grew frantic. He needed to know where he was going! He needed to know why! He needed the guidance of his mentor if he stood any chance of finding the Scepter of Fire and saving the School for Seers!
“Professor!” he cried into the twirling void. “Professor? Professor!”
But once again, his voice was met by silence.
He looked up at Hazel and Ralph, who were still gripping him by the upper arms. They both looked just as troubled as Oliver felt.
A sense of hopelessness started to grow in Oliver’s stomach. How would he ever find the Scepter of Fire if he didn’t even know where he was going and where he needed to be?
But then a sudden thought struck him. The bronze compass he’d been given by Professor Nightingale at Harvard University was still in the big pocket of Oliver’s overalls. It was an ancient piece of seer technology, one of the myriad of inventions created by seers to aid in their task of protecting the universe from time traveling rogues. Perhaps it might give him some clues and help guide him on his quest.
Oliver reached into the big central pocket, feeling his fingers brush against the cold metal casing, and pulled the palm-sized instrument out. Though he was shaking tremendously from the force of the wind, Oliver could just make out that the main dial was pointing toward a symbol of a flame.
“Oh no!” Hazel suddenly cried.
Oliver looked up from the compass to see that her gray eyes were wide with anxiety. He glanced ahead and saw the strangest sight he’d ever encountered. The portal was splitting into two separate tunnels!
Oliver gasped. Never before had he seen such a thing. Time travel portals were a mind-bending enough experience, and for him now to see the tunnel dividing into two was utterly confounding. Was it destabilizing? Ripping apart before their very eyes?
But no. Oliver put the pieces together in his mind. Professor Amethyst had said there were two locations the Scepter could be in. Now, he, Ralph, and Hazel were hurtling toward one tunnel, while Esther, Simon, and Walter were hurtling straight for the other.
“Oh!” Oliver cried, his chest clenching from the painful realization. “Professor Amethyst is splitting us up!”
It all happened so fast. Before Oliver had time to fully comprehend the strange happening, the tunnels were upon them and they were tumbling toward the entrances; he, Hazel, and Ralph heading one way, Esther, Simon, and Walter the other. He would end up in one place in time with Hazel and Ralph while the other three would end up somewhere entirely different. A different time. A different place. Maybe even a different dimension.
The thought was too much for Oliver to bear. He’d only just gotten Esther back and now she was being torn away from him again. He felt a sudden sense of anger toward Professor Amethyst for putting him through this unnecessary torment.
Acting on his instinct to protect the girl he loved, Oliver threw the compass toward the right-hand tunnel. He just had time to watch it disappear into the void, followed by the tumbling, turning figures of Esther, Simon, and Walter, before he flew into the left-hand tunnel and out of sight.
Where are they going? Oliver thought anxiously. Come to think of it, where are we going?
There was no way of knowing. There was no way of even knowing whether he’d ever see Esther, Simon, and Walter again. One team was on course to find the Scepter of Fire. The other, Oliver could only guess.
All he could be sure of was that the Scepter of Fire was the key to saving the School for Seers. And that wherever and whenever he ended up, whatever point in history the portal spit him out in, it would be without Simon and Walter.
And it would be without Esther.
CHAPTER THREE
Screaming, Esther felt herself catapult out of the vortex and go flying through the air. She hit the ground hard and rolled, sending a cloud of desert dust into the air.
“Oof,” she exclaimed, finally coming to a halt.
Dazed, bruised, and a little dizzy, she sat up and looked around. It was a blazingly hot, sunshiny day. She was in some kind of desert, with very little around her but some sparse, spindly shrubs.
Glancing into the distance, she saw that a mile or two away from where the portal had decanted her, there were signs of a flourishing town, from the turrets of a castle to the spire of a synagogue. Behind the town were vast mountains and a forest of pine trees.
Before she had a chance to attempt to work out when (and where) she might be, she heard the sound of screaming coming from behind, growing louder and louder as it came closer and closer.
She turned to see Simon come hurtling through the vortex. Walter was right behind him.
They both flew through the air and hit the dry, desert ground. Esther winced as she watched them go rolling across the hard earth.
“Argh!” Walter grunted.
Finally, they came to a halt, and a cloud of dust poofed into the air.
Esther jumped to her feet and ran to them. As the dust cloud they had stirred up started to disperse, it revealed that the two had become an entwined tangle of limbs.
Esther reached the tangle and grasped for a hand. She found Simon’s and gave it a tug. The two boys managed to free their legs and, with Esther’s help, Simon sat himself up.
“Golly gosh,” he said, panting. “That was a rather rough journey.”
Walter extracted his arm from beneath Simon’s behind. “You could say that again.”
He rubbed his head, then looked over at the portal. Esther did too and saw that the crackling lines of purple electricity had stopped. Then, with a zip, the portal closed. Silence descended.
Walter blinked rapidly as a look of fear overcame his face. “Where are the others?” he asked.
“Oh!” Esther exclaimed as she suddenly recalled the moment she’d seen Oliver, Hazel, and Ralph careen through the left-hand pathway of the portal, just before she and the others had disappeared down the right. She felt an ache deep in her heart. “They went the other way.”
Simon and Walter exchanged a sympathetic look.
But Esther didn’t want their pity. And she didn’t need it either. Since taking the Elixir, she felt better than ever. Her mind felt sharper, her senses more alert. She felt healthier than she ever had, and the last thing she wanted to do was dwell on negativity.
She dusted down her clothes and looked around her. “Right. We need to get going. Professor Amethyst said that one of the portals would take us to the Scepter of Fire. There’s no time to waste.”
“Well, hold on,” Simon said in his stilted Victorian voice. “Why don’t we take a moment to recuperate?”
Esther could hear the concern in his voice. She knew it wasn’t because of the bumpy ride through the portal. He was referring to her near death experience and the Elixir of Life she drank to bring her back to health. It had been just a matter of minutes ago she’d thought she was on the brink of death. But she really didn’t want to talk about all that right now. She didn’t even want to think about it. Not when they were on a mission to save
