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A breeze tickles my arms.
I open my eyes and smile, though it's a faint expression. I'm at the edge of the woods. The light of a bonfire glows in the area between the circle of tents that form our camp. I hear laughter too. My throat goes thick as I run toward Sanctuary, and tears pour down my cheeks until I can barely see where I'm going. Instinct guides me now, and I race up to the bonfire, knowing my friends will be there.
"Sarah!" someone shouts.
I wipe the tears away, sniffling, and see familiar faces heading my way. Erin, Grant, Dax, and Allison hurry over to me. Willow catches up a moment later.
Allison slings an arm around my shoulders. "What happened, sweetie? Where's Gabriel?"
"He's gone." I try not to cry, but a tiny sob bursts out of me. "The machine took him."
"Machine?"
"We can talk about that later," Erin says. "You were gone for three weeks. What happened?"
Three weeks? No, it wasn't that long. But time can move differently in the Echo. Gabriel had been trapped there for three years, though only eight months passed here.
Gabriel. Just thinking his name makes me start crying again.
"Let's get inside," Erin says. "Our tent is closest."
"Yeah," Grant agrees. "We'll take you there."
I let them lead me to Grant and Erin's tent, with Dax, Allison, and Willow following us. But I know they'll want details about what happened, and I don't think I can talk about it yet. I'm exhausted and dehydrated, hungry too. My friends insist I lie down on the cot in Erin and Grant's tent, just until I feel up to walking back to my own place.
Three hours later, I wake up. I hadn't realized I fell asleep, and I feel awful for wasting time while Gabriel is trapped in the Echo, in that machine.
I go to my tent to put on fresh clothes, then look for my friends. I find them all in Dax and Allison's tent. I can tell they've been talking about me, since they abruptly fall silent when I ring jingle the doorbell, and they stare at me when I walk into the tent.
"How are you feeling?" Allison asks. "We've been so worried about you."
"But not Gabriel. You all think he's evil."
"No, we don't. You know him better than we do." Allison pats the cot she's seated on. "Sit down, Sarah. We'd like to hear what happened. And I'd like to know if you're okay. You look the way I felt when Sefton cast Dax out of Fallenmouth and I had no idea if he was alive or dead."
"I'm okay, physically." I settle onto the cot beside her, but I can't look at my friends. Instead, I gaze down at my hands, which I'm wringing. "I lost Gabriel. Sefton's machine took him."
"Sefton's machine? What are you talking about?"
"When Gabriel and I looked at Sefton's journal, we found that the contents had changed. It showed us different information than what you guys know about."
"I guess that's not surprising," Grant says. "The Echo is a world of magic, and Sefton was its creator. For the journal itself to change based on who looks at it makes a kind of sense."
"None of this makes sense." I clasp my hands tightly to stop myself from wringing them anymore. "The only thing I understand is that Gabriel and I got sucked into the Echo and we couldn't leave. Then we found the machine and…" I wipe at my eyes, but the tears trickle from them anyway. "And now he's gone, trapped in that castle, in that mechanism. The Brain took him and won't let me join him."
I can feel them studying me, but I still can't make myself look at my friends.
"How long were you in the Echo?" Dax asks. "For us, it's been three weeks since we saw either you or Gabriel. We searched the beach and the forest, then went to Fort Worth to search for you more. But we never found even a small clue to your whereabouts."
"It was only two days for us. But it felt like much longer, like we'd known each other forever."
Allison settles her hand over both of mine. "You love him, don't you?"
"Yes. I know it's crazy, but I'm sure of what I feel. I never got to tell him."
"Tell us about this machine."
I take a moment to sort out my memories of my time in the Echo with Gabriel, then I share all of it with my friends. Well, I leave out the stuff about us having sex. But after I'm done, and everyone is digesting what I've told them, I realize I should share everything with them, including the personal parts. My friends don't need the details about our sexual encounters, just the factsabout how those experiences changed us both and seemed to change the Echo too.
