The Return To Erda Box Set

by Beca Lewis

  No wonder they had left me alone for a few months. If they hadn’t, I would still be expecting to be taken care of as if I was a child. I’m not going to lie, though. I wouldn’t have minded getting taken care of again by Ruta and Beru. Or maybe I could reverse the roles and take care of them, once in a while.

  When I woke up with the sunrise peeking through the trees, Cahir was already pacing around the now dead fire waiting for me so we could get moving. Unlike the day before, Cahir seemed restless. One thing I hadn’t learned to do was have food appear out of nowhere. But Berta had packed lots of water and food bars for me—yes, once again being taken care of—so I was ready to start walking as soon as I returned the moss and the leaves where I had found them.

  I threw dirt on the fire and scattered the wood. Beru could sweep her hand across the fire and put it out. I hadn’t figured that one out yet.

  “What’s the big rush, Cahir?” I asked. “For two months no one seemed to be in a big hurry to get me anywhere, and now we are hurrying.”

  Keeping pace with a trotting wolf is not easy, but I was doing my best. Good thing I had practiced running or I would have been completely exhausted within an hour with the pace he was keeping. Even so, after a few hours of full out running for me, and a leisurely pace for Cahir, I begged him to let me stop and rest.

  He hadn’t answered me when I asked about our increased speed. He just ignored the question. I recognized that tactic. It had been used on me quite effectively before. Pretend that nothing was said, and then it wasn’t necessary to answer anything.

  Breathing hard, hands on my knees, I’m sure I looked ridiculous to a bird or a wolf. I was trying to understand about breathing in the power that existed as part of all living things. However, I was still a novice, and not afraid to admit it.

  “Come on, Cahir, what’s the rush?”

  “Do you still see the silver thread?” Cahir pushed into my mind.

  “Sure. It looks brighter though. Does that mean we are getting closer to where we are going?”

  Cahir looked at me the way Niko sometimes looked at me. Disappointed. “Aren’t you curious where it came from? Who made it? Why?”

  Huh. Cahir was right. I hadn’t asked. Just assumed it was part of another magic thing that I didn’t understand. I took it for granted that it was there for me.

  “You know that sometimes what looks like a path for you to take, will lead you astray, don’t you?” Cahir said. If a wolf could huff, that’s what he did.

  “Are you telling me this path is like that? Why are we following it then?” I huffed right back.

  “No. I am simply asking you why you didn’t question it before you started following it. Next time it might mean life or death to you. But, yes, this one is for us.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. How was this trail made, and why are we rushing?”

  “Because if I don’t get you to the end of it soon, someone is going to be very unhappy with me, and I hate it when they pull my ears.”

  Nothing more needed to be said. I started running. Tried channeling Beru leading me, breathing in, feeling the power around me, and letting myself be part of it. I knew who had made the path, and who was waiting for me at the end of it.

  I heard Lady’s laughter up ahead. I felt Cahir chuckling to himself as we ran. And then I heard the tinkling laughter I had missed so much. Tears of joy were already running down my face even before I saw them.

  The Priscillas were waiting by the stream, but as soon as we came into view they flew straight towards me, and I could barely stop myself from grabbing each one and covering them with kisses. Instead, I sat down on the floor of the forest and let them pull my hair, tweak my ears, and give me fairy kisses. All the while I sat there sobbing and laughing at the same time.

  The Priscillas were back. Pris with her pig tales, Cil with her green eyes, and La with the white streak in her hair.

  When I could finally speak, I said, “So you made the silver trail? That means Berta knows you?”

  “Of course she does. Remember, we lived in Eiddwen too.”

  “But that means she spoke with you?”

  The three Priscillas looked at each other and back at me, but didn’t answer. What weren’t they telling me?

  Deadsweep Nine

  Having the Priscillas tucked into my pockets and Cahir walking beside me made me so happy I was almost okay with the fact that neither Cahir or the Priscillas would tell me anything about what they had been doing the last few months.

  We reminisced about our time together—the time before they dropped me off and left me at Eiddwen. They darted around the subject, speaking instead about the dissolving of the Shrieks and the disabling of Shatterskin. I understood. I didn’t want to relive the part before that either.

  When I asked how the Ginete and Whistle Pigs were doing, all I got back from Pris was the answer, “Fine.” That affirmed to me that they were also involved in what was going on.

  I wondered if Teddy and his Whistle Pig friends were under our feet right now building tunnels and magic circles to bring us down into the cozy underground homes they created for themselves and their cousins, the Ginete.

  Pita and his four brothers, along with the Whistle Pigs, had housed and cared for us when we were fighting Abbadon’s monsters. They were instrumental in defeating the Shrieks and Shatterskin, but not as fighters. Instead, the Ginete and Whistle Pigs are a cross between the Red Cross, faith ministers, and scientists, which made them invaluable in our battle with Abbadon’s monsters. They supported and healed us while making the technology that enabled us to defeat the Shatterskin and his minions, the Shrieks.

  Teddy reminded me of a big teddy bear, with two big front teeth. That could have been scary, but his kind nature and habit of calling me funny names made him one of the warmest beings I had ever met.

  When I had first met the Ginete, I was torn between thinking they were adorable with their big heads and huge golden eyes, and afraid of them because they were so serious. But it turned out that Pita and his brothers were not only brilliant, and the holders of the many magical secrets, but lovers of laughing.

  Pita laughed holding his ears. I have no idea why, but I loved the picture of it. He could always get me going. When I learned that his mother named the five of them, Pita, Tita, Bita, Lita, and Sam, we both laughed so hard I felt like holding my ears too. I had told Pita I wanted to meet the mother who had to name her last son Sam because she couldn’t think of another four-letter name that rhymed with Pita. I hadn’t met her yet. Maybe one day soon.

  “Are more people meeting us as we go along?” I casually threw into the conversation when we stopped for lunch.

  “What people?” Cil asked, looking at me over the flower sandwich she was eating. At least it looked like a flower sandwich. However, the fact that there also appeared to be something wiggling inside of it made me glance away. Fairies are sweet looking, but don’t piss one off.

  I’ve been at the receiving end of Pris’s little battering fists which can really hurt. She had other ways to punish, too. More than once, Pris has shunned me because I said the wrong thing, or asked the wrong question.

  When the three of them would go off on their own at night while we were staying underground, and I had asked them what they were doing, Pris stopped talking to me. She said that it was because I didn’t trust them.

  That wasn’t it at all. I am just perpetually curious. On the other hand, I can be controlling too. I know that about myself. It doesn’t mean that I like to be that way. I’m trying to let that part of my personality go. However, I admit that being controlling was what I was doing with that question, and I hadn’t fooled Pris one bit.

  It turned out that the three of them had been rounding up some weird brown insect friends of theirs who ate the remaining green globs, removing the Shrieks from the lan
dscape forever.

  I had apologized over and over again, and supposedly was forgiven, but I have been worried ever since that Pris is still slightly miffed at me. I don’t want to get my head pounded again or lose her to one of her pouting sessions.

  The problem is, the Priscillas read my mind. Well, everyone does. Read minds that is. So learning to keep my mind closed to unwanted peeking was a skill I was still learning. I had learned that there were channels, and I could close one, and open others. I always left the common channel that Professor Link communicated to the team on, just in case, but so far that had been silent for two months.

  So Cil’s innocent question, “What people?” was a landmine question. I decided to play it safe and ask if I would see Zeid soon. I thought they would understand why I asked that. After all, he was my fiancée or betrothed. Shouldn’t I know where he was?

  Pris answered the question, “No.”

  “No, what?” I know, perhaps I shouldn’t have asked again. It was chancy to open my mouth since it was Pris who had said, “No.”

  “Zounds,” Pris said wrinkling her pretty forehead which made the tiny star mark that lived there shrivel up into a dot, “Can’t you just let things play out? Do you have to know everything? Why not just enjoy the walk to Kinver with us?”

  It was La who came to my rescue. She rarely stood up to her big sister, but this time she did. “Why not let her know something?” she asked.

  We all waited. Even Cahir waited. Would Pris tell me, or twist my hair, or pull Cahir’s ears, or fly off in a pout?

  Pris didn’t do any of those things. Instead, she started laughing and did a little jig on my head. Stepping off my head so that she was flying directly in front of my face, she tweaked my nose and said, “Yes. There are some of our friends waiting for us at the village of Kinver.”

  When I started to ask who they were, she held up her hand. “No more questions. I don’t care how curious you are. I’m not telling.”

  I smiled at Pris and said, “Thank you,” but that didn’t stop me from being so curious I thought I would burst. Who was going to be there? If not Zeid, who?

  Deadsweep Ten

  The overwhelming urge to continue to harass my friends for more information started to fade as the day wore on. Even the most controlling person–not saying that’s me—can be soothed by nature’s beauty, and this was a day no one would be able to resist.

  It was one of those beautiful late spring days when everything is perfect, and all five senses are on high alert. The air was sweet with the scent of the flowers growing by the stream’s edge and scattered through the woods. Leaves rustled in the wind. The sun was warm, but not hot. The birds were singing. Fluffy white clouds dotted the sky. And the stream made beautiful music as it flowed over the rocks.

  In Erda, water doesn’t get polluted through manufacturing or sewer runoff. There is no plastic, and every container is biodegradable. In many ways, the dimension of Erda is perfect. The only thing that marred its perfection was Abbadon. But I had decided not to think about him for the rest of the day. There would be plenty of time to do so once we got to Kinver.

  As we sat on rocks eating lunch, I finally got around to asking a question that had been rolling around in my head from the moment I came through the portal and a rock was right where I wanted to sit. It happened all the time. It had just happened. We were sitting on rocks that I hadn’t noticed were there before we needed to rest. Then they somehow moved to where we could use them. I was learning that the trees were sentient beings. Were rocks?

  The Priscillas were sunning themselves on a nearby rock when I asked the question.

  “These rocks are here because we needed to sit on them, or in your case, lie on them, aren’t they?” I asked.

  “Did you just notice, or are you just getting around to asking the question?” La asked.

  “Just getting around to the question.”

  “Okay. Then we have a question for you,” La said, waving her free hand around to include her sisters, the other hand occupied with holding what looked like a chipmunk’s tail. Was she trying to distract me? Where did that chipmunk come from, and why was she holding its tail?

  When I realized that I was so distracted I couldn’t remember what the question was in the first place, I dragged my attention back to La, trying to forget about the tail holding.

  Finally, I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Why are you holding that chipmunk’s tail, assuming it’s a chipmunk?”

  “Oh, it is,” La laughed. “We’re friends. Watch.”

  At which point La jumped on the chipmunk’s back and rode him up and down beside the stream. I couldn’t help myself. I giggled. It was so zonking cute! When La got bored, or perhaps it was the chipmunk who got bored, she hopped off, kissed him on the nose, and settled back down beside her sisters on the rock.

  “Good grief,” I said. “Are you going to answer my question or not?”

  “Which question is that?” La asked, acting all innocent.

  I threw up my hands in exacerbation. “Rocks. Are they sentient?”

  “And I ask you, Hannah aka Princess Kara Beth, did you or did you not just see me ride a chipmunk?”

  “Did.”

  “So you accept that there are fairies riding chipmunks, a pileated dragon who is actually your friend Suzanne, trees that bend and move and know your thoughts, green blobs that shriek, and yet, you question if a rock is a sentient being?”

  That was the most I had ever heard La talk. Ever. Being the youngest and smallest sister, I guess I had thought of her as a child. But what did I know of fairies? Or rocks?

  “Stone people. They are called stone people,” La continued. “They hold the records of the history of the planet, Gaia, in both Earth and Erda dimensions. Well, in all its dimensions because I am sure you know there are more.

  “However, in Erda, as you know, we see these things where other dimensions may not. Like in the Earth Realm, where what you see and accept here is most often thought of as myth. In Erda we see, and honor, the intertwining of all life. We know that we are all One Life.”

  When the implications of what La had just said hit me, I jumped up off the rock. “I’m sitting on a person? A stone person? Is that okay with this rock or stone?”

  “Hannah, you can be so ridiculous sometimes. Of course, you can. You climb trees. They love hosting you when you visit them that way. Rocks love providing you what you need too, even if it is just a place for you to sit,” Pris said, standing there on her rock with her arms folded, tapping her feet, looking at me like I was an idiot.

  Embarrassed, I lowered myself back down and patted the rock for good measure. “So, I could ask this rock anything about the history of Gaia, and it would answer me?”

  “Of course. But you won’t understand a word it says, right now,” Pris responded.

  “Will I ever?” I asked.

  “And that is a question I think we’ll leave unanswered for now,” Pris said hopping up onto my shoulder. “We best be getting a move on if we want to reach Kinver before dark.”

  As we walked, I pondered the implications of what the Priscillas had told me. I was stepping on rocks. Rocks, trees, nature was all around me. I lived within it. If everything was speaking, then it was possible that someday I might hear what they were saying.

  “Well, you hear me,” Cahir said. “I believe you will hear what you need when it is time, Kara Beth.”

  I reached down and ran my hand through Cahir’s fur and silently thanked him. I swear I saw him give me the smallest of smiles.

  I knew that I would look back on it and remember it as one of those perfect days that gets frozen in time. I will remember the feeling of the day. I will see myself with my hand on Cahir, and the Priscillas flitting around us, resting on me, and then skimming across the water, just
dragging their toes in enough to make a trail. I would remember how Lady looked flying overhead, backlit by the sun, looking more like an angel than a dragon.

  It was a perfect day. I knew it was probably going to be the last utterly perfect day for a long time.

  Deadsweep Eleven

  We reached the outskirts of Kinver at twilight, the time of transition. It seemed appropriate. I was transitioning between training alone to gathering a team to deal with Abbadon’s latest horror creation.

  I remembered the first time I saw Beru’s village. It looked so quiet and peaceful, the perfect small town, and yet there had been two groups of people standing in the street arguing.

  One group believed what Beru and Ruta had told them, that there a monster named Abbadon who was bent on destroying all life. The other group thought it was fake news and were angry at Beru and Ruta for trying to scare them.

  After Niko, my training instructor, told them what he had seen, and I had proved that I was their Princess Kara Beth by shooting lightning bolts from my hands, the village accepted that Beru had been telling the truth.

  Five men from Kinver volunteered to come with us. Only four had returned. Perhaps it was a consolation to Kit’s family that he had helped to stop the Shrieks and Shatterskin from destroying more towns and villages. I could only hope that was true.

  One village Kit had helped save was his own. Kinver was still as charming as I remembered, a small town nestled in a valley, with gardens in every yard.

  Last time we were here, the gardens were bare. Now, as I descended into the village, I could see flowers blooming, and sprouts appearing in the vegetable gardens. Beru’s people loved to garden, and the results were spectacular. Plus, what they did with the food they grew was mouthwatering.