D. MacHale - The Soldiers of Halla

I nodded in thanks and burst out in tears. I couldn’t help myself. The floodgates of emotion and relief were open. Things were going to be okay. When I finally got my act together, I straightened up, wiped my eyes, and said, “So what the hell is up with Uncle Press? You gonna tell me what that guy’s about or what?”

“We are,” Mom said with a chuckle. “You’re going to learn everything. But first we have to go home.”

“To Stony Brook?” I asked hopefully.

“No,” Mom answered. “We’re going to the place where you were born.”

I let that sink in, then added, “Something tells me we’re not going to Second Earth.”

“We’re not” was Mom’s simple, direct answer.

It was the right answer. The only answer. Though it scared me to death. I was finally going to learn the truth.

About me. About the Travelers. And maybe most important, about Saint Dane.

“Then let’s go,” I said.

Dad led the way. Mom kept her arm around my shoulders, Shannon’s arm was around my waist. Marley ran in front of us, his big bushy tail wagging.

We took maybe two steps when I realized…

We weren’t on Earth anymore.

We had stepped out of one strange situation, directly into another.

There were no flumes involved. No journey that I could tell of. I didn’t get the sense that we had traveled any distance at all. Except that one moment we were walking through the windswept ruins of the zoo in Central Park, and a second later we were in an environment I can best describe as being alien. Though I guess “alien” can mean a lot of things. I stood in wonder, looking around at the most barren, forlorn chunk of real estate I had ever seen.

The air was clear. That’s the best thing I could say about the place. It was night, though there was plenty of light to see by. The sky was full of stars. More than I could imagine. I didn’t recognize a single constellation. The night sky was alive with thin, wispy clouds of all shapes and sizes that moved quickly overhead. At least, I thought they were clouds. They weren’t like any clouds I’d ever seen. Some glowed with color. Reds, greens, oranges, and yellows. Others were dark shadows. None were so thick that they blocked out the stars, yet they definitely had substance. I could see right through these translucent bodies that shot across the heavens impossibly fast. Many blazed with light, as if they were somehow charged with energy. It was a tightly choreographed fireworks display in the vast night sky.

On ground level I felt as if I could see for miles, yet there was nothing to see. The landscape was made up of nothing but jagged gray rock. I saw peaks in the distance, chasms beneath them, miles of flat land in between. I thought of the lava field we once visited in Hawaii where the molten lava had spread and hardened, leaving a jagged world of gray. That’s pretty much what this was, multiplied by about a million. There were no buildings. No trees. No sign of civilization. We stood at the bottom of a mountain of rock that jutted up higher than I could see. There seemed to be levels everywhere. Were there caves built into this dark matter? Could people live on this rock?

Dark matter. That’s what the flumes were supposed to have been made of. The oldest known substance in the universe. The gray rock that made up this strange world looked exactly like the rock from the flumes. Was there a connection?

As much as this desolate world seemed dead, it wasn’t empty. This is hard to describe, but I’ll try. I sensed life. It’s not like I saw people crawling around on the various levels of rock. I didn’t. But I felt the presence of life. What I saw were shadows and light that moved quickly past on the edge of my vision. When I tried to look at them, they’d be gone. A few times I thought I actually saw the image of a person, but by the time I turned to focus… nothing. These maddening images danced beyond my ability to actually grasp them and understand what they were. Who they were. It seemed as if I were surrounded by ghosts.

Oddly, I wasn’t scared. Confused maybe, but not scared.

The only thing normal about this place was my family. Though seeing them standing in that desolate place was about as abnormal as I could imagine. Dad had on his usual dark green khakis and his favorite faded Villanova sweatshirt. Mom wore a jean skirt and a black turtleneck under a white sweater. I already said that Shannon had on jeans and a pink sweater. Marley wore his blue collar that was embroidered with fish shapes. They looked about as normal as I remembered them. They were a typical-looking family from Connecticut… standing together on Mars.

They let me take in the surroundings without a word. I guess they were waiting for me to get used to the place. Yeah, right. Fat chance that would happen. After seeing all I thought there was to see, which wasn’t much, one question jumped out ahead of all the others.

“So, uh, this is where I was born? Not exactly homey.”

“It wasn’t always like this,” Dad replied. “This is what it has become.”

“What territory is it?” I asked.

“It isn’t a territory,” Mom answered.

“Then what is it?” I asked, growing anxious.

“We call it Solara,” Dad said. “Though others use different names. It’s the essence of Halla.”

I guess I should have followed that up with a surprised, “What the heck is that supposed to mean?” I didn’t. Though I had no idea what he meant, I felt as if it were right. It made sense, like I already knew the truth. But I didn’t. Or did I? At least, I was confident that it would eventually make sense. I didn’t panic. I needed to learn. I kicked at a gray stone, sending it skittering across the rocky surface. I had a million questions. The trick was to figure out which I needed answered first.

“Do you know what happened to me?” I asked. “I mean, about what happened after I left home?”

I was surprised that Shannon was the one to answer. “We know it all, Bobby. Everything. More than you, in fact.”

I didn’t like the idea that my little sister was so well informed, but what the heck. If that was the worst of my problems, I figured I was doing okay.

“What happened to you guys?” I finally asked. “Where did you go?”

All three exchanged looks. It was time. I was going to find out why my family had disappeared.

“Let’s sit down, Bobby,” Mom said softly. “We have so much to tell you.”

That made me nervous. It was as if she were getting ready to break some bad news and wanted me to be prepared.

“I’m good,” I said. “I’ll stand.”

Shannon sat down on a hunk of rock, hugging Marley, keeping him happy, which wasn’t too hard to do. Marley was a good dog.

Mom began, “Before we go any further, we want you to understand something. No matter what you hear, what you learn, you must remember that we love you. We have always loved you. Nothing will change that.”

Yikes.

”You’re starting to worry me, Mom,” I said. “And after what I’ve been through, that’s really saying something.”

“But you must know that,” she repeated. “It’s important to us.”

“I know, Mom,” I assured her. “And I love you too. Tell me what happened.”

Dad began. “Once you learned that you were a Traveler, we were no longer needed. In fact, it was important for us to leave. If we hadn’t, you might never have accepted your destiny.”

“So, you knew all about this from the get-go? Like, my whole life? You always knew I’d be chosen as a Traveler?”

“You weren’t chosen to be a Traveler,” Shannon said. “You were created to be a Traveler.”

I changed my mind. I sat down.

“You weren’t alone,” Mom added. “It was the same for all the Travelers. They were each put on their territory to grow up there, learn about its culture, become part of the world. It was all in preparation to try and stop Saint Dane.”