Glory Alley and the Star Riders (The Glory Alley Series) (42 page)

BOOK: Glory Alley and the Star Riders (The Glory Alley Series)
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Th
ese tidbits
brought up more questions
than answers
.
She
cleared h
er
throat
again
.
“Why
can’t you use
magic to find the
Elboni
?”

“We just explained it
,” White Feather
huffed.
“W
eren’t ye listening?

“Silly
Tullah
ns don’t know nothing,” Bone said.

The group halted
u
nder a balding pine tree
.


T
he
Elboni
’s magic
be
everywhere, even on
an
indigo planet
like this one
.
” As Needle explained
,
Glory decided he was the more patient of the three. “
Therefore,
it be like
a
single
drop of water in an endless sea
, in plain sight yet impossible to see
.
Do ye get what I’m saying?”

“It’s cloaked
?

Needle
nodded.
“Exactly.”
He
dimmed his light
and
faced
Glory
.
“I’ve answered your questions
.
Now it’s time for you to answer ours
.
Should we bother checking the
mesa
or no?”

Glory
shoved h
er
hands into
her
coat
pockets
. The stars peeked through the canopy of branches. So…life on other planets existed and she was with some of their inhabitants now. In some ways
,
they seemed almost human.

“Well?

Needle said folding his arms across his chest.

“I thought you guys already checked the
whole mesa
?”

“Aye
.
But, it’s a big place, as ye well know.”

“That’s true,”
Glory
sighed
.
“I guess it won’t hurt to check again.”

Needle gave h
er
a side
longs glance
.
“Very well then, let’s be on our way.


Instead of walking,”
Glory
said.
“Why not draw a door with your magic feather and get us there lickety-split?


The
Paraplume
cannot open doors from one part of a world to another part of
the
same world
,” said
White Feather. “
It only opens doors between one
dimension
to another.


I see,

Glory
said, even though
s
he didn’t. “
L
ike a parallel universe
.

“Not parallel exactly.”
White Feather explained
.
“The
Elboni
transcends space and time, sending its colors throughout
the
universe
.
This
allows us
to travel from world to world
very
quickly.”


It hasn’t sunk in
yet
that I’m with genuine aliens.”

“Where I’m from
,
you’re
the alien
,” Bone replied.

“Wild,”
Glory
said.

The group
fell silent as they meandered through familiar territory
.
As
s
he thought about what it must be like to visit other worlds,
s
he forgot to be afraid
.
Clash
would love this
.
The
boy
was obsessed with
anything
having
to do with outer
space
.


Sounds like you
guys have
been
all
around
the universe
. Which planet would you say is
most like
Tullah
?”


Earth
,
probably,

White Feather
said
.

It’s younger than Tullah,
but everything seems to be rolling out the same way
.
Earth
be
a
place of
emerging
science, not magic
,
a
violent
place
full
of
suffering and sadness
.
I should think a
Tullah
n would feel quite at home there.

“I’d like to see
Earth
sometime.”

“Why bother?

Bone said gruffly. “Ye’ve seen one indigo planet, ye’ve seen them all.”

Glory
ignored
Bone
and continued to address
White Feather
.

“Could a spaceship travel from Earth to
Tullah

or the other way around?

“Dou
btful
.
For a physical contraption traveling through space
Tullah
and Earth might as well be an
infinity
m
iles apart, but
through
the
Elboni
they’re only a step away.”

“How can that be?”


It’s a great mystery
.
Best I can explain it is t
hat t
he closer worlds are in the color spectrum, the closer they are in appearance, lifestyle and history
.
Tullah
and Earth are barely a shade apart, suspended next to one another on the indigo side of the
Elboni
.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Let me put it another way
,” Needle offered. “I
f a
girl
playing in a park on
Tullah
stepped into a park on Earth unaware,
s
he wouldn’t notice any difference
, b
ut when
s
he tried to return home,
a
different house would be standing where h
ers
should be
, a
nd a strange family would be living inside it.”

“Weird,”
Glory
replied and left it at that
.

H
er
pink puppy
pajama
bottoms
were no match from the frigid night air,
but at least
s
he could count on the temperature in the caverns to be
warmer than the outdoors
.

“The
Elboni
’s
tabernacle,” Bone announced, pointing
toward the shadowy mountaintop
. The
moon glowed behind it like a silver halo
.
Glory
had never
b
een
to the mesa
so late
at
night
and
s
he
thought
the place
never looked as majestic
or so sinister. Her st
omach felt queasy just thinking about going in there
.


Is the
Hoogula
...
uh,
Budd
...
still there?


Indubitably,” Bone
said
, “but
we can handle
the
likes of him."


What if I can't show you where I dropped the
Elboni
?
Will I end up like the rabbit?

Needle was about to reply, but was cut short by White Feather
.

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