Budding Star

by Annie Dalton

  “You’ve gone very quiet,” Reuben commented after a while.

  “I’m not that good underground,” I admitted. “Plus…”

  “Plus what?” He prompted.

  I swallowed. “Something about all this just seems weirdly familiar.”

  “You think you’ve been here before?”

  I shook my head. “It’s just the opposite. I know I haven’t been here before. YOU haven’t been here before. Yet we both know all this - stuff. Stuff we have no business knowing.”

  “Like the bag?”

  “Exactly. Then there were those birds that only fly in like, relays, exactly twenty seconds apart. Not to mention that bizarre peach stone episode. Then AFTER we kill the demon, and only then, a kid suddenly remembers he’s supposed to give us a deeply suspect dagger, and what I don’t understand is, why wasn’t I more surprised?”

  “Maybe you’re remembering a simulation in Dark Studies?”

  Again I shook my head. “It’s not a heavenly memory, Reubs. This is connected with Earth, I’m positive.”

  The underground road led us though a series of high-ceilinged caves. Finally, we came to this really massive cavern, like a giant’s hallway. It had some really funky stalactites - they’re the downward pointing ones, right?

  The cavern had dozens of confusing passages branching off, so we stopped to consult the map.

  When new trainees come to our school, they all get a copy of the Angel Handbook. Somewhere in the first two chapters (has to be - that’s as far as

  I’ve read!), it says: “It’s better to travel hopefully than to arrive.”

  Well, until that stalactite moment, I’d been in my hopeful-travelling groove. Trudge, trudge, meet some dead kids, kill a demon, trudge, trudge. I was just too worried to even think about how our mission might end, so I’d been acting like we’d be slogging through Limbo in our bare feet for ever. So when I looked at the map, I practically had heart failure. Our helpful blue butterfly was flashing a hundred metres away from where we were standing.

  We were a hundred metres from the Palace of Endless Night.

  “Omigosh, we’ve found her!” I squeaked.

  “Better keep it down now,” Reuben advised in a whisper. “There could be guards.”

  If I ever run into Jessica Lightpath again, I’m going to ask her, how come, in Limbo, you only have to name something and it immediately appears?

  Tramp, tramp, tramp. The sound echoed on and on, spookily amplified by the underground acoustic; the mechanical, unstoppable marching boots of soldiers who aren’t quite human. We literally couldn’t tell if there were just;ten soldiers storming towards us through the dark, or ten thousand.

  Then, like a horde of giant cockroaches, they erupted from every passageway. There weren’t ten thousand, but there were definitely more than ten, their dull black armour adding unpleasantly to the cockroach impression.

  I’m not what you’d call an expert at angelic martial arts, but I’m improving. Reuben, however, has got every heavenly belt going. He’s like the teenage don of martial arts. But I feel I should tell you that in normal life, neither one of us is capable of taking on a hundred-plus soldiers and leaving them in tidy heaps like laundry. Yet this is what happened.

  It was like the peach stone episode only a zillion times more spectacular. We didn’t have to think, we didn’t have to go in a huddle about strategy. We went into total fight mode. We slammed into that Dark lord’s posse as if we’d been taking on armies our whole lives. We somersaulted off walls. We flew through the air like wire fighters (with no wires, might I add!), and the soldiers went crashing down like skittles.

  Once again I seemed to be split into two. The normal Mel was going; what the sassafras is going on! The wannabe-wire-fighter Mel was going; who cares? It’s SO unbelievably cool!

  My buddy and I kicked, punched and somersaulted our way to the palace gates. The few guards on duty put up some resistance, but nothing we couldn’t handle.

  “We showed them,” said Reuben who I noticed wasn’t even slightly out of breath. “And the gates are open, excellent!”

  And then we clocked the building on the other side. Until this moment, it hadn’t occurred to me that anyone would actually choose to build their palace out of stinky river mud, bits of skull and bone, and icky little plant organisms.

  Did I mention the gruesome gargoyle faces peering at us from inside tangles of living plant fibre, like old ladies snooping through net curtains? Did I also mention there were NO windows in that hideous palace, anywhere?

  I was dangerously close to another cosmic panic attack, when Reuben suddenly said this really helpful thing. “Hey, Beeby, just think! People all over the Universe must be taking deep breaths at this exact moment, as they psyche themselves up to do some totally scary but absolutely necessary thing.”

  I swallowed. Rescuing a human soul from a creepy palace in the underworld was beyond scary, but it made me feel heaps better to remember we weren’t alone. “If anyone asks, we’re style consultants who’ve come to give them a makeover!” I said bravely.

  And like all the other scared people all over the Universe, we took deep breaths, before we walked through the gates and into the palace.

  Eek, this style consultant just quit, I thought. My nostrils filled with an overwhelming mushroomy pong of mould and decay.

  The Dark lord’s palace hadn’t looked exactly welcoming from the outside, but the interior made me feel seriously deranged. First, it had all this creepy underground plant life growing inside. Second, the palace was terminally confusing with stairs that suddenly stopped halfway to nowhere and dank, mushroom-smelling corridors that constantly looped back on themselves.

  My worst thing was the swaying bridges, which initially appeared to take you to one part of the palace, yet infallibly delivered you in the exact opposite direction!

  After we’d found ourselves back by the front door for the billionth time, Reuben suggested we might get on better if we ignored our physical surroundings. “Keep your eyes on the map,” he advised. “The butterfly will let us know if we’re hot or cold.”

  “I’m so glad you’re here, Reubs,” I said impulsively. “I don’t think I could have handled this by myself.”

  He looked surprised. “Yeah, you could.”

  I shook my head. “I have all these major cosmic wobbles, but when you’re with me, I somehow manage to keep it together.”

  “Works both ways, you know, Beeby,” he pointed out.

  I was amazed. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. Now focus,” he said sternly.

  Reuben’s strategy worked. By concentrating carefully on the dancing butterfly, we were finally able to make our way through the underground maze.

  At last a narrow twisty corridor brought us to the top of some cellar stairs.

  Though equally as dark and creepy as other stairs we’d seen, I noticed that these seemed newer, as if they’d been built more recently.

  I felt a sudden twang of angel electricity, and knew my hunch was right.

  Tsubomi’s soul was down there! We didn’t say a word. We just flew down the stairs.

  The door at the bottom was padlocked and bolted with three heavy iron bolts. But this didn’t slow us down one bit. Reuben simply kicked it down with the surprising strength he’d shown when he snapped the demon’s torch.

  Tsubomi’s vibes still hung in the air like a faint perfume. But her soul had gone.

  Reuben shook his head. “It stinks of magic in here. The creep must have seen us coming and spirited her away somewhere.”

  I wandered about, stupidly picking up objects she might have touched and randomly putting them down again.

  I’m not into that “I live in a creepy church crypt” look, personally, and probably Tsubomi wasn’t either, but you could see little human touches where she’d tried to make her underworld pad that little bit more homey.

  There was a sleeping area, divided by a lacquered screen, with a futon and a folded
quilt. In her living area, Tsubomi had carefully arranged her art materials at one end of a low table; ink, parchment, various brushes. It looked like she’d been practising calligraphy to pass the time. At the opposite end of the table was a bowl of fresh strawberries. In the eerie twilight of the palace, their colours glowed like jewels. There were real jewels too, spilling out of a casket; a tangle of bangles, chains and necklaces, in such disturbing designs they could only be gifts from the Dark lord himself.

  “WHY DID YOU COME?”

  Dust rained down from the rocky ceiling. I clutched at Reubs, but by that time, the demon lord himself towered over us and there was nowhere to run.

  Let me tell you, worn by a scary demon lord, the dull black armour of his soldiers absolutely did not make you think of cockroaches. It made him look exactly what he was, a terrifying samurai with evil powers.

  “WHY DID YOU COME?”

  “WHY DID YOU COME?”

  “WHY DID YOU COME?”

  Each time he bellowed his question, he popped up in a different part of the room, making it seem like there were several demon samurai bellowing at us simultaneously. I know, as if one wasn’t enough!

  “What have you done with her, you monster?” I screamed to the empty space where he’d been standing seconds before.

  More dust pattered down from the roof. This time there were actual stones and chunks of rock. I saw a little brown mouse skitter for cover.

  “You dare to call ME a monster!” the Dark lord thundered. “I SAVED Tsubomi. She had been too long in your world of Light. Her life had become shallow and one-dimensional. It was making her sick. She needed the richly textured darkness of the earth.”

  Richly textured poo, I thought. This lord obviously fancied himself as a bit of an intellectual.

  The demon was pacing now. “I brought her to my palace,” he said, slightly less thunderously. “I had this chamber built especially. I was going to educate her.”

  “What about? Darkness and dirt?” I whispered to Reubs.

  “Tsubomi’s mind was filled with trivia. She had forgotten humans are made of earth, as well as Stardust. I saw past her ignorance. I was willing to work with her.”

  I suppressed a frightened squeak as the demon materialised an inch from my nose.

  “She was afraid at first,” he boomed. “But I expected that. I was hoping to convince her that I was her teacher, not her jailer, perhaps even something more.”

  “Something more?” I gulped.

  “Lately she had shown signs of beginning to care for me. I brought her fruit and flowers from the world above. I gave her jewels.”

  He thrust his huge helmet close to my face. “And you Children of Light had to come and ruin EVERYTHING!” he roared.

  Reuben quickly placed himself between us. “Don’t threaten her, man!” he said angrily. “We Children of Light stick together.”

  I was shaking like a rabbit. I’d had a good squint inside that helmet, and the creature inside was literally made of shadows. Lucky Reuben’s got that special dagger, I thought.

  “You didn’t answer Mel’s question.” Reuben had taken up a martial-arts crouch. “What have you done with Tsubomi ?”

  “Alas! I was weak!” The demon’s boots made a hollow clumping sound as he paced. “We’d spent all those evenings together, listening to classical music.”

  Reuben gave me a comical look, like: “Eh?”

  “In the end, I just couldn’t bring myself to—” The Dark lord was half talking to himself. He gave us a sudden malevolent glower. “Luckily, I shall have no such problem with you!”

  “You’d better be quick then, old man!” My buddy said cheerfully. With a menacing sounding ZING, he slid Heart Seeker out of his belt, making an expert lunge at the demon’s chest.

  Nothing happened.

  The Dark lord howled with laughter. “You will not find what you seek inside this armour! Many have tried before you and ALL have failed!”

  Still laughing, he slowly rose off the ground. Inhuman laughter rang out from the rocky walls and the earth beneath our feet.

  I was practically wetting myself. Like Reubs, I’d been relying on the dagger to save the day. Now we were well and truly stuffed.

  For no apparent reason my eye was drawn to the table where Tsubomi had passed her time underground practising her calligraphy with ink and brushes.

  Guess what? That clever girl had written us a note! She had copied out four lines of what looked like song lyrics, but which contained the exact answer to my question.

  If you can’t find the heart in the darkness, babe,

  Try looking for the darkness in the heart.

  No, normally I wouldn’t understand it either! But I was in Limbo mode, so I instantly caught on to what Tsubomi was telling us. It was useless to look for the dark lord’s heart inside his armour, because (euw euw euw!) he kept it SOMEWHERE ELSE.

  Believe it or not, I knew exactly where!

  While Reuben and the demon lord continued to whirl around the room, noisily knocking over furniture, I sidled over to Tsubomi’s jewellery box and had a stealthy rummage among her collection of underworld knick-knacks. These included earrings carved out of what looked like little lumps of coal, and a gruesome little charm bracelet hung with teeny skulls. At the very bottom of the heap, I finally found what I was looking for; a totally tasteless ruby-encrusted locket in the shape of a heart with a tiny see-through window.

  I didn’t examine it TOO closely, but the twitching thing inside looked small enough - and easily dark enough - to be a Dark lord’s heart. “Dagger please,” I called calmly, like a nurse in ER.

  My angel colleague immediately sent Heart Seeker spinning through the air. It made a sound like a v. sinister Frisbee. Pyu. Pyu.

  The demon roared out a warning, but I’d already caught the dagger and plunged it through the locket, into the pulsing stuff inside.

  The demon lord collapsed on to his knees with a yowl of pain that seemed to come from the core of the mountain itself. Then he crashed to the floor and lay totally still. Strange-coloured steam rose, hissing faintly, from his armour.

  Reuben and I sagged with relief. The Dark lord had finally gone wherever dark lords go.

  “No more abducting for you, old man,” my buddy told the steaming metal.

  I immediately wanted to kick myself. “I am SO stupid. I killed him and we don’t even know what he’s done to her!”

  Reuben pointed silently to the table. For the first time I noticed the litter of tiny green strawberry stalks and hulls beside the fruit bowl.

  “You are kidding!” I wailed. “Doesn’t she have any sense?

  “Don’t blame Tsubomi. She had eaten nothing since she came to this place”

  I seriously believed I was hallucinating for a moment. The little brown mouse was talking to us. It wasn’t even talking in the special language that angels use for communicating with animals. It was squeaking in medieval Japanese!

  “Tonight the demon brought her a bowl of strawberries. She was so hungry and thirsty, she’d eaten half the bowl before she realised what she was doing.”

  “That’s helpful, little buddy, thanks,” Reuben said politely. “Isn’t there a fairy tale or something like this?” he asked in an undertone.

  “Cinderella had talking mice,” I gulped. “At least, in the Disney version.”

  “No, I meant the fruit. The girl ate an apple or a pomegranate or something, so she had to stay in the underworld for ev—”

  But Reuben never finished his sentence. There was a sweet chime of music from some magical source. The palace dissolved around us, and we found ourselves in a totally different world.

  Chapter Six

  Reuben and I were lying under a tree, head to head, exactly like before. The sky above was lit with an angry red glow.

  “Woo! Serious deja vu!”

  I could feel Reuben’s voice buzzing through my skull bones. “Serious, serious, deja vu,” I agreed.

  We scrambled to
our feet and Reubs gave a low whistle. “Now that is you!”

  “How on earth can you tell?” I giggled.

  We were completely dressed in black. Black hoods, loose black fighting clothes, black boots. Even the lower parts of our faces were covered with black scarves.

  “Hmm, first peasants, then ninjas,” I mused aloud.

  “Ninjas were like secret agents and assassins, right?” Reuben asked.

  “Something like that,” I agreed vaguely. There was some weirdly familiar logic behind our unexpected upgrade, but though I rackedmy brains, I just could not remember what it was.

  We were in a woodland glade almost identical to the first, but with crucial differences. The first glade had been lush and summery, but here dead and dying leaves floated down through the air, collecting in rustling drifts. Several trees looked badly burned, either by lightning, forest fire or both. You could see their pale dead insides where the charred bark had peeled away. Somewhere beyond the fire-damaged trees, a wolf gave its lonely howl.

  Once again I felt like I’d fallen into an old Japanese painting. This one was totally painted in fire colours. Fiery red skies. Red dirt. Red and gold leaves.

  “What would this poem say?” I wondered aloud.

  Reuben looked blank. “Poem?”

  “Japanese artists used to paint nature scenes to show the different seasons. Sometimes they’d write little haiku or whatever, to sum up the mood. Like if I wrote a poem about this wood, it might say something like…” I shut my eyes for a moment then recited softly, “Summer came too soon. Flowers shrivel with a young girl’s hopes, turning to smoke and ashes.”

  Reuben looked amazed. “You never told me you wrote poetry, Beeby!”

  “I don’t,” I said. “Well, only when they made us at school.” I felt a bit weird about it, to be honest, so I changed the subject. “This world smells completely different, have you noticed?” The first wood had smelled of earth and rain. This one gave off a hot rubbery tang as if it hadn’t rained in a thousand years.