I am very, so extremely, truly, madly, deeply (possibly taking this too
far) sorry that I am so late with this update. I can only plead laziness
and hope that I won't fry in exercise hell for all my procrastination. I
was so busy this month *and* there was a scene in this part that threw in a
little surprise that I wasn't expecting. It took me a long time to decide
to leave it out and add it in later in the story. Plus *recent development*
I fell over and hurt my left knee and my right ankle and am now trying to
hobble around on one foot and trying not to bend the other leg. I have now
had an epiphany and want to share it with the world: crutches are evil.
Evil I say!
Okay, *ahem* back on track now.
Thanks to:
Orange – *grins* Join the club of the Don't-Know-Anything-About-Anywhere- Except-Home-Association. It's an organization for the geographically challenged. Coz no, I don't know anything about Perth, except that it's somewhere around there *pointing in the general direction of west.* Uh hate to break it you ya babe, but it's time you knew the truth. *I* have it worse at school because not only do I do chemistry, I have the worlds worst teacher! Evidence: My chem teacher gave us a test to rank the class and question ten was in FRENCH. We were supposed to translate it into English. May I remind you that it was CHEMISTRY we were doing. *Sticks out tongue* so there! But I will concede that physics is hard, so hope you do well! I did have a great Easter break! *Dreaming of sleep* Hope yours was just as good!
* * *
Part Three
The girl looked up at the sky through the window, her head tilted backwards. She couldn't believe that the sun still rose from the east, and that the grass was still green. How could the world stay so unchanged when her life had become a tangled web, a jungle of thorns? Nothing could ever be the same for her. She's gone. They're gone. The words she had dreaded to think were now a reality. She wanted to shout her grief. But she couldn't. How can I be so upset over deaths that that happened a long time ago, to people I can't remember?
Her brain could only come up with the scent of lavender. Anything else was lost in the deep recesses of her mind. Why can't I remember? Her brain screamed the question and her head pounding, Maya rested it in the cradle of her arms. Her eyes were burning and a lump was lodged n her throat. She knew that to ease her pain all she had to do was to cry. But she couldn't. She didn't know these people. It was like standing in a cemetery and crying for a stranger. No, not like, it was exactly that. They were strangers.
Regardless of how hard she wished they weren't, it didn't make it true.
Tobias' shy smile had dipped off his face, vanishing from sight. A look of utter desolation replaced it, the look so haunting that Maya had run from its intensity. She now hid in her room, fleeing from the news. Hoping that if she forgot about it, if she pretended that she never heard it, then maybe, just maybe, she could convince herself that it was wasn't true.
Maya ignored the knocks on her door. She didn't want to see anyone. Especially him. He reminded her that she may miss them but he remembered them. She may cry over people who were supposed to be the most important people in her life, but he remembered people to miss. She missed a shadow, a flimsy memory, and a scent. She wanted to hug her mother. She wanted to kiss her father's cheek. She wanted all the things that death made impossible.
Her head lifted as the door opened. Tobias' head poked through the opening, and Maya glimpsed his shy smile again. "The door was unlocked," his smile widened. "I was knocking that whole time, and I didn't even think it would be unlocked."
Maya stayed silent while he babbled on about the door and the lock. She stood up and walked towards him taking the door from his hand and closing it. She led him to her desk chair while she sat on her bed. "What was she like?"
"Well the door *could* have been locked with a weak lock and I could have used excessive force and did I mention I'm sorry. But then again, it really wasn't my fault because . . ." He had continued his monologue regarding her door the whole while, but her quiet question silenced him.
"I don't know how to answer that. She looked . . ." He stopped suddenly and scrutinised her. She had changed from the five year old he remembered. Her straight black hair had become curly; her violet coloured eyes had deepened into a rich sea blue much like her father's. The five-year-old girl had matured into a seventeen-year-old woman. He just hoped that she could cope with her destiny. Her fate.
"Well, actually she looked a lot like you do now. I could lie and tell you that she was the most kind-hearted person I knew who never spoke a negative word about anybody in her life, but I won't insult your intelligence. She was kind, but when she needed to be she was . . . lets just say dedicated to her job, obsessed. She was a stubborn woman, who wouldn't take no for an answer. I guess she was spoiled because while growing up, she knew she would soon hold the most important position in Centre Rose. It was only with close friends, and with *you* and with your father that she stopped being a queen and became a woman, a mother, a friend." He trailed off helplessly shrugging his shoulders.
Maya had been silently watching Tobias while he was talking of her mother, and she saw his slight change of expression. It flit away as soon as it appeared, and she shrugged it off, classifying it as not important.
"So . . . I'm going to be queen? It just feels so weird to say that." She shrugged helplessly, "I–I guess it just hasn't sunk in yet."
"Well, I'm sorry but you'll have to get used to it because Centre Rose can't survive without a ruling monarch. Actually a ruling queen, but I couldn't come for you as soon as your mother died because the people were concerned about your safety if you came."
Her head looking down at her fingers nervously linking and breaking apart darted up to look at his face. "Why? I mean, why wouldn't I be safe?"
"Well, those who killed your mother could have also killed you and then where would Centre Rose be?" He replied with the half-truth smoothly. Quite proud of himself, he gave himself a mental pat on the back for his ability to think on the spot.
* * *
Lowan couldn't believe he had somehow been conned into coming to the middle of nowhere solely on a weird 'feeling' his sister had. He didn't have any doubt that he fell for some trick or another; Iris could always manoeuvre him into doing exactly what she wanted.
They had left the ute on the side of the road as Iris led the way. They walked around bushes sprouting from dry ground, and they stepped over forgotten pieces of bark. They were walking in silence, and this time Lowan didn't seem to mind the quiet. He preferred it that way. It was almost a reverential silence.
His mind on Iris's mysterious 'discovery,' he barely noticed the heat pounding on his back. Why the hell did I come? He could find no logical explanation for his presence in the outback. Now that he had the time to think it over, Lowan realised that he had always done exactly what his sister wanted. She had always managed to make each of her decisions to do something seem like his own. In front of nature and my own resolve I do solemnly swear that I will never be manoeuvred ever again.
He let out a little chuckle over his intense vow, laughing at his own gravity and knowing that it was impossible to carry out. Iris looked back and raised one eyebrow; silently asking what he thought was so funny. Imagining her expression if he was honest made him chuckle again and shake his head at her mutely denying her an answer.
They carried on silently again, and this time it was Iris who broke the quiet. "Lowan… " He raised his head to meet her eyes. "Do you believe me that there is something here? Or… Are you just humouring me?"
Hmmm, he thought, how to answer that? Say the truth and most probably get decked in the process? Or lie and *hopefully* carry it off?
He decided for half-truth, because the most successful lies are those based on some slither of truth. "I'm here to find out whether or not I believe you. I think you felt something out here, but as to it's worth, that I don't know."
Sighing, she replied, "Well I guess that will have to do."
"I guess," he agreed, then could almost kicked himself because he knew he should have just stayed silent as she ranted about how unlucky she was to have such an unbelieving brother.
"But I'd believe *you* if you told me you believed something weird was going on," she burst out, unable to disguise the hurt in her voice.
It seemed that half-truths hadn't worked and outright lies would definitely fall flat, so all that was left was the whole unvarnished truth. "Come on Iris, be honest, if I had come to you with a story about how I wanted you to fly hundreds of kilometres simply because I had a weird feeling and heard voices, would you *honestly* have come with me?"
Put that way in his calm reasonable voice, Iris had to admit that it did sound a bit far fetched, but her stubborn nature didn't permit her to confess this, no matter how wrong she knew she was. "I'd *still* believe you." Stubborn, mulish, obstinate, she berated herself silently.
Smiling wryly, "yes, I'm sure you would." Agreeing with her would be easier than fighting; it didn't tax his strength.
"But it doesn't matter. When you feel the weird feeling then I can just step back and say 'I told you so.' I'll be waiting patiently for my chance to gloat."
Sighing, softly Lowan thought it wiser to keep silent lest he have to listen to more of his sister's complaining. She had a tendency to go on and on about one tiny grievance until she thought of something else to complain about. "Uh, how much longer till we get to the place with the creepy feelings?"
"Not much longer." She stopped walking and just stood there her hand raised to shade her eyes as she looked into the horizon. She was frowning slightly as if puzzled by something.
"Don't tell me let me guess. You can't find the creepy spot?" Lowan groaned out loud. She didn't know where they were. Great. That was just great. They were miles away from home and lost in the bloody desert. He only grinned when she turned and threw him a look of utter contempt.
Sneering she replied, "It's over there." He looked to where her finger pointed and then looked back at her. It was a spot like any other in the desert, distinguished by nothing more than a tuft of grass spouting from the dry earth.
"You can tell the difference between here and there how?"
"Talent. I'm just special I guess." Before he could come up with a smart- ass remark, she had run down the slight incline and called back to him, "C'mon Lowan, I wanna say 'I told you so' so bad!"
When he walked up to her he raised a single eyebrow in a silent 'well?' Just wait, she thought smugly to herself. I can't wait till I see you apologise for not believing me and making me feel like an idiot. Enjoying his impatience, Iris dragged out the time by slowly turning her head towards him and putting a stray piece of brown hair behind her ear. She made each movement last much longer than was needed, simply for her own enjoyment.
"Take two steps to you left." She said it casually as if she were remarking that today was an incredibly hot day, or that the sky was indeed blue and the grass green.
This is what he wanted. Yet, now that he had the power to find out the truth, he was oddly hesitant. He could feel this almost shimmering feeling of raw power and he had not yet taken those two steps. It felt like a wave of silk passing over his skin leaving the hair on his arms rise, a sort of static electricity of the invisible. He could almost se the silk, a dazzling opaque colour that trapped in it the colours of the rainbow. There was magenta, he could see blue, violet, green, yellow, orange, red and where was… Oh, there was indigo.
He took a deep breath and made those last two steps to the unknown.
And then…
He couldn't explain it, even to himself. His eyes took in a scene of green rolling meadows where red desert used to be.
And yet…
He could also see the desert.
It was almost as if the two scenes were one, and at the same time, two distinct scenes he could separate from one another. He closed his eyes and opened them. The scene remained the same, he couldn't believe it but the evidence spoke for itself.
Then all at once, where he could only see visual images, he heard the sounds of birds calling to each other, the scent of wildflowers and felt a cool breeze gently brush past him. In the back of his mind, he registered that Iris was hopping around crowing repeatedly, "I told you so," and "you should've seen your face" at regular intervals. But he didn't care, as he normally would have; this just seemed so unreal. Here he was being made fun of by his sister while he entered into what he could only describe as some sort of portal to another world.
After that ridiculous thought, he snorted. Another world? Portal? Man, Lowan Wilde, you have sunk to new lows never reached before. Oh, you may have thought your other pathetic attempts were low, but this new thought is by far the lowest you've been.
Still mentally berating himself, he took two tentative steps forward and immediately his thoughts stopped whirring inside his head. Where he had before seen the two hazy scenes blurring together, he now saw one complete scene that definitely did not include his sister. Turning slowly, he looked around at this place much cooler than the desert heat. Ridiculously, the first words that popped into his head, were 'Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.'
Looking ahead, he stopped in mid-turn and could almost feel his jaw drop. There in front on him was some sort of barrier made from a material that was almost transparent. Through is he could see the fuzzy shape of his sister obviously distressed. Her hands were flinging around her face and body as if she were violently gesturing, and her feet were stamping on the floor in between random bursts of hand flinging.
But, that wasn't what was holding his attention; he was more focused on the actual clear substance separating him from his sister than he was with the person behind it. The barrier seemed to move with the gentle breeze and the colours inside it were arranged in splotches much like a stained glass window picture of contemporary art.
He took one step towards it and touched the barrier, which moulded around his hands much like cling wrap. It felt as though he were touching a bubble that refused to burst. Feeling more confident, he took another step towards the barrier; it pulled at him, as though it were an answer to a question he wanted to solve.
Suddenly, he was back in the desert and before he could catch a breath, his sister launched herself at him, clinging fiercely. "I was so scared. Thank goodness you're back!" Another thought struck her and she pushed him away. "Where the HELL were you? And what *took* you so long?" She poked him in the shoulder, as she was speaking to emphasise the words 'hell' and 'took'.
Still addled by what he saw, Lowan blinked. "I don't *know* what I saw. But I'm going to find out."
Startled, Iris grabbed at his arm. "No you're not! I don't know or understand what the hell happened here but I know I won't allow you to go alone. Don't try to argue."
Lowan grinned, "Iris, you may be my older sister, but you can't prohibit me from doing anything. And I want you to go and contact the council and get someone down here."
She nodded pleased he'd come to his senses. "Fine. Well you want to go now?"
"Iris, yes you go now but I'm staying."
"Why? There's absolutely no reason for you to stay."
"Someone has to check this thing out."
She rolled her eyes then spoke very slowly, enunciating every syllable clearly as if she were talking to a person who was a little thick headed. "Well, duh. That's… why… I'm… calling… the… council… Right?"
He raised an eyebrow at her and she rolled her eyes again at him, "Anyway, what did you see? What *happened*?"
He shook his head bewildered. "I don't know but the place I saw was cool and was sorta like a farm. I thought it was like a parallel universe or something." He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't believe in that shit but I *saw* it. And the thing that separates the worlds from here kinda feels like gladwrap and looks like a weird stained glass window. I could see you screaming and yelling but I couldn't hear you." He shrugged his shoulders again helplessly. "I can't explain. But I have to check it out."
"So how come I don't get to check it out? I found it first."
Pushing her away gently in the direction they came from he said softly, "Go Iris."
She looked back to argue with him but his mouth was set in that stubborn line and she knew she'd get nowhere if she did. Sighing, she slowly walked off yelling over her shoulder, "Next time I get to stay and you go be the run around messenger!"
Lowan ignored that and tuned back to the… *thing* he saw. He stepped forward and was again transported to that place with the rolling meadows. But this time he heard something else. It sounded like a trumpet call and it reminded him of what it sounded like when there was a celebration in England for the Queen.
Curious, he walked towards the sound.
* * *
Well? How was it? Give me the truth, I can take it!
Okay, *ahem* back on track now.
Thanks to:
Orange – *grins* Join the club of the Don't-Know-Anything-About-Anywhere- Except-Home-Association. It's an organization for the geographically challenged. Coz no, I don't know anything about Perth, except that it's somewhere around there *pointing in the general direction of west.* Uh hate to break it you ya babe, but it's time you knew the truth. *I* have it worse at school because not only do I do chemistry, I have the worlds worst teacher! Evidence: My chem teacher gave us a test to rank the class and question ten was in FRENCH. We were supposed to translate it into English. May I remind you that it was CHEMISTRY we were doing. *Sticks out tongue* so there! But I will concede that physics is hard, so hope you do well! I did have a great Easter break! *Dreaming of sleep* Hope yours was just as good!
* * *
Part Three
The girl looked up at the sky through the window, her head tilted backwards. She couldn't believe that the sun still rose from the east, and that the grass was still green. How could the world stay so unchanged when her life had become a tangled web, a jungle of thorns? Nothing could ever be the same for her. She's gone. They're gone. The words she had dreaded to think were now a reality. She wanted to shout her grief. But she couldn't. How can I be so upset over deaths that that happened a long time ago, to people I can't remember?
Her brain could only come up with the scent of lavender. Anything else was lost in the deep recesses of her mind. Why can't I remember? Her brain screamed the question and her head pounding, Maya rested it in the cradle of her arms. Her eyes were burning and a lump was lodged n her throat. She knew that to ease her pain all she had to do was to cry. But she couldn't. She didn't know these people. It was like standing in a cemetery and crying for a stranger. No, not like, it was exactly that. They were strangers.
Regardless of how hard she wished they weren't, it didn't make it true.
Tobias' shy smile had dipped off his face, vanishing from sight. A look of utter desolation replaced it, the look so haunting that Maya had run from its intensity. She now hid in her room, fleeing from the news. Hoping that if she forgot about it, if she pretended that she never heard it, then maybe, just maybe, she could convince herself that it was wasn't true.
Maya ignored the knocks on her door. She didn't want to see anyone. Especially him. He reminded her that she may miss them but he remembered them. She may cry over people who were supposed to be the most important people in her life, but he remembered people to miss. She missed a shadow, a flimsy memory, and a scent. She wanted to hug her mother. She wanted to kiss her father's cheek. She wanted all the things that death made impossible.
Her head lifted as the door opened. Tobias' head poked through the opening, and Maya glimpsed his shy smile again. "The door was unlocked," his smile widened. "I was knocking that whole time, and I didn't even think it would be unlocked."
Maya stayed silent while he babbled on about the door and the lock. She stood up and walked towards him taking the door from his hand and closing it. She led him to her desk chair while she sat on her bed. "What was she like?"
"Well the door *could* have been locked with a weak lock and I could have used excessive force and did I mention I'm sorry. But then again, it really wasn't my fault because . . ." He had continued his monologue regarding her door the whole while, but her quiet question silenced him.
"I don't know how to answer that. She looked . . ." He stopped suddenly and scrutinised her. She had changed from the five year old he remembered. Her straight black hair had become curly; her violet coloured eyes had deepened into a rich sea blue much like her father's. The five-year-old girl had matured into a seventeen-year-old woman. He just hoped that she could cope with her destiny. Her fate.
"Well, actually she looked a lot like you do now. I could lie and tell you that she was the most kind-hearted person I knew who never spoke a negative word about anybody in her life, but I won't insult your intelligence. She was kind, but when she needed to be she was . . . lets just say dedicated to her job, obsessed. She was a stubborn woman, who wouldn't take no for an answer. I guess she was spoiled because while growing up, she knew she would soon hold the most important position in Centre Rose. It was only with close friends, and with *you* and with your father that she stopped being a queen and became a woman, a mother, a friend." He trailed off helplessly shrugging his shoulders.
Maya had been silently watching Tobias while he was talking of her mother, and she saw his slight change of expression. It flit away as soon as it appeared, and she shrugged it off, classifying it as not important.
"So . . . I'm going to be queen? It just feels so weird to say that." She shrugged helplessly, "I–I guess it just hasn't sunk in yet."
"Well, I'm sorry but you'll have to get used to it because Centre Rose can't survive without a ruling monarch. Actually a ruling queen, but I couldn't come for you as soon as your mother died because the people were concerned about your safety if you came."
Her head looking down at her fingers nervously linking and breaking apart darted up to look at his face. "Why? I mean, why wouldn't I be safe?"
"Well, those who killed your mother could have also killed you and then where would Centre Rose be?" He replied with the half-truth smoothly. Quite proud of himself, he gave himself a mental pat on the back for his ability to think on the spot.
* * *
Lowan couldn't believe he had somehow been conned into coming to the middle of nowhere solely on a weird 'feeling' his sister had. He didn't have any doubt that he fell for some trick or another; Iris could always manoeuvre him into doing exactly what she wanted.
They had left the ute on the side of the road as Iris led the way. They walked around bushes sprouting from dry ground, and they stepped over forgotten pieces of bark. They were walking in silence, and this time Lowan didn't seem to mind the quiet. He preferred it that way. It was almost a reverential silence.
His mind on Iris's mysterious 'discovery,' he barely noticed the heat pounding on his back. Why the hell did I come? He could find no logical explanation for his presence in the outback. Now that he had the time to think it over, Lowan realised that he had always done exactly what his sister wanted. She had always managed to make each of her decisions to do something seem like his own. In front of nature and my own resolve I do solemnly swear that I will never be manoeuvred ever again.
He let out a little chuckle over his intense vow, laughing at his own gravity and knowing that it was impossible to carry out. Iris looked back and raised one eyebrow; silently asking what he thought was so funny. Imagining her expression if he was honest made him chuckle again and shake his head at her mutely denying her an answer.
They carried on silently again, and this time it was Iris who broke the quiet. "Lowan… " He raised his head to meet her eyes. "Do you believe me that there is something here? Or… Are you just humouring me?"
Hmmm, he thought, how to answer that? Say the truth and most probably get decked in the process? Or lie and *hopefully* carry it off?
He decided for half-truth, because the most successful lies are those based on some slither of truth. "I'm here to find out whether or not I believe you. I think you felt something out here, but as to it's worth, that I don't know."
Sighing, she replied, "Well I guess that will have to do."
"I guess," he agreed, then could almost kicked himself because he knew he should have just stayed silent as she ranted about how unlucky she was to have such an unbelieving brother.
"But I'd believe *you* if you told me you believed something weird was going on," she burst out, unable to disguise the hurt in her voice.
It seemed that half-truths hadn't worked and outright lies would definitely fall flat, so all that was left was the whole unvarnished truth. "Come on Iris, be honest, if I had come to you with a story about how I wanted you to fly hundreds of kilometres simply because I had a weird feeling and heard voices, would you *honestly* have come with me?"
Put that way in his calm reasonable voice, Iris had to admit that it did sound a bit far fetched, but her stubborn nature didn't permit her to confess this, no matter how wrong she knew she was. "I'd *still* believe you." Stubborn, mulish, obstinate, she berated herself silently.
Smiling wryly, "yes, I'm sure you would." Agreeing with her would be easier than fighting; it didn't tax his strength.
"But it doesn't matter. When you feel the weird feeling then I can just step back and say 'I told you so.' I'll be waiting patiently for my chance to gloat."
Sighing, softly Lowan thought it wiser to keep silent lest he have to listen to more of his sister's complaining. She had a tendency to go on and on about one tiny grievance until she thought of something else to complain about. "Uh, how much longer till we get to the place with the creepy feelings?"
"Not much longer." She stopped walking and just stood there her hand raised to shade her eyes as she looked into the horizon. She was frowning slightly as if puzzled by something.
"Don't tell me let me guess. You can't find the creepy spot?" Lowan groaned out loud. She didn't know where they were. Great. That was just great. They were miles away from home and lost in the bloody desert. He only grinned when she turned and threw him a look of utter contempt.
Sneering she replied, "It's over there." He looked to where her finger pointed and then looked back at her. It was a spot like any other in the desert, distinguished by nothing more than a tuft of grass spouting from the dry earth.
"You can tell the difference between here and there how?"
"Talent. I'm just special I guess." Before he could come up with a smart- ass remark, she had run down the slight incline and called back to him, "C'mon Lowan, I wanna say 'I told you so' so bad!"
When he walked up to her he raised a single eyebrow in a silent 'well?' Just wait, she thought smugly to herself. I can't wait till I see you apologise for not believing me and making me feel like an idiot. Enjoying his impatience, Iris dragged out the time by slowly turning her head towards him and putting a stray piece of brown hair behind her ear. She made each movement last much longer than was needed, simply for her own enjoyment.
"Take two steps to you left." She said it casually as if she were remarking that today was an incredibly hot day, or that the sky was indeed blue and the grass green.
This is what he wanted. Yet, now that he had the power to find out the truth, he was oddly hesitant. He could feel this almost shimmering feeling of raw power and he had not yet taken those two steps. It felt like a wave of silk passing over his skin leaving the hair on his arms rise, a sort of static electricity of the invisible. He could almost se the silk, a dazzling opaque colour that trapped in it the colours of the rainbow. There was magenta, he could see blue, violet, green, yellow, orange, red and where was… Oh, there was indigo.
He took a deep breath and made those last two steps to the unknown.
And then…
He couldn't explain it, even to himself. His eyes took in a scene of green rolling meadows where red desert used to be.
And yet…
He could also see the desert.
It was almost as if the two scenes were one, and at the same time, two distinct scenes he could separate from one another. He closed his eyes and opened them. The scene remained the same, he couldn't believe it but the evidence spoke for itself.
Then all at once, where he could only see visual images, he heard the sounds of birds calling to each other, the scent of wildflowers and felt a cool breeze gently brush past him. In the back of his mind, he registered that Iris was hopping around crowing repeatedly, "I told you so," and "you should've seen your face" at regular intervals. But he didn't care, as he normally would have; this just seemed so unreal. Here he was being made fun of by his sister while he entered into what he could only describe as some sort of portal to another world.
After that ridiculous thought, he snorted. Another world? Portal? Man, Lowan Wilde, you have sunk to new lows never reached before. Oh, you may have thought your other pathetic attempts were low, but this new thought is by far the lowest you've been.
Still mentally berating himself, he took two tentative steps forward and immediately his thoughts stopped whirring inside his head. Where he had before seen the two hazy scenes blurring together, he now saw one complete scene that definitely did not include his sister. Turning slowly, he looked around at this place much cooler than the desert heat. Ridiculously, the first words that popped into his head, were 'Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.'
Looking ahead, he stopped in mid-turn and could almost feel his jaw drop. There in front on him was some sort of barrier made from a material that was almost transparent. Through is he could see the fuzzy shape of his sister obviously distressed. Her hands were flinging around her face and body as if she were violently gesturing, and her feet were stamping on the floor in between random bursts of hand flinging.
But, that wasn't what was holding his attention; he was more focused on the actual clear substance separating him from his sister than he was with the person behind it. The barrier seemed to move with the gentle breeze and the colours inside it were arranged in splotches much like a stained glass window picture of contemporary art.
He took one step towards it and touched the barrier, which moulded around his hands much like cling wrap. It felt as though he were touching a bubble that refused to burst. Feeling more confident, he took another step towards the barrier; it pulled at him, as though it were an answer to a question he wanted to solve.
Suddenly, he was back in the desert and before he could catch a breath, his sister launched herself at him, clinging fiercely. "I was so scared. Thank goodness you're back!" Another thought struck her and she pushed him away. "Where the HELL were you? And what *took* you so long?" She poked him in the shoulder, as she was speaking to emphasise the words 'hell' and 'took'.
Still addled by what he saw, Lowan blinked. "I don't *know* what I saw. But I'm going to find out."
Startled, Iris grabbed at his arm. "No you're not! I don't know or understand what the hell happened here but I know I won't allow you to go alone. Don't try to argue."
Lowan grinned, "Iris, you may be my older sister, but you can't prohibit me from doing anything. And I want you to go and contact the council and get someone down here."
She nodded pleased he'd come to his senses. "Fine. Well you want to go now?"
"Iris, yes you go now but I'm staying."
"Why? There's absolutely no reason for you to stay."
"Someone has to check this thing out."
She rolled her eyes then spoke very slowly, enunciating every syllable clearly as if she were talking to a person who was a little thick headed. "Well, duh. That's… why… I'm… calling… the… council… Right?"
He raised an eyebrow at her and she rolled her eyes again at him, "Anyway, what did you see? What *happened*?"
He shook his head bewildered. "I don't know but the place I saw was cool and was sorta like a farm. I thought it was like a parallel universe or something." He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't believe in that shit but I *saw* it. And the thing that separates the worlds from here kinda feels like gladwrap and looks like a weird stained glass window. I could see you screaming and yelling but I couldn't hear you." He shrugged his shoulders again helplessly. "I can't explain. But I have to check it out."
"So how come I don't get to check it out? I found it first."
Pushing her away gently in the direction they came from he said softly, "Go Iris."
She looked back to argue with him but his mouth was set in that stubborn line and she knew she'd get nowhere if she did. Sighing, she slowly walked off yelling over her shoulder, "Next time I get to stay and you go be the run around messenger!"
Lowan ignored that and tuned back to the… *thing* he saw. He stepped forward and was again transported to that place with the rolling meadows. But this time he heard something else. It sounded like a trumpet call and it reminded him of what it sounded like when there was a celebration in England for the Queen.
Curious, he walked towards the sound.
* * *
Well? How was it? Give me the truth, I can take it!