Chapter Thirteen: A Tale of Shadows (Part 3, last part of the tale of shadows!) "She did. Two years after you were born, she opened the portal. I assume the Shadowed One did not tell her his full plan, because she never would have gone a long with it. Anyway, it was a dark day when she fully opened it. First his shadows came through. They grabbed me and shoved me through the portal. And then he began to come in. You were there that day, but before the shadows got you, Opal pushed them through the door and shut it down immediately, even though I was still on the other side." James hung his head. "The Shadowed One was only a step away from entering our world. He's been furious ever since, trying to make Opal reopen the portal." On one hand, I was glad the portal was only one-way, but on the other hand it did strand us here. Better than world-wide destruction, of course, but I still wished there was some way to get back. Unless he was lying, like he was with that thing about Aunt Opal being our "real mother". I hoped Rook didn't believe him. Surely she knew Mom would never lie to us. I wasn't really mad at him anymore, but I didn't want him feeding us lies. "How come all the portals are only one-way?" I asked. James frowned. "I don't know. Just like I don't know why there's no light here, but there are shadows and night even on the other side. There's so much I don't know about this world." The other side. I'd give anything to be on the "other side". (Continue Below)
"So.....you're saying..... there's no hope. We're just going to be stuck here for the rest of our lives? Seriously?" I said, disgusted. He'd basically just admitted we'd be here for the rest of our lives without even doing anything. Maybe we could trick the Shadowed One or something. Maybe Aunt Opal could open the portal just long enough for us to dart through. Maybe we could do something instead of just giving up. Suddenly I heard a leaf crunch. We all whipped our heads around. Everything was eerily quiet. Like the quiet before a storm. The sad thing about that is after the quiet, there's always going to be a storm. And what a storm it was. Huge shadows crawled through the illusion tree and crawled toward us. One stopped and turned to us. "Pryors. What excellent shadows you'll make. The Shadowed One certainly has plans for you." Then the shadow continued toward us. "RUN!" Rook yelled. Well, duh. I ran the opposite way. Barely able to see, I looked for a fading illusion. Rook ran behind me. I didn't know where James was, but he was probably fine. The guy had been here for ten years. Then I looked at huge hill in front of us. It was only for a second, but I saw a wisp of a tree when I looked at it. Bingo. "This way!" I yelled to Rook, and ran straight to the hill. Rook looked at me with a questioning expression, then it dawned on her. She nodded. We ran straight through it, even though I was a little afraid it wasn't a real illusion. Then we emerged in another part of the forest. I thought my heart would burst out of my chest. "I-I think we're safe." Rook gasped. Famous last words, because then I heard another voice behind me. "Thought you could esssscape, Pryors?" Chapter Fourteen:
