The man shook his necklace again. “I have the bear claws, the teeth of the lion, and the paws of the wolf. I am the hunter,” he said.

“And I am just an ordinary woman,” Alexis responded with a sigh.

“I think not.” The Shaman leaned forward and touched her clothes, respectfully. “I am fifty winters and look it. You are older than you appear.”

“I am.” Again, she saw no reason to lie to the man. “Let’s see. I was born in the spring, so next spring I will be two hundred and fifty-four years old.” She smiled. The shaman did not smile. “Really,” Alexis defended herself. “My father is a goblin.” The shaman frowned at that as if to suggest she might be carrying things a bit far. Alexis dropped her eyes. “I suppose I may have counted wrong, but I tell you what; when he gets here, you can ask him.” She smiled again even as Hog, Chodo and Shmee returned.

Chodo handed her the leg bone from a deer, but it was still moist and chipped at one end. The other end looked a little dog chewed, but with a great deal of work it might suffice. Shmee handed her a stick from an elm tree. She said oak, but who was she to quibble. The stick looked newly dead instead of dried but at least it did not look nibbled. The stick looked a little thin at the tip, but about the right length, and it had something that might do for a handle. Alexis waved her hand above the stick and the bark peeled back, then she focused her magic as well as she could with such a crude instrument and waved the stick at the leather that still bound her legs. The leather separated, and no eyes got bigger than the shaman’s. He stood with some quick words.

“This one belongs to the goblins. I have persuaded her so she has promised to make bread one time for us, but we must return her to her father when he arrives.” With that, he rattled off some words about placating the spirits and keeping the gods happy before he returned to his tent, and Alexis imagined, he sealed himself in.

“Now, Shmee, be a dear and hand me my bag.” Alexis reached out.

Shmee shrieked and handed it over with his hand shaking, terribly.

~~~*~~~

When the boys awoke, they huddled around the fire and ate what got offered. Their eyes were wide to take in the strangers in daylight. They said nothing, but Ramina sat there with Boston, Katie Harper and the two fairies, and they were using up all the words in any case. When Duba woke, the first thing he saw was the fairies and he screamed. When he saw Mingus and Roland right behind him, he stepped back and quickly let his fingers draw something like signs or symbols in the air. Mingus surprised his son, terribly, and shocked everyone except Pan. He jumped to his feet.

“Not the Praeger Defense,” Mingus shouted. “My heart!” He clutched his chest and fell to his knees before he fell to his side with his eyes closed.

Everyone got quiet except Duba. “What? I didn’t mean it.” He stepped up close. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”

Mingus opened one eye and grinned at the boy. “Well, as long as you didn’t mean it, I suppose no harm done.” He sprang to his feet. “So are we ready to go yet?”

“Time to move out,” Captain Decker agreed, and Lockhart made no objection. Only Lincoln spoke.

“At last.”

Once they arrived and found a place from which they could overlook the Shemashi camp, it did not take long to make an assessment.

“They are all bunched up around a central fire,” Lincoln borrowed the binoculars.

Lieutenant Harper looked through her own binoculars. “I make it about forty people altogether, plus children,” she said.

“About two hours before sundown. Time to go.” Captain Decker spoke as he cocked his rifle.

“No!” Lincoln’s word sounded a bit loud.

“This is covert,” Pan said, much more softly.

“But isn’t this like a computer program? Aren’t we covered by that Heart of Time thing? I figure it will reset after we’ve gone, or after you’ve gone. But you said if she is injured, she stays injured.”

Mingus put his hand on the man’s gun. “And that is why we don’t go with guns blasting. You don’t think I am going to take a chance on her getting struck by a stray bullet.”

Captain Decker yanked his rifle barrel free of the elf’s hand and frowned but said no more.

“I never said anything about a reset in that way,” Pan said. “I mean I don’t think it will work like that kind of reset. The information in the Heart of Time will change to reflect the truth, not the other way around. What we are living is real.”

“What?” Captain Decker and Boston both reacted, and Lockhart made everyone pull back into the forest so Pan could explain.

“My Storyteller, Glen is missing. He isn’t dead or Jennifer would be in the womb, but I can’t reach him. Everything back home on Avalon is confused, poor Alice.”

“So, which is it? The Heart of Time program resets things or it doesn’t?” Lincoln asked.

Lieutenant Harper thought out loud. “I think reset might mean the time gates jump back to the beginning point of that time zone when the Kairos dies so it can replay from the start. I don’t think the things inside the zone reset. I mean, the people that get killed will get killed again in the replay, even if they never got killed in the original.”

Pan shrugged, nodded, and shared his thoughts. “When time began, real time, Alice got drawn back to the beginning of history. Yes, she was in the Second Heavens, but she stood on a rock under a dome of air, and angel stood there along with Cronos. Alice, that is, the Kairos and Cronos made the Heart of Time together. That was when history began.”

“The rock where we first landed.” Boston swallowed.

“I, that is, Glen did not intend to go that far. The source must have had other ideas.”

Lieutenant Harper kept thinking. “So, what you are suggesting is we will be imprinted on the time zones from the beginning and for all time as far as the heart of Time recording is concerned. Whatever time we spend in each zone will become part of the historical reality.”

Pan nodded his head. “This seems utterly real to me, but maybe I am not a fair judge.”

“It seems utterly real to me, too,” Lincoln admitted.

“Mingus?” Doctor Procter questioned his friend and Mingus rubbed his chin.

“I don’t know.”

“So, what difference does that make?” Captain Decker still did not get it.

“It means if we change something here it might change all of history,” Lockhart answered. “Real history,” he added for emphasis.

“Like the butterfly effect?” Lieutenant Harper lifted her foot to look in case she stepped on something.

“No.” Pan smiled for her. “Reality isn’t that simple or that inflexible. You would have to change something serious and maybe several things to really change history. Of course, I can’t let you do that. I would send you all to present day Avalon right now if I could.”

“What? Why can’t you?”

“Well for one, Alice isn’t finished building it yet. But for two, I told you, Glen is missing, and it has repercussions all the way through history. And for three, the only way for you to get back to your own time is by going through the time gates.”

“But what happens if we screw up?” Boston sounded concerned.

Pan shook his head. “I don’t know anymore.”

“Only now we have to be really careful not to change history,” Roland said.

“What do you mean you don’t know anymore?” Boston interrupted.

Pan frowned before he turned red and yelled. “I mean, in reality I am an eleven-year-old kid and I told you; Glen is missing and Alice and everything is confused. Come on, Ramina. We have to start operation scatterbrains.” He grabbed the girl by the hand and headed toward the boys who kept back from the strangers. He huddled them up like a football team, and though Ramina giggled at one point, it otherwise might have been a youth team. They even said, “Break!” when they were done.

The boys scattered and hunkered down to move through the trees like hunters, or maybe sneaky kids. Pan returned to the others. “A bit of temporal borrowing,” he admitted. “Don’t try that at home.”

“What’s the plan?” Lockhart asked, and Captain Decker gave him a curious look, like why was he really asking this kid?

“Wait for the signal, and then come in with Lincoln, Mingus, and Roland out front. Stop about ten yards off. The rest of you keep back and try not to kill anyone.”

“What about us?” Honeysuckle asked.

“A special assignment,” Pan said in English, and watched as several eyes widened at being reminded of their native tongue. Pan started to speak whatever he could think of in English, and only got interrupted once.

“What is the signal?” Boston asked.

“You’ll know.” Pan smiled, and then continued to imprint English on the fairy minds while they went back to the lookout spot.