Below the Moon

by Alexis Marie Chute

  No matter how sly Grandpa may be, Mom always finds him out. She too is trailing behind us. She asks me through her mind, in her pestering sort of way, what’s changed about Grandpa Archie. She’s noticed the difference, too, but kept it to herself. I tell her I don’t know, but I suspect it’s everything.

  I didn’t realize it, but I fell asleep on Grandpa’s back. Thankfully, he held my arms and legs tightly. Stupid cancer. It makes me a child needing two naps a day. It’s all the walking and the breathlessness of spilling my secrets to Luggie in the cave. The fatigue is a heavy blanket over my head.

  How long did I sleep?

  I hear Mom and Dad talking about the Fairy Vineyard and pointing ahead. Squinting through the trees, I can see the end of the blue forest and the start of a lush green swath of land. The area is shaded by a massive, twisted trunk with reaching branches of drooping leaves like a weeping willow. Beyond it, I sense the ocean. Its saltiness makes my cheeks tacky, yet its smell is welcome, as if I can close my eyes and be back on the Atlantic Odyssey, waking to learn this was all a dream.

  Except, I don’t want it to be a dream. I’m alive, living more fully than I ever have at school or in the doctors’ offices or within the pages of my favorite books. This spark of life burns inside me, like Dad’s fire, and I worry I won’t be able to keep the flame lit much longer.

  Our company huddles as we leave Baluurwa behind us. The ache deepens. Does this mean we leave my hope for a cure behind as well?

  A flurry of conversation happens all at once. The Lord listens to ideas about how to outsmart the Steffanus sisters. Islo and Azkar bicker, as usual, always striving to outdo the other. Nameris suggests we take refuge with the sprites for one night only, then return to the glass city to add more warriors to our numbers before “burning alive every last Steffanus.” His words, not mine.

  The Lord abandons his plotting and replies to Nameris. “What numbers do you imagine we have?” he begins. “With the meager harvest, our flames are starved. Our best warriors are here.” He surveys the company.

  “We left the glass city with so little when we ventured out …” Kameelo mumbles. He toys with the broken shard of Tanius’s antler, which he pocketed before fleeing.

  “We left them hope,” Junin answers boldly. I like Junin. “Hope! What we lack in numbers, we make up for in cunning. We will succeed, but by another way.”

  I can feel Grandpa Archie suck in a great gulp of air as he resolves to speak. “I have an idea. It’s a bit cunning, as Junin suggests.”

  “Continue, Archibald Wellsley.” The Lord frowns.

  “We let the Bangols fight the Steffanus sisters for us.”

  Azkar spits. “Why would they do that? The Bangol king, Tuggeron, is stone-wild, mad, and—” He realizes that Luggie is listening. The gruff Olearon looks over at the young Bangol, son of the king, but Luggie only shrugs.

  “You’re right, Azkar. My father would never fight for you.”

  Grandpa Archie clears his throat, and I take this as my opportunity to slip off his back to walk beside Luggie. Braiding my fingers between his, I gaze into Luggie’s sad yellow eyes. I squeeze his hand, only once, and hope he understands.

  “The Bangols won’t know they’re fighting for us,” Grandpa continues. He’s got his hands up, as he does when talking at the television, ordering the Seattle Colts to pass the football. “We trick them!”

  The Lord turns his sharp shoulders toward Grandpa without slowing his gait. “Continue.”

  Grandpa runs over to Kameelo and plucks the Steffanus antler from the Olearon’s hands. “Hey!” Kameelo protests.

  “We use this.” Grandpa holds up the miserable antler. “We plant this in the Bangols’ northern fortress, which can’t be far from the Fairy Vineyard.” Grandpa looks to Nameris, the studious warrior who is never silent about his knowledge of Jarr.

  “Less than a half-day’s march,” Nameris answers. “Faster if we run.”

  Lady Sophia’s face falls.

  Grandpa nods, liking his plan more by the minute. “We write a nasty note, pretending to be the Steffanus sisters, announcing to the Bangols that we warrior women plan to invade. We tie the note to the antler and leave it somewhere important—”

  “The amphitheater of the stone band shell,” Luggie says. “That will get my father’s attention.”

  “Yeah, leave it there,” continues Grandpa, not missing a beat, “and mess up a few things on the way out—smash a pot, tip a water jug—all leading a trail south to Baluurwa.”

  “This could work.” A creepy sneer returns to the Lord’s usually stoic face.

  Grandpa Archie is talking fast now. He’s excited. “We provoke the Bangols under the guise of the Steffanus race, and they’ll do the fighting for us! We dash into the tunnels when no one’s looking—and the Bangols won’t suspect us because they don’t know we’re here.”

  “A good plan,” declares Junin. She takes the antler out of Grandpa’s hand. “The Bangols have no knowledge that we possess this.” Junin strokes the bony antler, her fingers coming to rest on its golden tip, which spirals out in a fine coil that pricks her finger.

  Chapter 13

  Ella

  The Fairy Vineyard is a dream. Lately, day on Jarr-Wya is close to indistinguishable from night, except here. The nights are better. The vineyard is strung with honey-colored lights that warm the cozy corner of the island. Between them are wind-stirred flags of pink, peach, and periwinkle. Sprites fly past in a flutter, a happy hum, and a tickle when they brush against me.

  The fearless vines glow a stardust emerald. They spread their leaves in all directions, snaking their shoots along lines of wooden supports, crossing to the neighboring rows and entwining. The vineyard forms lush tunnels of greenery, below which the sprites race around in their daytime chores. Sprite skin is pale sea-foam green but appears darker in places where they nuzzle the foliage.

  We are welcomed by Jeo, the queen sprite. She’s not afraid, though I’m sure we look—and smell—terrible. I’m always deathly pale, but even the Olearons are the color of red shirts line dried for days in the blazing sun. Azkar and Nameris had taken turns carrying Lady Sophia, and both stretch their aching backs when we arrive. Duggie-Sky, too, is dog-tired. He collapses, snores, and drools on a pile of leaves pruned from the vineyard.

  Queen Jeo is elderly. Deep creases accentuate her lively eyes and lips that pucker when she smiles. Jeo has wild white hair braided and twisted into a swan. The bird tips as the jolly sprite takes her leave. She tasks one of her attendants, Quillie, to show us around. Quillie is male, despite his sweet-sounding name.

  He’s pregnant.

  Male sprites grow the children, Quillie tells me, as females are the better horticulturists and prefer to nurture the vineyard until the babies are born. I scrunch my forehead. Grandpa Archie shrugs at the biology and whispers, “We’re better off not knowing some things.”

  The sprites tend the vineyard year-round and harvest its grapes—the ohmi—every fifty sunsets. There are different varieties of ohmi, each with its own color, size, leaf, vine, and magical properties. The sprites tell the ohmi apart by these qualities.

  The fat blue ohmi are juicy and give the eater sweet dreams. The firm orange ohmi smell like old socks but remove even the most ornery stains. The purple ohmi, the ones that most resemble what Mom buys at the grocery store at home, are used by the naughty sprites to play pranks on their friends. Yellow ohmi season the stew made from the green, and the black ohmi … well, Quillie thinks I am too young to know what those are for.

  The sprites aren’t like us. They’re all related. Every sprite is a part of their great family: all are mother, father, brother, sister, husband, wife, aunt, uncle, grandma, grandpa, friend. They share these roles as they nurture and care for one another.

  Queen Jeo gifts the grapes that plant new life in mature males and, after they are consumed, a child begins to bloom within them. These special baby-making grapes—the Life Ohmi—grow in smaller numbers
and are hidden within the tunnels of the vineyard. They are white and glow at sundown. The Life Ohmi are protected fiercely, as they are the future of the sprites.

  I take diligent notes as Quillie takes us on a tour around the vineyard. The sprites draw pictures on their wooden trellises using a hard drawing tool that reminds me of an oil pastel. It’s formed of charcoal from their fires and held together with ohmi juice. The lines it makes are smooth. Quillie sees me struggling with the blue-bark paintbrush and Olearon ink while I stumble through the vineyard. He offers me a piece of pastel.

  Whoa! Awesome! I draw faster and more accurately but can also smudge. The pastel works well with the ink, too, which I experiment with when I finally sit down. I need a rest, but my hands are flying across the paper.

  A gang of toddler sprites flutter around my head, whispering to each other before laughing and spinning themselves off course. They have broad grins and toothy smiles through their full red lips. Quillie shoos them to bed. I know it’s a cliché, but I draw Quillie holding a giant molar. He notices the picture and shakes his head. “We are far too frivolous to do the serious job of collecting teeth,” he tells me while rubbing his ballooning girth. Mom looks grossed out, but I think it’s sweet.

  Quillie—not as mature as he’d like everyone to believe—is twin to his sister Pinne, both born of one Life Ohmi. The pair splash around in my black ink, then dance across my paper with their tiny feet. They make a terrible mess. I love it! This is now one of my favorites. I let the ink dry before folding the paper and tucking it safely inside the pocket of my baby-blue bomber jacket.

  The pocket is home to a small puncture wound in the fabric, which I trace with my fingers. It’s too small for the paper to escape. I had accidentally cut the hole with Olen’s glass dagger. The Olearon had protected me, Mom, and Grandpa Archie when we first arrived on Jarr-Wya. Olen died in the Bangols’ attack in the blue forest not long after. That was when I was captured by the stone-heads and thrown into an awakin butterfly balloon fortunately sailed by Luggie and Nanjee.

  Those events feel ages ago.

  The vineyard’s sleepy, silly quality eases my mind into other memories, stories told to me by the glow of my unicorn nightlight as I lay curled, precancer, inside my sheets. Childhood stories about my family that were adapted to my age over the years were repeated, expanding in detail and truth.

  These stories shift my natural stubbornness into the sweet spot of gratitude. I don’t know what I’d do if my parents and Grandpa Archie weren’t here with me on Jarr-Wya. My energy is plummeting, the headaches threaten to dice my brain, and the nausea is a constant annoyance. How could I have found my cure alone? No, life isn’t meant to be lived in solitude. Whatever Mom overheard the Lord tell Grandpa Archie about family—that it’s a weakness—is a lie.

  Family is my strength.

  Like it is for the sprites.

  Like it is for Luggie, heartbroken at the death of his sister.

  Oh, Luggie. He’s protective. Sweet. Honest. He lives in a world removed from mine, and our communication is unconventional, yet he knows and accepts me. These are alien feelings for me. During my social banishment from hallway gossip, sports teams, and school dances—because I was different, fragile, “contagious”—I learned to be happy with only one good friend: Grandpa Archie.

  He wasn’t motherly in Mom’s way, reminding me to take my medication or put a cool cloth on my head when I was eaten alive by fever. I didn’t need coddling. He was a great companion during my forty-eight sick days in grade nine alone. He told me story after story from his life. My favorites are the ones about his childhood.

  Grandpa Archie was raised by a single mom; he never knew his dad. Mom and son were quite the pair, always having adventures, always laughing. Archie and his mom, Great Granny, moved from Arizona to Seattle with their station wagon packed to the roof with books and maps—before GPS—and a mountain of red licorice. They sang along with the radio as their voices slipped out the open windows.

  Grandpa Archie told me his mother was a free spirit and prone to embellishment. She was wild in who she loved—reckless even—yet fiercely attached. She told Archie how she met his father, though they never said their I do’s. She was twenty and hiking in Africa, independent and determined to see the world. Her canteen had a leak, and she ran out of water.

  Young Great Granny was soaked with sweat and delirious from the heat. She saw a mountain bend in half and trees shift horizontally, as if cut along the horizon, though they didn’t fall. Through this break in reality, out stepped a man. There was another in his shadow, but that person disappeared. Young Great Granny embraced the tall handsome stranger, whose mind was sharp, even in the swelter of African nowhere. He tracked a water source for her.

  They stayed there, living a Garden of Eden existence, for how long Great Granny couldn’t gauge. They loved each other immediately, and she knew she had conceived because she felt a tiny flame of life warm her from within. Grandpa Archie always told me that part proudly.

  Great Granny was eventually found in the badlands, alone and asleep, on the verge of a coma. When the search party woke her, she asked for the man. They told her it was a dream, an illusion brought on by dehydration. There was no evidence of another person, and no tracks leading away. She didn’t believe them, but after a week in the Nairobi hospital she, too, questioned everything, especially the man and the love they shared.

  A month later, when her pregnancy was confirmed, she knew that everything she remembered in her heart, despite her mind’s raging objections, was true. There had been a man, a love, a sweet season of Eden, and she knew that the gaps in her memory would be filled at the birth of her child. But when Archie was born, fleshy and pink with chestnut-auburn hair and blue eyes—like Great Granny’s eyes, and Dad’s and mine, too—she had no other clues.

  She never told Archie what she expected her child to look like, just that he was nothing like what she’d imagined. “Your father was the love of my life,” was all she would say.

  Grandpa Archie loves that story, I know he does, and all the others, too, in which he and his mom went treasure hunting and bushwhacking. They hiked the Canadian Rockies and rafted in southern California. That’s how he lost her. To the water.

  Great Granny saw a glint of red on the river and dove in, without hesitating. She slipped low, beneath the rapids, and the current left her behind, crushed in a pocket of rock, as the raft zoomed downstream. Archie screamed till his throat bled and he worried he’d choke. His mother was gone. The light on the water had been the reflection of the autumn sun through a misty morning sky.

  When Grandpa reflects on this years later, he resents the rescue officers who concluded that suicide or insanity—possibly both—was the cause of death. He believes his mother saw something so compelling that she risked her life to reach it.

  Archie was seventeen then and newly graduated from high school. He was enrolled in college to study African history, something Great Granny had wanted desperately for him, but without her, he couldn’t bear it. He slept through orientation, present but absent. He was late for day two and didn’t show up on day three.

  Archie found a contractor looking for roofers to do a project. The job wasn’t far from the apartment he shared with a senior couple after breaking the lease on Great Granny’s townhouse. He didn’t have a car, so he walked the twenty blocks every morning, uphill both ways (if I remember the story correctly). He learned on the job. Grandpa Archie jokes that he only staple gunned his hand twice.

  He never again went rafting. Or climbing. Or traveling outside Seattle. He roofed and created a man-shaped indentation in his recliner. He married Suzie, who he knew from grade school. He charmed her over the till where she worked, ringing in his meager groceries. He told me he would buy enough for two days’ worth of meals, max, so he could go back to the store often to see her. When Suzie criticized his nutritional choices, he knew she was the one.

  Archie took her out to the edge of the sea and a
sked her to marry him.

  His proposal went something like this: “Suzie, you’re the milk that makes me strong, the bread that sustains me, the steak that makes life rich. Will you be my wife?” Grandpa Archie can be so corny! This story made me giggle, especially when I was little and he first moved in with Mom, Dad, and me. I was seven then, and I didn’t know the words tumor or cancer. I did know a little about death—Grandma Suzie’s—and the way sadness tastes on the cheek of someone who’s been crying. It was also the taste of love.

  Grandpa Archie sang his dead wife’s name in his sleep. The way he said it—Suzie, and on rare occasions, Suzanne—made young me wonder if I could ever have a love like that. He spoke her name as if she were still there, his words placed into her mouth like a kiss.

  Suzie was beautiful, he told me often. He saw her features on my face and her character in the person he observed me becoming. She was special in the way she cared for people with such generosity that you’d think there was no end to the kindness in the world, that the more you gave, the more you had to give.

  THE plan is in motion. Half our company set off at sundown for the Bangols’ northern fortress. They make up three groups. The first is the Lord of Olearon, with Islo as his guard, Luggie as their guide, and Duggie-Sky, who is tasked with using his power of teleportation to place the antler on the band shell’s stage. They’re heading west and will sneak in from the northern edge of Baluurwa—where the Steffanus warriors would travel if they were plotting a siege.

  Luggie seemed overeager to accompany the Lord. He had a strange look in his eyes. His body was tense, and his mind elsewhere. I’m not sure what to make of his behavior. It was like he was readying himself to either pounce or protect. I only hope he doesn’t do anything stupid.