The Guardians

by William Joyce

  North began regaling Ombric with the news about his band of brigands and their new lives as elfin helpers.

  Ombric’s left eyebrow rose high; he was clearly amused. “Well done, Nicholas. I see great things in store for your little men,” he said.

  Though neither man would say out loud how they felt, Katherine could tell Ombric was immensely proud of his apprentice, and North took great pleasure in Ombric’s approval. She felt a surge of happiness for the both of them.

  Bunnymund’s ears twitched. These humans and their emotions, he thought. They are so odd. They are more interested in feelings than chocolate!

  “Any sign of Pitch today?” he asked politely but pointedly.

  North shook his head. “The old grump hasn’t grumbled.”

  “None of the children have had bad dreams,” reported Katherine.

  Nightlight didn’t respond. He knew otherwise. Or, at least, he thought he did.

  Bunnymund then answered his own question. “And nothing in my tunnels—nothing evil or unchocolatey or anti-egg anywhere.”

  Ombric stroked his beard. “Perhaps the children are correct,” he mused, “and the battle at the Earth’s core truly was Pitch’s last battle.”

  North pondered. “Can that really be?”

  Katherine turned to Nightlight. She generally knew what he was thinking, but today she couldn’t read him. “Nightlight,” she prompted, “have you seen anything?”

  He shifted on his perch. His brow furrowed, but he shook his head.

  It was the first time Nightlight had ever lied.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A Celebration, an Insect Symphony, and a Troublesome Feeling

  IT’S NOW BEEN EIGHT months since we last saw Pitch. I think before we declare victory, it would be best to consult with the Man in the Moon,” Ombric said. “And that means a journey to—”

  “The Lunar Lamadary!” Bunnymund and North said together. The Lamadary sat on the highest peak of one of the highest Himalayan mountains, and it was there where North had first met both the Lunar Lamas and the Man in the Moon.

  North was ready to leave that minute. It was a great chance to meet again with the Yeti warriors who defended the city. They had been quite helpful when North had been learning the secrets of the magic sword the Man in the Moon had bestowed upon him. The sword was a relic from the Golden Age, and there were five of these relics in total. Bunnymund had one as well—the egg-shaped tip to his staff. The Man in the Moon had said that if all five were gathered together, they would create a force powerful enough to defeat Pitch forever. But peace seemed to be at hand. With any luck, the Guardians would have no need for more relics. But North had been wondering how he would keep his warrior skills sharp, or if he even should. With the Yetis, he’d again have able competitors with whom to practice his swordmanship.

  Ombric turned to Bunnymund. He didn’t even have to ask about making a tunnel, because next to making chocolate eggs, digging tunnels was the Pooka’s favorite pastime.

  “One tunnel coming up,” Bunnymund said. “It’ll be ready in twenty-seven half yolks—that’s one day in your human time.”

  “Outstanding,” Ombric said with a nod. “We’ll take the whole village—everyone is welcome!” he added. “It’ll be a grand adventure. We’ll plan a celebration tomorrow evening to see us off!”

  Katherine clapped her hands together in excitement. Kailash will be so happy to see the other Great Snow Geese, she thought. She’d wondered if her goose ever missed the flock of massive birds that nested in the Lunar Lamas’ mountain peak.

  But her excitement was tempered by her unease about Nightlight. She glanced at him, but he would not return her gaze. Instead, with his amazing speed, he shot out the window and into the clear, blue sky. But he did not seem bright, Katherine noted, and her unease grew.

  The next day found Santoff Claussen full of preparations for the trip and for a celebratory dinner. The eggbots whipped up frothy confections, and the ants, centipedes, and beetles tidied Big Root while glowworms set up tables in the clearing—tables that would be heaped with delicious foods. Not to be left out, squirrels made teetering piles of nuts, birds filled their feeders with seed, and mouthwatering smells came from every nook and cranny of the village.

  That evening the children led a parade of humans; elvish men; insects, birds; their great bear; the djinni; North’s wonder horse, Petrov; and one very tall Pooka to the well-decorated clearing.

  The Moon was so luminous that the villagers were sure they could see the Man in the Moon himself smiling down on them. The Lunar Moths glowed, and Ombric’s many owls hooted softly. Soon the children were jumping onto the backs of the village reindeer and racing them across the evening sky while Katherine and Kailash flew alongside. Fireflies circled their heads, making halos of green-tinged light.

  Down below, North’s elves ate plate after plate of jam roly-poly, noodle pudding, and sweet potato schnitzel, topping off the meal with elderberry pie and Bunnymund’s newest chocolates—a delectable blend of Aztec cacao and purple plum—all the while asking North to describe the meals prepared by the Yetis (accomplished chefs all) at the Lunar Lamadary. It seemed that being turned to stone and back again was a hungry business.

  Even the crickets came out into the moonlight to play a sort of insect symphony to the delight of everyone.

  Finally, when all the games had been played, the food eaten, and the songs sung, the village of Santoff Claussen settled down to sleep.

  Up in her tree house, however, Katherine lay awake. Nightlight had been the only one who had not joined the party that night. And it bothered her. As did something else: Ever since the last battle, Katherine found that in quiet moments like this, her mind often drifted back to Pitch and his daughter—the little girl he had fathered and loved before he’d been consumed by evil. In the final moments of their battle, Katherine had shown Pitch a locket—a locket that held his daughter’s picture. She could not stop thinking about the anguished look on Pitch’s face, or her own longing to be loved as deeply as Pitch’s daughter had been loved by her father.

  Does that feeling only happen between parent and child, a father and a daughter? Katherine wondered. She had lost her own parents when she was just a baby. It was true that here in Santoff Claussen, many people loved her and cared for her. Ombric and North were like a father and a brother to her. But that wasn’t the same as a real family, was it? She couldn’t help wondering whether anyone would feel that same anguish she’d seen in Pitch’s eyes if she were lost to them.

  The locket

  And there was Nightlight. She sensed his current melancholy. He’s never had a parent, she thought, and he had seemed happy enough. But now something was wrong. She would find out what it was. She would make him happy once more. And then maybe she’d be happy too.

  That thought brought comfort to the gray-eyed girl, and soon, like everyone else in the village, she was asleep.

  But a strange wind blew through Santoff Claussen. It caused the limbs of Katherine’s tree house to gently sway. If Katherine had awakened, she’d have felt uneasy, as though she were being watched by a force nearly as ancient as Pitch. Whose motives and deeds would change everything. If Katherine just opened her eyes, she’d have seen what was in store.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  An Amazing Journey to the Top of the World

  THE NEXT MORNING THE whole village gathered at the entrance of Bunnymund’s latest digging extravaganza: a tunnel that would take them to the Lunar Lamadary.

  With great fanfare, Bunnymund swung open the tunnel’s egg-shaped door and stepped into the first car of the extraordinary locomotive that would speed them on their way. Trains were still not yet invented (Bunnymund would secretly help the credited inventors some decades later), so the machine and its technology were still a source of considerable amazement for the people of Santoff Claussen. Like the tunnel he had created, Bunnymund’s railway train was also egg-shaped, as was every knob, door, window, and light fixture. It
was easy to tell he was quite proud of his creation.

  Ombric, North, Katherine, and Kailash, along with North’s elfin comrades, the children, and their parents, scrambled on board. Bunnymund was twisting and turning the myriad of egg-shaped controls.

  The Spirit of the Forest waved her shimmering veils at them as Bunnymund started the engine.

  “Aren’t you coming?” Katherine called out, hanging from a window.

  The Spirit of the Forest shook her head, the jewels in her hair casting a glistening, rainbowlike glow around her. “I’m a creature of the forest, and in the forest I will stay. Petrov, Bear, the eggbots, the djinni, and I will watch over the village while you are away.” The gardens of flowers around her seemed to be nodding in agreement as the villagers waved good-bye with calls of “See you soon” and “We’ll miss you.”

  As soon as the train began to move, Sascha turned to Katherine excitedly. “Tell us again about the Lunar Lamas!” she said.

  “And the Yetis!” her brother Petter added.

  Bunnymund’s Eggomotive

  But Katherine was distracted. Nightlight hadn’t gotten on board. In fact, she hadn’t seen him since yesterday afternoon. She looked out the window as the train began to descend into the tunnel. Where is he? Then, as the last car heaved downward, she glimpsed him swooping into a window at the back of the train. She felt instantly better.

  “Please, will you tell us of the Yetis?” the smallest William begged, pulling on Katherine’s shirtsleeve. She turned to him with a smile now that she knew Nightlight was at least on board. She searched through the pages of Mr. Qwerty until she came to the drawing she had made of the Grand High Lama. His round face seemed to beam at them. “The Lamas, remember, are holy men,” Katherine told them, “even older than Ombric! They’ve devoted their whole lives to studying the Man in the Moon. They know all about Nightlight and how he used to protect the little Man in the Moon in the Golden Age before Pitch—”

  Katherine cut herself off. She did not want to think about Pitch right now.

  “The Lamas live in a palace . . . ,” Sascha prompted.

  “Not a palace, really. But a fantastic place called a Lamadary.” Katherine turned the page, revealing the Lamas’ home, glowing as if with moonlight. “There’s nowhere else on Earth closer to the Moon than the Lunar Lamadary.”

  “Now tell us about the Yetis,” Petter begged.

  The Grand High Lama

  “The Yetis—oh, they are magnificent creatures . . . ,” Katherine said, but her voice began to trail off. “They helped us defeat Pitch. . . .”

  “I can’t wait to see it all with my own eyes,” Sascha said dreamily. “Especially the Man in the Moon.”

  “And mountains so high, we’ll be above the clouds,” Fog added.

  The children began chattering among themselves about the adventures to come, not noticing that Katherine had grown quiet.

  She rose from her seat. She felt uneasy again, and the children’s company didn’t suit her right now. She didn’t really know where she wanted to be—with the children or with North and the other grown-ups. Even Kailash didn’t comfort her. She was betwixt and between. She started toward the back of the train. The only company she desired right now was Nightlight’s.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Chicken or the Egg: A Puzzle

  WHILE THE CHILDREN WERE anticipating their first trip to the Himalayas, Ombric and Bunnymund were in a deep debate about which came first, the chicken or the egg. Ombric believed it was the chicken. Bunnymund, not surprisingly, believed it was the egg. But the Pooka had to admit that he could not answer the question definitively.

  “Eggs are the most perfect shape in the universe,” he argued. “It’s logical that the egg would come first and the chicken would follow.”

  “But where did the first egg come from, if the chicken did not exist?” Ombric asked.

  “Where did the chicken come from,” Bunnymund pointed out, “if not from the egg?”

  Privately, each one believed he had won the argument, but publicly, the wizard deferred to the Pooka. Bunnymund was the only creature alive who was both older and wiser than Ombric. In fact, when Ombric had been a young boy in Atlantis and had first experimented with his magic, it had been Bunnymund who had saved him from a most tragic end.

  Ombric had learned so much since he’d become reacquainted with the Pooka. He felt almost like a student again. But perhaps, he thought, he had something to teach E. Aster.

  “Have you ever met the Lunar Lamas?” Ombric asked, eager to fill him in on their strange ways.

  “Yes and no,” Bunnymund replied mysteriously. “It was rather difficult getting that mountain in place before their ship crashed to Earth back, oh, before the beginning of your recorded time. So we have what you might call ‘a history,’ but does anyone really know anyone? I mean to say, I’ve met them, I’ve talked to them, I’ve read their minds and they’ve read mine, but do I know what they’ll say or do next at any given moment or what underwear they wear on Tuesdays and why? Do I? Do I really know?”

  Ombric blinked and tried to take in all that information. It was an answer of sorts. “Indeed,” he said at last. “Um . . . yes . . . well . . . all right . . . That must be how they knew to point us in your direction when we sought the relic.” He glanced up at the sumptuously bejeweled egg that adorned the top of Bunnymund’s staff and raised an eyebrow. “They would tell us only—”

  “That I was mysterious and preferred to remain unknown,” Bunnymund finished for him, steering the train around a graceful, oval curve. “True. Absolutely true. Etched in stone, so to speak. At least until I made the curiously rewarding acquaintance of you and your fellows. Most unexpected. Utterly surprising. And, as you say, ‘a hoot.’ ” Bunnymund had developed a genuine pleasure in using the new expressions he heard in the company of what he called “Earthlings.”

  Ombric smiled at the fellow. “I like you too, Bunnymund.”

  The rabbit’s ears twitched. Such obvious statements of Earthling sentiments never failed to baffle him. Yet, while the Pooka would never admit it, Ombric could tell that he was beginning to actually enjoy the company of humans—in small doses, anyway.

  As they neared the Himalayas, Katherine combed through car after car of chattering villagers and elves, looking for Nightlight. North’s elves were busily working on what looked like a drawing or plans for something. They cheerfully covered their pages from her view. She decided not to pry, for she rather liked these funny little men. But more to the point, she was on a mission to find Nightlight.

  Then, as it always happened, she suddenly knew that it was time for her to meet with the other Guardians, and she could sense that Nightlight was there with them. She followed this feeling as it led her to the train’s front car, or as Bunnymund referred to it, the Eggomotive.

  They were all there: North in the back by the door, Ombric and Bunnymund tinkering excitedly with the controls. And out the front window she could see Nightlight, sitting face forward in front of the engine’s smokestack. He did not turn around though she knew he could feel her presence. His hair was blowing wildly as the train blasted ahead. The sound of the train was loud, but it was pleasing, like ten thousand whisks scrambling countless eggs. Perhaps Nightlight misses all the excitement of battle, Katherine thought, watching him lean forward into the air rushing past.

  She wondered if North did as well. He was humming to himself, a faraway look on his face. Something was now different about the young wizard. He was still always ready to leap into action, still loved conjuring up new toys for the children. (Just that morning he’d brought the youngest William a funny sort of toy—a round biscuit-shaped piece of wood with a string attached to its middle. When jerked, it would go up and down almost magically. North called it a “yo-yo-ho.”) And he still continued to tease Bunnymund, whom he insisted on calling “Bunny Man” no matter how many times the Pooka corrected him. Nevertheless, Katherine sensed a change, a change she couldn’t quite put he
r finger on. In those moments when he thought no one was looking, North had become quieter, more contemplative.

  And yet he didn’t seem sad or melancholy or lonely like Nightlight did. His face was alive with excitement. What is he up to? she wondered, hoping that, when he was ready, he would tell her about it. If only she could be sure that Nightlight would be so forthcoming. All this change is so unsettling. Peace is harder than I thought it would be.

  North, sensing her presence, grinned and brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. “Ready to see the Man in the Moon again?”

  Katherine gave him an impish smile, and nodded yes. She could feel the train beginning to climb upward. The engine strained to pull the egg-shaped cars and their festive cargo up toward the Himalayan mountain peak. They were nearly there.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In Which the Man in the Moon Greets the Guardians with a Fair Amount of Fanfare

  THE GUARDIANS EXCHANGED LOOKS full of anticipation. Even Bunnymund, who considered anything nonchocolate or egg-related to be of little importance, looked forward to sharing the news that they believed Pitch had been vanquished.

  For the last few minutes of the journey the train was traveling completely vertical—Katherine had to hang on to North or she’d slide out the door. Then the first car popped out of the tunnel into the clear, perfect light of the highest place on Earth. A new egg-shaped Eggomotive station was in place, and the train came to rest at the outskirts of the Lunar Lamadary.

  The holy men now waited on the platform in their silver slippers and billowing silk-spun robes. They bowed deeply at the sight of Nightlight, who hopped lightly off the engine. Having once been the protector of the Man in the Moon, Nightlight always received their greatest reverence. Their Moon-like faces, normally inscrutable, resonated joy at his arrival. And this seemed to brighten Nightlight’s mood as well. But he was still distant with Katherine.