Traveling by Storm by DarqueQueen7
Prologue: There's No Place Like?
Valoria Strandeski stood in the field beside the damaged house. She remembered many happy times spent in this home with these locals that became her dear friends. She was part of her father's traveling carnival: The Strandeski Emporium of Oddities. She was, among other things, The Mistress of Ceremonies, a carnival barker, the star sharp shooter and knife handler. And on some occasions – she was the truth sayer and fortune teller. One day after that particular duty, she found a small girl of 10 with large blue eyes and ebony hair, lost and terrified, looking for her parents. After Valoria got the girl to tell her name, she gave DeeGee her hand and stayed with her until two equally lost and terrified parents came; claiming the child as their own.
A friendship was formed after that day; she would write to them to let them know when the carnival was coming. They in turn would invite her into their home – and their lives. Ten years later, she loved them like family. But this season they were no return letters, no word at all. Only silence. She did not like that – she even told her father that she knew something was dreadfully wrong. Mr. Strandeski believed his daughter; he knew her Talent was very strong. Like it had been in his dear departed wife; her mother. 'You will go far for the truth, Valoria. You will find a place far away from which you will never return. It may yet be the home your restless spirit has always yearned for. Go with my blessing, my daughter. And may you truly find peace at the end of your journey.'
She remembered her father's prediction as she looked back to the ruined house. Her own mother had passed seven years earlier; DeeGee's mother Emily was a comfort to her during those dark times. After that, she took to calling DeeGee's parents her Aunty Em and Uncle Hank. But now DeeGee was gone; her parents as well. A tornado they said; but she did not believe it. The emanations were all wrong…this storm was anything but natural. The house showed signs of an internal struggle that went on while the storm raged outside; she snarled as she remembered Officer Gulch blowing off her findings.
Leave detection to the detectives, he said. She almost slapped him after that.
She remembered what her mother had told her while wasting away from a debilitating disease that the doctors could give no name for. At the time she thought her mother was suffering from delusions, but out of respect she would listen to her tales none the less.
'I do not come from this place, this world, my child,' she told her once. I arrived here a long time ago – by a Transport Storm. My world; where I was born runs parallel to this one…it is called…
"The O.Z.," she said aloud.
Something happened to her friend – her sister and her family. When one claimed others as family, you protected them no matter what. Something – no, someone took her family away and she was going to find out who or what it was. Or die trying.