WRITTEN BY MARINI BARIKA FACEY
CONTINUATION OF VESPERS, FEATHERS, UNICORNS, HORSES
Sophie shakes her little wooden box and hopes something will fall out of it! She sticks her hand in and suddenly begins to get pulled into a vortex! “Mere grab my hand!” Sophie and Gwendolyn zoom through another unknown world! Horses gallop in the sky as if it is normal and birds fly low in pastures. The animals, that once were Sophie’s toys, are now huge creatures again! Gwendolyn shakes and trembles because she still cannot fathom any of this! Sophie tightly squeezes her mother's hand to reassure her.
The box pulls them in and out of windows of time and suddenly the box drops into an ocean of darkness and Sophie and her mother go tumbling in after it! Blitz, the sprite that startled Sophie in her room, radiantly appears and a feather-like dust cloaks Gwendolyn and her daughter. They begin to feel sleepy and float down to the ground.
Charles begins to feel the compass in his pocket slide out and lift into the air. He becomes fearful, because he knows that the only way the objects in his pocket are capable of moving on their own is if they come in contact with their original set, which he hid in his office for Sophie. He looks out the train window again; all he can see is Elizabeth and Cyrus, but at the end of the tunnel, there is a light that grows brighter and brighter!
Cyrus stops and cannot believe his eyes! There should not be any other trains. He closes his eyes and tries to transport himself, but it doesn't work! Cyrus begins to run over to the train to get back on, but because he opened the doors earlier, it triggered an emergency lock. Charles is paralyzed with fear and pushes his body into a corner behind a chair so that Cyrus doesn't see him.
The sinister man wildly pounds on the window and suddenly, Cyrus appears back at the cafe and he doesn't realize he is pounding on the coffeehouse window! Customers and those who pass by Cyrus on the sidewalk, look at him as if he is a lunatic! He opens his eyes and sees his reflection in the cafe window. His nose begins to bleed and he doesn't understand how he is back at that location.
Sophie and Gwendolyn wake to see Elizabeth brooding over them! Gwendolyn screams and Charles is startled and peeks around the chair he is hiding behind, because the pounding has stopped and he hears a yelling woman. The compass floats ahead of Charles and he quietly says aloud, "Where is Cyrus?" He slowly eases his way up, because he doesn't want to be surprised by Cyrus randomly appearing on the train like before. He hears more screams and crawls to the front of the train and looks out the window. As he moves through the aisle, the objects in his pocket cause the passengers to come to, but they are still in a sleepy state and do not realize what is going on.
Sophie and Gwendolyn do not know they are temporarily invisible because of the glowing dust Blitz put on them, but Elizabeth can see them. "Gwenny, don't be alarmed." Sophie turns to her mother and says, "I told you I saw Gran mere and that I wasn't lying!" Elizabeth explains to Gwendolyn that she is the one who caused her to come back. "You were not there! I wished and wished when Charles let me put my hand in that box-"
"Gwen, I know you don't understand all of this, but I need you to find your twin brother and help him! Your father was supposed to give you the letter I left for you-" "He didn't! I didn't find out until I came to this strange place and all of this is too much to process! I can't! Why didn't you appear sooner? All this time, I thought it was my fault that you died!"
"Oh my dear Gwendolyn! My love, I am sorry you had to experience all of that as a child and never know you had a twin brother until now. I know it is overwhelming for you right now. I did appear that day in Charles' laboratory and saw you with Charles, but because I was tricked by a sinister man named Cyrus, there is a cursed root inside of me that prevents me from being able to get back my corporeal form. When Charles gave the trapezoid shaped box to Sophie, I was no longer trapped in his laboratory Gwenny."
"I don't understand... Charles gave Sophie a wooden box not the metal one!" Sophie grabs her mother's hand and whispers secrets in her ear. As Sophie speaks, Gwendolyn's anger and confusion begin to fade and she is surprised at the wonder and wisdom her little daughter has. Gwendolyn tries to put her emotions aside for a moment, and listens to what her mother Elizabeth has to say.
Cyrus hobbles down the street with bloodshot eyes and a bleeding nose. His rage overtakes him again and he is determined to find Peter II. He sees that time has gone by very slowly, because no one knows the train is missing. He wanders around town and doesn't understand how Elizabeth is alive and how he was transported back to this particular place! He pulls the root out of his pocket and leans against a building near an alley. He sees a crate and steps into the alley and sits down on it. "How can this be? What is happening to me? I need to find a way back!" Frustrated, Cyrus pitches the root; suddenly a portal opens. He immediately recognizes the place inside of the portal and is shocked!
Cyrus lifts himself up and as he begins to walk through the portal, the cat he healed during his childhood, runs out. He looks at it, amazed and in awe, but continues to enter this glowing hole in the wall! He sadly remembers the day he ran away. He recollects his mother calling his name and begins to shake with fear and anger. "I wish I had listened! My mother understood the nature of people! I wish I could change it all, because she was right about everything!" He also recalls that was the very day when violent men kidnapped and abused him, and he never saw his mother again! The portal quickly closes behind him, so Cyrus painfully bends down and quickly grabs the root he threw.
"All this time, I had the answer, a way through time, and didn't know it!" Cyrus wonders if the root chooses the destinations or if his memories trigger where he goes; before he throws the root again to see how it works, Cyrus walks along the familiar, dusty, dirt path, because he would give anything to see his mother again, even though she may not recognize him.
To Be Continued...