¤ Vera's story ¤

part 1: Deep roots

by Neishai

Vera Kempler stepped off the plane in anticipation. She gathered her pack, filled with every last item she owned. Or rather, everything that mattered. Everything else she had given to relatives, or sold the week previous during a weekend-long yard sale, to which people had flocked, following large white poster boards marked with large bright markers and balloons.

She had never been to Ireland before, but hell, who wouldn't want to get back to their roots? I don't want to know the answer, she thought, 'cause all I know is… I'm here!

What she felt at this moment was indescribable -- or rather, had been to her, before she had actually experienced it herself. The cool, salty wind blew through her dark hair and slapped at her trench coat, and she could smell the wet mossy ground even over that of diesel and concrete. She had never felt so profoundly about any other place, that this somehow was home.

As soon as she had made it away from the airport, she found a green patch of ground, crossed the street and slid off her backpack, dropping flat on her back. She stared with green eyes up into the clouds, a bee buzzing by her ear as it gathered pollen. It flew off as a car drove by and honked, followed by another and another. She sat up and looked around, smirked. "I probably should get off this median."

Hours later, she sat at a table in a local pub sipping some of the local brew. The American assumption -- that it tasted like its contents had been gathered from a peat bog, later scraped from the bottom of the barrel, and had a head thick like meringue -- was not completely unfounded, but she loved its odd taste and texture like she loved a good chocolate malt.

On the tabletop somewhere sat a new journal, one she had been using to record her thoughts and experiences. Covering it and stretched out before her was a map she found in the lobby, one with several points of interest for tourists. What she wanted to see were some druidic ruins, hoping to fulfill a little emptiness she had always felt inside her. It was a feeling combined with some stronger, almost tangible feeling she had felt when getting off the plane. Something beyond that feeling of excitement and relief.

"There!" She circled a spot in red ink, a place about 50...kilometers away (must remember the difference between kilometers and miles, she told herself), a ruin in the middle of the hilly countryside. That's where she would go!

She looked out the window, gazing at the darkening overcast sky. "In the morning."

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Vera stepped out of the car and thanked the kind driver for taking her so far into the countryside. "Thanks again! Are you sure you won't let me pay you for the gas at least?"

But the driver waved her off shaking his head 'no' with a smile. Grinning in return, she nodded and waved as he drove off.

"Finally!" she said with a certain hoarseness to her voice as she jogged up an incline. All throughout the trip she had had this feeling, as if she were being pulled in this specific direction. Now that she faced the ruin, she was certain that she had found something special.

As she approached, the black-haired girl in her green trench coat noticed a pair of individuals, probably tourists of some sort. It doesn't matter, she thought as she entered the rough circle of large, rune-covered stones. She muttered a soft greeting but was otherwise totally engrossed in the ruin.

She moved forward to touch a tall piece of stone. Crumbling and moss covered, it seemed to pulse and tingle with energy. "Oh," she gasped as she touched a second stone with her other hand. With a wisp or two of smoke, a green glow seemed to grow up out of the moss, covering the entire stone, and her hand along with it! A flash of white light from behind and above her, filled her vision as heat crawled up her hand to the wrist joint. She jumped back realizing the heat came from the strange green glow.

She heard a stifled cry and turned to see the two tourists running for their lives. There, in the middle of the ruin was a hole in the very air. She stood, holding her glowing hand and gaping dumbly. Then, getting her wits about her, she stepped around the hole to inspect it.

"Wow," she breathed, hair whipping about her. "Guess I'd better change my name to Quinn." With a smirk, she jumped inside; she and the rip disappeared off the face of the earth. The ruin ceased to glow. There was no unnatural heat left in that cool day. A pair of tourists thought they had lost their minds but decided not to speak of it. Years later, one may have recalled a faint, echoing cry:

"Oh shit…where's the remote?"

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