The Return To Erda Box Set

by Beca Lewis

  “It worked, didn’t it? Thank you, Beru for always taking such good care of me.”

  We hugged, and I cried. Hugging Beru always felt like hugging a beautiful flower. A strong, confident flower.

  Beru pulled back from the hug, and I could see tears in her eyes. She gave me a gentle push into my room.

  “Go sleep. Who knows when you will find a bed again,” she said, and then turned and walked away.

  My feelings weren’t hurt. I knew Beru was trying to be brave for both of us. That’s what she always did.

  I loved my room at the Castle. It had the perfect amount of light if I was in my room during the day, which wasn’t often. The bed was cozy and warm, or cool depending on the season.

  Although there was very little in the room, it always felt as if it wrapped itself around me to keep me comfortable and safe. I hoped it would still be here if and when we returned.

  At first, I couldn’t sleep at all, but soon a blue haze settled over me, and I drifted away. But before I did, I thanked Leif for his help sleeping and for everything he had done for me as Hannah in the Earth dimension and Kara Beth in Erda. I didn’t hear his promise that we would be safe. I felt it. I hoped he was right.

  *******

  Morning found me wanting to say goodbye to everyone I could before meeting the team at the portal. First I found the metal toadstools in the atrium preparing the dining area for the day. I took the time to say thank you to each one. I called them all George, but when I reached the one I believed to be the George that always took care of me, I patted him on his metal tray balanced on the top of his head and said, “I appreciate all that you have done for me, George.”

  I knew it was him when he vibrated and did a little hop step. Perhaps Teddy had programmed this robot to do that just for me, but I always wanted to believe that since all things are living, that each of them was also a sentient being and he had figured it out for himself.

  I grabbed a roll and a cup of coffee and wandered off back into the rose garden to wait for sunrise. I wasn’t trying to spy on anyone, but Professor Link and Aki didn’t know I was there when they appeared outside the garden. Once they started talking, I didn’t know what to do. If I interrupted them, perhaps they wouldn’t get to say goodbye, so I stayed silent.

  It would have been a grownup thing for me to do not to listen, but then I’m not all that grownup, and I am perpetually curious, so I couldn’t help myself.

  Link and Aki were whispering, but I could hear them by blocking out every other sound. I couldn’t see them directly, but I could see their shadows on the floor in front of me as the light from the dining area flooded over them.

  “I should have told you,” Aki said as she leaned forward putting her forehead on Link’s chest.

  Link rubbed her back to comfort her and then lifted her chin so he was looking down into her eyes. “It doesn’t change anything, Aki. What you look like is not who you or any of us are. After all, none of us are what we appear to be.”

  “You are,” Aki whispered.

  “No, Aki, I too am not exactly as I appear. Just as none of the beings that we know are their forms, we are all more than can be seen with the eyes. I love the essence of you. Yes, you have made this form appealing to the human in me. But I love you no matter what you look like.”

  “Tell me the truth, Seth. It didn’t seem as if you were really shocked yesterday. Were you?”

  “I wasn’t, Aki. I already knew. Research is my work.”

  “And you loved me anyway?”

  “I love you anyway. Come back to me, Aki. In whatever form you wish to be.”

  They stood together for another moment and then moved away.

  I didn’t move. Seth? I didn’t know that was Link’s real name, which wasn’t the point. It was that Link knew much more than he ever told us. That didn’t bother me at all. It made me feel more secure knowing that with all that he had researched, he thought that we could accomplish our mission. I realized that they all thought we could. And most of them knew more than they were saying.

  It was a good thing. I was planning on holding on to it. And Aki and Link’s secret. It was theirs to tell, and I would do my best to make sure that Aki returned to him. That we all returned to the ones we loved.

  Abbadon Nineteen

  When I was sure that Link and Aki were gone, I slipped out of the garden and hurried to where I was supposed to be. Thankfully, I wasn’t the last one to arrive. Everyone was still there milling around, looking a little lost.

  Zeid was waiting for me, and I slipped up beside him and held his hand. The Priscillas were busy flitting from one person to the next. I wasn’t sure if it was because they were nervous, excited, or both. I knew I was both. So nervous I was afraid I was going to chew my lip off, and so excited about the prospect of the new adventure that tingles were running the whole way up and down my body.

  We were all standing just outside the Castle walls on the edge of the tree line. Only Link and Suzanne were there from the team that was staying. I knew Cahir was back in Eiddwen with his children, and Berta would take care of anything that he needed while I was gone. I thought about Berta and my father, and I hoped they would be there when we got back.

  Looking around, I wondered where Leif, Sarah, Earl, and Ariel were. Maybe they didn’t see any need to say goodbye. I didn’t expect to see Beru. We had said our goodbyes the night before, and I didn’t think she wanted to break down in front of anyone any more than I did.

  I glanced over at Ruta standing by himself at the edge of the group looking more forlorn then I had ever seen him look before. For a moment I thought of walking over to him, but a glance from him in my direction warned me off. He needed to deal with what was going on with him in his own way.

  After checking who was there, I realized that we were waiting for Teddy and Pita. During our meeting, they had both remained very quiet, so I had no idea how they felt about leaving everything behind and moving into the past. Did they have a better idea of what they would find in their communities than we did?

  Garth and Anne were standing with Suzanne talking in low voices. It was the three of them who were setting up the actual portal, and I wasn’t sure if it was a good thing that they were still talking about it. Niko was pacing back and forth. I guessed he was trying to work off some energy. Aki came over and put her hand in his, and he calmed down. That was good. He was supposed to be our leader. No one wanted to see him nervous or afraid. At least I didn’t. I had enough of that going on myself.

  Just when I started wondering if we were going to have to go without them, I heard Teddy call out, “Hey ho, travelers!” and he and Pita came into view. Pita looked as if he had been running trying to keep up with Teddy, and Teddy was pushing a big cart filled with something. Teddy, as always, was calm and contained, as if we were only going on a simple pleasure trip.

  “Sorry, we ran a little late working on these,” he said, pulling out what turned out to be backpacks from the cart. He and Pita started to hand one to everyone, checking the names on them first.

  “We tweaked these packs a bit so that they can travel with us. Each one is matched as closely as possible to the energy that your bodies give off, so it should easily go through the portal with you.”

  “How did you figure that out?” Aki asked.

  “Well, we’ve been running transportation type things for a long time. You’ve probably never thought about the fact that when we travel to the surface or down to the tunnel with our transportation circles, you can bring anything you want with you.

  “After you mentioned that you didn’t know what would go through the portal with us, Pita and I realized that what we did with the transportation circle could probably work if we tweaked them in the same way with the time-portals.

  “We solved the last of the problems late last night
or early this morning, whichever way you look at it. Then Beru showed up, and with her help, we packed each one with what we thought you might need. Of course, there is water, and some food bars, along with extra clothes. Things like that.”

  By the time Teddy finished telling us what he, Pita, and Beru had been up to all night, we had our packs on. Mine was so comfortable I barely noticed that I was wearing it. Teddy saw me smiling, and added, “Yes, we made them to be comfortable based on who is wearing it. Even if we didn’t have your names on it, you would know if you picked up the wrong pack and tried to wear it. Oh, Princess Toes, Beru put things for the Priscillas in your pack.”

  We all laughed as the Priscillas started twirling around in the air in celebration, followed by a sigh of relief knowing we had more supplies than we thought we would have.

  “You two have done it again,” Suzanne said, hugging them both.

  Teddy bowed and said, “We aim to please.”

  As everyone moved closer to where the portal was going to be, Teddy took my hand. “That little button I gave you before you went on your first mission? You know it won’t work where we are going because you and this Castle will be in different time frames. But do me a favor, and leave it on anyway? You never know …”

  “I’d do anything for you, Teddy, you know that,” I said.

  “It’s time,” Suzanne shouted. I’d never heard her yell like that before, but I knew it was essential that we left when the portal was ready. I felt the same way I did when I stepped through the portal to Erda, except this time I was holding Zeid’s hand, and Teddy’s huge paw was resting on my shoulder. Whatever happened, it was going to happen to us together.

  Suzanne’s familiar, “Go, go, go” was in my ears. We all took a deep breath and stepped through to the other side.

  Abbadon Twenty

  If Zeid hadn’t been holding my hand, I would have tripped and fallen on my face the same way I did the first time I came through a portal. Instead, this time, Zeid pulled my hand, and Teddy kept his grip on my shoulder. We all stepped out, or in my case, almost fell out, at nearly the same time. But it was Aki and Niko who floated out as if they had done it a million times.

  This end of the time-portal had been placed to put us a few miles outside of Aki and Niko’s village over two hundred years in the past. Which in Earth time would have been thousands of years. I think. The time exchange between dimensions was confusing enough and then add the back-in-time ingredient, and I was even more confused.

  What we were trying to do was to arrive before the Raiders took Niko and Aki from the village. And this is where the whole thing was wonky. Were we going to stop the invaders from taking them? Would that mean that the Aki and Niko traveling with us would disappear from the team because they would become someone else?

  Would they be able to see the children that they were? If we stood by and let Abbadon’s Raiders take them, would we be guilty by not stopping them? These were the kinds of issues we had hashed over and over again back at the Castle and ended up deciding to go with what happened at the moment.

  As soon as everyone was out of the portal, Niko held up his hand, and we gathered around.

  “Take a good look around you. This is where the time-portal we hope to use to return to the future will be waiting for us. Suzanne said she would try to place others around Abbadon’s kingdom, but it’s dangerous. Someone else, like Abbadon, might see one and try to use it. This time-portal and any others that Suzanne manages to place will only be open at certain times during the day. And just for ninety seconds. If we miss it, we’d have to wait until the next day.

  “You all have been given a tracker that will vibrate when you are near a portal. If you are in trouble, and if there is nothing you can do, then use it to return home. Otherwise, note where the portal is in case we need it later. We plan to stay together and go back together, but we don’t know what we’ll find.”

  We all nodded. Each of our trackers were hidden in different places on our bodies. But they were all placed so that they were as unobtrusive as possible. Mine was under the band of my bracelet.

  Before we left, Leif had set a binding spell on my bracelet so it couldn’t be lost or taken away from me. I assumed he had done that for everyone, and even I didn’t know where each tracker was on each person. The only ones without trackers were the Priscillas. So whomever they were traveling with was responsible for their returning safely.

  Niko shook his head at us. “Now see there? You all unconsciously checked to make sure your tracker was in place. Never do that again. It’s an old pickpocketing trick used in the Earth Realm.

  “Someone would announce there were pickpockets in the area and everyone would check to make sure they still had their purses or wallets. The watching thieves then knew precisely where their valuables were.

  “We can’t make those kinds of mistakes.”

  After looking at all of us to make sure we had all heard him he added, “Now let’s find the best place to settle in, and we’ll talk more later.”

  Before we left our time, we had set up some basic plans. The first thing we were supposed to do was get acclimated to our new place in time. Professor Link had suggested that traveling back in time might be similar to traveling to different time zones in the Earth dimension, and resting and getting used to our surroundings would be a good thing. We had all resisted the idea at first, but eventually agreed that he was right.

  Once we rested, we needed to explore Erda as it was then. What was different, what was the same? Not knowing could be dangerous.

  Pita and Teddy wanted to find the local Ginete and Whistle Pigs and enlist them in helping the same way they did in the future. The idea that they learned how to do the things they knew how to do because we were here in the past flitted through my mind, and I shut it down immediately before I went crazy. Still, it was possible, right?

  Ruta also wanted to spend time with the trees. He wanted to move through them and collect information. The Priscillas were itching to find some insect or animal friends and hear what they had to say.

  We were all to remain as invisible as possible except when contacting the people we hoped would be our allies. There had been a debate as to if we would tell anyone that we were from the future or keep it to ourselves. The decision was made not to.

  First, would they even believe us, and second, telling them might once again affect something in the future so it wouldn’t be the same when we returned.

  But all that exploring wasn’t going to happen this first day. Instead, we explored where the portal had placed us, being careful to leave as small a trace as possible. Niko and Aki had told us that there were lookouts stationed many miles out from the village, and we didn’t want to run into any of them. So as much as Niko and Aki wished to see their home, they had to control that desire.

  Professor Link had mapped some caves to the north of the village. If they were empty, they would be the perfect place for us to stay for a few days while exploring the area. We found one of the caves right before the sun went down.

  Zeid and Niko went in first. Zeid threw an invisibility cloak over them and Niko used a light that he found in his backpack. Teddy said the beam would not be visible to anyone looking at it but would light up the surroundings for them.

  After what felt like years, they returned, saying the cave was empty and looked as if it had been vacant for a long time. Everyone seemed as relieved as me. I was exhausted. The adrenalin rush of preparing to travel through the portal and then being back in time had worn off, and now all I wanted to do was sleep.

  Within minutes I was sound asleep inside the sleeping bag that was attached to my backpack. I think I managed to whisper “Thank you, Teddy and Pita,” before I fell asleep, but it might have been in my dreams.

  Abbadon Twenty-One

  It took me a few minutes to figur
e out where I was. Nothing was familiar. The light was different. There was a dry smell in the air like old rocks and dirt. I wondered if I was dreaming and squirmed around in my sleeping bag trying to wake up.

  “Stop it!” Pris yelled and bopped me on the nose.

  “I thought I was dreaming,” I said, holding my nose. “Was that necessary?”

  When La and Cil stuck their heads out of the sleeping bag, I realized that they had all been sleeping inside of it with me.

  My wiggling around had woken them up, and they were cranky. Keeping just my head outside the bag, I glanced around at where we were. The cave looked as if it was filled with mummies, everyone else still snuggling inside their bags. Maybe no one else felt like getting up and facing the day any more than I did.

  Except for Aki and Niko, who were talking quietly in the back of the cave. As hard as I tried to hear them, I couldn’t. Niko glanced over at me with one of his scary looks, and I slithered back into my bag taking the Priscillas with me. We must have fallen back asleep because the next thing I knew Zeid was shaking me telling me to get my lazy bones up.

  After the sleeping bags were rolled and hooked back on our backpacks, we gathered around the fire that Zeid had started. I knew that there wouldn’t be a fire if they thought there was a current danger of Abbadon’s Raiders.

  Which meant someone had already been out exploring, and others had stayed awake while I slept. The realization that I had been only thinking of myself fell over me like a blanket, smothering any sense of wonder about where we were that I might have otherwise felt.

  “Stop it,” Aki said.

  Leave it to Aki to be in my mind. I could have left it alone, but instead, I said, “Stop what?” Even to my own ears, I sounded like a petulant teenager.