It took him five years to find his way back home.

  Those years would prove to be the foundation of the Alliance. As he journeyed over land and sea, mountain and plain, he gathered a following. His story was so far-fetched it was difficult to find people who would believe him. Yet he knew that there had been a purpose for his trip to the Blackness. It was up to him to prepare the world for what would eventually come. He knew the Stompers would come, would figure out a way to visit and ensnare our world, just like they had done to endless others.

  He gathered the meek and the humble, the outcast and the unclean. Many had special gifts, for which they had been exiled and abandoned. He didn't know what they could do, but do something they must.

  The Alliance had been born.

  For centuries now, they had journeyed the earth, gathering more members for the Alliance. They sought only those who would believe, and those with gifts. Along the way, they finally met the Givers, and promised to join their efforts. There was only one requirement demanded by the Givers.

  The finder of the Four Gifts must not be from the Alliance, nor helped by the Alliance until the First Gift had been discovered. It had to be so, for the person who would eventually discover and open the door in the woods, and receive the First Gift, must not be tainted with preconceived notions. Everything had been precisely planned, and specifically put into place. Everything had its purpose, and the holder of the Gifts must be one who knew nothing beforehand. He or she had to be pure in mind and heart (I blushed a little at this part), and not set in their thoughts and ways.

  It had to be so, or the Giftholder would fail. The Givers were adamant. The Alliance agreed. They put their faith in such a person coming along.

  It was frustrating, and ended up being almost disastrous. They had to hold back when my dad came to Japan and sought the key, for they had promised not to get involved until the Door was open. In silent frustration and fear they watched as the Shadow Ka, who were spread throughout the earth and who had done their own research of the clues left by the Givers, assisted my dad in finding the key.

  At first, this seemed strange, that the Alliance would have banded against my dad. But then it hit me that back then, my dad was the bad guy, although not of his own choice. Of course the Alliance didn't want him to get the key, because then that meant the Shadow Ka would have it.

  I asked Rayna the obvious question of why didn't the Shadow Ka just get it themselves if they knew so much. She explained that there were two answers to my question. One, the Ka did not simply know everything. They were figuring it out just like anyone else, trying to find the key and the Door and the Gifts before a human did. But, they also knew that in the end, only a human could get the key, and open the Door, and receive the Gifts. They either wanted to stop it all together, or find a human they could convince to receive it and work for them, not against them.

  Well, in the end, it had worked out for the good. It looked like the Givers knew what they were talking about after all.

  I had opened the Door, and now had the first two Gifts. I told them about my conversation with Farmer back at the Pointing Finger, when he said I was able to open the Door in the woods because of my intent. Rayna rhetorically asked us what could be more pure than wanting to save your family. A long silence followed, and my heart was full.

  So now I knew the history of the Alliance. Rayna, Miyoko, Hood, Tanaka, and Geezer all joined eventually, led there by different paths and through different circumstances. Miyoko's was the easiest, since her dad, Tanaka, was a member. There were others throughout the world, fulfilling their various duties, preparing the way for me to succeed in obtaining the Gifts, and preparing the world for the battle that was sure to come.

  After the talk, there was something that I no longer had any doubt about.

  Just as the fate of the world would eventually rest on my shoulders, so would it on those of this group.

  The Alliance.

  In our spare time of resting and eating, I was learning new tricks with my two Gifts. Never having forgotten Farmer's words that someday I would realize how The Shield could also be used as a weapon, I began to think about a couple of experiences I'd had when The Shield had protected me. Back when I went to my house after having been through The Door, and found my family there, Raspy's goon, Monster, tried to shoot me. The bullet ricocheted violently, exploding my mom's sweet little reading lamp. If that direction of rebounding could be controlled …

  Over and over during our meal breaks, I threw rocks up into the air and tried to manipulate how The Shield rebounded them away from me. Slowly, but surely, I got the hang of it. And with a burst of intense thinking, I was able to make The Shield rebound objects harder and harder. Soon, I was able to throw a rock into the air, and when it fell toward me and hit The Shield, I threw it back, concentrating on where I wanted it to go.

  Again, Tanaka was my assistant. We set up a stack of logs, and then Tanaka would throw boulders or other discarded objects right at me. Sort of like a soccer goalie heading a shot out of bounds, I would deflect the objects with a burst of thought, and they would explode with speed toward the stack of logs, knocking them over. Before too long, I had become an expert, and never missed. Within a matter of two days, I felt like I had picked up two valuable weapons to use in our battle against the Shadow Ka, and ultimately the Stompers, although there was still the mystery of the other uses of the Gifts that Farmer had not elaborated on.

  The Ice. The Shield. It was almost becoming fun. But then thoughts of our predicament brought me crashing back to reality. The Gifts were not for my amusement. Their sole purpose was to assist me in an undertaking that was probably unprecedented in our little history of Earth. From what I could tell, terrible things were in store for all of us.

  In the evening of the second day of our search, as I tried my best to battle such gloomy thoughts so that I could actually get some sleep, I again committed to myself that I would do everything possible to be ready for what lay ahead. Eventually, although I have no memory of when, I fell asleep.

  On the morning of the third day, the skies were filled with dark and heavy clouds, gray and sinister. Thunder rumbled above, and the light of the sun seemed to have fled as far away as possible. In these conditions, we came upon a forest that seemed darker than night within its tightly packed trees, thick and looking untouched by human hands for ages.

  “This will be our last chance,” said Rayna as we divided ourselves into search groups. Her distorted face and one eye looked more weary than usual. “We must leave here within three hours if we are to get the horses and make it to the place where we will meet the Bosu Zoku.”

  “Maybe we shouldn't split,” I suggested. “We can't take a chance of missing the opportunity to find my family.”

  “I agree,” said Miyoko. “The Hooded One may not have survived this long anyway, as hard as that may be to accept. Let's not lose Jimmy's family as well.”

  Tanaka agreed with his daughter, and Rayna reluctantly accepted. So, as one, we entered the gloomy sea of trees.

  The leaves, moss, and twigs of the forest floor were damp and spongy, making almost no sound as we trampled forward. The tall, heavily branched trees seemed to suck in sound, so that a thick silence filled the air. We moved deeper into the woods, looking in all directions for any sign of Hood.

  Then, I had just about the craziest ten minutes of my life.

  Rayna suddenly screamed at the top of her lungs, the wailing sound seeming to echo in the still air, dulled but loud.

  In the seconds before we realized the source of her fear, my mind raced, because the sound of her scream was so familiar. It was not the first time I had heard that scream, I was sure of it.

  And then it clicked, and I understood the second amazing fact about Rayna.

  Often, sounds or smells bring back memories, vividly, so that it's almost like you're there again. The sound of that scream did it to me. I felt like I was in another set of woods, far away, all over again. I could almost smell the familiar scent of the wood and leaves of a certain tree in Georgia, and feel the faint breeze as I swayed with the tree in its uppermost branches. The image of Mayor Duck, dragging a woman through the woods, fighting against her struggles, popped in my head. I again felt the fear of that first day, the day this whole mess started. I remembered her scream.

  Rayna.

  Rayna was the woman. I was sure she had died, that the mayor had killed her and then dropped her into the Blackness.

  Rayna was the woman.

  Snapping back to reality, I frantically looked around. I didn't know which was stranger—that Rayna had pulled a Joseph and come back from the dead, or that she just happened to be standing in front of me again, in the middle of a Japanese forest, screaming.

  It all barely registered, flashing through my mind in an instant.

  Then I noticed the source of Rayna's fright, a fifteen-foot tall monkey.

  I decided to scream too.

  It was not a gorilla. It was a monkey. A gangly, hairy, unusually large monkey.

  It sat hunched over, its back against a tree with precious few branches, more closely resembling a telephone pole than a tree. The monkey looked tired and beat. Its massive head shifted, and the monkey looked at us. Suddenly realizing that a battle with a gargantuan primate was the absolute last thing I wanted that day, I made to run back in the direction we had come from. But Tanaka grabbed my hand, and put his finger to his lips, shushing me.

  Rayna also calmed down, and took a step backward, huddling closer with the rest of us. We continued to stare at the tall beast. Amazingly, my shock at realizing the identity of Rayna had already worn off, replaced by the shock of seeing a monkey five times the size it was supposed to be. The monkey was ancient, with most of its hair gray, and everything about it looking old and withered.

  Tanaka took a step forward, and then slowly turned around to face us. He spoke in a quiet whisper, shot with barely contained excitement.

  “You realize what this is? We are first people in history to witness this!”

  “What?” I asked back.

  “This is an okisaru!”

  I looked over at Miyoko.

  She shrugged, then said, “It means Big Monkey.”

  Shocking even myself, I laughed out loud.

  “That's ingenious, Tanaka.”

  “You don't understand,” he said back, not appreciating my sarcasm. “These creatures are of an ancient myth that only a few people even know about! Not one person on the earth could have possibly believed that one actually exists. They are supposed to hold great powers, beyond the greatest thinker's imagination.”

  Tanaka looked back at the okisaru, and knelt on one knee.

  The giant monkey leaned forward, and his tired eyes looked deep into Tanaka's. The creature then raised his right arm, and held out one finger, pointing it at Tanaka. It brought the finger forward until it was touching Tanaka's forehead. They both closed their eyes, and the rest of us could only stare, left to wonder what in the heck was happening.

  Seconds stretched into minutes.

  The monkey drew his hand away. Tanaka opened his eyes, and fell backward, into Rayna's arms. There was an indescribable look of wonder on his face.

  Then, in an instant, the monkey flung himself up into the trees and was gone, moving with a speed that seemed impossible. After a few seconds of rustling branches and swaying tree trunks, it was as if the beast had never been there.

  Tanaka stood up and walked forward, continuing his search for Hood. For the rest of that day, he would say nothing of his experience.

  As the rest of us followed, I tried to think if I'd ever had a stranger ten minutes than what I'd just experienced. First, realizing who Rayna was, then, an enormous monkey of some ancient legend touching my new friend in the forehead with its finger, then disappearing into the trees.

  Not until many weeks later would I realize the unbelievable magnitude of what had just happened.

  Putting it in the backs of our minds as best we could, we continued the search for Hood, creeping slowly through the dim, soundless forest. As we trudged along, weary from pushing through heavy growth and being hit in the face by prickly branches, I wanted to ask Rayna about that day in Georgia, even though I realized it might be a touchy subject. I also wondered if that terrible day explained some of her face's disfiguration, and if the memory of it would be too difficult for her. But my desire to make sure she knew that I had figured it out overcame my hesitation.

  “Rayna, that was you in Georgia that day?”

  Perhaps still shaken by our sight of the mysterious monkey as well, her tone suggested that she was not in much of a mood to talk about it. “I figured you would realize who I was eventually,” she said. “Surely you didn't think that was just some random woman snooping around for The Door, did you?”

  “Well, I didn't know a thing about any of this back then, and I sure didn't know you or about the Alliance, so how on earth was I supposed to guess that the woman I saw must be a weird lady with special powers from an Alliance of strange people with gifts, tramping about the world trying to figure out how they can help a group called The Givers, who are from another world, save us all from a ruthless enemy?”

  Rayna gave me her already familiar look of motherly disapproval.

  “Weird?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “Weird. You called me weird. I don't appreciate that.”

  Rolling my eyes, I said, “Anyway, Rayna, what were you doing there?”

  “The Alliance sent me. We wanted to learn more about The Door, and the Givers find it difficult to tell us anything. So I went. We knew that your father had taken the key to America, and that it was hidden, but we were worried that somehow it would still end up in the hands of the Shadow Ka. We wanted to do something, although we had no idea what. So, I went. That blubbering fool, Duck, found me, and dragged me to a Random Ripping to drop me into The Blackness. I can't believe he was dumb enough to think I was dead—I was faking it.”

  “Well, from what I've learned, you maybe could've been dead and still been okay.”

  “What're you talking about?”

  “My friend, Joseph. He was healed by The Blackness, and so was my dad. It heals.”

  “Yes, yes, we've heard that myth. Are you telling me that it's true?”

  “Absolutely,” I said, surprised that she didn't know that. “So what happened after you went into The Blackness? Was that your first time there?”

  “It was not my first. The tale of my first trip there will have to be saved for another time.”

  Rayna took on a heavy look of grief, and her eyes were filled with a memory of horror or pain. I didn't push the issue.

  “How did you make it back here to Japan?”

  “The girl. The little girl Giver. She brought me to a Ripping, and pushed me through. She was the one who told me about you, although it would've been impossible for her to know yet what you would end up becoming.”

  “Well,” I replied, “you can see the future with your photographs, so why would it be so strange for her to be able to do the same, some other way?”

  “You're right. There are so many things about The Givers that we have yet to learn.”

  Our conversation dwindled into contemplative silence after that, and we continued our walking and searching.

  One hour later, literally minutes before our self-imposed deadline to give up, we found The Hooded One.

  Our first sight of him was a glimmer of white in the distance, like some haunted vision of a ghost in the woods. Soon, it was obvious to the others that it was Hood in the distance, tied to a tree. Miyoko turned to me, and put her hand on my chest.

  “Jimmy, stay here. Let us go and tend to The Hooded One, and put his robe back on him. You do not want to see him without it.”

  “Why?”

  “There is something about him that we have not told you.”

  Without explaining, she joined the others and went off into the distance. Not wanting to challenge her advice, I sat down on the damp forest floor and rested.

  A few minutes later, Miyoko, Tanaka, and Rayna walked back to me. Tanaka pulled me up from my sitting position. Standing behind them, his face hidden in the shadows of his dirty brown robe, was Hood. The red Bender Ring was at his side, supporting some of his weight.

  With a slight bow of his head, Hood stepped close to a tree, and extended his pale white hand and finger to write a message.

  “THANK YOU, JIMMY, FOR COMING FOR ME.”

  His painted words were sloppy on the bark of the tree, but the message tore into my heart. This strange person, hiding from the world behind cloth and grime, capable of powers that defied human understanding, had truly become my friend.

  “There was never another option,” I said, embarrassed at the slight quiver in my voice.

  And with that being enough, the five of us made our way to the other side of the mountain to find our horses.

  Along the way, I asked Rayna to tell us the story of her other trip to the Blackness before the one in which Duck sent her there. Unfortunately, she obliged.

  After Rayna's parents died and left her stranded, a homeless girl in a foreign country, she had learned many tough lessons while living in the streets. A rough life had left her in the condition that I knew her—ugly, scarred, and cheerless. Her life quickly reached a point in which living it out to the end seemed a miserable option.

  Then, in her late teens, a miracle occurred that saved her life and gave meaning to it all at once. While digging through the trash on a humid summer day, she came across a stack of photographs. With nothing but time on her hands, Rayna took the photos and sat down in the alley, taking the time to look through them and dream of a better life, one that was worth capturing for the ages on film.

  She soon noticed that the pictures must have been thrown out as a mistake—they were all of a birthday party for the little boy who lived in the apartments near the alley where she usually slept. They were all such happy moments, full of laughter, wrapping paper, and cake. She examined each one, and it lifted her spirits. She felt, almost, like the people were her own family. One by one, she lightly brushed her fingers across the photos, the closest she would ever get to feeling the warm touch of loved ones.