“Thank you,” Anna whispered, overcome. “Thank you. It is so nice to meet you.”
“Rest a moment and I will do what I can to improve your health. Just close your eyes, sweet one.”
Anna did as she was told, her breathing deep from emotion. They heard whispered words to a God Anna had never believed in, longer than what Eriana had said to heal Eric’s hand the night before. The soft glow surrounded her as Jack watched in amazement, thinking he’d never tire of seeing this. The superficial wounds on Anna’s face slowly faded, her complexion bore more color, and the fingers Jack held onto flinched, then curled around his. He squeezed in excitement and looked at Eriana, full of wonder. She had healed at least some of the paralysis, despite her earlier cautions. He wanted to ask Anna to wiggle her toes, but as he looked back at her, it was apparent that she had fallen asleep.
“Rest, Anna,” whispered Eriana. “We will meet again soon. You are not alone and have much help.”
Jack beamed at the healer and mouthed a thank you. She smiled in return and excused herself, leaving him alone with Anna, whose parents arrived ten minutes later to find him still standing there. They noticed the missing cuts on her forehead, but he quickly distracted them by observing that she had squeezed his hand. Her mother didn’t seem to believe it until Jack replaced his hand with hers, and a sleeping Anna closed her fingers around it. Her parents hugged each other in relief and he gave them privacy and quit while he was ahead, so he left. He’d return later to fill her in on everything they’d learned.
In the meantime, he went home, where Eriana and the boys were jointly looking up real estate listings on a laptop hooked to his TV as a big monitor. They found several estates for sale north of Darnestown in a rural area that was still only minutes away from shopping centers. Some were better suited to their needs than others. One was especially nice, with an old house, a newer one, and a large indoor riding ring attached to a barn that had several apartments. There were riding trails and several open fields, one of which was out of sight behind a line of trees. That would make for a good archery range. The land had some forest on it, as well.
With Eric, Matt, and Ryan leery of going anywhere in case they were summoned or seen, Eriana and Jack called the realtor to see up a visit while they brainstormed things they needed to consider in a property. They also video-called Quincy and Daniel to introduce Eriana to get their “Earth team,” as Eric called them, working together more. They made rough plans for a moving truck to grab all the gear at the guest house.
Just when it seemed like everything was moving in the right direction, Matt excused himself to the bathroom, and no sooner did the toilet flush than Eric and Ryan, who were seated neck to Jack, began to softly glow and then vanish. Jack sighed, then remembered that Anna should have just been healed all the way. He went to the bathroom to find the sink running and a soap bottle knocked over. As expected, Matt was gone, the toilet still refilling. He returned to the couch and sat.
Jack looked at Eriana and joked, “Does the summoning spell wash your hands, too?”
Darron felt uneasy. He had watched enough TV since arriving that he understood this world treated children with a far softer touch than anywhere else. Not being the fatherly type, he had no kids of his own and never intended to change this. Sure, he might father a brat or two, and probably already had, but they would be on their own, unless their mothers looked after them. He had no sense of how to handle a child and could not have cared less about it.
And so he stood on the edge of the park where children were playing on various metal bars, plastic slides, and a wide lawn, their parents standing idly by or slouched on benches, chatting together. He counted two dozen of the little monsters and amused himself with thoughts of which spells he could cast on them. The sleep spell was the more benevolent and therefore only brought a frown to his dark face, but fiery darts, a wall of flames, or making the Earth swallow them whole all cheered him. The thought of summoning creatures to chase and devour them made him laugh, the sinister sound chilling even a few adults nearby.
They were watching him, he knew. There seemed to be no help for that. Unless he had a child of his own to watch, he seemed to attract attention. Observation suggested no adults were here without one, and this had resulted in him being singled out. Why did these parents care? Something called an Amber Alert had been issued that morning, raising his awareness of kidnapping and worse. Where he came from, a missing child had typically been eaten by something. A missing kid on Earth hardly seemed worth getting upset over.
Maybe these parents could tell he wanted to do something to their brats. People were too sensitive. He wasn’t going to actually do anything, of course. Zoran would’ve killed him for attracting any attention. And yet he was somehow doing that, anyway.
But he wasn’t leaving. He had a job to do, and overprotective parents ranked last on any list of dangers he had faced over the years. The thought made him laugh again. They were like arrogant children if they thought they posed a threat to anyone, least of all him or those with whom he kept company. They knew nothing of being in genuine danger, and yet they had enough sense to be afraid of him. Exuding menace was a trait he had used to keep people in
