A New Beginning

Chapter 3- The Story

The truth. Where on Earth did she begin?

Noelle put the comb down and sighed as she stared at the table before looking back up at her mother and father.

"The truth?" Her voice faltered. "Would you believe me if I told you?"

"You will tell us or you will tell the police why you have been missing for eight years and then suddenly show up on this doorstep alive and well. We thought you were dead." His voice rose and Noelle flinched.

Would he be angrier if she did tell him the truth? Probably. They would think she was insane– to put it lightly..

Noelle didn't have time to think. "It started long before I disappeared," she began and saw her parents' faces turn white. That's right. It happened right under their very noses and they had known nothing.

"When I was nine years old, a wizard named Gandalf showed up in our yard and he–"

She stopped, seeing the look on their faces.

"She's crazy, Lauren," said her father. "Something must have happened to make her like this."

Noelle scowled. "You asked me to tell you the truth, and you barely let me get a sentence out of my mouth. I'm not asking you to believe me, but if you want the truth, let me speak at least."

Her father stared at her. "You said a wizard showed up at our front door. So what happened? Were you kidnapped into a cult?"

Noelle swallowed, looking at the ground. "Something like that."

Her father's lips were pursed. "Continue then."

Noelle didn't think the rest of this was going to go well. She had just about gotten one sentence out. But she knew how it sounded.

"Gandalf told me I had special abilities– special powers, and that I was able to harness an energy field called the Force. And I believed him."

The Force was so much more than that, but that was the best way she could explain it.

As horrified as her parents looked, Noelle could see them fighting the urge to visibly facepalm.

"I was an impressionable nine-year-old," she pointed out. "Gandalf didn't kidnap me. He trained me in swordfighting, archery, horseback riding–"

Her mom scowled. "So that's why you were so insistent in the horseback riding lessons," she said in realization.

Noelle nodded. "Gandalf never taught me to use the abilities he told me I had though. He was preparing me for my first great test, he said. And when I was sixteen, the time came. One Wednesday morning when he came to visit, he told me it was time for my first mission: a quest in a world called Middle-earth. I was to help a company of dwarves take back their mountain which was stolen from them by a dragon–" Noelle stopped to see their reaction. They still looked just as angry as when she had mentioned the wizard.

Her mother opened her mouth slightly and all she asked was "and where was Bern in all this?"

Noelle bit the inside of her cheek. She wouldn't betray Bern, not even to her family. Bern had faithfully kept her secret for almost ten years. Noelle wouldn't call her a liar now.

"Bern didn't know anything," she lied. "I was well-hidden with Gandalf in the woods, and as this world faded away to darkness I heard her calling my name out. I knew I could never let her find me."

Her mom and dad closed their eyes as if remembering that horrible time that had followed after Noelle had disappeared.

Her dad was the first to speak after a moment of silence. "What happened to you then? Did you marry a prince and live in a castle for the next ten years?" There was an underlying venom in his voice that unsettled Noelle. But of course she shouldn't have expected to just show up here and that they would be perfectly accepting of her story.