Tagan's Child (38 page)

I left him
exploring his room and went back into my bedroom, marvelling at how
well he seemed to have coped with his ordeal. Of course, it could
be a while before the horror of what he had been through really
sank in.

I went into the
bathroom and turned on the taps. Hot steaming water streamed out in
a rush, quickly filling the huge marble bath. I couldn’t get out of
the musty overalls and night dress quickly enough and then lowered
myself into the bath with a sigh.

God it was good
to be safe and to have Toby back by my side, but my feelings for
Ahran were all over the place. The thought of leaving him made my
chest feel like it was being crushed. But what choice did I have? I
didn’t belong here, and I didn’t belong with him. No matter what he
said it was better for both of us if I just stayed away. After a
while he would realise that too. I would return home to my
business, and be the friend I should have been to Audrey and Bennie
and pick up the rest of the pieces of my life. I would survive. I’d
survived the loss of my parents and my sister, nothing could be
worse than that. That’s what this felt like, it was like a
bereavement, the loss of what could have been. I had deluded myself
into thinking that being with Ahran could have ever been a
possibility. I should never have allowed myself to get in so
deep.

I slipped down
under the water and welcomed the feel of it as it washed over my
face. I’d come to realise that resistance was impossible whenever I
was near him. I certainly wasn’t prepared to leave Toby just yet
and I was pretty sure the King wouldn’t let Toby out of his sight
all the time Bazeera remained a threat, so I would just have to
avoid Ahran as much as possible during my time here. All I hoped
was that he would be too busy with his farm.

The wounds on
my legs had completely healed but I noticed there was still a
tender spot on my head when I rinsed the shampoo from my hair. I
had to put my own turmoil to the side for a while, a more pressing
concern was how I was going to tell Toby who he was and how he
fitted into all of this. When I had finished I climbed out of the
bath and wrapped myself in a huge fluffy towel. I padded back into
the bedroom and opened the wardrobe. There, hanging on the rails,
were a number of outfits that must have cost a fortune. They had
obviously been bought especially for me, their labels were still
attached and they were all my size. I felt a little uncomfortable
at the King and Queen’s generosity. It didn’t take long to choose a
pair of flattering, tailored, navy, trousers and a pretty fitted,
cream silk blouse. They were chic and beautiful and would have been
completely out of my budget. I slipped on a pair of expensive
looking navy, opened toe, wedged pumps and stood in front of the
mirror. I didn’t look like myself. Instead, a sophisticated woman
stared back at me, the fit of the blouse and the cut of the
trousers emphasising my figure. I twisted my hair up with a clip
from a selection in a basket on the dressing table. Once I had put
on some mascara and lip gloss, which had also been sitting in its
unopened packaging on the dressing table, I felt considerably
better than when I arrived.

I forced a
smile at myself in the mirror and took a deep breath. Here
goes!

Toby was
stretched out on one of the sofas watching a Ramian cartoon on the
television with his thumb in his mouth, looking totally at home. I
marvelled at how resilient children are, or was it just Toby?

He looked up at
me as I walked over.

“You look nice
Auntie Sophie.”

“Thanks,
anything’s better than those overalls,” I said. “Could you switch
that off for a minute?” I asked, inclining my head towards the
television. “We need to talk.”

On the coffee
table was a tray of pastries and a pot of hot coffee and I poured a
cup for myself. Toby had already eaten a pastry and had made some
headway with a fruit smoothie. He pointed the controller at the
television before turning and facing me expectantly with one leg on
the floor and the other bent under his bottom.

“Did you bring
my ted with you?” he asked.

I knew it
wouldn’t be long before he asked about his teddy. “I’m really sorry
Tobes,” I said slowly, “but I had to leave my bag on a train and
your teddy was in it.” I realised that my photo of Toby and Katie
was also in that bag. At least the King had taken a copy of it
before Ahran and I left.

Toby looked
crestfallen.

“I know my
darling. I’ll see what I can do to replace him when I get back
home.” It was the only thing I could think of that would console
him, but by the look on his face, he obviously wasn’t comforted by
it.

“Look,” I
ploughed on. What I was about to tell him would probably take his
mind of his lost ted. “I want to start by saying that I am not
going to make you do anything you don’t want to do, but I do want
you to think carefully about what I am about to say.” I paused.
“You have as much time as you like to make your decision about how
we go forward from here, okay?”

“Okay,” he
said, still looking wobbly after the teddy thing.

“There is a
very important reason why you have been through this horrible
ordeal.” I started slowly, carefully choosing my words. “The reason
you were taken from school is because your dad was a very important
person.”

“So you knew
who my dad was after all,” he said, looking hurt.

“I didn’t for a
long time, but I do now,” I confessed. “He was the son of King
Halsan and Queen Leylana,” I said slowly. Toby’s eyebrows shot up.
“Don’t get too excited, I’m afraid he died before you were
born.”

I saw the
disappointment flicker across his face. He never really mentioned
his dad but I think he had hoped that he would get to meet him one
day.

“So, he was a
prince?” he asked. I watched his dawning realisation as the rest of
what I was telling him began to percolate through his mind. “Which
means, I must be a prince? And the King and Queen are my
grandparents?” He looked at me for confirmation with a puzzled
expression on his face.

“Yes, that’s
about it,” I replied.

“No way! I am
prince?” he said, his voice going up several octaves. “You wait
until Adam hears about this!”

“There’s more,”
I continued in a measured tone, careful not to let his enthusiasm
brim over too much. “Do you know where we are?” I searched his face
for any comprehension of the magnitude of the answer.

“Well I know we
are somewhere foreign, I don’t understand the language at all,” he
replied.

Oh God, how was
I going to explain it? I searched for an explanation that wouldn’t
frighten him half to death. “We are somewhere foreign, but it isn’t
anywhere on Earth,” I said carefully.

“What do you
mean we are somewhere in outer space?” His face was feverish with
excitement. This was beyond his wildest dreams.

“Sort of, but
there aren’t any aliens or monsters here.” As I said this and
thought about what Bazeera and her soldiers were capable of, I
wasn’t convinced this was completely true.

“We are on
another planet?” His face was a picture of wonder.

“Yes, we are in
another world in another universe.” I wasn’t sure if that was right
but it seemed to explain it adequately enough.

“But, I can’t
remember travelling on a spaceship,” he said, filtering through his
memories of how he got here.

“That’s because
you didn’t get here on a spaceship, you entered this world through
what’s called a ‘portal’. It’s like stepping through a doorway that
transports you millions of miles in little more than an
instant.”

“Is it
magic?”

I suppose to
him it was like magic and I certainly didn’t understand how it
worked so I couldn’t really offer a better explanation. “Yes, it’s
a bit like magic.”

“That is so
cool!” he shrieked.

“The world we
are in is called Ramia.” He was captivated. “And there is something
quite special about Ramians,” I continued. “They are a bit
different to people back home, they are what we would call
super-evolved.” My mind flashed back to all the Ramians I had
encountered so far. Despite their innate talents, most had seemed
pretty ordinary, except Elaya and Ahran. The now familiar pain
pulsed through me as I thought of him and I fought hard to keep my
breathing even.

Toby looked
puzzled. How was I going to explain what evolution was to an eight
year old? I suddenly felt ill-equipped for this discussion. Keep it
simple, I thought to myself.

“The people
here can do things that people at home can’t.”

“What do you
mean, they’ve got superpowers?” Toby asked, unable to believe his
good fortune that he had stumbled into some kind of real life,
X-Men film.

“Yes. Well no,
not really, they can’t fly or burn holes in doors with their eyes
or anything like that, they are just like,” I was about to say,
‘they are just like we are’, but of course Toby and I weren’t the
same, he was half Ramian and I was a mere human of the Earth
variety. “They are human like me, but they are really good at
running and their hearing is very good, they are very strong and
rarely get sick, if they hurt themselves they heal very fast.”

Toby thought
about this for a moment. It was as if things started to make more
sense to him. “So that’s why I can run faster than all the other
boys at school.”

“Yes, your
father was Ramian, which means you are half Ramian.”

“Epic!” He was
absolutely buzzing.

And now for the
truly scary bit.

“You are not
only half Ramian but because your grandfather is the King and your
father is no longer alive, you are the next rightful heir to the
Dinaran throne.”

He didn’t say
anything for a moment. “What, so all this will be mine when I’m
older?” he said, looking around in amazement. He had no
understanding of how this was going to impact his life, nothing
would ever be the same again for him or for me for that matter.

“This is
unreal, it’s like something on telly!” he said jumping up and
down.

I laid a
quietening hand on his knee. “Toby, I know this is a lot to take in
and it all seems very exciting but it means that you are now a very
important person to the King and Queen and that your life is going
to change a great deal from now on.”

Toby sat still
and looked at me, some of the excitement draining from his face.
“Does it mean we’ve got to move?”

“I’m not quite
sure what it means yet, I still need to have a serious conversation
with the King to see where we go from here.”

“What about
Mungo?”

He was starting
to piece together what I was saying and what the implications might
be. “I’m sure you will still be able to have Mungo,” I said, even
though I wasn’t sure about anything at that moment in time.

He seemed to
relax a little. “I wish mummy was here.”

Those five
words nearly broke my heart in two.

“I wish she was
here too,” I said quietly. Not only did I miss her but it would
have been someone to share the enormity of this situation with, not
to mention that she probably would have been able to handle it far
better than me.

I tried to push
back a curl that had fallen down over his forehead but it
stubbornly refused to stay put. “But don’t you worry I’m not going
to let anyone force you to do anything. We will take our time to
learn about this new world and how we can make this new situation
work together,” I said and smiled reassuringly although not quite
feeling it myself.

“Okay,” he said
a little uncertainly. I leant forward and gave him a hug. It wasn’t
the time to tell him that for the time being Halsan was not going
to let him out of his sight let alone go back to Earth.

I sat back
feeling relieved. That had gone better than I had expected. “Well
done, that was a lot for you to take in. If there is anything that
is bothering you, please talk to me, won’t you?”

He nodded and
then paused. “Those people won’t take me away again, will
they?”

I shook my head
vehemently. “The King will do everything in his power to protect
you. You are safe here.” I hated that he no longer felt that
unquestioning sense of security that you feel as a child. I would
never forgive Bazeera for what she had done.

I took a deep
breath. “Well, the King and Queen will be wondering where we are,
are you ready to go see your grandparents?” I said, more cheerfully
than I felt.

“That just
sounds weird,” he said, getting up from the sofa.

“This whole
situation is weird,” I muttered as I followed him with a heavy
heart to the door.

Our very own
servant escorted us back to the King and Queen, who were waiting
for us in the sitting room. Elaya wasn’t there but Ahran was sat
talking to his aunt and uncle. My heart skipped a beat at the sight
of him. They stood up on our arrival. Ahran had obviously had a
shower and changed his clothes. He wore thigh defining dark jeans
and a crisp blue and white shirt, his collar was casually
unbuttoned at the throat. His hair looked longer somehow and still
looked damp from the shower. The way he was looking at me made me
feel light-headed.

“Ah, there you
both are,” the King said. “Would either of you like something to
eat?”

Laid on the
table behind us was a huge array pastries, fruit, cold meats,
cheeses, every possible breakfast combination you could think
of.

“No, I’m fine,”
I replied. “Although I could do with a cup of coffee.” I would have
so much preferred a cup of proper English tea.

Halsan beckoned
to a servant who was standing nearby.

“Can I have
something to eat?” Toby asked.

“Of course my
dear.” Leylana was quick to assist him as he made his way over to
the table. It was clear to see that she was going to be a devoted
grandmother.