Celia searched for any monsters about to attack, but there was only stillness, along with the wonderful smell of a warehouse full of Littles. Celia squinted at an indistinct shape ten feet away. Was that one of them? No. It was just a small shrub. Her breath slowed as seconds ticked by and nothing happened.
Celia stepped out of the tent with bare feet. The air felt cool, so she reached back inside and slung the sleeping bag across her shoulders like a long shawl. Slowly, so as not to wake any sleeping monsters, she walked through the grass, and then along the soft, carpeted paths in between the mazes of garden plots and tents. With every step and inhalation of the sweet-scented air, Celia’s night fears faded. They are Littles who don’t attack kids, she thought. At least they try not to. Before long, without knowing where her feet were taking her, Celia found herself near the center of the warehouse, at the grassy hill with the tree at the top of it. Her bare feet sank into the loamy earth and soft grass as she walked toward the tree at its middle.
A few feet away from it, she heard a sigh.
“I knew you’d come here. It keeps happening, no matter what.” Demetri spoke with a quiet voice. He leaned against the far side of the tree with his knees pulled up to his chest. He didn’t look at her but held his yo-yo string stretched between his hands and rolled the plastic part back and forth.
She smelled his apple and sunlight scent and didn’t know if she should turn around and go back to her tent.
“You might as well sit down.”
“Did I do something wrong? I didn’t mean to have to be rescued today.” She sat on a patch of short grass near, but not too near, him. “I didn’t want to need saving.”
“You did nothing wrong.”
“But you’re mad at me?”
“I’m mad at the whole world, but not you.” He leaned against the trunk of the tree and stared out at the warehouse. “I don’t like how you and I keep meeting. It makes me think I have something to do with this doom prophecy, but I can’t imagine what.”
She nodded and looked out at the warehouse and all the little houses and gardens. “It’s really neat here. You’ve built something amazing.”
“We barely get by. We work all the time just to keep it going.”
“I guess you don’t like praise?”
He laughed, and it was the first time she’d ever heard him laugh in a happy way. She wanted to keep hearing it.
Celia ran her hands through the grass and plucked a blade out of the ground. She wound it around her finger like a ring. “Everyone here looks up to you. They love you.”
“They like the idea of me. They like the hope I offer.”
“You mean . . . it sort of sounds like you’re saying you’re lonely?”
Demetri looked away.
“It’s okay,” Celia said. “I know all about that. Ever since I came to this city, everyone has ignored me. Well, not since the earthquake, but before that . . . it felt like no one would ever see me again. Like whatever I was made of, it was all the worst things.” It felt hard to say those words out loud. But also, as soon as she said them, she felt lighter.
Demetri nodded like her words made sense. “Can I tell you something, Celia? Something I never talk about?”
Celia nodded and scooted half a foot closer.
“This place, where I tell all my kind that they can be free? It’s a lie to make them act better for as long as possible. Stories can do that, if we believe in them. I tell them they can be free of their fate, and that helps them wait longer before they steal the lives of more kids.” His words hung heavy in the air. “But we are what we are. None of us will ever be free.”
“If stories work, then maybe you should tell yourself a better one,” Celia said. “You could be wrong. The world is always changing, isn’t it?”
“It looks about the same as it ever was. When you’re small and weak, others use you.”
Celia sat with his words for a while. “Nothing stays the same forever,” she countered. “Everything changes.”
“Change is the one thing I can’t do.” He sighed. “Can I tell you another secret?”
She nodded. There was something about this grassy hill and the warehouse all around them that made Celia feel like either of them could say anything.
“Sometimes I want it to happen,” he whispered. “Sometimes I just want to get it over with. Bigs don’t feel bad about anything. The second I do something truly evil, it will change me. After that, I won’t care anymore. Sometimes not caring sounds good. It would be a relief.”
“But you won’t. Not ever,” Celia whispered.
“I will. Someday. But the longer I wait, the longer someone else gets to live a normal life. I’m not like Kristen. I’m nothing like Krawl.”
“True. Even if I am extra awesome-smelling to you.”
He groaned. “You shouldn’t joke about that kind of thing.”
“I think I need to joke about everything. I need for it all to be a little less serious or I’m going to be awake all night worrying about being the doom girl surrounded by monsters. Do you think it means I will bring doom, or that I’m doomed?”
Demetri shrugged. “Probably both?”
Celia tore up a clump of grass and threw it at him. “Thanks.”
“It’s just a word,” he said softly. “Be yourself and you’ll make the right decision.”
He sounded so sure of that.
“There’s one thing I’ve been wondering about. If we destroy Krawl, what happens?” Celia asked. “She’s the first monster, after all.”
Demetri chewed on his lip. “I have no idea. She’s the mother of us all. If we destroy her heart, maybe . . .” He shook his head. “I keep having this feeling that everything is going to end soon.” He shrugged and smiled.
Ending sounded like dying. Celia ran her hands through the grass. “Like, destroying Krawl will break the spell that made you all? What would that do to you?”
“I have no idea. I have been stuck like this”—he gestured toward his horned head—“for a very long time. Perhaps we will all disappear.” He looked out at the rows of makeshift tents and houses littered across the warehouse floor.
Or one thing ending could mean new things starting, Celia thought but didn’t say out loud. She yawned.
“If you really can’t sleep,” he added, “I can cast a spell to help.”
“No thanks. The last thing I want to be is a sleeping princess in Little land.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“But,” Celia added, “if you did make a spell, how would you do it?”
“Humans can’t make magic. You can use a spell, but never make one. Not since monsters were made.”
“I know. But tell me anyway.”
“Okay, to make a sleeping spell, or any kind of spell, I have to gather magic first. It’s everywhere. It’s in objects, or people, or even the air. You can collect it if you leave out bowls of tap water and sugar for a couple of days. You can store up magic in objects that have been prepared to hold it, or change yourself so you can hold more of it inside you. Animals lose magic as they age, but trees gain it, and rocks never change. I use magic from myself or inanimate objects only. I don’t ever steal anyone’s magic. Some monsters do, but I won’t.”
“Because . . .” Celia thought about that. “Because magic sort of sounds like life?”
“Yeah. Some people never see that, but it’s true. Once I have magic, there’s a hundred ways to make spells. They can be endlessly complicated, but you only need three elements, really. It starts with wanting something and holding the image of it in your mind. Let’s say I want this grass to grow.” He ran his hands through the short blades. “In my head, I draw a picture of grass growing. I see it as clear as if it were there before me. Then I need an object.” He took a round stone from his pocket and placed it on the grass. “Then I put the magic into the object—I do that by giving something of myself away. By making a sacrifice.” He closed his eyes and smiled. The stone glowed with a soft blue sheen.
Celia watched the look of happiness on Demetri’s face.
He opened his eyes and gestured at the grass. Without Celia noticing, it had grown a foot. Heavy stalks surrounded her and bent toward the ground.
“What’d you sacrifice?” she whispered.
“I gave it a memory I had of eating a hot dog. That’s a small one. Bigger spells call for bigger sacrifices.”
“So now you can’t remember the hot dog?”
“No, I remember, but it’s in black and white. It’s lost all meaning.”
“So, to make a spell, you imagine something happening, put it in an object, and sacrifice something,” Celia said slowly, and then thought it through again, wanting to memorize the rules. “It sounds kind of easy.”
“Not for you.” He paused, gave her a funny half smile, and took a slim black book out of his back pocket. “You want to read this?”
“What is it?”
“My favorite magic book.”
“You sure you don’t need it?” The title, The Dialectics of Magic, was embossed on the cover in silver print.
“I memorized it long ago. It was the first book I ever stole from Krawl, and the one that eventually taught me how to banish her from the city.”
“What did you sacrifice to get rid of her?” Celia asked. “It must have been a really big thing.”
“The feel of sunlight on my skin. I miss warmth, but it was worth it.”
Demetri held the book out, and Celia took it. He moved his hand away from her quickly, like she was fire.
“I wonder what big spell Krawl is making.”
“It doesn’t matter.” He pointed to the looming man-statue in the corner. “Our golem will rise at noon tomorrow and lead me to her. With the golem’s magic, I’ll find her heart and destroy her.” He added more quietly, “I’ll try.”
“Then why are you awake? Shouldn’t you be sleeping before the big battle?”
“You’re here.” He sounded embarrassed. “It gnaws at me.”
Celia thought that it must not be very fun to be Demetri. “Sorry.”
“It helps to sit beneath this tree. You know what kind it is?”
Celia shook her head. She knew pine trees and palm trees, but that was about it.
“It’s an olive tree, one of the ancients. When I first made this sanctuary, I planted it. It takes a hundred and twenty years to bear fruit.”
Celia looked up at the tree’s dark branches. She didn’t see any olives on it.
“Give it sixty more years, and it will bear fruit. I plan to still be a Little and pick olives from it someday.”
“A lot might be different by then,” Celia said. “Robots, flying cars, and Littles who have learned how to never become Big.”
“Maybe. I doubt it,” Demetri said, but she heard the hint of hope in his voice.
“I’ll come back here as an old lady and we can eat olives together. Deal?”
“No. All this ends tomorrow. Then you won’t see me again,” Demetri said, and turned away from her.
Celia sat there for a while trying not to feel hurt. She knew he said it because he liked her. Because he didn’t want to destroy her. Even so, she wanted to keep being friends with him. Demetri might be strange and sad, but she liked him too. “If this ends tomorrow, mind if I stay up with you? Maybe we could talk about only good things. Maybe that could be its own kind of magic.”
Demetri nodded. “I’d love that.” He paused for a long moment. “We can’t ever be friends, but know this, Celia. You are the first person in a century and a half who has treated me like I’m something other than a monster. All the Littles look up to me. All the Bigs and hunters hate me. Thank you for seeing . . .” His voice trailed off.
“Who you really are?” Celia asked.
He nodded.
“Right back at you.”
They sat near the olive tree and spoke in whispers as all around them the Littles slept. Demetri told Celia about a ginkgo tree on Charles Street that turned the brightest yellow every fall. Celia told him about the banana splits her grandpa used to make and how he’d always put extra whipped cream on hers. They talked for hours, and in the middle of a story Celia was telling about a time she’d gone kayaking down the Columbia River, she looked over at Demetri and saw that he’d fallen asleep sitting up.
She stood and started to head back to her tent. She walked through the grass and soft dirt to the edge of the garden, and then turned to look back at Demetri. Sadness covered his sleeping face.
Whatever I decide, Celia thought, whatever the doom girl does, I’m not going to do anything that could hurt him any more than he’s already been hurt. That’s what friends did for each other.
28
Fascinating Creature
Back in her tent, Celia still couldn’t sleep. She took a flashlight out of her backpack and began to read the yellowed pages of the magic book. The type was small and cramped, like whoever had written it had had too many ideas and not enough paper. She didn’t know a lot of the words—alembic, quasimodic, alchymes—but the more she read, the more sense it made. It had a lot more details than Demetri had said, and described which different objects and sacrifices worked best for what kind of spells. Blood and memories of pain were good for hurting someone. A toy and the sacrifice of something precious were good for saving someone.
Celia grew sleepy but kept reading until her eyes refused to stay open. She slipped into sleep and dreamed of running fast while her fingers fused together and grew longer. Black feathers burst through her flesh, prickling her skin. She grew lighter, until she could bound forward and it would be a long second before she touched down again.
I’m becoming a bird, she thought, but when she jumped into the air, she fell to the ground in a painful jumble of feathers and breaking bones. She looked down at her body and saw not a bird, but a monster, wrong-angled and ugly.
She woke up panicked and confused, inside the blue world of her tent.
“Not real,” Celia whispered, and breathed in the sweet-smelling air, so strong she could almost taste it. She ran her hands over her goose-pimpled arms and kicked her legs out of the sleeping bag. She felt sweaty and gross, and wished she could take a shower.
Outside the tent, sleepy voices called out to each other and the smell of fried potatoes wafted through the air. Someone argued with someone else, and others laughed.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked toward Celia as she emerged from her tent. Then they pretended not to be watching as Demetri walked toward her.
“Morning.” His voice held none of the uncertainty from the night before.
How much does it hurt him to stand close to me? she wanted to ask. “Morning. How are you, Demetri?”
“Fine,” he said calmly, but his breath came too fast and his eyes were dilated. Celia had read that when people were around their families, their pupils got big like that. She’d also read that cats, just before the kill, got dilated eyes too.
“I brought you clothes. You don’t have to wear them, but I thought you might like to change.”
He set the pile of clothing on the ground a couple of feet away, bending over stiffly and then stepping back.
“Thanks.” Celia zipped back into her tent. Her old clothes smelled, and she was glad to get them off. She changed as fast as she could.
The pants were made of worn-down black corduroy with patches at the knees and hand stitches at the hem where the fabric had begun to wear away. The sweatshirt was thin but warm, and made out of a soft gold material with blue yarn sewn over the holes. Celia had never worn anything so used before, and she liked the softness of it. She liked how, when she came out of her tent, she looked like she belonged here.
But she didn’t. Everyone watched her as she disappeared into the bathroom. When she came out, they stared at her as she took a path that wound through a garden with tethered pygmy goats. She came to the picnic table where Demetri and Daisy sat eating bowls of steaming porridge. Celia grabbed a chipped bowl and spoon and
served herself some of the gray bubbling mixture from the iron pot hanging above a small campfire. Maple syrup and soy yogurt sat on the table, and Celia spooned some of each into her bowl.
As she ate, she thought about Demetri and his golem trying to stop Krawl today. She knew she would have something to do with it, and she was pretty sure that whatever it was would determine who won. It made her feel both excited and nauseated. Nothing bad will happen to any of us, she thought, like a prayer, like hope, before she began eating and wondering if siding with the Littles meant she’d already made some kind of decision. Demetri and Daisy watched her every move like she was a fascinating creature.
“So what’s the plan today?” Celia asked.
“We wait until noon,” Demetri said. “Then I wake the golem with some spells I’ve been preparing. He’ll lead us to Krawl. With his help, I will find her heart and destroy it.”
A Little ran toward them, clutching a sheet of paper to her chest with chicken-feet hands. She jumped over purple cabbages and pumpkins as she came close. She stopped before them, breathless and wide-eyed. “Soltminer whispered through the east tube that he needs to see you today,” she said to Demetri. “Says he knows something about Krawl, and you have to hear it. He wants you to come and bring the doom girl. Says there’s something he can only tell you in person.” Her purple eyes flicked toward Celia as she spoke.
Demetri frowned. “How does he know we have Celia?”
The girl shrugged.
Demetri muttered in another language. “You should have asked him to give you the message instead.”
“I tried! He said he’d meet you near Finney Port at the Crab Shack, and that you’d better come or you’ll regret it. Then he was gone and I couldn’t get him back.”
The girl shifted from foot to foot as Demetri scowled.
“Thanks, Cathy. Good work,” Daisy said.
The younger Little grinned and ran back to her surveillance station.
“A trap,” Daisy said, and ate a lumpy spoonful of porridge.
“Perhaps.” Demetri stared into his empty bowl. “Though it would be the death of him. We hold his heart. I’ll do a quick meet-up and come back in time for the golem’s awakening. Don’t try to wake him without me: he’ll be unstable until I put the last of the spells on him.” He turned toward Celia. “You’ll stay here with Daisy.”
Little Apocalypse Page 16