you.”
“So who bailed? Who was supposed to be my mentor if it wasn’t you guys or Uncle Press?”
“Alexander Naymeer,” Dad said flatly.
It was a good thing I was sitting down.
Naymeer was definitely a Traveler. But like Nevva Winter, he was corrupted by Saint Dane.
“Do you know what happened to him?” I asked tentatively. I hoped they didn’t, since what happened to him was that I had killed him. That was the kind of nasty tidbit you wanted to keep from your family.
“I told you,” Shannon said with a hint of thirteen-year-old impatience. “We know it all.”
So much for keeping things from my family. I jumped up and paced nervously. Though I had wanted to know the truth for so long, hearing it wasn’t easy. It was a lot to get my head around, and we were just getting started.
“Saint Dane told me we were illusions,” I said. “I don’t know, maybe I’m in denial, but it’s kind of hard to accept that none of us are actually real.”
“Because we are real!” Mom said with passion. She quickly stepped forward and took both my hands. “I told you before, sweetheart, the love we have for you, and that I know you have for us, isn’t a fantasy. Or a mirage. All that happened before you left Second Earth was reality. Everything we did. Everything we shared. It was real. We were given a gift. We spent more than fourteen years living on Earth, experiencing all that world had to offer. That can never be taken away from us. We were as human as anyone else.”
“But not anymore?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. At least not with words. Her sad eyes said enough.
It was an odd feeling to know that my family had known the truth all along and had been keeping it from me. I guess that was all part of the deal, but still. They were my family! Mom and Dad taught me not to lie. As it turned out, they were lying to me every day.
“You couldn’t know,” Mom said, as if reading my mind. “I’m sorry that we kept this all from you, but you needed to be a part of Second Earth. It was all about your being a normal person with the perspective and experiences of your territory. You were fighting for the people of Second Earth. In order to do that, you needed to believe you were one of them.”
I looked up at the starry sky, watching the colorful, charged clouds flying by. It was beautiful. Though as spectacular as that sight was, the ground around us was a total contrast. It was dark. Bleak. Desolate.
“What is this place?” I continued. “I’m afraid you’re going to tell me we’re really little green aliens from the planet Nimrod or something.”
When I looked down at my mom for her answer, I blinked. She stood in front of me, holding my hands, but I could see through her. Literally. I could see Shannon and Marley right through my mom.
“Mom?” I gasped.
“It’s all right,” she answered soothingly.
It wasn’t all right. Mom was disappearing. Her hands no longer had substance. I quickly glanced to Dad and Shannon. They too were flickering, as if they were lights that were slowly running out of power. Dad walked toward us, wavering between solid and transparent.
“I told you that Solara wasn’t always like this,” he said soberly. Sadly. “This is what Saint Dane has wrought. His only hope of controlling Halla is by destroying all you see around you. Or at least destroying what it should be.”
I heard a quick bark from Marley. When I looked to my dog, he was gone. Disappeared.
“What’s happening?” I asked in a panic.
Dad said, “Our ability to exist as physical beings comes from all that surrounds us here. We are fed by the essence of Halla. It’s that very essence that Saint Dane has been methodically destroying.”
This was all getting a bit too cosmic for me. I needed answers, and it didn’t look as if Mom and Dad were going to be around much longer to give them. Shannon jumped up, ran to me, and kissed me on the cheek. It felt like nothing more than a soft, sweet breeze. She was nearly gone.
“I miss you, Bibs,” she said. “Don’t worry about us. Kick some ass, all right? We’ll be watching.”
She had called me Bibs since she was a baby and couldn’t pronounce Bobby. That had to have been real, right? I reached out for her, but too late. She’d disappeared. My sister was gone. Again. In the sky above me, I heard what sounded like rumbling thunder. I glanced up to see one of the dark clouds suddenly glow bright red.
“Mom?” I gasped in desperation.
My parents stood together. They were nearly gone.
“This is right, Bobby,” Mom said reassuringly. “You don’t need us. We only came to see you again, and let you know that we’re fine. That you’re fine. You don’t have to worry about us any longer.”
“But… where are you going?”
“Nowhere,” Dad answered. “And everywhere. Shannon is right. We’ll be watching. Your job isn’t done just yet.”
“You can’t go!” I cried. “I’ve got more questions now than before!”
“We love you, Bobby,” Mom said. “We’re proud of you, and maybe most important, we believe in you.”
“I don’t want to lose you again!” I screamed.
“Then make things right,” Dad said.
A moment later they were gone. I had lost my family. Again. At least, I thought I had. In the dark sky above I saw two more dark clouds crackle with light. One flashed yellow, the other deep blue. What the heck was that about? I found myself standing alone on a shelf of gray rock on a desolate world that was supposedly my birthplace. Not at all how I thought the day would play out. But was I truly alone? As I said before, I felt the presence of life around me. It was more like a feeling of energy, or spirit, than anything physical. I know, that’s weird. It felt weird to me, too. But I wasn’t afraid. Not even when I caught glimpses of figures that could have been people who floated by. I kept turning, hoping to bring one into focus, but that didn’t happen. Could one of them have been Shannon, or my mom or dad? Was that what they meant when they said they weren’t going anywhere? Were they still right beside me, only in some kind of spectral form? Or had they flown up and become colorful clouds in the sky?
Solara. What was this place? Where the heck was this place? Okay, when was this place?
“Guys?” I called out. “You still here?”
I didn’t expect an answer, but I got one.
“Who you talking to?” came a deep voice.
I spun to see Uncle Press standing a few yards from me, with his hands on his hips and a smile on his face.
“Uh, Mom and Dad. I think,” I said, not really sure that that made sense.
“Try not to be upset with them,” Uncle Press said. “For keeping the truth from you, I mean. For that matter, try not to hold it against me, either.”
“I don’t,” I said sincerely. “I really don’t. But I’m a little numb right now.”
“It would be strange if you weren’t,” he said. “After all, your frame of reference is based on your life on Second Earth. That was the whole point. For all intents and purposes, you are from Second Earth. Right now all the Travelers are learning the truth about their real lives, just as you are.”
“So, they all came from here-wherever here is?”
Uncle Press nodded and gazed off into the distance. I saw sadness in his eyes. “I never thought it would come to this,” he said softly.
“Is it my fault?” I asked in a small voice.
Uncle Press shot me a look. “No. We may not have been as successful as I’d hoped, but it was not your fault. Nor was it the fault of any of the Travelers. This was brought on by Saint Dane.”
“Are you going to tell me who he is?” I asked. I am.
“Are you going to tell me what this world of rock is?” “I am.”
“One more question-”
“Only one?” he asked playfully.
“Okay, lots more questions. But one that matters more than any other.” “Go for it.”
“Do we really have a shot at stopping him?”
Uncle Press glanced around at this strange world once again. An odd feeling came over me. I sensed that I
