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

happen. He knelt and picked up the book himself. It appeared solid in his hand. He handed it to Anna. She was able to hold it as well. “Astonishing!” he exclaimed, “You’re a Ward!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“A what?”

Everyone turned to look at Tim when he spoke. Grandma Aras stood beside him, her hand on his shoulder. “As soon as I realized what you were going to conclude, Cire, I thought Tim should be awake for this.”

“What is a Ward?” Retep asked.

“It’s not common. I have only ever heard of one other person with that power- my grandfather. Basically, most powers, probably anything but mind powers, don’t affect you, unless you want them to. Consciously, or subconsciously, if you want something to work on you it will,” he explained, taking the book back from Anna.

He tossed the book to Retep. Without even thinking, he caught the book. He looked at it in amazement. It was a real book. Tim looked at his cousin, surprised that he felt happy for him. He’d seen Retep’s thoughts and memories. He knew Retep had always felt like he didn’t belong since he couldn’t really do anything, like everyone else he knew. “Wait. Retep, when you met us, did we look younger?”

Retep nodded his head. “I guess, subconsciously, I wanted to see what you were projecting?”

“But how would you know, even subconsciously?”

Retep thought for a moment. “Well they,” he explained, pointing at their shared grandparents, “told me you were a few years younger than me. Maybe because I was expecting you to be younger, that’s what I saw?”

He looked at Tim again, realization dawning on him. Then he looked at his grandparents. “Why did you lie? He’s not a few years younger.”

“We didn’t, dear,” Grandma Aras said, softly, “He and Anna both look quite different to us. We saw them a few weeks ago and they had both just reached their thirteenth year.”

“I don’t understand.”

Do we trust him?

Anna nodded her head, slightly, in response to Tim’s unasked question. Tim looked directly at his cousin. “Retep, what do you know about the backwards world?”

Retep looked surprised. It was clear he was not expecting a question. Tim waited for him to answer. “Well,” Retep started slowly, “I know they say things backwards- names mostly. My name would be…. Peter.”

Tim laughed as his cousin figured out how to say his name backwards. He pronounced Peter with the emphasis on the end of the word, instead of the beginning and the expression on his face let Tim know he thought it was the strangest sounding name.

“Right, Peter,” Tim said, saying it correctly, “Anything else?”

“Not really,” Retep said, shaking his head, but then he added quietly, “I heard no one has a power there.”

Retep had sounded almost wistful at that. Then Tim realized that until today, Retep had believed he didn’t really have a power. A place where he was like everyone else was probably somewhere he would have loved to live. “Right. No one has a power. At least, if they do, they don’t share it, since it’s not a world that believes in things like that.”

Retep nodded, in understanding, though Tim could tell he was still confused as to why they were talking about this. “Your father didn’t ask where Anna and I were hiding for the last two weeks. I was kind of surprised that he didn’t, but I guess he didn’t feel like it really mattered. But I think it does,” Tim paused taking a deep breath.

He was about to tell Retep the last thing Ronnoc didn’t know. Although Retep already knew Tim was unusually powered, he didn’t think Retep realized how different Tim really was. “You know Anna and I grew up in the backwards world?”

Retep nodded, still not understanding. “That’s where we were. We went home. However, time moves differently there. It may have only been two weeks here, but for us, it’s been quite a bit longer.”

Tim looked inside Retep’s head as he watched his cousin finally understand why he and Anna looked so much older than they had two weeks ago. He wanted to make sure Retep wasn’t hiding any way of sharing this information with Ronnoc. Retep’s thoughts were jumping from one thing to another. The only thing that stood out to Tim was that Retep seemed quite happy that Anna was really the same age as him. Tim frowned at his cousin, and then continued. “We’re going back, all of us. Anna and I think it’s the safest place for us right now. We have to learn more and figure out how to make everything right in Snillotia again.”

Again, Tim watched Retep’s thoughts. He was afraid of going to another world. He had no idea what to expect. He didn’t understand how they were going to get there. Satisfied that Retep really wasn’t a spy, after all, Tim relaxed and left his cousin’s mind. “Goldie, we need to know what you can actually do with these rooms from storage. My old house is big, but it’s not big enough for everyone to have a place to sleep. Does their have to be space for these rooms in the house already – like my mom’s room was above the secret room?”

Goldie jumped onto the table so everyone could see her. “I do not know how to describe what I can do with the rooms, Tim. It is magic. I am a gup, and magic is what a gup is. If I bring the rooms, I can make it so they look like part of the house, but for everyone to have space, it will look like the house had what you call an addition built on. The only thing I cannot do is make people not wonder how it was built so quickly.”

Tim thought about that for a moment. Having a few confused neighbors was better than being crammed in the house with no space, he decided. Plus, Adam and Myra had no idea what was happening