Chapter 3

"Someone came through the wormhole in Lisa's Grotto?" Alicia asked, her eyes wide with surprise. "Who was it? Anyone we know?"

"No," Jake replied. "Some pregnant girl from Canada and her boyfriend. The girl claimed she met Beth once, evidently, and Beth initiated her."

"Beth was a long time ago, Jake," Frank said. "You mean she's a long-lifer? Like us?"

"Yep! Both her and her boyfriend," Jake replied.

"What's her boyfriend like?" Tanya asked, grinning mischievously. "He must be pretty virile if he got the girl pregnant."

"Oh, one of those 'Suth'run Gentile-men, with all the fake manners that go along with it," Jake smirked. "An awful-sir in the Cane-federate ahmy. Not too bad with a sword, though."

"You fought him?" Alicia asked, still looking very interested. "With a sword?"

"Well," Jake said, "He was upset that we bombed his mother and demanded satisfaction."

"Sounds like a typical southern gentleman to me," Frank grinned. "When do we meet him?"

"Well, he's being brought before Elaine this afternoon for disturbing the peace," Jake told them. "If you want, we can all go watch. I have to be there as a witness, anyway."

"So what about the girl?" Tanya wanted to know. "You said she was pregnant?"

"Yeah," Jake admitted. "Doc Frank checked her out this morning. She's okay. And she's legit. By that I mean she has vampire blood in her, and it's not Lisa's or her mom's. She's staying with me and ... Annalisa – for a day or two, anyway."

"You still have a hard time saying her name," Tanya noticed, placing her hand on Jake's arm.

"Yeah, well," Jake said. "I ... just..." He sighed, then sat down. "I feel like I'm really letting Lisa's mom ... Béla. There. I feel like I'm betraying her, somehow. As much as I loved her – I still love her. But Annalisa fits so much better. And it hurts me to think that ... Béla wasn't ... she really wasn't 'The One', you know? Not like Annalisa is."

"Jake," Frank said quietly. "You weren't really happy with Béla. Face it, man. You brooded all the time – you were absolutely no fun to be around, and you were consumed with really dumb-ass ideas about how to make your relationship with her better. Now that Annalisa's with you, you are actually a little bit more likable."

"Really?" Tanya quipped cheerfully. "You mean you two might finally become friends after all these years?"

"Ha, ha," Frank said to his wife. "Let's just wait and see on that one, okay?"

Lisa and Annalisa escorted Jonathan up the white concrete steps into the Goddess' temple. Jonathan kept staring at everything and everyone with pure amazement. The 'horizon' completely fascinated him and he almost fell several times just trying to follow the land around with his eyes.

"Come on, let's get you inside," Annalisa laughed. "You'll find it's easier to walk upright when there's a room around you."

"Is this some sort of pagan religious rite?" Jonathan asked, suddenly nervous. "Do you have sacrifices here? What's the penalty for disturbing the peace?"

"Don't be silly!" Lisa laughed. "If we were going to cook you, I'd've done it yesterday. And there are no set penalties except for murder."

"You murder everyone who breaks the law?" Jonathan cried out, suddenly freezing in his footsteps.

Both girls sighed. "This isn't the Confederacy." Lisa informed him, starting to sound impatient. "We're civilized and peaceful and we don't kill each other. Now, come on. We'll be late."

Jonathan was still reluctant. Annalisa smiled at him and took his arm. "Your friend Danielle is already inside and waiting for you. Everything will be all right."

Anxious to see a friendly face, even that of another captive, namely Dani, Jonathan let himself be led through the heavy, whitewashed doors and into the Justice Room.

"Jonathan!" Dani whispered loudly and happily at him. The echoes of her voice bounced off the solid white walls and made her whisper sound embarrassingly loud. The two girls escorting him let Jonathan go over to greet her.

"Are they treating you all right?" he asked anxiously as he pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly for an instant before remembering her baby.

"I'm fine," Dani grinned up at him. "I saw a doctor this morning. He's a real doctor – from Earth! He showed me a sonogram and everything. This place may be a small farming community, but the medicine here is really hi-tech! And when he found out that you're what he calls a 'long-lifer' like me, he wants to meet you and do some blood tests to find out what branch of the family you belong to."

"Branch? Family?" Jonathan grinned. "What are you talking about?"

"Well," Dani replied animatedly. "He must not have had very many patients this morning because we talked a couple of hours, at least! There is a branch that some lady named Béla initiated – a guy named Frank and his wife, Tanya. The doctor is Frank's son. He has a sister named Alicia, and she had several kids, as well.

"Anyway, Béla had a daughter. And she initiated a bunch of people too. So that's two branches of the family. And I, all by myself, was initiated by someone else! So I have – WE'LL have – our very own branch of the family! I have a family! A big one - can you believe it? I'm so happy!"

Jonathan wasn't listening any more. His mind had stopped in the middle of her excited chatter when she said that name...

"My mother's name was Alicia," Jonathan said, his words cutting in and immediately silencing Dani. "I don't suppose he said anything about his sister ever being in Nashville..."

"No," Dani replied, not sure of what do say, now. "He didn't. He only mentioned that he has a sister."

"'Has'? Not 'had'?" Jonathan asked, then he smiled at Dani, a little sadly. "Lucky guy."

"THE GOLDEN GODDESS AND THE GREAT BARD, GEOFFREY," a voice announced behind them.

Everyone turned toward the front of the room. That gorgeous blond goddess from yesterday was entering the room, followed by a young man in an oversized blue robe with a hawk nose which reminded Jonathan of a drawing of Ichabod Crane from a storybook he'd had as a child.

Everyone sat down. A man who had been standing next to the far wall taking notes stepped forward. He was the one who had announced the arrival of the presiding Lord and Lady. Looking around the room and checking his clipboard, he turned and approached the justices.

"We should hear this case first, Bard, as the interested parties regarding the newcomer have not yet arrived."

Jonathan wondered idly what interested parties there could be, then remembered that fellow Jake, whom he'd fought. Looking around, he noticed that Jake wasn't here, so he was probably who that bailiff-looking fellow meant, and that would make himself, of course, the 'newcomer'.

The case called forward requested a dismissal of the charges as the litigants had already arrived at an agreeable decision regarding their quarrel. Once the justices heard their solution, they agreed and dismissed the case. They had all mumbled privately in the front of the room, and Jonathan was a little annoyed that he couldn't really hear what was going on. It would have been nice to have some advance notice as to how 'justice' worked in this strange place.

Dani was sitting next to him and Annalisa was sitting on his other side. When Annalisa suddenly rose and began moving toward the isle, Jonathan looked up to see where she was going. That fellow Jake had just entered the room and Annalisa was quietly greeting him at the door.

Behind Jake came a couple Jonathan didn't recognize. For a single instant, his heart leaped when he saw the woman's blond hair. It took a second or two of staring to realize it wasn't his mother. But the resemblance was spooky.

"We can sit over here, Mom," a female voice said from the other entrance.

Curious, Jonathan turned around and looked to see who had spoken so casually (and in his opinion, so overly loud in this hallowed hall). A very pretty brunette was sitting down and smiling at her blond companion – obviously her mother, from what she'd just said.

Their eyes met and time stopped.

'Jonathan?' he heard his mother's voice echo in his head. Then tears were rushing down the blond woman's face.

"Mom, what's wrong?" Jackie asked, suddenly frightened that her mother was having some kind of attack. "Dad! Something's wrong with Mom!"

Jake turned away from Annalisa and began to cross the room quickly, looking worried.

"Mother?" Jonathan asked as he rose to his feet. "Oh God! It's really you!"

Then he was trying to get to the end of row of chairs, but he couldn't see and kept tripping. Alicia was weeping openly as she embraced him. They both nearly fell, overwhelmed by the sudden emotions filling them both.

"I have another brother?" Jackie asked no one in particular.

"I thought you were dead that bomb went off over Nashville and everyone was dead and I came to the mountain like you said and nobody was there and somehow we got here..."

Elaine looked at Jeff, her pretense of boredom failing to hide the sparkle of joy in her eyes. "What do you think? Case dismissed?"

"Obviously," Jeff agreed, grinning widely. "I shall inform the cook that we need to kill the fatted calf. The prodigal son has come home." Elaine looked at Jeff with some confusion, but Jeff merely grinned at her and turned away.

'Look it up!' she heard Jeff laugh into her mind. 'You'll enjoy the original text far better than the Praetor or I could tell it.'

'But you're a bard! No one could tell a tale better than you... '

Unannounced and ignored by everyone, The Golden Goddess and the Great Bard left the Justice Room.

Lisa and Mac walked in as Elaine and Jeff were leaving.

"What! We missed it?" Lisa griped.

Elaine laughed. "No, they're all still in there. Why don't you go in and invite everyone to the manor? We have to get food started to feed everybody!"

Lisa couldn't help but laugh – Elaine's joy was truly infectious. Even Mac could feel the laughter, joy and relief radiating from the Justice Room. He hugged Lisa tightly and kissed her. Lisa pulled her feet up behind her and let him whirl her around for a second or two, completely enamored with the way he liked to squash her against him.

"Party time!" he laughed into her ear before setting her down so she could follow the Golden Goddess' wishes.

"Well, Annalisa wanted to learn how to handle a sword," Jake was saying. "She'd been hanging around Mac and Lisa and found out how they like to spend their spare time."

"So we all teleported up to Lisa's Grotto," Annalisa added, "and the rest is 'recorded in history', as the Praetor would say."

Several people listening, laughed.

"Why is it called Lisa's Grotto?" Dani asked, happy that this cheerful if somewhat unruly lot was accepting her.

"Well," Alicia, her (mother-in-law? Oh my God... ) said, "When we named it, we thought that Lisa had died when the Confederacy attacked us. And it was supposed to be a memorial park dedicated to her. But then we found out..."

"That was her I felt in my mind!" Dani gasped, suddenly understanding. "She looks different, now, but it is her, isn't it? Beth, I mean?"

"Yes," Macario replied. "She was once Beth."

"But you told me she died," Dani said, upset that she'd been lied to.

"She did die," Jake told her, once again. "And you, from what Doc Frank has been telling us, are the only recipient of her blood."

"Physically, you are all of her that remains alive," Mac said. "But her soul was reborn. She became Béla's daughter."

"Are you saying that you people reincarnate?" Dani asked, incredulous. "And that you know who you were or who you're going to be? That's completely unbelievable!"

'Our 'psychic' powers are far beyond your 'ken', Earth Girl, ' Dani heard in her head. 'You humans know next to nothing, yet you persist in pretending to be omnipotent! Death is not the end-all that your kind would have everyone believe!'

Dani finally figured out it was Lisa who was yelling in her mind. The two of them stared at each other for a moment.

'I searched for you for half a century, ' Dani thought at her, wondering if her thoughts could actually be heard by another. 'Were you hiding from me?'