Little Apocalypse

by Katherine Sparrow

  Celia and Daisy ate, and Littles brought them more food—caramel apples, fresh-baked bread, and a beet salad. Every time Celia looked around, Littles across the warehouse looked away. “Is this what you always eat?” Celia asked. Everything was fresh and homemade.

  “This is our normal. We grow most of our own food, and Demetri makes us all be vegetarians. We’ve all taken oaths not to hurt anything ever, as much as possible. We have to learn to never take lives.”

  “Demetri says it, and everyone just obeys him?”

  “Are you kidding? Littles travel from all over the world to meet him. Demetri’s done what every monster and hunter says is impossible. Bigs don’t own us, and we don’t change kids. We’re free.” Daisy shoved a big spoonful of greens into her mouth.

  “Free,” Celia echoed. She wished everyone would stop looking at her like she was what was for dessert. “What else, besides being vegetarian?” Celia asked as she ate some beets.

  “The first rule is that we run and hide from all Bigs. We all want to get our revenge on every single one of them, but we stay away. Fighting them almost never goes well. We’re weaker than they are.”

  “But today . . . ,” Celia began.

  “Today was special, and we got to fight them to rescue you. I loved every second of it.” Daisy spooned lentil soup into her mouth. “The second rule is we always help other Littles out, no matter what. We always rescue them when we can. We always share what we have and watch out for each other.”

  Celia liked that rule. She wished real kids had a rule like that.

  A couple of demonic-looking Littles laughed nearby as they planted a row of seeds in dirt.

  “And the last and biggest rule”—Daisy blinked her large two-toned eyes—“is we don’t touch kids, not ever. Even if every cell of what we are tells us all the time that’s what we have to do, we don’t. Even when the urge to do it gets so big that it feels like the only thing in the whole world that we can do, we don’t.” Daisy’s breathing went ragged.

  Celia looked into the girl’s eyes, and it felt like gazing down a thousand-foot well. The Little smiled and reached toward her.

  Celia inhaled her beautiful smell and found herself leaning toward the other girl.

  Daisy blinked and jerked away from her. She yanked her hand back. “Careful, Celia. Remember what I am.”

  Celia scooted away from her and nodded.

  Daisy licked her lips and tried to smile. “So, it’s neat here, right? When I first got here, I couldn’t believe it existed. I couldn’t believe I got away from my maker.”

  Two Littles with overalls and long messy hair that looked like seaweed walked past them. One had gray skin, and the other was covered in purple boils.

  “Were you with your maker for a long time before you got here?” Celia asked.

  Daisy stared into her empty bowl. “Yeah. My maker kept me on a short leash, for years. Like, an actual leash.” She touched her neck.

  Celia looked at Daisy’s black-and-white checkered face and saw past the strangeness to a girl her age who’d been a slave.

  “I’m . . . so sorry.”

  Daisy shrugged. “You want to know the worst part of it? For the first five years, I loved it. There’s this yucky thing where at first all you want to do is serve your maker. But that was long gone by the time Demetri rescued me and brought me here. He almost got killed doing it, but Littles help Littles. I’m one of the lucky ones.”

  Celia looked over to where Demetri sat watching the world. He was a Little, but he was more than that too.

  “So no one was free before him?”

  “Sometimes, here and there, one of us would run away from our maker and not change into a Big. But no one knew how to make wards back then, so it was harder to hide. Bigs would always find the runaways. We’re hard to kill, but it’s not impossible.” Daisy stared past Celia at some unseen memory.

  “The world shouldn’t be like this,” Celia whispered. All around her, Littles who used to be kids sniffed the air and tried to pretend they didn’t want to attack her.

  “Right?” Daisy said. “And don’t you wish you could go back in time and change the one moment that led to all this? It always starts with one thing going wrong. If I could go back . . . but there’s that stupid rule of the universe that time only moves in one direction.”

  The one moment that changed everything? Celia thought about the piece of paper that had lured her to the hunters. But that hadn’t been the beginning. No. The first thing was when she saw Demetri going up to the roof after the earthquake. If she hadn’t seen him and followed, she would still be the old Celia, maybe. The lonely, bored, and safe Celia who spent all day at school wishing someone would notice her. Now the hunters wanted to control her, every Big in the city was hunting her, and she sat in the middle of a Little sanctuary where none of the monsters could stop staring at her.

  Even if she could go back and redo the moment she made the choice to go up to the roof, she didn’t know if she would. Life felt bigger now. Monsters were real, but so was magic. There were girls who pretended they were her friends, but there were also Littles willing to battle Bigs to rescue her. Monsters who vowed to go against their very nature, just to keep her safe. “Will you show me around the warehouse?” Celia asked. “This whole place seems really amazing.”

  Daisy grinned. “Sure thing, doom girl.”

  26

  Filled With Plague

  “Over there,” Daisy said, and pointed. “That’s our main moneymaker.”

  Celia sat cross-legged on the picnic bench and felt the weight of food and warmth settle in her stomach. She looked at the table full of Littles working with screwdrivers, sandpaper, and saws. Celia couldn’t tell what they were making. A tall boy with orange teeth smiled at her and put one of the objects on the ground. It began to roll toward Celia on long swirls of octopus legs that ended in wheels. It tipped over just before it got to her and lay toppled on its side with its wheels spinning helplessly in the air.

  “It’s a windup toy,” Daisy informed her. “We make them and sell them to fancy toy shops on the wharf. The money lets us buy the things we can’t grow or make ourselves.”

  Celia grabbed it and looked at its underside. Its body was smooth, and she liked running her fingers over the curved dome of the glass top. As she inspected the strange object, Daisy explained how they made each one. The Littles took wine bottles from recycling bins, cut off the bumps on the bottom of them, and sandpapered the edges so they weren’t sharp. Then they cut thin strips of sheet metal and wound them tightly together. The legs were made of thin wire from a straightened metal hanger. The wheels were pieces of cut-up bike tires melted back together. All of it was made from things they found around town.

  Celia stroked the top of the toy like it was a puppy, then wound it up again and sent it back to the table of Littles working on them.

  “Come on, I’ll show you the rest,” Daisy said. She stood and pointed to all the garden plots across the warehouse. “We use grow spells to have lots of veggies all year round.”

  Celia followed Daisy. They walked by the table where the Littles worked on the rows of windup sea-creature toys, and maybe Celia imagined it, but they seemed to lean toward her as she passed by. She held her breath as she moved as far away from them as she could without stepping into a vegetable patch.

  Daisy led the way down a zigzag path made of red carpet remnants. They passed some Littles gardening, and others cutting up vegetables and throwing them into a pot hanging over a wood fire.

  One Little wandered toward them, staring at Celia. He smiled and lunged toward her. Two other Littles ran at him and tackled him to the ground before he could reach her.

  It all happened so fast that it was over before Celia could feel scared. A moment later panic flooded her. He had almost . . . he had wanted to . . .

  She looked toward the hill where Demetri sat. He stood and glared across the warehouse.

  Daisy gave Demetri a shaky thumbs-up.r />
  The Little who had tried to touch her lay on the ground curled up around himself. He mumbled, “Sorry. So sorry. I didn’t mean to. I wouldn’t . . .”

  The two Littles who had tackled him sat cross-legged on both sides of him.

  Daisy took Celia on a wide path around him. A dozen steps later, Daisy whispered to Celia, “Don’t worry about him. Nazreal’s new and a little feral. He’ll stay in his house the rest of the time you’re here. If he tries anything again, he’ll be kicked out.”

  “What would happen to him then?”

  Daisy shrugged. “Let’s not talk about the bleak stuff. Over here is our salvage.” She pointed to a bunch of trash. It was the opposite of Dreck’s filthy garbage. This pile was full of blue bottles, porcelain sinks, used clothing, and showerheads. Everything was arranged in tidy heaps. “We scrounge a lot to get by. Everyone has to spend five hours a day working. Right now we all have to work ten hours a day, because of the spell.”

  “The spell?”

  “It’s really big. We’ll get to that.”

  They walked by some rusty playground equipment: a swing set, a teeter-totter, and a merry-go-round being spun by some of the younger Littles who could run faster than normal kids. They screamed and held on as their legs and bodies spun out from the whirling center. Behind them sat a large metal cage, the size of a bedroom, with an open door and a thick lock.

  Daisy stopped in front of the metal cage and hugged herself. “Sometimes some of us have to lock ourselves up when we’re feeling weak. But unlike the hunters, we always let each other out. Anyway, check out Minerva’s tail. Neat, huh?” Daisy pointed at a girl who hung on to the merry-go-round with her monkey tail. “Lucky.”

  “I’d want to glow in the dark,” Celia said.

  “No you wouldn’t. George glows, and he was almost impossible to free because he’s so bad at hiding. And anyway, don’t ever wish you’re one of us, Celia.”

  “I wasn’t. I wouldn’t. I meant, if I had to choose . . . it’s kind of like that game where you pick what superpower you’d want.”

  Daisy frowned. “It’s the opposite of having superpowers.”

  They walked by a Little with thorns growing out of her hands. She had a black eye.

  “Hunters jumped her two nights back,” Daisy said.

  The words hung in the air as they walked around the edge of the playground toward the largest garden in the warehouse. It had long rows of vegetables and a grassy patch at the center. In the grass, a group of Littles sat lotus-style with their eyes closed in meditation. They chanted together. One girl’s eyes snapped open and she stared right at Celia. She smiled with fangs jutting out of her mouth.

  Daisy pointed out an area where three Littles sat listening at different tubes and pipes that came out of the wall. “We have spells to listen in on places across the city,” Daisy explained. “And Bigs can talk to us through them, if we have their hearts.”

  They passed a row of tents and came to a place along the wall where at least forty Littles were hard at work building some kind of giant statue made out of chicken wire and papier-mâché. It was shaped like a man and rose up almost to the ceiling.

  “Our big spell,” Daisy whispered. Awe filled her voice. “Demetri’s had us working on it ever since you told him Krawl was back. He says, if we do it just right, it will break the prophecy and destroy Krawl. I can’t wait for it to be done.”

  That might make the doom prophecy go away? Celia stared up at the massive lumpy effigy. It stood on crooked legs and looked like it might fall over if you bumped into it. Ten Littles ran laps around its feet and touched the big toe on the right foot each time they passed. Others folded up newspaper squares into origami cranes and threw them into a hole in the statue’s shin. Another crew of Littles stood on rickety ladders and painted symbols on its knees and thighs.

  Celia was about to ask questions about how the spell worked, but she was interrupted by someone playing the drums. In one corner of the warehouse a girl with purple and pink skin held drumsticks and sat behind two five-gallon plastic tubs. She banged out a fast beat.

  Two Littles ran over and grabbed more plastic tubs. They began playing too: not matching each other’s beats exactly, but somehow sounding in sync. Celia found herself bouncing up and down to the rhythm.

  A girl with bright-blue horns and a red dress joined them. She tucked a violin under her chin as she raised her bow and began playing fast and hard. Even her squawks sounded good as she filled up the spaces in between the drumbeats. Another boy joined with an old black-and-white accordion strapped to his chest; then a tree-gnarled girl with a large guitar sauntered over. All the Littles stopped what they were doing and moved toward the makeshift band.

  Daisy swayed from side to side. “We do this every night. It helps keep us from . . . you know. We need it, tonight especially, to deal with you being here. Stay back,” Daisy said, and walked toward the music.

  Celia kept her distance as all the Littles gathered in a circle around the band. She walked to a small zucchini-covered plot where she could see them better. Demetri stood and came down from his hill to join them. Maybe he was the one who started singing, or maybe it was someone else.

  At first the voices sounded like noise, but then Celia could make out a word here and there, and then more words as more voices joined in and repeated a chorus about being lost and wanting to go home. Littles shouted the words, jumped up and down, and threw themselves against each other as they danced.

  The first song ended, and the next song had a harder beat that pulsed through the air. The writhing mass of Littles bumped into each other and sang louder. This song was about a ship filled with plague that was lost at sea. All of them yelled out the lyrics, and there was something beautiful and wild about it. The Littles moved together like one big monster made out of a hundred different parts.

  They belonged together and took care of each other. A part of Celia longed to run forward and join them. The monster mark on her cheek throbbed. She stayed where she was and watched as each new song came faster and wilder than the last. Finally, after dozens of songs, the music slowed and a calm settled over the warehouse. Celia saw it on every Little’s face. She felt it in the air and the way her own shoulders and arms hung loose. Even though it probably wasn’t true, right now it felt like everything was going to turn out okay.

  27

  The Dialectics of Magic

  The concert ended, and the Littles walked away in ones and twos. One of them walked by with a basket of green onions and stopped near Celia, avoiding eye contact. “Your tent is over there.” He pointed. “I helped set it up.”

  “Thanks.” Celia tried not to stare at the bony vertebrae that jutted out of the back of his neck.

  Her tent stood apart from the others, sitting in the middle of some long grass. It was a small hoop-frame with duct tape wrapped around the crooked pole joints. One of the Littles had spray-painted onto the side of it: Celia’s Tent: KEEP OUT! Do Not Bother Her In Any Way Whatsoever. Do Not Do It!

  Celia walked to it, making sure to keep her distance from every Little. She opened the tent, stepped inside, and zipped it back up. She ran her hand over the shadowed letters on the tent wall where the message had been spray-painted on the outside. She pressed her fingers against the thin material that separated her from the Littles.

  Celia lay down on her back on top of the sleeping bag and felt the difference between here and her soft mattress at home. The lumpy surface of the grass pressed against her spine. Exhaustion washed through her, but she didn’t close her eyes.

  The air grew darker, and the light in the tent dimmed to a grayness she could almost touch. The Littles clanged pots, talked, argued, and laughed across the warehouse floor. Celia thought about all the other times in her life when she’d been scared at night, sure that a monster was out there, trying to get her.

  Her body ached with exhaustion, and it felt good to be still, but her head kept going over the different parts of her day. She th
ought about her name being written all over the graffiti wall, and how the girls she thought were her friends had turned on her. She remembered being carried into the underground and how desperately cold the world had gotten. Her mind seemed to think that if she reimagined what had happened over and over again, she could make it all less terrifying.

  It grew darker, and the noises outside died down until the only sounds were soft snores rising up from across the warehouse.

  Celia stared at the roof of the tent. She imagined Littles creeping toward her outside, with steps perfectly executed to make no noise. She imagined smoldering horns and red eyes, curled claws and jagged teeth. With just one lingering touch, she’d be ruined.

  Demetri will protect me, she thought. But what if he crept toward her too? What if he led a horde of Littles to her? What if they were all about to tear her tent apart right now?

  “I’m safe. I’m safe,” she whispered, then stopped and listened to the silence. Every hair on her body stood on end, and she felt sure they were about to attack. Any second now. Any moment.

  Celia sat up and unzipped the door of the tent. There was no way she was going to lie there and wait for something bad to happen.

  A few yellow orbs hovered in the air, shining with spelled light. Pools of glowing orange smoke lay on the ground. Otherwise the sanctuary lay in darkness.