Blurb Book

Beela travels through space--more or less

"It's called warping.  Think like making a tunnle straight from one plane to another and it moves you straight through it by itself.  That's what it feels like.  The book said that not everyone can do each skill so we each passed the book around trying to see if anyone could figure out how warping worked.  I had never had any luck but I tried anyway when it was my turn. 

"The trick is to just think about it very hard, just really focus and sorta poke a hole through the planes like a pin through paper.  It has some resistance but after the inital force it goes through real smooth.  That's what I was thinking about then all of the sudden Nico, that's one of Nona's friends, starts shouting my name about a thousand times.  All the sudden we were looking around and we weren't in Nona's apartment anymore.  We were in some other place.  It turned out to be only about a five hour drive from her apartment so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  It took us an hour or two to even find the road then from there we had to walk back to the town to get anywhere."

"That is after you dropped Bernie off?" Lidia asked.

"No, before."

"So why where you gone?  This is a lovely story but it happened before your absence."

"It's the prologue, so to speak.  Foreshadowing?  I'm not sure exactly.  The point is, once we figured out that warping was possible we started taking the book more seriously.  I was actually able to figure out what a lot of the weird stuff was.  We tested it out by warping to other towns.  I could usually get us there but it we usually had to find another way back.

"Then out of the blue, Nona comes to my house, begging me to help her.  She claimed to have some kind of vision that required us to warp somewhere on some big adventure. She called the house every half hour until I agreed to go with her.  That's when I left Bernie with you.  Actually the day after but whatever. 

"We went from plane to plane searching for something.  Nona would tell us when it was time to move on because it wasn't there but she never told us what it was.  I didn't really know how long I was gone."

"That's....quite the tale."

Beela nodded, unable to make eye contact.  A dark shape detached itself from the shadow of the entryway.  Beela saw it, a cat, and smiled.  The cat slowly made its way over and jumped onto the couch before stepping daintily onto Beela's lap.  Cautiously, Beela pet the cat, happy that he had joined.

"I knew you wouldn't believe me.  I wouldn't believe me."

"Do you have any proof?" Lidia asked warily.

"No," Beela answered, shaking her head.  "I was only ever good at warping.  I never learned how to do anything else."

"Hmph,"

Beela stared at her cat, curled happily into a ball on her lap, and thought about all the details she had not shared.  The times she had cried in despair and Nona had convinced her that their quest was not in vain.  The times they had hardly escaped at all.  The times they had spent strolling aimlessly over hills and through forests. 

More specifically, there was the occasion when Beela, considered by herself to be the weakest part of the group, had nearly warped away, leaving them alone.  She had only stayed when one of the inhabitants of that world had shown up spoke to her calmly about her skill and how important it was.  They had stayed on that plane for several days--just over a week--before Beela had agreed to move them all.

Her favorite parts were talking with the locals, different in every location.  Each world was distinct from anything they had visited before.  Some were uninhabited, at least as far as they knew, while others were teeming with life.  She had met lords and ladies, elves and dwarves, dragons and mermaids and many others besides. 

Sometimes everything seemed more like a dream than something that she had actually experienced. 

"Bee, you okay?" Lidia asked, jolting her out of her reverie.

"Yeah, just thinking," she answered dreamily.

"Could you, perhaps, warp something just so I could know you are telling the truth?"

Beela's head whipped up, her eyes wide.

"No.  No, no, no," Beela answered firmly, if slightly panicked.  "I don't want to ever do that again.  I don't like it and I wouldn't be able to take you straight back either.  I would need time to recharge."

"Alright," Lidia said, standing up, "when you are ready to tell me what really happened, I will be waiting.  You should probably go home and make sure that nobody is living there already."

Worried, Beela stood up, holding Bernie with one hand.  She nodded and placed the cat in the carrier by the door.  He meowed pitifully at her.

"Thank you for taking care of him for me," she mumbled before slipping out the door.