The Rivers of Zadaa (38 page)

I miss you guys. I love you guys.

And so we go.

END JOURNAL #23

“What are you reading there?”
Andy Mitchell said.
“Highlights?”

Mark quickly rolled up the yellow pages of Bobby's last journal. He had already read it three times.

“N-No. Uh, what's ‘highlights'?”

Andy plopped down next to Mark with a bag full of burgers and fries. “You know,
Highlights.
That kid magazine they have in doctors' offices where you gotta find the picture of the pencil hidden in the tree and whatnot.”

“Oh. No. This is just, uh, something I'm working on,” Mark said.

“Yeah? Another one of them stories about Pendragon?”

Mark shot Andy a surprised look and asked, “What did you say?”

“You know, like that one you wrote about, what was that place? Da-doo run run?”

Mark relaxed. He had forgotten that Andy had seen Bobby's first journals. In fact, he had stolen them from Mark. Mark and Courtney had to pretend that they had written the story themselves so Andy wouldn't spread strange rumors about what really happened to Bobby…that weren't rumors at all.

“Denduron,” Mark corrected. “No, it's just an article. Leave it alone.”

“All right, jeez, lighten up.” Andy handed the bag of food to Mark. “Here, eat something. You look like hell. Sorry it took so long. Nothing's close to anything up here in the boonies.”

Mark took the burgers, but didn't feel like eating. His mind was in too many different places. Courtney was lying in an operating room, near death, from an accident that might have been caused by Saint Dane. They still didn't know if she would live or die. As horrible as it was, worrying about Courtney kept his mind from spinning to all the other things that had him so worried.

Saint Dane was on Second Earth. Was he there to lay the groundwork for his attack on their home? As much as he wanted to think there was another reason, Mark couldn't come up with one. His worst fear was about to come true. There was going to be a battle for Second Earth. That is, unless Bobby could stop Saint Dane for good.

That thought brought Mark back to the strange news from Bobby's latest journal. Of course, Mark was thrilled that Zadaa was saved. But that also brought bad news. With so many losses, Saint Dane was getting desperate…and violent. He nearly killed Bobby out of sheer anger. He
did
kill Loor, which brought up some truly unsettling possibilities.

Loor had returned from the dead.

How strange was that? It was good news, yes, but disturbing news just the same. How could it have happened? Other Travelers died, and stayed dead. Mark saw one die himself, Seegen, the Traveler from Eelong before Kasha. What was different about Loor's death? Was it Bobby? But Bobby was there when his uncle Press had died. The same with Kasha. Those two didn't come back from the dead. Whatever the reason was, it brought something to light that could not be denied. There was something unusual about the Travelers. The simple fact that they healed so quickly was enough proof that they weren't normal. Or at least normal by the standards of the territories they came from. That brought Mark around to the bottom-line question that disturbed him the most.

Who was Bobby Pendragon? Really? They had been best friends since either could remember. Now Mark was faced with the possibility that Bobby wasn't just randomly chosen to be a Traveler. He was different. More different than even he could imagine.

“Mark?” a woman's voice called. It was Mrs. Chetwynde. She entered the waiting room along with Mr. Chetwynde. Both looked tired and scared. Their eyes were red. They had been crying.

Mark jumped to his feet to greet them. “You made it!” he exclaimed.

“We've been here for a while,” Mr. Chetwynde said. “We've been with Courtney.”

Andy stood up and joined Mark. Mark asked, “How is she?” He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to hear the answer.

The Chetwyndes exchanged looks, as if they weren't sure which one of them should answer. That wasn't a good sign.

“Is she okay?” Mark asked more insistently.

“She's out of surgery,” Mrs. Chetwynde said. “She's got problems. She lost a lot of blood. The doctors have done all they can; now it's just a matter of time.”

Mr. Chetwynde continued, “She's really banged up. Broken ribs. Her left arm was broken in two places. She has a terrible concussion…”

“Wow,” Andy said without even thinking.

“The real damage was internal,” Mr. Chetwynde said.

“There was lots of bleeding. That's why the surgery took so long. They think they repaired it all but, they just don't know for sure. The next twenty-four hours are going to be critical.”

Mrs. Chetywnde said, “If you boys hadn't found her…” She didn't finish the sentence. The words caught in her throat.

“What happened, Mark?” Mr. Chetwynde said, holding back tears. “The police said it was a hit-and-run. How did you find her?”

Mark was prepared for that question. He knew it was coming. “It was luck, mostly,” he began. “Courtney called me yesterday to say she was riding into town to meet some guy named, uh,—”

“Whitney,” Mr. Chetwynde said. “The police told us. Nobody can find the guy. He's not registered at the school.”

“Yeah, we found that out too,” Mark said. “This is Andy Mitchell, by the way. He's a friend of mine; he gave me a ride up this morning.”

The Chetwyndes smiled at Andy. Andy nodded. He wasn't used to being polite.

“Why did you decide to come up?” Mr. Chetwynde asked.

This was the tough part of the story. Mark couldn't say that he was warned by Bobby Pendragon in a journal from across time and space that an evil demon might have been stalking Courtney. That probably would have made their heads explode, along with Andy's. Mark decided to be as vague as possible.

“It was just a feeling,” he answered. “Courtney talked about hanging around with a new guy, but for some reason it didn't feel right to me. I can't explain why. I'd been planning on visiting her anyway. It was lucky we decided to come up when we did.”

The Chetwyndes nodded. They accepted his reasoning. So did Andy. It was close enough to the truth. Mark continued quickly to get past that rough spot. “When we got here, we found out that Courtney didn't make it to class this morning. She wasn't in her room and her bike was gone. That got me thinking the worst, like she never made it back from her date last night. So Andy and I drove into town. We saw the fresh skid marks on the road, and when we stopped to look, I saw Courtney's book in the bushes. That's how we found her.”

Mrs. Chetwynde started to cry. “Thank you, Mark. Both of you. You are both angels.”

Andy shuffled uncomfortably. Mark felt a little awkward too.

“It's getting late,” Mr. Chetwynde said. “You shouldn't drive home. We can put you guys up in a hotel for the night.”

Mark wanted to stay in the worst way. If they wouldn't know about Courtney for another day, he wanted to be here. He looked at Andy and said, “What do you think?”

Andy shrugged and said, “Sure, what the hell.”

Mark winced at his language in front of Courtney's parents. He looked at the Chetwyndes and said, “That's great, thanks. But, uh, I gotta call my parents and tell them what's going on. They sort of don't know we came up today. If you could talk to them for a second and tell them you're here and all, I'd appreciate it.”

“No problem,” Mr. Chetwynde said. “What about you, Andy?”

“I'll call my parents,” he said. “No problem.”

Mrs. Chetwynde said, “But first you should see Courtney. She wants to talk with you.”

“Really?” Mark asked. “She's awake?”

“For now,” Mr. Chetwynde answered. “I don't know for how long, though. She's pretty drugged up. She's in intensive care, just down the hall.”

“Awesome!” Mark said, and started to walk off. He suddenly stopped and turned back to Andy to say, “C'mon.”

“Nah, it's cool. It's you she wants to see,” Andy said.

Mark walked back to Andy and said, “If it weren't for you, she wouldn't be here right now. She should know what you did.”

Andy looked at the Chetwyndes. They nodded encouragement. Andy shrugged and followed Mark. As they walked along the corridor toward the intensive care unit, Andy scratched nervously.

“Look, uh, Chetwynde's not exactly a fan of mine,” he said.

“I don't want to bother her or nothing.”

“She should know how much you helped,” Mark said. “Just say hi.”

“Yeah, well, I've never seen a banged-up person before,” Andy said nervously. “What if I do something stupid, like puke.”

“Don't” was all Mark said.

The two guys found the nurses' station and asked where Courtney was. The nurses broke out into big smiles. They said that normally only family members were allowed to visit in intensive care, but seeing as Mark and Andy were the two heroes who saved Courtney, they'd be happy to make an exception. Besides, they said, Courtney had been asking to see Mark. The nurse led them through the corridor. There were only four rooms, and none of the others was occupied. Mark figured that in such a small town, it was a big deal to have somebody in intensive care. The nurse walked them to the last door at the end of the corridor and stopped.

“How is she doing?” Mark asked her.

The nurse frowned. That was a bad sign. “You'll have to ask the parents,” she answered. “Don't be long, okay?”

Mark knew that was bad news. People were quick to give good news. It was time to see for himself.

Mark tentatively entered Courtney's hospital room.
He motioned for Andy to wait a second. He wanted to see her first. When Mark rounded the curtain and saw her, he gasped. Courtney was a mess. Her face was black and blue. Her head was bandaged. Her left arm was in a full cast that was held in position by a steel rod that kept it away from her body. She was hooked up to all sorts of tubes and wires, with bags of various colored liquids dangling over her and monitors spewing out graphs and data. Numbers flashed that had no meaning to him. There was an incessant
beep…beep…beep
coming from one of the machines that Mark figured was her heart rate. He was grateful that he couldn't see the bandages from all the surgery. That would have put him over the edge.

He walked tentatively up to the bed. He couldn't tell if her eyes were closed because she was sleeping or they were swollen shut. That's how bad she was.

Mark leaned down and softly whispered, “Courtney?”

Courtney's eyes fluttered and she said with a weak voice, “You don't have to whisper, dork. This isn't a library.”

Mark smiled, in spite of the fact that he wanted to cry. Courtney may have been hurting, but she was still Courtney.

“We gotta talk,” she said with a raspy voice.

“I know,” he said. “But first you gotta see somebody. I know this is weird, but if it weren't for his help, you'd still be out there.”

Mark gestured to Andy, who reluctantly walked to the foot of the bed. He stood there, looking uncomfortable.

“Hey,” he said to Courtney. “You look good. Seriously. Considering.”

Courtney moved her head a few inches and looked at Andy.

Mark said, “Andy gave me a ride up here. That's how we found you.”

“What happened, Mitchell?” Courtney said. “You get visited by three Christmas ghosts who changed you into a human being or something?”

Andy smiled. “That's funny, Chetwynde. Glad to see you still got such a hysterical sense of humor.”

Courtney gave him a thumbs-up with her good hand. Andy backed toward the door. “I'll let you guys talk,” he said to Mark.

“Hey,” Courtney called to him in a weak voice. “Thanks. Seriously.”

Andy nodded. “No problem. Get better, all right?”

Andy left, and Mark and Courtney were alone. Mark pulled up a chair and sat right by Courtney's head. He didn't want anyone to hear what they were going to say.

“You're going to be okay,” Mark said. “I guess there was all sorts of internal stuff going on but they got it in time and—”

“He's here,” Courtney said.

Mark nodded. “I know,” he said soberly. “Bobby wrote that Saint Dane knew you were seeing a new guy.”

“The new guy
was
Saint Dane,” Courtney said.

“Yeah, I figured,” Mark said. “He's gone. Nobody can find him.”

“You got journals?” Courtney asked.

Mark smiled. He was prepared for this question too. “Bobby was on Zadaa. It's over. They saved the territory. You can read about it when you're feeling better. Things are looking real good.”

“Yeah, real good,” Courtney said. “Except that Saint Dane is here.”

“Right,” Mark said, deflated. “That.”

The two sat there for a moment, the only sound coming from the steady beep of the heart monitor.

“Mark,” Courtney said. “If I don't get better—”

“Don't say that! You're gonna be okay.”

“Call Tom Dorney,” Courtney said. “He can be an acolyte with you. I don't want you to be alone.”

“I won't be alone, I'll be with you,” Mark said. He was desperately trying to hold back tears.

“Yeah, maybe,” Courtney said. She took a difficult breath and then said, “But if I make it out of here—”

“You will.”

“Okay, when I get out of here, I want you to know, I'm done hiding and feeling sorry for myself.” She drew another tired breath and said in a clear voice, “Mark, I want that bastard.”

Mark looked right into Courtney's eyes. She may have been hurting and weak, but her eyes told the real story. The fire was there. She wasn't going down without a fight. Mark took her right hand and squeezed it.

“Me too” was all he said.

 

An hour later Mark and Andy were watching TV in their room at the Derby Falls Motor Lodge. It was a cheesy room with two beds that smelled like disinfectant, but they were comfortable. Andy was busy with the remote control, trying to figure out how to get the in-room movies for free. Mark's mind was elsewhere. He hadn't said much since they left the hospital. There was so much on his mind, most of which he couldn't share with Andy. He decided to focus on Courtney, and her health. At least everyone was on the same page there.

Andy gave up and flicked off the TV with the remote. He sat up and started putting on his sneakers. “I'm going out for a smoke.”

Mark watched him for a second, then said, “This is weird.”

“Gee, you think?” Andy said sarcastically.

“I don't mean Courtney,” Mark said. “I'm talking about you and me. Let's be honest. We hate each other.”

Andy struggled with his shoe, then said, “I don't hate you, Dimond. We're just on different frequencies.”

“Yeah, well, I hated you,” Mark said with a smile.

Andy smiled too and said, “I don't blame you. But hey, things happen for a reason, right?”

“I don't know what else to say but…thank you,” Mark said sincerely. “If it weren't for you, Courtney might be…” He couldn't finish the sentence. “You're an okay guy.”

Andy nodded. “Yeah, whatever.” He stood and walked for the door. “You know,” he said. “Maybe something good will come out of this.”

“How do you figure that?” Mark asked.

“Bad things sometimes bring people together,” Andy said. “You and I, we're pretty different. But when it comes to some things, like Sci-Clops, we click.”

“True,” Mark said.

“And we didn't kill each other on this trip. Not yet, anyway.”

Mark chuckled.

Andy continued, “Maybe we should think about working together on something.”

“Like what?” Mark asked, surprised.

“I don't know. We both got our own projects going—you got the code thing and I'm working on the plastic steel. Maybe there's a way to, like, combine them. You know, two heads are better than one and all that.”

Mark nodded thoughtfully.

“Think about it,” Andy said, opening the door. “I'll be right back.”

Andy closed the door behind him. Mark chuckled again to himself. As if he didn't already have enough to deal with. Never in a million years did he ever think that he and Andy Mitchell would become friends. The idea of actually working together on something was an even bigger stretch. Yet for Mark, neither seemed out of the question. Andy wasn't the guy he'd thought he was. There was more going on there. Mark wasn't a psychologist. He had no idea why some people became bullies and others victims. So much of what Andy had done to him over the years, all the torture, seemed so trivial now. There were bigger things to worry about. Way bigger things.

With all that Mark and Courtney and Bobby had been going through over the last few years, the one thing that helped keep Mark sane was Sci-Clops. It got his mind off the troubles of Halla, and let him relax and have fun. He didn't want to give that up. He needed it. The idea of working together with Andy Mitchell on a project—the brilliant Andy Mitchell, not the bully Andy Mitchell—suddenly sounded like it would be a whole lot of fun. Mark lay back on the bed, put his hands behind his head, and smiled.

Life, he thought, was full of so many strange surprises.

 

Courtney Chetwynde lay alone in her hospital bed. She was a fighter, and now she was fighting for her life. After Mark and Andy left the hospital, after her parents had said good night, after the nurses had changed shifts, she had taken a turn for the worse. Her blood pressure had dropped dangerously low. Her heartbeat slowed. The nurses feared that the internal bleeding had begun again. After a quick deliberation, the nurses decided to call in the doctors. If Courtney was going to survive, she would have to go back into surgery. Fast. The little hospital of Derby Falls wasn't used to handling this much excitement. The nurses scrambled to find the doctors, contact the Chetwyndes at their motel, and prepare the operating room. It was the night shift. Fewer people were on duty, which meant everyone had more to do. It wasn't chaos, but it was close. A patient was dying.

In all the frenzy nobody noticed that a young man with blond hair had entered the intensive care wing. He strolled casually down the corridor as the nurses hurried about, trying not to bump into one another. They were too busy to ask who he was. They didn't care. They had a patient to save. The young man walked calmly past the nurses' station toward the end of the corridor and stepped into Courtney's room.

Courtney was alone, and asleep. She had been given the first stage of anesthesia to prepare her for surgery. The guy walked up to the bed and looked down on the broken girl. He glanced at the vital signs monitor. She was barely alive. The guy reached out and gently put his hand on Courtney's chest. He pressed his flat palm over her heart firmly. All his attention was focused on Courtney. He closed his eyes. The only sound in the room was the steady, slow
beep…beep…beep
of the heart monitor. Outside in the corridor nurses raced around furiously, trying to cover all the bases while fearing it was already too late.

The young man took a deep breath and exhaled. His entire focus was on Courtney. Slowly, ever so slowly, the weak
beep…beep…beep
of the heart monitor, grew stronger. Courtney's blood pressure increased. The young man didn't take his hand away. He stayed focused. Courtney's breathing grew deeper. Vital oxygen was getting to her blood.

In a few minutes the doctors would arrive. They would find that Courtney's vital signs had not only stabilized, but improved. She would not need surgery. The nurses would be at a loss as to what had happened. They would have to scramble to explain why they turned the hospital upside down and got so many doctors out of bed for nothing. The Chetwyndes would arrive and be shaken by the ordeal, but grateful that Courtney was doing so much better.

None of that would happen for a while, though. The young man needed to finish his work first. He glanced once more at the monitors to see Courtney had turned the corner. She was going to live. With a satisfied smile he took his hand off her chest and folded his arms.

“Like I told you,” the young man said, “I give, and I take away.”

He heard a nurse out in the corridor yell, “Last room on the right! Hurry!”

The young man glanced at the door. Soon the entire emergency staff of Derby Falls Hospital would descend on the room to discover their patient had made a miraculous recovery. The young man glanced back to Courtney and chuckled. “I've been working such a long time to get this far, you didn't think I'd let you slip away so easily. This is just getting interesting.”

The team of nurses and a doctor hurried into the room, stopping short when they saw the young man with the blond hair standing next to Courtney's bed.

“What are you doing in here?” a doctor demanded. “How did you get in?”

“I was just checking on my friend,” the young guy answered innocently. “Is she okay?”

“Let's hope so,” the doctor said, pushing past the guy, headed for Courtney. “Get him out of here! Do your parents know you're here?”

“It's cool,” he answered. “I'm a friend.”

“What's your name?” the doctor demanded.

The young man casually brushed back the dirty blond hair from his eyes. “It's Andy,” he said. “Andy Mitchell.”

 

To Be Continued