The Door (Part Two) Read online

  “The truth,” he said with a shrug. “You’re going to see a friend.”

  “Why don’t we grab him while we have the drop on him and force him to tell us?”

  “Gianna, he can’t be working alone. If we alert my people, what will they do to the Caretakers they have? Move them someplace we’ll never find them? Someplace Jiod doesn’t know?”

  “But –”

  “I’ll stay here and ensure he doesn’t lock the door. You’ll be safe with the Tili. You can try to find the Caretakers and your mother before we risk tipping off Jiod and whomever he’s working with.”

  Were my ears ringing or was there an alarm going off somewhere in the house? I was having trouble focusing on anything. The fact Carey didn’t trust his own government sent chills through me.

  “Come,” Teyan’s cousin urged me. “We will find your mother.”

  Only the Tili seemed remotely pleased by anything happening. If anything, the woman appeared eager to take me to her planet.

  My eyes went to her. Her conviction was a hell of a lot more reassuring than Carey’s distress. For a long moment, I stood frozen, thinking. Whatever Jiod was planning, I had no way of knowing. But if he did manage to lock the door, I wanted to be where my mom was and not putting her through the hell she’d already been through of fearing she had lost me for years at a time.

  I felt sick to my stomach, until I thought of Teyan and how resolute he was, even at a young age. If there really was a portal system among the different worlds, and my mom was on one of their planets, how could I remain here? If he was the leader of the war, he had the means to help me.

  But leaving the door in Carey’s hands … was this part of his plan? Was he part of Jiod’s plan?

  My mom and Teyan were on the other side of the portal. If the worst happened, I wanted to be where they were.

  “Okay,” I said at last. “I’ll go with you.”

  The Tili woman nodded and motioned for me to follow them.

  Carey appeared relieved.

  I couldn’t help feeling Carey knew more than he let on or perhaps suspected what Jiod was doing and didn’t want to say. His confidence my mom was alive somewhere under the protection of his government had been the only convincing thing he’d said all day. He was a terrible liar, which meant, he knew she was alive, because he had some sort of insight into what was going on.

  In a daze of worry and confusion, I trailed the Tili out of the house and down the driveway.

  They paused at the road. I looked back.

  The door to the house was closed while the door to the garage was open. My mom’s car was still here, and I held her phone in my hand.

  Whatever happened to her, she wasn’t in my world. This much I felt safe assuming. As for everything else …

  Carey’s not telling me something important. It was instinct, the same one that warned me he had learned something else in the few minutes I was in the pantry that made him approach the Tili he otherwise despised. Was it possible he was working with Jiod or just afraid of his former apprentice?

  It didn’t seem plausible, given what I knew of Carey and his devotion to his Caretaker duties, but then again, I didn’t really know him. He disappeared, lied about where he was and then reappeared right before Jiod showed up on my doorstep.

  Whatever was going on, Carey wanted me to leave. Was it for my sake or part of his plan? His distress was too real for him to be completely lying to me.

  “You go first,” the Tili woman said.

  I frowned and gazed at the empty space before me. “I don’t know if this is the right thing to do,” I voiced my fear aloud.

  “Never trust a Nidiani,” the man muttered. “You are safer with us than here.”

  “If your mother is not here, she can only be through the portal on one of our worlds,” Teyan’s cousin reasoned. “Teyan will stop at nothing to help you, no matter where she is.”

  Words had never felt truer than these.

  I never understood what it was about Teyan that made me want to trust him, to see him again. We were connected by an uncanny bond that defied definition and even my world. I was drawn to him now, at the moment when it seemed least logical to be so. The timing of the arrival of his envoys, too, suddenly struck me as oddly coincidental. I couldn’t follow this train of thought when I was preoccupied with the idea my mom was alone on an alien planet somewhere.

  Facing the road, I took a step then two then three. I was soon standing in the middle of the road, confused about how the portal worked.

  Teyan’s cousin laughed. “You are new at this!” she exclaimed.

  “Yeah,” I replied, irritated.

  “Come. I will show you.”

  I retreated to where she stood.

  “Close your eyes,” she directed. “Tell me your full name, Caretaker.”

  Unconvinced this was the key to going to another world, I nonetheless complied. “Gianna –”

  She pushed me hard enough for me to take several steps backwards. The sudden change in temperature – from the dry, cool desert to the hot stickiness of a jungle – caused me to open my eyes.

  The portal was invisible. I was staring at a tree, its bark inches from my nose.

  The sound of panting came from behind me.

  Turning around, I screamed.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I had no time to take in where I was, but it took nanoseconds for me to notice the massive, saber tooth cats with incisors the length of my forearms standing a couple of feet away from me. They stood with their faces on the same level as mine and were as long as a small car.

  Panicking, I backpedaled away from the beasts and smashed into the Tili. The woman steadied me.

  I tore away from her grip and ran, ducking around a nearby tree and struggling not to have a meltdown before I was eaten by a massive cat.

  Both Tilis were laughing. Not screaming in anguish as they were being devoured – laughing.

  “They’re friendly, Caretaker!” Teyan’s cousin called. “Come! They wish to meet you!”

  I didn’t move, instead focusing on my surroundings and steadying my panicked breathing. The Tili world was … huge. My eyes followed the trunks of surrounding trees up and up and up. The jungle like trees were at least ten times taller than the tallest pine tree I’d ever seen, and the trunks were as wide as a bus. Bushes and shrubs were my height with broad, flat leaves and tall, slender stalks. I had seen pictures of what Earth looked like in the dinosaur era in an exhibit at the museum. Tili reminded me of the exhibit – except everything seemed to be much, much larger.

  “Caretaker?” Teyan’s cousin circled the wide tree. “You should not wander off. You do not have the benefit of a rawerah.”

  I blinked and focused on her. “A what?”

  She motioned to something, and the massive, saber tooth cat slinked around the tree. Its eyes were brilliant green, its fur short and gold, striped with dark brown. Those fangs, though … I inched away.

  “We each have a rawerah,” Teyan’s cousin said. “You do not need to fear her. Look.” She reached up and wrapped an arm around the massive cat’s head, pulling it down. The beast began a rumbling purr resembling a distant freight train. Teyan’s cousin gripped the beast’s ear and tugged it open for me to see. “Telepathic imprinting. She knows you are a friend, because I told her so.”

  I inched forward and saw a pale, blue circle in the cat’s ear. The Tili held up her hand, where an identical circle glowed beneath the skin of her palm.

  “You see?” she said and released the cat with a pat.

  I really didn’t, but it seemed clear the cats weren’t going to eat any of us or they would have already.

  Was my mom suffering similar shock wherever she was? I yearned to see her and know she was okay.

  “Our cousins, the Komandi, live on a world where they are the only predators. Here, it is the opposite,” the male Tili said and joined us, trailed by another giant cat. “Our survival is tied to the rawerahs.” He ran hi
s hand through the scruff of his cat. “Come. We have a long walk ahead of us.”

  He turned and started through the forest. The two cats trailed him, while Teyan’s cousin waited for me. I left the tree trunk with some reluctance and gazed around. The back of my neck was clammy with sweat; it was humid here, and I put my hair in a messy bun.

  Eyeing the cats, I trailed at a safe distance while Teyan’s cousin followed me. The symphony of wildlife was too diverse and loud for me to figure out what kind of animal was making what sound. Birds for certain, but there were hoots and squawks, trumpeting and high pitched shrieks I couldn’t make out at all. The occasional bellow of some kind of animal made the ground tremble and caused my heart to race. Combined with the towering trees and oversized brush, I began to feel as if I’d been shrunk to the size of a pear and thrown into a prehistoric jungle.

  More than once, brush near us rustled, as if something were there. Whenever it did, one of the cats slid silently into the surroundings and then reappeared about ten minutes later.

  We reached a field of grass that came up to my waist. Relieved to be out of the jungle with its freaky sounds, I started into it before Teyan’s cousin caught my arm.

  “Let the cats go first,” she instructed me.

  I fanned myself, hot. The two Tili were turning from brown to black as the direct sunlight hit them.

  The cats loped into the field. One stopped, lowered itself into the grass and seconds later, pounced on something I couldn’t see. A high-pitched whine filled the air briefly before it was silenced, and the other cat joined it.

  They tore something apart, and I squinted to get a better look. Was that … a giant beetle?

  Shuddering, I hugged myself.

  “Should be safe,” Teyan’s cousin said cheerfully. “Come!” She walked confidently into the field.

  I trailed, eyes on the grass around me, afraid of what it hid. The guard cats loped around us in loose circles, at times tumbling with one another and playing, and other times, pausing at several points to listen. Concerned about being eaten by a giant beetle, I didn’t pay any attention to where we went until the male Tili spoke.

  “Sor … cha … ni … li. Cha … ra … di … ni!” he sang loudly in an off-key tone.

  Recognizing the first half of his chant, I raised my eyes curiously and saw him walking across the field with his arms outstretched and his gaze on the sky. Looking into the space above his head, I gasped.

  Butterflies with wing spans of at least five feet fluttered over him. Their wings were vibrant shades of yellows and purples, their bodies black. One made its way down to him while another darted into the sky when one of the cats leapt into the air to swipe at it.

  The man sang the words again, and the butterfly landed on his arm and flapped its wings. I marveled at the gorgeous insects, feeling as if I were the insect on this world.

  “What is he singing?” I asked Teyan’s cousin, who was a few feet ahead of me.

  “It’s a song we sing to the children. No one knows what it means, really, because it has been passed down for several hundred thousand winds,” she explained. “It’s called the Butterfly Song. We sing it when we see beautiful creatures.”

  Teyan had said those words to me in a state of delirium. I almost smiled despite my unease in this strange world.

  “What’s your name?” I asked her, embarrassed to realize I didn’t know.

  “Kay. This is my escort, Loray,” she replied, nodding towards the man with the oversized butterfly perched on his arm.

  This place was good at distracting me from my worry, but my thoughts drifted once more to my mom. If Carey didn’t know what Jiod was up to, I could never figure it out. The only thing I knew for certain was that Teyan would help me.

  “You are Gianna.” Kay’s eyes twinkled when she looked at me. She grinned.

  “Yeah. Why is that funny?” I asked.

  “My cousin named his cat after you.”

  I bit back a smile but I couldn’t stop my face from growing warm. How was it possible to feel the way I did about someone I didn’t know well at all? Who was an alien?

  I wasn’t here for myself, though it was hard not to feel eager about seeing Teyan at last. My goal was to help my mom, and the other Caretakers, whatever it took.

  “Farewell!” Loray called ahead of us. The butterfly had taken flight.

  “Where are we going?” I asked. “To a city?”

  “Portal. We have portals here that take us all over Tili,” Kay said. “Everywhere is only one day away, when you take a portal.”

  I listened and looked her over once more. The telepathic imprinting and portals appeared to be very advanced and yet, the Tili with me wore leather and carried nothing more lethal than a knife. The mix of sophistication and antiquation left me struggling to create a picture of their culture and world.

  “Where is the war?” I asked.

  “On the far side of the planet. My cousin should be rotating to our secondary encampment tomorrow. We will meet him there,” Kay said.

  “And what exactly are you fighting?” My eyes went to the giant cats.

  “Monsters.”

  I wasn’t certain I wanted to know more. Giant beetles, prehistoric cats, and all the creatures in the jungle were monsters to me. It was clear the scale was sliding, and I didn’t want to meet whatever beast had earned the name monsters from the brave Tili.

  A flicker of guilt bubbled inside me, but I suppressed it. I’d do whatever I had to in order to find my mom, even if I wasn’t certain how to view asking a favor of a man at war. I didn’t know what to think about my nervousness at the thought of meeting him again, either. I wasn’t convinced he hadn’t moved on and was looking out for me out of a sense of duty and nothing more. At the same time, I was just as afraid that he’d expect something more than I could give.

  I was a mess of worry and angst, and my new surroundings weren’t helping me at all.

  We reached the jungle once more and entered the shade. I was sweating from the brief jaunt in the sunlight but preferred the wet heat to the scary, unseen creatures living in the jungle.

  We walked until sunset before Loray halted us and set up a small camp. Not a fan of using the bathroom in the wild, I gave up hope at seeing an alternative and finally went into the jungle, accompanied by one of the cats. When I returned, Kay had started a fire, and Loray was nowhere to be seen.

  “Stay close to the fire tonight,” she directed me. “There are many more creatures out at night.”

  Ugh. I sat as close as I could tolerate the heat. It had been almost dark on my planet, and I was absolutely exhausted after a day of trekking through the jungle.

  Kay handed me a bagel they’d taken from the house, and I ate it quickly, washing it down with a liter of water.

  “Sleep,” she told me. She handed me a rolled up sleeping bag.

  Taking it, I looked around me, uncomfortable at the idea of being exposed in the jungle. Her cat settled nearby. For the first time today, I was almost grateful for its presence.

  I unrolled the sleeping bag, intrigued to watch it expand of its own accord into a firm mattress with covering. I didn’t recognize the material any more than I did the technology that allowed it to go from the thinness of my hand to a full six inches thick. Too tired to ask about it, I crawled into the bed and pulled the blanket over my face, just in case something came to attack me.

  Despite my worry, I slept deeply and had to be shaken awake twice the next morning. I cracked my eyes open to see Kay packed up and waiting with a smile.

  God, I hated morning people. I almost snapped at her before recalling I was in the middle of a jungle on her planet. If she decided to leave me, I’d be eaten by something before breakfast.

  My body was aching from all the walking, but I forced myself up. Kay rolled my bag for me. I was too out of it to be impressed by the six inch mattress folding up into a roll all of two inches thick. One of the cats growled and snapped, and I twisted to see if we were ab
out to all be dead.

  “Holy shit.” The ant crawling down the side of a massive tree was the size of a dog. Hearing the cat’s warning, it altered its course and circled the trunk before reaching the ground and disappearing into the undergrowth of the jungle.

  “They’re harmless but they will steal your food,” Kay told me.

  “Is everything here super sized?” I asked, fully awake after seeing the monster ant.

  “Everything here is normal to us.”

  I shook my head. Our worlds were too far apart for me to explain to her how different they really were. I stood and stretched with a grimace before accepting another bagel for breakfast.

  “Where’s Loray?” I asked, glancing around camp.

  “He went ahead to tell them we were coming.”

  “Oh. Did I slow you down?”

  “Yeah.”

  I rolled my eyes, not expecting her candidness. She took the sleeping bag and placed it in her pack before slinging on the heavy rucksack and fastening it to her back. I carried nothing and had still managed to slow them down. I felt a little embarrassed about it.

  “Do you want to see more creatures before we continue?” Kay was trying hard not to smile, but the mischievous gleam in her eyes gave her away.

  “If they can eat me, no,” I replied firmly.

  “These are harmless.”

  I had a feeling we had different definitions of harmless.

  “Come!” she said before I could refuse. She strode into the forest, unconcerned about ants or monsters or anything else. Her cat trailed her, and so did I, not about to be left alone.

  I hurried to keep pace with the cat, aware by now I stood a better chance of surviving the jungle with it around. We didn’t go far before we reached a lake tucked beneath the canopy of the jungle that stretched as far as I could see.

  It wasn’t the size of the lake that ensnared my attention. It was the creatures in and around it.

  They were dinosaurs but different enough from those of my planet that I couldn’t identify them. One resembled an elephant bigger than a building, another a semi-truck sized hippo. They came in all shapes, though all were huge. Their skin was either dark green or brown, camouflage for the forest. Some had fur while others looked like the worn, sunbaked leather of my mom’s car’s dashboard.