Chapter 4
Jennifer sat in her assigned seat during her English class the next day but it was impossible for her to concentrate. All she could think about was Eranithia and how her parents were once the king and queen. Her head still spun at the thought. Never had she thought she was a part of something so important. She was royalty! But nobody here in her classroom, in a normal high school, in southern California had a clue. It was hard enough for her to believe, there was no way anyone else would believer her.
Jennifer sat towards the back of the classroom, her old friends surrounding her in neighboring seats. The last two months she had withdrawn from them. They didn't understand what was going on with her, and she couldn't tell them, so they did the only thing that came naturally to them...they ignored her. "Do unto others" to them meant, “If someone does it to me, I'll return it in like.”
She didn't care anymore, though. Chuckling to herself, she realized she'd become her brother. Not too long ago she'd wished she could be more like him. Now she was more like him than she'd intended. The only difference was, she didn't have any friends here like he had.
But she knew where her real friends were, and that was in a different world. One where her only connection was a bird that could travel between realms. But that was going to change. Seth had said they were coming for her soon.
Jennifer doodled on a blank piece of paper as she waited for class to start. She wasn't drawing anything in particular, only loops that intersected. It was a distraction for her so she could focus her thoughts since the class was so noisy.
Then suddenly everything went silent. She looked up and saw the class was completely frozen. It was like someone had pressed the pause button on life. The only difference was, she could still move around. She thought of movies and TV shows where a character with time stopping abilities practiced their power. They would walk around the frozen, manikin like bodies.
The teacher stood frozen at the white board with a red, dry-erase marker in mid-stroke as she wrote out the day's lesson. Jennifer looked to her right and saw that the class troublemaker, a large guy with a buzz cut and a fat, bulldog-like face, had just shot a spit-wad towards the teacher. The wet piece of paper was already a foot out of the straw in a perfect shot for the back of the teacher's head. To her left two of her old friends were frozen in laughter. One was looking over in mid-glance. They had been talking about her.
Her desk/chair combo suddenly began to convulse like someone in an epileptic seizure. She darted out of her seat with a small scream and stood against the wall, palms pressed against the surface in hopes that a doorknob would magically appear. At first she thought someone had heard her scream but looking around she saw everybody was still frozen. Nothing else in the room moved but the desk and her. Then it stopped as quickly as it had started. Jennifer's heart raced, her eyes wide with fear, a cold sweat broke out along her hairline. Then a bright light started to shine on the wall directly behind her. Jennifer jumped away from the wall, turning towards it at the same time. The light from the glowing light hurt her eyes, so she held out her hand to shield them.
However, as she stared at the growing light, she thought she could see through it. If she wasn't mistaken, she could see trees and a small stone house. Then the light disappeared, allowing her to look directly at the wall again. A six foot high, three foot wide archway now stood where there had once been a beige wall panel.
A young man wearing brown leather pants, black travel boots and a loose, tan, wool shirt, with the top laces open, stepped through the archway and down the narrow aisle of desks. She backed away in fear as she took in the sight of him. His dirty blond hair was messy and where there had once been glasses were now the brilliant blue eyes of her brother.
"MARK!" she screamed as she ran and threw her arms around him.
He laughed as he embraced his sister.
"Sis, I can't breath," he choked.
She let go and said, "Sorry."
Mark smiled from ear to ear and Jennifer knew that her smile matched his.
"Come on. Our adventure awaits."
She took his outstretched hand and he led her through the hole in the wall. Jennifer glanced back as the scene in the classroom unfroze as soon as she was out of the room. Her former friends in the seats next to hers began looking around for her, wondering where she had suddenly disappeared to. Then they were distracted as a spit-wad struck the back of the teacher's head and the class broke out into laughter.
With a satisfied smile, Jennifer let the classroom disappear from her mind nearly as quickly as it dissolved from her sight. She was where she belonged. In Eranithia. Turning around she recognized the stone house as Garandol's home she had once spent the night in.
"Garandol!" she exclaimed happily as she ran to him and hugged him tightly.
He chuckled and said, "Welcome back, Jennifer."
She let go of him and her expression changed from happy to angry in a second flat. "What took so long?"
Mark's eyebrows folded into the center of his face as he looked at his sister confused. "What do you mean?"
"I've been waiting for two months! Giving mom and dad a made up story about where you were and why you were gone. It killed me to lie to them so much."
"Jen, I'm sorry, but it's only been a week here."
Her mouth opened slightly, feeling ashamed for her outburst.
"It has?"
"Yeah, look," he said showing her the bruises he had earned in their battle at the Onyx Battlefield.
She gaped at his minor injuries, then looked at his face again. "I'm sorry. I had no idea."
Mark gave her a half grin to one side of his mouth and said, "It's okay sis, it's great to have you back."
Smiling again she said, "It's good to be back. So, where are we going?"
"To Kushen to talk to the Rey of the Centaurs, Thern. We are going as Seth's ambassadors," Garandol informed her.
"Where's Arland?" she asked, practically ignoring what Garandol had said. There was something about ambassadors and Centaurs. Arland was the only thing on her mind at the moment.
Mark swallowed a snort. Jennifer caught it and gave him an embarrassed smile.
"He is joining Seth to Ashenland to speak to the Ri, the Elf king," Garandol explained. "The Elves are a bit more stubborn than the Centaurs. They need to hear messages from the source. The Centaurs are much easier to convince."
"Then what are we waiting for?" she asked excitedly.
"Well, first you need to change. There are clothes inside for you. We are traveling as peasants so we don't draw any unwanted attention," Mark explained.
Jennifer went into Garandol's house and changed into similar clothes as Mark, then they were on their way.
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