Lizard Radio

by Pat Schmatz

  “If I tell them that you’re holding me here because I asked questions, then you’ll expul me?”

  “Immediately.”

  I get in the cot, still fully clothed. Tomorrow I’ll be out, and Rasta and I will talk, and I can go forward from there. I pull the covers up, and shove the komodo down to the point of my pocket. Machete nods, steps into the hallway, and calls up the stairs.

  “Come on down.”

  Rasta comes through the door first, breaking a huge grin at the sight of me. Sully is right behind her, and then Emmett.

  “Lizard!” Sully’s voice is the best thing I’ve ever heard. “So you’ve had it with the crops, have you? Couldn’t hack the dirt under your fingernails anymore?”

  “Not too much noise.” Machete comes up behind Sully, finger to her lips. “We don’t want to tire her.”

  Sully whirls, dips a shoulder, and crashes into Machete’s stomach. Machete folds with an oof and slams into the wall. Sully jumps on Machete, and they both hit the floor.

  “Go!” she yells.

  I thrash my legs free of the blanket as Rasta and Emmett practically levitate me off the cot.

  “No!” Machete yells from the floor. “Kivali, no!”

  “Come on,” Rasta rasps in my ear.

  She yanks my arm with a strength that I wouldn’t have guessed. I look over my shoulder and catch a glimpse of Sully-Machete tangle. Sully laughs out loud as she tries to contain Machete’s thrashing limbs, and Rasta and Emmett hustle me out the door. Emmett closes it and turns the dead bolt, locking Sully in with Machete. I turn back, can’t leave Sully in there, but Rasta pulls me along.

  “Sully knows what she’s doing; come on.”

  Up the stairs, the three of us. Down the hall and through the foyer we go, out into the gray-dusk. Cool raindrops pelt my face as we run across the gravel. Gravel jabs at the soles of my feet.

  “She needs her frods,” says Emmett.

  “No time.” Aaron steps out from the dense tangle of wet green at the edge of the gravel lot. “This way.”

  “This way where?” I ask.

  “Hiding place in the woods.” Rasta pulls me along. “Aaron knows the way.”

  Emmett nudges me from behind, and Rasta pulls my hand, and we follow Aaron’s broad shoulders through the gray and the rain.

  Blur, it’s all a blur. The dripping trees, the cold damp, Aaron’s back and Rasta’s hand and Emmett close on my heels, from the enforced quiet of the Quarry to this wild wet ride on the wind. The cool dirt feels better on my feet than the gravel, but I still hit every sharp stick and root, stubbing and scraping.

  A wet, leafy branch smacks me in the face. I stop to wipe my eyes, and right there, fear catches up with me and douses the fires of escape and excitement. We’ve gone too far. They’ll Blight us all, every one of us, they’ll throw us with the violents, the Sabis and Liams with their empty icy eyes and —

  “Stop!” I yell.

  Aaron and Rasta stop. Emmett runs into me from behind. We’re at the top of a rise. The path ahead drops off sharply into denser brush and creeping darkness.

  “Wait!” I’m breathing hard. “We have to go back. We can’t leave Sully.”

  “No!” Rasta’s hair plasters flat to her head, and her eyes are enormous. “There’s no back.”

  I look over Rasta’s head to Aaron.

  “Why are you in this?” I ask.

  “Sully.” He wipes his face and shoves the dark curly hair back from his forehead. “Follow that switchback path.” He points down the slope.

  “You’re not coming with us?” Emmett’s voice cracks.

  “No. I told her that I’d show you the way, and I’ve done that — keep going, and you’ll find the grove. I’m out.”

  Rasta grabs his arm.

  “Aaron, you can’t be out,” she says. “None of us can, don’t you get it?”

  Aaron turns to go back the way we came but Rasta is latched on, and Emmett steps up to block his way.

  “We have to stay out of her control,” says Rasta.

  Aaron shakes her loose, flinging his arm up, and she loses her balance. She teeters for a long, slow-mo moment, grasping at air. Then Rasta falls. A tumbling shape, down and down, she crashes through the brush and the rain to the gathering gloom below.

  EMMETT AND I HURTLE down the rough slippery slope, pushing and holding, grabbing at bushes and trees to slow our descent, trying not to fall and not to stop and not to disintegrate in the darkness. We slide, splitting apart at a tree trunk and stopping on either side of the dark crumple on the ground next to a big rock.

  “Rasta!”

  Her posture is all wrong, the twist of her torso, the angle of her head. Emmett grabs my hand.

  “Don’t move her.”

  He takes off his warmer and drapes it over her.

  “Go get someone.”

  “What happened to Aaron?”

  I look up from where we came. Nothing but dark and steep and leaves. The night has swallowed it all. Just below us is a narrow path leading into the woods and I take it, hoping it will lead to Pieville. I squint and stumble, cursing Aaron and looking for known ground, any entry to the familiar. Wet grass licks my ankles, and the occasional vine or prickle darts out to snag my skin. I push forward through the deepening dark and steadily dripping rain.

  The cold, heart-pounding what if Rasta is dead, or paralyzed, or . . . stumble goes on and on until the tangled woods open to something a gray-shade lighter. I run toward it, and the oak grove throws itself open as if it’s been waiting for the touch of the bare soles of my feet. My grove. Aaron could never have led me here; it’s mine. The grass is blessedly non-prickery, and I run into the center and scan for the main path to Pieville. The grove is surrounded by a tangled snarl of darkness, and I can’t see the path or much of anything else.

  Despite my channel-locked focus on hurry-up, I pause, because — what is that? Some sort of a current, a pulse — a magnetic something — embraces me in the center of the grove. It wants me to stay, but I can’t leave Emmett and Rasta alone in the cold, going under, drowning in the dark. I shake myself loose from whatever it is and walk to the edge, hand held out in front of me until I touch wet leaves. From there I skirt the edge of the opening, trailing my left hand, feeling for the break in brush that means the opening to the main path and Pieville and people and help.

  Finally, open space. I grope my way into it, away from the force in the center of the grove. I can tell that I’m on the path by the cold-packed mud beneath my feet, and I run sightless through now-solid black, hands out in front of me, one high and one low, so that I don’t bash into a tree. I navigate by feel — tangle and thistle to the left; I veer to the right. Deeper dead leaves and underbrush on the right; I steer to the left. I cannot see at all, not a shadow, not a glimmer.

  “Lacey!” I yell into the dripping dark. “Lacey, are you there?”

  Nothing. Fikewise fiking fike.

  “Anybody? Hey, help!”

  Rain smatters leaves all around me.

  “Help! Hey, help!”

  A leddie shines through fabric ahead, and I run toward it.

  “Who’s out there?”

  “It’s me, Lizard.”

  A door zips open, and Risa pokes her head out. Somehow I got completely off the path and came up the back way on Pie Three.

  “Rasta’s hurt, back past Lacey’s slice. Can you run up and get someone? I’m barefoot, no leddie.”

  “Get who?”

  “I don’t care, anybody! Someone who can do something.”

  Light glows in other slices. Pen leddies bob toward us.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Rasta’s hurt.”

  “What happened?”

  “Lizard? I thought you were sick. Are you okay?”

  “Where is she?”

  Risa is ready to go, rain-warmer on and pen leddie in hand.

  “There’s an oak grove, a big clearing just right of the main path, way past Lacey’s s
lice. If you bring them to the grove and yell, we’ll hear you. Rasta’s just beyond.”

  The thin beam of Risa’s leddie bounces off toward the slope up to the fields. Adrenaline-jacked and exhausted, I turn in the other direction, back to the grove, back to Rasta and Emmett. A hand grabs my shoulder.

  “Come with me.”

  No mistaking Nona’s voice, and I almost fall to the ground with relief. Nona. Nonanonanona.

  “Come on,” I say. “Rasta’s this way.”

  “Let’s get a blanket to keep her dry till they get there.”

  Sense in that. Nona pulls me past the gathering crowd to our pie. She zips open my slice, follows me in, turns on the leddie, points at the cot.

  “Sit.”

  “No time! We gotta get back there. She’ll be freezing and drowning and —”

  “You can’t even talk with your teeth chattering like that. At least dry your face.”

  She throws me a towel, and I sink my face into it, the rough warmth of it, the dry of it, just for a second. The ends of the towel move, rubbing my hair dry. Nona takes the entire towel from me and moves it across my head, the back of my neck. She rubs the towel over me and tousles me around until I land back in my soaking wet shivery body.

  “Put on socks and boots; your feet are wrecked.” She pulls the towel away from my face. “I’m getting blankets and my rain warmer. Hurry up.”

  Nona zips out. I yank socks and boots onto my battered feet. The beam of Nona’s leddie pierces the fabric wall.

  “Let’s go,” Nona calls.

  Nona carries a blanket wrapped in a rain-warmer. Off we go, the leddie lighting a few steps in front of us. As we turn into the grove, I hitch to a stop. The pulsing. It’s stronger now, and although it clearly comes from the center of the grove, it rebounds in my gut. I’m suddenly dizzy, a little bit nauseous. I stop, put my hands on my thighs, try to steady myself. Nona puts a hand on my back.

  “Where’s Rasta?” she asks.

  “This way.” I stand, shake my head, and move on. “Emmett’s with her.”

  I reach out to touch the leaves, and the cool water on my fingertips lessens the dizzying pull of the — what is that? — in the center of the grove. A rough wet oak trunk helps me focus as I skirt the opening, searching for the narrow path on the opposite side. Nona shines the leddie beam from behind, and we find the break in the trees. The path is narrow but definitely discernible. Nona grabs me by the shoulder again, and I sidestep, almost losing my balance entirely.

  “I’ll find Rasta and Emmett,” she says. “You have a different call to answer.”

  She flashes the leddie back toward the center of the grove, and it illuminates moving shadows and shapes. As I turn and squint to see what they are, Nona pushes me between the shoulder blades so hard that I stumble forward and fall on my face in the wet grass.

  I RAISE MY FACE from the dank earth to an open darkness that rolls with texture and movement. The magnetic pulse surrounds me and is me. It is the amplified essence of Lizard Radio, and it saturates all sensation, inner and outer.

  I nose the crumple in front of me, recognize it, and roll into my lizard skin. I stand, rising horizontally off the ground on four short, powerful legs. The beat sways me from snout to the tip of my heavy tail. I take a step, and my claws drag across the grass. I pause, raise my head and chest, and flick at the night air with my tongue, tasting the sounds and scents of mystery and wonder.

  Scores of geckos emerge from the earth, and agamids drop from the oaks. Chameleons and skinks and whiptails skitter through the underbrush and spring into the clearing. A cluster of water monitors and a Gila monster stomp to the rhythm, and six-lined race runners ripple circles through the grass. Sungazers and anoles loop and pitch, and tiny teiids gambol and stutter-skip. Tokays dash across my broad back, croakity-chirping as they launch in every direction.

  I plant my feet on the rock of the planet and flick out my tongue to draw sweet water from the grass. I inhale the furious wind, igniting a sizzle of mad joy and crystal-dark clarity. I flow into the elements like hot lava. Each step, each motion feeds my komodo heart and fires a fierce love for the world, for the sky and the dark and the night and the rain. I roar from the core of my soul, my boy-girl human-lizard bender-comrade soul.

  A reply comes from the dark treetops overhead, a tiny raw caw, a wing-flutter in the breath between dragon beats that catches my throat for a quick second. But then the saurian song rises and flames through my heart, lighting up the grove.

  I dance with the lizards. I bellow the beauty of the night, surrounded by others like me, others who see me and know me for exactly what I am. I sway and ripple and stomp in a rush of ecstasy that extends backward and forward in time, never-ending and never a start, on and on and —

  A human hand materializes from above. It seizes my left front leg at the joint and flips me on my back. I snap and thrash, but it pins and holds me.

  “Easy, Kivali. Easy.”

  Another hand lands gently on my cheek. I jerk away and scrabble backward. A blanket of pressure and restriction envelops me and pins my arms to my sides.

  “Kivali, shh, come here. You’re cold as ice.”

  Machete wraps a blanket around me in the dripping dark, smothering me in a full-body hold. I jerk to one side and the other, pushing her away, and waver up to my own two feet.

  “Where’s Rasta?”

  My human voice is so small in the night.

  “I’m taking you back to the Quarry.” Again Machete pins me, the blanket trapping my arms. “We’ll talk there.”

  I thrash loose from the blanket and her grip again, and step back.

  “Tell me now.”

  The rain has stopped. Machete flicks on a leddie. She bends over, picks up the blanket, and hands it to me.

  “Come on. Walk with me.” Her voice is no longer soft. “You need to get inside. You’re chilled.”

  “Tell me.” I push the blanket away and cross my arms over my chest. “I’m not moving until you tell me.”

  We stand in silence. The pitch-black chill of the grove dampens everything. The silence stretches longer and thinner until finally, Machete breaks it.

  “Kivali. I’m so sorry. Rasta is dead.”

  The komodo roars from my core, but the sound that emerges is something between a whimper and a moan. I fall to the ground and cover my head. Cold. I shake so hard, it hurts my teeth and rattles my ribs.

  “Ms. Mischetti?”

  Footsteps approach in the dark.

  “I’ve found her, Lacey.”

  A light bobs through the bushes. Lacey’s leddie flashes across Machete and then into my eyes. I turn away from the light. Machete drops the wet blanket on me. My teeth begin to chatter, and I wrap into the blanket.

  “Lacey, please get dry clothes from Kivali’s slice, and another blanket, and put them in the Quarry. Then go tell the other guides that we’ll meet before CounCircle — at first gong. Guides, counselors, teachers. Then get some sleep. I’ll need you tomorrow.”

  The light turns and disappears, leaving the two of us. The chattering of my teeth rattles my skull.

  “Let’s go, Kivali. We need to get you somewhere warm.”

  I let her pull me to my feet and steer me to the path. I am frozen numb and cannot manage anything beyond one step and the next. We continue through Pieville, up the slope, across the fields, and into the main building. As we cross the wooden porch, I pull the blanket around my head like a hood, shielding me from the light.

  I descend the stairs and enter the Quarry without turning or removing the blanket. Machete comes behind me, flipping on the overhead leddie. Lacey got here ahead of us; clean coveralls lie folded on the end of the cot, along with an extra blanket.

  “Get a hot shower,” she says. “I’ll check back on you in fifteen ticks.”

  The door closes. I stand beneath the hood of wet blanket, wavering on two narrow, clawless feet. My belly is up off the ground and exposed. Shivers rack my body with each inha
lation. My teeth clack and grip and rattle. I stick out my tongue to taste the air, and it gives me nothing. Like being blindfolded.

  I step over to the curtained corner and turn the handle to hot. Water smatters around the circular drain. Steam rises from the concrete floor. I drop the blanket, unlace my boots, unbutton and drop my coveralls, and peel off my cold, clammy T-shirt and boxers. My human skin is smooth. No leathery beads, no protection, no defense. Just cold chicken flesh. I step beneath the hot water. This shower has a lot more pressure than the ones in Pieville.

  The water pours on my head, over my face, across my body. I cross my arms over my chest and turn so the water pounds hot on the back of my neck. I squinch my eyes tight. On the backs of my lids, Rasta’s form tumbles again into the rain and the dark. I snap my eyes open and try to step back, away from that image, but it follows me. My head spins dizzy and my stomach turns, threatening to climb up my throat.

  I want the komodo. I do. I want it. I step out of the shower still dripping and shove my hand in the clammy wet pocket. Nothing. I check the other one. Nothing and nothing. It’s not there — it’s got to be. Again, I even check the back pockets. I rush over to the dry coveralls and check them just in case. Nothing.

  I towel off in silence. The towel is harsh. It hurts my skin. I pull on the dry coveralls. I wish that Lacey had brought dry socks and boxers and a T-shirt, too.

  The doorknob turns, and the door opens.

  “You’re dressed?” Machete’s eyebrows furrow with displeasure. “You should be in bed.”

  No. If I get in the bed, then I’ll sleep. And if I sleep, I’ll wake up and it will be tomorrow, and the lizards in the grove will be the dream, and Rasta gone will be the reality.

  “Did you lose this?” She holds up the dragon. My komodo dragon is in Machete’s hand. “I found it on the ground near you. It’s an interesting piece of work. I was sure that you wouldn’t want to lose it.”

  “Give it to me.”

  “Kivali.” She shakes her head with such sadness. “You’ve had one horrible shock after another. You must sleep. It’ll help.”

  “Give it to me!”

  Yelling is a mistake.

  “I’ll return it to you tomorrow. I’d like to examine it more closely. It’s so beautifully crafted. For now, you need to settle down.” She holds out a kickshaw. “We’ll talk all of this through in the morning. I’m here for you. You’re not alone.”