A MAN WITH NO HOME
Tell me, sweet stranger, do you know the story of Normant Lumensky, the man from a mystical land universes away from Earth? Making an ark out of his chains, he turns from a prisoner of war into a fugitive.
A WOMAN AGAINST THE WOR...
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ONCE UPON A TIME, I had been limited by chains, heavy and ancient, crawling around my wrists and ankles like pests, staying there all day and all night for months on end. Back then, I had thought that once I had gotten myself out of that martyrdom, I would be wise enough to enjoy life for what it was, appreciate every heartbeat despite the heartache, peer over the railing to see that the whole world was mine again—not endless chaos. Back then, I had been too ambitious. Idiotic as well, for how could someone get rid of their past? They could not. And the bandage on my hand reminded me of those chains, of that feeling I had been trying for years to forget.
Itching, burning, aching. I spent most of the car ride staring out the window, focusing on the cold glass against my forehead so that I would not focus on the turmoil inside my head. At some point, after the first dispute with Jasmine, I initiated another one just so I could run away from the memories. I failed. They persisted like grass growing up out of charred ground.
Jersen did not participate in the heated dialogue. Of course, he did not. He was Jersen Arrowheart after all, one of the greatest healers and magicians of the Gap World. Once, the peacemaker and the idealist. Now, he was a man without a credit card, and for Canada, he did not even exist. You could not come to Earth from another universe and expect to become a legal citizen. It was just impossible. But at least, I had persuaded Clairvoyant to let him come with me wherever I went. That had been my only condition when they had asked me to join Pioneers. At first, it had not mattered that we would work for a company like that. Nothing had mattered but the fact that we had escaped Amanda's control and we would not be homeless anymore.
It still was like that for me. I still held on to the hope that this land of madness and motion could replace the kingdom I had left behind. Jersen had given up on that dream. Earth would never take the place the Gap World occupied in his heart. How could he love this place enough to stay here forever when the person he loved—Josh—was in the Gap World, probably waiting for him to return home?
For me, it was much easier. In the Gap World, I had only one close friend—Denfer Solflame, king of the Gap World and the kind of man that was more like a goldmine than a garden. He did not care about roses in courts. He was more interested in finding gold in the worst of places. We had known each other since childhood. His bedroom had been my shelter each time my father chose to be a monster instead of a man and remind me what a waste of time I was. At first, I had been reluctant. I had not wanted to become a burden to Denfer and his parents. But Denfer had insisted that it was all right, that they did not mind. Over time, the jokes, the games and the stories we shared became my lighthouse.
I still remembered the first time I had run into his house, a little beaten and very much crying. Denfer's twin brother—Ian—had stared at me from the far side of the living room with a vacant look on his face. Then, he had started laughing like a maniac. It was then that I had decided to walk away, go back home because maybe I was overreacting after all.
