UNHEEDED: Undone Realms Book 2

Ch. 8 - The Other Matter

Avie leans against her beat-up lime green car as she stares at the little cottage.  It has a new metal roof and freshly painted trim.  Yellow and violet pansies adorn the front windows.  The garden is well tended.  Judging from the paving stones baring the imprints of tiny hands and an assortment of brightly colored toys strewn amidst the flower beds, it is well loved too.  The new family has done a nice job here.  One could hardly imagine that less than twenty years ago, this house was bursting at its seams with grief.

Avie takes a step forward, wondering how she can get to the backyard without anyone noticing her, when someone does notice her.  The red door of the neighboring house opens and an elderly woman steps onto the porch.  Avie freezes.

Jerris.  Of all the rotten luck, that old bat is still alive, and judging from the eager look on her face as she peers at Avie, she is as meddlesome as ever.

"Can I help you, dear?" She places her cane on the step below and hobbles down to her walkway, slowly making her way towards the front gate.  Towards Avie.

Avie has to think fast.  "I was just wondering.  Um, the family who lives here has kids, right?  I'm back from college for the summer and I was hoping to find some work babysitting.  Do you know if anyone's home?"

Jerris eyes her up and down.  "Hmmm.  The kids are still in school.  It's their last week before holiday.  Brent or Sydney might be here, though.  You should check around back if they don't answer.  It seems they're deaf when I knock."

"Well... thank you."  Avie gives her a dismissive smile, then heads towards the front door.

"You do know about that house, don't you?  That's why you've really come."

Avie whips her head around.  "What?"

Jerris snickers as she leans on her cane.  "You can pretend you don't know if you want.  It's not like you're the first person to come here out of curiosity."

Avie weighs her words carefully.  She wants Jerris to explain herself, but she also wants to maintain her façade as an uninterested college student.  "Just what am I supposed to be curious about?" 

"Why, the realm work that went on there of course." 

A cold spreads from the base of Avie's spine.  Realm work.  So they had found out what Marcella had done.  Surely Marcella must know her work had been discovered, yet she'd never told Avie about it.  Avie concentrates on calming the growing tension in her chest as Jerris continues.  "Twenty years ago, this awful woman, an ex-Caller, lived there with her stepdaughter.  She used to beat the young girl senseless—I saw it myself!"

Avie can't help but wince at this portrayal of Marcella.  Thankfully, wincing at the mention of child abuse is an appropriate response, and it encourages Jerris to continue her narrative.   "I tried to help the girl, I did!  I called CompassionCorp to come and look into the situation.  Of course, I didn't know what was going on—what was truly going on in that house.  It seems the woman was dabbling in realm work of the most illegal kind.  Imagine, a woman who had been a Caller, entrusted to keep us safe from foreign voyagers attempting to breach our realm, and here she was, attempting the same thing! The police believe she mastered the ability to voyage.  Can you imagine?"

Avie can, in fact, but she shakes her head no. 

"I'm sure she knew she was about to be found out, so she took her stepdaughter into the Dual Realm and killed her there."

"She killed her?"  Under different circumstances, the irony of Jerris' assumption would make Avie laugh.  At the moment, though, she is too horrified to do much but grip tightly to the fence separating herself from her old neighbor.

"Well, most likely." Jerris cocks her head to the side, "That's what I think she did, at any rate.  I knew that woman for years, and I'll tell you right now, she had it in her!"

Avie swallows.  It's probably best to let that subject drop.  "So, the police tested the house..."

"And found residue from foreign realm matter.  No mistaking what she'd been up to there.  Now I understand why she never let me inside.  After all of that, the house stood empty for nearly ten years before the authorities decided it was safe for habitation again.  Brent and Syd finally bought it.  Paid nearly nothing for it, of course."

"That's..." Avie struggles to find the right words.  "That's astounding.  I had no idea."

Jerris doesn't look convinced of Avie's ignorance, but she also isn't asking Avie any questions about herself, such as "why do you look so familiar?"  The Avie Jerris knew had spikey purple hair and was a good deal shorter. Plus, she should be over 30 years old by now, but still.  She's surprised the woman hasn't drawn any connections.

Jerris glares at her for a moment but returns to her house when Avie continues up to the door of her old home.  Avie mumbles a prayer of thanks to be rid of the wretched woman and then another one when no one comes to answer the door.  She slips around the side of the house and stares in awe at the transformed state of the backyard.  This is the garden Marcella always dreamed of growing but never quite managed.  At first, she doesn't think she'll find what she's looking for.  How could it have survived after she left?  There must have been a long gap when no one cared for it.

There it is, though, nestled against the back fence.  Tulips bloom at its base.  Its tiny white blossoms look poised to open at any moment. 

Avie sighs.  If Marcella had it her way, she would never let Avie leave the hotel grounds and she surely would not have wanted her to come back here, but she just hadn't been able to help herself.  Seeing all of those trees in Oliver's apple orchard had piqued her curiosity.  Despite the risk of returning to the site of their past crimes, she had to check to see if the Dual Realm tree had survived. 

Though it's nowhere near as large as the trees from the orchard, it certainly looks healthy enough to her.  Maybe Marcella's belief that living in another realm will make you sick doesn't apply to plants.  Or maybe she's wrong all together.  Maybe this tree is just the same as any other tree from her realm.  This one is doing so well, it's even going to bear fruit.

Avie takes a pocket knife out of her bag and gently cuts a sprig from one of its lower branches.  She smiles, thinking about how surprised Oliver will be when she shows him the blossoms and explains that this is from the seed of one of his apples.  If he has any doubts about how important their first meeting was to her, surely this tiny living thing will eliminate them.

It stayed alive in another realm, she thinks.  I can too.

A/N: Ah, the return of the seed (now a tree)! Many readers have commented about what they believe this tree symbolizes.  What do you think about it after this chapter?  Does it stands as proof that Marcella is wrong about the negative effects of spending time in other realms, or is Avie pinning too much hope on the health of one tree?

Chapter 7 is dedicated to one of my most enthusiastic supporters, the wonderful @nihainthesky.  A fellow lover of stories about parallel universes, we've gotten into quite the conversations about manipulating the space-time continuum... 

...And that reminds me, if something about these chapters grabs you, don't be shy!  Leave a comment or feel free to comment on what someone else has said!