The Reality Bug

SECOND EARTH

Bobby’s image vanished.

Courtney and Mark kept staring at the empty space where the hologram used to be. Neither were sure of what to say or do next.

Then Dorney started to laugh. It started out as a chuckle, grew into a belly laugh, and finally changed into a wheezing, uncontrolled, coughing fit. Courtney jumped up and got a glass of water. Dorney took it gratefully and gulped it down.

“You all right?” Courtney asked as she sat back down next to Mark.

Dorney cleared his throat, took a deep breath. He was fine. “What’s so funny?” Mark asked.

“Just like his uncle, that one,” Dorney said with a smile. “Always jumping out of one frying pan into another one that’s even hotter.”

Mark glanced at the metal boxes that held Press’s journals. “Can we read some?” he asked.

The smile fell from Dorney’s face. He glanced over at the journals, then back to Mark and Courtney. “Depends.”

“On what?” asked Courtney.

“On whether or not I like what you have to tell me.”

“We’re here for Bobby” Mark exclaimed. “You heard what Bobby said to Evangeline.”

“Evangeline?” he scoffed. “If the devil himself told that lady he was misunderstood, she’d invite him in for tea.”

“You know her?” Courtney asked in shock.

“How do you think I knew to send you my address?”

“But she’s from-“

“Veelox, yeah. So what?”

“But, you said you weren’t a Traveler,” Mark said.

“I’m not! Are you thick or something?”

Courtney and Mark were dumbfounded.

“I’m s-sorry if we’re being dense,” Mark said. “But I thought only Travelers could fly through the flumes. If you’re not a Traveler, how could you know somebody from another territory?”

Dorney stared at them for a moment, as if debating about whether or not to answer. Finally he held up his hand-the hand with his Traveler ring.

“It’s the rings,” he said. “It’s all about the rings.”

Mark and Courtney sat there patiently, waiting for Dorney to explain. But he didn’t. Instead he pushed himself out of the easy chair with a grunt and began moving the metal boxes with Press’s journals in them back into the cabinet.

“I was a practical guy,” Dorney finally said, sounding serious. “I always thought that everything had its place. B always came after A. Two always followed one. But then Press Tilton came into my life. He opened my eyes, so to speak, and I began to realize there was something else going on. Something bigger than me and my safe little life. I don’t mind telling you, it scared me. All this business about fluming and territories that exist in different times-it’s enough to make a fella want to lock his door and never poke his nose out again.”

Mark and Courtney nodded. They knew how he felt.

“But what scares me even more,” Dorney continued, “is that somebody out there is causing problems. Knowing Saint Dane is trying to make it all fall down has kept me from getting a good night’s sleep in near ten years. Only thing that gives me a little piece of mind is knowing the Travelers are trying to stop him. That’s why I’m an acolyte. I do what I can to help the good guys.”

Dorney put the last of the metal boxes into the cabinet, then closed and locked it.

“Trouble is, I’m getting too old for this. Now that Press is gone, I’m not so sure I’ve got the energy. That brings me to you two. Pendragon seems to trust you. Question is, should I?”

“We told you!” Courtney shouted defensively. “Bobby is our friend and-“

Mark put a hand on her arm to quiet her down.

“You’re right,” Mark said calmly. “You don’t know us. All we can say is that we’re just as freaked out about Saint Dane as you are. Besides that, you’ve gotta trust that Bobby knows what he’s talking about.”

Dorney looked between the two of them. Finally he shrugged and said, “Don’t matter anyway. It ain’t my choice.”

“What does that mean?” asked Courtney. “Whose choice is it?”

Dorney shuffled toward the front door. “Go home,” he said.

Both Mark and Courtney jumped up in surprise.

“Mr. D-Dorney,” Mark stuttered, “we came here because we wanted to learn about being acolytes. You can’t throw us out.”

Dorney opened the door and stood to the side. “I can do whatever I please,” he said. “Truth is, you two ain’t ready.”

“But w-we are!” Mark protested.

“Not from what I’m hearing,” Dorney countered. “When the time is right, come on back. I’ll help you then, not before.”

Mark and Courtney looked at each other. They knew it was no use to argue. So Mark grabbed the silver hologram projector from the table and jammed it into his pack.

“How are we going to know when the time is right?” Courtney asked.

“Believe me.” Dorney chuckled. “You’ll know.” He opened the door further, expecting them to leave.

“We’ll be back,” Mark said as they backed out the door. “Count on it.”

“I hope so,” Dorney said seriously. “I truly do.”

He shut the door, leaving Mark and Courtney in an empty corridor.

“Well, that sucked,” Courtney said. “We came all the way here and all he can say is we’re not ready?”

Mark walked toward the elevator. Courtney hurried after him.

“We’re not giving up so easy,” she asked. “Are we?”

“We’re not giving up at all,” Mark said. “I think Dorney believes we can be acolytes, but the time isn’t right.”

“I think he’s a crazy old coot who likes pulling our chain,” Courtney said.

“Yeah, that too,” Mark said. “But I’ll bet you anything we’ll be back here.”

The two rode the elevator down and left the building. All the way back to Stony Brook, Mark and Courtney tried to analyze what Bobby had told them about Lifelight and the Reality Bug. Mark was fascinated with the idea of a computer that could read your thoughts and make them real. Courtney was too, but was more interested in talking about Loor. She thought Bobby made a bad choice. She thought he should have gotten Spader. Mark pointed out that Bobby wasn’t a hundred percent sure he could rely on Spader. Courtney didn’t care. She felt Spader would have been the better choice.

Mark had a pretty good idea of what Courtney was really thinking. She was jealous. From what Bobby said in his last journal, it was obvious he had feelings for Loor. But Mark decided not to point that out. He didn’t want to risk a punch in the head.

When the train brought them home, the two stood on the empty station platform at the bottom of Stony Brook Avenue.

“Now what?” Courtney asked.

“I don’t know,” Mark answered. Then added, “Does this mean you officially want to be an acolyte with me?”

Courtney had to think about that for a second. “It means I still want to find out what it means,” she said. “I can’t promise any more than that.”

“Good enough,” Mark said. “Maybe Bobby’s next journal will tell us more.”

Courtney nodded. “You’ll tell me when-“

“Soon as it comes in,” Mark assured her.

With a quick smile Courtney turned and headed for home. Mark stood there for a moment, twisting the ring on his finger. When Bobby was in the middle of an adventure the journals came pretty close together. Mark expected the next delivery to come through his ring at any moment.

It didn’t.

Mark had to get his mind off Bobby and back into his own life. He busied himself at school and went to his first meeting of Sci-Clops. It was better than he could have imagined. Mr. Pike, or David as he insisted on being called, introduced him to the other members, all of whom were older than Mark. They were all working on different projects, like mixing unique metals to create a new lightweight alloy, and making a computer processor that responded to eye movement. It was heady stuff for Mark and he feared he was out of his league. But he quickly discovered they all spoke the same language. He had found a home.

Courtney focused on classes and soccer. She continued to practice with the JV team and did pretty well, but she always had one eye on the varsity squad that practiced on the other side of the field. More than anything she wanted to prove herself worthy of being back there.

Several days passed with no word from Bobby. Mark started to fear that something horrible had happened when he and Loor jumped back into Lifelight. But he forced himself not to worry. He had to keep reminding himself that time between the territories wasn’t relative. Still, as days passed, Mark found himself thinking more and more about the trouble on Veelox.

Then, toward the end of the week, something finally happened.

There was no Sci-Clops meeting that afternoon, so Mark caught the early bus home after school. The bus stopped a few blocks from Mark’s house and he always walked the direct route home. But today he took another route. He wasn’t sure why; he just felt like walking. So he took the long way home.

Mark was pretty familiar with every other house in the neighborhood. Though a few were modern, most dated back a long time, some over a hundred years. All the yards were big, with huge leafy trees that shaded the grass. Fall was coming on fast now and many of the trees had already traded their green leaves for brilliant colors of orange and yellow. It was Mark’s favorite time of year. Chilly but not yet wintry. The wind was brisk, the sky was blue, and he even loved the smell of burning leaves. It was the perfect afternoon to walk a roundabout route home and try not to think about territories and Travelers.

His vacation didn’t last very long.

As he walked along the cracked sidewalk, kicking leaves,

Mark’s ring began to twitch. He stopped short. Naturally his first thought was: “Bobby’s next journal!” But when he looked at his ring, he saw that the large gray stone in the center wasn’t making the change. It was the odd symbol that glowed brightly-the same symbol that foreshadowed the arrival of the note from Dorney. Maybe it was a message from the old man to say the time was right to learn about being an acolyte!

Mark ducked into the bushes near a tall cement wall. He didn’t want anybody to see what was about to happen. He dropped his pack on the ground, then took the ring off and put it down next to the pack, waiting for it to start growing.

It didn’t. The light continued to glow from the symbol, but the ring didn’t change size. What was going on? Mark picked up the ring and put it back on his finger. The symbol glowed, but that was it. No change, no note, no nothing. Weird. With a shrug, Mark continued walking home. When he got to the next corner, he noticed that the glowing symbol had gone dark.

False alarm, he thought, and continued walking.

When he got halfway across the street, he realized he’d left his pack next to the cement wall. Duh! He did a quick about-face and jogged back to get it. But no sooner did he arrive at the pack than the ring twitched and the symbol began to glow again. Mark waited a few minutes to see if the ring would do anything more dramatic, but it didn’t. He grabbed his pack, slung it over his shoulder, and hurried toward home. But when he reached the street, the symbol stopped glowing. Mark felt sure something was going on, but had no idea what it could be.

Then an idea struck him. He turned and slowly walked back toward the cement wall. Sure enough, as soon as he got close, the symbol grew bright again. Uh-oh. This was no false alarm. Something was happening, and it had to do with where he was.

Mark looked up at the cement wall to see where he was, and his heart sank.

“Oh great,” he muttered.

He was standing in front of the Sherwood house. Everybody knew it. It was the biggest property in the neighborhood. The house was built in the early 1900s by some rich guy who’d made his fortune raising chickens and selling eggs, of all things. At one time there was a poultry farm on the property, but that was long gone. The house was still there, though. It was surrounded by the high cement wall that Mark was standing in front of now. It was actually more of a mansion than a house. The place was huge.

The thing was, nobody had lived there for years. Mark’s mom told him that once old man Sherwood died, none of his kids wanted to run a chicken farm. But they couldn’t agree on what to do with the property. So there it sat, a giant piece of land with a big old mansion on it, going to waste, falling apart.

Of course, all the kids in the neighborhood made up ghost stories about seeing shadows walking past windows and hearing strange sounds on Halloween. Bobby once made up a story about how the ghosts were actually chicken spirits looking for revenge. That was Mark’s favorite. But he didn’t believe in ghosts and didn’t think for a minute that the place was really haunted. Still, he never went near the place by himself.

Until today.

The glowing symbol on his ring was telling him something, and he had the sick feeling that whatever it was, it was inside the Sherwood house. Gulp. Mark had a quick thought of putting this off until he could come back with Courtney, but his curiosity was stronger than his fear.

Halfway down the block was a big old set of black iron gates, but a heavy steel chain and padlock told him this wouldn’t be the way in. He only had one choice. He had to go over the wall. So he walked alongside the high wall until he found a tree that was close enough to climb up and get over the top. As he stood looking up, he wasn’t worried about ghosts or banshees or dead chickens running around with their heads chopped off. That was kid stuff. He was more worried about getting caught trespassing. The idea of calling his parents from jail was not a good one. Still, the insistent glowing of the symbol on his ring told him he had to keep going.

He pushed his hair out of his eyes and dug his sneakers into the tree. Moments later he was up and over the wall, landing in tall grass. So far so good. He looked at his ring to see the small symbol was glowing brighter. He was definitely on the right track.

He looked up at the house and could see why kids thought it was haunted. The place was ancient. The wind kicked up and the fall trees swayed back and forth, slashing against its walls. The yard was a mess too. A caretaker could be seen every month or so, cleaning up dead branches and making simple repairs, but that wasn’t enough to make the place look lived in. No, this was a big, empty, lonely old haunted-looking house.

And Mark was on his way in.

The ground floor was surrounded by a wide porch. He imagined people sitting there in rocking chairs on a hot summer night, drinking iced tea and swapping chicken stories. But they were long gone. The only thing on the porch now was dead leaves. Mark walked up the five stone steps that led to the porch.

He thought he saw something move past a window inside the house. It was fast, and he wasn’t completely sure he really saw it, but the hair went up on his arms just the same. He stopped at the top of the stairs, looking into the dark windows for any sign of movement. There was none.

He started walking toward the front door… and saw something again. It was a quick shadow moving past the window. For a second he actually thought it was a ghost. But there were no such things as ghosts. Then again, he never thought there were such things as Travelers, either. He looked around and decided the ghost was nothing more than the reflection of a tree branch waving in the wind. At least, that’s what he told himself.

Mark walked cautiously up to the front door and tried the knob. It was locked.

“Great,” he said to himself. “Now what?”

That’s when he heard something inside the house. It was fleeting, but it sounded like something had run past, just inside the door.

“Heeeere, chickie, chickie, chickie!” Mark croaked nervously, though the idea of there still being chickens around was absurd. He looked at his ring. The symbol was glowing with a fierce intensity. He needed to know why.

He moved over to the big window next to the door and put his nose right against the glass to try and block as much of the outside light as possible. That helped a little, and he got a better view of the inside of the Sherwood house.

The place was empty. The only illumination inside came from windows farther back in the house, and they didn’t do much to light the place up. Very creepy. There was no furniture, or pictures, or any sign of life-“

Grrrrrr!

A hideous, black animal face leaped out of the shadows inside. It stared Mark square in the eyes. Drool dripped from its white fangs as it snarled viciously, trying to bite through the glass and get a chunk of Mark-meat.

Mark yelped in surprise and fell backward, landing on his butt. He stared up at the window to see two more animals join the first. They were awful-looking black creatures that could have been dogs, but no dog Mark had ever seen looked as evil as these beasts. They were focused on him, with only a thin pane of glass holding them back.

Mark pushed himself along the floor of the porch to get away. The beasts barked and snarled. Mark’s mind was reeling. What were dogs doing in there? Were they watchdogs? They definitely weren’t ordinary dogs. They were vicious, uncontrollable demons, and they were out for blood. They were…

It suddenly hit him. It was something from Bobby’s very first journal. What gave it away were the horrible, yellow eyes. There was no mistake.

“Quigs,” Mark whispered to himself.

(CONTINUED)

Smash!

The beasts threw themselves against the glass, desperate to attack Mark.

Mark knew the glass would be no match for these demons. He had to get out of there, fast. He jumped up and ran. He suddenly realized he had left his backpack on the porch, but the pounding on the window meant he wasn’t going back for it. No way. Mark sprinted across the overgrown yard, heading for the wall and safety.

He now saw that he was in deep trouble. When he first arrived, he had been so worried about getting caught trespassing that he hadn’t taken the time to figure out a way to climb back over the wall. Now he had another worry. He was worried about being trapped and eaten.

Crash!

The window shattered. The quigs were coming. Mark could hear them yelp and snarl as they tumbled over one another to get through the broken window.

He was still twenty yards from the nine-foot wall. He desperately scanned left and right, looking for a way to scale it. Without some kind of help, Mark didn’t think he could make it over. He dared not look back, because he knew what he’d see. Every second counted. If the quigs got to him before he got to the wall, there wouldn’t be enough of him left for anyone to find.

Mark saw nothing to help him climb.

The snarling quigs drew closer. In seconds they’d be on him. But Mark was focused. He had no plan, but had to think of one fast or in seconds he’d be dog food. He was almost at the wall, but didn’t slow down. He thought to himself, “I’m gonna run right up the side!”

He hit the wall running and dug his sneaker into the crumbling cement. His toe caught. He launched off it and grabbed the top of the wall. Normally Mark couldn’t even vault over the pommel horse in gym. But normally Mark wasn’t jet powered by surging adrenaline. He heaved himself up by his arms, threw both his legs to one side, and flung his body up and over.

No sooner did he clear the top than all three quigs hit the other side of the wall, yelping and crying for having missed their prey. Mark sailed down and hit the ground, rolling away from the wall, lucky not to have broken an ankle. He jumped up and did a quick check to make sure all body parts were intact. They were. He stood there for a second, trying to catch his breath. He listened as the quigs snarled from the other side in frustration.

Mark smiled. He had made it. It was probably the most exciting moment of his life. He even dared to think that this adventure rivaled some of the stories that Bobby had told. He had met a pack of hungry quigs and lived to tell the story.

But his joy didn’t last long. The glowing ring on his finger took it away. The truth was, the adventure wasn’t over. Whatever was in that house, whatever was making his ring glow, he was going to have to come back and find it. Running away wasn’t going to cut it. He was going to have to get past those quigs. But next time, he was bringing Courtney.

Courtney knew this was her golden opportunity.

There was going to be a practice scrimmage between the varsity and the JV soccer teams. She had been practicing hard with the JV, swallowing her pride and improving her skills, waiting for the chance to prove herself worthy of being back on the varsity. This was her chance. She was going toe-to-toe with the very girls who had tarnished the golden reputation of the unbeatable Courtney Chetwynde. Revenge was not too strong a word to describe what was on Courtney’s mind when she stepped onto that field. Her game face was on; her emotions were in check; she was ready.

So was the varsity. It seemed as if its entire game plan was about stopping Courtney. She was double-teamed all day and pretty much taken out of the action. Making things worse, with only a few minutes left to play, the JV team was losing 5–3. But truth be told, Courtney didn’t care if they won or lost. All she wanted was to prove that she could compete. That wasn’t happening.

Finally, with only seconds on the clock, she got her chance. She was playing forward and the ball was passed to her. She was being double-teamed and one of the defenders fell. Courtney used the player’s body as interference and got past the second defender. It was now one-on-one between Courtney and the goalie. This was her moment… her chance to put a solid exclamation point on the game. She wanted this goal bad. She needed this goal. She dribbled the ball in quickly, deeked a kick that made the goalie move right, then drew back to fire the ball into the opposite corner of the net. It was perfect.

Almost.

Just as she was about to deliver the killer kick, the defender sprinted up from behind and took her out. It was a totally illegal move. The defender slid into Courtney’s feet like a baseball runner sliding into second base. Instead of putting her foot into the ball, Courtney landed on her back. Hard. Whistles blew, a penalty was coming, but it didn’t matter to Courtney. Her moment was lost.

She jumped to her feet, screaming, “What was that?”

Before the defender knew what was happening, Courtney gave her a wicked shove that sent her sprawling back onto the grass. She put her knee on the player’s back so she couldn’t get up. All her frustration finally came pouring out.

“I beat you and you know it!” she shouted.

A second later the other players descended and pulled the two girls apart. It was tough pulling Courtney away because she was so enraged. The defender got back to her feet and was ready to take Courtney on.

“Come on!” she taunted Courtney.

Courtney tried to lunge at the girl, but the other players held her back. Finally Coach Horkey ran in between the two girls and restored order.

“Enough!” she shouted. “Laura,” she said to the defender. “Inside. All of you, locker room.”

The fight was over. So was the scrimmage. The girls walked off, grumbling.

“Courtney,” Coach Horkey said firmly. “Stay here.”

As Laura, the defender, walked off, she looked over her shoulder and snarled, “Loser.”

“Enough!” shouted Coach Horkey. Laura put her head down and kept walking. Courtney didn’t budge. She was breathing hard, still fired up from the fight.

“She deserved it, Coach,” Courtney pointed out. “It was a total cheap shot.”

“It wasn’t” Horkey countered. “She had a point to give and made the aggressive play.”

“But don’t you see? All they care about is shutting me down! It’s been that way since day one!”

“I’ll tell you what I see,” Horkey said. “I see a girl who is faced with a challenge for the first time in her life. A true challenge. And she is losing. Courtney, you are a talented athlete. But it takes more than skill to be a winner. You know how to handle success, but not failure. Until you can do that, you won’t help this team, or any other.”

Courtney didn’t say anything. As much as she hated to admit it, Horkey’s words rang true.

“I’m suspending you for two weeks,” Horkey added. “What!”

“Players on my team don’t fight. Especially with each other. Think about that and come back in two weeks.” Horkey jogged off the field.

Courtney was left stunned. Not only was she demoted from varsity to JV, now she was kicked off JV! She stood in the middle of the field, covered with dirt, unable to accept this impossible turn of events. How could this have happened? How could she have fallen so far? In her heart she still believed she was as much of a competitor as ever, but reality was telling her otherwise.

D. J. MacHale

The Reality Bug

Courtney walked off the field, but didn’t go into the locker room. She didn’t want to face the other girls. She knew the old Courtney would have walked right into that locker room and taken the heat. But then again, she’d never had to take any heat before. Not like this. Courtney began to wonder if there was ever such a thing as the old Courtney. Maybe this is who she always was… a gutless coward.

She walked past the locker room and made the commitment to walk all the way home. It was going to be a long walk. But she wasn’t about to take the late bus, either. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed. Since it was Friday, she wouldn’t have to worry about facing anybody for a couple of days.

“Courtney!” a familiar voice shouted.

Courtney had rounded the school and was headed for the sidewalk when Mark came riding up on his bike. He was out of breath and excited.

“You’re not going to believe it!” he exclaimed. “I was-” Mark focused on the fact that Courtney was still in her soccer uniform, totally dirty, still wearing her cleats, and walking away from school. “What’s going on?”

“Don’t ask” was all Courtney could get out. Mark got off his bike and walked alongside her.

“You’re walking home?” he asked, confused.

“I’m really hurting, Mark,” she said. “Can we talk about it some other time?”

“Yeah, sure.” They walked in silence. Mark was dying to tell Courtney what had happened at the Sherwood house, but wasn’t sure if she was in the mood to talk about anything. Still, she had to know.

“Can we talk about something else?” he asked tentatively. “Whatever.”

“Something happened today,” Mark said. “I… I’m not sure exactly what it means, but I’m guessing it has something to do with the acolyte thing.”

Courtney stopped short. A second before, she looked like the walking dead. Now a spark had returned to her eyes. Mark thought that whatever had happened at soccer, it had beaten her up pretty badly. But the fire still burned inside her. He knew Courtney too well to think otherwise.

“Another journal?” she asked.

“No,” Mark answered. “Let’s go for a ride.”

Mark tried to ride Courtney on the handlebars of his bike. It didn’t work. Courtney was too tall and Mark was too… Mark. So they switched places and Courtney gave Mark the ride. Along the way Mark told her everything that happened at the Sherwood house. Courtney didn’t ask any questions. She just listened. By the time Mark had finished the story, they found themselves parked right back where the mystery began. They were in front of the locked iron gates of the spooky old house.

Mark held up his ring. The symbol was glowing again.

“What do you think?” Mark asked.

“I think we’ve got to find out what’s inside that house,” Courtney answered.

“Easier said than done,” Mark replied. “You didn’t see those dogs.”

Courtney looked up at the sky and said, “It’s gonna be dark soon. I say we come back tomorrow, with some help.”

Courtney’s idea of help was an obvious one. They waited until the next morning, then Mark came over to Courtney’s house and they put a call into their friend on the Stony Brook police force, Captain Hirsch.

They had met Captain Hirsch when Bobby and his family first disappeared. Since then Hirsch had been working on the missing persons case. Of course, Mark and Courtney knew the truth about what had happened to Bobby, but decided not to tell, for fear of interfering with Bobby’s mission as a Traveler. Still, they kept in touch with Hirsch. He was a good guy. Now, they hoped, he was going to help them get one step closer to unraveling the mystery of the acolytes.

Mark told Captain Hirsch about there being strange dogs running around the Sherwood property. He really built it up, saying how the dogs were vicious and wild. There was no way these dogs were somebody’s pets. Of course, Mark left out the part about having been trespassing on the property. He also didn’t mention that the dogs might be evil quig beasts who were guarding a secret inside the house. That wouldn’t have been cool.

A half hour later Mark and Courtney met two uniformed police officers outside the front gate to the Sherwood house.

“Hi, guys,” one of them said. “Remember me? Officer Wilson?”

“Sure we do!” Courtney said.

Officer Wilson had once given the two kids a ride to the police station. He was a good guy, too.

“This is Officer Matt.” Everybody shook hands. “Tell us what you saw.”

Mark again explained how there were three dogs inside. Big, vicious, slobbering dogs with sharp fangs. Mark wasn’t exaggerating. He wanted to make sure the cops knew exactly what they were getting themselves into.

Officer Wilson had a key to the lock on the front gate. They explained to Mark and Courtney that the Sherwood family had given it to the police in case of an emergency. This definitely qualified. While Wilson unlocked the gate, Officer Matt opened the trunk of their squad car and pulled out two pieces of equipment. One was a long metal rod with a loop of cable on the end. It was a snare that animal control officers use to capture dogs. The other thing Officer Matt pulled out was a tranquilizer rifle. Mark knew that if one of these dogs got the chance, it would tear a person apart. He wasn’t so sure that a tranquilizer dart would do anything to stop it either. Still, it was better than nothing.

“Don’t bother with the snare,” Mark advised. “You aren’t going to want to catch one of these monsters.”

Officer Matt chuckled, but kept the snare.

“We’d like to come with you,” Courtney said.

The two cops shared looks. They didn’t like the idea of putting the kids in danger.

“C’mon!” Courtney cajoled. “We’ll stay behind you. And you’ve got guns and snares and stuff, right?”

Wilson shrugged. “Okay. Just stay close.”

They followed the two cops onto the property. Wilson held the snare, Matt kept the tranquilizer gun pointed at the ground, but ready.

Mark made sure to close the iron gates behind them. He also took off his ring and put it in his pocket. He didn’t want the cops to ask him why he had a ring that was shooting off light.

Officer Wilson whistled. “Here, boy! C’mon!” He whistled again.

Nothing happened.

The four walked up to the porch. Mark kept glancing behind them, making sure that one of the black dogs wasn’t sneaking up quietly.

“Uh-oh, what’s this?” Officer Matt said. He reached down and picked up the shredded remains of Mark’s backpack. Oops. Mark had totally forgotten.

“That’s mine,” he said. “I dropped it outside. They must have dragged it in here.” It was a small lie, but Mark didn’t want to admit he had been trespassing. “Look,” he added to change the subject. “That’s where they broke through the window.”

Wilson pointed out the shards of glass on the porch. “It was broken from inside,” he deduced. “They must have cut themselves up pretty good.”

“How did you know they broke through the window?” Officer Matt asked Mark. “You can’t see it from the gate.”

Oops. Mark had to think fast. “I heard the glass break and then saw them running around.”

Were the police going to buy this story? Of course they were.

Mark wasn’t the type to trespass on private property… or so they thought. Mark held up the remains of his backpack. The quigs had really chewed it up. He lost two textbooks, a library book, a chocolate bar, and all his carrots. Mark knew that chocolate wasn’t good for dogs and hoped they choked on it.

“Let’s check inside,” Officer Wilson suggested.

Wilson had a key for the front door as well. When they all stepped inside, both Mark and Courtney had the same thought: haunted house. The place was huge, with high ceilings and a curved staircase that led to the second floor.

“Here, boy!” Wilson called out again, and whistled.

Again, no response. Mark looked to Courtney and shrugged. He really wanted to look at his ring, but didn’t risk taking it out of his pocket. The policemen then led the kids on a tour of the house, checking each and every room. They first checked the ground floor, walking through the grand entryway, through the living room, the huge dining room and into the big kitchen. Besides the broken window, there was no sign of any dog.

They went down to the basement. It was a vast space with a cement floor. There were a few wooden doors that were closed. The officers opened them all. One room had nothing but empty, wooden racks. The wine cellar. Another room had a long wooden table that was scarred and stained. The workshop. Another room was nothing more than a large, cool space with wispy remnants that looked like dead weeds hanging from the ceiling. Mark had heard of places like this. Root cellar is what his grandmother used to call it. It was a cool, dry place for storing onions and potatoes and the like. It looked to be dug out of the earth, with one wall being nothing more than a vast chunk of the rock that the house had been built on top of.

It was all very interesting, but there were no dogs.

The caravan then went up to the second floor. There was one long corridor with empty bedrooms off either side. Each of the rooms was connected by an inner door, so that you could choose to travel from one end of the house to the other through the corridor, or by going from room to room. Again, no dogs.

The next stop was the third floor. This was a smaller floor than the others. There were two bedrooms on one side, and a large attic on the other with a high, pointed ceiling where you could see the rafters of the house. It was empty. No dogs and no sign that dogs had ever been there. Once they stepped into the attic, the last room of the house, the police officers relaxed.

“Whatever you saw, Mark,” Wilson said, “they’re gone now.”

“Are you sure? I mean, maybe we should check the yard.”

Wilson shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

They all went downstairs and out onto the porch. The four of them moved cautiously around the whole property. Mark had no idea it was so big. They saw some old wooden buildings that probably had something to do with the chicken farm. There were a lot of trees and an empty swimming pool and even a small golf green. At one time this was a busy place. Now it was forgotten and sad. The policemen even inspected every inch of the wall along the ground to see if an animal might have tunneled its way in or out. But there was no sign of anything like that.

“Any other ideas?” Officer Wilson asked. The cop respected Mark. If any other kid had given them this story, they probably wouldn’t have believed a word.

“No,” Mark answered. “Sorry.”

Courtney glanced to Mark with a “You sure you saw dogs?” look. Mark could only shrug.

“Don’t be sorry,” Wilson said. “You did the right thing. Whatever was in here got away somehow, that’s all.”

They walked out through the front gate and Officer Matt locked it up. Officer Wilson returned the tranquilizer gun and the srrare to the trunk of the police cruiser.

“If you see anything else, be sure to call, okay?” Wilson said.

“Okay,” Mark answered.

The two cops got back into their cruiser and sped off, leaving Mark and Courtney alone in front of the house. “I’m not lying, Courtney,” Mark said. “I didn’t think you were.”

“So then what happened to the quigs?” he said as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his ring. The strange symbol was glowing brightly.

“I don’t know,” answered Courtney. “But we saw pretty much every inch of that place and there was nothing strange that would make that ring glow.”

“Then we missed it,” Mark announced.

The two looked at each other. Each knew what the other was thinking.

“We gotta go back in,” Mark said with finality.

“Yeah, I know. Where’s the tree we gotta climb over?” Courtney asked.

(CONTINUED)

Mark led Courtney around to the side of the property and the tree that was their ladder. Courtney gave Mark a leg up, then Mark reached down and gave Courtney a helping hand. Seconds later the two of them jumped off the wall and landed back inside the property.

“Wait,” Mark said. He looked back at the wall, scanning both left and right.

“What are you looking for?” Courtney asked.

“There!” Mark pointed to an old, wooden tool shed. “If we gotta get back over fast, head for that shed. We can climb up the side.”

He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. This time he wanted to be ready. Courtney nodded and headed for the house. Neither was nervous, since they had just done a thorough inspection and knew the quigs were gone.

“I say we start inside the house,” Courtney said. “There are a lot of rooms we may have missed.”

They climbed up onto the porch and stopped at the broken window.

“That’s our door,” Mark announced. He made a move to go in, but Courtney stopped him.

“Mark, I’m in,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I want to be an acolyte.”

Mark couldn’t help but smile. “You sure?”

“Yeah, it just took some time to get my head around it,” Courtney said sincerely. “I think it’s an important thing to do. And I don’t want to let you down. Or Bobby.”

Mark smiled. “I never thought you would,” he said as he lifted one leg through the broken window.

Mark’s confidence in her made Courtney feel better than she had in weeks. Maybe Mark was right. Maybe she had a more important role to play than sports superstar. She knew one thing for certain: She wanted the chance to find out. But there was no time to feel warm and fuzzy. They had work to do. So Courtney followed Mark inside.

The two of them stood in the grand entryway, once again taking it all in.

“Where to first?” Courtney asked.

Mark lifted his ring and saw that the symbol was still glowing brightly.

“Let’s start in the attic and work our way-” Mark stopped talking. He had heard something. Courtney heard it too.

“What was that?” Courtney asked.

“Sounded like something scratching across wood.”

“There it is again!” Courtney exclaimed. “It’s outside, on the porch.”

They both turned to the broken window they had just come through.

“It could be squirrels,” Mark said hopefully.

More scratching. Whatever it was, it was moving quickly back and forth on the porch.

“Or birds,” Courtney offered.

“Or… quigs.”

Courtney laughed nervously. “Don’t even joke-” Smash! Smash! Smash!

Three windows shattered as black quig dogs came crashing into the house.

“C’mon!” Courtney grabbed Mark’s hand and they ran up the stairs. The quigs were slightly dazed by the hammering their heads just took, and it gave Mark and Courtney enough time to make it to the top. But a second later the quigs had their wits back, sniffed the air, and charged up the stairs after them.

Mark and Courtney sprinted along the hallway, not sure where to go.

“The window at the end!” Mark shouted.

“We’ll never make it,” Courtney yelled, and pulled Mark into one of the empty bedrooms. They quickly closed the door. There were two other doors in the room. They were the doors that led to the adjoining bedrooms.

“Close those doors!” Courtney ordered.

They each ran to one of the doors and closed it.

“We’re dead,” Mark said.

Courtney ran for the window. She tried to lift it up, but it had been closed for years and wouldn’t budge.

Mark then noticed something. “Look,” he said, holding his hand up. His ring had stopped glowing.

“Not now, Mark. Wait here,” she said, and ran to the other door that led to an adjoining room.

“Where are you going?”

Slam!

The quigs had found them. They were trying to batter down the door Mark had just closed. Mark leaned against it to keep them out. He could hear their angry growling.

“Get ready to open that door” Courtney ordered, and ran out of the room.

“What?” Mark screamed in shock. There was no way he was opening the door.

Courtney moved quickly and quietly through the next bedroom and poked her head out into the hallway. It was empty. She could hear the sound of the quigs slamming themselves against the door that Mark was holding shut.

“Hey!” she shouted. “Devil dogs! Suppertime! Come and get it!”

The banging stopped. Suddenly all three quigs came charging out of the far bedroom and into the hallway, headed for her.

“Psyche” she shouted, and ducked back into the bedroom. She then sprinted through the room and back into the bedroom where Mark was. She didn’t close the door behind her either.

Mark yelled, “Close the door!”

“No!” Courtney shouted. “Open yours!”

Mark hesitated. He didn’t know the quigs had left. But it was clear that Courtney wasn’t stopping. If he didn’t open the door, she’d run right into it. So he swallowed hard and pulled it open. It wasn’t a second too soon, because Courtney blasted through at full throttle.

“Close it behind you!” she shouted.

Mark didn’t know what she was doing, until he looked back and saw the three quigs flying toward him, through the bedroom. They had come through the door Courtney left open. Mark jumped out the door and pulled it closed as… slam slam slam! All three quigs hit the door. Now Mark and the quigs were on opposite sides from where they had been a few moments before. He still had no idea what Courtney was doing.

Courtney never stopped running. She turned into the hallway and sprinted along the same route the quigs had just taken after her. She knew that either her plan was going to work, or she was about to serve herself up for lunch. She ran into the third bedroom and ran toward the connecting door that led back to the second bedroom. Her plan was to lock them inside.

The quigs had figured it out. They stopped trying to beat down the door, and turned back for the door they had just entered through. But Courtney was too fast. She reached inside the room, grabbed the doorknob, said, “G’night kids!” and slammed the door closed, trapping the quigs in the bedroom. Again the quigs slammed at the door in a blood rage.

Mark poked his head into the room. “Can we go now?” he asked.

The two of them ran back along the hallway and hurried down the stairs. They were just about to exit through the broken window when Mark stopped.

“Look!” he exclaimed and held up his hand. His ring was glowing again. “Whatever it is, it’s down here. Or down there” he said as he pointed at the door to the basement.

“Forget it! Those dogs are-“

Mark wasn’t listening. He ran to the basement door and opened it. Sure enough, the symbol on his ring glowed even brighter.

“It’s down there!”

“If the quigs get out, we’ll be trapped,” Courtney warned. Too late. Mark was already headed down the stairs. Courtney ran right after him. She made sure to close the door behind her this time, just in case.

The large basement didn’t look minutes before, except for one thing: Mark’s ring was blasting out light as if it were alive. “This is it!” Mark declared.

“There’s nothing here,” Courtney exclaimed. “We looked behind every door!”

A horrifying sound came from above. It was the sound of the quigs running down the stairs from the second floor. They had gotten out of the bedroom. Mark and Courtney looked up in fear. Mark was about to say something, but Courtney held her hand over his mouth. She put her fingers to her lips for him to “Shhhh.” They didn’t move. They didn’t make a sound. They thought that with any luck, the quigs wouldn’t find them.

Slam!

No such luck. The quigs found them and were trying to batter down the door.

“We gotta find a way out,” Courtney said with a shaky voice.

“No,” Mark yelled back. “We gotta find out what’s down here.” Mark looked around. He went to the door that led to the wine cellar and threw it open.

Slam! Slam!

The quigs threw themselves at the basement door with a horrifying fury. They seemed even more out of control than before.

“They know we’re close,” Mark said. “They don’t want us to find it.”

Courtney saw something they hadn’t noticed before. A raggy curtain was hanging on the wall, covering it from ceiling to floor. Courtney pushed it aside to find another door. She quickly pulled it open and shouted for joy. Daylight flooded into the basement.

“Yes! It’s the way out! Mark, c’mon!”

Mark ignored her. He threw open the door to the workshop, but nothing was out of the ordinary.

“Mark, c’mon!” Courtney yelled.

Crunch!

The basement door was starting to splinter. A few more shots and it would come down… and so would the quigs. “Mark!” Courtney cried.

Mark wasn’t going to run. Not now. Not when they were so close. He was about to open the next door, the one that led to the root cellar, when he felt something strange. He looked down at his hand, then grimaced in pain.

“Ahhhhr

Courtney ran to him. “What’s the matter?” CRASH!

The wooden basement door gave way and clattered down the stairs. The quigs were on their way.

“It’s burning hot!” Mark yelled, and pulled off his ring.

Courtney turned to see the quigs had begun their final, fatal charge. “This is gonna hurt” was all she could say.

Mark threw the burning ring onto the floor. Instantly a high-pitched sound came from it. It wasn’t a painful sound; it was more like a jumble of high musical notes that were all being played at the same time.

Courtney grabbed Mark. Mark grabbed Courtney. The two turned to face the charging quigs to see…

They had stopped. The three beastly dogs, their yellow eyes still intensely focused, had stopped. They twisted their heads as if the strange sound were irritating them. A second later the three dogs turned and ran back up the stairs, tails between their legs, whining in fear.

Mark and Courtney looked back down to the ring to see that it was moving. It wasn’t growing though. It began to spin. It was slow at first, but picked up momentum until the ring was up on end, spinning so fast that it was nothing more than a blur. The high-pitched notes grew louder.

“Look!” Mark said, pointing at the door to the root cellar. Courtney looked to see the door was starting to rattle on its hinges.

“Something’s in there,” Courtney said in shock.

“Maybe,” Mark said. “Or m-maybe something’s coming.”

The rattling continued, then an intense light began to leak from around the edges of the door. Whatever was behind there, it was giving off a light so bright that Mark and Courtney had to squint, even though it was only coming from the crack around the edges. The strange sound from the ring grew even more intense. Now it was so loud it started to hurt. Mark and Courtney both had to cover their ears. The light from behind the door grew even brighter. The door shook furiously. Mark was ready for it to blow off its hinges.

It was then that the most incredible event of all occurred. As the ring continued to spin, a laser light shot from it, aimed at the wooden door. Mark and Courtney watched in awe as the intense white light hit the door at head level. Smoke rose from where the light hit the wood. The door was burning.

And then, like somebody pulled the plug on a lamp, everything stopped. Everything-the beam of light from the ring; the bright light from behind the door; the strange, piercing sound. And finally the ring itself stopped spinning. It rolled one last time, then came to a stop with a slight, metallic ping. It was over. All was back to normal.

All but one small thing.

“Oh, man,” Courtney said in awe.

Mark saw that she was looking at the door to the root cellar. At first, Mark wasn’t sure why she was so stunned, and then he saw it. It was on the door, right where the beam from the ring had hit it. There was no mistake. They had seen this once before and read about it many times over.

It was a star. The sign of a gate.

Mark reached down and picked up the ring. It was no longer glowing and was now cool enough to touch. It had done its job. Courtney walked over to the door and touched the blackened symbol.

“It’s still hot,” she said. She looked to Mark and asked, “Could it be?”

“Open the d-door,” Mark said. “My hand’s shaking.”

Courtney reached down and grabbed the door handle. “My hand’s shaking too,” she said.

Mark put his hand over Courtney’s and the two of them pulled the door open.

The room looked pretty much the same as it had when they searched it before. It was a large, empty space with a dirt floor and bits of dried weeds hanging from the beams of the ceiling. It was cool inside, just the way a subterranean root cellar should be. It was the exact same room that they had been in before, except for one small change. The rock that made up one whole wall of the cellar was gone.

Mark and Courtney stood together, staring, not breathing. Instead of a rock wall, they now looked into a craggy opening. It was unmistakable.

It was a flume.

Neither could speak. They both stood there, staring into the infinite tunnel. It was Mark who first broke the silence.

“D-Do you think m-maybe this means the time is right for us to be acolytes?”

Courtney stared into the tunnel a moment more, then started to laugh. “Yeah,” she said through the laughter. “I’d say this is a pretty good sign.”

Mark laughed too. The two laughed and hugged. Neither knew what the future held, but one thing was for certain: They were no longer just bystanders whose job it was to read Bobby’s mail. They were in the game now. For real.

Mark’s ring twitched.

“Uh-oh,” he said, and held his hand up.

“Now what?” Courtney exclaimed. “I don’t know if I can take any more fireworks.”

But this event was safe and familiar. The center stone of the ring started to glow. Mark took it off and placed it down on the dirt floor. This time the ring grew, opening up the portal to the territories. The familiar musical notes grew louder, bringing with them a special delivery. The sparkling light filled the underground room. For Mark and Courtney, it was like being held in a warm embrace. The lights flashed one final time, the notes fell silent, and the ring was once again back to its normal size.

Lying next to it was the silver projector that held Bobby’s next journal.

“Hobey-ho,” whispered Mark.