So! About Linden's accent. Some of you guessed Canadian. Some of you guessed British. Some of you guessed Scottish. Some of you guessed Valley Girl (I'mma say it right now. You people were wrong.) And the big reveal...will be at the END of the chapter!

CLIFFHANGERCLIFFHANGERCLIFFHANGERCLIFFHANGERCLIFFHANGERCLIFFHANGERCLIFFHANGERCLIFFHANGERCLIFFHANGERCLIFFHANGERCLIFFHANGER

By the way, the chapter name is a pun. FORESHADOWING ABOUT THE FOLLOWING FIVE MINUTES OR SO. It's a reference to something, too.

Window to the Past

Chapter 21: Turnabout Fate

Tristan blinked, a bit disorientated from the switch. The journal was open in front of him, beckoning him to write. Apparently the last one who had written was Alice.

"Okay, I want EVERYONE to look at this, guys. Check the back of the book near David's drawings."

Oh, no...Tristan thought with a sinking feeling in his heart. He flipped through the dwindling empty pages in the journal to the back. David's disturbing sketches once again faced him.

There didn't seem to be any extra ones from the last time he looked. But those figures...the tall black ones that were in nearly every picture...what were they? Trees? People? Tristan flipped backward until he came to the different drawing. This one didn't have flowing curves, like all the other ones. Every line was jagged and dangerous. He flipped back more.

His heart nearly stopped.

Wyvern is...deception

"What the-?" Tristan forced out after a fear-filled gulp. "What does that mean!?"

Isn't it obvious? he answered. Wyvern is deceptive.

"But it says deception...Who wrote this...?"

I don't recognize the handwriting. None of us write in cursive. Not even Mabel.

Tristan fell silent. Wyvern is deception. What did that mean? Why didn't Alice write more than just a 'check this out' request? He flipped to the beginning of the journal and began to write again.

"...Chaos? What day is it?" I asked.

Chaos, who had been looking over my shoulder as I wrote, shrugged. "Not sure. We don't have any sort of calendar here. Though that might be because we don't have a day-night cycle and we don't sleep."

"Do you think we've passed July?"

"Why July?"

I took my hands off the keyboard and propped them on the table, resting my chin. "I'm wondering if I missed my birthday."

"Your sixteenth birthday?" Chaos asked to confirm. "Well...do you feel sixteen?"

I turned to him, unimpressed. "How can I feel sixteen if I don't know what sixteen feels like?"

"You have me there."

I let out a breath slowly, contemplating how long I must've spent here. "How old are you, Chaos?"

"I don't know," said Chaos. "I don't really understand how time goes here in relation to where you came from. It might be parallel, it might not flow at all. Maybe you'll go back after the story's done and find you haven't been gone two minutes," he speculated. "Like Narnia."

"Doesn't the Narnia thing change every time they go there? And wasn't it different in the last book?" I asked absently, before shaking my head. "I certainly hope I haven't aged. My sixteenth is supposed to be some huge celebration. Y'know, Sweet Sixteen, right?"

"I think only women get Sweet Sixteens," Chaos guessed.

I frowned. "Shoot." Then my frown deepened. "Actually...if I am aging, Chaos...what happens if I die here?"

"...What?"

Turning around, I nodded. "Yeah, what if I die? Like...what if I get cancer or something? If I die here, what happens?"

"What brought this line of thinking?" Chaos asked, aghast.

I smiled. "I said shoot. That made me think of guns, which made me think of death, which made me think of my death specifically, which made me think about where it would happen, which...you get the picture," I finished. "So. What do you think would happen? Do I actually exist here? If I died, would I go back to Earth? Would I expire? Because...um..."

Chaos crossed his arms. "I still can't believe you're thinking about this."

"No, no, let me finish!" I scolded him. "I mean, I'm here because I'm living out the story I wrote, right? So the story has to end the way I wrote it. And in the end, I decide I'm going to rewrite the trilogy and make it better, and then I go home. So if I die before then, what happens? Does it do, like, a do-over or something? Maybe it just won't happen. Or...y'know, maybe I just die."

"Multikirby, please stop talking about this," Chaos requested uncomfortably.

I stared at him, trying my best to insert some sort of chiding look into my eyes. He relented.

"Yes, yes, I know, it's a slip of the tongue," he said, exasperated. "I know Multikirby, Cameron. You aren't him."

"Chaos, if I do actually die, can you continue the story for me?" I asked.

Chaos looked like he was going to be sick. "Cameron, please. I don't like thinking about you being gone. So stop talking about it."

"But will you?"

He squinted his eyes shut. "Yes, Cameron. If you die, I'll finish the trilogy. Now please stop."

"Okay, I want EVERYONE to look at this, guys. Check the back of the book near David's drawings," Alice wrote.

"It says 'Wyvern is deception' in cursive," Tristan wrote. "None of us wrote it."

"If none of us wrote it...who did?" Toby questioned.

"what does deception mean?" David asked.

"It means that Wyvern's trying to trick us," Mia wrote. "But it's in a weird tense. Shouldn't it be 'Wyvern is deceptive' or 'Wyvern uses deception' or 'Wyvern has deception' or something like that? It's weird; the cursive gives me the vibe that whoever wrote it was, like, literate. So why would they make a mistake like that? And like Toby said, WHO even wrote it? The words are so neat, and none of us write like that. Not even Mabel. Not even Daphne."

"Not to change the subject, but are we sleeping in the clinic again tonight?" Adrian asked, changing the subject. "Because I am so shmeckin' tired right now."

"Why do you keep saying 'shmeck'?" Alice asked.

"It's a replacement word, I think," Toby said.

"Yeah," Adrian wrote. "Because you wouldn't shut up about me saying the wrong thing in front of David. I figure if I make something up you can't get mad at me for it."

"So shmeck isn't a bad word then?" David asked. "Hear that alice? It's not a bad word, so I can say it."

"Anyways, are we going to sleep?" Mia asked. "Because if we are, I don't think Tristan should stay up counting corners again."

"Is that why I was so tired this morning?" Alice asked. "He stayed up all night?"

"'kay, I'm going to bed." David wrote, closing the diary. He put it on the bedside table before climbing into bed. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing as he prepared to drift off until

ring ring ring

The ringing of a phone came from the adjacent room. David sat up in the bed, listening again to make sure he wasn't hearing things.

ring ring ring

Yep, that definitely wasn't him. He scooted forward and jumped off the bed, sprawling the covers on the floor. He slowly walked over to the door, pushing it open carefully. David peeked out from behind the wooden door, to make sure nobody was there.

ring ring ring

Where was that coming from? Another room? David squinted, trying to make out his surroundings in the dark clinic. He listened again for the ringtone so he could orient himself in relation to the phone.

ring ring ring

It was to his right. He turned in that direction and made a few steps forward. David remembered it sounded like it was behind a wall or something. It was probably in another room. There was a door right next to him.

ring ring ring

David opened the door and saw an electronic glow on a bedside table next to a gurney. He ran over and picked it up.

"Hello?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Thanks," David's father's crackly voice filled his head with a sense of nostalgia. "Listen, uh...They're telling me I've got an appointment in about fifteen minutes...Listen. You've grown up, and your mother doesn't want me to tell you this, but...I don't think I'm going to make it. Listen, while I'm gone, I need you to look after your mother, okay? She's gotten really stressed after what happened to you and your sister, so I need you to keep your head up, alright? But don't worry. I'll be fine. I'll talk to you later."

The phone slipped out of David's stub, clattering on the linoleum floor. David didn't hear it.

"He's sick," he whispered. "Dad's sick."

He dashed out of the room and raced back to his diary, scrawled what had happened into the diary, then jumped into bed. He yanked the covers over his head, letting the thoughts of the phone call echo through his head as David slowly sank into a deep, fitful sleep.

You stared down at the journal in front of you. Curious, you began flipping through the pages. Each page had small sentences that together seemed to form one-half of a conversation. You reach the beginning of the book and read the page's contents.

This book belongs to:

Toby drew a small breath of air as he was lightly jolted awake.

Strange, he thought. It was a dream, not a nightmare. What was that book? What do all these dreams mean? What time is it?

Toby looked at a clock mounted on the wall.

"Nine o' clock," he said simply. "Okay, that question's answered. Wait...nine o' clock? That seems a bit late doesn't it?"

Toby froze up as he heard a knock on the door outside.

"Lizzer! Are you in yet?" a familiar voice called. "Your office hours say you should've been in thirty minutes ago!"

"F-Fey...?" Toby whispered.

Before he even realized what he was doing, he rushed out of bed and yanked the door open to see Fey's startled face. The expression quickly melted into something more humorous as she recognized who she was talking to.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't Cece," she said, grinning. "Fancy seeing you here."

"...Fey," Toby breathed as blood rushed to his cheeks.

"Yeah! How've you been doing, Cece?" Fey asked. "I haven't seen you since...well, since I ran off after the Tac encounter," she finished as she waved the tape recorder for emphasis.

"...Fey," he repeated, unable to say anything.

"Ah...can I come in? I don't know if you've noticed, but this town tends to give you the cold shoulder - sorry, that was bad."

"...F-" Toby stopped himself. "Oh! Oh, yes, of course! I'm so sorry!" Stumbling over himself, he tried to get out of the way of the door. Fey stepped inside and gave him a wry expression.

"Let me guess," she said as she turned around to close the door. "Toby."

If his cheeks were hot before, they were on fire now. "Y-yeah," he squeaked.

"What are you doing in Wyvern?" Fey asked as she walked over to the waiting room section of the clinic and sat down on the couch. "I knew I was going to see you again at some point, but here, of all places."

"I, uh...I came here to...to, uh...Sorry, I just didn't..." Toby stumbled over his own words, cursing himself in his head at each and every stutter. "I didn't think I'd be seeing you so soon-"

"You gotta look up, Toby," Fey reminded him. "Deaf, remember?"

I'm an idiot.

"Sorry, I forgot," Toby said sheepishly as he raised his face so Fey could see him. He explained what had happened since Niccola Forest, talking about the Daybreak and Wayford, Mt. Leftalon and Facility-Wide.

"Wow, that's quite a bit of stuff you did there," she said, bemused. "I came back that way, too. I've been moving back and forth across the continent as I tried to look for a way back to where I came from. I think I've exhausted the possibilities on the continent, so I'm probably going to move north to Corfort soon for more leads. But Wyvern's probably going to stay my home base. Hey, have you met Lizzer and Whiplash yet?"

"Um...no, I don't recognize those names," Toby said slowly, shaking his head.

Fey gave a small laugh. "No, those're nicknames. Their real names are Liz and Ash. They'd probably be the first two puffballs you'd see when you got here."

"I think they were, actually," Toby said. "Alice wrote about them. I think Alice has a crush on Ash, actually."

"Accent, right?" Fey said flatly.

Toby nodded. "It's ridiculous."

"So, Toby," Fey said as she leaned back on the couch. She didn't continue.

Toby looked to the side, then back at her. "...Yes?"

"Why are you still standing over by the door?"

"Uh..." he trailed off, staring at the open door as a fresh cold breeze whizzed past him inside. Without another thought, he seized the door and slammed it shut with a little too much gusto. Looking back apologetically, he walked over to the waiting room area and sat down on a seat next to Fey.

"So...um...Fey?"

"Yeah, Toby?"

Toby bit his lower lip, wondering whether it was okay for him to bring this specific topic up. His curiosity got the better of him. "You said you were looking for a way to get back home?"

"Yeah," Fey nodded. "I, uh, got washed ashore here a long time ago. Around...three years ago?"

Toby gawked. "Three years!?"

"It's a pretty long time," Fey agreed. "But I've been looking for clues as to exactly which direction home is."

Toby sat back on the chair. "But...you said you washed ashore. Wouldn't home be in that direction?"

"You'd think that, wouldn't you?" She phrased it more like a statement than a question. "But my circumstances...circumstances? Am I saying that right?"

"Uh, yeah. I think so."

"Okay, good." Fey continued. "So anyways, my circumstances are a bit different. I've looked through a lot of geography books, atlases and the like, and none of the continents look even remotely familiar to me. So I'm thinking my home's pretty far away."

Nodding in understanding, Toby agreed with her. "I might be in the same boat. But...I have a feeling my situation's a bit more far-fetched..."

That earned him a look, so Toby took that cue to derail the topic. "So why are you here, exactly?"

"Oh, that's exciting news," Fey said with a smile. "You're gonna want to hear this...and so am I, actually..." She smirked.

"What?"

Fey's smile widened. "Lizzer's been looking at developing a procedure to get my hearing back!"

"Really? That's great!" Toby exclaimed.

"I know! I'm really excited, but..." Liz's smile melted into an expression of wary thought. "I'm a little worried."

"Why's that?

Fey's smile returned, but it was a little more uneasy. "Lizzer's doing the operation, obviously, but...she and I have a kind of...abrasive friendship."

Toby cocked his head. "What does that mean?"

"Well, we're friends, but she's...um..."

The door opened and Liz stepped inside, holding the books she had taken from the library the night prior. "Cece, are you still here?" she asked as she closed the door behind her.

"Yeah," Toby said from the couch. "Fey's come to see you."

"Oh, yes, Ash told me yesterday you were acquainted with Fey," Liz said, looking up as if trying to remember. "You were the one that helped her apprehend Tac, correct?"

"Yeah, that was me," said Toby. "But, uh, I wouldn't call it...'apprehend'..."

"He's, uh...not going to be bothering anybody anytime soon," Fey said awkwardly.

Liz gave the two of them a chastising look. "Violence solves nothing."

Fey gave a mirthless laugh. "You're one to talk!"

"Well," Liz said with a sigh as she readjusted her grip on the books. "Violence solves nothing unless it solves something."

"What?" Toby mumbled to himself.

"Anyways, Fey." Liz looked Fey in the eye. "I assume you're here to ask about the procedure."

Fey nodded. "Yeah. How's it coming?"

Liz said nothing. Instead, she walked across the room to a door adjacent to the one Toby had slept in earlier. Right before entering, she turned back to face Toby and Fey. "Come with me," she said simply.

Toby and Fey decided to comply.

Upon entering the room, Liz frowned slightly at the fact that the phone was off the hook. "Cece, did you do this?"

Toby blinked. "Um...maybe. I, uh...I sleepwalk."

Fey gave him a questioning glance, wordlessly asking whether she knew. Toby shook his head. Fey's questioning glance turned into a questioning of a different kind, but she seemed to let it go as she shrugged. They entered the room together.

"I've been looking into puffball anatomy, specifically the auditory region," Liz explained. "Cece, you saw me check these books out of the library. What I've found was quite...interesting. As it turns out-"

Fey scowled. "Liz, if you're saying anything, I can't hear you, remember?"

"Ah, sorry," Liz said as she turned around. "I was saying that I've been looking into the operation, and I might have made a breakthrough. You lost your hearing in an explosive accident, right?"

"Yeah, about three months after showing up here," Fey confirmed. "Why?"

"Well, it has to do with the engineering the headgear for the Crash and Bomb abilities that allow the user immunity to auditory damage," Liz continued. "Basically, something in the hats prevents them from going deaf. So I've been able to find out exactly what it is in the headgears that does this. If all goes well, I should be able to restore your hearing by the end of tomorrow."

Fey squealed. "Toby! Toby, I'm going to get my hearing back tomorrow!"

Wait, what?

Linden's accent is Irish. His namesake is from the Irish/Scottish art song 'Linden Lea'.

Hey. Hey, readers. Readers. Readers, guess what? Guess what, readers?

I WON'T BE POSTING A SINGLE CHAPTER FOR CHRISTMAS BREAK. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA! AAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! BRUUUUHAHAHAHAHAHA! AHA! HAHAHA! HAHA! HA! HARDEEHAR! HOOOHOOHOOHOOHEEHEEHEE!

Okay, I'm done. See you guys next year! Don't worry. Next chapter will be much, MUCH longer. Veterans will know why.