Mark. Where was Mark? She thought it was lame of him not to call and tell her he wouldn’t be coming over after he helped Andy Mitchell clean up his uncle’s flower shop. She figured it must have taken a lot longer than expected, but still. He should have called. If anything, it made Courtney feel less guilty about reading Bobby’s journals alone. She figured if Mark had a problem with that, she’d throw back could he expect her to wait a whole night before reading a new journal?
Mark and Andy’s plane to Orlando was leaving early in the morning. She knew there was no way he would come over before that to read the journal. He’d have to get there at four a.m. to have enough time to read the journal and then get to the airport. As much as Mark could do no wrong in the eyes of Courtney’s parents, it would be tough to explain why he was dropping by before dawn. Did Mark really think that Courtney would wait until he got back from Florida to read the journal? No way.
Courtney grabbed her cell phone and punched Mark’s number again. It went right to his message box. “It’s after midnight” she said curtly. “Where are you? I know you won’t come over because it’s so late and you’ve got an early flight, so I’m sorry but I’m going to read. There’s no way I can wait until you get back from Orlando. What can I say? I’m weak. Buh-bye.”
She felt only a little bit guilty about telling that fib. She was going to have to tell Mark she read the journal at some point. At least this way, she figured, it sounded as if she waited until the very last possible moment. She hoped Mark would understand and not be too upset with her.
It was late. It was a school night. She was tired. Courtney delicately inserted Bobby’s journal back into its envelope and placed it safely inside her desk drawer. She even locked it, not that her parents ever went in there. Still, she wanted to be safe. She knew there was no way Mark would call this late, so she turned off her phone, changed into her pajamas and T-shirt, and hopped into bed…
And lay there wide awake. For hours. Her body may have been exhausted, but her mind was racing. Her thoughts were full of challengers and video arcades and mechanical spiders and all the other images that Bobby if Nevva Winter was going to be able to help him. She also wondered if Quillan was indeed lost. As horrible as that would be, if it were true, Courtney wanted Bobby to leave that territory immediately and live to fight another day. Taking part in that Grand X in order to learn about the origin of the Travelers from Saint Dane wasn’t worth the risk. She wanted him home. Courtney feared for Quillan, but loved the idea of Bobby coming home. Now. She and Mark would tell him about what happened with Saint Dane, and how he took on the identity of a kid named Whitney Wilcox and nearly killed her. Saint Dane was on Second Earth and Courtney wanted Bobby there too.
All these thoughts about Bobby and Quillan kept sleep from coming. But another thought kept tugging at her. Why hadn’t Mark called? She had gone from being angry with him to being worried. Mark was nothing if not the most responsible person in the history of responsibility. This wasn’t like him. Not one bit. She had to believe it had something to do with Andy Mitchell. She was happy that Andy wasn’t bullying him anymore, but if it meant that Andy’s jerkyness was rubbing off on Mark, it wasn’t worth it. She couldn’t wait to hear the explanation. Why hadn’t he called?
Somewhere between thinking about Mark not showing, and wondering where Bobby would stay when he came to Second Earth, Courtney fell asleep. As great as it was to be back at school, she hadn’t built up her stamina yet. Her sleep was so deep, she didn’t dream. She must not have even moved, because the next morning she found herself in the exact same position as when she’d gotten into bed.
What roused her was her mother calling. “Courtney? Courtney! Wake up!”
Courtney had to pull herself out of coma mode. For a second she thought she was back in the Derby Falls hospital, looking forward to another grueling day of physical soap operas. Seeing her bedside clock was a relief, until she registered that the clock said 6:10… 6:10! Her alarm wasn’t set to go off until 6:30; 6:10 was still night. What was her mother doing calling her so early?
“Courtney, come down here, now!”
There was an urgency to her mother’s voice that Courtney didn’t like. Had she done something wrong? Courtney pulled her creaky body out of bed. Sleeping in the same position may have been restful, but it didn’t do much for her healing muscles. She limped across the room and wasn’t able to walk without stiffness until she was halfway down the stairs. Blood flow was good. It took away the pain. The TV was on in the living room. Courtney headed that way, but was intercepted by her mother. Mrs. Chetwynde looked bad. She had a wild look in her eyes that Courtney had never seen before.
“What’s up, Mom?” she asked.
“Did Mark leave for Florida last night?” she asked tentatively.
Huh? If Courtney wasn’t awake before that, she sure was then. By the look on her mother’s face, something was definitely up.
“No,” she said. “He stayed to help Andy Mitchell clean up his uncle’s florist shop. Why?”
Courtney saw the relief in her mother’s eyes. “Oh, thank God,” she said.
“Why? What’s going on?” Courtney asked.
“Come here,” Mrs. Chetwynde said. “It’s all over the news.”
Mrs. Chetwynde headed back for the living room. Courtney followed apprehensively. The term “all over the news” was never a good thing, especially not first thing in the morning. Good news was always expected and usually didn’t end up on TV. Bad news came suddenly and spread fast. Courtney saw that her father was staring at the TV. On the screen was a live shot that looked to be taken from a helicopter over the ocean. There was a coast guard ship in the water, and another helicopter flying nearby.
“What happened?” Courtney asked.
“A plane went down,” Mr. Chetwynde said. “An airliner. Apparently it had engine trouble over the Carolinas and flew out to sea to dump fuel before landing. It never came back.”
“Oh, man,” Courtney said. “Did it crash in the ocean?”
“That’s what they think,” Mr. Chetwynde said. “There’s no wreck, but there’s no sign of the plane, either. It had to have gone down.”
“Such a tragedy” Mrs. Chetwynde said. “All those people.”
“How big a plane was it?” Courtney asked.
“Wide-body, fully loaded,” Mr. Chetwynde said grimly. “Two hundred and eighty passengers, seven crew members.”
Courtney inhaled quickly. It was an involuntary reaction to such horrible news.
“That’s why I asked about Mark,” Mrs. Chetwynde said. “The flight left last night from JFK around seven o’clock, bound for Orlando.”
“Mark didn’t make that flight,” Courtney said with authority. “He was going to help Andy and then maybe get a later flight or take one early this morning-“
The words froze in Courtney’s throat. A realization hit her so suddenly that it felt like a rush of blood in her brain. It made her ears ring. Mrs. Chetwynde saw the look on her daughter’s face change suddenly.
“What?” she asked Courtney.
Courtney’s thoughts went into hyperdrive, calculating the possibilities. She wanted to come up with an undeniable fact that would prove her fear couldn’t be true. She went through everything she’d heard the day before, every option, every scenario, but came up empty.
“What’s the matter?” Mrs. Chetwynde asked. “You said he wasn’t on that flight.”
“He wasn’t,” Courtney croaked, barely able to get the words out. “But his parents flew out last night.”
Mr. Chetwynde pulled his eyes from the TV and shot Courtney a look. The three stood there, frozen, not wanting to believe. Courtney broke the trance first. She ran to the kitchen and called Mark’s house. She got the answering machine and a cheery greeting from Mrs. Dimond that said: “Hi there! Leave a message, okay?”
Courtney slammed the phone down. Her parents had followed her and stood together, watching.
Mrs. Chetwynde asked,
“How do we find out if they were on that plane?”
Courtney bolted from the kitchen and ran for the stairs. She leaped up, three at a time. The stiffness and pain may still have been there, but she didn’t feel them. Courtney blasted into her room and found her cell phone. She was going to call Mark, but when she turned on the phone, she saw that she had a message waiting for her. She wasn’t sure if that was good news or bad news. All she could do was play it. Courtney hit the message code, and listened.
The digital voice said, “Message recorded at three thirty a.m.” Courtney allowed herself a small breath. The call had come in long after the doomed flight took off. A moment later Mark’s voice was heard.
“I… It’s me,” he said.
Courtney was hit with two huge waves of conflicting emotion. Mark was alive. She would have screamed with joy and relief, if not for the tone of his voice. Courtney knew Mark better than most anyone on the territory. She only needed to hear those few words to know that he was hurting. She feared she knew the reason why.
Mark was crying. Courtney could hear him sniffle, then let out a soft, pained whimper. “They’re gone,” he said.
Courtney’s knees went weak. Those two simple words confirmed it. The plane that went down over the dark ocean was carrying Mr. and Mrs. Dimond. Courtney started to cry. Mark’s parents were dead. If not for the accident at Andy’s uncle’s shop, Mark and Andy would have been on that plane too. She wanted to be with Mark to hold him and tell him how everything was okay, though she knew it wasn’t. She wanted to know where he was. Probably at the airport, or the police station, or somewhere. Where did people go when they heard that their family was lost at sea and wouldn’t be coming back? Who tells you those things? She hated herself for not leaving her phone on the night before.
Courtney knew what she had to do. She would find Mark and bring him back to her house. She wasn’t sure what other relatives he had, but she knew that none of them lived in town. He was an only child. Until things could be sorted out, she wanted Mark to stay with them. Maybe even after they were sorted out. They would be his new family. Courtney had no doubt that her parents would take him in. After all, he’d saved their daughter’s life!
All of these thoughts and plans flashed through Courtney’s head in the few seconds after she heard the words that his parents were gone. It may have been a defense mechanism to keep back the pain, but that was Courtney. She was ready to take positive action and provide solutions. What she heard next, though, knocked those thoughts right out of her head.
“Come to the flume,” Mark said. Click. He hung up. End of message.
Courtney stared at the phone. Had she heard right? “Did you get him?” Mr. Chetwynde asked. Courtney whipped around to see both her parents arriving at her door.
“Uhhh…” was all Courtney managed to squeak out. Her brain had maxed out. She couldn’t process the information fast enough.
“Did you get Mark?” Mrs. Chetwynde asked. “Are his parents okay?”
Courtney knew she had to get a grip. She closed her eyes, took a breath, and said to herself, One thing at a time. She exhaled and said softly, “He left a message. His parents were on the plane.”
“Oh, no!” Mrs. Chetwynde cried.
Mr. Chetwynde hugged his wife. Courtney joined them. Her father put his arm around his little girl, and the three stood there, giving one another support and comfort in this sad and shocking moment. It was the kind of support and comfort Courtney knew Mark would never have again with his own family. Courtney stayed in her parents’ arms, not wanting the moment to end, because she knew what she had to do next. She feared there was more to this than a tragic accident. For whatever reason, Mark had gone to the flume. She didn’t dare speculate as to why. All she could do was hope he was okay. Anything beyond that was too frightening to think about.
(CONTINUED)
Courtney skipped school. The day before, going to school was one of the most important things in her life. It symbolized her return to being normal and healthy. Now, after what happened, school dropped off the list of important things to do. She didn’t want to hear the kids talking about the accident. She didn’t want to answer questions about whether or not she had talked to Mark. She didn’t want to put on a stoic face and pretend there wasn’t more going on than anyone knew. Because there was. Courtney had to go to the flume.
She grabbed her backpack and left at the regular time to catch the bus. Her parents wanted her to stay home, but she said she’d rather go. She didn’t say where. After hugging her parents good-bye, maybe a little tighter than normal, she left for the bus stop… and walked right past it.
The Sherwood house wasn’t a far walk through Courtney’s suburban neighborhood in Stony Brook. She had been there several times. It was a giant abandoned mansion that had once belonged to a guy who made his fortune raising poultry. He died years ago, and it had been empty ever since while his heirs argued over what to do with the land. Courtney’s dad said it would be in court for years because nobody was giving in. The property was too valuable. Courtney had no idea what the issues were. She didn’t care. The kids told stories about how the Sherwood house was haunted by the ghost of the chicken guy, who could be heard clucking at midnight. Courtney had told that story herself more than once. But now, she knew the truth about the house, and it was far more amazing than the appearance of a clucking ghost.
In its basement was a flume to the territories. When she and Mark became Bobby’s acolytes, they saw it being created. In this basement they jumped into the flume and traveled to Cloral and then Eelong. It was where the Traveler named Seegen died. It was where they saw Saint Dane for the first time, when his long gray hair exploded in flames, leaving him bald and scarred. It was where the demon dropped off the dirty bag that held Gunny’s hand, to lure Bobby to Eelong. Now there was going to be another chapter added to the story of the Sherwood house. Mark had gone there after hearing of the death of his parents. Courtney needed to know why.
The estate was surrounded by a high stone wall. The front gates were locked tight with a padlock. That never stopped Mark and Courtney. Along the side of the property a tree grew close enough to the wall that a quick climb got you on top. Courtney went right for the tree, glanced around to make sure nobody was watching, then climbed like a squirrel. Though Courtney was still stiff and sore, climbing wasn’t a problem. Getting down on the other side was. There was no tree there. She had to jump. She knew that was going to hurt. Worse, she wasn’t sure how her damaged leg would hold up in a jarring fall. Once on top of the wall, she couldn’t waste time. If somebody saw her up there, they’d call the police for sure. Courtney quickly threw her legs over the side, and while putting all her weight on her arms, lowered herself down until she was stretched out to her full body length, with only her fingertips holding on to the top of the wall. It was still a four-foot drop to the ground.
Her newly healed left arm felt like it was on fire. Still, she didn’t drop right away. What if the impact was too hard? Her left leg would shatter. She made the snap decision that she had to land on her right leg. But landing on one foot from that high wasn’t so smart either. If she landed wrong, she could do just as much damage. She might even blow out her knee. In those few seconds Courtney wished she had thought this part through a little better. It was too late, she was losing her grip. She took a breath and slipped off. She dropped the few feet and landed on her right foot, bending her knee and trying to absorb as much of the impact as possible. She hit and fell, landing on her right side. Courtney had heard the term “bone jarring” but it never meant much to her, until then. Her bones had been jarred. She lay there on the patchy grass, breathing hard, doing a mental checklist of body parts. Though the painful burn was intense, nothing seemed to be damaged. Everything moved. She waited for the agony to pass, and after a minute she was able to sit up. As much as the fall hurt, the only real damage was to her lower lip. She had bitten it. She’d live. And walk.
Courtney pulled herself
to her feet and took a few tentative steps. So far, so good. The hard part was still to come. Courtney knew the Sherwood house very well. She had been in almost every room. It wasn’t as if she had been exploring, though. She and Mark had taken a very quick tour of the house, on the run, while being chased by a vicious pair of rampaging quig-dogs. The quigs hadn’t shown themselves since then, but Courtney wasn’t taking any chances. She was armed with two canisters of pepper spray, one in each pocket of her jacket, like a gun-slinger with a six-shooter on each hip. She knew there was no way she could outrun one of those beasties in her condition. If they were going to attack, she would stand her ground and unload on them with the burning spray.
With one hand on each canister, Courtney walked tentatively to the house. It was a spooky old mansion, even in daylight. Since it was late fall, the yard was gray and bleak, with dead leaves blowing everywhere. It was easy to see why the place had a reputation for being haunted. She climbed the stairs up to the porch and went right for the front door. It was never locked. She figured the people who took care of the place thought the lock on the front gate was enough to keep out intruders. Fools.
Courtney’s heart raced. She feared that a quig-dog might attack, but she was also anxious about what she would find at the flume. She hoped it would be Mark. She pushed the door open and peered into the big, empty foyer.
“Here, doggie doggie doggie,” she called.
All she heard back was the lonely echo of her own voice. Her confidence rose. Quigs weren’t subtle. If they were around and wanted to attack, they would have by now. Still, she kept her hands on the pepper spray just in case.
She closed the door and went right for the stairs that led down to the basement. Now that she was getting close, her anxiety rose. She wanted to know what she would find down there. She picked up the pace as she climbed down the stairs and walked across the vast empty basement to the wooden door that led to the root cellar, and the flume. She stopped outside the door and looked at the star symbol that marked it as a gate. She remembered back to when she and Mark saw it magically burned into the wood by some unseen force. As she stood there, staring at the symbol, she shook her head in wonder. Life was turning out to be a whole lot different than she’d expected.
The Quillan Games tpa-7 Page 25
