The Door Within (35 page)
“It’s a long story, Mom. I—”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve put us through?!”
“Mom, I’m sorry. Let me explain—”
“Explain?!” she echoed. “Son, you were supposed to be home over four hours ago! How can you be four hours late and not even call?!”
If Aidan had been in a plane, the orange oxygen masks would have dropped out of the little overhead compartments. There was definitely a loss of cabin pressure in his head!!
Four hours?! But I’ve been gone for weeks . . . did time pass that much differently in Alleble?
“Four hours, son,” his mom continued, interrupting Aidan’s puzzled thoughts. “You should have at least called.” Her tone then softened. “Aidan, we can talk about your punishment later, but we need to talk about something else.”
Aidan knew what was coming.
His mother took a deep breath. “Aidan, I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’ll just say it. Your grandfather had a heart attack this afternoon. Dad found him when he got home from work . . .” Her voice began to crack. “He, he’s in intensive care now. Your father is with him at the hospital.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Aidan said, gently putting his hand on her shoulder.
“No, Aidan it’s not okay,” she corrected. She wiped her eyes, smearing the mascara. “The doctors say it’s very serious.”
“I understand, Mom. But really, Grampin will be okay, ” Aidan persisted, and taking a deep breath himself, he charged ahead. “Grampin believes in Alleble. If he dies, he’ll be with the King . . . in the Sacred Realm Beyond the Sun.”
Mom shook her head and put her hand up. “Oh, Aidan, not that story again. I know that story might make you feel better, and I suppose that’s okay, but this is real life.”
“Mom, I’ve been there . . . to Alleble. It’s ALL real, every bit of it, and Grampin believes, so he’ll be just fine no matter what. You’ll see.”
Aidan’s mom tried to smile, but her cheeks showed tension and her lower lip trembled. She started to speak but hugged Aidan instead. She hugged him so tight he thought a rib would crack. Again, he felt the tears on his neck. Aidan hugged back and lightly scratched his mother’s back, wishing she could understand and believe. Then it wouldn’t hurt so much.
“Can we go up to the hospital to see Grampin?” Aidan asked as they parted.
“We’ll go see him in the morning, son,” she said quietly. “I think you need to get some sleep.”
Mrs. Thomas walked Aidan into his room and tucked him in. She kissed Aidan on his forehead like she used to do when he was little and then clicked off the overhead light.
“Good night, sweetheart,” she said tenderly, sliding easily off the bed and walking to the door. She stood there, half illumined by the golden hall light. Longer than usual she stayed, just staring at Aidan warmly. She turned to leave, but paused one moment more.
“Y’know, Aidan,” she began, an eyebrow raised, one corner of her mouth showing just a hint of a smile. “You seem different to me. I don’t know what it is exactly. Something about the way you reacted when I told you about Grampin—I don’t know. It’s probably nothing. I’m just so glad you’re home safe. Good night.”
“Night, Mom,” Aidan replied.
Mom is right
, Aidan thought.
I am different.
Something awakened Aidan in the still hours before dawn. He had a fleeting thought that maybe, like before, he would find himself in Alleble with Gwenne standing near his bedside. Perhaps the King had called him back for some other adventure.
No, Aidan wasn’t in the castle—just his own room in Colorado. His arm wasn’t around the neck of a friendly dragon—just his down pillow. And it was not Gwenne who awakened him—it was his father.
It was dark, but Aidan knew it was him, silhouetted against the window. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, and he seemed to be rocking back and forth slightly.
“Dad, what is it?”
He nodded ever so slightly. “Aidan, I-I’m so grateful that you’re okay. I wouldn’t be able to bear it if . . . if you and my father . . .” His voice trailed off for a moment, but then he gathered his strength and spoke more assuredly.
“Grampin was in a coma, for almost the whole time after the heart attack, but once, when no one else was around, he just woke up and started talking to me. He told me a whole bunch of crazy stuff about the Kingdom of Alleble, just like you said the other night. He said all I had to do was believe it was true and choose to follow the King of Alleble, and it would all become real to me.
“He even got a little mad at me when I told him I didn’t buy into any of that pie-in-the-sky fantasy garbage. He said, ‘Boy, ye better open up yer eyes to see, fer it gets too late!’ I think we both fell asleep after that, Aidan. But I tell you, I had the most amazing dream. I don’t remember too much of it, but Grampin was in it. He was dressed in bright silver armor, and he looked younger, happier, and more alive than I have ever seen him. In fact, he was riding on a flying dragon, doing loop-the-loops in the sky above a breathtaking castle.”
Aidan’s dad paused for a while, swallowed hard, and then continued. “When I woke up, Grampin was already gone. He . . . he died, Aidan.”
Dad wiped his tears with an abrupt swipe of his forearms. Aidan just waited patiently and listened.
“Y’know, on the drive home from the hospital, I got to thinking about what Grampin had told me. In some ways, I wanted to write it off as the nutty fantasies of a senile old man. But I just couldn’t, Aidan. I mean, when he was speaking to me, he seemed as clear-minded as can be. He completely believed everything he said to me, and there was such a powerful look of hope in his eyes that I had to listen.
“He must have known that he was close to death . . . he had to know. But there wasn’t the slightest hint of fear in his eyes. I think my crazy old man was actually looking forward to it! Then, it hit me so hard, I had to pull the car over to the side of the road. I made a decision there, son, and I wanted you to be the first to hear it.”
Aidan was so thrilled he thought he was going to pop!
Aidan stared anxiously at him. Aidan could tell his father was staring back. Finally, he announced: “Aidan, I believe it. I believe it all!”
The happiest of tears bounced down Aidan’s cheek. “I know,” he replied joyfully.
“What!?” Dad blurted out.
“It’s a long story, Dad,” Aidan said, smiling. “It’s a long story.”
The weeks that followed were a whirlwind of ups and downs. Aidan and his dad read and reread the Scrolls of Alleble—the whole time his mom thinking they had gone collectively off their rockers!
Aidan occupied most of the last days of the summer preparing for the upcoming school year. And every spare moment he had, he spent trying to contact Robby. For some reason, no one ever answered at his home, and Robby didn’t return a single email Aidan sent.
Being home, and knowing he could not return to Alleble, left Aidan with empty pangs of sadness now and then. But even within that sadness there sprang hope. For though he was away from Alleble, Alleble lived within his heart. He would never be alone, and he knew he had much work to do in his lifetime on Earth.
And though Aidan knew he could not see Gwenne for many, many years in The Realm, he had a plan. . . .
THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES IN THE
SECOND VOLUME OF THE DOOR WITHIN TRILOGY:
THE RISE OF THE WYRM LORD
A
dventures are
funny things,
and they always begin
with the unexpected.
But the best adventures of all
are the ones
that never end.
[Editor’s note: Have you ever gone a trip and forgotten your battery charger for your cell phone, game, or some other electronic gadget? Suddenly, you have to start making choices based on how long the gadget will last on one battery charge. In a way, authors and editors are in the same situation. Publishers provide authors with guidelines that include a specific number of pages and an estimated word count. Part of the job of an editor is to be sure that an author’s work fits within those guidelines. As a result, often the editor and author must make tough choices on what to cut from the storyline. They base their choices on what the reader might be most interested in reading about, things that will help move the story forward, things necessary to the story, and ways to rework sections to be more concise so they can keep the essence of the chapter but in a shorter form. In
The Door Within,
Wayne chose to rework the opening chapters to be more concise so that the reader would enter The Realm earlier, and he’d be able to keep in more of the events that happen in The Realm. He also agreed to age Aidan and his friends, so they could have more adventures in The Realm. In doing so, we agreed to cut or rework some of the opening chapters. As you’ll read in his notes following each cut chapter, it was a difficult choice for him to make. But it would have been equally difficult to choose other sections to cut.]
1
The Unexpected
I
t’ll be better than you think, son,” Aidan’s dad said. He placed his hand on his teenager’s shoulder and gave a firm, reassuring squeeze. That same hand had once stopped tears during thunderstorms and after knee-scrapes. It had brought comfort and security, but now, Aidan shrugged it off as if it were a wasp.
Mr. Thomas grimaced. Silence hung like a dark cloud between father and son. Aidan felt like he’d been smacked in the head with a bat. The unexpected news had hit him hard.
Aidan’s mom stood nearby, hands on hips, head with a slight tilt. She frowned at her husband as if to say,
I told you so
. He looked toward his son, who sat stiffly at the dining room table.
Mr. Thomas knelt to be at eye level with his son, and spoke softly. “It’s a really big house—plenty of room for everyone,” he said. He raised his eyebrows comically high, and with an encouraging smile playing on his lips he added, “I know it’s a bit of a surprise, Aidan, but look on the bright side. Your room’ll be twice as big as you’re used to.”
Bright side?
Aidan could see only a dreary blur like hard rain on a window, washing away a sunny day. But Aidan could not will the move away any more than he could dismiss a storm. He just didn’t want it to be. It couldn’t be, could it? Any minute his parents would laugh and say, “Gotcha!” It was all just a cruel joke, right?
Aidan’s face smoldered and his eyes swelled. He wanted to be far away, to escape, but he just sat there feeling like a punching bag as his dad continued.
“Just think of how great it’ll be to have Grampin around all the time. I know how you love his crazy stories.”
Aidan trembled with anger.
“And, maybe in July we’ll go rock climbing . . . and in the winter. . . . Son, it’s Colorado, there’ll be more snow than you’ve ever seen.”
Each time his father spoke, Aidan felt as if the walls were closing in a little more. “The backyard is huge, and the side yard has a serious hill.
Please, stop it!
Aidan thought.
“It’s a big neighborhood. You’ll make tons of new fr—”
Aidan sprang up. His chair teetered and nearly fell before settling with a sharp wooden
Thok!
next to the table. Aidan rushed from the kitchen, stomped up the stairs in an angry fog, slammed the door to his room behind him, and flopped facedown on the bed.