A Power of Old(63)

A new dimension.

I heard a crackle above the crashing of the waves, and momentarily turned away from the portal, wondering what it was.

“Rose, Rose? Can you hear me?” Caleb’s voice blared from the radio—the crackling I’d heard was the transmitter on my breast pocket coming to life. Not wanting to break my connection to Corrine and Claudia, I shoved the on-off button with my chin.

“Caleb!” I cried. “It’s working—the portal’s opening!”

I heard nothing for a few moments, and then my husband’s voice returned.

“I’ll tell you why later, but you’ve got to trust me on this one, Rose—stop opening the portal!”

“What?” I called back, thinking that I’d misheard him. Why would he want us to stop?

“STOP!” he bellowed.

Everyone looked over at me, their concentration broken at the sound of Caleb’s voice.

“STOP OPENING THE PORTAL!”

No!

The next world’s morning sky started to shrink before my eyes, the tar creeping over the light like a cancer once again.

No…no…no.

Corrine, Mona and the rest of the witches and jinn had released their control of the stones as soon as Caleb’s voice emerged from the radio. I watched disbelievingly as my only hope of getting to the children began to shrink before my eyes. I wanted to scream in frustration.

This can’t be happening. We were so close!

I looked around at the baffled expressions of the rest of the team. I switched off the radio, needing a few moments before I could listen to the logic and reason behind Caleb’s command. Right now, I just didn’t care what the danger was – maternal instinct was blindsiding any other thought or feeling. I would have happily faced an apocalypse if it meant I could see my children again…

I watched as Nuriya slowly gathered the stones back into her pouch. The storm had died down almost instantly, leaving an eerie silence to descend on us all, along with a burning question:

What are we going to do now?

I tried to reassure myself that we would find another way… I just couldn’t shake the ice-cold fear that time was running out.