The Lost Rainforest

by Eliot Schrefer

  DEDICATION

  For Charlie and Simon

  EXCERPT FROM THE SONG OF THE FIVE

  (Translated from the original

  Ant by Rumi Mosquitoswallow)

  Caldera has ever been thus:

  Creatures of sun Creatures of moon

  Separated by the Veils of dawn and dusk.

  [Only the ants walk both day and night

  . . . and are despised for it.]

  Fear is an eager rule maker, and these are Fear’s rules:

  To cross the Veil is to be

  Unnatural

  Aberration

  Abomination.

  To walk in the wrong half of time is to be worthy of death.

  What, then, will happen . . .

  to those animals . . .

  born during the eclipse?

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Excerpt from The Song of the Five

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  A Q&A with Eliot Schrefer

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME?

  Mez curls and uncurls her paws, worry springing her eyes back open each time she tries to scrunch them shut. All of the other panthers in the den are asleep, as any normal panther should be. It’s daytime!

  So why is she awake? Why is she on the wrong side of the Veil?

  She starts counting ants, hoping that will make her sleepy. No creature can know any place better than Mez knows this den. It’s a thick warren of brambles and vines, crawling with leaf-cutter ants and nestled deep within the intersection of two ancient trees. Snug and safe from any daywalkers that might do them harm.

  Maybe Aunt Usha would be safe if she slept outside—Mez couldn’t imagine any animal alive foolish enough to attack her. Usha’s long, muscular body, covered in lustrous brown-black fur, is curled protectively around her nurslings. She snores softly, the vibrations spreading calmness over the sleeping cubs.

  Mez eases away from Aunt Usha and pads to the far side of the den. There, she nudges aside brambles to create a triangle of blue within the roof, so she can see the sunlit sky. Mez shivers. Day is a time of legendary creatures, monsters no nightwalker has ever seen.

  She stares into the light blue, a shade that simply doesn’t exist at night. Even the butterflies keep their azure wings shut while the moon is in power. Mez gets lost in contemplating the color, and has no idea how much time has gone by when the blue triangle suddenly flashes green and tan. Mez recognizes the scales of an emerald tree boa—but boas are nightwalkers, like panthers, so no boa should be awake during the day. It’s another animal up during the wrong time, like her! Mez darts to her paws, whiskers perking.

  Chumba sighs and shifts in her sleep. Even though Mez knows her sister—like any proper panther—can’t wake up during the daytime, she crouches, motionless, until Chumba settles back down. Sure enough, she rolls from Mez and burrows her whiskers and ears under her foreleg, soon snoring away. By the time Mez looks back up, the exposed triangle of dayworld is blue again. The mysterious snake is gone.

  Mez’s stalking posture relaxes and she lies back down, thrashing her tail and flicking her ears in irritation at the flood of adrenaline with nowhere to go. Heart still racing, she lowers her head to her front paws and goes back to counting ants. Why are there always so many of them? Her cousin Mist claims there were no ants at all in Caldera until the night Mez and Chumba’s mother died, when the sisters came to live in Usha’s den. Mez doesn’t believe that, because how would the Ant Queen’s constellation have gotten into the sky if there hadn’t been any ants before? All the same, it does seem like there are more and more leaf-cutters wandering through the den each night. She traps one under her paw, to give herself something to do, then feels bad and lets the ant continue on its way to wherever it is that ants go.

  She’s not even aware that her tail is still flicking until it runs under Chumba’s nose, making her sister sneeze in her sleep.

  Wake up, Mez pleads.

  Usually the ants zig and zag along the rainforest floor, but now they’ve started streaming along the ground in a straight line. She wonders what they’re racing toward—or away from. As she watches the insects, Mez’s thoughts unravel, moving from the strange behavior of the ants to imagining the night’s hunt: chasing moths with Chumba and sniffing through musty thickets in search of plump rodents.

  She snaps to attention when she sees the flash of green and tan again. The boa is back!

  Mez is instantly on her paws, body rigid and teeth bared. She listens for the snake, but any sounds of its passage are muffled by the murmurs of the daytime rainforest, the constant patter of rain, the droning cicadas and shrieking birds.

  Usha had carefully placed her family’s den along a nearly impenetrable alley of vines and brambles. It’s unlikely this boa would simply happen on it. Is he hunting them? All Mez wants to do is race out to investigate this intruder. But she can hear Aunt Usha’s voice in her head: The day is the wrong side of the Veil. Any animal who crosses the Veil has broken the natural laws. Any animal who breaks the natural laws must be exiled.

  One of Mez’s cousins from Usha’s latest litter had made constant whining noises. He didn’t seem able to help it, or even aware he was making them. He had still been a mewling kitten when he spoiled too many hunts: Usha carried him from the den and then returned without him. They never heard from him again. Wrongness will be punished, there’s no question about it.

  Mez must not be caught daywalking.

  No more sign of the green-and-tan intruder. Mez wishes Chumba were awake to talk to about it, but there will be no rousing her sister until dusk. Instead, Mez’s mind conjures up all sorts of fearsome cub-hunting daywalkers. She hasn’t gotten a good view of any yet, but imagines monsters with many heads and spiny backs and exposed skulls covered in fire.

  Finally the blue above her dims and grays, the shadows of twigs and branches patterning the den floor. Dusk is finally here! Mez flicks her tail deliberately, making Chumba sneeze again. When the little cub returns to snoring, Mez goes right back to tickling her nose. By now, the Veil has dropped enough that Chumba comes awake.

  “Come on, Mez, don’t scare me like that!” Chumba lets out a big yawn, exposing her sharp teeth. “Why are you so perky right when you should be just waking up?”

  “Happened to wake right after the Veil dropped this time, I guess,” Mez says. “Look—it’s the two of us, Chum! Like before.”

  The two sisters stare at each other, unspoken memories of their mother passing between them. Although only nurslings when she died, they remember her warmth, the scent of her. All the other cubs in the den were born to Aunt Usha.

  The intruding boa haunts Mez, but she can’t mention it to Chumba without revealing her secret, so she finds somewhere else to put her mind. She gets into pounce position, head down low and eyes bright. “Let’s play a game!” she says.

  “You can’t be
serious,” Chumba says, yawning and stretching.

  “Yes! How about tail chasers, or whisker taunt, or maybe two-paw-bluff, or—”

  “Slow down, slow down,” Chumba says, stretching out her forelegs and lowering her chin to the ground. “Still . . . waking . . . up. And you know I hate two-paw-bluff.”

  Mez bites her lip. The game of two-paw-bluff is a sore point. In addition to being the smallest of the cubs, Chumba is missing one of her front paws. The leg simply ends in a stump, covered neatly in a beautiful little patch of soft tan fur. Chumba barely lets it slow her down, but Mez knows the nub on her leg causes her pain in the mornings. Chumba shakes the pawless leg, gives it a few good licks, and then places it resolutely down on the den floor. She closes her eyes. Mez gives her a loving nuzzle.

  When Chumba’s eyes open again, they’re full of playfire. She growls and pounces, knocking Mez flat. They tussle around the den, pawing and growling, rolling right over their cousins in the process. Usha’s nursling triplets—Yerlo, Jerlo, and Derli—don’t wake, but Mist does. Mez knows he’s up when she hears a loud hiss and feels a claw tearing into her ear.

  She whirls, hissing back.

  “Watch out, will you?” Mist growls. “It’s time you two runts learned how to behave. Do you want to wake up Mother?” Mist is the eldest cub by only a few nights, but makes sure everyone knows it.

  “Aw, did we interrupt your precious sleep?” Mez asks, tail thrashing mischievously. Most panthers have soft browns patterning their black fur, even Usha, but Mist was born with fur of the purest white. He’s the color of the inside of a freshly broken mushroom, from his whiskers to the tip of his tail. He spends long stretches of the night grooming the most luster out of it.

  “Sleep is vital,” Mist says haughtily. “If you don’t want to keep relying on my mother to hunt your food for you, then I suggest you rest more to give you better reflexes. You two need whatever advantages you can get.”

  “You should try sleeping all day and all night, then,” Mez mocks, wagging her paw at Mist. “You light up like a click beetle out there.”

  Mist gives a tortured sigh, baring his teeth at Mez. What he’s failed to notice, though, is that Chumba’s worked her way into perfect pouncing position around his backside. Mez’s attention flicks to her sister—for a moment, but long enough for Mist to notice and whirl, his jaws gaping wide open as little Chumba hurtles through the air at him, giggling all the while. Mist dodges at the last moment . . . sending Chumba crashing into Usha instead.

  Long and sturdy, her body stretching from one side of the den to the other, Aunt Usha barely moves when Chumba soars into her. While Chumba falls away, Usha gives a long yawn, exposing her sharp teeth as she cracks open her green eyes. They soon glitter in annoyance when she finds Chumba splayed out flat beside her. Cringing, Chumba slinks to the farthest corner of the den.

  “What is going on here?” Usha asks.

  “Mother, I’m as baffled as you are,” Mist says, sitting up tall, an angelic expression on his face. “I was sleeping, trying to marshal my energy for the coming hunt, when out of nowhere Mez and Chumba came flying into me. They could have put us all in danger, they could have revealed the den to daywalkers, I can’t believe they would—”

  “No one likes a tattletale, Mist,” Usha interrupts. She gets to her paws, stretching. “Come, cubs. The Veil has dropped, and night is here. It is time to start the hunt.”

  As Usha starts out of the den, Mist shoots a glare at Mez and Chumba before falling into formation, his head right behind Usha’s tail.

  Usha’s latest litter is still asleep. Mez and Chumba rush around the den, nudging Yerlo, Jerlo, and Derli awake, ignoring the youngsters’ sleepy protests. “Come on, Usha’s on the move,” Mez says. “I know you’re tired, but you don’t want to get left behind, do you?”

  Yawning and stretching, the panthers make their way into the dusky early night. Mez and Chumba take up rear guard. Usha isn’t one to slow for stragglers, so the cubs hustle to keep up. Even so, Mez takes a moment to soak in the surrounding rainforest. The trees are enormous columns framed in roots that emerge like wings before sinking into black and loamy soil, their trunks lancing far into the sky before any branches begin. Vines, trapped in years-long combat against the trees, twist in the night breezes. Roots grow from them too, forming nets in the air that extend all the way down to the dead leaves that cover the jungle floor, where mushroom buds wink in the moonlight, lighting the panthers’ path enough for their darkvision to pick up every detail they need.

  Usha is blackest, only a hint of brown competing on her fur. Yerlo, Jerlo, and Derli are nearly the same jet-black, though patches of gold shine within it. Eventually they will be sleek and strong like Usha, but right now her littlest ones are still puffballs, fur sticking out in all directions. The only way Mez can tell which way is front or back is by looking for the tail or their bright blue eyes.

  Mist is as pure white as Usha is pure black. Despite Mist’s malice toward her, it’s hard for Mez to take her eyes off him. His fur is so radiant that he catches any bits of scant sunlight remaining in the dusk, giving him a constant luster. Mez watches him flow along the ground, like a creature made of some otherworldly magic.

  In comparison to their cousins, Mez and Chumba are sloppy patchwork creatures. At least Chumba is jet-black on top, until it dissolves into flurries of brown and yellow spots around her legs and paws. Mist might make fun of Chumba for her coloring, but Mez loves it. Mez doesn’t even have the jet-black top going for her. She’s a complete mess of calico. She’s learned to avoid her reflection, taking the long route around ponds and puddles whenever she can, shunning the sight of all those clashing patterns and colors. Maybe she deserves all the scoffing she gets from Mist. But her coloring reminds her of her mother. She wouldn’t give it up for anything.

  Mist is right behind Usha, nearly noiseless as he high-steps through the broad snail-covered leaves strewn on the ground. Yerlo, Jerlo, and Derli are louder, their paws too big for their legs. As Chumba passes, her club leg spears twigs and leaves, making rustling sounds. She winces at each noise. Mez makes reassuring purrs each time Mist glares back.

  Once, when Mist thought he and Chumba were alone, Mez caught him pinning her sister to the ground and hissing at her: No panther can survive with only three paws. You should have been killed at birth, like the noisy cub. Mez had attacked him for it, biting savagely at one of Mist’s ears, but Chumba had pulled her off. Her message had been clear: Let me fight my own battles.

  Mez growls whenever she catches Mist glaring at Chumba. She will do everything she can to keep her sister safe and happy, even if somenight it means going right up against Usha’s prized son.

  Aunt Usha’s territory is in the densest part of the rainforest, the part with the most brambly thickets. Here they’re far from the open waterways with their caimans and anacondas, away from the broad trails with their spine-trampling capybara. With no dangers to worry about here, Aunt Usha can lead her family through the inky night, concerned only with hunting, holding quiet and still with her cubs while they wait for prey to move and reveal itself.

  As she slinks through the moonlight, ears and whiskers alert to Usha’s every movement, Mez looks out for the green-and-tan patterns of the emerald tree boa. But greens and tans are everywhere.

  The next time Aunt Usha pauses, listening for prey, Mist speaks up. “Do you sense something unusual, Mother?”

  Usha says nothing, but Mez can scent pantherfear in the air. The others pick up on it too, going silent and watchful. When Usha turns around, her lips are set in a worried line. “Keep close to me this nighttime,” she says. “No one stray.”

  With that, she turns and stalks off into the jungle, the cubs struggling to keep up. There will be no more discussion of it.

  HUNTING PRACTICE.

  The sky is cool, dark, and thick, clogged with low-hanging clouds and swirls of stars. Wheeling around the panther family are the creatures of the night: swooping b
ats, both the agile kind that eats mosquitoes and the ponderous, fat fruit kind; hooting owls; scrounging possums; lurking tarantulas. With the fearsome reptiles and birds of the day asleep on the other side of the Veil, night is the time for the proper creatures of the world to thrive. Mez is proud to be one of them.

  Mist takes the position right behind Aunt Usha. Mez doesn’t mind too much; she gets to spend time in the back with Chumba, and it’s easy to keep track of Mist. After Usha and Mist spot and kill a forest antelope before Chumba and Mez can even get there, though, Mez struggles to get rid of her irritation. She finds a way by stalking low through the underbrush until she’s out of view of Chumba, then making a flying leap at her sister. They go rolling through the night grass, landing in a lagoon and getting soaked through, giggling all the while.

  At the splashing noise, Mist comes stalking through the night, a spiny rat carcass in his mouth. “Shmudda in hoo,” he says around it.

  Mez gives Mist a long and somber look. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak monkey,” she finally says.

  The sisters try to keep straight faces, but then Chumba falls into giggles that grow into guffaws as she rolls in the reeds at the swamp’s edge. Mez breaks out into laughter too, and falls in beside Chumba, sending up a spray of mud that splatters Mist’s glossy white chest. He gets an almost wistful look on his face at the sight of the two sisters rolling in the mud, and then his usual haughty expression returns.

  “It. Should. Have. Been. Two,” he says as carefully as he can, never dropping the carcass of the rat. Its long tail, partially detached, drapes along the ground. “I’d have caught both rats if you hadn’t made so much noise. I honestly don’t know why Mother ever allowed you to stay alive.”

  “Shmonestly shmon’t shmo shmy shmother schmever shmallowed shou shtay shmalive,” Chumba says, wagging her paw at him.

  “Come, young ones,” Usha calls. “Time to return home.”

  Even though the sisters didn’t catch a single animal during the night’s hunt, irrepressible Chumba has a bounce in her step as she scrapes through the narrow opening of brambles to enter the den, giving her bum an extra wiggle at the end.