by Lana Davison
Avalon
Avalon
By Lana Davison
Copyright © 2010 Lana Davison
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1480149799
ISBN-13: 978-1480149793
DEDICATION
To Rachael aka YA/Romance/Paranormal Queen, Thank you for your support, mentoring and for being my biggest fan. I am forever grateful.
Prologue
Cora felt a dull sharp ache in her lower back. It hurt, it was uncomfortable, but she could handle it. She had no choice. How much longer would this go on for? Lying on the hospital bed, she rolled over to her side and tried to massage her lower back with her fingertips.
“James, please can you ask the nurse to get me something for the pain,” Cora asked her husband.
Dutifully James left the room to find a nurse. After all, if this was the only way he could help his wife, he would surely do it. James, a doctor, could deliver this child if need be, but he didn’t want to. Cora didn’t want him to either. She needed his support; she needed him to be her husband today, not a doctor. James adored his wife but hated seeing her in pain. He wanted to take the pain away, but at the end of the day it would be Cora who would have to squeeze the baby out, and he had to accept that on this occasion he could not be her rescuer.
The nurse followed James to his wife’s room and found Cora breathing through a contraction.
“How far apart are they?” the nurse asked having just started her shift.
“Not far, maybe a minute, half a minute, I don’t know.” Cora replied unable to think straight, concentrating on getting through the intense pain.
“`I’ll get a doctor to confirm where you’re at, as soon as I’ve checked your vitals,” the nurse said holding onto Cora’s wrist feeling her pulse.
Cora gave her husband a severe look which he registered as his wife needing answers now. Was she about to pop? What about the pain relief? Was there time for drugs? An epidural? Anything?
“Cora, let me see how far gone you are.” James stepped in as he walked over to the sink and washed his hands thoroughly before putting on some disposable surgical gloves. The nurse looked at him suspiciously “I’m a doctor,” he assured her.
“James, hurry, it hurts. I can’t take much more of this.”
“You’re doing good.”
“Don’t you tell me that. I am not doing good. I am not coping and I want some drugs,” Cora said fiercely.
“Nurse you need to get the doctor now,” James ordered. “I need to check your cervix, Cora. Your contractions are very close and they are strong, I think our baby might be ready to come.” James lifted the sheet covering his wife’s lower half.
Cora managed a brief smile before the next contractions started. “Hurry James,” she moaned.
“This is the moment you have been waiting for, Cora. Our little girl is about to be born. Are you ready?”
“No.”
“Yes you are. Now when I say to push you must push.”
“Just get her out. I want this baby out!”
James grabbed one of Cora’s hands still standing at the bottom of her bed and said, “Push Cora, push with everything you’ve got.”
“Arrrrrrrrr…….” She pushed.
“Again Cora, do it again.”
“Arrrrrrrrr….” She screamed and pushed with everything she had, her eyes squeezed tight..
“Good Cora, you’re doing it. I can see her head. Do it again.”
“Arrrrrrrrr...”
“Well done Darling, I’m so proud of you, she’s coming.”
Cora yelled out once more and then breathed. “James that’s all I’ve got. I can’t do it anymore.”
“Oh yes you can. Just one more time.”
“Arrrrrrrrr…”
The room filled with a big cry and a squealing healthy baby girl was born.
“Do you need me to take over?” The doctor smiled at James as he entered the room.
“Yes. Please finish off,” James said as he walked over to the side of his wife’s bed with their newborn baby in his arms. “Look what you’ve just done. Look at our beautiful baby girl.”
“James she is beautiful. Our Holly is beautiful.”
Cora and James had chosen the name Holly before her birth, knowing they were having a baby girl. They had decorated her room in purple and green, and had already bought her a full wardrobe for the first year of her life. She was a much wanted and longed for baby who would grow up privileged being the only child of a doctor and a dentist. Cora and James even knew who their beloved daughter would marry. It had been arranged before her arrival.
Cora cradled her daughter in her arms and stroked her face and promised to love and protect her child from this day forward.
As Cora’s energy began to dwindle, the nurse took Holly from her arms and told Cora she would benefit from some sleep while she took Holly to the nursery. The nurse walked down the hallway and met her colleague who was also holding a newborn baby girl. Both babies were going to be weighed, cleaned and checked over in the nursery.
“Can you take this baby for me, Mandy?” the nurse asked her colleague. “I have a terrible pain in my stomach, I don’t know what’s causing it, but I really need the bathroom. Can you take this little one to the nursery seeing you are already heading that way?”
“Of course,” Mandy replied. Her colleague carefully placed the baby girl in nurse Mandy’s arm.
Mandy proudly cradled a newborn girl in each arm as she walked to the nursery and, using her backside, pushed the door open. She noticed two cribs next to each other and made her way over there.
Mandy cleaned, weighed and measured each baby then placed the two girls side by side in their cribs. She wrote two nametags, ‘Holly Stephens’ and ‘Laura Hemsworth’, and positioned them at the end of each crib next to their charts. Pausing to look at the two girls she thought how pretty they were, almost like sisters. She stroked each baby lightly on the forehead.
“Welcome to Avalon,” she whispered.
Chapter One
Twelve Years Later
Avalon is a planet with strict rules and my mother, Cora wept all day, knowing I could not escape my future if I stayed. My parents could wait no longer. The day had come to say farewell. Forever!
My mother told me to look outside my bedroom window and take one last look at Avalon, my home that I would never be able to return to, not if I wanted to be happy and stay alive. I was paired with my chosen one, a partner for life, there was no escaping it. In Avalon escaping your fate was like ruining a chain of events that had been prearranged for you on a higher level, so the Royal League Council stated.
"Why Earth, Mum? Why must I go there?" I asked.
"Because your father and I will not force you into a union you don’t want. If you cannot see a union with your chosen one, we will have to send you away, my darling daughter." My mother said as she stroked my cheek. “I know it hardly seems fair, but the rules say you cannot stay if you will not unite with your chosen one and go into a partnership for life.”
"But I want to stay here with you.”
"Oh, my darling, if only you could. It is for your own protection that we must send you to Earth. There you will be the daughter of a guardian family. Our Avalonean guardians on Earth are good people, sent there to help our kind adjust to their new world."
"But why do I need protection? I have done nothing wrong.”
"You need protection from Avalon rules. If you can’t accept a union with your chosen one, they will almost certainly banish or kill you.”
“But why do I have to go to Earth?”
“Because the Earth species are most like ours and that is why many of our kind go there.”
“So are you saying there are others like me on Earth?”
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br /> “Yes and they can pursue a normal life. They go to school as education is important to them, just like it is to Avaloneans. Holly you can be anything you want to be; a school teacher, a doctor, a scientist. You could marry a man you love and have children.”
“But, Mum, how can I marry if I am supposed to have feelings for my chosen one?”
“Yes, Holly. I understand your concern, but you are different and you do not feel what you are supposed to for your chosen one. I must say I don’t quite understand why this has happened.”
“Perhaps he is not the chosen one.”
“I can’t see how that is possible, Holly. Like all Avaloneans who have offspring, I saw the parents of your chosen one in a dream during pregnancy.”
“How, Mum? Why?”
“Oh Holly, I do not have all the answers but since the beginning of time, it has always been that way. It happens in a dream state at a higher level. The two sets of parents meet each other while dreaming and we know that our children will be together. It is our duty to make sure our children meet and grow up together, even when they live a long distance apart. We did this with you and Marcus but you never wanted to play with him; you didn’t feel a connection.”
“Marcus did not want me either, Mum. He did not feel a connection either.”
“Well we don’t know that for sure. What we do know is that you do not want to be with Marcus. You have said as much for a long time and now we cannot wait any longer. You must go to Earth and give yourself a chance at a new life. You must be schooled and understand the ways in which humans live. It’s the only way.”
“Mum, I don’t want to leave you.”
“My angel, do not fret, you will have two guardian parents who will bring you up as their own.”
“Are all the guardians from Avalon?”
“Yes, and their main job is to help Avalonean students settle when they go to Earth.”
“But I am not a student”.
“No, but you are leaving Avalon before you enter your second stage of life, and if you leave before this time, you are entitled to help from a guardian. If you stay into your second stage, you will be forced into your union, or else you will be killed or banished somewhere.”
“How will I know who my guardians are?”
“They will be waiting for you at the other end. They know you are coming and they are really looking forward to meeting you. When you arrive you will wake up and your guardian will be there.” Cora smiled at the sweetest daughter she could have asked for.
“Is there no other way, Mum?”
“Holly, it’s all about the timing. It is simply safest to send you now and it is the only way we can be guaranteed of your safety.”
“How many Avalonean students are on Earth?”
My mother moved me from her tight hug so that she could look into my eyes. “A select few are chosen to experience part of their life on Earth for research purposes. They are Avalonean students who study Earth and the human species. Most return to Avalon, but a few elect to stay on Earth as guardians.”
“Who makes the selection? Maybe they could select me?”
“No Holly, the selection is made by the Royal League Council of Avalon when girls and boys are aged fourteen. It is like waiting to have your name picked out of a hat, along with all other students who also want a chance to study on Earth. We cannot risk you not being selected or entering your second stage of life before this selection either, because then you will have to stay in Avalon, especially if you have a special ability.”
"Why does the Royal League get to choose who goes to Earth and who doesn’t?"
"Because they are the law makers of Avalon, made up of Royalty and others with special gifts."
My mother continued to talk, trying to soothe me. “It will be like going on an adventure,” she said. “On Earth many children are sent away to boarding school, and have the best time of their life.”
My mother rubbed her belly wishing in some way that she wasn’t pregnant again. If she wasn’t about to have another child she would have happily been banished to Earth to be with me. Of course there was a chance she could have been banished somewhere else in the galaxy, but she would have pulled strings, called in favours, but she was too far gone. Her unborn baby’s destined union had already been decided and she had a duty to see this child into Avalon and to allow him to follow his destiny; his union, as most Avaloneans do, as my mother herself had done. I for some reason was the exception. My mother was in the most difficult position of her life, like drowning in quicksand unable to see a way out.
I continued to stay in my mother’s embrace while I looked out the window at the perfect manicured green grass, the blue sky and the flowers beginning to bloom. Some were fully open and smiling under the sun. I remembered picking some flowers from the front garden, wrapping them in foil and presenting them to my mother. I looked at the houses on our large estate; some bigger than others. We owned a lovely modern home; inside it was decorated with white painted walls, covered in spectacular art that my parents had collected over the years. The stairs leading up to my bedroom were covered with my framed artwork, which my mother told me gave a childlike innocence and happiness to the space. I will miss my room, my comfortable single bed with pastel patchwork bedding; my many dolls scattered around. I will miss my whiteboard, where I happily draw for hours, and my desk with all my pens, pencils, paints and paper-art.
I thought about my friends and squeezed my eyes tight promising myself to remember their faces. I thought about my neighbours and how I would never see Mrs Bloomingdale again, the lovely old lady from next door, who had never had children, yet was a children’s author. Mrs Bloomingdale would babysit me from time to time and would always tell me the most amazing stories. And what about my mother’s superb cooking? I would never taste her signature specialty dish; homemade gnocchi in a rich tomato sauce with a secret ingredient.
Avalon is a safe place to live because of its rules, no crime would be tolerated. Everyone was expected to give something to their society. Avalon considered itself a type of modern thinking Utopian society; they believed their way was the right way, the only way.
“Holly, if it wasn’t for my condition, you know I would be trying my best to escape from here and come with you, don’t you?”
I nodded. “Will I ever see you again, Mum?”
“Oh, Holly, I hope so.”
Chapter Two
I woke up and looked around the room. It looked a lot like my bedroom at home but somehow I knew it wasn’t mine. I remembered nothing about my journey here, only getting on a boat. I rubbed my sleepy eyes then farrowed my brow in deep thought, trying to remember what happened before I got here. I remembered my father driving our small car to the seaside while my mother squeezed my hand tight in the back seat of the car. She looked out the window holding her tears back, and kept mumbling, “This is the right thing to do, the right decision.”
We got out of the vehicle and had a long family hug.
“We will be in contact with your guardians for the first month, Holly. We are allowed to learn about how you are settling in, but only for the first month, then all contact will end. It is the rule, but know you are always in our heart.”
“You mean I will never ever talk to you again?” I gulped.
“No, not for now; not until the rules change. I vow to lobby against this rule of separation, if it is the last thing I ever do.”
My father squeezed me so tight I thought I was going to burst, then kissed my cheeks many times. My mother held me tight against her swollen belly, annoyed she couldn’t get close enough.
“You must go now,” my mother said. “Be brave. Know that you are in our hearts and thoughts.”
I began to walk away up the ramp towards the ship. My mother was now embraced in my father’s arms biting down on her lip and breathing deeply to hold back the tears. I began to cry, even though I didn’t want to, consumed by the emotion of seeing my parents in so much distress.
Sleepily I asked, “How do I get from here to Earth?”
“Just the same way everyone travels to Earth. We sail down the sea until we reach Sudden and then we enter the Atlantic Ocean and sail to our destination.”
“Sudden?”
“Yes, Sudden is a type of water worm hole. When we get to Sudden we sail the ship carefully on top of the water. It looks like a funnel and we spin so fast we don’t even feel the drop to Earth.”
“Oh,” is all I could say. I yawned and curled my body up on my bed, shutting my eyes and falling into a deep, heavy sleep.
Where I found myself now was similar to my own bedroom on Avalon, but not quite the same. I realised I must be on Earth. I got up and walked around the room, touching the furniture, the toys, the wardrobe and then stood over by the window and looked into a garden with decking and a wooden round table and chairs. The area was fenced in dark brown wood and around the edges there was a border with flowers in bloom. The grass was as bright and vibrant as on Avalon. Looking up at the sky I noticed the first significant difference between Avalon and Earth; Avalon almost always displayed a bright blue sky and here, wherever on Earth I was, it was not perfect; there were more clouds than splendid blue.
I walked to the bedroom door and stuck my head out looking left to right. There was no one about but I could hear voices from downstairs. When I reached the stairs I took slow tip-toed steps, having not quite made up my mind about this place.
“Morning,” came the voice of a man at the bottom of the stairs. “I’m Stuart.”
