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.”

Our story thus far: Oh, it’s complicated. Just go back to Chapter 1, and at the bottom of the page under the “Published by Warren Bluhm” paragraph, click on the next chapter. Repeat until you’re back here. 

“OK,” Dejah said then. “Let’s just assume that the Evil One is coming, and he has at least a couple of worblatts and that big whoever-he-is guy working for him. What do we do?”

“I’m going to go inside and hide,” Summer said.

“Right. Good dog,” Dejah told her little sister. “As for the rest of us, who do we have to defend the universe? My dear Daddy, who’s a pacifist but at least he feeds us twice a day, an elfin being of some kind —”

“I would tell you the name of our kind, but you couldn’t pronounce it,” Grenn said with a grim smile.

“Hey! Like Spock,” Dejah said, and seeing the look on my face, added, “I told you. I watch Star Trek with you. Can you watch it more often, please?”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I promised.

“All right, so in order of appearance — not counting the worblatt foot — and darn it, Daddy, pick up the yard when this is over! — we have Grenn, the eagles, Seth the Dragon, and the great buck and his family,” Dejah said, and calling to the white-tailed deer family, asked, “What are your names anyway?”

“Names? We have no names,” said the buck. “We know who we are.”

“Holy cow, an obscure Fantastic Four reference,” Grenn said.

“You know the Fantastic Four?” I gasped. “That’s impossible, man!”

“Yes, it is,” the elf said with an appreciative smile. “Good one.”

“What was that all about?” Seth asked.

“If you know, you know,” said Grenn. “Moving on, I could probably get a few of my friends together to handle this thing.”

“And the deer world is with you,” said the doe.

“And as you can see, I have already mustered my finest warriors,” the eagle said, indicating the convocation of eagles perched along my rooftop.

“You figure we’re going into battle, then,” I said uneasily.

“What else does one do when our world is threatened with extinction?” asked the eagle. “We defend our homes!”

“We don’t even know if the prophecy is real —” I began.

“Blasphemy!” one of the eagles screeched. It was the same eagle who had screeched that word, before. Perhaps it was the only English word he knew.

“— and even if it is, we don’t know if today is the day it predicted!” I finished.

“What day is that?” asked Summer, whose short-term memory is almost as bad as mine.

The elf, the dragon and the head eagle grew serious and chanted in unison, ““In the time of magic there will come a day when the dimensions merge and tongues are unlocked to a human. Be on watch against the Evil One on that day, lest it consume all in its path.”

“You really think this is all about that?” asked the buck.

Grenn looked at the four deer with a frustrated expression, which then softened. “Oh, that’s right. You’re new here. Yes, we’re thinking this might be the day of the great prophecy, especially since —” indicating yours truly — “he usually can’t understand a word any of us says.”

“Oh — ‘tongues are unlocked to a human’ — I see,” said the doe.

“So we’re on watch against the Evil One, to keep it from consuming everything in its path,” said the dragon.

“What do we do now?” asked one of the fawns.

“We wait,” the lead eagle said.

I put an affectation in my voice and added, “And wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. And wait.”

“That reminds me,” Summer said. “Can we watch Casablanca again when this is over?” 

“I wouldn’t have taken you for an old movie buff,” Seth said.

“I’m not. But I think Claude Rains is a hottie,” said Summer.

The eagle looked perplexed. “Clawed rains? How do you claw rain?”

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.