D. MacHale - Raven Rise

“Naymeer is the key,” Courtney offered. “He’s Ravinia. Without him, it all means nothing. If we can somehow stop him, we’ll stop Ravinia.”

Courtney’s words put a thought into my head. It was a fleeting idea. One that I could hardly believe even occurred to me. It might have been a solution, but it wasn’t something I was willing to think about seriously. At least not yet. Things would have to get desperate before I went there. I hoped we hadn’t already reached that point. Still, I had to put it out there as a possibility.

“There is one way,” I said. “It’s a last resort but-”

“Courtney?” came a voice from outside. A woman’s voice.

We all froze. I motioned toward the battery-powered lantern we had been using to light the cabin. Mark killed it.

“Courtney honey, are you in there?” the voice called.

Courtney’s eyes went wide. She whispered, “It’s my mom.”

Another voice was heard. A man’s voice. “It’s all right, sweetheart. Come on out.”

I looked at Courtney. She nodded. “My dad,” she whispered.

Nobody knew what to do. How idiotic was that? Here we were discussing the future of all existence, yet we were terrified about getting busted by Courtney’s parents, as if we’d been caught skipping school or something. I guess old habits die hard. Courtney made the first move. She motioned for us to stay still and went for the hatch. I was able to peer through the curtains that covered the porthole, to watch as Courtney climbed onto the deck of the boat.

On the dock her mother and father stood waiting forher.

“Hi, guys,” she said, sounding like a meek little girl. “Going for a sail?”

“Honey!” her mom shouted with genuine relief. She ran for the boat and hugged her daughter tight. “You’re all right,” she cried, in tears. “We thought… we thought…”

“It’s okay, Mom, I’m okay. I’m sorry I had you so worried.”

Courtney’s dad joined in the group hug.

“It’s over,” he said, also in tears. “You’re back with us now. Everything’s going to be all right.”

“Yeah, it is,” Courtney said. “Let’s go home.”

She tried to maneuver her parents back along the dock, away from the boat. Away from us. Her parents didn’t move.

Her mom said, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. We did what we thought was best.”

“What do you mean?” Courtney asked suspiciously.

Mr. Chetwynde looked to the boat and called out, “Mark? Come on out, son.”

Mark stiffened. He shot me a look, as if to say, “Now what?”

“You too…Bobby.”

My head swam. This couldn’t be happening. I had disappeared from town years before. Nobody on Second Earth had seen or heard from Bobby Pendragon in all that time. How could they know I was there?

I whispered, “It must be Saint Dane.”

“Maybe Nevva, too,” Mark added.

Alder didn’t know how to react. “We should find out,” he declared.

“No. Stay here. I’ll figure this out.” Then to Mark, “We better go.”

Mark nodded. The two of us crawled up and out of the hatch.

Courtney stood on the dock being hugged by both her parents. When they saw Mark, Mrs. Chetwynde began to sob.

“You’re all right.” She wept and turned to her husband. “He’s all right.”

When I appeared on deck, I thought they were going to faint. Can’t say I blamed them. Bobby Pendragon had returned from the dead. Or at least the missing. Mrs. Chetwynde leaned against her husband for support. They truly looked stunned. If this was Saint Dane and Nevva Winter, they were putting on a great show. But for who?

Courtney pulled away from her parents and wiped a tear from her own eye. “Mom, Dad, you should go home and leave us alone.”

“I wish we could, sweetheart,” Mr. Chetwynde said. “This is too important.”

“What is?” Courtney demanded.

Mr. Chetwynde looked nervous. He ran his hand through his hair. When he did that, we all saw the same thing: On his arm was a green tattoo. A star. The mark of the Ravinians. The Chetwyndes were definitely followers of Naymeer.

“We can help you, Courtney,” Mrs. Chetwynde sobbed. “You’re confused. We can make this all better. For all of us.”

Courtney backed away from them, toward Mark and me. “Mom, what did you do?”

Mr. Chetwynde answered, “What we had to.”

Floodlights flashed to life onshore, lighting up the dock as if it were day. Our backs were to the water. We had nowhere to go. Below the white lights, several flashing red lights appeared. Police lights. The Chetwyndes had called the cops.

Behind the Chetwyndes a lone silhouette of a man came walking along the dock. He wasn’t in any hurry. He knew we weren’t going anywhere.

“Almost four years,” the man said. “I’ve been on this case for almost four years. Thought for sure it would never be solved…until right now.”

The man stepped out of the shadows and stood next to the Chetwyndes. He wore a plain suit that looked as if he had slept in it. There was nothing familiar about the guy. To me, that is. Mark and Courtney knew him very well.

“Captain Hirsch?” Mark called out.

“Hi, guys,” the man said. “Looks like we’re finally going to find out what happened to Bobby Pendragon and his family. Believe me, the town, the state, and I’d pretty much guess the whole country wants to know. I, for one, cannot wait to hear.”

“Hi, Bobby,” the policeman said warmly. “I’m Jim Hirsch. Lot of people have been worried about you. And your family. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

I was in a brain freeze. This couldn’t be happening. Of all the odd twists that had been thrown at me, this was the most surreal. I looked to Courtney for help.

“Captain Hirsch is the guy who’s been investigating your disappearance from the beginning,” she explained. She looked at the cop and boldly asked, “It is you, isn’t it?”

Hirsch gave her a confused look. “Who else would I be? Except it’s Chief Hirsch now.”

Courtney gave me a concerned look. She thought the same thing I did. Saint Dane. There was no way to know for sure. At least the guy seemed genuinely confused by the question.

Mr. Chetwynde explained, “We got a call from the Ravinians. They said you had broken into their compound along with Mark and Bobby and another young man. They didn’t want the police involved, but we said there was no choice in the matter. That’s when we called Chief Hirsch.” Courtney said, “And you figured we might come here.” The Chetwyndes nodded.

“So where is Naymeer and his red-shirt clowns?” Courtney asked.

“They are good people, Courtney,” Mrs. Chetwynde said quickly. “They don’t want to cause any trouble. They left it up to us to decide what to do.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Courtney said sarcastically. “They’re swell.”

“Don’t be disrespectful,” Mr. Chetwynde admonished.

“Courtney, where have you been?” Mrs. Chetwynde asked with concern. “Why did you break into the home of such an important man? Did you steal a car from them?”

Mr. Chetwynde added, “And where’s the other fella who was with you?”

Hirsch said, “I think it’s best we all get out of the cold and go somewhere to talk about it.”

Mark interjected, “You mean somewhere like the police station?”

Hirsch answered with a shrug.

Time slowed down for me. It was a standoff. We were on the end of the dock, at least thirty yards from shore. I had to assume there were more policemen waiting onshore near the floodlights. Fighting our way off the dock wasn’t an option. Not when policemen had guns. As of that moment, I didn’t think we were considered dangerous. Fighting through the police would change that. But we had to make a move. Who knew what the police would do with us? Did they think I had done something evil to my family? Would they actually arrest us? The only thing we were caught dead to rights on was car theft. Maybe breaking and entering. Even if no trouble came from that, we’d be tied up with the police for a long time. The glare of public scrutiny would shine brightly. On me. And what about Alder? How would we explain him? If we went with the police, any chance of derailing Naymeer and his cult would be gone. Second Earth would be lost. Halla would be lost. It couldn’t end this way. There was only one thing to do.