“You’re making me feel weird. What’s happening?”.

Nez watches as the women exchanged looks with one another.

“You knew?” Tee Birdy questions Madam.

“Yes, I was aware, but had to keep it a secret to keep her family safe”.

“Wait...you knew my family? My mom, my dad? Ca...can someone explain to me what is going on?”.

Stepping back Nezani gripped the sides of the basin wall behind her. Solid, cold and sturdy it is the only thing that feels real to her at the moment.

“Nez” Madam spoke, “There is much you need to learn about who you are, and about this world. But for now, please know, your parents were very brave, they left this world to make sure you and your brother could stay safe and live long normal lives.”

“Unfortunately, fate intervened with those plans. You come from a line of royals called the Guardians, as you go through training you will learn what this means”.

“Ambrose!” Madam yelled.

Appearing suddenly in a place where there used to be nothing.

“Please take Nez back to her room it’s been quite an eventful awakening I’m sure she’s still seeing double.” Madam said turning to meet Nezani’s gaze.

“Get some rest for now, I will visit you later”.

Back in her room Nezani lay exhausted next to her spirit guide.

“What am I doing here? This doesn’t make any sense…POWERS? MAGIC? ROYAL?” she exclaimed.

Reaching across her spirit guide rested their glowing palm over Nezani’s heart. Too tired to protest, Nezani lay staring at the glowing hand until she drifted off to sleep.

Feeling the familiar warmth on her cheeks, Nezani slowly opened her eyes to find Madame and her spirit guide staring at her with concern.

“Party in my room eh?” she said sarcastically gently raising the roof as she sat up.

Wiping the coal from her eye she noticed Spirit next to Madame trying to raise the roof exchanging a questioning glance with Madame.

“Seriously why are the two of you watching over me?”

“Well a day of sleeping in is to be expected after arriving here. You, however, slept for 3 days”. Madame said standing up.

“If I didn’t have spirit here telling me you were fine, I would have thought something was wrong right away. And if you didn’t wake up today, we would have taken you to the infirmary. Alas, you are awake. So, you’re training officially begins today.”

Training? “What kind of training?” She asked.

“You’ll see” Madame said with a annoyingly happy smile.

“Get yourself up, dressed and fed. When you’re done you and spirit will meet Ambrose in the training hall for your first day of lessons”. And with the flick of her wrist Madame vanished into thin air.

Nezani got herself dressed in her favorite jean jumpsuit and her favorite high-top converse that were gifted from her dad. She pulled her hair up into a nice pineapple and looked at Spirit for direction.

“Where can a girl get some food around here?”

Spirit reduced her size and floated to Nezani’s shoulder. Perched so Nezani could still see her, Spirit pointed to the doorknob with her lips.

“If you want to travel to any of the common areas within this place, just think of where you want to go and open the door” Spirit communicated to Nezani telepathically.

Nezani stared at the doorknob pointedly “It can be that easy, can it?”

She walked briskly over to the door, thought of her mom’s pancakes and quickly opened the door.

“Walk through” Spirit said laying a hand on Nezani’s cheek. “Its okay”.

With the encouragement from Spirit Nezani walked through the door and into a cafeteria.

The cafeteria was a large room with doors lining the sides of the wall. People walked in and out of the doors quickly leaving or heading to the counter to get a plate.

Following the lead of others Nezani walked to the counter in the middle of the room, waiting her turn in line before reaching the front.

Standing behind the counter was sweetest old man Nezani had ever seen wearing a name tag that read ‘Hi my name is Otis’.

“And what can I get for you young lady?” The man gleamed at her, waiting for her response.

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“Um some pancakes I guess, maybe a little OJ on the side” Nezani ordered.

“Coming right up!” The man exclaimed.

Taking a second to pick the right brush from his pocket the main starts to draw on the plate. Looking up between “Hmms” and “Yes that’ll do” Otis took his time slashing his paint brush around the plate.

“There ya go, enjoy sweetie!” He said handing the plate to Nezani. Looking down at the plate Nezani studied the 90’s style cartoon pancakes and orange juice Otis had drawn on the plate.

“uh Thanks” Nezani sighed.

Studying the plate, she looked around for an open seat in the cafeteria, preferably someplace with a lot of space. It had been a long week for her, and if she wasn’t going to have the meal she wanted at least she could have some peace and quiet.

Spotting an empty half of a table next to a window with sunlight, Nezani walked quickly to the table before anyone could claim it.

Taking a second to figure out where she wanted to sit to best not be disturbed, she settled on the middle seat with her back facing the rest of the room. Nezani placed the plate gently on the table.

WHISH!

Sitting on the table was the order Nezani asked for, 4 perfectly round and crispy pancakes like the ones grannies make. Sitting next to her plate was a nice cold glass of orange juice. Without thinking Nezani grabbed the utensils that appeared with the food and began to work her way through the pancakes. Bouncing with every bit she took note of the flavors she was tasting, salty butter, vanilla, sugar, decadent syrup. These pancakes were delicious!!! Almost as delicious as the pancakes her mom used to make her. With the memory of her mom a small tear escaped her eye. “These are really good” She softly whispered to Spirit who was looking at her with knowing eyes. She finished the plate happy for the nourishment and the memory of her mom.

As she was polishing off her orange juice Ambrose appeared in front of her. “I didn’t take you for the emo type kid” and chuckled to her.

“If you’re done, we have a long day ahead of us, put some pep in ya step and let’s get crackin on this training” He said rubbing his hands together so roughly his gold rings were humming.

“This is the second time I’m hearing about training” Nezani said.

“What am I training for? What does my training consist of?” She asked.

“You being who you are, being apart of the family you’re apart of. Your training is a bit, unique” Ambrose answered.

“This will all be easier for me to explain once we get to where we are going”.

With that Nezani and Ambrose got up from the table.

WHISH!

Nezani turned around to see her plate gone and her spot clean as if she were never there. Impressed she hurried behind Ambrose who flung the closest door open and walked through leaving just his hand available to Nezani to follow him through.

Taking his hand, Nezani hesitantly walked through the door, closing it gently behind her.

On the other side Ambrose stared in awe of what was in front of them.

“I’ve only been allowed to come here one other time with Madame. It is truly magnificent.”

The structure before them was the largest glass dome Nezani had ever seen. A few football fields in diameter Nezani could make out smaller domes encapsulated within the outer dome. In front of them were two large wooden doors.

“And this place is?” Nezani asked.

“Oh, my bad slim. Welcome to your family arboretum!” Ambrose exclaimed.

“As Madame mentioned the day of your awakening, you come from a family of Guardians, magical arborists if you will.”

Taking a deep breathe to explain.

“Without your family this dimension we are in would cease to exist. The power that this dimension pulls from, along with everyone else’s powers pulls from the leylines found here, in your family’s arboretum. Your family, and now you, are responsible for the creating, repairing and PROTECTING of these leylines.”

Nodding along to his explanation Nezani rested her palm on the outer dome. As she touched the dome, she felt a rush of energy through her body. Spirit began to glow a little brighter as well.

“What does this have to do with my training?” Nezani asked.

As Ambrose was about to answer, Madame appeared before them dressed in white flowing clothe from head to toe.

“I can take it from here Ambrose, you may go” she said with the stamp of her cane. And as quickly as she arrived, Ambrose left.

“This place is sacred beloved” Madame said softly. “Your family has built this up over thousands of years and multiple generations.”

“The last person from your family to enter this arboretum was your mother” Madame looked over to find Nezani with glossy eyes.

“I don’t understand” Nezani let out.

“Your mom was the last guardian to care for this sanctuary, and when chaos came after her and her family, she locked it and put a powerful seal on it. No one has been in or out in 20 years.”

“20 years ago? That’s when my parents said they moved to the city.” Nezani said putting together the timeline in her head.

“Yes, that’s correct.” Madame said.

“I have so many questions” Nezani said letting out a sigh.

“All your answers are inside of this place” Madame said tapping the side of the dome with her cane.

“So? How do I get in? What does this place have to do with my training?”

“Well, you might have noticed the other domes encapsulated inside this one. Each inner dome has its own entrance. One can’t simply walk through these doors. You see, each inner dome holds different types of trees, and well.” Madame paused looking anxiously between Nezani and Spirit.

“It’s best they help you figure this out for yourself. Your first task for training is to get through this first outer door. Good luck!”

With a flash Madame was gone.

Growing bigger Spirit led her by the hand to the wooden doors resting her palm on it. Nezani jerked her hand back feeling the unexpected warmth of the wood.

“It is, Okay” Spirit whispered putting Nezani’s hand back onto the door.

“Typically, anyone in your bloodline can access the first set of doors. However due to the circumstances, your mother put a protection spell on the arboretum the last time she left. We must figure out how to remove it”

“Well, that’s just great, a week ago I was living a regular degular human life, and now I’m supposed to know how to break a protection spell?”

“Try” is the only thing that escaped Spirit into the mind of Nezani.

Nezani went back to the door studying the markings on a tree etched into the wood. Base of the tree were the words ‘What is, what was and what will be’ etched in cursive.

Nezani thought back through her rolodex of memories with her mom to see if anything stuck out to her.

She remembered her mom telling her random facts about trees all the time. One memory in particular stuck out to her.

“My mom always said that trees never die. Even when they have been cut and processed into furniture they are still living. She also said trees could talk to each other, and when one is in danger it communicates to the other trees around it to warn them to raise their defenses. Maybe I just need to figure out a way to talk to the tree in this door and let it know that it’s safe?”

Spirit nodded in agreement with the plan. She pulled out a cloth bag out of her satchel and handed it to Nezani.

“In the arboretum when you are communicating with the trees, you have to use ground ant dew in your ears to be able to hear the trees” Spirit said gesturing Nezani to sprinkle some of the substance in her ear.

Nezani had hated ants since she was a young girl. Her mom’s ant farm lived in their living room and one day the ants decided they didn’t want to be in their farm and found their way into Nezani’s room.

Reluctantly, Nezani opened the bag to find a fine dust like substance. Pinching a bit between her fingers she tilted her head to the side and sprinkled a bit in her ear, repeating the motion on the other side.

Nezani’s ears began to pop, and she began to hear what she thought was a whisper.

Maybe I need more?

She applied another sprinkle in each ear. No sooner she sprinkled the last bit in her ear, her head began to feel an immense amount of pressure. Like she was in a plane climbing 30000 feet into the air.

She began pulling on her ear to help with the pressure. POP! She felt on each side of her face as her ears popped and calibrated.

“WHO ARE YOU?! ANNOUCE YOURSELF!”