Page 76 of Shaped to Be Yours

“No time like the present,” I said.

The female leshy called to those who had come with us to surround the portal, and they did so, digging their vines into the ground, while the humans huddled around me, Jason, and Bo.

“Um, random aside,” Jason said to the female leshy, “you speak English normally?”

“No,” she answered. “We speak, and those we speak to understand.”

“That is wildly cool. It must be how that wolf could understand me.”

“Jason,” Bo interjected, “this is the leader of our tribe. My mother, Irina.”

“Your… meaning she’s my… ah, crap. I vine-punched my grandma? Uh hey there. Sorry about that. I’m Jason.” He hesitated for a moment and then extended a hand.

Her larger, tree-like hand closed around his for a gentle shake. “Your energy is tumultuous but strong. You are connected to the flora and fauna of your home realm just like our people are connected to ours. I can sense it. I wish I was going to have more time with you, Jason, but I know you do not belong here.” She said it just as much to Bo.

“Thank you, Mother,” Bo said.

“If this works,” I chimed in, “we’ll be able to stabilize the portal for good eventually, allowing travel back and forth. You will see each other again.”

More lightning and thunder and rain erupted. We were going to be soaked by the time we got back.Ifwe got back.

Bo embraced his mother, and Jason let her pull him in too with a swipe of her vines.

The portal was widening but seeming more and more stable as the storm raged and the air around us became oddly still. There wasn’t a pull this time, because the energy was being balanced by however the leshy communed with the land.

Whether Jensen liked that we were his saviors didn’t matter, because everyone else was with us.

“Almost.” I held up a hand for everyone to wait on my signal. “Almost…”

A brighter shock of lightning cracked the sky with deafening thunder, and Irina, Jason’s grandmother—wow, that was cool—joined the circle of other leshy, sending her vines into the ground to further stabilize the surrounding elements. Suddenly, everything was eerily silent, and I could feel the prickle up the back of my neck and down my arms the same way being in the portal room felt. Right then, all the errant static around the portal in front of us calmed.

“Now!”

Chapter 15

JASON

Imet my dad.

I met mydad.

And Mom was right! He never meant to leave us. He loved us and had tried to get back to us so many times. He hadn’t been taken by a monster either. Hewasthe monster. I just hadn’t realized that’s what was happening when I saw him get sucked through the portal. It had looked like he got swallowed by the monster because he’d turned into it as soon as he’d crossed the threshold back to his original home.

I could figure out the rest, even if I couldn’t remember everything clearly. It would have gotten too quiet after the portal closed behind him. Then loud again and scary as the storm got worse. I must have turned back toward the house and ran mylittle feet off, until I finally stumbled at the edge of the tree line and succumbed to crying, where Mom found me.

It was my fault because some piece of myself had been drawn to the portal to another world that was and was not a part of me. If I hadn’t gone to it…

But I wasn’t going down that road. Giving in to guilt that shouldn’t be put on a ten-month-old would only make me suffer more, when this story finally had a happy ending. Dad was back, right by my side as we leapt through the portal after Ricky and the others into the woods of the human realm.

Which were on fire! What the fuck?

“Holy shit!” Ricky exclaimed, rushing to the nearer of the two workstations. “Did the lightning cause this or did someone start a fire?”

The sounds of yelling and chaos were louder than before, but at least the siren had stopped, meaning the worst of the storm must be ending. The injured human guard and the ogre I’d pushed away to prevent her from being taken with us were also gone. Almost half an hour had passed since we’d left, and shit having hit the fan was clearly an understatement.

It sounded like pandemonium in the woods, yet I couldn’t actually see anyone near the portal anymore, other than those of us who’d come out of it. It sounded like the worst of the noise was coming from the lake.

“It’s not the equipment,” Ricky said, having run to the outer workstation after checking the first. “Everything seems to be in working order, and the portal is stable for now. It’ll probably close whenever both storms dissipate, but it shouldn’t accidentally suck anyone else in until we stabilize it for good.”

---