The Soul Reborn: From Silence to Sovereignty Chapter 81

Chapter 81: Comfort First, Chaos Later

Once we had the money, our first stop was a place to finally buy ourselves some much-needed clothes.

Nothing fancy, just one of those big chain department stores with racks of everything you could ever need. “I just gave birth, and my sleep was currently lacking; it was time to indulge myself.”

I commented as we entered the story. Noah was being the good father, holding Lyra while I looked around.

“We’re not buying silk dresses here,” I told him as I shoved a bundle of leggings, oversized hoodies, and nursing bras into a cart I was pushing around.

This will also take over my wardrobe from now on because this type of clothing was way more comfortable than wearing those heavy dresses every day.

He, of course, didn’t argue and told me to get whatever I wanted. I kissed him on the lips and said, “I love you.” Then continued shopping to my heart’s content.

I tended to gravitate toward knee-length skirts. In the other world, that would have drawn a lot of attention thanks to their outdated way of thinking. Women weren’t supposed to show that much skin, but I never cared.

Comfort comes above all else, and that’s the trend I plan to start setting.

While we browsed, I stared out the large store windows where sunlight filtered in through familiar streets lined with palm trees. That’s when it finally hit me.

“Oh my god,” I murmured. “Noah… I think I know where we are.”

He looked at me.

“I’m pretty sure this is Southern California. I used to live near here. A lot of these places feel familiar, like I’ve been to them before.”

Noah blinked in surprise as I started mumbling to myself.

“So… We’ve landed near your old home?”

“Yeah, and that’s not even the weirdest part.”

I grabbed a few pairs of shoes and kept talking as we moved towards the register.

“Remember how I said time feels different between worlds? I think I figured it out.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

“We've been here for what… twelve, maybe fourteen hours?”

 “That sounds about right.” Noah confirmed.

“But based on how it feels and everything we did over there… I think this world moves about twice as fast.”

He looked at me in surprise. “So… only six or seven hours have passed in Coldmere?” He asked with a slightly skeptical look. “How do you even know that?”

“Exactly,” I said with confidence, eyes lighting up. “It’s because of my new ability; I can feel the flow of the other world.”

I paused at that revelation.

“I’m sure they’re still panicking. We disappeared while I was in the middle of giving birth. Livia’s probably having a full-blown meltdown and threatening to burn something down to find me.”

Noah chuckled. “Bors is probably pacing holes into the castle floor.”

“And Elowen… ugh, she probably fainted again. She can be so dramatic, but I’ve still grown to love her company.”

I let out a sigh at the coming storm of emotions when we show back up in Coldmere.

“Anyway… Time moves two-to-one. That’s good for us; it means we can spend a few days here, and it’ll only barely be a day over there.”

If I’m ever in a tight spot in the future, I can always just jump worlds to get out of the situation. Why do I feel like I just set off some flag by even thinking that?

Once we left the store with several bags and Lyra bundled in a fresh baby wrap, I felt like a real person once again. Being clean, covered, and very much aware of how useful Earth conveniences really were.

What I wasn’t thrilled about were the gazes both Noah and I were receiving. People in this era are more forward about their feelings and don’t care about manners.

“Next stop,” I said, turning to Noah, “baby supplies. After that, we go check out some electronics stores, and then we go get something good to eat.”

He gave me a tired but amused sigh. “Lead the way, my queen of two worlds.”

“Damn right!”

Once we entered the nearest baby store we could find, the first thing I wanted to purchase was a stroller. Even though I very much enjoyed carrying her, it wasn’t realistic for long periods of time.

Now that I had finally gotten shoes that were extremely comfortable on my feet, I didn’t mind walking. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to go purchase a car the first opportunity I had.

As we looked around at the store, I saw Noah’s eyes widening, taking in everything this world has to offer. I’m sure he’s never seen anything this store has to offer. Well, I guess he did to a certain extent, but not like this.

“Okay,” I muttered, pointing. “We take one of those, two of those, and… Noah! Come look at this swing. It rocks itself. Isn’t that basically an old artifact from where we’re from?” My lips moved with a giggle as I exploded with the desire to shop till I drop.

He gave it a quick look. “It even plays music?”

“Yes… yes, it does. I would have loved to have had this last night; we could have gotten a lot more sleep, I’m sure.”

An hour and a half later, and far too many dollars spent, we walked out with enough to stock an entire nursery. We purchased bottles, carriers, clothes, a crib, a stroller, and even educational toys. I wasn’t going to carry it all, obviously, but I had a plan.

“This will be a great test to see just how much I can really bring back at a time.” At the same time I thought about how it would work if everything was inside something with a lot of volume.

“Are you sure everything has to be touched?” Noah asked his expression thoughtful. It was clear he’d been thinking about how far this world-jumping ability could go.

“Hmm… I think so, but what if I’m touching something that already holds everything inside it? What would happen then?”

If I really wanted to think outside the box, what would happen if I touched the earth and tried to jump worlds with it? Just imagining something that outrageous makes my whole body tense; I’m pretty sure I’d die.

A sudden headache enveloped my mind as if telling me, "Don't you dare attempt something so insane."

After taking another walk back to our motel room to drop everything off, we hit one of the more important locations… an electronics store.

I wasn’t going to hold back from my shopping spree, but at the same time I had to save money for the car I was planning on purchasing.

“This,” I said, holding up a pocket-sized external hard drive, “is how we start changing everything. It can hold entire libraries.”

We bring back a few laptops and get a tight circle of people who we can hopefully trust. Give each of them a hard drive that I’ve carefully uploaded with everything this world has to offer when it comes to knowledge.

After that, distribute it to the people of Coldmere, then gradually to the entire North. I’m sure there are those out there who can understand what they’re reading, hidden gems just waiting to be discovered and ready to help shape our future.

Noah glanced at what I was holding as I was thinking deeply about the future. “This small thing?”

“Yeah,” I grinned. “We could provide thousands of books, files, videos, and diagrams to everyone. If I can find someone smart enough over there to reverse engineer or replicate some of this, we’re golden.”

I guess we could also offer deals to people from here and have them work for us. But I won’t take that measure just yet; let’s see what we can do first.

“What if they break something so valuable?” Noah asked with a bit of concern.

“Then we just buy two.” I said with a shrug.

Afterwards we ended up at a burger joint with milkshakes and fries drowning in cheese. Lyra stayed asleep through our entire meal like the sweet angel she was.

Noah looked weirdly at the meal, but I showed him the proper way to eat here. He looked both thrilled and vaguely betrayed when I told him to eat with his hands. I just laughed at him before I stuffed his burger into his mouth.

“You lived here,” he muttered between bites, looking around with astonished eyes, “and you left this behind?”

“Well… I died here, to be correct; I didn’t even have a choice in leaving it behind.” I said with a smirk so Noah understood I wasn’t sad about it. “I traded it for you and Lyra, so it’s a pretty good deal, right?”

He looked at me with a slightly conflicted face before I just rushed at him and kissed his lips. I didn’t even care that we were currently eating in a fast food restaurant and about how the majority of the people around us were staring.

Later that evening, after we set everything down and collapsed onto the bed with Lyra between us, I couldn’t help but whisper…

“We’ve got everything we need to start the next phase.”

Noah turned to me. “Are we going back?”

“Not quiet yet,” I admitted. “But… very soon. We just need to get a few more things tomorrow.”

He nodded, slipping his hands into mine.

“Whatever you decide, I’ll follow.”

“Good,” I murmured. “Because once we go back, things are going to get crazy.”

Laying my head down on the pillow and looking up at the ceiling, I couldn’t help but think about today’s events.

“Ugh… I hate paying in cash for everything.”

Noah blinked at me. “Wasn’t that… the plan?”

“Yeah, but it’s annoying. People look at you funny when you start peeling off bills like some eccentric heiress. When I tried to buy that phone earlier, the guy had jokingly said, “Did you rob a bank?” when he saw the wad of bills in my hand.

I huffed, “We can’t even get a debit card because we don’t have IDs, social security cards, or any proof we even exist here.”

“So we’re… outlaws?”

“We’re just off the grid,” I corrected proudly, “a more endearing term.”

Noah snorted and reached over to brush my hair with his hand, which always had a calming effect on me.

“Annoying or not,” he said with pride. “You handled it without issue.”

“Barely… But once we get back to our world, I’m going to fix that too. We need a better currency system than just having coins.”

He nodded his head in agreement.

After a slightly hectic second night on Earth, with Lyra only waking us a few times, it was finally time to get the one thing I wanted most now that I was here.

 “Noah, I’ve decided.”

I watched as he looked over at me calmly, already bracing for whatever was to come.

“Decided what?”

“We need a better form of transportation than you carrying me around.”

His brow slightly furrowed as if I was taking something away from him that he enjoyed.

“It’s not because I mind,” I clarified, “but because there’s a way more fun option to travel… We can buy a car!”

His face was blank because he obviously didn’t really understand what a car was, even though he’s seen many of them today.

“The only problem being,” I continued, “is that I don’t have a driver’s license. I used to, but that’s obviously expired… and well, technically, I don’t exist here anymore.”

I sighed dramatically…

“I don’t even know how to get a license without documents. I wonder if we’d have to become citizens before I could apply. That’s so lame.”

Noah looked at me with question marks layering his face.

“What’s a license?”

“It’s like a noble title, but it only lets you drive a metal beast that moves sixty miles per hour or more.”

“Ah…” It was obvious he still had no idea.

“Anyway, forget all that. As long as I don’t get pulled over and I follow the rules of the road, we should be fine.”

Then a light bulb went off in my head, something I had thought of earlier but now really contemplated.

“Wait, wait, wait… That gives me the best idea ever.”

Noah tensed up.

“What if we buy a car?” I said it slowly so Noah could understand. “We put everything inside of it, and then I activate my power while holding onto the car?”

His eyes narrowed. “Would everything in the car move with us?”

“Exactly! That’s the idea,” I said, practically squealing. “If I can bring whatever I’m touching and the car counts as one connected object, then boom. The entire thing, including everything inside, should jump with us.”

I grinned like a lunatic.

“Imagine the look on everyone’s faces when we show up in such a futuristic-looking vehicle that could crush the travel time of any carriage. In the future we could even teach people how to drive; I’m sure there are fuel sources in our world, maybe even magic-powered in the future.”

Noah leaned back against the headboard, silent for a moment.

“Do… all your ideas come this fast?”

“Yes… and they’re all brilliant. You married into this brain, Noah.”

“I’m terrified.” He said with a smirk as he pulled me in and wrapped his arms around me.

I gave a cheeky smile and then turned to Lyra, gently brushing a finger across the doughy softness of her cheek.

 “Alright, little one… Let’s go car shopping!”