Chapter 2 – Transition II
By powers great does she allow,
From there and then, to here and now.
I
It was a week since Jorden had walked within the strange house of Tsarin Whoever, or her Kaedith Mahanam, and he was starting to doubt he would see another week.
Things had gone well for the first couple of days after that visit and he had enjoyed the afternoons replacing Bill's gearbox, even though he knew the second-hand replacement wouldn't last long. Even school hadn't seemed so bad, especially with something to do when Jorden got home and Bill promising to help with Jorden's bike as soon as they finished the car. The attacks of breathlessness had been far less frequent, and all seemed fine...
Then, for no apparent reason other then it was probably inevitable, the attacks came with alarming regularity. In the past two days he had felt like he was about to pass out over twenty times, breath difficult for lengthy periods, the world oddly slowing about himself. Mother had already taken him to the doctor again, which was both good and bad. It meant most of the day off school at least, but the doctor started talking about more tests and perhaps hospitalization, which was the last thing Jorden wanted to hear. He tried to look healthy, which wasn't altogether difficult in between the strange attacks he suffered.
Mostly he felt compelled to walk, to get out of the house for a while, his conscious mind being overtaken by some primitive instinct. He had always felt the need. Walking always made him feel better. And it was Saturday again. He always went walking on Saturday. His mother wasn't happy, but he promised to be home soon. Bill had friends coming to visit. Great. They were boring friends...
The further south amongst the fields and woodland he walked the better he felt, breath becoming easy. Strength that seemed to have been sapped from him returned and all was well. Walking was good like that. Then he came upon a shadowed creek in a forested grove. There was a path between two trees ahead that led to the House of Mahanam. He thought to turn from the way and return home while he still felt well enough, yet it was a thought that somehow made him feel worse rather than better.
It was then that Jorden noticed the glint of chrome near one of the trees and he stooped, brushed aside the leaf litter and revealed a watch, his watch, lost a week before. He smiled and returned it to his wrist, thinking that his luck had surely changed, then walked on between the trees. There was a slight rush, a touch of cool, a flash of bright, and an overwhelming feeling that he had come home.
He felt well enough to jog along the path, the fire of life suddenly pulsing within his veins, the mighty trees towering above him. The spell of the local Guru, he thought as he ran on, a spell that brought knew life to those who were perhaps beyond such things. He was beyond the frailties of life, the ills and weaknesses... Unfortunately reality returned shortly after, and Jorden ran out of steam and puffed to a halt not far from the cellar door of Tsarin's house.
He paused to regain his breath and smiled. It was a normal feeling of fatigue and not an attack of breathlessness that came without warning, which was at least some consolation. As he rested, Jorden glanced to the door that he had entered the week before, or what he could see of it, and recalled the conversation with Tsarin of that day.
Yet...
There was something about the door that did not seem at all right. Only a week ago he had dragged aside the tangle of undergrowth and dangling vine, and dug away the soil which had accumulated over the years upon the step. Today it was worse than it had ever been. Thorn bushes grew thick about it and broad-leafed grasses flourished in the knee-deep sediment that was banked against it.
And yet it hadn't rained...
Jorden shook his head and moved on along the path, a path that wound its way around the low, forested ridge to the odd house of Tsarin.
II
Even the house was not exactly as he had remembered it – nearly, but not quite. He was sure he could recall a thatched wing that had spread down the slope of the ridge, weaving its way amongst the trees, yet now only an open verandah remained and that overlooked a garden filled with three blue-green ponds and lush green shrubs. Garden? Jorden shook his head again. He could remember no gardens, just the overhanging forest.
He walked confidently to the verandah; he had been given an open invitation after all, and looked down over the slightly recessed and totally unfamiliar landscaping below. There were several ponds. He remembered a few shrubs, but ponds? He began to wonder if he hadn't stumbled on another house altogether, a tingling fear started lifting the hairs of the back of his neck. Jorden glanced nervously to his watch. He definitely didn't want to run late again... He stopped, and grabbed his wrist, then scanned the wooden deck at his feet. He swore quietly. He had lost his watch again.
He didn't like his chances of finding it twice so easily...
If it were not for the approach of two young, white robed women, then Jorden would have left: firstly in search of his watch, and secondly in search of food to satisfy his rejuvenated appetite. They smiled toward him from the garden, giggled to themselves, then left, Jorden watching their departure carefully. It was a really odd place.
Then a woman came to greet him. She was in her twenties, dark haired with eyes of ebony, eyes that were both young and yet somehow old. She was clad in a mauve robe with a white sash around her neck that was littered with flakes of amethyst. He felt suddenly self-conscious, dressed as he usually was in his shorts and yellow T-shirt, standing before a stranger that was more than just slightly familiar.
She nodded toward Jorden's vague smile. “Welcome to the house of the Kaedith Tsarin,” she began. That answered one question. At least he was in the right place. “It's been a long time, Jorden Miles, but I have been expecting your return. Come, please.”
He glanced around stupidly as if expecting to find another Jorden Miles standing beside him, then realized how foolish his actions might have appeared. Long time? Expected? Jorden was still sure he didn't know the woman that beckoned him to follow her into the house, yet it seemed she knew of him. Perhaps they thought of him as a new convert to the ways of their Guru? Tsarin must have guessed that he needed something desperately, and maybe she was right.
Jorden soon found himself again within the lounge, a room that looked much as he remembered, unlike many of the others that seemed to have changed décor in the past few days. He sat quietly as the woman did that same before him, and smiled.
It was the woman who broke the sudden silence. “You don't remember me, do you?” she said. “It has been just a few short days and you have forgotten while I recall the day vividly after many cycles.”
“Well... Yes,” Jorden lied, losing his smile in furious thought. “No, not really,” he then conceded. “The face is familiar, but I have a terrible memory.” He had remembered other women had been in the house, but that was about it.
She snorted. “I have an unfair advantage. I have changed much since our last meeting while you have remained the same. This was the House of Mahanam then, and now it is the House of Tsarin. I am the Precinct Kaedith now and Mahanam has left in the service of the greater consciousness beyond.” She paused, shook her head, then stood and walked to the nearest shelving, her palm upon the assorted volumes that congregated there. “This will not be easy for you to accept, Jorden Miles, for you are away from familiar surrounds, but I can offer you your heart's desire and the fulfilment of dreams.”
Jorden simply blinked.
“You don't believe me.” She stated the obvious.
Jorden shrugged, ignoring the odd way the woman seemed to speak. “I just came for a walk... to clear my head. I haven't been feeling well for the last few days and... well to be truthful, I don't know why I ended here. I met Tsarin the last time...”
“The transition is difficult, and there will be times of lost synchronization,” she interrupted. “You will have suffered those on your return home, and you will suffer others of a different form here. As for Tsarin, I fear that you will
not know her. Indeed it seems you do not, for I am the Kaedith Tsarin, and you are within my precinct of the Domain of Hura Ghiana.”
A vague stare was returned, Jorden wondering about the odd comment. He knew perfectly well that this was not the same girl he had met the previous weekend. There was something of a resemblance, a sister perhaps, yet it was quite obviously another girl. He wondered why she would state otherwise.
“I know that you don't believe,” the woman claimed, “but that is because you do not understand as yet. In time you will. Perhaps you wish for refreshments while we speak.”
Jorden mumbled uncomfortably, sitting forward upon the chair and thinking to stand. “I should be going. It's a long walk back, and my mother has visitors coming this afternoon...” Visitors he could really live without having to deal with. “Perhaps just a quick drink or something...”
The woman smiled. “Your mother, Joanne?” Jorden nodded in return. “I have learned that all has not been well for you: your health, the separation of your parents. I wish that I could be of more help, yet it is somewhat beyond my control.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Jorden shrugged uncomfortably.
But the woman simply smiled. “I don't mean to pry into your personal affairs, such things are no concern to me. My duty is simply to enlighten, to ease your journey, and make your stay within this house as comfortable as possible.” She paused as a younger woman of no more than sixteen entered the room, a tray within her grasp, her white robe sweeping the floor in her wake. “Your drink.”
Jorden offered quiet thanks as the tray was placed on the low coffee table, the girl smiling in return. “This is Perrin, a common woman within my service,” she-who-claimed-to-be-Tsarin went on to say. “As I have other duties to perform, I fear I must leave you in her company for a short while. Treat my home as you would your own.” Then to Perrin. “Whatever our guest should wish for...”
Jorden went to respond to her, but was at a loss for words. He watched the woman leave, a woman he was not sure he even knew, and wondered what was happening in the world around him. There was a growing fear that the people he had stumbled upon were perhaps part of some commune or cult that seemed eager to recruit new members into its ranks. Jorden had seen too many documentaries about strange cults and this place was certainly more than a little weird. Treat my home as your own? Jorden wondered how literal to take such a statement.
Perrin sat in the chair the older woman had left vacant, glancing briefly to the departure of her master before returning her attention to the male there with her, her blue-green eyes contemplating his strange mode of dress. Then she brushed her golden locks from her brow. “Tsarin tells me that your name is Jorden,” she said casually, clasping her hands in her lap.
“Jordan Miles, yeah, from just down the road...” He paused. He had tried that before, those of the commune apparently unaware of or uninterested in most of the lands about them. “I was just having a walk to clear my head and thought I might drop in and see Tsarin.” It was somehow uncomfortable to be speaking with the unknown girl in a little known house, but if only he could feel so well at home. And he did feel well now – much better than yesterday.
She nodded and seemed genuinely interested. “She has been expecting you. It's unfortunate that you've come today when she is burdened with her work. Perhaps tomorrow she will have more time to speak.” Perrin reached for her glass and paused to await Jorden to do the same. She sipped of the greenish fluid. “You must stay and join in our evening meal at least.”
Jorden drank in turn, the green liquid sweet and fruity to his taste, the tang of citrus. “I can't, really. We have visitors coming and my mother worries if I'm gone too long...”
Perrin smiled. “My cooking would put any you know to absolute shame,” she promised.
“I'm sure, but...”
“I know.” The girl nodded. “If you must go, you must. I hope that are not unduly ill upon your return.” And she stood. “Perhaps a walk in the garden first. We have a lovely garden...”
Jorden glanced to the small amount of green fluid that remained in his crystal mug.
III
The house was more than a little odd, the people a little more than strange. Things went on within its walls that were not altogether normal, or at least what he knew of as normal. Jorden wondered what sort of people they really were and what sort of things they were into. He'd never had anything to do with drugs that weren't prescribed. He had enough trouble staying healthy without that sort of thing. But he couldn't help but wonder what these guys were putting in the drinks.
Withdrawal, Jorden considered. For a few days after his last visit he had felt full of life, his mind clear, his heart and lungs performing the tasks they were designed for, then in a couple of days he felt terrible. For the past two days he had felt the touch of Death frequently, the effects of the drug perhaps worn thin, the craving for more growing within. And so he returned, and now he may well have been consuming more of their local brew.
And would he indeed be sick on his return home? More than just his normal ill health, perhaps. That was about all he needed. “Sick, yes,” he mumbled. “I hope not... I suppose if I stayed and drank some more of these I'd be all right,” he added testily.
Perrin continued to stand, watching as Jorden thought to leave the chair himself. “Of course,” she said without pause. “I'll get another if you wish...”
“No... Thanks.” Although he indeed felt like another, the paranoia in him was wondering what kind of drug could be slipped within a drink, and how addictive it would be. “I'm not sure what you put in them,” he said as he finally managed to rise to his feet. “And I don't think I can afford to get hooked on it.” He felt uncomfortable after saying such, and forced a feeble grin.
The girl gazed into the cloudy glass mug that remained in her grasp. “I made this myself,” she frowned. “Juice of the junea and syrup of the mape and powdered hydrae.” She shook her head and gazed back toward the strange young male. “There are no hooks?”
Jorden cleared his throat uneasily. “Drugs.” There was still an odd stare. “Sorry, bad joke. Some of your herbs and things might be a little stronger than what I'm used too. I've been feeling bad since leaving here last time, and I thought...” Enough said, perhaps.
Perrin nodded. “Tsarin has drugs and medicines for many ills, but not for those you have suffered, or so she has told me. Only Hura could offer you aid in the Beyond.”
Tsarin's name was mentioned again, Jorden puzzling again over the odd statement of the woman who had not long left their company. “The woman who was here before,” he began. “You know her well?”
“Kaedith Tsarin?” Perrin returned, again a slight frown, the word of the boy forever strange. “Of course.”
Jorden shook his head. “Perhaps I will have another drink. I don't suppose you have anything that's more... Well, less... ah...”
Perrin smiled. “Milk? Orange juice? Water...”
IV
They walked on the decking that spread east from the house, Jorden sipping his orange juice in the shade of the forest canopy that extended over much of the grounds. “And that is the only Tsarin here?” he asked again. “I met a young girl here last time, not the kaedith.” Whatever kaedith might mean. Guru, perhaps, or guru apprentice?
“The only one that I know of,” Perrin returned after sipping her own pale green beverage. “And I have been within the House of Tsarin for two cycles. But many young common girls pass into the grounds each morning for day spells...”
Day spells? Jorden shook his head. “But not many guys, I see.” He had seen two men on the previous occasion, great lumbering figures that could well have held greenery in their fingers and posed as trees of the surrounding forest, yet none on this occasion, and certainly none his own size, or age.
Perrin shrugged. “Men sometimes come to speak with the Kaedith if it is a matter of some importance, but more often it will be a woman of the village counc
il. It would depend on the purpose of the visit.”
Nothing that was said brought any light as to the purpose or function of the kaedith, or indeed to the commune as a whole, if that was indeed what it was. Jorden wondered on how best to learn more about it all. “What exactly does the kaedith do?” he asked for want of a better method.
The girl gestured vaguely, almost spilling her drink in the process, and moved toward a stair that led down amongst the garden. “More than most: a truthsay, a seer, a telepath. We don't have others here who can do such, not like the cities. She also performs more usual tasks such as the maintenance of village shields, and she gives powders and medicines for various ills, although there is an old woman in Tucaar that does the same. She knows most of crystallography as well...”
Jorden was almost sorry he asked. “Like a naturapath,” he said when the girl at last completed the lengthy list, although witch-doctor seemed to be a more accurate description. He marvelled how such things could still be around in modern civilization, and be right on his doorstep. His mother would love this.
“Crystallography, eh,” Jorden went on, “I've heard of that, I think.” People who hung crystals over their beds for a good night's sleep and all that sort of thing.”
Perrin shrugged. “Even I can use reds and yellows a little. It's the others that need a true Kaedith, and only Hura can produce and utilize those of green, although I'm not sure what they are truly for.”
Hura again, Jorden considered. There was some hope he may learn something of his strange hosts before he had to leave for home. “And Hura is the head Kaedith I assume,” he prompted. That would make her top witch rather than guru.
They had walked to the edge of the first pond by this time, an ovoid that was the size of an average back yard pool, the shrubbery thick around the edges. “Sigrid of Saljid is amongst the highest class of the Kaedith order; she chairs the Council,” Perrin told him, then shook her head. “But Hura...” There was a lengthy pause, the girl glancing skyward momentarily. “Hura is all. She is the giver of the day and night, of the greater and lesser lights of the skies, of all the orders of the land, of the second forms of the lowly, of the shields against darkness. It is she who came in the great darkness before time, over a thousand cycles into the past, to give us law and the order of the Land...”
Ah, progress, Jorden considered. So Hura was God, which made sense. How this Hura made green crystals was something of a mystery, yet the statement Domain of Hura Ghiana now seemed to refer to the earth, just as Hura referred to God. It was all clear once the rules were known. All was well, but only for the briefest of moments.
“She was here within the House of Mahanam only two cycles past,” Perrin went on. “Mahanam was ill and Hura spoke with Tsarin, knowing that she would soon be precinct kaedith. I saw her for just a moment. She was so unlike anything I expected her to be.”
It's always difficult to look at God, Jorden thought. The place seemed ever more strange.
He stepped on the smooth stone slabs that surrounded the pool, wondering how to politely ask whether their god came to visit often. He doubted there was any polite method and gazed instead on the tiny yellow fish that darted in the clear waters beneath, then a large red one that peeked out from beneath the lilies and assorted water-plants.
Jorden crouched for a closer look, the fish like none he had ever seen, although he didn't know a lot about fish. Then he looked further out to the assortment of coloured flowers that the lilies sported, colours he had never imagined possible, yellows and reds, blues and emerald greens. Further afield he could see the stalks of some other unknown water-plant, a tiny bird clinging to one. He watched a moment, squinting to avoid the glare of the reflected sun. Sun?
Jorden gazed suddenly aloft and frowned.
The sky seemed an odd shade of white, or what could be seen of it amongst the greenery above, and Jorden stood and walked along the edge of the pond for a better view. White, but without cloud, or so it seemed. He could not remember it being overcast earlier in the day, and indeed, as he walked, he caught sight of the sun itself and smiled.
It was not a smile that lasted.
Jorden stared toward the sun. It was bright, yet not blinding as it should have been. It was also not the sun. He gazed a moment longer toward the odd wispy starfish shaped non-sun before shaking his head and turning to search for Perrin, a chilling fear welling within. His breath quickened.
And Perrin stood before him.
Then she smiled, quivered slightly, and vanished in a flash of blinding light, the wind roaring in his ears.
V
There was an icy darkness, a deep freeze of the mind that Jorden found himself within. He struggled to find the door.
It opened to a warm soft bed in a dim quiet room that held two other human forms and a great deal of elegant furniture. Jorden shivered a moment longer, then found that he warmed nicely, and he smiled toward Perrin as she sat on the bed to touch his brow. Then he glanced to the Kaedith Tsarin, the house witch-doctor.
He vaguely remembered walking aside the ponds of the garden, then the flash... “You collapsed onto the stone of the ponds,” Tsarin told him before he thought to ask. “A loss of synchronization, perhaps. Hura said there would be such things.”
“Just relax a while longer and you will be as well as ever,” Perrin promised.
Jorden rubbed a blurred eye. “I feel fine,” he put forth feebly, dreading to think of how long he had already relaxed.
There was a window nearby, that told enough. It was dark outside, a strange reddish sort of dark, but dark all the same, and he was surprised he could not hear his mother calling all the way from home. She had to be worried now for sure. Bill would be out looking, if not the police... “I really have to go,” Jorden said with somewhat more strength as he rose to sit. “If I don't get home home – ow...” His head pounded.
Perrin helped him lay back upon the comfort of the bed. “I think you will not be going anywhere for some time,” Tsarin stated firmly. “And it is already late into the night.”
“You hit your head badly when you eventually fell,” Perrin went on, “although you stood frozen for ages before that.”
Jorden felt the lump, but it was the least of his problems now. “Oh hell,” he said slowly. “I'll get thrown out of the house at this rate. I'd have to move in here,” he tried to joke.
Tsarin smiled and seemed to take him seriously. “Of course. You may come and stay amongst us whenever you wish; yet I would suggest that you return home when the first light returns. You will find the journey of great benefit.”
Jorden shook his head. “My mother will be worried sick. She'll think I've collapsed or something. I'll have to get back...”
Tsarin held up a hand. “Trust me, Jorden. She will not worry. All is in hand. Rest. You need not fear.”
Jorden was still tempted to just go, but the attempt to rise made the room spin. By the way Tsarin spoke he wondered if she had rang home to tell them he was okay. “Maybe a moment or two,” he thought aloud...
VI
Jorden woke refreshed. Worried, but refreshed. He was asleep before he even realized. In a flash it was dawn.
It had been a night with little dream except for a brief nightmare that saw the sky littered with an assortment of starfish and other creatures of the sea. Otherwise it had been a peaceful rest. Morning, however, brought the horrors of reality.
He stood and rubbed an aching head, knowing that sooner or later he would be forced to confront his mother and Bill and probably the local police. There was little time to invent excuses, and none had been invented that could possibly work. Perhaps if he broke a leg; said that he had fallen and had been forced to crawl home. Jorden shrugged. He would probably find it difficult to crawl anywhere unless it was something of a minor break. Perhaps if he simply died, that might just get him clear of trouble. Maybe.
Tsarin entered soon after he woke and offered breakfast. Perhaps she was telepathi
c, Jorden thought. “There are fruits of the forest,” the Kaedith went on to say, “or others that are more familiar to your taste. And a warm beverage perhaps.”
He was standing in a room of lace and silken floral fabrics in a pair of shorts and a wrinkled and faded and stained yellow T-shirt. The assortment of individualistic dark hairs of his scalp were brushed aside with his fingers, his eyes cleared by excessive blinking. Meanwhile Tsarin was dressed in another lavish robe, one of blue this time.
It was not that Jorden felt out of place, he simply was out of place. “I should be going, and I don't feel particularly hungry this morning.” It was mostly a lie. He doubted he could eat with the knot he had in his stomach.
Tsarin nodded. “If you feel well enough to do so, then the choice is yours. Perhaps next time you shall join us for a meal.”
Next time! To even think of being allowed out of the house again was overly optimistic. Jorden simply tried to picture himself living into the following day once his mother found out he was okay. “Perhaps,” he returned without vigour.
The Kaedith smiled broadly in return. “You will come within these walls again, that I promise, and it will not be far into your future. And when you return, much will be explained.”
“Like the next time I suffer serious withdrawal symptoms,” Jorden wondered aloud, not really expecting a reaction this time.
And the woman nodded slowly, her dark eye flashing suddenly in the light that flooded from the nearby window. “In a way that is true,” Tsarin admitted, surprising Jorden. “Although I fear it is not in the way you think. The truth is always far more difficult to accept.”
VII
Jorden left in thought, wandering over the wooded ridge on a short-cut back to the path that Tsarin had told him of. And indeed, as she had promised, he climbed down the slope not far from the cellar door and found he had saved quite a walk around by the clearer way that he had taken in the past.
Again he came to the two trees, the two trees that seemed to grow aside the only easy path between his home and that of Tsarin's, and again he failed to notice the pencil-sized green crystal that hung on the finest of threads above. It was one among many that hung along the two lines of transition, its size belaying the power it held.
Jorden walked beneath.
As before he suffered the moment of ill, the lack of breath, and the touch of fire. It was worse than it had been on the previous occasion, though brief, Jorden sitting to lessen the effects. He swore then to never return, regardless how severe the symptoms might become.
Then he reached down into the leaf litter for his watch.
He checked the band, thinking it odd to have lost his watch in same spot twice, yet all seemed well. Jorden glanced at the time and frowned before pocketed the article. He was somehow eager to leave the woodlands, and on coming to the open fields he looked toward the sun as it hung high above. It was the sun that he remembered, one that blinded quickly, and he turned away. The watch and the sun were in agreement, it was definitely near lunchtime and he had slept longer than he had thought possible.
He swore aloud, then headed for home, still without anything that approached a viable excuse. The truth, perhaps. He fell and hit his head and spent the night within the house of a local neighbour, one that conveniently was without a phone. As if there was anyone that didn't have a phone. It was also unfortunately a neighbour that Joanne never knew existed, and a house that was filled with only girls and young women and no men. Though the bump and grazed scalp remained, Jorden doubted the story would hold up very well.
As he at last crossed the road and stepped within the yard of his home he knew it would be a difficult day.
He didn't realize exactly how difficult.
VIII
Bill's red monster roared briefly in the driveway, then died painfully. Jorden shook his head. He watched Bill climb over the engine and approached to watch him tear half the hoses from the carburettor in rage. “Pile of crap,” he growled.
Jorden just stood and swallowed as Bill glanced toward him and waited for the trouble to start. Yet Bill simply asked, “what do you think?”
“Fuel pump?” Jorden suggested uneasily. “You said maybe the fuel pump was going...”
Billy nodded. “Yeah, right. Did too.” He fiddled briefly with the tangle of black rubber snakes. “I don't suppose you know how all these hoses go back,” he smiled. “This one's the vacuum, I think...”
Jorden was surprised Bill was taking things as quietly as he was, but then he could be a cool guy when he wanted to be. “I guess that book will come in handy now, huh.” Bill smiled in response, but Jorden knew he had to face the music. “So where's Mum?”
“She's a bit pissed,” Bill admitted, then he shouted to her. “Hey Joanne, Jorden's home.”
Jorden turned to see his mother's head appear at a nearby window. “About time,” she started, somewhat annoyed, but not anywhere near as frantic as Jorden was expecting. Indeed she was essentially calm compared to what he would class as even normal behaviour. “Bill has his friends coming over in an hour or two and you need a bath after wandering around all morning.” She gave a stern frown for some time then softened.
Jorden stood, dumbfounded. He looked to the watch again, then checked the date. Nothing made a great deal of sense. It was starting to make the house of the Kaedith look normal.
He thought quickly. “I have to do something first,” he tried. “Old Mr, Petersen asked me to help him get his mower going this afternoon sometime.” Jorden knew he had to be crazy, but he had to find out what was going on. He noticed the return of his mother's frown. “Might take a while. He said I could sleep over if I like,” Jorden added, just in case. It wouldn't be the first time he'd stayed over at the Petersen place.
Joanne thought to argue, but knew Jorden didn't think much of Bill's friends. She felt much the same about them. “Only if you are feeling well enough,” she relented. “But make sure you have your medication.”
Jorden nodded and headed for the stairs and then to his room.
It should have not been quite that easy.
Long Days in Paradise - The First Book of the Shards of Heaven Page 3