Pasquinelli/Rise 465

The next day at breakfast, Ray kept glancing over at Jon and widening her eyes at him as if trying to get him to drop his fork and leave the dining room right away to go into the forest. Jon glanced back at her, determined and firm. He wanted to go just as much as she did, but they had to be patient.

“I don’t know what happened,” said Mrs. Jouler, buttering her muffin. “I heard a sound like glass breaking and I thought I saw a light, but by the time I got to my window there was nothing there. I checked all of the rooms and none of their windows were broken at all.” She looked at Jon and Ray accusingly. “When I went outside this morning, I saw shards of glass in the grass. Curious.”

“Very curious,” said Ray, glancing at Jon again.

There was an awkward silence and the only sound came from the clinking of silverware on plates.

“At least the rain has cleared up so I can get started on my preening,” said Mrs. Jouler in her usual tone. She seemed to want to pin the strange sound and broken glass on one of them, but there was no visible damage to the house, so she had no real evidence. But as soon as Ray left the table to ready herself for the day (Jon knew she wouldn’t take very long, they both wanted to get back to the glass room as soon as possible), Mrs. Jouler had Jon cornered.

“You know Johnny dear, you really shouldn’t be consorting with the likes of her. She’s just trouble.”

“I think I’ve got a handle on things, Mrs. Jouler. Thanks for the concern though.” And with that, he cleared his things off the table and disappeared from Mrs. Jouler’s sight. He’d hoped she wouldn’t venture back in the library before going out to work on her gardens, and fortunately, he was correct -- she didn’t. She bustled about in the kitchen for a while, and then went back upstairs.

Ray, however, did make her way back downstairs not too long after. She saw him in a corner in the library. She brought a flashlight this time. “What, and have a repeat of last night? I think not,” was her reasoning.

This time the trek up the secret passage was much shorter. They knew where they were going and what lay ahead. Jon’s pace was quick, so much so that Ray chastised him for walking too fast (her chunky heels were a far cry from ambulatory rapidity). But aside from that one statement, they did not speak very much the whole way up. The destination was so clearly set out in their minds that deviation was not to be tolerated. They were even able to close the Rose Door once inside the passageway when they determined the mechanism that opened it could be operated from the inside and they’d be able to get out without locking themselves in.

Once inside, the circular glass room looked even more inviting and spectacular in the daylight. All manner of prisms were projected onto the floor, and the way the sunlight hit the curved glass made Jon think of what it must be like to walk inside of an ice cube in broad daylight.

The charred chair was still standing on the side of the pedestal. It looked as it if had been through a great city fire in ages past that could have wiped out scores of buildings and people. The windowpane was definitely gone where the light beam had broken free. A few shards of glass were on the inside of the room.

“I still think that this thing,” Jon said and brought out the Amulet, “broke the window.”

“Don’t be stupid, that’s impossible. Light can’t break glass.”

“Lasers can,” Jon reasoned.

“Does that look like a laser projector to you?” said Ray, indicating the small piece of terra cotta.

“Not really.”

They paced around the room, looking for any more clues, but it was to little avail. Despite the room being a complete secret to everyone but themselves, showed no other signs on the floor or walls that there was anything out of the ordinary at all. Jon even examined the burnt chair if there was anything out of the ordinary about it, but no.

Ray was looking out of the broken windowpane. “You’re really going to go in there?” she said.

“I certainly am,” said Jon as firmly as he had before.

“Why?”

“Why not? This thing,” he said as he took out the Amulet from his pocket, “has some sort of ability to project light and break windows. It pointed to a spot off in the forest and now I’m going to see what it was pointing to.”

“Well if you’re going, then so am I.”

Jon was still a little surprised at her resolve. “I’m not going to stop you.”

“As if you could,” she said, walking over to him and taking the Amulet out of his hand. “So what did you say was this bird-thing... a phoenix?”

“Yeah. It’s a mythical creature that at the end of its life, bursts into flames and new one is born from its ashes.”

“Kinky.”

“Hey wait a second....” Jon said remembering something. “I remember seeing something really similar to that carving in a bookstore the other day. The guy who helped me was really creepy. I wonder if he has anything to do with it.”

“Go back then.”

“Yeah...I think I will.”

“I should go with you,” Ray said.

“Are you sure? I mean, what if he’s not even working there when we go?”

She turned and gave him a look. “You don’t think I’m capable of weaseling information from someone?”

“Oh not at all, I think you’re probably too good at it.”

“That’s better. But I’m still not sure why you need to go and see this ... whatever it will be in the forest.”

“I just felt...drawn in some way. Like I’m supposed to find out what this all means. You didn’t feel anything like that last night?”

“Maybe a tad,” said Ray, handing back the Amulet to Jon. “Not like we’ve got anything better to do anyway,” she added, swinging her arms back and forth. “So what are we waiting for anyway? Let’s go into town and talk to your creepy dude.”

“Wait a second...” said Jon, looking up at the ceiling, noticing something they hadn’t seen the previous night because of the darkness. “Look at that.” Jon pointed up along the junction of the domed ceiling and the walls. There was an inscription in gold lettering that Ray read out loud.

“‘Beware Avitus Incendium Advocare...Iannis....Rosebridge Gate ... Shirrell... DeReve ... Pontiryne.’ What the hell does that mean?”

“I have no idea. The first bit almost sounds like ... Latin. But...‘beware’?” said Jon, now nervous that they had been given some kind of written warning.

“What about the rest of it? Iannis, Shirrell, DeReve, Pontiryne... those sound like names.”

“Yeah.”

“I wonder who they are.”

“Or who they were,” said Ray.

Jon frowned.

“Oh relax. Here...” she took out her phone and started to take pictures of the inscription along the ceiling. “We’ll ask your bookstore guy about these names to see if he’s heard of them.”

“He did tell me he’s read almost all the books in his store....”

“Exactly. See? I’ve had the best ideas all day today. I’m totally worth bringing along.”

“You know, it was me who figured out about the Rose Door.”

“Yeah, but I’m applying what we’ve found to what we can do. I’m so awesome.”

Jon laughed out loud at this. Ray smiled at him, clearly meaning to do just that. “And I wouldn’t worry too much about that ‘beware’ thing,” Ray said. “There’s probably money or something buried out there in the forest and whoever those people on the wall are don’t want just anyone to find it.” She walked out of the room, clicking her flashlight on ahead of her.

“Did a pretty good job making a whole room vanish, though,” Jon said to himself and followed Ray out of the room, the warning still on his mind.

“So how do you want me to approach this guy?” Ray said in the car driving down the street, the top down yet again.

“Huh?”

“Like, how should I go about trying to get info from him?”

“Um, in a way that works?” Jon said uncertainly.

Ray grunted. “I mean, do you want me to be totally mean? Or sweet? Or maybe I could try a heavy accent and we could go the pity route?”

“Just...do whatever comes to you.”

A car pulled out of a spot just in front of Scribbles, and Ray pulled right in. “God, I love the parking fairy,” she said.

“The - what?”

“The parking fairy. She follows me around and gets me good parking.”

Jon blinked, hoping this wouldn’t end up like the Shoreline restaurant in Trinidad. Jon stepped inside the store and Ray was behind him, looking the stacks up and down.

“Where is he?” she said.

“I don’t know...he’s the owner, he should be right around here.” Jon went up and down a few aisles but saw no one. Ray meanwhile was found an old fashion book, and was subsequently engrossed. “Hello?” Jon called out.

Seemingly out of nowhere, the shopkeeper appeared. “Well hello again, young man. And missus,” he said, bowing at her.

“Nice place you got here,” Ray said, indicating the book she was reading.

“Why thank you kindly. All the much better with a lovely lady such as yourself here.”

Ray half smiled at him. Jon could tell she was not impressed. All she managed was a “Mm,” in response.

“I take it one or both of you are interested in looking at something for purchase? Perhaps the young gentleman has reconsidered my Myths book? Or has some other adventure brought you to my humble store?”

“Something like that,” Jon said. “But I think we’re just browsing for now.”

“Yes of course, very good,” the man said as the phone rang. He then went to the front desk to take the call.

Jon led Ray to the stack he was at before, and found the same book. He showed the entry to Ray, who glanced at it for less than ten seconds. “Yeah, it looks the same. So what do you want to find out from this guy?”

“He seemed...weird last time, like he knew something and wouldn’t tell me what, especially when he figured out what book I was looking at.”

“That’s easy enough.” She snapped the book shut and walked past Jon to the front of the store. The man was just getting off the phone. “Hi, I was wondering if you could tell us more about this.”

The man (who still wasn’t wearing a nametag) took the book and examined it. “Ahh yes. A very interesting choice. Anything in particular you’d like me to...look at?”

“Yes actually,” Jon piped in. “This particular section.” And he flipped to the pages with the phoenix information splashed across.

The salesperson’s whimsy disappeared again and he studied the pages hard. “This is a most interesting passage. I wonder, what made you interested in this one here?”

“I just opened it and arrived at this spot. So I was wondering what it was all about,” Jon said. It surprised him at how well that seemed to come out on the fly.

“Well, it is the phoenix, a mythic, um, fire-bird, that lives for eons and then is consumed in flames and born again.” The shopkeeper began to stammer. Jon shot Ray a look, but she acted nonplussed.

“Ever seen one?” Ray blurted out.

“I’m -- I’m sorry?” said the man.

“You know, ever seen one, flying round outside?”

“I have...no idea, that would be extremely, um...”

“Just kidding. I know it’s just a kid’s story right,” said Ray and she snapped the book shut.

“Yes, yes, a story,” said the owner, now fidgeting. “Would anyone like some tea? I’ve got a pot brewing in the back room.”

Ray looked at Jon. “Sure. Why not.”

“Right...yes...” and with that, he disappeared through the back door.

“Yeah, he’s not hiding anything,” Ray said.

“I told you he was weird. He practically had a heart attack when he saw what page I was on.”

“You do have a way with people.”

“I wonder what he would have done,” Jon said, ignoring Ray’s comment, “if I’d have shown him this.” He brought out the Phoenix Amulet from his pocket.

“Put that away!” Ray hissed. “What if it’s worth a ton of money or something and he just wants to take it from you?”

“I don’t think it’s worth a ton of money,” said Jon, gazing at it. “I think it’s got some other kind of value that we don’t know yet. Maybe it’s an artifact or something.”

“You always spoil my fun,” Ray said, turning and gazing at some of the other books. “Where is he, anyway? I want my tea.”

The front door opened and closed again, but as Jon looked over, he couldn’t see another customer in the store. He pocketed the Phoenix Amulet but held onto it. Now Ray was craning her neck over toward the back of the store to see if she could find the shopkeeper.

“I don’t think he’s --” but Jon didn’t finish. Through the shelf, Jon saw someone that made his stomach jump into this mouth. The tiny old woman from the Shoreline Restaurant was coming up alongside the shelf he and Ray were at. “Ray,” Jon breathed.

“What?” she said and turned around.

“We’re leaving. Now.”

“Huh? I want my tea.”

“NOW.” He grabbed Ray by the arm and yanked her down the shelf as quick as he could. As they reached the door, Jon turned back and saw the little woman facing them, staring at Jon. He instinctively plunged his hand in his pocket around the Amulet, and the world became dark again. He was again, chained at the extremities, but this time, he could see.

The Amulet he was holding onto in one of his chained hands was glowing fiercely. “Help me!” he shouted. He then pulled his arm as hard as he could, and to his astonishment, his arm broke free of the chain. He did the same with his other arm and both legs. The Amulet was then glowing so much it was almost ablaze, and fire was swirling rapidly around his torso, legs and arms, clothing him in fire. Jon then saw, much like before, the oncoming pinprick of fire in the distance. But he somehow knew better this time; it wouldn’t be able to harm him. Indeed, when it struck and enveloped him, it was merely a warm tickle all over.

Putting his hand up to it, he realized he could swirl it around his fingers at will, and as he looked at where it was coming from, he could vaguely see the old woman far off in the distance, concentrating hard on him. Jon narrowed his eyes and raised both hands. The fire rotated around him like a cocoon, one that he was in control of. He then took the mass of fire, and hurled it back at the caster. In a blink of light and color, Jon was back in the bookstore, and the old woman was thrust backwards and lay flat on the floor, stirring slightly.

Jon pulled Ray out of the store toward the car.

“What the -- ? What happened in there? Where did she come from? You didn’t collapse this time! Why did she tumble over? What the HELL?”

“Drive,” said Jon as they got inside the Mercedes. When they were clear of the parking lot, Jon turned in his seat to make sure they were not being followed. Only then did he speak. “I don’t know what happened. I mean, it was the same thing that happened before, only... this time I was conscious. I could control the vision she put in my mind.”

“She put... a vision in your mind?”

“Yes. She did it last time, too. Only this time I was in control.”

“What was the vision of?” said Ray.

“I was being tortured. Burned alive.”

“WHAT?”

“Yeah, but like I said --”

“You were in control this time,” said Ray.

“Yes.”

“How?”

Jon pulled the Amulet out of his pocket again. “I was holding onto it when she did...whatever she was doing, and it helped me fight it.”

This time Ray couldn’t muster a question. “Damn,” she said.

“I’m going into the forest today. I’m going to find out what is happening to me. That woman, the vision, the glass room...it’s all connected, I can feel it.”

“Yeah, I think so too. You know I’m going with you. It’s so not cool when my friends get attacked and I can’t do anything to stop it.”

Jon smiled. “Thanks.”

Once back at the Manor, prepping themselves for the outing wasn’t too much of a hassle. Jon just changed his shoes and grabbed his keys and backpack. He waited on the back porch while Ray went to go and pack a few needed things. He thought of the past few hours and how he narrowly escaped another unconscious episode from a scary old lady.

Ray came down five minutes later with a small backpack. As they started to walk, Jon stopped her. He looked down at her feet and gave her a disapproving look -- she was still wearing her clunky heels.

“You won’t get a hundred yards on those heels.”

“Ugh. Fine. I’ll be right back.”

She came down after another five minutes. “Better?” she asked, now wearing immaculate white tennis shoes.

“Much,” he said, knowing Ray would probably still complain that her brand -name shoes were dirty at the end of the day.

They told Mrs. Jouler they were going “hiking” and not to expect them back for several hours, just to cover all their bases. She said it was good that they were getting out for some exercise, and off they went.

Striding past Mrs. Jouler, who was bent over some azaleas, they paced across the lawn and reached the break in the stone property wall.

Jon also carried a backpack with water, maps, food and a sweatshirt. He didn’t know what to expect or why they might possibly need these things, since they were only going to be a few miles from civilization, but he just felt better having them. An ordinary hike through fairly level ground would not have called for such extensive provisions, but this wasn’t ordinary.

Jon had no idea how far into the forest they would need to go to find whatever it was he was certain was out there. Had they been on an ordinary outing, they wouldn’t be following a mysterious light that, without warning, came out of an inanimate Amulet that was concealed in a strange glass room that Mrs. Jouler couldn’t see, or didn’t want to know about period.

Jon readjusted his backpack so that it was secure on him, gave a final look to Ray, and into the forest they began.

At first, it was nothing but a sporadic forest, much as Jon remembered it several days ago, with dense clumps of trees here and there, but as they headed east, the trees became less sporadic and much more prevalent; so much so that the sky was being blotted out.

After a good half hour, with very little conversation and solely hiking, Ray finally broke the silence.

“So what do you expect to find out here?”

“For the hundredth time, I don’t know. You’ve been asking me questions like this about the room, the light and the Amulet when I have no idea about any of them. For all I know, we could be looking for a giant X that marks the spot.”

“Spot for what?”

“That’s exactly --!”

“I’m just kidding. I’m trying to be sociable,” she said.

“Something you’re very good at,” Jon said, turning back to look at Ray.

“I know it,” said Ray without a change in her concentrating expression. Not being as nature-driven as Jon, it was taking her quite a bit more time than Jon to go the same distance he was.

By that time, the trees were so thick they couldn’t see where the manor was relative to their position. The brown blur obscured everything behind and in front of them. Ray continued to fall behind because she continuously stopped to brush dirt and leaves off her jeans and hair. Jon sighed loudly and turned around to face her.

“Oh stop,” she said. “I’ve gotta get this stuff of my clothes.” She started to pull her hair back with both hands to tie it up in a ponytail. After she finished, she looked around and asked, “Well? Where IS this -- thing -- we’re supposed to find?”

“We’re going in the right direction, for sure,” said Jon as he took out and examined his newly procured compass. “We’re still heading due east, which was where that light-thing was shining to.”

“But there’s nothing here. There hasn’t been anything strange or unusual to find out here.”

“Not yet.”

“You’re so sure we’re going to find something, but we haven’t. I’m not even sure I know where we are. We’ve been walking around for two hours in this national forest with no sign of anything. We don’t even know what we’re looking for. Maybe that light was just some phenomenon like the northern lights.”

“I doubt that.”

“Well maybe we can use that thing to find out where we are, or at least where it is.”

“That’s actually a good idea,” said Jon as he took the Amulet from his pocket and looked at it in his palm. It just sat there, cool and placid.

“It’s not doing anything,” said Ray, more with frustration than curiosity.

“Last time I touched it, it just started shining,” said Jon, frowning at the Amulet.

“You’re touching it now, and nothing,” said Ray, prodding at it with her index finger.

“Hmm. Maybe it needs more,” said Jon. He brought his other palm forward so that the Amulet was completely covered in between his Jon’s hands. Still nothing.

He turned it over and examined the back. “Hey look at this. ‘Avitus Incendium Advocare’. That same saying that was on the ceiling is engraved on the back. Whoa!”

“What?”

“It’s getting...hot,” said Jon as the terra cotta was warming up in his palm.

“Maybe you should let it go.”

Jon thought that a prudent course of action, and jerked his hand away to let it drop. But it did not. It hung there in midair, perfectly still. Jon backed away.

“That is so cool,” said Ray, walking around it.

Suddenly, another beam of light erupted from the Amulet. It wasn’t pure white light this time, but bright red. Jon followed it with his head as it pointed further into the forest, with a slight veer to the right. They were almost directly on track. Ray once again interrupted Jon’s thoughts. “What the hell is that?!”

Jon turned his focus back to her and the Amulet. What he saw astonished him. From the Amulet, a bird had emerged. It was not a conventional, run of the mill bird either. Its head resembled a hawk, and great wings propelled its body. Its tail, billowing after the bird, was made of fire, illuminating its bright orange and red plumage; the likes of which Jon had never seen on any bird before. It didn’t seem to be to scale, either. The bird was only the size of a pigeon, but looked like it should have been the size of an albatross.

The bird, at first, flew straight out of the Amulet, then started to swerve to the right, eventually making a complete U-turn in mid-air. It hit the Amulet and it melted into the phoenix’s body and was flying straight at Jon.

“Get out of the way!” Ray yelled.

But Jon’s marvel and fear had temporarily paralyzed him. By the time Ray’s command registered and reality snapped back to his brain, the phoenix was inches from his chest. He lunged left, but it was too late.

A feeling Jon had never felt in his whole life was permeating his entire self - power. Jon fell to his hands and knees, and facing the ground, he was breathing hard as he saw and felt something crawling all over his skin. An energy was building within him. His limbs were no longer in his control, and he could hardly register thoughts properly. He noticed the leaves around his feet and hands swirling around him, and an aura of transparent fire enveloped him. The energy was continuing to build as Jon felt the crawling sensation on his skin stop.

Under his hands, he could feel leaves and twigs withering and smoldering into ash. Finally the energy build up was so intense, Jon felt like he was going to explode out of his own body. He yelled loudly and closed his eyes shut as the power surge abated. His arms and legs stopped supporting him, and he fell over onto his back, and all went dark for the second time that day.

Jon opened his eyes. He was alive, at least. He was staring up at a fir tree -- almost completely charred and bare. He cocked his head slightly and found that very odd that the closest tree to him in a sea of others would be the only one burned in such a manner.

“Jon -- Jonathan?” came a timid, but familiar voice.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Are you...okay?”

Coming back to his senses, Jon sat up. Ray was standing ten feet away, biting her lower lip and looking worried. She did not approach him.

“I -- think so. What happened to me?”

“That -- thing -- entered your body, and your clothes started to change, you fell down and then... some beam of something shot out from you and set this whole tree on fire,” she said, indicating the charred tree Jon had been staring at from the ground.

“What?” Jon asked, now petrified. “I did that?” he asked, now feeling worse because he killed an entire tree... and a large one at that. “How -- how did you put it out?” “I didn’t. When you fell down, it went out by itself.”

“My...clothes?” asked Jon, and he looked down. No longer was he wearing his T-shirt and jeans. He was now wearing long robes of deep red, orange and yellow. They were embroidered all over, and in the middle of his chest was the most prominently stitched figure -- a bird with a huge, twirling tail, almost identical to the one on the Amulet. The fabric was nothing like anything Jon had ever worn. It was smooth as silk, but as thick as wool, and it fit perfectly to Jon’s body. Nice as it was, it was still a little disconcerting not knowing where his proper clothes were.

“Your hair even changed.”

“My -- my hair?”

Ray took a mirror out from her mini-backpack and handed it to Jon. His hair was indeed now streaked with red, orange and yellow. His head looked like it was a fire frozen in place.

“This is really starting to freak me out,” said Ray, tugging on Jon’s robes.

“Yeah? What about me? I’m the one who’s passed out like three times, and have this fancy ancient rain coat.”

Ray laughed a little. It was comforting amidst the strangeness.

“What now?” said Ray.

“We go to where that beam of light directed. I think it might have some answers.”

Ray agreed without question or complaint this time, and the two of them set off once more with Jon’s robes now making a lot more noise than when he had his jeans on.

“I’ve even got different shoes on,” said Jon, pulling his robes up so Ray could see his new black, shiny boots.

“I want a pair of those,” Ray said with a smile.

“Shut up.”

They veered off to the right and continued on. Ray kept giggling to herself every few minutes, but when Jon looked at her questioningly she contorted her expression to calm indifference. After about twenty minutes, they reached a partial clearing. Ray started laughing again, this time very much out loud.

“WHAT?”

“You just look so funny. Oh finally,” said Ray, looking up into the sky. The trees had been so thick for so long that they only saw hints of pale blue above until they reached the clearing.

“This must be it,” said Jon, walking around, swishing of the cloak even more prominent now that they had stopped.

“Uh huh,” mumbled Ray, who was using the light to reapply her lip-gloss.

A thought struck Jon as he was walking around.

“Why isn’t this more shocking?”

“Huh?”

“This...everything. That invisible room, me burning a tree...It’s not as shocking as you would think it should be. We should be contacting Barbara Walters.”

“You’ve got a point there,” said Ray, now tending to her eyes.

“It’s almost as if...” Job began. He wanted to say “we should be doing this,” but he thought that would sound odd, even now.

Ray, who had now finished, began pacing through the clearing. She gave a small yelp and fell to the ground. “Ouch! This isn’t soft,” she said.

“What happened?” Jon said as he crunched over to her.

“I tripped on something.”

Jon bent down beside Ray and started to feel his way past the needles. He felt something. A ridge...of metal? He started clearing away the leaves. Ray, finding that she wasn’t hurt, began to do the same. They got an outline of a perfect octagon about five feet in diameter with a carving of a bloomed flower warmly reflected the sunlight back at Jon and Ray. A handle on the left side revealed how to gain access to whatever was below.

Jon pulled the door open with some difficulty (it was a half an inch thick, and metal isn’t exactly featherweight). It was dark inside, but the sun shone on a stone floor only a few feet down. A stone ladder ran down the side of the sun-door into the room below.

“Progress!” said Ray with a gleam in her eye.

“Here, give me your flashlight,” said Jon, holding his hand out.

“Flashlight?”

“Oh no,” said Jon, his heart dropping.

“You told me to get comfortable shoes; you didn’t say flashlight.”

The possibility that they would have to turn back that very minute crept into Jon’s head. It would be too much to try and go back home, then attempt to find the exact same spot that day, much less try to explain to Mrs. Jouler where Jon got his new garb from. Jon could just imagine the conversation... “Well, we were walking around, and some ancient druid’s liked my clothes better...” Jon pushed these thoughts back into his recesses, and started to climb down.

“You haven’t got any light,” Ray called at him.

“I can see a little bit I just want to know what’s down here.”

Ray signed heavily and climbed down after him. Ten feet later, they were both standing on uneven bricks in a small octagonal patch of sunlight. Jon looked around but could see nothing except dark stones making up a small room.

“Well this is enlightening -- literally,” said Ray.

“I see a few torches lining two of the walls. How do we get them on?”

“Maybe you could set fire to them.”

“Oh yeah right,” said Jon incredulously, reminded of the tree-burning event just now.

They felt their way around, looking for anything that might shed some inspiration on their predicament. After blindly feeling around the floor for a few minutes, they gave up.

“We can’t see anything, and even if we did we probably wouldn’t be able to read any inscriptions on these stones. They look WAY older than Oak Tree Manor,” said Jon. His demeanor suggested he didn’t care either way, but deep down he was extremely disappointed. He wanted to know what this all meant.

“We’ll come back,” said Ray in an uncharacteristically soothing voice. “Even if we can’t understand anything, at least we’ll know what’s here.”

Jon nodded, and realized at that moment what a good friend Ray was to him now.

“Come on, we need to figure out a way of getting you out of those clothes before we get back.”

“And what? Change into a fig leaf?”

“Didn’t know you were that liberal.”

Jon only managed a grimace back at her.

They got back to the ladder and began the climb up, Jon going first. Once at the top of the ladder, he started to pull himself up with his right arm on the open metal door, and his left on the leaf-filled ground. But the gate lifted on its hinges. Jon totally lost his grip and the uneven distribution of weight caused him to slide down the ladder and on top of Ray, who crumpled beneath him.

“What are you --?” she said but was cut off by Jon practically falling on top of her. He tried to stop himself as best he could on the ladder, but he still fell all the way down -- and Ray went with him.

“Get off! Get off!” yelled Ray. “What the hell are you doing? Why did you close the door?” she firmly asked the darkness.

“I didn’t! I couldn’t have pulled that thing shut with only one arm from that angle,” Jon fired back, just as annoyed as Ray was because she thought he wanted to fall on top of her. “I was trying to --”

Jon was cut off, this time by the soft puff-puff and sudden light streaming through the darkness. The torches were all lit, lighting the room completely.

It was really no more grand than it had been two minutes ago. The stones were still uneven and old looking, making up the rectangular room. The stones were no more intriguing or enlightening than before.

“Good job,” said Ray more pleasantly. “I thought you said you couldn’t do that.”

“I can’t, and I didn’t,” said Jon. “But look over there.”

At the far end of the room, there was another hole in the ground that stairs opened down into. The two of them exchanged looks and automatically treaded toward the opening and went down the stairs into another bricked room. But this one was far more interesting. It was shaped like the glass room at the Oak Tree Manor, but much larger. Jon estimated the ceiling must have stood thirty feet high, and the room diameter was about fifty feet across. All of the stones that made up the room were ornately carved with writings and symbols neither of them understood. At least a dozen torches lined the room, giving off pleasant light. But the most interesting thing in the room was in dead center. A group of bricks laid end-to-end in a perfect circle were highlighted by sloping floor that sank downwards three steps inside the center of the ring.

Jon and Ray continued down the steps of the flying staircase after their brief pause (they had stopped for a moment to take in the room).

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” said Ray in a low voice.

“Yes, this is definitely something,” said Jon in an even softer voice. “I wonder what that is,” he said, referring to the stone circle.

“Maybe it’s for ritual sacrifices.”

The two of them stepped onto the elevated area simultaneously. As they did, a sound like rushing water permeated the depths of the cavern.

They went to eyesight of the basin, or whatever it was, and peered in. Now, instead of the steps down, there was something happening within the circle. It looked as if someone had filled the basin with opaque black water, and it was being agitated at the center because it continuously rippled outward in perfect circles. Jon bent down beside it and blew on it. The water (even though it wasn’t quite water) rippled in smaller circles where Jon blew on it, but then the larger ripples overtook them.

“This is it,” said Jon, surprised by the finality in his own voice. “This is what we were supposed to find.”

“Yeah, totally,” said Ray. “So what is it.”

Jon ran his hand a few inches from the surface. Nothing happened.

“Maybe we should just hop in?” suggested Ray sarcastically.

Jon raised his eyebrows at her.

“I was kidding,” she said.

“Well...I haven’t really got any better ideas, do you?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” said Ray, and she took her mini backpack she was holding, presented it to Jon as a model does when showing a prize on a game show, and tossed it right into the perimeter of the basin so it wouldn’t go down the steps as to sink out of sight.

Jon looked at her in near shock.

“Don’t worry. I took out my stuff while you were caressing that black stuff,” she said without taking her eyes off her bag.

Jon looked back at the bag. They watched it intently for a few seconds, and just when Jon was about to suggest taking it out, it wavered, became a clear light-contorting outline of it’s shape, and dissolved completely. The space that was occupied by the bag was now just a part of the rippling pool again.

“I suppose asking where it went would be redundant, huh?”

“Probably,” said Ray, nodding. “Well, let’s go.”

“What?” said Jon, feeling nervous. “We don’t know where that goes. We could end up in an ocean or on a volcano...or inside a boulder or something.”

“Oh come on. You think this thing is here to beam us inside a rock? Besides, I want my Prada back,” she proclaimed, closing the subject.

Ray moved forward toward the enclosed pool. Jon didn’t move. Without a hint of hesitation or foreboding, she stepped inside a few steps. Jon, not really caring now where it went, was certainly not going to let Ray go herself alone (even though he secretly knew she could probably take care of herself a hundred times better than he could), so he ran right in beside her.

The pool “water” was lapping against Jon’s cloak, though it yielded no pressure on his robes. Ray swiftly grabbed Jon’s shoulder in fear, and it took a second before Jon knew why. The “water” was making his legs cold. Indeed, the frigidity was spreading. It moved up his legs and crept up all over and inside his body in about three seconds. Jon instinctively grabbed tightly onto Ray’s outstretched arm. The room faded to near complete blackness, wavered just as the backpack had, and came back into focus and became fully lit once again. Still holding each other’s arms, the black “water” was now gone, and the backpack had reappeared to the left of where Jon stood. The cold sensation was also completely gone.

“Woo!” Ray called, who started laughing as one laughs from coming off a roller coaster.

Jon chuckled a little bit too. The two of them, still with arms clasped, stepped out of the bricked basin onto the platform. Ray grabbed her bag and looked around. The cavern was exactly the same a moment ago.

“I don’t get it. What gives.”

“We don’t seem to have moved anywhere,” said Jon, feeling an elevation in bravery now that he had dared the unknown. “Maybe we moved in time?”

“This is so cool. You’ve got that fire-thing, and we’ve moved through TIME.”

“I said ‘maybe’,” reminded Jon, “and I don’t want to think about that fire thing.”

“Well let’s go outside and see where -- when -- we are.”

“Can’t argue there.”

They crossed the room and climbed up the flying stone staircase to the upper room. The torches were lit just as before, and the copper doorway was still closed. Jon climbed up first again, hoping it wouldn’t come to life again and shut them in a second time.

With some difficulty, Jon got the door open, and it didn’t close on its own. They both climbed out, and what met them was definitely not the forest as they’d left it.