Monsters & Aliens | by Rebekah Bourgh

General Summary

“But you can’t leave again,” Zara pleaded with her grandmother. “You just got back.”
Tala smiled at the nine-year-old and continued tamping tea leaves into her tin.
“You haven’t even told us about your last adventure,” Witt said.
“There really isn’t much to tell,” Tala chuckled. “Two days ago, I went for a walk in the woods with Aunt Tess, Teju, and Brute, because a professor hired us to find a secret. Brute moved some rocks, we went into a cave, and found a telepathic shapeshifter who was friends with Aunt Tess. He told us the secret and came back with us. Then we found out that Miss Saiylar had taken her Flaw back into the woods where she found it because she had seen an alien spaceship and wanted to get a better look.”
“There’re no such thing as aliens,” Zara interjected.
“Who’s telling this story?” Tala asked. “Miss Saiylar went looking for aliens and found one called a Ixobrychid and it ate her up. But she’s okay,” she hurriedly added, and her three grandchildren heaved a collective sigh of relief. “She was pulled into a pocket dimension inside the alien and found some fascinating numenara. I was almost pulled in yesterday when we fought the beastie and rescued her. Then Colonel Blaster roasted the corpse and we all had tea and calamari and we started a forest fire but put it out before it got out of control. Vincent was impressed with the fire, or so I hear. It all ended well.”
She closed the tea tin and reviewed her supplies thoughtfully, then smiled at her young audience. “Now, Mr. Greth had a real adventure. While we were coddiwompling through the woods, he went to the hospital to investigate some strange deaths. Corpses were found in dark rooms completely drained of all bodily fluids. Ghastly.”
“Vampires,” six-year-old Rose whispered.
“There are no such thing as vampires,” Tala corrected. “They were Incona. He fought off two of them and narrowly escaped. He reported his findings to the authorities who promptly evacuated and closed the hospital because they object to anyone except doctors removing blood from the patients. Now we’re going to find the monsters and get rid of them.”
“Mother, don’t tell them stories like that,” Jim said. He had entered the room in time to hear about the hospital monsters. “You’ll scare them.”
“We’re not scared,” Zara and Witt said indignantly, and Witt added, “We’re going to be adventurers when we grow up, so we need to know about stuff.”
“That’s what school is for,” Jim replied, smiling. “And you’re late.” The kids grabbed their book bags, hugged father and grandmother goodbye and ran from the room. He chuckled, shaking his head. “We received a dispatch from that friend of yours who started a cult.”
“It’s not a cult,” Tala said.
“Yes, it is.”
“Hmm, they have their headquarters around here. I’ll just go over later today and join them, then I’ll know for sure.”
“Mother!”
“It’s not a cult.”
“Okay. Apparently, they found a village of people who were turned into…pigs? She destroyed whatever was transmutating them, so that’s good. Yesterday she helped a man work out a payment plan to get out of a massive amount of debt. Hope that works out. And she also found some quovers that were haunting two kids. Some of her men volunteered to host the quovers in their minds. Ask her how that’s working out the next time you see her, would you? I need to get to the office, and you’re off to, I don’t want to know. Just be careful, please.”
Tala patted his cheek. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Report Date

18 Jun 2021