The Quillan Games (57 page)

Elli was in tears. I put my arms around her and held her tight. She clutched at my shoulder.

“Why did she do it? What was she thinking? Is my daughter evil?”

“I'm not going to defend her,” I said. “But I will say that Saint Dane is a powerful influence. He's got her twisted into believing that to follow him is the best way to save Halla. Nevva is brilliant, maybe that's why she was vulnerable. Saint Dane somehow appealed to her intellect, and won her over.”

Elli pulled away from me and wiped her eyes. “I promised myself I wouldn't do that.”

“It's okay,” I said.

“No, it's not,” she said with authority. “I'm not the same person I was. This may sound strange coming from an old woman, but I've grown up. I'm ready.”

“For what?” I asked.

Elli took a deep breath and announced, “I'm ready to be the Traveler from Quillan.”

After all that had happened. After the devastation and betrayal and crushed ideals and total despair that had marked my stay on Quillan, I finally found it: In this simple old woman I found a small glimmer of hope. Would it be enough to resurrect a territory? Or save Halla? It's way too soon to tell. But when you get as low as I had gotten, and this territory had gotten, having someone willing to take on the fight
goes a long way. Saint Dane was right. Hope is a fragile thing. It's easy to lose, but it's possible to get it back.

And I got it back.

I'm ending the journal here and sending it to you guys. I'm going to spend a few weeks with Elli, filling her in as best I can on all things about the Travelers. That's pretty funny. How can I be the one to explain what it means to be a Traveler, when I barely know myself? I can't help but run Saint Dane's words over in my head. He said we weren't real, that we were illusions. I don't believe him. We are very real. We have saved territories. We have made mistakes, but we have made a difference. Mostly it's been good. I'm not ready to give up the fight yet. I was, but Elli changed my thinking. If she's willing to give it another go, so am I.

But right now I need to see a familiar face. I need to see people I know I can trust. I need to see you guys. Having Nevva turn on us has really set me back. It makes me wonder what reality really is, and where this is all going to lead. If there's one thing I've gotten from Quillan, it's that the battle with Saint Dane is a lot more complex than I thought. There's good. There's evil. And there's a sea of confusion in between. I can only hope that at some point I'll be able to sort it out.

And so we go. I'll see you guys soon.

END JOURNAL #27

SECOND EARTH

“I'm sorry,” Courtney said as she put the pages down.

Bobby was lying on the floor. He wasn't used to sitting on soft furniture anymore. “Don't be,” he said. “I only have myself to blame for what happened.”

“I'm not so sure about that,” Courtney said. “But what I meant was, I'm sorry for what I'm about to do.”

“What's that?” Bobby asked.

“You need a break. I'm not going to give it to you. I've got to tell you what's been happening here. It's only going to make it worse.”

Courtney spent the next hour telling Bobby all that had happened since they left each other as the flume collapsed on Eelong. She didn't leave out a single detail, telling him how no time had passed while they were on Eelong; about the depression she went into after learning of Kasha's death; about her recovery at summer school, and of course, about Whitney Wilcox. She told him the whole story of Andy Mitchell and how he joined Mark's science club, and how they became friends and ultimately how he helped Mark save her life. She told Bobby all about the science project that he and Mark had worked on and how Mark's parents were killed in the plane tragedy.

The hardest part of all was telling Bobby how Andy Mitchell was Saint Dane all along. From the time they were kids. She ended by telling Bobby that after learning of the tragic death of his parents, Mark jumped into the flume with Andy Mitchell. With Saint Dane. Where? She didn't know.

Bobby listened to the whole story without saying a word. Courtney saw him wince a few times, but he never interrupted. She ended her story by explaining how, after she had been pulled into the flume and dumped back on Second Earth, strange things had appeared, like the talking cat and the impossible computer and the pepper spray that wasn't pepper spray. When she finished, she sat back on the couch, exhausted. The two sat there for the longest time, not saying a word. Courtney knew that Bobby needed time to digest all that she had told him.

Finally Courtney said, “I know you came home to get away, but I don't think a place exists to get away anymore.”

Bobby nodded. Courtney could tell he was rolling all the events around in his head.

“Let's take this slowly,” he said. “We first need to confirm some things. Are you with me?”

“You know I am,” Courtney said.

The first order of business was to get Bobby better clothes. Courtney's dad was roughly Bobby's size, so she raided his room. She got Bobby better jeans and a shirt that fit him. It was cold out, so she also grabbed a Polarfleece jacket that her dad wore hiking. She thought that Bobby looked way better, and more importantly, wouldn't get a second glance from anybody. The mystery of what had happened to Bobby and the Pendragons was still out there. People didn't talk about it every day anymore, but the police investigation was still ongoing. It wouldn't be a good thing for him to be recognized. But Bobby had grown so much that Courtney was pretty sure nobody would recognize him. Just to be safe, she grabbed a pair of her
dad's sunglasses. The illusion was complete. No way did he look like the fourteen-year-old Bobby who had disappeared three years earlier.

Even though both of them were old enough, neither had gotten their driver's licenses. Courtney had been dealing with too many issues to take the time, and there weren't any driver's ed classes being taught on Eelong, Zadaa, or Quillan. That meant to get around they had to ride bikes. Courtney rode hers and Bobby borrowed her dad's.

“Hey,” Bobby said as they started to pedal. “It's just like riding a bike.”

Courtney laughed. For that one instant she felt as if things were back to normal. Bobby was making dumb jokes and they were riding bikes through Stony Brook. Courtney allowed herself to pretend life hadn't changed, if only for a few precious minutes.

Their first stop was at the florist shop that was run by Andy Mitchell's uncle. It was gone. There was an empty lot where the building once stood. Neither Bobby nor Courtney said a word. Neither was surprised. The next stop was Glenville School, the grammar school where Bobby, Courtney, Mark, and Andy Mitchell had all gone. Bobby waited outside while Courtney went in to the office and spoke to the secretary, explaining how Andy Mitchell was going to some big science fair in Orlando, and she was doing a piece on him for the high school paper and could she please look through some of the old records for pictures and whatnot of Andy? The secretary said she couldn't give out official records, but she'd look to see what she could find.

Fifteen minutes later she returned with strange news that wasn't strange to Courtney at all. There was no record of Andy Mitchell. Nothing. Zero. The secretary didn't understand, because she remembered Andy very well. She'd caught him
smoking in the boys' room more than once. The woman wanted to keep talking, but Courtney had heard enough. She thanked the woman and left.

Bobby and Courtney rode to Stony Brook Avenue, where they bought a couple of boxes of golden fries and cans of Coke from Garden Poultry Deli. The sun had warmed the day up enough so they could sit in the pocket park near the deli and enjoy their greasy-delicious lunch while they talked.

“So it's true,” Bobby said. “Saint Dane was Andy Mitchell the whole time. I always hated that guy. He was such a tool to Mark.”

“It's scary to think he was watching us our whole lives,” Courtney said. “He's been plotting this for years.”

“What was that science project they were working on again?” Bobby asked.

“They called it ‘Forge.' It looked like a hunk of Play-Doh, but it was voice activated. You told it what shape you wanted it to be, and it turned into it. It was pretty incredible. Do you think that's significant?”

“I think everything is significant,” Bobby said. “Do you still have that pepper spray?”

Courtney reached into her pack and took out a silver canister.

“That is
not
the same thing I put in my pocket when I left this morning,” she said.

Bobby looked around to see if anybody was watching. He pointed the canister at a sculpture of an owl that was carved out of wood, and pressed the trigger.

Fum!

The owl was knocked off its perch.

“I've never seen anything like it,” Courtney said.

Bobby handed her back the canister and said, “I have. On Quillan. That's the same kind of weapon the dados used.”

Courtney looked at the canister like it was an alien creature—because it was.

“How did it get here?” she said in awe. “And how did it get in my pocket?”

“Something happened when you went through the flume,” Bobby said. “That's the only thing I can think of.”

“But I didn't do anything!” Courtney said.

“Somebody did,” Bobby said. “You came back at the exact same time you left, but things were different. Somehow, technology has changed.”

“But nobody else notices!” Courtney exclaimed. “That car seat was definitely not the same, but my father didn't know it. And my mother doesn't even know how to turn on the computer, let alone send video messages from work.”

“That's because things haven't changed, for them,” Bobby said. “But you weren't here for it. You were in the flume.”

“Huh? What does that mean?”

“It means somebody's been messing with the past,” Bobby said. “Let's go.”

They got on their bikes and went right to the National Bank of Stony Brook, where Courtney put Bobby's journals in the safe-deposit box with all the others. With that done, their plan was to go back to Courtney's house, but Bobby wanted to take a quick detour. He wanted to ride by the spot where his house used to be. The house he grew up in. The house that disappeared when he left home. Courtney tried to talk him out of it, but Bobby's mind was made up.

When they got to 2 Linden Place, Bobby saw why Courtney didn't want him to come back. Someone had taken over the property. A house was being built. It was a modern-looking building, nothing like the classic old farmhouse where Bobby had lived with his family for the first fourteen years of his life. Bobby stood across the street, staring at the place that was so familiar, and so wrong.

“You okay?” Courtney asked.

“He said I was an illusion,” Bobby said softly. “Maybe he was right.”

“You're not an illusion, Bobby Pendragon!” Courtney scolded as she grabbed his arm. “I can touch you. I can hear you. Everything you do has an effect on physical reality. That doesn't sound like an illusion to me.”

“No?” Bobby asked. “Then what am I?”

Courtney started to answer, but stopped. The truth was, she didn't know.

They pedaled back to Courtney's house silently. Once inside, Bobby examined the strange new computer that had appeared in the living room.

“I'm not a computer geek,” he said. “But I've never seen anything like this.”

“I'm less freaked about the computer than I am about the cat,” Courtney said.

Bobby spotted the black cat lying on a windowsill, sunning itself. They both walked over to it. Bobby tentatively reached out and rubbed his hand across the cat's belly. The cat purred.

“Nice,” the cat said dreamily.

Bobby whipped his hand back.

“That's just creepy,” he said. He reached out again and rubbed the cat's belly again. He didn't so much stroke the cat, as examine it. After a few seconds he announced, “It's not real. I mean, it's not a living thing. Feel.”