The Last Stand of Daronwy

by Clint Talbert

  It was a gathering of most of the neighborhood boys—Loren, Sy, Lee, and Roland, plus a couple others. They stood in a loose circle, laughing and gesturing at something on the ground. The laughter sounded raw, spiteful. Jeremy crept through the brush at the edge of the trail, careful to make no noise. He craned his neck, inching just a little closer, and caught his foot on a vine. He thrashed in the leaves, remaining upright, but catching their attention.

  Loren ordered, “Jeremy, bring that gun here.”

  Jeremy sulked toward the older boy, cheeks flushing. “Whatcha’ll doing?”

  “Gimme your gun, little man.”

  Jeremy offered his gun, eyes darting from face to face around the circle.

  “All right, now y’all watch this,” said Loren.

  A harmless red-ear slider turtle lay on the ground at their feet, its arms and legs and head pulled back into its shell. A threatening hiss emanated from inside it. Loren bent down, pushed the barrel into one of the front foot holes, and fired. The turtle rocked with the impact. It pushed its other leg out and tried to drag itself away as thick red blood trickled onto the dirt from the opening in the shell.

  Jeremy wanted to demand his gun back, but he couldn’t. They were all laughing. They’d make fun of him for being a sissy. They would turn against him. He couldn’t outrun them all, and they had his gun. Fear riveted his hands to his sides, his feet to the bloodstained dirt.

  “Loren, shoot its butt!”

  Loren poked the gun at the rear opening of the shell. He fired. Blood leaked out of three holes now. With its remaining right forepaw, the turtle clawed toward the pond. As it neared the edge of the circle, one of the boys kicked it back to the middle. Blood spattered the dirt like drops of sanguine paint. Loren prodded one of the holes he’d already shot with a stick. The turtle hissed in desperate bursts, trying to drag itself away.

  Jeremy’s guts twisted into a knot. A booming voice in his mind demanded that he do something, but what? If he wrestled the gun back, he’d still have to shoot the turtle. If he stole the turtle, they would make fun of him. And whichever he did, they’d chase him down. Loren and Lee poked sticks into the bleeding openings of the shell. Jeremy opened his mouth, the word “stop” on his lips, but only a choking sound fell off his dry tongue. They paid him no attention, laughing at Loren and Lee.

  Loren pumped the BB gun. The turtle rushed for the water on bloody stumps of feet. Its head strained forward with the effort. Jeremy’s fingernails cut into his palms as Lee arced his stick overhead and swung it toward the head of the animal. “Turtle golf!” The stick cracked against the shell, spinning the turtle toward the pond. Jeremy tried to take a step back, as if he could excuse himself.

  Do something, said his mind, but his body refused to move.

  Loren pointed the gun barrel right in front of the turtle, taunting it. “Come here, little guy, come on. Come kiss my gun. Kiss it. You know you want to.”

  The turtle appeared to obey. With an agonizing, desperate desire, it dragged its dying body toward the water behind Loren. He fired. The BB split the animal’s head. Crimson and yellow guts splattered the boys’ legs. The turtle lay still. Blood dried into the thirsty sand as the boys erupted into laughter. Loren tossed the rifle to Jeremy. “Thanks, dude.”

  The gun bounced off his chest and clattered to the ground. Jeremy scowled, glancing from Loren to the turtle to the gun. His heart hammered in his chest, his throat burning with a rage of words that could not escape.

  “You want to go back to the pond?” Lee kicked the turtle’s body toward the pond. The remnants of the head lolled here and there as the shell tumbled toward the water, leaving a warm sticky trail of innards. Jeremy averted his eyes, bending to pick up his gun.

  “Hey Lee, since it was Jeremy’s gun, he should throw it in.”

  Jeremy froze. He looked up into a devilish smile on Lee’s face. “Yeah, if he isn’t too much of a wuss.”

  “No… no, I don’t want to.”

  “Why not? You afraid it’ll bite you?” Loren made a snapping motion with his hands.

  “He’s just too much of a sissy. He doesn’t want to get his hands dirty,” Lee laughed.

  “Throw it! Throw it!” said Roland.

  Sy met Jeremy’s eyes, but said nothing.

  Loren swooped forward, wrenching the gun from Jeremy’s clammy fingers. He held the rifle by the barrel. “If you don’t throw this turtle in, I’m gonna hit you with your own gun.”

  The boys laughed at that.

  “You don’t think I will?” Loren stepped close, swinging the stock of the gun down in a violent arc. Jeremy tried to scramble back on stiff legs and fell into the dirt, hands crossed over his head.

  “Do it,” Loren said, ending his swing an inch from Jeremy’s skull.

  Keeping one eye on Loren, he crawled back to the turtle. It smelled of coppery manure and mud. He held it at arms length and tried not to breathe, as though death were contagious. Blood trickled onto his hands. Swallowing the nausea and locking his elbows, Jeremy hefted the shell into the pond. It splashed in. He tried to look normal as he wiped his shaking hands on his shorts. Loren dashed forward, swinging the gun at him like a baseball bat. Jeremy flinched, falling mere inches from the water.

  They laughed, doubling over. Loren dropped the gun on the bloodied sand. “Geez, Jeremy. Grow up. Come on, y’all.” Loren led them toward the bike trails, laughing and gesturing as they talked. Jeremy grabbed the gun and ran for the Tree.

  An invisible, icy wall slammed into him as he entered the clearing. The pines above grew together, blotting out the sun. Jeremy stopped. The Tree’s branches seemed twisted and as welcoming as razor wire. Shadows closed around him, causing his knees to buckle. He tumbled to the forest floor, shoulders convulsing as his muscles unfroze. He beat his fists against the deadfall. Why didn’t I do anything? What’s wrong with me? Why didn’t I…

  A breath of cold wind shuffled through the clearing, transforming July into January. Jeremy glanced up at the Tree. “It’s all my fault, it’s all my fault.” His angry tears dripped into last autumn’s leaves. “Why didn’t I do something? Why? It’s all my fault.” The shadows stalked in hungry circles around him. Jeremy shut his eyes to the prowling darkness and beat his fists against the ground once more. “I’m so sorry. Why didn’t I do anything? It’s all my fault.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  God’s accusing eyes jabbed into the back of Jeremy’s neck like a thousand pins as he walked into the church. Face burning, he slunk into the pew and knelt. Weaving his fingers together, he prayed, “Please God, forgive me for the turtle. I should have done something. Please God, forgive me for the turtle, please God… ”

  He did not notice the Entrance Hymn. He did not notice that another priest walked onto the altar until the unusual accent hit his ears. The vowels were clipped in all the wrong places, and the man spoke in a quick, angry voice. Jeremy stared at the large man with close-cropped brown hair and wire frame glasses. He looked like a giant standing next to Father Pat. They took turns, each saying different parts of the Mass.

  At the end of the Mass, Father Pat stood and motioned for everyone to remain seated. He stepped to the microphone. “M’ brothers and sisters, I have some difficult news. I have been diagnosed with cancer.” Jeremy’s heart froze mid-beat. He wanted to shout that someone so close to God could not possibly have cancer. But he sat stone-still and watched Father’s hand shake against the lectern as he spoke. “I’m going to do what I can to fight it, and in the meantime, Father Boylston will be helping with Masses. Please welcome him, just as you welcomed me into your lives. May God bless you.”

  The congregation grasped the backs of pews and stood with shaking knees. Not a single voice joined the Exit Hymn. People crossed themselves in a shocked stupor. With open hands, concerned eyes, and shaking heads, they gathered in a knot
around Father Pat in the foyer of the church. Jeremy waited while his parents said some words to Father, but Jeremy couldn’t meet the priest’s eyes. Instead, he went home and walked into the woods.

  Daronwy awoke to a canopy of sorrow upon the wind that covered the sun and sucked the air dry. At first, he did not see what terrible tragedy could bend the brethren’s energy to create such a depression, then he looked down and saw the boy standing inches from his roots, dew streaming from his eyes. The tree’s leaves shook in concern that one so tiny could impact him so much; that this inconsequential sapling was not so much a sapling and not so much inconsequential.

  “There’s nothing I can do,” the boy said. “Nothing I can ever do.” He dropped to his knees and beat his fists against the fallen needles and leaves and hard-packed dry summer dirt, screaming in a rage powered by a hurricane of remorse. “Nothing!”

  “Was this the effect of my rebuke for torturing the turtle?” Daronwy mused. Reaching outward, careful to hold back his full strength, Daronwy found the cause in Jeremiah’s mind. The leader of his brethren, the priest, had taken ill. Daronwy’s leaves drooped. He had connected with this priest once—many seasons ago—as the young man was walking through the forest, long before any of the houses had been built. The priest had been searching for that other human soul who could hear the tree-songs on the breeze; the man who was building the abomination that caused the fire that destroyed the northern reach of Daronwy’s forest. Daronwy could still remember the man’s desperate attempt to fight the fire—and his screams when he failed.

  Daronwy sighed on the wind, forcing himself to return from his dreams of the past. He wrapped the sapling in his warmth and begged Jeremiah to climb. Jeremiah followed, sniffling and wiping his nose on the backs of his hands. He sat on Daronwy’s trunk, knees pulled to his tiny chest that was wracking with sobs as he rocked back and forth, muttering.

  “I can’t do anything. God, please heal Father Pat. Please don’t let him die. Please let me out of this world. Take me someplace like Narnia, like Middle Earth, some place without cancer and pollution. Please heal Father Pat. I’ll do anything. Just tell me what to do.”

  Firebrand nerves singed Jeremiah’s seed-sized mind, and Daronwy knew he could not reach the boy today. It was not his place to do so, for Jeremiah implored the Creator of the Wind. And while the Creator of the Wind was not so easily invoked, Daronwy added his own prayer on behalf of the sapling and the priest. Jeremiah heard the whistling song of the tree’s prayer, glanced up briefly, dismissed it as an unusual birdsong, and huddled around his knees once more, rocking to the rhythm of his sobs.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Summer burned into August with searing temperatures well over the century mark for days on end. The enshrouded canopy of Helter Skelter offered little relief. Jeremy filled in a small pongee trap while Daniel sawed through a trip wire. “How do you think we’d use the Stones?”

  Daniel thought for a second. “I think you’d focus your energy through it, and if we pool our focus, then we’d be able to do quite a bit of damage.”

  Jeremy nodded. “That makes sense. You know, I think that maybe Niritan’s teachers are the ones that made the Red Stone.”

  “Made it?”

  “Yeah, they created it to make the Stones easier to use. With that Stone you can control all the others.”

  “Do you need some help?”

  “No, this is filled in. You know,” Jeremy looked up, “I think that Kronshar should attack Hrad’din.”

  “Hrad’din? Why would he attack us?”

  “Because. He has all the Stones he can find. He knows we have some of them. Why wouldn’t he?”

  Daniel frowned. “Beca—” A stick broke in the shadows and both boys froze, ducking. Jeremy watched the side of the trail, waiting as the familiar tingling spider feet walked up the back of his neck. Without a word, they both stole through the forest in a crouch, keeping low, knives drawn. Daniel stepped into a pile of dead leaves, crushing them underfoot.

  “Shhhhh!”

  Daniel gestured at his feet, mouthing, “Not my fault.” Jeremy shifted his weight, stepping from root to root, gliding across the forest floor as silent as a shadow. He came to the Moccasin Trail, but there was no one on it.

  “Do you think that was Loren or Roland spying on us?” whispered Daniel, catching up.

  “I don’t know.” In his heart, Jeremy knew what it was. It was that forever-elusive thing that crept beneath these shadowed branches, that one thing that he could never catch. One day, it would lead him to the doorway out of this world.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Jeremy’s eyes shifted toward Daniel. “Nothing.”

  “What were you looking at?”

  Jeremy shrugged. “I dunno.”

  “I guess we should keep undoing those traps on Faker?”

  A whistle cut through the heavy air. “That’s my dad.”

  Daniel cocked his head. “But it’s early.”

  “Oh.” Jeremy’s shoulders drooped. “I bet we have church tonight.”

  Not only did Jeremy have to go to church; he had to serve. Jeremy trudged into the cloakroom, meeting John, a younger boy he’d served with before.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey. Do you know if he’s in a bad mood today?”

  Jeremy shrugged. “Haven’t seen him, but when isn’t he?” He shook his head, wishing again that Father Pat would come back. They stole across the foyer from the cloakroom to the sacristy.

  Father Boylston strode into the room and pulled on his vestments, grunting, “Why are you just standing there? Grab the Bible, grab the cross. You have work to do, boys.” Jeremy glanced at John and raised his eyebrows. Yes, he was in a bad mood. Jeremy went through the motions, falling into the comfortable rhythm and not thinking too much about Father Boylston as he read yet another sermon in his monotone voice.

  Kronshar would have to attack them. There was no way around that. Daniel didn’t like the idea because he didn’t see how they would get out of it. But, if they were in Kronshar’s shoes, that’s exactly what they would do. He would have to convince Daniel that it was the right way. A desperate whisper pulled Jeremy out of his thoughts. John nodded at the towel. Jeremy took the towel in his hands and followed John to the altar where Father Boylston watched them from beneath his steel-rimmed glasses.

  Dipping his fingers into the water, he said, “Lord, cleanse me from my iniquities and forgive me of my sins.” Jeremy handed the folded towel to him to dry his fingers, and he grimaced as he unfolded it. He balled up the towel and hurled it at Jeremy, hitting him in the chest. John’s eyebrows went up. They bowed and returned to their place near the hidden door. Jeremy re-folded the towel, whispering, “What was that about?”

  John shook his head and shrugged.

  For the six hundredth time, Jeremy wished Mass were already over and that Father Pat would return. This priest was terrible. His high-pitched, quick voice sounded as though he were constantly angry: angry at the acolytes, angry at the scripture, angry at the congregation.

  John pushed him toward the altar steps and Jeremy realized the Father had already launched into the Eucharistic liturgy, speaking fast enough to set a Catholic land speed record.

  The chalices for the wine were not out on the shelf near the door, and at Father Boylston’s pace, they would have no time to fetch them. He leaned to John to whisper, “When we get up, go straight in the back room and get the chalices, they’re missing.”

  Father Boylston raised the ceremonial chalice and Jeremy rang the bells at his side. As the congregation rose, Boylston began the great Amen, and Jeremy prodded John. John pushed through the hidden door. Jeremy took a position next to it. As people began to sing, Boylston glanced at them from the corner of his gray eyes. Jeremy tried a smile that withered in the dead space between them. John half-opene
d the door from the inside but it shut on him.

  “Help,” his voice squeaked through the wood.

  Jeremy pushed the door, holding it back with his right hand.

  John stepped through, carrying the silver tray with matching goblets. Jeremy turned his head to watch him pass as he let the door close. It closed on Jeremy’s fingers. He bit his tongue not to scream, and used his left hand to open the door and free his right. The “Our Father” hymn began and Jeremy tried to sing as he shook his pulverized, throbbing fingers. John stifled a laugh.

  “Shut up. S’not funny,” Jeremy hissed, holding his right hand with his left. Boylston glared at them. John’s stifled giggle sounded like a wheezing horse. Jeremy flexed his fingers. They responded, but pain shot up through his palm and into his wrist. They weren’t bleeding, but a dark purple crease ran across their middle joints.

  The Eucharistic ministers marched onto the altar and John brought the wine goblets to them. Jeremy followed, cradling his hand, walking softly as if his steps could cushion his pain. Father Boylston presented the Eucharist to them. His smoldering eyes came to rest on the acolytes.

  “Body of Christ.” His eyes burned holes in Jeremy.

  “A… Amen.” He extended his aching, cupped hands.

  When the ministers went to serve the queued lines of parishioners, John and Jeremy returned to the altar steps and resumed kneeling, their backs to the congregation.

  John had finally stopped laughing. “He’s really mad.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’s your hand?”

  “It’s okay.” Jeremy said a quick prayer of thanks that the pain was subsiding.

  At the end of the Mass, they marched back to the sacristy. Father Boylston closed the door behind them as John went to place the bronze cross on its stand, and Jeremy set the large Bible in its cradle upon the counter.