Beyond: Snillotia Trilogy Book One by Donna Wagner (books you have to read TXT) 📕

“I have no idea,” Jason said, smirking.

“Stop lying!”

Anna sighed and reached her hand into her boyfriend’s front pocket. She pulled the medallion out and looked at Jason. “You can’t take this.”

“I wasn’t-”

Anna put her hand up in a stopping motion. “Just stop. Let it go. Come back down the hall with me. Just leave Tim alone.”

She tossed the medallion to Tim. As it spun in the air, something tugged at the back of Tim’s mind, again. His eyes widened. He knew what they had to do next.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Tim spent the next two hours executing his idea and thinking of how mad Anna was going to be. He finally heard her telling Evan and Jason goodnight. He waited until she came back upstairs. After she passed by his room to get to hers, he followed her down the hall. He saw her reach for her door and raised the walkie-talkie to his mouth. “Now!”

Anna opened the door and Tim ran into the room after her and blocked her from being able to leave. He didn’t need to worry. She was too shocked to try to leave. Relaxing a bit, Tim moved to the desk chair and sat down. Regaining herself, Anna spun around, without saying anything, and tried to open the door, only she couldn’t reach the doorknob. Each time she tried, it was like the door was just a picture on the wall. “Tim, you can remove the force field. We have returned to Storage.”

Anna spun back around, first staring at the chair in the corner of the room and then Tim. “Déjà vous, right?” Tim said, trying to lighten the mood.

Anna glared at him, but her face softened as she again looked toward the chair. “Goldie?”

“Yes. Hello, Anna. I’ve been waiting to see you again. The first thing I must tell you is your parents are safe. So are your grandparents,” she also looked at Tim and continued, “All of your grandparents are safe.”

“How are we here?”

“Ask Tim. He finally told me to come. I’ve been waiting, like I said before.”

Anna noticed Goldie looked sad. Her little tail was straight behind her. She looked at Tim again, and sat down next to Goldie on the chair. She patted her on the head and Goldie’s tail resumed its normal curl.

“Anna, you can thank your boyfriend for our return. We needed to come back. His attempted thievery actually gave me the idea on how to get here.”

Anna stood up and stomped across the room. “You knew I was happy there and you just couldn’t leave well enough alone. I saw the way you looked at me in school. You hated that I fit in and you didn’t. You just couldn’t leave well enough alone!”

She started repeating herself and her shoulders began to shake. She brought her face so close to Tim’s, he could see the tears forming in her eyes. “I cannot be here again. I can’t deal with this. I’m not meant to be a savior. I don’t know what my grandmother saw, but it wasn’t me. I’m too afraid. I just want to be normal,” she sobbed.

Tim slowly wrapped his arms around her. He held her as she continued to cry. After his shirt was very wet, she finally stopped. She looked at him. Her make-up was running down her face. Don’t worry. You’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.

Anna jumped, slightly, hearing his voice in her mind. Then she seemed to realize she was still wrapped in his arms and how nice it felt to be there, much better than Jason’s arms. It felt like home. She pulled away, abruptly. “Tell me how you got us here. If it was that easy, why didn’t you do it two years ago?”

“I’d forgotten Goldie told me to call her if we needed her and that she’d hear us if we had her medallion. When I remembered, I tried talking to her, but I never knew if she heard me or not.”

“I heard you, Tim. I just had no way to answer you. You did not call a room to you, so I had no power to do anything.”

Tim nodded. He and Goldie had already had that conversation. “When Jason threw the medallion back to me, it spun in the air, like a coin. It hit me, then. Our keys look like coins. Adam’s father used a key in the walkie-talkie to talk to people in Snillotia. I thought maybe if I connected the medallion, instead of the key, I would be able to talk to Goldie. It worked, obviously.”

Anna shook her head. “You still should have told me instead of springing this on me. I’m not ready to be back here. My power is too dangerous. I don’t want to have to use it again.”

To Anna’s surprise, Tim smiled in response. Before she could question is odd reaction to her fear of using her power, Tim said, “Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe.”

Instead of explaining he pushed a few of his memories into her mind. Memories of him practicing the powers he’d discovered he possessed over the years. He watched as her eyes widened. “How?”

He shrugged. Anna wasn’t going to accept that as an answer. “You can do almost everything our parents and grandparents can do and a few other things as well,” she said, nodding towards the door where the force field he placed had been, “Have you been keeping anything else from me?”

Tim calmly shook his head, shielding his thoughts from her as he did. There was more, but she wasn’t ready for that yet. Goldie chose that moment to interrupt. “You both look different. Older. How much time passed for you in the backwards world?”

“More than two years,” Anna and Tim answered at the same time.

Goldie seemed to shake her head. “I do not understand how the time difference works. It is never the same!”

“How much time has passed in Snillotia, Goldie? What’s happened since that day?” Anna asked, fearing the