‘It was between here and there, in the Fold, working with all the magic in that table,’ she said, pushing a piece of peach halfway around her plate, trying to scoop it up.
Mark handed his cup to Hannah and asked for a refill; he was glad to see her safe. To Milla, he said, ‘So when I was going in to save you, you were actually coming in to save me?’
‘I needed you to get into the water,’ Milla said, as if that explained everything.
‘Because that’s where you knew the creature would open the Fold?’ Hannah asked.
‘And because I am an excellent swimmer, silly. Didn’t you see me doing the scramble?’ She giggled and ate the wayward peach, Alen temporarily forgotten.
‘It was the ash dream,’ Steven said. ‘Who would have guessed that of all of us, she would be the only one who could manage it?’
‘Prince Nerak taught me,’ she said proudly.
Steven looked at the plate of peaches Jennifer was offering him and set them aside. It would be a while before he was ready to eat. ‘You were our true hero today, Pepperweed,’ he said softly.
‘I wouldn’t go as far as to say that,’ Mrs Winter whispered, peering at him over the top of her glasses. She wore them low on her nose, like a schoolmarm in an old daguerreotype. He had watched her attack the invaders. Steven didn’t believe she needed glasses at all.
‘Did you see what happened to Gilmour?’ Garec asked.
Steven wrestled back another bout of tears and nodded. ‘He just sat there. I don’t know why.’
‘Overwhelmed maybe?’ Hannah suggested. ‘Did he give up? Maybe sacrificed himself to slow them down?’
‘Perhaps,’ Steven said, uncomforted.
‘I wouldn’t go as far as to say that either,’ Mrs Winter said. ‘He was probably trying to break into their dreams, to slow them, or stop them entirely. He might even have been successful, or partially successful, anyway.’
‘How can you say that?’ Hannah asked. ‘What are you even doing here? Who are you, anyway?’ She too was still in shock.
Steven interrupted to say, ‘Her name is Alfrieda Winter. She owns the shop next to the bank in Idaho Springs, and I will bet you a year of your life to a bacon sandwich that her middle initial is “L”.’
‘You’ve never been stupid, Steven,’ Alfrieda Winter replied, ‘and I’ve known you a long time, haven’t I?’
‘Holy shit, it’s Lessek!’ Mark stood, spilling his tea over the curtain he was wrapped in. ‘It’s you; you’re Lessek, aren’t you?’
‘I am, Mark, and I’ve been watching you and Steven for most of your lives.’
‘Why? How?’ Hannah couldn’t cope with this; she looked from face to face, trying to understand.
‘I was forced to leave Eldarn a long time ago,’ Mrs Winter – Lessek – began. ‘I did a terrible thing, inadvertently, but a terrible thing nevertheless. I’ve been here ever since.’
‘That virus,’ Steven guessed.
‘The worst Twinmoon of my life,’ the old woman replied. ‘Thousands died in Eldarn. My team and I planned to come back, to find a cure, a herb, something to stop the devastation, but I was sick myself, and I wasn’t able to keep them from conspiring against me. I escaped to Rome, and then to the Holy Land, where I had friends and colleagues, but without my writings and the spell table, I was unable to control the Fold. Harbach, a power-hungry businessman, and Gaorg, my own brother, ran me out one night, ushering a whole new Era of politics and corruption into the fledgling Larion Senate. I spent thousands of Twinmoons here, decades and decades, watching, listening and hoping to find a way home, when, one day about a hundred and thirty-five years ago-’
‘Your own keystone came to you,’ Mark said.
‘It was as if a bomb detonated half a world away and I felt the aftershock. I was living in a corner of Africa at the time, a place from where I discovered I could communicate with the most powerful of the magicians from the Larion Senate.’
‘At Seer’s Peak,’ Steven said.
‘That’s right.’
‘But Larion Senators had been coming here for generations,’ Hannah said, her brow furrowed. ‘Why didn’t you go back with one of them?’
‘That was several Eras later, over an Age had passed, and I was settled here by that time, Hannah,’ Mrs Winter replied softly, obviously leaving something unsaid. ‘I made a point to help Larion sorcerers when I could, guiding them, leading them to powerful sources of energy, information, research and knowledge. I was an outstanding resource for the Larion Brotherhood, but-’
‘You never revealed yourself to them?’ Jennifer asked.
‘No.’ She sipped her tea. ‘I was more useful here, even to Nerak – especially to Nerak, I should say. He was an astonishing talent from very early on.’
‘And then your keystone arrived,’ Steven said.
‘And things began to unravel in Eldarn. I would have tried to go home then, but Larion journeys across the Fold came to an abrupt halt. Apart from Seer’s Peak, there was little opportunity for communication-’
‘Except for images,’ Steven said.
‘And dreams,’ Mark added. ‘My dreams, the dream of this very beach. How did you do it? My head hurts just thinking about it.’ Mark tallied points on his fingers. ‘I dream of Jones Beach and my dad. You plant the dream in my head, convincing me that I’m Eldarn’s heir. I am taken by the evil minion ruling Eldarn and we end up here, invading my home on this very beach. It doesn’t add up.’
Actually,’ she peered over her glasses, ‘it adds up perfectly. Lessek’s key had been drawing members of your family to Colorado for generations.’
‘Those pictures,’ Steven said, ‘the ones in the hallway at your parents’ house…’
‘That trip,’ Mark agreed, ‘and my dad’s favourite photos.’
The Larion founder laughed. ‘You’re catching on, boys. You remembered Jones Beach, a day in your childhood when you and your father enjoyed each other’s company. I used the ash dream to comfort you that night, but no, I never imagined that you would one day invade Earth from this beach.’
‘It was in my head,’ Mark said, swirling tea in his cup. ‘The evil that took me just found it in there.’
‘It and all your analyses and conclusions about yourself as Eldarn’s heir,’ Steven said.
‘My goal was only to comfort you, Mark, to comfort you and to send you a message about your father; that was all. With you in Eldarn so unexpectedly, I had to act quickly, or else risk having you travel through Rona unaware of who you truly were. You chose the memory: the day, the beach, the time, all of it, probably because you happened to arrive on the beach outside Estrad when you fell across the Fold.’
‘After we’d been drinking beer at Owen’s Pub,’ Mark added. ‘My dad used to drink all day when we were at the beach.’
Hannah chuckled. ‘An important parallel.’
Mark went to the windows. The sun was high overhead now, but a cold wind continued to sweep the beach, kicking up the sand along the boardwalk. ‘So I have a vision of my dad, because you used the ash dream, but I picked the beach memory, serendipitously, most likely because I was on a beach outside Estrad. So far so good?’
‘Keep at it,’ Steven urged.
‘You continued to send me dreams and memories of my dad and Jones Beach and when I was taken, I had spent so much time thinking about this place that the minion controlling the Malakasian military decided this would be the perfect place to invade.’
‘True, but there were other reasons as well,’ Steven said. ‘When Nerak was in Colorado, ostensibly tracking down Jennifer, we assume he took numerous people.’
‘Gaining knowledge of Earth,’ Hannah said. ‘Taking you, the minion had everything it had learned from Nerak, plus what it gained inside your mind: knowledge of Kennedy Airport, Manhattan, the millions of people here, so many things. If it had taken me instead, this invasion force might have emerged up near Alamosa Pass, or maybe out on the prairie east of Denver.’
‘So here we are,’ Garec said, ‘living your dream, Mark.’
‘How did you get into my head?’ Mark asked. ‘I never came near any of that bark, or the ashes, or any of those shipments. How did you do it?’