by J. Naomi Ay
Chapter 22
Katie was having trouble breathing. Her lungs felt tight, and her eyes smarted from the hot flames, and thick smoke. A large object crashed to the floor behind her, just as something electrical sizzled off to her left. The store went dark. The lights burned out. She was alone.
Katie knew that the smoke would rise, so she lowered herself to the floor, and crawled in the direction of the front door. The floor was already growing hot. It burned her hands and scorched her knees. Each breath she drew grew hotter still, and seared her lungs.
As she rounded an aisle where the can foods had been stored, something exploded, and sprayed hot liquid upon her back. It soaked the tablecloth cloak completely through, but saved Katie from what could have been a horrific burn. Quickly, she untied the wet cotton, tossing it aside.
“Help,” she whispered, although no one was around to hear. Even if someone had been, Katie knew full and well that her voice would never carry above the crackling flames. “Please help me. Someone. Please. Help me get out of here. I’m not done.”
“Over here.”
Katie wasn’t certain, but she thought she heard a small voice.
“Where?” she gasped. “I can’t see you. Are you near the door?”
“This way,” the voice spoke again, sounding like a child. He was off to her right somewhere, behind the refrigerator with the cases of soda and beer.
Slipping off her shoes, Katie put them on her hands in an attempt to save her skin, as she turned around. Then, she slithered snake-like across the blistering floor in the opposite direction from the door, her only escape.
“You’re almost here,” the child prompted. “A little further down, and around the next aisle, by the case with the eggs and cheese.”
“Keep talking, so I know which way to go. I can’t see anything. It’s become too dark.”
“You’ve done this before. You can do it again. Do you remember?”
Katie didn’t ever recall crawling across the equivalent of burning coals while holding her breath or wearing shoes on her hands. However, long ago, she once had a dream of a hellish place filled with flames. She recalled fire licking at her hands, and melting her skin and hair.
Behind her now, a section of the ceiling crashed nosily to the floor, allowing a gust of cold, wintery air to swirl across the shop. Unfortunately, it fanned the flames, causing the fire to roar louder still. It reached for the sky, consuming the trusses, and swallowing the roof.
Katie tried to crawl faster to escape the carnage around her, but her head was swimming, and her lungs were seared by the flames and smoke. Her hands and knees would no longer respond to the dictates of her brain.
“I can’t.” She collapsed, unable to fight the effects of suffocation any longer. Neither could she feel the heat as it consumed her skin.
“Don’t give up,” the boy said. “I’m right here.”
With the last of her strength, Katie lifted her head, and focused her eyes.
“Arsan?”
“No.” The boy smiled, his silver eyes flashing.
“Senya? It can’t be you. What are you doing here? Are you hurt, too?”
He nodded slightly, his eyes flickering in her face.
“Come with me.” He held out his hand. “We shall heal together, as we always do.”
“I can’t move,” Katie replied. “I think my leg is broken again.”
“You don’t need it anymore,” Senya replied, rising to his feet.
As he did so, he grew into the man she had known and always loved. His long black hair curled across his broad shoulders, his trim black beard formed upon his chin. Katie had always adored the way it felt like velvet against her skin.
“Stand with me.”
“I can’t.” Katie tried, but she was too weak. Her legs refused to raise her up. “Help me,” she begged.
“No. This you must do yourself. Let go of it. Let go of everything. Join me.”
He changed again. Now, he appeared as he had the last time they were together. His hair shone like liquid silver, framing the tiny lines, which crinkled beside his brilliant eyes. As Katie watched, behind him arose the most magnificent silver wings ever borne into Creation.
“You are an angel,” she gasped. “You really are.”
“As I have always said.”
“No, you didn’t. You never admitted that. You denied it every time it came up.”
“I never denied anything. That would have been a lie. As you know, I will only speak the truth, and silence neither confirms, nor contradicts.”
“That’s another lie,” Katie protested, rising to her own feet, her ire propelling her up when her legs could not. She didn’t realize that she had done so, for her bodily remains were still melting on the floor. “You have purposely omitted information about plenty of things. Why, I could think of a hundred times throughout our life when you avoided a confrontation, which is the same thing as not telling me the truth.”
“That’s different.”
“It’s not! Do you want me to list them? How about this big one, like the time you forgot to tell you were a prince? Or, better yet, remember when I was pregnant with Shika? You made me so angry, I had to run off to space just so he wouldn’t be born in Mishnah. Or, here’s an even bigger one! How about not telling me that we had another son, who incidentally was lost in space until he was thirty fricking years old. Surprise, surprise, Katie. Look who you forgot. And, then there was Sara who you kept hidden, and…”
“Ach, well. I never said I was perfect.”
“Yes, you have. That’s another lie. You’re on a roll today, aren’t you? Senya, I don’t know why I love you so much when I find you so infuriating most of the time.”
“Are you guys going to stand here and argue until the next millennium?” Gabe asked, materializing in the air in a shower of silver stars.
“That’s what they always do,” Rafa replied, forming at his brother’s side, along with the cherub, Uri.
“And, you wonder why we never liked her,” Uri huffed. “She always puts you in a foul mood. Even worse than you are normally, which is a feat in itself. Well done, no-account Cassi’ot. You still have him wound tightly around your tiniest feather, or your little finger, or your fist, however you like.”
“I like her now,” Gabe admitted, smiling broadly, and winking. “Right, Cassie? You and I get along like good chums.”
“She’s okay,” Rafa begrudgingly agreed. “When it comes to a grandmother, she’s pretty cool.”
“Oh no,” Katie gasped, looking down at the ruins of the smoldering shop. At that moment, she realized the reason she was no longer in pain. “It’s over isn’t it?”
“I am afraid it is,” her husband said. “All things must come to an end, and time must happen in the way it is meant to be.”
“But, what about our children?”
“They shall be fine. They are strong, and intelligent. Despite our own failings, they embody the best of you and me. We shall guide their hands as they set the Empire back on course, where it shall remain for at least the next generation or two. After which…”
“What?”
He sighed. “We may have to return again, but in the meantime, let’s catch a star, and go for a spin.”
“Oh, spare us,” Uri groaned. “Next time, you’ll do it without me.”
“Senya…” Katie began, reaching for his hand as the others disappeared.
“Cassie,” he interrupted, drawing her against his chest.
“It’s Katie. Katie with a ‘T’.”
“No. ‘Tis not anymore, and ‘tis time you called me by my name. I am Mika.”
Epilogue
Carolie felt like she had cried for an entire week, even though it really was only about a day and half. Arsan was never coming back. It wasn’t that he was dead. He was just somewhere else, although no one could begin to tell her where that was.
The only thing that got her out of her major funk, was returning to school, and acing
all her exams.
“What university are you considering?” her advisor asked. "The Science Institute here on Rozari is very good."
“University of New Mishnah,” Carolie responded without hesitation.
Everyone was moving back to the Capital City. Furthermore, she and Sara had already discussed sharing a room in the student dorm.
It also helped that the previous night, while chatting with Zak on Footbook, he had mentioned that his admittance letter had already arrived.
"I'm going to med school in New Mishnah!" His foot wagged joyously. "When I graduate, Janet says she'll make sure I get an internship at SdK."
Several years later, both Carolie and Zak interned together. They also shared an apartment in the Old City, in a building that was considered historic, although no one could remember why. Their son, Sam went to an exclusive kindergarten on the other side of town, in an even older building that had once been an orphan home. While the property had undergone major renovations, and from the outside looked first rate, there were rooms which the teachers insisted were filled with ghosts.
Rory, at the age of sixteen, dropped out of school in order to become a sailor in the Imperial SpaceNavy. He spent the next few years aboard the Imperial Starships, eventually finishing his degree in astronautics by taking online classes. Once earning his commission as an Ensign, he was assigned to the Queen of Talas, where he remained for the next forty years.
By the time, he found his feet back on the ground, Rory was an admiral, commanding the Empire’s fourth quadrant. He never married, but doted on his nephew, Sam, who eventually followed his footsteps into the stars, bitten by the same bug to explore the worlds so far away.
Jim also never married, although he asked many girls. There was something about him that just kept scaring them away. For most of his life, until retirement, he continued to run SdK-Rozari, afterwhich he played golf seven days a week.
Shelly and Pym returned to Rozari after a week of visiting Shelly's son, Larry in Arizona. As Pym had no other place to go, and no desire to return to the mini-mart in space, Shelly invited her to stay on at the manor house in Kalika-hahr.
Every afternoon until they died, Shelly and Pym would watch old movies on the vid. Barlan Rando was their favorite star, and since he had made more than three hundred films during his lifetime, the ladies could watch a different one each day, only to repeat the cycle again the following year.
And, every day they had the same discussion, which started and ended just like this:
"That Barlan Rando was such a fox. How I loved him!"
"He was, but, did you know, he was only ninety-percent human?"
“No!”
“Yes!”
“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. As nice as he was, he never came close to Senya de Kudisha."
Jullee and Rent returned to Rozari at the same time. It was just a random coincidence that they had booked the same flight. It was also another complete coincidence that they were assigned seats together in the very back row, which was the tightest, squishy place on the whole spaceplane.
Rent, who was built like his dad, had to squeeze his six foot four inch frame into the tiny allotment of legroom behind the seat in front. Jullee allowed him to use some of her space, which included giving him the entire armrest. When Jullee began to tire and wanted to lean back her head in order to nap, Rent returned the favor by allowing her to place it on his shoulder.
When they arrived in Spaceport Rozari, due to travel fatigue, and the time zone change, they decided to spend a day resting up at the spaceport hotel. Unfortunately, a bunch of Shriners were in town having a convention, and raising money for some good cause. The hotel was completely booked, except for only one room, non-smoking, king bed, with a view of the spaceport's busy parking garage.
Years later, on their fiftieth anniversary, Jullee and Rent returned to that same room, even though the noise from the incoming garbage scows kept them up all night.
Shika and Joanne didn't return to the Empire right away, as they needed time to get to know each other again. After visiting Joanne's relatives in the Midwest, they were sitting in a coffee shop beside the interstate, when Shika had a sudden, unexplained desire to visit Bora Bora.
He hadn't a clue why he would ever want to go to such a place. In general, Shika had hated swimming ever since he was a little kid. However, this desire became a compulsion, such that he couldn't sleep until they were safely ensconced in an over the water bungalow at the end of a pier.
The next morning, a hotel employee rowed to their bungalow in an outrigger canoe, and while offering them fresh papaya, advised them of their neighbor's complaints.
"Excessive noise," he politely said, prompting Shika to book out the rest of the units, such that they were the only guests in the entire hotel for the duration of their stay.
Sara was escorted back to school on Rozari by Jim Mattson, and her step-siblings, although she spent the entire trip texting with Thunk. She knew he was really called Etan, but she liked the rhythmic sound his nickname made, so for all the many years of their marriage, that's what she called him.
Of course, they weren't wed until several years later, after both had finished school with finance and management degrees. By that time, Sara was crowned Empress, per the dictates of her grandfather's Last Will, although her father and uncle were still officially her regents.
Sara went on to rule for more than fifty years with her beloved Thunk as Prince consort by her side. Peace and harmony spread throughout the galaxy, reminding the old timers of the days that had come before, when an angel was born into the body of the boy who lit up the sky.
The End.
Well, there we go. Everything is all nicely finished and everyone is tucked away in their fictional beds. I hope you have enjoyed this series as much as enjoyed writing it, and a most appreciative and heartfelt thank you for taking this journey along with me.
Unfortunately, after spending several months twiddling my thumbs, I realized I was missing Rehnor terribly. Something about life here on Earth just does that to me. At any rate, I began to ponder exactly how long one goes for a spin. Does one spin and rinse, or must we meander through an entire wash cycle? Must we wait for him to dry?
Anyway, Senya did mention he would have to come back in a couple hundred years and start all over again. Therefore, I have once again picked up the proverbial pen, or rather, sat down at the actual keyboard and begun the Firesetter series.
It’s different and the same. It’s new and it’s old. I don’t think it’ll extend to 16 volumes, but no guarantees one way or another. I’m just taking each story one at a time. I’ve listened to your comments, toned things down and ramped things up, tried to tighten the story lines while keeping the various threads going. Most importantly, I’m trying to have fun.
I invite you to check it out on Amazon.com in Kindle Unlimited.
As always, if you like the Two Moons of Rehnor or Firesetter series, please leave me some love on Amazon.com and joining my mailing list at:
http://eepurl.com/bLz0lT
And, now without further ado,
An excerpt from A Thread of Time, Firesetter, Book 1
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZQQAW6A
Chapter 1
Lance
I joined the Allied SpaceForce for one reason and one reason alone, I was flat broke and I needed money. After hocking everything I owned at the local pawnshop, or selling it on Craigslist, I was down to forty-three dollars and thirty-seven cents, in addition to the ancient Euro my father had left me as an inheritance.
“What the heck is this?” I had mumbled, holding the single coin in my palm, while at the same time, the lawyer was informing my brother, Hank that he was bequeathed everything else in my father's estate.
Granted, Dad was no billionaire. His estate was pretty simple, a modest house in a not-so-great town, in the center of the continent, affectionately referred to as The Armpit. Still, it was worth something, and undoubtedly, more t
han this useless coin. I mean, a Euro? Europe hadn't existed for several centuries!
“Ha!” Hank had laughed in his annoying nasally voice, gloating over his victory in this final round of the sibling game. Yep. Dad loved him best, and that was now proven without a doubt. I was the loser when it came to paternal affection.
“Congratulations,” the lawyer said to Hank, but not to me.
Hank nodded regally, savoring his win. Had the lawyer not been there, my brother would have left with a minimum of a bloody nose and a maximum of a five month stay in traction.
“I'll just have you sign off on the deed.” The lawyer presented the documents to Hank as I rose from my seat, flipping my precious antique Euro coin between my fingers. “Good luck, Lance. Hank, let me take you out to lunch.” The lawyer scumbag barely glanced in my direction, as I let myself out.
“Good riddance.”
I didn’t really blame him. He knew this cow was dry. He'd milk no costly legal fees from me and therefore, I didn't merit even a handshake.
Stepping out into the street, after leaving the dark and overly air conditioned building, I was momentarily blinded by the sudden burst of sunlight. I thought the crosswalk light was in my favor. I thought there were no vehicles on the street and the heat that was washing over me was merely the sun, while that roaring sound was a bus on the next corner. I thought wrong on all four counts. The next thing I knew, I was bouncing off the hood of something, only to end up beneath its wheels. Fortunately, by this point, I wasn’t awake.
Three days later, I was, and less than delighted to discover I was in traction, the sort that I had wished upon Hank. Karma could sure be a bitch.
