next minute I was struggling to open my eyes on Earth. There was almost no lag. First I was in one room, wearing one set of clothes, and then suddenly I was in a completely different place with entirely different clothes. It was unnerving. I used to find myself glancing down in class and expecting to find myself wearing my Realm Keeper’s robes.

  But the last couple of weeks had given me plenty of time to get used to it. Now I simply sat up, shrugging off the vertigo, and began to get ready for school.

  My room was plain. Maybe “plain” was too generous a term for it, but I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining. It sure wasn’t like my parents could afford anything better. I didn’t have a laptop or desktop, like I was sure most kids my age did. I didn’t have a makeup drawer, or makeup. I didn’t even have a bed frame — my grimy mattress lay right on the floor, jammed in the corner opposite my brother and sister’s mattress on the other side of the room.

  My family was way below what you’d probably call “poor.” I’d grown to accept that. At an age when I should have been believing in the tooth fairy and Santa Claus, I was simply hoping for a full stomach after dinner. I’d realized that I had two options: grow up fast, or spend the rest of my life not only poor but miserable as well.

  When I was ten I was already doing any odd jobs I could find, giving all of the money to my parents to make sure we didn’t get evicted from our tiny two bedroom apartment. Both of them worked all day and late into the night, so when I woke in the morning, it was up to me to make sure that me and my brother and sister got to school on time. Usually, it was up to me to get new clothes when I needed them as well.

  In a way, it was easy for me to get used to our circumstance because I’d rarely known anything else. My mom was still pregnant with me when my parents came into the country. So I’d grown up with them working their hands to the bone just to stay poor.

  It had gotten a little bit better when I was about eight, when we were living in Colorado. My dad had finally met someone who would take him on as a contractor. He’d actually been put in charge of some workers. His pay had gone up. We’d moved from our apartment to an actual house — a tiny one, but still a house. That’s when my mom had had Nicolas, and then had gotten pregnant again with Kellyn.

  And then dad’s company had been audited. As soon as they started looking into the company’s finances and employees, dad knew he had to go. If they found out about him, he risked being deported. They couldn’t have forced us all to leave — since we were born here, me and my brother and sister were citizens. But my parents weren’t. And we ran the risk of my dad being sent out of the country, and my mom having to take care of all three of us herself.

  So we left Colorado, moving to Rhode Island where my dad had an uncle who helped us get set up. Ever since then we’d been right back where we started, just as poor but with two more mouths to feed.

  Despite the hardship, I was glad. I loved my brother and sister more than anything else in the world.

  After I got dressed, I crawled across the mattress toward them on hands and knees. Hovering over them, I began to sing in my softest voice. It was a wake-up song I’d sung ever since they were babies.

  Get up, get out of bed

  Drag a comb across your head

  Find your way downstairs, and drink a cup

  Fall into a dream

  By the time I got to the end of the verse, both their eyes were awake and they were smiling up at me in anticipation.

  “Aaah!” we all cried together, and I reached forward to tickle them both. They twisted and wriggled out of bed, laughing.

  I got them into our bathroom for a bath, scrubbing them and letting them play in the water for a few minutes before draining it. I didn’t have a watch to check, but I’d done this routine long enough that I knew how much time I had left without looking.

  I ushered them both into the kitchen, to find my mom sitting at our table nursing a cup of coffee. She looked up at the three of us with a tired smile that seemed unwilling to spread beneath the massive bags under her eyes.

  “Hola, mija,” she said.

  “Morning, mom,” I said, concerned. “Have you been up all night? Is everything okay?”

  She nodded as she yawned. “Everything’s fine. The hotel needs me a little early today, that’s all. She smiled at Nikki and Kellyn, who came over to give her a hug. “¿Sabes una cosa? I have a surprise for you two. Contessa, open the cabinet above the fridge.”

  I pulled it open to reveal a red box of Lucky Charms. I gaped. “Oh, mama, you didn’t!”

  She gave a little laugh. “It’s for all three of you. One of the guests gave me an extra tip yesterday. I figured I’d get it for you to celebrate.”

  I pulled it from the cabinet. We almost never had cereal,
but Lucky Charms was our favorite. “Mama, you shouldn’t — ” I stopped short as Nikki and Kellyn ran over to me, squealing. I shook my head. “You should have saved it.”

  My mom shrugged. “What good is a little extra money if I don’t spend it making you happy? Twenty dollars isn’t very much to save, anyway. I’d rather use it on you. I’m going to pick up some other things with the rest of it.”

  I glanced at the sun shining through our dirty window as my brother and sister tore the box open and began pouring it into bowls at the table. “Thank you, mama. But it’s getting late. Do you have to go?”

  She glanced at her watch. “Si. Thank you, niñita.” She stood from behind the table, coming to me and giving me a quick peck on the cheek. “Hopefully I’ll see you tonight.”

  I remembered the conversation in the Runehold, and a twinge of guilt shot through me. “Actually, I’m probably going right to bed when I get home,” I said. “I’ve been feeling a little weird recently. Tired. I think I could use some extra sleep.”

  Instantly her face became a mask of worry, and she placed a hand to my forehead. “Are you all right? Is it the sickness? The sleeping?”

  I shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. But I’m sure I’ll be fine with a little bit of extra rest.”

  She looked uncertain. “Okay. You let me know if you start feeling worse. Call the hotel. They can find me.”

  “Mom, I’m fine,” I assured her, plastering a smile on my face. “Go. You’re going to be late.”

  She gave me another hug and opened our apartment door. She turned and gave me a look. “Make sure you have some for yourself,” she said, nodding toward the table where Nikki and Kellyn were devouring the cereal.

  I gave her a smile. “Okay.”

  She nodded and left. But despite the rumbling in my stomach, I couldn’t do what my mom asked. Nikki and Kellyn should enjoy their treat. Who knew when we’d get it again.