Author's Preface
Asheville, North Carolina.
September 26th, 2025.
1:01 P.M.
The next day—everything was relatively peaceful until Amory found himself in the passenger seat of a stranger’s car, riding into the city of Asheville.
Feeling refreshed, well-rested, and perfectly safe and sound after waking up on his big, comfortable bed in the manor—he’d spent much of the day exploring the place, peeking into the rooms and wandering across the property in the back, scanning over everything and planning out all the fun things he’d do in the future. During that time, Aravali and Elaine were discussing their own plans in the checkerboard room, deciding they would label every bedroom with the name of whomever had claimed it, and they’d resume individual patient treatment once everyone was settled in. Xena had driven off to work—and Mikey secretly called an Uber ride into town, returning about an hour later with precisely what he had promised, a printed-out blueprint of a First Citizens Bank in Asheville.
After that—Mikey called another Uber to the manor, a sleek and silver SUV pulling up to the property, and Amory, Crowe, and Raven all climbed inside, the boy standing on the porch and waving them off when the vehicle cruised away.
Throughout this long car ride that took them out of Mapleview and down the interstate, Amory felt rather uneasy about the idea of Mikey simply summoning a stranger with his phone for a ride to a bank robbery, but Crowe and Raven seemed oddly comfortable with it.
In fact, when the ride first began, Crowe began searching around the back seat, finding no refreshments, no snacks, and no tablets to play with, as this Uber driver was apparently less generous than the previous one he’d experienced. It was a nice guy—a young twenty-something who didn’t talk much—but Crowe sighed and folded his arms when he realized that no free foods and drinks would be had this time.
Throughout the long trip, everyone rarely spoke, Amory merely resting his head on the passenger window and watching the trees whizz past, feeling steadily more anxious as time carried on. The three of them had left the manor without telling anyone—not giving any notice to Aravali, Elaine, Iggy, or Zyon—and they were heading off to a city in order to do something wildly illegal and dangerous, which they couldn’t tell anyone about. Sneaking around, keeping secrets, and breaking the law were all fairly out of his comfort zone.
The longer the car ride became, the more Amory began to suspect that he’d accidentally fallen into an old childhood habit of his without meaning to—allowing Crowe to talk him into doing something rebellious and risky that he wouldn’t ordinarily do.
Still, it wasn’t as if he was wrong; they all ended up living in a new home and in a new world rather suddenly, and it was important that they garner a means of making a living and solidifying their supernatural safe house somehow. As of now, this seemed the only sure way.
The sandy-haired driver soon turned off of the interstate, and before long, they became surrounded by closer-knit traffic and regular buildings, the occasional pile of fallen trees visible in the nearby fields and on the distant hillsides, debris that had long since been collected and removed from the streets and parking lots after the hurricane had struck here.
“M’kay… this says you’re going to… Addissae Ethiopian Restaurant?” the driver uttered, breaking the silence after a long while and squinting at his smartphone, which was mounted on his dash. “You’re going a long way out just to go to lunch.”
Amory barely seemed to hear him, still just gazing outside. In the back seat, Crowe almost replied and stopped, turning to Raven and giving her a strange look.
“That’s down the road from the bank,” Raven whispered over to him. “Mikey said we shouldn’t take the Uber directly there.”
“Oooh,” Crowe breathed and nodded, then faced the front again. “Yeah, mate, sorry… we’ve just got a thing for Ethiopian foods. I guess.”
“Oh… don’t be sorry at all,” the driver laughed. “Good money for me.”
Amory still didn’t speak, and wasn’t interested in doing so. He couldn’t help but feel more nervous about the endeavors ahead than his friend or his sister.
After all, Crowe and Raven had been traveling the outside world for a long time, but for Amory, he’d only really been outside of the lab for a couple of days now—not to mention, he was in a completely new time period, and he was on his way to a city that was totally alien to him. He wasn’t used to breaking the law like Crowe, and he wasn’t well-traveled like Raven. Everything they were doing now simply felt wrong and unnerving to him.
“I don’t see why we needed to call a ride in the first place, to be honest,” Crowe murmured quietly to Raven. “Since we have Amory to zap us around and all…”
“He can’t zap us there because he’s never been there,” Raven replied in a hushed tone. “He has to know where he’s going to do that. That’s why we needed a ride there , but we don’t need to worry about a ride home .”
Crowe made a thoughtful face, then nodded again. “Ahhh, right, I getcha…”
Amory sighed stressfully, resting his head back against the seat and gently closing his eyes, trying to calm himself and allow his mind to wander elsewhere. He let all the anxious thoughts of the here and now fade away, pondering instead on pleasant and calming things, like climbing the big tree behind the manor, or sharing pizza with everyone, or seeing Xena laugh…
He remained lost to these nice moments in his mind, feeling more at ease, and drifting into a brief, light sleep…
Suddenly—a dark scene flashed through his mind and shattered his nice thoughts out of nowhere—a vision of a child screaming in a rage, being dragged into an apartment by an adult as a second child wailed and pleaded for them to stop—another vison of two lost boys crying and holding one another in an open field of tall grass—a third boy—blood red eyes—
Amory gasped—his eyes snapping back open.
He sat straighter upright in his seat, glancing around, still in the passenger seat of the SUV as they rolled peacefully through Asheville. Nothing at all seemed out of the ordinary, or even slightly different from moments ago.
For a long while, he merely sat in silence, glaring down at his lap, his heart now pounding, racking his brain and trying to determine where the horrid visons had come from.
Then, a thought occurred to him—a memory of something that Iggy had told him when he first crossed the gateway into Moonvale. Iggy once remarked that Amory, unlike most others from Canterbury, never really harbored any dreams or visions of the future, namely because Amory’s dreams were uniquely occupied by something else, Zyon the angel.
Now, however, Amory knew Zyon more in his waking life than in his dream world.
So—perhaps he was starting to have the same types of visions that Crowe and Raven did.
Amory glanced over at the driver, then back at Crowe and Raven, who were each staring out their respective windows, not having noticed a thing.
Then, Amory faced forward again, sighing deeply, clasping his hands together atop his lap, and closing his eyes, lowering his head and silently praying for an answer.
He couldn’t know what any of the rapid, unclear visions meant—but he knew who usually had the answers when Amory himself did not.
And many miles away—back in Mapleview—Zyon lay asleep in the far corner bedroom on the second floor of the manor, resting on his back on top of the dark blue comforters on the bed that he had claimed, still fairly exhausted from everything he had done the day before. Still, even amidst his sleep, he seemed to respond, his brow hardening, and his mind awakening.
Amory lost himself to the prayer, completely unaware of the car ride he was a part of, the driver beside him, the sunlight outside, the buildings of Asheville around him, or anything else nearby; his mind simply reached, calling to Zyon, and clinging onto the visions, trying his very best not to forget them, and pushing, nudging, urging the imagery he’d seen to travel beyond him.
Zyon lay still in the dark, grimacing slightly in his sleep—and he saw them as well, the visions of the children in distress, the angry girl dragged into the apartment, the crying and pleading girl, and the two boys in the field.
Amory gnawed his bottom lip, somehow feeling certain that he’d shown the visions to the angel.
What do they mean? he wondered insistently.
He sat still, quiet, and patient, waiting for a response.
Then—he heard, from the deepest and quietest parts of the back of his mind, the answer to his question, in the form of a soft, gentle rasp.
Children of Time.
Amory’s eyes drifted back open, now returning to the sunlight, the buildings around him, and everything else. He stared ahead, gazing downward and feeling a grave, festering knot forming deep inside him.
Yes—whoever had been zapped out of Canterbury, the children who’d been sent through time in the final moments of the lab, the people Zyon felt insistent that they rescue—those were the people who’d just flashed through his mind moments ago.
Amory’s eyes traveled up to the windshield, glaring out at the road ahead and feeling a sudden spark of determination inside.
He knew that more people were in danger of Canterbury—but he’d never met them, never seen them, never known them at all.
Now, however—he felt he knew them, or at least, he knew more than enough to feel convicted to help them.
Something about seeing children in such despair simply did not set right with him at all.
Strangely, the idea of apprehending money from a bank didn’t feel so wrong anymore—it simply felt necessary.
Before long, the SUV pulled off to the curb and stopped in front of a red building, one with a long tan sign out front reading ADDISSAE, the letters colored with fades of green, yellow, and red. The vehicle parked alongside the front of the restaurant, just beside its only front window, and they were able to see people seated and enjoying their lunches inside.
“All right… here ya’ go,” the driver said. “You guys have a good day.”
“You too, mate,” Crowe replied, he and Raven opening the back doors while Amory stepped out from the passenger side.
All three of them swung the doors shut, and they watched as the SUV pulled away, driving down the road and steadily vanishing from view.
Amory folded his arms, Raven glancing up at the small, secluded restaurant. Crowe pocketed his hands, wheeling around and surveying the front of the place as well. Then, he turned again, his eyes scanning across the street and the buildings nearby, his gaze then landing on a single building in the distance—the large, light manila building just down the road, a sign posted up nearby it, colored red white and blue, reading FIRST CITIZENS BANK.
The three of them exchanged glances, then began marching down the sidewalk towards it with Crowe in the lead.
“Okay… I asked you this more than once before we left, and you still haven’t answered me,” Raven griped, smacking Crowe on the arm as they walked. “How are we supposed to just carry all this money off? We don’t have any bags or anything.”
“Simple. We’re not,” Crowe replied swiftly. “Amory can zap us all home—and he can zap all that money home with us. We’re gonna stack it all in a pile, and he’s gonna have one hand on the pile and the other hand on us. Then abracadabra, alakazam. Off we go.”
“Yeah… okay… um… the closer we get to actually doing this, the less sure I feel that I can,” Amory remarked as they strolled across the street.
“Whaddoya mean? You’ve done it before,” Crowe responded. “How d’you explain you teleporting and time-jumping all over the place without ever ending up naked? Hm?”
Amory and Raven skidded to a stop on the sidewalk and turned around, both of them ogling their friend bizarrely.
Crowe sighed and gestured up and down Amory. “Look—you can zap around and teleport, right? But you never end up naked when you get to your destination—meaning you can teleport around with some other items tagging along for the ride. You also took Zyon with you into the year 2025 when you broke out of Canterbury, and you zapped Ari away from the King’s Place, too. So yeah—you should be able to zap some money and some friends away whenever it’s time for us to leave.”
Amory and Raven were quiet for a second, turning and sharing an odd look with one another.
“A bunch of free money’s at stake… and suddenly, he’s Rain Man,” Raven snickered.
Amory choked out a laugh.
“Well—I’m not wrong , am I?” Crowe snarked. “I have actually thought this through , y’know.”
“Okay… but that’s not the part I was talking about,” Amory replied. “I could zap us all out and back to Evervale Manor, no problem… but I’m not really sure I can just zap us in there.”
Crowe shot him a double-take, jutting his arms open questioningly at him. “And why not?! Mikey got you the blueprints! They’re in your pocket! You should know where you’re bloody well aiming at now!”
“Yeah… but it’s a risk , Crowe, look,” Amory insisted, pulling out the printed sheet of paper and unfolding it, showing the blueprints to both of them. “This area down below, right here… where Mikey marked it with a red X… that’s supposed to be the vault area, but do you see a problem with this? It’s just a basic layout. It’s a big empty rectangle on the page, and nothing else. It doesn’t show us where any safes, or boxes, or shelves, or pillars, or anything else might be.”
“Oooh,” Raven breathed, now understanding. “Yeah, okay, I see the problem… you could accidentally teleport us into a wall or a shelf or something…”
“Yes,” Amory affirmed with a nod, stuffing the paper back into his pocket again. “We could all end up getting split apart by a piece of the building that we don’t even know is there if we pop up in the wrong place down there.”
Crowe went stony-faced, saying nothing and turning on his heel atop the sidewalk, staring directly at the bank building. It had two small trees out front, colored red and orange as leaves fluttered down, and there weren’t many cars in the parking lot as of now.
“All right,” Crowe said definitively. “Then we’re gonna do this the old-fashioned way.”
Amory raised his brows at him. “Meaning…?”
“Meaning we just storm in and take it,” Crowe stated. “Just like any ol’ robber from our time.”
“Yeah… but this time has cameras everywhere, remember?” Raven uttered. “They have way better security now. They’re prepared for people like us.”
“No. They’re prepared for regular bank-robbers,” Crowe corrected, beginning a slow stride toward the building. “ Nobody is prepared for us .”
He stepped onto the parking lot with the other two close behind, slowing to a stop and surveying the building from a clearer view. His eyes jumped from one camera on the corner to the next, and then, he turned around, giving each of his friends a serious look.
“All the power and all the cameras here need to die all at once,” Crowe said firmly.
“And then…?” Amory asked.
“Then…” Crowe uttered, facing the building once more. “There won’t be anything for the cops to go on… except a handful of witnesses who nobody’s gonna believe.”
At that, he slowly raised his hand, focusing very intently on the building before him.
Amory and Raven traded eyes before doing just the same.
All three of them harnessed their power best they could, glaring at the bank intensely—Raven now breathing heavily and feeling a bit queasy, her expression hardening, a single teardrop of red forming in the corner of Crowe’s eye, and a gentle spiral of light swimming around Amory’s irises.
Suddenly—every light in the facility shut off with a loud BOOM, the small white camera sparking and flying off the corner of the building, the camera opposite it doing much the same—and every speaker in the building began to spark with static, just after the power had seemingly shut off in entirety.
A trickle of blood traveled down Crowe’s face, and he lowered his hand, marching toward the glass double-doors. Amory and Raven followed him—and as they drew nearer, they heard a familiar song echoing from inside.
When they pushed the doors open, they found themselves in a wide, spacious lobby that was mostly empty, the light off, and the room looking eerily dim, aside from the areas lit by the sunlight that bled in through the windows. A young blonde woman was behind one of the kiosks, glancing around at the computers and seeing that they had all gone dark as well, her expression etched with confusion.
As the trio entered the lobby, the song playing from the speakers was unmistakable now; it was Ozzy Osbourne’s Shot in the Dark .
Amory made a Raven, swapping looks with Raven. Then, they both turned to Crowe, who stood beside them with pocketed hands, another tear of blood traveling down his cheek.
“What?” he muttered, spotting their lingering gaze.
“Really?” Raven asked, swatting up at the nearest speaker. “You have to have a music montage while we do this…?”
“Yeah,” Crowe grumped. “Obviously.”
“And it has to be this song?” Raven inquired. “You remember what happened the last time this song came on? I don’t think it’s really a good luck charm for us.”
“Well—that’s exactly why I wanna play it now,” Crowe griped at her. “I don’t wanna associate it with that—I wanna associate it with good things. Or victorious things. Y’know—anything except what happened before. I don’t want one of my favorite songs ruined for me, all right?”
“Crowe,” Amory said, his eyes landing on the large door in the corner of the lobby room. “Raven… stop arguing, please.”
He began to march forward, Crowe and Raven glimpsing at each other before following suit.
Amory approached the thick metal door, pulling out his folded paper and scanning over it briefly before stuffing it away again. Then—he held out his hand and reeled his arm back in a quick motion—the giant door suddenly launching outward and ripping away from its frame with a loud, jarring noise.
The blonde in the kiosk screamed and ducked behind her counter—a man in a nearby office leaping out of his skin and scrambling to hide under his desk.
The trio marched into the giant doorway—and they found themselves in a narrow hall, cameras high on the ceiling. The cameras had no lights on, nothing to indicate they were working now—but Crowe and Raven whipped their arms out and tore them off of their mounts regardless, strolling past them and paying them no mind as they hit the floor and broke.
Amory stopped and turned—staring down a narrow metal stairway that led down to the vault. However—two men in dark uniforms stood at the bottom of the stairs, both armed with rifles, and both of them now raising their guns.
Raven moved to raise her hand—and Crowe took a step forward—but Amory spread his arms out in front of both of them, nudging them back and gesturing for them not to act.
“Freeze!” the taller of the two security guards yelled up at them. “We have the full authority to open fire on anyone who tries to force their way in here. If you take a single step closer—we will shoot you! This is your only warning!”
Amory gazed down at them expressionlessly, eyes shimmering with a glint of blue light.
He made a faint finger motion with either hand—
And both of the rifles were ripped harshly off of the guards—the straps snapping, and their bodies staggering, each of them nearly falling over as the guns whizzed up the stairs, carried by a force unseen.
Crowe caught one of the rifles—and Raven caught the other, each of them marveling at their new toys and smirking at one another.
“Now this is your only warning,” Amory told the guards in a soft, melodic voice. “I don’t wanna hurt anybody… I really don’t… but I don’t think my friends care half as much as I do.”
The guards gaped up at him, exchanging mortified looks with each other.
Then, one of them reached down to his hip at his handgun—
“Whoooa, big man—whatcha doing?!” Crowe laughed—nodding upright and sending the handgun soaring out of its holster and flying up the stairs.
With the rifle propped on his shoulder—Crowe reached his free hand out and quickly snatched the handgun from the air.
The color seemed to drain from both guards’ faces—and Raven raised her hand with fingers craned upward—the guards both screaming and kicking as they realized they were now being lifted themselves. Raven took a few steps back—moving behind Amory and Crowe, turning slowly, and facing the open doorway down the hall—and she guided the floating guards up the stairs, positioning them directly in front of her before she let out a hard yell—jutting her hand outright and launching both of them out to the lobby with the velocity of a pair of cannonballs.
Then—with the path now cleared—Amory thumped down the stairs, Crowe and Raven hurrying to follow.
Just as they headed downward—they heard the faint, distant echo of police sirens on the afternoon air outside.
The three of them stopped in front of the massive vault door, pausing for a second and looking to one another in confusion.
“How could they have done that?!” Crowe breathed, swatting up the stairs. “We just disabled security, power, fuckin’ everything here…!”
“Except their own phones,” Amory mumbled, turning to the vault door and placing a hand on it.
The mental image of Mikey’s smartphone flashed through Crowe’s mind, and he winced and hissed out several curses under his breath. “Oh, fuck my fuckin’ life… I forgot about those damned phones…”
“Doesn’t matter,” Amory knew, glaring intently at the door and pressing his hand harder into it, his eyes a brighter glow. “We’re homefree now.”
The inner mechanisms of the door made several loud clunks and thunks , and then, the door eased slowly open, Amory lowering his hand from it as they all strolled inside.
They entered the vault room—and Raven quickly pushed the giant door fully shut behind her. They found themselves standing between two rows of dark, locker-like containers on either side, safety deposit boxes that were all locked, and all contained personal belongings of someone’s. Deeper into the room, however—where the two rows of safety deposit boxes ended—a wide, expansive shelf began, covered with countless stacks of bundled hundred-dollar bills.
“Ohhh… happy bloody fuckin’ birthday to me,” Crowe grinned from ear to ear at the huge shelfs of cash stacks, one of them positioned on the ground, the other hovering just above it.
Raven glanced between them and the door, choosing to remain focused on the door for a moment, and Crowe glimpsed quickly around the room, turning to the safety deposit boxes. He stuffed the handgun into his overcoat, then extended his empty hand toward the safety deposit boxes with intense focus—
“No—not those,” Amory yelled, smacking his arm down.
“Why not?!” Crowe complained.
“Because that stuff belongs to people!” Amory proclaimed. “Just take the cash! Not people’s personal stuff!”
Crowe groaned and rolled his eyes before moving over to the two giant shelves.
Soon—the muffled yelling and stomping of police began to echo from the other side of the door—Raven holding the rifle down by her side, gasping at the door and extending her hand—holding it firmly shut with her power.
Amory stood beside Crowe, both of them overlooking the two shelves of money.
“Y’think you can zap both of ‘em?” Crowe asked him.
“Yeah,” Amory breathed, turning around and calling to his sister. “Raven! Come on!”
Raven stood at the broken door, holding it shut psionically despite the policemen pushing and shoving roughly into it from the other side.
Amory planted one hand on the lower shelf of cash, and the other on the higher shelf.
Crowe grasped Amory’s shoulder and held it tightly, turning halfway around and yelling out to his friend. “Oy! Raven! We’re going now…!”
Raven held the door shut for a second longer—then whipped around and released it—racing over to the other two and flinging her arms around her brother from behind.
Amory then closed his eyes—picturing Evervale Manor vividly in his mind and wanting more than anything to go back—
Just when the door was forced open—and police officers flooded inside—the room became very suddenly empty, both shelves of cash now entirely cleaned out without a single bundle of money remaining, and the three people who were in the vault seconds ago were now nowhere in sight.
Mapleview, North Carolina.
September 26th, 2025.
1:39 P.M.
Inside the kitchen of Evervale Manor—Aravali and Elaine were speaking peacefully about their plans for the near future, all while Iggy remained in the corner, sipping on a cup of coffee and reading through a newspaper that Mikey had brought home from town for him at his request.
The kitchen of the manor was in the back hall of the first floor, a large, spacious room with a wide doorway. To the left was an open area with a round wooden table near the wall, a window just behind it, and Iggy sat calmly in the corner chair, his back facing the window, and the sunlight washing inside from behind him as he read interestingly through the news of 2025. On the other side of the room was everything else; the cabinets were high on the walls on the right side, another window beside them, and a smaller one just above the sink, the fridge a dark white color and positioned at the very edge of the elongated counter, and across from the counter and cabinets was a long bar, standing in the center of the room with a few old stools alongside it.
A large, clean coffee pot—an older one, taken from 1988, from Moonvale’s kitchen—sat on the counter beside the sink, still making faint gurgling noises as it finished another pot of coffee. Elaine was standing in front of it, dropping a spoonful of sugar into a coffee mug that she’d found in the cabinets, which she’d spent a very long time cleaning before daring to use it.
Aravali was leaning on his arms atop the bar, facing her and talking, his own cup of coffee sitting just beside him.
“I suppose I could be referred to as the family doctor,” Aravali remarked with a laugh.
“Yes… and Iggy is the groundskeeper,” Elaine agreed, smiling and nodding as she gently lifted the steaming coffee pot. “And I’ll be the housekeeper.”
“That’s our story if anybody asks,” Aravali chuckled.
Elaine let out a laugh, grabbing her coffee mug and turning back to the bar. She placed the cup down, raised the coffee pot, and began to pour the scalding hot liquid carefully into the mug.
“I’d rather keep acting as an orderly, though,” she commented. “I really wouldn’t feel like myself if I didn’t, at this point…”
Aravali replied to this—and across the room, Iggy made a face, his brow wrinkling, folding the newspaper down and staring over at them with his mouth hanging slightly agape. His dreary-looking gaze wandered over to the doctor, fixating on him for a moment.
“Ahhh… I think you should, ahm… not be standing there,” Iggy spoke up, pushing off of the table and reaching his feet, wagging his finger at Aravali. “I think you should move.”
Aravali stopped and turned to him, giving him an odd look. “What? Why…?”
Instantly—what felt like a thunderclap erupted through the kitchen—and an explosion of bundled hundred-dollar bills began falling from above and pummeling into him. Aravali cursed and leaped away from his stool—and Elaine shrieked and dropped her coffee pot—the pot shattering and sending hot coffee splattering across the floor behind the bar.
The bar, the floor, and the doctor all became pelted with the thick bundles of bills—the money covering the bar’s surface and the majority of the floor in front of it now. Seconds later, the raining money stopped, and everything fell still—Aravali’s back pressed against the bar, his legs buried up to the knees in cash bundles, the bar cluttered with them, his coffee mug overturned, and Elaine’s white orderly outfit now spotted with dark blotches of coffee, both of them gaping at the scene in astonishment.
Amory, Crowe, and Raven stood before them now, directly in the center of the mountain of money wads—Raven gently releasing her brother, Crowe lowering his hand from his shoulder, each of them holding rifles by their sides as Amory eased his eyes open.
Iggy sighed, making a flattened sort of expression and tossing up his hand. “ That’s why…”
Aravali didn’t seem to hear him, still staring at the trio in mollified surprise.
Elaine glared sharply at them, her nostrils flaring, and her eyes locking onto Crowe.
“Well… now you owe me a new coffee pot,” she hissed at him.
Crowe glanced around at the endless arrays of money, then snickered at her. “Sorry, Miss Morgan… I’m a bit short on cash at the moment.”
“Crowe,” Aravali growled, cocking his head at him. “What… did you… do? ”
Crowe’s brows raised, staring at him innocently. “What makes you think I did something?”
“Why do you have firearms? ” Elaine asked, her eyes darting between the two rifles.
“Because I’m not in the UK anymore?” Crowe uttered, Raven covering her mouth and forcing down the urge to laugh.
“We went to Asheville to gather up some money from a bank,” Amory told them calmly.
Aravali and Elaine traded eyes, then shot him a baffled look.
“And why did you do that…?” Elaine inquired.
“What did you talk him into?” Aravali griped, his eyes homing in on Crowe again.
“Why d’you keep focusing on me?!” Crowe complained, throwing his hands up. “There’re three of us standing here…!”
“Yes… and out of all three of you, which one of you is the most likely to become the ringleader of some insane little stunt like this? Hm?” Elaine asked him pointedly.
“It really doesn’t matter,” Amory assured them, his expression strangely serious, his eyes shifting from Elaine to Aravali. “It was necessary, regardless of whose idea it was.”
There was another silence, this time a deeper one, Aravali eyeing him thoughtfully.
“Why do you say that?” the doctor asked.
Amory sighed gravely. “Because I have to do everything I possibly can to make this place as safe and accommodating as possible… and keep us all alive. There are gonna be more people to find later on, too. I might as well get started on setting everything up right now.”
Then—he stepped back from the mountains of money, raised his hand, and made a flourishing sort of motion—and the hundreds of money bundles began to rise high into the air, slowly drawing closer to one another until they were all hovering closely together in a mass of dark green, just in the center of the room.
Aravali and Elaine gazed up at it, and Amory merely turned away, walking out of the kitchen with his hand still raised, the gigantic collection of hovering money gently following him out of the room. It floated along behind him as he emerged from the back hall behind the stairway, striding across the main room and heading up the stairs.
Everyone else remained in the kitchen, momentarily silent.
“Right… well… we weren’t seen by any cops or cameras, and we didn’t hurt anyone,” Crowe informed, posting the rifle higher up on his shoulder. “We did disarm a couple of blokes, though… and I s’pose we could use these guns if Canterbury ever found its way here.”
Aravali gave him a strange look. “I wouldn’t think that a person who has superpowers would need those for anything.”
“No… but a person without superpowers might really need ‘em,” Crowe replied, stepping closer and extending the rifle outright. “Here.”
Aravali stared at it, then at him, seeming hesitant.
“C’mon… what if something happens before we can react? Or when we’re not looking?” Crowe asked. “That’s happened once already. Y’don’t want it to happen again, do you?”
“We don’t have to worry about that anymore,” Aravali reminded him. “Not here.”
“As far as we know ,” Crowe added, jutting the rifle closer. “This is a ‘just in case’ kind of thing. Just keep it in your room, and you’ll always have it as an option. That’s at least more than you ever had before.”
Aravali sighed heavily.
Elaine was watching the two of them very closely, her expression dark and reflective. Then, she turned to Raven and approached her, gently taking the rifle from her.
“I definitely wouldn’t mind that option for myself, quite honestly,” the orderly mumbled.
Aravali glanced over at her, then back at Crowe, sighing again.
“Fine… but I’m not exactly a soldier,” he said, taking the rifle and surveying it up and down. “Never even held one of these, much less used one…”
“Right… well, this one might be easier,” Crowe offered, reaching into his coat and pulling out a silver handgun, spinning it around on his palm and offering it to the doctor handle-first. “And it’d be a hellova lot easier to carry on you in town, too.”
Aravali took the handgun as well, giving him a strange stare.
Crowe choked out a laugh. “C’mon… I know it seems like a lot to you, but shooting would be a good skill to try and fine-tune. Hell… we could build a shooting range here if we wanted to. God knows we’ve got plenty of money and space for it now.”
Aravali stared for a moment longer.
“You’re starting to get a bit paranoid, aren’t you?” he muttered.
Crowe’s smile faded. “Can you blame me…?”
Aravali paused, then huffed out another breath. “Honestly, not really, no…”
“All right then. Don’t argue with me. Just take the gifts and be happy,” Crowe ordered, thrusting his finger at the doctor, then the orderly. “Keep the big ones in your rooms—and that small one can just go with you wherever you go.”
“Yeah… what rooms did you guys pick, anyway?” Raven asked curiously. “Me and Amory had our own rooms set aside on the third floor, and Crowe took the other room up there… the one across from mine. I think that one used to be Mom and Dad’s when they were here…”
“Well… you three being on the third floor together seems fitting somehow,” Elaine remarked.
“We’re on the second floor. I selected the first room to the right, and… I believe… Elaine’s was right across from mine, right?” Aravali said, turning to the orderly for confirmation, and she nodded in response.
“Yes… and Xena’s is next to mine, and Mikey’s is on the other side of her’s,” Elaine knew. “Zyon seemed to want to isolate himself in the room at the very end of the hall. I plan to make name plates for every room and post them up above the doorways to avoid confusion.”
“Well… we can pay to have those made now,” Crowe smirked.
“You don’t have to make any for me and Amory,” Raven informed. “We already have one.”
“Speaking of him,” Aravali said, raising a finger and narrowing his eyes at Crowe and Raven. “What did he mean, there will be other people to find soon?”
There was a brief silence in the air.
“The, ahh… the children of time,” Iggy mumbled to himself, now seated in the corner again, positioned at his table and skimming over his newspaper.
Everyone else turned and stared at him.
It took Iggy a moment to notice everybody was eyeballing him now, raising his eyebrows and turning slightly in his seat.
“Oh, ahhh… yeah… the children of time,” he repeated, gesturing while he spoke. “That, ahm… that’s what Zyon calls ‘em… the other people, who uh… escaped… Canterbury Lab.”
Aravali made a thoughtful face for a moment, then marched past Crowe and Raven, striding out of the room.
He walked down the back hall, emerged behind the rounded stairway, and crossed the main room, traveling up the stairs and clearing a lot of the mansion before he reached his destination.
On the third floor—he walked up to Amory’s bedroom and stopped there, the doors open, and Amory was standing at his closet, whipping his hand at it and pitching large chunks of the money into it, not bothering to do so neatly or carefully. The bundles of cash launched into the closet in clusters of five or ten, a humongous pile forming inside the closet, the money mountain practically scraping the closet’s ceiling now.
“You can get mad at me if you want. I understand,” Amory muttered without looking at him, continuing to toss chunks of money bundles into his closet. “But it needed to happen.”
“No, I um… I’m not angry,” Aravali replied, slowly walking into the room. “I’m certainly worried now… but not angry.”
“Why worried?” Amory said, throwing the remaining few bundles into the closet, a couple of them repeatedly rolling down the money mountain and falling back out again.
Aravali sat on his bedside, chuckling faintly at the sight of the open walk-in closet. “Because I can’t imagine how much money that is… and that is a very serious thing you three just did. It would have some incredibly dire consequences if you ended up getting caught.”
“Yeah,” Amory mumbled. “But we’re not the kind of people who can get caught.”
“I suppose not,” Aravali said. “And I hope not…”
Amory fought and struggled to force the last few bundles into the closet before they finally stayed put. Then, he swatted the air and slammed the closet door shut, sighing and turning to face the doctor.
Aravali stared at him, eyes narrowing with intrigue.
“It just seems a bit out of your character to do,” he determined.
Amory said nothing, glimpsing down and frowning.
“You must really think something intense is on the horizon if you believe you have to make Evervale Manor into the ultimate safe haven,” Aravali suspected.
Amory still didn’t speak, the visions replaying through his head, and his grimace deepening.
“When I destroyed Canterbury… the south wing was emptied out,” he explained, sitting beside him. “I didn’t know I did that… didn’t even realize I was doing that… but… that’s what Zyon told me. I zapped the people in the south wing out of there before the place came down.”
Aravali nodded. “Where did they go…?”
“Scattered through time,” Amory sighed. “Apparently… random spots in time between 1925 and 2025.”
Aravali’s brow hardened. “That’s an odd coincidence.”
“Yeah… well… that’s not the part that worries me,” Amory mumbled grimly. “The south wing was where me, Raven, and Crowe all went when we were first taken there… and then… we weren’t allowed to go there anymore when we grew up. None of the other adults who were coming in were ever allowed to go there, either. You know why?”
Aravali shook his head.
Amory met his gaze, looking and feeling disturbed.
“Because that’s where they kept the kids,” he said definitively. “I don’t know how many were in there at the time. There weren’t a lot of other kids there when we were growing up in there… but… there were some. There were at least a few. And… at some point… me and Zyon are supposed to make more doorways in the checkerboard room so we can find them before Canterbury does.”
Aravali slowly took back, falling silent and pondering on this.
“Well… that’s an awful lot of responsibility to be put onto you,” he uttered.
“Yeah… I guess… but Zyon can’t do it himself right now,” Amory shrugged. “He’s still not recovered yet, and I don’t know when he ever will be…”
Aravali stared at him. “And Zyon believes Canterbury is capable of looking for them?”
Amory nodded. “Yeah. The place the lab was… it is… full of rifts… and he thinks they’re gonna use them to track the kids down through time. You wanna know the scary part? Everyone in Canterbury was either filled with demons, or protected by an angel… but Zyon doesn’t remember who was who, or which person chose what. So… when we find these people… we’re not gonna know if they’re good or evil. We’re just gonna have to try and figure it out in the moment… and… wing it.”
Aravali frowned, thinking of John and Donna on their most disturbing days, and knowing for certain that more people like them could be a danger.
“I think we can do this, I just… I hope it’s not a ridiculous amount of kids we have to find,” Amory continued. “What if there are like forty Canterbury kids spread out all through time? Are we gonna have room for all of them? No, we’re not… which is why we might have to build even more onto the manor, and we have to stockpile a lot of food, too… not to mention, we need to have some forms of entertainment, because I don’t want them to be as miserable here as they would’ve been there. I mean, Zyon says they might not be kids anymore when we find them, but still… I still wanna… I don’t know… it’s just a lot. But it’s important… we have to—”
“Amory,” Aravali said calmly, raising his hand. “You’re putting a lot of pressure onto yourself again. Everything doesn’t fall solely onto you , remember?”
“I know—I know—but it’s still important,” Amory replied. “I know you’re all gonna help me with this. In fact, considering some of the visions I saw of these people, I think they’d really be helped by having a psychiatrist. I really do. I still have to plan these things out, though.”
“Y’don’t have to worry about it being too many kids to handle,” Crowe remarked, strolling into the room with Raven close behind him.
Amory and Aravali both turned and stared at him.
“D’you remember how many kids were in the south wing when we were in the south wing?” Crowe asked, he and Raven stopping in front of them. “Six. There were six kids in total there, and we were three of them.”
Amory looked down, only just remembering the same thing.
“I don’t think Canterbury ever held more than ten kids at a time, at absolute best,” Crowe figured. “It probably always had to be a low number… because they weren’t gathering the kids the same way they were gathering the adults. The adults came in of their own free will, and they signed papers to be a part of it. But the kids were kidnapped and forced to be there. Of course they didn’t use kids as often, because it was a riskier and far more illegal thing to do.”
“Yeah… and that means… probably about half of the people you needed to save from Canterbury are already here,” Raven determined. “And we have about the same amount of people left to find out there, give or take.”
“That means the job’s halfway done,” Crowe synopsized. “You don’t have to stress about hunting forty-something people down, because that’s really not gonna be the case.”
“And there’s no rush, either,” Raven reminded her brother. “Because we have to wait until we get more situated here, and we also have to wait until Zyon feels better. Then we can make more doorways and do the rest of this stuff.”
Amory glanced between them, allowing everything they said to sink in, silently agreeing with both of them, and feeling a bit more at ease.
“We have plenty of time to get our bearings and make this place home before any of that comes along,” Aravali knew, patting him on the back.
“We have time to have Halloween,” Amory murmured.
“Yeah, that too,” Crowe laughed.
Amory glanced up, looking between them all and revealing a childlike smile.
“Me and Mikey were gonna do a haunted house here!” he exclaimed, springing to his feet. “And now we can get whatever we need for it, and advertise for it, and set up all kinds of scary stuff here!”
“We’re gonna need Xena for that,” Crowe said. “She’ll have to guide us to all the best places to get Halloween stuff in town…”
“Oh—she can be part of it,” Amory beamed with delight, feeling suddenly and positively rushed with a new inspiration. “You guys—I am gonna make this place into my dream home, watch and see!”
At that—he raced out of the room to go and find Mikey, hoping that he would get a hold of Xena for him so they could start making preparations for Halloween.
Aravali, Crowe, and Raven all stared at the doorway after he was gone, chuckling as they did.