The Pilgrims of Rayne

by D. J. MacHale

  The job of finding Mark and stopping him was officially Dodger’s.

  FIRST EARTH

  Courtney paced the small hospital room, trying to come up with a plan. Any plan. Everything she thought of started with her getting out of that lockup, which was impossible. Time was running out. Mark was in danger. If events followed the history she’d seen on Third Earth, someone was going to shoot him and dump his body overboard. Soon. There was nothing she could do but hope that Dodger would somehow get to him before the killer.

  Courtney tried the door handle for the fiftieth time. It was just as locked as the previous forty-nine times. The face of her guard appeared in the round window in the door. He was a friendly enough guy who introduced himself as Sixth Officer Taylor Hantin. It was his job to watch over Courtney and make sure she stayed put, though Courtney didn’t think he had to bother. There was no way she was getting out of that steel dungeon. She was about to try the door handle for the fifty-first time, when an idea struck her that was so simple, she kicked herself for not thinking of it before. Now that the crew knew she was on board, there was no longer any need for secrecy. Maybe, she thought, if she couldn’t get to Mark, Mark might come to her. She leaped at the door and knocked on the round glass.

  “Excuse me!” she called politely.

  Sixth Officer Hantin appeared at the window. Courtney thought he was probably in his twenties. He was young to be an officer, but then again he was a sixth officer. Not exactly high up in the officer pecking order.

  “Yes, miss?” he replied politely.

  Courtney was happy she wasn’t being treated like a dangerous criminal. The British crew was polite. Or at least, as polite as you can be while locking you into a tin can and watching you with a loaded gun on your hip.

  “I know I don’t deserve any special consideration, but it’s very important that I see one of the passengers,” Courtney said. She tried to sound as innocent and helpless as possible.

  “I’m afraid that’s against regulations, miss,” he replied, but with sympathy.

  “I know,” Courtney pouted. “But I’m in a lot of trouble here, and I’ve got nobody to turn to except for my friend. He doesn’t even know I’m here, but he’d want to.”

  Every word she spoke was deliberately vague, but the absolute truth.

  “I don’t know…”

  Courtney sensed he was weakening.

  “Could you at least tell him that I’m here?” she begged.

  Sixth Officer Hantin looked at Courtney through the glass window. Courtney tried to look as needy as possible. Finally the officer smiled.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Mark Dimond,” Courtney answered quickly. “Thank you so much, Officer. You don’t know what a wonderful thing you’re doing.”

  “It’s ‘Sixth Officer’ and let’s hope I don’t get thrown in the brig the same as you,” he said, and walked off.

  Courtney punched the air in victory. She absolutely knew that when Mark found out she was on board, he’d come to see her. She realized that getting caught by the crew might have been the best possible thing to have happened. Saint Dane had turned her in, and it was about to backfire on him.

  Courtney went from trying to puzzle her way out of the prison, to fretting over what she would say to Mark. There was so much he needed to know. Mark hadn’t read any of Bobby’s journals from Quillan. He didn’t know that the woman he was with, Nevva Winter, was the Traveler from Quillan and a traitor who’d joined Saint Dane. Without Nevva Winter, Quillan would not have fallen. She betrayed her own people, and the Travelers.

  Courtney tried to prepare a speech, but didn’t know where Mark’s head would be. Was he forced into coming to First Earth? Had he been tricked? Or had the unthinkable happened? Had he joined Saint Dane the same as Nevva? She discounted that last option as impossible. No matter what, she knew she had to do two things: stop him from introducing his Forge technology to First Earth, and warn him that somebody on board was going to shoot him. If she could do those two things, dealing with Saint Dane and Nevva Winter would be the least of their problems.

  An hour passed. Mark didn’t show. Neither did Sixth Officer Hantin. Courtney started to worry. The ship was big, but not that big. It wouldn’t take Hantin that long to find Mark. Or maybe he’d changed his mind. Or maybe he’d got to Mark and Mark didn’t want to see her. Or could the worst thing have happened already? Could Mark already have been shot? All those possibilities raced through Courtney’s head, making her pace again. With each passing minute she grew more anxious. She was about to bang on the door again and demand to see a ship’s officer, when she heard a squeak.

  The door was being unlocked.

  Courtney froze. There was a lump in her throat. Her heart raced even faster. She was about to be reunited with Mark. The door opened and Sixth Officer Hantin poked his head in. He spotted Courtney and said, “No funny business now, miss.”

  Courtney nodded silently. Sixth Officer Hantin stepped back into the corridor, and Courtney heard him say, “You sure you’ll be all right?”

  There was no answer. The door opened a few inches farther and someone stepped inside.

  Nevva Winter.

  The fallen Traveler stood there facing Courtney, looking every bit like an older woman from 1937. She wore a beautiful evening gown that sparkled with light cast from the single bulb in Courtney’s cell. Over the dress she had on a short fur wrap to guard against the night air. Her hair and makeup were perfect. She looked to Courtney like a glamorous movie star from the golden age of Hollywood.

  She also looked like a traitor. Courtney wanted to rip her throat out.

  “Do you know who I am?” Nevva asked.

  “Where is he?” Courtney asked coldly.

  “I’m not a villain, Courtney,” Nevva said calmly. “Neither is Saint Dane.”

  Courtney wasn’t sure if she should laugh or scream.

  “No, he’s a great guy,” Courtney said sarcastically. “Sure, he’s destroyed a couple of civilizations, but who hasn’t?”

  “This is a revolution,” Nevva said, maintaining her composure. “There are casualties in every revolution. It’s unfortunate, but inevitable. The future of all humanity is at stake. When you think of it that way, no price is too high.”

  “Do you really believe that?” Courtney asked, her anger rising. “I mean seriously? The guy is a coldblooded killer. No, I take that back. There’s nothing cold about it. He enjoys it. How could you think whatever it is he has planned for Halla could be justified by the misery he’s caused?”

  “Because I know what that vision is,” Nevva answered.

  “Then please, share!” Courtney demanded. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me Bobby and the Travelers are wrong. Tell me the thousands—no, millions—of people whose lives he’s destroyed are all going to be better off because of his evil. I’d love to hear all that.”

  Courtney walked closer to Nevva. With each step her anger grew. Nevva didn’t move. Courtney was a moment away from taking a swing at her when she saw something that made her stop. Someone else had entered the room. Standing in front of the open door, sheepishly, was Mark Dimond. Courtney saw him and nearly burst into tears. Suddenly Nevva meant nothing.

  “Hi, Courtney” was all he said.

  Courtney’s first thought was that in spite of the incredibly tense situation, Mark didn’t stutter. The second thing she realized was that Mark looked grown up. His curly black hair was cut short and, for a change, was combed. The wire-rimmed glasses made him look ten years older than he was. The bizarre image was completed by his tuxedo. He was no longer the nerdy kid from Stony Brook. Mark looked like a man. Courtney could barely breathe, let alone talk.

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” Nevva said, and quietly backed out of the room. Before leaving, she looked at Mark and said, “I’ll be right outside.”

  She left. Mark and Courtney stood facing each other for the first time since the afternoon Bobby’s Journal #25 from Quillan had arrived o
n Second Earth. It was later that night that Mark’s parents were killed when their flight disappeared over the Atlantic. It was the beginning of the odyssey that led them to be staring at each other awkwardly in a prison cell on an ocean liner on First Earth. Neither knew what to say. It was Courtney who finally took the leap.

  “So, how ’bout them Yankees?” she asked lightly.

  Mark chuckled. Courtney did too. The ice had been broken. Sort of.

  “What do you think of my stateroom?” Courtney asked with false cheer. “Sweet, huh? You want me to order you something from the kitchen?”

  “You shouldn’t be here, Courtney,” Mark said softly.

  Courtney could have sworn his voice was deeper. It was definitely more assured.

  “Yes, I should,” she said quickly. “It’s you who shouldn’t be here. But you are.”

  “You don’t know what’s happening—”

  “Yeah, I do,” Courtney snapped. “I know everything.” She took a breath, realizing she was getting too emotional. “There’s so much I have to tell you, Mark, but I want to hear it from you first. Why did you come here? What happened that night when…” She didn’t finish her sentence.

  Mark finished it for her, saying, “When my parents were killed?”

  Courtney nodded. Mark sat down on a wooden chair. Courtney leaned against the bunk. Now that she was about to hear the words she had been waiting to hear for so long, she wasn’t so sure she wanted Mark to say them. She feared what she was about to learn.

  Mark fidgeted. This was difficult for him. For a moment Courtney thought he was reverting to his old form, the insecure geek. He wasn’t. When he spoke, it was with authority and without a stutter.

  “That night Andy Mitchell and I went to clean up his uncle’s florist shop. The sprinkler had broken. It was a mess. If we didn’t salvage all those Christmas flowers, his uncle would lose his business. That’s why we stayed and my parents took the flight to Florida without us.”

  “I remember all that,” Courtney said.

  “Then you know what happened,” Mark said solemnly. “Their plane went down over the Atlantic. Everyone was lost.”

  Courtney nodded and said, “I’m sorry, Mark.”

  “I didn’t find out about it until nearly midnight,” Mark continued. “We’d been working in the store the whole time. The airline tracked down my cell-phone number. At first I thought it was a joke. Things like that don’t happen in real life, you know? All it took was one look at CNN to see it was true.” Mark hesitated. The memory was tough to relive. “I tried to call you.”

  “I know,” Courtney choked out. “I’d turned off my phone. I didn’t get the message until the next morning. If only I had—”

  “It’s okay. There was nothing you could have done. But somebody showed up who could.”

  “Who?” Courtney asked, suddenly back on alert.

  “Nevva Winter. The Traveler from Quillan. You know that Saint Dane won Quillan, right?”

  “Yeah, I heard something about that,” Courtney said dismissively. “Nevva Winter came to Second Earth?”

  “She escaped from Quillan before the fall,” Mark said. “She told me that Saint Dane was breaking down the borders between the territories and Bobby needed my help.”

  “Oh, did she?” Courtney said sarcastically. “Did our friend Andy Mitchell hear all this?”

  “Yeah,” Mark said, hanging his head as if ashamed. “He shouldn’t have, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I mean, I’d just heard my parents were killed. Still, I tried to talk to Nevva in private, but she said she needed Andy’s help too.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet she did,” Courtney said with even more sarcasm.

  “Andy wasn’t as surprised as you’d think,” Mark continued. “Sure, he was a little freaked, but remember, he’d read Bobby’s first journals, so it wasn’t totally out of the blue. I admitted to him that we didn’t write them after all. I didn’t know what else to do. Mitchell knows about the Travelers now. He knows everything.”

  Courtney realized that Mark still didn’t know Andy Mitchell was Saint Dane. She was all sorts of anxious to tell him, but wanted to hear the whole story first.

  Mark continued, “Nevva told us that after losing Quillan, Bobby realized the only way to beat Saint Dane was to use his own tactics against him. Any hope of keeping the territories separate was gone, and the demon’s next target was Second Earth. It’s what we always feared, Courtney. We knew it would happen someday, and that day had finally arrived. But Nevva had a way to stop him.”

  “I can’t wait to hear it,” Courtney quipped.

  “She said that by changing the past, we could create a new future that Saint Dane wasn’t expecting. That’s why we came to First Earth.”

  That was it. Courtney nodded in understanding. It was all about Nevva, just like on Quillan. “Let me understand,” Courtney said. “Nevva told you and Mitchell to bring your Forge technology to First Earth and said it would change the course of history so Saint Dane would fail on Second Earth?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you believed her?” Courtney screamed.

  “It was more than that.”

  “I hope so,” Courtney shot back. She was getting angrier by the second. “Mark, I love you to death, but I can’t believe you’d do something so huge on the word of somebody you didn’t even know!”

  “There was more,” Mark said softly. “Nevva said if we changed the course of events, my parents would survive.”

  Courtney was about to yell again, but stopped. It was all making sense. Nevva and Saint Dane had fooled Mark into believing he was not only helping to protect Second Earth, but saving his parents as well. Saint Dane knew exactly how to get to Mark. Poor, innocent Mark. Courtney had always feared the demon. Now she hated him. She was going to have to tell Mark the truth. Nothing would bring his parents back. The thought was painful. Mark thought he was doing the right thing. Instead, he gave Saint Dane the tools to bring Halla crashing down.

  As horrible as she felt, Courtney also felt a glimmer of hope. Mark was not a villain. He had not put in with Saint Dane. What he had done was for a noble purpose. Mark was still Mark. Better still, he had not yet introduced Forge to the territory. The flume had sent her where she needed to be, when she needed to be there. There was still time to stop him. But to do that, she was going to have to present him with some horrible truths. She knelt down by Mark and took his hands.

  “Listen to me, Mark,” Courtney began. “I understand why you’re doing this. I can’t imagine where my head would be if I suddenly lost my parents. I wouldn’t be thinking straight either. If somebody threw me a lifeline and said they’d make it all better, man, I’d grab it. This isn’t your fault.”

  “Fault?” Mark said with surprise. “I don’t understand.”

  Courtney took a breath and continued. “You’ve been lied to. Big-time. Like all good lies, there’s just enough truth to make it seem plausible. Yes, the Travelers lost Quillan. Yes, your parents died in that crash. And yes, by bringing Forge technology to First Earth, you can change the future of Second Earth. But that’s where the truth takes a very different course than what you were told.”

  Mark stared right into Courtney’s eyes, hanging on her every word.

  “I don’t know how I’m going to tell you this,” she said nervously.

  “Just tell me.”

  “Mark, Andy Mitchell is Saint Dane. He has been ever since we’ve known him. He worked his way into your life and became your friend so the two of you could create Forge and do exactly what you’re doing with it. But it won’t save Second Earth, Mark. Forge technology is going to start a chain of events that will lead to the creation of a force that Saint Dane will use to crush Halla. It was his plan from the beginning, Mark. Nevva Winter isn’t your friend. She’s a Traveler, but she helped Saint Dane win Quillan. I wish I had Bobby’s journals here to show you. Nevva Winter is a traitor. The two of them have fooled you into believing that what you’re doing is right
, but it couldn’t be more wrong.”

  Mark looked at the ground. Courtney couldn’t imagine what he was going through. She hated to have to tell him that way.

  “Why are you saying all this?” he finally asked.

  “Because you have to know. I’m sorry.”

  “But you’re wrong.” Mark jumped up and paced to the far side of the room.

  “I’m not!” Courtney countered. “I know this is hard to take, but it’s the truth. The day after your parents died, I did what you asked me and went to the flume, remember? Something happened while I was there. Mark, I know how Forge is going to change Second Earth. I’ve seen it. You accelerated the evolution of technology. Things aren’t the same. But there’s one thing that didn’t change.”

  “What’s that?” Mark asked.

  Courtney hesitated. She wanted to say it gently, but realized Mark needed convincing, so she didn’t pull her punches. “Your parents were still dead, Mark. What you did here on First Earth, what you’re about to do on First Earth didn’t change that. They’re gone.”

  Mark kept staring at the deck.

  “That’s your proof that Nevva lied to you,” Courtney continued. “Your parents will not be saved. They tricked you the way Saint Dane has tricked so many others. They tempted you with the promise of saving Second Earth. Of helping Bobby. Of protecting Halla, and of bringing your parents back from the dead. None of that will happen.”