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  Moments later we reached the doors which silently slide sideways, and we stepped into the Castle.

  Some people like the idea of castles, kings and queens and luxury. Not me. In all the pictures I have ever seen of them they looked cold and damp. I imagined musty smells and spiders in corners. Plus all those rules and regulations that royalty had to put up with didn’t appeal to me at all.

  So it was a pleasant surprise to discover that the inside of this castle didn’t match my predetermined idea of what castles looked like.

  We were standing in a beautiful garden. On either side of us, the walls rose up at least four stories high. Clear glass encased each floor making it possible to look at the stone hallways as they traveled around each level.

  The atrium was as big as a football field, planted with flowers, bushes, and trees that reached almost to the fourth floor. A glass roof let in the daylight. I could see the blue sky and white clouds floating across it.

  It was lovely and peaceful. But most wonderful of all, it felt familiar. The air was warm and sweet smelling just like Sarah’s garden back home.

  Suzanne led us down a pathway to the center of the garden. I could see a table set with five place settings. Did that mean we were going to eat? I was starving. The mushroom wrap was delicious, but that could have been days ago. I had lost all track of time.

  Five places? There were only four of us. That’s when I saw him.

  *******

  For all I knew, he had been there all along because as he started towards us, he made not one sound. His face gave me no clue if he was friendly or not. That is, until Suzanne rushed forward and fell into his arms.

  He stepped back holding her at arm’s length. His face that a moment before looked like a constipated storm cloud, was beaming at her.

  Suzanne turned to me and said, “Dad, this is …”

  “I know who she is,” he boomed. “Hannah, welcome home. I hope you have enjoyed your journey because it is only going to get harder after this.”

  Dad? Home? What the zonk?

  The only dad I knew Suzanne had was someone named Earl. The giver of the stones, the head of the Forest Circle. Could this be Earl? No one told me he was a giant that moved like the wind.

  “Well, I wasn’t that on Earth was I, little one? And my name’s not Earl here, just as yours is not Hannah.”

  “Not now, dad,” Suzanne said laying her hand on his arm. The man I knew as Earl smiled at her and then at me and said, “Okay, it’s Hannah and Earl for now.”

  Suzanne hooked her arm around Earl’s as they walked to the table and I followed obediently. Inside I was screaming to know what was going on.

  It took a lot of effort to push aside my impatience and choose to watch and wait. Someone would tell me what was happening at some point. At first, I hoped it would be soon, and then changed my mind. Maybe this was another time that not knowing was better than knowing.

  My wish to be ignorant wasn’t granted though, because Beru decided to tell me. Not then. Later. Much later. First, we ate.

  Beru and Ruta sat on chairs which reminded me of baby high chairs. At least I was wise enough not to mention it, although that could have been not so much me being wise as being distracted by the things that brought in our food.

  Our table was situated beside a transparent wall that within seconds contained what looked like metal toadstools carrying platters of food attached to their heads. When another toadstool popped up seconds later, I saw that the wall was an elevator. The doors slid open, and the five toadstools slid forward.

  “Dad, I thought we talked about this.”

  “They’re not on the grid, daughter. Each one operates separately, and they only do this one function. There is nothing to worry about.”

  Suzanne gave her dad a look of impatience, but then sighed and let it go.

  The metal toadstools arranged themselves by each of our chairs so we could serve ourselves what we wanted from the tray on their head.

  Most of the food looked familiar, but I tasted everything even if I didn’t know what I was eating. It was all delicious. No one spoke.

  The only sound was the clinking of our silverware and the various forms of chewing. Chewing is not my favorite sound, but there was no way I was going to break the silence by talking.

  By the time we had finished eating, the familiar stars were becoming visible in the sky. It was my second night in Erda, and I still knew nothing.

  “No questions, Hannah?” Earl asked.

  “Other than everything? What is this place, who are you really, what am I doing here? You mean other than those questions?”

  Earl laughed, and a breeze danced around the table.

  “You’re here to train.”

  “Train? For what?”

  Earl looked at Suzanne and said, “She doesn’t know?”

  “Know what?” I demanded.

  “This world, our kingdom, is in trouble. You are here to help save it,” Earl answered.

  “Save it?” I squeaked. “Me?”

  “You. Training begins tomorrow. Better get some rest. You are going to need it.” Earl said.

  He pushed back from the table, stood, and pointed to a door that I hadn’t noticed before. “Through that door, your future awaits. Don’t disappoint me.”

  I stared at him as he left as silently as he arrived. First, he was there, and then he wasn’t, and he never answered the question: How was I going to save a kingdom?

  Shatterskin Nine

  I decided that Earl must have actually been present. I had seen him eat the food. Obviously this effortless coming and going was different than remote viewing, or astral projection in my world.

  Earl was actually present rather than a projection. Was this ability something I would learn? Did I want to? What did they mean by training? I kept staring where Earl had gone, expecting him to reappear, and tell me more. Someone had to explain to me what was happening.

  “Why didn’t you tell me what I am supposed to do here?” I demanded of Suzanne. “You know I can’t save a kingdom.”

  Suzanne stood and looked down at me. I swear her tunic blazed red as she answered through clenched teeth. “You can, and you will. Even if it kills all of us, including you, this world must survive. Do what my father told you to do. Get rest.”

  She looked at Beru. “Take her to her room and make sure she stays there. You know where to bring her tomorrow. Ruta, you’re with me.”

  This was not at all what I thought I was coming to this dimension for, and now that I was here, I realized it was the last place I wanted to be. Dimension traveling was supposed to be fun and exciting. What was happening to me wasn’t either of those two things.

  I liked Suzanne on Earth. Here she scared the ziffer out of me. Either I needed to wake up from this nightmare or go home. Someone had to take me back. I didn’t realize that I was crying until Beru dabbed at my face with a napkin.

  “I don’t understand, Beru. What are they talking about? What are they going to train me to do? What am I going to learn?”

  “Fighting and magic,” she answered. “One you know, one you don’t.”

  “I don’t know either,” I said, now openly sobbing.

  “And that’s where you’re wrong. Don’t make me use my magic to get you moving. You won’t like it.”

  “What won’t I like, Beru? Your magic or your fighting.”

  “You won’t like either. Good thing for you, I am on your side. Even if I hadn’t been ordered to stay with you, I will. I will be with you no matter what, because my people are counting on you. All of the inhabitants of this world are counting on you.”

  “Nothing like making a girl feel welcome,” I mumbled as I followed her as she headed for another door off of the atrium. I hadn’t noticed all t
he doors before. How would I remember which ones to go through? Where did they all go to anyway?

  “Okay. Here’s your first training,” Beru said, stopping beside a fern that grew higher than my head. “Close your eyes. Say to yourself, ‘I see these doors. I know these doors.’ Keep saying that. Feel it. Reach out in your imagination and feel yourself inside the essence of the door. Let yourself know the door.”

  This was the training? Stupid, but not so hard. I closed my eyes and tried to do what she was telling me. Saying the words was easy, feeling the doors, not so much. How could I feel the doors? How could I know the doors? I heard Beru say that we were not moving until I experienced the doors. It made me angry.

  She hissed at me, “Feel the doors. Do it. Do it. Do it.”

  I got angrier. Beru kept prodding me until I was so mad I thought I would burst.

  “Use it, Hannah. Turn the anger into wanting to know the door and feel its essence.”

  At first, the anger just kept growing and I could feel it eating away at me. It scared me. It scared me enough that I decided to do what Beru had said. I imagined turning the anger around to serve me instead of hurting me. I used all the emotion the anger had created to know the door.

  Then magically all of the anger vanished, and I knew. “Open your eyes, Hannah, and look at the doors.”

  When I opened my eyes, I saw the doors differently. Each one was unique, and each one had a faintly glowing number on it. But I didn’t need to look with my eyes. I had already seen the doors in their true essence. I knew each door personally.

  “Why the numbers?” I asked.

  “The numbers are there just in case you need to call their name, but the numbers can’t be seen unless you’ve opened your mind to see them. Good job, Hannah.”

  I basked in the glow of her praise. For the first time since leaving home, I felt hopeful. Knowing the doors had felt wonderful. It would be amazing to know other things like that too.

  We walked through the door marked with a number three and headed down a dimly lit hallway. The low light wasn’t scary. It was comforting. I wondered if the lights would be brighter during the day. Not that I could see any lighting fixtures.

  The entire hallway was the light, including the ceiling, even though it looked like stone. I didn’t understand how that could be, but there it was.

  We turned a corner, and I saw another door at the end of that hallway. I knew it was my door, my room. I imagined a soft, cozy bed and realized that I was exhausted. A good night’s sleep and more training to know things in the morning, and maybe all of this wouldn’t be so bad.

  “Will all my training be like that?” I asked.

  Beru turned to look at me, and I could see the sadness in her eyes. “No. That didn’t hurt.”

  With that cheerful note, she opened the door to my room and after I walked in, locked it behind me.

  Shatterskin Ten

  When the lock clicked, my first instinct was to cry out and beat my fists on the door so Beru would open it again. But now that I had felt the life of a door, it didn’t seem like something I wanted to do anymore. I wasn’t sure if beating on them would hurt them. I knew it would hurt me.

  Besides, I was so tired my eyes were barely open. All I could focus on was the big cozy looking bed waiting for me. I chose to let the fact that I had been locked in not bother me, for now.

  What felt like only minutes later, the door opened and Beru, looking fresh and rested, was at my bedside shaking me. “Get up, lazy bones. Your first trainer is waiting for you, and she hates to be kept waiting. You have five minutes to get ready. Go.”

  “Bossy, bossy,” I mumbled as I stumbled into what I could see was a bathroom. Everything I could need in a bathroom was waiting for me. I brushed by teeth, splashed water on my face, found something I thought might be face cream and put it on my face, and brushed my hair back into a ponytail.

  There was no mirror to check what I looked like. I assumed that was on purpose. Looking down on a different body was freaky enough. They probably didn’t want me to see my new face.

  “That’s not the reason,” Beru said as I came out of the bathroom.

  “What’s not the reason?” I asked.

  “Why there isn’t a mirror in your room. You won’t find any mirrors in our section of Erda.”

  Seeing my puzzled look, Beru added, “He can see through them.”

  “He?”

  “The Evil One. Abbadon. He who wants to destroy our Kingdom while killing everyone who doesn’t agree with him, or look like him. Or what he used to look like. He appears different now. Or so I’ve been told. Seeing him is usually a death sentence. Only a few have managed to escape. Even then, they rarely live for long after that.”

  Beru kept on walking as if what she said wasn’t terrifying. I rushed to catch up wanting answers to all the questions in my head. However, one look at her face and I knew she would be giving me nothing. She would be answering questions only when she was ready to, and not a moment before then.

  I chose a safer subject and asked her what we were having for breakfast. Would we be eating in the atrium?

  Apparently, this was not a safer subject because Beru snapped at me that I wouldn’t be eating until after the first class and that the atrium food was not something I should expect every day.

  When I opened my mouth to say something, she interrupted me with a raise of her hand and said, “There will be water.”

  By then I realized that I had no idea where we were. We had not gone back to the atrium to find the door that Earl had told me to go through for the training.

  Instead, Beru had twisted and turned through hallways that all looked the same to me. Without her, I would be lost, maybe forever.

  Finally, Beru opened the door to what looked just like a yoga studio back home. I sighed in relief. Yoga, stretches, meditation. It all felt comfortable. I could do this.

  Beru started to laugh. It was a lovely laugh. All tinkly and stuff. But I knew she was laughing at me. I began to give her a snarky response until I saw something out of the corner of my eye. What I knew must be the instructor floated in. Literally.

  Still laughing, Beru backed out the door. But right before she closed the door, I saw her exchange looks with Miss Floaty. They were enjoying themselves at my expense. Right.

  This was not going to be pretty.

  *******

  Miss Floaty’s feet touched the floor as she walked over to me to shake my hand. The regular way. No sliding, wiggle fingers for her. Other than levitating across the floor, she looked as I expected her to look. Yoga clothes, sleek, strong, and more beautiful than anyone had a right to be. But I wasn’t planning to hold that against her.

  I had too many other things to worry about. Like this class. I had been taking dance lessons in the Earth dimension, so I harbored a hope that this class wouldn’t be too hard for me. Except for the levitation part. But I didn’t think that it would be part of these lessons.

  After shaking my hand and telling me her name was Aki she disabused me of that notion. Yes, I was going to learn to levitate. She said the word in a sarcastic voice which I took to mean that I had the wrong word for what she had done. However, she assured me, we would not be doing that today. She promised me that today would be an easy first training class, a warm-up.

  An hour later I staggered out of the room to find Beru waiting for me. “Today you get to have food before you go to your next class. You’ll need it.”

  Too tired to answer I followed Beru as she led me through another maze of hallways to a small room with a platter of food on it. She sat with me as I ate, but didn’t say anything and I didn’t care. All I could think about was trying to fuel myself.

  “Luckily your next class is about magic,” Beru said. “Otherwise, I am pretty sure none of that f
ood that you are stuffing in there would be staying down.”

  The rest of the day was a blur. Beru was right. Food did not stay down. After the magic class where I didn’t understand a word of what the instructor said, everything else was a blur of physical torture.

  I didn’t even think about complaining when the door locked on me again that night. Who cared? Not me. I didn’t care about anything. I fell into the bed even more tired than I was the night before, and I dreamed.

  Shatterskin Eleven

  A blue haze hung around me. It looked like the haze I had seen surround the Castle. I thought it was fog, even though I had never seen blue fog.

  Now that I was alone with the haze, I had time to study it. It was not like any fog I had ever experienced. It didn’t move like fog or spread out like fog. It made shapes of itself.

  Once I realized that it wasn’t fog, it was as if it didn’t have to pretend anymore. It shaped itself around me leaving me feeling like a hole in a donut. Then it split into big bubbles that danced in circles. One landed on my head, and if it had been a person, I would have said that it laughed.

  I laughed, too. Who wouldn’t with a dancing blue bubble on their head.

  When my teeth started chattering, I realized that I was cold. Before falling into bed, I had stripped off the leggings and top I had acquired as I stepped through the portal hoping somehow I would get new clean clothes in the morning. I had found a large white shirt lying on my bed, so I had put it on. But that left my legs bare, and I was feeling colder and colder.

  I stopped laughing, and the blue haze pulled back. It looked just like water pulling back before a tidal wave. I screamed, thinking it was preparing to rush me, drown me inside of it. Maybe sweep me away. I wanted to run, but my feet wouldn’t move. I looked down and saw that my feet weren’t feet anymore, they were oval gray rocks.