The Return To Erda Box Set Read online

  I woke up lying on my back gazing up at a sky filled with stars. I didn’t remember falling asleep in a clearing. In fact, I was sure that we were deep into a forest when we stopped. But those stars sure looked good to me. They looked just like the stars I would see when I lay on my back in our backyard. I’m not good with naming stars, but I did recognize the Big Dipper. It was a comfort to know that I was still on Earth, even though they called it Erda. It looked like home.

  Home. My mom, Ben, my dad, and my friends Johnny and Sarah. I missed them all so much, and I had only been gone a day. How was I going to survive this?

  When we had talked about dimension traveling, Johnny and Sarah were supposed to come with me. At least I had planned it that way. Johnny and I would discover the mysteries of this new dimension together with Sarah watching over us to make sure all was well, just like she always did.

  Sarah was the wise woman everyone went to in my hometown when they had questions about something or a problem they couldn’t solve. Perhaps she knew how to help because she was older. But then I knew old people who weren’t so wise.

  Sarah was going to come with us because her husband, Leif, had traveled to this dimension a few years before and had stayed. She wanted to be with him, so I had envisioned that for the most part, I would have Johnny all to myself.

  It didn’t work out that way at all. Right after I was given the green light to dimension travel, I learned that Johnny had to stay behind. He was needed where he was. Because I believed I wouldn’t be gone long, I rationalized that it might work out for the best. He would miss me, and I would grow up enough for him to stop thinking of me as a little girl.

  Now that I was in the middle of some strange forest with two weird little people and Suzanne had told me that I couldn’t go home for a long time, I realized how stupid that romantic notion had been.

  As for Sarah, the woman who wanted to be with her husband, well, she didn’t come either. I didn’t know she wasn’t going through the portal with me. She was standing beside me as if she was coming.

  At the very last moment, Sarah had stepped away whispering that she would meet me there. I started to ask how she was going to do that when Suzanne began to yell go, go, at me and I leaped in trusting all would be well.

  Sure. All was well. I lay there now in a well of self-pity for a few moments until I realized that I was hungry and I smelled something cooking.

  I sat up and saw Suzanne sitting cross-legged in front of a fire along with Ruta and Beru. Ruta looked very uncomfortable.

  That was something I could understand. If I looked like a stump, I would not be comfortable around a fire either. On the other hand, I had no idea what a comfortable Ruta would look like. Neither of my two guides appeared to be eating.

  It was Suzanne who was eating. She was holding what looked like a monster mushroom wrapped in leaves and happily taking huge bites out of it.

  She looked at me and gestured at another mushroom waiting by the fire. I took it to mean it was mine and wasted no time in reaching for it. As my hand touched the food, I remembered my manners and asked Ruta and Beru if it was for them. The faces they made assured me that it wasn’t.

  It was most likely because I was so hungry that the wrap was the most delicious thing I ever ate. While munching away on it, I asked Ruta and Beru what they would eat. They mumbled an answer. Instead of asking what they said, I let it go. I’d find out soon enough. Now I needed to know about the shriek I had heard earlier, and where we were going. If I was going to be afraid, at least I should know what was scaring me.

  “Oh. Not necessarily,” Beru said.

  “Not necessarily what?” I asked.

  “Sometimes knowing is even more frightening. And in this case. I think that might be true.”

  Wow. Beru read my mind. I used to be able to do that. I wondered if it would come back to me. I looked at Ruta and Suzanne for confirmation. Suzanne nodded in agreement with Beru’s words.

  Oh, zounds! What had I gotten myself into?

  Shatterskin Six

  Suzanne with the spiky hair, leggings, and red tunic smiled at me, and I could feel my blood pressure going down. I had seen her do this before when my Earth friends and I were afraid. She would appear out of nowhere, and we would immediately feel calmer and prepared to face whatever danger was in front of us.

  I had no idea how she did it. I knew it was one of her many abilities, most of which I hadn’t seen yet. Seeing her smile, and feeling the result, made me wonder if she was the Suzanne I knew.

  Or was the Suzanne I met in the Earth dimension another Suzanne, or an illusion? Could there be two of her? Could there be two of me? How did that work?

  It didn’t surprise me that Suzanne knew what I was thinking. What surprised me was that she decided to answer my unspoken question.

  “Dimension traveling is tricky. You might find another version of yourself when you enter a dimension because most dimensions are the same with only slight variations.

  “On the other hand, if the person you are has already died in the dimension you are traveling to, you would not meet yourself. On top of that, not everyone exists in every dimension. However, you never know until you arrive if the being that is you also exists there.

  “Think of all the trillions of decisions made each day that could spin a universe off into a new future. If your parents never met, you would most likely not show up in that dimension.”

  “What do you mean, ‘most likely?’” I asked Suzanne.

  “Just that. No one knows precisely how this works. The thing to remember is that if something happens in one dimension, it is possible that it happens in another one, but in a different way.”

  “Since there is a Ruta and a Beru in Erda, a version of them could also exist in what we call the Earth?” I asked.

  “This one’s easy, because I know there is. I’ve met them.”

  I took a moment to ponder that. If Suzanne had met them, had I?

  The Earth that I had left less than a day ago had already started to feel more like a dream than a reality. Is that how it worked? Maybe it was designed that way to keep people from moving back and forth between dimensions unwittingly causing havoc.

  If where you came from started to feel more like a dream, it forced you into being present. If you forgot that you had lived somewhere else before, or thought it was a dream, then the desire to return wouldn’t be there, or it would fade away.

  On the other hand, maybe some people never forgot. That would be me.

  I had no intention of forgetting. I would get back to the Earth dimension someday. Not just to see my parents, but also to see Johnny. I reached over and felt my left wrist. The day before I left, Johnny had given me a friendship bracelet. One of those bracelets that you make yourself with yarn. He thought it would stay with me just like my clothes would and he was right. It was a promise that we would find each other again.

  Perhaps Johnny thought of it just as friends, but I knew it was more. Or at least it could be someday.

  Everyone was staring at me. Hopefully, they didn’t know what I was thinking. Besides, I needed to concentrate on learning about the world I was living in now.

  “What about you?” I asked Suzanne. “So if you aren’t an illusion in either dimension, are there two of you? Or do you only look different here?”

  “I look different here because here I look like myself. But there is only one of me, just as there is only one of you. At least in the two dimensions we are talking about, Earth and Erda, and a few other ones that I have visited. We do have people living in Erda who have traveled more widely than I have, and I’ve been told that it is true wherever they have been.”

  “Wait, are you telling me that people here know who I am, and look for other versions of me when they travel to different dimensions? What does that mean?
What dimension do I belong in then?”

  “That’s something you’ll be discovering soon,” Suzanne said. “For now it’s enough to know that sometimes people move to a dimension which is not their home and...”

  Suzanne was ready to tell me more when the shriek we heard earlier sounded again. It not only shook the earth, it felt as if it sucked air up and away if just for a moment. Whatever it was, it knew exactly how to scare the ziffer out of me. Apparently, everyone else was afraid too, because within seconds Suzanne, Ruta, and Beru were on their feet.

  Beru swept out her hand, and all traces of the fire vanished. Another swipe and all the trees were back in place. I gasped at what I had seen but had no time to process it. I was pushed forward by Suzanne, her hand feeling like a claw on my back. Once again, I heard her whisper, “Go, go, go.” This time, I knew that pausing to decide was not a good idea. I ran, and once again Suzanne disappeared. I had no time to wonder where she went. I just hoped she was safe.

  Shatterskin Seven

  “Open up, Hannah,” Beru urged me as we ran. “Accept the help that is being offered to you. Breathe it in.”

  I was panting so hard I had no breath to ask her what she meant by help. I was nearing my last ounce of energy, and neither Beru nor Ruta seemed tired at all. They definitely knew something I didn’t know.

  “You don’t know what I am talking about?” Beru asked.

  Up ahead I heard Ruta snort in derision. He was right. I was more than useless. I shook my head. No, I didn’t know what they were talking about.

  “Feel it, Hannah, just as you did before you came here. Feel the forest. Feel the ground beneath your feet. Feel what they have to give you. Reach out. Let them in.” Then Beru, sweet little Beru with the beautiful face, yelled at me, “Do it. Do it now!”

  I gasped in surprise and felt a bolt of energy rush in. I was no longer running on my own. I was moving with the forest, not through it.

  I don’t know how long we ran. I lost all sense of time and surroundings. The forest around me blurred into a tunnel of green that flowed back the way we had come. In front of me, I could see Ruta moving, no, gliding, almost as if he wasn’t moving his legs at all. Behind me, I could feel Beru’s eyes effortlessly pushing me forward. There was no need for her to run forward and back to check on me. The three of us moved as one. It was glorious. I wanted it to last forever.

  How much time passed I don’t know, and although I had no idea where we were, I could tell that we were moving upward.

  Eventually, the world slowed down as we stopped running and began to walk instead. We were on a path. Not one created by Ruta moving through the woods, clearing the way. This path was like many of the trails my dad and I used to hike together in the mountains near our home. If I wasn’t walking with Ruta and Beru, I might have thought I was home again.

  That notion was blasted from my mind as we crested a hill, and I saw what appeared to be a castle. Not what I expected at all. On the other hand, what was I expecting? If I was truthful with myself, I was hoping we were going to see Suzanne’s people, the Forest Circle, and I said as much to Ruta and Beru.

  “Shh…,” hissed Ruta. “Are you crazy?”

  At first, I was dumbstruck to hear Ruta say more than one word. Maybe he didn’t often talk because his voice did not match his appearance. Unless he was hollow, because that’s what he sounded like: a hollow stump.

  When his block face darkened, I realized he could probably read my mind, and I was in trouble. What had happened to me? I didn’t usually think things like that about people. Or did I and I hadn’t noticed? My whole world was flipping upside down.

  “Ziffer it,” Ruta said.

  “Ziffer it? Are you swearing? Do you mean zipper it? Well, that I can understand, I think,” I babbled. “After all we were running from something, and maybe you want me to be quiet?”

  “No,” Ruta rumbled. “I meant ziffer it. Zonk you. Zounds, how did we get the assignment anyway?”

  It was horrible. I started laughing again. “Seriously, what’s with the z words?”

  Ruta just stared at me as if he wanted to take his whole body and club me with it. I tried arranging my face to look like his when Beru stepped in.

  “Stop it you two. Especially you, Hannah. Didn’t you learn any manners? Did you treat people that didn’t look like you differently in your realm? Ruta is protecting you, and you are rude and ungrateful. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

  Yes, I was ashamed of myself. But it was because when the magic I had experienced while running stopped, I felt so much fear I wanted to crawl inside the nearest hole and never come out again.

  It wasn’t just fear for what I didn’t know or for myself. It was a weight of fear that fell on me like a blanket. Smothering me. I have been afraid before, but nothing like what I was feeling then. I was covering it up with rudeness.

  Beru looked at me with such sadness in her eyes I thought that perhaps she understood. But Lady’s arrival halted all conversation. She swooped over our heads and headed in the direction of the castle. The meaning was clear. Follow.

  We didn’t run. We ambled. I didn’t think we would ever get there. Ruta and Beru took turns switching us in and out of the trees. We’d stop, and Beru would put her finger to her lips to tell me not to talk. That was okay. I had nothing more to say. The stopping was driving me crazy, though.

  After perhaps the tenth stop, Beru must have sensed my frustration and whispered in my ear, “We’re listening.”

  Her finger on my mouth told me not to ask what they were listening for, so I thought I would try listening too. I heard nothing. Nothing? How could there be no sounds in the forest? Where were the bird songs, the rustling of leaves in the wind, the millions of insects that thrived in forests?

  It was impossible for them not to be here. I know that every creature in the forest makes it thrive. Eliminate one, and everyone suffers. If the forest wasn’t working, then the trees would be dying, and they weren’t. The only explanation I had was that everything was being quiet on purpose. Either that or I had gone deaf.

  After another million stops to listen, I heard something. At first, it was far away. Then it started to move closer. Like a train whistle heard in the distance and becoming louder as the train moves forward.

  But this sound moved by itself. If it were music, it would sound like a hundred notes harmonizing together. As it got louder and louder, Beru and Ruta looked at each other before each of them reached for one of my hands. By then they had to pry them off my ears the sound was so loud.

  As our hands touched, the note landed directly on top of us. It wrapped itself around us and picked us up into the air so that we were hovering over the treetops. It was as if the note had created a clear bubble and put us inside of it. Inside, it was quieter than anything I had ever experienced before.

  The bubble paused and then began to move back in the direction the note had come. I was glad we were moving so quickly because it meant I couldn’t see anything. Heights had not been my favorite thing, but this ride was so peaceful I started to enjoy it.

  Ruta and Beru continued to hold my hand. Ruta did not appear to be enjoying the ride, while Beru looked as if she was in seventh heaven.

  I had only had time to think it felt like an elevator going sideways before the sound bubble descended, and dissolved, leaving us standing on the ground in front of the Castle I had seen in the distance.

  A wall of beings of all sizes and shapes stood in front of the Castle. I hoped that they were friendly because they all held what appeared to be a variety of strange weapons. I guessed they were weapons even though I only recognized a few of the shapes. No one looked happy to see us. Except one. Suzanne.

  Zounds, I was I glad to see her. She bowed to Ruta and Beru and motioned me forward. Holding my hand, she presented me to the crowd. Reluct
antly they bowed. To me. With Suzanne’s arm around my waist, she pushed me to bow back. I had no idea what was going on. The world had gone mad. Or I had. That was almost easier to accept.

  Shatterskin Eight

  “Be still,” Suzanne whispered. “Do what I tell you to do, and don’t act so confused. And for zound’s sake, don’t look around like a tourist.”

  I did what Suzanne told me to do. I bowed in all four directions. I tried not to look anywhere. All I could see anyway was that we were in an open courtyard in front of the Castle. As I bowed, I tried to look at our surroundings, but a blue haze blocked from my view whatever was past the Castle.

  After all the bowing, Suzanne walked towards two doors leading into the Castle. Black and huge, they seemed too tall and much too heavy to open. She kept poking me with her finger to let me know that I was supposed to be walking side by side with her towards those doors.

  Ruta and Beru trailed behind us. I barely knew the two of them, and Ruta had been a big grouch, but still, I felt embarrassed for them that they had to walk behind us.

  “Hold your head up, Hannah. Up, up,” Suzanne hissed at me.

  I lifted my head, looking straight ahead as I was told to do. I couldn’t believe Suzanne was having such a hissy fit. I had never seen her behave that way. Maybe on Earth she pretended to be polite, and now she was showing her true colors? I tried not to roll my eyes at her behavior.

  As much as I didn’t like being told what to do, I had to believe that she was trying to protect me from something. Maybe from all those beings that didn’t look all that happy to see me.

  I didn’t have much time to look at the crowd, but most of them didn’t look human, at least Earth human. The only thing they seemed to have in common was the look they gave me. What was everyone so angry about, anyway? Why did they bow to me? What had I done to deserve either treatment?