D. MacHale - The Rivers of Zadaa

“What’re you doing?” Andy asked. “Let’s go!”

“Hang on,” Mark said.

He carefully stepped down off the shoulder onto the steep pitch of the hill. He walked to the bush, tripping over rocks and getting thorns caught in his jeans. He reached into the bush and pulled out the piece of trash. As soon as he lifted it, he saw that it wasn’t trash at all. It was a book. A textbook.

An algebra-trig textbook.

Mark’s eyes went wide. His adrenaline spiked. He looked out onto the forest and screamed, “Courtney? Courtney?”

“Are you crazy?” Mitchell asked.

Mark threw the book to Andy. “She’s here,” he said breathlessly. “There was an accident. She’s here!”

Mark tripped down the hill, headed for the forest and the tree with the gouge taken out of it. Andy Mitchell shrugged and followed. It was so steep, Mark nearly took a header. But he kept going. He got to the tree and saw that the gouge was definitely fresh.

“Courtney!” he yelled.

He looked around the silent forest, scanning for any clues. He got a big one. A few yards farther down the hill was a bike. Mark ran to it and quickly realized what had made the gouge in the tree. The bike’s handlebars were bent into a right angle.

“Is it hers?” Andy asked as he ran to meet Mark.

“Yeah,” Mark said, his panic rising. “If she was on this when it went over the edge, then she-“

The words froze in Mark’s throat. A few yards to his left he saw a hint of something that was dark green. Courtney had a dark green backpack. Mark leaped for it, picked it up…and came upon the body of his friend Courtney Chetwynde.

“It’s her!” he shouted. “Call nine-one-one!”

“Holy jeez,” Andy said, stunned. He fumbled to pull his cell phone out of his pocket. He nearly dropped it. Twice. “What’s the number again?” he stammered nervously.

Mark shot him a look. Andy nodded, feeling dumb. He dialed.

Mark bent down to Courtney. Her long brown hair was a tangle over her face. Her left arm was bent back at a strange angle. He could see that her right hand was on her cell phone. He now knew how she’d made the call to him. He bent down and brushed the hair out of Courtney’s eyes.

“Is she…” Andy asked. He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence.

Mark summoned his courage and put two fingers to her neck, looking for a pulse.

“C’mon, Courtney,” Mark whispered. “You’re there. I know you’re there.”

He felt around. There was no pulse. Her skin felt cold to his touch. Mark’s heart sank. If only he had gotten her message earlier! He began to cry.

“I’m so sorry, Courtney,” he said softly.

“Yeah, this is an emergency,” Andy spoke into the phone. “We’re on a road between the fancy Stansfield school and the town. Derby Falls. There’s been an accident. A girl is hurt off to the side. Bad. You can’t miss my car-it’s parked on the side of the road. We’re down in the woods. Hurry, all right?”

He disconnected the call and looked at Mark. “What do you think?”

Mark was in tears. “I don’t know. I can’t fee! a pulse.” Andy Mitchell bent down next to Courtney. He gently picked up her hand.

“Be careful!” Mark said. “If she hurt her back-“

“I know, I know,” Andy replied.

He grasped Courtney’s hand in both of his. Mark was surprised at how gentle he was. Andy Mitchell was definitely full of surprises. Andy held her hand in his for several seconds while looking at Courtney. He then moved his fingers toward the underside of her wrist. He placed two there, and waited.

Mark’s heart was ready to burst.

“I got it,” Andy said softly. “It ain’t strong, but it’s there.”

Mark was stunned. There was hope!

“Keep her warm!” Mark said while taking off his sweatshirt. He gently placed it down over Courtney. “We gotcha, Courtney,” he said. “Help is coming. You’re gonna be okay.”

Within minutes a fire truck and ambulance arrived from Derby Falls. The EMTs dove into the woods and went right to work. They quickly checked Courtney’s vitals to find she was indeed alive. They expertly immobilized her by putting her onto a fracture board. With Mark and Andy’s help, they carefully pulled her out of the woods and got her into the ambulance. Fifteen minutes after Andy put in the 911 call, Courtney was on her way to the hospital.

The next few hours were like a blur to Mark. He and Andy answered a ton of questions from the police, and made sure that Courtney’s parents knew what had happened. Mr. and Mrs. Chetwynde were on their way to Derby Falls minutes later. Mark told the police about the mysterious guy Courtney was supposed to meet, Whitney Wilcox. He knew the police would question people at the school. He knew they’d find people who knew Courtney was hanging out with Whitney. He knew it would all be a waste of time. They would never find him, because he didn’t exist. At least, not in the normal sense. He may not have been a student at Stansfield, but he was very real. And he was out there.

Throughout this ordeal, there was one question that was more important than all the others. Nobody could say for sure if Courtney was going to survive. The only information Mark and Andy got was that she had some broken bones, but her real problem came from internal injuries. There was a lot of bleeding. She was in surgery, and it would be a while before anybody knew if she would live. All they could do was wait and hope.

Andy Mitchell wanted to get something to eat. Mark didn’t want to leave the hospital, so Andy volunteered to bring something back. Throughout, Mark thought, Andy had been terrific. He was turning out to be a good friend. How strange was that? Once Andy left on his hunt for food, Mark was faced with a long wait before Courtney would be out of surgery. He sat in the quiet waiting lounge with nothing to do…

Except read the next journal from Bobby Pendragon. He took a quick look around to make sure nobody was watching, and pulled the journal out of his pack. He expected to see the familiar, crusty brown roll of parchment paper that all the journals from Zadaa had used. He didn’t. This roll of paper was bright, lemon yellow and tied with a purple bow. It looked like something you’d get at a kid’s birthday party. When Mark unrolled it, he saw that Bobby’s writing was done in bright purple ink. He had no idea what the significance of any of it was, but didn’t spend too much time wondering about it.

It was time to read.

I’ve now written twenty-two journals to you guys. I’ve described the amazing things I’ve seen and the impossible truths I’ve learned. This journal will be nodifferent. I’m going to tell you about the invasion of the underground. It happened. We couldn’t stop it. Zadaa has been changed forever.

Obviously, I survived. As I’m writing this journal, my hand is shaking. Nervous energy, I guess. I think it’s because I’m having trouble understanding the truths I’ve learned since I last wrote. I don’t know what to think. It’s all so confusing. The battle may be over, but I’m more scared than before. It’s because I’m afraid to face the person I’ve become. The frightening truth is that I’m not the same as when I left home with Uncle Press. I guess that goes without saying. Nobody stays the same forever, especially after having gone through what I have. But understanding that in my head, and accepting it in my heart are two different things.

What’s actually bothering me more is that in reality, I may not have changed as much as I think. I know, I’m contradicting myself. Let me explain. The way I’ve always thought about what’s happened to me is that I was a normal kid who, for reasons I have yet to figure out, was chosen to be the Traveler from Second Earth. Nobody ever told me what those reasons were, but the decision was made and off I went.