“This is fantastic news,” Beth said. “Because we could sure use a journalist on the team.”
“I’m sorry, too, for all the things I wrote.” Frank shook Adam’s hand firmly. “We most definitely have a truce. And I’ll see all of you guys tomorrow morning. Just text me the time and address.”
“Boss, you bringing the doughnuts?” asked Steven.
Sarah clapped his shoulder. “I always do, don’t I?”
Beth smiled. “I love happy endings.”
Sarah bit her lip.
Where’s my happy ending?
Why did her heart have to be torn between two worlds? Hopefully, her husband would go back with her. Victor gripped her hand, and together they left the courtroom. He made his way to a black and white spotted horse tied to a tree. The stallion whinnied and he loosened the rope. He mounted the animal, reaching out his hand to help pull her up.
“Thanks, Victor,” she said.
“You are most welcome, milady.” He turned the horse and headed off, yelling over his shoulder to Frank and the others. “Follow us. Once we reach the forest where the Guardians reside, we’ll have to make one last stop.”
“Mia?” asked Frank.
“Yeah, she’s on the way,” Sarah said. “Right by the forest.”
Frank chuckled. “Yeah, how could I forget? You know we’ll never make it there by nightfall.”
“We’ll go as far as we can,” Victor said. “When dusk approaches, we’ll make a camp, get some rest, and start again at first morning light.”
They nodded as they walked over to a group of horses to the left. They saddled up, and then took off at a fast trot.
“Tomorrow, we’ll give Mia the minerals that were promised to her, and then we’ll take your friends to the portal,” Victor said.
She didn’t have the heart to tell Victor that she still planned on leaving with her friends. As she gripped him tightly, bouncing up and down on the back of his horse, she wasn’t even sure she had the heart to tell it to herself.
* * *
Sarah followed Mia into a small cottage while Victor and the others waited outside.
A man in his fifties with black, greasy hair lay on a small cot on the ground. He met Sarah’s gaze and tried to sit up, the effort leaving him
gasping
for
breath
.
Sarah poured some gold minerals from Victor’s pouch into Mia’s hands. “Place them on his tongue,” Sarah said, helping the man to sit up.
“Father, open your mouth. These are the Gold Mineral of Life.” Mia sprinkled them on her father’s tongue.
Within a minute, the color returned to his face, and he was no longer gasping for breath. He threw off the blanket and jumped to his feet, laughing. “Mia, you did it!”
Mia embraced her dad in a long, tight hug, tears flowing down her face. Hugging her dad even more tightly, she looked at Sarah. “Oh, Sarah, how will I ever thank you?”
“Thank me? Mia, you risked your life for me, and that’s the most amazing thing anybody can do.”
Mia ran over and hugged her. “Thanks again, and if you ever come back into our world…well, you know where to find me!”
Sarah smiled. “Peace be with you, my friend, and good luck with your wedding. Victor has assured me that he will pay for everything, and you and Jules will be married in a grand ceremony in the castle! I know how much you loved my wedding dress when you slipped it on, but I assure you that yours will be even more beautiful.”
Mia gasped. “If everyone in your world is like you, Sarah, it must be one big, beautiful place!”
“Well,” Sarah said, “you’re right about the big part!”
* * *
The night had long given way to the first rays of the rising sun, bathing the morning sky in streaks of gray and orange. Sarah had her arms wrapped around Victor’s waist as they rode through the forest, past dense bushes and trees with thick branches, creating a canopy over their heads. Frank, Beth, Adam, and Steven followed behind. Apart from the usual sounds of the awakening nature, chirping birds, and tiny animals scurrying through the shrubs, there was no sound to give away any pursuers.
Even though she knew King Taggert was a man of his word, it took Sarah a while to shake off the sense of foreboding that had settled in the pit of her stomach. Several times she turned to peer behind them as the horse continued its ride.
Each time, Victor patted her hand, as though reading her mind or sensing her edginess. Eventually, he whispered, “Relax. We’re safe now.”
Only then did she dare to take a deep breath and trust his words.
It wasn’t long before they reached the part of the woods she remembered the best, but they weren’t fond memories.
“We’re stopping here,” Victor said, pointing at what looked like a narrowing of the path.
She frowned and peered around her, rubbing her hands over her arms, even though she wasn’t cold. “Why?”
“Because we’re entering their territory.”
Sarah nodded gravely, knowing he was referring to the Guardians, the Sasquatch. “I thought the crystals would protect us.”
“They will, for King Taggert is a man of his word, but I’m just going first, just in case.”
She shook her head. “No. We’ll all go at the same time. If anything happened to you while you were trying to look after me, I’d…” She stopped before she could finish the sentence, but she didn’t need to.
Victor’s expression changed from a frown to an easygoing grin.
“Please don’t get your hopes up,” she said. She was still torn between the two different worlds. But how could she leave Victor? She thought about their future and imagined three little adorable children with Victor’s eyes running around the castle.
“I see you have already made up your mind, my Queen,” Victor said, grinning.
She averted her gaze so he wouldn’t see just how much his words pleased her. Victor gave her something no other man had given her before—a feeling of being needed and loved. If she stepped through that portal, that would be what she was really leaving behind. She swallowed down the bile in her throat and focused on the journey ahead.
The trees became sparser; even the dark green leaves and rich grass seemed to have deserted the place. Victor slowed and signaled the others behind him to do the same as he led the horse down the dirty trail, all the while watching their surroundings. They had been riding for at least three hours when they finally reached the clearing she thought she recognized. From there, it would only be minutes until they reached the cave.
Just then, a large, hairy creature, hovering at least a foot over them on tree branches, jumped from its hiding place.
Sarah’s heart almost stopped in her chest, and she pressed a hand to stifle a yelp.
“A Guardian!” someone whimpered behind her.
“It’s going to be all right, milady,” Victor whispered, but the edge in his voice didn’t fail to register with her.
The horse neighed and stopped, probably just as terrified as everyone else. Seeing these creatures up-close and personal wasn’t scary…but fascinating. After all, she’d been researching them for years. She just wished she had her favorite Nikon camera. For 400 years people from all walks of life have been reporting large, hair-covered, man-like animals in the wilderness areas of North America. And now Sarah knew why. They simply came from other dimensions. Could there be more undiscovered worlds out there? She glanced over her shoulder at Steven. “Film this!”
“Got it, boss!”
The hairy creature let out a guttural grunt and inched closer, so close that Sarah could smell the reek coming from its fur. Liz let out a tiny squeal. It probably brought back all those horrible memories when she had her first encounter at age fifteen.
“Keep quiet,” Charles whispered, so low she couldn’t be sure he had even spoken.
The Bigfoot sniffed the air, then let out another grunt as its black eyes focused on her. Slowly, it lifted its huge hand to touch the air inches from her face. Sarah drew a sharp breath and held it as her heart began to hammer harder. She wasn’t scared, but excited and curious…fascinated. Part of her wanted to jump right off that horse and follow the creatures straight back into the forest so she could study them, observe how they lived and behaved. A documentary like this would skyrocket the ratings on Animal Planet.
“The thing can see me!” Liz said. “King Taggert must’ve deceived us! This dime-store crystal isn’t worth a darn thing!”
“Shhh,” Charles whispered.
The Bigfoot pressed its hand harder against the air, then lifted the other one, as though to touch a barrier that wasn’t there.
In that instant, Sarah realized what was going on. King Taggert’s crystal had worked after all, building an invisible shield around them that they just couldn’t see. The Bigfoot couldn’t detect it either. She let out the long breath she didn’t know she had been holding.
A second later, the Bigfoot turned and scurried away.
Wow. What an adrenaline rush!
Without uttering a word, Victor guided the horse through the forest to the point Sarah thought she’d never see again: the cave that meant one thing—home.
Beams of sunshine hit her face, the warmth radiating through her entire body. The moment she had been waiting for had finally come. She’d go home and be free of that crazy place forever. It pained her to know she’d never see Victor again, but it was the only way.
Victor slid off his horse and helped her down. He gazed into her eyes with a sad look, as if he already knew her decision.
Her friends and sister waited by the cavern entrance.
“Come with me,” she pleaded, gripping his hands tightly. “We can have a life together in my world.”
He shook his head, his eyes already betraying his answer.
“My people need me here, Sarah. I am forever their king.”
The words stung as realization hit—he wasn’t coming back with her. “I thought you’d change your mind for sure.”
“You know I can’t leave, my love. This is where I belong.”
Her voice wavered as a
tear rolled down her cheek.
“You can’t exist in my world, and I can’t exist in yours. What are we to do, my dear King?”
He softly kissed her hands. “Don’t go, Sarah. You can exist here, as you’ve already proven. Stay with me.”
“I can’t begin to tell you how hard this is, but if you really care about me, you’ll let me go.” She touched his face.
He had no idea how hard it was for her to leave. Until that moment, she’d thought the decision would be a light one: Find the portal and then get the hell out of there without so much as a look back. But now that she had accomplished the first part of her plan, she realized the not looking back was easier said than done. She wasn’t even gone, yet she couldn’t stop looking at him, soaking in every single detail of his beautiful face: the chiseled chin, the dark eyes, the way his lips curled into the perfect smile, even when he was miffed. Those were the memories she wanted to treasure forever, to take with her to her grave, and if that grave meant an eternity, she knew those would be the memories that would keep her alive.
“Remember when we rode the unicorn, I told you I felt as free as an eagle? You can’t keep an eagle caged in your castle against its will.”
He kissed her on the lips softly. “I love you enough to let you go. If that is what you wish, my love, be free.”
“I’ll never forget the time we’ve spent together.”
Victor placed her hand on his heart. “I shall always cherish the short time we’ve had together. I’ll love you forever…and in our world, that’s a long time.” He slipped a gold band off his left finger. “My mother gave this to me when I was a child. I want you to have it…to remember me always.”
She gripped the ring tightly. “No, Victor. I cannot take this. You’ll never see me again. You should save this for the next woman who steals your heart.”
He cupped her face in his hands and moved closer, until she could feel his hot breath on her skin.
“A woman cannot steal something that you are taking with you,” he said. “My heart is yours and yours alone, Sarah…forever.”
The words stung to her inner core. “Goodbye,” she whispered. She kissed him on the lips one last time.
He turned, jumped on his horse, and galloped into the forest, literally riding off into the sunset like something out of a dream.
Holding her breath, she listened to the sound of the galloping horse until…it stopped! A sense of happiness washed over her. “He’s not really gone, is he?” Sarah whispered to her sister.
Liz shook her head. “What did you expect? A man like that isn’t going to listen to a word you say. He’s not one to take no for an answer! He won’t come back to change your mind because he respects you too much for that, but he also won’t turn his back on you before you don’t turn your back on him.” She slapped Sarah’s back. “It’s called love, sis. You know, the fluffy, silly feeling that turns the coldest heart into pure mush and pink clouds.”
Sarah nodded, lost for words. No man had ever made her cry, but she had the strong feeling Victor would be the one to do it.
“I’m going to escort you inside,” Liz said, pulling her along.