Debbie's Choice

By Steve Messman

Twenty years ago, a mystical orb prophesied that Debbie would return to the magical world of ants and spiders in order to bring Brian home. That was eight years before Debbie was born, and in all of her life, Debbie had no idea who Brian really was—except from her mother’s farfetched stories. Debbie’s Choice is the essential sequel to Grandpa’ Portal.
A young girl of twelve, Debbie suddenly finds herself faced with many life-changing decisions. Her mother, Hannah, tells Debbie that it is time to enter Great Grandpa’s magical world. Hannah insists that Debbie must fulfill the orb’s prophecy by bringing Brian home. Debbie refuses; from having heard her mother’s stories, she is fully aware of the prophecy and the terrifying dangers supposedly manifest in this strange world. Destiny will not allow this to be Debbie’s final decision. She tries to hide from the reality of what her mother has asked. Tucked in a corner of Great Grandfather’s closet, pouting in the darkness and sulking behind old-smelling trouser legs, Debbie discovers a tiny crack in the wall. That crack turns out to be a concealed door, and the door has a very special lock that Debbie swears was engineered by elves. She is suddenly captivated, and now she has a mystery to solve. Debbie soon stumbles upon a stone necklace that possesses inexplicable warmth. That necklace, she recognizes, is essential to unlocking the hidden door. Behind the door—a secreted diary.
That ancient diary is well over a hundred years old. It contains entries by dozens of people, all of whom have mysteriously vanished from the earth, all of whom have disappeared through Great Grandpa’s magic portal. She finds that Great Grandfather was the most recent person to have disappeared. There are many more mysteries: an evil presence that Great Grandpa can’t yet describe, how the portal keeps drawing a person back, and how Great Grandfather knew about Debbie 40 years before she was born. Debbie decides that the great sum of mysteries is worth following. She succumbs to her mother’s wishes and steps onto the path that Great Grandfather blazed over twenty years earlier.
Leaping through the portal, and risking never returning, Debbie enters an impossible world where she finds her mother’s truth. She is smaller than the ants and spiders that immediately attempt to capture her. Every minute becomes a struggle for survival; every movement signals her location; every breath could be her last. The madman, Feloviel, is in charge of this strange world. He controls entire armies of ants and spiders. He controls at least one other tiny human, Rathbone. He easily captures Debbie, but for a reason yet unknown, the madman and his minions keep her alive. She finds, once again, that the necklace is the key.
The adventures that follow include horrendous battles, sudden deaths, missing keys, mysterious orbs, ripples in time, and more. Debbie finds help, and with assistance, she endures while learning how to fight, eat bug meat, and tend wounds with spider webs and slug slime. Those trials teach Debbie many lessons about such values as honesty and strength, good and evil, loyalty and justice. Most importantly, she learns the importance of following one’s heart. Combined, those lessons line the path that Debbie must soon follow to her destiny.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Messman
• Release date: Apr 14, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301169818

Steve Messman

Steve Messman has had quite the life, even if it can be summed up in only a few phrases. He was raised in a small town in Indiana, graduated from Indiana University at Bloomington, spent twenty-one years in the U.S. Army while being married and raising two wonderful boys, and spent ten years teaching the middle-school grades. During these years after teaching, he has been fortunate enough to change the direction of his life—twice. The first change was when he decided to become an author. Steve self published two novels. The first is a very “dark” and suspenseful crime novel: Double Sided. The second novel, The Gas Conspiracy, is not quite as dark, but is just as suspenseful. Both of these novels met with critical acclaim from readers. The second change of direction occurred when Steve decided to write fantasy and children’s books instead of crime novels. He spent three years perfecting two novels in a genre he calls science fantasy. Grandpa’s Portal takes place in your own backyard, thus the fantasy. And if you liked this one, Debbie’s Choice, the sequel, expands Grandpa’s magical world to include a shift in time and space. Steve will be publishing a couple of children’s stories very soon. Written for very young readers, these humorous stories continue Grandpa’s antics. They contain approximately 1000 words, twenty pages, and ten pictures. These stories bring to life a series called “Grandpa’s Tall Tales.” Read excerpts at www.stevemessman.com.

Book preview

Debbie’s Choice

by Steve Messman

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What the Beta Readers are Saying

Amazing! I can’t wait until Pixar makes a movie of this book.

There were times when my heart was beating way too fast.

Debbie's Choice was GREAT! I loved the characters in it and the way they drew me back into the story line in Grandpa's Portal. Feloviel was the best character for me in the book and I know that my grandkids will love this book!

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Copyright Notice

Debbie’s Choice

by Steve Messman

Smashwords edition

Copyright 2012 by Steve Messman and Messman Family Enterprises, LLC

Discover other titles by this author at https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/stevemessman

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Table of Contents

Prelude

1. Choice

2. The Bedroom Closet

3. GG

4. The Lock

5. The Diary

6. Debbie’s Trip In

7. Hannah Sees

8. Rathbone

9. Feloviel

10. Translucent Death

11. Helplessness

12. Hannah

13. The Page

14. The Book of England

15. Hannah and The Portal

16. The Coliseum

17. Rescue

18. Debbie Begins to Learn

19. More of Debbie and Brian

20. A Wrinkle In Time

21. Uncertain Death

22. The Great Save

23. Putting Pieces Together

24. Question: How Many Futures Are There?

25. Debbie With GG

26. On Cars and Swimming

27. Debbie Gets the News

28. Portal Number Two

29. The Old Man Needs Convincing

30. Debbie Goes Back In

31. Hannah Bales

32. Hannah’s Drive Home

33. The Coliseum—Again

34. The Wreck

35. On The Run Back

36. The E is Discovered

37. Scorching Death

38. All the Pieces Come Together

39. Choose Love and Life

40. Back Home

41. Grandpa

42. Final Plans

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Prelude

Debbie’s Choice begins exactly where Grandpa’s Portal ends. I’ve reprinted the last chapter of Grandpa’s Portal here. This is one ending that makes a perfect place to begin. If you have not read it, Grandpa’s Portal is available for free at your favorite e-book store or from www.smashwords.com.

The Last Chapter of Grandpa’s Portal:

We all lived through it. We survived the pain and agony of telling our parents about finding Grandpa, of explaining that Brian stayed behind. We all lived through the fact that no one believed us—ever. We had no choice in that, either. I said that wrong. We really did have another choice. One was just more appealing than the other. This was actually our first real life lesson. We always have more than one choice. The consequences of the choices we make are what matter. Sometimes the consequences are very significant, so much so that it’s too easy to believe there’s only one choice. But there’s not. There never is. There are always choices.

Even after all these years, I know that Grandma never believed us. It is a pretty amazing story: one of shrinking people, giant mice, and intelligent ants. If I were in Grandma’s shoes, I know what I would have believed. Grandma humored us kids, but I know she never really believed us. Believing us, or not: it was a choice she had to make. I guess it was easier for her to believe that Grandpa had been dragged off by a cougar than it was for her to believe he walked through that portal because he wanted to. Me personally? I would have believed Grandpa went through the portal. That’s who Grandpa was. He owned life. It was his passion. The next thing to build. The next leap. The next adventure. That was your Great Grandpa, Debbie.

Brian and Sarrah’s parents never recovered from Brian’s disappearance. Even today their faces are hollow; their enthusiasm for life is gone. Life for them is just one lonely day after the other. That’s the choice they made. They could have made different choices, too. Sarrah lives that truth every single day.

Choice. That’s what brings us to this point, Little One. This is the perfect place to have told you this story. The colonnades are still visible in the forest just like they were when we were kids, not overgrown or hidden. There’s the portal. You can see it today just as we saw it the day we went through. And there, Debbie. There is the giant maple tree, even larger now than it was so many years ago. That’s where I think you’ll find Brian, and if he’s not there, he will have left a clue. He did say there were others. He’ll have looked, or he’ll be looking. And here are your swords, two of them. One for you. One for Brian. You have to have at least one in order to return, and after all these years, Brian may have lost his. Before the three of us left, Brian found other weapons far more to his liking than these swords. He probably sees no need for them anymore.

I’ve watched you so closely, Debbie. I’ve watched you grow into a beautiful young girl these past twelve years. You are so beautiful. So smart. You grew up having insights no other girl your age could even come close to. You know what it means to make good choices, selfless choices. You know what it means to live. To love. To have passion. I have dreaded this day. But it’s here. I told you the magic of the orb was an illusion, and I still believe that with some exception. The value of the orb’s teachings, as in all teachings, isn’t in what the instructor says; the true value is in what the student ultimately chooses to do. The orb had a roundabout way of teaching me the importance of our choices and the magic of what’s in our hearts. Grandpa already knew that; and we just had to learn it.

A little while ago, I told you that the orb said something to no one but me. Remember?

Greetings to the queen mother. There are many secrets yet to be learned. This is the secret of the second promise. Listen carefully. Act accordingly. Remember. The second alone will give the first. The first given will be most versed. That one alone will know the way to bring the lost one home to stay.

I remember those words as if they were given to me yesterday. I dream about them. I have always dreaded the day they would be made to come true. This day. The day that you, my first, must be given. Brian never came back on his own. That means it’s up to me—and to you. Me to give. You to bring the lost one home. Both of us to choose. Both to make the selfless choice.

I know you can do it. I just hope you find it an easy task. I’ll be waiting for you on Grandma’s deck. Remember that I’ll always love you. Remember your heart.

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And now,

DEBBIE’S CHOICE

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1. Choice

Her hair soaked up much of the sweat that dribbled in tiny rivulets down her forehead and off her nose. Those strands, those that were soaked and stuck, weren’t really blonde at the moment, but more of a soggy brown. The dry parts of her hair were a beautiful blonde, though, and it wafted lazily in the gentle breeze and the softened sunlight that filtered through maple leaves and fir trees. The structure of Debbie’s twelve-year old face was just beginning to change. Adulthood was approaching all too fast. She was still a child, though, dressed in her ever-present t-shirt and jeans. Sometimes, more often than not, she wore either a vest or a jacket, but not today. She was aware of this trek with mom before her day began, and she knew the trip was going to be hot. Today, she dressed strictly for comfort, but it wasn’t working. She wasn’t comfortable.

Debbie stood directly in front of that strange tree and stared straight into the heart of its roots. This was the tree that her mom had been describing for the past who-knows-how-many hours? This was the tree with square roots. The one that supposedly contained some sort of magical power that only a handful of her relatives, and no one else on earth, even knew about. She stared through those tree roots for a length of time measuring a dozen heartbeats, and then she allowed her eyes to trace the path that led out of these woods and back to the house. Choice! Debbie recalled the end of her mother’s story. Choice! she repeated to herself, this time aloud. My choice to make. She began to formulate the opinion that normal people probably thought her mother was just a tiny bit crazy. Maybe mom IS a little crazy; she thought. After all, mom did just spend most of the day describing her own passage through this magical gate. She talked about taking sides in wars between giant ants and enormous spiders. She told this fantastic tale of nearly being killed by those same monster spiders as they followed the murderous instructions of some long-lost cousin I’m supposed to rescue. Before that, mom went on and on about practically being eaten by a mouse the size of an elephant. And then of course, there was the orb and all its idiotic prophecies and powers! Debbie’s thoughts turned into words, and with each word, Debbie grew more powerful in her resolve and more certain of the choice she was about to make. I’m supposed to believe all that stuff! I’m just supposed to take all of this and believe it on faith alone! Believe the prophecy spouted by some floating Christmas tree ornament that appeared out of nowhere! Just because my mom says so? I don’t think so.

Maybe mom is a little crazy. After all, mom did just spend most of the day describing her own passage through this magical gate. She talked about taking sides in wars between giant ants and enormous spiders. She told this fantastic tale of nearly being killed by those same monster spiders as they followed the murderous instr…Debbie suddenly stopped. Her mind went blank, and her eyes focused on nothing at all. She stood as if to await a blast or a shot or some other devastation. Wait! I just said that! She thought to herself as she paused again. Exactly that! Debbie turned to look at her surroundings much as an owl does: head only; not a single other part of her body moved. Between shallow breaths, she could see that everything appeared the same as it was seconds ago; no bomb exploded; no bullets whizzed past. Everything looked to be normal, but something was definitely different; she could feel that deep inside. This place is just too weird, she thought as her mind shook off the sudden and unexplained interruption.

Debbie continued the game of reasoning with herself. And mom wants me to go through that gate by myself? To face the same dangers she supposedly met? Possibly even dangers she didn’t meet? Alone? Why would I ever want to do that? Her thoughts turned to words. Why would I ever go back in there to save a cousin I’ve only heard about in far-fetched stories? Who even knows if any of this is real? MOM! C’MON! I’M ONLY TWELVE! Those last words practically echoed off the giant maple tree. Debbie shrugged deeply; her head sank between her shoulders as if to dodge the bouncing words. She glanced around; her eyes darted quickly, but they held furtively to each tree for the tiniest fraction of a second. Finally, after checking behind one more tree, Debbie was certain that no one else was around. No one heard her tirade. Of that, Debbie was certain—sort of. She took one more fleeting glance just to make sure there were no tiny creatures either staring at her or listening to her angered rampage.

Really, mom! Really! Face all those unknowns alone? Go somewhere I don’t know? Do something I can’t imagine? Convince a person I’ve never met to come home. After how many years? Twenty years? Twenty-five? You’re really asking me to do these things? Really? There was no response other than the one in her head. She chose to ignore that one.

Debbie kneeled down in front of her mom’s magic gate, the portico, that strange-looking tree with the empty space between its roots. Her hands and her knees pressed into the dirt. She felt the earth give way to her weight; cool dampness pressed through her jeans; leaves, twigs, and specks of dirt stuck to her hands. She lifted her hands to her nose and breathed in the strangeness of the air. She could almost taste the aroma of dank mold and rotten dirt carried by the tiniest waft of earthy air. In a tiny tantrum, Debbie slapped at a nearby mushroom and sent the cap crashing into one of the dead trees her mom called a colonnade. It collided with the rotting bark. The fragile thing fractured into four pieces, not unlike the results of some catastrophic, but perfectly silent, plane wreck. The dichotomy of such a collision was not lost on Debbie. This is a strange world, this world of the woods. There were things that she knew and things that she didn’t know. Things that her mom wanted her to do and things she did not want to do. Choices she could make—or not.

From her hands-and-knees position, Debbie stared through the roots of the portico. She noticed nothing unusual. On the other side, through the opening in the roots, she saw trees, grass, ferns, flying insects, all the signs of nothing going on. Magic portal my eye! Disappearing arm! Right! Debbie said the words aloud in the hopeful knowledge that no one could hear her. I’ll show you, mom! Debbie pinched the tiny devil’s club thorn that Hannah had given her. The finger tips of her right hand turned white from the pressure. Full of strength and anger and frustration, and determined to show mom just exactly how NOT true her tale was, Debbie stabbed her tiny sword through those roots as if her enemy’s heart were the only target on the other side.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH, she screamed! Debbie pulled her invisible arm back with all the strength of Superwoman. She fell backward onto her butt, rolled completely onto her backside and tumbled head-over-heels for twenty feet to the colonnade. She looked exactly like a half flat volleyball that had been given a solid kick into the net. She crashed to a stop on her behind, her spine askew against the dead tree. Debbie stared with basketball-sized eyes, first at her right hand, then her left, then her right, and back again. She patted her right arm with her left and touched every inch from wrist to shoulder. Finally, she whipped her once-missing arm around in the air to make sure it was actually connected, and really hers. Both arms were present and completely intact; however, Debbie’s sense of reality was, suddenly, not.

It can’t be, Debbie spit out moss and dirt in some semblance of a controlled panic. Mom was telling the truth! Her voice rustled more than the dead maple leaves at her feet. It can’t be. My arm was there. Then it wasn’t. Now it’s back. She spat again, another chunk of dirt, and she brushed the bouncing bugs from her arm without giving them a second thought. Mom can talk about her orb and her prophecy and her tiny world and her cousin all she wants, Debbie said, but I am NOT going through that gate! I don’t care how true that fairytale is!

She lifted and reassembled herself from the semi-twisted heap that she was, and she brushed off the smooshed mushroom, the dirt, and the broken sticks. Her head was jumbled with too many unknowns to count, and her heart was filled with the only emotion that did count. Debbie stumbled through the trail and toward the house. For the length of the trip, she mumbled incomprehensible words and kicked ferns and stumps, more than once stopping to massage injured toes. It felt like hours, but only twenty minutes had passed since Debbie’s arm disappeared; then, Debbie saw her mom sitting on GG’s deck.

Hannah smiled as Debbie approached, at first excited to see her daughter returning safely. Then she saw, and she understood. Hannah’s eyes clouded with tears. Y-You didn’t go, she sobbed. You’re not going to bring him back.

I chose, Debbie answered. With her head held high and her eyes piercing the space directly ahead, Debbie trotted straight into the house. You can stay on the deck, mom, and you can cry as much as you want for anybody and anything, but I am not going through your precious portal.

Hannah’s chest heaved repeatedly, and it ached from deep inside. Hannah wiped her eyes and forced herself to take control. She thought of the orb and the words that it had etched into her soul. She was certain that she was correct, certain of the orb’s meaning, and certain she had done what needed to be done.

Greetings to the queen mother. There are many secrets yet to be learned. This is the secret of the second promise. Listen carefully. Act accordingly. Remember. The second alone will give the first. The first given will be most versed. That one alone will know the way to bring the lost one home to stay.

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2. The Bedroom Closet

Hannah felt two doors crash closed behind her, one mere seconds after the other: first, the door to the house; second, the door to the room where Debbie would be hiding. Hannah knew that particular room all too well. It was the bedroom Debbie was using during this visit. It was also the bedroom that Grandma shared with Grandpa when he was alive. Grandma hadn't touched that room since August, twenty-two years ago; in fact, she had not been in it since the day that Hannah and her family drove back to Spokane after Grandpa disappeared. At that time, Hannah’s dad stayed behind to help Grandma through the trauma of Grandpa’s disappearance. Hannah’s dad, in fact, helped Grandma move out of that bedroom. That was the day she lost all hope. Grandma had not entered her old bedroom since that day. She had not cleaned it, nor had she slept in it. She had not even put clean sheets or blankets on the bed. Those who chose to sleep in Grandpa’s bedroom were saddled with such jobs. Grandma, Debbie’s GG, wanted nothing more to do with that room; it held far too many memories. GG wanted only two things to fill the rest of her life: to forget the day that Grandpa disappeared, and to remember all the days prior. Since GG no longer used her old bedroom, she slept in what was once the office. That’s where she was now. Grandpa disappeared in his woods nearly twenty-two years ago. GG suffered through every one of those years, and now she decided to spend her remaining years asleep, dreaming of the past and hiding from the present.

Debbie wedged her body against her bedroom door, securing it against anyone who might try to enter. Minutes passed. No one tried. She sulked across the room and swung the armoire doors open revealing Grandpa’s ancient television set. She pointed the remote at the television to turn the set on. It took quite some time, so much that Debbie wondered if the thing actually worked, but the set’s fuzzy glow finally turned into a picture. The news was on, but Debbie had no interest in it. She didn’t even listen to it. In fact, she muted the sound altogether. Debbie watched a video of two spots moving slowly across the sun. She watched the words that scrolled across the bottom of the screen. Mercury and Venus won’t transect the sun again for another 67,000 years. She turned the set off without understanding why she had turned it on.

Perhaps it was the sudden sense of feeling alone, or maybe it was the drapery-muted light of Great Grandpa’s bedroom that prompted Debbie to consider the consequences of her mini-tantrum. She certainly disappointed her mother. She shattered the sobering peace and quiet that GG expected. Well, it’s certainly too late for a redo; she thought. What was done was done. I’ll apologize later, she reflected, when I’m finished. She stood for a moment to absorb the nearly perfect silence that surrounded her. There wasn’t a human sound to be heard. A jay thumped on the skylight above her, pecking ants, Debbie presumed. A slight breeze brought song to the wind chimes that hung just outside the bedroom window. Other than the tapping and musical tinkling, Debbie believed she could hear the dust settle. Suddenly, the girl shivered. Great Grandpa’s presence is everywhere in this room. It’s like I can feel him. The thought came from nowhere. Every single thing in this room is of him and by him. Great Grandpa even designed and built the bed where he and GG once cuddled. Debbie permitted herself to touch the wood and feel its soft warmth and smooth texture. Even though she had slept in this bed many times, even snuggled in it with her parents when she was younger, she had never really looked at it. It was a simple and beautiful creation. Constructed of pure alder, it was perfect in every way, right down to its natural glow. Debbie stood quietly with her hands on the footboard—until she jerked; a small yelp escaped when she felt the pull of Great Grandpa’s hands guiding the sandpaper along the wood’s grain. Shock caused her legs to crumble beneath her. She settled on the floor and in front of the cedar chest that resided at the foot of the bed. Great Grandpa made that, too. She slowly stroked her hands across the varnished cedar; she felt its smooth softness through gentle finger tips, and she felt her heart settle into a more comfortable speed. It was almost as if Great Grandpa were consoling her, comforting her. She cracked open the lid and inhaled the waft of cedar-scented dust that escaped.

The chest was crammed with what Debbie thought of as simply stuff. Hannah and Debbie spoke of this many times: GG always had a tendency to store lots of things: lots of memories in boxes, in totes, in chests. Now, those memories remain stored and mostly unseen. They remain out of sight and out of mind, but they are never lost. This room was like that: memories hidden behind a closed door. This chest was exactly like