The weather the next morning was very appropriate for the general somber mood. Almost ridiculously appropriate, Erin thought, looking up at the murky grey drizzle as they went out the front doors of the palace.
There was some kind of enchantment over the government buildings that kept the rain from actually falling on them. But the air was moist and cold, and Erin shivered and pulled her cloak more tightly around her as they walked to the carriages.
Seiyan himself was escorting them out, ignoring the scandalized looks and whispers that the guards were only half concealing. They obviously thought their king was far too important to bother with such trivial matters as Silmarith guests.
But Seiyan didn’t seem to be in the mood to care about what anyone thought. He no longer had the lost look he had worn the previous morning, but he still looked tired and a bit fragile, as though he were recovering from a deep wound.
“Take care of yourselves, and keep in touch,” he said quietly as they reached their carriage. His eyes were on Kirchel. “I’ll get your mother out as soon as I can. And if you want to come back to visit them in the meantime, you would be welcome.”
“Thank you,” Kirchel said, giving her uncle a shaky smile. “Thank you so much…for everything.”
They climbed into the carriage. Like before, Erin and Kirchel took one seat, and Arturyn sat on the other. Erin leaned close to the window as the carriage began to move.
Seiyan was still standing at the end of the walkway to the palace doors, watching them go. He looked oddly solitary, in spite of the two rows of guards standing just behind him.
Then the carriage entered the outer circle of government buildings, and Seiyan and the guards were all hidden from view.
----------------------------------------
The journey back to the portal seemed to take far longer than when they had been coming the other direction. Erin knew this was mostly because she had slept through half of the previous journey. But it also felt like the defeated and mournful atmosphere in the carriage on this trip made the time pass much more slowly.
Neither Kirchel nor Arturyn seemed to feel much like talking, so Erin spent most of the time looking out the window, watching the Raylmiyr landscape moving by.
It really was a beautiful country. But there was a wildness about the place, even a hostility, that Erin had never felt anywhere else in Silmar or in the human world.
It was almost noon when they reached the canyon where the portal was. The carriages pulled to a stop outside the cave, and once again they got out to be inspected by the Nirayl guards before they went through.
The Nirayl leading the group of guards—a yellow-winged one this time—took the silver rings off their wrists and then gave a nod of approval, saying something to Arturyn in his musical language, which Erin found to be suddenly unintelligible again. Arturyn replied in Silmarith, also nodding, and then turned to Kirchel and Erin.
“Come,” he said quietly to them in English. “You two can go through first.”
They followed him into the cave, where the familiar stone pedestals stood against the far wall, green flames dancing on top of them. Kirchel walked over to the wall and said something Erin couldn’t understand, then put her hand on the pale white circle, which glowed and melted into the curtained archway while the fires on the pedestals flared and turned blue.
Kirchel turned back to Arturyn, and they both stood looking at each other for a long moment.
“Well…” Arturyn said finally. “You two take care, all right?”
Kirchel nodded, biting her lip. “You too,” she said, her voice breaking slightly.
She hesitated briefly. Then she stepped forward, reaching up to put her arms around Arturyn’s neck. He put his arms around her as well, and they held each other tightly.
“Arturyn...I love you,” Kirchel whispered.
Arturyn pressed his lips lightly against her forehead. “I love you, too.”
After a minute or two, they broke apart, both looking very reluctant to do so.
“Tinalas len go jyrat,” Arturyn said, very softly.
“Ne seh tulad go len,” Kirchel said, a tear running down her cheek.
With a visible effort, she turned away from him and put a hand on Erin’s shoulder, guiding her towards the portal.
Erin saw her turn her head as they stepped under the archway to give Arturyn one last, yearning look.
Then the curtain fell behind them, and he was gone.
----------------------------------------
The clock on the mantel in the library said it was just past eight in the evening when they entered the house.
Even though it wasn’t dark outside yet, the room was very dim, not having any windows. When Kirchel flipped on the light switch, Erin started and looked around the room, feeling disconcerted.
After spending over a week in a world full of magic, it seemed strange to come back to machines and electricity. Kirchel didn't seem fazed, though. She merely walked on through the room towards the door into the hallway, looking worn out and dejected. She was probably used to the transition, having gone back and forth between worlds all her life.
And she probably had too much on her mind right now to think about things like light switches....
Kirchel paused near the foot of the stairs. She glanced upstairs and then down the hall towards the kitchen.
“You’d probably like something to eat, wouldn’t you?” she said with a sigh. “It would be about lunchtime back in Raylmiyr, and it’s past dinnertime here.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Erin said quickly. “I can find something myself if you just want to go to bed. You look really tired.”
Kirchel hesitated a moment, but then she nodded and started up the stairs. “Thanks. It’s still early enough that you could call your parents, too. They’ve probably been wondering about you.”
When she got to the kitchen, Erin pulled a chair out from the table and sat down with a sigh. She rested her chin in her hands and simply sat staring down at the bare table in front of her for a few minutes.
She wasn’t that hungry yet, and she knew it would be better to call home before it got too late. But she had no idea exactly what she was going to say to her parents.
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Kirchel seemed to think that they would believe her if she just told them the truth. But would they really? She had to admit, it seemed like a pretty wild tale. She wasn’t sure she would have believed it herself if it hadn’t actually happened to her.
She thought about coming up with another, more plausible-sounding story to tell them. But she couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t sound suspicious, especially since she didn’t know exactly what Kirchel had already told them.
Besides, she really didn’t want to lie to her parents if she could help it. And as Kirchel had said, she would have to tell them the truth eventually. Especially if she really did end up going to study at Zeiryn in a few years. There was no way she could pull off hiding that from her family....
With another sigh, Erin stood up and walked to the phone. She dialed her home number and felt her stomach twist slightly with apprehension as she waited for someone to answer.
“Hello?” came a familiar voice at the other end.
“Hi, Sylvie.”
“Erin? Where have you been? Mom’s been having fits. She tried calling the number Kirchel gave her a couple of days ago, but the person who answered said that you’d left and they didn’t know where you were.”
Erin grimaced. Kirchel must have forgotten to leave some kind of message in case anyone tried to call the imperial palace looking for them after they’d gone to Raylmiyr.
“Well…something came up, and things were a little crazy for a few days,” she said evasively. “But Kirchel and I just got back to her house, and everything’s fine.”
Things weren't really fine, of course.... But Erin decided to save the full explanation for her parents.
“Are Mom and Dad there?”
“Yes, they both are. Which one do you want?”
“Whichever one’s in a better mood and is more likely to believe a crazy story,” Erin said grimly.
“Um….” Sylvia hesitated. “I’ll get Dad. I think Mom’s still helping Lizzy with her bath, anyway.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
Erin heard Sylvia putting down the phone and leaving the room. She tapped the table nervously while she waited. A minute later, she heard the phone being picked up again.
“Erin?” came her father’s voice, sounding concerned. “Is everything all right? Where on earth have you been? We’ve been trying to call you.”
“I know. Sylvie told me. I’m really sorry—Kirchel must have forgotten to tell anyone where we were going the other day. But why were you trying to call? Is something wrong?”
“No, not really,” her father said with a sigh. “Elizabeth finally lost her first tooth, is all, and she’s been dying to tell you about it. But we were very concerned when we couldn’t find you. No one at the number Kirchel gave us seemed to know how to get hold of you, and neither did the woman at the flower store. I expected Kirchel to be more responsible than that.”
“Well, a lot of things happened. And Kirchel was…kind of upset.”
“Upset about what? Erin, what exactly has been going on? Kirchel barely told us anything when she called last week. And then to just up and disappear with you for two days….”
“I…look, it’s a really long story,” Erin began uncomfortably. “And I know it’s going to sound completely crazy, but just…just hear me out…okay?”
With a deep breath and more than a few misgivings, she launched into what had happened to her and Kirchel over the past week, starting with Kirchel leaving to deliver the wedding flowers and Wraith forcing her out of the house and into the cave.
She carefully edited a few parts of the story, glossing over the incident with the Mataiths and leaving out the sethien entirely. She felt a little guilty for that, but she thought it was better not to emphasize the negative parts too much. She knew her father was more likely to keep listening if she didn’t bring up how many times she and Arturyn had almost gotten killed.
Her father was quiet while she talked, and when she had finished, he didn’t immediately say anything.
“Dad?” Erin said tentatively after a few seconds of silence. “Are you still there?”
“Yes…yes, I’m still here.” His voice sounded a bit odd. “Erin, is Kirchel there?”
“Well, yes. But I think she's asleep now,” Erin said, frowning. “She went up to bed just after we got here. Like I said, she’s been really upset and hasn’t slept much the last few days.”
“Right. Well...listen, Erin. I’m going to get your mother. She’s been very worried about you, and she really wants to talk to you. To be sure you’re all right and everything...you know....” He was still speaking in that same, strange voice. It sounded like he was choosing his words very carefully. “But is it all right if I turn you over to Elizabeth for a few minutes first? She still wants to tell you about her tooth, and it’s almost her bedtime.”
“Um…okay?”
Erin felt rather off-balance. She had the distinct impression that her father was deliberately avoiding saying anything about what she had just told him, and she suspected that letting her talk to Elizabeth was an excuse to give him some time to talk to her mother.
It wasn’t a good sign….
“Erin!” Erin started as Elizabeth’s excited voice came suddenly on the other end of the line. “Guess what! Guess what!”
It took a full fifteen minutes for Elizabeth to relate the details of losing—and nearly swallowing—her first tooth, which had happened while she was eating corn on the cob for supper two nights before. Erin did the best she could to sound interested, but she was really only half listening. Her mind was still on her father’s reaction to her story.
By the time Elizabeth finally consented to give up the phone and go to bed, Erin was beginning to wonder if she should have just told him that she and Kirchel had gone on a spur of the moment camping trip or something instead.
“Erin, are you still there?” Erin’s mother came on the phone. “Lizzy didn’t put you to sleep with her in-depth tooth saga, did she?”
“No, I’m still here,” Erin said glumly. “Did Dad tell you what I told him?”
“The main gist of it, yes.” Her mother hesitated for a moment and then sighed. “And if you really want to know, his professional opinion is that you’ve gone stark-raving mad.”
“Oh.”
Erin couldn’t think of anything else to say. Her eyes were suddenly stinging with tears, and she had to bite hard on her lower lip to keep it from trembling. She had sort of expected that her parents wouldn't completely believe her story, at least not at first.
But she hadn't realized how much it would hurt to hear that her own father thought she was crazy.
She swallowed hard. “So he…he doesn’t believe me?”
“No…I’m afraid he doesn’t.”
Erin considered just hanging up the phone and going up to her room to cry for a while....
When she didn’t reply, her mother continued in a gentle voice, “Erin, your father is a very kind man with a good sense of humor. But he’s a doctor. He’s rational. He’s scientific. And...maybe most importantly...he’s never lived with Kirchel. If he had, he might view your story differently. I’m sure you’ve learned this by now, but spending even a few days around her is enough to make a person believe almost anything is possible.”
Erin felt a glimmer of hope. “You mean…you don’t think I’m crazy? You believe me?”
“Well...I believe you wouldn’t lie to us. And even if you would, there’s no reason why you would make up a story like that.”
“So that just leaves me being crazy, right?” Erin said bitterly.
“Well, not necessarily....” Her mother sighed again. “I really don’t understand what’s been happening to you since your accident. But you don’t seem crazy…for the most part.”
Erin was silent. She could tell that her mother was trying not to upset her, but it was also clear that she didn’t really believe Erin’s story either.
“Your father said you told him Kirchel had already gone to bed for the night,” her mother went on. “Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Will you tell her to call us tomorrow? I’d like to talk to her about what you two have been doing.”
“Oh…okay. When do you want her to call?”
“Whenever is best for her. I should be home all day.” Her mother paused and then said, in a softer voice. “Erin, dear, you know we love you—no matter what.”
“I know…” Erin ran her finger moodily along the phone cord. She had a hard time injecting much conviction into her voice. She knew her parents cared about her, and she couldn’t really blame them for not wholeheartedly believing her story.
But still….
“Well, if there’s nothing else you wanted to talk about right now, maybe you’d better go get some rest. It sounds like you’ve had a busy week.”
“Right…. Okay….”
“All right, I’ll talk to you later, then, sweetheart. Goodnight.”
“'Night, Mom.”