by Steven Novak
The time had come to take them home.
*
*
CHAPTER 62
THE GREATEST LOSS
*
Ed Williamson opened his eyes and looked toward the ceiling of his basement. The cacophony of noise outside had stopped. One minute it was there, rumbling and shaking and louder than ever. The next it was gone. The roars and the awful screams disappeared as well. In a heartbeat and without the slightest warning, everything simply ended.
The old man tapped his wife on the top her head. “Edna? Do you hear that?”
Edna Williamson lifted her head from her husband’s chest and brushed the messy gray hair from her face. Once she steadied her uneven breathing, she looked in the direction of the ceiling as well. “I don’t hear anything.”
Ed was already sliding his body up the wall they were huddled against. “Exactly.”
His wife grabbed him by the belt loop of his pants and held tight. “No! Wait a minute, Eddie! Where do you think you’re going?”
“It stopped, Edna.” The old man responded bluntly, trying his best to pry her fingers loose.
“You don’t know that! That doesn’t mean anything! I’m not letting you go out there!”
When Ed turned to face his wife and kneel at her side, the bones in his knees popped audibly. He reached forward, placed one hand on her shoulder, and adjusted the broken glasses on his face with the other.
When he spoke, he spoke calmly, his finger brushing the hair from her eyes. “I just need to see.”
His wife still looked terrified.
Ed could remember a time when her hair was brown, with just the faintest hint of red; an auburn liked he’d never seen before and hadn’t since. It was the most beautiful color he’d ever seen. Though the brown had long since disappeared, he’d grown to love the gray just as much. There was something regal about it, something that screamed the word woman.
Edna recognized the look on her husband’s face. She’d seen it before, many times, in fact. He was going upstairs to investigate whether she liked it or not. Hard headed old goat.
What she had no intention of doing was letting him go alone. “Help me up. I’m going with you.”
It took the pair nearly five minutes to navigate the stairs, pry open the basement door, and make their way through the small hallway leading into their living room. While the house was still standing, the interior was in shambles. The couch had been flipped over and sliced open. The chandelier was a broken heap of bent metal on the floor, and the front door knocked off its hinges. Someone or something had been inside.
Thankfully, they never bothered to check the basement.
Ed grabbed his wife’s hand tightly and led her across the debris, through the open doorway, and cautiously into the front yard. It was at this moment the Williamsons realized how lucky they were. Their quiet little town was a disaster area. Half of their neighbor’s houses lay in ruins. There was a kitchen table was on the lawn and the bathtub wrapped in the branches of the tree. Some of the homes across the street were destroyed entirely, reduced to little more than flaming piles of garbage and awkwardly jutting pipes. Near the end of the block, Edna spotted a body and gasped. Not too far away there were two more. Ed hadn’t seen anything like it in years, not since the war. Strangest of all, the creatures—the monstrous, gargantuan beasts and the soldiers in their black armor—were nowhere to be found. Dragging his wife behind him, Ed Williamson shuffled to the end of his driveway and scanned the horizon in every direction. There was nothing, absolutely nothing but the aftermath.
It didn’t make sense.
Though its pole was bent nearly ninety degrees, the light bulb in the streetlight at the end of the block clicked, sputtered and flashed into existence. Somewhere off in the distance, a car horn blared. Even further away, Ed Williamson could hear the unmistakable sound of police sirens. The power was back. High overhead he noticed the red sky had turned blue again. Though he had no idea exactly what happened or how it happened, it seemed the ordeal, for the moment anyway, was over. With a breathy sigh, he tightened his grip on Edna’s hand and quietly absorbed the insanity surrounding him.
His wife leaned into his side, wrapped her arms around him, laid her head on his shoulder, and he did the same.
Nicky Jarvis felt weightless, bobbing up and down as he moved through space. His eyes began to flutter. His mouth opened, and his tongue wet his cracked and sore lips. When his eyes opened completely, he realized he was resting safely in the arms of the Tycarian soldier, Nestor Rockshell.
Nestor felt the boy stir and looked down at him with half a grin. “Sleep well, lad?”
Nicky’s head felt stuffy and clouded. His throat was raw and his arms felt sore. Beyond the Tycarian’s dark green dome he noticed a forest of massive trees covered in layer upon layer of brick-red foliage. The bone chilling temperatures of Ocha, the dense black clouds, and the charcoal colored snow were gone. He could hear the grass crushing beneath Nestor’s feet, and the rustling of the leaves overhead. Both were a welcome change. Both sounded beautiful.
They were in Fillagrou. They had to be in Fillagrou.
The boy’s head felt heavy when he tried to lift it. “Where are we? Wha-what happened?”
“Take your time, lad. You have been asleep for some time. You are undoubtedly weak.”
Nicky lowered his head, relaxed his muscles, and inhaled. The air felt crisp in his lungs, almost refreshing. The landscape overhead continued to move as Nestor strode forward, hints of Fillagrou’s sister suns peeking out from beyond the trees. “Fillagrou?”
Nestor’s focus remained on the forest ahead. “Indeed.”
“Did we win?”
The Tycarian turned his gaze upon the boy and paused, his expression saying things he was both unable and unwilling to say aloud. When he spoke, his voice was a whisper. “Indeed we did, my young friend. Indeed we did.” Looking away, Nestor added with a sigh, “It would seem the doorway to Ocha has been closed forever.”
Nicky reached up with his right hand and rubbed at the nagging pain in his temple, trying desperately to remember what happened and finding no success whatsoever. None of it seemed real. Everything was jumbled, mixed up and tossed about. He could faintly recall the awful black castle of the tyrant king and the invading Aquari army. He remembered his father and the humongous creature of light created by the magical fingers of his older brother. There was something else though, something about Tommy that wasn’t quite so clear, a washed out vision of a rocket into the clouds and the stars exploding. It didn’t make any sense.
Again his head rolled toward Nestor. “Tommy? Where’s my brother?”
The Tycarian’s face twisted and grimaced. It was almost as if he’d been punched in the gut. There was an undeniable expression of sadness etched into his deep-set features.
“What’s wrong?” Nicky responded, popping into a sitting position with renewed vigor. “Where’s my brother?”
Nestor stopped moving. When he opened his mouth to speak, no words emerged. When he tried to look the boy in the face, he was forced to turn away.
“No,” Nicky answered back quickly before his voice trailed off and floated away. A second later he was struggling to wiggle free from the Tycarian’s powerful arms. “What happened? Tell me what happened!”
When he eventually slipped from Nestor’s grasp, the erratic boy spun in the air and landed face-first in the dirt. Nestor’s arms were around him immediately, gently pulling the boy to his feet while at the same time trying to keep him calm. “It’s okay, lad. It’s okay. Everything will be oka—”
“No!” Nicky screamed, slapping at Nestor’s massive forearms, his legs kicking wildly as he was hoisted into the air. “What happened to my brother, Nestor? Where’s my brother?”
Another pair of hands wrapped themselves around Nicky’s torso; long, and boney, and covered in bruises. They belonged to Pleebo.
A second voice pleaded for him to remain calm. “Don’t worry, kidd
o. It’ll be okay. Just settle down.”
Nicky didn’t want to settle down. He was angry that the voices and the arms were even suggesting it. He wanted to scream and yell. He wanted someone to tell him what happened. He wanted his brother.
A third set of hands joined the first two. These were softer, feminine and girlish. They belonged to Staci Alexander. Soon an entire group had surrounded the boy. Everywhere Nicky turned, there was a creature with a pair of open arms and a pitying expression on their face. Though he wanted just one of them to be honest and say it, it really wasn’t necessary. He already knew. The looks on their faces gave them away, exposed the things they wanted to remain hidden and the truths they dreaded revealing. Unexpectedly the memory of his brother, lit like the sun and soaring toward the sky, came rushing back. For the second time Nicky watched as Tommy grabbed hold of the stars and pulled them close to his face. He saw his brother turn to dust and sprinkle to the clouds below like glowing rain. He witnessed him transform into a flash of light so incredible it washed away everything and everyone. Suddenly Nicky remembered the way it felt against his skin, the light. It felt like heaven.
Heaven never felt so awful.
Nicky’s knees crumpled and he dropped to the dirt. Staci quickly wrapped herself around him. The girl pulled his head into her chest and dug her fingers into his hair. Gently rocking back and forth, she softly repeated into his ear, “Shhh. It’s okay. It’ll be okay.”
When Nicky began to cry, she cried along with him.
As they cried, the trees wept. As the trees wept, all of Fillagrou mourned.
*
*
CHAPTER 63
THE HARDEST PART OF ALL
*
Though the Ochan army had been defeated and the prophecy fulfilled, the journey through the Red Forest and to the doorway leading to the children’s world was mostly quiet and uneventful. Even with the evil gone, there was little fanfare. So much had been lost. Recovery would come next; it would take time, however. Recovery would be difficult.
Staci remained beside Nicky the entire trip. Pleebo followed close behind the pair, his hands on their shoulders as they walked, fighting back tears of his own and wondering if there had been more he could have done. When he gently squeezed Nicky’s shoulder, he was squeezing his own. Now more than ever, he knew what the boy was going through. Though he’d returned from Ocha, his sister had not.
The same as the children and the entire group of travelers, Pleebo awoke in the Red Forest moments after Tommy Jarvis shot into the sky, collected his stars and exploded in a flash of unspeakably bright light. The doorway to Ocha had not only been closed, but it was gone. The gargantuan hole opened up by Kragamel’s army so many years ago had disappeared without a trace. Tommy did exactly what he’d said he would. He put them all back where they belonged.
The surviving Aquari were the first to say goodbye. They were anxious to return home and sink into the quiet solitude of the waves. Before heading off on their own, the entire Nasdi army formed a circle around the children, dropped to their knees, and bowed their heads. They remained in that position for five minutes. Though many of their species had died in battle, for the Nasdi the experience had been worth it. Tommy’s light; none among them had ever seen anything so bright, and doubted they ever would again. To feel it as it touched their skin and washed over their bodies, this was an honor. Had they not seen it for themselves, they would have doubted its existence. If it hadn’t crept into their pores and melted onto the muscles underneath, they never would have believed it possible. When it touched them, they understood. When they felt its warmth, they discovered not only the answers they had sought for eons, but discovered a host of equally wonderful questions. In the instant that it poured over their bodies, carried them from Ocha, and deposited them in the forest of Fillagrou once again, they were complete.
It was, after all, the hand of God.
Following the lead of the Nasdi, many of the surviving slaves set off on their own as well, anxiously beginning the trek to the doorways leading to their own respective worlds. Before leaving, nearly all of them lavished the children with praise, offering whatever trinkets, gifts, or tokens of appreciation they could. A Chintaran woman wrapped a dusty bracelet made of shells around Staci’s wrist, then dropped to her knees and kissed the girl’s feet. An extremely tall bird-like creature with an orange beak almost two feet in length offered one of his few remaining feathers to Donald. He plucked it from his skin and handed it to the confused boy before bowing his head in reverence. A rail thin, male Huerzo Snub humbly offered his shoes to Owen. With a bit of awkward reluctance, the boy accepted the wooden clogs after the creature insisted repeatedly and nearly began to cry. Shortly afterward Owen mistakenly “misplaced” the stinky article of clothing behind a nearby tree.
Before heading off with his surviving crewmates, the bunny captain, Jacques Fluuffytail, approached Nicky with a nod, removed his hat, and placed it atop the boy’s head.
“Ya should be proud of him, kid,” The scruffy rabbit added with a sniffle. “He did a heck of a thing, that brother of yers. If it means anything at all to ya, me an’ my crew won’t soon be forgettin’ his name.”
When Nicky was unable to respond, Jacques understood. He patted the boy gently on the arm and quickly looked away to keep himself from crying. The dusty old captain was a long way from the doorway to his world. His pirate days were over. He was anxious to see it again.
Standing at the doorway to the children’s world, Pleebo marveled to himself at how much the simple puddle they originally came through had grown. Though he’d seen the Ochans do similar things to other doorways, the sheer organization of their violence was a remarkable thing. The puddle had transformed into a lake, extending deeper into the forest than his eyes could even see.
Donald stepped beside him and dipped the toe of his shoe into the murky water. “Holy crap. Those dudes work fast.”
From the rear of the small group of survivors, Tahnja moved alongside Donald and placed her hand on the boy’s shoulder. Sitting on her shoulder and holding on to her pink ear was little Roustaf. Since they awoke in Fillagrou, spotted each other and embraced, Tahnja and the little man had been inseparable. He hadn’t left her side for even a minute, and didn’t plan on doing so anytime soon. When he believed she was dead, he felt helpless, more helpless than he’d felt in his life. He wasn’t letting her out of his sight, not ever again, no matter what.
“Hey, kid,” Roustaf said from atop the shoulder of his pink-skinned Amazon. “I never thanked you for what you did back there.”
Donald turned to the little man and grinned. While his head wanted him to say one thing, his lips instead chose to go with what he knew best. “Well, what’s stopping you?”
Roustaf grunted. His eyes narrowed. “I think I actually just did.”
Donald smiled on the inside. He had the little man right where he wanted him. “That was really more of a statement than a thank you.”
There was something so fun about pushing Roustaf’s buttons. He was going to miss it.
The little man reached his hand to his face and mashed his mustache into his palm with noticeable annoyance. “You’re a frustrating piece of work, kid.”
“That means he’s going to miss you,” Tahnja added with a smile.
Donald lowered his head, chuckled, and sighed. “I know it does.”
Owen Little had already begun to move into the lake and was waist deep in the water when Nestor called to him from the bank, “Hold for just one moment, lad!”
Owen sighed before turning to face the turtle man. He just wanted to go home. He wanted to get as far from this place as possible, as far from the memory of Fellow Undergotten and all the things that happened. He wanted to see his dad, and hop into bed and pull the covers over his head. He wanted to go to sleep and stay asleep. Nestor stepped lightly into the water and moved alongside the boy.
From his waist he removed a dagger and juggled it in his paw. “The king
spoke of you often. Are you aware of this?”
The statement surprised the red-haired boy. Unsure of how to respond, he simply stared back at the enormous turtle man with his mouth opened wide and his eyebrows bent upward.
“You were the first to greet him, correct? In the forest of Fillagrou?”
Owen nodded.
“You helped him that day, gave him a reason to continue on.”
Nestor paused for a moment. His mind wandered to his king and his country and the friendship they had shared.
When he continued, he did so with a breathy sigh. “He appreciated your friendship.” Reaching forward, Nestor grabbed Owen’s hand, opened it up and placed the dagger in the boy’s palm. “I believe he would have wanted you to have this.”
Owen pulled the weapon to his face and watch the blade glisten in the sun.
“In Tycaria, there are few weapons more personal than the dagger, and each is unique,” Nestor continued. “This blade was forged in Tycarian steel. When you hold it, you are holding us. When you honor it, you honor our king.”
Donald looked again at Nestor, then once more at the blade. The moment was too much. It was exactly what he was hoping to avoid. His lower lip began to quiver. His eyes began to water. The look on Fellow’s dying face popped into his head, mixed with the image of the ancient king, Walcott Shellamennes himself. Without warning, Owen leapt forward, wrapped his arms around the turtle man, and buried his head into the underside of his shell.
Nestor folded his arms around the child and patted him gently on the back. “It’s okay, lad. It’s okay. I shall miss them as well.”
“Excuse me, child?”
Staci turned from the massive body of water when she heard the voice. Standing behind her, a filthy tie dangling from his pudgy neck and a chipped monocle beneath the flaps of skin surrounding his eye, was the little scientist, Arthur Crumbee III. Staci dug her hands in the pockets of the filthy brown jacket one of the slaves had given her as a gift the day before and lowered her head. While she wanted to go home, she didn’t want to leave. A part of her felt as if the act of leaving meant giving up on Tommy. Maybe he was alive, after all. Maybe what she thought she’d seen wasn’t really what she’d seen.
