Tag Archive: Sam

Apr 09

In the Company of Angels: Episode 10.1 – The Chase

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In the Company of Angels, Episode 10.1 – The Chase

 

“You cannot stuff a raven into a soup pot!” said Jill, whispering as loudly as she dared.

“Well, then what would you suggest?! I don’t see any bird cages handy!” Sam whispered back, fiercely.

They were still sitting in the Professor’s study, and the raven, for the time being at any rate, remained perched on the floor of the hallway not ten feet from where Sam was seated.

The Professor, too, was racking his brain for any item that might be useful for caging a wild bird, but he, too, was drawing a blank. He whispered,“I would suggest that we determine how to capture the poor thing before we divert ourselves too much with housing options. But while we’re brainstorming, how on earth did the creature come by another crystal?”

The raven, almost as if listening, seemed to tighten its grasp on the second blue gem. It had apparently returned to its hoard atop the wardrobe, discovered the first sapphire gone, and had flown out of the open door to see what might have become of it. The creature couldn’t land easily on the bannisters while holding onto the second crystal, so it had ended up on the floor. From there it had half flapped and half hopped over to the doorway into the study to see what could be seen.

Sam glanced at the Professor. “Do you have a towel or a blanket that we could throw over it?”

“Oh, yes, that might work!” whispered the Professor. He slowly stood up and tiptoed toward the second door in the study; it lead to a bedroom just beyond his office. But the raven was having none of this; it hopped away from the door, all the while keeping a close eye upon everyone in the room.

“I don’t know if it’s going to stay long enough for me to retrieve the blanket,” said the Professor.

“Yeah, but it’s still worth a try. Just move slowly,” said Sam.

Ultimately the effort proved futile. As soon as the Professor returned from the bedroom with blanket in hand, the raven flapped its way back up to the top of the wardrobe. They knew there was no room there to throw the blanket, so they stood in the doorway considering how best to proceed.

“One thing’s for certain,” said Sam, returning to his normal speaking voice. “We have to get the painting of Orbaratus out of the crawlspace, or at least covered up so that the raven can’t fly back into it again.”

“Oh, gee, Sam!” said Jill. “We should have thought of that to begin with! Professor, can we get back into the other crawlspace — the one Mrs. Mills found us in — without passing by the wardrobe? I’m afraid walking past it might spook the raven and drive him back out of the house again.”

“Yes, there’s another way in,” replied the Professor. He pointed to a small hatch in the wall. “That connects with the larger attic space. The section of attic that houses the wardrobe is entirely separate.”

Sam stepped toward the hatchway and opened it. He recognized this door as one of the two they had first discovered when they were exploring the attic. “I’ll go and turn the painting around toward the wall. That will at least stop the bird from using it to escape back to Orbaratus.” He disappeared into the hatchway.

“Professor, do we know how the raven reached the wardrobe? That is, where the hole in the eaves is located that he might have used?” asked Jill.

“No, I don’t believe so. We would have to go outside the house and look for it. I’m assuming we can’t get to it from inside without frightening the bird away, and if we do that, it may or may not return to the other attic.”

“I wonder if there’s any way I could lure it out of the attic?”

“Do you mean telepathically, or by some other means?”

“Oh, I hadn’t really thought of that! But trying to communicate with it telepathically is certainly worth a try! We’re open to anything at this point, I think.” Jill took a couple of steps into the hallway toward the wardrobe. She shut her eyes and tried to “find” the raven. It took her a few moments, but she thought she sensed the bird, still atop the wardrobe. “But what should I do next?” she wondered. She had only just started exploring the use of her abilities with people; how in the world would she know how to “chat” with a bird?

As it happens, she didn’t get an opportunity. Just a few moments after she was sure that she felt the presence of the raven, she realized that it was on the move. She didn’t need her empathic senses to tell her: a loud squawk followed by the flapping of wings heralded the bird’s abdication of its roost. She tried to sense whether it was still in the house, but could detect nothing.

“Well, I guess we either go outside and see if we can find where it’s ended up, or wait here and see if it returns,” she said.

The Professor was just about to respond when they heard a loud yell and a crash come from the office hatchway. They hurried into the office and Jill stooped down and entered the attic.

“Sam? What happened?” she called out. She could see nothing in the gloom.

“Over here,” said Sam. “The bird came back. It flew past me and startled me. I knocked over something as I tried to see where it was headed, but I lost it in the dark.”

“Quick, Miss Jonsson,” said the Professor from just behind her,”let me in and let’s shut the hatchway door.” Jill stepped further into the attic and the Professor ducked and came in as well.

“Sam, can you hear me?” asked the Professor.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Sam, do you know where the bird came from?”

“Yeah, there’s a hole over here at this end of the attic. Jill and I saw him come in that way before Mrs. Mills found us.”

“Can you stop it up with something? Anything will do: a box, a blanket, whatever you can find.”

“Yes! Good thinking! Let me see….” Jill and the Professor heard a rustling, then a scraping sound from the far end of the attic. By now their eyes had become accustomed to the gloom, and they shut the hatchway tightly behind them.

“Sam, is his escape route closed off?” asked Jill.

“Yeah. I don’t think he can get back out that way at least. Doesn’t mean he hasn’t some other hole in another part of the attic, though. This is a pretty large place to hide!”

Jill moved toward Sam and the Professor followed her. She passed by the spot where the painting of Orbaratus had been and saw that Sam had turned it around and propped it against the wall. He had shoved a small box up against the back of the canvas to make sure no opening remained for the bird to fit through.

“Professor, did you bring your flashlight?” Sam asked as they all collected at the farthest end of the attic.

“My electric torch? No, I left it in my office.”

“OK, we’ll just have to use mine.” Sam took his flashlight out of his pocket and switched it on.

“Oh my! That is an extraordinarily bright torch!” said the Professor. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”

Sam was about to explain about the LEDs, but Jill nudged him and he remained silent.

“Let’s stick together and go through the attic slowly. If anyone sees anything move, holler,” said Sam.

They stepped through the entire length of the attic twice and never saw the bird, nor any other movement other than the stirring of dust.

“There appears to be no sign of it,” said the Professor, “so either it has a second nest and is in it trying to remain quiet, or it has found another way out of the attic.”

“I think it’s the latter,” said Sam, “but probably not in the way you’re thinking. Jill do you have your ring on?”

“Yes, but I’m not touching the crystal.”

“Better do that now and take a look around us.”

Jill turned her ring back around and clenched her hand shut. The gloom of the attic was suddenly punctuated with a half dozen glowing images. These were the paintings they had first noticed when they arrived in the attic.

“Oh my!” she said.

“Why? What are you two looking at?” asked the Professor.

Sam reached out and grasped the Professor’s wrist. “Take a look at the paintings,” he said.

“Why, they’re glowing!” said the Professor. “Is that how they always look if you have one of the crystals on?”

“Yes, Sir, they do,” said Sam. “We don’t have time to explain everything right now. But we do have one enormous problem to solve.”

“And what is that that?”

“We need to figure out which of these half-dozen worlds the raven flew into! And even if we knew that, how on earth would we ever be able to capture him there?!”

They all stared at the various images and Jill felt her heart sink.

         [ To read Episode 10.2, click here…. ]

 

 

Apr 09

Vignettes: The Window

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The Window 

 “Tap, tap, tap….”

Sam stirred ever so slightly from his sleep.

“Tap, tap, tap….”

At first he thought it was a bird, but then he remembered: it was pitch black outside, and other than owls, no birds should be stirring. He sat up in bed.

“Tap, tap, tap….”

Sam looked around but saw nothing out of the ordinary. He noticed the faint electric glow of starlight streaming through the windowpanes onto the wooden floorboards. But there was something else there as well: something blocking the light. He couldn’t tell what it could be.

“Sam! Open the window!”

Sam rubbed his eyes. He flung aside the covers, pushed himself out of bed, and stepped toward the pool of starlight on the floor. As he approached the window, he saw a figure huddled just outside among the bushes: a dark silhouette.

“Sam, open the window. It’s cold. I need to come inside.”

He knew the voice, but he hadn’t heard it for quite a while. Was it his cousin?

Sam lived with his Uncle Charles. They shared the house in which his uncle had resided for decades. It was the house with the strange and ancient chest in the attic, the one filled with magical artifacts. The chest had been entrusted to his uncle by someone else, many years before Sam had been born. Sam had borrowed something from the chest once: a book filled with the most amazing stories. He had read it all night long. But the next morning, when he awoke, the book had vanished. It had returned, of its own accord, to the chest. That had been Sam’s first experience of magic: real magic.

Now he squinted into the darkness. It was an April morning and it had been unusually warm, but there was no warmth near the window. In fact, he thought he saw frost at the edges of the panes. But just a few inches beyond the glass, Sam could make out a pale face with eyes that reflected the light from the stars in an odd way: a spooky way.

The face appeared to be that of his older cousin; yet it was not his cousin. His cousin was overseas, he remembered. He was staying in the home of friends in Italy, where he was studying the writings of the desert fathers.

“Come on, Sam, let me in…,” whined the voice once more, and the creature continued its eerie tapping upon the windowpane, with fingernails that looked more and more to Sam like claws….

He realized that this was not some dream; nor was it something that he might ever be able to truly understand. The night was passing, but he suspected that his thinking was still not sound, and he didn’t entirely trust his natural first impulse: to help someone who appeared to be in need of shelter. “Things, and people especially, aren’t always what they appear to be,” his Uncle Charles had once told him.

He shook his head to clear it and then looked around at his bedroom. His eyes came to rest upon a small icon of St. Michael the Archangel on his bedside table. It had been given him by Father Hildebrandt when they had first.

Father Hildebrandt had looked deeply into Sam’s eyes, and had then stepped to the wall beside his desk, on which had hung this icon. He had removed it and handed it to Sam. “This may come in handy someday,” the Abbot had told him.

Sam stepped away from the window, took up the icon, and knelt with it by his bedside. He began to recite the prayer that he had learned long ago from his uncle: “O mighty prince of the heavenly hosts, St. Michael, we beg you to protect and defend us….”

As Sam continued the prayer, the tapping upon the windowpane slowed and then ceased. Soon he thought he could detect the faintest sweet scent in the air around him. What was that? Frankincense?

He completed his prayer and looked once more, with trepidation, toward the window. But there was no longer any figure huddled outside. Instead, the faintest blush of dawn was showing upon the horizon. Whatever creature had assailed him during these darkest hours of the early dawn had been vanquished.

Sam, grateful that he had been spared any greater trial, returned to his bed, and he fell into the deepest and most untroubled sleep he could ever recall having had in all of his tender years….

Mar 31

Vignettes: A Wrong Turn

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 A Wrong Turn

A scant moment after the little curly-haired boy disappeared into the mirror, Sam hurled himself in after him. He had never tried to chase anyone through the Maze before, but this was as close to the Piper as he had ever come; and he was darned sure he not going give up easily on the chance to catch the elusive creature.

“Doggone fellow has been dogging our steps for as long as I’ve been a Framerunner,” he said under his breath as he whirled around in search of movement — any movement. There was plenty of that, as it happened: nearly every portal he encountered peeped out into little bits and pieces of the city and the surrounding countryside. As a result he saw kids brushing their teeth, people walking along sidewalks outside of mirrored office buildings, the occasional flash of lips as a woman checked her lipstick in her compact. But these were minor distractions; what he was looking for was movement here within the Maze with him.

The Mirror Maze stretched in infinite directions up, down, and in all directions around him —  though all points of the compass. “All of space is here next to my fingertips,” Sam thought. “All I have to do is to push aside the portals I don’t need, and instantly, I can be anywhere on the planet.” It was a temptation to pride that he knew well, but quickly rejected. He understood that his gift was just that, and that it had been given him for some greater purpose.

As he was reminding himself about what it meant to be a Navigator, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He snapped his head up and to the right, and sure enough, he saw the curly-headed Piper running fleet-footed away from him and into the distant infinity of the Maze.

Sam sprang after him, pushing portals aside as they crowded around him. They were like thick snowflakes that obscured his vision as he ran. The Piper saw that he was following, and stopped abruptly before a large portal. Sam was nearly upon him when he saw the other boy grin broadly and plunge out of the Maze. Sam didn’t stop to think; he just jumped through after him.

He landed in some soft, powdery stuff that broke his fall. The light was a hazy reddish-gold all around him and the air was so dry and flinty that he had trouble breathing. “How can this place be on earth?!” he thought, remembering the many atmospheres he had endured on other worlds. But the Maze always took you within a world, never to a new one. So where exactly was he?

He looked around. Beyond the powdery sand on which he stood, there were very few other features. High sand dunes rose around him, and in the distance, threatening clouds were barely visible on a hazy horizon. The sky was nearly the same color as the sand itself.

“And, of course, there’s no sign of the Piper,” he thought. Then it occurred to him: where was the mirror that had brought him here in the first place? He looked around. There was no sign of one. In fact, there was no sign of any portal at all, despite the fact that he still had his Framerunning sapphire clasped tightly in his hand.

“Wait a darned minute!” he said aloud. “This isn’t possible! You can’t get somewhere without either a mirror or a frame to take you there! What sort of a place have I landed in?!!”

His only answer was the sound of the wind, which was rising. Sand began stinging his legs. He thought he heard, as the gale increased, the a faint melody riding atop the wind.

“The Piper laughing at me,” he grumbled, and shook his fist in the direction of the sound. But then he heard another sound, beneath the wind. It was like distant thunder, but it grew louder. Now he was nervous. He was in the middle of a desert with no shelter at hand, and with something coming his way: something big. He hunched down into a hollow of the dunes and tried to shelter his eyes from the flying sand.

Then he saw it: a shape so enormous that at first he thought he was seeing things through the tears in his eyes. But it was not so. A huge, elongated creature had erupted from the sand some distance from him and was headed his way.

“But this can’t be!” he said aloud. “The Maze couldn’t possibly have brought me here, of all places! I can’t have landed on…on…”

The word he couldn’t speak, the very name of the planet on which he had somehow, inexplicably landed, died upon his lips as the giant sandworm approached….

 

  o   o   o

 

“Samuel! Wake up, my good fellow! You’ve fallen asleep!” It was Mr. Luke. He was standing over Sam in the Gallery, ochre and cadmium-orange paint smeared on his hands.

Sam rubbed his eyes and looked around him. He had fallen asleep in an overstuffed chair near Mr. Luke’s easel. His friend’s latest painting was nearly finished, and once Sam’s eyes had adjusted to the bright floodlights, he looked at it more closely. It was a landscape with a hazy reddish-gold sky and sand dunes stretching out to the horizon. Sam half expected to see the sandworm again, but the landscape was empty except for a single figure in the foreground. It was of a curly-haired boy looking directly out of the canvas at the viewer. The figure was grinning broadly.

“Son of a gun!” Sam said, pursing his lips.

 

 

 

Mar 19

In the Company of Angels: Episode 8.2 – The Wardrobe (cont.)

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In the Company of Angels, Episode 8.2 – The Wardrobe (cont.)

“Perfect!” said Sam. “Just close me inside, won’t you, and I’ll see what I can find.”

“You should never close yourself into a wardrobe, young man. It’s possible that the lock might catch and you’d be trapped. And in this particular instance, I’m fairly certain I don’t have the key to unlock it. It’s quite an old wardrobe, as you can see.”

“I’ll not be trapped, Professor, even if the lock does catch; trust me,” said Sam, grinning broadly. He stepped inside and pulled the doors closed.

Several minutes passed. The Professor seemed nervous, and he couldn’t help but pace back and forth while he and Jill waited. But after several minutes, he was unable to control himself; he gently pulled opened one of the wardrobe doors and peered inside.

The wardrobe was completely empty.

“Don’t worry, Sir,” said Jill. “I know it’s startling the first time you see that happen, and it only happened to me for the first time yesterday; yesterday in my world, that is. But I think we’d do best to close the door and wait for him. He’ll be back soon, I promise.”

The Professor seemed dumbstruck, but he shut the wardrobe door once more and resumed his pacing. They didn’t have much longer to wait.

With a bang, Sam announced his return. The wardrobe door was flung open and the exuberant young fellow came tumbling out.

“Found it!” he said, beaming, “or, that is, I have a pretty good idea of where it must be.”

“Where?!” asked Jill and the Professor at the same instant.

“Very close to where we are standing now, but I’ll need your help to locate it precisely. Here’s what I found: I believe the raven collected a woman’s compact or some other small round mirror, and stowed it in his nest along with a lot of other items. I could see some marbles, some tinsel, and a few colourful bits of cloth and string. Those plus a sapphire.”

“You were able to actually see the sapphire?” asked Jill.

“Yep! Plain as day! Well, not exactly plain as day. The light was pretty dim.”

“But could you see where the nest was located?” asked the Professor.

“No, not really, but that’s where I can use your help. I could hear you both talking when I put my ear up to the Maze portal, so I know the nest has to be somewhere very close to us: definitely in this part of the house.”

“OK, then how can we help find it?” asked Jill.

“Here’s the plan,” said Sam, “and it’s pretty ingenious, if I do say so myself….”

Jill rolled her eyes.

“No, really! You’re gonna love this! See, I’m going to go back into the Maze, find the mirror again, and reach through with my fingers. I’ll try to make enough noise with them so that you can track down where it’s coming from.”

“How are you going to do that?” asked Jill.

“By tapping, or rustling around, or scratching, or whatever else I can do to make a disturbance. See, I can only get a couple of fingers through the mirror, else I could probably snag the sapphire and we’d be done.”

“Actually, Sam, we wouldn’t really be done, would we? We don’t know how the raven is getting in and out of the paintings. It may have more than one crystal.”

“Yeah, that’s true, though I’m still betting its using that crystal to do its framerunning. But, first things first. Let’s find the nest….”

Sam stepped back into the wardrobe. “Give me a few seconds, then start listening. I may not be able to make much noise, but see if you can locate where it’s coming from, whatever you hear.” He pulled the wardrobe door shut and they waited. After about a half minute had passed, they both heard a rustling sound, and then a tapping, as of a fingernail against wood. The sound seemed very close: just above them, in fact.

“I do believe it’s coming from the top of the wardrobe itself!” said the Professor.

“Are you tall enough to see what’s up there, Sir?” asked Jill.

“Not clearly. Let me get an electric torch and a stepstool. I shan’t be a moment….”

Jill thought Sam must have heard them, because the tapping ceased. After a minute, the Professor returned and set up the stepstool to one side of the wardrobe. He was then able, with the aid of his flashlight, to see the entire top of the wardrobe clearly.

“Ah!” he declared, “There it is in the far corner! Well done, Sam; that is, if you can still hear me. We’ve found it! You can come back out of the wardrobe now if you wish.”

Sam opened the wardrobe door again. The Professor looked down at him and asked “should I retrieve the sapphire? There does only appear to be a single one in the nest.”

Sam furrowed his brow and looked at Jill. “I guess getting hold of the crystal comes first; after all, that’s why we came. But then we still have figure out what to do with the raven. Does that all sound right to you?”

“I thought you were the boss around here,” said Jill.

Sam turned bright red. “No, no one’s trying to be the boss; we’re a team — aren’t we?”

It was now Jill’s turn to turn bright red. She had, unbidden, just felt a wave of emotion coming from Sam that she had never experienced before. It was nervousness, embarrassment, excitement, and — this was the strangest part — happiness. It was happiness at the thought, she realized, that the two of them were working together, and that they were doing something important.

“Well…of course we are,” she answered. “I’m sorry, I was just being, well, I don’t quite know the term.”

“I don’t think it precisely qualified, Miss Jonsson, but here we’d likely call it ‘being beastly’,” said the Professor as he looked down at them both. “But, shall I retrieve the gem or not?”

“Yes, let’s,” answered Jill. “It’s like Sam says; that’s mainly what we came for.”

The professor reached over to the back part of the wardrobe. Then he stepped down and opened his palm. There was the large, round-cut sapphire. It was identical to the two others they had seen on Orbaratus.

Sam reached out and took the stone into his hand. His brow furrowed again. “Professor, do you have any paintings in your study?”

“Certainly,” said the Professor. “Why do you ask?”

“This doesn’t feel quite right to me,” said Sam. “That is, I don’t get the same sensation from touching it that I do with one of the crystals we’re familiar with. I need to see a painting to make sure.”

They all returned to the Professors’ study. On one of the walls was a landscape of an Italian village. Sam walked over to it, holding the crystal, and touched its surface. Then he put the round gem into his pocket, grasped his own pendant, and, to the Professors great delight, reached his hand into the painting.

“Extraordinary!” exclaimed the Professor.

“Actually, it isn’t,” said Sam. “That’s the way they’re supposed to work, but this one doesn’t. It makes no sense.”

“But Sam,” said Jill, “we know that’s the same as the others on Orbaratus, don’t we?”

“Well, I believe it is. It’s round, like they were, and about the right size. But if this is the one that was stolen, it leaves us with even more questions than we started with!”

“Forgive me,” said the Professor, “but if you could explain the predicament more clearly, I might be able to help you with it. That’s often the case with intractable problems.”

Sam looked doubtful, but Jill piped up. “You’re right, Sir! My father used to tell me that sometimes, when he had a particularly difficult puzzle to work out, the best thing he could do was to try to explain it to somebody else. Even if he doubted they fully understood what he was saying, just talking about the problem often helped him to see the solution!”

She turned to Sam. “See, sometimes we get caught up in our own heads and we can’t see the forest for the trees. So, let’s try this. Let me explain everything to the Professor. You listen and correct me if I get anything wrong. That way we all get to step through the situation we’re in, and perhaps we can figure out what’s best to be done, together.”

“But I still think the less the Professor knows, the less likely we are to change something in this time that we’d regret.”

“But aren’t we long past that? The Professor already knows a lot. And wouldn’t it be best to decide what we should do and return to Orbaratus as soon as possible?”

She felt more than saw Sam agree with her, so she proceeded to explain to the Professor, more fully than they had before, where they had come from and why. She then explained that, although they now had the sapphire — or whatever this gem was — that they had come for, they had an additional problem in that the raven seemed able to framerun, somehow, and not by using this crystal. So, they needed to make sure that the raven couldn’t return to Orbaratus and steal the sapphire back again once they returned it.

The Professor listened intently and followed Jill’s account with great enthusiasm. “That is a fascinating tale!” he exclaimed when she was done. “You really ought to write it down someday, you know….

“But, you’re correct: if the raven stole the gem in the first place, it must still have some means of returning to this place, Orbaratus. And if that is true, we must find out how it does so and remove that means. That, or we’ll perhaps have to find a way to keep it from causing such harm going forward. I could cage the poor thing, but I hate the thought of it; ravens are very bright, and it would suffer inordinately. I could also cover all of my paintings so that it could not continue traveling between worlds, but it might find some other paintings in someone else’s attic that it would use as portals, and then heaven only knows what additional mischief it might cause.”

The Professor stopped to consider the matter again, and reached for his pipe. He packed it, lit it, took a few puffs, and then turned back to look thoughtfully at Sam and Jill.

“I believe, unless either of you has since thought of a better plan, that the best thing to be done would be to take the raven back with you. Perhaps the other members of your team might find a kinder way to prevent future problems than I am able to suggest at present. Remembering, of course, that time seems to be of the essence here….

“…and even aside from that,” he said, with a wink, “Mrs. Mills would be delighted if the bird was removed from the attic permanently, although I would never consent to having it harmed in any way in order for that to be achieved.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Sir,” said Sam, “we’d certainly never hurt it. But I think you’re right: we do need to make sure it can’t continue stealing things from other worlds.”

“So, then, what’s our plan?” asked Jill.

“To capture the raven,” said Sam.

“Good,” said the Professor, “but, then, how do you propose we manage that?”

“I honestly don’t know, Sir,” said Sam.

“Neither do I,” said Jill, “but I get the feeling we’d better figure out how, and fast.”

“Why is that?” asked Sam.

“Because,” said Jill, pointing into the hallway outside the Professor’s study, “There’s the raven now, and it sure looks to me like it’s got another one of the crystals in its talons.”

         [ To read Episode 9.1, click here…. ]

 

 

 

Mar 12

In the Company of Angels: Episode 8.1 – The Wardrobe

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In the Company of Angels, Episode 8.1 – The Wardrobe

 

“It’s 1946?!!!” Jill blurted out.

“Yes, my dear. Why, whatever year did you think it was?”

Jill sensed, involuntarily, a wave of panic coming from Sam. She turned to him and thought, as ‘loudly’ as she could “Sam, what’s wrong? I know it’s crazy to have gone back in time, but why is it so bad that we’re here?”

Sam was too troubled with the news of their being in 1946 to realize, at first, that Jill had not spoken to him aloud. “Because,” he said back to her, “if we change anything while we’re here, and I mean anything, we could be toast! That’s what ‘time-tethering’ is all about! That’s why we try as hard as we can never to framerun a time-tethered world.”

“But we can’t change that much while we’re here, can we?” Jill thought back to him.

Sam suddenly realized that Jill hadn’t moved her lips. But the shock was only momentary; realizing what was happening, he thought back to her, as loudly as he could, “We don’t have to change much. Any change could make all kinds of things could go terribly wrong! Don’t you see?

“A person wanting to talk to the Professor this afternoon might not be able to, because we’re here with him in his study. Then, that person might leave early, and someone that they were supposed to casually notice on the street isn’t there when they should have been. But, if that someone they were supposed to notice was the very person that they were going to marry someday, then none of that might happen…and it would all be because we were here with the Professor when we weren’t supposed to be!

“Or think of it this way: a bird maybe doesn’t come to a bird-feeder when it should, because we’re here in the window, and it’s scared off; so, a child looking for it might go outside to play instead of staying inside watching for it, and that child might accidentally be hurt, or even killed. Anything could change, you see, and we might go back home to find that the world we have always known no longer exists; even our own families and everyone we know might be gone forever!”

The thoughts flooded into Jill’s mind much faster than they would have if Sam had spoken them aloud, and with them she was able to feel his rising panic.

All this time the Professor had been silent, but he had been observing them both closely. He began to stroke his chin. “I know you both appear a bit preoccupied, but I believe I am beginning to understand….

“Let me speak for a moment, Master Deckard, and then you can tell me if I’m on the right trail. You and Miss Jonnson here are both, as incredible as it may seem to me, from some future time, perhaps years or even decades hence — I don’t actually want or need to know the specifics. But while you are here, you fear changing anything, lest the world you know be put into peril; the chain of events leading to your future might be altered, or broken completely. Is that what you mean by ‘time-tethering’, Master Deckard?”

Sam looked at the Professor with wonder and admiration. He had not expected, even from a Professor, such a quick grasp of their predicament. “Well, yes Sir, that pretty much sums it up,” he said.

“Well, then, say no more! It would seem, then, that the safest course of action would be to hurry you both on whatever business brought you here in the first place. I am not unfamiliar with problems associated with time-travel, although space travel has been, most recently, my greater literary concern. That said, we should get you both back where you belong with as much alacrity and as little fuss as possible! So, tell me exactly what we need to do.”

Sam looked at Jill and then back at the Professor. Jill sensed Sam’s emotions calming as he thought through the mission that had brought them there in the first place and began to consider what needed to be done.

“First, Sir, we have to find the ravenr. Or, at least, we need to find its nest. With luck, it will either be carrying the sapphire it stole, or it will have stowed it away someplace handy and we can retrieve it. Do you happen to know where it spends its time when it is not inside your attic?”

“I’ve never considered,” said the Professor. “We certainly have ravens on the grounds, and that quite often, but I’ve never noticed anything that might distinguish this particular raven from any other. When I’ve paid them any real attention, it has been because they’ve come to the birdbath with some morsel, or because Bruce has been barking at them.”

“Bruce, Sir?” asked Jill.

“Yes, our dog. He and our two cats often wander the grounds getting into mischief. They — the cats I mean — hardly ever catch anything other than mice. Bruce, although he is getting far too old to chase anything, is yet quite fond of barking at the least provocation, ravens included.”

“Have you ever noticed a place where ravens tend to congregate?” asked Sam.

“No, not really.”

“Then we’re back where we started. We’ll just have to to wait for him to come back to the attic and try to trap him,” said Jill.

“Well…” said Sam, “…perhaps not. Professor, didn’t you say that raven’s collect shiny things?”

“Yes, they’re very attentive birds and are always intrigued by and curious about unusual items that they notice, shiny things included. And, particularly when they’re young, they apparently  will collect a cache of such odds and ins into their nests. ”

“Whatever are you thinking about, Sam?” asked Jill.

“Well, don’t you see? If this raven has collected into its nest, along with the crystal, bits of mirrors or anything else reflective….”

“Ah!” said Jill.

“I’m afraid you’ve lost me,” said the Professor. “Why should that be significant?”

“It wouldn’t seem to be, I’ll admit,” said Sam, “but, have you ever looked into a mirror and wondered if there was something on the other side? You know, another world just beyond the surface of the reflection?”

The Professor peered at Sam intensely. “Are you suggesting, young man, that there is? Another world I mean?”

“Well, not exactly a world, but another space; an intermediate zone from which one can step from one place to another.”

“I’ve not considered the possibility of anything along those lines since I was a child: anything seems likely when we’re young. But am I correct in assuming that, if such an ‘intermediate space’ exists behind every mirror, that you can travel into that space?”

“In a way, Sir. It’s not something everyone can do, or at least not easily, but I can, with the help of one of the crystals.” Sam held out his sapphire again for the Professor to see.

“Good heavens! Worlds within worlds! But how, pray tell, do you intend to use this capability to find your raven?”

“Well, if I’m right, and if the raven has gathered shiny things that reflect what’s around them, I may be able to locate his nest by finding and ‘seeing’ out of the Maze — that’s what we call the intermediate space — through some of those things.”

“Sounds like a long shot to me,” said Jill.

“Sure it is! But, do you have a better suggestion?” asked Sam.

Jill thought for a moment. “No, I don’t. I guess it’s worth a try….”

“Alright then!” said Sam. “Professor, do you happen to have a mirror handy? One large enough for me to fit through?”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but yes, there’s one in the old wardrobe. We keep it in the attic space at the top of the stairs. It has mirrors inside its doors.”

“Great!” said Sam. “That should work.”

Just then, Mrs. Mills knocked on the door to the Professor’s study. Jill stood up and opened it, and the housekeeper brought the tea things in and set them down on the table by the door.

“Will you be wantin’ anythin’ else, Professor?” Mrs. Mills asked, once she had laid out the tea kettle, the cups, scones, jam, sardines, and butter, and all was tidy and in order.

“No, Mrs. Mills, I believe that should be all. But, I did want to ask you whether you knew anything else about that raven that you’ve been seeing in the attic? Other than what you’ve already told me, that is?”

“You mean other than that it keeps comin’ back inside? It’s an odd bird, Sir, a very odd bird! Doesn’t leave any mess, but there’s no keeping it out of that attic. I think maybe it comes for the paintings.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“You know all of the framed pictures you keep yonder in the attic,” Mrs. Mills gestured out the door, “I don’t know why, but it seems plain to me that the bird likes ‘em. Every time I catch it in there, it’s either staring into one of ‘em or perchin’ nearby. I was thinkin’ now, if we covered them up, the villain might stop sneakin’ in and botherin’ us.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Mills. I’ll consider that. It certainly might be worth a try.”

The door shut behind the housekeeper. Sam sat thinking for a moment. “You know, Sir, Mrs. Mills may be right. We came here though one of the paintings in your attic; the raven might well be doing something along the same lines….”

“You came here how?!” asked the Professor.

“Through one of your paintings, Sir. That’s how we travel; it’s how we got here in the first place.”

The Professor shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “First it’s mirrors, then it’s paintings. Worlds within worlds, indeed!” he said, as if to himself. Then he stood up. “Alright, clearly this is no time for tea, although I’ll be happy to take a cup if you would care to….”

Jill and Sam looked at each other, then both stood up.

“No, Sir,” said Jill, “if you’re willing to let the tea go cold, we are too. Where’s the wardrobe?”

The Professor led them out onto the landing and opened a door at the top of the staircase. Within the small attic space behind the door — a different part of the attic than the one they had been in before — was a wardrobe. It was large, heavy, and old fashioned, made from some wood that Jill could not identify; and it had curious carvings on the front. They opened its doors; it was empty. But, just as the Professor had said, there were mirrors mounted on the insides of the doors.

“Perfect!” said Sam.

         [ To read Episode 8.2, click here…. ]

 

 

Mar 09

Before the Gateway

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“Before the Gateway

Graphite, 11.4″x8.0″ wide.

Signed and numbered prints – AVAILABLE

To purchase this original sketch, please contact Jef by clicking here.

To purchase a print of this item, please click here.

Mar 09

The Framerunners – Newsletter for March, 2015

What’s new on the website?

There a brand new section on the website, under the Stories menu, entitled Vignettes. From that page, going forward, you’ll be able to find short scenes and portions of tales that may or may not ultimately end up in the longer stories. There are only a couple posted there now, but I hope you enjoy them! Some of these may end up being teasers for upcoming story lines, but there are no guarantees! That said, if you really, really like a particular vignette, let me know and perhaps we’ll explore some aspect of that scene going forward.

I have continued to be remiss in keeping the illustrations for each episode posted in the online gallery (located at http://jefmurray.com/framerunners/the-gallery/ ). But, I am including a link on each episode image posted that will allow you to order prints, if you are interested in doing so. If you don’t know the name of a sketch or painting print that you’d like to have, you can reference the episode in the description. I will once again promise to try to update the gallery more regularly going forward!

Where are we now?

Episode 7.2 has our Framerunners spread out between three different worlds. Polydora is still on Orbaratus, and presumably Luke Lester is in London. Meanwhile, Jill and Sam are attempting to find out more about the raven and to see whether it, in fact, is responsible for the theft of one of the guarding stones. They have only just learned that not only have they returned to earth, but that they have time traveled: to Oxford, England in 1946!

If the above is confusing, you can read all seven posted episodes from the beginning by clicking here: http://jefmurray.com/framerunners/in-the-company-of-angels/ and then clicking on Episode 1.1. At the end of each episode is a link pointing to the next in the tale.

Where are we headed?

In Episode 8.1, Jill and Sam remain with the Professor in England, trying to discover the whereabouts of the raven and how it manages to framerun, and Sam comes up with a novel way of locating the raven’s nest.

 

How else can I get involved?

We have set up a discussion page on Facebook, but I seem to be the main person posting to it at present. That said, our email list continues to grow, and a number of folk have now been posting comments and questions after the episodes themselves. Please feel free to do so! I’m happy to answer questions as long as I don’t reveal any spoilers (about this I’ve been warned quite sternly by a couple of readers ;-). I’m also happy to get feedback on the new Vignette tales. Let me know if these intrigue you, and if there are favorites, we may end up exploring those scenes more in the future.

I’m continuing to try to learn about homeschool groups and YA literature groups to try to introduce The Framerunners (www.TheFramerunners.com) to new readers. If you know of young readers in your families or community whom you believe would enjoy these stories, please have them join our email list and/or like our FB page, or feel free to let me know about them! List information will never be shared with anyone else for any reason, period.

In any event, if you are continuing to like what you’re reading, please spread the word! The more folks involved, the more fun it is for all of us!

Mar 05

In the Company of Angels: Episode 7.2 – The Attic (cont.)

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In the Company of Angels, Episode 7.2 – The Attic (cont.)

 

“What do you two have to say for yourselves?” the Professor asked, opening the door to his study wider, and crossing his arms over his chest. He looked at both of them expectantly.

“Well, Sir, we’re…um…we’re students.” said Sam.

“Yes, that’s entirely possible,” said the Professor, “but is it common for American students to invade the homes of English professors without their leave?”

“Oh! So we’re in England!” Jill said.

“Where else might you think you were?” asked the Professor.

“Well, Sir, that might take some explaining,” said Sam.

“Well?! Well?! If it requires some explaining, then please proceed! But, Mrs. Mills, so that we do not begin to obtain a reputation for uncouth behavior toward foreign students, will you be so kind as to make us some tea? We’ll take it in my study.”

“Your study, Sir?” Mrs. Mills asked. “Well, I would have thought it more suitable to serve it in the childrens’ room, but as you wish….” The woman turned and tromped heavily down the stairs. A few moments later, Sam and Jill could hear the clanking of pots and pans in what must have been the kitchen, below. In the meantime, the Professor ushered them into his room.

The space was somewhat unkempt. There were books and bookshelves everywhere, and a second door across the room led into either a closet or another room. A desk was situated beneath a window that overlooked a well-tended yard and garden. Jill saw roses trained onto an archway in front of the house, and through this the walkway to the house appeared to pass. She noticed a cat slinking past the roses; it quickly disappeared into a hole in the hedge.

The colors and smells of an English summertime permeated even the mustiness of the Professor’s retreat, but Jill loved the bookish aromas and the scent of pipe smoke that surrounded them. These reminded her of her own library, and of her father: he had also loved books and had smoked a pipe. Involuntarily, she felt tears welling up in her eyes, but she immediately tried to stop them. “This is not the time or the place to be thinking of father!” she told herself.

The Professor closed his study door behind them both and gestured to chairs. “Please do make yourselves comfortable. The tea will be along shortly; or perhaps longly, given Mrs. Mills’ current mood.” He chuckled. Once they were both seated, he turned his desk chair around and sat facing them.

“Now, do please tell me who you are and where you’ve come from. And kindly don’t repeat whatever story you might have told Mrs. Mills, if indeed you offered her any explanation at all. I know you aren’t American students on holiday. So, who precisely are you?”

Sam and Jill looked at each other, and Jill gestured toward Sam. “You should tell him,” she said.

Everything?” he asked.

Jill shut her eyes for a moment and tried to get a sense of just who this Professor might be; whether he was someone that could be trusted. All she could perceive about him through her newly-emerging empathic sense suggested that he was a bright light in a dark world…someone very unusual. She almost perceived him as having a sparkling halo — similar to what she felt whenever she was in telepathic contact with Polydora. She opened her eyes and gazed at him with a feeling of wonder.

“Who exactly are you?!” she asked.

The Professor smiled broadly. “Why, no one in particular, my dear. But you two…there’s something about you two that is quite different. I’m used to children coming here you know…since the War. But none were ever Americans. And even Americans don’t dress as you two are dressed. So, where exactly are you from? And what are you doing in my house?”

“He’s safe,” said Jill to Sam. Sam nodded.

“OK then, what I am about to tell you might make you think I’m kidding. I’m not. We’ve come from another place,” Sam said, “and maybe even from another time…. Gee, I wish Mr. Luke was here; he’d know what to tell you. But, let’s just say that we came here because we are trying to get some answers to some important questions and to retrieve something that was stolen from…from its rightful place. We didn’t mean to break into your house; we were, well, sort of led here….”

The Professor leaned back in his chair and studied Sam carefully. “What is your name?” he asked.

“Sam Deckard,” Sam answered.

“And yours, my dear?” the Professor asked, turning to Jill.

Jill suddenly had an intense urge to do something she had not tried before, except with Polly. She tried to answer by speaking to the Professor with her mind.

“My name is Jill Jonsson” she thought, as “loudly” as she knew how.

The Professor’s eyes opened wide. “Oh my!” he said aloud.

“What?” asked Sam.

The Professor looked slightly bewildered. “Jill Jonsson?” he asked Jill directly.

“Yes,” she thought back to him.

“Oh, this is marvelous!” said the Professor.

“What is?” asked Sam.

“I’ve been talking to the Professor the way Polly taught me,” said Jill.

Sam’s eyes went wide, but he held his tongue.

The Professor, now sitting forward in his chair, looked with wonder at Jill. “Are you of the spirit world, my dear, or human?” he asked.

Jill was perplexed. “I’m just a girl, Sir,” she said. “But I seem to be able to ‘hear’ some things that other people think, and I can sometimes talk with people without speaking. But this is all pretty new for me, so I’m not sure I’m that good at it.”

“Extraordinary!” said the Professor. “I’ve never encountered anything like it!”

“But, Sir,” said Sam,”we actually came here for a reason, and we really can’t stay long; we have friends waiting for us who need our help. I can’t tell you much more, because there’s a lot of danger involved with talking about such things. Mr. Luke warned me that we might be entering a time-tethered realm, and if that’s the case, the less you know about us, the better for us and for you.”

“I’m sure I haven’t understood half of what you just said, young man,” said the Professor, “but I do see that you are both part of something that I ought to take seriously., even without understanding it. Tell me what you can and what you need help with. I’ll promise nothing up front other than to listen, but I am not unfamiliar with…hmm…how should I say this? With magical things. So, I promise to help if I believe I can and should.”

“Well, Sir,” said Sam,”what we need help with, at least mainly, is a raven.”

“A raven?!”

“Yes, Sir. A raven. It’s one that spends some time in your attic, it seems.”

“Ah! That must be the one Mrs. Mills is constantly complaining about. She has tried to shew it out whenever she has found it there, but it always comes back. It even creates new holes in the eaves for itself whenever we close up the old ones. But I haven’t the heart to harm it; it strikes me as a very unusual and clever bird, and I’m fond of all manner of creatures. But, whatever do you two want with it?”

“Well, Sir, we think it’s got something: something that doesn’t belong to it. And we need to get that back so that we can prevent a lot of bad things from happening,” said Jill.

“Well, I wouldn’t put thievery past any raven. They love collecting things, you know, especially shiny ones. I remember finding one’s nest as a boy, and it was filled with bits of tinsel, ribbons, marbles, and even broken bits of glass and mirrors.

But, that’s neither here nor there. whatever is it that has this one has stolen?”

“A gem, Sir. A sapphire, we think, not unlike this one.” Sam pulled his own crystal pendant from beneath his shirt and held it out to the Professor.

The Professor went to reach for the sapphire, but then stopped. “That’s no ordinary gem,” he said.

“What do you mean, Sir?” asked Sam, nervously.

The Professor looked Sam directly in the eye. “I mean that it has some property beyond just being a pretty thing. There’s a…a power in it, it seems to me. Am I right?”

Jill nudged Sam. “I told you; he’s safe. You can tell him.”

“Well, Sir, yes, you are. This crystal, and others like it, allow a person who wears it to do things that might seem pretty strange to most folks.”

“You mean like travel to different worlds? Or to different times?”

“Uh, yes Sir. But, like I said, we really shouldn’t tell you too much because it might cause us all a lot of problems,” said Sam, “but could I ask you a question?”

“Certainly.”

“Can you tell us where we are, and what year it is?”

“Properly speaking, young man, you should ask me ‘would you tell us’, not ‘can you tell us’.”

The Professor shook his head and muttered under his breath,”Whatever do they teach them in American schools?” Then, in a louder voice, he said, “But, laying that aside, do you mean to say you don’t know where you are? How extraordinary! But, it has been a day of extraordinary things. So, to answer you, you are in Oxford, England,” said the Professor.

“And the year is?”

“The year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty six.”

“Oh no!” said Sam.

              [ To read Episode 8.1, click here…. ]

 

 

Feb 26

In the Company of Angels: Episode 7.1 – The Attic

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In the Company of Angels, Episode 7.1 – The Attic

 

Once Jill had waved to Polydora through the portal, the Ferrumari’s head disappeared back into the painting. The painting itself, still glowing brightly, depicted the very plaza that she, Sam, and Polly had been standing upon just a moment before. The scene looked nearly identical to the current state of the plaza, and seen now housed within a plain bronze frame, the painting appeared frighteningly apocalyptic — much more so than the one in Mr. Luke’s Gallery that had first brought them to Polly’s home world.

 But Jill had little time to think about Orbaratus now. She turned around her and surveyed the space within which she and Sam were standing. It was a bit stuffy, and she loosened her cloak and pushed it back from around her shoulders. Then she noticed the smells: of old wood, of dust, and of something else, something quite sweet.

 “Are those flowers?” she wondered. But just at that moment, very clearly in her head, she heard the word “Roses!” She turned and looked at Sam. He smiled at her and said, in a whisper, “I think I smell roses blooming! They must be outside. It must be summertime here!”

 It was a disconcerting moment for Jill, because, for the first time ever, other than with Polydora, she realized that she had caught a whiff, if you will, of someone else’s thoughts. She didn’t know if she was going to like what struck her as eavesdropping on other people; she wondered then if being an empath would prove to be something she could turn on or off, like the volume control of a radio, or whether it would just be a new form of background noise that she would have to get accustomed to. She didn’t know what the answer would be, but thought perhaps she should ask Polly, or Mr. Luke, once they returned to Orbaratus. For now though, she had other business to attend to.

 Sam gestured around them, and Jill could see that he was pointing out the many other paintings that were stacked haphazardly about within the crawlspace. These were scattered along with old pieces of furniture, lamps, wooden chests, and even the headboard and footboard of a bed frame in one corner. All of these  were covered with varying layers of dust, but the paintings were stacked vertically so that, for many of them, you could still see the images clearly within their frames. These images were all glowing with that otherworldly light that Jill had come to recognize. She unclenched her hand and turned her ring around, and only then did the lights fade.

 “I don’t see any sign of the raven,” she whispered.

 “No, me neither,” said Sam, “but let’s look around and see if maybe it’s built a nest in one of the nooks and crannies of this place.”

 “That’s going to be hard in all of this murk,” said Jill.

 The crawl space was high enough to stand near one wall, but the beams of the roof, with wood slats nailed across them, tapered down from the top of the wall to the floor. In the very farthest corner of the angle made by the roof beams and the floor, there were cracks of light that came from the eaves, and these provided the only illumination with which to see in the cramped space. There were shadowy corners into which the raven could easily have flown and they would never have been the wiser.

 But Sam grinned broadly and pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket. “Never worry! I was a Boy Scout once,” he whispered, “‘Be prepared’ shouldn’t just be their motto. We should adopt it for The Framerunners as well!  Ever since I was able to find an LED flashlight that would run for days on one set of batteries, I’ve never been without one. You’d be amazed at how many dark places you find yourself in when you’re jumping from world to world!”

 He switched on the flashlight and they were able to clearly see the crawlspace in all its musty, dust-filled glory. But Jill noticed that the dust on the floor was largely undisturbed; apparently the attic wasn’t very often used. That would be good for them, as it meant they would be less likely to be discovered.

 They worked their way from the Orbaratus painting to one end of the long crawl space. There they found first one, then a second small doorway that they guessed must open onto rooms of the house at that end. Then they doubled back, passed their painting again, and continued to the other end of the attic. There they found an additional door. The crawl space appeared, then, to run the whole length of the house.

 “I wonder if this is something like a row-house, with openings into different people’s homes?” whispered Jill.

 “I don’t know,” said Sam, “and I hope we don’t have to find out. But can you see over there in the far corner? There’s a lot of light coming in near the floor: a bright spot. I’m betting there’s a hole there, and maybe that’s where the raven has gotten to.”

 “But what if the raven just flew into a different painting? There have to be at least a half dozen we’ve seen that it could have gotten into. That is, if it’s still carrying one of the crystals.”

 “Well, we don’t even know if it has a crystal, but I see what you’re saying, and that would be mighty bad news if you’re right,” said Sam. “On the other hand, there’s one thing we haven’t tried yet. Remember Mr. Luke said to let you have a go at finding the bird; that maybe you could sense where it was even if we couldn’t discover it outright. Want to give that a try?”

 Jill nodded. “I’m new at this, but here goes….” She shut her eyes and did her best to sense what was around her. She knew Sam was there, but what about past him, past the confines of the crawlspace? She listened and tried to see if she could feel the presence of anyone other than Sam.

 At first she could detect nothing at all. But then she began to have the growing sense that there was a person nearby. She imagined it must be a woman; she wasn’t sure why. But this woman, whoever she might be, appeared in her mind to be busy with something. Jill listened. She “heard” snippets that might have been coming from the woman’s head.

 “All this dust…must get the tea on soon…wherever did I put the dustbin?…Professor will be having company later…” Jill experienced these as fleeting images more than as words, but they struck her as the sort of things someone would be muttering to herself while bustling around inside of a house.

 “I think there must be a housekeeper, or someone like that, nearby. Maybe in the room on the other side of this door,” she whispered to Sam.

 “OK. Anything else?” he asked.

 Jill concentrated once more. There was another presence, she thought, but not as busy as this first person. Someone concentrating his attention inwardly. “So it’s a ‘he’ rather than a ‘she’,” Jill thought. But he was not close at hand. Rather, he seemed to be down toward the other end of the house.

 But just then Jill’s attention was taken away from listening, for she detected, or thought she detected, something like  rapid movement, and the feeling of being watched. She opened her eyes and gazed in the direction she had felt the movement come from.

 “Sam, look over toward that bright spot you mentioned.”

 Sam turned and they both watched the patch of light in the corner. After a moment, they saw movement, and something that made the light blink out, and then back on again. Sam turned his flashlight toward the patch of light, and it glinted off of the beady eyes of the raven, which had apparently just flown back into the crawlspace.

 “There he is!” Sam exclaimed, forgetting to whisper. The raven froze in the light for a moment, but then turned around and dove back through the hole in the eaves.

 “Oh, blast it all!” said Sam, and stamped his foot.

 “Shush!!!” whispered Jill, but it was too late. She could hear footsteps just outside the door beside them, and then, a moment later, the handle turned and light streamed in from the room beyond. A middle-aged woman, slightly plump, was standing in the open doorway peering intently in at them.

 “Oh!” she said. “You two gave me such a start! The Professor didn’t say anything about any children in the house. But where have you stowed your things? And what on earth are you doing in this musty old attic?!”

 “Well, we, uh…” said Jill.

 “Americans no less!” said the woman. “Well, come along out of there, dearies. I’ll need to be setting up places for you both to sleep, I suppose. The Professor is so busy with his own work; keeps me on my toes, he does, never letting on who is coming for supper or…. But, that’s not your problem, dearies. Come on out and I’ll check with the Professor to find where I should put you, though I expect it will be in the children’s room, I shouldn’t wonder. Do you know how long you’ll be staying with us?”

 Sam and Jill had no option but to accompany the bustling woman from without the attic space and into the adjoining room. It was a large room, brightly lit. They followed the housekeeper (for so she appeared to be) into a hallway just outside, and then into another room past the head of the staircase that led to the ground floor below.

 The woman knocked on the door. “Professor, I’m here with the two children. Shall I set them up in the children’s room, as usual?”

 Sam and Jill heard nothing for a moment, but then the door to the room opened and a tall, middle-aged man with a receding hairline opened the door. Past him, they could both see that the room beyond must be a sort of a study and library.

 “Mrs. Mills, do be so kind as to explain yourself. There are no children in the house to my knowledge. That all ended months ago.”

 “Well then, how do you account for these ‘uns?” asked Mrs. Mills.

The Professor looked past Mrs. Mills at Jill and Sam, and was clearly startled. “My goodness! I’ve never seen them before in my life!

              [ To read Episode 7.2, click here…. ]

Feb 13

In the Company of Angels: Episode 6.1 – Parting Company

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In the Company of Angels, Episode 6.1 – Parting Company

Polydora grabbed Jill by the hand and pulled her away from the doorway just as a large stone from the cliff face above it broke off and splintered onto the pavement. It landed where Jill had been standing. Luke took Jill’s other hand and the three of them followed Sam out onto the open plaza.

The earth heaved around them and they heard cracking sounds as planters and stone pillars splintered. Looking past the edges of the plaza, they saw dust and debris falling from the buildings below them and on either side. Then the motion of the earth, which was beginning to make Jill a bit dizzy, ceased. The rumbling continued for some time, punctuated with the sounds of additional objects falling and crashing below them. Then there was silence.

“Jill, are you alright?” asked  Luke.

“Yes, I’m fine, but I wouldn’t have been without Polly….”

“Is everyone else OK? Sam?”

“Sure, I’m fine, said Sam. “But what happened? Polly, do you get a lot of earthquakes on Orbaratus?”

Polydora shook her head. “This is the first I have ever experienced here.”

“I can’t help but wonder if it has something to do with the missing stone,” said  Luke. “It can’t be just a coincidence that it would be gone, Polly would sense someone or something else here, and then we’d have an earthquake, all at nearly the same time. There is more going on here than we know. Something isn’t right, and we may need help to figure out just what.”

“Help? What sort of help?” asked Jill.

“We need to get Azarias involved. Polly, do you know if he has ever come to Orbaratus?”

“Of course he has! He was among the first to visit my home,” said the Ferrumari. “In truth, he was the first human being I ever saw; nay, even the first living creature I ever encountered other than myself.”

“Then he is certain to know more about Orbaratus than we do; he may even know things you are unaware of, Polly. I’ll see if I can find him and at least talk with him. If need be, he may want to join us here.” Luke tugged at his beard for a moment.

“Mr. Luke, you said, just before the earthquake, that you thought we were in great danger. What made you say that?” asked Jill.

“If my understanding of the verses Polly translated is correct, then the three crystals that were placed around the stone doorway were put there for a reason: to prevent someone or something from escaping from whatever lies beyond the doorway. I don’t know why the crystals we use would be capable of such a thing, but perhaps these are not the same stones; perhaps they do something entirely different.

“Polly, you mentioned the Masters, and the fact that they have been gone for many thousands of years….”

“Yes,” said Polly, “the histories are not clear; they had become the stuff of legend by the time the wars broke out among my own people.”

“But do the histories say what happened to them or where they went? Was there a plague? Or a war?”

“Perhaps. The histories mention wars and madness, but it is not clear what was their cause. It seems that as the madness, whatever it might have been, spread, the Ferrumari began to fight against the Masters; not for independence, but to bring a halt to the bloodshed and the violence.”

“So, is it possible the Ferrumari may have had to imprison the Masters? Is that what you’re thinking, Mr. Luke?” asked Sam. “In that case, that doorway may lead into some sort of a dungeon, or maybe the Masters are cryogenically frozen, like Khan was in Star Trek!”

“Khan?” asked Jill, “You mean Genghis Khan was in Star Trek?!”

“No, no. A different Khan. And it was in the movie, not the TV show,” said Sam.

“Well, I never saw either. I told you I didn’t  watch much in the way of space stories….”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Still — whatcha think, Mr. Luke?”

“About the Masters being locked behind that door? It’s a possibility; that’s why I want to ask Azarias. He may have spent some time in the archives here and may know better why the stones were placed there and what they were trying to protect against, if anything.”

Jill had been listening to Luke, but suddenly, she didn’t know why precisely, her attention was drawn away. She had had a sudden sense of movement, and of being watched. She glanced up to see what might have attracted her attention, and just then a black form flew right past her toward the stone doorway. It fluttered there for a moment, and then wheeled around and came back, flying right past all of them. Jill noticed that Polly, too, was watching this creature, and both of them instinctively tried to follow it.

“What’s happening?” asked Sam. “Where are you both going?”

“They’re chasing a bird, Sam,” said Luke, also turning to watch the creature.

The bird, for that is clearly what it was, emitted a harsh croak as it fled. It was large and black, and it flapped wildly toward to the plaza’s edge; then, suddenly, it was gone! Jill and Polly, who had been running just behind it, looked over the edge of the chasm to the street below, and then back at each other.

“It disappeared!” Jill shouted back at Sam and Luke.

“What do you mean, ‘disappeared’? You mean it flew down into the street?” Sam asked as he came panting up to the plaza’s edge.

“No, I mean it’s gone! Like, gone from this world, gone!” said Jill. “I…I can’t sense it anymore. Can you, Polly?”

“No, it is no longer on Orbaratus. It is not hiding, nor so far away that I would be unable to sense it” said Polly.

Luke smiled. “You’re right of course, both of you, but you weren’t paying close attention. It didn’t just vanish; it flew through a frame. Turn your rings back around again and you’ll see for yourselves.”

Jill turned her ring around and clenched her fist. Suddenly, right before her eyes, she could see a window open up in the air, ringed in a bluish light. It was a patch of darkness just in front of her, but much smaller than the portal they had used to come to Orbaratus.

“Huh!” said Sam as he came up to the frame. “Doggone bird must have had a crystal attached to it, or maybe it’s got one in its talons?”

“That, Samuel, is a very interesting observation,” said Luke. “What would a bird be doing with a sappire?”

“Maybe it picked it up. Maybe it stole the one from the doorway!” said Jill.

“We don’t yet know if the crystals on either side of the doorway are actually the same as the sapphires we use to framerun,” said Luke, “but if they are, and if, in fact, the bird has taken that stone, then we’d have answered at least one of our questions. But we still have too many remaining ones!” Luke sat down on a bench near them and rubbed his eyes for a few moments.

“Mr. Luke, we could always follow the bird and see where that portal leads us,” said Sam. “That might tell us more about what’s going on here.”

Jill looked at Sam, and then at the portal. It was perhaps a foot and a half wide, and nearly two feet tall. “It would be a tight squeeze!” she said.

“Naw, I’ve gotten through smaller,” said Sam, “But, let’s see what we can see without even going through….” Sam stepped toward the portal and moved back and forth, then up and down, trying to see what he could observe in the darkness beyond. Luke stood up and joined him.

“OK, it’s dark, so it’s tough to make out much, but it seems like maybe it’s a cave or an attic or a crawlspace of some sort? I can kind of make out wooden beams. What can you see, Mr. Luke?”

Luke repeated Sam’s motions, peering intently into the dark rectangle hanging in space. “Yes, I think you’re right, Sam. It definitely looks like it might be an attic, but where, exactly? And why in the world would someone, somewhere, have a painting or a sketch of the Plaza of the Masters that we know nothing about?!”

                [ To read Episode 6.2, click here…. ]

 

 

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