The Hidden World

Chapter 12

Frigg was the definition of mountain man. He was strong for one, strong enough to lift some medium sized boulders. But he was also wiry and quick, agile, too. He knew first aid and was intelligent enough about the mountains to know north for south and east from west. He could track the time in the forest by moss on trees, could read signs from the birds, and knew all the right things to pack for a trip in the mountains.

Both Brendan and Kendra knew of the mountains just as well, but had left the packing to Frigg as he knew the Northern Forest better than just about anybody. The twins preferred to prepare to a forest they knew or was similar to another forest they knew so they accompanied Hobbit back to her house. They left the animals (not including horse, bunny, bear, and dog) out back and went back into the living room.

"We should connect their house up to MC," Hobbit said, talking to the animals, not Kendra or Brendan.

"What's MC?" Brendan said, saying mc as one word.

"No," Hobbit corrected, "m c. Two separate letters. It stands for Mirror Communication. You can get stuff through it, but you can also call and search up with it. It's the same brand that small mirror uses. The trouble is, you have to be connected up to the mirror network before you can even use the system and nobody ever connects the mirror network up to a human world house unless given special permission which has never been granted."

"Why do you need to connect us up to MC?" Kendra asked.

"Because you live in the mountains," Hobbit said, "you obviously own hiking or camping equipment. I bet Kendra will fit into Frigg's sister's equipment but it's just easiest to get your own because it's broken in. Scotch, you know somebody at MC, right? Avon? Can you ask him to connect their house up for like, fifteen minutes?" She said all this so fast, Brendan had a hard time following her. Apparently Scotch understood because he gave Hobbit a curt nod and cantered out of the house, knocking over the small stool by the front door. Hobbit walked up and down the length of the living room, muttering to herself. The twins couldn't make out any distinguishable words but her tone indicated urgency. The whole room was completely silent for the next few minutes aside from Hobbit's muttering and the sound of Cordova's breathing. They had run all the way back to Hobbit's hut and Cordova had faithfully ran alongside them all the way back.

Suddenly, out of the blue, the small mirror that had spouted the prophecy, which had been placed on the coffee table, began making a sound like windchimes. Everybody jumped. Hobbit stopped her pacing and picked the mirror up. She looked at the face of it. It was filled with the swirling gray fog again and looked startingly like a phone when a call was coming in. There were all the little symbols right where they were supposed to be. The decline red phone symbol, the accept green phone symbol. The white speech ballon with message beneath it and the little alarm clock symbol saying remind me. At the top was Scotch's name and phone number, and right underneath it the little icon or symbol that went with the person's name. The simplest ones were just the first letter of the person's name on a colored circle background. The icon for Scotch was not so simple as that. It was a picture of him standing in front of Oz's barn. Kendra was standing next to him, an arm around his neck. He looked happy in the picture as if he was on top of the world. Hobbit studied the icon too.

"He changed it. It used to be him standing next to the state fair of 2022's ranch horse winner. He must really like you." Kendra was touched and made a mental note to tell Scotch he was her lock screen background. Hobbit answered the mirror and put it up to her hear. She listened for a moment, said hello, then held the phone a foot from her ear.

"ALL GOOD HOBBIT!" Scotch yelled.

"Whoa," Hobbit muttered, "must have forgotten to take off the speaker phone setting last time I used this. Don't say anything else Scotch."
"WHAT?" Scotch shouted so loudly the hut shook.