The Return To Erda Box Set

by Beca Lewis

  My father was standing at the open flap of the tent waiting for us. I let go of Zeid’s hand and flew into his arms. It had been so long since he had truly hugged me. It had been lifetimes for me in the Earth Realm, and now almost a year in Erda.

  When I had returned to Erda, I didn’t remember my Erda parents. What made it worse was my mom had died in a Shatterskin attack and my father fell into such a deep depression everyone thought he would die. There had been no happy reunion then. I was ready for it now.

  Berta was standing behind my father, and I fell into her arms too while Zeid and Darius did the male patting each other on the back kind of hug.

  The next few days were heaven. Berta pampered us all with delicious food. Zeid and I worked with the villagers to help rebuild their homes. I was thrilled to find that every friend that I had made while staying in Eiddwen had made it through Deadsweep unharmed.

  At night Zeid and I sat with Berta and Darius and listened to them tell tales about the Kingdom of Zerenity.

  What I most wanted was to gather my father’s knowledge of Abbadon. But he didn’t know much more than I did. They had never been brothers that lived together. If Aki’s story was true, both had been set in their separate Kingdoms by the bored brothers on the snake-space ship. I knew Aki had more stories to tell about those bored brothers from outer space. I wondered if they had ever come to visit again to see how their experiment had gone.

  But since my father knew so little, I put those thoughts away. I could wait and talk to Aki. Instead, I listened and immersed myself in what Berta and Darius had to share about the villagers, the Kingdom, and my mother.

  I let it fill me up so that it could carry me across the shattered lands and trees into Abbadon’s desert kingdom. Link had winked at me before we left and whispered to me that we were going to travel in a different way this time. But he wouldn’t tell me how. Link loved preparing surprises and took every chance he could to do so. I was happy to let him surprise me. I like surprises, as long as they are pleasant surprises.

  The day Cahir came to the village walking down the street without a care in the world and everyone smiled and waved at him, was one of those surprises. I had no idea that everyone in Eiddwen knew Cahir.

  Berta just laughed at me and said, “Of course, dear. He grew up here. Everyone knows and loves him.”

  Cahir’s arrival meant one thing. It was time for us to go. Cahir showed me where his family was staying outside the village. I told Berta, and she promised to watch over them and make sure there was plenty for his family to eat.

  After everyone said their goodbyes, and as the Sound Bubble came closer, Cahir took off in a loping pace. He would see us back at the Castle where our team would be ready to start our next adventure together.

  I promised everyone that we would be back. It was a promise I intended to keep.

  Author’s Note

  When the idea of the Return To Erda series came to me, so did the titles of the three books in the series. They popped into my head and there was nothing I could do to dislodge them. So I went with the titles and then figured out what each book was about after that.

  That meant that I knew that the title of this book was going to be Deadsweep. But I didn’t know what the danger was going to be. What was Deadsweep?

  While I pondered that question, there were more and more stories in the news about the terrible things people were doing to each other. Then I heard a Ted Talk given by the mother of one of the boys who was a shooter in the school killings in Columbine, Colorado, and it all came together for me.

  She explained how she had recognized no clues, no warning signs, that her son was going to go to school, murder people, and then kill himself. The mental illness that caused it was invisible to her.

  How does this heart-breaking thing happen? And her story is not unique. This disease is often not visible to most of us until it is too late to stop it.

  I know there is not an easy human answer to this illness. In Deadsweep, I talk about healing the rifts that we find in ourselves and between ourselves. Perhaps healing divisions between people would help stop the mental illness that can produce such horrifying results. It can’t hurt, and it might help.

  The other thing on my mind while writing some of the chapters about the infection called Deadsweep was the idea of contagion. For a week I had a cold. I was miserable. I would write for thirty minutes and fall asleep for another fifteen. Ugh. Plus, I was irritable.

  I asked myself, was I irritable before I felt sick? Which came first? What if I got sick because I allowed myself to be irritated? Or what if infections were manufactured? What then?

  Between those two ideas, mental illness and infections, Deadsweep as thought-worms that infected people’s behavior, was born.

  In the end, this is a fantasy book. I get to make up worlds, and people, and even the evil things that threaten that world. And then I get to make sure that evil never wins.

  My desire is to tell a good story, but if the story also shifts perception along the way, it’s an added bonus for me. I hope it is for you too.

  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

  ABBADON

  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

  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.

  Abbadon One

  I slumped further into my chair, all my hopes slowly dissolving, soon to disappear. A few days ago, my expectations had been high. We were going to be proactive. We were going after Abbadon before he came after us. After stopping Abbadon’s last attempt at mass destruction, our entire team had taken time to visit family and friends and put our affairs in order.

  All of us said goodbye to those that loved us and promised them that we would see them again. But no one was fooled. It was just as likely that most of us would never return. My father’s housekeeper, Berta, hugged me and told me everything would be okay. What else was she was supposed to say?

  One by one we had returned to the Castle, rested and hopeful. We had been cheered by the signs of improvement all over the Kingdom. However, my father, the King of Zerenity, had not come back to the Castle with me.

  When one of Abbadon’s monsters killed my mother, my father had returned to our hometown of Eiddwen, laid down on his bed, and hadn’t gotten up again until just a few weeks ago. And although he decided to live after we rescued him and all the villagers in Eiddwen, my father had not yet decided to return to being the King. I was hoping that once we defeated Abbadon, he would change his mind.

  Although the title of Princess Kara Beth, future Queen of Zerenity, sounds good in fairy tales, in real life it is not a job that I wanted. Actually, I didn’t want any of this. But the choice was between letting my father’s evil brother, Abbadon, destroy the Kingdom, or stepping up and fighting.

 
We had all made that choice. To fight. Really, what other choice could we have made? But we needed a plan, and so far every idea we had come up with appeared impossible.

  I glanced around the table at the people I had come to love and admire. They all looked as dejected as I felt. Everyone was there, except for Earl and Ariel. I assumed they were off somewhere bringing water and wind where it was needed. Whatever our plan turned out to be, I knew they would be there to support it.

  It was hard to believe that less than a year ago I had been living what I thought of now as a normal life. Then with the help of Suzanne, a liaison between Earth and Erda, I had stepped through the portal between the two dimensions. I had left Earth as a pre-teen and returned to Erda as a young woman.

  Let me tell you, that was a shock of a lifetime. But it was only the beginning of the shocks waiting for me. However, at that moment, looking down at a fully-developed body, it felt as if I was going insane. Then to make it worse, Suzanne had disappeared, and two beings that I had never seen before greeted me. One looked like a flower turned into a person and the other like a block of wood that walked. Beru and Ruta. Now I can’t imagine life without them.

  I got over the age change pretty quickly. There were so many other things going on that it faded into the background. Besides, age is almost meaningless in Erda. Time is counted on a completely different scale than it is in the Earth Realm. And in Erda, everyone gets to choose when to stop aging. Or at least slow it down until it is barely noticeable. That was one thing I hadn’t decided to do yet. To slow down my aging. Or maybe I did before, but I don’t remember it now. Just add that to the list of things I still don’t remember.

  What I do remember is my two short lifetimes in the Earth Realm as Hannah. I loved my time there. I had thought I was a human child. But once I stepped through that portal, I found out the truth. My Erda parents had sent me to Earth as a protective measure. Abbadon had started to threaten the Kingdom of Zerenity, and they thought it was better to send me away. Then things got worse, and my father and mother were no longer the ones making decisions, so the people I now call my team brought me back.

  There was a problem, though. I couldn’t remember anything when I returned. And I had very little time to recall the magical skills I had once had before my first encounter with Abbadon’s monsters. Even now, so many things are still dark empty holes in my memory and no one has decided to fill them in for me yet.

  Before we left to visit our families, Professor Link had promised us something new that would help with our plans, but so far he had made no mention of it.

  Instead, the whole attack-Abbadon-first idea seemed over before we even began. At least that was how it felt to me. We had been at this for days and days, and a solution seemed further and further away. When we were on the defense, we were more successful. With a combination of skill, luck, and perhaps providence being on our side, we had managed to stop Abbadon’s monsters—the Shrieks, Shatterskin, and Deadsweep.

  But we knew we would not be able to stop another Abbadon attack. Instead, we had decided that it was time for us to go after him first. At the time it had sounded possible, but now it appeared that it wasn’t going to be.

  To begin with, we knew it would be the height of foolishness to think that he didn’t know we would be coming after him. And what he might have in store for us as we came his way boggled the mind. My father’s brother was brilliant.

  But that wasn’t the end of the problem. How could we get to Abbadon without being seen? Abbadon had destroyed the entire western part of the kingdom. Shatterskin lived up to its name; everything that had been growing was dead, uprooted and barren. We would be moving across an empty plain with no place to hide.

  Every tree, every building had been destroyed. It was a suicide mission which would accomplish nothing, which is why I have been waiting for someone to tell me a better plan.

  Instead, we have talked over everything until I want to scream. Even the Priscillas, the three fairies who were usually full of cheer, were somber. They hadn’t even bothered to come to the meeting this morning. I couldn’t blame them.

  Abbadon Two

  “That’s what he looks like? Are you kidding?”

  In my hand, I held a picture drawn by a sketch artist of a man that Zeid claimed was Abbadon. If this was him, then Abbadon, the man who had been terrorizing everyone, had been living in the Kingdom of Zerenity for years. Right under our noses. Not back in a Castle in the middle of desolation. No, right in our home.

  This normal looking man was the one that wanted to destroy all life? The one we had spent the last year fighting the monsters he had created?

  “What did you think he would look like?” Zeid asked.

  “Not like my father, that’s for sure. I guess I was envisioning a huge scary beast. Or maybe horns would be growing out of his head, or blood would be dripping off of huge teeth.”

  I shook my head. It was stupid of me to be thinking of him that way. After all, we had learned that Abbadon had been hiding in plain sight inside the Castle. He had passed himself off as one of the caretakers, while he learned everything he needed to know about us.

  It would have been easier if Abbadon did look like a monster. Perhaps then I would be able to accept that he was stronger and wiser than us. But this was a man who could blend in anywhere. He had allowed himself to age to what looked like maybe fifty Earth years. My father Darius had done the same thing.

  They both had short steel-gray hair, and if the picture was accurate, Abbadon was about the same height as my father. This man had a slight stubble of a beard, and it looked good on him. His eyes didn’t give away the evil mind that lived inside of him. Instead, they were soft and somewhat sad brown eyes.

  “Are you sure this is him?” I asked again.

  “Yes. Villagers have identified him as the man selling the walking sticks, and the people in the Castle who saw him say he was the same man.”

  Zeid and I were sitting at one of the smaller tables in the Castle’s atrium. The meeting had broken up with no solutions in sight. Everyone needed a break. Now I suspected the break was to give Zeid time to show me the picture.

  I thought that he had chosen this place to show me because he knew I loved this garden. No matter how gloomy the world seemed, the flowers and trees that grew in the atrium always made me feel better.

  That was Zeid. Always thinking of me first, and not for the first time I wondered how I could be so lucky to have him as my betrothed. The first time I had seen him in Erda, I didn’t remember him, but my heart did. I still didn’t know if our future marriage had been arranged, or if we chose it, but it didn’t matter anymore. I had told him I loved him.

  I looked across the table at Zeid’s azure eyes and dark hair that framed one of those handsome faces that almost don’t look real, and smiled at him.

  Zeid was my best friend, my sparring partner, and the man who put up with all my confusion after returning to Erda and not remembering anything about my life before Earth.

  “Has everyone seen this picture?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why am I always last? Shouldn’t I be first? I mean you want me to become who I am here in Erda, Princess Kara Beth, and yet you, and the rest of the team, show me things last. Why is that?”

  “That’s something you need to take up with Professor Link and Niko. You know they make those kinds of decisions. If it helps you feel any better, I just saw this picture today too, and then they asked me to show it to you during the break.”

  “Why?”

  When Zeid didn’t answer me, I asked again, “Why? Why not show it to me during the meeting? What did they think I was going to do? Start screaming, yelling, jumping up and down? Why?”

  Before Zeid could answer, he was saved by one of my favorite sounds. A Sound Bubble’s harmony was coming closer. I glanced up an
d saw the atrium roof open, and the bubble slowly descended. Inside the bubble were two people we had met in our last battle with Abbadon.

  “Why are Garth and Anne here?”

  Zeid shrugged again. He either was pretending not to know what was going on, or he really didn’t.

  Garth and Anne were twins and well known for the ability to travel between dimensions. After Abbadon froze the entire town of Kinver in a portal that was locked in time and space, the twins assisted Suzanne with the town’s release.

  For the first time in days, I felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe Professor Link did have a plan after all.

  Abbadon Three

  Before I got a chance to welcome Garth and Anne, Professor Link arrived and whisked them away. What the ziffer was going on? Why couldn’t I talk to them?

  I was about ready to jump up and run after them even though it was evident that I wasn’t supposed to when the Priscillas came zooming around the corner and landed on my head. All three. Which perhaps says as much about how big of a head I have as to how important it was that I didn’t follow Link.

  “Okay, I’m not going,” I said, as I tried to pull Pris out of my hair. Her sisters, La and Cil, had already arranged themselves on my shoulders, but Pris loves to pull my hair to get my attention. Or just because she can.

  She has always been like that. The three sisters have been my companions since my childhood. When we were younger, we loved getting into trouble together. Now our focus is more on stopping trouble, but that didn’t change their personalities.