Keem bars my way with his never-ending arm. “Hold up, D. If you mean the park where you nearly got killed a little while ago, NO WAY!”
“But I have to go back!”
“Why?” asks Nyla.
I look at Nyla, then Keem, and try to decide what to say. “I—I left something behind.”
“I brought your book bag,” Nyla says.
“I know—and thanks. But…there’s something else. Someone else.”
Keem laughs a little. “You got an invisible friend I don’t know about?”
Nyla reaches across me and smacks Keem on the arm. “Quit playing, Keem. D’s serious.” She turns her beautiful black eyes on me. “Who’s missing, D?”
A few hours ago, I wouldn’t have called these two my friends, but now—after what we’ve just been through—I feel like I owe them the truth. There’s an ice cream shop at the end of the block. I lead us over there and sit down on one of the wooden benches. In the summertime this place is always packed, but it’s still too cold out for people to line up for ice cream. Nyla and Keem sit on either side of me.
After taking a deep breath, I say, “Yesterday I found this bird. I thought it was injured, so I brought it home with me.” Keem’s looking at me like I’m crazy, so I keep my eyes locked on Nyla. “But it turned out not to be a bird at all.”
“What was it, D?” she asks in the slow voice reserved for little kids.
I try not to get irritated. Would I believe this story if it wasn’t already happening to me? “It was a being from another realm,” I say calmly.
“Psssshhhhh.” Keem gets up from the bench and runs his hand over his shaved head. “I ain’t got time for this.”
“Then leave!” says Nyla with much attitude.
Keem looks at me the way I sometimes look at Mercy when she’s getting all of Mrs. Martin’s attention. “It’s true!” I yell at him. “You think I’m making this up?” I grab my pant leg and lift it to show the bandage on my ankle. “You think that…thing was after me? It was after the bird!”
“Right—the bird that’s not a bird. I think you need to take your meds, D.”
Nyla flies to her feet. “You know what, Keem? Just go. I thought you were someone decent—I thought you weren’t like all those other guys.”
“I am decent—but I’m not crazy! You believe this crap?”
Nyla puts her hands on her hips. “I was there, Keem. Something tried to get D.”
Keem can’t deny that, so he tries to come up with something else. He turns to me. “OK, so where was this bird while you were getting dragged across the park?”
“It flew away just before the thing grabbed me.” Keem rolls his eyes, so I rush on and add, “But it knew something was wrong!”
“So it flew off to safety and left you to fend for yourself? Some friend,” he says.
I don’t have an answer for that. Nyla sits down on the bench and starts rubbing my back. Even she’s at a loss for words. Then I hear a familiar voice in my ear.
“He’s right. It was a foolish mistake—they set up a decoy on the far side of the meadow. As soon as I got there, I realized what I’d done. I’m so sorry, D.”
I spin around and find the bird perched on the top rung of the bench. Her feathers are changing color again, but I’m too relieved to care. I pull her to me and hold her close to my heart. “You’re safe! I was worried about you.”
“The nether beings cannot harm me. They hunt me only so that they may keep me from my mission.”
“Our mission,” I say and lean down to press my lips against the bird’s head. I’m filled with such joy that I forget Nyla and Keem are watching me. “Uh—I want you to meet my friends.”
Keem and Nyla are staring at me with their eyes open wide. At first I wonder if maybe I’m the only one who can hear the bird speak. Then the bird turns to face them and says, “I must thank you two as well. You made a valiant effort to save my host.”
At first, Nyla and Keem are too shocked to say anything. I try to reassure them that what they’re seeing and hearing is real. “I know it must seem weird, but…”
Nyla reaches out a hand and touches the bird’s orange feathers. “Is it—a parrot?”
Instead of answering, the bird silently morphs into a purring orange tabby cat. Nyla freezes, then lets her fingertips trails across the cat’s soft fur. “How’d it do that?” she asks me.
“It can tell what you like and don’t like,” I explain. “You try, Keem.”
He steps forward and reaches out his hand to pet the cat, but it shape-shifts into a basketball.
“No way,” Keem says softly. He raps his knuckles on the ball but doesn’t try to take it from me.
“D prefers this form,” she says, turning herself back into a bird. “Do you need further proof of my abilities?”
Keem frowns, still unconvinced. “If you’re so special, why didn’t you help D when that…thing was trying to drag him underground?”
The bird turns to look up at me. “Did you see anything remarkable while you were in the park?”
To my surprise, I laugh a little. “Aside from the crazy trap biting into my leg?”
“And the creepy smoke thing crawling toward us?” adds Nyla.
The bird nods solemnly. “The earth—and all that lies above and below its surface—that is their terrain. My domain—”
“Is the sky!” I exclaim. Suddenly it all makes sense to me. “It wasn’t a hawk we heard—it was you, wasn’t it?”
The bird nods and modestly lowers her eyes. “The nether beings detest light.”
Keem speaks up. “Wait a minute—you were that flash of light in the sky?”
“So you did try to help D,” Nyla says, relieved.
The bird looks at Nyla. “He is my host,” she says simply. “If I lose D, my mission will fail.”
Keem kicks a crushed soda can into the gutter. “D’s just a kid—why does he have to be mixed up in your mission?”
Nyla nods reluctantly. “He is kind of young.”
“Hey—I can speak for myself! And I want to help the bird. She has to gather the dead—they’ve been waiting a really long time!”
Nyla and Keem stare at me with their mouths hanging open. I want to explain, but realize I don’t really know much more about the mission.
The bird flutters up to my shoulder and says to them, “Again, I thank you for the service you have rendered my host.” To me she says, “We should leave now.”
Keem steps forward and points at my leg. “He’s hurt, you know. Your ‘nether beings’ nearly tore his leg off!”
The bird flutters its wings and settles on my knee. “Are you in pain?”
“A little, but Nyla’s stepmother fixed me up.” Suddenly I feel a tickling sensation in my knee. I force myself not to laugh as the funny feeling moves down my calf and settles on my wounded ankle. “The pain’s gone!” I whisper with awe. After the bird flies back to the bench rung, I lift up my pant leg and unwind the bandage Sachi carefully wrapped around my ankle. The wound is no longer bleeding—in fact, it no longer looks like a wound! All I see are faint zigzag marks where the stitches used to be. “You did that, didn’t you?”
The bird is less modest this time. “My host must be healthy and whole,” she says proudly. “Ready?”
“Ready. Where are we going?” I ask.
“Back to the park—and we must get there before sundown.”
Keem blocks our path. “I don’t think so, bird—do you even have a name?”
“I do. You may call me Nuru.”
“Well, D’s with us now, Nuru.”
Nyla steps between them and tries to soften Keem’s stance. “What Keem means to say is, we really can’t let you put D in danger again.”
“He won’t be in danger if we reach the park as soon as possible.”
I unzip my jacket, tuck the bird inside, and then turn to Nyla and Keem. “I appreciate what you guys have done for me, but…I think I better do this alone.”
&nbs
p; “Do what—get yourself killed?” asks Keem.
Instead of feeling grateful for this brotherly concern, anger flashes inside of me. “What do you care? You can always get another math tutor. A week ago you didn’t even know who I was—and didn’t want to know.”
Nyla touches my arm, and I turn to face her. “What about now, D? What about that scene in the park—can you really blame us for being worried about you?”
“No. But I have to do this. I can’t explain—it’s just something I have to do.” I push past them and walk away with my heart thudding in my chest. Part of me hopes they’ll follow us to the park, but then I remember how cozy Keem and Nyla were getting before. “They’re probably glad to be rid of me,” I mutter under my breath. Still, I can’t stop myself from glancing over my shoulder when I reach the end of the block. Nyla and Keem are sitting on the bench absorbed in their own conversation. When they see me watching them, they get up and head off in the opposite direction. “Fine, forget them,” I mutter.
The sky is growing dark, so I walk quickly, and before long we reach the park. I open my jacket, and Nuru pops out and settles herself on my shoulder.
“We need to get to the lake,” she says. “Try to stay close to the bridge—once the signal’s been sent, we’ll need to slip underground as quickly as possible.”
Determined to avoid the east side of the park where I was attacked, I head across the meadow knowing I can reach the Lullwater Bridge by cutting through the ravine. I already know that Nuru has a way of making me obey her will, but I decide now’s as good a time as any to find out just what it is we’re about to do. “Are we going after the nether beings?”
“No!” she cries, sounding genuinely alarmed. “We must avoid them at all costs. My flare has no doubt sent them deep into the earth. But they will surface again once the signal reaches them.”
“If we’re trying to avoid them, why are you sending them a signal?”
“The signal is for the waiting souls. They must prepare for our departure.”
“Because we’re taking them back to your realm?” I ask.
“Yes. They’ve waited long enough to go home.”
I keep quiet for a while, thinking about Nuru’s plan and the unlikely turn my life has taken. If I had found Nuru a few months ago, could she have cured my mother’s cancer? But Nuru said she chose me because I had no one to lose. So I guess Mom had to die before any of this could happen to me.
Lullwater winds like a snake, but it’s really the tail end of the big lake at the bottom of the park. There’s boating in the summer, though the boathouse is now an Audubon Center. I used to go there with my mom. There’s a café inside, and in the summer folks sit out by the water and feed the ducks. Mom used to say the boathouse reminded her of Venice with its white pillars and fancy lampposts. I’ve never been to Italy, so I just took her word for it. The boathouse and the bridge definitely look like they’re from another time.
Having waterways in the park is important because it creates habitat for all kinds of birds. If I were a migrating bird, I’d definitely stop here. There’s a stream that feeds the lake, making a little waterfall at one end. Large rocks embedded in the ground serve as steps that lead down to the water’s edge. I carefully follow these over to Lullwater Bridge.
Nuru starts shifting from one foot to another. I can sense that she’s about to take flight, so I quickly ask, “Will they mind that I’m coming, too? The souls of the dead, I mean. They won’t be mad or anything, will they?”
Nuru settles on my shoulder once more. “Mad? They will sing your praises, D! These souls are nothing like the nether beings. They embraced death when it came to them, and have waited patiently for this release. They will bless you for ensuring the return to their homeland.”
“Why are the nether beings so different? Don’t they want to go home, too?”
Nuru sadly shakes her head. “They do not recognize my realm as their place of origin. They suffer under a cruel delusion that traps them in a kind of purgatory. The nether beings are souls that do not seek release. They cling to the earth on which they died.”
“What? You mean the nether beings died here—in the park?”
“Long ago this was a battlefield, D.”
“I know—the British fought the patriots here during the Revolutionary War. There’s a boulder over there with a plaque on it.”
“There are two boulders and two plaques, and both are portals into the netherworld. One doorway leads to their realm, and the other leads to mine.”
“So…once we’re underground, we won’t see them—will we?”
“It isn’t likely. With the aid of allies, I was able to construct a network of secret tunnels during the long years of my captivity.”
“Allies? Why didn’t they help you escape?”
“They were animals—burrowing creatures. Only a human can be my host.”
I used to think a host was someone who invited you over to their house for dinner. But I’m starting to realize that Nuru uses the word to mean something else. I’m about to ask her about my host duties when Nuru whispers in my ear, “We’re not alone.”
I freeze and quickly scan the ground for another trap. Then I take a deep breath and look over my shoulder. Nyla and Keem are standing on the far side of the lake.
11.
Nuru hops off my shoulder and into my hands. “You have to stay with me from now on, D.”
“You mean you have to stay with me,” I say. I know all too well what can happen when Nuru flies off, even if it’s just to look around. I can feel Nyla and Keem staring at me, but I turn away from their gaze and try to reassure Nuru of my loyalty. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“We are bound to one another, D. From this point forward, even if you let go, I will not.”
Nuru pauses and looks at me as if trying to speak with her eyes. I feel a chill go up my spine, but I still nod to show that I understand.
“For the moment you may go and join your rather persistent friends. They are also bound to you, it seems,” she says. “I must prepare to send the signal that will wake the dead.”
Nuru lifts herself up into the sky and flies to the center of the lake. I slowly skirt the shore trying to think of what I’ll say to Nyla and Keem. Keem’s got his hands jammed in the front pocket of his hoodie. Nyla’s arms are folded across her chest. Neither of them looks happy to see me.
On the grassy slope next to the boathouse is a big pile of gray paving stones. The Parks Department must be planning to extend the café’s patio. I try to kick one of the heavy stones with my foot, but it hardly moves. Without looking up I say, “You should be at home. Isn’t it time for evening prayer?”
“I’m allowed to miss prayer if I’m saving someone’s life.”
Keem looks more like he wants to personally end my life, but I accept his answer with a nod.
Nyla looks mad, too, but I think I can hear a hint of sadness in her voice. “So this is it, huh? You’re just going to leave and go to this other…realm?”
I kick at the paving stone again and this time manage to make it roll over. “Why not? I mean, I told you what my life is like. My mother’s dead, I don’t even know who my father is, and my foster mother won’t miss me—she’s got another poor kid to take care of. What have I got to lose?”
“Uh—how about your life? Or don’t you care about that?” asks Keem.
I shrug. “Nuru needs me.”
We all look out over the lake and wait to see what will happen next. For a long time, Nuru hovers above the water with her wings beating fast like a hummingbird. Then she morphs into a glowing orange orb and, like the setting sun, slowly sinks toward the surface of the lake. The orb spins rapidly until it touches the water, and then it stills and the air all around us throbs as if someone has struck a giant gong. The water ripples outward in gentle waves, lapping against the shore just inches from our feet.
Keem puts a hand to his chest. His diaphragm must be vibrating just like mine. “Who
a…what was that for?” he asks.
“You don’t want to know,” I answer.
“Try me,” says Keem.
“She’s raising the dead.”
“Great,” says Nyla sarcastically. “I wouldn’t want to miss this party.”
The orange sphere rises up into the sky and begins spinning once more. In the distance, the actual sun shoots streaks of red across the sky.
“‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.’ My Gran used to say that whenever she saw a pretty sunset,” Nyla says.
We’re so busy admiring the sky that we don’t notice the gray mist slithering past our feet. Suddenly one of the heavy paving stones rolls past us and splashes into the lake. We turn and watch with dread as the sinister mist seeps into the big pile of paving stones.
“Oh, shit,” says Nyla. “What now?”
Before Keem or I can answer, a loud rumbling erupts from the center of the pile and the paving stones begin to move. They seem to swirl at first, but then the brick-like stones rise in the air and come together to form a massive body that’s at least twice as tall as Keem. I expect to hear this beast roar, but it can’t—because it has no head! The stones that make up its limbs seem to be held together by the weblike mist, and we all jump back as a powerful stone arm takes a swing at us. The stone beast staggers, then finds its balance and reaches out—for me!
Nyla shoves me as hard as she can. “Run, D—RUN!”
I fall back into the lake, soaking my feet. My body wants to flee, but I can’t go anywhere without Nuru. I try to scan the sky while keeping an eye on the headless stone monster. “I can’t—I have to find Nuru!”
Keem looks like he’s about to curse me out. Then he darts around the stone beast and starts jumping up and down, waving his arms over his head. “Hey—over here! Hey!”
Even though the beast has no head, it clumsily swivels to face Keem. “Get the boy!” It follows the hissed command and takes one lumbering step forward, then another.
“Grab the bird and get out of here!” Keem snarls at me. Then he takes off with the stone beast in pursuit.
I search the sky for Nuru and finally spot her descending from the clouds on flame-colored wings. Nuru seems to be moving in slow motion now, and I anxiously pace the shore until she finally comes within reach. I wade into the water, reach out my hands, and pull her warm body close to my own.
Ship of Souls Page 6