Jack James and the Call of the Tanakee (11 page)

“Look, Mommy!” Lily pointed out the window.

Liz was shocked to see cars in the parking lot moving on their own. With no one at the wheel, a green pickup barreled from its spot and rammed a massive support column. Then a big, white SUV, again with no driver, lurched forward, slamming into the rear bumper of the crashed pickup. Together they blocked the oncoming government cars, pinning them in, forcing them to stop.

“Whoa! Cool!” Pud exclaimed.

“There are more of them!” Cheyton announced. Teresa didn’t seem a bit nervous.

“They hurried to get in line” she read. “They took their places, those cars of every make and model. Not just mere hunks of metal, lifeless, soulless assemblies of wire and plastic and steel. They obstructed the interlopers, and made a path for the defenders or Eteea, for the universe depended on it!”

Liz and Lily squeezed each other tight when they saw the parking lot come alive. Every truck, car, minivan, even a motorcycle, began to roll. It looked like a precisely choreographed chorus routine, with each individual automobile taking its place in perfect position. Car owners stood stunned as the rolling machines zigzagged and maneuvered into place. When they were finished, after the last auto had pulled into its spot, all the government vehicles were cordoned off, and a passageway had been established for the Volkswagen.

“They’re helping us!” Pud climbed onto a beanbag shaped like a baseball mitt and peered out the windshield.

“Uncanny!” Amelia was wide-eyed.

“You never cease to amaze me, Teresa,” Liz conveyed everyone’s sentiment. Even Enola, now looking better, was up and watching the astonishing events unfold.

“Thanks, dear,” Teresa steered through the makeshift alley, over the curb and onto fifteenth, where she turned right and headed out of town. “But we’re not in the clear, yet.”

“Where are we going?” Cheyton asked.

“To the safest place we can possibly go,” she said. “My house.”

“But these people know where you live,” Cheyton pressed. “Do you think it would be wise to go back?”

“Silly,” she winked at him “We’re not going back there. We’re going somewhere else.”

“You just said we’re going to your house,” Amelia sounded confused.

“We are,” Teresa kept her eyes on the road, swinging the steering wheel left to right to left just to keep the van going straight. “Back to the house that’s been in my family for generations.”

“Wait a second,” Liz demanded an explanation. “We can’t be going somewhere else and back to your old house at the same time. That doesn’t make sense.”

“Sure it does,” Teresa giggled. “I moved.”

“Oh, you moved…” Liz began the sentence feeling confident she understood, but, by the end, she was as confused as ever. “So…you have a new house?”

“No. Same old house. Just moved.”

Liz scratched her forehead, trying desperately to figure out how it could be possible. With Teresa, though, anything was possible. Then, out of the blue, she got it.

“Oh, yeah,” she boasted. “You had your house moved. I’ve seen that done before. A whole house, put on a giant cart and rolled away. That’s a big job…must’ve been expensive.”

Teresa giggled even harder. “No, no. No expense at all. Not money, anyhow.”

They traveled to the outskirts of town, avoiding the bridge that took traffic over to Seaside. Instead, she took the mountain pass to the treacherous coastal cliffs, amongst some of the biggest evergreens Liz had ever seen. She’d been out that way many times. It was a favorite hiking and picnicking destination for her family. This time, though, the road’s twists and turns seemed different.

“Hey, where are we going?” Liz said as the pavement turned to gravel and the slope got steeper and steeper.

“I had to place my house in a little bit of a precarious spot this time, to watch over who comes and goes,” Teresa kept her eyes on her driving as the side of the road became a sheer drop-off. The road, or what used to be a road, was nothing but a wide trail in the woods, grass up to the windows, moths and crickets dashing aside at every turn.

“There’s no way you got a house up here,” Liz had trouble containing her agitation. One false move and the van would roll down a severe drop into a wooded abyss. Then the verdure surrendered to a clearing, and the Pacific Ocean opened up into a vast expanse. Liz lost her breath at the distance, waves crashing against a rocky shoreline hundreds of feet below. “You can’t even get
us
up here!”

“We’re almost there,” Teresa assured her, though assurance was not coming easy for Liz. Then Teresa repeated, “We’re almost there…we’re almost there…we’re THERE!”

In front of them, the trail ended at a well-manicured lawn, lots of wonderfully arraigned marigolds and daffodils and roses. A stone driveway led past a rickety old shed to a thatch-roof dwelling with exposed dark pine timbers, whitewashed stucco, and a rounded tower, giving it the look of a small castle. Teresa’s house. And it appeared just as it did before, right down to the stonework cellar.

“How did you..?” Liz got out after Teresa parked the van. “How did you do this?” she dug down into the mossy ground to a cobblestone. “This looks like it’s been here a hundred years,” she pointed to the front porch, where a tree had grown around and through the railing. “Look at that. There’s no way this was relocated by one of those big moving teams.”

“You’re right,” Teresa watched as Cheyton, Ayita and Pud walked Enola up the steps gingerly. “
I
did it…with magic.”

TWELVE

“WHERE IS EVERYBODY?” Jack searched room to room, downstairs and up. “Takota?”

Flash!
Takota was by his side. “You see anyone, yet?” the little one asked.

“I was about to ask you the same question. Where’d everybody go?”

“You don’t think—”

Takota stopped himself, but Jack knew what he was going to say. He had no desire to entertain the thought.

“No,” Jack exhaled hard. “No way!” he pressed the O/A and the omnidimensional field enveloped him. Surging with untamed energy, he summoned the power to picture his mom, his sister, Amelia, the Tanakee. Nothing. He let loose a thunderous roar that rattled the walls. “They can’t be taken hostage too! They can’t be! Why did I leave them! Why!”

“Calm down, Jack,” Takota said. “You’re gonna wreck the neighborhood. Just concentrate,” he lowered his head. “I’ll help you.”

Jack breathed hard, allowing the dimensional energy to lift him like a boat on water. He caught a wave in the stream of minds, thought, and action—the hyperconsciousness. In a semi-dream state, he saw Takota, not too far away, riding another swell. They nodded to each other, then looked straight ahead, both drifting toward a sound, a call of distress.

“Jack! Takota!”

Two voices cut through the ether, echoing, hiding their source, though Jack knew who it was. Amelia and Ayita. They were trying to connect.

“JACK!”
both called to him at once, almost overwhelming him with their desperation.
“We need your help! Come to Teresa’s house, quick!”

Jack didn’t need any more prompting. He looked at Takota, and together they disappeared from the living room of the James household, rematerializing almost instantaneously at 23563 Fernhill Road. Teresa’s address.

Nothing was there. No house. No rickety garage. No flower garden or backyard shed. Nothing but ferns and tall timbers that appeared a hundred years old. There wasn’t even a clearing. Nothing disturbed—untouched forest.

Jack turned and turned and turned, until he had to stop and let the world catch up.

“What the..?”

Takota reacted similarly, head on a swivel, spinning behind, in front, to the sides…nothing. He crinkled his little nose and narrowed his coppery eyes.

“This is the same place, isn’t it?” he sounded as dumbfounded as Jack felt.

“I think so,” Jack kept searching for signs of the antique dwelling. Not one existed. “I don’t get it. It’s not like when Davos and the giant Gedegwsets destroyed it. That left a big pile of rubble, remember?”

“Yeah, but you said those forest dwellers rebuilt it, with Teresa’s magic.”

“They did, they did,” Jack shrugged. “That’s why this doesn’t make sense,” he pressed the O/A and its purple and bluish, spherical field surrounded him and his little protector. With a thought, he had it lift them above the treetops to get a better view. Houses down the road, a mile or so away, but Teresa’s was AWOL. “This doesn’t make sense,” he repeated, controlling their flight with his mind, lowering them to the ground again. The protective sphere vanished. “No sense at all.”

“Jack, try Eteea again. Use the O/A to connect with Amelia.”

“Okay,” he held his hand on the machine and concentrated, this time being as specific as he could. All of a sudden, he heard giggling.

“What’s so funny,” he asked the voice.

“What?” Takota sounded concerned. “Who thinks what’s funny?”

“Hold on,” Jack told him, then went back to the otherworldly discussion. “Are you going to tell me what’s so funny? Because I don’t have a lot to laugh about right now!”

The giggling ceased, replaced by a stinging silence.

“Hello?”

“I’m sorry,”
he heard Amelia loud and clear.
“Hold on, I’m sending someone to get you.”

Before Jack could tell Takota what she’d said, a silver, black, and orange flash of light made them both stand back and shield their eyes. Then the brightness faded, and Ayita and Pud stood there, smiling ear to ear.

“Potato!” Pud hugged Takota. “You’re okay! Amelia said she saw you two going up against an army of Nagas! Were you?”

Takota sighed, but said nothing.

“You were!” Pud pushed him to arm’s length and kept ahold of him. “And you survived! I can’t believe it!”

“Ayita, what’s going on?” Jack said. “Where’d Teresa’s house go?”

She just kept smiling. “Follow me,” she lowered her eyes and disappeared from sight.

Jack held the O/A’s interface and concentrated on the slipstream Ayita left behind, her dimensional footprint. In less than a heartbeat, they were in a different part of the forest completely. Jack smelled the cool ocean breeze, and recognized instantly they were in an area he and his family knew well, but it was a long way from Teresa’s house. When he saw the structure, ensconced in the woods like it had been there a century, his knees weakened.

“Whoa,” was all he could manage, and when he observed the sweeping view of the Pacific, he had to sit down. “Whoa!”

“Pretty neat, huh?” Teresa stood on the front porch, carrying a large tray of what looked like a homemade recipe hours in the making. “Sorry to have disoriented you like that, but from time to time I have to relocate. Hazards of the trade,” she winked. “I’m sure you’re all hungry, right?”

“YEAH!” Pud scurried up the steps, following Teresa inside.

Jack found Amelia standing by the cliff’s edge, hands on the old wooden safety rail, watching the surf crash against the rocks below.

Seeing how she was absorbed, he didn’t try to rouse her. He turned and started toward the house to join everyone else inside when she stopped him.

“It’s getting worse,” she said.

He hurried closer to her.

“What’s getting worse? Do you see where my dad is?”

She breathed deeply. “Jack, did I ever tell you why I became such good friends with Argus Cole?”

His stomach was a sudden tempest of butterflies. The mere mention of that boy’s name drove him into a rage inside. On the outside, he showed none of it. Amelia must have taken his silence as acceptance of the subject.

“I never told you this, Jack, but I see some kind of connection between you and him. He’s got spirit clothes like yours.”

“Spirit clothes?”

“Yeah, you remember? I see auras, only I call them spirit clothes.”

“Yeah I remember. So what are you saying? You’re drawn to him? You want to be with him and not me?”

“Jack,” she looked at him with suffering eyes. “How can you say that?”

He stared at his feet. “I’m sorry. I just don’t understand this obsession with Argus Cole. Ever since he got here, it’s been Argus this and Argus that. It’s like you’re…you’re falling for him or something.”

She said not a word.

“Amelia?”

Silence.

“Are you? Are you falling in love with him?”

“Jack,” she giggled uneasily. “We’re ten. I’m not falling in love with anybody. I’m just—”

“What, then?” Jack interrupted. “What is it? What do you call it when all you do is hang out with him? Every time you come over to see me he’s there. What gives?”

She stared at him, tears building on her lashes.

“I don’t know what it is, Jack,” she wiped her cheek and sniffled. “And I know I’m hurting you. I know. But I have to do this. I have to.”

“Do what? You have to be with him?”

“You don’t understand.”

“Make me understand!”

Liz hung out the window. “Jack! Amelia! Come inside, kids! It’s time for dinner!”

“Yeah, come on!” Lily popped up next to her mom, her golden curls bouncing, her bright smile beaming. “We’re waiting for you!”

Without any more words, Jack and Amelia marched inside. The whole time they ate—a delicious banquet of baked ham and potatoes and just about every fresh vegetable known to the culinary world, and some not known—they barely acknowledged each other’s presence. They sat as far from each other as possible and avoided eye contact.