“She’s not dead.” I really snap at him, then I feel bad. Jeremy stuck up for me when I first came here, last winter. He talks to me when the In Crowd won’t. “Sorry.” I sigh. “Look, I gotta go talk to somebody. It’s really important.” We’re across the playground now, still nobody yelling. I can’t believe how easy it is to skip school. I duck through the hedge beyond the swings and monkey bars, into the yard where the yappy little dog lives, but he must be inside. Jeremy’s still following me.
I should tell him to get lost. So what if I hurt his feelings? But I don’t want to. He thinks hearing color is cool, even if his mom is a counselor and thinks I’m in denial. And I wonder if maybe, just maybe, he’d be okay with Cris. So I don’t say anything and he climbs over the old board fence with me and we cut through the weedy lot and head down Fir Street, which turns into the rutted gravel road that leads way back into the woods to the dump we rented. I’m not going home, though. I need to talk to Cris first, because as soon as I tell Dad about Mr. Teleomara, we’re gonna be in the car and heading for another state.
And that hits me, all of a sudden. That we’ll leave. I mean we always do, but I’ll really miss Cris, because before Cris I didn’t really have a clue. And my throat starts hurting because we’ve only been here a few months and I like Jeremy and I don’t usually make friends. And now I have two and I have to leave. A mower’s buzzing out hot red-orange and spring birdsong sparkles blue and pink and gold in the trees, and it would be a really pretty day if Mr. Stinking Teleomara hadn’t walked in.
It’s all dark and quiet now, all thick Sitka spruce and salal thickets, and it’s almost dark as twilight. The old bullfrog is thumping in the scummy pond.
“Hey, what color is that?” Jeremy asks. “I bet it’s dark purple.”
He always asks and it makes me smile. “Wrong,” I say. “It’s dark brown, like chocolate.”
“Okay, want to tell me what’s wrong?” He’s walking right next to me now. “What’s with you and the new principal. Mr. Teleo-whatever?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “Something weird happened. I think it was the color of his voice.”
“What color was it?”
“Silver. But not…not like color usually is. When I hear words, I just see blue or yellow or whatever. It doesn’t really get in the way of anything else I’m looking at. You know what I mean?”
“So this did?”
“Yeah, it did.” I’m watching him from the corner of my eye…waiting for him to stop believing me. “I felt it…and it kind of hurt. And it made me sick.” Never mind Mr. Beasley and the dish.
“So how come?” And he’s frowning, but not like he doesn’t believe me.
What have I got to lose? We’re gonna hit the road as soon as I tell my dad, so if Jeremy thinks I’m crazy, who cares?
Well, I care, I guess.
So I don’t say anything and just walk faster so he has to catch up.
“You mean you walk this far every day?” He’s panting now. “Geez that’s bad. Why won’t the bus come pick you up?”
The bus would, but buses are worse than class: I found that out a long time ago. “I don’t mind walking.” I cut through the woods before we get close to the house. Dad might be home and he’ll know in a second that something’s wrong. I’ve never lied to my dad, so I just head for the path I made back when I first found Cris.
“Where are we going?” Jeremy looks around. “Want to come over to my house? This is Mom’s day at the high school and she won’t be home until five. We can go play that new Xbox game I got. Before Mom tries it out and takes it away from me. It’s real cool so it has to be psychologically damaging.”
“We’re almost there,” I say. I guess I really do want him to meet Cris. “I…I’ve got this friend. I need to talk to him is all.”
“Okay.” Jeremy shrugs. “Then can we go to my house? He can come, too.”
“He can’t. He’s in a wheelchair and…he just can’t. This way.” The path takes us left, closer to the ocean. I can smell it and hear the surf in the distance. I’ll miss that, too.
“Nobody lives out here.” Jeremy yelps as a blackberry cane snags him. “There aren’t any houses out here. I’m bleeding.”
“No, you’re not.” I work the thorns out of the back of his shirt. Well, not much. “It’s just ahead.”
“This better be…” He shuts up as we push through this thick wall of salal and some kind of creeper. “Wow!” He just stares for a moment. “How the heck did this get out here?”
Well, yeah, it sort of looks like Sleeping Beauty’s castle with the gray stone wall and all the blackberry canes. Actually, it looks a lot like Sleeping Beauty’s castle. I’m bleeding, too, and I suck at the scratch on my wrist.
“Melanie, hold on.” Jeremy’s words have gone dark yellow. “I know what this place is. The guy who built the lumber mill…the one that’s shut down…He built this mansion out here on the point. But that was forever ago and it’s all falling down, now. My cousin and his friends came out here last Halloween. On a dare. He said the roof had fallen in and it was all grown over with blackberries and stuff. They couldn’t even get inside. He said it was a waste of time.” He stared at the big stone wall. “He didn’t say anything about a wall. Or a castle. It isn’t like this.”
“How do you know?” I smile at him.
“’Cause my cousin…” He looks at the wall again. Touches it like he expects it to bite him. It doesn’t. “He would have told me. If it was here.”
I’m waiting. To see if he gets it. He probably won’t, but you know something? I really really want him to get it.
“And where’s a road?” He’s looking around. “How would they get groceries here? Go to church? Melanie, nobody can live out here like this.”
I quit waiting and head for the old apple tree, the one that kind of leans on the wall like the old guys you can see through the doors of taverns at noontime, leaning against the bar. I start climbing up.
“Hold on. Wait for me.” Jeremy scrambles up behind me and he’s better at climbing than I am. And you know what? I don’t care.
I’m glad he didn’t turn around and go home.
The apple tree’s branches sort of make this leafy cave at the top of the wall and one thick, knobby branch sticks out like an arm to keep you from falling over. Funny. I probably never would have met Cris if this apple tree hadn’t been here. But I climbed it and there Cris was. Jeremy leans over the apple-arm like he’s done it a hundred times.
“How did a castle get out here? There isn’t any road.” He’s still fussing. “Hey look!” He points. “Is that your friend? In the wheelchair?”
“Yeah, that’s Cris.” I grab the apple branches and kind of let myself down, kind of slide down the wall.
“Hi, Melanie.” Cris tries to push the wheelchair closer, but the vines that grow all over the ground always seem to tangle up in the wheels. They remind me of skinny, green Mr. Beasleys, and I don’t think they like me any more than he does. At least they’re always trying to wrap around my ankles and trip me. I don’t know how he gets into the castle at night. Maybe his uncle carries him. I wonder why they don’t just get a Weed Eater and chop all those vines down.
Cris doesn’t look good. His brown arms are real skinny and his black hair is stuck to his forehead today, like he’s been sweating, but it’s only May and not very warm at all. His words are the color of dog poop.
“I can’t make these vines let go.” He gives up and slumps in his chair. “Hi,” he says, as Jeremy kind of falls down the wall. “Nice to meet you. I’m Cris.”
“Hi, I’m Jeremy.” Jeremy shakes what looks like a bird’s nest out of his hair. “I’ve lived here all my life and never heard of a castle back in here.” He looks around. “This is so cool.”
“Oh, it’s a true-shape.” Cris shrugs. “You probably saw something else here is all. You know…a house or a barn or something.”
Jeremy looks real blank. Okay, here goes.
&
nbsp; “He’s magic, Jeremy,” I say. “There’s this whole world around us and we don’t even know it’s there.” You know, I used to think I’d maybe made it up, like my teachers said, all the stuff I used to see when my mom was around. But then I found Cris and he told me I wasn’t making it all up. “You just don’t usually see it,” I tell Jeremy. “Unless you’re around somebody magic.”
“Ooookay,” Jeremy finally says, real slow. He gives me this look, like he thinks I’m jerking him around. And I could get Cris to show him, but I’m too worried.
“We got a new principal today,” I blurt out. “Cris, he’s like you. Weird stuff happened when he walked in the room.”
“Puking is weird?” Jeremy gives me another look.
“I saw true-shapes, Cris. And Mr. Teleomara knew my name. My mom’s name, I mean. My real one.”
“Zoroan.” Cris looks scared. “Your mom has to have been one of the First Born. That means he’s after you, too. You’re her firstborn, right?”
“Yeah, but…”
“Okay, this is a cool club.” Jeremy’s words are pill yellow. “But I don’t speak the language. I’m going home to play with my Xbox.” And he starts for the wall.
“Wait a minute,” I say, because I really want him to stay. But all of a sudden those stupid vines start really wrapping around my ankles.
“Go hide!” Cris looks over his shoulder at the castle. “My uncle is coming. I’m not supposed to have any visitors.”
Jeremy’s already on top of the wall and I scramble up after him. I don’t know why his uncle is so paranoid about visitors. Cris says it’s because his uncle thinks this Zoroan is prowling around. I catch up with Jeremy at the top and grab his leg as he starts to climb over. “Lie down flat,” I whisper. “Cris’s uncle is coming and we’re not supposed to be here.”
“Oh, thanks.” Jeremy is really pissed now. “Get me arrested for trespassing, why don’t you?”
“Just shut up.” And I shove him and he sprawls flat on top of the wall under the apple branch that hangs over it and I’m on top of him and there’s no time to do anything else because all of a sudden, I see this silver sparkly shimmer at the other end of the garden and all the vines just kind of curl aside, like Sunday school pictures of Moses parting the Red Sea, you know?
Oh, shit.
“Let’s just climb down and get out of here,” Jeremy grumbles.
“Shut up.” I whisper it this time and pinch him. Hard. The silver stuff flows along that parted-Red-Sea path and coils around Cris’s wheelchair like Mr. Beasley might. If he was really big. And I don’t think Cris even sees it, he’s just kind of looking at the door at the end of the vine’s path. And I don’t know if I should yell or go back or what. I start to sit up but the apple limb gets caught in my shirt or something and I can’t get loose.
The door opens.
“That’s Mr. Teleomara,” Jeremy hisses. “What’s he doing here?”
And I look at Cris, and it’s like he got turned to stone in his chair. He just sits there, doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything. Mr. Teleomara walks down that path, and the vines kind of cringe away from him, and then he bends over Cris. And I want to scream and I think I’m maybe going to throw up again, and the apple limb is squashing me, and even Jeremy is quiet, because there’s something really nasty about the way he’s looking at Cris.
Then he puts his hand on Cris’s throat and Cris screams.
It’s not real loud, it’s like how you scream in a nightmare when you want to scream really loud and it just comes out little and breathy. But it’s an awful scream, and his eyes are closed, and he’s kind of twitching, like he’s trying to struggle or wake up or something. And all the time he’s screaming.
And I really want to puke.
And Jeremy looks like he does, too.
“Not much longer,” Mr. Teleomara says quietly and that razor-blade mist starts forming around Cris. “A few more sessions and I’m done with you. You’ll be a husk. Empty. A few more First Born and I’ll have it all.” Then he strokes Cris’s face, like real tenderly, and that makes my skin crawl. “Sleep well, child,” he says. “We don’t want anything to happen to you. Yet.” Then he laughs and walks away, back through the door, past the shivering vines.
And the door closes.
“Holy shit, what was that all about?” Jeremy’s voice is sort of lemony. “What did he do to Cris?”
“Nothing good.” I start scrambling down the wall.
“Are you crazy?” Jeremy leans down. “What if he comes back? This is right out of a late-night vampire movie.”
“He didn’t bite Cris.” But yeah, he’s kind of right. And I keep one eye on that door as I scramble through the stupid vines, which leave me alone for once. “Cris, Cris, wake up.” I shake him, really scared now.
“Is he okay?” Jeremy leans over my shoulder.
I thought he’d be on his way home by now. “I don’t know.”
But then Cris blinks, yawns, and smiles at us. “Sorry. Guess I fell asleep waiting for you. How was school today? Did you see that weird principal again?”
Jeremy and I look at each other. “It’s still today,” Jeremy says. “We didn’t leave.”
He doesn’t sound like he’s going to go home and play with his Xbox anymore. “Mr. Teleomara was here,” I tell Cris. “The weird principal.”
“He couldn’t be.” Cris looks kind of confused, like he just woke up. “My uncle was just here. He would have seen him. He won’t let anyone in. Because of Zoroan.”
“We just saw the new principal here with you,” I tell him.
“My uncle was here.” Cris is really confused now. “And…”
“What did you and your uncle do while he was here?” Jeremy interrupts. “What did you have for dinner last night? What did you talk about?”
“Oh, we…” Cris gets this weird look on his face. “I…I can’t remember. I mean I know…I know I live here with my uncle. That he keeps me safe here. But I just…” He’s looking really confused now. “I just can’t remember what…what we did last night. That’s all.”
Jeremy and I look at each other again.
“I think your ‘uncle’ is Zoroan, Cris.” I’m guessing, but the image of Teleomara bending over Cris as he struggled and screamed still makes my stomach twist. “Cris, you need to come with us.” I go around and grab the handles of the wheelchair. “You can’t stay here. He’ll be back.”
“But my uncle…”
“He was hurting you, whoever he is.” I lean on the handles of the chair, but the vines are all wrapped through the spokes. And I have this scary vision of Cris sitting in this chair in the middle of the night, in the rain, frozen in silver fog.
“I think this is called kidnapping,” Jeremy says. And he starts kicking at the vines, tearing them loose from the wheels with both hands.
I start tearing at ’em, too, and I swear they wrap back around the chair as fast as we tear ’em loose. But finally we get the chair moving, with Jeremy pushing and me stomping on the vines in front of the wheels. “How do we get out of here?” Jeremy pants.
Not through the door Mr. Teleomara went through, that’s for sure. “Is there any other way out, Cris?” I ask.
He shakes his head, still looking like he’s not really all there yet. We just push the chair over to where the apple branch leans over the wall.
“You climb up,” Jeremy tells me. “I’ll boost Cris up and he can grab your hand. Then I’ll climb up and help you pull him up. We did this in Scouts once. Okay, Cris?”
“Sure,” Cris says, but he sounds scared.
I never did this in Scouts, and I look at the wall. It’s real high. But I scramble up. I don’t know if we can pull Cris up, skinny or not. But I can’t think of anything else to try, so I brace my feet and lean way over the apple branch.
“Come on, Cris, I’m going to boost you up.” Jeremy lifts Cris out of his wheelchair. “Man, you don’t weigh any more than my little sister. Hang on. I’m going to tr
y and step up on your chair.”
Jeremy grunts as he climbs very slowly and carefully up onto the seat of the wheelchair. It’s not gonna work. “Ready, Melanie?” He wobbles a little and I hold my breath. “Okay, Cris, just reach up. Grab Melanie’s wrists. You grab Cris’s, Mel.”
I can’t reach him.
“Lean out as far as you can,” Jeremy gasps, his words hot yellow. “Can you stretch up farther, Cris?”
I can’t…quite…reach him. Zoroan, Mr. Teleomara, will be back any second.
The limb falls out from under me. I yelp, grabbing at the limb, then Cris’s face is right in front of mine.
“Grab him, grab his wrists,” Jeremy is yelling. And I do, and Cris’s hands close around my wrists. And then we’re swinging up and my arms are coming out of their sockets, and then we’re falling and my ribs hurt and I see leaves, sky, leaves, and then…
…I land flat on the grass on my back and I can’t catch my breath. Sky. Leaves. Sky. I sit up and nothing hurts too much and Cris is lying on his back, giggling softly.
“What the heck happened?” Jeremy’s head pops up at the top of the wall and a second later he scrambles down. “You guys okay? I swear that tree just boosted you right over the wall. I’m not kidding! You should have seen it.”
“It’s an apple.” Cris sits up. “That’s my birth tree. We’ve got to get out of here. That was a trap. Zoroan’s trap. He had me imprisoned in it and was draining my First Born power.”
“Right now, I believe that.” Jeremy looks back at the castle. “Wow, look.”
I look, and it’s not a castle anymore. It’s this big, old, fallen-down house, just like Jeremy said it would be.
“So what’s a First Born power and why does he want to drain it?” Jeremy asks.
“You know, we could maybe talk about this later,” I snap. “Like after we get a long way away from here?”
“Yeah, we need to get out of here,” Cris says. “I think…I think maybe I can walk. The wheelchair thing…that was just part of the trap. I think.”
We both have to help him up, but yeah, he can walk. Not very well and he’s really weak and almost falls down a lot even with us helping him. He looks better, though. And older, I realize. I thought he was younger than us, but now I think he’s more like fifteen or sixteen. And his words aren’t dog-poop-colored anymore. They’re gold and glittery…sort of like Mr. Teleomara’s, but they don’t hurt. He’s still real skinny. I guess you would be if someone was draining your life out of you. “Where should we go?” I’m not really asking, I’m just wondering.
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