by Mara Amberly
A Key to Worlds
A Parallel Worlds Novel
Mara Amberly
Copyright © 2017 Mara Amberly
All rights reserved.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to my readers – I hope you enjoy it and that it resonates with you.
I would also like to dedicate this book to my parents – my mother in this world and my father in the next. They’ve done so much for me over the years and this book wouldn’t have come about if they hadn’t encouraged and supported me.
You all have my thanks.
CHAPTER ONE
Nessa’s Home Dimension;
Georgia, United States – 12:14 p.m.
Nessa had long known that she was different from other women. It wasn’t something she could easily say or explain, because it would sound arrogant or unlikely in the extreme. So many people wanted to stand out in a unique and wonderful way when the world was heavily-populated and everyone, it seemed, had their niche. Why wouldn’t they? It wasn’t arrogance, and Nessa wasn’t like that, though she had a tendency toward recklessness at times. She had a power no one else had, so far as she knew, and whether that made her awesome or a weirdo, for better or worse, she was accepting of what that meant. It made the world a little bit more mysterious than the mundane place it so often was, and it gave her something entirely her own to explore just as she wanted to.
***
Nessa relaxed in her sister’s garden, studying a flower she’d picked. Its pink petals were soft like velvet; the flower’s centre a rich orange-gold. Half-remembered recollections of biology lectures flitted through her mind, but her thoughts soon returned to the flower’s scent. Had she been anyone else, her thoughts on its sweetness might have ended there. Her senses tingled and she knew that scent carried with it untold possibilities. She couldn’t have described what this meant in technical, real world terms, but she sensed this flower’s fragrance could serve as a key to another world: a realm of differing possibilities.
Nessa tried to remember the name of the flower – magnolia, camellia... begonia, and they weren’t right, but it didn’t matter. It reminded her of the Derin Valley in the summertime, and that meant chances were good it might take her there. She’d visited the Derin Valley with her mother when she was just a girl, and had a lot of fond memories of the place, including its field of colourful flowers. She and her family stayed at a cottage by the lake and that was where she’d first met her best friend Cora, who’d been holidaying there too. Twelve years later, Cora worked as a driver in the capital, while Nessa wasn’t so good at staying in one place for a long time. She liked to travel and her family wasn’t short of money, which helped her do more of what she wanted to do. Her aunt, Katy, had a nickname for her – Aella or ‘Whirlwind’, because that was Nessa on a good day. On a bad day she wasn’t so easy to find at all.
The tingling sensation grew more insistent, but not unpleasant. It was a familiar feeling because she felt it often. She had to ignore these feelings much of the time, so they usually served as a distraction that wouldn’t go away and leave her alone. She hadn’t known why that was at first, but she’d learned there were reasons for those feelings as she discovered the truth about herself and the world... or rather, the universe. She still didn’t know how she’d come by her rare ability, and she hadn’t quite got around to explaining it to anyone else.
A crow soared from a nearby tree, leaving the branch swaying behind it.
“You’re a smart crow. You know to get out of here, don’t you?” Nessa smiled, sure that the crow’s decision to vacate the area had little or nothing to do with her.
I’ve been saying that I‘ve wanted to see the Derin Valley again for a while. It’s not the same thing, but what if I just...? A smile played over her lips as she considered the possibilities.
Nessa looked slightly younger than her twenty-three years, and she was lithe and curvy with straight blonde hair that fell just below her shoulders. Her eyes were hazel, somewhere between an olive green and a golden brown – an in-between colour that was unique to her and her aunt, Katy. In other ways, she and her aunt looked nothing alike. Katy was tall with shorter dark hair, and was much more settled and – Nessa hated to ever use the word – stable, but it was fitting.
Nessa didn’t see herself as particularly feminine, but she wore dresses some of the time. Today her dress was brighter than the sky was blue. She wore white socks and flat shoes with it, because she didn’t wear high heels when she could help it. She was always a bit of a tomboy at heart and somehow it felt wrong to wear shoes that she couldn’t run or climb in. It wasn’t lost on her that this made her look like a 21st century ‘Alice’, but in actuality she appeared quite normal.
One detail that stood out was the money belt she wore around her waist. It was the kind often worn by tourists when visiting foreign countries. It might’ve seemed an odd choice for a woman not going anywhere, but it enabled Nessa to keep her hands free. She also wore a silver locket on a long chain. On this day, only hints of the silver chain were visible, but the locket itself was oval and filigree in design, studded with small seed pearls.
As Nessa looked around her at the quiet garden, she opened herself to the tingling sensation she felt, allowing the energy to flow through her body. Almost at once her senses heightened. The garden wall gave her privacy, and she gazed up at the large yellow house beside her. There was no sign of her aunt in any of its windows. The neighbours might see her but she didn’t think so. Nessa singled out the wooden gate in the garden wall. It was green, the paint fading and cracked on the pine slats. It was rickety but its hinges still supported its weight. It was bolted shut but not locked, and importantly, there was no one outside; just the woods behind Katy’s property. Nessa closed her eyes, holding her breath and still clasping the pink-petalled flower in her other hand. She raised the flower to her nose and breathed in its scent. There was silence, utter silence, and yet in the depths of her soul, Nessa knew something had changed. She opened her eyes and looked... and the air in front of the gate wavered like a heat haze. It revealed hints of a world beyond it, where the ground sloped downward. It was dotted with flowers and taller grasses stirred by a distant wind she couldn’t feel. It wasn’t the same as her recollections of Derin Valley, as she remembered them now, but it was similar.
The sky through the haze seemed more purple than blue from where she stood, but with no signs of an impending storm. If Nessa looked above her, she saw only blue – even over the
wall, but through the gate was different. “So where are you trying to lead me this time?” she asked the energy, “or is it me leading you? I was thinking of a place like this one,” but the world was different. She never chose the world. Nessa saw no enemies or dangers, so gripping the flower carefully, she stepped through the portal. She found herself in a world with wildflowers, and as it so happened, the towers of a majestic castle in the distance.
CHAPTER TWO
Pandora’s Home Dimension;
Terania Settlement, Alverron – 08:12 a.m.
The smoke was thick and it burned Pandora’s lungs. It was hard to see through the dark, clouded air, and it was hard to keep her wits about her when she couldn’t breathe properly. She felt vulnerable in this suffocating miasma and it summoned feelings of panic she just couldn’t dispel. Somewhere nearby, she heard a child’s desperate crying.
Lucy? “Lucy, is that you? Hold on sweetie, I’m going to get you out.” We’re both going to die if I can’t get us out of here.
She blinked away tears, struggling through the darkness but she couldn’t find the door. Her mind was so foggy she wasn’t even sure where she was. She half-remembered being in her room but Lucy was supposed to be with their father, wasn’t she? She tried to make sense of her memories and run through options.
“Lights on!” she gasped. The darkness remained, but there was no sign of fire. She couldn’t figure out where the smoke was coming from, but something was burning. It stung her eyes and her lungs, and sapped the strength from her body. She ducked down lower to try and avoid it. Distantly she heard coughing, and knew that she and Lucy weren’t alone. It wasn’t a gentle cough or that of a child, but a rough, painful hacking and the gasps of someone struggling to breathe. It wasn’t Lucy; it was someone older. She thought of her grandmother but it couldn’t be. My grandmother died years before I was born.
Pandora felt her hand come in contact with the wall and stopped. It gave her more of an idea about where she was. From there, she felt her way along the wall to an alcove and she realised it was a shelf that was built into the wall by her bed. Her hand touched a cylindrical object, but it seemed irrelevant, so she ignored it and felt her way along toward the door. She knew the room well, so it didn’t take her long to reach the door. Her fingers clasped the handle and pulled.
There was a woman standing on the other side, no more than a footstep outside her door. She’d have jumped under normal circumstances, but she hurried through the door, guiding the person toward safety as she went. It didn’t spring to mind who this person could be.
“I need to find Lucy. She needs my help,” she said, her voice emotional with worry and husky from the smoke.
She listened out for the girl’s crying, but it had stopped. Why was she silent? “The door is this way.” It wasn’t far. If only she could get the door open, she was sure she could get the woman to safety. Maybe they could see better and then she could find Lucy, but she was afraid Lucy would die before she could get to her.
“Only you can help us, Pandora.”
The woman was elderly, and her voice raspy from the smoke.
Pandora couldn’t easily make out her features, but she thought the woman must be talking about the fire.
“Save your breath and save us. Quickly, to the door. It’s this way.”
Pandora took her arm and helped her in that direction, but the woman stopped and turned to face her, grabbing hold of Pandora’s other arm.
“What are you doing? I have to save, Lucy.”
Pandora tried to pull away but she felt stuck in place, as if her feet were mired in the floor. It made her wonder if this was a dream, but if so it was more real than any dream she’d had in her life.
The elderly woman’s eyes were sad but one of the few clear details that Pandora could make out in the room. “Our line has ended before its time and Lucy was the last, but you’re family, Pandora. Not of blood, but we have a bond and it’s close enough for you to continue our journey. Our gifts and our burden, our purpose and our hope will be yours. You bear our tapestry. Use it well and see it doesn’t end without purpose.”
The room lit brightly, as if by a white light. She realised that fire wasn’t the main source of illumination now, and yet the brightness grew. Pandora stared into her grandmother’s golden brown eyes – she wasn’t even sure how she knew this woman was her grandmother, only that she did, and then she abruptly jumped awake.
The world came into crystal clear focus as she realised it was now morning. The air was far clearer than it had been in her dream – no sign of smoke at all, and no fire. She was in her bedroom, and as she looked around, she saw her belongings in their usual places. She was home. The bed covers were rumpled like she’d tried to fight her way free and her long, curly hair was damp with sweat.
Pandora sat up and breathed deep refreshing breaths. There were still tears in the corners of her eyes, but they were from sleepiness, not the burning acrid smoke. The dream was disconcerting but there was one detail that stood out above all others.
“Who’s Lucy?” I don’t have a sister, do I? I was adopted, so I suppose it’s possible but... I don’t know. It was just a dream, wasn’t it?
She picked up her nearby data pad and quickly recorded all the details she could remember of her dream. This included the words of the elderly woman, which seemed to carry with them a sense of deeper spiritual meaning. They were also strangely eloquent in a dream where her mind had seemed so foggy.
“Lights on,” she said, relieved as her room brightened. “Alright, lights off.” They switched off.
She didn’t need the extra light, but the computer’s response reassured her that she was definitely awake now.
Pandora climbed out of bed and raked her fingers through her long curly hair. It was a little tangled, but then it usually was, even after she’d made an attempt to tame it. She found her comb and set to work, and by the time she was done, it looked much better.
She had a boyfriend, Kailen, and she’d slept in his shirt. It felt familiar to her and even though it no longer carried his scent, it reminded her of him. It wasn’t that he was far away but she liked to keep this reminder of him close.
Pandora washed at the nearby sink, then opened her cupboard and singled out some clothes to wear. She didn’t have a great selection to choose from, and it wasn’t that she had to wear a uniform, but most clothes were supplied by the mercantile quarter and that was what people wore. Only the council, military personnel, and Scientists and Engineers wore clothes that stood out from everyone else’s, because it was important that they were easily distinguished.
Pandora removed her nightclothes, including Kailen’s shirt, and glanced at herself in the mirror. She was still young – only twenty, but she felt much older than that sometimes. She took a deep breath and began to dress. First there was underwear, including her bra, followed by a purple blouse paired with a dark grey skirt. It was simple, even elegant, but she didn’t see the beauty that another person might’ve noticed. They were merely clothes, and she dressed as others did in the Terania settlement. The other settlements might have been the same, but she had no way of knowing for sure. It was believed the council could communicate with the other settlements, but most people didn’t.
Terania Prime had suffered a great cataclysm in its distant past, and that had made much of the world unliveable. The exact source was unknown, but an experimental technology that had contaminated the environment was believed to be responsible. A primary scientific goal was to terraform the land, and they were having some successes. There were now small regions of the planet that had become habitable again, in addition to the settlements, but it took ongoing efforts to sustain the change.
‘Settlement’ was a rustic term given the reality of their modern lives, yet that was what they were. Some were the size of cities; each surrounded by a barrier that protected it from the hostile environment outside. An area directly outside Terania settlement was habitable for the moment, because it h
ad proven a close and easy location for the terraforming teams to work on, but without maintenance it would eventually revert to its prior state.
Pandora envied those who were able to leave the city and walk among the trees, smelling the scents that she knew must linger there. One day she hoped she would be able to, but for the time being, rights of access were heavily-restricted. There was nothing to stop her from looking out through the barrier, but the view might as well have been a painting or a photograph of times past. She could look, but not touch.
“One day that will change and I won’t just get to walk outside the gates. I’m going to see the world far from here, even if I have to become a Scientist to do it.”
CHAPTER THREE
Visited Dimension;
City of Derin, Loretta – 9:25 p.m.
“Let me go, you son of a bitch! Don’t you know who I am? You can’t lock me up in here.”
It sounded arrogant the way she said it. Haughty, as her aunt Katy might’ve put it, but it made her feel better yelling at her prison guards.
“I’m from a very important place and there will be hell to pay when my people come for me!”
Fat chance of that. She sighed, wishing there was someone who could come to her rescue.
Nessa had merely been enjoying the wildflowers when guards on horseback had taken her captive and one in particular – a tough-looking man named Lord Reginald – had thrown her over his horse and taken her to Derin. He was the antithesis of a dashing male. He didn’t do it because she couldn’t walk the distance – not that she wanted to, but because ‘his time was precious’. He also seemed to think it was funny.
The cell was grimy with dirty straw. It had an unpleasant damp smell that encouraged her to keep her distance. She could see through a narrow window outside her cell that night had fallen. Even that sliver of darkness strengthened her resolve that she would find her way out, and sooner rather than later. Nessa felt unclean and with the ordeal she’d been through, she felt like crushing the flower to be done with it. She knew, of course, that it wouldn’t work.
