‘My poor Shibby,’ she said,
stroking his soft fur, ‘what sort of bastard would do this?’
‘An Anubian one,’ said Daria.
‘They must be gone now or one of us would have sensed them close
by. I’m so sorry Max, is there anything we can do?’
‘You can help me look for
Shibby2,’ she said, choking back tears, ‘I’d like to bury my boys
together, they were inseparable in life and I want them to be
together in death.’ She began looking around the garden, under
plants and bushes, behind the shed.
‘He’s not dead,’ said Daria, ‘I
don’t see him dead nor do I sense him dead.’
‘I don’t understand, how could
you possibly know that.’
‘We’ll explain everything
later,’ said Haven putting a reassuring arm around her, but for now
let’s find Shibby2, he may be hurt.’
‘Shhhhh,’ said Gilster, ‘did
you hear that?’ Everyone stopped, listening intently for any sound
of the missing cat that might be heard above the noise of the
leaves rustling in the breeze, and the night insects. They heard a
faint meow from high up in one of the trees. Max ran into the house
and came back with a torch. The beam of the torch barely reached
the branch where Shibby2 was precariously perched.
‘We’ll never reach him up
there,’ sobbed Max. Then she heard someone softly singing, it was
an ethereal sound and very beautiful. She turned and saw Gilster
with his arms raised to the tree; it was him singing. Max couldn’t
believe what she was seeing in the torch light; the leaves and
branches were gently wrapping themselves around Shibby, and then,
even more miraculously, the tree began to bend very slowly,
creaking and cracking until the branches cradling Shibby were level
with Max; they began to unravel themselves and gently placed the
battered body of Shibby2 in Max’s arms, all the while Gilster
continued singing his celestial song. ‘Oh my god, what just
happened, this is so totally unreal I can’t get my head around it.’
Gilster finished his song, and Max heard him softly whisper.
‘Thank you and may you have a
long life,’ before bowing gracefully in front of the tree.
Max was speechless. Daria
gently took Shibby2 from Max’s arms and walked inside, turning to
Haven as she left.
‘Please bury the body of Max’s
friend while we try and save this one.’
Later, after Shibby2 had been
tended to and was sleeping peacefully in front of the heater, well
as peacefully as he could, given the trauma he’d just been through,
everyone sat down with a glass of wine, (alcohol was something else
Max had to explain as it was unknown on Elaxier), to finally talk
about all that had happened and hopefully, Max thought, get some
answers. ‘It seems odd,’ thought Max, as they sat in the lounge
room talking comfortably, ‘how quickly these people have become my
friends, I feel very safe with them. This time yesterday I hadn’t
even heard of the Chosen, Uthians or Anubians and yet here I am
today, talking about all these things and more with people from
another world. Life is weird.’ Haven smiled behind his hand.
‘Tell me about your “gifts”,’
asked Max. ‘I still can’t believe what you did, especially you
Gilster, I’ve never seen anything like that before.’
‘You know you have a gift too,’
said Daria pointedly, ‘or you wouldn’t be one of the chosen.’
‘Nah, you’re joking, I don’t
have any talents like you do.’ She took a sip of wine, beginning to
relax after the extraordinary day she’d had.
‘I am a dream interpreter and I
also have visions,’ continued Daria, ‘Haven, as you already know is
a telepath, he can send and receive thoughts and Gilster is a
singer.’ Max snuggled deeper into the couch, hugging a cushion to
her stomach; not having eaten much, the wine was beginning to take
effect.
‘What is a singer?’ she asked,
‘I’ve never heard of that before.’
‘So you know about telepaths
and psychics then, that’s something I wasn’t expecting,’ said
Daria, sipping her wine.
‘We have psychics and telepaths
here,’ explained Max, ‘but most people don’t take them seriously,
and some would go so far as to ridicule them.’
‘Ridicule them! In our world
energy workers are highly revered and greatly respected.’ Daria
seemed quite shocked by what Max had said.
Gilster explained about how a
singer works with the elements of nature to change their shape, she
listened, hardly believing what she was hearing.
‘Now we must work out what your
talent is, little one,’ said Gilster. ‘Do you work with energy in
any way?’ asked Daria, pouring herself another wine.
‘Yes . . . yes I do, I suppose,
when I practice reiki I let the universal energy flow through me,
like I’m a conduit.’
‘And what happens to this
energy?’ asked Gilster.
‘It heals.’
‘Well, we’ve found your gift
then,’ said Haven, ‘you’re a healer.’
‘I’m also a nurse,’ said Max,
‘which would be another kind of healer, I suppose.’
‘Thank Minerva,’ said Daria
sounding distinctly relieved, ‘a healer will be very important to
have on our journey.’
The day’s events had finally
taken their toll on Max who had fallen asleep on the couch, her
head resting on Haven’s shoulder; he carefully took the half full
glass of wine from her fingers and placed it on the table.
‘Well, what do we do now?’ he
whispered, smiling down at the sleeping Max. ‘Our host seems to be
. . . indisposed.’
‘I’ll keep watch for the first
few hours,’ said Gilster, ‘we can’t be too careful. Anubis’
followers may decide to return.’
‘That’s not likely,’ said Daria
yawning, ‘surely, if they’d thought this was Max’s home they would
have waited for her to return?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Gilster, ‘ but
I’d rather not risk it, you two sleep for now; Haven can take the
next watch and Daria you can have until the morning.’ Daria was
already snoring softly, curled up in an arm-chair, a blanket over
her knees. Haven just nodded, not wanting to wake Max.
Gilster went outside and sat in
an old, wicker chair on the front porch. The stars were shining and
it would be a full moon in a couple of days, so he could see
clearly enough. The night was cool but not cold; wrapping himself
in his cloak he leaned back in his chair, put his booted feet up on
the railing and thought about all that had happened since their
arrival in this strange world. He wasn’t sure that he liked this
world much, it was very noisy and there were a lot of people, not
at all like his quiet, peaceful home. But that was before Timus
caused the burning of the temple, and death and destruction had
come to Elaxier, no, his home was no longer the same, it had
changed forever. He thought about what was ahead, it was not going
to be easy, in fact, it was even possible some might not finish the
journey; the thought made him sad.
After a few hours of musing he
went back inside. Haven was asleep, his arm protectively around
Max, Gilster smiled as he put a blanket over them. He sat watch the
whole night, listening intently for any sound that may pose a
threat, but the night remained silent.
Morning came and Max was
extremely embarrassed about falling asleep the night before,
leaving her guests to fend for themselves.
‘I cannot apologise enough,’
she said, ‘it was so rude of me.’
‘Please,’ said Gilster, ‘don’t
worry about it, we all managed and no damage done.’
‘Truth be told,’ said Haven,
‘we weren’t far behind you in falling asleep. But good old Gil
saved us and stood watch all night while we slept like babies,
thanks Gil, but you should have woken me, I would have stood my
watch.’
‘Today is another day,’ said
Daria standing at the kitchen bench, drinking a cup of coffee. She
brushed away a copper curl that was hanging across her eye. ‘I
think we should start looking for the next portal location so we
can move on and find the next Chosen. We don’t know how much time
we have left and we want to keep ahead of Anubus’ followers.’
A soft meow came from the
basket near the heater, everyone turned to look at Shibby who had
been forgotten in all the confusion of the morning. Max bent down
and stroked Shibbys head. ‘How are you today my little man, you’re
looking much better.’ He licked her hand and purred loudly. Max
looked up at her three new friends. ‘I can’t leave him here, I
won’t leave him here, what if those people come back, they’ll kill
him, like they killed his brother.
‘Then we will take him with
us,’ said Haven offering Max a helping hand as she rose to stand.
‘There is no reason why you can’t have a friend with you.’ Daria
was about to disagree but Gilster cut her off.
‘I agree,’ he said, ‘Shibby
comes with us. ‘Now let’s decide how we’re going to go about
finding the next portal and Chosen.’
Max thought it might be a good
idea for her new friends to change their clothing before they did
anything else, this would make it easier to move around in public
without attracting as much attention.
Daria fitted into some work-out
pants and a large T shirt that belonged to Max, but there was
nothing that would fit either of the men, not any of her father’s
old clothes or her old boyfriend. ‘I think we need to go shopping,’
said Max.
‘What is “shopping”? asked
Daria.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll show you,
I’m very good at it,’ laughed Max. ‘In fact, you could almost say
I’m an expert.’ She gathered up her purse and put it in her bag,
checking her credit-card was inside. Grabbing Daria by the arm she
hustled her towards the front door, eager to leave.
‘Could you bring back some
food,’ said Haven, ‘I haven’t eaten for a while. . . big man, big
appetite,’ he winked.
Max stopped mid-stride, ‘I did
it again, didn’t I?’ she said, ‘I’m so sorry, with everything that
has happened, food completely slipped my mind. Please, help
yourselves, it won’t be much but whatever you can find is
yours.’
‘Don’t mind him,’ smiled
Gilster, ‘he thinks with his stomach.’
‘I do not, I just require a lot
of fuel to keep me going,’ said Haven, pretending to be hurt by the
comment.
‘We’ll see you soon, hopefully
we won’t be too long, but I can’t promise,’ said Max, as she and
Daria left.
Max had already told them about
what Janus had said, how the next portal was at the temple in the
mountain. Looking back, it sounded a bit vague and lacked any
practical information, like how were they supposed to find this
mysterious temple. Max didn’t live in an area known for its old
temples or its mountains, she lived on a small acreage outside of a
seaside town.
‘What do you think we should be
doing?’ said Haven drinking a beer, something he had taken a
distinct liking to since arriving on Earth.
‘No idea,’ said Gilster,
lounging comfortably on the sofa, ‘they really didn’t give Max much
information at all did they? How are we supposed to find this
temple without any clues.’
Shibby, who was asleep in his
basket, suddenly raised his head, flattened his ears and growled
menacingly. Both men look at him in surprise; then they heard a
sound at the back door, the handle was rattling. Stealthily, like
cats themselves, they moved into the kitchen, and heard voices
arguing.
‘We’ve already been here I tell
you,’ said one.
‘I know that you idiot, but
they said we had to come back again so here we are.’
‘What are we looking for
now?’
‘I don’t know, but look we will
if we value our lives, I know and so should you, not to argue with
Rast, remember what happened to Ches?’
‘I’d rather not,’ said the
other voice, ‘it wasn’t pleasant.’
Haven and Gilster had
positioned themselves either side of the door, that way they could
grab anyone attempting to enter. There was a scratching sound
around the door handle, slowly the knob turned.
‘Shhh,’ said one of the voices,
‘if anyone is in there we want to take them by surprise.’
The door creaked opened and two
men made their way cautiously into the kitchen. Not a lot of light
came through the one small window, but it was enough to see two,
short, ugly little men creeping in. One had a red, angry scar
running down his left cheek which caused the skin to pucker and
pull the corner of his eye down and what little hair he had on his
head was plastered down across his odd shaped skull. The other one
was fat and squat with a broken nose mashed across his face and
badly bowed legs. As the two men entered the kitchen, Haven and
Gilster leapt forward and grabbed them. There was a short scuffle
but the intruders were no match for the much larger men.
‘What do we have here?’ said
Haven, holding up one of the creatures by the neck of his filthy
jacket, his feet kicking backwards and forwards about two feet off
the floor.
‘I’m not sure,’ said Gilster,
holding the other one at arm’s length, ‘but they certainly
stink.’
‘What are you doing here and
don’t lie because I’ll know,’ growled Haven. The one Gilster was
holding began to talk in a soothing, sing-song voice.
‘You don’t want to hurt us,
we’re nothing, in fact we’re less than nothing, we don’t want any
trouble, we just want to leave.’ Gilster’s eyes began to glaze over
and his grip on the creature slackened, he didn’t notice as the man
began to move his hand inch by inch towards a knife hilt poking
from the waist-band of his jeans.
‘Don’t listen to his words
Gil,’ shouted Haven breaking the spell, ‘I can hear his thoughts
and you don’t want to know what they are going to do to us if they
get free.’ Both of the creatures jerked suddenly, trying to escape
by reaching for the weapons they had secreted about their clothes,
but it was an exercise in futility, Gilster and Haven were far too
strong and they were quickly disarmed. After another short scuffle
the creature Haven was holding hung limp and unresponsive from his
fist.