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I shoot through the portal like a missile and land with a strangulated thud on my mate, bouncing my already bruised forehead off his bicep. Stunned, I’m staring into Curt’s eyes when I’m hauled off his chest and wrapped in the embrace of an ageing eagle.
“My girl,” Wings whimpers, jamming my head beneath his chin and crushing my rib cage to a powder.
Strong grip he’s got. A joke rattles around my brain but, you know what, I’m done with being a feisty old broad, taking everything in her painfully satirical stride.
“Wings, I missed you, so much,” I wail, hugging him fiercely. “It was really bad without you.”
“I know,” he cries, as we rock back and forth. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“I couldn’t find my way home. Don’t let me go, ever again.”
“I won’t. I won’t.”
At least we know what we’re crying about. Our words are so mumbled and wailed, nobody else has a clue what we’re howling.
“Oh for Grojat’s wind,” I hear Curt groan as he staggers to his feet. “My hip hurts.”
A light thud must be Kit closing the DreamWay, since the wobbling portal pings out of existence, taking my flat and life on Earth with it. I couldn’t give diddly squat to be honest. Goodbye and good riddance.
“Am I really home?” I wail at Wings.
“Of course you are,” he howls back. “I’d never stop trying ‘til I got you home.”
“I love you, Wings.”
“I love you too.”
The weeping explodes into a flood as my surrogate nanny comforts me. Through the blur of tears, I spot Mama Bear and Friddie wiping their eyes and a shuffling pack of animals beaming behind them, lit by a golden sunrise.
A sharp pain in my ankle, courtesy of a familiar set of teeth, finally parts me from the sentimental eagle with an, “Ow.” A monstrous cub with the dreamy eyes of a fur angel peers up at me, paws lifting out wide for his hug. I reach down and Beetus catapults himself onto my left arm, wrapping all four paws around the limb and releasing a heartbreaking chorus of cub bleats with each squeeze.
“Auntie Edi,” Sospa cries, springing out from behind Serpen, throwing both arms around my waist and sobbing.
“I knew you’d come home.” A young woman, new life growing within, paces towards me over the muddy grass, silhouetted against the brilliant glare of sunrise. “You wouldn’t leave me.” Dulcis snuggles into the arch of my right arm, laying her head on my shoulder.
My heart explodes within me as I howl, “My babies,” hugging the trio as though I’ll never let them go.
“This is hard on the ears,” moans a sabre tooth tigerlion, slapping his front paws over his furry lobes. “Can’t they all go somewhere else and screech.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” says Yelena. “Anyone would think she’d been gone a lifetime.”
The ginger prince slaps Yellfire into the cat on his way past and wraps himself around our group, hollering. “Bear hug.” Ursid, Mama Bear and Friddie duly oblige, dashing towards me as I wince. I disappear inside a circle of bone crushing squidge and the sunlight goes out.
“Snake coil,” announces a disembodied Anguis.
No. No more squeezing or I’ll shoot out of the top like toothpaste.
“That will do,” Curts orders, in his best Alpha Wolf voice. “This is getting out of paw. Peel off. Come on. Let go, all of you.”
One by one my huggers detach, leaving me staring at two wolf brothers, both with crossed arms and cross expressions.
“Seriously?” says Alpha, after a loud tut. “You needed convincing you were loved? What did you want, a song?”
Wings launches into an ear curling rendition of ‘My sweet little storyteller.’
Ursid adds a few notes of disharmony until Alpha hollers, “Not now, for Grojat’s sake,” and everyone laughs.
The sun continues to rise, but its glorious golden balm can’t heal our devastated valley. A carpet of grass lies in tatters, peppered with boulders and swamped by mud, churned up by slithering serpents and flying claws. The remains of trees ripped out by the roots scar the forest. Shattered bark points towards the sky like broken fingers counting the cost of victory.
“How long did it take you to get me back?” I ask, since the pack still surrounds us.
“Weeeellll,” Kit drawls, plopping back onto four paws. “It took me some time to envisage how to open a small portal to Earth and not to other realms, especially since it became necessary to use the DreamWay. Then there was the excruciating wait for my energy to replenish. I’m still rather tired, by the way, but your ridiculous pack threatened to starve me if I didn’t conjure right then. Unfortunately, their feeble and unnecessary threats still wouldn’t make the DreamWay work for me. It was only when the screeching diminutive serpent said something like, “I could tell it the pink dragon story,” that the true magic gave me a spark.”
“Right up his tail,” adds Adamo.
“Actually, I should have realised earlier,” Kit continues, leaning against a tree stump and glaring at the ginger prince. “When I woke up in the cave, I thought I heard you telling me a story about singing cats, but it must have been the little one.”
“Thank you, Storyteller,” I warble, swinging the giggling Sospa in a circle.
Curt picks at my sheep onesie, pinging the fabric back against my chest. “What is this thing you’re wearing? Is that Roger on it? Frulking ram.”
“Language, please,” I reply. “This is the height of fashion on Earth.”
“It’s the height of something,” says Curt. “Just as well I got you back from that place.”
“I think you’ll find I retrieved her,” Kit insists, with a yawn, “at great cost to my wavering strength.”
“And me,” pipes up Sospa.
“She got herself back,” Anguis says, his glorious emerald eyes glistening in the burgeoning daylight. “Because she realised how very much she was loved.”
Curt grabs both my shoulders and rotates my body away from the former ambassador. “Now listen you,” he insists, dipping his head until his eyes are barely inches from mine. “No more mould, castles, magic, portals or stupid books. Understand?”
Nodding, I place both palms on his wonderful biceps and notice the absence of a treasure on my left hand. “I lost my ring,” I mumble.
“I told you, I’ll make you another one,” Curt replies, grasping my hand and kissing each finger in turn. “One for each finger. One for every day.”
“And I want a rocking chair.”
“And a rocking chair,” he agrees.
“And a spiral staircase,” I insist. “With ivy, roses and wolves.”
“And a spiral staircase.”
“And an indoor toilet.”
“There’s a limit to my skills,” he announces, “at least with wood. But I can knock something together, I suppose.”
And with that, his lips find mine in an endless kiss. Every pain fades away, engulfed by passion and relief. My eyes stay closed in ecstasy, so I only hear the shuffling and ‘yucks’ as the pack disperses, leaving me to my wolf.
“I still think that’s rather unhealthy,” says Kit, padding into the distance.
“Awww, give me a cuddle, furry cat,” Adamo insists.
“Take your paws off me, thank you,” Kit replies, with a grunt. “Get off. No, get off, all of you. Furry idiots. Ooft. Yuck.”
