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FROM ABOVE, WHITE-HOT light hammered her head. Parker closed her eyes. Where was she? In a hospital? Had she slipped and landed back on the terrace? Lying down, she ran her hands over her bare arms, wiping away the perspiration coating her body like a suffocating blanket she couldn’t throw off. She lifted each foot to make sure her legs were functioning. Nothing hurt. At least she hadn’t broken any bones. Then, her fingers touched her shoulder. A strange textured material had replaced her Tate Academy school uniform and covered her—from her torso down to her ankles. Could she be wearing a hospital gown?
From a distance, she heard what sounded like bird calls. An orchestra of chirping in brash, cackling tones. The sounds grew louder. She blinked and the stark whiteness infiltrated the slits of her narrowed lids. She briefly glimpsed jagged, white fluffy pillows of clouds in all shapes and sizes. No land in evidence anywhere she could see, just a blue reflective kind of watery surface a far distance below her. She floated on a rocking sea of air, shifting ever so slightly, rising slightly up, and lowering back down. Could she be in heaven?
Then the brightness beating on her and the strangeness of the sights forced her to shut her eyes tight. For good measure, she ground her palms into her eyelids, and rubbed around to make sure they weren’t malfunctioning.
Someone approached and touched her shoulder. “Mom, are you here? Dad?” she called, praying for an answer.
“Parker.” A kind, grandfatherly voice said, “Ahhh, you are safe.” The voice sounded hollow and far away as if projected from within an echo chamber.
Parker clutched the odd fabric covering her, pulled her knees to her chest, and hugged herself for protection. “Are you my doctor? Am I okay? Where are my parents?” Her breath rasped in and out.
“You needn’t be afraid, Parker.” The voice’s owner knew her name. “You are in the Upperworld, on Spyridon.”
Spyridon was not a hospital in New York! His words toppled out like jumbled letters on a Scrabble board. She struggled to process every word.
“I am Stefanos, the Sky King, the Ruling Great One of the Upperworld. I am glad you arrived safely. It is not an easy journey from Earth.” His tone felt warm and endearing, and still approached from what seemed a long, echoing hall, though a bit closer now.
She couldn’t avoid it any longer. Parker struggled for air and pushed herself to sit up. The movement reminded her of floating as if sitting up midair. Parker told herself to work through these challenges one step at a time. First, the speaker.
She forced her eyes to squint in the direction of the voice. An ancient face covered in ashen feathers, absent of color, stared back at her. Parker concentrated on the bird-like features, mostly the eyes, too nervous to note much beyond the imposing, massive head. Deep crevices tracked along the feathery skin. Black-brown eyes, set deeply in a peaked forehead, penetrated hers. The prominent beak-like nose thrust forth like a mountain between two glimmering pools for eyes. The words sprung from his beak. He looked like an eagle, yet something about him seemed human! Her eyes traveled in amazement along the length of the colossal being crouched beside her. His head had to measure the size of her own nearly six-foot frame.
The infinite sea stretching out far below her, in literally every direction, merged with the distant sky. Hard to discern the horizon. Only the gently lapping waves some distance below gave her an idea of her place in the sky.
She wondered if she were dead and choked on the horrifying thought. Her voice deserted her as she hunted for words.
“No, I assure you—you are very much alive.”
He saw what she was thinking! No one had ever read her mind before. Sometimes her parents might figure out her thoughts, but they could. They knew her.
“Spyr-- you said Spyridon?”
“Yes. Another world.”
“What about my parents? What will they think is going on? Um, do they know where I am?”
“Spyridon shares the same galaxy as Earth. But time travels differently here than on your planet. When you go home, it will be as if you never left. Your family, and those on Earth, well, they do not even know you are gone.”
Parker tried to absorb his words. Could it be possible her parents wouldn’t know what happened to her? Her body shook uncontrollably, and she gasped when she saw that she wore a rough textured, white linen sheath.
“What is this I am wearing? What happened to my clothes?” She pulled her knees to her chest again and tried not to think about how her clothes had been changed.
“You wear the dress of the Upperworld. You’ll be more comfortable in our climate. It’s quite warm here.”
The eagle rustled his voluminous cape, jostling with his every movement. She glimpsed gray quills peeking out from the edge of the fabric. Wings, she wondered. Nauseous and faint, Parker struggled with the knowledge of being airborne and the feeling of standing on trembling, shaky feet. The air was so thin, her head began to spin, and her chest grew tight.
“It takes a bit to get used to—our atmosphere and the elevation.” The old eagle moved a talon-hand to a worn bronze medallion suspended from a braided vine circling his neck.
“We’re flying!”
Stefanos chuckled. “My kind are always flying. The Spirits lift you. I hope the disorientation passes soon. We have a great deal of work to do.”
He fingered the metal and placed the talon-finger on hers and gazed into her eyes.
Parker wanted to hide from his stare. If she had ever doubted whether she had a soul, now didn’t qualify as one of those moments. Her insides exposed, this creature, this eagle-like thing, knew her inner being. She had never felt so naked.
He murmured, “You are here to help our people. More earthlings will be joining us shortly. I will explain everything when they arrive. After you’ve had some rest. Come.”
With another touch of the medallion he wore, Parker began to feel the rush of the wind as she rose through the air at great speed. She sucked in several deep, terrified breaths, wondering if she would be taking off into space before she caught sight of him a few feet ahead of her, to her right. They leveled off and sped up even further. Flying like this went on for long enough and she began to enjoy the sensation, despite the beating sun and the feeling she wasn’t getting enough air with each breath. A great structure appeared, first as a dot, but it quickly resolved into a huge floating elaborate mansion or maybe even a castle.
Before she could get a better look, she rushed towards the structure, and then over it. She swooped down at alarming speed into the side of the thing. A gigantic glass window slid aside for her, and she skidded and stumbled to a stop.
“I will leave you here. Answers will come soon, as well as my spirit guide, Belliza. You will recognize her. For now, Parker, I say goodbye, and it has been my pleasure to meet you.”
The creature rose to its full height, and Parker took in his physical presence, astounded by the enormity of his sheer size, several feet taller than she. The old eagle lifted himself up from the ground with ease, barely stirring the air around him. He rose further without a backward glance. She tracked his ascent until he became a mere disappearing speck. Alone again, she wished he’d stayed. So many questions remained.