He picked her up, stroking her hair. “Don’t cry, baby girl. We’ll be okay. I promise we’ll be okay.”
“Jeb’s right,” I said. “We’ll be fine. But listen, we have to be real quiet. We all have to run as quiet as a little pack of deer.”
She kept her face buried in Jeb’s shoulder, so I kissed her head.
“Right,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We tore out into the flickering darkness. The heat of the blaze immediately pressed against us as smoke filled our lungs, and we all started coughing. My eyes blurred from the fumes, but I kept running. I could hear Ella’s sobs behind me, muffled as she pressed her head into Jeb’s neck. I ran and ran, but part of me knew I had no idea where we were going. We could be headed right toward the mob.
Ahead, a huge rock formation blocked our path, and to the other side, a wall of fire. Coughing into my arm, I spun around, searching for a way out. There was only one. A tiny ravine to the left might provide just enough space for a person to squeeze through. With the billowing smoke, I couldn’t see too far down that path, but there didn’t seem to be any other choice.
“Down there,” I called to Jeb over the roar of flames and crackle of burning trees.
He examined the ravine, hesitating for a moment, but then nodded. Together, we climbed down into the little canyon of red-rock.
And I immediately saw what a terrible mistake it was.
Fire. Huge yellow tongues of it crawled toward us from the other end. A twisted, dead bristlecone pine blazed right in our path; the blast of heat made me stagger back. But when I turned to climb out of the ravine, I could see that the other flames had closed in, sealing off the entrance. We were surrounded. Trapped like animals.
Jeb and I stared at each other, ashen.
And then I remembered the relic. A flicker of hope lit within me, and I pulled the silver chain off.
“The water,” I called to Jeb.
I knew we only had whatever drops were left in the canteen Jeb had grabbed on the way out of the house—but it still might do the trick.
With trembling hands, I twisted open the lid and held the kraken piece over the water. As much as I loved reading about relics, I’d only used one once before—my grandfather’s kraken relic. He had taught me how close contact with the body was required to activate the magic, and that the more you concentrated, the more powerful the reaction was, but it was a skill most people had to practice to get good at.
I exhaled slowly. My fingers felt stiff and clammy with sweat. My head was pounding. I’d read that water magic supposedly had a calming effect on the user. Maybe I was just too worked up to feel it? I closed my eyes and forced a deep breath. Come on. Expand. Please.
I opened one eye to check. The water hadn’t budged.
“Nothing’s happening,” Ella said, her voice high with panic.
“I told you it wasn’t strong enough,” Jeb said.
“Hush,” I snapped. “I’m trying.”
I swallowed a dry gulp and took a breath to calm down. “Please,” I whispered fiercely.
But the water in the canteen stayed at the exact level as before. I scraped a hand through my hair with a growl. “Why isn’t this working?”
A horrible thought started to pound through me. What if it’s not working because it isn’t real? Forgeries were a serious problem in these parts, where the average family could hardly afford a single relic chip. Desperate miners and farmers were often swindled by a slick peddler with an irresistible price.
I stared at the beautiful relic in my hand. Beautiful, and useless as a piece of glass. I felt as though I’d been stabbed in the heart.
“Maggie…” Jeb’s brown eyes were deep and sorrowful, even as they mirrored the approaching wall of flames.
Reading the emotion on his face, Ella hooked her little arms around his neck, and I knew she understood. I threw my arms around both of them and held on tight, stricken by my inability to save them. Stricken that I would never see another sunset on the desert. Never have my first kiss. Never be able to hug Mama and Papa good-bye.
A voice penetrated the crackling roar of fire. The sound of it shattered me.
They’d found us.
When I looked up above the ravine, I saw a dark face illuminated in the flames. It was a young man with black hair and black eyes. He was Apache. A warrior about my age—maybe a few years older.
A swell of terror rose up in me. But then, looking harder into those midnight-black eyes, a realization cracked through the fear, and memories flooded in.
I knew this boy.
Ages ago, when I was an awkward and gangly girl of nine, I’d gone to a year of schooling at the St. Ignacio Mission outside Burning Mesa. The friars taught any who came to read and write. But I didn’t quite fit in there. Mama said it was because I asked too many silly questions. There was one boy who took kindly to me, though. Another misfit. An Apache boy with the darkest eyes I’d ever seen. He’d come to St. Ignacio to learn English. We both stuck out like weeds together.
We were friends until the day I made the mistake of telling Mama all about him. She refused to explain why, but after that, I never stepped foot in St. Ignacio again.
And now, there he stood before me. He looked the same in many ways but grown up in others. He was a warrior now. I could tell from the red band of cloth he wore tied over his forehead.
“Maggie Davis,” he called, and he held out his hand.
I didn’t move, stunned. He remembered my name?
“You stay away!” Jeb had his rifle aimed.
I pushed the barrel of the gun down. “Stop!” I cried. “I know him. He won’t hurt us.”
Jeb stared at me like I’d gone mad. “You know him?”
“You have to trust me, Jeb. There’s no time to argue.”
Fire choked the little ravine with startling speed. The Apache looked at the growing flames and held out his hand with more urgency. “You must come. I will help you.”
I stood, and Jeb grabbed my arm. “No!”
“It’ll be all right,” I said, pressing my hand over his. “I promise.”
I looked back at the Apache. I could see in his eyes that he wouldn’t hurt us. I nodded once. He lay on his stomach on the rock face and reached his arms down.
“First the child,” he said. “Hurry.”
The flames pressed in. The entire ravine would be burning within a matter of minutes.
As I lifted Ella up into the warrior’s hands, a smoldering branch of the nearby bristlecone pine snapped off and fell to the ground. Sparks scattered, spreading over the dry desert grasses spotting the ground. The grasses caught flame instantly. Fire joined with fire, spreading like floodwater. The heat rushed over us like a wave, stinging our eyes and singeing our throats. I turned to Jeb.
And I knew he could see it, too. There would only be time to lift one more person out before the fire engulfed the ravine completely. If even that.
As the angry yellow flames rushed toward us, roaring and crackling over the dry ground, we pressed our backs to the cliff wall.
“God Almighty,” Jeb whispered.
I squeezed his hand, speechless with horror.
The Apache reached down again, and his eyes flashed with dismay.
“Hurry!” he cried.
“Can you lift us both at once?” I asked desperately. But then I felt Jeb’s hand on my shoulder. He was looking up at the warrior, exchanging silent words. Then he looked back to me.
“Take care of Ella,” he said softly.
“Don’t you dare, Jeb.”
The heat was blinding, oppressive. I could barely breathe or see in the onslaught of thick gray smoke, but I caught Jeb giving the Apache a nod.
“No!” I shouted, coughing, shaking my head violently.
Jeb grabbed my hand. He pressed a firm kiss to it, then yanked my fist up to the Apache.
“Jeb! No!”
The warrior’s strong grip wrapped around my wrist, and he pulled me up with startling speed
. I tried to kick, but he didn’t release me. I stretched my free hand to Jeb, screaming. “No! No!”
Above me, Ella reached over the edge of the rock, shouting Jeb’s name.
The flames below clawed at my shoes and bare ankles. They caught onto my skirt and seared my skin. Through the ruthless smoke below, I could just make out a final, mournful flash of Jeb’s brown eyes. And then the Apache gave a big heave, pulling me over the ledge.
I crumbled to the high ground with an anguished cry. The Apache rushed to stamp out my burning skirt, but I wished he wouldn’t. In that moment, I felt like dying right there on the hot sand.
But then I noticed Ella, still reaching for the flames, screaming for Jeb with raw anguish. I fell to her side. She resisted my embrace with all of her might, crying and sobbing for Jeb. I held her tight until she collapsed, her little body shaking with sobs, and I knew that even if I truly did want to die, I couldn’t. And I couldn’t break down, either, not here, not yet. For Ella, I had to be strong.
“It is not safe yet,” the Apache said, crouching beside me, his voice gentle but tense. “We cannot stay here.”
I felt the heat of the fire behind us. Tongues of flame curled up from the edge of the ravine. Thinking of Jeb down there hurt me more than any burn could have. A scream boiled in my throat, desperate to escape. It took all of my strength to keep myself together.
The Apache took my hand. “We must run.”
He pulled us through a narrow path of red-rock. Smoke from the advancing inferno followed, relentless and cruel. The heat hung heavy on the air. When the rock widened, I spotted a black horse tied to a low pine.
Ella and I were too dazed with grief and fear to protest as the Apache lifted us onto the beast’s back. He jumped on behind me, gave the animal one gentle kick, and we tore off across the wide desert.
The horse’s hooves pounded fiercely against the moon-bleached sand, and the wind beat in our ears. We didn’t speak. Finally, after what felt like hours, a settlement surfaced on the dark horizon. A wide adobe wall spread out before us as we drew closer. Behind it, a church dozed beneath the branches of shade trees and a large willow. I recognized the exposed bell tower and the run-down, crumbling wall. It was St. Ignacio.
We rode up the gates, and the warrior called for the horse to slow. The trauma had finally overwhelmed Ella, and she’d collapsed into sleep against me in spite of the long, pounding journey. Seeing this, the warrior hopped down from the horse. He gently lifted Ella, then reached for me with his free arm.
In the pale moonlight he looked tall and strong as an ox. His long black hair hung over his shoulders and blew gently in the wind like dark feathers. He wore thick pants, a vest over his bare chest. My face warmed to my ears as he lifted me effortlessly from the horse.
Stepping onto solid ground, my saddle-sore legs wobbled, but I kept my composure. I quickly smoothed down my wind-blasted hair and wrinkled clothes. I probably looked as bedraggled as I felt.
Seeing a patch of singed fabric on my dress, the memories came flooding back in a river of fire. Mama. Papa. And Jeb. Oh, Jeb.
I scanned the dark, night-bathed surroundings of the mission. The quiet whistle of wind over the desert filled me with a consuming emptiness I couldn’t escape.
Just then, I felt a hand on my arm. The warrior held Ella out to me, and I took her into my arms. The sight of her face, so sweet and utterly peaceful in sleep, only twisted the knife of sorrow deeper in my throat.
“You can stay here,” the Apache said. “The fathers will protect you for a time.”
“Thank you,” I said softly. “For everything.” Suddenly, words felt like little rocks in my mouth, but I forced myself on. “I…remember your face but not your name.”
“Yahnuiyo,” he said. “Yahn.”
I didn’t dare meet his gaze. “It’s so strange to see you again. And under these circumstances…”
He turned his face in the direction of Haydenville. “My people did not burn your home,” he said, somehow answering the very question I hadn’t dared to ask. “Or your village.”
“Then who did?” I asked quietly.
Yahn’s gaze was firm on me. “May we never have to find out.”
I flexed my grip over Ella. Something in his tone made me want her as close as possible.
“Leave if you can,” he said. “Go far from these desert lands. Take your sister.”
His words sent a shiver over me. Perhaps sensing this, he softened. “I am sorry,” he said. “For the loss of your brother. I regret deeply that I could not save him.” The sincerity in his voice stung my heart like a hot needle.
He sighed and took up his horse’s reins. “Farewell.”
“You’re leaving us?”
“The fathers will take care of you. They are good men.”
He mounted his horse. I took a halting step forward. “Will I ever see you again?” The words had tumbled out before I could stop them. I immediately snapped my gaze away, but then looked back.
“Perhaps, Maggie Davis. Perhaps.”
The Catholic friars opened their gates warily, eyeing us in the faint candlelight. When I explained what had happened, they exchanged grim frowns. People had been uneasy enough after hearing about Buena. To find out that it had happened again sent a chill through the air. Some didn’t want us to be allowed entrance, afraid the Apaches would follow to finish the job.
But the Father Superior stepped up from the shadows and spoke one phrase. “Suffer the little children to come unto me.”
It was all he needed to say. The friars opened the gates.
When they had settled Ella and me into their spare quarters in the nuns’ wing, I pulled Ella into my arms on the lumpy, straw-filled mattress. The room was barren, cold, and deathly quiet. So quiet, we had no choice but to face everything that had happened, everything we’d lost.
I was now all Ella had in the world. How could I possibly take care of her? How could I be her mama and papa when I was practically a kid myself? Lying there with my sister, I’d never felt so small or helpless. I didn’t want her to see my tears, but then I noticed that she was crying softly. She looked up into my eyes, trembling.
“Jeb,” she said, her voice hoarse and weak with sorrow.
The sound of his name on her lips broke me. I took her into my arms, unable to stop the flood of grief. Clinging to each other on the little bed, Ella and I wept well into the night.
Chapter Two
The first two weeks passed in a haze of sorrow. By the third week, however, I had to face the reality that Ella and I had relied on the generosity of St. Ignacio for long enough. The mission had barely enough to live on as it was. And while the Father Superior’s kindness seemed to know no bounds, I couldn’t ignore the resentful glances from the other friars. So, one hot spring morning, dressed in a too-big brown dress I’d been given from the mission’s donation box, I made my way on foot into town.
The main hub of Burning Mesa spread around a crisscross of several long streets, with all the usual trimmings of these little bastions of civilization in the desert. Not the height of advancement one might expect in 1867, but they made do. I spotted hotels, a postal service, a smithy, general stores, laundry, ladies’ shops. And of course, the local saloon. As I passed the crowded hall, laughter and the tinny strains of music wafted out into the dusty streets, almost welcoming. A flashy painted sign proclaimed the structure to be The Desert Rose and promised vittles, spirits, and entertainment. Judging from the woman standing in one of the open windows on the second floor, dressed in only a silk night-robe, I figured it offered a few other things as well.
I hurried down the street, not wanting to be seen lingering in front of a house of ill repute. I hadn’t gone but a few paces when I saw it. Gleaming white and bathed in sunshine: a relic refinery. A bona fide relic refinery. My knees locked, and like a flash of light, I could see myself, so many nights, tucked in my chair by the flickering fire, my hands curled around Papa’s worn relic almanac. I could se
e myself bent in the garden, my knees smudged with red dirt, pretending the carrots and radishes were relics, dusting them off and informing the lucky prospector of the finds he’d made. I recalled every time I’d stood in the windy shadow of our little farm and tried to imagine a fairy darting through the sage in a streak of shimmering light. Or a sphinx perched in the shadows of our sandy cliffs.
It made me truly sad to think they’d never come back. The mermaid, the behemoth, the griffin. Even the frightening ones, like the werewolf and the troll and the banshee. From the time I was barely old enough to flip through the pages of Papa’s almanac, I’d mourned that I’d never have a chance to see one of those creatures alive.
Men of science said it was a star, blazing into our world and crashing to the earth centuries ago, that wiped them out. Pastor Abrams spoke of ancient days when humans and magical creatures lived together. Mankind envied the creatures’ powers and relentlessly tried to steal the magic for themselves. They killed countless numbers in their quest, until God decided the whole earth had to be destroyed for the greed and envy it contained. But the noble magical creatures offered to sacrifice themselves instead. And so the Great Flood wiped away any remaining trace of magic, leaving only the bones buried under layers of sand and stone. Of course, no one really knew why the great creatures had left the earth. Only that they were gone for good.
That was why I loved the idea of relics so much. They were all we had left of a world that was young and vibrant and brimming with magic. And we were lucky to have them. These bones, still potent with the powers of their former owners, were a gift for us poor souls stuck in a mundane, aging land.
Mama, on the other hand, hated relics. I’d never understood why. She threw an awful fit when Papa bought the kraken amulet, and she’d scolded me whenever she caught me reading the almanac. She said a respectable lady cared nothing for relics. But I still dreamed of a job in the trade. Many women did. Everyone knew that a female’s careful eye for detail and differentiation made her a welcome asset in refineries. Some of the best relic experts were women. And in the deepest shadows of my heart, I knew it was my calling.
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