by Drea Damara
“I’m not brave. I just did what I had to do.”
“Then do what you said you would and speak to Vasimus. Ranthrop does not want this war any more than the rest of us, whether he will admit to it or not.”
Sarah’s stroomphblutel shifted its weight, sensing her agitation. She glanced back at Shelby, who peered over her shoulder, and then turned back to Varmeer. “I will send a message to him. If he comes to find me, I will speak with him. On that you have my word.”
“My Lady,” Varmeer’s expression changed to one of coddling, “he will find you, message or not. When you see him, you’ll decide how brave you really are.” Varmeer bowed in his saddle and then turned away to rejoin the other men.
Sarah watched them ride back toward the village for a spell. She glanced back at Shelby and gave her a sympathetic smile. The poor girl. There had only been time enough to tell her not to speak until they were alone—that she would explain everything later. Luckily, Shelby had been wise and complacent enough to comply. She’d sat silently behind Sarah the entire ride from Groslivo Stronghold until now.
“Sarah?”
Sarah reached back and squeezed her hand. “Yes, dear?”
“We’re in that book. The one Ricky gave me. Aren’t we?”
“Yes,” Sarah answered and gave Shelby’s hand a squeeze. “I’m so sorry. I told Ricky to never touch that book. At least you’re easier to convince of its powers than he was.”
“He’s here? Ricky’s in Farwin Wood?”
“Yes. I have a home here. I left him there with my houseworkers. That’s where we’re headed now, and then we’ll return to Blinney Lane to get you back home.” She turned back around then and cracked the reins to start them moving down the road.
“Sarah, this place—it’s not exactly like I pictured it would be from what I read in the book.”
“I know, but hopefully that will change.”
Sarah explained everything that Shelby needed to know on the long ride back to Allister Hall. The task was much simpler than it had been with Ricky. Shelby didn’t stop to question anything Sarah told her; she only listened intently, and her silence made Sarah feel humbled that the girl trusted her so deeply. How could two teenagers be so different? Shelby accepted any reality around her with an imagination as expansive as Farwin Wood, while Ricky scoffed with disdain at anything new to his narrow world. One thing she knew was that sending Shelby home would be easy. Sending Ricky home, on the other hand, well, she just might have to enlist the help of Dergus to accomplish that feat.
BACK AT Allister Hall, Ricky paced up and down the length of the kitchen. He knew his aunt had told him not to discard any of his possessions, but the heat of the day and the steam from the pot Netta was stirring over the fire pit had overheated him. He tugged at the loose shirt to fan himself, and when Netta wasn’t looking, he’d yank the tight-fitting pants away from his sweaty groin. He’d sat in the great room for a while, and when Dergus caught him peering out the window to look into the courtyard in hope of catching a glimpse of the village beyond, the old man had barked at him to stay hidden. He’d retreated to the kitchen, feeling like a prisoner.
When Ricky had come downstairs that morning, before Vasimus left, he stormed into the kitchen to find Dergus. The man had been laboring lazily over a bowl of something Netta had prepared. Without thinking, Ricky barged up to Dergus to lightly backhand his shoulder, demanding to know why he’d let Vasimus into his room. The blow was deftly halted as Dergus’s rough grasp clasped his wrist, twisted it, and forced him to the floor under his bent arm.
“All right! All right!” he had whined as the pain shot up his arm. The old man released him with a salty laugh and returned to his porridge.
Ricky had sat pouting on a stool after that until Netta smiled and set a bowl of lumpy, leafy green mush in front of him and some bread. He ate it in spite of its lack of visual appeal and found he felt much better afterward, the gnawing sickness of the beetleburry ale gone from him. A little while later, they all turned as Vasimus’s footsteps could be heard through the doorway, walking across the great room and out the door.
“Well, so much for saying goodbye,” he muttered. His sarcasm was met with a “hrmph” from Dergus, who got up and left to go man his post at the gate.
Another hour passed, and then another. Ricky had made about ten laps up and down the stairwell of the upper portion of the hall, coming back down to circle the great room. He returned to the kitchen hoping Netta was still there. He longed to hear a voice, anyone’s voice, and the woman seemed to have a comforting pleasantness about her. He sighed as he leaned against the doorway, so his presence would be known.
Netta laughed from where she sat peeling some bright green potato-like vegetable. “You’re as patient as your father was,” she said.
He rolled his eyes, knowing the woman wasn’t looking at him. He really didn’t want to hear any more about how much these strangers knew things about his father that he didn’t.
“Tell me, what is Lord Richard like now?”
Ricky scoffed under his breath and walked over to the stool across from Netta. “Lord Richard—” He lingered on the words. “Well, he’s very strict and short-tempered.”
“Doesn’t sound at all like the Richard I knew,” Netta said, making a face. “I guess he grew out of his youthful ways after all.”
“I can’t imagine him ever being carefree like you’ve talked about. He’s always mad at me. Nothing I do is right.” He picked up a knife and a green potato.
“Well, perhaps he just wants to make sure you don’t make the mistakes that he did. Life isn’t always easy to figure out. You try to guide the people you love as best you know how. Oh, the things I would have told those two if I had known how life would treat them.” Netta sighed as she picked up another vegetable.
He grimaced under Netta’s sensible reasoning. He didn’t like to give his father any credit. It was much easier to be angry with him.
“It’d be nice if he could just be my father instead of guiding me by yelling at me, considering what little I do see of him. He works and then comes home and tells me what I did wrong. How does he know what I do if he’s barely ever there?”
“Maybe he’s afraid of you, Ricky.” Netta let another peeling fall into the bowl.
“Afraid of me? Why would you say that?”
“Maybe he’s afraid because he doesn’t know you, and the only thing he knows to do is to teach you not to become the kind of man you shouldn’t.”
He stared at the old woman. Why did he even get into this conversation if he never liked to hear what people had to say about his relationship with his father? He wanted to be a good person. He just wished his father would see that, too.
“Do they pay you extra for this kind of wisdom?” Ricky asked, which got Netta to laugh.
The creak of the great room doors echoed into the kitchen. They looked up at each other and listened. The sound of voices and footsteps soon followed. Both of them sidled off their stools and hurried to the doorway.
“Ricky?” He heard his aunt’s voice and bubbled with anxiousness to see her face.
He rushed out the door and into the cool air of the great room, but he stopped at the sight of light blonde hair. He held his breath at seeing Shelby, mobile and lifelike. There was color in her cheeks, and the light flooding in from the windows glinted in her eyes. She smiled at him and let out a little laugh. He exhaled and started toward her, giving his aunt a look of gratitude on his way.
“You’re all right!” he said and brought his arms up to embrace her. He realized he was gushing over her and was about to stop himself, but then she threw her arms around his waist and hugged him. He smiled and rested his chin on her head.
“I’m never borrowing a book from you again,” Shelby mumbled into his shoulder.
He drew her back and looked into her bright blue eyes. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know! Did they hurt you?” He cast his eyes up and down her but could see little sign of he
r flesh underneath the old cloak she wore.
“Don’t worry. I’m fine, but I’m glad your aunt came for me.”
“I would have come for you, I swear, but she wouldn’t let me,” Ricky said in a rush, still clasping her shoulders.
Sarah interjected, “Okay, Romeo, come on.” She started toward the kitchen doorway where Netta stood awaiting her with arms open wide.
Ricky looked from his aunt back to Shelby and added softly, “Really, I would have come for you. This was all my fault.”
“I believe you, but your aunt told me about what happened here with your father. I think it was best she made you stay behind, or something could have happened to you. It’s not very nice out there, Ricky.”
Dergus strolled in and shut the doors behind him. Ricky stepped back from Shelby, letting his hands drop to his sides until he caught her eyeing his outfit. He tugged at the shirt to pull more of the fold out from his pants and heard her giggle. He smirked and batted her nose.
Dergus approached and asked Shelby, “So, little miss, what was our old friend Ranthrop like?”
“Like a wrestler, big and ornery,” she replied with distaste.
“Hrmph, well if he’s anything like Vasimus was then I’m surprised you escaped unscathed,” Ricky responded.
“Vasimus was here?” Both Sarah and Shelby asked simultaneously.
“You ran in so quickly I didn’t get a chance to tell you,” Dergus said. Sarah looked at him, having gone a bit pale.
“What did he want?”
“Well, to see you of course, but he left after speaking to Lord Ricky.”
“Lord Ricky?” Shelby whispered at his side.
“Shut up,” he mumbled and nudged her gently with his elbow, waiting for his aunt’s reaction.
“Are you all right, Ricky?” Sarah closed the distance between them and gave him a onceover. “What did he say to you?”
“Nothing. I’m fine. He thought at first maybe my mother had brought me, but I told him—how she and my father live far beyond Blinney and I only came to visit you.” Dergus patted Sarah on the shoulder and left then to return to the gate, slinking away from a conversation to which he couldn’t contribute.
Sarah seemed to relax. “And? What else?”
“And…he asked if you’d ever married, so I told him you hadn’t, but that you had to stay in Blinney alone.” Ricky was tired of having to make judgments every day just to find out that they were wrong.
Sarah smiled amidst the agonized lines on her face. “Well done, Ricky. Now, we’ve got to get you out of here. Ranthrop said he has spies, even at Daundecort Hall. I don’t trust them not to inform him that a Richard Allister is in Farwin Wood.”
Sarah and Netta went into the kitchen. Ricky stood for a moment, basking in the satisfaction that his aunt was pleased with him for the first time in weeks. When he started for the kitchen, he noticed that Shelby’s expression was uneasy.
“What?”
“Nothing. It’s just that you have to go back now.”
He stopped in the doorway. Netta was looking on as Sarah leaned over a large wooden tub in the corner of the room. Sarah stretched her arm up to a spigot that stuck out from the wall and turned the knob. Water began to trickle and then flood out from the spout into the oversize barrel. He looked at Shelby, finding her features still anxious. When he glanced back to his aunt and Netta, they had both turned their attention from the filling tub to him.
“Right—” he muttered, vaguely remembering something his aunt had said about drowning and her recent mention of “going home.”
“Don’t be afraid, Ricky. When you wake up, you’ll be at home,” Sarah said.
Ricky looked to Netta. “Wait. You know, too?” Netta’s usually cheerful expression was gone and had now been replaced by the dismal one that colored both Shelby and Sarah’s faces. “I thought you said not to tell anyone about this?” Ricky asked his aunt demandingly, hoping an argument would buy him more time.
“I had to in case I didn’t make it back.” Sarah approached him, and he took a step back but hit the doorframe. She grasped his face in her hands and talked to him in a voice like she had when he was a child. “Ricky, you have to go back first so you can take the book to the hospital. It’s the only way Shelby will wake up. It’s the only way to get home.”
“Really? There’s not some other way? Some less violent way?”
Sarah shook her head and dropped her hands from his face. “No. This is the only way I know. I’ve done it before. You’ll be fine. Just hold your breath until you can’t stand it—”
“—and then?”
“Then just stay under the water, no matter how much your body tells you to come up for air.” Sarah spoke in too calm of a voice for the words she was saying. He looked at Netta and then to Shelby for a sensible ally.
“I’m afraid too, Ricky. I’m sorry you have to do this,” Shelby said meekly.
Her sympathetic eyes eroded the defiance and fear in him enough to win him over. From everything he’d seen so far that he didn’t want to believe, he knew his aunt wouldn’t lead him astray in doing this. He wanted to see Shelby in the flesh again—in a normal world. He even wanted to go home and work in the bookshop of all things! Anything but this creepy land full of angry knights, horned beasts, and devastated woodlands. Realizing that Sarah and Shelby would have to do the same as him, he felt himself blush at his cowardice.
“What if I do something wrong?” he asked his aunt.
“You can’t do anything wrong,” she said reassuringly. “When you wake up, get to the hospital as soon as you can. I’ll give you…five hours.”
“Five hours until what?”
Sarah looked at Shelby and said, “Until I send Shelby back.”
Ricky stared at Shelby, who appeared much calmer than him considering the possibilities that were running through his mind. “But what if—?” He didn’t want to say it in front of Shelby.
“What if I send her before you get the book to her?” Sarah finished the thought for him.
“Yes!” He threw up a hand in his frustration.
“That won’t happen. You’ll wake up soon after you go. Just get to the hospital and sit by her, or as near to her as you can get, with the book open. Just make sure the book is open.” Sarah stressed each word.
“Can’t you just wait until tomorrow to send her back? Just give me more time so I know for sure I’ll be there,” he said, pleading.
“Ricky, I don’t want to keep her here in Farwin Wood after today. I don’t know what Ranthrop or Vasimus might do, or anyone else who’s heard I’m here for that matter. This is our best chance. You’ll be fine. You can do this.”
Ricky clutched his stomach. Fine time for Aunt Sarah to have confidence in him. He turned when he felt a small hand around his forearm.
“Ricky,” Shelby said, “I trust you.”
“I don’t know why.” He shook his head at her sweet smile. How could she have so much faith in him? He knew each minute he wasted worrying was one less minute he had to get the book to the hospital, yet it was also one more minute he got to see her in a living state, real or not. He turned to his aunt. “All right, let’s do this.”
Sarah eyed him up and down. “Where are your things?”
He glanced at his appearance and remembered that he’d discarded his vest and belt at the other end of the kitchen. He hurried to retrieve them and heard his aunt call nervously to him.
“Remember what I said? Make sure you didn’t lose anything you came with or the book can pull you back in.”
“I remember.” He donned his leather vest and replaced the belt and sword. Luckily he hadn’t needed to use it and find out if the protective dust in the hilt worked. “Shelby? Do you have everything?” he asked as he made his way back to the women.
“Yes. Your aunt made me check before we left Groslivo Stronghold. No one took anything from me. I’m sure of it.”
The water stopped, and they turned to see Netta push the spo
ut knob closed with the end of a broom handle. “It’s full,” she warned.
“All right, Ricky. When you wake up, go straight to the hospital with the book,” Sarah said again.
“And get as close to her as I can with the book open,” he added without his usual sarcasm.
“Yes. Just sit there and wait. Don’t panic if nothing happens right away. Remember, I said five hours.”
“I got it. And you? Wait! What about you?” he said, his voice rising.
“As soon as Shelby is awake, come back to the kitchen where we fell asleep and leave the book open on the table. I’ll come home tomorrow. Open the shop if you want and tell the others I’ll be home soon,” she said.
He couldn’t believe his aunt was already thinking about work again. All he could think about were the next few minutes. Man, she had some brass buns on her. “Tomorrow?” He nodded, making a mental note. “All right, don’t worry. It’ll be there.”
Ricky let out a long breath and walked over to the water barrel. He stepped up on a stool Netta had pushed over to it for him and swung one leg over the side into the water. Next he dunked the other leg in and paused a moment as his butt careened on the edge. He looked at his aunt and then at Shelby. He turned to Netta and said, “Netta, it was nice to meet you.”
“You too, Lord Ricky.” Netta smiled, her hands clasped together over the mound of her chest, waiting to see the phenomenon before her.
Ricky started to bend his knees and lower himself into the barrel, but he stopped when Shelby yelled, “Wait!”
She leaned over the edge of the barrel, grasping a handful of his shirt. He looked at her quizzically and she pressed her lips to his. When their mouths parted, he blinked at her dumbly, but she looked seemingly unaffected. Sarah and Netta held their hands to their mouths; he could see them hiding their amusement. In spite of the cold water, he felt his cheeks burn. Now was as good of a time as any to drown. He lowered himself under the water in a sitting position.
