Chapter 21 – "This Is Pine Valley. Anything Can Happen"
Adam was inspecting Edmund's Pulitzer Prize when the red chair flew into the Main Ballroom, directly at him.
"Dad!" JR yelled, tackling him to the ground before the flying chair could decapitate him.
"What the fudge is that?" Adam gasped, only he didn't say "fudge".
"A red brocade Queen Anne Chair!" Di(xie) told him, ducking as it came around again to their side of the Ballroom.
"I can see that!" Adam growled. "But what the hell is it doing in orbit?"
-------------------------------------------
"What happened to your ex-friends?" Lily was asking Edmund.
"They appear to have been shot to Hell," Edmund murmured, trying to understand what they had witnessed.
"Not to Hell," Zach disagreed. "But close enough. I zapped them back to Galios IV."
"In one piece?" Lily asked doubtfully, counting the soap bubbles floating in the air.
"Never fear, Lily," Zach comforted her, snapping shut his Super-Sonic-Mega-Laser-Ray-Gun, so that it folded neatly into itself not unlike a Totes umbrella. "They will recover. Galiosicans are a resilient lot."
"How can Zach know about Galios IV?" an amazed Marian asked an amazed Stuart.
"And how can Zach hear us?" an equally amazed Opal asked. "Unless he's dead."
"Zach, are you dead?" Lily asked him immediately.
"Not so far," Zach replied, "but it's early yet. This is Pine Valley, Lily. Anything can happen."
As if on cue, an hysterical collection of Pine Valley's most prominent citizens stampeded out of the Main Ballroom, chased by the flying red brocade Queen Anne Chair.
"Edmund, where in tarnation is that time machine flying off to now?" Opal wanted to know, as it whizzed by.
"Looks like it's headed for the Montgomerys," Zach predicted.
-------------------------------------------
"Erica, are you sure you're feeling better?" Jack was asking his wife as the chair flew in and landed gently beside her.
"I'm right as rain," Erica reported, as the chair took off again and flew back out of the room.
"I think it wants us to follow it," Myrtle surmised.
-------------------------------------------
"I still don't understand why that scum is able to hear us," Sam was saying as the chair returned from the living room, followed by Erica and all her family. He shared Mrs. Tiwiliger's opinion of Zach and nothing could change his mind on that score.
"Zach hears us because he's Galioscian," Edmund explained. "I didn't realize he was until he came in with the red chair for Erica. When the truth hit me, I couldn't believe my eyes. I recognized him for the first time. Zach is from Galios IV, just like me and our not so dear departed guests. I guess that's why I've always detested him."
"Edmund, you detested him because he was my lover in the desert when I had amnesia," Maria differed. "And because he came to Pine Valley to find me."
"That's not why I came to Pine Valley," Zach revealed. "It wasn't to find you, Maria."
"It was to find ME," Edmund realized. "They sent you to find me!"
"And the time machine too?" Lily asked.
"Yes, Lily, that too," Zach affirmed.
"But if Zartz, Zift and Zetz sent you to find Edmund and the time machine, why did you zap them into soapy smithereens?" Opal demanded.
"Maybe they weren't the Galiosicans who sent him," Lily theorized.
"Maybe they weren't," Zach agreed evasively.
"Wait a second!" Maria cried out in equal measures of horror and shock. "BOTH loves of my life are Aliens?"
"Yes, well, Shirley is from New Hampshire, if that's any comfort to you," Zach told her. "So, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, you are capable of forming human attachments."
"Congratulations, Mom," Maddie sneered.
"Oh look, the time machine is back," Zach smiled, as the chair landed beside him. "Anybody wanna go for a ride?"
"That thing nearly took my head off," Adam said hotly. "Obviously it didn't do that on its own."
"Obviously," Zach agreed. "I wonder who has the Remote."
"You're the Remote," Lily said to Zach. "At first you made the chair fly as a diversion so Zartz, Zift and Zetz wouldn't notice you were getting ready to zap them. And then you sent the chair from room to room to scare people so they'd go home while you try to help us deactivate the time machine."
"You're a good detective, Lily," Zach smiled at her.
"And the chair isn't the time machine," Lily continued. "If it were, when Mrs. Tiwiliger announced Erica's age, even once, it would have done something. I saw the walls fading in and out, and I think I heard a humming sound, but the chair didn't do anything at all. The chair is only a chair. Wildwind is the time machine!"
"But Edmund, you announced the red chair was the time machine!" Opal challenged him. "In capital letters you announced it!"
"That was for the benefit of Zartz, Zift and Zetz," Edmund explained. "It never hurts to mislead your enemies while you try to find the real time machine."
Lily could understand that, but that led her to another question.. "Zach, did you believe Edmund about the red chair being the time machine?"
"Right up to the second the walls started doing the Samba," he admitted.
"That means yes?" Lily asked to make sure.
"Yes," he told her.
"Zach, who the hell are you talking to?" Adam inquired not so politely.
"I don't know why I miss him so," Stuart whispered to Marian. "He's such a nogoodnick!"
"Yes, Darling, but he's YOUR nogoodnick," Marian explained. "And he used to write us such beautiful checks!"
"Who do you think you're talking to, Zach?" Aidan asked him directly.
"No butterflies, Sam," Lily confided as she looked at Aidan objectively. "He's awfully cute." She smiled at her boyfriend. "But he's not you!"
"True," Maddie had to agree. "For one thing, he's alive!"
The group in the hall had thinned out, as people interested only in the Estate Sale drifted away, disappointed and completely oblivious to what had gone on that day and what was still going on as they turned their backs and left Wildwind.
"Come on, Mama, let's go," Babe urged Krystal. "Maybe JR will let me visit with Little Adam if we follow them home and beg nicely."
"Dream on," JR said heartlessly.
"Honey, you don't mean that," Di(xie) hoped. "You're too good and forgiving a person to hold a grudge!"
"She lied to me, Mom," JR explained. "Over and over. I can't stand being lied to."
Di(xie) sighed and Adam chuckled.
"Ryan, let's go home," Greenlee suggested. "But first let's stop for some ice cream and pickles!"
Kendall plopped herself down on the red chair, next to her husband.
"Methinks this party is breaking up, snookums," she said to him, suspecting she had been kept out of an extremely interesting loop and resenting that through and through. "Perhaps we should leave while the leaving is good."
"Not just yet, sweetums," he said to her. "I haven't gotten around to saving all material reality. By the by, is Greenlee pregnant? I only ask because she seems to be craving ice cream and pickles."
Kendall shrugged. "Better her than me. Listen, it's getting late. You can play with all your silly friends tomorrow!"
"But half of them are still dead," he pointed out. "And I can't just leave them like that! Besides, there's Shirley to consider."
Shirley Tiwiliger was standing, mouth open, blinking rapidly, covered head to foot in soap suds.
Zach approached her carefully, lest she blurt out Erica's true age in surprise, fright or both.
"What happened to the big soapy monsters?" she asked Zach quietly.
"Nothing they didn't deserve," he told her. "Now look in my eyes, dear heart and begin to forget."
"What am I forgetting?" Mrs. Tiwiliger asked weakly.
"Erica Kane's real age," Zach answered.
Thinking he was asking her a question, Mrs. Tiwiliger told him Erica's real age.
"No!" Erica screamed. "Nobody listen to her! She's insane! She's lying! She's making it up! It isn't true!"
Meanwhile, all of the walls of Wildwind began to vibrate and fade in and out of visibility while a faint, almost melodic hum accompanied them.
"Why, that's 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree!'" Opal exclaimed, recognizing the tune.
"Actually, that's the Galiosican National Anthem," Zach corrected her. He turned back to Mrs. Tiwiliger. "Shirley, forget all about Erica's age! Never speak of it again!"
"Thank you, Zach!" Erica cried out with all of her heart.
"That's how old you are?" Jack asked her softly.
"Of course, that isn't how old I am!" Erica proclaimed loudly and clearly enough for all, living and dead, to hear. "Tell them you were mistaken, Mrs. Tiwiliger!"
"Who's Mrs. Tiwiliger?" asked Mrs. Tiwiliger.
Zach sighed. "Temporary amnesia," he diagnosed. "Most of her memory will return in a little while. Probably."
"Except for that lie about my age?" Erica checked tensely.
Zach moved slightly toward Erica, a rakish grin playing on his rakish mouth.
"If you kiss her again, it's the last thing you'll ever do," Kendall warned.
"Point well taken," he relented, knowing that even a Galiosican would be slow to recover from the wrath of Kendall Hart.
"Oh, Shirley, I hope you don't forget me!" Maria whispered because it was true.
Edmund felt an unfamiliar surge of sympathy for his wife. "Don't worry, Maria. Zach wouldn't hurt anybody permanently." He looked fondly at Lily. "Not even a trio of big soapy Galiosicans bent on cosmic destruction!"
"Where's Lily?" Jackson demanded, suddenly noticing that his daughter (or more accurately the Alien he mistook for his daughter) was no longer in the hall. "Lily, where are you?"
"I'm dead, Dad," Lily whispered in reply. "Oh, Sam, this is bad! My Dad can't hear me! And even if he could hear me, I don't think he'd feel good knowing that I'm not alive anymore!"
Sam realized all at once that HIS Dad could hear him, and he didn't want to waste any more time.
"I love you, Dad," he told Edmund. "Dead or alive."
"So do I!" Maddie said solemnly. "Wait a second! Daddy, if you're from outer space, then I'm half-Alien." This was a brand new thought for her. "Do I have superpowers?"
"I think you take after my side of the family," Maria told her gently. "Sorry about that, sweetie!"
"I'm not sorry, Mommy! I love you!" And with that, Maddie threw herself in her mother's arms and, of course, fell right through them.
"I think the worst thing about being dead is that I can't touch you," Lily said to Sam, seeing Maddie hit the floor. "I don't usually want to touch people. When I was alive, I mean. And I didn't want them to touch me either. But that's changed." She reached out to Sam and watched her ghostly hand pass through his. "Sam, I think you're the reason I've changed."
Sam's heart could not feel any fuller if it were beating. "I've changed too, Lily. I used to feel so mad all the time. Ever since my Dad was murdered and I found out about my Mom and Zach. But I'm not angry anymore. I love you too much to be angry at anything or anyone!"
"Including me?" Maria asked tentatively.
Sam smiled. "I love you Mom. I always did!"
Maria laughed. "Looks like I got my family back!"
Opal sighed. "Looks like you did, honey. Too bad everybody is d---"
"Erica, have you spoken to Opal today?"
Palmer Cortland had wandered through the open front door, a worried look on his worried face.
"No, I tried calling her a dozen times but she wasn't at home," Erica reported. "I was hoping she'd be here." She looked around the hall. "But she isn't here."
"He's worried about me," Opal said in wonder. "The old coot is worried about me!"
"He loves you, Opal," Brooke assured her. "He's always loved you."
Opal wiped away a tear. "Too little, too late," she sniffed.
"It's never too late," Brooke said, looking at Edmund.
Maria smiled at Maddie and Sam. "It's never too late!"
All of them heard a horribly loud ticking coming from every corner of the Mansion.
"Edmund!" Lily gasped in horror as the walls began fading in and out to the tune of the Galioscian National Anthem. "I think it's too late!"
Could Lily be right? Are our heroes too late to stop matter from crashing into antimatter? A couple of chapters, lots of surprises still to come! Please read on! Your review is welcome!