Green grass stretched out before them in a world that looked bright with late afternoon sunshine. They heard the faint roll of the sea somewhere, but they could not see it through the door. They smelled the fresh air and the aroma of growing grain which they could barely make out off to their right. They felt a touch of the cool breeze that wafted through the meadow on a lazy afternoon in late May. The grass looked freshly cut or grazed. Beth judged grazed, from the medieval dress of the two people who stood some hundred yards off down by the grain. It seemed hard to tell, exactly, because those people had their backs to the door; but they looked medieval, and the grain looked like early grain, barely up to their knees after a March planting.

“Creepy,” Chris breathed.

“Cool!” David yelled. To be sure, yelling was David’s normal volume. “Look at the castle.” It sat up on a hill, well beyond the people. There were more towers and spires than any of them could count, including some that reached right up into the clouds. The castle walls looked formidable enough to withstand any army foolish enough to assault them. A clear stream came from somewhere inside the castle grounds and wound lazily down the hillside, around the occasional clump of trees, until it reached the meadow. By then it became a very small river which found the sea somewhere behind them. Beth looked behind, but all she could see was the kitchen.

The scratching came again, and this time it sounded definite and pronounced.

“Did you guys leave Seabass trapped in Mom and Dad’s closet all afternoon?”  Some scorn entered Beth’s voice, but before the boys could answer, she stepped around the corner. Chris shook his head. David pointed, but Seabass had gone from the couch.

They found the cat under the couch, shivering and afraid. With James’ help, David got the cat out and then held the beast securely in his arms as overweight, gregarious, love everyone Catbird, the golden retriever, began to growl. Beth screamed and the boys heard a tremendous crash in their parent’s room. Beth made it to the bedroom door, slammed it shut. She held the doorknob and poked her head around the corner to the living room.

“Run!”

The boys just stood there.

Catbird began to dance and bark his head off at whatever was behind the door. Seabass tried to wriggle free to follow Beth’s instructions, but David held the cat tight. Chris stared with his mouth open. James had the good sense to step through the door and on to the green meadow. That movement broke the spell; that and the sudden crash against the bedroom door from the inside which almost made Beth lose her grip, and which came punctuated by a loud crack. The wood door looked ready to give way.

Chris grabbed David to keep him from running down the front hall and out the front door. He shoved David after James. Then he grabbed Catbird by the collar, and carefully, because the dog had become agitated beyond belief. Chris nodded to Beth as he dragged the dog toward the golden door, and only paused when he got to the place where the door and rug met.

“Come on!” Chris screamed at his sister and went through, even as a second crash came against the bedroom door.

“There’s more than one!” Beth screamed back.

“Hurry!” The golden door started to close of its’ own volition. A third crash, and the bedroom door came to pieces, but it held together in sharp and ragged edges long enough to keep back whatever growling, snarling, roaring beasts were trying to get at Beth. Beth managed a good scream as she ran and dove through the doorway. They heard the roar of the beast echo in the house before the golden door slammed shut and they were no longer in the world.

Beth chalked up her spinning head and queasy stomach to having just escaped with her life, but as she turned from the door to look at the boys, she noticed they all looked as pale as she felt. Chris started looking around, but it seemed hard to tell if he could focus on anything. David, fallen to his knees, looked sick to his stomach. James just sat, his head in his hands, until he looked up at her.

“I feel like I died.”

“That’s all right.” Beth comforted her littlest brother. “We made it. We’re safe.”

“That’s not it.” James pointed into the west.

Beth turned to look. She shaded her eyes as well as she could against a sun which sat low in the sky, ready to set in a couple of hours. She saw the sea, closer than she imagined. A wide, sandy beach started some twenty yards off; but at the moment, it got hard to gaze in that direction because the sun glistened off the water with such intensity it made her eyes tear. She got ready to turn back to her brother when she realized what he pointed at. The golden door had vanished.

“Chris?” Beth called to get her brother’s attention.

“Catbird and Seabass disappeared when we came through, just like the door,” Chris said.

“They ran off?” Beth wondered, but James shook his head, so she knew they vanished and were not going to be found, just like their dad, and now maybe their mom, too.

David touched her shoulder. Beth reached out and hugged him, which was what he needed at that moment, and then she included James in her hug, and Chris bent down to add his arms.

“What was that thing?” James tried to ask.

“What will happen when Mom comes home?” David’s voice drowned out his brother’s natural whisper. “It will eat her.”

“No,” Beth spoke quickly. “I think the reason Mom was not home when we all got there is because she is already here.” She looked around and wondered where “here” might be. She looked up at Chris, in need of his support.

“Mom is probably here already, and Dad too, I think.” Chris did not sound sure about what he thought, but he tried to speak with conviction to not frighten the younger two.

“But where are we?” James tried again.

“Maybe Mom and Dad are in the castle,” David suggested.

“Maybe.” Beth stood, so the others stood as well. The feeling of having died faded. “Maybe those people can help.” Without another word, they began to walk toward the distant field of grain.

The men beside the field looked away from the sun. They appeared to be studying the grain, like they were watching it grow. But there was no way they would have ever seen the children through that glaring sun, even if they turned around. Thus, the children got close before the mind trick Beth played with herself suddenly let go and things came into perspective. She had imagined two men by a new-May field full of short stalks just sprouted from the ground. As she approached, she came to see the field as fully ripe and tall, despite it being May. That meant it likely stood taller than Chris, the tallest of the four children, and that meant the men had to be fifteen or twenty feet tall.

“Giants,” James whispered.

“Creepy,” Chris agreed, and he clamped his hand over David’s mouth before David could say anything too loud.

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MONDAY

Four young people escape the monsters by going to another world, only this other world appears to be full of giants. That might not be an improvement. Until Next Time, Happy Reading.

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