Louisa came last to Alexander. She knelt before the boy and held him in her lap, while Alyce stood nearby.
“Alexander,” Louisa said. “You must take my place now.”
He looked confused. “What do you mean, healer?”
“That’s what I mean,” Louisa said with a wise smile. She slipped the cord of the talisman off her neck and put it around Alexander’s. “You are the healer now, dear boy. I knew the Lord of Hosts was preparing you for this when we worked together to heal the wounded before.” She looked up at Alyce. “But I think He was preparing me too, because if there were no healer to take my place, I fear I would not be willing to leave.” She met Julia’s eyes. “Though there is healing yet for me to do at home.”
Julia didn’t know entirely what that meant, but she had no time to contemplate it, as she was now standing before her last farewell: Gregory.
She knew she was too young for romance, and Gregory was too old for her in any case. But here was the man who would forever hold the place in her heart as her first love. As Peter had said about soldiers going through battle together, so she felt connected to Gregory.
A thought struck her: if time passed differently in her world than in this one, could she somehow use that to “catch up” to Gregory? The math of it began to hurt her head, and for once she wished for Peter to tell her the science, but she thought that if she went through the portal and came back at the right time … Or did she need to send him through and she stay here?
But as he looked at her with kindness in his eyes, she knew it wasn’t to be. She would just have to find a Gregory in her world.
“Julia,” he said, “I had an … interesting time with you on our adventure. You are twice the warrior I’ll ever be, and you do it with such grace it’s hard to believe you’re so young. I will indeed miss you, my friend.”
She wanted to say something fitting in reply, but she felt tears welling in her eyes, so she settled for giving him an enormous hug. He returned it warmly, and they stood like this for a full minute.
And then, in a whoosh of mighty wings that sent pebbles scattering, the falcon landed in their midst. Some reached out and petted its side.
The noble creature folded its wings away and looked at Julia with a canny gaze. “It is time to return, children of Earth.”
Even though she knew it had been coming, Julia didn’t want to go. Who would want to return to a life of being a nobody when she could stay and be known as a hero?
The falcon seemed to guess her thoughts. “There are adventures yet to face,” it said. “You three have done well here. The children of Aedyn will rebuild. The Lord of Hosts has them in His hand. But you three are needed elsewhere.”
Louisa was first to climb upon the falcon’s back. Peter followed. He climbed into the nook behind its neck and gave his men a victory wave. Then, with a longing look at all her friends, Julia joined them atop the great bird. She opened her mouth to give some great parting thought, but the falcon sprang into the air.
A distance away from the volcano, as the falcon’s mighty wings propelled them higher, Julia caught sight of something brown in a field of green. She thought at first it was a fallen log, but when she looked closer she saw it was not.
It was Gaius. Standing in his monk’s robe. His arm raised in farewell.
Julia shook her head at the Lord of Hosts’s sense of humor. Good-bye, Gaius, she thought. Thank you for everything.
With that, the falcon swerved toward the sea. They were headed home.
CHAPTER
16
“We’d better go in, don’t you think?”
Peter, Julia, and Louisa stood looking at their house. It was nighttime, just as it had been when they’d left. They actually had no idea how much time had passed here. It could be mere hours since they’d left, or it could be days or decades.
Still, the house looked the same. Snow packed its roof and eaves, and the yard remained covered in a blanket of white. Smoke rose from the chimney, and yellow light shone through the windows. But it was hard to see details of the house in the dark and from this distance. It could be fifty years later and about to fall apart. The line of trees they were standing in, right at the edge of their lawn, looked no larger or older than when they’d left. That had to mean something.
Peter looked behind them into the woods from which they’d come. The falcon had set them down at the frozen creek where they’d entered Khemia. It looked exactly the same as before. Peter even thought he’d spotted some of his own footprints in the snow.
He turned to Julia. “You’re sure? When you came back to get the pendant, Stepmother didn’t ask you where Louisa was? She only asked where I was?” He looked back at the house. “That doesn’t seem right.”
Julia nodded. “I’m quite sure, Peter. She scolded me for being ‘a little heroine’ and running away. She asked me to tell her where you were, Peter, because Father was still out looking for you.” She grimaced. “I’m sorry, Louisa, but she didn’t mention you at all. I can only think it meant she hadn’t realized you were missing yet.”
Louisa looked especially cold. She hunched her shoulders and clasped the collar of her garment right under her chin. “It’s all r-right. M-maybe we haven’t been gone v-very long.”
“Well, I don’t know about you two,” Peter said, “but I’ve gotten used to island temperatures. Someone’s got a fire going in that house, and I say we go get close to it.”
“I ag-gree.”
They’d taken two steps across the frozen lawn when a commotion arose around the front of the house. The sound of several people tramping up the steps, knocking on the door, and voices raised came to their ears.
Curious, Peter changed course and went around the side of the house to see what was happening. Julia and Louisa followed, sticking to the shadows.
On the stoop stood a trio of constables talking with Father, Stepmother, and Bertram, Louisa’s brother.
“Nothing at all in the hospitals?” Father asked.
The lead constable shook his head. “Not a peep, Professor Grant.” He pulled out a little notebook and read from it. “No word on your son, Peter, gone these two days, nor on your daughter, Julia, gone, then returned, then gone again.” He flipped the notebook closed.
Peter looked at Louisa. Maybe they really didn’t know she was gone. Perhaps they’d entered some parallel dimension in which Stepmother didn’t have a daughter named —
“But what of my Louisa?” Stepmother cried. She pushed past Father and grabbed the constable’s coat by the buttons. “Where is my baby?”
“Mind the uniform, madam, if you please.” The constable removed her hands from his coat. “We are continuing our search for all the children, including your daughter, Louisa. Though I should point out to you that if you’d informed us immediately that three children had gone missing, our search might have already met with success. As it is, we must change our search parameters from two to three, which has caused us to have to revisit the hospitals, morgues, and prisons.”
Stepmother fell into Father’s arms. “Morgues? Oh, Oliver, could it be?”
“Of course not, Helen.” Father turned to the constables. “You men must be cold. Why don’t you come in?”
The three constables looked at one another like they thought it was a very good idea, but they seemed uncertain. “Well, Captain, we really should return to the search.”
“Of course,” Father said. “But if there’s one thing I learned as captain in the Royal Navy, it’s that a hot drink makes cold work bearable. Do step inside. Only for a moment.”
“Don’t mind if we do, Captain.”
Peter looked at Julia and Louisa. “Well?”
“G-go!” Louisa said.
Julia nodded. “May as well.”
Peter ran through the snow to the front porch. “Wait! We’re here!”
There followed such an uproar of screaming and confusion that Peter could not take it all in. Stepmother wailed and cried and scolded. B
ertram sulked away to his room. The constables stumbled over one another to record the information, get the word out to call off the search, and get their warm drinks. Father alternated between hugging Peter and Julia and looking cross with them.
But after the initial furor, the constables finally left, Bertram returned, and Stepmother daubed her tears. Father sat Peter, Julia, and Louisa down on the stone hearth in front of the fire, a plaid woolen blanket spread across their knees, and proceeded to pace.
“First, allow me to say that your mother and I — and Bertram — are most gratified to find you safe and sound. You gave us the scare of our lives.”
Stepmother huffed. “It’s that Peter’s fault, Oliver. Carrying my baby away.”
“I told you, Mother!” Bertram said, screwing up his face at Peter. “Worthless boy.”
Stepmother pointed a finger at Peter vindictively. “You think you have known pain before now? You will find new meaning for the word when your father is done with you. And you as well, little vixen,” she said to Julia.
Father nodded. “Quite. Second, this habit of running off at all hours will stop this instant. Your mother and I—”
He continued, but Peter’s mind turned inward. She’s not my mother, he wanted to say. But that was the old Peter talking. He was different now. Things had to change. He watched his father pacing and talking. He was working himself into a froth. He would beat Peter. If he were mad enough, he would beat Julia too.
Lord of Hosts, what am I to do?
“—cost who knows how much to the city to have the whole constabulary out searching for you!” Father said, nearly shouting now. “We’ll see it in taxes next, mark my words! And we cannot afford any increase, I tell you!”
Father unbuckled his belt and slid it through the loops on his trousers. It dangled in his hand, a black snake crueler than any Gul’nog blade. Not because it would hurt the flesh more, but because of who wielded it. It would hurt the soul more.
Peter thought back to Peras, a man who had lost his way under the influence of the Shadow. Though it hurt to realize, his father had become just as hate-filled and misled. And this time Peter could not hope for a supernatural light to destroy the shadows that overtook his father’s face.
Father’s eyes flashed. “Seventh, I will be boxed before I let a son of mine bring dishonor to our family name.” He snapped the belt in his hands. “Not while I am master of this house.” His voice dropped dangerously. “Stand, Peter.”
Julia leapt up, knocking the blanket aside. “No, Father! You mustn’t do that! Peter did nothing to dishonor—”
“Silence!” Stepmother said, pushing Julia toward the hearth.
Bertram stuck his foot out, and Julia tripped, tumbling headfirst toward the fire.
Louisa caught her, but Julia’s head struck the mesh metal grate in front of the fire and knocked it over. Sparks and heat surged into the room.
Stepmother’s mouth dropped open. “Careful, you fool. You’ll burn holes in my rug!”
Father pushed Peter aside and yanked Julia from the hearth. “Sit down!” he said, forcing her to the carpet.
The look of fear on Julia’s face as she looked at her father was enough for Peter.
“All right, that’s it.” Peter took Julia by the hand and pulled her toward the front door. He placed himself between her and the others. “No one is to strike Julia. Is that understood?”
The shock on Stepmother’s face was worth any beating Peter would have to endure. But she quickly recovered. Her angular face turned sharp as a hatchet. “Why, you ungrateful whelp. Oliver, don’t just stand there like a git. Show him the back of your belt.”
Father readied the belt to strike. “Peter, come away and bend down. Take your licks like a good sailor, and this will be behind us all.”
Julia pulled at Peter’s shoulder. “Let’s go, Peter. We’ll come back when he’s calmed down.”
“No.” He shook her hand off his arm. “If you run from a bully, it only makes him bolder.”
“A bully?” Stepmother said. “Did you hear that? Give me the belt. I’ll—”
“I’ll do it!”
The way Father stood there, heaving with anger and backlit by the fire, returned Peter’s mind to the raft when he’d stood against Peras. No knife this time, but a belt. No open ocean, but a sea of anger flowing toward him.
Peter got out of his fighting stance and stood tall. “I will endure your whipping, Father, because I am your son and because I live in obedience to you as I do to the Lord of Hosts.”
Bertram laughed. “Him — obedient?”
Peter looked at Louisa. She was back to the old stepsister, it appeared, and would not help him. Peter looked back at his father. “But if you so much as lay a finger on Julia in anger, she and I will leave your home, and you will never see either of us again.”
“Oh!” Stepmother said. “You let him talk to you like that? Your own son?”
Father looked angry, but Peter saw uncertainty in his eyes too, so he pressed his point.
“You have changed, Father. You have been bewitched by this woman’s bitterness. You are no longer the father who raised us and worshiped Mother. You have become a monster, a creature of darkness. And believe me, I know what I’m talking about. You can beat me until my back is flayed, but you are done berating us in your anger and fear. Julia and I are your children. Your treasures. But you have forgotten this. And now it will cost you.”
Peter lifted his shirt to his shoulders, exposing his back, and leaned against the wall.
Bertram rubbed his hands together greedily, and Stepmother bit her lip in anticipation. Father looked from Peter to Stepmother, then back to Peter. The belt flexed between his hands.
“Go on, then! What are you waiting for?” Stepmother rolled her eyes. “Oh, for the sake of cabbage. Bertie, call the bobbies back. Have to call the constable if you want a real man in this house.”
Father spun his face to her. “Enough! I’ll do it.”
“No, Father,” Julia said, pleading.
Father reared back his arm and gave Peter a massive strike of the belt.
Peter cried out, but did not take his arms down or turn away.
“Look, Mother!” Bertram said, clapping. “He drew blood with only one strike! Hit him again, Father!”
Father reared back again, but just as the belt fell, Julia lunged forward. “No!”
The edge of the belt caught Julia across the cheek and arm. She yelped and fell to the ground.
“Julia!” Father said.
Peter stood and rushed at his father. “Never … strike … Julia!” He landed on him and they grappled. Peter grabbed the wrist with the belt and wrested it away. They fell over the easy chair and went down in a tangle.
Stepmother screamed. Julia wailed. Bertrand yipped like a terrier and bolted for the kitchen.
Louisa leapt into action at last. She seized a poker from the fireplace and stood on the hearth with a terrible scream. “Stop it, all of you!”
So shocked were they by the sound of her voice that they did actually all stop. They began to circle around her as she brandished the poker like a sword. Peter stood over his father, the belt in his hand. With an animal growl, he threw the thing away like it was poison. Julia held her cheek with both hands and muffled her cries.
“Mother!” Louisa said. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Me? Why, I—”
“Do not talk, Mother. Let me speak.” Louisa brought the poker down and held it more like a walking stick. “I don’t remember if you have always been a cancer or if it happened lately.”
“A cancer? How dare—”
“But I do know you gave the disease to me. I was horrid to Peter and Julia.” Louisa looked at them kindly. “Simply beastly. Just as you are now, and just as you’ve made Bertram. But I couldn’t see it. I had to be taken away. I had to go on a marvelous adventure to another—” She looked quickly at Peter and Julia. “I had to … get away to see it. But n
ow it is as clear as a river of lava in a dark cavern. You are ill.” Then Louisa looked almost happy. “But I can do something about people in need of healing, you see.”
Louisa hopped off the hearth and went to Julia. She put the poker down and gently pulled Julia’s hands away from her face, revealing a wide welt that bled along its edges.
At the sight of it, Father moaned and fell to his knees. Peter almost wanted to strike him.
“A father must discipline his children,” Louisa said to Father. “It is how they learn. But when anger is the hand that holds the belt, and when your desire to understand your children is replaced by a single-minded rush to punish, you have ceased to be a father, and you have become a monster.”
Stepmother gasped. “Why, you little gasbag! You would speak to your f—”
“And a mother who fills her children with bile and turns her husband into a monster … is no longer a mother, but a vile creature as well.” Louisa turned to Julia. “If we are ever to become a family, the monsters and creatures must be driven from the land. And the healing must begin.”
Louisa reached forward and touched Julia’s face. When she pulled her hand away, the wound was gone.
A silence grasped the room. Stepmother didn’t appear able to breathe. Father looked confused, as if his eyes were telling him something his mind couldn’t believe. Even Bertram looked less malicious as wonder overtook his face.
“I’m not …,” Father said. “What just …?”
Louisa walked toward them all, and they backed away from her as if she might burst into flames and ascend into heaven atop a fiery chariot. She turned Peter around and traced her hand along the white-hot stripe across his back. Where she touched, the injury vanished.
This time the reaction was immediate. Father, Stepmother, and Bertram rushed to Peter to inspect his back.
“It’s gone!” Father turned to Louisa with something like fear in his eyes. “What did you …? How did you do that?”
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