Chronicles of the Kiridians

For it is written in the Chronicles of the Kiridians:

You will always find the greatest friends in the times of greatest adversary

Those who are true will remain through success and hardship

Those who are false will disappear

It’s safe to say that Raina did not get the President on the phone.

Her arrival was greeted about as well as I had imagined it would have been. We ended up calling 911 because the crazy girl we found at the bottom of the cave was ranting about her father being King of someplace called “Kiridia”. She continued by then ranted about her siblings, more than anyone I’ve ever met. I understand that people don’t always get along with their siblings, but this girl’s hatred for hers runss deep.

The police in our our small town are far from efficient. Instead of waiting for them to arrive, Raina is being escorted onto our bus. It is, I must admit, as funny as it sounds. I’m not sure if she’s genuinely upset by the bus or if she’s just taking her princess act to a whole new level.

“You mean you ride this thing every day?” she asks Joey and me as she sits in the middle seat between us. She had refused to sit near anyone else, much to the other boy’s dismays. “This has to violate some sort of safety law. Also, it smells like a locker room.”

“You mean they have those on Kiridia?” I ask sarcastically.

“Sarcasm is not cute on anyone, Kiera.” she says to me with a glare and a flip of her golden curls, “And in the presence of royalty!” She smooths her dress out on her lap. “Your parents have taught you no manners.”

“My mom tells me that every night at the dinner table,” I put my hands over my eyes acting sad, to which Joey chuckles from the other side of the seat. Raina leans her head back and closes her eyes. She’s mumbling something under her breath, but I can’t make out what she’s saying. Ten minutes pass and she’s breathing heavily, her head leaning on my shoulder.

After a long drive of what feels like forever, we finally arrive back at school. There is a deputy standing near the entrance when we arrive, and he waves when we roll around to the back of the school. Mr. Birdsong rushes off the bus and runs over to the squad car before anyone can get off to go to their parent’s car. His frantic hand movements and gestures tell me all I need to know about how he feels about this situation.

“That man has a terrible mustache,” mutters Raina as she looks him up and down. I glance over with a smile on my face. I hadn’t realized she was awake. “Honestly, I don’t know if I’m being this way because I’m terribly grouchy or just horrendously appalled at the way you Earthlings groom yourselves.”

“You can be appalled at that. That’s appalling to pretty much everyone,” responds Joey as our class starts unloading off the bus. Kids are running to their parent’s cars, excited to tell them the news about Raina, the princess of crazy, who was found at the bottom of a cave during their class field trip.

Like I said before, not many things happen around here. This will probably be the talk of the town for months to come.

Raina clears her throat when she’s had enough of sitting on the bus, and I roll my eyes, getting up from the seat. The three of us walk off the bus and I lead her over to the squad car. Her face has an expression of dread on it as the cop smiles at her.

“Well, hello there Cave Girl,” the deputy waves excitedly as we approach his car. This is probably the biggest case he’s ever seen. His breath smells of chewing tobacco, and the shirt he is wearing is improperly buttoned. “You’ll be coming with me until we can figure out where your parents are,” he says. “We also need to take you to the station for an interview.”

“I will not go anywhere with the weird mustached man,” says Raina, looking at both me and Joey. “Thank you for your kind offer, sir. I’m sure it comes from a place of good-heartedness, but unfortunately, I am not interested,” she looks to me for help, completely oblivious to what’s going on.

“Uh,” the officer scrunches his eyebrows in confusion. “I’m not quite sure you understand the situation,” the quips deputy with a flabbergasted expression. “But you don’t really have a choice.”

“People on Earth seem thoroughly confused by the word ‘Princess’,” Raina rolls her eyes and sucks in her cheeks yet again. She emphasizes the word princess, and I have to hold back a laugh as she angrily resists the urge to tell off the deputy. All of her actions are so over the top it’s hard to stifle any laughter once she gets going. “I will not be going with you! Now, accept this as a royal decree and be gone. Or, if you’d like to make yourself useful, you can get me through to the President. I’m sure he’d be able to help me.”

Now, deputies in a small town don’t normally get this kind of treatment. The worst they have to deal with is maybe underage drinking and the occasional car accident. Direct disobedience to what they’re asking, though? Not in Sanora.

“Mam, I’m not going to ask you again to get into the back of this squad car until we can find your parents,” He opens up the squad door and motions for Raina to get inside the back of the car.

“Good. That’s the whole point of what I just said,” replies Raina as she reaches over to the car door and closes it. You can tell her patience is leaving her the longer this conversation goes on. “Besides, I already told you, my father is King Desmond of Kiridia. When he finds out I’m here, he’ll be over in a jiffy.”

“Well, until then, hop on in,” demands the deputy, opening the door to his car.

This is going to end badly if someone doesn’t step in. I don’t think Raina intentionally means to come across offensive, but people in Sanora aren’t used to being spoken to this way. We certainly aren’t accustomed to people who call themselves “Princesses”. I sigh heavily before I look over at Raina and smile. “Raina, it’s okay,” I interject, hoping my face doesn’t give away this blatant lie. “This is the castle guard of Earth.”

She looks over at him and raises one of her eyebrows, looking back at me. “Seriously?” she asks. Holding back a chuckle, I nod and she rolls her eyes. “Very well,” she moves toward the door and gets into the back of the car. “I should like a warm tea when I get to this so-called station,” she begins to say as she crawls into the backseat of the cop car. “And a bed to lay my head-” The deputy closes the door and Raina presses her face close to the window with an angry look. She tries to open the door, but when it doesn’t budge, she begins to freak out from inside the car.

“THIS IS KIDNAPPING. I DO NOT CONSENT TO THIS!” she screams through the glass. “KIERA! JOHN! HELP ME!”

The deputy looks at us with a frown and tousles his hair. “I am going to have a rough day, aren’t I-” he begins. He turns to walk to the front of the car but stops when Raina opens the back door and steps out. We look at her, surprised, and the deputy is slack-jawed as she stands in front of him with an angry expression on her face.

“That was a rotten trick! If this was Kiridia, I would have your head,” she brings her finger to her neck and makes a cutting motion as she stares daggers into the deputy. “How dare you?!”

“How did you do that?!”

“Never you mind how I did that,” she mocks. “You’ve broken all trust with me, and now I will not go anywhere with you.” The deputy sighs as he pulls the cuffs from his pocket and begins to walk toward Raina.

“Maybe there’s a way that we can work something out?” I ask, moving myself in between the deputy and Raina. “I think there has to be a common ground we can agree on, right?”

A car horn honks and Raina jumps at the sound. Joey and I turn around to see my Dad’s F150 pulling into the school lot. I look around and all of the other students and Mr. Birdsong are gone.

“Oh good, I assume that’s your ride?” she looks over to me. “I shall quarter with you until I figure out how to get back to my siblings,” she walks over to my Dad’s truck and opens the door to the back sliding in. My Dad gives me a weird look from the front seat. The deputy motions for my dad to get out of the car, and sends me and Joey to sit in the truck while he and my dad talk.

“Who is that?” asks Dad as he passes me.

“Please just go with it,” I tell him as I walk to the car.

When we get to the truck, I take shotgun while Joey slides into the back and sits next to Raina. She’s playing with a necklace that I don’t remember seeing her with when she came out of the strange machine, something that Joey and I have left out of the entire story. If there’s something to be solved, we want to solve it ourselves.

“How did you get out of the squad car?” asks Joey as he buckles his seatbelt.

“I told you, your planet is severely behind mine. If I couldn’t get out of a locked door, there would be a problem,” she continues to fidget with the necklace. “I feel visually assaulted after looking at the castle guard for such a long time. Not to mention, the state of his breath should have had him arrested.”

“You have a lot of explaining to do-” I begin to say as Dad opens up the car door and gets in.

“Well, Raina, you’ll be staying with my family until your situation is figured out,” says Dad in a chipper mood.

“She is?” I ask, surprised

“I am?” she squeals excitedly. “It’ll be like a sleepover!”

My Dad laughs as he eyeballs the weird girl from the cave through the rearview mirror. My parents have always been the very go with the flow and chill type. I’ve never given them a reason to be anything other than that. But this choice to house a complete stranger who is talking of another planet is a bit of an overkill for me.

“Well, as long as you don’t expect me to have a pillow fight,” I mumble under my breath as Joey snickers in the back seat.

We drive down the road of our small town. Everyone pretty much lives within walking distance of the high school, but the heat makes it impossible to do so during the summer. We pull into Joey’s driveway. He smiles at his Mom, who sits on the front porch swing and waves to my dad.

“Hey Jerri!” says Dad after he rolls his window down. “How’s the garden coming?”

“Hey, Kyle, it’s going great! Thanks for picking up Joey!”

“Yeah, thanks, Mr. Kyle!” says Joey as he hops out of the car.

Joey’s Mom comes over to the truck and has a small chit chat with my dad. She scrunches her face at Raina when she sees how she’s dressed and gives my dad a quizzical look. “I’ll call Fred and explain later,” he whispers.

I sit back and pull my phone out of my back pocket and begin to fiddle on various apps. Raina leans forward to look at what I’m doing and I pull my phone to my chest. “Has no one told you that looking over people’s shoulders is rude?” I ask her. “As someone who is so focused on manners, you seem to be lacking them, Princess.”

“Oh, please, Kiera,” she giggles, “When you’re a Princess, people don’t correct you. You correct them,” she leans back anyways though, and 5 minutes later my Dad finishes his conversation and we’re back on the road.

“So, Raina,” says my dad as he pulls out of Joey’s neighborhood and onto the main road. “What is the deal with the cave? Do you know how long you were down there?”

“No,” says Raina as she inspects her nails. “It could have been a week, a month, maybe even a year. Edwin probably messed up the flight trajectory and ruined everything. They could be at the bottom of the ocean for all I know. We obviously broke apart upon impact.”

“Who’s Edwin?” I ask curiously. “You mentioned him in the cave.”

“Yeah, and what impact?” Dad asks as he looks at me confused.

She sighs and throws her head back. “Edwin is my oldest brother. Terribly smart, but sometimes he’s too smart for his own good. We get into trouble a lot because his poorly thought out plans fall short. And impact with the Earth’s atmosphere.”

My Dad’s eyebrows raise as he glances at me and mouths the word “Atmosphere?“. I wish I had a little bit of time to warn my dad about the complexity of this girl’s story, but the deputy had to tell him he was in for a treat.

“Yeah,” I sigh. “You didn’t mishear her.”

We drive further down the road and stop at the four-way stop that leads to the entrance of my neighborhood. Raina looks out the window and raises her eyebrows. She blinks repeatedly as we wait for a car to drive past us.

“I wish to go to sleep when we arrive at your chambers,” declares Raina as we turn into my neighborhood. “I am very woozy and need to rest my head.” She mumbles something about “cryosleep” and then goes back to fiddling with her necklace.

We turn onto my street and I wait for her response to the houses around the street. She’s doing her best to not look horrified, but I can tell that deep down she’s a little disappointed that we don’t live in a castle. We pull into our driveway and Dad hops out of the front seat and closes his car door. Raina stays in her seat and just stares at our house.

“Well, this is rather quaint,” she unbuckles her seatbelt and hops out. “Humble even, but where do your servants stay?”

“We don’t have servants,” I unbuckle my seatbelt.

“Oh, so you’re poor?”

“I’ll try not to take that personally,” I mutter as I open the door and get out of the truck. I click the lock button on the front door of the truck and close it behind me. Raina’s purple dress looks far too fancy to be walking into a place like my house. For the life of me, I still can’t understand what this girl’s deal is.

We walk to the front door of my house and into the entryway. Raina’s face looks less horrified as she walks over to the pictures scattering the wall. She runs her hand over the glass of some of the pictures from our family trip to Disney World last year and smiles gently.

“You don’t have siblings?” she asks me.

“No, I’m an only child,” I respond to her.

She walks over to the stairs and puts her face in her hands. She begins to take deep breaths and then picks her head up to look at me.

“Where can I rest?” .

“First, you’ve got to explain yourself,” I remind to her. “This is all too confusing. You say you’re from another planet? Cool, I get it. You’re crazy, but that machine is like nothing I’ve ever seen on Earth. Did you make it? What is it? And how did you open the back of that squad car with essentially nothing? You want a place to rest your head? I want answers. Seems like an even trade to me.”

“Rest first, Kiera,” she pouts, stomping her foot on the ground.

“It’s Kara.”

“Whatever,” she brushes her hand through the air as she stands up and begins marching up the stairs. “I take it your room is this way?” she asks me as she makes a beeline for the hallway once she gets to the top. I run after her, but the girl is surprisingly fast. When I get to the top of the stairs, she has the bathroom door open, looking extremely confused. “How do you sleep on this?” she asks, pointing to the toilet. “That just looks painful.”

“That’s not my room, Raina. It’s the bathroom.”

“Where’s the shower?” she asks me, scrunching up her thick eyebrows. “And the toilet?”

“That big white thing against the wall?” I ask, pointing at the shower confused. “And that tiny thing against the wall right there?”

“Oh my gosh,” she gasps as she walks out of the bathroom and leans against the wall across from the hall. She sinks down to the floor and sits with her knees up, her arms wrapped around them. “I’ve traveled back to the pioneer days. Kara, do me a favor. Just hit me in the head with a rock.”

“Don’t tempt me,” I say as I walk around her and go to the door directly at the end of the hall. I enter my room and leave the door open for her to follow. About two minutes later, she appears in my doorway and closes the door behind her.

“That bed will have to do,” she says.

“Actually, you’ll stay in the guest room,” I pull my phone out and put on the video camera. I point it at her and she holds her hands up in the air.

“What are you doing?!” she says.

“Filming for future reference,” I angle the camera so it has Raina sitting perfectly in the middle. “Now, tell me your story.”

She sighs as she throws her head back in a dramatic gesture. She jumps up and down for a second and then sits down on the end of my bed. Kicking off her flats, she sits criss-cross and then stares at me with a pout on her face.

“The sooner you get this done, the sooner you can rest your head,” I tell her with an amused expression.

“It’s utter ridiculousness that I ended up here in the first place,” she begins, rolling her eyes and finally giving in. “My siblings are beyond mental, and honestly, I want nothing more than to punch them all in their stupid faces. We have been through so much, but this is the situation where the line had been crossed so far I don’t even think they can find their way back to it!”

“Care to explain?”

“You wouldn’t understand royal issues,” she condescends. “I’m not trying to be rude, but this is all really complicated.”

“Try me,” I insist.

“Fine!” she throws her hands to her face. “Try to follow and not ask too many questions.” She readjusts on the bed and glances at the phone sitting on the bed. “That goes off now,” she points. “Or I won’t answer anything at all. This place is small enough that I can find the guest room on my own. This is simply a courtesy.”

I sigh and begrudgingly turn the camera off and place it on the bed. She grabs it and sets it in the hallway. “Now, where to start?” she asks me.

“From the beginning,” I answer.

“Okay, so, King Desmond, my father, was entrusted with the Chronicles of the Kiridians, my people’s sacred text. The passages are all prophecies, full of stories and myths on how to behave, but they also tell of great power and persuasion. They’re only allowed to be accessed by the royal family of Kiridia, and we are in charge of giving the information to the people. One of the stories my father has always been particularly interested in is the Legend of Eternal life. It speaks of a cavern with the gift inside,” she says as she’s looking at me. “Are you following?”

I nod my head and she smiles. “I need to give you more credit. You seem fairly competent.”

“Gee, thanks,” I respond, ushering her to continue her story with my hands.

“Right,” she says, shaking her head. “So, the legend speaks of the pursuer of the cavern having to make a great sacrifice to obtain the gift of eternal life. The book doesn’t go into detail, but the elders of the past have made a monumental amount of books and studies on the myths. My brother, Edwin, being the bright and shining star that he is.” You can practically see the venom dripping out with each word she speaks of her brother, “Claims that he found a book passage where the sacrifice made has to be family members of the one going into the cavern. The cavern is supposedly located on the far side of Kiridia, and my father was planning a trip there right around the time that Edwin found the passage. It was highlighted.”

“That’s not sketchy to you?”

“My Father wouldn’t kill his children!” she says defensively. “He’s a good man, and the only support system I’ve ever had. Other than Nana.” she frowns upon mentioning this person and then rolls her eyes. “Anyways, Anya and Brodie started doing snooping of their own, and Anya found out about a special knife that has to be used in the ceremony. Brodie found out the number of people that have to be sacrificed for the cavern. Though, I’m not quite sure how valuable Brodie’s information is. If studying girls was a class, he’d have an A, but that’s about the only class he would have an A in,” she jokes as she begins to twirl her hair in between her fingers.

“Does your father have the knife?” I ask her.

“Yes,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean anything!” She shakes her head in disbelief before I had the chance to say anything else.

“The last nail in the coffin for my siblings to draw their delusions was that Edwin supposedly overheard my Father talking with his advisors about how to “cover their deaths up,” and “to make it look like an accident.” Instead of doing the normal thing, and asking Dad about it, Edwin decided that we needed to run away.”

“That sounds a little concrete to me. It’s not like he would let you know if he was planning on killing you,” This is all such a complicated and farfetched story. Raina has an active imagination, that’s for sure, but if this is real, I will need some proof to believe her.

“He wouldn’t!” she snarls. She rolls her eyes and then frowns. “Long story short, my siblings broke into my room and asked me to come. I declined, so they picked me up and forced me into the transport pod. Then I woke up at the bottom of the cave, staring at you and your boyfriend.”

“Joey is not my boyfriend,” I defend, probably too quickly.

“Could have fooled me,” Raina replies with a snort. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve had a long day. I’d like to sleep.”

“The guest room is across the hall,” I say, pointing.

She nods and gets out of the bed. “Kara, I expect you’ll keep this information confidential. I suppose you can tell your non-boyfriend, but it needs to stay between us,” she gets up and walks to the door, stopping before turning to face me. “I know that I’m a little bit of a burden...but thank you for taking me in for the time being. I don’t know why, but I really feel I can trust you, Kara.”

Taken aback by her sudden burst of kindness, I raise my eyebrows. “Thank you...and you’re welcome.”

She gives a soft smile and then closes my door behind her as she exits my room. I lean back, planning on taking a nap myself, when the doorbell rings. I stay in my bed with my eyes closed, waiting for my parents to open the door when the doorbell rings a second time.

“Sure, I’ll come downstairs and get it,” I yell passive-aggressively as I hop out of my bed. I walk downstairs and look out the window in the kitchen to see my parents in the backyard. My Mom seems to be laughing while Dad is telling her a story about the day. I smile softly, but then remember the doorbell and run to the door.

When I open the door, I see two men in weird blue jumpsuits. The same symbol that we saw on the Raina’s machine is on their jumpsuits. I instantly feel uneasy about them being at my house when I hear a voice ringing in my ears.

“Don’t trust them, my child.”

I jump a bit from the realization that I’m hearing voices in my head. The voice is calming and nice and leaves me feeling warm. The same feeling of adventure that I felt in the cave resurfaces upon hearing the mysterious voice. Whoever she is, I feel like I should listen to her.

“Do people of Earth speak?” asks one of the men.

“People of Earth?”

“Cut the act, kid,” says the other man. “We are here for Princess Raina,” he places his hand on his belt and I notice a gun in a holster. I take a deep breath and look at them as they ask me again, “Where is Princess Raina?”

“I’m sorry?” I say. “I’m not following.”

The men look at me angrily and take a step forward. I slam my front door shut and lock it.

In this exact moment, I’ve learned two things. The first, if anything inside of me ever doubted Raina, the men standing in front of me surely put that to rest. The second, I need to do everything in my power to keep these two away from her.