The glove did not feel old or unwell. Instead it felt powerful.
I flexed my fingers and brought them together into a tight fist.
The hum of energy was now inside me, tingling at my fingertips. I brought forth fire and stretched it by fanning my hand. Tiny lightning bolts jumped from my thumb to my fingertips, then back again. The sound crackled and snapped, growled and hummed. Around my wrist I could see where the glove pinched my skin.
In the distance, the Maiden’s footsteps began to click softly at first, and I did not wish to frighten her. I withdrew the glove and replaced it into the drawer, slipping the rectangular compartment back into the side of the throne.
The next day, I again visited the hidden drawer.
I found a piece of the orangey-speckled garment that vibrated within my palm. It jerked away from me, rose of its own will into the air warmed by my breath, then hovered and placed itself on an exposed section of skin on my forearm. There the rough-edged fragment fused itself, as if it had melted to me. It brought with it a surge of energy, hot and radiating, and much stronger than I had felt the day before.
I knew an attendant or warrior would pass through shortly, so I struggled to remove the garment. To my bewilderment, there was no edge to peel back. My crimson-hued skin was level with the tingling surface. I clawed and even gnawed with my teeth, but the scrap of cloth had melded to my arm.
As expected, an attendant knocked at the citadel’s tall glass doors before opening and bowing, then striding quickly to the foot of the throne. Anticipating this, I turned my back to the drawer, which shut as I leaned against it. I swung forward my thick, black mane, with the distinguished beading of the Lords, and folded my arms beneath it, concealing the adhered patch.
The attendant delivered news that my nervous mind refused to hear, and I never once dropped my eyes to my forearm. At his departure, I hurried through the glass tunnels and elevated passageways from the citadel to the ruler’s quarters. I found a blue warrior jumpsuit without cropped sleeves and changed into it before returning to the field.
That was the start of it: my daily appointments with the secret drawer. Yes, as time passed, more sections of the spotted orange garment wafted before me, securing themselves to the places they knew they belonged. Soon, my legs were a patchwork of my own skin and the enchanted flesh.
With each piece that was placed on me, I grew in power. At midday, I would dismiss my attendants and the Maiden to be alone in the citadel, alone with my new wardrobe. The fire I conjured between my fingers throbbed with light that sparkled. It was loud now, bringing with it a wind that only fed the flame. I raised my hands and a fiery bolt shot out, piercing a green bird through the heart. Its body was caught mid-fall by its friends and the awakins, who carried it to the bird’s perch, hoping to sing it back to life, but to no avail.
The green birds that had once landed on the sharp points of the throne began to remain high at the apex of the glass-domed citadel, perching on the branches of the blue-bark trees the structure was built to encircle.
I learned many things from the energy that emanated from the secret glass compartment. It became clear to me that the Olearons were the first children of Jarr-Wya, from the initial spark of creation.
The Bangols’ pitiful presence and lust for the land was an infestation. I grew to loathe their grey skin and polished head-stones. I saw them for what they truly were: a disease upon our island, a digging, dirty presence that altered Jarr-Wya, uprooting its clay and shifting its stones. It was clear that this could not be allowed to continue. I realized that at my first opportunity, I must exterminate them from the island, and not by banishment, but by blood. Blood and death and restoration.
I have always loved peace, but something was changing in me.
In my dreams, I laughed as fire overtook Jarr-Wya. I imagined even the Steffanus race incapable of flying high enough to escape the curl of my flame. I saw myself, my Maiden, and our warriors. We walked through the fire, which fed our strength, unsinged, unified, and reborn as the stewards of Naiu in all of Jarr.
These nighttime dreams soon led to rumination by day. I called to my most intimate chambers the advisors and elders I trusted most. They spoke of a secret record written by my uncle, Telmakus, that must be passed into my hands. They said that within it, many of my questions would be answered, and the impetus behind my desires explained. They showed me where to hide the record, in a thin slit on the right armrest of the glass throne. Its existence was a guarded secret.
It is within this record that I now add my experience, with the hopes of—
ARCHIE bustles around, assembling the company, some members more willing than others. His voice is jovial and singsong. Ella stirs beside Luggie, who swiftly resheathes the glass inside his sack—just in time.
“Today is a special day,” Archie says, bubbling with enthusiasm. “Wake up, Ella! Join us, Luggie!”
As if the words Luggie read are imprinted on his eyes and may project on the rough cave walls, he shuts his eyes quickly and rubs his eyelids. He cannot look at the Lord, nor even Archie, for that matter. Luggie helps a groggy Ella to her feet, where her grandfather takes her arm. The old man taps his watch, yammering about the date. It is hard for Luggie to focus. He struggles with one nagging desire that dims the happenings around him:
I must kill the Lord of Olearon.
Chapter 7
Ella
The calendar date slips my mind—that is, until Grandpa Archie wakes me from my nap in the cave, towing me to where Dad waits. His fingers are lit in fragile flames at the tips. Grandpa says, “Blow out your candles!” Then I remember. My birthday!
I turned fifteen sometime in the last day or so, though it’s hard to mark time here. Without the strength of Jarr-Wya’s sun, the azure bark of the forest is dark like the sky on a night with a crescent moon, not electric sapphire as it was when we first arrived. Their carrot-colored leaves are a dull brown. Our shadows have disappeared on their own errands. It’s like traveling through a dream, and I’m one to know what that’s like. I glance at Mom but don’t say anything through my mind.
Grandpa smiles so sheepishly when I hug the air out of him and kiss his cheek. He is old-fashioned in all the best ways and beautifully forward-thinking in others. He gives me space to do what I want and be who I am. Before my cancer, when Mom tried to enroll me in ballet, Grandpa slid her the slow-pitch registration instead. When I hated slow-pitch, he and I would go for ice cream during the games while Mom was at work—until she found out, that is. Then Grandpa was in the doghouse.
When my cancer threatened to change who I was, without my permission, Grandpa helped me to hold onto myself. Words have never been his way. He gave me love by spending hours with me at our scratched-up kitchen table, painting with dollar-store acrylics, laughing full throated at our creations. Until the cancer stole my laugh, too.
Now Mom brings over a mound of Lady Sophia’s store of vulai loaves, which are square, bland, and yellowish like corn bread. For the vulai, Dad retrieves a syrupy liquid—“ellag currants,” he tells me—which flows purple and tastes like honey. Junin and Grandpa bring over travel vials of the silvery wryst drink. Since recovering in the glass city, I’ve learned that the magical liquid not only renews my strength, but also makes me tipsy, which I don’t mind tonight.
It’s my birthday! I’m fifteen!
The storm of the morning continues in the night—popcorn lightning with its offshoots of crackling reds and blues and yellows. Its trumpeting song serenades us, as does a hollow voice that whistles through the trees. I’ve overheard the Olearons grumbling that the voice of the wind is different since the Star crashed beneath the island. They say they don’t know the language that now whispers through the forest, but whatever it is, it sounds harmonic to me, like an echoing chorus of children singing a cappella in a cathedral.
My family and new friends sing to me: “Happy birthday to you …” Lady Sophia is the loudest and draws out the final notes so passion
ately that I cover my ears and can’t help but let out my scratched-record laugh.
I press my fingers to my lips and blow kisses as silent thankyous to those who have gathered: To Mom and Dad, and Captain Nate, who’s annoyingly always at Mom’s side. To Grandpa Archie and Duggie-Sky, who perches on Grandpa’s shoulders because he’s too short to see our hilarity—so normal, but in such a strange setting. To the salty-skinned and beaming Lady Sophia. To goofy Kameelo and kind Junin, who stood there dumbly as the humans sang. I’m glad the other Olearons—the Lord, Islo, Yuleeo, Azkar, and Nameris—are in the corner scheming. They would have dampened the vibe, which is all smiles, congratulations, and exclamations of “Happy birthday!” Mom is near tears, but I ignore her. She doesn’t dare say, “This may be your last birthday,” but I know she’s thinking it.
My stomach is full of grainy vulai bread and my head buzzes from the syrupy wryst. If I’m not going to make it to my sweet sixteenth, I might as well make fifteen one to remember.
Since I can’t thank anyone beyond the kisses and repeated sign language gesture or even engage in the normal birthday party banter, I excuse myself and Luggie, too. His actions since I drew my plan for our future—if I have a future—tell me he’s forgiven me. He was close by my side as we trekked here. I love how protective he is of me.
True, I’m ill, and thus slow and clumsy, but Luggie matched my pace. He growled at the others to ease up our speed, which embarrassed me but also made me crack up. Lady Sophia burst into a grin she had hoped to hide and supported him, saying, “Let’s pace ourselves, for Ella.” Her words make me smile again now as my brain is loopy and my head heavy. Not long after she said that, she asked Kameelo for a ride on his back. A cramped calf muscle, she claimed. He tried to fly with her pudgy arms wrapped too tightly around his dangerous ruby neck. Her glistening white thighs were thick around his narrow waist.
Boy, her scream was loud. If anyone actually lived on the mountain, they would have heard her whoops and hollers half a day before we arrived. Lady Sophia, first screaming but eventually laughing, suddenly lost her grip and slipped off, nearly pulling Kameelo’s jumpsuit off with her. Kameelo only managed to get to the Lord’s height—about ten or so feet—off the ground, so when Lady Sophia landed on her rear, she bounced twice on the mossy path before settling like a flipped pancake. She seemed fine enough.
Now I’m the one leading Luggie behind me, away from the party, and through the cave. Grandpa Archie gives me a closed-mouth grin. Mom’s forehead is scrunched with worry and her lips curl with disapproval, but who is she to judge? She still hasn’t told me how her and Nate’s flirting is a part of our plan to find my cure, but I haven’t made a fuss about it. She looks happy for the first time since before my diagnosis. I hate Nate for the way he gazes at her—yuck, seriously?—but I do want Mom to have a life, even if it has nothing to do with me. The two emotions that bubble up in my gut—anger for Dad and happiness for Mom—don’t sit well with the dense Olearon fare. But tonight, right now, it’s not about any of them.
Luggie and I trace our way along the wall of the cave. Its rock is jagged and angry, black as the night between the broken bursts of vibrant stormy pyrotechnics and strangely warm to the touch, even when we’ve moved far enough away from the Olearon’s heat. Eventually, the warmth of their flames fades, too, so Luggie and I hug the insides of the cave, drawing comfort from Baluurwa and from each other.
We take tentative steps into a narrow offshoot of the roughly carved space. The rock is only an inch above my head, about two inches above Luggie’s, with less than an arm’s width of space on each side. It’s dark now, the Olearons’ light nothing more than a flickering glow behind us—dark but for Luggie’s eyes. They create a small pocket of shadowy light where we can make out each other’s faces when we are nose to nose. I can taste the wryst on Luggie’s breath, which only makes my head spin more quickly.
We are chest to chest. Beneath my shirt, I feel against my ribs the long chain of my necklace, from which hangs two objects I hold dear. One is the locket I wore on Constellations Cruise Line, aboard the Atlantic Odyssey. Thankfully it’s suffered only slight tarnishing in the soggy island air. It was Grandma Suzie’s locket and holds two photographs: one of Grandpa Archie and the other of Dad as a baby, cut from old photos that once hung in their living room. Grandpa gave it to me when Grandma Suzie died.
The other object dangling there is an ornate metal key. I dug it out from a hidden pocket of the blank book Luggie and Nanjee gave me to draw in to communicate. I found the pocket and the key while I was a Bangol captive, trapped in a sack as Luggie and Nanjee flew our balloon to higher elevations on the wings of the awakin butterflies. The trees of the blue forest faded into the white woodland beneath us. The key vibrated in my hand. I knew I was not meant to find it. I wondered, Had Luggie’s dad, Tuggs, king of the Bangols, hidden the key inside this book? The clean, creamy pages were intended to be filled with Tuggs’s slanted history of the Bangols—before Luggie and Nanjee stole it, that is. I didn’t tell Luggie about the key, for which I now feel a pang of guilt. It belongs to his kind. Still, something about it makes me want to be sneaky and keep it to myself.
It’s too dark in the cave to draw anything new. I pull out from my sack what drawings I made during our rest stops earlier today. Luggie smiles at them faintly, but his attention is halfhearted. When we stood close, Luggie felt what I conceal. He puts his hand on my chest, where the locket and key sit nuzzled against my ribs. I’ve been too careless, but it’s too late now. His brow creases ever so slightly, and his gaze follows his touch, which emboldens me. I must keep my secret safe and also have a happy birthday. Releasing the black ink drawings to be gobbled by the darkness at our feet, I cup Luggie’s face in my hands. Kissing is just the distraction we both need. His eyes close, and our lips find each other in the dim, buttery glow of his eyes, even when closed, that only ever fades completely when a Bangol is dead.
Chapter 8
Tessa
Tessa leans against the opening to the cave, staring into the distance. A feeling of foolishness thuds in her chest as she realizes that, until now, she did not notice the life that throbs at the heart of the island. The subtle life, which does not value confrontation or even acknowledgment but merely exists to live and to die, in perfect succession. Breath and no breath. Hunting and hunted. Motion and stillness.
Tessa not that long ago believed that Jarr-Wya was home only to the Millia, Bangols, Olearons, and, in a generation past, the Steffanus race. She laughs at her small-mindedness. In the dark sky, the great black flyers are silhouettes outlined in moonbeam silver. The awakin butterflies, each airborne by night with a purple pair of wings, flutter sleepily. They choose never to land, afraid to risk contact with the hallucinogenic Banji flowers—Tessa knows this all too well from her time carrying the flora to the man-spider, Rolace. The awakins also fear the sky hunters, those silver silhouettes that stalk them like the shadows of clouds. The awakins hover between branches, above and below the palm-sized leaves of the blue forest and the nests of the sleeping green birds. The awakins’ tireless energy prompts Tessa to yawn.
Just beyond the trees, the moon also illuminates the slick fur and innocent faces of what first appears to be a pack of fluffy rabbits. Their coats are brown, like the dusty earth where they huddle. Junin approaches silently and startles Tessa.
“My apology, Tessa Wellsley. I only meant to escape the endless plotting. May I join you?”
Tessa nods, and Junin stands beside her on the threshold of the cave. The Olearon inhales deeply as her almond-shaped eyes adjust to the darkness without the illumination of fire.
“What you so keenly observes,” Junin begins, “are the huppers.”
“Those there? Huddled together?” Tessa points. “They look like rabbits.”
“Do your rabbits have glowing whiskers that attract the lightning bugs?”
“No.”
“The insects believe their host hupper to be a friend, and they
are, in one manner of thinking. Until the hupper grows hungry.”
Tessa watches the pack of huppers shuffle through the dirt. They scurry into a patch of moonlight, which reveals their lengthy corkscrew tails and massive ears, easily two feet tall, which stand erect despite untamed tufts of shaggy hair. Suddenly, a twig snaps in two—a predator is nearing—and all thirty pairs of bushy ears turn back.
Tessa shifts on her feet. “What’s coming?”
“It is only the sasars. They hunt the huppers. Calm yourself; they have never ventured near an Olearon habitation. They fear our fire.”
Tessa’s mouth hangs agape as the group of huppers disperse, leaping from the ground through the air and landing on the vertical planes of the nearest trees. Midair, their brown fur loses its copper highlights and fades to ashy black, matching the night sky. The moment the huppers’ small feet connect with the bark, they transform to pale starlight-blue, then become fully azure from the tips of their ears to the ends of their tails.
“Do your huppers hide from hunters in this way?”
“N-no,” stutters Tessa.
The huppers remain fixed in place, as if held motionless to the blue trunks by some magnetic force, and just in time. Three sasars stroll into the moonlight. The white fur-covered bodies are as big as bears, Tessa notes, and she blinks rapidly in disbelief. Her mouth feels dry.
“You’re sure they won’t come this way?”
Junin shakes her head. The sasars weave around the trees like cats at a scratching post. They stand on their broad hind legs and claw at the bark. When they open their mouths, black fangs stand out against their ghostly fur. Their howl is a nightmare made audible, bloodthirsty and savage, and it rattles at the end like the clatter of empty spray paint cans.
“Since the Star arrived many sunsets ago, it has broken not only the island, but all that live upon it. Like the sasars—no longer can they smell their prey. They must listen hard or starve.”
Below the Moon Page 6