Gaia's Secret by Barbara Kloss Page B

unable to believe my
eyes. I had just witnessed two people walk through a solid, granite
wall. That had to be a major violation of at least a dozen laws of
physics.
    Alex stepped forward, pausing beside me. He
didn’t speak or glance at me, just stood there staring after his
parents. I thought he was waiting for me, letting me go first to
make sure I didn’t change my mind and run off. But he walked on,
swallowed by the rock.
    The golden lettering began to spark and fade.
If I didn’t hurry, I’d be stuck here alone taking an unwanted
shower. Besides, what was the worst that could happen? I’d run into
a rock wall. As long as no one saw me, I could live with that.
    Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and
stepped away from my world into the unknown.
     

Chapter 6
Gaia

     
    I winced, preparing
to smack hard into the wall. Instead, my foot landed on solid
ground. The air was so damp it tasted wet and my clothes were heavy
with dew. I lifted my eyelids slowly. Everything was dark except
for a golden haze in front of me. Before I could wonder where I
was, I heard voices from the glow.
    “Where’s Daria?” It was Cicero, but his voice
sounded muffled and distorted, like he was talking underwater.
    I took another few steps towards Cicero’s
voice. When he spoke again, his words were clear. “You were
supposed to wait for her!”
    The darkness vanished and I ran into
something, hard. My arms flailed as I tried to keep myself from
falling. Something gripped my shoulders, holding me upright.
    “I’ve got you.”
    I glanced up into Alex’s face. Amusement
sparked in his eyes but quickly faded back to cold nothing. He
released my shoulders and stepped aside, exchanging a quick glance
with his father. Cicero’s face was bright red, but when he looked
at me his frown disappeared.
    We were standing in a large, round stone room
with an arched ceiling. The walls glistened and glittered from
torchlight that splattered upon moist rock, and the air was stale
and heavy with mildew and smoke. Torches hung on the wall,
separated by large stone doors spaced at intervals around the room.
They all looked exactly the same, no handles or markings, just
sheets of smooth rock embedded in the circular wall.
    But that wasn’t the only thing I found
strange.
    There was life to this room—a life force I
could feel—and I could hear distant voices. They were coming from
the doors, pleading in whispers, begging me to pass through. A
shudder ran through me. “What is this place?” My voice echoed in
the empty chamber.
    Cicero studied the various doors, his
forehead creased in concentration. “The boundary. It’s necessary to
keep people from coming in and going out.”
    My fingers trailed the surface of the cool,
stone door we walked through, trying to find some unique
marking—anything that would set it apart from the others—just in
case I needed to go back. Intuition told me I didn’t want to be
caught choosing the wrong door.
    “It doesn’t matter.” Cicero was watching me.
“What lies beyond them shifts regularly. If you pass through the
wrong door, you may never find a way out, and because of that, only
those like myself attempt to cross.”
    I knew I never should have followed them in
here, but it was too late now.
    “One of these doors leads to this…Gaia?”
    Cicero nodded as he took a blanket from Alex.
I soon realized it wasn’t a blanket at all; it was a cloak. The
wool hung to Cicero’s feet, making his broad shoulders look broader
and his hidden physique more threatening. It reminded me of the
strange man I’d seen in the fields. That was only yesterday, the
same day Dad disappeared.
    Alex stood before me, holding a pile of
wool.
    “I don’t need one, thanks.”
    The flickering torchlight sharpened the
angles in his face. “Put it on.”
    I ripped the wool from his hands. He arched a
brow but said nothing else.
    “We need to hide our clothing.” Sonya was
already cloaked. “The style is…different on the