Prologue

We’d been keeping an eye on them, but our focus sharpened when the Neritye made them their target.

I hadn’t been watching as closely as Aphrodite and Selene. Neither of them has a logical thought in her head, so of course they agreed that the humans’ expedition to find a better planet was a wonderfully interesting, romantic thing.

I merely wondered what’d go wrong first.

Now granted, mortals have managed to do a few things right. After all, there was a time when they were fortunate to live to age 60, and now their average life span is around 110.

But they’re still fighting. Not that the other Deities and I don’t fight, of course, but neither do we resort to bombing each other.

They’re territorial, violent, jealous . . . I might’ve had no hope for the humans at all if it weren’t for their space program.

The spaceship we were watching took off in the year 2185. The Leader of the expedition, Courtland Bates, planned everything meticulously. I won’t fault him for not being able to predict everything; no mortal can.

And, honestly, no Deity can either. But don’t try to tell that to my husband.

Anyway. Courtland had a large spaceship, the Calypso, built. Then, through careful use of the internet and even more careful screening processes, he found his fellow passengers. He certainly had no shortage of them. Ones who believed that despite all of the technological advances and all the reassurances of the government, their planet was dying. Ones who had tried to speak out against this for years. Ones who had finally given up-- and who now just wanted to get away. Ones who simply had a high sense of adventure. Some determined, some fearful, all idealistic, people came from all over to form the New Worlds colony. The New Worlds Cult, as it was finally called, as a way to poke fun at the people who called the entire venture insane.

When it came time to put their plan into action, the colonists brought their children, their books, their music, and some even brought their pets. So they left Earth, and the pilots managed to evade the Earth Border Guard and go beyond the private-ship safety boundaries. For a time, there was celebration on board, and from Aphrodite’s behavior you’d think she was ready to take one of Iris’s rainbows to the ship and start celebrating with them.

Then the Neritye attacked.

I’m sorry to admit we once housed them on our home world. During the time that all of us lived on Mount Olympus, they basically had this planet to themselves, and when we came back, there were no incidents. We trusted them and we walked among them, as we once walked among the humans. On Storybook, the Neritye grew from hunters and gatherers to a highly intelligent and very technical race.

When they began building spaceships, we weren’t concerned. After all, we thought they were just going to make exploratory forays, nothing more.

We were wrong.

They pillaged our world, taking faeries, merpeople, animals, vegetation . . . and then they rocketed away.

After several heated discussions, we decided not to pursue them. We feared that the repercussions would be far worse in an all-out war than they would be if we just let them go. So we simply didn’t allow them to return.

We watched as they released specimens on Earth and other planets, watched as those specimens, over centuries, mutated slightly or greatly or disappeared altogether. Watched as the Neritye harvested several of the specimens again later on, for experimentation or other purposes.

And while we all wished that something would happen to them, the stakes were still too great for a battle between us.

So, when they attacked the Calypso, we were prepared for the worst. But then, with the help of Simon LaCroix, an Agency operative who had been brought on board in the guise of a scientist, the aliens were defeated. The humans even captured their small ship in the process. Then LaCroix stole the Neritye vessel.

If the other Deities had just had the sense to listen to me, they would’ve known something like that was coming.

Courtland Bates has a fascination with any form of mental power, and when he found the part of LaCroix’s Agency Profile that said he was precognitive, that helped influence his decision.

Precognitive, yes. Also a coldhearted sneak. Not that anyone here pays attention when I talk.

The evidence was right there in front of them. As soon as he’d finished with his meeting with Courtland, LaCroix went to his current employer-- The Proof of Life Society-- with information about how he could probably bring back evidence of intelligent life within the next year or so.

Now, given this information, who could guess that he would steal an alien vessel and try to get back to his home world for payment?

Aphrodite insisted that he would turn over a new leaf once he was away from the mercenary Agency. I told her to keep dreaming, since it’s easier than actually thinking.

But I will admit that while I predicted LaCroix’s actions, I didn’t predict that a fellow scientist would be hiding out on the vessel when he stole it. She’s lucky she didn’t get herself into a great deal of trouble.

Of course, she probably would have, if not for Selene’s interference.

She decided that, judging from the direction they were going and the condition the Calypso was now in, the mortals were never going to find a suitable home. So, being dimwitted, she transported the entire ship-- along with the Neritye vessel-- into our part of the galaxy.

Seeing as Selene had made the humans our responsibility anyway, we decided to bring them to our world.

We guided the Calypso to the outskirts of an old Neritye village. As far as I’m concerned, those things might as well be put to some good use.

No one died in the landing, though most of the shuttles were ‘damaged’-- my husband decided that since the mortals are here now, they’ll stay.

Zeus did agree to leave some of the shuttles in good enough condition for short-distance trips, though. Especially since the occupants of the Neritye ship still have to be found.

Not that LaCroix deserves any help, but I’d hate for the other scientist to be stranded out there with him any longer. Poor thing.

This doesn’t mean I’m going to become like Selene, of course. She spends far too much time at the Portal, watching the human colony. I have better things to do.

But I am curious as to what the settlers will decide to do about LaCroix.

And I know this is how it started with some of my fellow Deities. Just keeping an eye on one or two, and then that number turns into one or two hundred.

We haven’t been widely believed in on Earth for centuries. And now here we are again, openly involving ourselves with mortals.

I don’t know whether to smile or hit my head against my throne.

Hera

“Hey, mister!”

Finnian Kerr turned and saw a young boy running to catch up to him. He remembered him-- one of the kids who’d been addicted to baseball games in the Calypso’s park.

“Hey, Ian.”

Ian took in the sight of Finn’s heavy backpack and then looked again at the narrow trail they were on, the trail that led away from the new settlement of Chalet. “Watcha doin’?”

“Going home,” Finn said, turning around and pointing at the mountaintops as he continued to walk. “I live in a valley up there.”

“I thought everyone was settling here.” Ian frowned. “You have a house?”

“Not yet.”

The two of them continued on silently for a moment. Finn wondered for a moment where the boy’s parents were. He’d played baseball with the group of kids on the ship more than once-- partly because the park had been the closest thing the spaceship had to the outdoors-- and he’d had occasion to meet most of their parents. But Ian had always arrived and left alone.

Before he could ask, Ian had stopped. “Hey, look what I found today!”

The little boy carefully pulled a mouse-sized creature out of his jeans pocket. Its skin was red-brown, and when it blinked at them Finn saw that its eyes were a pale aqua-blue. “Can I hold him?” he asked.

Ian nodded, and Finn eased the dry, wrinkled thing from the boy’s hand and carefully touched it. It blinked up at him and mewed.

The Calypso had crashed here over a month ago, and during that time they’d moved belongings off the remains of the ship and into the houses, set up a makeshift hospital, a daycare, a laboratory, and a newspaper office which housed the Calypso’s printing press. They’d also discovered a multitude of animals. This one was a baby qualing, an herbivore that made its home near the river.

“Ian,” he said softly, “I think your little friend needs to go back home.” When the boy stood on his tiptoes to examine the creature, Finn continued. “He’s very weak. I bet when you found him, he could run right up your arm, couldn’t he?”

“Yeah, I almost couldn’t catch him! He ran everywhere, but then I got him when he hid under a rock!”

Finn turned off the path and went to the nearby brook, then slipped the heavy pack off his shoulders and knelt down with his hand to the ground, pushing the little creature off into the mud.

“Hey!” Ian said. “Don’t do that! I wanna keep him!”

“Ian, if you keep him, he’ll die.”

Fascinated in spite of himself, the little boy watched as the qualing started to move. “Look, he’s twitching his nose!”

“See?” Finn said. “He knows he’s home.” He glanced over at Ian, who still looked hesitant. “He’s a wild thing. You don’t even know what to feed him. He needs to stay here-- see the color of his skin?” Finn stuck his hand in the water and sprinkled the creature’s back with a few drops.

“He’s all shiny! Just like a rock!”

“That’s how he hides. He blends in with the rocks so predators won’t see him.”

The small creature rose up on wobbly legs and waddled towards the stream.

“I really want to keep him.”

“I know,” Finn told him. “But I also know you want him to be safe. And if you come back here every day, and if you’re very quiet, I’m sure you’ll see him again.”

Ian grinned. “Ya think?”

“Finnian!”

Both of them looked up. Finn felt a ripple of déjà vu, but quickly shoved it away. There was no reason for--

Then she came around the curve in the brook and he saw her face.

“Hi mom!” Ian said, jumping up and splashing toward the auburn-haired woman.

Finn stood up slowly, and the two adults stared at each other in shock.

“Gen?” he asked, when he finally found his voice.

“Ian, go on home,” she whispered.

“But mom!”

“Now. I’ll be along shortly.”

Ian kicked at a rock and then left, muttering under his breath.

Finn barely heard. It seemed as if everything-- time, the flowing water, even his heart-- had stopped. Geneva didn’t speak; her eyes were filled with tears. Finn swallowed past the lump in his own throat and said, “You’ve got a great kid.” She just nodded, and he went on uncertainly. “You married?”

“Yes. His name is Stephen.”

Silence.

“I can’t believe this!” they both said at the same time.

Finn laughed. “I . . . I never thought I’d see you again.”

“It’s been so long!”

“Fifteen years.”

“I can’t believe this,” she said again.

An awkward moment of silence passed, and then Finn smiled. “Finnian?”

She looked away, then back, and he almost went to her and took her in his arms. Wanted to. Needed to. But a man came splashing down the brook, Ian beside him. Geneva looked over her shoulder and took a nervous step backwards.

Finn watched as the dark-haired man came to her side and put a protective arm around her shoulders. She put her hand on his arm. “Stephen, this is . . . is. . .”

Her eyes darted to her son and Finn realized Stephen had no idea she’d named their little boy after her first lover.

“Finn,” she finally said.

Stephen ignored his outstretched hand. Finn stepped back and tried to fill the silence. “Gen and I grew up together back on Earth.”

Stephen looked from his wife to Finn. “Well. Small universe, isn’t it.”

Finn couldn’t have spoken if he’d wanted to. He just nodded. Then he picked up his pack and shrugged it onto his shoulders. “It was nice seeing you again, Gen.” He almost said, ‘And nice meeting you, Stephen’, but he didn’t think he could pull off a lie of that magnitude. So instead, he turned around and crossed the stream.

He didn’t stop climbing until he reached the point that overlooked the small community. Below him, the brook wound like a long, thin snake between the trees. Geneva and her family were nowhere to be seen.

Stephen shut the door behind him and followed Geneva into the kitchen. Ian hovered uncertainly in the doorway.

“Ian, fetch the wash,” Stephen said, his eyes fixed on his wife’s face.

“Go along now,” Geneva said, smiling and trying to keep the tremor from her voice. She waited until he was outside, then, turning to the sink and opening the water faucet, she began rinsing the breakfast dishes.

Stephen placed his hand on her shoulder. She stiffened, unable to move, her muscles frozen in place. The water, painfully hot, turned her fingers red.

“Look at me.”

His hand grew heavier on her shoulder. She resisted the urge to close her eyes, to run away and hide.

“I’m not stupid,” he continued. “And I’m not happy to find out you named our son after--”

“My best friend, growing up!” she interrupted, turning to face him. “We knew each other since grade school.”

“And that’s all you were? Friends?”

She gripped the counter, willing her legs to hold her up as the memories flooded her mind. After all these years, it still felt like yesterday.

“He . . . he didn’t have a father, and my dad took him under his wing. He was like a brother to me, for God’s sake!”

Stephen frowned, and Geneva stared at her hands, ashamed not of lying, but of the fact she was getting so good at it.

“You’ve been a good wife,” he said quietly. “And a good mother.”

“Of course I have! Stephen, I--”

“I love you. And I don’t want you to see him again.”

“You have to realize, this isn’t an enormous community. We’re bound to bump into one another.”

“Just don’t seek him out. I don’t want him to think he can pick up where he left off. Your life is with me. Do I make myself clear?”

Always. “Yes, Stephen. What do you want for lunch?”

He glanced down at his com unit. “I’ll get something later. The Council meeting about LaCroix is today.”

“I know. I just thought you might like something to eat before we go.”

He frowned. “I don’t want you to defend that man.”

“And I can’t change what I have to say . . . not even for you. I’m sorry.”

“Did you pay attention to anything you’ve learned? LaCroix works for The Agency; he has his entire life! Don’t you know what those people do? They’re liars and killers! Imagine the training he’s had!”

“I’m not stupid. Everyone knows about The Agency. But most of what we ‘know’ is probably rumor, and besides, Simon’s different. He’s not--”

He cut her off with a curt motion. “Not what? You saw the bodies of the aliens. He sliced and diced them!”

“He was trying to save the Calypso! To save us! And what about all those things inside the crystals? If he hadn’t stopped the Neritye, where might we be right now?”

Stephen shook his head. “We don’t know what those crystals are yet. We don’t even know if the things in them are real.”

“Of course they are! The crystals are a kind of stasis container, a . . . a highly evolved test tube of some kind.”

“And how do you know this? A nice long discussion with your friend?”

Geneva sighed. “Don’t be like this.”

“Like what?”

“Difficult.” Jealous.

“I just wanted you to be careful. And you wouldn’t listen, and look where you ended up because of it! He could’ve killed you! You shouldn’t have been spending time with him at all.”

Her eyes hardened. “For the last time, you have no right to tell me who I can or cannot spend time with.”

“I’m your husband; I have every right. And besides, you were putting your life in danger. Do you want Ian to grow up motherless?”

“Of course not, I--”

“You’re lying. Again. When the Neritye attacked the Calypso, you were in that damned laboratory of yours. And your son was alone, probably terrified--”

“And where were you? With the other Council members?”

“That isn’t the point. Ian is your responsibility, and--”

“Wrong. Ian is our son. And I can’t spend every moment of the day with him in case of emergency. He has the number for my com unit if anything happens.”

“Let me tell you something. My work is important, and I can’t be expected to drop it just because you aren’t responsible enough to take proper care of Ian.”

There’d been a time when she would’ve responded to his obvious plea for her to acknowledge how necessary he was, a time when she would’ve immediately tried to soothe away the glare on his face.

But that time was all but gone.

“Stephen, I know your work’s also important, so stop trying to get me to stroke your ego.”

He shoved her away from him, and she managed to catch her balance on the end of the table. She clenched her fists, ready for the verbal argument to turn into something else-- again.

But instead, he just left the house, making Geneva wince when he slammed the door.

She turned back to the dishes and immersed her hands in the basin of water, remembering.

It had been August 13, 2185. She’d been in the Neritye ship, examining the blue stasis crystals, when she’d heard conversation. . . .

“But no one’s ever taken it out before.”

“Then that just proves the age-old adage, Lt. Dessereau-- there’s a first time for everything. Now, if you’ll please leave, I can begin my studies.”

“Studies?”

“I’m researching what effect weightlessness will have on the crystals.”

“Okay. But I’m notifying the Leader.”

Even now, she wasn’t sure why she hadn’t said something to Simon immediately. After all, she’d been working with him ever since they’d boarded the Calypso, and despite her husband’s intense dislike of him, she trusted him.

But the next things she heard proved that, for once, her spouse’s jealous mutterings were well founded.

A voice on the small com unit that had been installed at the front of the ship. “Neritye Bird, this is Calypso Tower. Bay doors opening in sixty seconds.”

Simon, answering it. “Calypso, we’re ready to fly.”

Then silence, as Simon piloted the black, triangular ship into space. But less than a minute later, the com crackled to life again. Geneva recognized the voice as that of their Leader, Courtland Bates.

“LaCroix! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Courtland’s voice resounded through out the room, making Geneva wince. She’d never heard him sound so angry. “I demand you return to the shuttle bay immediately!”

She heard a loud snap, and peered carefully out of the crystal room to see Simon grind the com unit beneath his heel. “Or what?” he muttered.

She ducked back out of sight, her fists clenched, eyes shut tightly against the angry tears.

Then she was thrown sideways as Simon put the ship through evasive maneuvers. She held her breath, praying he hadn’t heard her hit the floor. Sliding on her stomach to the center of the room, she wrapped her arms around the workstation desk legs, bracing her feet against a cabinet, every muscle in her body working to keep herself in place.

She had to do something. She looked around for anything she could use to stop him. Her eyes focused on the panel in the floor that led to the ship’s tiny engine room.

Less than ten minutes later, she confronted him. He’d figured out there was someone else on the ship-- the alarm sirens indicating the disintegrating cloaking shield, failing life support systems, and overheating particle core accelerators had left him little choice but to acknowledge sabotage.

He tried once again to cloak the ship and get away from the pursuing Calypso, but was just presented with an alien error message. From five feet behind him, she spoke as he began to swear.

“You might as well go back.”

Simon spun around, examining her coldly. “Why am I not surprised?” He stepped forward. She forced herself to stay still, her hands both fisted-- one at her side, one behind her back. “Fix it!” he hissed.

“I can’t. Give up, Simon. Turn around.”

“I said, fix it.” Each word brought him a step closer, and then the barrel of his lazer pistol was pressed tight against the bridge of her nose.

The hand behind her back came around then, her fingers wrapped firmly around a stylus aimed directly at his chest.

He caught the blow in the underside of his arm. The pointed end of the pen punctured the soft flesh beneath his wrist and dangled there. He shook it away and grabbed her around the neck. The other hand still tight on the gun, he pressed her against the wall. He was smiling, the expression not the wry, amused one she had grown used to, but something out of a nightmare.

His grip tightening, he leaned close until his lips brushed her ear. “I’m sorry, but I haven’t got time to play.” He released her then, and she collapsed, gasping.

He turned away to go back to the controls, and she struggled to her feet-- and then they were yanked back towards the Calypso, unbelievably fast, and everything seemed to freeze for a few seconds--

Geneva closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. When she’d looked out the view screen again, she’d seen a planet, where before there had been only darkness. And Simon had been fighting with the controls, but everything had refused to work.

He turned to look back at her as the small vessel careened toward the planet’s surface, a lock of dark hair falling across his forehead and standing out against his pale skin. “If you don’t fix what you’ve done, Gen, I won’t have to hurt you.”

She could still hear those words, his voice, in her mind. Still feel the overwhelming panic that had swamped her when she’d seen the Calypso off to their right, seemingly as out of control as their own vessel; knowing that her child was on that ship, and she could do nothing to help him. Nothing to help any of them.

She’d raced for the engine room, hoping to repair what she’d done. She’d lost her footing at the bottom of the ladder, had heard Simon shouting for her to hurry, and then an explosion of sound and light had knocked her to the floor again, and everything had stopped. . . .

Geneva walked to the door, firmly pushing the memories out of her mind. She wasn’t there anymore, wasn’t in the midst of the panic and frustration and worry. She knew what had happened next. The Calypso had miraculously landed safely. The Neritye ship had landed in a lake, and she and Simon had waited two weeks for the rescue shuttle. The crash had deprived Simon of his memory, and worry over Ian had deprived Geneva of at least ten years of her life, but everything had turned out all right. Basically.

Because today, Simon LaCroix would stand trial for a crime he couldn’t remember committing.

Everyone but Courtland Bates, their Leader, was seated. “Simon Therrien LaCroix,” he said. “You stand accused of hijacking the captured Neritye vessel and kidnapping a New Worlds Cult scientist. How do you plead?”

A guard helped Simon to his feet. “I can plead neither guilty nor innocent,” he said. “I have no memory of my life before these past weeks.”

“You must enter a plea.”

“Innocent, then.”

“The Council calls Geneva Anthony.”

She walked up to the podium, her shoulders hunched in slightly, the anxiety pouring off her in waves.

Courtland took his seat then, as Stephen got up to stand in front of her. “Mrs. Anthony, please tell us how you came to stop Simon LaCroix from succeeding in his mission to steal the Neritye ship.”

“I was studying the crystals when I heard Simon and Lt. Dessereau talking about Simon taking the ship out to run some tests. I hadn’t heard anything about these tests, so I stayed quiet. And then Simon passed the regulated perimeters and I heard our Leader telling him to stop. He didn’t, and I went below and tampered with anything I could. When I went back up, Simon told me to fix what I’d done. I didn’t.”

She glanced toward Simon then, her look almost apologetic, as Stephen continued.

“And this is when you realized why Mr. LaCroix had been spending so much time on the Neritye vessel . . . he was planning how and when to steal it?” Ignoring her indignant look, he went on. “Tell the Council what happened after that.”

“I told him to turn around, but he refused.”

“What happened then?”

Geneva glared at him. “You know what happened. We all got transported here somehow, and then we crashed.”

She glanced down, tears welling in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “If I hadn’t tried to stop him, we’d all be home by now.”

“What makes you say that, Mrs. Anthony?”

“Because maybe the Neritye vessel wouldn’t have crashed. If we’d been all right, Simon and I could’ve gone for help.”

“You believe he would’ve agreed to that?”

Geneva heard the sarcasm in his voice, and didn’t care. Let him think what he wanted-- regardless of Simon’s actions, surely he hadn’t been faking everything he’d said and done during the time she’d known him. Although a hysterical little voice in her head was yelling that the last time she’d believed in the good she’d ended up with an abusive husband, she regarded Stephen calmly. Little voice or not, she knew what she knew.

“Yes.”

Stephen stared at her for a moment. She tried to return his gaze, staring back defiantly, but she was the one who dropped her eyes first.

Her husband went on. “Tell the Council how you met Mr. LaCroix.”

Geneva’s eyes darted to the rest of the Council members. But of course they didn’t know, couldn’t know, why Stephen wanted this information. “I met him immediately after we boarded the Calypso. We were colleagues.”

“And this ‘working’ led to a friendship with him? A very close friendship?”

“I . . . it wasn’t-- no!” she stammered. Oh, why couldn’t she do this right? A man’s life hinged on her ability to not let Stephen twist her words.

“It was a casual acquaintance, then?” he pressed. “Even though you spent more time than was necessary with him, especially once we captured the Neritye ship and discovered the stasis crystals?”

“Stephen, what exactly are you asking me?”

Before her husband could answer, Courtland spoke. “Stephen, Mrs. Anthony is not on trial. As difficult as this may be, please refrain from questions of a personal nature. Get to the point.”

Stephen nodded and then turned to her again, and Geneva eyed him warily.

“Mrs. Anthony, please confirm these facts: You met Mr. LaCroix on the Calypso. He wormed his way into your good graces. What he didn’t tell you was that he’s a member of The Agency, trained in the deadly arts. Here solely for the purpose of stealing whatever information we happened to get about alien life forms. If it hadn’t been for the Neritye attack and our subsequent crash, he would’ve collected specimens off whatever planet we chose as home and then taken the Calypso itself, leaving us all stranded!”

Geneva looked around, trying not to panic as she heard several people around the room murmur what sounded horribly like assents. “I was . . . misled, yes, but that doesn’t mean he--” She cleared her throat and went on, louder. They had to understand. “This has nothing to do with the fact that Simon’s memory was lost during the crash. You cannot punish a man for something he has no memory of doing!”

Stephen ignored that, and Courtland spoke. “The Council is now adjourned for deliberations.”

When they returned to the room less than an hour later, Courtland read the sentence.

“Simon Therrien LaCroix, this Council has found you guilty. For your crimes, we sentence you to exile 300 miles from our new settlement. If you choose to come back, you have three months in which to do so; the exile becomes permanent if you do not return by the first day of 2186. And if you do return, any further transgressions will be punishable by death.”

“Mom?”

Geneva sat down on the edge of the bed. “Yes, Ian?”

“That man this morning-- is his name really Finnian, just like mine?”

Geneva paused, her head cocked toward the door. No sound of movement, and no shadow falling into the doorway. “Yes.” She pulled the covers up to his chin.

“Dad said you used to know him when you were just a girl.”

“Did he now? What else did he say?”

“He said he was a bad man and I’m never, ever supposed to talk to him.”

Geneva cleared her throat, feeling the beginnings of a headache.

“Is he bad, Mother? Like that Simon LaCroix?”

Oh, Stephen, Geneva thought. “Simon isn’t a bad man, Ian. He just made a bad mistake.”

“Yeah, and dad told me the Council really got him today! For stealing that ship and . . . and for kidnapping you,” Ian said quietly. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

“I am, too,” she said, wishing he were old enough to hear the full story. Starting with how Simon had been the one to keep them alive while they waited for rescue. . . .

She snapped out of her thoughts when Ian sat up in bed.

“Is Simon your friend?”

“Yes.”

Ian frowned. “And Dad told you to stay away from him, didn’t he? Just like he told me to stay away from Finn.”

Ian wasn’t old enough to hear all of that story either . . . how Stephen’s jealousy kept her away from all but a scant few female friends, and sometimes he even cut her off from them, if he fell into one of his moods. She was going to deal with that someday but, for now, his petty games were going to stop affecting her child.

“I don’t have to stay away from Finn, do I?”

The smile on her face spoke silently over her stern tone. “Ian, I’m not saying a word about all this. Do you understand?” She winked then, and Ian grinned at her.

“Thanks! And don’t worry, I won’t tell dad. I’m real good at keeping secrets.”

Something he’d inherited from her. She smiled ruefully, then ruffled his hair. “Now go to sleep, okay?”

“Okay. Goodnight, mom.”

This is what you wanted. This is how you always imagined it would be.

Finn sat, his bare back warming in the sun, his toes wet from the mist of the tumbling waterfall. From his perch on the edge of the rock he could see forever laid out in front of him and, with a turn of his head, home.

It was a perfect place.

The trees whispered their agreement and he let his gaze fall back to the earth’s surface. His eyes rode on the cascading blue stream, gliding over the bubbling pool beneath his feet and down again. He picked out the line of water and followed it down the mountain, where it erupted into a proud, straight staff of tumbling water before winding amidst the multicolored trees that lined the edge of the top chalet.

It hadn’t taken them long to clean out the abandoned buildings and take up residence in the village. They’d christened the planet Storybook and begun to make it their home. It was amazing how adaptable people were, Finn thought, how they could put down roots almost anywhere.

From his position, the citizens of the town looked like ants, scurrying here and there, carrying their loads, working together to build a community. Sometimes he liked to watch them, other times he scoffed and turned back to his own small lean-to.

But it’s no good anymore, Finn thought. Not with Geneva down there with, contrary to their teenage plans, a husband who wasn’t him.

A movement caught his eye and there on the slope came Ian, frequent visitor, unwelcome guest.

“Hi!” the boy yelled, before Finn could disappear into the forest. He wanted to yell back. He wanted to shout, ‘there should be a Kerr at the end of your name!’ He remained silent.

“How’d ya get up there?” Ian asked, his chin thrust high as he scanned the surface of the vertical rock.

“I climbed.”

Ian shrugged and started to climb up himself.

“Careful!” Finn stood up and quickly moved down around the side of the bank. “Here,” he said, motioning Ian to the left. “This way. There’s a path.” He leaned forward, grabbed the little boy’s hand, and pulled him up beside him.

Ian beamed, and then immediately started to chatter. “Some of the other kids are at a burial service for a lady named Sherri. I didn’t know her, so mom said I could stay home, but she and dad are there. You’re not there, so I guess you didn’t know her either.”

“Sherri who?”

“Dunno. But apparently she was at the flower field near the ocean and the smell from one of the flowers killed her. So, where are we going?”

Finn rolled his eyes. “You’ve got to stop coming up here!” he grumbled. He turned his back on the silence that followed and went several paces before stopping, ashamed.

Ian had collapsed on the ground, face in his hands.

“Criminy!” Finn said and went back to the boy. “I’m sorry,” he said, his shadow falling across the little heap of misery.

“You don’t like me!”

“Yes, I do.”

“You don’t want me around.”

“Ian, look at me. I enjoy your company. But it’s dangerous for little kids to be this far away from home. We don’t know about everything that’s out here yet.” And the abbreviated story he’d just told him about this ‘Sherri’ only proved the point.

“I’m not little! I’m almost nine!”

“Does your mother know you come up here every day?”

“It’s not dangerous.”

“The climb up is steep. What if you fell and got hurt?”

“I’m a good climber.”

“Yes, you are. But even good climbers get hurt sometimes.” He knew that far too well. “You should always have a partner. No one should climb alone.”

“You do.”

He opened his mouth to explain. Couldn’t.

Ian jumped to his feet. “I know! I’ll be your partner!”

“No.”

“I will, too. I’m gonna keep coming back till you say yes. Till you promise you’ll teach me how to climb up there!” He turned and pointed to the peaks far above them.

Finn smiled at the boy’s enthusiasm. “I think you’d need to start on the smaller slopes.”

“So you’ll teach me?”

Oops. “I didn’t say that.”

“But you will, won’t you? I know you will!” He threw his arms around Finn’s waist and hugged him tight.

Finn closed his eyes and patted the boy’s back. “Only if it’s okay with your mom,” he managed, finally.

Finn walked to the jutting edge of rock that Ian had dubbed ‘Look Out Point’, and stared down the mountain. The boy was late. He was never late. Ian had come up here for a few hours every day since Finn had agreed to teach him to climb.

Today he had something special waiting; he’d altered one of his climbing harnesses to fit Ian’s small frame.

He watched the narrow path for a moment longer and then went back to his lean-to. He hung the harness on the wall, smoothed out his bedroll, and grabbed two empty water jugs. Then he made his way to the brook that ran through the narrow plateau, trying not to worry. Ian had probably just found someone his own age to play with. Or maybe Stephen had taken him someplace. From the sound of the boy’s comments sometimes, that was highly unlikely, but maybe.

He was halfway back, sweating from the exertion of carrying the heavy containers, when he saw her sitting on the rock outside his door.

He stopped, a sense of déjà vu momentarily transporting him back in time. She was a little bigger in the breast and hip than she had been at seventeen, but her hair was the same, hanging loosely over her shoulders. She had on sandals, and a dark yellow blouse and brown slacks. He started forward before she could turn and catch him staring.

She heard him coming and rose from her seat.

“Hi, Gen,” Finn said, as if it were perfectly normal for her to be there. He put the jugs down beside the lean-to.

“I . . . I just came to tell you that Ian has a fever. Nothing serious, so don’t worry, but he’s in bed just in case. He wouldn’t give me a moment’s peace until I promised to find you and tell you why he wasn’t coming.”

“Thanks.”

They were silent for a moment, and then Finn spoke again. “I have something for Ian.” He ducked inside the lean-to to get the harness and then stuck his head back out the door. “You can come in, you know. It’s not much, but it’s home.”

He was standing at the back wall when he felt her behind him. The room was small. Three plastic containers were stacked against one side. His clothing hung from branches on another. His bedroll lay on a mattress of soft ever-yellow needles at their feet. Geneva was staring at it.

The harness fell from Finn’s fingers as he moved closer to her. Her eyes rose as far as his mouth. He put his hands on her shoulders and examined her face, saw the flush in her cheeks, stared into her eyes. He reached up and moved her hair behind her ear, the gesture a familiar one from years ago.

Geneva’s breath hitched. His eyes were devouring her, comparing the old images in his memory with the one standing before him. She knew what he was doing because she was doing it, too, hadn’t been able to before with Stephen by her side.

He was the same, but different. Smaller. No, she was bigger. She had grown taller, while he had stayed the same height. Finn’s hair had always needed cutting, that hadn’t changed. It was still the same light-brown color of wet sand that she remembered. His face was Finn’s face, too, but the jaw squarer, the forehead broader, the cheekbones higher. His eyes . . . they hadn’t changed at all. She watched him, consciously holding herself still when all she wanted to do was wrap her arms around him.

The loud call of a glider raked the air and the moment passed. Geneva stepped back, out of his reach. “We . . . we don’t even know each other.”

“We loved each other.”

She shook her head. “We didn’t know what love was. We were just kids!” If she could just convince him of that, then maybe she could believe it herself.

“I never forgot you. Look.” He pulled a ratty wallet from his back pocket. He flicked it open and showed her a worn photograph, a picture of the two of them on a raft at Eagle Lake.

Geneva stared at the picture for a moment, remembering that day again . . . as she had so many times over the past several years. She had a copy of that photograph as well, only hers was hidden at the very back of a dresser drawer. She had had to keep it secret, if Stephen ever saw it. . .

“I have to go,” she said, picking up the small harness, realizing and hating the fact that nothing good could come from this. She ran from the lean-to, leaving him staring after her.

“Ian!” Finn said. “Slow down. What are you talking about?” He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and squatted until he was at his eye level.

Ian wiped the back of his hand across his runny nose. “They’re fighting again. About leaving Chalet. And I’m not going! I’m gonna stay here with you. Please, Finn, let me stay here!”

Finn stood up. “Wait in the lean-to, okay? I’m going to go talk to your mother.”

“Gen!”

She shut the door behind her quickly as Finn strode into their small yard. She’d been planning to go to the laboratory, try to forget about the fighting for a time. “You can’t be here now! Stephen is home!” She grabbed him and turned him around, pushing him back toward the gate.

Finn planted his feet and stopped. “I don’t care. What’s going on? Ian told me you’re leaving Chalet.”

“Where is he?”

“At the lean-to.”

She hurried out into the dirt lane. Finn followed. “What happened? Ian said you were fighting. Did he hurt you? I swear, if he hurt you--”

“He would never do that.”

Before she could confess the lie she’d just told, she swallowed hard and turned away. She couldn’t mess this up. She wouldn’t see someone she cared about get hurt, not because of a mistake she’d made ten years ago by saying ‘I do’.

She took a deep breath. She had to get rid of Finn, and fast. Stephen was watching her every move. He’d followed her yesterday when she’d gone to tell Finn why Ian wouldn’t be climbing with him, and they’d been up all night arguing. She unconsciously rubbed her arm, wincing inwardly as she touched the bruise Stephen had given her.

“You don’t get it,” she said, turning back to him, eyes and voice cold. “It’s not Stephen’s idea to leave Chalet. It’s mine. Listen carefully. What almost happened yesterday was wrong. I’m a married woman. And I put our memories to rest a long time ago. You should do the same.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Yes, Finn, I do. I’ve kept up with you over the years, you know. I know about all those mountains you climbed.” She remembered the things she’d read, the articles about all the expeditions. Her heart had thrilled for him. Now it was breaking.

“You knew where I was and you never tried to get in touch with me?”

“No, I didn’t. Because I didn’t want to. And I don’t want you in my life again now.”

Finn couldn’t listen anymore. He took a step backwards. It was hard for him to speak, but he did. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “You don’t have to leave. I’ll go.”

When he was out of sight, Geneva sagged against the fence rail, holding onto the thin wooden bars tightly. It took everything inside her to stop herself from running after him.

And then Stephen was beside her, his hands beneath her elbows, guiding her back toward the house. “Well,” he said. “You’ve finally done something I approve of.”