Eternal Youth (34 page)
Authors: Julia Crane
Callie helped him to his feet and walked forward to join her mother at the railing. Above them on the steering deck, Charlotte and Amelia had their eyes on the horizon.
“You know, if we’re wrong about the time, this could kill us. Like those people who sailed off when we first arrived in Aionia,” Callie said, her heart hammering. The ship drifted closer to the unseen barrier as Alaric wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders.
“I know.” Emma took a deep breath and let it out, then patted her daughter’s face. “But, I’m with you. Nothing could make me happier. It’s just one more adventure.”
The sweet tone in her mother’s voice brought tears to Callie’s eyes. She didn’t have any words to express to her mom how much it meant, so she just tugged playfully on her mother’s satchel.
The bag was
heavy
.
“Mom,
why
does your bag feel like it’s got rocks in it?” Callie asked suspiciously.
Emma smirked, flipped open the satchel, and pulled out a glass jug full of clear liquid. “A little eternal youth for the road.”
“Oh my god, Mother, you didn’t.” Callie burst out laughing.
December 19, 2012
San Diego
Another new journal.
I was kinda sad to write the final entry in my Aionia journal last night. So much went into that journal in the year that’s passed since we crash-landed in Aionia. But I think it’s time to move on.
Even now, a year later, it still scares me to remember the leap. We hit the barrier and it was just like… BAM. Nothingness. I don’t know how long it lasted, but I couldn’t see anything, or feel anything. I didn’t even KNOW anything…as if we just no longer existed. I remember thinking we must be dead.
Then it was over, and the black was replaced by blinding sunlight. We floated on the ocean in the middle of nowhere. No land in sight. We tried to catch a wind but it was just DEAD. Luckily, the ship had just enough food and water for us to ration it and survive.
Alaric’s fears about aging were irrational. Nothing happened to him or Charlotte or Amelia, though for a minute there I thought we’d made it out of Aionia only to die adrift on the freaking ocean. We floated for three days until someone found us.
Being at sea for so long gave us plenty of time to perfect our story. Mom, ever the optimist, was certain we’d be rescued, and she said we needed to be ready to explain where we’d been. Mom told us that pirates still exist, though they ARE pretty hardcore now and never leave anyone alive. Our story: We decided our plane had gone down in the ocean, and we were the only survivors. We were found by pirates who were going to kill us until we escaped in a raftboat. We then found the ship floating empty, and came on board (Mom said “ghost ships” were common in the Bermuda Triangle—she is a freaking wealth of useless knowledge).
When the fishing boat found us, Charlotte, Amelia, and Alaric feigned amnesia, though Mom and I were “able” to tell the fisherman our companions’ first names. Over the course of the next few weeks, they were basically proven to not exist in the police’s system, so they were given new identities with the hope they would be claimed by relatives in the coming weeks.
Duh. No relatives alive to claim them.
Of course, Braden and Avery know the truth of the crash. We came back without Gran, bringing word she hadn’t survived the plane crash—how could we let Braden think she really was dead? Surprisingly, they both took the information pretty easily considering the two months they’d thought us all dead. I guess an alternate dimension where the Fountain of Youth actually exists is much easier to come to terms with than your family dead.
The weirdest thing out of ALL this? What a NORMAL year it’s been since we got home. Mom enrolled me in high school! I tested into junior year with no problem—my mom is an awesome teacher—and now I’m almost halfway through my senior year. I get to graduate with Avery!
Mom got a job teaching the third grade. Yeah, we’re still living off Dad’s revenue and we probably always will, but my mother just can’t sit still. And I guess I always knew this, but neither can I. We went to Mexico in June, and then we spent two weeks in Scotland in October (Mom let me miss school!). We’re leaving tomorrow to go to Argentina for a week and a half. Seems like all those years of traveling just can’t be purged from a girl’s system. Maybe I AM my mother’s daughter after all.
Braden is engaged. When his dad died in February, he went through a really awful time. He drank a lot and barely left the house. One night, we made him shower and get dressed, and we all went to see a play downtown. He struck up a conversation with the pretty blonde girl that sat beside him in the theater, and that was that. Her name is Marla, and they set a date for next May. I REALLY like her. She did my hair for junior prom and went with us on every vacation. We had lots of girl time to shop and hang out. She asked me to be one of her bridesmaids because according to her, I’m Braden’s sister, not cousin, and I’m going to be her sister, too. :)
It wasn’t too long after Marla came into our lives that Zach did. Zach is a sports announcer for ESPN and he’s ridiculously good-looking, like a golden-skinned surfer dude with a better vocabulary. Seeing him and my mom together is like looking at a really awesome painting of love. His daughter Abby was in my mom’s class last year—his wife died from cancer three years ago, so he knows what Mom and me went through when Dad died. I love both him and Abby, and I hope there are wedding bells in Mom’s future, too.
She hasn’t touched the stash of fountain water she brought home with her since they started dating. I’m glad—it’ll be good backup for anytime someone gets sick. Seriously, it’s just like her to steal a gallon of eternal youth.
Why was the way out of Aionia kept secret? No clue. But, I have a couple guesses. Maybe to protect their perfect little society, to keep it exactly the way they wanted it, or to protect the location of the Fountain of Youth. Can you imagine how many people would try to crash land in the Bermuda Triangle simply to gain eternal youth? Yeah. Insane.
I think about Nailah and Gran a lot, but not as much as I used to. Back in January, I cried all the time and I worried about them every day. But, it’s like mourning a death, you know? The more time that passes, the easier it is. Anytime I get down, I just try to remind myself that at least they’re alive, and I’m pretty sure they’re happy. I bet Nailah is married to Marcus and Gran’s shop is running like a dream since she’s got Harrison helping her with the hard parts, and I know they’re taking care of each other.
Mom is researching a way back in to Aionia. Am I surprised? Nah. Mom will never give up on reaching Gran and Nailah again. Once she decides to search for something…I mean, she does it all the way LOL. She’s positive that if there’s a way out, there must be an easier way in, too.
For the first time EVER, I agree with her. We’ll find it.
It took a long time for Alaric to adjust to life in this dimension. For the first couple months, he jumped every time my cell phone rang, and he froze any time we got in the car! And after a hundred years of Aionia’s cotton clothes, he was kinda weirded out by blue jeans. He was a little like a kid, learning the world with fresh eyes. Mom told him to take as long as he needed to acclimate before he tried to get a job, so he did. He’s been taking classes at the community college, and he just picked up a paid internship with the National Park system. He wants to be a Park Ranger, and I think he’ll make an awesome one.
Not too long after we got back, we took him to Pennsylvania. We found the graves of his wife and daughter. Mom helped us do a bunch of research (she’s so good at digging up stuff), and we found out that Mary remarried several years after Alaric disappeared. She went on to have three more children and died of natural causes later in life. His daughter was named Alara—presumably after Alaric, right?—and she ended up spending her life fighting for women’s rights. She married a lawyer in her twenties, and they had two daughters, Maura and Patience—Alaric’s grandchildren. Alara passed away twenty years ago, but her daughters are both married with grown children. Can you believe it? All these years later, Alaric’s family still exists. He didn’t want to try and meet them, and I understand that. That boat sailed long, long ago—literally. But, he got to see them, and he got to see his great-grandchildren. I think it really gave him the closure he needed.
I’m signing off for now. Alaric is downstairs calling for me—he’s planned a special date night to celebrate the year we’ve spent together in the real world. It’s almost Christmas, which we didn’t really get to celebrate last year, so I’m wondering what he got me! Mom’s been really teary lately and she keeps looking at him like he’s a knight in shining armor.
Who knows? Maybe he is. I’ve got a lifetime to figure it out.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to our wonderful editor, Claire Teter, for polishing our gem and telling us when a character would NOT use the word “stoked”…
Big thanks to Erin and Mayme, who have proven time and again to be invaluable as plot-hole beta readers for our books. Guatemala is most definitely in CENTRAL America, and there is certainly an “E” at the end of JCPenney. You are machines, ladies.
Hugs to our other beta, Katy, who catches all those frisky little last minute typos. Blessed be, sister.
And finally, we are incredibly lucky to have families who are so supportive of our books. Thank you for letting us ignore you for days on end.
About Julia Crane
Julia Crane is the author of the
Keegan’s Chronicles
series. She has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. Julia has believed in magical creatures since the day her grandmother first told her an Irish tale. Growing up her mother greatly encouraged reading and using your imagination. Although she’s spent most of her life on the US east coast, she currently lives in Dubai with her husband and three children.
Find Julia online at
juliacraneauthor.com
Julia’s other books include:
Keegan’s Chronicles
Anna (Coming Soon!)
Also by Julia Crane
Mesmerized
Co-written with author Talia Jager
Seventeen-year-old succubus Lily Anderson can’t have a normal life: She isn’t allowed a boyfriend, she has no friends, and school is just one mess-up after another.
Lily’s parents send her away to the prestigious Emerson Academy. It doesn’t appear to be any different from the others. That is, until she meets her roommate, Hannah, and a blue-eyed boy named Jake.
Lily makes an almost deadly mistake, and Jake has a mysterious past that has come back to haunt him. Together, they must go on the run from things neither of them understand in order to save the people they love—and each other. But, Jake’s foe is more dangerous than they realized, and it will take the help of friends and family to save the man Lily loves.
She must learn to use her powers for good before it’s too late.
WARNING: This is a mature YA. Due to sexual content and some language it is not recommended for younger teens.
Approximately 44,000 words
Available Now!
About Nolia McCarty
