by G. R. Lyons
“I was so worried something had happened!” Garbon exclaimed, shaking the chief's hand while Saira and Charlie got out to enjoy the fresh air for a moment. The theater owner looked them over, one by one, and his hands dropped to his sides. “And I guess something did. Is everything alright?”
“Yes,” Benash answered. “Everything is fine now. I'm afraid we'll have to miss the show, however. We're hardly fit to be seen.”
“Nonsense!” Garbon said. “You must come and see the show.”
Charlie looked down at the cut in his pants, then over at the dust on Benash's suit, then at Saira's tear-stained face and bruised knees, and almost laughed aloud.
“Please, I insist,” Garbon said.
“I'm afraid we'll disgrace your theater,” Benash said.
“Not at all! Please, you must come in.” He paused, and said, “Very well. What if I take you around back? Would that be acceptable to you? Though it goes against the grain for me.”
Charlie looked up at Benash, and the chief said, “It's up to you. We can go home and rest or–”
“I'd like to see it,” Saira said, then added, “I mean, if you're up for it. I just…I'm not sure I want to go home quite yet. I need…”
“Something,” Charlie said, nodding agreement.
“Very well,” Benash said. “We'll stay.”
“Excellent!” Garbon said, clapping his hands and signaling a valet driver. Their car was moved into the valet parking lot, and Garbon led the way as the three rumpled theater-goers weaved their way through the lighted and covered alley alongside the theater, entering the building through a back entrance. Garbon led them up a staircase reserved for cast and crew and through a doorway into the main theater hallways that opened onto the box seating.
Benash stepped through, his arm crooked at his side as though he had a woman with him, and Saira followed. Charlie hung back for a moment, turning to the theater owner.
“Mr. Garbon, might I ask a question?”
“Certainly, sir.”
Charlie waved at the curtain that closed in the box, saying, “My father-in-law, Mr. Rothbur–”
“Oh!” Garbon clapped his hands together. “A wonderful man! Wonderful! He saved my life once, you know.”
Charlie's eyebrows went up. “Did he?”
“Yes, indeed. Many years ago, when I first came here from Tanas as a refugee with the rebel camps. I was very ill—a horrible lung disease—and Mr. Rothbur seemed to take it personally, insisted that I would survive my illness. He paid for my hospital treatment, and cared for me afterward, then helped me get set up in a job as a stage hand. The rest, as they say…” The man spread his hands, indicating the theater as a whole, and his rise from manual labor to theater owner over the intervening years. “The first time Mr. Rothbur came to our location in Oaks Pass, I was simply delighted. He rarely misses a show. It's an honor to serve him after what he did for me.”
Charlie looked at the curtain, thinking, then leaned closer and asked, “But…you've never thought it strange that…”
“Ah,” the man said, touching the side of his nose. “You're curious about the two tickets.”
“Yes,” Charlie said with relief.
“It's the woman who comes with him, you see,” Garbon said, and Charlie looked at him with wide eyes. “Or, you don't see, of course. I can see her, somewhat, because I'm Tanasian, but no one else here can. That woman is treasured on Tanas in the rebel movement. Her stories are still told, bringing hope to those who suffer under the Elders' yoke. It is an absolute honor to be able to see her and know that her essence still exists in this world. And she's the only reason Mr. Rothbur comes here.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Garbon nodded. “He doesn't come here for himself. He comes here for her, so she can experience all the things she wanted to see while she lived. Watch him. You'll rarely see him focused on the stage. He only comes to see her enjoyment.”
At that, Garbon gave him a wink and bowed himself away, and Charlie watched him go, dumbfounded. He shook himself and stepped into the box, fixing the curtain in place to block out the light from the hallway.
“Everything alright?” Saira asked him as he took a seat beside her.
“Everything's fine,” he told her, taking her hand. He glanced back over his shoulder at Benash. “You two alright back there?”
The chief gave him a questioning look, then glanced to the empty chair beside him and back at Charlie.
“No, I can't see her,” Charlie said. “I just figured she was there.”
Benash looked to the chair again, then laughed. “She says, 'Don't tell me we've made a believer out of you.'”
“After tonight,” Charlie said, turning to face the stage as the house lights went down, “I think I'd believe just about anything.”
He glanced over at Saira, gave her hand a squeeze, and looked down at the stage.
The curtains parted, and young Vesad Stromos stood in front of a symphony orchestra, bowing to the audience as everyone cheered. The boy went to a grand piano, sat down with adult gravity, and began to play.
Charlie closed his eyes and took a deep breath, feeling the tension of the night slowly slipping away.
Beside him, he heard Saira sniff.
“Honey?” he whispered, and saw Benash lean forward and rest a hand on her shoulder.
“It's over, isn't it?” she murmured, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks. “It's really over.”
Smiling, Charlie put his arm around her while Benash reached out and took her other hand.
“Yes,” he sighed. “Yes, it finally is.”
Chapter 31
Three years later…
SAIRA RESTED a hand on her belly as she gently stirred a simmering sauce on the stove. She felt the baby's foot press against her hand, and laughed to herself as she reached over to grab a jar of oregano.
She glanced over her shoulder, seeing her two-year-old son joyfully playing with his food in his high chair.
“Honey, I'm home!” Charlie called.
“In the kitchen!” she called back, turning off the burner and moving the sauce pan aside.
“Mmmm, I could smell that all the way from the front door,” Charlie said, setting his briefcase down and tossing his keys on the counter. “How is the most wonderful wife in the world?”
He slipped his arms around her and gave her a deep kiss, rubbing her belly before moving his hands up to her swollen breasts—courtesy of a plastic surgeon who also happened to be a mage.
“Hmmm.”
“What?” he asked.
“For the babies, huh?”
Charlie chuckled. “Hey, I was only thinking of you. You wanted 'em for nursing. The fact that I get to play with them is just a bonus.”
Saira looked at him over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow.
“Uh huh. Sure.”
Charlie grinned, pressed a kiss to her cheek, and turned to greet their son.
“Aurothi, look at you! Making a mess again, I see. You know Mommy goes nuts when we make messes.”
Saira laughed and shook her head, and Charlie quickly wiped the baby's face with a cloth before lifting him out of the chair.
“Alright, little man,” he said. “Let's give Mommy a few minutes while Daddy gets something more comfortable on.”
He leaned over and kissed Saira on the cheek, and carried their son upstairs.
Saira smiled to herself, reaching to shut off another burner, and threw out a hand to brace herself against the counter as she swayed, knocking over her box of recipe cards.
She pressed a hand to her belly and took a deep breath, forcing herself to stay calm while the vision came to her.
Moving slowly, she dug her mobile out of the pocket of her apron and pressed a button to connect her to the office.
“Dispatch, this is Spirit, over.”
“I read you, Spirit,” the dispatch officer said. “Recording…now.”
Saira took another deep breath and closed he
r eyes, letting the vision fill her mind.
“Male, elderly, short, handicapped…in a wheelchair. No injuries. Possible robbery? Family room, 824 Meadowlark.”
“Copy that,” the officer said, and after a pause, Saira heard, “Unit four, proceed to 824 Meadowlark. Code SPIRIT. Possible robbery.” Then he relayed the victim's information and waited for confirmation before coming back to Saira. “So when's the baby due? Any day now, right?”
“Should be, yeah,” she said, coming fully back to herself as the vision faded away.
“Got a name picked out yet?”
“Charlie's got his heart set on Graeden. Says this one's going to be a doctor.”
“Is that right?”
Saira shrugged and chuckled. “We'll see, I guess.”
“Alright, well, you take care. Say hi to Charlie and the little one for me.”
“Will do.”
Saira clicked off the mobile and tucked it back into her pocket just as Charlie came back into the room, changed into a t-shirt and jeans and carrying Aurothi on his hip.
“Everything alright?”
She gave him a smile and a nod. “Just fine. Dispatch says hi.”
His eyes widened slightly with worry. “A vision?” he asked, and she nodded. “Need anything?”
Saira shook her head and flashed him a smile. “Nope. I'm good.” She reached up to grab two plates out of a cupboard and went to set the table. “Dinner's ready.”
Charlie helped her carry serving dishes and utensils to the table, and Saira went back to grab a few napkins. She paused, looking at the scattered recipe cards, the stack no longer perfectly neat and straight, and turned away, leaving them just as they were.
Embracing all her talent set her free.
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And join the next generation of Crawfords in Book 3 of the Shifting Isles series, Return to Tanas:
Dr. Graeden Crawford keeps secrets from everyone, including his detective parents and telepath grandfather. When he's not working self-imposed ungodly hours at University Hospital, he sneaks about to make sure his past can't come back to haunt him.
A special patient dies, destroying his carefully constructed routine. On a snap decision, he joins a medical expedition to Tanas, hoping to escape his secrets for a while, only to wind up in a much more dangerous situation.
With Tanasian soldiers standing between him and his only way home, Graeden must find a way to get off the corrupt Isle and back to the things that matter most to him in the world, even if it means having to finally face his demons.
Turn the page to read!
Return to Tanas
Shifting Isles Series, Book 3
Chapter 1
DR. GRAEDEN Crawford stormed over to the nurses' station and slammed a digital chart down on the counter.
“Mrs. Delpery wants tulips on her bedside table,” he muttered to himself while making a note on the chart about medication. “This is a bloody hospital, not an entertainment house.”
A nurse slipped the chart out from under his hand and looked up at him with a patient smile.
“This is also a competitive hospital in a free market,” she said. “I'll see to it our customer is satisfied.”
Graeden thrust his tablet pen into his front coat pocket and whipped off his glasses, leveling a look at the nurse. “If she would spend more time practicing her physical therapy and less time focusing on the décor, she might actually–”
“Oh, would you look at that,” the nurse interrupted, handing over an envelope. “Mail for you, Dr. Crawford.”
He glared at her, irritated at being interrupted, and tore the letter out of her hand.
“Physical mail,” he scoffed. “Who in the gods' names sends physical mail anymore?”
“Oh, only about the vast majority of the world's population. They're not all as civilized as we are here.”
She gave him a mocking wink and turned back to her computer screen. Graeden narrowed his eyes at her, then turned to leave.
“Oh, Dr. Crawford?”
Graeden closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and turned around.
“There's a patient waiting for you in your office.”
His arms dropped to his sides.
“How many times must I tell you,” he said with extreme calm, “no patients in my office without–”
“I'm sorry, Doctor, but he was very insistent.”
The nurse went back to her work, and Graeden watched her for a moment, speechless, then spun on his heel to head in another direction, his feet stomping out a violent rhythm on the smooth floor as he made his way to his private office.
He stepped into an elevator and selected the third floor, then crossed his arms and waited as the lift smoothly rose. It stopped again the next floor up, and Graeden clenched his jaw as he moved aside while others entered the car.
As the doors slid shut, he glanced down the hallway at a familiar room, holding his breath until the lift doors closed and blocked out the sight.
For almost four years, he'd made daily visits to that room, but the very thought of it still gave him chills.
When the lift doors finally opened on the third floor, he hurried out of the car and stopped in the middle of the hallway, taking a deep breath to calm himself before he strode past a secretary's desk and turned down another hallway, ending at a glass door etched with his name.
He stopped at the door and peeked through the glass panel, seeing a man sitting before his desk. The man's back was to him, his arms hanging over the armrests on either side of the chair he occupied, and Graeden could see the last two fingers of the man's right hand wrapped up in bandages.
“Not again,” Graeden muttered under his breath, then drew himself up and let himself into the room. “Mr. Stromos.”
The patient looked up at him as Graeden took a seat behind his desk, tossing aside the letter the nurse had handed him. He'd deal with that piece of nonsense later.
“Dr. Crawford,” the patient said, sitting forward with a desperate look in his eyes. “Please tell me you've found something.”
“Mr. Stromos, we've already been over this. There are no other options.”
“But my career is at stake here!” the man insisted. “I have an entire tour lined up that will have to be canceled. And the next album–”
“I'm very sorry, Mr. Stromos,” Graeden said, holding up a hand, “but there's–”
“I can't play with only eight fingers!” the man shouted, slamming his good hand down on Graeden's desk.
Graeden took a deep breath and sighed, fighting for patience. “There's nothing to be done–”
“Well, find something! This is my life you're talking about! For the gods' sakes, please! I'm open to anything. Give me surgeries. Give me magic. Give me any kind of medication with any gods-awful side effects you can possibly conjure up, but just give me something! I'm a world-famous concert pianist, gods damn it all! I must have full use of my hands!”
“I'll only say this once more,” Graeden said through clenched teeth. “The only option available to you in the entire world is to have the fingers removed.”
“But if you do that, I can't–”
“And if we don't take those fingers,” Graeden said, rising from his seat and leveling a glare at his patient, “the infection will spread and you'll lose your entire hand! Now, what will it be?”
The pianist blinked at him, dumbfounded, and sank into the chair, looking on the verge of tears.
“It's over…” he whispered to himself. “Gone. All gone. My work. My life. What am I going to do now?”
“Well,” Graeden said, calmly resuming his chair and reaching for his tablet, pulling up his surgery schedule, “perh
aps next time you'll think better about playing stupid games involving dirty, sharp instruments with people who are less than savory.”
He felt Mr. Stromos's glare but didn't acknowledge it.
“Now,” Graeden continued, looking over his schedule and seeing which slots he had open, “let's see here. Tomorrow at tenth hour work for you?”
* * *
TWO MINUTES later, Graeden's office was just the way he liked it.
Empty.
He leaned back in his chair and enjoyed a deep, relaxing breath, soothed by the stark, sanitary whiteness of the room. A glass desktop that doubled as his computer, a plush, high-backed chair, and a wallscreen were all that he needed. If he could have done without the two chairs on the opposite side of his desk, he would have.
Graeden rested his tablet on a corner of the desk and synced his personal schedule to the hospital's main database, logging the surgery for the next day so the nurses would arrange for an assistant in the operating room.
Ignoring the envelope resting off to the side, Graeden touched an icon along the bottom edge of the desk and watched a glass panel in the middle rise up and tilt toward him, allowing him to view his files without bending over the flat surface. He updated notes in a few patients' folders, then checked a few reports that had come in from the lab, reading shorthand code on white blood cell counts and DNA markers the way most people read novels. Seeing a number he didn't like, he opened a new window and pulled up the patient's file, calling up the latest full-body scan, but he got interrupted when an icon flashed in the corner of the screen.
Graeden groaned and swiped the other windows aside before tapping on the blinking green icon, which brought up a video feed from the secretary's desk.
“Sorry to disturb you, Dr. Crawford,” the secretary said, “but you have a call.”
“Would you take a message, please? I–”
“It's your grandfather.”
Graeden snapped his mouth shut and sighed, glancing out the window.
“Put him through.”
The secretary disappeared, and in her place, Graeden saw a video feed from his grandfather's house up in the hills.
