That was something that always astounded Avery about Redemption, how green they were able to keep their parks in the middle of the desert.
Avery had been born and raised in the town of Redemption, Arizona. It was a town of about five thousand people, located in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, the kind of town with one local theater and a good thirty minute drive to the nearest mall. It was home to farmers, cowboys, and your average citizen looking to get away from the large over-populated cities. Avery always figured her parents fell into the latter category. Although, they never talked much about their past, she knew her parents hadn’t been born there. She figured they had moved from some big city to Redemption, so that her Mom could open up a small flower shop, while her Dad worked at the local bank. It didn’t matter to Avery why exactly they had moved to Redemption; she was just grateful they had. She loved everything about living in the town, the desert lightning storms, the friends she had made, the dry weather, working part time at her mom’s flower shop, even going to her out of date and poorly funded high school.
Car horns began honking as cars raced to get out of the parking lot. Avery stepped down off of the curb and onto the blacktop. She had made it half way to sanctuary when she heard someone from behind her shout, “Avy!”
There was only one person who called her by that, and Avery really did not want to have to deal with her right now. Avery steeled herself, fighting every instinct that told her to ignore the voice, knowing that if she just kept walking she would be given an earful about it tomorrow morning. So, she put on her politest smile and turned around to see Sasha Seraphina and one of her many male admirers strolling up to her.
Sasha was the kind of girl that every boy wanted and every girl wanted to be. She was tall, a good six inches taller than Avery, and pretty much all legs. Her olive skin was kept baby soft with expensive moisturizers whose names Avery couldn’t even pronounce. Sasha’s dyed copper hair was always professionally clipped and styled into a perfect pixie cut. She had chestnut eyes and brows that were sculpted into perfect arches. To complete her look, she always wore the most fashionable name-brand outfits that detailed every curve of her long body.
“Hey.” Avery replied, as Sasha and her male friend, who Avery now recognized to be Toby Burke, a Varsity wrestler, reached her.
“Hey.” Sasha said, stepping up to Avery closer than she needed to, invading Avery’s personal space so that she was now looming over her.
Avery just sighed and glanced up at Sasha with her eyes, refusing to raise her head. She knew what Sasha was doing. Avery knew she could be a pretty enough girl. She had thick, long, auburn hair that fell in unruly waves down to the small of her back and could either make Avery look like a princess when behaving itself, or a hot mess when it wasn’t. Her ivory skin gave her an ethereal glow, even though it meant she could never leave her house without applying sun-block, unless she wanted the Arizona sun to turn her redder than a cooked lobster. She had curves enough of her own, but her favorite form of attire, a pair of warn jeans and a flannel shirt didn’t exactly emphasize anything but her laid back attitude. Her deep emerald eyes were framed by dark lashes that sparkled particularly bright when she flashed her wide smile, which was often.
Sasha also knew that Avery could be a pretty enough girl, a fact that Sasha didn’t like. That was why every time they spoke Sasha always did her best to make sure the only real things Avery felt self-conscious about was in the spotlight…her height. Avery had been petite her whole life, always shorter than most of her friends, but she had continued to hold out hope for a much wanted growing spurt. However, at sixteen years of age, Avery was faced with the hard truth that she was most likely going to be stuck with her current five-foot-one height for the rest of her life. Often times, Avery wondered if she would actually be alright with her shortness, if not for friends like Sasha.
Avery pushed that thought aside and addressed the insecurity pusher, herself, “What’s up, Sash?”
Sasha stared down at her, “What are you in such a rush for?”
Had she not heard the final bell ring, Avery thought sarcastically, before saying, “I’m just in a rush to get home. You know, to food, nap, homework, and then more napping…probably in that order.” All things which you are keeping me from, Avery had to bite her tongue to stop herself from saying.
Sasha smirked, “What an exciting life you lead, Avery.”
Sasha meant it as a joke, but only partly. It had the appropriate amount of Sasha sting connected to it that Avery knew, loathed, and tolerated.
Avery raised her eyebrows and smiled back, wondering how she and Sasha had ever become friends. In fact, she knew exactly how, and it was more by force than choice. Since before Avery could walk, Avery’s parents along with Sasha, Jade Kai, Bunny Claiborne, and Skylar Bavol’s parents had gotten together and organized a play group for their children. Even now, they still did family activities, like picnics and softball matches together. They had all been forced to grow up together, and despite their strong personality differences, a strong bond had been formed between the five of them.
Sasha was really the only one Avery ever had any problems with. Since she could remember, Sasha had always loved to give her a hard time, always questioning her, poking fun, and generally agitating her. Of course, Sasha did that to almost everyone, so Avery couldn’t really complain much. Avery loved Sasha, but most of the time she just wanted to punch her in the face.
Avery decided to give it one more go before turning around to leave, “What did you want, Sasha?”
Sasha shrugged, getting to her reason for stopping Avery in a slow pristine fashion, “I just wanted to know if you and the girls were going to the party tonight?”
Avery stared; she had been allowing the heat off of the blacktop to slowly cook her alive just to be asked about the stupid party again, “Well, I’m not going, and I’m pretty sure there’s no way in hell Jade’s going, but you’ll just have to ask the others yourself, because I have no idea.”
Sasha looked at Avery the way Avery looked at one of her dogs when it deliberately disobeyed a command.
“Fine,” Sasha sighed, “go live your exciting life at home. I’ll see you later.”
With a dismissive hand wave goodbye, Sasha turned to go. Toby gave Avery a toothy smiled and winked at her before following Sasha.
Avery shook her head. That had just sealed it. This had been the absolute worst few minutes of her day. It could only go up from here.
Avery watched as Sasha and Toby piled into Sasha’s blue two-door convertible that her dad had bought her for her birthday. Those were the kind of presents you got when your dad was one of only two lawyers in the town, especially, the only one of the two who was actually any good.
Avery waved good-bye as Sasha attempted to speed out of the parking lot. Now that that interaction was thankfully over with, Avery turned around and continued to make her way out of the parking lot.
As she stepped onto the grass of the park, she was finally able to take a breath of that longed for spicy flower scent. Avery had made it, she was free, it was Friday, and she had effectively avoided Sasha peer-pressuring her into attending a party she hadn’t wanted to. Avery slipped her backpack off of her shoulder and grasped it in her right hand as she started spinning in several whirling twirls of joy, not even caring who might see her.
Teetering and almost losing her balance, Avery decided it might be a good idea to stop spinning. She had resumed walking in a straight line towards her car when something out of the corner of her eye caught her attention.
Someone was staring at her from behind one of the parks big Mahogany trees. At first, she mistook it for a child because of its size, but as she looked at it more closely, she realized it wasn’t a child at all. In fact, Avery wasn’t even sure if it was completely human. It looked almost like some sort of elf out of a children’s book.
In an attempt to hold onto reality, Avery blinked her eyes hard and shook her head. When she opened her eye
s a second later, the little creature had disappeared.
She was about to walk over to the tree and look to see if she had really seen what she thought she saw, when she re-thought the idea.
“Avery,” she told herself, aloud, “you just thought you saw some freaky little fantasy creature spying on you from behind a tree…and now you want to go and look for it?! No, no, no, no, no, no way…just go home and get some much needed sleep.”
Changing directions slightly, Avery tried to put as much distance between her and the large Mahogany tree as she possibly could. She had barely taken five steps, when the small being she had seen leapt directly out at her from behind another bulky tree.
Avery screamed at the top of her lungs and swung her backpack around in front of her to act as a barrier between her and the creature.
From close up, Avery was able to see that the little being actually resembled a man, about half her height. He had long pointy ears that somehow fit his more rounded features and a long white beard that moved up and down with every twitch of his button nose. His deep set eyes shone like two shiny sapphires behind bushy gray eyebrows and seemed to contain oceans of knowledge. His graying hair stuck out in tufts from underneath his triangular shaped gray pointy hat. He wore an oversized brown robe that fell just below his feet and would have been too long to allow him to walk if it hadn’t been held up by a weathered leather belt fastened around his waist. There were at least a dozen small pouches attached to the leather belt, along with a very small dagger looped through it, which is what Avery was keeping her eyes on at the moment.
“Oh, for Great Wizarding sake!” the little man spit out in a gravelly voice that Avery found impressively deep for such a little body, “There is no need to cause a scene with your screaming. I’ve been waiting for you for over an hour.”
Avery stared hard at the little man for a long while, still holding up her backpack between them as a shield. She was trying to regain some focus through her confusion and make sense of what he had just said.
“Are…um…are you talking to me?” She asked in a shaky little voice. It was the only question her mind would form at the moment.
A look Avery could only make out as disgust flashed across Gumptin’s face, “Of course I am talking to you,” he answered brusquely, “do you see anyone else around?”
Even through the insanity of the situation, Avery couldn’t help but think the little man rude, which was actually a good thing since it helped to chase away some of her fear and replace it with annoyance.
Swallowing hard, Avery placed her backpack back over her shoulder, “Well, no, but I…I don’t usually have elves jump out at me from behind trees and start talking to me.”
The man frowned as if Avery had said something offensive, “I am not an elf; I am a gnome. There is a big difference.”
Avery’s mouth fell open in shock. Out of all the necessary information she needed from him to make sense out of what was going on, that seemed the most trivial.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Gnome,” Avery said sarcastically, still desperately trying to understand what was going on, “my mistake. Now, why don’t you tell me who exactly you are, what you’re doing here, and why you’re talking to me?”
The small man cleared his throat, “My name is Gumptin; I am a Wizard, a forest gnome, and a trainer of extraordinary beings. You and I already know each other.” Gumptin looked at Avery, a lilt of melancholy in his eyes, “Unfortunately, you will not remember knowing me, or even who you are for that matter.”
“Ok.” Avery’s mind seemed to have gone blank. She was seriously starting to believe that she may have inhaled too much car exhaust from the student parking lot and was now hallucinating, “So, you’re saying we already know each other; I just don’t ever remember meeting you or know myself?”
“Exactly!” Gumptin grinned and clapped his hands, happy Avery was following him, “But, there is so much more that needs to be explained; this just is not the place to do it. Come with me and I will show you everything you need to know.”
“Right,” Avery said, nodding her head up and down vigorously, “that sounds like a great idea, Gumptin the gnome, but I think I’m gonna pass on that for now. Nice meeting you, though.”
Avery wanted to run away as fast as her legs could take her, but she fought the urge and calmly turned around, securing her backpack on both shoulders, making it easier to run that way if needed. She started to slowly walk away from the Gumptin, heading back towards the school.
“Wait!” Gumptin shouted anxiously, “Wait, you cannot leave!”
Avery started to slowly pick up her pace as she heard Gumptin attempt to follow her.
“The insane little man is chasing me! The insane little man is chasing me!” Avery chanted to herself, trying to remain calm, “Just keep on running; it’ll be alright; he’s got little legs; you can outrun him!”
She was right. Gumptin’s little legs could not move very fast and he quickly gave up the chase.
“You cannot run from who you are, Avery!” Gumptin shouted after her, in a last attempt before she got away, “It is your destiny! You are a Protector!”
With those words Avery stopped dead in her tracks. Besides the fact that she had never told Gumptin her name, there was something in the way that he said it that made her turn back around and face him. There was something so familiar about it, as if she had heard him say it before. Of course, she knew that wasn‘t possible. Avery was sure she wouldn’t have forgotten meeting a two and a half foot gnome, but then there was that word…Protector. It had stirred something deep inside of Avery; something scratching on the very edges of her mind, begging to be remembered and released.
Gumptin was still breathing heavy from his very short run as he approached her, “I am glad you came to your senses.” He puffed, “Now, are you ready to go?”
“Gumptin,” Avery gaped at him, “I stopped running, that doesn’t mean I’m going to go anywhere with you.” Avery was still very cautious. Just because a certain word, and Gumptin saying her name sounded familiar, didn’t mean she was ready to listen to anything he said, “You could be a psycho!”
Gumptin either didn’t hear Avery or ignored her, because he began to walk towards a grove of trees near the center of the park.
“This way.” He motioned for Avery to follow him.
Reluctantly and against her better judgment she followed Gumptin. After all, they were still in the open space of a large park, and she was twice the size of Gumptin; what could possibly happen?
“Fine,” Avery shouted towards him, “but I’m not getting into any cars or confined spaces with you!”
Gumptin stopped in between two massive Beech trees and swung his head around to make sure they were alone. Avery stopped behind him, wondering what the difference was from this spot compared to where they had just been standing. Avery sighed and shifted her weight from one foot to another, thinking maybe Gumptin was just crazy after all, and she was even crazier for following him.
Just as Avery was about to speak up and say something, Gumptin waved his right hand in the air and said the words, “Ora Gateway.”
Now, Avery was sure he was crazy, but before she could tell him this she was distracted by a movement from between the trees. It started out as a slight swirling, which for a moment Avery thought could be the wind, but then the swirling came in bigger and faster circles, widening in circumference. Within seconds, the churning stopped and Avery was staring at what looked like a circular pool of water standing up-right in mid-air.
Avery didn’t realize she had stopped breathing, until her body forced her to take a large gulp of air just to stop her from fainting.
“What…what did you just do?” She stammered, pointing at the liquid-like circle.
“This,” Gumptin said, pointing towards the floating pool, “is the Ora Gateway, and I just opened it. It is the gateway to Orcatia, the planet you come from. Well, the first planet you come from, anyway.” Gumptin shrugged his shoulders, �
�After all, you were born on Earth as well.”
The World started spinning inside Avery’s head; she stood frozen, just staring at Gumptin. There was no way she should believe what he was saying, but at the same time there was a magic gateway floating a foot in front of her.
“Alright,” Gumptin told Avery matter-of-factly, “walk into it.”
It was those words that knocked Avery out of her frozen trance. She began laughing, a small giggle that got bigger the more she thought about what Gumptin had just told her to do.
“If you think for one second that I’m going to walk through that enchanted puddle, then you really are nuts.” Avery told him, her laughter dying down.
Gumptin sighed and Avery could tell he was losing his patience, “I need to explain something to you, Avery. This is going to be hard for you to hear, but I need you to understand that you are a Protector. It is not a choice, it is your destiny.” Gumptin said seriously, “Protectors were created to fight the evil that not only threatens to take over Orcatia, but the whole Universe. You were born on the planet of Orcatia and you lived there and served as a Protector for sixteen years…until you were killed.”
Avery opened her mouth to tell Gumptin again how insane he was, but Gumptin held up his hand to silence her. She obeyed, more because she was entranced by his story than out of obedience to him.
“You were killed,” Gumptin continued, “and then magic was used to send you to Earth, so that you could be re-born. Then, when you reached the age you were when you died, I would come to bring you back.”
Avery placed her hands over her eyes and shook her head, trying to wipe away what Gumptin was saying. Avery wasn’t sure if it was coming from her head, heart, or soul, but a very small part of her was confirming Gumptin’s words as truth. His words were sparking something inside of Avery’s brain, like a memory she knew she should have, but didn’t. It felt like Gumptin was picking at a giant scab covering her mind. Avery didn’t care that a part of her felt the truth in Gumptin’s words; right now, she was just telling that part to shut up and keep quiet.
The Protectors: Book 1 in the Protectors Saga Page 4
