"That should make me feel better," Valerie said, "Except he realized why we looked at him. Maybe he knows more than he's saying."

  “Still,” Craig said. “He didn't seem afraid. So if something or someone is coming, it might not be a bad thing.”

  "I suppose," Valerie said.

  Craig looked over at his wife, her short brown hair curling around her face, and marveled at the forces that brought them together. They had passed through some terrifying times together, but he wouldn't trade it for anything.

  "Val, it's been quiet for a few months. Perhaps you are hoping for some kind of mystery to solve."

  "I suppose," Valerie said again, standing up to hug him. She would never tire of his arms around her or stop being proud of his commitment to being the best possible doctor, one dedicated to the prevention of problems, which meant he spent much of his time doing things for free.

  "Go see Grace," Craig said, giving her a tiny push. "I'll wash up."

  Valerie laughed, grabbed her purse and phone, kissed Craig on the cheek, and ran out the door.

  Craig watched her run across the street towards the coffee shop and then ran his hand through his hair. Yes, he felt it too. Someone was coming for help, and as always, there was someone else who wanted to stop them. But it felt different this time. Who knew if that was good or bad. Usually, it was both.

  Craig sighed and turned to clean up the kitchen. There were people he knew who needed him now, and that's where his attention had to be. If Valerie and Grace needed him, they knew where to find him.

  TWELVE

  It took Pax a minute to realize that he hadn't shattered into a million pieces at the bottom of the cliff. Instead, he stood within a ring of trees that looked like the trees from his world. Except his trees grew much larger. These trees barely reached into the sky.

  But at least they are trees, Pax thought.

  Not many of them. It wasn't a forest that extended for miles, and that seemed so strange to Pax that he had to stare for a while to make sense of it. From where he stood, Pax could see outside the stand of trees to what he would have called a meadow. Except it was mostly green, and all the green was the same height.

  Why would that be? Pax asked himself.

  What hit Pax next was the noise. He held his hand over his ears, trying to figure out what it was and where the sounds came from.

  "Nowhere and everywhere," he heard Ceya say. But not in his head. It was a human voice that spoke out loud.

  He turned in circles, looking up into the trees, looking for the hawk, but he didn't see her.

  "Not there, here," Ceya said, stepping out from behind the trees.

  Pax stepped back, tripped over a tree root, and fell, still staring at the young woman standing in front of him.

  "Shut your mouth, Pax. And get up."

  "But you are a bird, not a woman."

  Ceya laughed, and Pax heard the hawk's call within the laughter.

  "I can't be a talking bird in this world. I would be trapped and trained. That is, if I was lucky. It's too dangerous for me to be a bird here. So I'm a woman. How do I look?"

  Pax had used a tree to help himself off the ground, and now he kept his hand on its trunk, needing whatever energy and understanding the tree would give him. At first, he felt it resist, and then it sighed beneath his fingers and sent soft, soothing waves of energy to him.

  He returned waves of gratitude to the tree and then turned to Ceya.

  "You're beautiful, Ceya."

  He spoke the truth. Ceya's soft white fluffy hair curled about her face. She wore a dress that ruffled in the wind. Although her eyes were a dark gray, when the sunlight glinted off them, he saw a hint of her red hawk eyes.

  "You look good too, Pax, but we need to do something about your clothes. If you can make yourself invisible while we find some, that would be a good idea."

  Pax disliked being invisible. He couldn't hold it for long, was never sure when it would fade and reveal him, and it always drained him of energy.

  "What's wrong with these?"

  "Well, you appear to be something out of an old west movie," Ceya answered.

  Isira had filled him in with some details of the world he would find himself in, so he knew what a movie was and even had a vague idea about what kind of movie Ceya meant. But still.

  "So, what?"

  Ceya turned to Pax. She, like Isira, was as tall as him. Pax hoped people didn't tease him for being small in this world, but figured that was the least of his worries.

  "It is the least of your worries," Ceya affirmed, reading his mind as she had done as his protector all these years. "And if you don't mind people staring at you as if you are from another world, okay. But I would think we would want to fit in a bit more. However, if you insist, we'll leave you as you are."

  Ceya turned and starting walking so quickly that Pax had a moment of wondering if her feet were actually touching the ground. Catching up, he asked where they were going.

  "You mean now or later?"

  "Ceya, cut it out. You know I mean now. Don't we have to find Akotas' wife and daughter?"

  "We do. But they won't be hard to find. Especially since Koda has been watching over the wife."

  "Koda?"

  Ceya didn't stop. If anything, she moved faster, rushing through the green prickly stuff he now realized was called grass, and yelled back at him, the wind barely carrying her words: "My husband."

  “Husband? You have a husband?” Pax yelled at Ceya since she was now yards ahead of him and moving faster. Even if she had wanted to, she probably couldn’t have heard him. The noise kept getting louder. It was so horrible he couldn’t think. At least now he could see what Isira had told him were cars and trucks in the distance, and he knew they were making much of the noise.

  Concluding that he had made a horrible mistake made him want to find the cliff, climb it, and return to his world. The quiet one. The one where he lived alone, high in the tree of life, wrapped in a cloud. Here the trees were too small, and the clouds too far away.

  But Pax reminded himself that Akotas had protected and taught him his entire life. He owed it to Akotas to stay and find Akotas’ wife and his daughter. Pax kept conveniently forgetting that he was also supposed to find and stop Dradon.

  But at that moment, he needed to find Ceya. Without her, he was well and truly lost.

  “Look up, fool,” he heard in his head.

  Peering up into the sky that was almost as blue as the sky of his world, he observed two hawks circling around and around, riding the wind.

  “Walk a little more, and you’ll discover a building. Go inside and wait for us. We’ll be there in a little while.”

  Pax pushed back, “Take your time, Ceya,” not just for her and the joy that radiated from her, but for him. It would give him time to figure out what to do next, and he felt extraordinarily tired. Perhaps because of the fall, and the noise, and this horrible green prickly stuff, Pax reflected, walking as quickly as possible across it, heading for another stand of trees where he glimpsed a small gray building. He sighed, grateful for having found it. He needed to sleep.

  Slipping in the open door, he stepped into a small room. A quiet room. It’s almost like a nest, Pax realized as he curled up on the floor, covering himself with a blanket that had been hanging off a chair. Within minutes he was asleep, dreaming of his world, while two hawks circled and dived above him.

  THIRTEEN

  Something had happened. He’d been standing in front of the six men he called his board of directors to their faces—but even they knew they were only sycophants—when a massive wave of pain slammed through his head.

  It took all Dradon's self-discipline not to scream. He turned away, hoping no one would see his hands shaking, and pretended to be looking at the papers he’d brought with him and put on the chair behind him. Dradon never sat. He always stood, looking down at the people staring at him. He loved that they thought of him as a god. Why not? He ruled their lives.

  As they waited, no one gave away that they were impatient or upset. Even if he didn't speak for an hour, they would sit, eyes cast down, pretending everything was okay, afraid to move or speak even to ask if something was wrong.

  Especially that. Never ask Dradon if something was wrong—nothing could ever be wrong.

  "If there’s a problem, don't tell me about it, because I can read the problem inside of you. I don’t need to hear it again. Just tell me what you are doing to fix it," he would hiss.

  Dradon's first board of directors didn’t believe him and rebelled against his way of doing things. They didn’t last long—except for one. One who remade himself in his boss's image. He did what Dradon wanted, never questioned orders. He always came up with imaginative ways to deal with anything that didn't work out how Dradon wanted it to be.

  Fred Smith's effectiveness was a double-edged sword to Dradon. Fred excelled at his job, followed orders, and kept quiet. But Dradon sometimes wondered if Fred was playing with him. However, he couldn't eliminate Fred based on suspicion, or because he hated Fred's ordinary name, or his passive way of standing and speaking, could he?

  So Fred sat with the other six men, heads hanging, waiting for him to speak.

  But all he said was, "Get out!"

  Without a sound, the seven men gathered their papers and slipped out the door, closing it softly behind them. Dradon followed them with his eyes and then listened as they walked away. They knew enough not to speak. But he checked on them, anyway. He didn't want a whisper of anything that suggested weakness to be spread about him.

  He learned long ago how to send a pulse of pain to someone when they displeased him. He trained them like the animals because that’s how he thought of them. Animals that did his bidding. Which meant they stayed silent as they headed to their separate offices.

  Once he was alone, Dradon collapsed onto the chair, not even bothering to remove the papers. He understood what the pain in his head meant. Someone had fallen from the cliff. Someone was coming after him.

  Dradon clenched his teeth. He would never give up this world. This world was much more fun to manipulate than his world. Manipulating his world had been too easy. He formed the Satoka clan just to make trouble for his brother and sister. And parents. Well, all of them. Life had been too quiet. Boring actually. He persuaded a few people that the Decana were greedy and unfair. He told people lies, and they believed him. That's when he learned that there were always people who wanted to fight, and they would believe anyone who told them anything that gave them an excuse to do so. He created division.

  William Sky had climbed the cliff to heal divisions and bring peace and he, Dradon, had torn that peace apart with a few words. Yes, it had been too easy.

  So when he and Akotas fell off the cliff, the fall turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him. He found a world that was already divided. A world that was already following people who wanted to fight. Becoming the most powerful man among those men would be a challenge, and he wanted in on it.

  He and Akotas had separated as they fell. Akotas landed close to the cliff and the three rivers, but he landed in the middle of a city. Luckily for him, although he didn't believe in luck, he had arrived in a park where he hid as he figured out the world and who he wanted to be.

  It didn't take him long to adjust. He found plenty of people to steal from. Whatever he wanted, he took. He learned he needed two names, not like in Crann, where one was enough. So he called himself Dradon Good. He found that funny since he was the opposite of good, and everyone knew it. He even liked it when some people called him The Dragon once he learned what dragons were. Yes, he obliterated landscapes. Sometimes literally. If he wanted something, he took it. He divided. He ruled.

  The last time someone fell off the cliff it had been Isira coming to take him and Akotas home. She failed with him. Perhaps she sent someone else. Not Akotas. Akotas accepted what he had told him. That his wife and daughter would be free to live peacefully as long as he didn't interfere with Dradon's work in this world.

  It was too bad Akotas trusted him. Yes, he had left Maya and her daughter Ginny alone. In a way. He kept Maya living in constant fear he would hurt her daughter, but since he could have easily eliminated them both, in his own way he kept his promise to Akotas.

  Dradon didn’t think it was Isira, either. She would be ruling and would not leave that obligation. It was her loyalty to that obligation that forced her to leave him in this world so many years before.

  Actually, she failed with them both. Akotas met Maya and didn't want to return, although he did later. And he, well, he discovered a world where he could stretch out his abilities and control people and events as if they were his playthings.

  So who had come for him? He had killed the descendants of William Sky. There was no one left with any power.

  Dradon stood, feeling better. It must have been something other than what he assumed it was. Still, perhaps it would be best to send Fred to watch over Maya. He would keep his promise to Akotas, but only if no one was coming after him.

  If they were, Fred Smith, the man with the ordinary name who looked like someone could blow him over by breathing on him, would know what to do.

  FOURTEEN

  After waving at Valerie and then pointing to her shop, Grace Strong stood outside for a minute, watching the light creep into the park. Like Valerie, Grace loved the park with its benches, flower beds, and trees. The redbud and the apple trees grew at the south end of the park. And now that they were blooming, she could barely see the grocery store that sat opposite her store on the roundabout.

  A new pine tree now stood in the center of the park. The town decided it would be wonderful to decorate a live tree each year rather than cutting one down. She thought that was a wise decision. She smiled to herself. Another reason she loved where she lived now. Although she had lived in many places and always found a reason to love where she lived, this was the first place that felt like home.

  Inside her coffee shop, Grace made sure everything was exactly how it should be before her first customers of the day arrived. She loved coming down in the morning and preparing the space. She had hired baristas, so she was no longer needed behind the counter unless she wanted to be, and a pastry chef made sure there were always fresh pastries available. Sometimes she made her famous scones, and once in a while, Alex or Pete brought their cooking classes over, and they made pastries for her.

  As she often did, Grace stood in the center of her store and smiled. This place was a dream come true. She had always wanted to provide a space where people felt welcome and safe, and now it existed for real, and not just in her imagination. Actually, it was better than she had ever imagined.

  Although she was constantly tweaking things to make them better, it didn’t stop her from thinking that it was perfect right now. The rich, warm scent of fresh coffee and pastries seeped into every corner of the spacious room. There were bookshelves filled with books to read and buy if you wanted to take one home. Small tables were available where people held private conversations, or read, or worked on their computers. And there were large tables to gather with a group. She designed the room in such a way sound didn’t travel, making it either a quiet or lively space depending on what you needed on any given day.

  It was also where Grace kept tabs on everyone in Doveland. Like Valerie, she loved knowing what was going on with everyone in town. When she was young, Grace disliked being short and plump. Now, older and wiser, she loved it. With her short dark gray hair, glasses around her neck, and deep brown eyes, she looked like everyone’s picture of the warm-hearted grandmother. Everyone told her things, or she figured them out by watching and listening.

  Being the town’s busy body became a label she wore with pride because she knew her heart’s intent was to be helpful. And she was. She had been that way as long as she could remember, but now it was out in the open. Everyone knew if you needed help, ask Grace. If she can’t help, she will find someone who can.

  The first people Grace would go to for extra help were her council of women, all of them deeply connected friends. The council of women met every Monday night in her apartment above the store. They always had good things going on. Only they, and the ones closest to them and who helped them, were aware of all they did, and that’s the way they wanted it.

  Most of what the women (and the men in their lives) did remained ordinary, like providing families with food or taking care of someone’s rent or mortgage. They did it all quietly and effectively. However, there were always the other things, things people might not believe could happen or exist, that they helped resolve.

  It seemed to Grace that Doveland attracted quite a few people who needed the unique help they offered. Perhaps some kind of cosmic bulletin board existed that listed them as a resource.

  Although Grace could not do many of the things some of her friends did, over the years her sense of awareness had increased, and now that she hung around with people who did what others considered “magical,” it seemed that had rubbed off on her.

  Perhaps when you see things most people consider impossible and realize they are not only possible but common, it opens other doors of perception. That’s what Grace figured had happened to her. Instead of being a small-town busybody, she was a cosmic busybody. She accepted it as a good thing because otherwise, she might resent that she was often awakened at night, and sometimes interrupted in her day, with a sense of something coming.

  Instead, she thought of it all as an adventure. And now, she was sure another adventure was coming to Doveland, which is why she signaled for Valerie to come over. She wanted to find out if Valerie had felt it, or perhaps Lex had told her something. Lex’s burgeoning ability to remote-view had helped them prepare last time. Maybe he was aware of something now.