What Came From the Stars

by Gary D. Schmidt

So quiet. The snow coming down softly now, in dry flakes.

  Another block.

  In the quiet, Tommy reached down, pressed his next block into ice, and set it in place. The eleventh row was done.

  Thrygeth.

  He took off his gloves, and with the chain, he carved into the wall the images of Elder Waeglim and Bruleath, standing shoulder to shoulder at Brogum Sorg Cynna, facing the O’Mondim storm in defiance.

  And when he finished, Tommy looked behind him again toward his house. Except for one or two missing roof tiles, all seemed well. The wood smoke was rising straight up in the new calm. And the sun was suddenly there—hazy, but there—and the sounds of the waves had calmed to a quiet lapping. Tommy smiled, and he turned to look again at the sea.

  But when he looked through his wall, he saw, on the other side of the clear ice, standing in his dark suit, his hands in his pockets, Mr. PilgrimWay.

  Mr. PilgrimWay had never seemed so large.

  They stared at each other through the ice.

  “Tommy Pepper, you were not at Brogum Sorg Cynna,” said Mr. PilgrimWay.

  Tommy put his gloves back on.

  Mr. PilgrimWay came close to the wall of clear ice. His face almost touched it. “I could take the Art from you,” he said.

  Tommy shook his head. “You would have taken it already if that were true.”

  Mr. PilgrimWay stepped back, smiled. “Very good,” he said. “In my world, you might have risen to the Seats of the Reced.” He looked behind Tommy at all the yellow flags. “It will not be long before this land is taken from you.”

  “Maybe,” said Tommy.

  “Certainly,” said Mr. PilgrimWay. “It will be the loss of one of the things those you love hold most dear. It will be the loss of what your mother held most dear. But I could be at the Planning Commission meeting, Tommy Pepper. You know I can be persuasive. If you want your land, I will speak and give it to you. And afterward, I will only want the Art of the Valorim. And then I will depart with the O’Mondim sand, and you will never hear of us again. A fair agreement, especially since the Art of the Valorim was never meant to come to you.”

  Tommy looked up and down the beach. He looked back at the house, where Patty was reading by the fireplace, where his father had started to paint again.

  And on the other side of the ice wall, Mr. PilgrimWay drew his own pictures. The story of Hengaelf and the Long Woods of Benu, gone for his folly. Of Wig and the Plains of Arnulf, and how he foolishly lost the Plains to the Arnalt. The tale of the raging of the Rignaulf and the destruction of the fruitlands of the Valley of the Denvelf, so that all that was left was wrack and ruin and havoc.

  “One who would have risen to the Seats of the Reced would not be so foolish as Rignaulf,” said Mr. PilgrimWay.

  Tommy felt himself almost nod.

  “Doesn’t your land mean more to you than a world that lies beyond even the farthest stars you can see?” said Mr. PilgrimWay.

  Tommy put his hand against the thrygeth wall.

  “Or would you betray your mother again?” said Mr. PilgrimWay.

  The night of the next Planning Commission meeting came, dark and metal cold. It was snowing again, lightly. Wisps of snow snaked along the road as the Peppers drove into town.

  The meeting room was mostly full. Board members sat behind their long table up front. Mrs. Lumpkin and her lieutenant governor husband and her lawyers milled around and grinned and Mr. Lumpkin shook hands and grasped elbows. Neighbors from up and down the coast settled into the folding chairs, glad it was the Peppers’ land up for easement and not their own.

  And the Peppers sat close together, opposite Mrs. Lumpkin, who would not look at them. Patty wore her pink backpack with enough coloring books in it in case she got bored. Tommy fussed with his coat. It looked like it needed at least two new patches.

  And Mr. PilgrimWay stood by the wall near the front row. He looked at Tommy and smiled and nodded, as if there was something between them.

  The meeting room was hot after the outside cold. Everything smelling wet. Everything in slow motion. More folding chairs being dragged up from the basement and squeaked open. Mrs. Lumpkin’s husband still not sitting down. The meeting starting late. Agendas distributed. Finally the gavel to begin. Board attendance called, when everyone could already see who was there, for heaven’s sake. Reading the minutes from the last meeting. Corrections. Approval of the revised minutes.

  It looked to be a very long meeting.

  Tommy wanted to take his folding chair and throw it across the room.

  He looked at Mr. PilgrimWay, who was looking back through his shadowed eyes.

  The Planning Commission now turning to Old Business. The bid for the sewage pipe repairs from Main Street down to Water Street. Discussion of costs. Discussion of timetables. Discussion of whether the town should solicit more bids. The question called. All those in favor of accepting the sewage bid, please say aye. All those opposed? The motion to accept the bid passes.

  Tommy really wanted to take his folding chair and throw it across the room.

  The question of an exemption for the zoning of the new development on the northeast side of Plymouth. Discussion of the zoning code. Discussion of the developer’s proposal. Discussion of the additional traffic to that side of town. All those in favor? All those opposed? The nays have it. The variance is denied, pending further revisions to the development plan.

  Tommy had to hold himself down in his folding chair.

  Mr. PilgrimWay had not moved.

  To New Business. Request for an easement along the north shore by Lumpkin and Associates Realtors.

  Tommy stopped squirming—but he didn’t stop wanting to throw his folding chair across the room. He felt Patty take his hand.

  Mr. PilgrimWay turned to look back at him.

  Mrs. Lumpkin asked to rise and present any additions to her PilgrimWay Condominium proposal to the Planning Commission.

  Mrs. Lumpkin rising and presenting loudly and quickly.

  Mr. PilgrimWay watching Tommy. Patty holding Tommy’s hand.

  Mrs. Lumpkin still talking. New jobs. New infrastructure. New economic boost for the town businesses. New tax base.

  Her lawyers getting up to speak. They, too, speaking loudly and quickly.

  Mr. PilgrimWay still watching Tommy.

  The Planning Commission asking Mr. Pepper for anything he might have to say as a principal in the matter of this easement.

  One of Mrs. Lumpkin’s lawyers rising suddenly to remind the Planning Commission that Lumpkin and Associates Realtors reserve the right to sue the town and the Planning Commission if the easement is not granted, and to sue Mr. Pepper for slander if he speaks even one defamatory word against Lumpkin and Associates Realtors or Mrs. Lumpkin or any of her associates.

  Mr. Pepper rising and opening his hands wide. It has been his family’s land for generations, he says, and each generation has faithfully tended it. Should a rich Realtor now be free to take it simply because she wanted to take it? And as he had said last month, wasn’t there need for some open space along the ocean coast that had not already been fenced off?

  Tommy sees Mr. PilgrimWay shake his head. Not enough. Not nearly enough.

  Mr. Pepper sits down.

  All right, then. Are there any more speakers to this request for an easement? asks the Planning Commission.

  Mr. PilgrimWay watching Tommy.

  And Tommy wonders, Does he care more about a world beyond even the farthest stars he can see than about the land his mother loved?

  A board member calls the question.

  Should he give the Art of the Valorim to Mr. PilgrimWay?

  “All those in favor of approving the easement on the Peppers’ property, please say aye.”

  What would it mean to be betrayed into endless and eyeless Silence?

  “All those opposed?”

  What would his mother say to an O’Mondim without a face?

  Tommy stood and looked at Mr. PilgrimWay. “No
,” he said loudly.

  Mr. PilgrimWay did not move, but the shadows across his eyes changed. Darker.

  “Young man, only members of the Planning Commission may vote. All those members of the Planning Commission opposed?”

  Tommy looked at Mr. PilgrimWay.

  “It’s not too late,” said Mr. PilgrimWay.

  “She would never have given you the Art,” he said, and turned away.

  He knew the land was gone. He felt its loss like a hole punched out of the middle of his chest. How many things that he counted on being there forever would be gone someday?

  “The motion on the easement on said property passes.”

  Gone. Just like that. Gone.

  Tommy and Patty and their father walked down the aisle together.

  Tommy did not look back at Mr. PilgrimWay.

  The Long Woods of Benu once stretched farther than any other woods in the world. The trees were the tallest, the greenest, the thickest, and the sounds of their branches moving slowly in the winds, even the slightest winds, was mighty. The trees were as old as the mountains they stood beneath, and some believed that in their age, they had grown knowing and wise—and this Hengaelf felt when he walked beneath them, their leaves so thick that even the Twin Sunlight could not reach him, and the air sparkled, illil.

  But Hengaelf had lost it in a bargain for an orlu—an orlu of ancient fashioning, but still, only an orlu.

  And the trees had been hacked down.

  The world would never see their like again.

  That’s what it felt like, thought Tommy.

  Tommy and Patty pushed through the metal doors and so came out under the night sky. Their father came behind them and stood with his arms around them both.

  Tommy smiled. The sky had cleared while they were inside, and now the stars brightened and pulsed in the cold, icy air. He squeezed Patty’s hand.

  The land was gone.

  But he hadn’t betrayed his mother. He knew he hadn’t betrayed his mother.

  At least there was that.

  “Let’s go home,” said Mr. Pepper.

  “I’m going to walk,” said Tommy.

  His father looked up at the sky. “It’s pretty cold,” he said.

  “I’ll be all right,” said Tommy, and his father hugged him close, and Patty hugged him close, and they went to the car.

  Tommy’s father was right: it was cold. So cold that his feet squeaked the snow as he walked down toward the ocean and crossed onto Water Street. So cold that he didn’t want to breathe in too deeply because the air would freeze his lungs.

  Even the soft yellow lights on the Plymouth Rock pavilion looked cold tonight. Tommy put his gloved hands up in his armpits and his chin down into the collar of his coat. He wondered how many quarters were lying on Plymouth Rock. Or if it would be iced over.

  He had not betrayed her. And he ... felt okay.

  More okay than he had felt for a long time.

  Okay.

  He smiled under the stars.

  He figured Plymouth Rock would definitely be iced over with this kind of cold. Still smiling—he felt okay!—he walked into the pavilion and looked down.

  The O’Mondim was standing on Plymouth Rock, his faceless head turned up toward Tommy.

  Nothing on his face but his mouth—and the mark from Tommy’s chain that had called him to life.

  Water dripping from the seaweed that draped him.

  He held his ruined right hand against his chest as if to protect it.

  His other hand held his trunc.

  And the O’Mondim’s fah smell came over the pavilion wall, even in this cold.

  Tommy backed away, then sprinted across Water Street. He turned around to see the O’Mondim leap over the pavilion fence.

  Tommy ran up toward Burial Hill—and he didn’t care if the cold froze his lungs. He passed the two churches and clambered up among the old gravestones, slipping back in the icy snow and scrambling up and slipping back and scrambling up from stone to stone to stone until he reached the top, breathless, his eyes watery—but still clear enough to see the O’Mondim starting up Burial Hill after him.

  He moved easily through the deep snow, following the path Tommy had left.

  Tommy felt the chain warm.

  He took off his gloves and held up his hands. He spread his fingers, and then pushed against the cold air.

  The snow on the hill beneath him gathered itself, and then it fell toward the O’Mondim—hard and icy and brittle, hurtling over and past the ancient gravestones and throwing the O’Mondim onto his back and covering him as it avalanched down.

  Tommy watched. The snow piled between the two churches in jagged hunks.

  Tommy breathed heavily. So cold in his lungs.

  The snow stopped.

  Then, one of the jagged hunks heaved up.

  Tommy clambered through the snow to the far side of Burial Hill, and he began to slide down—which wasn’t hard since it was mostly ice. But when he broke through, the snow was hip-deep, and he wallowed in it frantically, thrashing in it with his hands to get down to the lower wall—which he fell over. He smacked his knee onto the cold stones of the street—and it was, of course, his left knee, which was bruised anyway.

  Above him, the O’Mondim had reached the top of Burial Hill.

  Tommy ran as best he could with a left knee that was telling him to stop at every step. Down toward the ocean again, but he decided he didn’t want to get too close to the water. He sprinted—sort of—down Court Street, crossed over to the Pilgrim Hall Museum, jumped onto its porch, and looked back from behind its stone pillars.

  The O’Mondim was coming faster than something made out of sand should be able to come.

  Tommy couldn’t cross Main Street without being seen, so he ran behind the museum and down to Water Street again. He was trembling—maybe because of the cold, maybe because he was sopping wet, maybe because he was being chased by a very large O’Mondim with a very large trunc. He passed the Plymouth Rock pavilion again and looked back.

  The O’Mondim had his trunc raised high.

  Tommy put his hand down to his left knee, and ran.

  And ran.

  And then, back across the street, he saw the lights on in the first grade hall of William Bradford Elementary School.

  If the lights were on, maybe someone...

  He crossed over to the school. He ran to the first grade side and pulled at the door. Locked.

  He looked back. The O’Mondim saw him.

  He ran around the building and over to the sixth grade door. The lights were on here, too, and he pulled at the door.

  It opened.

  Tommy ran inside.

  “Hey, Mr. Zwerger,” he hollered.

  Nothing.

  “Anyone! Hey, anyone!”

  Nothing.

  “Hey!”

  He looked up and down the dead-end halls, still breathing heavily. Sweating. He didn’t have any more time. He took off his coat and threw it down the hall toward his classroom.

  Then he ran back outside. Across the parking lot. Behind the recycling bins. Waited, rubbing his left knee, trying not to breathe loudly.

  The O’Mondim came around from the first grade side.

  He pulled the sixth grade door out of its frame, broke it in two, and threw the pieces behind him.

  He held his trunc with both hands—the way O’Mondim do—and went inside slowly. Tommy could see his faceless head turning toward each of the halls. Then, quickly, the O’Mondim raised the trunc higher, and started down the hall where his coat lay.

  And the chain warmed, and Tommy ... Tommy was filled with something he had never, ever expected: sadness.

  Sadness for the O’Mondim. Sadness for his blindness. Sadness for his ruined hand. Sadness that he lived beneath a cold ocean.

  That he was alone, the only one of his kind on the planet.

  Sadness for the O’Mondim.

  But he pushed the sadness down. He had to get home. And he wa
s hurt. And it was getting colder—a lot colder—and his coat was lying in the sixth grade hallway. And he wasn’t planning to go get it.

  He crossed the parking lot and went back up to Court Street. Then he headed north out of town, jogging to keep himself warm—until his knee hurt too badly, when he’d have to stop and rub it. Then he’d walk, and then jog until it hurt too much again. And that’s how he made his way up along the coast, looking back over his shoulder for the O’Mondim, until he passed the sign for PilgrimWay Condominiums and climbed up the railroad-tie steps and so came to his house.

  His house with no lights on.

  No fire in the fireplace when he came in.

  “Dad!” Tommy called. “Dad! Patty! I made it!

  “Dad?”

  It took him less than ten seconds to figure out that the dark house was deserted.

  SEVENTEEN

  The Journey of Ealgar, Who Would Be Called the Bold

  So did Young Waeglim’s heart laugh to hear the sounds of the Ethelim battering the gates of the Reced, and Ealgar laughed with him, running up the Tower stairs to the Forge of the Valorim. Their moods strengthened. What had seemed desperate chance now seemed hope.

  But the Lord Mondus bent to the Tower door. In him the Silence welled up to terrible strength and the door splintered, even as the gates of the Reced heaved inward with the strength of arms of the Ethelim, who would no longer be stilled. The Ethelim burst into the Courts and then into the Great Hall, but with a shriek, the Lord Mondus, with Saphim the Cruel, did take to the steps of the Tower, the heat from the burning Forge lighting the way.

  Young Waeglim heard them coming. “Do not be afraid,” he spoke to Ealgar. “Now is the time for a strong heart and a strong mind. You will bring a new story to the Ethelim, a story that will be remembered even after the passing of the Valorim. If the Art of the Valorim is to be brought back to this world, it will be brought back by you.”

  Ealgar stood taller, though he was still a little fearful.

  Young Waeglim put his hand on the shoulder of Ealgar. “Let the Art be brought back only for the good of this world. If it is in the hand of one who would use it for ill, in that world or this, then it will be upon you to destroy it—though its end means your own lifelong exile.”