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DESPITE ALL the fear and all the action, a separate disturbing thought prickled the back of my mind: The Uproar only attacked me when Valcas was present—at the dock when Valcas and I first met, later that day during our dinner “date” at Lake Winston, and now at a slice in time at Folkestone Harbor.
Would trusting Valcas ever be easy?
Edgar hadn’t trusted Valcas, but Enta did. According to Enta, the Uproar could have been present at any time and place where I hadn’t felt the impact of my arrival, because there were ethereal beings out there that could absorb the impact. I shuddered, wondering how long the Uproar had been nearby, waiting and listening.
***
VALCAS AND I LANDED with a thud. The first thing I noticed was that we were no longer standing hand-in-hand or side-by-side. I was in his arms, seated on his lap.
“Well don’t you two look cozy?”
Ivory stood there staring at us, her body frozen mid-punch in some kind of kickboxing move. I would have thought we’d entered another slice in time had it not been for her recent comment and the fact that her lips were twitching.
“That must have been some incredibly close one-on-one training.” Ivory’s voice oozed amusement. Then, to my horror, she winked.
Blood rushed to my cheeks. I pulled free from Valcas, brushed myself off and stood up. He lingered on the ground for a few seconds before standing up to join me.
My face crumpled. We’d been in real danger. Now we were safe again, in Aboreal, and from Ivory’s reaction I guessed we were in the present. I was so relieved that I thought I might cry, but I couldn’t do that—not in front of Valcas and definitely not in front of Ivory.
“Where’s Ray?” I asked, trying to change the subject.
Ivory grinned and relaxed her stance. “He went back down to the conference room to work on brain puzzles or something,” she said. “Oh, and thanks for tearing open my training place right in the middle of my workout.”
Valcas sniffed. I was glad someone could make him laugh. Ivory had a way of lifting his spirits, a healer in her own way.
“We just had a quick escape,” I said, flexing my foot, the one that had caught in the cracked water. “I hadn’t prepared for an actual Uproar sighting during training.”
Ivory’s jaw dropped. “Are you for real?” she asked, snapping her dark eyes at Valcas.
He nodded. “The chase begins.”
“Great,” Ivory said. “I’d start running, but we need to brace ourselves for the impact of your arrival first.”
I looked back and forth between Valcas and Ivory, wondering whether there was a proper way to brace one’s self for an impact. In my brief experience traveling to real places, the impact either knocked me around or I hid under a table. The most vivid impact-memory had been when the force of my arrival jutted me off a shelf on a mountainside. I pressed my hands to my sides to keep them from trembling.
Ivory must have noticed my unease. “It’s called grounding,” she said. “And I suppose I will tell you about it, given that your Grade A travel trainer here isn’t piping up.”
“Grounding?”
“Yeah, come here.” Ivory knelt down on the ground on one knee and placed both of her palms flat on the ground out in front of her. She looked like a runner getting ready to start a race.
“Is that all?” I asked.
Valcas knelt down in a similar position and motioned for me to do the same.
While waiting for the impact to hit I asked, “So, how do you know when the impact will happen?”
“You don’t, really,” said Ivory. “But you can feel it coming, and you should always be prepared for it when traveling to a real place.”
I waited there quietly, concentrating, trying to feel it, but I couldn’t. “What does it feel—”
Just like at Uncle Al’s cottage, the impact hit suddenly, out of nowhere. The ground shook and the wind blew, making my teeth chatter. Fortunately, we weren’t near glass or any other breakable substance.
The moment passed. It would have been far more exciting if Valcas and I hadn’t just escaped the Uproar.
“Invigorating, no?” Ivory said when all was still again. “We might as well go get Ray and travel to our next destination. I think we’ve had enough training for one day.”
I raised my eyebrows as we all stood up out of our grounding positions. “We’re really not staying the night here in Aboreal?” I remembered Valcas telling his mother that we’d be leaving that night after training, but what was the rush?
“Nope,” said Ivory. “We’ve stayed here long enough already.” She glanced at Valcas. “We don’t want to overstay our welcome now, do we?”
“No,” Valcas said. “We certainly wouldn’t want to do that.”