From Book 1, The King's Feather

Chapter One

I closed my eyes with Mom's pendant in my fist. My mind replayed her scream from the night Dr. Carper found her. Every morning for the last fourteen years, I awoke from the nightmare and expected her to appear and replace the scream with a whisper: I’m home, Pero, and I’ll never leave again.

But when I awoke, she was gone, and now on the afternoon of my seventeenth birthday, the same man who took Mom away would come for me.

I opened my eyes and stretched up to peek out the car’s window. Teens chilled on the lawn in front of the high school. I scanned the entire area, but no one looked out of place. No strange men dressed in dark clothes lurked nearby, ready to snatch me.

I jolted when the car door opened. Henry slid into the driver’s side and slammed the door. “Hey there, birthday girl. How was your last day of school?”

I buckled my seat belt. There’d been no strangers inside the classrooms or halls. I’d watched.

“You okay, Ro?”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” I glanced back toward the lawn.

Henry shrugged. “What’s wrong, Pero?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re twirling your hair again.” Henry put the keys in the ignition and turned on the engine. “You do that when you’re nervous.”

“Since when did you notice my habits?”

“I picked up a few things over the last four months.”

“It wasn’t my idea to make you my bodyguard.”

When Henry appeared at our front door one day, Dad insisted on hiring Henry and converted the garage into a room for him. Dad and I would’ve thought Henry was some stalker looking for a way to ask me out if he hadn’t shown us the feather necklace. It wasn’t all that terrible with Henry’s kindness and good looks. He was cool for a Lesarie. His blonde bouncy curls, light-blue eyes, and long, slender nose caused many heads to turn toward him. But not mine.

Henry waved back to a girl getting into her car.

“Is she a senior, too?” I asked.

With the girl’s naturally wavy hair and sweet smile, Henry had to find her attractive. A flash of adrenaline tingled through my body. Why did I care if he did?

Henry moved the gear to reverse. “Who?”

Henry backed up without looking. Someone laid on their horn, and he slammed on the brakes.

I lurched forward. “Wowzer.”

“I haven’t killed us yet, have I?”

As soon as Henry arrived, he got his driver’s license and insisted he be the one to drive me to and from school. He ran red lights, jerked the car, and swerved toward on-coming traffic while looking for deer at the edge of the meadows.

I rolled my shoulder, working out neck tension from gripping the seat. “Where you live has to have cars. I think your parents didn’t let you drive.”

Henry laughed and filed into the line of cars leaving Green Meadow High. The traffic snaked along the driveway, toward a banner that read Class of 2025 in colorful letters. One more year until my turn. I’d make it, right?

“It’d be faster to run home,” I said.

Out the passenger window, large trees and lush grass surrounded the school’s perimeter. A sign on the lamppost ahead said, “Keep our meadow green.” Green Meadow rain did a fine job on its own.

“Faster for you.” Henry tucked a stray blonde curl behind his ear. “But I can’t run that far.”

The car lurched forward a few feet before stopping.

Henry leaned back. “Any sign of Dr. Carper today?”

I clasped the wooden feather pendant in my fist, waiting for energy to pass from the necklace through my hand. I sucked in my breath, then exhaled. Deflated. Lightning didn’t flash. I didn’t feel different. Nothing.

Dad said that Mom wore the same necklace with a feather pendant and a word in ancient text inscribed on the back. I didn’t know the word’s meaning, but I did know that Mom and I both were two of the three chosen, and if I wore the necklace on my seventeenth birthday, I would inherit a gift. Like a power. And the necklace would lead me to Mom. But it might also help Dr. Carper find me. That’s what Henry was here for, to protect me from Dr. Carper and help me find Mom.

Dr. Carper caught Mom at seventeen. After Mom escaped years later, she married Dad and had me. Dr. Carper found her again, but the second time she disappeared before he reached her.

She never came back.

“No sign.” I let go of the pendent. “Maybe he won’t come.”

“If your power comes today, he’ll be here.”

“I can’t be one of the chosen. Nothing’s happened.”

“Not yet, but it will.”

“I don’t want anything to happen. I mean, I want to find my mom, but I don’t want anyone to take me, either.”

“I won’t let anything bad happen to you, Pero. Doors rarely open between Earth and Origo, so if Elohim doesn’t want you to be taken away, then Dr. Carper won’t be able to find you. No one can get past God’s plan.”

“You seriously still believe there’s another universe?”

Henry leaned to look out the window and pointed. “Right there. The evidence is in the sky. How can you not believe that Origo exists?”

“Just because a planet is visible doesn’t mean life’s there.”

“How else can you explain your mom disappearing out of thin air and never returning?”

“I was three, Henry. It could’ve been a dream.” But it wasn’t.

“Your dad remembers, too.”

“We’ve argued about this so many times. Can we talk about something else?”

The car behind us honked, and Henry moved forward. “Pants are finally a trend in Origo.”

“What other option is there? Fig leaves?"

Henry chuckled. “We wear robes.”

“That explains everything. You’re from the Middle East, and why are we talking about this again?”

Henry stretched his arm out of the open car window as he took a left turn from the school’s driveway. Peppermint wafted from a field of herbs. Henry adjusted his arm, and the movement brought a whiff of citrus and woody tones. Of course, he’d smell nice, too.

“I’ll miss high school,” he said.

I snickered. “You weren’t here freshman year.”

Henry told me once that his parents educated him all his life. When I mentioned that’s called homeschooling, he said the Lesaries in the other universe differed from the 21st-century ones here on Earth. The Lesaries here wore jeans and t-shirts, drank coffee, and took their dogs for walks like average Americans. Henry said that in the older universe called Origo, the Lesaries didn’t have homes but traveled wherever Elohim sent them and slept in tents. The Lesaries’ next mission was a place called Moon City. Or so Henry believed.

“Why’d your parents name you Henry?”

“My parents traveled the world before they settled. I guess they chose a name they liked the best from different places they’d visited.”

“But Henry’s a common name in many places.”

Henry shifted. “No questions, Pero. Remember?”

“You always say that.”

We passed a brown building with a steeple that pointed toward the sky and a dozen people in front holding signs that read, “Pray for a king.” What would a king do for them when they already had priests? Dad took me to a sanctuary a couple times a year. He said Mom used to go every Saturday. I couldn’t imagine why. The prayers and songs bored me. And although a few stories about Elohim had me curious, I didn’t care for Him. He hadn’t brought Mom back.

Henry stopped at the light. “Let’s go for a run.”

“My dad said we shouldn’t go anywhere today.”

Henry shrugged. “We’ll check in with him before we go. It’ll be good for you to get out, and it’s not like we’ve seen anything unusual today.”

In the afternoons, with Henry a few paces behind, I ran the three miles from my home to Green Meadow’s border. Without people around and only sheep and horses grazing, the open space felt alive.

My muscles ached to run.

When Henry’s phone vibrated at my foot, I picked it up and read Matthew Moshe.

“It’s a text from my dad.”

Henry glanced over. “What does it say?”

“You’re right. It’s time to tell her,” I read.

Henry swerved.

I clutched the seat. “Look where you’re going!” Ouch. “Since when do you and my dad keep secrets?”

“We’ll talk about it later.” Henry reached to turn up the volume on the stereo and sang along to an upbeat song. His tenor voice stopped. “Come on, Pero.” The sway of his head resembled a cobra. “Someone told me you played guitar and sang at a school assembly once and a line of guys asked for your number.”

I rolled my eyes. “Was it Jamie? She exaggerates.”

Henry put both hands on the wheel. “I believe her.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Do, too. I would’ve been first in line.”

I squirmed. Was he serious? “You have my number.”

Henry raised the volume. “And you’re still hard to reach.”

Henry sang again to a slower song. I wanted to hum along, but his words had hit my gut and left me breathless. I rubbed the ache in my chest. Dr. Carper may not have found me yet, but I still felt trapped.

Would I ever be free?