Wakers: Sayonara Sleep

by Michaela Hoffman

  “Hey Bast,” A woman called. The man beside me turned in her direction. “Bring over your extra pair of legs.” With a bemused expression, Bast led me between a few rows of cabbage to the center of the room. There, four bicycles sat beneath an overhang of fragrant honeysuckle. The bikes were hooked up to a spidery assortment of vine cables that rose like latticework behind the wheels. Two muscular women were on the bikes, their quads and hamstrings impressively taut as they paused their riding. One had black braids pinned up in a bun and amethysts stamped on her skin canvas. “Salutations, exalted Guardian,” she said to me, removing her arms from the handlebars to bow. Her riding companion elbowed her in the stomach.

  “Quanita,” she hissed, eyes dark and snake-like.

  “What? I’m politely addressing our warrior in training.” Quanita slumped forward on the bike and rolled her eyes. “On to the next act of this shitshow.”

  Well Jeba failed to mention this part. So on top of having a dormant strength, I had to become a warrior-savior for these tree people? Clearly, I must’ve eaten something rotten before going to bed. Or Aza’s twisted sense of humor had leveled up.

  “Thanks for the heads up,” I said. “So back to the leaders. Are they coming here soon?” Let’s hurry up with this Sealing thing already. I just needed to find Aza.

  “Nectar-sweet, if you’re burning to know more, hop on,” Quanita said, waving an arm across the bicycles. “These bikes power this whole damn operation. From the irrigation, to the panels, to the badass equipment.” She threw her head back and began pedaling in a frenzy. The viney wires pulsed with power behind her. I dutifully perched on the bike to her left. Bast started riding another. The woman beside Quanita had hieroglyphic-like snake images woven around her arms and legs. The snake markings eerily oscillated as she pedaled. “With the help of the Carri-Sects, we deliver our vegetables to the neighboring territories. To their leaders, specifically.”

  “Once you get those trinkets and God Seals you,” Bast said, breathing heavily now. “You’ll have a lot of power here.” He paused his cycle to wipe sweat from his hairline.

  Jeba came over to us, audibly counting vegetables and writing on a piece of papyrus. “Your name here is Char,” she said, jabbing me with her twig pen.

  “Char?” I repeated, “Can’t I just use my own name?” I followed her to the row of squash.

  She didn’t look up from her work. “If you can tell me what it is.”

  Simple enough. But when I opened my mouth, it was like the knowledge evaporated. Even with the filing cabinets of my mind emptied, I couldn’t find it.

  Bast rested a hand on my shoulder. “None of us remember our names,” he said. “For some reason, this world robs us of them.” Jeba glanced in my direction. Aza, Uncle Hugo, Uncle Mason… I didn’t forget their names. So how could I forget my own? What a strange dream.

  “Char it is, then,” I said.

  ***

  Chapter 5

  Clover and I sat in the courtyard for lunch the next day. The pseudo sleep deprivation had taken a toll on me and I nearly dozed off mid-chew of my apple. Clover shook my arm with concern. “Earth to Lava. Did you pull an all-nighter for that exam?” After a yawn, I nodded in her direction. This was a more believable explanation than the truth, so I went with it.

  A large group of classmates had gathered by the lawn chairs. They were whispering excitedly and handing each other their smartphones. While I rubbed my eyes, Clover flagged down our new peer from class. He rolled away from the group and came over to us in his wheelchair. “What are you guys talking about over there?” Clover asked him. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name before.”

  He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head at her. “You two didn’t hear this morning? Heirloom and Hummingbird Hollow are going crazy about this.” He fished around in his pocket for a cell phone. “And my name’s Mauricio.” After a few swipes of his finger, he handed the phone to us.

  The news headline read: Unsolved Eighteen Years Later, Falconbridge Missing Persons Cases Finally Reopened. For a few seconds, I couldn’t breathe.

  “Lava,” Clover whispered, scrolling down the page. “This man has your last name.”

  ***

  I knocked on Jeba’s door as hard as I could, not entirely sure if she was hard of hearing. Rain soaked every part of me. Small drops were falling and bursting open on the leaves. When the old biddy didn’t answer, I picked the lock with a nearby twig. When the twig snapped, I took a large branch and broke through the window. No harm done in a dream, right? I climbed in and dribbled clumsily to the floor in a wet mess.

  Jeba wasn’t in the kitchen or by the hearth. Her hourglasses were running; they casted unique shadows on the wall tapestries. I wrung out my clothes and raided her small closet for something to wear. It was more of a laundry heap than a closet, actually. But I managed to find a decent cotton dress. They were all pretty renaissance-esque with large sleeves and lace bodices. If she decided to clobber me for touching her things again, so be it.

  I raced down the stairwell to the inner garden and finally found everyone. Along with many others, Jeba was with Bast and Quanita, filling oversized sacks with vegetables.

  Jeba caught my eye and waved me over dramatically. “Excellent timing,” she sang, thrusting a weighty sack into my chest. “Day one as a courier here. Hop to it.”

  Wait, what? “Courier? I thought I was a warrior.”

  “Oh ho,” Jeba said. “A Guardian in training. You have no superior standing here without the Seal.” With a half grin I knelt down and picked up a few ropes and a cutting knife by the cabbage beds. After puncturing holes into the topmost fabric of my sack, I tethered ropes through them, creating a makeshift backpack. I threaded my arms through it and stood up.

  “I’ll show you training,” I said, turning to Bast and handing him the knife. “If you cut through the fabric, you can carry three sacks at a time. Make one into a backpack and two into shoulder bags.”

  Quanita wrapped an arm over my shoulder. “All right. Guardian Char takes charge!”

  “In my gown,” Jeba seethed. “Didn’t the clothing couriers deliver your outfit to your Rising Spot?” I wondered what that was all about. When I Woke up in Nightworld near the Aril River, a dress was folded by my side. Completely drenched from the rain, I might add, but delivered with a smeared note that read “cleaned and returned :)” Yes the note included a smiley face. I almost wanted to tip them for that.

  “Hers was most likely a little damp, Jeba,” Bast pointed out, loading himself with three altered bags. He gestured for me to follow him as he carried the vegetables through an arched doorway, speckled with splinters and tree rot. We emerged into a clearing that looked familiar. It was the giant insect launch pad that Nez and Jeba had led me to before. Crates were now harnessed onto the thoraxes and abdomens of the bugs, almost giving them an aerial sled dog appearance. Wakers filed past us carrying sacks and packing them in an organized arrangement. They positioned themselves on ladders, thoraxes, and hindquarters, and passed the sacks to one another to fill the crates.

  “That’s the last of it,” Quanita said. “Let’s haul ass, now that we packed their asses.”

  “Zooooo are zooooo rude!” A giant man-bee leered into our huddle circle. “Have zoooome respect!” Aside from his overpowering halitosis, each word vibrated through the air like a violent gust. It left Quanita’s hair in a disheveled mess. She muttered an apology as Bast and I burst out laughing.

  “So where are we going first?” I asked.

  “Garth is taking us to Nestutha, the home territory of the Carri-Sects.” Bast pointed to our man-bee and his insect companions. All brilliantly colored, winged, and hairy, as they prepared for take off. Wakers found seats beside the cargo, and then our bee, Garth, pushed off the tree and hovered over it like a low flying helicopter.

  “Bring me back some royal jelly,” Jeba shouted over the din of wings and buzzing. I looked over my shoulder at her and she gave a jestful bow. I prayed for Ga
rth to leave a nice dung dropping on her head while we ascended. As one cacophonous unit, we took flight and started moon-ward into the darkness.

  We finally jolted to a halt before a temple of honeycomb. It was a huge hive, perched snugly between tangles of sticky tree limbs. After Garth landed inside an entry-hexagon, we found ourselves in a palace of aromatic dripping gold. It didn’t take long to unload the vegetables with the help of the drone bees.

  “Where iz Queen Piria?” Garth asked one of them.

  “At zeeeee race track,” a bee responded, in full bass. Weaving around the other workers, he wound honey like sticky yarn to make the comb. It looked like an arduous and intricate system that the workers knew by heart. Shortly after, Garth flew us to the race track above the canopy, passing plants with leaves so large they looked like monster faces. The track was aerial, an expanse of starry black outlined by moonlight.

  We landed on a wharf that sat on a cloud. Carri-Sects of every color wove around us, threading together designs of cloud trails. The wharf often shifted from their movements, so it felt like we were boating on a sea of stars.

  I switched my attention from the flying glow-up monsters to the stars; they were more like sun glitter on a lake, so numerous and eye-wateringly bright. One in particular caught my eye because it began to move, to zip this way and that way. Before I knew it, this tiny star stopped in front of my face and transformed into a small bee-like body.

  “Are zou the new Guardian?” It hummed buoyantly. After I nodded, it flitted around my head like a sprite, cheering: “Yay! Zomerzaultz! Cartwheelz! Wahoo!” She finally fatigued from her jubilee, dropping to refuge in my outstretched hand. “Phewph. Celebrationz zure are tirezome. I am Queen Piria. I’m zure you’re pleazed to meet me.” Wow. Talk about Pocket-Sized Queen. She was round, plump, and beautiful with nappy grey ringlets. She assumed sphinx-pose in my palm, lacey wings beating like eyelashes. “Will zou watch the feztivitiez with me?” She implored primly. “If zou do, I’ll give zou what zou came here for.” The trinket. I couldn’t refuse then. “Alzo, letz make a wager.”

  Great. I bit my lip, remembering my track record with Black Jack, Poker, and even lottery tickets. Gambling wasn’t my forte. But this mini Queen gazed up at me expectantly. “Let me rephraze. No wager, no royal gift.” All right. So clearly, I had to play the game.

  Queen Piria told me to pick one Carri-Sect from the lineup. So I selected a small horsefly. He wasn’t flexing his hairy muscles or splaying antennae for the crowd. He seemed to be in contemplation, in a more meditative state that reminded me of Uncle Mason. Queen Piria didn’t miss a beat. Though she was curious about my choice, she quickly gambled on one of the more rugged flyers in the bunch. A stout ladybug. The Queen soared upwards and performed an elaborate bee ballet in the center of the track. Everyone somehow saw the miniscule dance, and applauded thunderously after. She returned to me, landing on my finger.

  “So Queen Piria, what exactly are we gambling for?”

  “If I win you muzt do zomething I azk of zou,” she said. Before I could respond,

  the white horsefly grabbed me en route to the starting line. I climbed up one of his legs and latched on, heart pounding. A handful of Skyplume Wakers were hanging onto his other legs. One was Bast. He waved at me with a smile, but I didn’t return it. For the love of beet juice— just what did I agree to?

  The competitors on our flanks were energized, wings beating and buzzing like eco-engines. Skyplume Wakers were attached to their abdomens, legs, and even mouthparts. They all wore little walnut helmets. In the ruckus, I didn’t realize that a cluster of helmets was dangling from a rope around this horsefly’s thorax. I detached one and secured it to my head. I shouted at Bast with all of the volume I could produce.

  “What’s happening?” He barely interpreted my words among the cacophony. My ears were pounding like I was in the front row of a rock concert. I had to read his lips: hop pus? Oh why hadn’t I taken that sign language class in school? One lecture was on lip reading. Hop pus… gut rust. Pop…

  The Carri-Sects all lurched forward like Nascars. My cheeks were pulled away from my facial bones in less than a second. The Carri-Sects wove around each other in complicated tangos and waltzes. They hovered over moving boxes filled with red or green honeycombs. To my astonishment, Skyplume Wakers were dropping like delicate bombs from their Carri-Sects into the red honeycomb boxes. Flyers were visibly irked if these boxes turned green as their Wakers free-fell into them. The crowd hollered in clashing protests and raw excitement as Carri-Sects swooped away and headed towards the red boxes. A bell donged in my head: hop pus… drop us.

  Bast suddenly broke away from the horsefly’s leg, diving into a box of red honeycomb. The crowd whooped vivaciously. Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. I scored a fat zero on the sensory seeking quiz in grad school. But I needed that trinket. I had to do this. And how perfect— I was now the last Waker on my bug.

  From every direction, Carri-Sects were flying so fast they became a blur to me. Did they run out of Wakers to drop? Oh it didn’t matter. For now, I just had to forget about them and focus. Okay, found one: a red honeycomb box, bouncing up and down. The horsefly extended the leg I was gripping. With a breath, I closed my eyes, remembering a time when my sister and I were watching a thunderstorm from the porch:

  I hid beneath the awning while my teenage sister stomped in puddles by the mailbox. She kept coaxing me to join her. The more she prodded, the more I withdrew until my back was to the screen door. In my head, I ran through all of the noxious consequences that could follow my acquiescence. Electrocuted by lightning was the obvious one. Getting a cold from being wet was another. Making Mom really angry was, in my opinion, worse than getting hit by lightning.

  “Just come over here”, my sister urged. “You have to jump into new things. Come here and say: because I’m strong, I’m not afraid.” When she put it that way, I raised my chin and wobbled down the steps into the downpour. With my head tilted to the sky, and my sister’s arm around my waist, we cried out together. “Because I’m strong… ”

  “I’m not afraid,” I breathed, then released myself into a frenetic air current that pulled me downwards in spirals. With a gelatinous landing, I realized I was in a pool of honey. The smell was sweetly intoxicating but unfortunately, the aura within was very much green. I didn’t make it in time before the honeycomb changed. Drats.

  After getting cleaned up, I waited for Queen Piria on one of the spectator clouds. My glance fell on a Skyplume Waker who had ridden over with us. He was on his back with arms propped under his head, and also wearing sunglasses. Or would the most appropriate term be moonglasses? I crouched next to him and cleared my throat. “Can I ask you something?”

  “If it’s: did you just pass gas? Then yes.” I guess he assumed this would gross me out.

  “Great. Now I can distribute my womanly essence to mask it.”

  He adjusted his glasses. “What is it?” Three thunderous Carri-Sects darted beneath our cloud in sachets and shimmies. The sky ricocheted howls of exhilaration.

  “What will Queen Piria give me?” I asked.

  He sat up and considered me before speaking. “A death sentence,” he said.

  Well this got morbid fast. “What are you talking about?” It was impossible to die in dreams. What did he take me for? Bright contrails stained the sky like fireworks and the shadows oozed down his spiderwebbed cheeks.

  “It was for the first one,” he said, distance in his voice. I couldn’t tell if the sudden chill came from the altitude or from him. Quanita and Bast came up to us, breathless.

  “You were so close,” Bast groaned, shaking his fists in the air.

  “So Jasper,” Quanita rounded on the spiderwebbed Waker. “Too cool to be in the race?” He got to his feet. Approaching her closely, he folded his arms.

  “I don’t play games,” he said, glancing at me. “Why do you?”

  “I won,” Queen Piria flew up and perched on my nose. I saw two Sugar
Highnesses, proudly posing with hands on hips. “Now you muzt deliver zomething for me. To a man named Earth Earl.” On cue, a drone bee hummed towards us and handed over a small package. Its flimsy paper was the texture of a wasp nest. Queen Piria spun around my hand and slid a ring onto my pinky finger. The stone was a green hexagon. “Zou have earned zour trinket. Next time, remember: to zuczeed, bee truzting whenever zou fall.” Archived, Queenie. Carrying a large pouch of honey goods, Garth flew us all back to Skyplume.

  ***

  Chapter 6

  My uncles were sitting in the kitchen when I came downstairs. They stopped talking at the sight of me. “Morning sweet peach,” Uncle Hugo said. “How about a tofu scramble?” I nodded and took a seat on the barstool.

  While he aproned up near the stove, Uncle Mason placed an arm around my neck. “What do you need from us right now?” He asked gently. “We want to support you through this.”

  I sighed heavily. “Right now, breakfast is good.” The air filled with garlic as Uncle Hugo began sauteing. “Do you two think they’ll involve me? In Dad`s investigation?” They both turned to me with frozen expressions. The sizzling oil filled the silence.