mind wasn’t on sketching. It was on Whitney, and what the rest of the night might hold.
When seven o’clock finally came, most of the students stuck around to talk to the artist and pick his brain. Not Courtney. She was out the door before the echo from the bell had died. To save time, she had ridden her bike to class. It meant bringing her backpack and books into town, but she figured that was better than taking the time to go all the way back to her dorm to drop them off. That would have wasted precious minutes. She quickly unlocked her Tech road bike from the rack, tightened up her backpack, and began pedaling for the main road, and town.
Stansfield Academy was in a rural area of the Berkshires, a few miles outside the small town of Derby Falls. Courtney knew that from when she’d first visited Stansfield with her parents. The road between Stansfield and Derby Falls was a beautiful, winding country lane that snaked up along one ridge of the mountain, through a dense pine forest and then down the other side and into town. As much as she focused on getting to town as quickly as her legs would bring her, it was hard for her not to notice how beautiful the mountains were.
The sun was on the way down, creating long pine-tree shadows across the road. The amber rays sparkled through the trees as Courtney rode, making her feel as if she were riding through the beams of a strobe light. She passed a rolling meadow where black-and-white dairy cows grazed. There were a few farm stands along the way, where you could buy corn on the cob and tomatoes that had been picked that day. They were closing up for the night. The birds were out now. It was time for them to feed. Courtney could hear them twittering in the trees. She even saw a few fireflies spark in the woods. It was a truly idyllic ride. Courtney promised herself that she would make this trip again, maybe on a Sunday when she wasn’t in such a hurry. And maybe she could convince Whitney to come with her. Things were about as right for Courtney as they could be.
The road inclined quickly as it brought her up into the mountain. She was in shape, but still, a steep climb is a steep climb. It was no problem, but she worried that she’d be all sweaty for her date. Lugging the heavy books along suddenly seemed like a bad idea. But there was no turning back now. She had to gut it out, sweat and all.
The road got even steeper and wound sharply to the left. Courtney didn’t remember it being so steep, though the last time she made this trip it was in a car. Roads never seemed as steep in the car as they did when you were riding or running. She rounded the bend and saw that the road continued to bend around the mountain. She couldn’t see how much farther it was to the crest, but she knew it must be just around the curve ahead.
That’s when she heard the car.
It was faint at first. She was breathing so hard that she couldn’t make it out right away. But the sound quickly grew louder. There was no doubt. A car was coming up behind her. Fast. She glanced back, but there was nothing to see except the bend she had just come around. The oncoming car hadn’t gotten there yet. In a few seconds it would scream around the corner and be right behind her. The road was pretty narrow, and she thought about getting off and moving to the side for safety. But the idea of having to start up again on this steep hill wasn’t a happy one. She did a quick calculation and figured the car would see her in plenty of time to move over. She stood up and pumped harder, hoping to get to the top of the rise before the car.
Behind her, the car rounded the curve. The engine was working so hard it sounded as if it were roaring. A quick, scary thought came to her. Could it be the mysterious black sedan? She hadn’t thought about that strange car for days. Her heart raced, faster than it had from the climb. All she wanted to do was get around the next corner and see the top of the rise.
The roar of the car grew louder. She decided to jump off her bike, but a quick look to the side showed her that the shoulder was too narrow. There was a steep drop-off. If she dismounted now, there would be no place to go. If this car wanted to run her down, it had found the perfect place to do it.
Seconds later the car was on her. Courtney closed her eyes, bracing herself to get hit. She gritted her teeth, tightened up, and… the car roared past. It was so close she felt the breeze as it sped by. She opened her eyes and saw that it was a minivan full of little kids being driven by a mom. The woman tried to move over to get clear of Courtney, but there was just so far she could go without going into the oncoming lane, with a blind curve ahead. If the van was in that lane and a car came from the other direction, boom.
Courtney looked up to see the little kids pressing their faces against the rear window, waving at her. Courtney smiled and waved back. She was exhausted, but relieved. She laughed at herself for being so paranoid. Black sedan, yeah, right. Now all she had to do was get to the top of the rise and the torture would be over. The minivan had disappeared around the corner. Courtney put her head down and stood up on the pedals to dig in for the final push. The roar of the minivan echoed off the side of the mountain.
That’s why she didn’t hear the car that was coming the other way.
Courtney downshifted, pumped her legs, and looked ahead in time to see the spooky black sedan screaming around the corner, headed directly for her. This driver wasn’t worried about being in the wrong lane. The car had crossed the center line and was charging right for Courtney. There was only one thing she could do: bail out. Courtney threw the bike and dove to her right. The black sedan hit the bike’s front tire before Courtney was completely clear. She heard the screech of brakes and the shrieking sound of the tires skidding on the road. The driver didn’t mind hitting Courtney, but wasn’t prepared to crash over the edge while doing it.
The force from the impact twisted Courtney around so quickly and violently that she had no hope of making a controlled fall. The weight from the books on her back made it even worse. They acted like a counterweight, twisting her around with even more force. Before she hit the ground, Courtney had one brief thought: “Why didn’t I wear my helmet?”
Her shoulder hit a tree. The force snapped her head back. She fell to the ground and hit hard on her other shoulder. The pitch was so steep that she kept moving, tumbling head over butt over arms over legs. She was an out-of-control rag doll, slamming into trees and boulders on the way down. Finally, with a rude thud, she slammed into one last tree and stopped. A second later, just to add insult to injury, the bike landed on her legs.
Courtney was in shock. She had no idea how badly she was hurt, or if she was bleeding or if she was even going to live. There wasn’t any pain. It was like being in a dream, half asleep, but unable to move. She opened her eyes to see she had fallen far from the road. Even if she could move, there was no way she would be able to crawl up the steep hill. Worse, she feared that she had fallen so far that nobody would see her lying there, and night was coming on. She moved her eyes slightly to get a better look at where she had fallen, and saw something that made her catch her breath.
Parked on the edge of the road was the black sedan. The sun was long gone, so its headlights were on. Behind the gleaming beams, the chrome bumper grinned at her. The driver’s door opened. She was finally going to see the monster who had run her off the road. Who could it possibly be? The driver walked to the front of the car so he could be seen in the headlights. It was like he wanted Courtney to see him. At first Courtney didn’t understand what she was seeing. It didn’t make sense. Standing on the edge of the road, looking down at her…was Whitney.
The cute, wavy-haired blond athlete stood in the lights of the black sedan with his hands on his hips, staring at Courtney. Courtney felt hope. It was Whitney! This was all an accident! She realized the car must belong to one of his friends. He must have been worried about her and taken the car himself to go back to school and get her. This was nothing more than a horrible, ironic accident. It had to be. She was saved. She wasn’t going to have to spend the night in the forest. Courtney was sure that everything was going to be fine-until Whitney spoke.
“I give, and I take away,” Whitney said with an arrogant air. “You people of Second Earth are so easily controlled. I was hoping this would be more of a challenge but, alas. It was not meant to be. I’ll send your love to Pendragon…Corwind.”
With that, Whitney laughed. It was a horrible, screeching laugh that froze Courtney’s soul. What she saw next did the same to her mind. Whitney’s body turned into a liquid shadow. It hovered in the air, changing shape until he became a huge black bird. With a quick flap of its wings, the bird lifted off from the ground and flew into the Berkshires, leaving Courtney to die.
Courtney was spiraling into oblivion. Soon she would be unconscious. It was over. She had lost. It was the most important challenge of her life, and Courtney had lost.
Courtney didn’t like to lose. It was the one thing that stayed constant throughout her torment and trouble. As bad as things got, she never accepted defeat. That simply wasn’t in her nature. As she lay in that forest, broken and barely conscious, she willed her hand to move. An inch. Two inches. She knew that if she had fallen the wrong way and her hand was pinned under her, her desperate move would be futile. But she hadn’t. She was able to walk her hand along, pulling it forward with crawling fingers, until she grasped the cell phone clipped to her belt. Miraculously it hadn’t been torn off in the fall. Courtney couldn’t see it, but she could feel the buttons. The chances
