As Roni opened the door to her apartment, Elliot brushed through straight for the center of the room. With his cane, he pushed aside the robe and dirty blouse discarded on the floor. Standing between her old television and her worn couch, he lifted the cane shoulder-height with his right hand. His left traced a figure eight repeatedly.
Roni knew not to speak while Elliot cast a spell. She gently closed the door before going down the hall to the bathroom. When she returned a few minutes later, the air around Elliot’s hand shimmered. She leaned against the wall and waited.
The shimmering increased its frequency right before Roni heard a pop. Then her ears clogged up as if from the pressure of sitting in an airplane changing altitude. Rubbing her ears, she tried to get them to clear, but nothing helped.
Lowering his hands, Elliot turned towards her. Despite all the sounds around her being muted, when he spoke, his voice cut through the thick gauze in the air. “This spell will not last long, so I advise you to be honest with me. For the moment, nobody can hear what we say. Anyone attempting to snoop on us will know nothing.”
“Who would be snooping?” Roni asked, her own voice louder than she expected.
“Not everybody in the world that knows the truth agrees with the Society. We have our enemies.”
Roni wondered where Yal-hara and Kenneth Bay fell in that dichotomy — friend or foe. She had accepted them at face value — mostly because of the map fragment — but seeing the deep concern in Elliot’s eyes worried her.
Placing both his hands on the top of his cane, Elliot tilted forward. “Now is the time when you must tell me all that you know about the Book on the Isle and how you came to know it.”
“I just stumbled upon it. I was working in the Grand Library like always, and I came across Waterfield’s journal. You were the last to check it out, so I got curious.”
Elliot shook his head. “Even without powers I can see that you are lying. I have known you since you were little, after all. Do not try to deceive me. I shall offer you one more opportunity. Tell me the truth.” His stern expression cracked for an instant, and beneath it, Roni saw mournful sadness.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Here’s the truth.” And she told him everything that had occurred since Kenneth Bay sat down across from her in the Olburg Chestnut.”
When she finished, Elliot gave a thoughtful grunt. “Yal-hara. We never did the right thing with her. We wanted to, but there was no way to pinpoint her specific universe. Not that we know.”
“Why couldn’t you just open the book that captured the original rift? Let her go through.”
“Because we never did capture it. It disappeared on its own as if that universe merely grazed ours instead of intersecting it.”
“Yal-hara says she needs this kyolo stone to find another rift to her universe. That with the stone, she can find her way home. Is that right? Is she telling me the truth?”
“Maybe.”
“But these stones are everywhere in the Book on the Isle. She said that. Is that much true?”
“It once was true, but I have not been to that place in many years.”
Roni pushed off the wall, her head cocked in disbelief. “You’ve been there? You’ve seen the Book on the Isle?”
Closing his eyes as if the words might cause him to scream, he opted instead to nod.
A dark thought struck her. “What’s the hellspider?”
Elliot’s eyes snapped open. “Hellspider? I have never heard of that.”
“I thought we were going to be honest here.”
“I am. I have never heard of nor have I ever seen something called a hellspider.”
She believed him. “What about my Lost Time? Yal-hara said that the stones she wants could also help me with my memory.”
“I don’t know.”
“How can you know so little about this when it’s obvious that you’re connected to it all?”
“Because I have never met Yal-hara, so I cannot confirm the truth of her words. I am assuming that you also have not met her.”
Crossing her arms, Roni said, “Just her guy, Kenneth Bay. He called himself her emissary.”
“I know him. His father, Roger Bay, was the man I dealt with on the few occasions Yal-hara reached out to us.”
“If you worked with them before, then you should know whether I can trust them.”
He chuckled. “You most certainly cannot trust them. But that does not mean they have lied to you. Yal-hara has been stuck here for a long time, and she wants to find her way back to her world. That much is true. Whether the kyolo stones can save her, whether they can help you, I do not know. I doubt Yal-hara knows for sure, either.”
“So this is all a gamble?”
“Perhaps a better way to say this would be that Yal-hara is making a highly educated guess.”
Roni walked to the couch and slumped into its lumpy cushions. “Then I have to try, right? I have to go to this Book on the Isle and get some of those kyolo stones. And I have to prepare myself for the fact that it might not work — at least, not for me.”
“The Book on the Isle leads to a wondrous place.”
“Waterfield wrote that it’s a paradise.”
“Indeed, it is. Possibly the most extraordinary world I’ve ever seen. Yet such worlds of beauty and peace can do more harm than the dark, evil worlds.” Elliot’s gaze lowered. “A world of paradise gives hope. And hope — real, pure hope — is destined to be destroyed.”
“Maybe,” she said, a dread excitement building as a bonfire grows from a single flame. “But knowing the place is real, confirming it because you’ve been there, that sort of means I have to go now. I can’t turn away. I have to try — for Yal-hara and for myself.”
Roni heard a high-pitched whine followed by a pop similar to the one earlier. Elliot shuffled toward the front door. “The spell is done,” he said.
“Thank you for telling me this. It’s going to help me make this decision.”
“Do not lie to yourself. You have already made that decision.”
“I suppose I did. That’s it then. I’m going to the Isle.”
“Good. I assumed as much when you first mentioned the Isle. That is why I have taken the liberty of packing supplies for the trip. We should get started right away.”
“We?”
“I expect you to come along. It would be too lonely to do it by myself. Now, get some clothes together and we will be off.”
Roni grinned. “Shouldn’t we sleep on it? I mean, I could use some rest before hiking into a cavern for days.”
“The longer we wait, the more likely that Gram and Sully will attempt to stop us. Who do you think I was casting that spell against? Gram has very strong feelings about this subject, and she will not want me going to the Isle. So, we must be on our way. If you are too tired, we will find a place to rest once we are out of Gram’s reach. Okay? Good. Now, let us begin.”