«What's wrong?» he asked as soon as he entered the room with his breakfast bar still in hand.

«Listen to this," she replied, pressing the «play» button on the machine.

The machine announced that there were four messages, and after a short pause, Maria's voice came through. «Liz. Max. Where are you? You guys need to get back here, fast. Somethings wrong with Isabel. She's sick. We think it's some kind of Czechoslovakian flu. Hurry.»

Max blanched.

A drop of Tabasco sauce fell onto the spotless beige carpet.

He knew that Czechoslovakian was Liz's and Maria's code word for anything alien related. Something was seriously wrong with his sister, and it sounded like Maria didn't have a clue what it was.

«The other messages are from Maria too.» Liz stopped the tape so Max would not hear the increasing desperation in Maria's voice with each call. «She said she's at your place. Give her a call, and I'll go get Jason.»

«We can't take him to Roswell," Max said as he took the phone from Liz.

«Well, we can't leave him here," Liz said. «And I'm not staying behind if something is really wrong with your sister.»

«It could be dangerous," he said, dialing his own phone number.

«If things turn out to be too intense, we'll drop him off with my folks," Liz said as she left the room, ending the argument right there.

«Evans residence," Maria answered on the other end of the line.

«It's me," Max said. «What's wrong?»

Maria filled him in on the situation, which didn't take long since she couldn't tell him much. Following a litany of questions that she couldn't answer, Max finally gave up on asking for information that she obviously did not possess. He turned to see Liz and Jason standing in the doorway, ready to travel. «We'll be there in twenty minutes," he said into the phone.

«But you're over forty miles away," Maria answered back.

«We'll be there," he insisted, hanging up the phone. «Jason, how do you feel about visiting your old hometown?»

Kyle's eyes popped open.

He had been prematurely forced out of his meditation when he heard Isabel calling his name. Running to the bedroom, he found Maria cradling the phone in her hands with an expression of relief across her face.

«Max and Liz are on their way," she reported, looking at her watch to see that it was already one o'clock in the afternoon. She had no idea if their friends could do anything more than she and Kyle were already doing, but the mere fact that they were on their way back was comforting. For Max to be there in twenty minutes meant he would have to break more than a few traffic laws. Hopefully, former Sheriff Valenti could take care of it if anything happened.

«I think Isabel tried to contact me," Kyle said.

«What? How?»

«When I was meditating," he explained. «I was in the process of purging my mind when I saw her for a brief moment. She was calling my name.»

«Did she tell you how we can help her?» Maria asked the obvious.

«No," Kyle said as he took a seat beside his comatose friend. «But she seemed desperate. I don't think we have much time.»

«Don't worry, I've got a plan," Michael said as he climbed in the window and dropped a large sack on the floor.

Kyle was up and around the bed beside Maria in a matter of moments, watching as Michael first took a collection of stones from his sack. Maria instantly recognized them, but Kyle had no clue as to what good they would be.

«I figure if anything's going to help us it's these," Michael said with his usual intensity. Then, looking at Kyle, he explained further. «Before you were brought into our ever expanding inner circle, a Native American guy named River Dog gave us these. I took part in one of his rituals, and it nearly killed me. These stones come from our home planet. They saved me.»

Maria was visibly upset at the reminder of the time when she had almost lost Michael, but she tried not to dwell on it because it was in the past, and in the present there was a more pressing threat. «Max is on his way.»

«We need to prepare.» Michael returned to his magic sack and pulled out the long rope, handing it to Maria. «I need you to cut five pieces of rope that are about four feet long.»

«Okay?» she said with a question in her voice. «What do you want me to do with the rest?»

«Bring it back with the smaller pieces.»

«Gotcha.» She was out of the room in a flash to search for something she could use to cut the thick rope.

«Kyle, help me out," Michael said, moving to the bed, motioning for Kyle to get on the other side.

Grabbing one side of the headboard, he instructed Kyle to do the same. Together, they slid Isabel and her bed about two feet away from the wall so it was closer to the center of the room. «Maria!» Michael called out into the hall.

«Almost done!» she yelled back.

Tension filled the air as Michael impatiently waited for his girlfriend to return. Kyle knew better than to say anything when Michael was in this kind of mood. He would only throw rude comments back.

«What exactly are we doing?» Maria asked, coming back into the room. She apparently was used to the rude comments.

«Making a medicine wheel," Michael stated simply as he took the longer piece of rope from her. Walking around the bed, he laid the rope on the floor in a circle. It was a little long, so the ends overlapped for a good three feet.

That task complete, Michael held his hand out to Maria, and she handed him the smaller pieces she had cut with a kitchen knife. «I didn't have the time to collect a few hundred rocks to make the same design River Dog made when I was sick. We'll have to go with this.» He started laying out the rope one piece at a time, leaving one end beside Isabel with the other end on the rope circle.

The plan was to use the rope to re-create the medicine wheel design that River Dog had laid out on the ground when Michael's friends had had to pull him back from his own near death experience. When placing the smaller

ropes beside Isabel on the bed, he had to cheat a little since a couple of the pieces weren't long enough to reach from her to the circle on the floor. However, he really didn't think it mattered, because the design probably had nothing to do with the healing.

The Royal Four had used the healing stones twice since then to revive Nasedo-although only one of the attempts had been successful. They hadn't re-created the medicine wheel design on those occasions, but with Isabel's life at stake, Michael wasn't taking any chances. He looked down at the five lines radiating out from Isabel to equidistant points around the circle. It wasn't exactly pretty, nor was it entirely complete with several gaps throughout, but it would have to do.

Michael went back to his goody bag and pulled out the last item. It was a bowl he had bought in The Pottery Place that was painted with some kind of Native American «inspired» artwork. He actually suspected that it was just a cheap tourist knockoff. It still had a price tag glued to the side, which he quickly rubbed off. «Fill this with water.» He handed it to Kyle. «And we'll be ready as soon as Max and Liz arrive.»

The darkness receded, and the desert flew back into place.

Isabel took a moment to reorient herself after nearly losing touch with the fictional reality in which she was trapped. Kyle and the mysterious orb had disappeared as curiously as they had appeared. For a brief moment she had seen him with his eyes open and had noticed the shock on his face as if he wasn't expecting to see her.

She wondered if it was just a dream image of Kyle or if

maybe her friends were trying to rescue her. She had hoped the latter was the case, but couldn't stop thinking about the fact that her entire family was gone for the weekend. It was very possible that no one would be aware of what she was going through until late Sunday night, and she worried that could be too late.