Corvan stood at the Fenwood hospital window watching the remnants of a prairie sunset fade over the western hills. He was glad the day was finally over. The harsh sunlight glaring off the stark white walls Kate’s hospital room had been unbearable.
Footsteps approached, then retreated to answer the jangle of the nursing station phone. He hoped it was a long call. The nurses would not be happy to find him back in Kate’s room again.
Streetlamps began flickering to life around the empty parking lot below. His parents should be returning at any time to take him home, but it didn’t’ feel right to leave Kate here by herself. Kate’s mother would certainly not be coming to see her. Just a week after he and Kate had disappeared, she had taken off with the man she had met at the roadside diner.
Turning away from the darkening sky, he moved toward the clunky metal bed where Kate slept beneath a fuzzy white blanket. She looked somewhat comical with her hair sticking up in swatches through the bandage that had been wrapped around her head.
He studied her for any sign of movement. He had heard the whispers of brain damage from the nurses—how Kate might never wake up again or, if she did, how she might not remember anything from before her injury. He refused to believe that would happen. They had come through so much together and he would not give up on her now.
The steady drip of Kate’s IV had been doing its work, and her face was no longer drawn and thin. The cut in her cheek had been carefully stitched back together and they said it was healing incredibly fast. She would likely end up with a scar similar to the one that Tyreth would have for the rest of her life down in the Cor.
At the thought of Tyreth he turned back to the window. Up here, with the vast prairie sky overhead, the daughter of the High Priest seemed like a figment of his imagination, and the Cor as far away as another planet. He gazed above the trees to where a few stars struggled to outshine the city lights. A surge of pity for the people of Kadir tugged at his heart. It was like they were all locked away in a dark prison, paying eternally for some ancient crime.
“The stars are beautiful.”
Corvan whirled about and went to the bed.
Kate smiled faintly, then winced as the stitches tightened on her cheek. “What happened to me?” She tried to sit up, but Corvan put a hand on her shoulder.
“You need to lie still and rest. You fell and hurt your head. Don’t you remember?”
She stared blankly at him. “I think so. Did I get hurt bad?”
“You’ve got a cut on your head and on your cheek. You’ll be okay but you need to rest for a while.”
“I guess I shouldn’t have been climbing on the Castle Rocks in the dark,” Kate said.
“The Castle?” Corvan asked.
“I remember was going out there and falling down but I don’t even remember what I was doing out there at night. I had my mother’s outhouse flashlight with me.” Her eyes crinkled in a teasing smile. “Maybe I was trying to catch your imaginary lizard so Billy wouldn’t pick on you anymore.”
Corvan nodded slowly but his mind was racing. Kate didn’t appear to remember anything from their adventure, but it would be best to not say anything for now. “You don’t need to worry about the lizard. I won’t be talking about it anymore.”
Her eyes drooped. “I’m tired.”
“Try to sleep. I’ll sit with you until my parents come to take me back home, but I’ll be back tomorrow, I promise.”
She nodded and Corvan pulled a chair in close to the side of her bed.
Kate reached her hand out from under the covers, exposing what the doctor referred to as “that mysterious star shaped burn” in the center of the palm. How could they know that the small star was from where the red seed had sent its power coursing though her body. Corvan reached out and held her hand in his own.
A peaceful smile settled over Kate’s face. She gave his fingers a weak squeeze as she drifted off.
The door opened a crack, then his mother stepped into the room. Her eyebrows rose slightly at the sight of their joined hands, then she gestured for him to follow her out.
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Easing his hand from Kate’s, he met her out in the hall.
“How is Kate doing?” she asked.
“She woke up and talked a bit.”
“That’s wonderful. I didn’t think a bump in the head could slow our Kate down for long.” His mother frowned. “Did she ask for her mother?”
“No. She seems a bit confused about what happened.”
“She’s not the only one.” His mother shot him a questioning glance as she turned down the hall. “We can leave right away. I’ve already checked you out.” She held out his fall Mackinaw jacket. “I hung the raincoat the nurses took from you on the hooks at home. This will be much warmer.”
Corvan accepted the red and black wool jacket, marveling once again that his grandfather’s cloak fooled people so easily. As soon as they got home, he would grab the cloak from the back porch and hide it away in the chest in his room.
His mother helped him to get his Mackinaw on, then pointed to his bandaged hand. “They say it was a clean break and will heal quickly. Does it hurt?”
Corvan shook his head, but he was already turning back to Kate’s door. It didn’t feel right to leave her behind now that she was conscious. “Will you bring me back first thing tomorrow morning?” He looked to his mother. “I don’t want her to be alone with her mom gone and all.”
His mother nodded, a faint smile on her face.
“Where’s Dad?” he asked.
“He had to go back to the Red Creek mine. Tomorrow they are sealing off that lower chamber. He’s the only one who knows where to place all the charges to make sure the water drains away and does not rise up into the mine. He’ll be most of the night.” She tried to smile but there was worry in her eyes. “You are sure lucky he found you two. Nobody at the mine can figure out how you and Kate got past the locked gates and down to the bottom level.”
It was more of a question than a statement, but Corvan didn’t respond. His father had asked him not to say anything to his mother until they could talk in private when they got home.
Walking out the front doors of the hospital, Corvan abruptly stopped. Up in Kate’s hospital room the open sky had continually drawn him to the window but now, outside, the stars were pulling him right out of his tennis shoes. He breathed in the scents of early autumn, the drying leaves, the dust of harvest, and the crisp air. “I’m so glad to be back.”
“The way you’re behaving,” his mother said, “you’d think you’ve been underground in that mine for a year.”
Ignoring the subtle inquiry, Corvan trotted down the stairs and headed for the truck.
As they drove out of the city, the artificial glow from the streetlamps faded, and the prairie sky brightened into a star-encrusted canopy. It almost seemed the stars had multiplied since he left for the Cor.
Resting his forehead against the cool glass, he stared up at them in wonder. Under their sparkling light, he felt both small and infinitely important at the same time.
Entering his hometown, he watched the empty schoolyard slide past his window, surprised to find himself free of any fear of going back. It wasn’t just that he was ready to grow up and move on, it felt more like he had already walked through that door and came out the other side.
The gravel crunched as they turned into their driveway and rolled to a stop beside their home.
Stepping from the truck he turned for the side of the house. “I’m going out to the rock for a few minutes.”
“Don’t be too long,” his mother said. “The doctor said you also need to get lots of rest.” She came around the front of the truck and as Corvan passed by, she reached out and pulled him close. “I’m sure glad to have you home again.”
He hugged her back with his good arm. “Me too.”
Walking toward the Castle Rock and past the outhouse woodpile brought a fresh pang of loneliness. He missed Tsarek. His friend should be here with him to help make sense of all that had happened and to figure out what to do next.
The moon came into view over the horizon as he climbed the western trail of the rock. Within the confines of the stone circle, its soft light etched the faint outline of the stone doors leading down to the Cor. He approached, crouched, and tentatively touched the edge. Nothing moved except for a spider crawling out next to keyhole.
Digging into his pocket he pulled out Kate’s medallion and tried again but it was the same result. As expected, without the hammer he would not be able to open the doors.
Getting to his feet, he put the medallion away and looked over the fields to the edge of the river valley. In a way he was glad he no longer had the hammer and could not return to the Cor. Tyreth could use it to lead Kadir and it would also help her to know when Jorad was telling her the truth.
Truth. His parents had drummed the need for honesty into him since he was small and now he understood just how important it was. Everyone suffered when lies and deceit grew unchecked.
Leaving the castle rocks behind he walked out onto the western slope and sat down to watch the crescent moon cast a web of thin shadows through the stubble of their field.
Laying back on the rock, he breathed in the subtle scents of the prairie evening. A falling star arced across the sky and Corvan smiled. For the past few years, everyone at school kept talking about the dawn of space travel. Some of the other kids had great plans of one day becoming an astronaut, wearing a spacesuit, and traveling to the moon.
Space was the new frontier, the place where fantastic adventures would happen—new worlds explored, and strange creatures discovered.
Corvan placed his good hand flat against the cool rock beneath him and spoke to the night air, “If only you knew what’s going on just below your feet.”
The words had no sooner left his lips when a faint tremor shivered through the tips of his fingers, as if a great stone door had opened far below.