After school, Dalton walked down the hall with Maggie and Kate, on the way to Miss Pembrook’s history club meeting, and she continued to steal glances at Kate. The cheerful girl seemed so excited about everything and so eager to learn that Dalton’s curiosity about her was growing every minute. As they walked, Kate recapped all her favorite parts of the day—which mostly seemed to revolve around various pieces of technology that everyone else took for granted, but that she found amazing.
“And the computer—’tis like a magical typewriting machine!” Kate exclaimed. “And that interweb thing—why, you can go to any library in the world, just like that!” She snapped her fingers. “Who could imagine such a thing?”
“Come on, Kate,” Dalton said, amused. “You can’t tell me they don’t have computers in Ireland.”
“Well, perhaps they do,” Kate replied quietly, suddenly subdued. “But I’d never seen one up close before today.” Kate was in Dalton’s computer class, and she’d been completely baffled when she sat down in front of her monitor. Dalton had to show her everything, starting with how to turn it on and how to use the keyboard. When Kate had asked where the paper was rolled in for the typing, Dalton had pointed to the other side of the room and explained that when the document was finished, it would come out of the printer. When Dalton had shown her how to look things up on the Internet, Kate was ecstatic. Dalton couldn’t believe how quickly she learned. The first search term Kate typed in was, Ireland in the early 20th century.
Puzzled, Dalton was still looking dubiously at her, but they had reached their destination. They all filed into Miss Pembrook’s room to find her sitting on her desk with a coffee cup in her hand. Mr. Brighton was with her, sitting at one of the student desks.
“Hi, Miss Pembrook. Hi, Mr. Brighton,” they all said, not exactly in unison. Dalton noticed that the teachers seemed close and maybe a little embarrassed, like they were engaged in some kind of intimate conversation.
“Hi, guys,” Mr. Brighton said, quickly standing and moving away from Miss Pembrook, who had a slight blush on her cheeks. The idea that her two favorite teachers might have a secret romance going on made Dalton smile.
“And what are you ladies up to?” Miss Pembrook asked. “Oh yeah, shoot. History club—I completely forgot.” Yes, Dalton thought. She was definitely blushing and a little flustered as she turned to Mr. Brighton and told him, “Sorry, I’ll have to take a rain check. Next week?”
“Sure.” He raised his coffee cup to the girls. “You ladies enjoy your meeting,” he said and left quickly, careful not to look at Miss Pembrook again.
“Ooh, girl,” Dalton teased Miss Pembrook when he was out of earshot. “We messed up your date!”
“It wasn’t a date,” the teacher said hastily. “It was just . . . we were just . . .”
“Um-humm,” Dalton said smugly.
“Relax,” Maggie added. “We love Mr. Brighton. We are so in favor of you hooking up with him.”
“Okay, guys,” Miss Pembrook said, joining in their laughter. “I can tell when I’ve been outed—but don’t spread it around, all right?”
Dalton noticed that Kate hadn’t been paying attention to their banter. Instead she was standing by the door, staring at a corkboard collage that Miss Pembrook had made. Dalton went over to see what had captured her attention. Beneath the collage was a caption: The mystery of the 3 churches. It consisted of a map of the world, and on it were pinned the photos of the three mysterious, identical churches that Miss Pembrook had shown Dalton and Aimee in a previous history club meeting. The location of each church was pinned on the map. There was one in China, one in Israel, and of course, Middleburg United. Under the caption, in cutout construction-paper letters, Miss Pembrook had stapled the words: Who built them and why?
“Weird, huh?” Dalton said to Kate.
Kate continued staring at it, as if entranced. “What about the fourth church?” she asked.
Miss Pembrook looked at her, surprised. “There’s another one?” she asked, and Dalton heard her quick footstep as she and Maggie came up behind them. Slowly, Kate reached out and touched the picture of the church in Israel.
“Back home, in Ballymore,” she said, her voice quiet with wonder. “There’s a church just like this.”
* * *
Rick was sitting in the Banfield’s living room, going into hour two of getting chewed out when the doorbell rang. He should have expected his dad to be pissed. First Rick had made it known in no uncertain terms that he didn’t approve of the upcoming wedding, and then he’d gotten himself suspended. Worse, because of the trouble with Josh, Rick was barred from participating in the next basketball game. It was school policy that players who’d been suspended had to sit out one game, and his dad was so angry that he didn’t even try to get Rick off the hook as he usually did. He’d just signed the suspension papers—without a word—and marched Rick out of the principal’s office.
Well, Rick was equally pissed. It seemed to make no difference to his dad that the dumb-ass Flats punk Josh had attacked him. Jack was lecturing him about the upcoming wedding too—and as for that crap, Rick felt he was doing everyone a favor by telling them that he couldn’t live with Raphael. Wouldn’t it be worse if his dad’s new stepson reappeared and moved into the house, and Rick had to kill him? By warning them ahead of time, Rick was saving everyone a lot of trouble. But did he get any credit for it? No. All he got was an endless, meaningless lecture followed by the promise that if he didn’t shape up, Jack was going to break his will the way a trainer breaks a horse.
Rick could think of a few things he’d like to break, starting with the finger his dad kept jabbing at him. Lately, thoughts of violence came to him more and more, simmering strong and hot just beneath the surface of his rigid self-control—a control that was increasingly difficult to maintain. His soul longed for release, and he stared at his father now with an anger and contempt that was dangerously close to hatred.
Then, the doorbell rang.
“You’d better make damn sure you’re still in that chair when I get back,” his dad said ominously, then left the room.
* * *
Jack opened the front door and found Aimee and Orias on the stoop. He greeted Orias with a hearty handshake.
“Thanks for giving Aimee a ride home from school, Orias. I’m sorry to deprive you of her company, but I need her here to help with wedding planning. I’m sure you undersand.”
“Of course,” Orias said. Aimee started to protest but Orias leaned close to her.
“It’s only for a few days,” he said. He bent to her and quickly kissed her cheek. “Be a good girl. Listen to your father and do as he asks. No slips, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Promise me?” Orias asked, and she nodded. “Good. I’ll see you soon. Why don’t you head inside? I need to have a word with Jack.”
“Okay.” Aimee shrugged and entered the house.
Jack watched her go, amazed at how docile she was when she was with Orias. When she was out of earshot, he said to Orias, “You’ve worked a miracle with her. You’ve helped her more than they ever did at that . . . that boarding school. What’s your secret?”
Jack didn’t want to come right out and ask Orias if he was sleeping with his daughter because if he got the wrong answer he’d have to slug him—and that wouldn’t be good for business.
“It’s no secret,” Orias said. “It’s just a matter of sympathy, understanding, and some herbal tea to help her relax. Which reminds me—” He reached into his coat pocket and took out a small glass bottle with a silver top. “Put this in her tea or juice a couple of times a day and you’ll have no problems with her—but just a drop.”
Jack eyed it suspiciously. “What is it?”
“Don’t worry. I told you—it’s an herbal remedy for nerves. I don’t believe in drugs. This is perfectly natural—not harmful like that stuff they were giving her at Mountain High Academy.” He smiled at Jack’s surprise. “Yes—she told me all about her treatment there. Pills and injections and straitjackets. Barbaric if you ask me. This is completely homeopathic and harmless. Have it analyzed if you don’t trust me.”
“Not necessary,” Jack said. “You say it’s natural?” Orias nodded. “Does she know you’re giving it to her?”
“No,” Orias said. “I saw no reason to trouble her with that information. But if you prefer having the old Aimee back—” he started to put the bottle away, but Jack reached out and took it.
“No,” he said quickly. “I would not prefer that. Twice a day, you said? Just one drop?”
“Yes.”
“All right then.” Jack pocketed the vial.
“One more thing,” Orias said. “I heard Rick got suspended for a couple of days. I thought he might like to use the time to make some money.”
Jack grinned. “A job might be good for him right now. Come on in and ask him yourself.”
* * *
Rick looked up, scowling as his dad returned with a fake smile on his face and Orias at his side. “Well, it’s your lucky day,” Jack told Rick as he and his guest sat down. “You want to tell him?” he asked Orias.
“I have a small job I need done, Rick,” Orias said. “I think you’re just the man for it.”
Rick looked at Orias. True, he liked and admired the guy, and he was grateful to him. Rick didn’t know how he’d done it, but he’d somehow reformed Aimee. In the time they’d been dating, his sister had gone from a total embarrassment to a tame little mouse who did as she was told. There was also the fact that Orias had healed Rick’s broken arm and saved his football season. The problem was, Rick remembered how Orias had healed him—the weird chanting, the levitation, the hundreds of invisible hands groping him, the chalky powder in his mouth that had turned into a hideous rat that he’d vomited out. The strange power Orias possessed had made Rick respect him—but he didn’t trust him.
“What kind of job?” Rick asked.
“I need you to help me out with something. A personal assistant sort of thing. We’ll have to take a little business trip.” Then Orias turned to Jack. “But I promise—I’ll have him back for your wedding on Saturday.”
“Where do I have to go?” Rick asked, skeptical.
His father looked at him with contempt. “You’re asking a lot of questions of someone who’s trying to do you a favor, don’t you think? Instead of sitting around the house getting bawled out by me, wouldn’t you rather be helping a friend and making a little cash?”
The answer his dad was looking for was clear, but Rick still wasn’t ready to give in. “How much cash?” he asked sullenly.
“You help me out, Rick, and I’ll pay you a thousand dollars,” Orias said.
He looked at Rick, and for a moment his focus was so intense that Rick felt like there was no one in the room except the two of them. Rick suddenly wondered why he’d been so hesitant to accept Orias’s offer. How bad could it be? What was he afraid of?
“What do you say, Rick?” Orias’s voice was soft, insistent. “You want to help me out?”
“Okay,” Rick said. “Why not?”
Rick and Orias were halfway down the front walk when Rick stopped short. Moments before, he’d felt a strong urge to get out of the house and away from his father’s wrath. But out here in the chill wind, beneath the bleached out, empty blue sky, his fear suddenly returned.
“Wait,” Rick said. “Before we go any further, you gotta tell me what we’re going to do.”
Orias turned to look at him. “That’s fair, I guess. We’re going to your girlfriend’s house. I want to have a look at those tapestries her mother weaves.”
“Why?” Rick said. “I’ve seen them. They’re bizarre. And Maggie’s mom is a head case.”
Orias smiled indulgently as if humoring a small, ignorant child. “Not at all,” he said. “Maggie’s mother happens to be a very powerful woman.”
“Powerful?” Rick scoffed. “You gotta be kidding. She’s so powerful she hardly ever leaves her house? Her husband ditched her because she’s wacko. She has no connections, and she doesn’t own anything except that house. How exactly is she powerful?”
“Maybe you’ll find out. Maggie could be a problem, though. She doesn’t seem to care for my company.”
“Don’t worry about Maggie,” Rick said, resentment rising in him again like bitter bile. “She’s cheerleading at the basketball game.” It was a home game against Benton, and both he and Bran were missing it, thanks to those Flats rats.
“Good,” said Orias. “Now we just need a reason for going over there. Any ideas?”
“Leave it to me,” Rick said. He took out his cell phone and dialed Maggie’s home number. “Hey, Mrs. A,” he said, his tone friendly and inviting. “How you doing?” He waited for her answer and then said, “Great. Listen, is it okay if I come by and pick up some stuff Maggie said we could have? It’s for the team’s rummage sale to raise money for new uniforms. She said there’s some old tires and a bunch of tools that you guys never use, out in the garage.” Another pause. “Thanks. That’d be great.”
“Excellent,” Orias said when Rick hung up. He reached into the inside pocket of his overcoat and pulled out a small scroll. The parchment looked like it was made of black leather, and the sticks used to roll it up looked like the bones of a small animal. “Now, while I’m keeping Mrs. Anderson busy, you’re going down to the basement—with this,” he continued, handing the scroll to Rick. “When you get to the bottom of the stairs—I mean the very bottom, and it’s quite a long way down—ask whoever you see there to find Dr. Uphir. When he comes to you, give him the scroll. But don’t open it. I’m warning you, Rick. If you break the seal you’re risking your life—and mine. You understand?”
“Uh, no,” Rick said truthfully. “You’re saying the Andersons have a doctor living in their basement?”
Orias’s features remained impassive. “It’s not a just a basement,” he said. “Now come along. Your dad wants you back in time for his wedding, so we’ll have to hurry.”
Rick was starting to get it. This was no ordinary errand. It was a business trip in the same way that Orias fixing his arm had been a medical treatment—which meant it was probably going to be a freak show. The prospect filled Rick with a pins-and-needles feeling of giddy fear, but there was something else he was worried about, too.
“Wait. You said I’ll be gone a few days?” he asked.
“Probably. If it takes that long.”
“Then I need to take my friend with me. Bran.”
Orias looked at him, his eyes narrowing slightly. “That wasn’t part of the deal.”
“I can’t leave him here alone,” Rick said. “Not for days—not right now. He might—uh, he’s kinda going through a rough time.”
“I see.” Orias moved closer to Rick, keeping his voice low. “So there was a witness.”
Rick backed away. “What do you mean? Witness to what?”
“Don’t try to play a player, my friend,” Orias said. “You’re the one who messed up that Flats kid. When I read about it in the paper I knew it was you. Rick . . . I know what you are, which makes you perfect for this job. I think you might even enjoy it.”
“Well, I don’t know what you think you know—” Rick began, but Orias raised a hand, silencing him.
“Never mind. It doesn’t matter. You can take your friend along. But understand this. He’s not like you. He will be in great danger where you’re going. There’s a good chance he won’t make it back.”
Rick nodded. “Yeah, whatever,” he said, taking out his cell phone again. It would be a shame to lose his closest ally during whatever crazy mission this was. But at the same time, it might be a good idea to put someone between him and whatever was at the bottom of those basement stairs. And if Bran didn’t make it back, Rick wouldn’t have to worry about him running his mouth anymore.
Bran picked up on the first ring. “Hey, man,” Rick told him, “I need your help with something. Meet me in front of Maggie’s house, ASAP.”
* * *
Aimee looked around the room that had been her refuge, after her mom disappeared and she’d realized how difficult it was to get along with her dad and her brother without Emily Banfield running interference. With a flop, she laid down on the bed and tried to settle down but found it impossible. She couldn’t believe her father was actually going to marry that woman from the Flats and that somehow, he’d managed to have her mother declared dead less than two years after her disappearance.
She missed her mom so much, and she needed her. Her father was selfish, cold, and calculating and Rick was turning into the ultimate bully—or something worse. With her mother gone, there was no gentleness, no sweetness in Aimee’s life, except what she got from Orias.
But there had been, once. There had been someone . . . someone she cared about, who loved her as much as (or maybe even more than) Orias did. Every now and then she got a quick mind flash of the happiness she’d found with that person, whoever it was, but then it would vanish as quickly as it had come, like a cork bobbing on a fishing line and then dipping under water before she could see what she had caught. Sometimes it seemed her mind had broken and had somehow become fragmented, like the crystal ring that had been so important to Orias.
A nostalgic longing Aimee didn’t understand abruptly awakened in her. She somehow knew that if she could remember the person who had once made her so happy, the fragments would join together. The missing pieces would fall into place and everything would be clear and good again.
Suddenly she felt suffocated. She wanted to get out of there and, surprisingly, she wanted to be with her friends, to be part of something again. She went downstairs to ask her dad if she could go over to Dalton’s to study. She had promised Orias that she wouldn’t slip this time, and she would be true to her word—unless it became absolutely necessary.
* * *
Raphael fought on. He could no longer count the number of enemies he’d defeated, step by step, blow by blow, through endless desert and unrelenting fog. He had no idea how much time had passed; the light above that masqueraded as the sun had to be counterfeit, he knew, because he’d been battling for what felt like weeks, but it had not moved at all. He didn’t know how many injuries he’d sustained, but every joint felt twisted, worn, and inflamed. Big drops of blood drizzled down his brow and the cracked, parched earth at his feet greedily soaked them up.
He’d gone from being energized to exhaustion, and then new reserves of energy would shoot through him again in a cycle that kept repeating. The same had happened with his Shen energy; he’d felt such bountiful power rising within him that when a Napoleonic soldier in a French uniform charged out of the roiling gray, his bayonet raised, Raphael simply reached out a hand and blasted him into oblivion. Other times he felt his strength wane, and when he tried to call on the power of Shen he felt nothing but his own outstretched hand and the faintest flicker of a spark on his fingertips. At those times, he heaved a sigh, lifted his hands in a guard position, and fought on.
In this strange place Shen seemed to fail more often than not, and he had a feeling that its power was somehow dimmed in the borderlands of the Dark Territory. But he didn’t really have time to think about it—whenever one enemy died, a new one appeared to take its place.
In the beginning, which seemed like weeks ago now, there had been moments when Raphael felt he couldn’t go on. I’ll just stop, he thought. I can’t do this. I’m too tired. I’ll just lie down and let them kill me. But somehow he’d found the will to continue, and he’d come to understand that he really could go on forever. He seemed to possess reserves of strength he’d never known he had and his will was almost boundless. He would not lie down. He would not die. He would not give up. And he would not quit fighting until he came out safe on the other side of this desert or whatever it was—even if he had to fight every kind of ancient warrior he’d ever read about.
And it was beginning to look like that’s exactly what he’d have to do.
He’d gone through the ranks of every kind of historical combatant he’d ever heard of until he worked his way up to present-day foes. A man who looked like a U.S. Navy Seal, but who wore a shirt with Russian letters on it, now appeared out of the fog and almost gutted him with a huge knife. Raphael managed to dodge the blow and then landed a lucky kick, hitting the pommel of the Russian’s knife and jamming the blade into his shoulder. He fell to one knee with an agonized scream, and Raphael blasted him with a head kick, sending him spiraling out of sight, into the drifting gray.
There was not a moment to rest. His next assailant stormed into sight wearing full Kevlar body armor. He also had some kind of headset and goggles that blinked with digital bits of information, like it was collecting battle data. Raphael’s new enemy wielded a short, compact machine gun. He turned it on Raph, fired, and missed. The gun’s report was like a cannon. Desperate, Raphael somehow summoned a surge of Shen from the soles of his feet and up through his body. He let it burst out of the palm of his hand, just before the tungsten bar the gun had fired streaked toward him (he didn’t know how he knew what sort of ammo the gun used, he just knew it, in the same way that he knew he could go on fighting forever). The Shen blast split through the projectile like a hot blade slicing through a soft stick of butter, and the two halves shot harmlessly past Raphael on either side as he went into a spring attack, shot forward, disarmed the enemy with a Bong Sau, and then slammed the butt of his gun back into his face. The info-goggles shattered, sending streaks of blood down the futuristic soldier’s cheeks. Raphael turned the gun on him and fired.
He didn’t bother to look at the mess it made of his enemy’s head; he stepped over his body, moving further into the fog, claiming the one extra yard of territory he’d gained. Already the next enemy drew near. Raph couldn’t see him but a red laser light sweeping through the waste heralded his approach. Raph felt heat when the beam settled on him, and he threw himself backward into the dust as a pulse of energy blasted forth from his enemy. It missed him but caught the gun he was holding, and as Raphael landed on his back on the ground, the liquefied plastic of the gun’s body melted onto his hands, scalding them. He cried out in pain and managed to dislodge his fingers from the steaming wreckage just in time to roll out of the way of another blast.
He looked up just as the fog parted and was able to make out what looked like a half-person, half-robot. A laser beam flowed from the single eyespot on its helmet, scanning for Raph. It looked a little like the guy in those old Robocop movies, he thought—except this was the real thing. A real cyborg commando, a warrior of the future, was coming at him.
He reached out to send a Shen blast its way, but came up empty and was forced to roll out of the way of another sonic blast. Raph didn’t know what kind of gun it was, but it emitted a shot like a wave of distortion flowing through the air. It looked kind of like a heat mirage rising from the blacktop on a hot summer day.
Diving behind a boulder, he dodged another blast as the laser sight scanned past him. With no other weapons and no way to get close to the enemy without getting liquefied, Raph grabbed the only thing he could—the large stone he was hiding behind. His muscles protested, quivering as he lifted the heavy rock above his head with both hands and cocked back to throw it. As the laser scanner zeroed in on him, he chucked the rock at his enemy’s head, then dove to the side to avoid the blast he knew was coming. The shot liquefied the rock in mid air, and something that looked like freshly mixed cement splashed onto the visor of the cyborg. It cooled instantly, leaving his laser sight covered by a crust of solidifying rock. Shrieking with fury, the creature fired but the shots went wild. As Raphael charged, they liquefied the ground right in front of him, turning it into a pit of simmering quicksand. Raph jumped over it as his blinded adversary blasted away, hitting nothing. Somehow Raph managed to avoid the deadly shots until he was close enough to touch his enemy.
“Hey R2D2, I’m right here,” he said, and the cyborg jerked his gun toward the sound of Raphael’s voice. As he did, Raph grabbed his forearm and, using his enemy’s own momentum, swung him into the pit of molten sand. The cyborg hit feetfirst then lost his footing and fell on his back, sinking down with a cry of anguish until only his groping, metallic hands were visible above the quickly congealing quicksand.
Raphael grabbed the discarded energy gun and took another few steps into the fog. He was on the top of a low rise now, and he could see several more cyborgs coming toward him through the haze. He vaporized one, then another, then another with the gun he’d captured, demolishing thirteen of them by the time the gun’s charge finally gave out. He was moving down the rise when the fog parted again. This time he saw that he was atop a slope that led down into a valley filled with futuristic warriors—hundreds of them, or thousands, or maybe hundreds of thousands. He stared at the sea of enmity and violence for a moment and then closed his eyes. He’d done this before, during slight pauses in the battle, just taking an instant to replenish his inner store of energy with a little micro-meditation. Now as he did so, he felt Shen filling him as never before, and within it, there was a message.
It wasn’t a message from some outside source, from Master Chin or from the All or from the Magician, even. It was from within himself, maybe his subconscious or his higher self, maybe even his soul—whatever that was.
As long as you are willing to fight, enemies will come. There will always be another opponent, another confrontation, another injustice to right, another insult to avenge, another reason to go to war. You can keep fighting forever.
It was true. Raphael understood that instantly. He could keep on going like this for all eternity, and it would never stop. But that wasn’t what he wanted.
The only way to stop fighting, he thought, is to refuse to fight. The epiphany struck him with such weight that it made him dizzy, and giddy excitement replaced his exhaustion.
Raphael looked down at the gun in his hand and cast it aside, and then he fell to his knees. The new wave of opponents was grinding its way toward him now. They were monstrosities of flesh and robotics, drone-like death machines, small, bizarre tanks that seemed to breathe. He saw these horrors approaching and opened his arms wide, as if to embrace them. He saw the gun barrels pointed at him, the titanium teeth, the steel blades, the missile tips.
He took a breath and shouted across the desolate plains with all the power his voice could muster: “I will not fight!” he yelled. Then, even louder, “I WILL NOT FIGHT!”
For an instant, he was overcome with the terrifying thought that this was the end. His enemies would now destroy him, and he would die. Then, in a crunching of gears and a clink of armor, their advance stopped. All his mighty futuristic opponents stood before him, gloriously powerful, ominously deadly—and completely, totally still.
Raphael was still, too, except for his chest, which was heaving with exertion and fear. Then the wind shifted, the fog swept fast across the valley, and his enemies vanished. For a moment, there was nothing but the roiling mist. Then, through the fog, he heard footsteps, and he saw the silhouette of a tall, thin man approaching through the eerie half-light. It was the Magician.
At the sight of him, all the weariness Raphael had somehow miraculously held at bay during his battles hit him at once with such crushing force he could hardly stand upright or keep his eyes open. He had no energy and no patience for the Magician’s mockery now.
“All I wanted was to get back to Middleburg,” Raphael said.
The Magician nodded approvingly. “But now you understand.”
“Yeah, I think so,” Raph replied. “If I keep fighting, it’ll never stop. It’s like a cycle. Like . . . a wheel. I attack them, they attack me, I attack them. It just keeps going around and around. The only way to stop it is to quit fighting. Is that what I was supposed to figure out?”
“There is no ‘supposed to,’” the Magician said, his voice deep and strangely grating. “You either learn, or you do not learn.” He turned and inhaled, as if sniffing the damp, slightly acerbic scent of the fog. “Some have spent eons lost here on the battlefields that border the Dark Territory. And you are correct; you can remain here fighting for all of eternity. Or you can simply . . . stop.”
The thought of being damned to an eternity of fighting terrified Raphael. He wondered how much time he had already wasted. “So what now?” he asked.
“What is it that you want?” asked the Magician. “You can go to any time and place you wish, now that you’ve learned what you needed to know.”
“I want to go home—to Middleburg. I’ve got to get back to Aimee.”
“Ah, yes—Aimee. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. How do I get to her from here?”
“The journey will be arduous and fraught with danger,” the Magician warned.
“Fine,” Raph said. “Been there, done that. Bring it on.”
“Reach into your right pocket and take out that piece of crystal.”
Raphael took out the ring shard and held it in the palm of his hand. At first nothing happened. Then, after a moment, the shard began to glow. He stared down at it, mesmerized by the depth of its brilliance. When he looked closely, he saw that it was not just a glowing piece of crystal. The light inside it looked like photos he’d seen of nebulae in space, vast, multicolored, many-faceted clouds of swirling illumination, infinitely beautiful.
When he looked up, the train had appeared behind the Magician. The fog that haunted the landscape seemed to be pouring from its high, broad smoke stack. The door to its cab stood open, waiting for him, and the Magician gestured toward it.
Raphael closed his hand on the ring shard.
“Can the train take me anywhere I want to go? Any time, any place?” he asked.
The Magician smiled. For once, his expression wasn’t mocking or creepy, but kind. “Some say that if you board the train with an open heart, it will take you not where you want to go, but where you need to go. Do you have the faith to try it?”
Raphael looked at the Magician, then at the glowing piece of the ring in his hand, then at the waiting train. “Go ahead,” the Magician told him. “Make your wish. It will take you where you want to go . . . eventually.”
“What do you mean by that?” Raph asked suspiciously.
Again, the Magician smiled his mysterious, enigmatic smile. “Only that you may have other stops to make along the way.”