The Infinity Caverns by Stuart Jaffe

Author:Stuart Jaffe [Jaffe, Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Speculative Fiction, Fantasy, magic, parallel universes
ISBN: 9781547270729
Google: 4V3-swEACAAJ
Amazon: B073D424TG
Barnesnoble: B073D424TG
Publisher: CreateSpace Publishing
Published: 2017-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Roni’s eyes did not want to open. She could have used another hour of sleep — maybe two — but as she rubbed an itch out of her nose, she knew sleep would not return for the day. The stiffness in her back and the crick in her neck attested that she had fallen asleep sitting up. But she felt no weight on her chest. Her eyes snapped open.

Where was Darin?

She zipped down the hall and poked her head in his bedroom. Empty. The bed looked like a model display at a linen store. Nobody had slept here.

“Dar —” she tried to call out but her voice cracked under the strain. She tended to hold tension in her neck, so whenever she held a lot of tension for too long — such as sleeping tense for a few hours — losing her voice often followed. Though inconvenient, she had been through it many times before. If she took care not to talk too much, her voice would return later in the day. Of course, getting rid of the tension would be most helpful, but she did not see that happening anytime soon — especially if she couldn’t find Darin.

She walked back up the hall and stopped to check in the bathroom. Empty. And clean and well-appointed.

Back in the living room, she glimpsed the balcony. A terrible thought jumped into her head and she darted to the railing. Gazing over the ledge, she searched the sidewalk below — no blood, no corpse, nothing. Thank goodness. She would rather have been waterboarded than have to tell Jane Lander that her son had committed suicide.

Inside, she crossed the living room and entered the kitchen. Bingo. Darin stood in the center of the functional but minuscule kitchen. Slack-jawed and leaning over like a man determined to spend his later years hunched over with pain in his back, Darin faced a framed, artistic print of lions walking across an open plain. She guessed the Serengeti. He did not appear to notice anything around him.

Careful not to jar him or make any sudden loud noises, Roni stepped over to the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of orange juice. Then she inched into Darin’s field of vision, closed her eyes against the expectation of pain, and said, “Darin? Can you hear me?”

The words scratched her throat, but they came out clear and audible. She opened her eyes. Darin showed no reaction.

In the living room, Roni dug through her purse until she found her cellphone. She brought up Gram’s number, but her thumb hovered over the call button. Things were bad enough. Roni didn’t want to make it all worse and give Gram even more reasons to be against her.

Instead, she called Sully. He had made the Golem statue and Darin acted like a statue. Granted, the tenuous connection offered nothing to be hopeful about, but when she listened to the phone ring, hope sparked in her nonetheless. But Sully did not answer.

Perhaps Elliot’s healing ability would solve the problem.

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