“Wow,” said Delora.
Arrow pressed down on his belly to stop the hurt.
“What was your mother delivering to those people for?” Luco asked, a bitter taste to his words.
“They’re the only ones who can afford to pay anything,” Storma said with a smirk. “We ate well that week.”
“Uhh!” Arrow suddenly bent to the side. His stomach rejected every item the humans had given him to eat, and it all streamed back out of his mouth and onto the ground.
“Eww!” shrieked Delora.
“Gross!” exclaimed Rosaman.
“He’s wasting the food,” cried Faive.
Arrow swayed and held his belly. “I’m sorry.”
Luco laughed. “Now you’re truly initiated into life in the Barbs.”
“Remember when we found that milk carton that had expired and Mercou said it was cheese?” Delora giggled.
“It tasted okay going down,” Mercou said.
The other humans laughed, then launched into more stories as Arrow clutched his belly and listened. He stayed quiet for the rest of the meal, taking in their every word. I did too, hoping, waiting, but the humans’ talk didn’t give any clues of where to find and harness the magic in the Stilts.
Once darkness fell, the humans didn’t stay outdoors. They hurried into the large hut as they had the previous nights.
“You coming?” Luco shouted to Arrow, who gazed out at the forest. “We put up traps to keep everyone safe.” He carefully unwound the metal vine and pulled it across the front of the hut, like it had been when Arrow had touched it.
Arrow glanced at the hut, then back out to the forest. I wondered if he missed me.
I missed him. His warmth in my branches. His tossing and turning in his nest. This day had been eye-opening for Arrow. He had talked to more humans than ever before, and from the smile that had lit up his face, I knew he had enjoyed it.
But how would he fare in the dark?
Arrow shook his head finally. “I’ll stay out here.”
“Nope. That’s not going to happen. I can’t trust that you’re not going to run off and tell whoever you’re with that we’re here.” Luco finished securing his trap, then motioned to the door.
Arrow dropped his chin, glanced back at the forest, then followed the boy into the hut.
But as the moon rose higher, the door opened quietly, and bare feet carefully stepped over the metal vine trap. Glancing around, Arrow walked to the patch of ferns he’d hidden beneath when he’d spied on Petari. He pulled the leaves down and settled on top of them, arms behind his head as he gazed at the stars.
Sleep well, Arrow. Sleep well.
Before sleep could come, there was more weight on the steps. Two covered feet padded lightly onto the ground, then Petari hurried over to the boy.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, glancing back at the building.
Arrow shrugged. “I can’t sleep in there. Too closed in.” He sat up. “Is that how you sleep in the Barbs?”
Petari settled onto the ferns next to him. “You mean in buildings? Yeah. You do everything in buildings. Some places even have different rooms for sleeping and cooking and other stuff. Although some are like this with one room where you do everything. Except the toilet. That’s always in a separate room.”
“Toilet?” Arrow asked.
Petari grinned. “It’s where you pee and poop.” She laughed, and Arrow smiled.
“These Barbs sound like a complicated place,” he said. “Some areas you can go and others you can’t. Some places you do one thing in and another for something else. There’s a lot to remember.”
Petari shrugged. “You get used to it. It’s not like here, though. There’s nothing like here in the Barbs or the Stilts.”
They sat there in silence for a few breaths, eyes on the stars, ears on the sounds. Crickets, owls, and frogs filled in the gaps of their speech. Finally Arrow broke their quiet.
“Your brother doesn’t like me much.”
Petari groaned. “He doesn’t like anyone, except Luco. He wants to be just like him when he gets older, but Luco isn’t nearly as suspicious as Val. Ever since Dad left, Val figured he had to step up and protect me, even though he’s only three years older than I am.”
“It’s good that he wants to protect you,” Arrow said.
“Eck. He’s a dust munch. He acts like I’m a baby who can’t do anything, but I can protect myself. I don’t need anyone. I don’t want to ever need anyone.” She swallowed. “You want to know something funny about Val?”
Arrow nodded.
“His full name is Valvoline, but don’t ever call him that. He hates it.”
“Valvoline.” Arrow let each part of the word sit on his tongue. “Why doesn’t he like it?”
“It’s the name of an oil company.”
“What’s oil?” Arrow asked.
“It’s this stuff you have to put in machines. My mom was a mechanic. She loved old cars, and cars use oil. When Val was born, my mom liked the word, so they named my brother Valvoline.”
Arrow chuckled. “What does your name mean?”
“My name doesn’t have a meaning. Val actually named me. Because he hated Valvoline so much, he told my parents he could name me something better than they could, so they let him. He named me after this old game console my mom had found in salvage and fixed up. It’s supposed to be Atari, but Val was only three and he said it as Petari, so that became my name.”
“A game console?”
Petari waved her hand. “You’ve got a lot to learn.” She grinned. “Who named you Arrow?”
“The Guardian Tree.” Arrow glanced at Petari, but this time the girl didn’t laugh.
My roots relaxed into the daydream as Arrow said, “The Forest Dwellers used to use identifiers as names, something unique about you. So the Guardian called me Arrow because of my arm. She said it’s like an arrow.” He lifted his pointed arm to show her. “She told me that arrows can hurt things, and I have to be careful that I don’t. But they also stay true, and that’s what I am.” He paused, then said, “I miss her.”
My leaves fluttered.
“I’m sorry you couldn’t go back to your home tonight,” Petari said. “But I wouldn’t want to walk through the forest in the dark with all those scary things.”
Arrow sighed. “I used to be able to go all over at night. Everything would light up wherever I went.”
Yes. The forest was glorious. The animals savored it. Not the predators, but they had their darker times.
“What do you mean?” Petari asked.
Arrow sat up, breathing in the memory. “The orchids in the trees would light up. The flowers on the water lilies would shine. The fungi on the ground and low on the trunks would glow. Even some of the grubs in the soil, and the fireflies and butterflies, of course. There would be all different colors, and the Guardian would ask them to light up wherever Curly and I went. We would run through the trails of light weaving throughout the forest every night. It was beautiful.”
“The tree would make things in the forest light up at night? Really?”
“Not make. The Guardian can’t make a creature do something. She’d ask. But who wouldn’t want to glow?” He smiled.
“I didn’t know flowers and orchids and stuff lit up.”
Arrow laughed. “The Guardian gave them help.”
“That’s mega.” She paused. “I’m sorry I laughed when you told me about the Guardian. It’s just a little unbelievable. There’s nothing like the Guardian out in the rest of the world.”
“What do you mean?”
“No one makes sure everyone’s okay. The people in the Stilts have more than they could want, and the people in the Barbs have to fight over whatever they can get.” Petari thinned her lips. “When I was little, I wanted so much to live in the Stilts, so we wouldn’t have to worry about food or anything anymore.”
“And now?”
She gazed around. “I like living here, in the f
orest.” She looked back at Arrow. “Why doesn’t the Guardian Tree light up the forest now so you can go home?”
Arrow’s eyes lowered. “She’s too weak. She hasn’t had the strength to do that for many moons.”
Petari leaned forward. “That’s sad.” She fiddled with the strings on her shoes. “I’d love to meet her.”
“You would?”
“Of course. Who wouldn’t?”
Arrow glanced at her. “I wasn’t sure if you really believed me.”
“This is normal for you, but where I lived before, trees don’t talk or make flowers glow or take care of people and animals.”
“Maybe they do, but you can’t hear them.”
“Maybe.” She sighed. “Out there, even if I could hear them, it’d be difficult. There are hardly any trees and there’s lots of noise, with all the cars and trucks and people. It’s better in here.”
Arrow lay back down and placed his palm on the soil like he used to when he was far from me, playing with the monkeys, and wanted some comfort. I would send nutrients to the soil beneath him, ask the grubs to move quickly, to heat up the earth in that spot. Arrow would giggle, lift his palm, then put it back on the ground for more.
“The Guardian doesn’t trust humans now,” he told Petari. “Except me.”
This was the truth, but I wondered why he was telling her. Then he continued, “But I can ask her if you can come, if you’d like. I need to go anyway.”
The rainbow liquid was on his mind. Good.
Petari sat straight up. “You’d do that? Do you think she’ll let me?”
Arrow dug his fingertips into the soil, and I understood. He was asking now. He was hoping I’d send him an answer.
But what answer should I send? The girl had tricked him into helping her, caring more about what she needed than him. But when her brother had been aggressive, she had defended Arrow. She had lied to her brother and friends, too. But it was to protect Arrow and me. Plus, she knew of the magic in the Stilts.
Was she good? Could she be good? I had trusted before and lost almost everything. I couldn’t make that mistake again. But if she could help us mend the Anima, I could rebuild the curtain, move it closer, shut out all the humans forever.
Arrow’s fingertips wriggled in the dirt.
I reached out to the grubs beneath them and gave them my request. Soon the earth began to warm, and a smile spread across Arrow’s face.
He turned to the girl. “I’ll take you to meet the Guardian tomorrow.”
“You will?” Petari squealed, then slapped her hands over her mouth. She glanced at the hut, but the door didn’t open. She hadn’t been heard. “This is the best. We should go early, before the others are up. I’ll leave them a note saying we’re going to get more plants and stuff. That way, they won’t follow.”
“I know some plants we can bring back. Some more food, too.” Arrow was getting excited, although I didn’t know if it was because he’d see me or because he was bringing the girl. “You’re going to love the Guardian,” he told her.
“I can’t wait,” she said. “Thank you.” She gave him a quick smile, then disappeared inside the hut with the rest of her herd.
Arrow settled back onto the fern leaves, curled onto his side, palm on the soil. “See you tomorrow, Guardian,” he whispered.
Maybe he did miss me after all.
15
NUTRIENTS IN THE WATER FLOWING THROUGH THE BARK OF AN OLD LUPUNA TREE IN THE EAST TURNED BITTER. THE BARK CRACKED, AND TWO LIANAS HANGING ON THE TRUNK SHRIVELED AND SLIPPED TO THE RAINFOREST FLOOR. THUMP. THUMP.
In the night, the rainbow liquid soaked more of the earth at the Burnt Circle. It wasn’t coming out of the metal bird in drops anymore but in a thin stream.
Arrow had to hurry.
True to their plans, he and Petari snuck out of the village just after the sun’s rays were reaching across the sky. Petari had her “note” ready, the ripped edge of a page from her book with scribbles on it.
“How do those scratches work?” Arrow asked as they ran across the root bridge.
“You mean writing?” Petari hoisted her backpack higher on her shoulders. “I have to teach you about writing and reading. It’s the most brill thing there is. You know how I’m saying a sentence to you now and you can understand it?”
Arrow nodded.
“That’s like writing. You put down the words that you would say if you were there, but it means someone else can read them later when you’re not there. Like I told them we were going to the east to get more food.”
“Good idea to tell them we were going in the opposite direction,” Arrow said.
He was starting to get used to the idea of lies. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
As quietly as they could, they hurried over the root bridge and into the forest. Arrow moved through the trees swiftly. Petari tried to keep up, but she didn’t know the terrain like him, and her feet tripped on roots and rocks.
“We’ll go slower,” Arrow said, but the girl shook her head.
“Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.” And she raced ahead, a thread of irritation streaming behind her. The girl did not like being told she couldn’t do something.
Eventually, though, Arrow slowed, seeing that Petari was having trouble. But this time he didn’t talk about it, just stopped to pick some acai berries, then continued on at a less brisk pace.
I hoped bringing her to me would be worth the time. There was still no sign of the Kiskadee Man or other humans, but the curtain continued to tear. The dangers were growing for the forest.
Whether Petari noticed Arrow slowing, she didn’t say. Instead she picked up her questions from the night before.
“So when did your parents die?”
Arrow glanced at her. “What do you mean?”
“They brought you to the forest then died, didn’t they? Isn’t that how you got in here?” She pressed her lips into a thin line. “I read a book like that once.”
Arrow frowned. “I don’t know who my parents are.”
“Then how did you get into the forest?”
Petari had had difficulty believing I was real and could talk to Arrow. How would she react to this story? Perhaps it would be better to keep it secret, but it was up to Arrow now.
He was silent for a few breaths, then said, “You know where you came in, through those rocks?”
Petari nodded.
“I was left near there when I was a baby.”
“Someone just left you there? That’s horrible. Why would anyone do that to a baby?”
Arrow shrugged, but he pulled his pointed arm protectively into his chest. Petari noticed and said, “Never mind. Go on.”
“The trees in the forest had heard my crying. I’d been there for half of the sun’s path, crying loudly, and the human had not come back. So the Guardian asked the nearest tree to bring me inside. I was carried in by the tree’s roots. That tree passed me to the next tree, and the next, until I was at the roots of the Guardian.” He sighed. “I don’t remember it, of course. I was too young.”
And there it was. Our truth was out.
Arrow glanced at Petari, whose eyes had grown as big as the sun. “You have to admit it sounds strange,” she said.
“Not to me it doesn’t.” Hurt spilled from him.
But Petari said, “Oh right. I guess it wouldn’t.”
“You were actually the first human I spoke to.”
“I was?” Petari’s brow lifted, and excitement danced around her. But it was laced with something else, something dense. She still wasn’t sure if she could trust what Arrow was saying.
And I was still not sure if we could trust her.
“So how’d you learn to talk like this?” Petari asked, perhaps testing the boy. “How come you can understand me?”
“I told you, the Guardian learned from the Forest Dwellers,” Arrow said. “Actually, she learned from all the humans who came here, and she taught me all the words she learned. Sometimes y
ou say words I don’t know, but it’s not too hard to figure them out. And if you’re wondering about my clothes, the birds bring them every year, probably from where you come from. And the Guardian asked the monkeys to help me eat when I was younger. And—”
“All right, all right.” Petari put up her hands. “I get it.”
Arrow narrowed his eyes. “You still don’t believe me.”
“I… I’m just trying to understand. That’s all. But it sounds—”
She stopped talking when a large drop of water smacked her forehead, then another on her arm, and another on her cheek. Petari gazed up and gasped.
“It’s raining! Again!”
Arrow peered at the drops, coming down faster. “It does that a lot.” He pursed his lips. “But not as much as it used to. It used to rain almost every moon, but now moon after moon after moon goes by before the rain comes again.”
Petari’s eyes widened. “It NEVER rains in the Barbs. Like NEVER.”
“Never rains?”
“Okay, not never, but it’s probably rained maybe three times since I was born, and since I’ve been in the forest, it’s already rained twice!” She twirled in the raindrops, letting the water soak every part of her. “It’s incredible.”
Then the drops stopped.
Petari raised her arms to the sky, glancing between the canopy leaves for more. “Wait! Don’t go. Where’d it go?”
Arrow frowned. “First there are fewer rainstorms; now the storms are just drips. This isn’t good.”
Movement caught the corner of his eye, and he put his arm out to stop Petari.
A jaguar skulked through the trees ahead, turned their way, sniffed, then trod on.
When the creature was gone, Petari let out her breath in a rush. “That’s a… That’s a… That’s…” A shaky finger pointed in the jaguar’s direction.
“Yeah, that’s Claw. She’s old and she can be ornery sometimes, depending on her mood. Best to leave her alone.”
Eyes wide, Petari nodded. “Yeah. I’ll do that.”
“Come on.” Arrow pulled her forward, back on their journey.
Soon the trees opened to a small gap in the forest, and Petari blinked in the bright sun.
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