See part one for explanation and disclaimers. Hallmark & James Gurney still own the characters and I’m still not profiting from this. Hope you’re enjoying this. Still recommended for teens and up for action/violence and mild language.

“We should go back and get David.” Alano was losing patience. The sun was setting and the two packs were preparing the submarine to depart at high tide. Waves were already lapping at the pier. David hadn’t returned on his own, and Alano’s gut instinct was that his friend was in trouble. Le Sage and Dane would have no qualms about shipping out without Barrett, of that Alano was sure.

Perched on the boulders nearby, Freefall made a grumbling sound. Alano tossed the pterosaur a fish from his own dinner plate.

“What are you worried about? David’s gotten away from the scalie-lovers so many times, it’s practically his hobby. If you want to try to fly the scalie and to Waterfall City, in the dark no less, that’s fine. But, unless you’re planning to stick to the coast, you’re going to have to fly through carnosaur territory to make it there and back before high tide.” Le Sage pulled her coat tighter around herself, shivering in the cooling late afternoon air.

“Aren’t you---” Alano began, but the conversation abruptly ceased when Gabriel Dane came to join them.

Dane offered them his flask. “Warm you up faster than the fire, yes?” he laughed when Alano gagged, eyes watering, on a swallow of the liquor. It burned all the way down his throat. He had no way of knowing for sure, but if Alano had to guess, he’d imagine that stuff was exactly what scalie pee would taste like. He wasn’t going to be able to keep it down. Le Sage, however, tossed it back with only the faintest wrinkling of her nose.

“She not so bad, our boat; She patch up easy. The tide, she be up over the dock soon and we be on our way.” Dane gestured to the holes the pack was laboring to plug. “I wonder what become of our friend, Cyrus?”

“Judging by the teeth marks, I’d say he was dinner for the fishies---which is what you’re going to be if that hand of yours makes contact with any part of me,” Le Sage advised.

Dane moved to the opposite side of the campfire, heeding the warning.

Alano’s stomach lurched violently. No, he wasn’t going to be able to keep down that swill of Dane’s. He jumped to his feet with a hurried “Excuse me” and dashed for the nearby boulders and undergrowth. He barely got out of sight of those in the camp before losing the drink and most of his dinner behind the rocks. Over the sound of his pulse hammering in his ears and the horrible retching, he heard the beat of Freefall’s wings as the dinosaur followed and perched on a boulder directly above Alano’s head.

“Ugh,” Alano groaned, wiping at his mouth with a dirty handkerchief. “Ol’ Frank Scott’s got no worries about Dane stealing his customers with that rot.”

Freefall was looking quite put out. The pterosaur beat his wings again, impatiently.

“Oh don’t look at me like that---Le Sage is right, you know. We won’t make Waterfall City before dark, and it’s not safe winging about through the carnies’ territory, especially at night. David will show up on his own soon.” He didn’t sound convincing, and sure enough, Freefall didn’t look convinced.

*

The man had entered the tavern early, long before the first patrons usually arrived. The very presence of the man had set Frank’s nerves on edge. He was used to the Outsiders. Most were boisterous, overindulgent braggarts, but were harmless. This man was different. Frank only had to look in his eyes to know that. He was built like a brick wall. Scars covered his hands and a few marred his cheek and neck. His clothes were like burlap and were dyed shades of green—meant to blend with the colors of the forest undoubtedly. But it was the eyes that made Frank uneasy. The man’s gaze was calculating, devoid of emotion, determined. Frank had seen enough mug shots and been in enough bar fights to know that look. Those were the eyes of someone with the capacity for violence---the ability to take a life, human or dinosaur, without remorse.

He was trouble.

Twenty-Six, from her bed by the stairs, sensed it as well. She bleated a pitiful wail and shrank back farther into the shadows beneath the staircase when the man focused his gaze on her. Frank saw the Outsider’s hand clench, just for an instant, and then relax.

There was only one islander—one Outsider---he could be. Frank had never laid eyes on Payden Borale, but he deduced from the stories he’d heard that this stranger was him. Payden was supposed to be in Gull’s Bay with his running buddy, Gabriel Dane, or so David Barrett had said. What was he doing in the tavern? Frank was only grateful that Jack was upstairs asleep and that Karl was out chasing David. He didn’t want a man as dangerous as Payden in the tavern, let alone around his kids.

“Can I help you?” Frank asked, not coming out from behind the bar. He kept a very heavy baseball bat-like piece of wood behind the bar just in case a patron got to rowdy. He had a feeling that this might be his first occasion to actually use it.

Payden didn’t move from where he stood near the doorway, didn’t so much as blink. “Frank Scott?”

“Yeah?”

Frank didn’t see it, Payden moved so fast. In the space of one second, the man withdrew a cloth pouch from his coat. In the next instant, the pouch struck Frank squarely in the face and spilled its powdery contents into his mouth and nose. The effect was instantaneous: Frank’s vision blurred and the world around him started spinning. He tried to cough, but that only pulled more of the foul stuff into his mouth and lungs, choking him. He tried to speak, but that made the problem worse. Finally, he tried to raise his hand to wipe the stuff away from his face, but he couldn’t seem to coordinate his movements with what his brain wanted his arm to do. He was rapidly becoming groggy and had to struggle to keep his eyes open.

The next thing Frank knew, the floor was smacking him in the face. He thought he heard Jack call, “Dad!” right before everything went dark.

*

“Karl!”

Marion had been waiting in the hallway when he stormed out of the outsider’s room. She’d had to shout several times before Karl noticed her presence. He paused, but didn’t turn to face her, so she had to circle around in front of him in order to see his face. “What happened in there? Noree said we’re doing the ritual again? You understand that it won’t work until we find whoever---”

“That was called ‘bluffing’, Marion! I was trying to scare Barrett into telling me who else had access to the faith stone,” Karl snapped, frustration biting into his tone.

“Did he?” Marion read the answer in Karl’s eyes.

“What do you think? He wouldn’t tell us if he did. He thinks we’re trying to brainwash him. Only flaw in his theory being that he’d actually have to have a brain for that plan to work…where are you going?”

Without another word, Marion strode down the small hallway and back into the main chamber of the temple. She walked to the sentinel and took the Tohma Faiere’s box from its outstretched stone hands.

“Marion, I already said I was bluffing----’ Karl stared at the faith stone’s case with dread as she approached him with it. “What are you doing?! I- -I thought we needed to find everyone who used the stone to make the ritual work?”

“We need everyone who prayed to it only to undo whatever spell the Tohma Faiere created. You can figure out what’s been changed without David’s help.” Marion opened the box. “Karl, I know you saw something during the ritual that you aren’t telling me about, I can see it in your eyes and I can feel it in your mind…just as I know that David saw something at Le Sage’s when he k---er,” Karl’s ears were going red again. “…when he took the medallion from me,” she finished. “One of you is going to tell me the truth so we can figure out who used the faith stone and what has to be set straight.”

When Karl balked, Marion added firmly, “If I have to, I’ll make both of you to use the faith stone over and over until you do. Now, will you try again or shall I start with David?”

Stalling, he marched back to the main hall and sank down onto one of the benches. She followed, waiting expectantly. “I saw things that happened before I came to the island mostly,” Karl began. “I think. It’s hard to explain…it’s like it was my life, but it wasn’t. I’m not---I can’t be---the way I was in those visions, I don’t want to be the way I was in those visions.”

“You saw your real lifetime. Tell me,” she urged.

No way. If Marion knew about all those girls he’d seen in those visions, Karl would crawl under a rock and die of embarrassment. “It was just…summer camp, family vacations, the plane crash when we landed here.”

“What was different?”

“All of it. I never went to summer camp---I worked at the markets to help pay bills. I wasn’t the big man on campus or a jock---I hate sports. I was the one who tripped everyone in the tug-of-war line. I never went free-climbing, I read books in the tent. And I never---” Had a libido like a sailor on shore leave, he thought. He was a nerd, especially where girls were concerned.

In this lifetime, at least. Apparently, it was quite a different story before the faith stone changed reality as he knew it…

“Jack.” The word slipped out.

“What about him?” Marion asked.

“The vision I saw was at camp. Jack and I were arguing and then----”

“What?”

“It wasn’t Jack anymore. He disappeared and I saw David Barrett instead.”

Marion’s eyes widened. “Are you saying you saw David as your---but that doesn’t make sense. Why would you pray to remove your brother from your life?”

“You’ve met the guy, haven’t you?” Karl was defensive. “Anyway, who said I did it?” Maybe David had made the wish. Why would he do that? Why would he want to be rid of Karl and Jack?

Wait a second…

“Jack.”

Marion frowned. “What about him?”

“David was my brother in that other lifetime…if that was the real lifetime, I didn’t---we didn’t---have a brother named Jack,” Karl remembered. Warning alarms were going off in his mind. He felt a renewed surge of dread.

She caught his meaning. “Jack might be the other one, the one who prayed to the stone.” Karl snatched the box out of her hands. “Karl?”

“I have to do this,” he changed his mind. He rushed to one of the private chambers. He didn’t want an audience for this.

“Why?” Marion closed the door behind them.

Karl sat down on the cot. “Because, the way I see it, either Jack used the stone to switch places with David---why anyone would want to do that, I don’t know---or when the faith stone changed the timeline, Jack was born. And if we change it back…”

Marion finished the thought, “Jack won’t exist.”

Karl stared at the dormant stone resting in the box. It had to be done---Karl had to know. Steeling himself, he reached for the stone, as ready as he’d ever be for its visions.

Previous

Next

Home