feel any better, but it made sense.
Courtney put Bobby’s pages back into the envelope, hugged her knees, and put her head down to think. Andy Mitchell had tormented Mark all his life, then suddenly became his best friend. What was the point? To get Mark to like him? Courtney didn’t know much about psychology, but she thought about how quickly Mark had accepted Andy as a changed guy. As a friend. Was Mark somehow drawn to Andy Mitchell because the former bully suddenly showed a different, better side? Did that make him more appealing as a friend? Now that she thought about it, the whole thing was so obvious. Mitchell had magically become a science geek. Saint Dane knew that’s what Mark would respond to, so that’s what he became. Was Saint Dane that smart? Of course he was, she thought. Saint Dane had tricked entire governments into trusting him. He worked his way into the confidences of princes and queens, of bandits and scientists. Saint Dane knew which buttons to push, all right. Mark didn’t stand a chance.
Another thought hit Courtney. Saint Dane was Whitney Wilcox. Saint Dane was Andy Mitchell. Whitney Wilcox tried to kill her, but Andy Mitchell helped Mark save her. Why would Saint Dane try to kill her, only to then save her?
“Oh, my God,” Courtney said as the truth rushed at her.
Her accident was a setup. A devious, diabolical setup. By helping Mark save her, Andy Mitchell had cemented their relationship. It created a bond. They had saved Courtney. Courtney realized in horror that she’d been a pawn. It was about Mark all along. There was no doubt in her mind, Saint Dane had gone to great lengths to get Mark to trust him. Now Mark’s parents were dead. If there was ever a time that Mark needed support from a friend, it was then. And who was there to give it to him? Saint Dane. Courtney wanted to scream. Whatever Saint Dane wanted with Mark, it had to have something to do with his plans for Second Earth. Why else would he bother? She squeezed her hands into fists. They’d been worried for years about what Saint Dane might do on Second Earth, without realizing he was laying the groundwork right under their noses. Worse, they were part of it!
Courtney wanted Bobby home. He needed to know what was going on. They had to find Mark not only to save him, but to stop Saint Dane from using their friend for whatever his plans were for Second Earth. Courtney was faced with a decision. Should she go to Quillan to find Bobby? She felt certain it was wrong for him to enter the Grand X. It was way too risky. And now that Mark needed help, it was all the more reason that he had to come home. For Mark, for Second Earth, and for himself.
Courtney jumped to her feet. She had made up her mind. It was worth the risk of damaging the flume. She grabbed her pack and took a step toward the stairs to the basement… when she heard the growl.
Courtney froze. It was coming from the foyer of the mansion. She cautiously slid her hand into her jacket pocket and grasped the canister of pepper spray.
Grrrrr…
She knew that growl. There was no mistaking it. Quigs. She glanced over her shoulder to see if there was another way out of this room. A window, a back hallway, anything.
There wasn’t. It was too late anyway. The quig sprang.
It was a huge muscled black dog with rows of sharp teeth that were too big for its jaw. It rounded the corner from the foyer and charged her at full speed, its yellow quig eyes focused, its teeth gnashing.
Courtney pulled out the pepper spray, aimed, and waited. She didn’t want to miss. It meant she had to let it get dangerously close. The quig charged; Courtney steeled herself. She waited… waited… waited… and pulled the trigger.
Fum!
A burst of knocking it backward. It hit the ground, rolled, and lay there unconscious.
“Ahhh!” Courtney screamed and dropped the bottle. It was an unconscious act. Whatever had just shot out of the bottle, it wasn’t pepper spray. Pepper spray didn’t knock out a charging quig. Or anything else for that matter. Yet the demon-dog was out cold. Courtney slowly knelt down and retrieved the canister. She looked at it as if it were something alien, because it was. Looking closely, she realized that it wasn’t her pepper spray. It was the same size and weight, but the canister was metallic silver with no markings. Her pepper spray was plastic with writing that said very clearly, pepper spray. This wasn’t it. Courtney reached into her left pocket to check the other canister of spray. It was the exact same as the first. It wasn’t hers. She had no idea when or how they were changed.
Courtney didn’t want to be there anymore. She abandoned the idea of jumping into the flume, at least for the time being. She jammed the silver canisters into her pockets, picked up the envelope holding Bobby’s journal pages, put it into her backpack, and ran out of the Sherwood house. All she wanted was to get home. Too much was happening and none of it was good. She made it back over the wall surrounding the Sherwood property with no problem, and down the tree to the sidewalk. With her head down, she walked quickly along, wanting more than anything else to be someplace safe and sane.
A car horn sounded behind her, making her jump and scream, “Ahhh!”
She turned to see her father pulling up behind her in their Volvo wagon.
“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to do that.”
Courtney tried to catch her breath.
“You want to tell me why you’re not in school?” Mr. Chetwynde asked.
Oh. Right. School.
“I couldn’t,” she said, truthfully. 1 wanted to go, but there’s just too much to deal with. I can’t stop thinking about the Dimonds. I want to go home.”
“I don’t blame you,” Mr. Chetwynde said. “Hop in.”
Courtney wanted to kiss her dad. He always made things better. She wished she could confide in him all that was happening. It was tough not being able to turn to him when she needed him most. She clutched her backpack to her chest and slipped into the passenger seat.
“Any more news on the plane?” she asked, wiping away the tears.
“No,” Mr. Chetwynde said. “But no news is bad news. They’re analyzing radar data but there isn’t much hope. They’re looking for survivors now. Man, what a tragedy. You see stuff like that on the news all the time, but you never think it’ll happen to somebody you know.”
Courtney loved her father. He was her protector. Her champion. He always seemed to know how to make things better. It bothered her to know that she knew so much more about the true perils of the world, and of Halla, than he did.
Mr. Chetwynde added, “They officially released the passenger list.”
“And?”
Mr. Chetwynde gently shook his head and said, “Mr. and Mrs. Dimond were on board.”
Hearing those words made Courtney wince, though it didn’t come as any real surprise. She knew they were gone. It fit too perfectly into Saint Dane’s plans to get close to Mark. Courtney didn’t want to talk any more about airplanes or tragedies. She closed her eyes and settled into the seat for the short ride home. She had grown to hate riding in that old car. The long, painful drive home from the vivid memory. She was glad that their house was only a few blocks away. There wasn’t enough time for her to get sore from the old seat. But no sooner did she close her eyes than she felt a strange sensation. She didn’t understand what it was at first. She looked at her ring. It wasn’t activating. Still, something felt odd. It took a few moments for her to realize what it might be.
“Did you get new car seats?” she asked.
“No, why?”
“This seat is really comfortable all of a sudden. I mean, really comfortable, like an easy chair.”
Mr. Chetwynde chuckled. “That’s an odd thing to think of at a time like this!”
Courtney wiggled her back into the seat. The seat moved in response!
Courtney looked to her dad and said, “C’mon! I rode in this seat for three hours when I got out of the hospital, remember? I felt every bump in the road between here and Derby Falls. This is definitely not the same seat.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Mr. Chetwynde said. “Maybe it’s because you’re feeling better.”
Courtney shifted her butt again. The seat seemed to take on a subtly new shape, giving her perfect support. Whichever way she moved, the seat compensated and cradled her like a down cushion. Courtney figured her dad was either hiding the fact that he spent a bunch of money on fancy new seats and didn’t want her mom to know, or she was imagining things. She was about to challenge him again when they arrived at their house. Mr. Chetwynde
