All eyes turned toward Williams as the river raged and the sun continued to sink. At length he set down his rifle and eased the backpack from his shoulders. ���Just one,��� he said, retaking up his weapon. ���Something I was planning on doing when we reached Barley, anyway.��� He looked at Sheila, knowing that if anyone tried to stop him it would be her. ���See, a mistake was made when we left Ank behind���a mistake I���ve been trying to reconcile ever since Lonepine. I don���t know, but it���s like���it���s like I had a lapse in faith ��� a lapse in brotherly love, something; one we���re paying for even now.��� He paced back and forth with his rifle, trying to figure it out, trying to find the right words. ���I read the tea leaves wrong���misinterpreted the entrails���whatever. But the fact is,��� He looked at them one by one. ���Ank was meant to be with us now. He was meant to ford us across that river. And the only reason he isn���t ��� is because I failed our friendship.��� He paused as drop of rain flecked his nose and the clouds rumbled gently overhead. ���Surely you can feel it, just as I do. The feeling that ��� we���re being tested. That the Flashback was not just an apocalypse in the physical sense. It was an apocalypse in the spiritual sense. That there���s more at play here than dinosaurs and strange lights in the sky���aliens, whatever���that the battle has now been joined by something else entirely. Something, I don���t know������ ���Dear God, he���s going to say it,��� protested Peter. ���Yes, yes, I am,��� said Williams rapidly, and added: ���Something divine. And I guess what I���m trying to tell you all now, especially you, Sheila, and you, Luna, is that ��� well, I���m being called to go find Ank.���