Early Earth Book 2: Coming out of Darkness

Chapter 1

SHOTS FIRED

T yrone Hughes ran for all he was worth. Two rounds from a 9mm semiautomatic blasted through an interior wall, whistled past his head, and punctured the refrigerator, just missing him. He fled from the kitchen, crashed through the back door of the inner-city house and tore across the backyard toward a rickety wooden fence. Three hulking young men followed, bursting through the door behind him, cursing and threatening. Rapidly scaling the wobbly fence, Tyrone tumbled into a bush on the other side. Before he could pick himself up he saw two hands grip the top of the fence and a menacing face glaring down at him.

Drop my gun or I’ll kill you! the face demanded.

Come any closer to me and I’ll kill you, Terrance! Tyrone retorted as he crab-walked out of the bush, scrambled to his knees on some crumbled back alley cement and pointed a semiautomatic pistol at the glaring face.

You ain’t gonna shoot me! taunted Terrance, now poised atop the fence.

POW! A shot echoed off the walls of the houses that bordered the alley. The bullet breezed past Terrance’s ear, shocking him into dropping back down on his side of the fence. Tyrone scrambled to his feet and sprinted down the alley. Looking back, he saw his three pursuers squeezing through an opening at the edge of the property. Tyrone aimed, hand trembling, and shot a hole through the fence inches from them. Shards of wood splintered as the bullet pierced the fence and lodged itself in the back wall of the house. The guys dove to the ground and their curses alone chased Tyrone down the alley.

Tyrone skidded around a corner, hiding the handgun under the front of his shirt as curious onlookers peeled back curtains to investigate the gunshots. Dodging as many eyes as he could, Tyrone swerved into a smaller side alley. It would take him longer to get to his house, but at least it would give him a chance of getting there alive. He glanced back down the alley—it was still empty. Breathing heavily, his forehead a band of sweat, Tyrone burst from the narrow alley and dashed across a street, nearly colliding with a banged-up Ford that squealed to a stop an inch in front of him.

Hey! Watch where you’re going, boy! yelled the driver.

Ignoring him, Tyrone doubled back in the direction of his house, panting and shaking as he ran. Another minute of running, another back alley, and Tyrone wrestled his way over another fence. This one marked the territory of his backyard. The dilapidated chain-link barrier was overgrown with weeds and it wobbled and complained under his weight. Shooting a final glance over his shoulder, Tyrone stormed through his back door and dead-bolted it behind him. Bee-lining his way through the house to the front door, he bolted that, too. Then he slid around the wall of the front room, crouched low on the floor and poked his head high enough to look out the front window. Everything looked normal out front—no sign of Terrance, whose gun Tyrone had stolen, or his two gang members who were with him. Tyrone let out a final sigh. Confident he was alone, he was about to let down his guard—maybe even allow himself to cry—when two strong hands grabbed him from behind.

Jeremiah Yoder packed his bag and looked out the window of his upstairs bedroom for the last time. The fields had already been harvested for the season and his chores for the day were finished. Not only was he done with chores for the day, but maybe forever. Hard to imagine, since it had been a week since he’d set foot off the farm, a month since he’d been outside his Amish community and never once had he been more than fifty miles away from home. This would be a first. The farm boy checked his bag to make sure he had all he needed. The clothes—every garment either black, white or light blue—a pair of suspenders, his blanket, knife, cooking pot, plate, bowl, utensils and cash, which was stashed in three separate places for extra security. Everything he needed for the simple life on the road was there, at least, everything he needed according to the community elders, and it would be wrong to take anything more. But there was one more thing he believed he needed, though neither the elders nor his father would approve. Nevertheless, he would take it if he could without being seen. In a moment, he would try.

Jeremiah secured his bag with twine, slung it over his shoulder and bounded down the stairs. He heard the clatter of dishes in the kitchen as his mother finished wrapping the cakes she had baked for him. He could see his father outside through the curtainless window of the main room. Good, Jeremiah thought, he’s not inside. None of his seven siblings were in sight, either. The timing was right and might not be again, so when he saw what he was looking for, he snagged it off the plain wooden bookshelf as he strode by. He shoved it under the flap of his bag and continued moving through the empty living room and into the kitchen, where he caught his mother’s eye an instant after removing his hand from the stolen item now in the bag.

You don’t have to do this, Jeremiah, his mother said. Her typically solemn face was especially sorrowful.

Yes I do, Ma. I really do.

Eileen Bishop struck a match with quivering hands. The flame flared up quickly but nearly flickered out because she was trembling so hard. She drew near to the wick but then heard her mom’s head violently hit the wall outside her room. Eileen dropped the match and bumped the candle. They dropped to the floor as her mom’s body fell.

Shaking, Eileen gathered up the candle and set it down again on her table full of charms and amulets as she fumbled for another match. Yelling penetrated her thin bedroom door. Cries and cursing flowed up and down the hallway, blasting back and forth, colliding, growing ever louder. She managed to hold the match and, trembling more than ever, she struck it. No flame. She heard the unmistakable sound of a face getting slapped. Then broken glass—likely one of her mom’s vases—followed by a tirade of poisonous swearing.

Eileen dropped the failed match and ripped off a third, reciting under her breath a Wiccan incantation she had spent the last several days memorizing. She had known she would need it for a time like this. The match took and a small flame illuminated her tear-streaked face in her dark bedroom. Lighting the candle, Eileen continued to chant, asking—pleading—with the goddess that her dad would stop.

The hallway went suddenly silent. Eileen allowed herself a faint smile through her tears and continued whispering her enchantment. The silence lasted a few peaceful seconds longer until Eileen heard the horrifying sound of her mom gasping for air. The incantation stopped dead in the terrified girl’s throat. Dad was strangling Mom!

Fong Chow sat in her college apartment daydreaming and sinking deeper into her own personal darkness. She absentmindedly twirled a small banana leaf around in her hand. Her gaze drifted out her window toward a small clump of trees off in the distance, well beyond the concrete and bricks that loomed large in the foreground. Seeing the banana leaf in the foreground and the trees beyond only intensified her mournful daydreaming. The mere sight of vegetation tore at her heart.

Fong was born and raised in China. This was her third year both in the United States and at San Martín University in California. And so far, it was shaping up as her most challenging year yet. She was falling behind in her studies and needed to concentrate. But her mind was elsewhere.

Crowds of students were outside enjoying the pleasant weather on this October afternoon, drinking in the bright rays of sun which illuminated the deep reds, oranges and yellows of changing foliage. It was undeniably the prettiest time of year, but Fong couldn’t get excited about any of it. In fact, the reality that this was as colorful as things would ever get just depressed her even more.

Fong tossed the banana leaf down on her coffee table, slid off her chair and brushed past the potted plant from which she had plucked the leaf. She had recently purchased the large tropical decoration hoping it would bring her some life and hominess to her otherwise sterile apartment. But it didn’t work. Though she bought the biggest plant the greenhouse had to offer, for Fong the leaves were too small, the bananas were too bland and the colors were too dim. In fact, the more she thought about the stupid shrub, the more glum she felt.

She called Eric. In all the gloom she had been muddling through for the past year, Eric was the one bright spot. She hoped maybe he would want to go with her to try the experiment again. He was the only one who had experienced what she experienced last year, the only one who actually knew the truth, the only one she could even talk to about these things. Fong waited for an answer. After seven or eight rings Eric’s friendly greeting resonated through the speaker and her heart did a little leap.

Hi, you have reached Eric. Leave your name and message and I will call you back. BEEEEP!

Fong’s heart sank and she hung up and tried again. Several rings and the same friendly greeting followed, but no Eric.

Sighing, the deflated young woman donned her shoes and grabbed her lab keys. Snapping her door shut behind her, Fong scurried down the stairs and outdoors where students were enjoying the freshness of the fall air and the burnished colors of autumn leaves. But all Fong could think about as she briskly crossed campus was the foulness of the air and the dullness of the dying leaves. Even a day this beautiful paled in comparison to what she had experienced before and she ached to live through it again. So while most students went outside to revel in freshness and light, Fong opted for the physics lab. She had an idea. She had tried it before and failed. But this time it just might work.

Tyrone was still trembling when the two firm hands grabbed him and pulled him up off the floor. Instinctively he pulled the gun out from under his shirt and aimed before he realized who had grabbed him.

Boy, whatchu been doin’? came the words from the lips of his grandmother.

Tyrone tried to hide the pistol but it was too late. She had seen it.

A gun! Boy, gimme dat! she ordered as she grabbed his shirt collar with one hand and reached for the weapon with the other.

Tyrone cloaked the pistol again in his shirt and broke free of her firm hold, taking a position of safety with his back in another corner of the room from which he could still see out the window.

Boy, you better gimme dat gun! the old woman, stronger than she appeared, demanded with a steady pointing finger.

Tyrone was breathing heavily and he shook his head. He couldn’t yield to his grandmother. He knew she had his best interest in mind, just as he knew that she was the only one who cared about him. Normally he would do what she said, but this time his life was at stake. And if those guys followed him here, he wouldn’t be the only one in danger—she would be in the line of fire, too. There was no way he could let go of the gun. Tyrone continued staring intently out the front window, panting hard.

His grandmother was firm and demanding—her voice rising and her determination unbending. I’m givin’ you one more chance, boy! You gimme dat gun and tell me what’s goin’ on right now or you gonna wish you wuz out der wif whoever out der instead of in here wif me!

But Tyrone didn’t need to make that choice. The creak of a door opening snapped both of their heads in the direction of the basement stairwell. In his hurry, Tyrone had forgotten about the third exterior door: it was on the side of the house and it opened onto a stairway landing between the main floor and the basement. Apparently, it had been unlocked. And someone had just entered his house.

Jeremiah filled his two canteens with water from the hand pump at the kitchen sink. His mom was wrapping up four loaves of freshly-baked bread, half a dozen muffins, several strips of dried pork and a bunch of potatoes and carrots fresh from the garden. She reached for Jeremiah’s bulky sack so she could stuff the items in. Jeremiah quickly intercepted the food.

I will put them in the bag, Ma, he said. Thank you.

She looked at him sadly. But that was normal for her so Jeremiah reasoned that she didn’t suspect he had taken anything he wasn’t supposed to have. She trusted him, and rightly so, for he always did what he was expected to do. Today was no exception. He was allowed to do what he was about to do, but it didn’t make it any easier for his mom.

Why do you need to be so independent? she asked him quietly, though she knew the answer.

Jeremiah opened an alternate pocket on the bag and carefully lodged the baked goods, dried pork and vegetables where they wouldn’t get as easily squashed. Buttoning it up, he slung the satchel on his back.

I will be alright, Ma. You don’t need to worry, he said, and gave her a big hug that was unusual for the stoic Yoder family. She returned the hug, holding him so long that he began to get uncomfortable.

You’d better go out and say goodbye to your father, she said in a voice choked with tears. She released him. Jeremiah quickly turned away to save her the embarrassment of him seeing her cry.

Exiting the back door of Jeremiah’s Amish family home was almost like walking on to a stage and interrupting a play in progress. The activity on the farm stopped and everyone stared. All seven of his younger siblings ceased their weeding, tilling, milking, churning and binding.

Jeremiah’s father was binding the last of the bales of hay now that harvest was over. Noticing the boy from the corner of his eye, he straightened up and reflexively adjusted the long strand of wheat clenched between his teeth. Come give your blessings to your brother! he called loudly to the rest of his kids.

Jeremiah stepped down from the back porch and met his father beside the wagon where all of his younger siblings gathered around him. Jeremiah had recently celebrated his sixteenth birthday and now he was about to leave his Amish home—the only place he had ever known—possibly forever. In a moment, he would be down the dirt road, alone, and not at all sure where he was going, what he would do or what he would experience.

Eileen heard a dull thud followed by yelling, swearing and gasping for air. Her parents were in the hallway just outside her locked bedroom door and her mom had just kicked her dad hard enough to make him release his death-grip on her throat. She began to hurry away but he tackled her. Their combined weight slammed into Eileen’s door. The lock snapped, the jamb splintered and the door swung wide as they tumbled to the floor beside Eileen’s bed.

Eileen screamed.

Shut up! Stop your screaming or you’ll get some, too! her dad yelled from on top of her mom. Eileen’s mom grabbed a fistful of hair in one hand, his chin in the other and twisted him off of her. He sprawled on the floor as her mom scrambled to her feet and headed for Eileen so she could stand between her daughter and her intoxicated husband. But Mr. Bishop sprang to his feet and launched himself at his wife. The two of them were momentarily airborne before they landed heavily on Eileen’s little table. Tarot cards went flying, a wooden leg snapped, and Mr. and Mrs. Bishop skidded off the table and hit the floor again, sending Eileen’s lit candle rolling under her bed.

The dark room was alive with screams and the cracking of furniture. Eileen’s dad ripped a table lamp out of the wall socket and hurled it at Eileen. The shade collapsed as it grazed her face. Grabbing it, she tore the shade off and held the base of the porcelain lamp as a club.

Leave her alone! Let Mom go! Eileen screamed, clutching the lamp with both fists, ready to strike.

Eileen’s enraged dad flung his wife into the closet door and turned on his daughter. Eileen swung the lamp as hard as she could and the light bulb popped and disintegrated on his forehead but it did not stop him. Ripping the lamp out of her hand, her father cracked her in the back of her head. The room spun. The last thing Eileen saw as her face slammed into the floorboards was the bottom of her bedspread—now on fire.

Fong tugged open the door marked Authorized Personnel Only and went inside. Locking it behind her, she headed straight to the supply cabinet and put on her customary white lab coat and goggles. She was inside one of the special access rooms in the Physics Department at her college. As an honors science major she had been given a key and special privileges to use the lab equipment. Wasting no time, she went to the back of the lab to another door marked Caution: Photon Machine: Authorized Lab Personnel Only—which she was.

Using another key, one which she was privileged to temporarily possess only because of a project she was working on, Fong unlocked the double-bolted door to the expensive machine and stepped inside the small room that housed it. Engaging the power switch, Fong fished through her research notes while the machine whirred to life.

Shuffling through her notes, Fong found the spot where she last left off. She had been in this room several times trying to prove her theory but she had failed every time. Experiment after experiment yielded the same result. An average student would have given up by now. But because of what happened to her a year ago, Fong was convinced this was more than a theory. This was a fact; there had to be a way to prove it. She just didn’t know how.

This was the perfect time to try again. It was a Friday afternoon and classes were done. All the professors were gone and the students had fled the lab for the weekend. That was how Fong liked it. She was a serious student and didn’t have time for unnecessary inquisitions or criticisms, or for critics explaining exactly why she was crazy. She just needed to be alone to think and experiment until she figured things out. Trying to explain what she was doing to anyone else would be pointless—they’d never believe her. But Fong would never doubt her own memories of a year ago. She had gone back in time thousands of years and talked with sages who were hundreds of years old. She had witnessed the defeat of a wicked sorcerer and an attack by a vile, fire-breathing dragon. She had ridden atop a dinosaur and feasted with giants high up in a tree-top village. And more than anything, she wanted to go back to that world. If her experiment worked, it might unlock a way for her to do just that.

When Amish youth turn sixteen, they enter a two-year period of life known as rumspringa. Rumspringa is a German word meaning running around. It is more for boys than girls in Jeremiah’s community, and it is a special time set aside for the young man to find a wife and decide for himself if he wants to be Amish for the rest of his life. During this time of discovery, he is allowed to date and try out some of the modern advances of the world. He must also decide if he will devote himself to the Amish code and lifestyle for the remainder of his days. If so, he returns to his people and is baptized Amish—for life! On the other hand, he may decide to blend into English society, forsake the Amish ways, leave his family and community and enjoy creature comforts and technology like most modern people. It is a huge decision that affects the rest of a man’s life. And Jeremiah Yoder was now at the crossroads of that decision.

Actually, Jeremiah had turned sixteen a few weeks earlier, but he felt it would be wrong to leave his family before harvest was over, so he stuck around until all but the last bales were tied and then he tied his own bag and headed for the road. His father didn’t thank him for staying longer than he needed to; his dad never really was one to dole out praise or compliments. But Jeremiah knew his dad needed the help whether he said anything or not, especially since Jeremiah was the oldest of eight kids—all of whom depended on harvest time for their food. Jeremiah knew plenty about farm life, so that much he knew.

But farm life in the Amish town of Shipshewana, Indiana was pretty much all Jeremiah knew. He had lived his entire life in an electricity-free house and he seldom took a buggy ride outside of the county. So by now, Jeremiah was anxious to get out and see the world. He didn’t know what was out there and didn’t know what he was supposed to do. This was a time of exploration where the goal was to find that out. But it took Jeremiah far longer to commence his exploration than he had thought. Having no idea how big the world really is—and not keeping in mind how friendly and hospitable the Amish community is—Jeremiah had been gone from his home four days before he even made it to the township line.

For starters, a boy named Eli whom he had met during a barn raising last spring invited him over for lunch. Jeremiah took him up on the offer, and before he realized how dark it was getting, he had been talked into helping Eli break a horse, pause for dinner and then bunk at his house. That was the first night. After leaving the next morning, Jeremiah had been on the road only twenty minutes before he felt compelled to help an elderly woman carry her load of produce to market.

While at the market, where he knew most everyone, several people asked Jeremiah where he was going, what he was planning on doing during his rumspringa, who he was going to marry and if he was going to resist the temptations of the world. Finally breaking away from the market, Jeremiah was free again on the road and making headway until a lone man on a buggy asked if he needed a lift. Jeremiah knew who he was; Earl Hochstetler was his name, and since a buggy was faster than a pair of legs, Jeremiah reasoned it made sense to ride a while. In so doing he made the mistake of telling the Mr. Hochstetler that he had just left home on rumspringa. The next thing he knew, he was at the Hochstetler’s house for coffee. Coffee, in this case, meant meeting the man’s seventeen-year-old daughter who was looking for a rumspringa boy of her own.

Jeremiah got out of there as fast as he politely could. He was about to get on the road and out of range of anyone who would know him and distract him—when he stopped and looked down Adams Street. He knew if he kept going straight he would be in the clear, and he also knew that if he turned he would likely face the worst distraction yet. He knew that the distraction would be the one—if there was one—that would make him turn around and stay put. Twice he headed forward down the main road and tried to shake the temptation. Twice he turned back to the same intersection. He stopped there. He stared. He heaved his strong shoulders high in a sigh and gave in. I suppose one quick walk-by couldn’t hurt, he reasoned. And he turned down Adams Street toward the only girl who was the only thing that could possibly change his mind.

Tyrone and his grandmother both stared in the direction of the out-of-sight stairwell door, their hearts racing.

Who’s there? his grandmother yelled.

No answer.

Tyrone began shaking. He frantically tried to think what to do. Should he fight? Should he shoot? Should he grab his grandma by the arm and run out a door? What if the other doors were being watched? Maybe they could escape through a window. Then he remembered something that chilled his blood. My window! I left it open when I snuck out! Panicked, he tore off toward his room. His grandmother grabbed his arm but Tyrone broke free and fled toward his room.

Boy, don’chu do nothin’ wif dat gun! You hear me? she yelled after him. I can take care of intruders all by myself!

Tyrone bolted to his ground-floor bedroom and skidded to a halt just outside the door, straining to hear any sound of movement inside. He was pretty sure he heard nothing, but it was impossible to know for sure. Grandma was still in the other room broadcasting threats at anyone who might be in the house while loudly scolding Tyrone at the same time.

Ain’t nobody break into my house, you hear? I ain’t made it all these years bein’ no weaklin’! You come up doze stairs and you gonna wish you nevuh been born! The sound of her voice moved closer to the stairwell door. An’ after I take care of chu I gunna kill that boy too!

Trying to hear noises in his bedroom over his grandma’s tirade was no use. She wouldn’t stop threatening both him and whoever had broken in long enough for him to hear anything. So Tyrone decided to charge. He kicked in his bedroom door and stormed in with the gun held before him. To add to the effect, he yelled wildly as he charged in.

No one was in the room.

But before he could breathe a sigh of relief, he heard a terrified scream from his grandmother down the hallway and the sound of pounding feet. They were coming for him!

Tyrone slammed his door shut and threw himself on the floor, taking a low, defensive posture, his gun aimed high at the door—ready for Terrance or whoever it was to plow through that door.

The pounding steps grew louder. They were right outside the door and they weren’t slowing down. Hands trembling, too scared to even yell a threat, Tyrone braced himself for a well-aimed shot, assuming he would have the chance to fire only once.

As feared, the runner did not stop but launched full speed through Tyrone’s door. Closing his eyes in terror, Tyrone shot blindly. POW! The blast pierced his ears—but the scream he heard pierced his heart. A body fell to the wood floor inches in front of his face. It took Tyrone several seconds to open his eyes—several seconds that seemed like an eternity—and when he finally dared to look, in horror he beheld the last thing he’d ever wished to see. As blood pooled around her still body on the floor, Tyrone gazed into the blank stare of his grandmother.

Chapter 2

SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS

A s Eileen painfully woke up, she realized she was no longer lying on the floor next to her burning bed. She winced against the throbbing in her head and tried to get her bearings. She was in her front yard on a stretcher. Lights were flashing. There was pressure against her head. Somebody—must be a paramedic—was cleansing a wound she had received. It stung. She closed her eyes against a wave of nausea. Several dizzy seconds passed before she reopened them. In the glare of the flashing lights she could see her yard crowded with people in uniforms. Firemen, police and paramedics went this way and that. And her mom was there. Eileen could hear her assuring a police officer that it was just an accident, everyone was alright and they could all leave now. As Eileen was being hoisted into the back of the ambulance she overheard the lead paramedic telling her mom to come to the hospital for treatment. Her mom adamantly refused to go and insisted she would be just fine, thank you. This didn’t surprise Eileen.

Her mother’s voice was muffled by the slamming of the ambulance doors. As the ambulance rolled away from the spectacle that was her family—that disaster zone she called home—Eileen’s mind drifted far away. Normal girls would have cried right now. But Eileen was out of tears. She had lost count of how many times this sort of thing had happened. She had given up all hope that Dad would change or that Mom would stop making excuses. Nothing Eileen tried had worked so far, but on that fateful trip to the ER, Eileen decided to do something to finally stop this nightmare. After all the paramedics, doctors, nurses, monitors, tubes and questions were removed, Eileen would quietly do something that would end this madness once and for all.

Fong screamed in the small confines of her laboratory—not because she was scared or hurt—but out of sheer frustration. She had been in the laboratory for hours and tried everything she knew. It was now dark outside. The day was gone, she had accomplished nothing and she was ready to give up. She pressed the heels of her hands against her gritty eyes and groggily thought through her conundrum.

To begin with, she knew there was a wide swath of the light spectrum that she couldn’t see with the naked eye. She also knew that the world in her time seemed much duller than it had in Early Earth, where the colors had been so bright and vivid. She theorized that the reason for the difference was simple: modern people just couldn’t see all that was out there. Following that line of thinking, she theorized that if she could devise a way to see things more clearly, like she could in Early Earth, then maybe she could see a way to get back. At the very least maybe she could brighten up her dreary world here.

As far as Fong could tell, everything she needed for the experiment to work was sitting in front of her: copious notes distilled from her preceding experiments, her Bunsen burner for a controlled flame, light-spectrum-dividing goggles, a highly sophisticated photon light particle machine and, last but not least, her knowledge. After much study she now knew—at least in theory—what it took to see colors not typically visible to the human eye. But so far, to her great frustration, she hadn’t been able to actually do it.

Fong scooted her chair back and stormed across the room to the laboratory phone. She grabbed the receiver and called Eric’s dorm room for the fourth time that night. Fully expecting him not to answer she was about to hang up when she heard a voice.

Hello?

Eric! Fong exclaimed. The sound of his voice was soothing after hours alone in the lab. Ugh! Eric, I so frustrated! Why this no work? she said in her typical broken English.

You mean your invisible light and color experiments? Eric asked. Fong had already shared her theory with Eric, who himself had been to Early Earth with her. He agreed that for some reason the colors back then were more vivid than the colors of modern Earth.

Yes, it no work for me no matter what I try, she complained.

Well, I am glad you called because I was just thinking about you, Eric said.

This made Fong pause. Eric was thinking about her? She had been friends with him for over a year before they went to Early Earth, and she saw him as nothing more than a friend. Fong was too serious a student to toy with romance. But since that incredible journey, Fong had slowly begun to view Eric a little differently. And his comment stirred an unusual feeling, rendering her momentarily tongue-tied, something highly unusual for Fong.

I was wondering if being able to see more light has something to do with the nofac, Eric posited, referencing the beautiful blue gem that had allowed Fong to travel back to Early Earth.

Fong’s heart sank a little for two reasons. First, she had tried using that little gem called a nofac to get back to Early Earth a couple hundred times already, failing every time. Quite frankly, she was fed up with the nofac.

But the second reason embarrassed her. Somewhere deep inside, Fong had been wishing that Eric had been thinking about her just because. But it turned out he had merely been thinking of a way to help her with her dismal experiment failures. She tried to suppress her unruly emotions, but her frustration and disappointment spilled out.

Eric, use head and think. How many times we try use nofac? It no use. We never going get back!

No, not to get back, Eric clarified. Just to see the otherwise un-seeable in the here and now. It’s worth a try, don’t you think?

Fong sighed. At this point she didn’t want to think about the nofac, the light experiments or Early Earth. It was all too depressing. I suppose, she finally said.

Good. Let me know how it goes … some night soon over dinner, offered Eric.

That caught Fong completely off guard. Had Eric just asked her on a date? She was shocked, but a delightful feeling that she almost always suppressed welled up from somewhere deep within her. And she was once again entirely unable to reply.

Fong? Are you there?

Yes … I here, she softly said.

Well, we can talk about the dinner part later, said Eric, thinking he had maybe been too forward. But call me after you try experimenting with the nofac, alright?

Oh … yes, nofac. Yes, I try nofac and let you know, Fong finally said, trying to focus.

Alright then, talk to you soon, Fong. Bye for now.

Bye, she said, still stunned as she hung up the phone and went back to her work station. Her mind was a jumble of thoughts about Eric, their friendship and the unique connection they had due to their adventures a year ago.

Fong sat back down at her workstation and plunked her tired head in her hands. Still frustrated, and now confused about her relationship with Eric as well as her experiment, she ran her small fingers through her hair until they rested on the back of her neck. Her thumbs caught the chain that was hanging there and Fong pulled off the necklace that she had faithfully worn every day for the past year. Gazing at the lovely gem, Fong marveled sadly at the mystery surrounding it and its role in an adventure she feared she would never experience again.

Just over one year ago, Fong had diligently been studying the possibility of the existence of an elfin race. No one believed in her theory except Eric. And much to the shock of her friend Candice, who thought that Fong was crazy, one day a strong, handsome and extremely tall man appeared to them in a wooded area on campus. He handed Fong a leathery pouch containing the gem hung on a chain. Included with it was an enchantment which, when spoken in a wooded land with another person of same faith and heart, would transport the two of them into a bygone era. In that land of long ago, nephilim, or elves, as Fong had called them, were very much alive. Fong, Candice and Eric had all journeyed to Early Earth, and it was the most amazing experience of Fong’s life. She wanted to go back more than anything.

Numerous times she and Eric had tried to repeat the method that had transported them to Early Earth. They had recited the enchantment in a wooded area while holding the precious nofac. They followed the instructions exactly but there had been no rush of wind, no vortex to carry them away. Fong grew increasingly discouraged every time she tried it. Now she sat with the brilliant blue gem dangling before her eyes—and once again, her failures threatened to overwhelm her.

What’s wrong? Why am I not seeing? she asked herself in her native Chinese tongue as she sighed and abruptly stood up to head toward the photon light machine power switch on the opposite wall. Her movement was quick and jerky and, with the necklace still dangling in her hand, she accidentally swung the stone through the small flame of the Bunsen burner. Then for an instant—just a fleeting flash—a huge flame illuminated the room.

Fong gasped. Not knowing what had happened, she scurried to the power switch and slammed it off. The machine whirred down calmly to a dark silence. There was no large flame. Nothing was on fire. All exposed wires looked fine and there was not even a whiff of smoke. The only fire was the tiny flame controlled by the Bunsen burner.

Fong stepped over to turn it off. As she neared the flame a flicker came from her other hand. It was the gem. Fong held the nofac directly in front of the flame and it gleamed brilliantly, easily ten times brighter than before. Fong’s face also lit up with delight.

So you do respond to things after all! she said, elated. Holding the precious gem close to the fire, she could make out magnificent swirls of colors in it that she had never seen before. Blues and yellows and reds exploded and swirled in a kaleidoscope of color that seemed too much for a tiny stone to contain. And it didn’t take long for Fong to note that the closer she held it to the flame, the more brilliantly colorful it became. Mesmerized, with her face