The Last Stand of Daronwy

by Clint Talbert

  School ticked by, each minute more infinite than the last. Jeremy kept taking surreptitious glances out the windows, wondering if the wall still stood. For recess, they stayed in the gym. At lunch, the light never went to green. When the final bell rang, he was the first person on the bus. Daniel and Mira crammed into the seat, asking the same question: was the wall still there? The ancient diesel engine rumbled to life, and the bus trundled away from the school. As it drove down the street, the smell of smoke still hung in the air, but not as much as last week.

  The minute Mira’s feet hit the ground, she sprinted for the wall. Jeremy struggled to keep up with her. They rounded the remaining clump of trees in the bike trails and saw their wall, still standing along the edge of the pond. Daniel was there with Paul and Marcus on the other side of the pond, waving.

  Mira caught Jeremy’s hands, dancing in a circle. “I told you it would still be here. I told you!” They walked behind the wall and looked at the supports. The joists stood, the entire structure looked as intact as it had on Saturday. They wandered back home. For the rest of the week, the wall stood. People stopped checking on it. Loren started saying that they had won against the bulldozers. Jeremy went out daily, hunting farther and farther afield to find more branches and trash to use for braces. He wandered through what remained of Helter Skelter, looking for the giant hill of trash, hoping to dismantle it and pile it against the wall. He walked back and forth through the dark thicket that remained, but could not find it. He stepped out of Helter Skelter and realized he could see the wall from there. They had taken down more trees. They had probably flattened the hill too. They weren’t stopping. But they were staying away from the wall. Jeremy walked toward the bulldozer.

  The dingy yellow bulldozer loomed over him; its tread came up to his chest. Jeremy’s eyes followed the hoses that connected the exposed engine to the hydraulics that worked the blade. It wouldn’t take long to cut the hoses. He fingered the Swiss army knife in his pocket. No one was out. He could cut them. But would it be right?

  It wasn’t right that they were destroying all of Twin Hills. But the wall had held so far. He shoved his hands into his pockets and crossed the wasteland to the Tree. He climbed up the trunk and looked down at the trampled clearing. Hammers and nails and crowbars were still stashed here, along with some of the wood they hadn’t used yet. He sighed, closing his eyes.

  A warmth enveloped him, spiraling up from the Tree. He relaxed, letting his mind wander, watching the black slate behind his eyes. His thoughts calmed into a tranquil pool at his center and his breath deepened. The presence was there. He could feel it all around him now, as though he stood in the midst of a crowd.

  Hello. He wrote the word across the black chalkboard in his mind.

  Welcome, Zhak-im-eya.

  Huh? I’m Jeremy.

  You are the one who hears.

  Are you angels?

  We all are angels trapped in these corporeal forms. What you call an angel is simply one freed from the thick bonds of the self.

  Are you God?

  No.

  Well then tell God—no, ask God—to protect this wood.

  We have.

  Well, ask more. God, please protect this wood, protect this tree, protect all these trees. Help our wall to stand. Help it spark some idea in these people and make them stop destroying Twin Hills.

  Warmth exuded from the tree. It wrapped him in a circling wind and brushed away his worries. He heard music: a soft tinkling music like the whispers of bells and the afterthought of birdsong. It sang of towering redwoods on craggy coasts, of tangled cypresses in dank swamps, and all things between.

  The scars on his back went cold.

  He tried to hold on to the music, the voice, the song, but it slipped through his fingers like sand.

  This is the music of the wind. Remember it, always.

  Jeremy shivered, opening his eyes. He tried to rub the tingling pain out of the scars on his back, but couldn’t reach them.

  The week before Christmas break, Mira and Jeremy were talking on the bus as it rumbled home from school. The moment they turned on the street, Jeremy stopped talking and sat forward. The soot fell so thick that the bus driver had to turn on the windshield wipers. Choking smoke wormed its way in through the windows. It covered the street and the driver slowed, unable to see more than a few feet. Jeremy squeezed the back of the seat in front of him until his knuckles went white. His throat burned. The minute the bus stopped, he leapt out and sprinted through the smoke across Twin Hills, tripping in the massive ruts left by the bulldozers. A mound of dirt sat on the edge of the pond, obscuring the tar pit. The trees along the backside of the pond were gone.

  Most of the wall still stood, a shadow in the murk. But the eastern edge, the part nearest the twin hills, was flattened. The twin hills themselves were gone, leaving only bulldozer tracks. Fifty yards behind where they should have been was another burn pile. This was where most of the smoke came from. Jeremy ran to it, as though he could somehow save them, but the ferocity of the heat turned him back. He doubled over, coughing.

  He returned to the wall. The logs they had staked into place had disappeared. Most of the plywood had been broken into chips small enough to put in a hamster cage. Part of the thicket that housed the Tree was gone, but the Tree itself was intact. His eyes stung, watering. He wiped them on the back of his jacket sleeve.

  “Jeremy?”

  “Over here!”

  Mira and Daniel emerged out of the smoke. “Did they take down the wall?”

  He glanced at Mira. “No. Not all of it.”

  “Are you okay?”

  Jeremy shook his head.

  Daniel squinted into the smoke. “The twin hills are gone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Jeremy picked up a piece of plywood out of the chewed dirt. “I don’t know.” He set it against the remaining wall. “I don’t know. I have to get out of here.” He coughed again.

  Mira and Jeremy walked back to their houses. She tried to hold his hand. He didn’t want to hold hands. He wanted to hit something.

  “It’s going to be all right. You did everything you could.”

  Jeremy glanced from her to the bulldozers. “No, I haven’t. Not yet.”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Nothing.”

  She looked at the yellow beasts. “Jeremy, please don’t.”

  “Why not?” They kept walking.

  “I… I…” Mira sighed, looking at him again. “I just…” Her eyes held the same fear he’d seen in her garage after hunting the Old Man.

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She nodded, half frowning. “Jeremy!”

  He turned. “Yeah?”

  “Be careful.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  He stole into the garage and went through the toolbox, taking out a crescent wrench, a hammer, and a flat head screwdriver. Watching for his parents or anyone else who might see, he crept to his window and used the screwdriver to pop the window’s screen from the bottom of the casement. Then he hid the rest of the tools below his window, behind the azalea bushes.

  That night, his anger warred with his exhaustion. When his parents turned off their television at 10:00, he waited. His mom opened the door to peer in and Jeremy didn’t breathe until she closed it behind her. Minutes ticked slowly past. His eyelids grew heavy. It required more and more effort to push them up. He awoke with a start half-past midnight. How had he fallen asleep?

  He made himself get out of bed. He walked in a tight circle around his room, trying to wake up, shaking his arms and legs. He had to stay awake. Twin Hills might not have another day. He went into his closet and pulle
d out dark jeans and a black shirt. He wished he had a ninja mask, but the best he could find was an old green ski mask that he’d bought at a garage sale a long time ago. He pulled it on. It was hot. He rolled up the mask part and left it on as a hat. He could pull it down when he got outside. The clock now read 12:42.

  He sat on the floor, watching the minutes slowly change on the digital readout. By 12:45, he couldn’t wait a moment longer. There were no lights on the street or in any of the houses he could see. Standing on his bed, he opened the window as quietly as he could, then pushed the screen. It didn’t move.

  He took a shallow breath. Hands shaking, he pushed on the screen again. His stomach turned over and over like a cement mixer, and he felt bile rising in his throat. His hands could not stop shaking. He pushed hard against the screen. It clattered across the brick and fell into the bushes. Jeremy ducked, shoulders up near his ears, and sat on the windowsill, feeling the cool night air whisk into the room, carrying the salty scent of the marshes. He listened for the sounds of his mother getting up. They would catch him now. Should he get back in bed? Should he stay on the windowsill? Nothing happened. He waited longer, counting out each grueling minute. At 12:57, all was quiet. He decided to go. He started out the window and realized he had no shoes. His shoes were in the garage. He climbed back in the window. Closing himself inside his tiny closet, he switched on the light. He only had his church shoes and an old pair of cowboy boots that he hadn’t worn since he was six or seven.

  He squeezed his feet into the boots. It felt like a boa constrictor crushing his toes. He waddled across the room and back to the window, climbing onto the bed. He checked the clock: 12:58, still quiet. His stomach shook, wrestling with the idea of sneaking out of the house at night. He’d be in so much trouble. But if he didn’t do it, those bulldozers would chew their way across Twin Hills and destroy the wall tomorrow. “I have to do what is right, and it’s not right that they are killing our woods,” he said to himself, wishing for courage he didn’t feel. Taking a deep breath, he pushed his way out of the window, dropping into the azalea bushes.

  “Ow.” His toes crushed into one another in the tiny boots. Knees shaking, feet aching, he listened. No one moved. He dug through the mulch at the bottom of the flowerbed and retrieved the tools. He crossed the gash of the amber street light in a hobbled jog. His breath came in short gasps and every step sent a red line of pain up through the arch of his foot and into his calf. He pulled the ski mask down. Jeremy crossed into the wasteland of Twin Hills and plunged into the shadows. It was dark. He’d forgotten a flashlight.

  He couldn’t even see the bulldozers. There were no stars in the overcast sky, no moon to cast a haunting, silvery glow behind the clouds. The hair pricked up on the back of his neck. This was definitely not what Father Pat meant when he said that Jeremy should always do what was right. But Father Pat didn’t know about the wall or the Tree. I can’t let the wall get bulldozed. And I can’t let the Tree get bulldozed. They can’t take Twin Hills.

  A hulking shadow of steel rose before him in the gloom. Quietly, as though afraid to wake it, Jeremy skirted the bulldozer, putting it between him and the street. He hoisted himself up onto the tread. His boots slipped on the dew-slick metal. For a moment he was falling backwards, then his free hand grabbed an unseen handle and he steadied. Everything in front of him was a shadow. He couldn’t tell engine from wires. He walked his hands over the controls, toward the front of the bulldozer, stepping carefully with the slick boots. He could feel a long compartment that might house something important. His fingers found a screw and guided the screwdriver toward it. The tool slipped off the screw and jammed into the side of a metal plate with a clang. Jeremy ducked.

  He waited. Nothing happened. Blood throbbed in his ears. He couldn’t breathe through the ski mask. He pushed it up. He guided the screwdriver back to the screw, more careful this time, feeling the screw with his thumb as he did so. It was a Phillips screw and he had a standard screwdriver. He sighed. He felt through the guts of the beast, finding wires. Clutching them with both hands, he tugged at them. They bit into his hands and he pulled them again. They popped loose. Most of the internals were metal. He couldn’t find any bolts to use the wrench on, and all the screws seemed to be Phillips. In desperation, he put the screwdriver against a flimsy-feeling piece of metal and picked up the hammer. People would hear, but he had to do something. Clang! He stood tiptoe, peering over the top of the bulldozer. No lights were on, no cars were on the road. Nothing happened. He hit it again, harder: CLANG! The screwdriver punctured through something. He pulled the screwdriver out, glancing again at the quiet street. With one eye on the street, Jeremy drove the screwdriver through a number of places in the engine, using it as a lever to pop unseen components free.

  He ran his hand forward along the side of the dozer and found the rubber hoses that left the engine compartment and went into the blade. He managed to cut both lines on that side after some tough sawing with his knife. Hydraulic fluid oozed over his hands. It felt like oil, but thicker.

  A motor revved, coming fast. He jumped down from the tread, groaning as his toes slammed into the ends of the boots when he hit the dirt. He hobbled to the second bulldozer and glanced back to the street. A police car flashed past the empty lot. Jeremy bolted for the last vestige of Helter Skelter, just a few yards away on this side of the bulldozer. Tires squealed around the corner. He dove into the shadows of the trees.

  The car parked at the edge of the wasteland, both doors opened. Two men stood near the car holding high beam flashlights, painting the bulldozer with white light. Jeremy crept backwards into the woods as quietly as he could manage. His heart throbbed in his ears. Please, please don’t let them find me. The police stalked toward the bulldozer, yelling something. Jeremy bolted deeper into the thicket, making as little noise as he could, but it was impossible to see in the dark. He flinched at every stick he cracked. He tripped, landing face down. The white light crept along behind him, making harsh shadows of the trees.

  “Who’s out there?” shouted one of the men.

  Jeremy held his breath. His scars erupted into a searing, electric frenzy. He bit his lip and tears welled into his eyes. Dank sweat soaked his clothes and goose bumps prickled his skin. The old magic surrounded him, as though the follower were nearby. A tangible shadow shifted next to Jeremy. Torn between fear of the shadow and the policeman’s creeping flashlight beam, Jeremy froze.

  “Who’s in there? Come out with your hands up!”

  A touch, light as a feather, steeped in an otherworldly kindness, brushed Jeremy’s cheek with a cool softness like the wind. The policemen crunched closer. Jeremy heard a resonating voice that spoke in little more than a whisper. Be still, it said. Long, icy fingers squeezed Jeremy’s shoulder. The thing unfurled from its crouch and it started walking back the way Jeremy had come. White light refracted through the shadows, illuminating the thing’s tall form. It looked toward him, and Jeremy saw a flash of a devious smile, a curling tendril of moss-green hair, and a face that was not quite human. The green-haired man raised his arm, covered himself in shadow, and sprinted through the woods, running away from Jeremy. The creature broke every stick he passed. He had never made so much noise before.

  “He’s over there! Eleven o’clock! Freeze!” The light followed it. “Freeze!” The police ran after the thing.

  “I can’t get a shot!”

  “Looks like the suspect is moving toward Willow Road! Get the car! Get backup!”

  A voice boomed in Jeremy’s mind. GO. NOW. Breathing deep, Jeremy stalked to the edge of the wood. He could see the frantic beams of the flashlights as the police pursued the green-haired man. Jeremy bolted across the wasteland, forgetting about the pain in his toes and the arctic knife searing down his back. He was almost to the empty field across from his house. STOP. Jeremy dove behind a tree. Two other police cars roared past, lights off, driving fast. One of them we
nt toward the highway, but the other parked near the first car. Two more men got out, swinging their lights.

  BREATHE. DO NOT MOVE. Jeremy took in a cautious breath. It felt like the scars on his back were turning him inside-out. The white light swept over him, but the policemen didn’t see him as they ran toward the bulldozer.

  RUN! Jeremy sprinted across the empty lot and the street. He dove into the azalea bushes. A gunshot shattered the dark silence of the night. He froze. He could see the empty police cars but nothing else. Two more shots cracked the night. Jeremy collapsed against the brick, sliding to the ground beneath his window, unable to stop shaking. Tears flooded down his cheeks, and he bit his fingers to keep from making any noise.

  Another police car zoomed along the street. Jeremy forced himself through his window, landing in a heap on his bed. There was a noise in the hallway. Jeremy yanked off the boots and threw them under the bed with the tools and the mask. He heard his mom open Rosalyn’s door. Jeremy dove beneath the covers as his door creaked open. He stared at the window, wishing he had shut it. Thankfully, she didn’t see it. As the door closed, he pulled the window down. The green-haired man had been the Old Man in Twin Hills. And now he’s dead. All because of me. The thought kept circling until Jeremy cried himself to sleep.

  The gashes on his back burned. Jeremy opened his eyes in the darkness, but he couldn’t move his body. Fear bolted through him. Had he been shot? He couldn’t raise his head or move his hands. He could only stare forward, wide-eyed. As his vision cleared, he saw that he was standing in the grove of the massive oak tree—but instead of being surrounded by a dead forest, the other trees had sprouted green and golden leaves that reflected a brilliant sunlight. The green-haired man smiled at Jeremy and the creature’s whisper sounded like rain on leaves. Always. He extended one long-fingered hand toward Jeremy, revealing a bright green acorn in his palm. Jeremy glanced from the acorn in the hand with too-long fingers, to the creature’s bottomless black eyes. Jeremy took a breath, reaching for the seed. The scars on his back burned. The green-haired man began a slow motion with his lips as though he was about to smile…