Ravenwild: Book 01 - Ravenwild (8 page)

“My goodness,” she thought. They hadn’t even discussed where they wanted to go. Or when in time they wanted to emerge from the travel transducer, or whatever it was called, to explore the world as it was then. At the time of the dinosaurs, at the time of Ancient Egypt and the construction of the Great Pyramids, at the time of the Revolutionary War and the founding of the nation.

And hadn’t he said that the length of stay on this one journey didn’t matter in their time frame? Like you could stay for thirty years, and he would make it like two seconds in the here and now? Yes. She was sure he had said that. She couldn’t wait. And even if her mother and father chose to tell him they could not do this thing, they would still have had the fantasy travel experience of a lifetime.

Any place.

Any time.

For as long as they wanted.

Wow.

She was fifteen now, and beautifully developed as a young lady with an athletic frame. She was blonde. She was stunningly beautiful, and like most stunningly beautiful young people, she would never let you know that she knew it. Her ears were kind of pointy, as were those of her brother and sister, both towheads as well, but all had let their hair grow to cover them, and the grade-school teasing that they had all gone through was a thing of the distant past.

She was sure Jacqueline would go with her mother and father. Orie, she was unsure of.

Would they all choose to go together? It could last for as long as you wanted, and if they were ever in danger, Hemlock would be there to pull them out, and they would all hook up again as a family. What about the time of the ancient Greeks? Could she ask to be a ruling princess? Was that part of the deal? It was all too much to think about. It was too unreal, yet … somehow … real. If he could transport them to any place, any time, he had to be telling the truth. Or did he?

She got up feeling thirsty. She noticed it was a beautiful night, warm, with a light breeze, the kind of breeze that gives you a perfectly sweet caress for just a moment and then flits on its way, off to please another. She decided a glass of water might be nice, and as long as she was up she might as well go to the bathroom. She went to turn on the light, but changed her mind because she had enough moon lighting her way.

In two more steps she saw him.

It was a boy, who looked to be about fifteen or sixteen. He was smiling and did not appear threatening in any way, leaning back with his arms folded against a stuffed chair in the study. He was wearing jeans and a button down light blue Oxford shirt. On his feet he wore new Nike black hightops.

He spoke first. “Stephanie, I didn’t mean to frighten you. My name is Erik. Erik Elijah Fairman. Hemlock has sent me. He knew we would get along. Or at least he thought we would. Could I get a glass of water please?”

She stood, frozen. This was all too strange. Still, he certainly seemed real enough and nice enough. And yes, he was definitely, positively, standing right there … and smiling … and decidedly handsome. His hair was blonde, matching hers almost, shoulder length and pulled back in a ponytail.

She unfroze in a rush of faith the way only young people can do. She decided all at once, right then and there in an instant’s time, that she was going to go for this. And that there was no question that this Hemlock Simpleton guy, wizard, whatever, was absolutely real, that the possibilities for unbelievable fun were infinite, and that this guy seemed sweet, standing there stupidly smiling. But it seemed like such a warm, engaging smile. And she thought she could read sincerity in his eyes, which she found somehow reassuring.

“Oh … sure … I guess … regular water? Or a glass of water with ice?”

“Just a glass of water, if that would be okay. And if you wanted to add some ice, that would be superb. But just a glass of water would be great. You know that the water that comes out of your tap is genuine aquifer water, the purest water on your planet. It’s thousands of years old and flows in a vast chain of rivers underground. Good stuff.” He smiled again and took a large drink, smacking his lips in an almost polite way, and ending with the perfect, “Ahhh …”

“Yeah, my father goes on and on about the ultimate coolness of our water all the time, but I noticed you said, ‘Your planet’? I gather from that, that you are not from this one?”

“Correct.”

“Oh this is all too unbelievable,” she said, as she eased herself onto a bench under a partially filled coat rack in the hall. He was now standing directly in front of her.

She suddenly felt the effect of it being 3:00 a.m. She hadn’t slept a wink. Or had she? Well, maybe a wink, but, boy, was she suddenly tired. She needed to lie down. She laid her head back against the wall and closed her eyes.

“Stephanie, here. Take my hand.”

She didn’t know why she did it, but she did. What the heck. She opened her eyes and reached out her hand, taking his. It was warm, but definitely not soft. It was the hand of a boy who was no stranger to hard work. It felt right. And as she began to loll her head back ever so slightly, thinking, “He might even go for a kiss …” she was jolted with a surge of energy that was almost overpowering. Gone was the fuzziness of her mind. Gone was the desire to sleep. She was suddenly razor sharp, the kind of razor sharp that you are right before the tip-off in the championship basketball game. But it was way more than that. She wanted to
do
something! Something, something adventurous, involving castles and warriors and cool clothes, but had no idea where she had gotten the energy necessary to do it.

She looked him in the eye, an arm’s length away and holding her hands in his, both of them now. She didn’t remember how it had changed to both of them, but it felt better. He leaned in towards her. She stood and broke from his grasp. “What shall we do, what shall we do? You know, I have to tell you that when I took your hand, I got totally charged with some sort of amazing energy. Would you know about that?”

“I would.”

“Hemlock?”

“Yes.”

“So, you are Erik, and you are not from this planet, yet here you are standing right in front of me at the bequest of our mutual acquaintance, Hemlock, and for what purpose? What did you say your last name was again?”

“Can we sit down, perhaps on the couch in the basement? I have come from very far away and some of the energy I gave to you has made me wish to sit. Would that be okay?”

“Sure, follow me.”

Down the stairs they went. She realized that this would mean that she would be entirely alone with this handsome young stranger who called himself Erik, but she found she was absolutely not afraid. This was all too unbelievable to not be true. She laughed a little when she thought this. It seemed like a paradox or something. She would have to ask her dad. He was the best with words.

They reached the basement. It had recently been completely done over by Dad and his best friend, Jack. It was roughly twelve by sixteen feet of pure white plaster. The end wall was dominated by a 62 inch high-definition TV, complete with all the gizmos for games, digital recording, and the like.

“Could you please turn on the TV?”

“Sure, what station?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Hmmm.”

She picked up the remote and pressed the buttons to call up the TV. As it warmed up she repeated her question. “What is your last name, Erik?”

Hemlock’s image filled the screen. There was no background, only Hemlock, dressed in his simplest wizard robe and holding a beautiful scepter.

“My good child. I see you and Erik have met. Wonderful. Might I suggest he and you take a short while and visit his place of origin? I promise you it will be completely safe. I think you will love it. Best of all, there is no long walk involved.

“Stephanie, I was there with you 5 years ago when your basketball team won the championship even though you had to go through the loser’s round because you dropped the first game to Lisbon. I have been with you, and your sister and brother, for pretty much every moment of each of your lives. I was there when each of you was born.”

“Well, let me ask you this, if you can do all of this, how come you didn’t turn on the TV yourself? Why make me do it?”

At this point the TV turned itself off, and Hemlock was standing directly in front of her. She was so surprised she lost her balance and ended up sitting in one of the chairs.

He took a seat on one of the couches. He was as wizardly looking as anything she had ever seen, as good as Professor Dumbledore in the
Harry Potter
series, maybe even better. His face, looking somehow older than she remembered it, seemed ablaze with a look of power. He also looked troubled. He sifted some sand from his fingers. On the way to the floor it dissolved into tiny, multicolored bursts of light that circled back as perfect, oscillating little spheres, only to disappear. A bioluminescent cat appeared holographically out of one wall and walked across the room, disappearing into the far one.

“Can you have me back before sunrise?”

“My dear, I can have you back in the time it takes to take one breath. It’s the way it works.”

“And how long did you say we could be gone?”

“You could be gone a lifetime if you chose, or a day or two, or fifteen minutes. Your choice.”

“And, gone for an entire lifetime, I would still be able to return to right here, right now?”

“Not only could you, that precise end-point, ‘right here right now’ as you put it, is guaranteed. It could not be otherwise. No matter how long you choose to stay, at the end of it you will be right upstairs, sleeping as you were the last time you fell asleep, just one breath removed from when you left.”

“Oh my,” was all Stephanie could manage. This was more than a little overwhelming.

Erik sat with his hands folded.

“Can I wait until everyone else is up and introduce Erik, and then decide to visit his land, or his planet, or whatever? Besides, maybe Jacqueline or Orie might like to go. Or Mom. Or Dad. Or all of us.”

“Of course you can,” said Hemlock. “As I explained earlier, the only purpose behind the exercises in space-time travel that we do right now is to convince you that
all of this is real
, that I am real, that my need is real. That is the whole point. If you go, you will be gone for one breath, no matter the length of your stay in the other place. Say the words, ‘I want to go home. I want to go home. I want to go home,’ out loud, and you will be right back here.”

“So even if I were gone for an entire lifetime on Erik’s planet, I would be right back here by saying, ‘I want to go home,’ three times?”

“Correct.”

“So how would my being away for an entire lifetime affect your getting the cure for whatever it is that’s making your people sterile? Don’t you need to get this cure to them as soon as possible?”

“Stephanie, you amaze me, but no. You see, the only time slipping away while I am here is Earth time, to which I have converted. It’s necessary to do this in order to make the travel to the here and now even possible in the first place. I know what you’re saying. The theory would be, the longer I’m gone, the closer my people get to the reality of extinction, but like you visiting Erik should you choose to do so, the amount of time I will have been away when I finally return to
my
home will be the time it takes to breathe one breath. The math is somewhat complex, but true. And tested.”

He sifted some more sand. This turned into a small, rainbow-colored waterfall that bounced off of the floor in a dazzling array of lights. He looked away, fixing his gaze on the stars outside of the basement window.

“It’s like this,” he continued. “Everybody on every planet I visit looks out at the stars and thinks, ‘There has to be intelligent life out there.’ But the mathematics dictate, and you Earth Humans won’t discover this for several millenniums, that the ‘out there,’ you know, the place where these other intelligent life forms live, is actually right beside this one, separated by only slight mirrors, really. Mathematical mirrors, if you will, that not only predict that these separate and distinct realities coexist in time, but prove they are separated by no more than the inversion of a fraction. Life, then, other intelligent life, is not ‘out there,’ it’s right beside you. Always has been, always will be.”