Banished To Earth Book Two Souls Adrift, Revision (25)

“There are roots, and then there are roots.”

 

  “We’re not talking natural roots, are we?” Davin stepped back, admiring the playful living light show.

 

   “Not, as you define natural.”

 

   “Let me guess, multi-verses?” Tucker said.

 

   “A clumsy description, but crudely accurate. Leave the oak and look up.”

 

   “A blue tornado?” 

 

   “What a lovely image, but no. Tornados destroy, Davin.”

 

    With that, they carefully stepped between the roots until they were finally standing in the fields' ankle-deep grass.

 

  A faint blue haze lingered and gently undulated over the great oak. Narrowing toward the sky, it reopened as a rhythmically pulsating tunnel of translucent blue that literally pierced the sky. The more they looked, the more they saw.

 

   Circles within circles, windows within windows, directly above, like an infinity box, except it was cylinders telescoping into forever. Worlds, Earths, other Earths, linked like pearls on a string, disappearing but not from reality, just from the little eyes of mortal men. And the oaks, living, breathing gateways, and a knife pushed through the heart of the Transit Realm, a portal they did not open and could not close.

 

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   “Oh.” Was Davin’s first response. “Wow, that’s, that’s something.”

 

   “No. Everything,” Sava replied, as he fluttered up to Davin. “And, thanks to Beth, a haven. This farm, all its fields and woods, rest secure from the so-called authority’s power beneath the umbrella of the oak.”

 

  “You mean nothing can get through?” Silhouette asked.

 

   Sava sighed. “Three things are here. One in the shack, one in the house and one in the sea, yet all in you.”  He was looking deeply into Davin’s eyes when he said ‘you’. 

 

    “Three?” Davin’s question hung in the air like a cloud of noxious gas. He turned toward the house and steeled himself for the next question. “The thing in the house is not a thing. Is it?”

   Sava fluttered up to Davin and settled on his shoulder. “You know the name.”

   “Chase Gillette,” Davin grunted. “It’s in the bedroom. And his Mother is in the shack.”

  “Yes, the shack. She is trapped there.”

   He turned toward the tangled curtain of trees and thorn-fringed vines, “She did not die there.”

    “No, she did not,” but her son did.”

    Greyness was creeping toward them. Noticing it, the Hunter turned his face toward Sava. “You know so much, know what I should do next.”

   “Simply know that you and yours are safe for now. For as long as you can smell, what did you call it, oh yes, hot chocolate. The oak protects you. Unfortunately, most of your answers lie far beyond the oak’s sweet fragrance.”

  “But Chase is here.”

   “Yes. Light as your shadow and just as near. But when he grows heavy, you must be ready.”

 “And how do I do that?”

  “This, I do not know.”

 

 

  Chapter 55

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     It didn’t take long for them to get used to the blue nights. It meant they were safe. That and the faint, wonderful scent of hot chocolate that lay over the farm like an actual security blanket should have made for peaceful nights. And for the most part, they did.

   Two weeks had passed since Nikki’s last fairy nightmare. And when Beth gently suggested to her that they should visit the fairy tree, Nikki’s eagerness to go surprised them. But Sava did say she was a strong child. Of course, they already knew that.

   If only Sava didn’t speak to him as if you knew more than he could remember. It was quite annoying. He could only surmise it was his way of sharpening his mind and igniting a spark of ancient knowledge or wisdom lost to him through time and fear.

   He and Pry were still trying to adjust to their overly lit bedroom. Lamps now sat in every corner, squeezing the darkness into the only place it could not reach, under his bed. It was like trying to find sleep beneath the harsh glare of an interrogation lamp. But they were willing to do whatever it took to ward off shadows.

     Chase Gillette hid there in the shadows, grew, and waited there. It never occurred to them that the harsh light was only intensifying the darkness dwelling beneath them, the very thing he needed…

     It eventually occurred to Davin that his shark-man nightmare might not have been a dream at all.  It was real enough to trigger his transformation, real enough to teleport him into the shack and real enough to reveal the pitiful phantom remnant of the woman he once called Mama.

   Maybe he could use it, channel it. Construct a dreamscape and beat Stayner at his own game.  And if Chase was also trying to wriggle into his world from whatever purgatory hell scape that had so far kept him at bay, it could be possible to draw him in as well, trap and confront them there.

  Confront? And what would that entail? A battle, certainly, fang and fur, but will and… love?

    Hate ran deep in them both. But love? An unborn child’s love of life he never tasted, and a mother’s love for her unborn child.

    Was this a battle plan? Or a suicide mission, or maybe something good, something deeply humane? If reuniting Chase and Mabel would appease them, then he would only have Stayner to deal with.

    Whatever it was, was it better than doing nothing, waiting for something nasty and unbeatable to break through, and hope they could fend it off?

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      He had yet to decide. Any mistake or miscalculation would not only cost him his life but also put Pry and the others in terrible danger…