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Henry had gotten used to the long, peaceful car rides across the strange countryside. There was a lot of driving between their destinations. He wondered how people who only traveled by horseback could make such long trips. Driving between bigger cities in the Odyssey often took several days, and the Odyssey traveled much faster than your average horse.
The trips were mostly uneventful. Every hour, they would have to stop so Glenn could hop out and whisper sweet Japanese nothings into the gas cap. Sometimes they would take bathroom breaks during these pauses, although they often didn’t stop for long. Darryl had a bit of road trip anxiety, from what Henry could tell, and every time the fuel gauge tapped on empty, Darryl would groan and question if it really had been a full hour.
Some of their breaks lasted a bit longer. Henry always enjoyed the chance to get out and stretch his legs. If there was a nearby town (that didn’t try to attack the Odyssey on sight), they might drop in a few shops and barter with whatever spare equipment or coin they had. This world had a lot of marvels. Each of the dads had found their own passion to hunt for in the settlements. Henry liked to wander into magic shops and peruse the array of rocks and crystals the shop-keep would insist have imbued magic properties. He didn’t always believe their tales. Instead, he would sort through the gems, picking out the ones that looked the most interesting or ones he thought Mercedes might find pretty. He would then, with Glenn’s help, haggle them down to a modest price. This was easy because Glenn refused to pay more than a copper for a rock. This was also the reason Henry made sure to take Glenn along with him during his shopping ventures. Once the rocks were rightfully his, Henry would step outside into the fresh air and fish a small drawstring bag from his pocket. While Glenn counted the coin left to their name, Henry would drop into his bag whatever new marvels he had just acquired.
“Henry, why do you bother with those silly rocks anyways?” Glenn flicked a finger at the stones in Henry’s palm. He had finished counting the money faster than Henry had expected. “Don’t we have enough of those on Earth?”
Henry bristled at the chance to gush about his interests. The two of them began to walk down the dirt roads of the town to regroup with Darryl and Ron. “Actually, I’ve never seen most of these on Earth!” Henry poured some of the contents of his bag into his hand to join the two newest members of his collection. He pocketed his bag and picked up one of the stones- a translucent blue color with streaks of purple. “Take this one, for example,” he passed it to Glenn, who palmed the stone and looked at it with disinterest. “At first, I thought it might be a sapphire, but I’ve never seen a sapphire stone with that precise shade of blue. Let alone one with bits of purple in it.”
“Do you think its magic?” Glenn asked, holding the gem up to get a closer look.
“Oh, no,” Henry waved his free hand. “I just think they’re neat.”
Glenn rolled his eyes and handed the rock back to Henry. “I can’t believe we just paid for a bunch of ordinary pebbles,” he grumbled, but Henry wasn’t listening.
As they dodged between outdoor stalls and various carts of wares being driven through the streets, Henry looked through the assortment in his hands, marveling at how each of them looked so natural and yet unlike anything he had seen on Earth. He knew- as a scientist- that there was always more to be discovered. One of his greatest hopes was to one day discover some new formation of minerals. Maybe something he could name. Although the likelihood that he would ever be so lucky was small, since he didn’t do field research anymore, and the only time he did any digging was with the boys in their backyard or on the occasional hike with Mercedes. Maybe if he took one of these stones to the nearby university, he could claim the discovery. Although explaining where he found it would be difficult- he always wanted to name a rock after Mercedes.
Regardless of the scientific value of the cheap trinkets he found in local magic shops, Henry felt they were a welcome addition to his little collection. Several years ago, Mercedes had started researching crystals back on Earth. One of their favorite date activities was to take a trip down to their local crystal shop. Henry and Mercedes would walk back and forth through the displays; Henry would explain the minerals and environments necessary to form each crystal, while Mercedes would teach him how each crystal effected your life and the life of those around you. After their first trip, Mercedes had found a little drawstring bag at a resale shop and filled it with each of the crystals they had bought. She had given it to Henry as a gift, and he never left the house without it afterwards.
He was grateful that he had taken the bag with him on the Doodlers’ soccer trip oh-so-many mornings ago. It gave him a physical memento of the wife left behind who he missed dearly. Some evenings, when he was having anxiety about the fate of their lives and their children’s lives, he would pour the stones out and name off each of the Earth crystals. He could hear Mercedes, standing beside him in that crystal shop, explaining the magic possessed in each of them. As he held them in his hands, he could feel that magic faintly resonating, something he had not noticed before their arrival in this new world. Although, there was a lot about himself he had not noticed before.
The two of them arrived back at the Odyssey. Darryl and Ron were already settled. Ron was eating a chicken wing in the backseat and Darryl was drumming lightly on the steering wheel, staring off into space.
“Hey, guys,” Ron paused from snacking on the chicken wing to wave it in their direction. “Find anything cool in that magic shop?”
“No,” Glenn huffed and folded his arms across his chest. “Turns out Henry has just been spending our money on plain ol’ rocks! There ain’t even anything magic about them!”
“I’ve only spent 6 copper pieces.” Henry rounded the front of the van and climbed into the passenger seat. “Just call that my share.”
“Whatever,” Glenn rolled his eyes and bent over to the gas cap to whisper, “Anata wa henrī yori mo kakkoī.”
“Oh, uh, can I take a look at them?” Ron asked as Glenn took a seat next to him.
Henry turned to look at him, reaching into his pocket to grab his bag. “Sure thing, Ron. I really love talking about rocks-“ he halted in his offer when he saw that Ron’s outstretched hand was sticky with wing sauce. “Maybe we could do it tonight over the campfire?”
“Okay, Henry,” Ron returned his interest to his chicken wing and Henry wondered if Ron would remember the offer by the time they stopped to camp that night.
Henry got settled in the passenger seat, clicking his seatbelt across his chest. He and Darryl were the only two who regularly buckled up. Glenn always argued that there were no dangers since there weren’t any other cars on the road. It was a toss-up whether or not Ron would buckle his. The first time the topic came up, Henry had laboriously tried to argue that a good percentage of car accidents on Earth were single-car accidents and that this world was full of dangerous animals that might run out in front of them, but Glenn tuned him out and the argument was dropped.
Henry propped an elbow on the arm rest built into the interior of the door and gazed out the window, watching the regular townsfolk milling about, some of them pointing in their direction, undoubtedly questioning what kind of monster the Odyssey was, but most of them just went about their daily lives uninterrupted. He wondered absentmindedly what sort of mundane little quandaries filled their time and lost himself in thought for a moment before realizing that the Odyssey was still stationary in the field.
He broke his gaze to look at the driver next to him. Darryl seemed to also be lost in thought, staring straight ahead at a man leading a mule as it pulled a cart of wheat into town and completely oblivious to the bits of conversation between Glenn and Ron in the backseat.
“You okay there, Darryl?” He lightly placed a hand on Darryl’s shoulder, which seemed to break him from his train of thought.
“Oh, hey, Henry,” Darryl shook his head and laughed quietly. “Nope, haha, sorry. Got lost in my thoughts.” He turned the key in the ignition. “Everybody buckled? Let’s get this show on the road!”
The Odyssey roared into life and began to move forward, the gravel road crunching under its tires. Henry’s eyes lingered on Darryl for a moment, trying to read his expression. Behind them, Glenn was mid-monologue, recounting the details of one of his band’s exploits to Ron. The radio played a quiet undertone of static.
It was probably late in the afternoon at this point. They had started their journey at the crack of dawn this morning. The sun was beginning to hang low in the sky. Once the sunset started and the Odyssey ran out of fuel for the sixteenth time that day, they would make camp. Meadowshade couldn’t be too much further now.
He could hear Glenn quietly tuning his guitar in the backseat. He would soon be picking tunes to serenade them with for the remainder of the evening. The ambience his performance provided was usually nice, unless Glen got too into it and would start shrieking along with thirty-minute solos.
Ron had used the Hat of Vermin to spawn a rat, which was crawling around in his lap. The animals from said hat seemed to have changed their demeanor towards Ron recently. Henry recalled the first few times Ron had summoned them; it seemed as if their only goal was to get as far away from Ron as possible. Ron had pleaded with Henry to talk to them a few times, to convince them to hang around. The rats, bats and frogs Ron had summoned recently needed no convincing. They would flap, jump, and scurry about in the van- much to the annoyance of the other passengers, but they had an overall warm attitude towards Ron. Even if they did disappear thirty minutes after their arrival. Henry would still converse with them occasionally, a new source of conversation to brighten the dull travel mood. They never had much to offer in response, however.
The road they followed wasn’t much of a road. Henry gathered that this world didn’t have any large, organized governments that expanded beyond the individual townships. Without a government, there wasn’t much need for inter-city infrastructure. Instead the road was merely a path through pasture where the grass had been beaten down by years of horses and carriages traversing the same route.
Their path curved to run alongside a forest. On their right, the trees of the woods danced in the wind, some rapping their branches on the roof of the Odyssey. Henry wondered idly if Erin might be trying to communicate to them through the plants. However, he chalked that thought up to his constant undercurrent of anxiety.
There was a lot of reasons to be anxious in this world. It was already filled with dangers. It didn’t help, either that everywhere they seemed to go they made more enemies. He could list on one hand the people that still liked them: Erin, Walter, Paeden, and maybe MPAA? He wasn’t sure what terms they had ended on with him. He’d lost track of him at their first Bull E. Wug’s.
Their list of enemies, however, was endless. The number of people they had intentionally or accidentally scorned was… frightening. The were due to run into the Library in Meadowshade, and they had no idea what might be waiting for them in Neverwinter if they ever needed to return.
The weather outside grew drearier. The drumming of branches on the roof of the Odyssey was accompanied by a soft sprinkling of raindrops. In the backseat, Glenn started playing Free Bird; Darryl hummed along with his singing and flicked on the headlights.
As they returned to their comfortable road trip dynamic, Henry’s thoughts began to wander. How different was life in this world compared to life on Earth? He felt like it wasn’t too different from growing up on the commune on Earth- minus the magic, of course. He couldn’t recall much from that time. Although he remembered vividly discovering, as an adult, all the technological marvels he had apparently missed out on during childhood. Mercedes had been astonished during their first few dates finding out how little he knew about the various game systems she had grown up with. That realization was inspiration for their binge into retro technology from the 80’s and 90’s- an attempt to help Henry remember anything from his amnesia-addled past. The venture proved to be a failure after none of the classic games sparked any locked-up memories from Henry’s foggy childhood. Their attic was still full of old Nintendo game systems covered in dust, only used maybe once a year during a family game night.
As his train of thought drifted towards Mercedes, he wondered what she was doing right now. Time didn’t seem to pass the same for her. It might still be the same day on Earth that he and the other dads had fallen into that portal. Maybe she had finished work and was prepping dinner for one. Had she heard back from her fellow witches yet?
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and woke the screen. No new notifications. Risking battery life, he opened Messages to draft a text to her.
Missing you. I hope your interview with Noam went well.
Before he could click his phone back to sleep, her response appeared.
Sadly, Noam had no insight into inter-dimensional travel. Overall, a big disappointment if you ask me. I miss you too.
Henry smiled. As much as he missed seeing Mercedes in real life, this digital interaction was enough to fill him with the warmth of love.
I have so many new crystals to show you when I get home.
He squeezed the overstuffed bag of rocks in his pocket gently.
Can’t wait. Come home soon.
He slid his phone back into his pocket. Battery life was precious nowadays, and as much as he wished to call Mercedes and spend the next few hours recounting their adventures- he knew he might need his phone for something important later.