Our story thus far: As if on cue — I’ve been saying that a lot, haven’t I? — a tremendous lightning bolt struck in the middle of the field, making us all jump, and in the smoking place where the lightning had struck, something began to emerge.
What appeared out of the cloud of smoke was — a man. Just a plain old man in jeans and a T-shirt. And he was smiling kind of a simpering smile that said hey, here I am, I’m pretty cool, who the hell are you?
“Hey folks,” he said when he sauntered close enough to carry on a normal conversation. “What dimension is this?”
“This is reality, Greg,” said Dejah, earning a surprised look from me that she knew another ancient pop culture reference. “What? Do you realize how many times you’ve watched E.T.?”
“Yes, but the question is, which reality is this?” the man said. “And how did you know my name is Greg?”
“Lucky guess,” said my ancient English cream golden retriever, rolling her eyes.
“Wait,” Greg said. “I see a convocation of eagles, some white-tailed deer, a dragon, and a —” he then said a word that had three syllables but involved contorting his mouth, throat and tongue in ways that human mouths, throats and tongues can’t actually do.
Grenn’s eyes widened in surprise. “How did you pronounce my people’s name?”
“Piece of cake in my reality,” said the gentleman known as Greg. “So I’m going to guess this is dimension 5-D.”
“It kind of feels like dimension number 1 to me,” said Seth the Dragon.
“Oh, everyone believes that,” Greg said, “but that’s my dimension. Trust me, you folks are 5-D.”
“Be that as it may,” said the eagle from his perch above it all, “what are you doing here?”
“Taking advantage of the situation, of course,” said the newcomer. “You have noticed, I presume, that I, who am human, am able to understand and communicate with you?”
“That goes without saying,” said Dejah, which for some reason made Greg laugh out loud.
“Exactly,” he said.
“Who exactly did you say you are?” asked Grenn the elf, who seemed more wary than the rest of us, and believe me, we were pretty wary ourselves.
“Why, I just told you, I’m Greg, from dimension #1.”
“Actually, the old dog called you Greg, and you went along with it,” Grenn said. “You’re not who you want us to believe you are. No human from any dimension can pronounce the name of my race.”
The newcomer grinned a wide grin — actually it was a wider grin than any human can muster. His face became rubbery and more elongated, and his skin began to turn a greenish hue.
“I probably shouldn’t have shown off like that,” he said. “I would have fooled you for more than a few seconds if I wasn’t such a darn show-off. Oh well.”
He opened his arms wide, and a bright light appeared above the house. The eagles flew away and began to circle the land as the light grew brighter and brighter.
“Daddy?” On the deck, Summer stepped to the top of the stairs. “I don’t feel so good. I don’t — I don’t know what’s happening.”
She staggered a little, and I took the stairs two steps at a time. “You’re all right?”
The light grew brighter and brighter, and my little girl stumbled into my arms and said, “I don’t want to go! I don’t want to go! Daddy, please.”
The sudden flash was so bright it hurt our eyes, and then it was gone.
And so was Summer. My arms were empty. My dog was gone.
“Seth?” This was the elfin voice of Grenn, which turned into a shout. “SETH!”
The dragon was gone, too.
“What have you done?” This was my voice, and it was Grenn’s voice, and it was the eagle’s voice, and it was the mighty buck’s voice. We turned at once and said it simultaneously to the being called Greg.
“Well, the truth is —” the newcomer said, and he paused as if deciding whether to finish the sentence, and then did: “I am the Evil One.”
