by R. L. King
He wouldn’t let them use their flashlights or phone lights until they were far enough outside the camp that Burford and Warby wouldn’t notice them if they happened to glance out Cabin Three’s window.
“What if they come back to our cabins and find we’re gone?” Allie asked nervously. Despite her after-school activities with the quarterback and her current predicament, at her core she was a follower of the rules.
“We’ll just say we all got the munchies and went down to the convenience store for more supplies,” Jazmin said.
“Better to ask forgiveness than permission,” Steve agreed.
Nobody mentioned that the convenience store wouldn’t be open at three a.m.
“Where are we going?” Andre asked. “Come on, Joe, give us a hint or something.”
“Not far now. Just keep up the pace.”
There was some grumbling, but nobody suggested going back. As they kept walking under the stars and the moonlight, gradually every one of them became caught up in this little “adventure” Joe had laid out for them. Even if it turned out to be nothing, like an old moose corpse or a long-buried stash of pornography, it was still more exciting than hot dogs, fishing in a lake too cold to swim in, and the teachers’ laughably lame attempts at telling scary stories around the campfire.
“You’re not gonna show us a…dead body, are you?” Clay spoke up nervously, a reluctant quiver in his voice.
Steve shoved him. “You been watching too much Stand By Me, man. You want your Wil Wheaton fix, stick to Star Trek.”
“You…aren’t, are you?”
Everybody looked startled, because the question had come from Brittany, who almost never spoke up unless directly addressed. “She wouldn’t say boo to a goose,” went the old saying, though nobody had any idea why anyone would want to.
Joe turned his best reassuring grin on her. “I promise you, no dead bodies. Okay?”
She smiled back. She couldn’t help it. “Okay.”
“If you’re scared, come on up here with me. I won’t let any wayward moose get you.”
“What about bears?” Steve muttered.
Brittany could hardly believe what she was hearing. Joe Buchanan was inviting her to walk with him?
Maybe this weekend wouldn’t be a complete washout after all.
Quickly, before he could change his mind or one of the other girls could pretend to be scared so they could walk next to him, she scurried up and fell into step alongside him. She had to take two steps for each of his, but she was so blissed out she didn’t care. She wondered if he’d take her hand if she really acted scared, but she didn’t try it. This was enough for now.
They reached the clearing where they’d stopped to rest earlier that day. “Okay,” Joe said, holding up his hand for a halt. “Here’s where we leave the trail.”
“Wait,” Andre said. “Buchanan, you didn’t drag us all the way out here to show us your epic dump, did you?”
Steve and Clay snorted, and even Jazmin chuckled.
“Why?” Joe asked. “You wanna see it?”
“Ew.” Allie wrinkled her nose. “I don’t wanna see it.”
“Just come on. It’s not far now.”
Even though a couple of them—notably Allie and Clay—were having second thoughts about this whole venture, everyone followed Joe as he left the trail and set off through the forest. Now, several of them did turn on their phone lights, shining them around through the dark, spooky-looking trees.
“We’re gonna get lost out here,” Clay said. “They’re gonna find our corpses, all mauled by bears.”
“There aren’t any bears,” Steve snapped, but he had the same I’m not sure I know what I’m talking about tone Mrs. Burford had used the last time the subject had come up.
“This looks like the forest in that Blair Witch shit,” Andre said. “Anybody see any freaky-ass wooden things hanging from the trees?”
“Just shut up, all of you,” Joe called over his shoulder. “I have to concentrate so I can find it.”
In truth, he didn’t have to concentrate at all. An unseen force, the same voices he’d heard earlier that day, pointed the right direction. As he drew closer to his destination, he could feel it inside him, calling him. Brittany trotted along next to him like a sad little lovestruck puppy, and when she tripped over a root and he grabbed her hand to keep her from falling, the look she gave him told him just how far she was willing to go to gain his favor.
“Are we almost there?” Jazmin asked. “My feet hurt, and I need to light up.”
“How much longer?” Steve asked, pulling a bag of Cheetos from his pocket.
But then none of them had to ask any longer. Joe stopped, and the rest of them stopped behind him, spreading out to view the scene.
The structure was set into the ground, barely rising two feet above it, its shape obscured by with decades’—perhaps centuries’—worth of undergrowth. Only the entrance was visible, a dark maw that even their lights couldn’t penetrate. The place’s concealment was so complete that someone would need to practically be on top of it before they’d have a chance to see it—assuming, of course, that it didn’t want to be seen.
Tonight, that wasn’t a fair assumption.
“Whoa…” Clay murmured. “What’s that?” All the fear was gone from his voice now; he sounded fascinated.
The unseen voices were echoing in Joe’s head now, urging him forward just as they’d done earlier. “Come on. I’ll show you. It’s wicked cool.”
He went in first, moving without fear. There was no need for fear. Nothing would hurt them in here, he was certain of it. “Careful,” he told the others. “The steps are old, so don’t trip.”
The steps were stone, descending a few feet down to a stone floor strewn with leaves, branches, and straw. Joe moved in far enough for all the others to come in behind him, then stood aside to let them have a look. He’d already seen everything he needed to see before.
“Whoa…” Clay said again, shining his light around. “This is…wow.”
The others murmured agreement as each of them drifted around to examine the space.
It was a single chamber, twenty feet long by fifteen wide, made entirely of rough-carved stone. There were no windows, but the group’s phone lights picked up the rust-colored circle and its markings on the floor, the strange chipped and painted scribblings along all the walls, and the black stone altar at the front. Atop the altar sat a figure three feet tall, made of green stone veined in rusty red. Joe didn’t want to look at it—he hadn’t earlier today, either—and he could see the others were having the same feeling. The thing seemed to have too many eyes, too many tentacles, and if you looked too closely at it, almost seemed to…move.
He didn’t say anything—he didn’t need to. He’d done his job. As soon as the last of them had passed the threshold of this place, his compulsion had been fulfilled. All around him, the voices rose, whispering, echoing—and all around him, each of his fellow campers closed their eyes as they listened to what the voices had to say.
Joe watched them in satisfaction, each one swaying slightly as they received the message. Steve’s arms hung limply at his sides, while Allie was hugging herself and Andre had both hands pressed against the sides of his head as if his brain wasn’t big enough to contain what was filling it.
After a moment, he moved into their midst and joined them, and together they all stood, looking but not looking at the unsettling green-and-blood-red figure on the altar, until the message had been completely received.
“Shh! They’ll hear us.” Mrs. Burford put her finger to her lips, cautioning Mr. Warby to quiet his laughing.
“Are you kidding? Those kids sleep like the dead.” But Warby did quiet down. The two of them had consumed quite a lot of wine tonight during their rendezvous (the empty bottle now safely hidden beneath a loose floorboard in Cabin Three), and it wouldn’t do at all to have one of the students encounter them on their way back to Cabins One and Two.
They stopped in front of Cabin One’s door, and Warby paused before reaching out to open the door. “I love you,” he whispered, and leaned in for one last kiss.
She met him willingly, hungrily, knowing this was the last time they’d be together for quite some time. It was too dangerous to try anything back in Treadley, with all its wagging tongues. “I love you too,” she murmured, and then broke away from him and hurried off down the path to Cabin Two.
Warby watched her go until she disappeared around the corner, then slipped off his boots and pushed open the door to the cabin he shared with the boys, careful not to step on the creaky board just inside.
As he tiptoed toward his bed, he heard the soft breathing of the four boys (in Steve Hull’s case, it was more snoring than soft breathing), all of them bundled in their sleeping bags and fast asleep. Warby smiled to himself, pleased that things had gone as he’d hoped. He knew he and Burford were taking a big risk by sneaking out, but these were good kids.
Oblivious, but good.
Just the way he liked them.
In his bed near the window, Joe Buchanan listened to Mr. Warby creep across the floor and settle himself on his bed. He smiled. Neither Warby nor Burford had any idea their whole group of campers had only beaten them back to their cabins by twenty minutes. They were so focused on making sure nobody caught on to their own activities that they were blind to anything else going on around them.
Good.
Everything was going exactly as it should.
Joe opened his eyes and met Andre’s eyes across the aisle, and both of them nodded once.
Now, all they had to do was wait.
“Everybody all packed up and ready to go?”
The next day dawned bright and warmer, the dazzling sun picking up the stark beauty of the leafless trees. The bus was back, with Mrs. Burford, Mr. Warby, and the newly-returned bus driver hustling around making sure everyone’s sleeping bags and other gear were safely stowed away in the outside compartments.
If the two teachers noticed that the campers seemed a little less energetic than they had the previous day, standing around in small groups and chatting softly with each other after the gear was loaded, they didn’t bother to comment on it. The kids were probably tired after the weekend out in the wilderness—the good kind of tired, the one that came from honest activity instead of spending every spare minute in front of computers or video games. They’d no doubt be ready to dive back into their schoolwork on Monday, refreshed and renewed.
“Everybody on board,” Mrs. Burford called. “This bus is heading out in ten minutes, with you or without you.” She added a laugh in case somebody didn’t know she was kidding.
The campers filed on, one after the other, and took the same seats they had on the way up. This time, though, they didn’t pull out their phones, but merely sat with Zen-like calm, gazing out the window.
Mrs. Burford exchanged glances with Mr. Warby, who shrugged.
Who knew what was going on in kids’ minds these days? Half the time their behavior didn’t even make sense, and he’d long ago given up trying to figure out what made them tick. Just teach them the best he could, try to make a difference, and move on to the next bunch—that was his philosophy.
As the door shut and the bus trundled out of the campsite and back toward civilization, Warby’s thoughts had already moved on to when he and Burford could get together for their next meeting.
1
Alastair Stone needed a vacation.
He tapped a familiar number on his phone in its dashboard cradle and touched the speaker button as it rang.
Aubrey answered on the first ring. “Hello, sir. Are you on your way?”
“I am. Heading down to the portal now. Took me a bit longer to get ready than I thought—had to make sure the new feeding and watering setup I made for Raider was working properly, since Verity can’t get down to see to him until later this week.”
Aubrey chuckled. “I must say, I never thought I’d see you with a cat, sir. I used to say it gave me hope that someday you’d produce an heir, but at least now that’s safely taken care of.”
“Ian’s still coming, right?”
“He rang earlier today. He says he’ll be here the day after tomorrow.”
It wasn’t as good as Stone had hoped, but at least his son had agreed to take some time away from his world travels and join him for Aubrey’s idea of an American-style Thanksgiving celebration at the manor. “Brilliant. And Selby’s still working out all right?”
It hadn’t been long since Roderick Selby had accepted the position Stone had offered him—the job wasn’t as prestigious as being head estate steward at his former employers’ chateau in France, but it paid more and also allowed him more free time. Stone had been a bit concerned at first that he and Aubrey wouldn’t get along, but according to Aubrey’s reports, the two of them had fallen into a comfortable routine almost immediately. Selby had charge of most of the duties inside the house, giving Aubrey the freedom to tend the garden and the grounds he loved.
“He’s fine, sir. He’s settled in to the east wing, and he seems quite pleased. He’s looking forward to seeing you.”
“Good to hear.” The repairs on the east wing following the collapse of the underground chamber a few months ago were nearly complete now, and it was difficult to tell the difference between the old and new construction without getting close to it. “All right, then—I’d better pay attention to traffic now. I’ll see you in a little while.”
“I’m looking forward to it, sir.”
Stone hung up and urged the BMW to significantly above the posted speed limit. Traffic was light this week since many people were off for the Thanksgiving holiday, so he made good time down to Sunnyvale.
He was disappointed that he still hadn’t finished the private portal he’d been working on at the Encantada house. Between dealing with unexpected dimensional rifts, his work at the University, and his magical research, he never seemed to find the large chunks of time he needed to focus on it.
Didn’t find them—or didn’t make it a priority?
He honestly wasn’t sure which one was true, but either way, that was why he was heading for the area’s public portal in the storeroom of A Passage to India on Murphy Street in Sunnyvale. At least he’d get a chance to say hello to Marta.
The restaurant was in the middle of its lunch rush when he arrived, but like the freeway traffic, the midday crowd was smaller than usual because most of the restaurant’s weekday business came from workers around the area.
Marta Bellwood looked up and smiled as he entered with his overnight bag slung over his shoulder. “Hello, Alastair. I didn’t expect to see you today.” She finished serving the couple near her and waved him back to the counter. “Doesn’t look like you’re here for the lunch special.”
“Not today. Heading home for a few days. I need a break.”
“That you do. I’ve been saying that for a long time.” She looked him up and down. “Keeping yourself busy, are you?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” he said with a chuckle. “But Aubrey’s promised to feed me until I can’t move, and I plan to spend the rest of the week lounging around the house. Maybe I’ll take some long walks. Nothing that requires much effort.”
“Brilliant idea. I hope you have a lovely time.” She glanced up as another customer caught her attention. “I’ve got to go now, but perhaps we can chat when you get back.”
“Let’s plan on it.”
He headed down the hallway past the restrooms, glanced around to make sure nobody was looking, and then slipped through the hidden illusionary door leading to the portal room. The familiar gateway hung there in front of him, its shifting pastel colors untroubled and peaceful.
Peace. That would be nice for a change, though it would have been even nicer if Verity could have joined him for the holiday. He didn’t blame her for begging off, though—after she and Kyla had patched up their disagreement, the two of them had planned a holi
day of their own, heading down to Los Angeles to attend a concert and perhaps hit Disneyland. Stone couldn’t picture the hard-edged, serious Kyla wearing mouse ears and floating through It’s a Small World, but people could surprise you sometimes.
Jason was away, too—he and his fiancée Amber had planned a backpacking trip to Yosemite for a few days. Stone was still getting his mind around the fact that those two would be getting married in a few short months. He still had Jason’s bachelor party to plan, but he had time for that. No need to think about it yet.
He faced the gateway, reaching out with his magic to calibrate it to point at his private portal in the mausoleum at his family’s cemetery. In just a few moments, he’d be back in England, and with any luck at all, he could give his spinning brain a rest for a little while.
His phone buzzed in his pocket.
“Bloody hell, what now?” he muttered. Was it Aubrey calling back with some last-minute thing, or Verity, or somebody from the University?
He didn’t recognize the number. Even the area code wasn’t familiar, which meant it wasn’t one of his local friends. “Yes, hello?” He didn’t bother taking the clipped impatience out of his voice. It was probably a telemarketer, anyway.
“Dr. Stone?” The voice was male, and as unfamiliar as the number.
“Yes? Who’s this?”
“It’s Edwin Blodgett, Dr. Stone. Do you remember me?”
There was a name he hadn’t heard in quite some time. “Ah. Yes, of course, Reverend. Forgive me—it’s been a while since we’ve chatted.”
Blodgett was one of the rarest of birds: a clergyman who was also a mage. He presided over a Presbyterian church in Lowell, Massachusetts which also served as the location of another public portal. Stone hadn’t spoken with him since he, Jason, and Verity had used the portal during the earliest days of their adventures together.
“What can I do for you?” he asked, hoping it wasn’t much. The portal was calibrated now, and all he’d need to do was step through, walk for less than five minutes, and all of this would be behind him for the rest of the week.
