The Return To Erda Box Set

by Beca Lewis

  Beru started to laugh and was joined by Suzanne.

  “What’s so funny?” I demanded.

  “It was the Sound Bubble. After you helped La escape, she was able to contact Link who sent the bubble. I couldn’t get you on my back since you were unconscious, so we all rode back in the bubble.”

  “I missed the bubble ride?” I said in a huff. “So that’s what it takes to get in that thing. Almost die?”

  “Not always, Princess.”

  We all turned to see Zeid standing in the doorway. My heart leaped, and I wanted to run to him, but it wasn’t time.

  A great “hurrah” rang out across the table as everyone jumped up to slap Zeid on the back or shake his hand.

  There had to be a story here that no one had told me yet. But there was time for me to learn it. I had returned to Erda to stay.

  Shatterskin Epilogue

  A few weeks later…

  Zeid and I stood with Niko, Aki, Beru, and Ruta on the hill looking down on a meadow that led into the village of Eiddwen. It was the meadow where I had played as a child, and the home our family would come back to when we were not at the Castle. It would be the first time I would see my father Darius since I had returned to Erda.

  I knew he was ill. I had been told that was why he had not traveled to the Castle to greet me. I knew there were more reasons than that, but no one would tell me what they were. I knew that as always, they wanted me to discover it for myself.

  Zeid and I were waiting for two old friends before heading down into the village to spend a few days to rest, and see my father before heading out on our next mission to stop Abbadon.

  “I’m nervous,” I said grabbing Zeid’s hand. “I haven’t seen them since we were all in Earth, and while we were there, I didn’t know who we were.”

  “As you know, Kara, they didn’t remember it either except as a dream. It took Leif almost a year of Earth time to regain all his memories.”

  “And that’s when he stopped traveling to the Earth dimension?” I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

  The people of Erda hadn’t known that the three of us would not completely remember who we were as soon as we returned. Except for Sarah.

  “Sarah remembered before she stepped into the portal, didn’t she?”

  “She did. That’s why she didn’t come with you. She was afraid she would hinder the return of your memory.”

  “I didn’t even know she was in Erda until that day they sent me to the Oracle. Even though all I saw was the blue light, it felt like the woman I knew as Sarah.”

  Zeid laughed. “Yes, she wondered how quickly you would realize she was the Oracle in the tree.”

  “I still don’t understand it though. Is Sarah an Oracle or not? And if she is an Oracle of some kind, then Leif is probably something more than just the man I remember from Earth.”

  When Zeid simply smiled at me, I knew he wasn’t going to tell me. It was another thing for me to discover. But I could wait because right now I was getting a gift from my life in Earth.

  I watched as the Sound Bubble descended a few yards away and the two people I knew as Leif and Sarah stepped out. Within seconds, I was running to greet them, ready to be gathered into their open arms. Whoever they were in Erda would wait. I had never been so happy to see anyone.

  I trusted what I didn’t know would be revealed and together we would fight Abbadon’s new weapon.

  For now, I planned to rejoice in being reunited with my friends. With the Priscillas riding in my pocket, we made our way down into the village and our next adventure together.

  Love and magic made us strong. Above us, the sun shone through a crystal blue sky, and the trees bent in greeting as we passed. Life was beautiful, and we were going to keep it that way.

  Author’s Note

  As I was writing the Karass Chronicles, I kept wondering what the other dimension was like that Suzanne, Leif, Sarah, Ariel and Eric had gone to. What did they do there? What made it different from the Earth dimension?

  Finding out about Erda was both exhilarating and slightly terrifying. I loved it when I would start writing and a world flowed out from my fingers that I had never seen or heard of before. But it was also scary because what if no one liked this world but me? What if it didn’t make sense?

  During our morning talks, I would ask Del things like, “How do you think I could kill a green blob or a big metal machine?” Just asking the questions usually prompted an idea, but unless I started writing about it, I remained stuck.

  But that is what writing, or any creative project, is all about anyway, isn’t it? We step out of the way, and magic happens. But we have to do the physical act of writing, or painting, or dancing, or planting a garden to experience it.

  Halfway through Shatterskin, something wonderful happened. I started seeing myself in Erda. It became almost as real to me as the Earth dimension.

  It is the planet Earth, or Gaia, after all. The same one we live on right now. But the people, the towns, the countryside, the choices, the fairies, dwarfs, Whistle Pigs—well, they look just a bit different here than there don’t they?

  Some little tidbits you might like:

  When I was about three years old, I woke up one night and saw a gray wolf sitting by the bedroom door. He was sitting there as quiet as could be, but I thought it strange that a wolf was in my room. I remember tiptoeing into my parent’s bedroom and telling them there was a wolf in my room. They said something like, “It’s only a dream, honey, go back to sleep.”

  I returned to my bedroom, said goodnight to the wolf, and went back to sleep. Although I don’t remember if I ever physically saw him after that (had I seen him?) I have often felt him near me. So I had to bring Cahir, my wolf, with me on this journey.

  Beru and Ruta came from reading Beryl Markham’s book, West With The Night. The names fit into the story perfectly, even though, of course, they are not elves or stump like creatures in her book. I just loved the names. West With The Night is fantastic by the way!

  Lady is patterned after the pileated woodpecker that visits me—yes for real—at the feeder on my deck. There are two or three that visit, but Lady is the one that comes the most often. I watched her and wondered if in another dimension she might be a dragon. And so she is in Erda!

  The trees. What can I say about trees. Trees have always spoken to me, and now I am married to a tree person, so tree books are loaded into both our Kindles. After reading Richard Powers’ book, The Overstory, I was even more inspired to make trees, and nature, the key to the harmony of Erda, because we know that this is the truth after all.

  And of course, you recognize the Cain and Abel story. As for the snake spaceship with the brothers that caused it all, well, who says they didn’t. It’s all a story, isn’t it?

  In the next book, Deadsweep, Leif and Sarah from the Karass Chronicles play a more prominent role. Can you guess what Leif is in Erda

  If you would like to read a short prequel to both these series I’ll send it to you for free.

  It answers a few questions about the brothers who seeded Earth and Erda, and a little bit about where Suzanne really came from.

  I’ll tell you a secret: Earl and Ariel are not Suzanne’s blood parents. And she has a sister Meg. More mystery. And another series, The Chronicles of Thamon.

  Get this free short story here: becalewis.com/fantasy.

  Love, Beca

  Deadsweep

  Beca Lewis

  Copyright © 2019 Beca Lewis

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a
review.

  Published by:

  Perception Publishing

  https://perceptionpublishing.com

  https://becalewis.com

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters in this book are fictional. However, as a writer, I have, of course, made some of the book’s characters composites of people I have met or known.

  All rights reserved.

  Deadsweep One

  For the last two weeks, I have walked through the meadow to the top of the hill and waited. I’ve watched the sun rise and fall, the clouds sweep through the blue sky, and the trees bend with the wind. I have watched the first spring flowers poking up from the ground with their promise that winter is almost over.

  Every day I have searched the horizon for signs of their return. At the end of the day, I have walked back down to my father’s home with even more unhappiness in my heart.

  Four months have gone by since I returned to Erda. Four months since everything I ever knew turned upside down.

  When I stepped through the portal from Earth to Erda, I had been stupid, untrained, ignorant, full of myself, and yet I was happy. Four months later I am a little less foolish and ignorant, a little more trained, and maybe still full of myself, but now I am unhappy.

  There is no excuse for it, and yet I keep making excuses, which brings me back to thinking that I am full of myself. Or is it as Professor Link had said to me when we were in the Castle? That I thought I was superior? Do I still? Perhaps. Maybe it would be easier if I did.

  Perhaps then I could embrace my future with open arms. I would claim my inheritance as future Queen of Erda, and be comfortable now as Princess Kara Beth. I would let go of my past life as Hannah from Earth. I would rejoice in our victory over the Shrieks and Shatterskin.

  Instead, all I could think was that after all that had happened, I was alone. Yes, we had saved Erda from the Shrieks and Shatterskin. Both of those monsters made by Abbadon were vanquished. But we knew that Erda’s safety was temporary. Abbadon would be back. Abbadon would not give up trying to destroy magic, Erda, and every living thing but himself. We knew he was preparing another onslaught.

  And yet, every day I walked to the top of that hill and waited. And when no one came and nothing changed, I returned to the city and my father, Darius, the King of Erda.

  Today was no different. No one came. Even the Priscillas had deserted me. Pris, Cil, and La had become my constant companions, living in my pocket, pulling my hair. Laughing and pranking like the fairies that they are, I had come to rely on them. We had been friends since my childhood in Erda, and yet they had gone with the rest of them. Somewhere.

  The only remaining member of our team that was still around was Lady, the pileated woodpecker that had come with me through the portal from Earth and then revealed herself as the woman I knew as Suzanne, and a dragon in Erda. So if Lady was with me, so was Suzanne. Except that she wasn’t, because Lady had not transformed herself once since the rest of the team had gone on their fact-finding mission.

  I had begged her. Literally. On my knees. Gone out into the woods and called Lady and asked her please talk to me. Tell me what was going on. Please, shapeshift back to Suzanne so we can talk. Or stay as Lady and speak to me. But she remained silent, so I had no one to answer my questions.

  Why didn’t they take me? I didn’t understand. I had been with them for months, fighting beside them, relearning magic. But one morning I woke up and they had all gone, every single one of them. All they left was a note that they would be back.

  Even Zeid was gone. And that was the worst of all. We only had a few days together after I remembered who he was. My betrothed. Betrothed, an old word, still used in Erda. No wonder my heart had thudded the first time I saw him. I didn’t remember him, but my heart had.

  Before he left, we had spent time walking in the gardens of the city of Eiddwen. He told me how hard it had been for him since I had gone away. He said that he had been broken-hearted when I was sent to Earth to keep me safe from Abbadon. He told me his heart broke again when I returned to Erda and didn’t remember him.

  Now it is my heart that has broken. But I have duties to attend to. My father is not well, and with everyone gone, it is up to me to take care of him. If I was going to be honest with myself, I knew that was why I was left behind. I was the only one that had a chance to save King Darius. I had hoped that my return to Erda would bring him enough happiness to recover and rule his Kingdom again.

  When Shatterskin destroyed Ruta’s village, my mother, Rowena, was one of the people that died there. When my father found out that his wife had died, he too started dying. The once proud man began to wilt. He had given up. He didn’t want to live without his wife. I wanted him to live for his Kingdom and me. I wanted to believe that we would be enough for him.

  My parents had lived as husband and wife for thousands of years happily ruling over Erda with kindness and compassion. The people loved them, and my parents returned that love ten-fold.

  Thousands of years are not that long on Erda. People on Erda don’t age past the age they chose to remain. I remember people in Earth saying that they would remain thirty-nine forever. It was a joke in the Earth Realm, in Erda it was true. Pick your age and stay there, slowly changing over a long, long time. The only way people died in Erda was by accident, someone killed them, or they decided to move on. That’s what my father was doing, moving on. If he managed to accomplish it, I would be the ruler of Erda.

  I didn’t want to rule Erda. Not now. Not ever. I wanted my father to recover. My father’s heart was broken not just because my mother had died, but it was because of his brother, Abbadon. Abbadon, the destroyer, the Evil One.

  When the two brothers were first brought to Erda, they had agreed to rule their separate kingdoms and stay out of each other’s way.

  However, Abbadon didn’t like sharing anything with his brother Darius even though there was plenty of room for both of them. Peace had reigned for centuries in my father and mother’s Kingdom.

  But as time passed, Abbadon became more and more invested in the dark side of greed and power, he had become dissatisfied at having only half of the planet. He wanted it all. And he was coming to get it.

  The hill I climbed every day was behind the city to the East. I loved that hill. It was where we all had landed in the Sound Bubble after defeating the Shrieks and Shatterskin.

  We had stood there together as a community. My friends. My teachers. We had looked at the sun glancing off the rooftops and celebrated our victory. We could see the people of Eiddwen waiting in the streets for us to celebrate with them.

  For two days it was glorious.

  And then it was over. Everyone was gone. I had no idea when my friends would return, and Abbadon was advancing. I could do nothing alone. I needed them.

  Deadsweep Two

  The sky had turned gray to match my mood as I walked through the streets of Eiddwen back to our home where my father was now residing. Where he was supposed to be living was back at the Castle, as King. The same Castle where I had lived after coming through the portal from the Earth dimension. But my father hadn’t been there to greet me. As soon as my mother died, he had moved back to his family home to Eiddwen where he could pretend that he wasn’t the King of Erda.

  I could understand my father’s grief, but still, the selfish part of me wondered why he didn’t realize how much his support would have meant to me if he had waited for me at the Castle. I had lost someone too. Now, with my father lying half dead in bed because of his choices, it felt as if I had lost both of them.

  At least some things were clearer to me now. I understood why the people who were waiting for me outside the Castle that first day didn’t seem happy to see me.

  I had known so little then. I hadn’t known I was a Princess, so I didn’t understand why they reluctantl
y bowed to me. I found out much later that the people of Erda didn’t know that I had been sent away to the Earth dimension by my parents. They thought I had deserted my parents and the Kingdom. They hadn’t known that when I first returned I had no memory of who I was and no access to any of my powers.

  How could they have known? No one had told them. My father had deserted them by running away to his home in Eiddwen.

  When I was sent to live in the Earth Realm, only a small group of people other than my parents, had known. Even though my parents were not at the Castle to greet me, one being dead and the other running away, the others were there. Suzanne, Beru, Ruta, Niko, Aki, Professor Link, and of course Zeid, were waiting for me. They were the ones who had started my training to return to myself.

  Now that the people of my father’s Kingdom knew my role in destroying the Shrieks and Shatterskin, they no longer greeted me with scowls, but with smiles and waves. I guess I had earned their respect. I wondered how easily I could lose it.

  In spite of my mood of sorrow, I loved walking the streets of Eiddwen. Eiddwen was like most of the villages in the Kingdom of Zerenity. It was large enough to be called a city, although a tiny city in my opinion. The streets were lined with charming small homes. Every home had gardens filled with flowers, herbs, and vegetables. Trees were everywhere, and a deep old growth forest lay on the other side of the meadow. All the power was supplied through the energy of the earth, so there was no need for wires or light fixtures. The people of Erda had learned long ago how to live as a partner within the graces of nature.