Courtney could have sworn his voice was deeper. It was definitely more assured.
“Yes, I should,” she said quickly. “It’s you who shouldn’t be here. But you are.”
“You don’t know what’s happening-“
“Yeah, I do,” Courtney snapped. “I know everything.” She took a breath, realizing she was getting too emotional. “There’s so much I have to tell you, Mark, but I want to hear it from you first. Why did you come here? What happened that night when…” She didn’t finish her sentence.
Mark finished it for her, saying, “When my parents were killed?”
Courtney nodded. Mark sat down on a wooden chair. Courtney leaned against the bunk. Now that she was about to hear the words she had been waiting to hear for so long, she wasn’t so sure she wanted Mark to say them. She feared what she was about to learn.
Mark fidgeted. This was difficult for him. For a moment Courtney thought he was reverting to his old form, the insecure geek. He wasn’t. When he spoke, it was with authority and without a stutter.
“That night Andy Mitchell and I went to clean up his uncle’s florist shop. The sprinkler had broken. It was a mess. If we didn’t salvage all those Christmas flowers, his uncle would lose his business. That’s why we stayed and my parents took the flight to Florida without us.”
“I remember all that,” Courtney said.
“Then you know what happened,” Mark said solemnly. “Their plane went down over the Atlantic. Everyone was lost.”
Courtney nodded and said, “I’m sorry, Mark.”
“I didn’t find out about it until nearly midnight,” Mark continued. “We’d been working in the store the whole time. The airline tracked down my cell-phone number. At first I thought it was a joke. Things like that don’t happen in real life, you know? All it took was one look at CNN to see it was true.” Mark hesitated. The memory was tough to relive. “I tried to call you.”
“I know,” Courtney choked out. “I’d turned off my phone. I didn’t get the message until the next morning. If only I had-“
“It’s okay. There was nothing you could have done. But somebody showed up who could.”
“Who?” Courtney asked, suddenly back on alert.
“Nevva Winter. The Traveler from Quillan. You know that Saint Dane won Quillan, right?”
“Yeah, I heard something about that,” Courtney said dismissively. “Nevva Winter came to Second Earth?”
“She escaped from Quillan before the fall,” Mark said. “She told me that Saint Dane was breaking down the borders between the territories and Bobby needed my help.”
“Oh, did she?” Courtney said sarcastically. “Did our friend Andy Mitchell hear all this?”
“Yeah,” Mark said, hanging his head as if ashamed. “He shouldn’t have, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I mean, I’d just heard my parents were killed. Still, I tried to talk to Nevva in private, but she said she needed Andy’s help too.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet she did,” Courtney said with even more sarcasm.
“Andy wasn’t as surprised as you’d think,” Mark continued. “Sure, he was a little freaked, but remember, he’d read Bobby’s first journals, so it wasn’t totally out of the blue. I admitted to him that we didn’t write them after all. I didn’t know what else to do. Mitchell knows about the Travelers now. He knows everything.”
Courtney realized that Mark still didn’t know Andy Mitchell was Saint Dane. She was all sorts of anxious to tell him, but wanted to hear the whole story first.
Mark continued, “Nevva told us that after losing Quillan, Bobby realized the only way to beat Saint Dane was to use his own tactics against him. Any hope of keeping the territories separate was gone, and the demon’s next target was Second Earth. It’s what we always feared, Courtney. We knew it would happen someday, and that day had finally arrived. But Nevva had a way to stop him.”
“I can’t wait to hear it,” Courtney quipped.
“She said that by changing the past, we could create a new future that Saint Dane wasn’t expecting. That’s why we came to First Earth.”
That was it. Courtney nodded in understanding. It was all about Nevva, just like on Quillan. “Let me understand,” Courtney said. “Nevva told you and Mitchell to bring your Forge technology to First Earth and said it would change the course of history so Saint Dane would fail on Second Earth?”
“Yes.”
“And you believed her?” Courtney screamed. “It was more than that.”
“I hope so,” Courtney shot back. She was getting angrier by the second. “Mark, I love you to death, but I can’t believe you’d do something so huge on the word of somebody you didn’t even know!”
“There was more,” Mark said softly. “Nevva said if we changed the course of events, my parents would survive.”
Courtney was about to yell again, but stopped. It was all making sense. Nevva and Saint Dane had fooled Mark into believing he was not only helping to protect Second Earth, but saving his parents as well. Saint Dane knew exactly how to get to Mark. Poor, innocent Mark. Courtney had always feared the demon. Now she hated him. She was going to have to tell Mark the truth. Nothing would bring his parents back. The thought was painful. Mark thought he was doing the right thing. Instead, he gave Saint Dane the tools to bring Halla crashing down.
As horrible as she felt, Courtney also felt a glimmer of hope. Mark was not a villain. He had not put in with Saint Dane. What he had done was for a noble purpose. Mark was still Mark. Better still, he had not yet introduced Forge to the territory. The flume had sent her where she needed to be, when she needed to be there. There was still time to stop him. But to do that, she was going to have to present him with some horrible truths. She knelt down by Mark and took his hands.
“Listen to me, Mark,” Courtney began. “I understand why you’re doing this. I can’t imagine where my head would be if I suddenly lost my parents. I wouldn’t be thinking straight either. If somebody threw me a lifeline and said they’d make it all better, man, I’d grab it. This isn’t your fault.”
“Fault?” Mark said with surprise. “I don’t understand.”
Courtney took a breath and continued. “You’ve been lied to. Big-time. Like all good lies, there’s just enough truth to make it seem plausible. Yes, the Travelers lost Quillan. Yes, your parent died in that crash. And yes, by bringing Forge technology to First Earth, you can change the future of Second Earth. But that’s where the truth takes a very different course than what you were told.”
Mark stared right into Courtney’s eyes, hanging on her every word.
“I don’t know how I’m going to tell you this,” she said nervously. “Just tell me.”
“Mark, Andy Mitchell is Saint Dane. He has been ever since we’ve known him. He worked his way into your life and became your friend so the two of you could create Forge and do exactly what you’re doing with it. But it won’t save Second Earth, Mark. Forge technology is going to start a chain of events that will lead to the creation of a force that Saint Dane will use to crush Halla. It was his plan from the beginning, Mark. Nevva Winter isn’t your friend. She’s a Traveler, but she helped Saint Dane win Quillan. I wish I had Bobby’s journals here to show you. Nevva Winter is a traitor. The two of them have fooled you into believing that what you’re doing is right, but it couldn’t be more wrong.”
Mark looked at the ground. Courtney couldn’t imagine what he was going through. She hated to have to tell him that way.
“Why are you saying all this?” he finally asked.
“Because you have to know. I’m sorry.”
“But you’re wrong.” Mark jumped up and paced to the far side of the room.
“I’m not!” Courtney countered. “I know this is hard to take, but it’s the truth. The day after your parents died, I did what you asked me and went to the flume, remember? Something happened while I was there. Mark, I know how Forge is going to change Second Earth. I’ve seen it. You accelerated the evolution of technology. Things aren’t the same. But there’s one thing that didn’t change.”
“What’s that?” Mark asked.
Courtney hesitated. She wanted to say it gently, but realized Mark needed convincing, so she didn’t pull her punches. “Your parents were still dead, Mark. What you did here on First Earth, what you’re about Xo do on First Earth didn’t change that. They’re gone.”
Mark kept staring at the deck.
