The Quillan Games (34 page)

(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 gunslinger 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.

“Mark?” she called. “You in there?”

No answer. She pulled open the creaky wooden door and stepped into the dank earthen cellar.

Mark wasn't there. The large, rocky tunnel that was the flume was quiet and dark. Courtney's eyes took a second to adjust. She stood at the mouth of the flume, looking into the depths of infinity.

“What did you do, Mark?” she said aloud.

Her biggest fear was that Mark had jumped into the flume, headed for another territory. But only Travelers could use the flumes. They learned that lesson the hard way. It collapsed on Eelong for one reason and one reason only: because Mark and Courtney had traveled. She had trouble believing that Mark would use the flume again knowing how dangerous and wrong it was. But Mark might not have been thinking clearly. She couldn't imagine getting the news that her parents had both been killed. For all she knew, Mark might have lost it. There was no way that anybody could think straight after hearing something like that. The question was, how “off” did his thinking get? Was he so messed up that he didn't worry about the dangers and jumped in? If that happened, where would he go? To find Bobby? But why?

As well as she knew Mark, she couldn't get inside his head to figure out why he would have come here, or asked her to come. She had done what he asked. But coming here didn't answer any questions. It only raised more. With a shrug, she turned to leave.

That's when she saw it. She hadn't noticed at first, because her eyes were still adjusting to the dark. Now she saw something on top of an overturned wooden box a few feet back from the mouth of the flume. It was a manila envelope. A regular old Second Earth envelope. Written in large black letters was a single word:
COURTNEY
.

Courtney dove at the envelope and quickly picked it up. She
knew it had to be from Mark. That's why she was there, to get this. Without wasting another second, she tore it open, being careful not to damage anything that might be inside. Peering in, she saw a slip of paper, and two smaller envelopes. She pulled the paper out first to see it was a note.

It read:
This is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Please forgive me. Mark.

Courtney couldn't catch her breath. What had he done? She was beginning to think he might have jumped into the flume after all. She dropped the note back in the large envelope and pulled out one of the two smaller envelopes. It had weight. Something solid was inside. Written on the outside of the envelope was a series of numbers: #15-224. Courtney knew exactly what it was, an assigned account code. Seeing this, Courtney also knew what she would find inside the small envelope. She tore it open and dumped the contents into her hand. It was a small brass key. Courtney held the account number and the key to the safe-deposit box where Mark stored Bobby's journals at the National Bank of Stony Brook. Bobby had opened the account on First Earth, 1937, and asked them to keep his journals safe there. Mark had dutifully stored every bit of correspondence from Bobby in that bank. Courtney nervously bit her already hurting lip to stop herself from crying. Mark had handed over the responsibility of Bobby's journals to her. But why?

There was one more small envelope in the bigger envelope. Courtney pulled it out to discover this one had some weight as well. She tore it open, looked inside, and this time she couldn't stop herself. She cried. Courtney wasn't somebody who cried much. She barely shed a tear throughout her whole painful ordeal after the accident. But at that moment, tears filled her eyes and she flat out sobbed. She hadn't expected this. It hit her like a speeding truck. The emotion poured out; she couldn't help it. Inside this envelope was something that couldn't be, yet was.
It was Mark's Traveler ring. It was the ring that was given to him so long ago by Loor's mother, Osa, before they even knew that Bobby was missing. Before they heard of things called flumes and territories and Travelers. Before they heard of Saint Dane. This ring had never left Mark from the moment Osa gave it to him, until now. When she saw it, Courtney knew. There was no doubt in her mind. Mark had jumped into the flume and wherever he'd gone, he wasn't coming back.

“Mark, what were you thinking?” she sobbed.

Courtney sat down on the wooden box and let her emotions pour out. There was nothing she could do. Mark left no other clue as to what had happened. Courtney knew that had to be intentional. If Mark had wanted Courtney to know more, he would have told her. Seeing the items he left, it was pretty clear what Mark had in mind for her. He wanted her to receive Bobby's journals and keep them safe. Alone. She would do it, no question. She was prepared. But she wasn't prepared to be without Mark.

She didn't want to be at the flume anymore. It felt like the walls of the basement were closing in on her. She wanted to be outside, in the light, where she could breathe and think. The open mouth of the flume gave her the shivers, as if it were taunting her. There were answers in there, through the tunnel, but they were beyond her reach.

She quickly put the safe-deposit key in her jacket pocket, along with the envelope that had the account number. She folded up Mark's note to her and slipped it inside the same pocket. She was left with the heavy silver ring with the gray stone that was surrounded by carved symbols—one for each territory. She was about to drop it into her pocket, when she stopped. No, she thought, that was wrong. This ring wasn't a “thing” to be carried around. It was a living symbol of Halla. Of Bobby and the Travelers. Of Mark. There was only one way to respectfully possess a Traveler ring. Courtney held the heavy
ring in the palm of her left hand. She had held this ring before, many times, but never with such a feeling of importance. Of destiny. Though she and Mark were both acolytes, it was Mark's ring. Osa had given it to him. Whenever she touched it, she always felt a little bit uncomfortable, as if she weren't worthy. But now Mark had given it to her. It was her ring. She was now the sole acolyte from Second Earth. There was only one thing to do. Courtney held the ring up and looked at it with reverence. She wiped away her last tears and said, “Mark, wherever you are, I hope you know what you're doing, you dork.” She slipped the silver circle onto the ring finger of her right hand. It fit perfectly

Instantly, as if in response, Courtney heard a crackling, groaning sound. She froze. She knew what that meant. She'd heard it before. She spun around and saw it.

The flume was coming to life.

SECOND EARTH