I wondered if Teddy and his Whistle Pig friends were under our feet right now building tunnels and magic circles to bring us down into the cozy underground homes they created for themselves and their cousins, the Ginete.

  Pita and his four brothers, along with the Whistle Pigs, had housed and cared for us when we were fighting Abbadon’s monsters. They were instrumental in defeating the Shrieks and Shatterskin, but not as fighters. Instead, the Ginete and Whistle Pigs are a cross between the Red Cross, faith ministers, and scientists, which made them invaluable in our battle with Abbadon’s monsters. They supported and healed us while making the technology that enabled us to defeat the Shatterskin and his minions, the Shrieks.

  Teddy reminded me of a big teddy bear, with two big front teeth. That could have been scary, but his kind nature and habit of calling me funny names made him one of the warmest beings I had ever met.

  When I had first met the Ginete, I was torn between thinking they were adorable with their big heads and huge golden eyes, and afraid of them because they were so serious. But it turned out that Pita and his brothers were not only brilliant, and the holders of the many magical secrets, but lovers of laughing.

  Pita laughed holding his ears. I have no idea why, but I loved the picture of it. He could always get me going. When I learned that his mother named the five of them, Pita, Tita, Bita, Lita, and Sam, we both laughed so hard I felt like holding my ears too. I had told Pita I wanted to meet the mother who had to name her last son Sam because she couldn’t think of another four-letter name that rhymed with Pita. I hadn’t met her yet. Maybe one day soon.

  “Are more people meeting us as we go along?” I casually threw into the conversation when we stopped for lunch.

  “What people?” Cil asked, looking at me over the flower sandwich she was eating. At least it looked like a flower sandwich. However, the fact that there also appeared to be something wiggling inside of it made me glance away. Fairies are sweet looking, but don’t piss one off.

  I’ve been at the receiving end of Pris’s little battering fists which can really hurt. She had other ways to punish, too. More than once, Pris has shunned me because I said the wrong thing, or asked the wrong question.

  When the three of them would go off on their own at night while we were staying underground, and I had asked them what they were doing, Pris stopped talking to me. She said that it was because I didn’t trust them.

  That wasn’t it at all. I am just perpetually curious. On the other hand, I can be controlling too. I know that about myself. It doesn’t mean that I like to be that way. I’m trying to let that part of my personality go. However, I admit that being controlling was what I was doing with that question, and I hadn’t fooled Pris one bit.

  It turned out that the three of them had been rounding up some weird brown insect friends of theirs who ate the remaining green globs, removing the Shrieks from the landscape forever.

  I had apologized over and over again, and supposedly was forgiven, but I have been worried ever since that Pris is still slightly miffed at me. I don’t want to get my head pounded again or lose her to one of her pouting sessions.

  The problem is, the Priscillas read my mind. Well, everyone does. Read minds that is. So learning to keep my mind closed to unwanted peeking was a skill I was still learning. I had learned that there were channels, and I could close one, and open others. I always left the common channel that Professor Link communicated to the team on, just in case, but so far that had been silent for two months.

  So Cil’s innocent question, “What people?” was a landmine question. I decided to play it safe and ask if I would see Zeid soon. I thought they would understand why I asked that. After all, he was my fiancée or betrothed. Shouldn’t I know where he was?

  Pris answered the question, “No.”

  “No, what?” I know, perhaps I shouldn’t have asked again. It was chancy to open my mouth since it was Pris who had said, “No.”

  “Zounds,” Pris said wrinkling her pretty forehead which made the tiny star mark that lived there shrivel up into a dot, “Can’t you just let things play out? Do you have to know everything? Why not just enjoy the walk to Kinver with us?”

  It was La who came to my rescue. She rarely stood up to her big sister, but this time she did. “Why not let her know something?” she asked.

  We all waited. Even Cahir waited. Would Pris tell me, or twist my hair, or pull Cahir’s ears, or fly off in a pout?

  Pris didn’t do any of those things. Instead, she started laughing and did a little jig on my head. Stepping off my head so that she was flying directly in front of my face, she tweaked my nose and said, “Yes. There are some of our friends waiting for us at the village of Kinver.”

  When I started to ask who they were, she held up her hand. “No more questions. I don’t care how curious you are. I’m not telling.”

  I smiled at Pris and said, “Thank you,” but that didn’t stop me from being so curious I thought I would burst. Who was going to be there? If not Zeid, who?

  Ten

  The overwhelming urge to continue to harass my friends for more information started to fade as the day wore on. Even the most controlling person–not saying that’s me—can be soothed by nature’s beauty, and this was a day no one would be able to resist.

  It was one of those beautiful late spring days when everything is perfect, and all five senses are on high alert. The air was sweet with the scent of the flowers growing by the stream’s edge and scattered through the woods. Leaves rustled in the wind. The sun was warm, but not hot. The birds were singing. Fluffy white clouds dotted the sky. And the stream made beautiful music as it flowed over the rocks.

  In Erda, water doesn’t get polluted through manufacturing or sewer runoff. There is no plastic, and every container is biodegradable. In many ways, the dimension of Erda is perfect. The only thing that marred its perfection was Abbadon. But I had decided not to think about him for the rest of the day. There would be plenty of time to do so once we got to Kinver.

  As we sat on rocks eating lunch, I finally got around to asking a question that had been rolling around in my head from the moment I came through the portal and a rock was right where I wanted to sit. It happened all the time. It had just happened. We were sitting on rocks that I hadn’t noticed were there before we needed to rest. Then they somehow moved to where we could use them. I was learning that the trees were sentient beings. Were rocks?

  The Priscillas were sunning themselves on a nearby rock when I asked the question.

  “These rocks are here because we needed to sit on them, or in your case, lie on them, aren’t they?” I asked.

  “Did you just notice, or are you just getting around to asking the question?” La asked.

  “Just getting around to the question.”

  “Okay. Then we have a question for you,” La said, waving her free hand around to include her sisters, the other hand occupied with holding what looked like a chipmunk’s tail. Was she trying to distract me? Where did that chipmunk come from, and why was she holding its tail?

  When I realized that I was so distracted I couldn’t remember what the question was in the first place, I dragged my attention back to La, trying to forget about the tail holding.

  Finally, I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Why are you holding that chipmunk’s tail, assuming it’s a chipmunk?”

  “Oh, it is,” La laughed. “We’re friends. Watch.”

  At which point La jumped on the chipmunk’s back and rode him up and down beside the stream. I couldn’t help myself. I giggled. It was so zonking cute! When La got bored, or perhaps it was the chipmunk who got bored, she hopped off, kissed him on the nose, and settled back down beside her sisters on the rock.

  “Good grief,” I said. “Are you going to answer my question or not?”

  “Which question is that?” La asked, acting all innocent.

  I threw up my hands in exacerbation. “Rocks. Are they sentient?”

  “And I ask you, Hannah aka Princess Kara Beth, did you or did you not just see me ride a chipmunk?”

  “Did.”

  “So you accept that there are fairies riding chipmunks, a pileated dragon who is actually your friend Suzanne, trees that bend and move and know your thoughts, green blobs that shriek, and yet, you question if a rock is a sentient being?”

  That was the most I had ever heard La talk. Ever. Being the youngest and smallest sister, I guess I had thought of her as a child. But what did I know of fairies? Or rocks?

  “Stone people. They are called stone people,” La continued. “They hold the records of the history of the planet, Gaia, in both Earth and Erda dimensions. Well, in all its dimensions because I am sure you know there are more.

  “However, in Erda, as you know, we see these things where other dimensions may not. Like in the Earth Realm, where what you see and accept here is most often thought of as myth. In Erda we see, and honor, the intertwining of all life. We know that we are all One Life.”

  When the implications of what La had just said hit me, I jumped up off the rock. “I’m sitting on a person? A stone person? Is that okay with this rock or stone?”

  “Hannah, you can be so ridiculous sometimes. Of course, you can. You climb trees. They love hosting you when you visit them that way. Rocks love providing you what you need too, even if it is just a place for you to sit,” Pris said, standing there on her rock with her arms folded, tapping her feet, looking at me like I was an idiot.

  Embarrassed, I lowered myself back down and patted the rock for good measure. “So, I could ask this rock anything about the history of Gaia, and it would answer me?”

  “Of course. But you won’t understand a word it says, right now,” Pris responded.

  “Will I ever?” I asked.

  “And that is a question I think we’ll leave unanswered for now,” Pris said hopping up onto my shoulder. “We best be getting a move on if we want to reach Kinver before dark.”

  As we walked, I pondered the implications of what the Priscillas had told me. I was stepping on rocks. Rocks, trees, nature was all around me. I lived within it. If everything was speaking, then it was possible that someday I might hear what they were saying.

  “Well, you hear me,” Cahir said. “I believe you will hear what you need when it is time, Kara Beth.”

  I reached down and ran my hand through Cahir’s fur and silently thanked him. I swear I saw him give me the smallest of smiles.

  I knew that I would look back on it and remember it as one of those perfect days that gets frozen in time. I will remember the feeling of the day. I will see myself with my hand on Cahir, and the Priscillas flitting around us, resting on me, and then skimming across the water, just dragging their toes in enough to make a trail. I would remember how Lady looked flying overhead, backlit by the sun, looking more like an angel than a dragon.

  It was a perfect day. I knew it was probably going to be the last utterly perfect day for a long time.

  Eleven

  We reached the outskirts of Kinver at twilight, the time of transition. It seemed appropriate. I was transitioning between training alone to gathering a team to deal with Abbadon’s latest horror creation.

  I remembered the first time I saw Beru’s village. It looked so quiet and peaceful, the perfect small town, and yet there had been two groups of people standing in the street arguing.

  One group believed what Beru and Ruta had told them, that there a monster named Abbadon who was bent on destroying all life. The other group thought it was fake news and were angry at Beru and Ruta for trying to scare them.

  After Niko, my training instructor, told them what he had seen, and I had proved that I was their Princess Kara Beth by shooting lightning bolts from my hands, the village accepted that Beru had been telling the truth.

  Five men from Kinver volunteered to come with us. Only four had returned. Perhaps it was a consolation to Kit’s family that he had helped to stop the Shrieks and Shatterskin from destroying more towns and villages. I could only hope that was true.

  One village Kit had helped save was his own. Kinver was still as charming as I remembered, a small town nestled in a valley, with gardens in every yard.

  Last time we were here, the gardens were bare. Now, as I descended into the village, I could see flowers blooming, and sprouts appearing in the vegetable gardens. Beru’s people loved to garden, and the results were spectacular. Plus, what they did with the food they grew was mouthwatering.

  Lady remained overhead, Cahir had already slipped into the fields, and the Priscillas had flown ahead. I thought that perhaps it was to let people know I was coming. So, I was alone as I walked the road into town.

  The first person I saw was Liza, James’ daughter. She was running full tilt down the road to me. I wanted to pick her up and spin her around, but in the short time since I had seen her, I swear she had grown six inches. Instead, I bent down and gathered her into my arms.

  No words were needed. I was grateful for Liza’s gift of the star necklace, and she was thankful that her father had returned safely. We unwound ourselves, each brushing tears away as if they never happened. Liza linked arms with me and chattered the whole way into town.

  Yes, they knew I was coming. A big feast had been prepared. Yes, a few friends were waiting for me. Yes, she was happy that the star that showed me a 4D version of the world had been so helpful.

  “Liza, do you want the star back? I can see it sometimes on my own,” I said, when she mentioned the star.

  We had almost reached the first home and people were starting to step out of their doors to wave at me.

  “No. I don’t need it anymore. And until I am old enough to travel with you, or that mean man is gone, you need it. It will show you what you need to know.”

  “It would be my honor, Liza. And someday we’ll do a walkabout together, and you can show me the world as you see it.”

  “Yes!” Liza exclaimed clapping her hands together, and then she grabbed my hands and started pulling me towards the town hall. “Come on. They are waiting for you!”

  We started running together, saying hello to everyone in the streets, heading for who knows what. But with someone like Liza on our side I couldn’t see how we could fail.

  Well, I couldn’t allow myself to see failure. As we ran, I promised myself once again that I would keep her and her people safe. Somehow.

  *******

  I thought that I was prepared to see everyone, but when the door of the town hall opened, I almost fell to my knees in shock. Was everyone in the village here?

  “Everyone except who is behind you,” Liza said. It was only later that I realized that Liza had read my mind. I turned to see that all the people who had waved to us as we came through the streets were now standing behind us.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Berta and the Priscillas planned it, or at least they let us know you were coming so we could get ready,” Liza whispered.

  In the back of my mind, I realized that Berta and the Priscillas had probably been working together for a while. But at that moment all I could do was stand there in amazement. I wasn’t even aware that tears were running down my face until Pris came over and dabbed my face with a cloth.

  Standing in front of the group were the four men from Kinver who had traveled with us to defeat Shatterskin: James, his brother John, Thomas, and Mark. I ran to each of them preparing to shake hands, but instead was pulled into a hug by James, and then a group hug. They circled me as I sobbed. Once I recovered, I noticed that they each had an armband on that said “Kit.” They had one for me, and I slipped it on.

  “Come on, Hannah, let’s celebrate. The village has been preparing this feast for days,” James said, slipping one arm around my shoulders and holding Liza’s hand with the other.

  I smiled at James. He had remembered that I wanted a place where I could be just “Hannah,” the girl I remembered being who had lived in the Earth dimension. I never wanted to lose that girl who loved unconditionally and knew the love of her family and friends.

  James had promised me that Kinver would always be the place I could come to and not be royalty. He had told me I would always be like his daughter, and a father like James was just what I needed at that moment.

  It took quite a while to get to the food because I insisted on stopping and thanking as many people as possible for their hospitality. I was aware that I hadn’t protected Kit. I didn’t get him home as I had promised, so their gratitude was almost too much for me.

  Killing the Shrieks and Shatterskin had not made me feel bad. They weren’t alive. They were machines driven by Abbadon. But Kit’s death and one of the dragon’s death had been weighing on me since the moment I had heard about them. I had to keep myself from saying, “If only,” and letting that drag me down into one of my famous, but not loved, pity parties. It didn’t stop me from having nightmares though.

  Finally, Liza tired of the constant hugging and shaking hands grabbed me and said, “Come on, Hannah. I’m famished. Let’s get food.”

  Something about her tone made me wonder what she was really up to, but I followed her through the crowd to the back of the room, wondering even more what was going on as the crowd kept stepping back to let us through.

  I thought that I had done enough crying for the day, but when I saw who was standing there waiting for me, I couldn’t help myself. I burst into tears and started running.

  Twelve

  Standing there waiting for me as if it was the most natural thing in the world were the same two people who were waiting for me when I fell through the portal into Erda: Beru and Ruta. I hadn’t known them then, but now I did. Knew them. Loved them.