Sitting in the reading room, Ellen waited for what had to have been minutes, but felt like hours. Across from her, her hostess, Ahoo Stark sat. The elegant woman with the almond shaped eyes sipped at a fragrant ginger tea while reading a book that looked like a travelers’ guide, judging by the map that was painted on the cover.

  Though, it could also have been any other genre that might include a luridly painted map. Every time one of Ahoo’s long, articulate fingers turned a page, Ellen’s eyes were drawn back to the cover illustration. It was, if not hypnotic, eyecatching at the very least.

  Since having returned to the reading room, Ahoo had replaced her resplendent purple silk, gold embroidered hijab with a simple red hijab that matched her belt and shoes, though it rested mostly around her shoulders. Ellen supposed that if it were just the two of them, and no men outside of her family were present, it was probably a matter of personal comfort to have the lovely silk just draped about her like a scarf.

  “Is your tea not up to snuff, dear?” Her voice was at the deeper end for a woman’s, and had the husky resonance Ellen’s nursing experience made her think that Ahoo had either smoked heavily, or possibly suffered some kind of injury or infection that had left her vocal chords scarred. Either way, it added to her overall mystique in such a way that from what Ellen could tell the woman was so overwhelmingly alluring that she wondered how the men here managed to get any work done at all.

  …maybe they all respect Elgin too much…? She thought. But then realised, that no, they were probably too afraid of the little man. She had never met anyone who seemed to move through the world like he did in her life. She had, since arriving, seen Elgin manage, indirectly, to move local authorities, even the federal authorities at two separate Aero terminals, to do his bidding. And she was fairly certain that the very tall young man, Kurt?, was a local police officer.

  “How’s the tea?” Ahoo prompted again when it was obvious that Ellen had let her mind wander too far afield.

  “Oh!” A now shocked and embarrassed Ellen fumbled at the fine porcelain cup that sat on the little table to her left. “It's lovely, Mrs. Stark, thank you. And these biscuits are amazing.” She proved her point by grabbing up a creme filled and popping it into her mouth to chew the strawberry creme confection up, downing it with a sip of her tea. Which was…

  “It’s lovely, thank you.” And then she didn’t know what else to say.

  And so she stared.

  “I’m sorry,” Ahoo began.

  “Oh, no, please! It’s wonderful. All of this… is…” Ellen interrupted. “I don’t know…ehm…” she then stuttered into the now all consuming silence, not knowing where to take this conversation next. She was flustered and confused by what her life had suddenly turned into. Everything had been such a panicked whirlwind these last two weeks.

  No. Not even two weeks. It had barely been a week since her supposedly comatose patient had drawn her along in his wake as his own ship had madly sped off into these unknowable waters. It felt like a day. And it felt, too, like a plague of violent and confusing years.

  “My dear, please,” Ahoo said, now setting aside her own delicate little cup of tea and standing to cross the comfy little room to stand in front of Ellen. “You don’t need to fear anything anymore. My husband acts scattered and nonsensical at times, but he is a deep planner. He has been preparing for your ‘Tj’Shae friend’s return for a long time. And once he reappeared, Elgin began to put certain plans into motion. He even went on a few trips to different places just to ensure ‘Tj’Chin’Ker’s people would all have a place to land once this all began to unfold.”

  Ellen was even more confused now, as she hadn’t been thinking anything along these lines herself, and was just trying to come to grips with the enormity of what little she did understand. So, like all rational adults, she just nodded as she looked into the lovely eyes of her hostess.

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  “The last thing Elgin wants is for his Children to begin making war across this world again. He spent a long time trying to make all out war as difficult as possible. Amra is…” Ahoo pursed her lips now, and glanced off to her left and then to her right. She even bit her lower lip at one point, avidly avoiding saying what she and Ellen both knew she was about to say anyway. Finally, “...well Amra has not allowed himself to change with the times. HIs goals three millenia ago are his goals now, no matter how insane that goal is.”

  Ahoo looked down at her hands where she now held Ellen’s. “Amra is… do you know basketball?”

  Ellen snorted, “Well, National Sport of Scotland and all that…”

  Ahoo chuckled, her whiskey rich voice both engaging and soothing. “Yes, well. He was a child when his elders taught him to play particular game. He never won that game as a child, and now insists on trying to make that one, final, basket even though the nets have been taken down, the court on which he used to play has been plowed under to build an apartment complex for the needy, and almost everyone else with whom he used to play, those who have survived, have now all grown up and become doctors, lawyers, and politicians.”

  The empathy that Ahoo now radiated for Amra was enough to make Ellen want to embrace the woman in a hug and never let her go. Although she might also have wanted to beg for Ahoo to hug her and never let her go, so deep were her own feelings of fear and fatigue.

  She heard the sound of his shoes on the parquet floor of the long hallway outside the open door to this little sanctuary before seeing Elgin swing gracefully into the room. The little man glided up to his wife with a loving hand caressing her side and shoulder as he came up to where Ellen sat, ensconced. The intimacy of the gesture spoke to Ellen of a caring relationship deeper than she herself had ever experienced.

  There was the spicy, resinous scent of a campfire in the air as her host leaned toward his wife, who, being taller than her husband, had to lean down, pressing her forehead to his, to hear his whisper of, “They’ve left. They will all be in place by this evening.”

  “Our time?”

  “Their’s, my love. Sorry. We have four hours. We’ll go after lunch, start the conversation.”

  At the word “conversation” Ellen felt the same chill she would have had if Elgin had instead said “slaughter.”

  “If all goes well…”

  Ahoo cut in, “Amra won’t let it go well.”

  Elgin paused now, a pained look crawling across his face before sauntering off into the ether. “If all goes well, we will be back before dinner. If not.” He sighed then, “If not, we will be back by dawn.”

  Ahoo gave her husband a look, one that made Ellen more uncomfortable to have witnessed.

  “All of us.” His voice took on an odd resonance, the flecks green in his hazel eyes kindling to a yellow life. “All of us will return home by dawn, my love.” His eyes held the pain of ages that Ellen couldn’t even begin to imagine the depth of.

  His wide mouth curled into an adoring smile as he looked up at Ahoo. Ellen levied Ahoo the intensity of love her husband obviously had for Ahoo in that moment that made her heart ache. Elgin then looked at Ellen. His expressive, if now muddy hazel eyes, captured her at once where she sat.

  “Miss Ellen, I’m sorry to have to leave you on your own for a while later today. After lunch I’ll have one of my daughters take you to the safehouse. You will be under the strictest of protections at the house on Franklin.” He then smiled at Ellen, and while she felt not at all attracted to the, frankly, simian looking little man, she was swept up in a feeling of trust that she couldn’t quite fathom.

  “How does the story end?” She didn’t know where the request came from, but it popped from her throat like a maddened jack in the box.

  Looking up at his wife again, “Ahoo, could you bring me a cup of coffee?”

  Ahoo was gone from the room faster than Ellen could perceive, and Elgin was now moving to sit in a smaller chair from the many odd choices in the room. The twisted wood of the odd chair creaked slightly as he sat.

  Letting out a sigh of contentment, Elgin looked at Ellen, and said, “Ah. Yes. The story.” He smiled kindly. “We have a little time before lunch. Okay.” He rubbed his hands together and then clapped them sharply causing Ellen to jump where she sat.

  The room around Ellen disappeared, as the walls of a small stone burst into existence around her.