*** Chapter 23 Day 52 The Family ***

“So,” grandfather Aurelio said, “what is it that you wanted to show us?”

The group had returned from the otherworld with something wrapped up in a sleeping bag, it was the one Moses used. He would need to wash it after the presentation. The girls had gone to put up the horses and the boys made a show of carrying the bundle into the house to draw attention to them so that the girls could find something else to cover Maira’s face tattoos.

They talked about what they would do and decided to make a big show of it, whatever happened happened.

They returned just after dinner, when all the men were still gathered at the main table, it worked out, because they didn’t have to gather them up for the presentation.

“Samuel,” Moses motioned to his younger cousin to step forward. The young boy began placing pieces of paper with hand drawn marking in a specific order, displaying a map of their current world and everything they had found on it. There were the villages and other curious things, but there was currently one new addition that Moses pointed to. “Here, we discovered something strange. At first it looked like some ancient stone tablet, but once we got closer it looked a whole lot more like a door on a stone dias.”

“A door?” uncle Lucio asked, confused. “So what’s special about the stone?”

“Well,” Moses said, “that’s the thing. It is an actual door, but not a normal door.”

“What do you mean?” uncle Lucio interrupted him again.

“When you pull on the handle the door moves rather easily,” Moses explained. “Even as big as it looks and there are no evident hinges on it. Once you open it, you open a doorway into another world. We didn’t get to explore it much, but we did find out a few things.”

“Is that thing you brought one of them?” his father, George, asked.

“Yes,” his son nodded. “Samuel remove the map.”

The younger boy started carefully placing the pieces back into a chest, once he was done, he set the chest aside and locked it. It was a custom made chest, the framing was steel and the lock was Moses’, an earth made combination lock.

“Help me David,” he said, and between the two they lifted the sleeping bag bundle and placed it on the table. Several people had to get out of the way and even helped to place it. When they were done Moses unzipped the bag and revealed the contents.

The mood became somber.

There was a loud scream that startled everyone around the table, they looked for the culprit and saw aunt Gloria holding her hands up to her mouth. Other women gathered around and looked into the dining room to see why she had screamed. Others let out different reactions after seeing the thing on the table, while others arrived to check up on the commotion and added to the chaos.

The thing looked like a salamander, but with the build of a humanoid. It was a pale pink color, but the strangest part was that it was clothed. There were obvious battle wounds that were its end, but the idea that there were sentient creatures other than humans was a shocking idea to most of them.

The clothing looked almost like swimwear, but it was made of some sort of extremely soft leather. It also wore some sort of pouch belt around its waist, the leather working on the pouches made them seal up very well to protect the contents from water, as it appeared that the creature was probably amphibious. There were horns on its head that resembled something like gills.

“If those things are out there…,” uncle Raphael started.

“I don’t think they are a danger,” Moses said. He pointed to the wounds. “At least not to us. They appear to have their own troubles. These wounds are scratches and bites that are pretty similar to something like what the white creatures do. We found a small group of them, all dead, this one was the most complete one there. He strapped himself to some high branches, probably too high for the white creatures to reach it, then this one died to its wounds.”

“I see you found something really interesting,” a voice drew everyone’s attention. Santos had entered the house, Maira and Liliana were behind him, they had explained most of what they had seen to him, all except the tattoos. Maira had her face covered up to her eyes with a new scarf. “Do you think it is the origin of those creatures?”

“No,” Moses said. “I thought about that, but the layout of that world doesn’t make sense for the white creatures to thrive there. I think that the gate leads to a world full of this salamander kind.”

“We should seal that doorway,” uncle Lucio said.

“I want to explore it,” Santos said. “Maybe we can find some answers as to why all of this is happening.”

“Its too dangerous,” uncle George said.

“We are already in constant danger,” Santos said. “One day those creatures will come with the bigger ones. One will be enough to kill a few of us before we ever take it down.”

“So you say,” uncle George said. “But, this is far too risky.”

“I won’t ask anyone to come if they don’t want to,” Santos said. “But, I will be going. Anyone who wants to come with me, meet me at the smithy tomorrow morning. I have several sets of armor done, we will gear up before going. Those of you with an already existing set can just come in that.”

“There’s one more thing Santos,” Moses said. He turned to David who started to unstrap his armor. Once it was fully removed, David revealed to everyone his tattooed back. “When we entered the first time we started steaming, but we didn’t see anything on our bodies. It didn’t occur to us to check our backs. Something about that place did that to us.”

“To you too?” aunt Gloria asked, mortified.

“Yes mom,” Moses nodded. “Mine is completely different from his. You have a turtle on your back, Santos, David’s got an axolotl, and I’ve got stars. They are not the same at all, but they appeared after we entered that place. Do you know how you got yours?”

“No,” Santos shook his head. “I got them after the night I had to survive on my own, I got stuck in a predator’s den, and killed a ton of the white creatures. The conditions are totally different.”

“There’s something else,” Maira suddenly spoke up and stepped over where David stood. She pulled down the scarf revealing her face, internally she was terrified, but she did her best to keep her face from showing her emotions. “They don’t all appear in the same place.”

Her eyes were focused on Santos, she was more terrified that he might find her ugly than anything else at the moment. His eyes were on her and there was only curiosity in them, she almost breathed a sigh of relief, but hands slamming the table startled everyone.

“So now you are doing whatever you want too?” her father, uncle Omar shouted. “Didn’t you say you were going to ride the horses?”

“We did,” Liliana said, rushing over to her cousin, who looked like she was about to burst into tears. “We didn’t know this would happen.”

“You are not a boy!” he continued to berate his daughter. “These boys can take care of themselves, but look at you. Everytime you go do something you only ever bring trouble, now you have your face all marked up. Just wait till your mother sees you.”

“I’m sorry…,” Maira said weakly, with everything that’s happened to her she couldn't help herself and her emotions burst forth. Her body shook as the tears started falling, she couldn't hold back the sobs no matter how hard she tried. Then the dam broke on her emotions and she began crying in earnest.

There was something wrong, Santos could feel it, there was a lot of pain in her cries. It was out of place, normally Maira is very strong and not easily affected, this was not the reaction he’d expect from her father yelling at her.

He stepped forward and held her in his arms.

“Everything is going to be fine,” he whispered to her in a voice so low only she could hear. “I will always be here for you.”

Everyone was shocked by Maira’s reaction that nobody said or did anything for a moment. It took a moment for her to calm down and even when she did she continued to cling to Santos. She kept one hand on his chest even as she separated slightly from the embrace.

As everyone recovered they started giving her words of encouragement thinking that the face tattoos had devastated her. Even her father apologized, telling her that he hadn’t meant to shout at her, he was just upset and let his emotions get out of control. That night she decided to stay with Liliana in the main house.