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THEN IT was dark again.
Our arrival tore our hands apart and scattered us on the ground, as if we were two and a half pairs of dice.
I propped my glasses on top of my head and looked around, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness and my ears to the silence.
“Is everyone all right?” I asked. “Did we all make it?”
“I’m here,” said Valcas from somewhere to my left.
“As am I,” said my father.
“Ray and I are here too, Calla. Good work.” The sound of Ivory’s voice and her approval made me smile.
I breathed a sigh of relief. In that breath, I could smell and taste pine needles. I stood up and took a few steps. When I heard the crunch of pine needles beneath my feet, I smiled.
“We must have landed in the thicket of trees,” I said. “If we pick a direction and walk for a little while, I’ll be able to tell where we are based on the location of the brook. Edgar’s workshop is in the opposite direction.”
We tried a couple of different routes through the trees before we oriented ourselves. As we neared the workshop, I gasped.
Edgar’s garden looked like a small jungle. I lifted a drooping stalk of a plant I couldn’t identify. Of course, given Edgar’s bizarre cultivations, I may not have been able to identify it had it not been overgrown.
“I don’t know if any of this is edible,” I said, frowning. “There aren’t any fish in the brook, or anything else to hunt and eat either.”
Ivory squeezed my shoulder. “We’ll manage. Right now, what’s important is that we’re safe. Now that your tracking device is buried in another world, it should take the TSTA a while to catch up with us. You’ve bought us time.”
I nodded. “We should go inside. I’m sure there’s a packet or two of stale biscuits and a stash of herbal tea in the lab. That’s better than nothing, I guess.”
Ray laughed. “Tea and stale anything will be an improvement over fish and seaweed.”
I looked up at Ray and smiled. It was nice to see him both feeling better and laughing again. He looked down at my hand, as if he were considering taking it and walking with me into the workshop. He lifted his hand and hesitated. Then, looking at Valcas, he dropped his hand, walked past me and followed Ivory and my father to the workshop.
Valcas didn’t say anything. His face was a blank canvas. He slowly took off his glasses and slipped them inside his jacket.
“Come on,” I said. “I’ll give you the grand tour of the workshop in the woods. Edgar always left it unlocked.”
He nodded. I expected him to take my hand; but, unlike Ray, Valcas didn’t look at me or my hand. He just walked stiffly next to me as we walked from the garden to the workshop’s front door.
I shrugged and pushed past Ray and Ivory, who stood next to the open door. “There are lamps in the living room, along the wall. Once we light up the place, we can fire up Edgar’s stove to make tea.”
I lit the first couple of lamps by feeling my way around the room. After Ivory helped me get the room in order, I gave everyone the same tour Edgar had given me. “The living room has a love seat and a chair—Edgar called it an easy-chair. There are plenty of pillows and blankets.” I grinned, pulling extra blankets out of Edgar’s chest of drawers. “We should sleep better tonight than we have in a long time.”
Ivory and Ray both smiled.
“To the right of the lab,” I continued, “there’s a washroom and library. And the brook outside has plenty of drinking water.”
“I’ve got dibs on the washroom,” said Ivory, running through the lab. Ray followed her immediately, but with less urgency.
“Thank you, Calla.” My father sounded sad, homesick. “You chose well. This is a suitable temporary destination.”
“I hope we can get you back to Chascadia soon,” I said. “Even if that means I need to go back to the TSTA alone, to tell them that the mission is complete.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Valcas said. “They already know we found Plaka. You’ve paid your penalty—we all have. You’re free to go wherever and whenever you please.”
“Then why all the sirens and jets?”
Valcas shrugged. The lamps on the wall flickered and reflected in his bright green eyes, but for whatever reason he avoided looking directly into mine. “I don’t know. I was as surprised as you were when they showed up. Maybe I should have stayed behind to find out what they wanted.”
I stared at Valcas. What was his problem? Didn’t he want to be here with us, together and safe?
“What’s the matter, Valcas?” my father said.
He didn’t respond.
My father looked at him, focused on him as if trying to read him, his patient. “It’s been a trying day. Maybe you should get some rest.”
“Actually,” Valcas said, “I’d like to go for a walk. I—I’ll be back.” Without another word, Valcas stormed out of the living room. Just as I heard the laboratory door slam shut, Ray came back with a packet of biscuits.
“This bag of crackers was open,” he said, using the American word for biscuits. A couple of stray crumbs escaped his lips. He swallowed as if he were eating the driest thing in the world. Despite that, he smiled. His eyes widened when he saw my father and me standing there, still stunned from Valcas’ behavior. “What?” he said.
I didn’t stick around long enough to hear my father’s response. I ran out of the workshop to see if I could catch up with Valcas. Something was seriously wrong; whatever it was ate me up inside. I hoped I could help, even though I didn’t know whether that was possible.
Unsure of which direction Valcas had wandered, I instinctively walked toward my favorite part of Edgar’s Nowhere—the brook. The still silver brook had a way of calming me. I’d spent a lot of time there when I lived with Edgar, when he’d given me lessons about time travel—after I’d escaped from Valcas. That felt like a lifetime ago.
As I cautiously stepped through the thick layer of trees, the scent of pine grew heavier. I walked, thinking about Valcas. He’d been so hopeful just before we left the interior of the Fire Falls, the air layer. I didn’t know if it was the sirens in Chascadia, or the TSTA watch lighting up like a beacon, or what it was that changed his mood so suddenly. He’d seemed fine until we started discussing where to go next. His hesitance to go to Aboreal was understandable. The last straw seemed to be my request that we return to the White Tower, a place he hadn’t visited since his father died. Maybe that’s what was on his mind; but was that enough to make him ignore me and storm off into the woods?
I shook my head. I didn’t know what to think anymore.
The trees around me thinned and opened into a glade of wild grasses. I’d almost reached the brook. When the sun was out, the water sparkled by reflecting the streams of light that came through the pine trees overhead. The brook wasn’t as impressive in the dark as it was during the daytime. With no light to reflect, the brook was black and somber, similar to Ivory’s eyes.
I stepped carefully, imagining the brook would be nearly as dark as the ground. I wasn’t in the mood to accidentally fall in; although, it wouldn’t be a horrible idea given that I was covered head-to-toe in dried blue-green balm. Still, I much preferred the washroom in the workshop.
Just as I thought I saw a difference in the ground below me, something glassy and smooth in contrast to the rough grasses, I heard another crunching sound. Footsteps coming toward me.
“Valcas?”