The peals of music echoed inside the house a few times before a dim light clicked on. Lara was holding her breath when the door opened to the beloved face of her father. A moment passed where neither of them moved, shock registering across his face. With a squeal, Lara launched herself forward and hugged him even as he tried to come to terms with who was on his threshold.

“Daddy,” she choked out, squeezing him harder as tears threatened to spill.

“S-Solara?” he whispered in disbelief. “You are here? But h-how is this possible?” He jerked her away and ran his hands over her body.

“James,” her mother called from the hallway, “who is it?”

Lara looked over her father’s shoulder to smile uncertainly at her mother. “Mom, it’s me. I made it home.”

She watched in alarm as her mother’s face blanched and she crumbled against the wall. When she heard her mother’s wail, Lara rushed forward, wrapping her arms around her mother. Her father crowded in behind her, his chin pressed against the top of her head, unwilling to let her go for even a second.

“Oh, Lord, you’re alive. My little girl is alive,” her mother repeated in a litany. The amount of pain and relief in those simple words shredded Lara’s control, and she bawled alongside her mother.

Lara had no idea how long they stood in the hallway before her mother gathered herself. Soft, gentle hands reached up to cup her face, and eyes identical to hers studied her for a long minute. Lara noticed for the first time how much her disappearance had aged her parents.

Dark circles from worry and lack of sleep had added years to her mother’s face. New streaks of gray crowded her temples. Her father’s usually hefty body felt thinner than when they skied in Colorado. She wasn’t the only one to have changed.

A heavy arm curled around her shoulders, and she was herded into the living room. As soon as she sat down on the sofa, they hemmed her in on both sides, not that Lara wanted them anywhere else.

Her mother captured her hands in a tight grip and demanded, “Tell us.”

She hesitated, searching her parents’ faces before she warned, “You’ll think me crazy. I don’t want that to happen, but how could it not?”

Her mother’s eyes lit with a fire she had rarely seen. “Solara Meghan Conners, you will tell us what happened. And you will tell us now.”

Hunting for a way to start, she asked, “Did you receive my message?”

“Yes, but we didn’t hear it until after the police informed us about the man they found in an empty office building not far from campus,” her father said with a scowl. “They said he was killed with a sword. They played the message you left on the emergency line. Hearing your quiet voice…Your mom and I felt hope for the first time since you disappeared. We deleted every single message on our machine until we located yours.

“We sat up for days, waiting for another phone call from you.” Her mother shook her head. “When nothing was forthcoming, we worried you’d been murdered by the other man. The police told us he was incredibly dangerous. When weeks went by, and you didn’t call us back, we feared the worst. After a month, with no clues as to where you were, the police left the house, leaving us here by ourselves.”

Her mother reached over and hugged her again, a shuddering breath of air brushing against Lara’s ear. “So,” she said, pulling back, “we need to know what happened to you. We need to know why you are dressed the way you are. Tell us why you’ve lost so much weight. Explain the ungodly tattoo on your forehead. Do you know who the second man is? How did you escape him? Leave nothing out.”

Lara did. For hours. Although questions burned in their eyes, they didn’t interrupt her, giving her the chance to tell her tale in her own way. When Lara relayed how she received the tattoo, they both reached over to run their fingers over it. Both her mom and dad held their breaths when she shared the fights she’d been in.

By the time she finished, the sun was chasing away the dark. Her throat hurt from talking so long, and Lara was yawning from lack of sleep. They’d migrated to the kitchen, where they all sat cradling hot chocolate in their hands. At times, her parents’ disbelief was difficult to see. But as she continued to talk, their disbelief turned to reluctant incredulity, though her mother remained more skeptical.

“You’re saying Becky knew all along what was happening?” demanded her mother, aghast. Of all the things to ask, Lara was surprised Becky was mentioned first.

“Yeah,” Lara nodded, “we had no idea how to get word to you without the police finding out.”

Her father jumped up, the chair screeching against the wood flooring. “The police! We must tell the police you’re here. They need to know you are alive.”

“No, you can’t.”

They looked at her in astonishment. “Wh-Why not?” he sputtered.

“Because,” she said, scrubbing her face with both her hands, “haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? I’m going back to Aradun. I don’t have a choice. The coil is on the other planet. I’ve no idea how much longer I’ll be here. I could vanish in the next second or two hours from now.”

Silence greeted her declaration. Her mother looked as if she was ready to break down in tears again. Lara reached across the table and covered her hand, for the first time noticing the calluses on her fingers, a direct contrast to her mother’s.

“I have to know. Do you believe me?” Lara asked her mom.

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Her mother stared at her, studying her face with a thorough eye. She cupped her right hand over Lara’s, gently squeezing her fingers. “I don’t know what to think. I cannot grasp this idea of magic or another world. I keep telling myself that you’ve been through a horrific experience and this is your way of handling it. Then I remember you have always been grounded in reality. A part of me wants to believe you. Another part wants to protect you from yourself.” She frowned, glancing up at her husband for help.

“You know,” her dad’s deep voice filled the tense room, “I don’t know why I am so surprised this happened to you.”

“James!”

He put his weight on his arms, leaning over the table, his lips turned down in thought. His eyes drifted over Lara’s face before turning to look at his wife.

“What do you mean?” Lara asked, not liking the way her parents stared at each other.

“I’m talking about the day of your birth. The reason I named you Solara.”

“James, you’re an astronomer. Of course you named your daughter something related to the stars and planets. We argued about it for hours. You were so stubborn I finally relented.”

“No, I named her for the moment she was born. The significance of her birth coinciding with the solar eclipse was not lost on me. Anne, we’ve talked about this. I was certain I was right, though I could never have imagined anything like this.”

Lara smiled, recalling all the times her father had told her the story. “I have to say that Chion, Skye, and Eiren agree with you. Me? I still struggle with the idea that I’m crucial to Kureto.”

“You’re not lying about the bond you have with a feline the size of a tiger,” her mom stumbled over the word.

Lara nodded, a wide smile spreading across her face, “He’s a paka, and yes, the bond is real. Chion is nothing like anyone you’ve ever met in your life. Mom, you’d love him. He is as loyal to me as I am to him. His regal bearing would make you sigh in delight. Despite his animal package, he reminds me of the men in the romance novels you love to read.”

Her mother chuckled, sharing a fond look with her husband. “And what about Skye?”

“What about him?” Lara asked in confusion.

A knowing smile crossed her face. “Your voice changes whenever you mention him.”

“I agree with your mother. He is the first man you’ve shown an interest in.”

Lara wiggled in her seat, uncomfortable with their focus on her growing attachment to Skye. Unwilling to talk about him, she argued, “I’ve had boyfriends in the past. You both know all too well about my boyfriends.”

“Boys, sure. I imagine you consider most of the men you’ve met in college as boys not men,” her mom said. “You’re friends with them, but you haven’t dated anyone since going to college. From what you’ve said, Skye is a man.”

She couldn’t help but agree, and reluctantly nodded her head. Lara sighed. “We’re friends. What we’ve experienced together has brought us closer together than probably would have happened otherwise. We are completely different from one another. Although he’s a little better now, his ideas about women make me want to punch him sometimes.”

“Well,” her father said, “from what you’ve shared, this other world follows a different set of rules.”

“For Pyran. But Kureto has even more equality than the United States.”

“How so?”

“Well, Skye thought that women were useless. In Pyran, they are sheltered from the outside world until they marry. Every time I spoke or did something, he’d look at me with disapproval. When we were at the training school, he barely said a word to me. I won’t lie, it made me mad, so I went out of my way to leave him alone.” Lara snorted and shook her head. “Later he told me that the reason for not talking to me was because he’d never had a conversation with a woman before. I swear. It was like middle school all over again.”

“You like him.” Her mom’s thrilled laugh bounced off the walls of the kitchen. “I don’t know if I fully believe this outlandish story, but men are men. If you do like him—and there is a chance that you could grow to love him, you must be patient. It sounds as if he’s already adjusting to the differences between the beliefs of his home country and Kreto.”

“Kureto,” Lara corrected. “He has treated me differently since he came here for a little over a week. I think my weird behavior was suddenly made clear. He respects my opinions now. Before he came here he was always suspicious of my every move. Eiren, too.”

Her dad’s hand clasped onto her shoulder. “See, you are already changing the world,” he teased. He pulled her up and hugged her to him. “I want you to stay here where your mother and I know you are safe, but I believe you when you say you can’t. I’m afraid—no, terrified—you’ll be hurt or killed. This other world sounds dangerous. The near-death experiences you’ve already survived are a testament to the danger present on this other planet. And the cannibals terrify me.”

“They terrify me, too,” she whispered. Lara couldn’t control her shiver at the memory of the Malirran Skye had killed. He tightened his hold on her, squeezing her to an inch of her life. “Dad,” she pleaded.

“I’m not finished. Your life is precious to your mother and me. We do not want anything to ever happen to you. If we can’t be there to protect you, I am grateful that someone else is. I can’t tell you how thankful I am that you have friends that will help protect you from harm. All I ask is that you come back in one piece. God has a lot to answer for.”

“Go, take a shower and change into some clean clothes,” her mother soothed. “I’ve been nice up to now, but you reek something awful. I’ll fix breakfast, and we can learn whether there is any truth to your story. If you truly do disappear, then I want to spend however long you have here together. As a family.”

Afraid of returning to Aradun naked, Lara rushed through her shower. Although she debated exchanging the dirty clothes for clean ones, she put them back on after shaking the dirt out. Lara already stood out by her physique. She couldn’t afford to wear foreign clothing, which would call even more attention to her. Besides, the clothes were sturdy, able to withstand a lot of damage. She just wished she had time to wash them. She did change her boots for a pair of hiking boots from her bedroom. She skipped down the stairs to the smell of bacon and pancakes.

“I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed the food.”

Her mom turned from where she stood holding a spatula. “I hadn’t thought of that. Is the food not good?”

“It’s not that,” she said, stacking some pancakes onto her plate. “It’s just different. Everything tastes different than what I am used to. It is like trying a new cuisine for the first time, except I can’t return to what I’m most familiar with.”

She groaned with the first bite of syrupy pancakes, making her father smirk from across the table. While she stuffed her mouth, eating as fast as possible, he asked, “Can you describe the planet for me? Does it have one or more suns? What about the number of moons?”

“You’re going to try to find the planet, aren’t you?” His guilty expression said it all. Lara snorted. “The sun is the same size as ours, but there are two moons. The larger moon has pockets of blue. The smaller moon is very similar in size and color as ours. I also didn’t recognize any of the constellations. I wish I could tell you more, but I’ve spent more time underground than above. When I did live above ground, I often crawled into bed early, too tired to look up and study the sky.”

Her dad sent her an understanding smile. “It is enough to at least start analyzing the archives.”

“By the way, what day is today? Don’t you have to work?”

“You’re fine. It’s Sunday. Besides, I haven’t returned to work since your disappearance,” her mom divulged.

“Oh.” Lara lowered her eyes to the table, ashamed for causing their suffering and worry. She hadn’t thought beyond their worry. For some reason, she’d pictured them still living their lives. Her disappearance had deeply impacted their lives, aging them, changing their day-to-day existence. In a small voice, she said, “I’m so sorry.”