Aerenden The Child Returns Read online

  She pushed from Nick’s arms. “They were dreams, and I refuse to let you use them to convince me your delusion is real.”

  “Then why are you holding the necklace from your dreams in your hand?”

  “Dreams use memories from our subconscious. I remember Mom wearing it from when I was a kid. That’s all.”

  “And the Mardróch? How can you explain them? They’re not from this world either.”

  “They could have been from a military or science experiment.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Or you could have drugged me. I still think that’s the most likely scenario.”

  “So it’s easier to believe I’m a psychopath or creatures escaped from some sci-fi experiment than it is to believe the truth?”

  “That I’m from another world that can’t exist? Yes.” She tossed the necklace aside. It landed with a thud on the ground, then skidded a short distance, leaving a groove in the dirt. “It’s a trinket. It proves nothing.”

  “It’s not a trinket.” Nick retrieved the amulet from the ground, dusting it off before pressing it back into her palm. “Our world does exist and it’s similar to Earth in a lot of ways. But where you have technology, we have powers. The people of Earth can’t visit our world, but we can travel here. We use portals. When you were a child, Vivian used one to save your life.”

  Nick tightened his fingers over Meaghan’s, forcing her to hold the amulet. “This is an heirloom. It’s been in your family for a thousand years. It holds the emotional energy of your ancestors, and like them, you have magic. You may not like it, but it doesn’t change the truth. Your Empath power should allow you to sense the emotions in the necklace.”

  “Forget it,” she snapped, yanking her hand from his to free it. “I won’t play your game any longer. If you want to kill me then do it. Otherwise, I’m leaving.”

  She stood her ground, expecting Nick to argue further, but he nodded instead. Retreating to the blanket, he dropped his head into his hands, and she saw her chance. She ran for the door, freezing halfway when sorrow washed over her. It overwhelmed her, stalling the breath in her lungs in the same way it stalled her legs.

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Viv,” Nick whispered behind her.

  The sorrow swelled. Nick no longer blocked her, and even though Meaghan could not see him, she could feel him. It made no sense, but in the intensity of his emotion, she knew the truth. She also realized that whatever power she owned was growing stronger.

  She looked down at her hand, at the amulet still clutched within it, and felt a low vibration coming from the metal that she had not noticed before. She would not consider it an emotion, but it did speak to her. It contained a historical presence, as if the amulet had stored memories. Wide-eyed, she turned to face Nick and felt relief wash over him before he blocked her once more.

  “What was my mother’s name?” she asked.

  “Adelina.”

  “And my father?”

  “Edáire. We called him Ed.”

  A foreign world with a familiar name. She smiled, finding that somehow comforting. She returned her gaze to the amulet and memories trickled back to her. “Adelina never took this off,” she said. “Every time I remember her, she had it around her neck. But it glowed then. Now it’s dull.” Tracing her finger over the stone, she frowned. It felt too smooth. “It’s glass,” she realized. “I thought it was an amethyst.”

  Nick stood and approached. He pressed his finger on the glass, opening it to reveal a shallow compartment. “It held a stone once. Someone stole it. Are you all right?”

  Meaghan nodded. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

  “I understand. It’s a lot to absorb.” He closed the necklace again, and then lifted it over her head, releasing it so it hung against her chest. “Keep this safe. It’s the only thing left of your mother.”

  She tucked it under her shirt. “What do we do now?”

  “Sleep,” he answered. “We can set out at first light.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Home,” he replied. “It’s time to bring you home.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  ANTICIPATION GREW, building within her until it hardened her muscles with tension. It overwhelmed both the excitement and nervous energy that preceded—preceded what exactly? Meaghan did not know. She also did not know the source for the sudden rush of emotions. She reacted to them. Her muscles trembled. Her nerves tingled. Her breath came short and shallow. Her mind felt the flush of adrenaline and stood on guard for whatever came next, but the reaction did not belong to her. At first, she thought it stemmed from a dream, but when she opened her eyes and excitement remained, she realized the danger in it.

  The fire flickered in front of her, casting shadows across the barn walls. Though the flames had dwindled, their presence told her she had not been sleeping long. The foreign emotions intensified, hammering through her mind like overlapping percussions, and she felt her own fear rise in response. She rolled onto her side to wake Nick, surprised to find he no longer lay next to her. She sat up, scanned the room, and discovered him by the barn door holding a bucket. He brought the bucket to the fire and set it down.

  “Can you feel them?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

  She threw off the blanket and stood. “I can feel their emotions. Anxiety, tension, and excitement, mostly. Who do they belong to?”

  “The police. I’m guessing they found the car.” He walked over to her, then picked up the blanket, and folded it. “Do you have your mother’s necklace?”

  She brought a hand to her throat. Finding the thin silver chain, she traced her fingers down to the amulet and nodded. “It’s safe.”

  “Good. Keep it on for now. We need to open the portal.”

  “I thought you said we had to travel more.” He did not respond and she studied his face, trying to gauge how he felt. “How far away are we from where we need to be?”

  “I’m not sure. I left a pulse stone at the portal location where I landed when I first came to Earth. It emits a magical beacon.” He located the backpack on the ground, and tucked the blanket inside. “We’re at least five miles away.”

  “Can we sneak out of here without the police seeing us?”

  Nick shook his head. “I’m sensing people from every direction. What about you? Can you focus enough to tell where the emotions are coming from?”

  She frowned. “I’m afraid not. It’s all a big jumble. They’re confident, though, and the anticipation is mounting. That’s not a good sign.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “They’re coming,” she added, focusing her attention toward the door. “The emotions are getting closer.”

  “I know. Are you ready to cross over?”

  “How?” Meaghan turned her head to stare at him. “If we’re five miles away—”

  “Portals can be opened anywhere. It would’ve been more convenient to reach the pulse stone before we opened one, but we have no other options. Not unless we want to try opening one from jail.” Nick handed her the backpack and picked up the bucket again. “It’s time.”

  She slung the backpack over one shoulder. “What do you mean by ‘more convenient’? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Nothing that can’t wait.” He tipped the bucket. Water rushed out, turning the fire into hissing embers. Only moonlight remained to cut the darkness, filtering through the roof in faint streams.

  The door burst open. Four men in black clothing and bulletproof vests ran into the room, their guns and flashlights drawn and pointed at Nick.

  “Freeze,” one man yelled. “You’re under—”

  Nick grabbed her hand and the barn dissolved into white.

  §

  SHE EXPECTED to feel weightless, like she drifted on air, or to feel compressed and torn as her new world ripped her from her old one. At the least, she expected nausea to accompany her journey. She had read enough science fiction novels and had watched more than her fair share of space-themed television shows to know crossing
from one world to another should disrupt her body and shake her mind. Yet she felt nothing.

  They had not leapt into a wormhole. Nick had not tugged her after him into a swirling vortex. She had simply stood in place, the ground solid beneath her feet as the barn disappeared, its wooden roof yielding to an endless sky decorated with brilliant stars and a low hanging moon. A large clearing replaced wood walls and tall trees replaced the policemen. Even the frigid weather warmed to a manageable temperature.

  “That was anti-climactic,” she quipped.

  Nick grinned and let go of her hand. “I’m afraid reality can’t compare to fiction where portal travel is concerned.”

  He turned to scan the horizon and his grin dissolved. She tried to sense the emotions behind the mood change, but he blocked her still. Inhaling a deep breath, she used the motion to calm her mounting anxiety. Today had been more than she could handle. She chased a tear away from the corner of her eye, and then tucked her hands into her pockets when Nick turned to look at her.

  “It’s not as cold here,” she said. “Is the climate more temperate?”

  “It’s about the same,” he responded. “We’re a season behind where you lived on Earth. It’s autumn now. It’ll start getting colder soon, but it should be better travel for us.”

  “That’s good.” Rocking back on her heels, she glanced away, toward the distance where she thought he had been looking. Through the darkness, she could see the faint outline of a mountain range. “Can you sense any better how far we have to travel?”

  He shook his head. “I won’t be able to tell where we are until daylight. We’ll need to stay put for the rest of the night.”

  The apprehension in his voice drew her gaze back to him. She scanned his face in an effort to sense what he felt, but again found emptiness. He walked to a fallen tree and sat down.

  “I think it would be best for you to get some rest,” he told her. “If you lay the blanket on the grass here, you should be comfortable enough to sleep for a few hours. I’d like to be moving again at dawn.”

  She slipped the backpack off her shoulder. Opening it, she removed the blanket and spread it on the ground before joining him on the log.

  “You need sleep too,” she said.

  “I slept enough. I’ll stand guard. I’ll wake you when it’s time to go.”

  She frowned, then clasped her hands in her lap and closed her eyes, attempting to see if she could force her power past his block. She soon realized the effort was as useless as trying to speak a foreign language without taking any lessons. The ability to read emotions came naturally to her and as a result, she knew nothing about controlling it. She tightened her hands in her lap and turned her gaze toward the mountains again in an effort to hide her growing frustration.

  There were four peaks. They followed each other, black against the night sky so that she almost could not make out the last one in the distance. They reminded her of the mountains near her home where she and her parents had camped every year since she was a small child. Their most recent trip had been at the end of the summer. She could still smell the campfire and hear her mother laughing at her father’s ghost stories. It had been one of their best trips, although they had had to cut it short so Meaghan could meet with her advisor at the university. The appointment had seemed important then, but now she wished she had moved it to have more time with her parents. Grief stabbed through her and she closed her eyes against it.

  “What’s wrong?” Nick asked. She opened her eyes, but did not respond. “Meg, talk to me.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not.” He placed a hand on her arm. “You’re upset. You’re trying to hide it, but I can tell. What’s going on?”

  “I’m…” she hesitated, and then sighed, “frustrated. I don’t like this.”

  He raised his hand to her cheek. “I realize the situation is hard, but by tomorrow we’ll be able to—”

  “I can deal with the situation.” She brushed his hand off and stood, turning to face him. “I don’t like you blocking me. I miss my parents. I’m still having a hard time believing I’m on a different world, and this blocking thing makes me feel odd, like there’s something missing.”

  “That’s because there is,” he told her. “Your power is a part of you and having it blocked is unnatural. I promise it’s for the best.”

  “Why?” She crossed her arms in front of her. “What are you hiding from me?”

  “I’m not hiding anything.”

  “You are. I know you’re not telling me something, and now you can sense what I’m feeling.”

  “What makes you think I can sense your feelings?”

  “You said you knew I was upset. How else could you know?”

  He laughed, and she narrowed her eyes at him. Her frustration gave way to anger. “You think this is funny? You drop me in the middle of nowhere, then you take away my power and you think it’s funny?”

  He stopped laughing. Standing up, he bracketed her shoulders with his hands. “Your power is still your own,” he told her. His eyes met hers and she sensed him again. Although she felt anxiety and sorrow in him, humor overpowered those emotions. The warmth of it almost brought a smile to her lips. She fought the reaction, still irritated he found her anger humorous. “See?” he said, blocking her again. “I haven’t taken your power.”

  “So why do you block it? What are you afraid I’ll discover?”

  “Nothing.” He dropped his hands from her shoulders. “Your power is stronger here and I’m afraid my emotions will be overwhelming for you.”

  “You can’t be certain, not if you don’t let me try.”

  “I already know what will happen,” he responded. “I wish you’d trust me.”

  “How am I supposed to trust you when I can’t tell what you’re feeling?” she countered and then frowned when a smile returned to his lips. “You’re laughing at me again.”

  “Not quite, although I may be soon if you don’t stop complaining. You don’t get the humor in what you said, do you?”

  Meaghan glared at him instead of responding and he sat down on the blanket. “Sit, please,” he said, patting the area beside him. When she refused to move, he took her hand and pulled her down. “I’m tired of battling with you. We’re still friends, aren’t we?”

  “That has nothing to do with this.”

  “It does. You’re not acting like it right now.”

  “That isn’t fair.” She crossed her legs and then her arms. “I’m entitled to be upset over this.”

  “You are,” he agreed. “You’ve been through a lot, but I’m not your enemy. I’m trying to help you, so please stop fighting with me.” She nodded and he lifted a hand to her arm. “I can always tell when you’re upset, you know. You get tense and you draw into yourself. Your shoulders tighten toward your ears,” he brought his hand to her shoulder and she noticed the tension in it for the first time. She exhaled a slow breath, forcing her muscles to relax. “And you bring your arms in. You cross them or you clutch them in front of you.”

  “I didn’t realize.”

  “I did,” he said. “I’ve learned your cues over the past year, and not the ones only associated with negative emotions. Your eyes crinkle when you’re trying to hold back a laugh, like the time you played that prank on Vivian last fall, replacing her pumpkin pie with a salted one. And you narrow your eyes right before you make a joke or a sarcastic comment. It’s cute, and it’s one of the clues anyone without your power would have to learn in order to gauge your emotions.”

  “So you think it’s funny that I have to learn to be like everyone else,” she realized. She dropped her arms and he took her hand in his. “I guess I can see that, but it’s frustrating for me. I thought I was good at reading people and it turns out I don’t know how to do it at all. I wish I could. It would make this world easier for me to understand.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there’s too much to learn.” She let go of his hand. Lifting her palm
s to her face, she rubbed away more tears. “It would be so much easier if I didn’t have to learn how to read you. If I could sense your emotions, I would know more about what’s happening.”

  “That would be true if you were a mind reader, but you’re not. You don’t know what’s happening. You guess. You guessed right more often than not on Earth because you were familiar with your environment. You don’t know anything about this world and being able to read my emotions could lead to bad guesses, which could get you hurt, or worse. I can’t have that. It’s my job to protect you and I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “What if I promise not to guess?” she asked. “I can—”

  “You can’t,” he said, then took her hand in his again when she looked away. “It’s second nature to you, and until you learn to control your power, you’ll fall back on that habit.” He brought his fingers to her chin and guided her eyes back to his. “I’m sorry I found this humorous. I shouldn’t have. It was difficult for me to learn to live in a new world with stifled powers, and I’m sure it’s not any easier for you. It will get better though.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Absolutely.” He withdrew his hands and stood, reclaiming his seat on the log. “I think it’s time for bed. Starting tomorrow, I’ll answer all your questions, so ask me instead of wondering, okay?”

  Meaghan nodded and stretched out on the blanket. Silence descended over the forest, interrupted only by the passing song of a few crickets and the occasional curious hoot from a distant owl. She turned onto her stomach, propping her head up on her fists to look up at Nick. “Will you answer one question for me tonight?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  “What did you mean when you said it’s your ‘job’ to protect me?”

  He leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “I guess the simplest way to explain is I’m part of a special group of people with a rare combination of powers. Our powers are designed to protect. Some of us are assigned to protect specific people and others are assigned groups of people.”