Chapter 3

Miri awakened with a start. None of the horrible images from her dreams made sense, but they sure did scare her. Unsettled and anxious in the darkened room, the little girl clung tighter to her pillow—wishing desperately not to be afraid. Unfortunately, it wasn't working. Something was wrong, she just didn't know what.

As the minutes ticked by, however, she started realizing that everything was wrong. From the pillow, to the sheets, to the nightgown, to the bed, to the room itself—none of it was hers. What was the absolute worst, though, was that her brother, Tory, was gone. Her nightmares must have been right. She was all alone now. Utterly despondent, she began to weep.

"Oh, there, there, sweetie. There's no need for tears."

Miri never heard her come in, but there kneeling by her bedside was a beautiful older woman with gray hair and kind blue eyes, gently rubbing one of her hands. It was so much like something her mother would do, she couldn't help but cry harder.

At that, the woman simply climbed in the bed with her and cradled her until the tears subsided. Miri sat there in her lap for the longest time after that, content to have the mysterious woman caress the skin of her arms, hands and face.

"Are you feeling better?"

Not really feeling like answering, Miri nodded her head against the woman's chest, where it had been laying.

"Well, my name is Elizabeth. What's yours?"

"Miranda."

"Oh, that's such a pretty name! Do you usually go by that or something shorter?"

"Miri."

"Ooh, I like that. Can I call you that?"

Miri silently nodded her head yes, again.

"Okay, Miri. Can you tell me anything about before you got here?"

The girl thought for a few moments. "Not really. I know something really bad happened. I remember being trapped, wishing my brother would come." Suddenly panicky, she leaned back so she could see the older woman's—Elizabeth's—face. "Is he here? Is he okay?"

"He is," Elizabeth answered, nodding her head this time. "Would you like to go see him?"

"Can I?"

Elizabeth nodded again. "Absolutely. He won't be able to talk to you right now, though. He's in a special bed we call a healing chamber, getting better. Here, take my hand."

As they walked out of the bedroom, Miri asked, "Where are we?"

"You're at Crossroads. Have you ever heard of it?"

She shook her head no. "I don't think so. Is it in America?"

Elizabeth laughed. "No ... no, it's not." Seeing the child's look of confusion, she simply patted her hand. "Don't worry, you're safe. I think we'll just have to leave off explaining about Crossroads for another time."

Not sure how to respond to that, Miri stayed silent. It didn't matter, though, because a few moments later, they were in the room where the healing chamber was. Miri could see her brother through the glass in the lid. It hurt her deeply to see how bad he looked.

She turned to her new friend with tears in her eyes. "He's going to be okay?"

Elizabeth smiled down at her and gently squeezed her hand. "Yes, dear one. You were actually far worse than he is."

"Really?"

Elizabeth nodded her head. "He carried you here like that. He wouldn't let us touch him until you were taken care of first."

"You mean, he really did come and rescue me?" Miri asked in wonder, thinking back to her nightmares earlier.

"It would appear so," Elizabeth replied, smiling down at her. "He's quite the hero, isn't he?"

Feeling like crying again, Miri simply nodded her head. He'd always been her hero.

The need to sleep fading away, Tory slowly opened his eyes. Hovering above him was the kind face of a beautiful older woman.

"Feeling better, Tory?" she asked in Spanish, as she helped him to sit up.

He nodded but then wondered how she knew his name. "How do you... ?" he started to ask.

"From your sister Miri," the mysterious woman answered with a wide smile. "With her it's always 'Tory this' and Tory that'. It's quite cute, really. I'm Elizabeth, by the way."

"So she's okay? She's all healed up?"

"See for yourself," Elizabeth invited, gesturing to a prostrate Miranda, sleeping peacefully on a small cot nearby. "Your sister's been right here, ever since she woke up," she explained with a chuckle.

Gazing at his sister, he took in everything he could see—her easy breathing, her pink cheeks, her little hands clutching at the pillow, and her shiny, long black hair splayed out behind her. How different she looked from the last time he saw her!

"How... ?" Tory hesitated mid-question and looked around. They were surrounded by the same white softly glowing walls ceiling that he remembered from before. "Where are we? Is this heaven?"

Elizabeth laughed. "No, Tory. You and Miri are at Crossroads. As for the 'how', you can thank the miracles of advanced technology," she told him, indicating the opened healing chamber he was still sitting in. "And I won't pretend to know how it works."

"Oh, it's just..." Tory stopped and felt silly for what he'd been thinking.

"What?"

"It's just ... I thought you and the other lady were angels when you first found me," he finally admitted.

Elizabeth reached down, took his hand and helped him to stand. "As you can tell, I'm as human as you. I'm only from a different world, called Cassandra."

"A different world?"

With a smile, she patted his cheek. "We'll explain that later. For now I think you have a sleeping beauty to awaken, don't you?"

Elizabeth could not help laughing at Miri's reaction. At first, the little girl didn't want to wake up but when she finally realized it was her brother—well, the walls were still echoing with that joyful squeal.

"Their grandfather would be so proud of them," she thought.

Tasha was worried. She was glad to hear the children had recently emerged from the healing chamber with no complications. What troubled her, though, was that she still hadn't heard from the hero who sent them through—her hero. It's been three days since she and Elizabeth found the brother and sister near death in the greeting anteroom. Three days, and still no sign of Whit!

How she longed to feel the strength of his arms around her, the warmth of his kisses, and the fierceness of his lovemaking—but now she feared it may never happen again. The synchronization of Crossroads with Earth had come and gone—and yet again there was no signal from Whit's portal. It was clearly gone and what hope she had was quickly receding with it.

She had transported to the children's new quarters—which was a curiosity in and of itself, to tell the truth, considering Hector was far too young to be a hero. Her purpose in coming, though, was not to challenge that but to consult with Elizabeth. Unfortunately, despite her many years of experience, the older woman didn't seem to catch onto the depth of the problem they were all facing.

"That's what I've been saying, Elizabeth! The portal's not there!"

"How can that be? We need it to..."

" ... send the kids back. I know!" The tall blonde stood up from the table and began pacing in front of the fireplace, her hands actively accenting her words. "But you heard the boy, Elizabeth. The place was bombed. It was falling down around their ears. Whit gave him his ring and then pushed them through before it all ... before he..." The words caught in her throat, as repressed emotions threatened to overwhelm her.

"Tasha, listen to me, just because the portal isn't answering doesn't mean Whit's dead. He could be..."

"It's been three days, Elizabeth. Three days! And not one word." She stopped in her tracks. Her arms fell to her sides in sorrow, as tears trickled down her cheeks. "What am I going to do without him?"

"Whit's dead?"

They both turned to see one little Miranda Valderrama listening to their conversation from the doorway, her lower lip quivering.

Arms open wide, Elizabeth called to her in Spanish. "Come here, dear heart." When the child reached her, she picked her up and hugged her.

After a few moments, the older woman glanced over the child's shoulder at Tasha to ask a small favor of her. "Would you please go find Tory? I think the four of us have a lot to talk about."

In short order, they were all seated around the dining room table, with Miri choosing Elizabeth's lap as being more suitable than one of the other chairs.

Tory's mind, however, was still reeling from the revelations. The fact that neither Whit nor Marisa had followed them through the special doorway was kind of obvious—with them not being around and all—but the thought that they may actually be dead was very troubling. Both he and his sister had grown to like, if not love, their two protectors and felt more than a little lost without them.

The thing that really shocked Tory, though, was just how important these special doorways or portals were. Miri, for her part, couldn't grasp the whole concept at all. She kept asking why they couldn't just get in a car, boat or plane and go back home. What she couldn't get—but he did—was that when Tasha or Elizabeth talked to her about "home" they didn't mean the place the brother and sister shared with Marisa, or even the family estate back in Bogotá. They meant Earth.

Somehow, when he had stepped through that doorway in Whit's apartment, they had left the planet. And the kicker was that with that portal gone, they had no way of getting back ... to Earth. Well, no direct way, at least. They were effectively stranded here—wherever "here" was, exactly. Which was actually a very good starting question to ask. So, he did.

"So if we're not on earth, where are we?"

"You are on Crossroads."

"And that is another world—another planet like earth?"

Elizabeth hemmed and hawed a bit but eventually answered affirmatively. "Essentially, yes."

Tory stared at his benefactress, mainly because looking at the gorgeous Tasha was way too distracting, but also because he wanted answers and truthful ones at that. Frustrated, he snapped at her. "Ma'am, we can play this game all day—or you can actually get around to telling us what we need to know."

The older woman's amused smile, however, took him by surprise. "You are so much like your grandfather," she told him, with a chuckle.

Confused by her statement, he struggled with what she could have meant. "Who, Don Diego?"

"No, my dear, I meant your mother's father," she replied, smiling—no doubt—at the shocked look on his face. His mother would never speak of her family much, but Elizabeth halted his questions before he could start with a simple wave of her hand. "But that's a story for later. What you need now is some basic information."

Tasha evidently took that as her cue. "We need four visual aids to represent the four worlds," she said, her face pointed to the ceiling, "as well as damsel and hero figures."

As soon as she spoke, four globes the size of small melons appeared on the table top, along with a pair of medieval looking figurines—one male and one female. The globes were arrayed with a jet black one in the middle and three others of similar patterns of green and blue surrounding it, equidistant from both it and each other.

"Oh, look," Miri called out, pointing to the familiar continents and oceans on one of the orbs, "there's Earth!"

Tory looked over the arrangement carefully. "I suppose the one in center is Crossroads, and that is Earth ... but what are the other two?"

"Crossroads connects three worlds," Tasha began to explain, touching each of them as she named them. "You know Earth, of course. This one—which is where Elizabeth and I are from—is Cassandra, and that one is known simply as Chaos."

"You're not from Earth?" Miri asked Elizabeth, squirming around in her lap to look at her.

"No, cariña," she replied, "I'm not."