“Nice to meet you, Arrow,” Wiser said. “Crankas told me you saved his life. That’s pretty incredible, and I’m very glad you did. I suppose a thank-you is in order.”
Arrow swallowed but found his voice. He was getting more used to humans. “He needed help.”
“That he did.” Wiser’s eyes had a twinkle to them.
“And he just helped me again,” Crankas said. “Look at all this food. Wait until you eat it. Best you’ve ever tasted.”
“Wow,” Wiser said. “Fantastic.”
“He’s also been showing me where things are around here. Look.” Crankas showed her his map and they shared a small smile, for what I couldn’t guess.
“You’re handy to have around,” Wiser said. “I could use a kid like you on my team. You’re more useful than those two put together.” She smiled slyly, nodding at Fratos and Mora in the Burnt Circle.
“I know every inch of the forest,” Arrow said.
The woman laughed. “Then you’re the man who should be king around here.”
“Wiser’s in charge of the other folks at the camp,” Crankas said.
“Not you?” Arrow asked.
“Nope,” he said. “I’m here for the forest, and they’re here to help. Wonderful, huh?”
Arrow nodded. That did sound promising.
“I know you’re shy, but the lads are decent, and they’d love some of this fruit you’ve brought back. Mind sharing?” Wiser asked.
Arrow looked over her shoulder and noticed for the first time that they were being watched. The two men had gathered at the edge of the Burnt Circle and were patiently waiting. I didn’t like this, but I couldn’t read any bad feelings around them.
Arrow’s emotions twitched from nervousness to excitement, but I knew he was comparing this encounter to when he’d first met Petari’s brother. This time seemed more favorable. No one was angry with him; no one was shouting. No one was forcing him. And perhaps that’s why he allowed them to lead him into their camp.
“Fratos,” Wiser announced, pointing at the thick man. “Mora,” she said toward the tall man. “Arrow.” She nodded to the boy, and the two men smiled.
These humans were definitely different from the younger herd. No one stared at his arrow arm or his bare feet. They smiled big and laughed loud, showed him their tools and the metal bullfrog. They treated Arrow like he was one of them, like he belonged. Happiness radiated from the boy’s every step, and I could understand why. They made him feel comfortable, wanted, special. All the things Arrow had never gotten from another human. All the things he felt he had lost because he had been abandoned.
I worried that he was starting to like the machiners too much. We had a mission. We wanted their help. But we still needed to hide the forest once the Anima was back. We had to leave them out.
As if he knew my worries, Arrow asked, “How do you make the magic?”
“Magic?” Crankas asked.
“I know you have it. I saw the glowing domes. I need to know how to get more.”
“Oh, that. The magic.” The man chuckled, and I wondered what was funny. “Yes, we’ll get lots of magic in here.”
He winked at Arrow, and the boy beamed.
“Actually,” Crankas said, “you can help me with that. When I crashed here before and you rescued me, I discovered something so beautiful on the bottom of my shoe when I got home.” Crankas narrowed his eyes above a broad smile. “Something in the soil. It sparkled like stars.”
He reached into a pocket and pulled out a small clear container that looked as though it held some soil. Holding it up to the light, he moved it back and forth so that pieces of the soil glinted in the sunlight.
“You see that in the bag?” Crankas asked, glancing between his clear bag and Arrow. “You see the shine?”
Arrow nodded, a thrill twirling outward from him. “That’s the Shimmer.”
“The Shimmer?”
“Yeah. That’s what I call it.”
“The Shimmer,” Crankas said again, rubbing the bag between his fingers. “Is there a lot of it in the forest?”
Arrow shrugged. “There’s some, but most of it’s in Shimmer Cave. I go there when I need to think sometimes.”
Crankas smiled. “It sounds beautiful. I’d love to see it. Can you show me?”
Arrow glanced at the ground. Cool uncertainty dripped from his toes. “I need to get the magic,” he said finally. Good boy.
“Oh, Arrow, that Shimmer of yours is going to give you all the magic you want.”
Arrow narrowed his eyes. “The Shimmer makes the magic?”
Was that true? The Forest Dwellers hadn’t pulled Anima from the Shimmer. Was that how the magic worked in the Stilts?
“Yes,” Crankas said. “That Shimmer will give us everything we want. Let’s go see it.”
Arrow beamed. All his uncertainty was gone now; only joy soaked the earth beneath him.
I felt it too, but I was still apprehensive, the memories of the Imposters not letting me trust this human yet. Could it really be this easy?
“Let’s go,” Arrow said, then glanced at the man’s injured leg. “It’s far to walk, though.”
“Then why don’t we take my trike? I think you’ll like it.”
Crankas walked Arrow to some sort of vehicle, but it looked different from the vehicles the Imposters had. This one sat on what appeared to be two rows of balls, smaller at the front and larger at the back. Crankas sat on one side of a chair that stretched the length of the larger row and called Arrow to sit beside him. Then he held on to an arm in front that connected to the smaller row. After his fingers pressed into the arm, the trike roared to life and took off faster than jaguars could run.
“Woooooooo,” Arrow screamed as the trike rushed between the trunks.
With a twist of the man’s wrist, the trike leaned one way, then another, allowing it to quickly turn around the trees.
Arrow wasn’t connected to the earth or forest so I couldn’t feel his emotions, but a bird quickly showed him to me. Sitting on the trike, Arrow raised his arms high, grinning widely as wind rushed through his hair. He was probably going faster than he’d ever gone in his life, faster even than when he swooped along the lianas. Even I could feel the speed, as the trike kicked up the top layers of the soil, sending grubs spinning out of their homes.
He almost forgot to point out the path, and when they got close to the cave, Arrow had to shout, “It’s there!” to make the man stop.
“That was amazing,” he said, his hair a stiff cloud behind his head.
Crankas smiled, but after Arrow led the way off the path, into the cave’s entrance and through to the Shimmer, he said, “No, Arrow. This is the most amazing thing of all.”
He turned to the boy, that unsettling twinkle in his eye again. “We are going to do wonderful things here, you and I. Wonderful things.”
“We’re going to save the forest,” Arrow said.
“Oh yes,” Crankas said. “We’re going to make this forest the most precious place on earth.”
To me, it always had been.
19
SOIL IN THE WEST TURNED DRY, AND THE LEAVES ON A CACAO TREE TURNED FROM GREEN TO BROWN. THE RED PODS HANGING BETWEEN THE BRANCHES SHRUNK UNTIL THEY WERE BARELY BUDS, LEAVING THE BATS AND MONKEYS HUNGRY.
That night, as he and Curly ate by my trunk, Arrow could not wipe the smile from his face. He also could not stop talking.
“The bullfrog is called a ‘helicopter’. It was amazing. It’s much bigger up close. There were so many dials and knobs and buttons. They all do different things. The humans knew so much about it. And the woman, Wiser, she smelled nice. Like flowers. They’re all so big, so much bigger than Storma and Luco. The herd thinks they’re so much better than me, but the humans in the Burnt Circle are so much better than them. And that trike. It was incredible! I felt like I was riding on the backs of a thousand jaguars. Well, maybe not a thousand, but a lot of them. I could go—”
“Arrow…,”
I said.
He paused. “What?”
“Take a breath.”
He giggled, and Curly joined in.
“They’re really nice, Guardian. They’re not like the herd in the village at all. They have the magic, and they’re going to help us get it too. You heard Crankas, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Arrow, I heard. I just…”
“Guardian?” Arrow wiped mango juice from his chin.
I paused. How could I explain my fear to him after everything we had seen? “I want to trust, but the Imposters—”
Arrow sighed, long and loud. “You keep talking about them, but you saw those things glow. Crankas said he’d get us all the magic we want. He’s going to protect the forest.”
“I know they look promising, but we still have a lot to learn about these humans, Arrow. We must not completely trust them yet. You thought the herd was good, but they let you down.”
The hurt refreshed in him, seeping into my bark. “They’re different. They don’t have the magic. They don’t care about the forest. And they don’t want to help us.”
The boy pushed his toes against my trunk. “You’re not giving them a chance. Crankas came here by accident, but he came back because he loves it. What’s wrong with that? I don’t understand why you hate them so much.”
I stilled my leaves. “I don’t hate them, Arrow, but there are things you don’t understand.”
“Then tell me.” He got to his feet. “You keep saying humans are bad because the Imposters were bad. Then tell me what they did.”
“Arrow…”
“Please, Guardian. I’m not a baby anymore,” Arrow said.
I could tell he wasn’t going to stop asking. And perhaps he was right, perhaps I had protected him long enough. Perhaps it was time for him to know the whole truth.
“All right,” I began, as Arrow tapped his foot impatiently. “The story I will tell you happened when there used to be many humans living in the forest. This was when the forest was much bigger than it is today. Much, much bigger. It spanned land from ocean to ocean—”
“What’s an ocean?”
“Hmmm. I have left gaps in your education.”
Arrow crossed his arms. “See?”
I shook my leaves at the boy. “An ocean is like a forest but made of water.”
“Like the river?”
“Bigger. Much bigger. And as blue as the sky. Filled with the most amazing creatures, some so small, they could snuggle between your fingers. Others so big, they could block the mouth of the great waterfall.”
Arrow’s eyes grew as wide as a coconut, as he sank back down to sit. “So what happened?”
“Outside, in other lands, humans made machines that would help them do things they couldn’t.”
“Like the metal bird and bullfrog help them fly?”
“Yes, those are machines,” I said. “And they brought machines here to help them cut and slice and dig deeper and faster than they could on their own.”
Arrow jumped back up. “To dig deep for the magic?”
“No, the Imposters did not believe in the Anima. Those machines were created with good in mind, but good ideas can be easily corrupted.”
Arrow began to pace around my trunk, his fingertips running over the bumps in the bark. Curly swung from branch to branch behind him.
“So these machines did bad things?” the boy asked, his voice low.
“Machines can only do what humans tell them,” I said. “The machines made it easier for the humans to get more of what they wanted with less work and in less time. This might sound nice.”
“It does!”
“But when something is easy, humans get used to wanting more. Then more. Then more. But for more, there is always an end.”
Arrow stopped. “So what did the machines do?”
“They harvested land. They cut down trees. They tore up the earth.”
His pulse quickened, but his frown stayed firmly in place.
“I don’t understand.”
This was the part I had been dreading. How could I make him know without upsetting him? But I couldn’t hold back his curiosity any longer. And knowledge of the past was necessary to make sure it didn’t happen again.
“I can show you, if you’d like, but only if you want to.” I didn’t want him to see horrors in his young life, but he had to know what we were facing.
He thought, then said, “You’ll have to use some of the Anima again.”
He was right, but… “This is important. I should’ve shown you the forest’s history long ago. Even if the curtain deteriorates faster, you should see what happened for yourself.”
Trepidation tilled the soil beneath him. “Okay.”
“Grab my root.”
He followed my instructions, and I wriggled my roots to loosen the soil. Slowly I raised the root to meet his palm.
“Now close your eyes.”
His body stiffened as soon as the dream images came, but he quickly relaxed. I showed him the good images first, ones sent by birds who had flown around the world. Moving pictures of blue, then yellow, then green, then blue—oceans and lands and more oceans. Arrow gasped, joy bubbling from his heart, then let out a small yip when he saw the rainforest.
It loomed large, a giant blanket of green that covered the land as far as the bird’s eye could see. A swath cut only where the river flowed. Millions of trees, patches swaying as wind barreled over their heads.
“It’s so big,” he whispered.
“Yes, much bigger than it is now.”
Thousands of birds had sent images of the rainforest, and Arrow was treated to a handful of the best ones. All the different shades of green. All the different parts of growth. All the life.
Then came the Imposters.
Machines cut away at the edges. Wooded forest turned to flat farmland. Crop after crop turned the soil dry. Machines cut away more, deep ridges into the thicket.
In other parts, machines tore down trees to make way for cattle ranches, paved roads, giant pipes. The land the Imposters stole was never enough, so the machines scraped away more.
Arrow shuddered, hugged his knees, and pressed his back against my bark. But he didn’t let go of the root.
Images collected for rings and rings flitted through his mind, each one showing a rapidly shrinking forest. His forest. Disappearing.
“Humans did this? They commanded the machines?”
“Yes. But not all humans. The Forest Dwellers saw what was happening. They understood the danger. They tried to stop it.”
“What happened to them?”
“The Imposters drove them out.”
Arrow shifted on the soil. “So the Imposters you’ve talked about…”
“They are the humans with the machines. They came from the cities. They told of nice things, help and prosperity that they were bringing. But they were not truthful. They pushed the Forest Dwellers out of their homes. It took a long time, many rings. The Forest Dwellers fought to stay, to protect their home, the forest. Even some of the humans from the outside fought to protect the forest too. They would come from all over the world. They would discover our home and all the wonders inside, and they knew immediately its importance, for them as well as us.”
“But they didn’t help either?”
“They tried, but they were battling the Imposters, with their bigger machines and bigger greed. And while I can’t see too far beyond the borders of the forest, I heard talk of the land outside drying up. Less rain, less water, more desert. When good land was in a shortage there, even the humans who wanted to protect the forest couldn’t stop the Imposters. We were their last place to conquer. Eventually the Forest Dwellers were forced out, and we were left on our own. I had to do something. I had to protect us. I used all the magic I could muster from the earth, and I hid as large a part of the forest as I could.”
Arrow sucked in a breath. “So that’s why you put up the curtain.”
“Yes. I put it around the part o
f the forest that didn’t contain any humans so I could protect what was inside.”
Arrow gulped.
“Now you see why it was so important then and is still so important now. Those Imposters talked to the Forest Dwellers with tongues as sweet as berries, but underneath, they were as poisonous as the dart frog. These humans now spill sweetness upon you, but for how long? How can we know for sure that they won’t turn and destroy us, just like the Imposters tried to do?”
Tears sprang to Arrow’s eyes, and he rubbed them away with his hand and the end of his arrow arm.
“We can’t know for sure, but they’re our only hope!” The words rushed out of the boy’s mouth, riding on a harried breath. “I can’t fix the magic by myself. I can’t save you. I can’t save the forest. So they have to. Don’t you see?”
Ah, that was what had kept his fire of faith in them burning. I hadn’t seen. Even knowing his emotions, I hadn’t truly understood that he was scared he would fail again. That he would let me and the forest down. That he wouldn’t be able to save us.
“Arrow, I—”
“I’ve been trying for so long to dig deep, like you said, but nothing has worked. It’s because I can’t do it. My family abandoned me when I was a baby because they knew I couldn’t do anything.”
“Arrow, that’s not—”
“It is true. The other humans are bigger and stronger, and they…” He looked at his pointed arm. “They’re better.”
I didn’t like these words coming out of the boy. Still such a small boy. A small boy who didn’t know his own power, and no matter how much I told him he could access the Anima just like the Forest Dwellers had done, he would not believe me.
“Arrow! You are every bit—”
He hugged my base, his arms so small against the bark. “I am going to mend the Anima and save you,” he said. “But I can’t do it the way you think I can. They’ve already got the magic working. I just have to make them share it with you. They won’t be like the Imposters. You’ll see.”
Then he stepped away. He turned and ran.
“Arrow. Arrow!”
He ignored my shouts, running toward the kapok tree on legs fueled with hope and fear. He scaled the tree quickly, swung his belt over the liana, and sped off toward the Burnt Circle.
Arrow Page 15