Free Seeds of Time by K. C. Dyer Page B

fur of his side, delighted and relieved to find him at last. After a quiet reunion, Darrell lifted her head to listen for any noise outside the cave, but could only hear the sound of the surf on the shore. She risked another whisper.
    â€œWhere’s your collar, boy?” Delaney just thumped his tail and rested his paw on Darrell’s leg. “I grabbed your collar just as the shock hit,” she said slowly, remembering. “You must have slipped out of it, and Iguess I dropped it in the dark.” She looked at him sternly. “Why did you run away, Delaney? I need you to stay right beside me.” The dog thumped his tail again. Darrell stood and peeked out.
    â€œLooks like the coast is clear. Come on, Delaney. Let’s see what Conrad has left for us to sniff out.”

C HAPTER S IX
    Her aching arm and head and the resulting nausea in the cave were nothing compared to the series of shocks Darrell received as she stepped out into the open. Delaney led the way, bouncing out into the sunlight joyfully. Darrell took a step forward, and then stopped. Her leg felt heavy, and she knew something was wrong, but her eyes were drawn in amazement toward Delaney. The dog spun around, waiting for Darrell to follow, tail wagging. His energy and the light from his eyes were unmistakable.
    â€œYour coat,” whispered Darrell, and she sank to the ground in surprise. “What’s happened to you, boy?” For something certainly had happened to Delaney since he had slipped into the cave with Darrell only a short while before. His coat had been golden, long and gorgeous. His gently waving tail had begun as deep gold and faded to white at the end of its long feathers. However, thedog in front of Darrell now bore no resemblance to the Delaney who had been with her moments before.
    His coat was brown and curly. He was clipped unevenly and one side of his fur was singed back, almost to the skin. His ears slid forward in a most un-Delaney-like way. He was smaller and looked terribly thin. And yet Darrell knew, looking into his eyes, that this was Delaney. She swallowed.
    â€œDelaney, sit!” she commanded, her voice hoarse with shock. The dog sat, tail wagging.
    She swept her arm down in the special signal she had taught Delaney, indicating that he should lie down and stay. The dog dropped to the ground like a shot and looked up at her, raising alternating eyebrows.
    â€œGood boy, Delaney,” Darrell whispered. He wagged his tail and wiggled nearer. Darrell closed her eyes and rubbed them with her fingers, and then looked at Delaney again. He looked back at her, eyes warm and brown. Darrell rolled on to one knee and prepared to stand up when she received her second jolt in under a minute. This one knocked her back down onto the ground, her heart pounding. She looked down and saw that she was no longer wearing jeans. Instead, she was wearing a long skirt of thick brown wool. At the hem of the skirt, her left foot protruded, encased in a worn brown leather boot, soled in wood and caked with a combination of mud and sand. Whereher right foot should be was a splintered stub of wood, like the end of a crutch.
    Darrell let out a choking sob. Her head began to swim. She put her face in her hands and closed her eyes tightly, then as quickly opened them again. Everything looked the same. She reached down and pulled the hem of the dress up slowly to see the stump of her right leg tightly bound to a wooden splint, ending in a peg leg like a pirate would wear. No plastic foot. No prosthesis at all, really. Just a wooden peg, bound tightly to the base of her leg.
    Looking around, Darrell became aware that more than just she and Delaney had changed. As she lifted her head and gazed about for the first time, she realized that she was sitting on a beach against a rocky outcropping, looking up at the walls of what looked like a very dirty and ancient town. Along the shore the rotting hulls of many wooden boats lay like