The Last Stand of Daronwy (2 page)

“Let's play that Kronshar will attack from behind them, from the west, since that's where the nearest graveyard is.”

“What does a graveyard have to do with it?” said Claire.

Jeremy glared at Daniel.

“Kronshar is a necromancer, he—”

“Necro-what?”

“Necromancer,” Jeremy said, crossing his arms.

“He makes dead things live again, like zombies. They're called Shadows.”

Jeremy pointed at the rise of the canal embankment on either side of the street. “Look, we're coming up on the Akendale road. I'll go to the warriors, you two go to the wizards.”

“I want to go with you, Eaglewing!”

Daniel laughed.

“Come on!” growled the warrior, spurring his mount up the right embankment as Lightningbolt rode up the left.

“Let's play that Guntark won't listen to us.”

“Who's Guntark?”

“He's just one of the warrior generals.”

“But I thought you were an Adopted General?”

Jeremy turned to her. “Not adopt, adept. We're adepts. It means that we've had a lot of training in magic. Combined with our talent and our wings, we're kind of like the special forces in the army.”

“But then why won't he listen?”

“Because… well, it's a long story. Basically because Kronshar stole a Stone of Karnak. And everyone thinks the adepts let him do it.”

“Stone of Kar-what?”

“It's not important right now. But—”

“Eaglewing, they're coming!” Lightningbolt shouted.

“Come on!” Jeremy and Claire ran down their embankment, across the street, and up the next embankment to join Daniel.

“Let's play that they're flying in beneath the clouds. I'm going to create a wall-spell that will help to surround them.”

“Who?”

“The Shadows—Kronshar's zombie things, remember? Come on!” Jeremy said.

“Can I shoot
them
?”

“Yes!”

Mayflure and Eaglewing sprinted ahead of the glittering wall that Lightningbolt raised behind them. Swords drawn, they launched themselves into the air to meet the oncoming horde. Bringing his awareness into both worlds, Eaglewing could see the macabre world of the Shadow overlaid over the real. These beings looked like an unholy cross between bats and people, carrying poisoned swords and axes. Eaglewing and Mayflure fought back-to-back, turning through the air as the Shadow-Beings broke around them like a school of fish.

“Watch those blades, Mayflure, they're poisonous!”

Lightningbolt sprinted forward, leaping into the air, sending crackling electricity through the semi-translucent shades. Ambushed, the Shadow horde dove toward the adepts and the wizards in a desperate, shrieking charge. Lightningbolt's magic arced across the sky. Eaglewing and Mayflure's blades flashed in the starlight. The horde began to retreat, flying higher into the sky and fleeing toward the west. The three adepts followed, cutting down stragglers.

The three of them watched the last of the Shadow horde disappear into a black circle like a hole in the night sky. They hovered in the air, trying to catch their breath.

“That was close,” said Mayflure.

“Yeah, I think they'll be back,” said Lightningbolt, “but this ought to prove to the Council that the Midnight Wizard is right.”

Eaglewing nodded toward his brother in agreement. He gazed into the blackness where they had disappeared. “Maybe we should have followed them, confronted Kronshar.”

“He's too powerful. We have to wait for some advantage.”

“If we wait much longer, he'll attack us,” said Mayflure.

Eaglewing and Lightningbolt stared at her.

“Won't he?” said Claire.

Eaglewing smiled. “Yeah, I think so. But Lightningbolt's right, too. We need to make the Council see it; we need to get the army behind it. Three adepts can't take him down alone.”

They ran across the canal embankment, flying down to where the warriors and the wizards now stood after the brief battle.

“Jeremy, is that you back there?”

Jeremy looked down into his backyard at his dad. “Yes, sir?”

“You need to get in here and get cleaned up. We're going to Grandma's.”

“But Dad… ”

“Come on. Now.”

Jeremy started toward the moss-covered wooden fence.

“Don't jump that fence! Go around front.”

Daniel continued the story as the three adventurers climbed down the embankment and walked back to their bikes in Jeremy's front yard. “Let's say that the warriors and wizards start paying more attention to us now that we showed them they were wrong.”

“Yeah, and the Midnight Wizard is getting worried that Kronshar is not going to be happy with just Dan'kir.”

“He's building an army,” said Claire.

“Right. To look for the Stones of Karnak.”

“We'll have to find them first.”

They stopped in Jeremy's front yard. Daniel picked up his bike. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

Jeremy rolled his eyes, “Ugh, school. Don't remind me.”

“Bye, Jeremy,” said Claire, waving like a coy princess.

“Bye, Claire.” Jeremy watched them pedal up the street, then let his gaze slide toward Twin Hills. In the failing winter light, he could almost see the shadows moving beneath the branches. If only he had stood his ground today, he might be free from school. He'd be sleeping under different stars, in a land where animals talked, where he could be a hero. The doorway to that world was in Twin Hills; he just had to find it.

Jeremy sulked in the back of the Oldsmobile, in clean jeans and a different T-shirt but the same mud-splattered jean jacket. The sun was setting on his last day of freedom, transforming the clouds in the wide Texas sky into violet and golden swirls. Country music streamed through the radio as his father drove toward the Rainbow Bridge, a marvel of WPA engineering, and the tallest bridge in the South for a time. The bridge towered over the wide mouth of the Neches where it emptied its load of chemicals, oil, and silt into Sabine Lake, the final stop before reaching the Gulf of Mexico. On their right was the first port, a sprawling Texaco refinery. Orange tongues of flame danced atop flares, licking the underbellies of clouds as they floated over the cracking units and cooling towers. The amber halogens that covered the refinery were just beginning to wink on. Farther upriver, the port of Beaumont was barely visible, silhouetted against the setting sun. Atop the bridge, they passed through a choking cloud that smelled of rotten eggs, but no one in the car commented. It passed as quickly as it had come.

Jeremy's great-grandmother lived in a small clapboard farmhouse that had neither air conditioning nor heat. On cool winter days like this, she would light her gas-powered space heater. Jeremy wanted to believe that it really had come from space. About the size of R2D2, the heater had the rectangular shape of a prototype droid. The menacing blue flames inside it looked like a jagged row of teeth, and the orange plumes licked over them like a capricious snake tongue.

She was a small woman with curly, gray-streaked black hair that she kept trimmed short. They had arrived with fried chicken from Church's, and she made dirty rice for Jeremy and homemade macaroni for Rosalyn. The moment they stepped inside, aromas of food mixed with the musk of the turn-of-the-century house, and Jeremy's stomach growled.

Falling in and out of Cajun French, Grandma and his parents talked about people he didn't know. They spoke of who was doing well and who had cancer now. Grandma knew everyone in Texas and Louisiana and how all of them were related to their family. When he was excused, Jeremy went into the front room. Crochet projects covered the couch. Since the couch doubled as a giant pincushion, he sat on the floor as he flipped on the television to watch
Knight Rider
.

Instead, he saw a giant tree fall across the screen. The mosquito song of chain saws blared through the tinny speakers. Jeremy took a step back from the TV to see clearly. People stood in a giant version of Twin Hills, cutting trees down and setting them on fire.
Where was this
? Rosalyn whined about something. Jeremy clenched his hands into fists and tuned her out.
Where was this happening
? The newscaster was saying something about farming, about progress, but nothing, absolutely nothing, about where this was happening.

“Jeremy, I want to watch cartoons!” Rosalyn reached for the knob on the TV.

“No!” He pushed her, but she pushed him back. Jeremy caught himself on the edge of the TV as the newscaster said, “reporting from Brazil.” Brazil was a long way away.

“Jeremiah Trahan!” He glanced up at his dad. “Apologize to your sister.”

“Sorry.”

A triumphant grin spread across Rosalyn's face. She loved to get him in trouble.

“Rosalyn, there aren't any cartoons on Sunday night. Jeremy,
Knight Rider
is on channel six. Can the two of you manage not to kill each other while we help Grandma with the dishes?”

“Yes, sir,” they said in unison.

“Are you ready for school tomorrow,
mon cher
?”

Jeremy turned away from the TV at the sound of Grandma's voice and found her sitting on the couch. She wove a crochet needle like a frantic moth dancing around a light bulb. The pink needle darted in and out, making knot after knot, but her eyes never left his. “No, ma'am. I hate school.”

“Jeremy!” his mom said, then shook her head.

“What? It's stupid, Mom. It's boring, and you don't learn anything and they never let you go outside.”

Grandma laughed. “Oh
cher petit bébé. Mon cher
, one day you will want to go back. You will see. Enjoy it now.”

Jeremy rolled his eyes.
Knight Rider
was back on. “Thanks for the dirty rice, Grandma.”

“You are so welcome.” She turned to his mom, patting the baby blanket she was crocheting. “You sure you can take this to Mrs. Babineaux? It's no trouble?”

His mom raised her voice, drowning out the television. “Is your hearing aid on? I already told you I would take it over there on Wednesday before work.”

When
Knight Rider
finished, Jeremy's dad herded them into the Oldsmobile. Rosalyn fell asleep; Jeremy stared out the window. As they left Port Arthur, he could see the tall stacks of the Gulf and Texaco refineries across the flat marshlands. They drove down the highway to the river and the bridge, and motored up its steep side. Jeremy stared into the east. There were no lights out there. Miles of trackless marshlands spread beneath the moonlight, free from walls and fences and schools. Adventure called to him, begged him to come and find it, to slip this world's chains.

They came down into the darkening roads of Bridge City. It was nine o'clock and all the lights were off. Forgotten snowmen waved from black shop windows, looking more like harbingers of Halloween than Christmas. In his room, he retrieved the book bag from the depths of his closet. He put his Trapper Keeper into it and the latest book he'd borrowed from Mira's dad:
The Hobbit
. He crumpled next to his bed, knees drawn up, head in his hands. Why didn't he follow that thing in Twin Hills today? If he had—if
only
he had—he'd be worlds away by now.

Chapter Two

A cold dawn's light collected on the puddles that drained into the gutter, melting Jeremy's hopes for a snow day. In the marshy gulf coast of Texas, freezing temperatures were so rare that it didn't take much ice to close school, and while he had fervently prayed for ice or snow, the dusting of frost on the roofs of the houses wasn't going to close anything. He pulled his blue jean jacket tighter around his body and shuffled his feet to join the knot of bundled shapes waiting for the bus. Rosalyn bounded across the street beside him, squealing some delightful inanity to Mira's younger sister. Jeremy sighed.

Loren McAlister balanced on an island of broken curb, rocking it back and forth to squirt a plume of brown, muddy water toward his little brother, Simon.

“Stand still, Sy!”

Sy laughed, edging close enough to be in range, then leaping back as Loren shifted his weight and the water shot from beneath the concrete. Mira and her older sister, Kelly, left the house together. When he saw Kelly cross the street, Loren stopped playing and tried to attract her attention. Jeremy ignored him the way he ignored the yammering of Rosalyn with Mira's little sister.

“Hi, Mira,” Jeremy said, his breath smoking.

“Look at the frost everywhere.” She extended her arms to the white world, slowly turning.

“Yeah.”

“Do you think it will snow?”

Jeremy shrugged. “I hope so.”

Mira motioned with a fluorescent pink mitten. “Here comes the bus!”

Jeremy turned away. He stared across the empty lot where Loren organized football games to where the trees of Twin Hills began. Wind moaned through the highest branches and shadows moved beneath the boughs; he could go to them. He could—

Something shook his arm. Mira's sharp brown eyes stared at him.

“Come on, let's go,” she said.

He followed her onto the waiting bus. Jeremy glanced through the rows to find Travis and Daniel. Travis sat near the back of the bus, and his cold glower followed Jeremy as he edged into the seat with Daniel and Mira.

Ten minutes later, the bus disgorged its load of elementary students. Eyes following the shoes of those in front of him, Jeremy trudged up the sidewalk to the fourth and fifth grade hall. He plunged through the institutional blue metal doors after Daniel. The smell of construction paper, carpet cleaner, and dust burning away in the heaters wafted out to greet him. Santas, elves, and reindeer with beady plastic eyes watched as the chaotic knots of cliques congregated before the classroom doors. The decorations made Jeremy remember that wonderful day when everyone had eaten cupcakes and gingerbread, wished each other Merry Christmas, and left the building at a dead sprint. Jeremy listened to who had gotten what for Christmas and where they had gone to visit relatives. Some people went to Sulphur, others as far away as San Antonio. He stopped with Daniel at a tight circle of people dealing out Garbage Pail Kid cards.

“Check this one out, I got it from my brother in the army. It's from Australia,” said Matt, holding a card depicting a commando-outfitted, machine gun-toting, dynamite-throwing doll. It was named “Joltin' Joe” and Matt held it like an icon.

“Whoa, that's cool,” chorused a few bystanders.

“What will you trade for it?” Daniel asked, pulling out a giant handful of cards from his backpack.

“Trade? No way.”

“Come on, I got some new ones.”

Jeremy smiled and trickled through the remaining bubbles of conversation until he found an empty space along the wall. He sat down, opening
The Hobbit
.

“Hey.” Someone playfully kicked his foot.

Jeremy glanced up to see Devin and some sandy-haired new boy.

“Hey.”

“What'd you get for Christmas?”

“Stuff.” Jeremy thought a moment, and then recalled how much Devin liked to ask him about dinosaurs. “I got a computer game about dinosaurs.”

The new boy pointed down the hall. “That's cool! Do you have a computer like the ones down there?” He motioned at the computer lab stuffed with Apple IIe's.

“No, I have a Commodore. It's a little different.”

Devin jerked a thumb at the new boy. “This is Chris. He's new. He doesn't believe me that you know all the dinosaurs there are to know. Can you name some?”

“Yeah.”

“Do it, because Chris thinks he knows more than you.”

Jeremy half smiled. “Okay. There's
Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Archaeopteryx, Brachiosaurus, Allosaurus, Pachycephalosaur, Corythosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Protoceratops, Montanoceratops, Styracosaurus, Dimetrodon
.” Jeremy paused. “Did I say
Ichthyosaurus
?” They shook their heads. “There's him, there's
Plesiosaurus, Iguanodon
—” The bell rang.

Devin laughed, punching Chris in the arm. “I told you he knew more than you. You owe me a dollar.”

Jeremy shook his head, carefully sliding Bilbo into his backpack, and followed the crowd into the room to find his desk. Mrs. Rochard stood at the front of the room. The blackboard already contained an assignment, something about math. The alphabet's letters merrily paraded along the top of the board, each carrying trumpets on a backdrop of ticker tape. The left wall was lined with windows that overlooked the expanse of the backfield where the students held kickball games. A map of Texas dominated the wall opposite the windows with a worn, wrinkled gold star about eight hundred times larger than Bridge City affixed over the location of their town, smashed between the Gulf Coast and the Louisiana border. Mrs. Rochard stood next to her desk, holding a sheaf of papers.

“Close your books and get out a pencil. Let's see what y'all forgot since December.”

She passed out the purple mimeographed test that smelled like a cross between rubbing alcohol and Mr. Clean. Jeremy completed the poorly-copied handwritten arithmetic problems quickly. Once everyone was finished, she had them pass their tests to her. Then she ordered them to take out their math books.

Jeremy slammed the book down on his desk; it weighed six tons. He looked out the windows to his left. A dismal mist dripped down them. He sighed. They wouldn't be going outside for recess today.

The clock pulled each second longer than the last as Mrs. Rochard explained the perimeter of a shape for the twelfth time. Eventually, she gave them an assignment. Whatever they did not finish in class would be homework, so Jeremy worked on it as fast as he could. He didn't even glance up when he heard the hushed, hoarse chuckling in the back of the room; he didn't think anything of it. At least, not until he felt the paper wad's crenellated thud against his head. He scowled through the room and saw Travis and Lee giggling. Jeremy bent back toward his work again, flattening himself against his desk. The next one missed him and hit Mira instead, who sat in the seat on Jeremy's right.

“Who threw that?” Mrs. Rochard stood, hands on her hips. “Who threw that?” She looked around, but no one said anything. “Jeremy, pick that up and throw it away.”

His face went red with shame at being called out. Snickers spread through the back of the class as he picked up the pieces of slimy, spit-covered paper. His ears filled with the rest of the blood that could not fit in his flushed cheeks. He stared out the windows on his way back to his seat and wished more than anything to be in that downpour; to listen to the sound of water falling through the pines, to feel its icy touch on his skin, soaking him to the bone.

No sooner had he sat down than another ball flew at him. Jeremy dodged it, bending backwards in his chair.

“Travis! Lee! Your names are going on the board. And if you throw another one, it'll be the principal's office with you!”

Travis slumped down in his seat. Lee merely crossed his arms.

“If you've got time to cut up, you've obviously finished your math, so let's get out our history books.” Groans and mumbled protests rippled among the desks. “No complaining. If you didn't finish it, then it's for homework.”

Jeremy rolled his eyes, firing a sizzling glare at Travis, who didn't notice. Mira caught his gaze and gave a smile as though to say it wasn't that bad. But it
was
that bad. There was hardly any daylight after school. If he had to waste it on a mountain of homework that everyone knew Mrs. Rochard was only going to throw away, he'd never get to Twin Hills.

History dragged on forever. It was Mrs. Rochard's favorite subject and today she droned on and on about the pioneers and how they had to clear the forests they had found so that they could plant their crops. She talked about how even Bridge City had once been all forest, but had been cleared at the turn of the century when people moved here to work in oil—a new kind of pioneer, she said. Jeremy raised his hand. “You mean there were forests everywhere? And they've all been cut down?”

“Not all of them, but the ones that people needed to cut down to survive, yes. That's what progress is. It is the making of something new from something old.”

Forests everywhere had been cut down, before he was even born. What chance did he have to find adventure or magic? Those qualities bled out of the world as each tree fell, and here he was, stuck staring at Mrs. Rochard's blackboard. It wasn't fair. Why had he been born when there was no more adventure left, no more magic, after all the forests had been chopped down? He stared through the droplet-dappled window at the unbroken line of trees behind the school. Mrs. Rochard's voice droned on while Jeremy imagined he was walking beneath those branches.

At lunch, Jeremy slumped forward, dragging his feet as he shuffled through the cafeteria line, accepting his square chunk of pizza and carton of milk. Lunchtime was their only freedom except recess. But today, since it had been raining, Coach Plesaint—or Coach Penicillin, as the students called him—organized them into the gym to do stupid fitness tests.

Jeremy sat down across from Mira and Daniel with his lunch tray.

“Why was Travis throwing those paper wads at you?” Mira asked.

Jeremy shrugged. “I don't know.” Homework would bury him tonight; he'd never get outside before dark. He took a sullen bite of his flattened, square pizza slice. Daniel performed a passable Bill Cosby impersonation, making Mira laugh. Jeremy grinned, finding it impossible to feel sad when Mira laughed.

The shrill bleat of a whistle sliced through Daniel's next joke. Every head in the room swiveled toward Coach Penicillin, who doubled as a cafeteria monitor.

“Come on, y'all. You couldn't have forgotten everything since December. You're too loud; we're going to yellow.” He switched the traffic light they had affixed to the wall from green to yellow. Once it landed on red, no one could talk. Sooner or later, it would land on red. It did every day.

“I hate that light,” said Daniel, his impression forgotten.

“Me too.” Mira frowned in its direction, but her eyes followed someone behind Jeremy. Jeremy turned to see Travis pull some girl's hair. She squealed a piercing note and threw her milk at him. It missed, hitting a chair and then the floor. Someone threw a handful of chips. Another shrill whistle froze the action like a strobe.

“Travis, sit down! What's going on? The light's going to red.” The light went red and a sullen silence settled like a moth-worn blanket over the room. “You know you're not allowed to get up until we tell you it's time to go back to class. Now, sit down! And be quiet!”

Jeremy pushed away his tray. He laid his head on the table and hoped that he'd wake up in some world where he'd never have to sit in another cafeteria ever again.