A light shining in my face awakened me.
“Shale, are you okay?” a voice asked.
Another voice shouted. “Come quick, she’s over here.”
Much-Afraid whimpered as she rested her paws on my stomach. I squinted and covered my eyes with my hand.
“That a girl. You kept her warm, didn’t you?” the voice said.
I opened my eyes, focusing on the face overhead. He looked like a police officer. Much-Afraid climbed on my chest and licked me in the face. I chuckled and petted her head.
“That dog saved your life, kiddo. Otherwise, you would have died of exposure last night. It was cold.”
“Really?”
“Do you remember tripping over this rock and hitting your head?”
“No, but I want to keep it.”
“The dog, you mean?”
“The rock—and the dog.”
“The rock you tripped over?” He shook his head. “Why would you want that?”
Much-Afraid and the memory of the rock returned, flooding me with disjointed scenes from the seventh dimension. Soon two more officers ran over and crouched beside me. One pulled out a phone. The other checked my pulse.
“How do you feel?”
I smiled weakly. “My head hurts but other than that, I’m okay.”
Two paramedics approached with a stretcher. I insisted that Much-Afraid come with me. “And I want the rock I tripped over.”
“Sure thing,” the police officer replied.
The medics carried me out to the street where an ambulance was waiting. Mother came running and hovered over me. “Shale, thank God, you’re okay.”
“I fell and hit my head.”
“We didn’t know where you were. What were you doing in the woods?”
“I followed Much-Afraid.”
“Are you ready?” the officer asked.
“Will you take care of my dog?”
The officer nodded. “Yes, ma’am. No problem.”
A short while later, Remi met Mother and me at the emergency room. Finding nothing more than a bump on my head, the doctor gave us the good news. “She’s fine. Fix her some homemade chicken soup and give her a couple of days of rest.”
When we arrived home, Rachel was waiting for me on the porch. Much-Afraid sat beside her with food and water nearby. A large bone she had nibbled on protruded from the bowl. The woman with Rachel reminded me of Mari.
Much-Afraid yelped. I ran up and knelt beside her, tears in my eyes. She whimpered and pranced around me.
“Thank you, Rachel.”
“Shale, let me introduce you to my mother, Mari.”
I never knew her mother’s name. No wonder she seemed so much like Rachel.
“Hi,” I said softly.
Mari grinned. “I’m glad you’re okay. I feel as if I’ve met you before.”
“Maybe you have,” I said mysteriously.
Rachel leaned over and hugged me. “I’m glad you’re okay, too.”
Mother’s eyes glistened with tears. “Shale, I realize now who your real friends are—and mine.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mari and Rachel did everything they could to help us when we couldn’t find you. I was wrong not to let you go over to their apartment.”
I stared at my mother. Perhaps more happened when I was in the seventh dimension than I realized.
“And I was wrong also,” Mari said, “to believe the rumors.”
“What rumors?” I asked.
Rachel spoke up. “When you went missing, Judd came to me and confessed what he did—he thought you ran away because of him. Guilt was eating at him on the inside. He needed to tell someone, and he knew I was your best friend.”
“Wow! I can’t believe he told you.” Three sets of eyes stared back at me. “Did you tell your mother what he said? Or mine?” Part of me hoped she did, and part of me didn’t.
“Not exactly,” Rachel said. I told Mother that he confided the nasty truth to me, and Mother suggested I talk to Doctor Silverstein in confidence.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means he doesn’t go around telling everybody.”
“Oh.”
Mother added. “We decided to hire Doctor Silverstein. He understands you better than anyone else. We want what’s best for you—and Judd. He needs help, too. And now he’ll get it.”
I nodded, but remained quiet.
“Come. Let’s get the door open. I hope you’ll come in,” Mother said, speaking to Rachel and Mari.
We moved out of her way.
“Just for a minute, though, Shale. Remember what the doctor said. You need to rest.”
Home never felt so sweet. Mother was back to being Mother, although I could tell something was different.
Inside, I plopped down on the sofa. Remi had picked up some milk and bread on the way home and stuck them in the refrigerator.
I sat wide-eyed gazing at Rachel.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Rachel asked.
“I’ve lots to tell you.”
“You do?”
I examined the living room and fond memories returned. “I’m so glad to be home.”
Mari left us and went into the kitchen.
I pulled the egg out of my dress pocket.
“What’s that?” Rachel asked.
I opened it and lifted out the rabbits. After setting the mother bunny down with the two small ones, one of them winked at me.
I gasped. “Did you see that?”
“It winked,” Rachel said.
“Yes.”
Remi came and sat beside me on the edge of the sofa. “Shale, can I get anything for you? Books, CD’s?”
“Yes.”
“What’s that?
“I want a Bible.”
“A Bible?”
Mother frowned, walking into the living room from the kitchen. “We don’t have one, do we, Remi?”
Rachel grinned. “I have a Bible, sort of, but it’s in Hebrew.”
“No, I want a Bible in English. They have them in English, don’t they?”
Remi laughed. “I’m sure they have a Bible in any language you want. We’ll get one for you tomorrow,” Remi promised.
Mari interjected. “We have one you can have, Shale, if it’s okay with your parents.”
“Sure,” Remi said.
“I’ll go home and get it now. I’m not even sure where it came from.”
I reflected on how similar Rachel’s mother was to Mari in the seventh dimension.
I reached down and patted Much-Afraid. “We can keep her, right?”
“Yes, we’ll work it out with the apartment manager.” Mother paused. “Maybe we could name her Gypsy.”
“Gypsy? What do you think, Much-Afraid?”
She barked. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
I laughed. Truly, whatever we had bound in the seventh dimension was bound here, too.
“Where is the stone?” I looked around the living room. In my absence, someone cleaned the apartment. All the boxes were gone.
Mother furrowed her brow. “You want that rock? We left it on the front porch.”
“Can you bring it to me?”
“Bring that dirty thing into the house after all the cleaning I’ve done? If you want that yucky rock, you get it yourself and keep it in your room.”
“Let’s go get it,” Rachel said excitedly. “I want to see it.”
We walked outside and found it in the grass a few feet from the front door. Rachel picked it up and lugged it upstairs to my bedroom.
“Where should we put it?” I asked.
“How about your nightstand? The rock isn’t that big.”
“Sounds good to me.” It wasn’t dirty either. In fact, it was quite beautiful now that it was off the forest floor, where we could appreciate its beauty.
“Is it magical?” Rachel whispered. “Like the rabbit?”
I chuckled. “Everything is magical in the seventh dimensio
n. I can’t wait to tell you about it.”
Along the top of the rock, the word Ebenezer appeared, carved into the stone. I smiled at Rachel.
“Magical,” we said in unison.
*~*~*~*
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to the following beta readers for making Seventh Dimension – The Door, Book 1, better than it would have been without their insightful comments:
Tattie Maggard, Bonnie House, Patricia Day, Kendra Stamy, Hannah Bombardier, Gina Pruett, Karen Thomas, Carol Ramirez, Beth McMullin, Laura Lynch, Ramona Schlaegel, Judy Van Zul, and Jorja Davis.
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