Down a Lost Road (17 page)

“
C-can you pull over? I
don’t feel good.”

It was true. I probably could have suffered
through it, but I must have appeared ill enough, because Kurtis
took one more look at me before slowing and pulling off the road. I
stumbled out of the car and Damian jumped out after me. I exchanged
a glance with him, then held out my hand as though to ward him
off.

“
I’ll be okay…”

I slid clumsily down the hill and collapsed
behind a tree. The ground felt damp under the tree boughs, but I
didn’t care. I was shaking uncontrollably, swallowing back the
bitterness in my throat. I took a few deep breaths to try to calm
myself and collect my thoughts. But they wouldn’t be collected.

“
Damian!”

I heard him say to Kurtis, “…just make sure
she’s all right,” and Kurtis’s quick reply, “Of course!”

It seemed ages before Damian was crouching
beside me. “Mer, you okay? You know we can’t risk Dr. Balson
catching us up.”

“
Damian, I never told you
about Pyelthan. I told you about the coin, but I never called it by
its name. How did Kurtis know?”

His eyes grew wide, then narrowed as he
thought. “I told him most of what you told me. He didn’t say
anything. He didn’t seem to know anything about it, but maybe he
was just bluffing me. I should have kept my mouth shut! He seemed
trustworthy, but still…” He peered around the brush. “He’s still by
the car. What are you thinking?”

“
How much does he know? And
how? Mr. Dansy knew it by name, but he also knew about Onethyl and
Yatol, I’m sure of it. But Kurtis…I don’t know!” I leaned over my
knees with my head in my hands. “Do you think we should run for
it?”

“
If we run too far we’ll
leave our cover and he’ll see us. He’ll be able to catch
us.”

“
What if he’s with Dr.
Balson? Or one of
them
? Where was he taking us, anyway?
Let’s just run, Damian. We have to.”

“
All right. You ready?
Let’s go!”

He jumped to his feet and I started to
follow him, but my strength failed me. I collapsed back onto the
ground, shuddering, furious at myself for my weakness. It felt like
a nightmare. Everything did.

Damian hovered over me, ready to begin our
escape as soon as I could gain my feet.

“
I can’t, I can’t.” I
reached up to take his hand. “I can’t run anymore. I can’t do this!
What am I doing, anyway? I couldn’t think I could do
anything…”

“
Oh, Mer, don’t think!
Don’t think at all, just get up and let your legs do the rest. You
know how to do it. It’s the 800.”

I glanced up, saw the encouragement in his
eyes. I let him help me to my feet, and gave him a slight nod. We
turned to run. And ran full into Kurtis.

Damian had the presence of mind to dart
sideways, but I slowed up instead and found Kurtis’s hands gripping
my arms.

“
Wait! Look at me,
Merelin!”

Damian came back for me, but Kurtis had let
go of me and I felt no need to move. He touched two fingers to his
heart and then swept his arm open. I’d seen that salute before.
Yatol.

“
Mer!” Damian whispered.
“What…”

“
It’s okay, Damian.” To
Kurtis, “I’m sorry we tried to run away. It just kind of freaked me
out to hear that name. Especially when Ya…when I’ve been warned
against speaking it to just anyone.”

“
I know. I’m sorry. I just
wanted to tell you that I knew, but it was an awkward way to do
it.”

“
Yeah. We almost didn’t
give you a chance to explain. But you have it now, so
explain.”

Kurtis sat down cross-legged on the damp
grass, and after a moment Damian and I joined him there.

“
Your father,” he began,
then faltered and stared at his hands. “The last time I saw him was
just before he disappeared. I was supposed to meet him in his
office for a meeting about my thesis. Well, when I got there, the
door was unlocked, but your father wasn’t there. He was always on
time, so I was a little worried, especially because I had just seen
him the night before in the library. He had come in with his
notebooks and copied a few things out in such a hurry, then left as
quickly as he had come.

“
I decided to go in and
wait for him. His office was a mess. Papers everywhere, books open
on the floor. I didn’t know what to do, so I just sat down and
tried to pick up some of the books. Then all of a sudden he comes
crashing in. He looked like a wreck. His face was almost grey and
he was stumbling like a drunk. ‘Kurtis,’ he said, shaking me.
‘Kurtis, I’m going. I’m going for the last time. I’ve stayed too
long as it is.’ He looked around his office, then broke a chain
around his neck and slid this little metal object off of
it.

“‘
Take Pyelthan, hide it
somewhere. There are people here in this faculty who know about it
and are trying to find it.’ I was so confused at that point, I
didn’t know what to think. But he kept insisting that I take it
somewhere they wouldn’t discover it and saying something like, ‘it
will be needed again someday. This is the only way.’ And then he
told me, ‘You can trust Charles Dansy. He owns the corner shop on
Main. He knows Pyelthan and its uses. And he knows to whom it must
go.’ He pushed it into my hand, grabbed the papers off his desk,
and was gone.”

I took the coin out of the pouch at my belt
and stared at it numbly, twirling it between my fingers. Kurtis
reached out to touch it.

“
It sounded crazy, but I
respected your father too much to take his words lightly. I was its
guardian for the last four years. I kept it secret all through my
graduate studies, then I returned here to teach. But I got stupid
and careless. One day Dr. Balson saw it in my office, and he
started asking about it, wanting to see it and take it to study. I
put the matter off but I realized I couldn’t keep it safely
anymore, so I took it to Charles and told him what was happening.
The next day I found my office turned upside down.” He laughed
grimly. “They never found who broke in.”

“
And Mr. Dansy gave it to
me, one day out of the blue.” I sighed. “I remember that night you
mentioned. That was the last time I saw my dad.”

Damian took my hand, closing my fingers
around Pyelthan. The rain picked up, piercing the branches above
us, but none of us moved.

“
How did you know the
greeting they use?” I asked.

“
That gesture?” I nodded.
“I wasn’t really sure what it meant. But I saw Charles do the same
thing when your father went to the shop one day. I don’t know if
they knew I was there or not. It seemed important, so I tried to
remember it.”

“
I wish I could talk to Mr.
Dansy. I want to know what he has to do with all of this,” Damian
said.

Kurtis pulled out his cell. “Why don’t we,
then? We could try calling in for his number. I’ve been wanting to
know the same thing.”

Damian and I waited in silence as he called,
but after a moment he closed the phone, brows drawn.

“
No answer?” I
asked.

Kurtis shook his head.

“
Mr. Dansy’s always there,”
Damian said. “Even after the shop closes. I think he practically
lives there.”

“
I don’t know that he
wasn’t there,” said Kurtis. “The line’s been
disconnected.”

“
Like,
disconnected
disconnected? We should go back and make sure he’s all right! If
he’s in danger…” My voice trailed off, and I glanced anxiously from
Damian to Kurtis. “We have to.”

“
We can’t just go rushing
back,” Damian objected. “We’ve spent all day trying to get
away.”

“
But if we don’t…” An image
flashed into my mind – Yatol with his arms spread against the
night, guarding an empty tent. “Of course!” I cried. “I’m so
stupid. Mr. Dansy guarded the portal here on Earth! He must have.
It explains everything!”

“
And if he’s in danger…”
Damian said, continuing my thought.

Kurtis jumped to his feet. “Let’s go.”

We left the meager shelter of the tree and
ran out into the pouring rain.

Chapter 12 – Fishing

The windshield wipers splashed vainly
against the driving rain. I could tell Kurtis was tense, but I knew
it wasn’t because of the weather. He sat leaning forward, peering
out into the blinding grey that no car lights or wipers seemed to
drive away.

“
So much rain,” Damian
muttered.

I sighed and leaned my head against the
window. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kurtis’s book on the seat
beside me, face down where I had tossed it earlier. I picked it up,
thumbing through the pages. Strange names and lofty dialogue swam
before my eyes, bits of descriptions enthralled me, but out of
their context they held little meaning for me.

I wished I had the time to read the book in
its entirety, but as I flipped through the pages, a slim sheaf of
folded paper slipped out onto my lap. I started to close the book
to examine the papers, but just as I did, a highlighted passage on
the page leapt out at me. Something about the sundering of the
west. I scanned it once and then again, puzzled. The book slipped
from my fingers.

“
Mer!”

I glanced up, jolted. We had finally made it
back to town, threading a slow path through the river that had once
been Main Street. There was the corner shop, looking just the same
as ever. I glimpsed Mr. Dansy’s face at the window – his expression
seemed to attempt communication, but I couldn’t decipher it through
the downpour. I stuffed the papers into my pouch to read later,
then leapt out of the car as soon as Kurtis put it in park. Mr.
Dansy’s face had disappeared, but a cold tearing feeling clutched
my stomach.

“
Let me go in alone,” I
said as Kurtis and Damian joined me. “If I’m too long, come after
me. But let me go in first.”

Damian and Kurtis nodded uncertainly. I
headed across the intersection to the shop. The little bell on the
door chimed dully as always when I entered, and Mr. Dansy glanced
up from behind his counter, so completely unreadable I couldn’t
tell if he was uneasy. The place felt empty, eerily so. I found
myself peering around, hoping to see other customers there. I
didn’t. Even the old radio languished mute. The only sound in the
shop was the rain pattering against the glass.

“
Well,” Mr. Dansy said.
“How’s your family, Merry?”

He
was
nervous. He rarely asked about
my family, and never called me Merry.

“
Your brothers gone off
fishing yet this summer?” He thumbed at a stack of fliers in front
of him, saying, “You know, got a good sale on bait right now. Good
sale…not for the bait, of course. Trouble with bait is, it doesn’t
know its own doom.”

Was he trying to tell me something? I
swallowed hard, dropping back a step.

“
And, worse yet, it can’t
tell the fish about the hook it’s hiding. It just…wriggles there
all helpless, you know, luring in the fish…”

“
Mr. Dansy,” I
choked.

“
I’m sorry,
darlin’.”

I knew there would be no point trying to
escape. “Where are they?”

“
They knew you’d figure
something about me, that you’d try to call. I couldn’t get to you
in time! I’m trapped here. And they knew that’d pull you in. Now
they’ve got you trapped here too.”

“
Mr. Dansy, the
portal…”

He made a low, miserable sound, putting his
head in his hands. “I’m no portal guardian. I couldn’t be. I’m not
that sort. I watch it, that’s all. All I could ever do was tell
Davhur if anyone came or went, and when. I can’t stop a passage,
not from this side.”

I felt wretched. Standing there, dripping
wet and exhausted, I realized my error. No going back now. I’d
completely failed. Desperate, I glanced outside, wanting somehow to
tell Damian and Kurtis to stay away. But already they were coming
toward the shop. I went to the window, tried calling to them, waved
at them frantically to gesture them away. That only made them
quicken their pace. I put my hand on the door handle, but it
wouldn’t budge. I lurched around in terror.

“
Mr. Dansy, where are they?
What is Pyelthan?
What is this thing?
” I was shrieking now,
holding the circlet clenched in my fist.

I lowered it to my side suddenly, feeling
that cold rush of inevitability. Damian and Kurtis burst through
the door. It slammed shut behind them with the hollow, dead sound
of finality, and though I couldn’t hear it lock I knew it wouldn’t
open again. The whole world swayed.