by Melinda Metz
At least his mind hadn’t been affected. At least he had the ability to realize what had happened. Was slowing down time something DuPris had done to stop Max from interfering? Had DuPris already made a connection to Liz? If his brain was working as quickly as Max’s, DuPris could be turning her into his puppet right now.
Max couldn’t take this. It was making him insane. Liz was right next to him, and he couldn’t do anything to help her.
Pressure began to build up behind his eyes, penetrating deep into his brain. He knew that sensation. It came from the collective consciousness, a call for him to connect.
He continued his minuscule movements toward DuPris, the drop of sweat maddening him as it slid another fraction of an inch. Maybe he should connect to the consciousness. Maybe then he’d find a way to manipulate time himself. He concentrated and soon felt himself expand outward—beyond the cave, beyond the realms of Earth.
This time there was no warm ocean of auras waiting to embrace Max. He felt as if he’d been hurled into the core of a volcano, lava boiling around him. Every being in the consciousness was seething with hatred and fury, all directed at Elsevan DuPris. They spewed out emotions they had been holding in for all the years since he escaped from their planet.
Traitor, they called him, although not in words but in rushes of jagged feeling that Max felt in his blood and bones. Traitor. Liar. Thief. Every being joined in the chant. Betrayer. Soulless. Murderer.
Max’s mouth stretched open, and a howl of rage escaped, the beings of the consciousness using his voice as their own. Time rushed forward, and instantly Max was in the air, throwing himself at DuPris.
As soon as they hit the cave floor, Max rammed his fist into DuPris’s abdomen. His hand sank in so deep that he could feel DuPris’s stomach under his fingers. A wave of revulsion swept through him. DuPris’s body was as soft as clay—or else connecting to the consciousness had given Max incredible strength.
A burst of power struck Max’s temple, but it was as soft as a cotton ball. He had the strength of millions, DuPris the strength of one.
Pain. The consciousness wanted the traitor to feel pain. Suddenly Dupris’s face twisted in agonized terror and Max could see inside him. He could see DuPris’s insides being tipped apart, could feel DuPris’s organs moving beneath his fingers.
Liz let out a long, shrill scream. Max felt like screaming, too. What was he doing? It took every ounce of his strength, but somehow Max pulled his hand away from Dupris’s convulsing form. Immediately DuPris started to heal. Max could feel him growing stronger.
“Nooo!” the beings of the consciousness roared.
Max again had no control. He reached in, holding both hands over DuPris’s heart. “You’re killing him?” he heard Liz scream.
He knew it was true, but he couldn’t stop. He was an instrument of the consciousness.
Please, no, he silently begged. He used all his will to squeeze his eyes shut, but he couldn’t stop himself from feeling DuPris’s heart beneath the skin, fighting against him. Pounding, then slowing, then slamming, then stopping.
“Max! Max!” Liz shrieked his name again and again, her voice vibrating with terror.
He couldn’t answer. Dizziness and nausea swirled inside him. He felt as if the cave floor were spinning beneath him. When would it end? When would they let him stop?
He felt his eyelids twitch. He fought to keep them shut as the spinning sensation intensified, but a moment later they sprang open, DuPris’s body becoming just a blur of color, “The Stone, the Stone, the Stone, the Stone,” the beings of the consciousness shrieked.
Max could see a speck of purplish green in the blur. His hands jerked out. They came back with the ring—and DuPris’s finger.
“Do you want some antistress tea?” Maria asked. “After that, I think you could definitely use some antistress tea.” She got up and rushed to the stove. “Oh, and thanks for meeting here. My mom has a date, one of those critical third dates, and it’s not like she’ll ever hire a baby-sitter for Kevin as long as I’m alive because it’s not like I have a life.”
Michael wished he could reach over and grab her and pull her down on the chair next to him. She was so clearly terrified by Liz’s description of what had happened in the cave, and he had this tremendous urge to just hold her and try to make it better somehow. But he and Maria were in a place where holding her would only make things worse.
Maria pulled in a gasping breath. “Babysitting. Yeah, that’s a very big problem,” she rushed on. “Why don’t we discuss that? Hey, I know, maybe we could form a club. A baby-sitters club. That would be something fun for us all to do together.”
“Let me help you,” Alex said. He jumped up and took the teapot out of Maria’s trembling hands.
Michael saw him whisper something in her ear, something that helped her get a grip. He looked away, forcing his attention back to Liz. “So when Max passed out, DuPris just took off?”
Liz nodded. “He used Adam and Isabel to help him out of the cave.”
“One of them’s probably already healed him,” Alex said.
“Yeah,” Max agreed.
Michael whipped his head toward the kitchen door and saw his friend slumped against the door frame. “You shouldn’t have gotten up,” he said. Max looked horrible. His skin had a grayish tint, and there was a strange withered spot on his throat.
“Had to,” Max answered. He crossed the kitchen and dropped down into the chair next to Michael’s.
“We were just about to come up with a plan to deal with DuPris,” Alex told him. He started setting down mugs of tea on the table. “Liz … got us up to speed.”
Michael was glad that Max hadn’t had to relive what had happened. He knew Max had to be torturing himself for what he’d done. That’s how he’d think of it—what he’d done.
Michael wasn’t looking forward to the day when he went through his akino and made his own connection to the collective consciousness. They’d used Max like a puppet today. It didn’t seem all that different from the way DuPris was using Isabel and Adam.
“I know what I need to do to deal with DuPris,” Max said. “I got instructions, actually more like a blast of knowledge, from the consciousness before the connection broke.” He looped his fingers around the handle of the mug and turned the mug in a slow circle. “Do you know what a wormhole is?” he finally asked.
“There’s a theory that says that the gravity of black holes pulls on more than just the objects around it, that it actually pulls on space and time, and that it can create a tear in the time-space continuum. A wormhole is the passageway made by the tear,” Liz answered.
“You forget who you’re talking to here,” Alex told her.
“It’s a shortcut through space,” Liz said.
“And if I channel the energy of the consciousness, I can create one,” Max explained. “After I do, I’m supposed to use it to send DuPris back to our home planet.”
“There’s only one problem,” Michael said. “We have no idea where DuPris is. He could be anywhere. He, Isabel, and Adam could have left town. Or they could all have different faces and be hanging out at the mall.”
“Did Isabel … was she okay when you saw her?” Alex asked Liz.
“Yeah. I don’t think DuPris will hurt her or Adam,” she told him. “It doesn’t make sense—they’re like his slaves. He wants them around.”
“Anyone have any ideas about how to track them?” Alex asked. “Max, is that anything the collective consciousness could help with? Do they know where DuPris is?”
Max shook his head. “Today in the cave it was the first time anyone on our home planet had seen him in more than fifty years. They had no idea where he was. He’s not connected to them. I don’t think they have any way of sensing his movements.”
“I’m almost surprised they want you to send him back,” Liz said softly. She lowered her head, her hair falling forward and hiding her face. “I’m surprised they don’t just want you to kill him. It seems
like what they wanted in the cave.”
Michael didn’t think Max would have been able to live with himself if the consciousness had succeeded. If his hands had been used to kill someone, even someone as evil as DuPris, it would haunt Max every day for the rest of his life.
“Seeing him practically made them insane,” Max explained. “But now …” He gave a hoarse laugh. “I don’t know—I guess they cooled down. They want to put him through some kind of judgment.”
“I have an idea,” Maria said suddenly. She’d never rejoined the group. She stood over by the sink, twisting a dish towel in her hands. “Liz, you said that Adam came into your dream and tried to tell you who was controlling him, before he started convulsing. Anyway, it seems like DuPris figured out he had to stop Adam from, uh, making outgoing calls. But maybe he forgot that there could be incoming calls, too.”
“So I should go into Isabel’s dream and ask her where DuPris took her and Adam when they left the cave,” Michael said, feeling a tinge of hope. “Great idea.”
“Thanks,” Maria mumbled, without looking at him.
“I’ll try it fight now. Isabel could be taking a beauty nap at any point.” Michael closed his eyes and tried to let his mind go blank. Thoughts kept bombarding him. What was going to happen to Isabel and Adam if he couldn’t do this? How did Max get that withered spot on his neck? Was it dangerous?
As soon as he shoved one thought away, another one replaced it. Could the wormhole take Michael back to their home planet, too? Did he want to go? Were he and Maria ever going to be able to just hang again? And what was DuPris making Isabel and Adam do right now? And—
Michael felt a light, tentative touch on his shoulder. He opened his eyes and saw Maria standing next to him. “You’re never going to be able to focus in here. Come on.”
She turned and headed out of the kitchen. He stood up and followed her as she led the way across the living room and down the hall to her bedroom. He reached for the light switch, but Maria grabbed his hand.
“Leave it off. It will make it easier for you to relax,” she said, then she seemed to realize she was still holding his hand and dropped it fast. “Now take off your shoes and lie down.”
Michael kicked off his sneakers and stretched out on the bed. He felt a little of the tension ease out of him. Maria’s room was one of his favorite places.
“Okay, I know you think aromatherapy is a big joke, but smell this, anyway” Maria thrust a little vial at him, and he obediently took a sniff. Hewould have done pretty much anything she told him to right then. She seemed a lot less freaked now that she was all caught up in her healing arts stuff—that’s what she called it, healing arts—and if doing this was helping her feel less afraid, that was all he needed to know.
“Really breathe it in,” Maria instructed.
The lilac scent made the inside of his nose burn, but he didn’t tell her that. He just pulled in a lungful of the stuff.
“Now close your eyes,” she said, her voice soft and almost musical.
It’s got to work this time, Michael thought as he shut them. If it didn’t, Isabel—
He felt Maria’s hand smoothing out the wrinkles the thought had made in his forehead. “Focus on the lavender.”
He found himself focusing more on the scent of her. Had he totally screwed things up with her? Could they ever just be couch potatoes on this bed again, watching a triple feature of old horror movies? And what was that withered spot on Max’s neck?
Maria started rubbing her fingers in little circles on Michael’s temples. “You can’t stop thinking, can you? Okay, here’s what I’ll do. I’ll talk to you. Listen to me instead of your thoughts,” she said. “Mozart used to have his wife read to him when he was composing because it got rid of the chatter in his head and let him concentrate. If it worked for Mozart, it can work for you.”
The warmth of Maria’s fingers felt as if it were seeping deep into Michael’s brain. He settled deeper into her bed.
“Lavender used to be my favorite color in the box of sixty-four crayons—you know, the one with the sharpener built into the side,” Maria said, her voice calm and sweet. “It seemed like it could draw anything. It was the right color for everything. I drew lavender flowers and my father’s lavender eyes, my mother’s lavender smile. They were the same to me, mother, father, flowers. All good. All lavender. And I was lavender, too.”
Michael’s breathing slowed down. The thoughts that had been attacking him faded into a babble that was easier for him to ignore.
“We were made up of the same stuff,” Maria continued. “The boundaries warm and fuzz. Mom was me, and I was Dad, and he was all of us and the flowers. My father used to hang the pictures I drew up on the refrigerator before he … before he left. He said I’d created a beautiful world, a beautiful lavender world.”
Maria’s voice faded as the spinning orbs of the dream plane became visible. He was in. He turned in a slow circle, his eyes darting over the glistening iridescent orbs as he searched for Isabel’s.
He didn’t see it. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. Michael began to whistle, calling to Isabel’s orb. Maybe she wasn’t asleep right now, although Adam had slept pretty much nonstop. Or was that even sleep? It was more like unconsciousness. Could Isabel even dream?
Adam got to Liz, he reminded himself. He continued to whistle. He’d stay in the dream plane all night if he had to. It was their only shot.
He sat down, and one of the orbs circled around his head, playfully brushing his cheek. Michael knew that orb. He’d visited it quite a few times when he was about thirteen and obsessed with Patrice Burgess, the woman who worked in the dry cleaners near foster home number whatever.
Michael nudged Patrice’s dream orb away. A few seconds later he felt a light brush on the back of his neck. Take the hint already, he thought. He turned to flick it off and saw Isabel’s orb hovering behind him.
He held out his hands, and her orb spun into them. He peered inside and saw a blond doll in a bikini driving a little pink convertible. The car kept zooming halfway up a steep hill, then rolling back down.
Where was Isabel? He didn’t see her anywhere.
Doesn’t matter, he told himself. He’d just expand the dream orb, then go inside and find her. He began to whistle again, slowly moving his hands apart, urging the orb to grow.
It began to shrink instead. This had never happened before. The orb had been the size of a volleyball, and it had already shrunk down to grapefruit size. There was no way he could get inside.
“Isabel,” he shouted. “Where are you?”
The doll in the convertible turned her head. It’s Izzy, he thought. He should have realized it before. Isabel was dreaming she was the doll.
With a sucking sound the dream orb collapsed to the size of a baseball. Before Michael could react, it was the size of a golf ball.
“Izzy, you have to tell me where you are,” he screamed. “Where did DuPris take you?”
Michael heard another sucking sound. The orb was going to shrink again. “Tell me!” he cried.
“Cameron knows,” Isabel wailed, her voice like a squeaky hinge.
What? Had Cameron betrayed them again? Was she working with DuPris all along? “What do you mean? How does she know?” Michael yelled.
Before Isabel could answer, her dream orb shrank to the size of a marble, then to the size of a pea, and with a tiny pop, it disappeared altogether.
8
“The ticket guy remembered Cameron,” Michael announced. He swung himself back behind the wheel of the Jeep. “She traded in a ticket to Hobbs for one to Albuquerque. That bus left more than two hours ago, but it makes a couple of stops, including the airport, which eats up some time. If we really motor, we should just be able to beat it to the station.”
Was this the hand of fate trying to bring Cameron and Michael together? Maria wondered as Michael wheeled the Jeep around and sped out of the parking lot. Maybe the two of them were destined to be a couple. Maybe M
aria should be really happy for them because they’d found their soul mates.
Maybe she should ask Michael to pull over so she could puke.
You shouldn’t even be thinking about that stuff, she told herself. You should be thinking about Isabel and Adam. She managed to concentrate on sending them some positive thoughts for about two seconds before she started wondering why Cameron had left town in the first place. Did she and Michael have some kind of fight? Would they end up doing the whole joyful I-was-wrong-no-no-I-was-wrong thing at the bus station? Would she have to watch them kiss?
“Next time you work at the Crashdown, I’m sure my papa is going to ask you how you did on your life science test, okay, Maria?” Liz asked. “I told him you needed me for an all-night study session tonight or you’d flunk it.”
Maria could hear the tension in her friend’s voice. Maybe Michael would have to stop the car for her, too. Liz was always so careful to be the most perfect daughter. She wasn’t as skilled as most about lying to her parents.
“Got it. I’ll tell him that I never would have passed if not for your brilliant tutoring,” Maria promised. “I hope the baby-sitter remembers the cover story I told her to give my mom.” She gave a choked half laugh. “Actually, it probably doesn’t matter. My mom’s so in lust, she probably won’t even notice that the baby-sitter isn’t me.”
Alex groaned. “Mom. Lust. ‘One of these words is not like the others. One of these words just doesn’t belong.’”
“Tell me about it,” Maria answered. “New subject, please.”
“I have one,” Alex said. “What I don’t get is how Cameron could know where DuPris took Isabel and Adam.”
Cameron wasn’t exactly the new subject Maria had been hoping for. But what did it matter? Whether they talked about her or not, Maria would be thinking about her. She couldn’t help herself.
“And if Cameron saw them, she wouldn’t have just gotten on a bus,” Liz added. “She would have stayed in town until she found you and told you, right, Michael?”
