41. Advanced Paleomagnetism #2
“She ran into the ocean,” Orla said. Despite her new Keldorian attire, she kept her skal-goggles perched atop her head. She swiveled around, staring at the cars in the parking lot. “Wren, what are these things?”
The driver’s side door opened, and Maxwell stepped out to survey my friends with his mouth slightly agape. The way his brow furrowed told me their appearance brought him that much closer to believing they were from an alternate world, try as they might to appear otherwise.
“By the Frozen God, there’s two of you,” Iseult said, looking between me and my father.
“Meet Maxwell Brenton, PhD,” I announced. “World-renowned geophysicist, my father, and our ride to the Rift.”
Orla’s polite interest was replaced by careful disdain.
“Your father?” she repeated. “The one who abandoned you?”
“I didn’t abandon her,” Maxwell snapped.
“That’s right. You have to actually be present first to abandon someone,” I quipped.
I slid the van door open, and Orla, Iseult, and Fana all stepped back at the grating sound.
“Is it safe?” Iseult demanded.
“It’s safe enough.” I shrugged.
Fana climbed in first with Jonquil. Iseult was next, glaring at the fabric seats.
“What is this?” She pulled on a seatbelt.
“A seatbelt. You buckle it across you.”
“Why?”
“Because if we crash—”
“Crash?” Orla stopped mid-step as she climbed in.
“It’s just in case,” I insisted. “We aren’t going to crash.”
Ciarán was the last to climb into the van, and I swept my gaze over each of them, making sure they’d figured out their seatbelts.
Ciarán nodded at me when they were all settled.
Jonquil had abandoned Fana to climb into his lap, and he worked through the knots and mats the cave water had left in her long fur.
I slammed the door shut and then made myself comfy in the passenger seat.
“What is wrong with them?” Maxwell asked under his breath.
“I told you. They’re not from here.”
He grunted, clearly still not believing a word I’d told him about Skalterra, and turned the key in the ignition.
Orla yelped as the old engine rumbled to life, grabbing Iseult’s hand. Fana, meanwhile, didn’t seem to notice. She stared out her window with resolved, tired eyes, holding a bagel but not giving it any attention.
Orla’s excited titters amplified as Maxwell threw the van into reverse and backed out of the parking spot, but then she fell silent, leaning across Iseult’s lap for a better look out the window as we wound through palm tree lined streets towards the highway.
I looked out my window too. I’d thought coming back to Keldori would feel familiar, that it would be a relief.
Maybe it was because I was still so far from Keel Watch Harbor and in a place I’d never been, driving with the father who hated me, or maybe it was because I’d been Skalterra too long, but it didn’t feel like coming home.
Too much had changed, but I didn’t know what or who.
“What is that?” Orla jammed a finger against Iseult’s window at a passing billboard as we merged onto the highway. “By the Three Magicians, there’s so many of them!”
“It’s called a billboard,” I said. “People use them to advertise services.”
“They’re hideous!” She grinned. “Look at that house! It’s huge!”
“That’s a hotel, actually.”
Iseult’s knuckles turned white where she gripped the fabric of her seat, and she pressed against her headrest.
“This is too fast,” she said, then flinched when a motorcycle revved past us. “That is too fast!”
“We’re going ten under the speed limit,” Maxwell grunted from the driver’s seat.
“It’s no different than a steamcart,” I assured Iseult.
“That was too fast, too,” she snapped.
“They’ll be okay,” Ciarán said in my head, and I turned back to face the windshield. “It’s a lot all at once.”
“I know the feeling,” I replied.
“Twenty-four hours,” Ciarán reminded me. “This will all be over in twenty-four hours.”
I nodded. He couldn’t see the movement through my seat back, but he would still know I’d made it. He would also know it wasn’t nearly as confident I was pretending it was.
I’d half-expected the drive to go wrong after the misadventures we’d had while crossing Skalterra, but the most exciting thing to happen was a bit of traffic when trying to get through Los Angeles and Orla wanting to purchase the entire snack aisle of a gas station when we stopped for a quick break.
I convinced her to choose just three snacks and promised that we would have all the time in the world to try all of Keldori’s candies soon enough.
Back on the highway again, Orla, Fana, and Iseult remained transfixed at their respective windows until they each succumbed to exhaustion and fell asleep in their seats. Ciarán was awake, but his consciousness was sluggish and heavy where it pressed against mine.
He didn’t want to leave me alone with my father, but someone needed to stay awake to make sure Maxwell continued to comply. Ciarán needed the rest, however, and I knew just the way to lull him to sleep while keeping myself awake and alert.
“Tell me about Paleomagnetism,” I said.
Maxwell had the audacity to snort. “You aren’t getting into college.”
“Paleomagnetism doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Your lecture was hard to follow.”
“If it was hard to follow, it’s because you lack the necessary baseline education to understand the principles I was explaining.”
He was trying to annoy me, and it was working a little bit. It was also keeping me awake, though, so I leaned into it.
“Then educate me, Dr. Brenton.”