Traveler, L.E. DeLano [book series for 12 year olds .TXT] 📗

avoid people when you do see them.” He smiles faintly with a memory. “It took you and me a long time to trust each other.”

I’m almost afraid to ask. “We didn’t … eat people, did we?”

“No. But now you know why I’d rather be here with you,” he explains. “And I never existed in your reality, so I wasn’t sending anyone to a certain death when I came over.”

“You never existed here? Really?”

“Not as far as I can tell. I tried to find my parents when I first got here, but no luck. And according to the census records at the town library, there’s no record of me or anyone in my family anywhere in your reality.”

“So how did you know to come here?”

“Rudy,” he says. “Since I don’t have a counterpart, he arranged everything through another Traveler—money, shelter, cell phone. I don’t need much. I’m used to living with a lot less.”

I reach for my notebook while my mind processes everything he just told me.

“No trees?” I ask. “At all?”

“Not many. A lot of the streams and creeks that fed their roots are gone. There were so many fires. They raged out of control with no one to stop them.” He pauses a moment, and his eyes unfocus as he remembers.

“There was one big oak I found once,” he continues. “It was on the bank of a river, so it was still alive. And green.” His voice is wistful. “I hadn’t seen green in a long, long time, so it was amazing when I saw it.”

“Have you been back?”

“Back there? No way.” His voice is emphatic.

“So you’ve never gone back home,” I say. That just seems … impossibly sad somehow.

“It’s not home,” he says quietly. “Home is where your family is. There’s no one there for me anymore.”

He has no family. At least, not anymore. I think of my mom and Danny and Dad. What would it be like to lose them? To live in hunger and fear and cold every day? No wonder he travels. He’s got nothing to lose.

But I do.

Oh, I do.

My mind starts to wander, and a scene begins to play in my head.

He stood sentinel in the doorway of what used to be their home. The picture she’d hung on the dirty wall had fallen, leaving a pile of glass and pieces of frame on the floor beneath it. He watched her pick it up, turning it over carefully in her hand.

“It’s ruined,” she said softly, her voice quavering a bit.

“I’m sorry.”

He looked like he wanted to comfort her, but the need to protect her from whatever might be outside was stronger.

“We can try to find another frame…,” he offered.

“No. It’s ripped.”

“Maybe we can fix it.”

“No.”

She blinked back the tears because they were stupid. Useless. “They weren’t my family, anyway,” she confessed. “I just pretended they were.”

“I know.”

The kindness in his eyes was almost her undoing. “Let’s go. There’s nothing here. They got it all.”

She pushed past him, out the doorway, wiping her cheeks as she went.

I suck in a breath and Finn’s voice breaks into my thoughts.

“What?’

“I just had a … a memory, I think. Something I dreamed once. We were in a house with blue shutters. I think it had been robbed or something. There was broken glass … and the door was kicked in.”

“We were only there for six days,” he says quietly. “But it was home while it lasted.”

I slowly lay my pen on the page, then close the journal over it.

“That was your world?”

He nods. “You and me and a handful of others, trying to find a safe place, scavenging for food. They got everyone else. Then it was just us.”

“Who are they?”

His mouth turns down. “The bad guys. They’re kind of the same everywhere you go—good versus evil. They were the evil, at least there, anyway.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if evil stayed in one reality?”

He reaches for my hand. “It doesn’t work that way. That’s why I’m here.”

And I know he’s here because I’m no longer there.

20

No Rest for the Weary

That night, I take a pain pill and drift off to sleep with my calculus homework still undone on my lap, and I find myself back in the classroom, staring at that red door.

“How are you feeling?” Mario asks, stepping forward to greet me.

“I feel great in here,” I answer. “At home, not so much.”

“Improving, though?”

“Yeah. Slowly but surely. I’m bored more than anything.”

“Well, I can certainly take care of that,” he says, gesturing to me to take a seat.

He leans back against his desk. “Tonight, we’ll be laying some ground rules. I’m sure Finn has covered most of the basics, but I just want to reiterate.”

“Do I need to take notes?” I realize how stupid that sounds the minute it comes out of my mouth. It’s not like I’m going to wake up with a magical notebook in my hand.

“Sorry,” I mumble. “Forgot where I was.”

“It’s okay,” he reassures me. “And you can take notes if you think it’ll help reinforce anything. Or if you’re just more comfortable having a notebook in your hand.” He smiles at me kindly.

“I’m okay. Sorry I interrupted.”

He waves me off again like it’s no big deal and turns to gesture to the whiteboard behind him.

“Rule number one,” he says, and it appears in writing on the board, glowing a vibrant red. “Don’t tell anybody what you are.”

“Who’d believe me?”

“Exactly. It’s just common sense. It’s hard to travel when you’re locked up in a padded room, and I can’t exactly send someone to influence anything in your reality if you’re in lockdown.”

“No problem. I have a hard time believing it myself.”

“Rule number two: Do the job you’re assigned, do it quickly and simply, and then get out. Try to limit undue influence.”

“Right.”

“Rule number three is related,” he says. “Be careful.” The word careful is illuminated behind him, in letters much larger and bolder than the others.

“I don’t mind you traveling recreationally because you need the practice, and so far you’ve kept everything nice and even,”