Deadsweep Page 2

  When I first returned home, I had some sympathy for my father. I tried to understand why he didn’t bother to greet me, just lay in a dark room, barely breathing. After all, he had lost his wife.

  But once my friends deserted me, and my father made no effort to talk to me or get better, I found myself getting mad at him. It was his choice to leave, to let himself become a shrunken version of the man that he used to be.

  Being angry at my father didn’t make me like myself very much, but as hard as I tried to let it go, I couldn’t get the resentment to go away. Every morning I would stop in his room and say hello. Hold his hand. Tell him that I had returned.

  At night I sat with him and read from one of his favorite books. But he didn’t acknowledge me at all. I wanted to scream at him. “Here I am, your daughter. Why are you choosing to leave me? Why are you not helping save your Kingdom? Abbadon wants to destroy all life on the planet, for zuts sake!”

  Sometimes, I would remind him that I lost someone too. I lost my mother in Erda and all my friends in the Earth dimension. I couldn’t understand it. How could he desert me? How could he abandon his people?

  As we stood in the doorway together, I knew that Berta wanted me to try again to reach him. I was willing to try to give up my anger and resentment, but was he willing to let go of feeling sorry for himself? Berta gave my hand a last squeeze and left me to enter the room by myself, but not before whispering to me that it was alright to be mad, and perhaps I should tell him why I was. It might help us both.

  When I looked at her to make sure I had heard what she said correctly, she gave me an encouraging nod before returning to her office.

  I stood by my father’s bedside looking at the man in the bed. No, he didn’t look anything like the father I remembered, but the fact that I remembered him at all was something to be happy about.

  Until recently, I hadn’t even remembered my mother and father’s name, let alone my life with them. Being sent away to live in the Earth dimension had wiped my memory of all things Erda, including my parents and all the other people I loved. Over time, some of my memory and magical skills had returned. For that, I was very grateful.

  I pulled a chair up beside the bed and started talking. I told my father everything that had happened since I came through the portal and returned to Erda. How I almost died inside of the monster Shatterskin but was saved because my friend La had escaped and brought help.

  I told him about my time in the Castle, where he was supposed to be, and the training I had received from Niko, Aki, and Professor Link.

  I described the help that the Ginete had been in building shields so we could get close enough to dissolve the Shrieks. I told him about how the Whistle Pigs had dug a hole big enough to drop the disabled Shatterskin down into the earth where he could never hurt anyone again.

  Describing the manufacturing plants where Abbadon made the Shrieks by draining his prisoners of all their life force brought me to tears. We rescued some of them, but hundreds more had died. I told him how happy I had been when Leif and Sarah had stepped out of the Sound Bubble and embraced me. How for two days all of us celebrated together. And then a few days later all of them were gone, leaving me alone in Eiddwen.

  By the time I was done telling him the whole story, I was exhausted. But more than that, I was furious, and I told him so.

  “What right do you have to give up? The fight is not over. Mother would never, ever, have given up like you are!” I screamed at him.

  The figure on the bed didn’t move. “You can’t possibly be my father,” I whispered to him. “You don’t look like him. He would never leave his Kingdom and me this way. Whoever you are, I give up. My father must already be dead.”

  Something inside of me broke when I said those words. It was true. The man in the bed could not be the King. I could not waste one more minute of my life moping around because whoever was lying there refused to live.

  There was a light knock on the door, and one of the women who took care of the man on the bed poked her head in the door and asked if she could come in.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m done here.” And I meant it. My father had made a choice.

  Now I had to make one too, and it was not going to be the same one he was making. I was going to stop moping around. I was not going to wait until everyone returned. I would resume my training with who and what I had.

  But it would have to be the next day. Telling my father the story, and then making my decision to let him be, had wiped me out. Too tired to eat, I stumbled into my bedroom and fell into bed without bothering to take off my clothes.

  Right before I fell asleep, I whispered a little prayer that all my friends were safe, and just before sleep took over I thought I heard Leif’s voice, telling me that all was well.

  Berta must have come in during the night and covered me, because when I woke up I was snuggled under the covers, still clothed, but no longer angry. I was determined.

  If I had to be Queen, I would be. But first, there was a monster to rid the world of, and I needed to be prepared. And I knew just what I needed to do.

  Four

  Berta was waiting for me in the small breakfast nook tucked into a corner of the kitchen. Food was already on the table, and a cup of steaming hot coffee was waiting for me. I had no idea how coffee ended up in Erda, but I was delighted that it did. On the other hand, Berta was the queen of practical magic. Perhaps she just pulled it out of the air.

  When Berta laughed at me, I knew she had heard what I was thinking, and maybe that was what she had done. It was time for me to access the resources I had at my fingertips and Berta was the place to start.

  “Didn’t get very far with your father, did you?” Berta said, slipping into a chair opposite me. We were the only two at the table. Caretakers came and went in the house during the day, but the two of us and my father were the only ones that lived there. Berta took care of everything. I knew nothing about how things worked in the “real world” of doing things in Erda.

  Since I had returned to Erda, other than the two weeks I had been moping around my father’s house, I had been training to fight monsters. That was not your everyday kind of living. It was certainly not the kind of life that I had lived in the Earth Realm.

  But since my return to Erda, I hadn’t had much time to learn the basics of Erda living. Sure I had an excuse, but it sucked. And I was tired of myself and the excuses. What I had decided after talking to my father was burning inside of me.

  It could have been anger. But my friends Niko and Beru taught me how to use anger, and that was what I was going to do.

  “Nowhere, Berta, but it helped me to tell him everything, just as you said that it would. It helped me make a decision.”

  “What decision was that?” Berta asked as she pulled the most amazing-smelling cinnamon rolls out of the oven.

  The steam from the stove made her little gray curls that were peeping out from the cap she wore on her head, curl a bit more. She slapped my hand as I reached for a bun even before she had a chance to put them on my plate. What can I say? I was hungry from not eating the night before.

  “To train. While I was at the Castle, Professor Link taught me magic. Niko taught me how to fight, and defend myself, and Aki taught me how to be calm, still, and listen. At least that was their primary focus, although everyone was trying to teach me.

  “Since they left me here in Eiddwen, I haven’t done anything other than mope around wanting them to come back. However, it’s been radio silence. I haven’t heard anything from anyone.

  “Last night I remembered that they all used silence on me from time to time. They sometimes left me alone until I figured something out on my own. So, what if that is what they are doing now?

  “Sure, they could be out researching what Abbadon is doing. But they didn’t need to all go. My
fairy friends, the Priscillas could have stayed. Or even Beru, or maybe Ruta. For sure Cahir could have stayed with me.

  “Why would a wolf need to go with them? But they all left except Lady who won’t talk to me. Why would that be unless it is because they want me to do something while they are gone?”

  “What do you think they want you to do?” Berta asked. I didn’t know Berta that well, but I could have sworn I saw her try to stifle a laugh. It was okay. I deserved to be laughed at.

  “Train on my own. Starting with you!”

  This time Berta did start laughing. She laughed so long I started worrying that she would never stop. When she finally gathered herself together, her face was bright pink, and tears were running down her cheeks.

  If anyone else had laughed at me like that, for sure I would have gotten huffy and either stomped out of the room or started crying. It all depended on who had done the laughing.

  Instead, I stared at her, and then as calmly as possible asked her why she was laughing.

  “Oh, my darling girl,” Berta said. “I can’t teach you anything that you don’t already know. But I appreciate the thought that you think I can. However, I do believe you are on the right track with the listening piece. And the decision to stop moping is a great one.

  “Your father may or may not recover. There is nothing you can do now but be willing for it to be okay with you either way. And I think you came to that decision last night, didn’t you?”

  I nodded at her, and she patted my hand as she put another roll onto my plate. She put the rest of the food onto a platter which I knew was for anyone who came to the house that day. No one went hungry in Berta’s home.

  I stared at the roll wondering if I had room to eat it or if I was making a pig of myself. Like all of Berta’s cooking, they were delicious.

  “If I were you, I would eat up. I think you are heading for a busy day. I’ll be in the garden if you need me.”

  I remained in the kitchen finishing my roll and coffee and thinking about what Berta had said. If she wasn’t going to train me, I would have to teach myself. I wondered if that’s what she meant when she said I was heading for a busy day.

  Today I was not going to the hill to wait all day for people who may not come. They would return someday, and they would be disappointed in me if all I did was wait for them.

  Instead, I was going to see what I could do on my own. If I had to fight Abbadon’s new monster by myself, I would. I said that to myself with all the bravado I could muster. At the same time, I knew that my friends, the team that had defeated the Shrieks and Shatterskin with me, would return and they would want me to be ready.

  I decided to begin the day the same way I would have done if they were there. In quiet meditation. Berta had shown me a small side garden that she told me my mother, Rowena, had used every morning. There was a tiny hut inside the enclosure that she used when it was raining or snowing, but otherwise, she placed a mat on the grass and sat there.

  After changing into clean clothes, and brushing my hair back into a ponytail, I opened the door to the meditation garden. I could almost feel my mother’s presence. It was the perfect place for me to begin.

  Five

  That day was the turning point for my time in Eiddwen. I had made a decision. I could still be Hannah who felt loved and cared for by the people in the Earth Realm while becoming the strong woman I knew I had to be in Erda. I would embrace the fact that in Erda I am Princess Kara Beth.

  I developed a training routine based on what I had learned during my time at the Castle. Since no one was going to do it with me, I could do it myself.

  Niko had taught me that having a routine helped to accomplish anything, so I made one for myself that I was determined to follow every day no matter what the weather was, or how I felt.

  First, I visited my father every morning on my way to breakfast. I stopped to read to him every evening on my way to bed, no matter how tired I had made myself that day. I worked on not letting myself get pulled into what he was doing.

  Although it was ironic that while I was building a routine to make myself better, my father had developed a method to make himself worse. Every morning I wondered if he would still be there when I went to visit in the evening. The fact that he was still hanging on gave me a modicum of hope that he would recover, but I wasn’t expecting it or waiting for it.

  After seeing my father in the morning, I had breakfast with Berta and filled her in on what I had done the day before. If she hadn’t been there, I am sure I would have gone crazy.

  Until then, I hadn’t realized how much it meant to me to share my experience. It gave me a purpose. It helped me remember why I was doing what I was doing. Berta listened better than anyone I had ever known, except for maybe Grace from the Earth dimension.

  The more time I spent with Berta, the more she reminded me of Grace. They looked almost the same. They both had dark brown eyes that looked deep inside and found goodness in everyone. And I needed to know that there was goodness in me.

  Like Grace, who knew everyone in the village, so did Berta. Both loved to cook and serve others, and both gave great hugs. Even if Berta wasn’t Grace in the realm of Erda, she made me feel the same. Loved and cared for. And that made all the difference to me because the routine I set for myself was hard, and became harder as the days went by.

  Truth be told, I was hoping that someday when I saw my friends again, they would all be proud of me. However, I tried not to make that the main reason because I knew that it would lead me down a dangerous path. I needed to train for myself, and for the people of the Kingdom of Zerenity.

  After breakfast, I spent over an hour in my mother’s garden, listening mostly. I quieted my mind the best that I could and then waited. Some days I never did get myself to be quiet, and other days I was filled with so many feelings that I would find myself crying throughout the entire hour.

  I knew I couldn’t make one experience better than another. Even though I preferred those magical times when I could feel the earth breathe through me, that didn’t make them better than the days I had to fight to be calm. Because if I thought that, I wasn’t listening. I was judging.

  However, my favorite mornings in the garden were when I felt my mother’s presence. It was as if she had left little love notes for me there, that I would run into every once in a while. Not physical ones. But thoughts don’t go away just because someone is not with us anymore. Or that’s what Aki had told me, and I believed her.

  Thoughts hang around waiting for someone to read them, or tune into them. I knew my mother had left those love notes for me deliberately, hoping that someday I would come to the garden and collect them.

  I left her little love notes there too, just in case she was somewhere she could receive them. One can hope, can’t they?

  Berta would pack me a light lunch because she knew that I would be out all day and probably not be back to the house until dinner. My lunch was always waiting for me in the kitchen after my hour in the garden. The rest of the day varied. I practiced some of the moves that Niko had taught me. Without a sparring partner it was more difficult, but I did it anyway.

  Aki had worked with me to improve my range of movement, and I spent time doing many of the yoga forms that she had taught me.

  After that, I ran. I altered where I ran. Some days I ran through the woods and tried to clear the way through the trees the way that Ruta would do. That didn’t work. Maybe only Ruta’s people, who looked like tree stumps if you looked at them with squinted eyes, could do that.

  It was probably for the best that I couldn’t because I started to learn how to run without tripping over my own feet. Sometimes I swear the trees dropped their branches so I would learn to duck, and raised their roots so I would pay attention. I thought I heard them laugh at me, but I didn’t mind. The trees were my companions. I
knew that the trees provided all the magic and life that made up Erda.

  Other days I ran through the streets into the meadow and then up the hill. It took a long time for me to get up that hill without stopping and trying to breathe without passing out. It helped to pretend that Beru, my little elf-like friend who looked like a flower, was with me. I would imagine her holding my hand and her long legs effortlessly pulling me up the hill. At the top, I would pause, take in the city of Eiddwen, thank Beru for running with me, and head back down. How many times I tripped and fell on the way down was ridiculous, but after a few weeks of training, I was running more like Beru and less like the clumsy person I was before.

  Some days I saw Lady circling above my head. Usually, she flew by herself, but once in a while a whole crown of dragons would fly by and dip their black and white wings at me, and my heart would lift in gratitude. I was still being watched over, even if no one was talking to me. I knew they would, in time, and I would be ready.

  Six

  Each day, before the day was over, I did one more thing. Maybe it was the most important thing, but I tried not to make it feel that way. I practiced feeling and using my gifts of magic.

  Right before we defeated Shatterskin, I had remembered most of the magical gifts that I had. Not all of them. But I had remembered how to shoot lightning bolts, and how to fly short distances. I wanted to do so much more than that, but I had to start with what I had remembered and improve those abilities.

  Since the day I shot lightning bolts out of my hands to convince the people of Beru’s village that there was a danger they needed to prepare for, I could use that skill to a greater or lesser degree.

  I had used it, with the Priscillas’ help, to dissolve the batteries inside of Shatterskin and light balls of tree sap with it. However, since then the lightning out of my hands wasn’t always available.