The Lost Rainforest

by Eliot Schrefer

  Mez shakes her head. “No. Not going to happen. Uh-uh. No way.”

  “Come on,” Rumi says. “It will be fun!”

  “Of course you’d think it would be fun. You’re an amphibian.”

  Lima wriggles her way through Mez’s fur until she’s perched between her ears, holding on to the thicker hair over her eyes. “Do-you-think-I-could-stay-here-instead-okay-thanks.”

  “What’s the matter?” Mez asks, struggling to stare up at the little bat, going cross-eyed and dizzy in the process.

  “Up there,” Lima whispers. “The owls are right there.”

  Mez looks back to the branch where the owls last were, and sees nothing. Then she looks up to see four sets of eyes staring down at her—whoosh—now five. They line up silently, shifting from one talon to the other, glaring at the companions.

  “Hello?” Lima calls out, all bravery now that she’s deep in Mez’s fur. “Do you nice birds need something?”

  “It’s them,” one owl says to another, voice hollow and resonant.

  “Yes, indisputably,” says the second owl.

  “‘Indisputably,’” Rumi notes. “Fascinating. It appears that owls know good words.”

  “It is true,” says a third owl. “These are shadowwalkers. Traitors to their own kind. The stink of day is on them.”

  “That’s not true!” Mez calls up. “We’re trying to help the nightwalkers.”

  “Ants are the only animals to walk night and day,” calls down the first owl. “And we owls know the stories of times past, when the Ant Queen rampaged her ants across Caldera, eating birds and eggs alike. Shadowwalking is a sign of wrongness.”

  “Evil has returned, and these three are its harbingers,” says the fourth owl. “The end is near.”

  “Now hold on a second,” Mez says hotly. “Just who do you think you’re calling evil!”

  “Enough!” shrieks the first owl. “Listen no more to them, owlkind! They will try to twist our minds with their lies.”

  The owl lets out a loud hoot, and Mez can feel Lima go rigid with fear, seizing up as any small creatures will do, trembling in her hiding spot. She’s not the owl’s target, though. It soars straight for Rumi, who leaps, plunking into the river and disappearing. That leaves Mez and Lima. Mez whirls, snarling with teeth bared, facing off against the rest.

  Rumi’s attacker returns to the branch, but the other three start their swoops, wings terrifyingly wide, talons outstretched. Their heads are perfect pale circles framing sharp beaks, backlit by the Ant Queen’s constellation.

  Though it must be nothing like the fear paralyzing Lima, Mez feels tremors of tension ripple up and down her body. The owls would struggle to lift her, but those talons could do plenty of damage.

  “Why are you doing this?” Mez pleads, darting along the ground, zigging and zagging as best she can by the riverbank, trying to make herself a more difficult target. The owls come chillingly close each time they swoop, their talons gnashing open air inches from Mez’s neck.

  “Do not listen to her!” hoots one of the owls, before launching another death swoop.

  This time the owl predicts where Mez is going. As she sprints toward the cover of the lilies, the owl manages to close its talons on her tail, sending a bolt of pain up her spine. Mez whirls. She’s able to sink her claws into the owl’s thick feathers, ripping out as many as she can, until the owl releases her in a flurry of down. In the midst of the fray, Mez’s fight instincts make her vaguely aware of two more shapes leaving the branch, blasting out low and resonant hoots as they prepare to attack.

  Mez lunges again, too panicked to choose a direction, and is surprised to feel her paws touch wet wood: the flat log that Rumi found. “Okay, Lima, here we go!” she calls.

  “Here we go what?” Lima shrieks, still hidden away in Mez’s fur, voice trembling.

  Mez leaps onto the log and sinks all four sets of claws into the soft waterlogged wood. The force of her landing is enough to set the log skidding along the mud and into the water, Mez’s body thumping smartly as it bounces into the stream. The current picks the log up, pulling it into the center of the river and then downstream—toward the rushing sound.

  “My body . . . still full of batfear . . . can’t fly . . .” Lima squeaks.

  “Then hold on!” Mez says. She can hear the powerful wingbeats of the owls overhead as they try to get a bead on the bobbing log. Mez keeps her head down, tightening all of her muscles, trying to dig her claws ever deeper into the wood. A fat orb spider darts along the log in front of her, soon lost in the flood. The rushing sound is closer and closer, and Mez can see the spot ahead where the water ends, the river catching the light of the rising dawn as it curves over into the abyss. It’s like she’s going to tumble right up into the sky.

  As the log drags ever faster toward the edge of the waterfall, Mez sees two little yellow hands appear at its edge, then a head, black eyes twinkling. “I see you came around to my idea,” Rumi says.

  “Rumi! It’s not like I had any—”

  An enormous hoot interrupts her. Mez looks up to see beating wings, outstretched claws coming right for her face—

  And then they’re over the falls.

  The log tips and tilts, pitching heavily as it tumbles. Mez’s stomach drops away, and for a moment all looks peaceful in the world, despite the tumult she feels inside her. There are stars everywhere, the pale green-yellow of the horizon dawn, sprays of mist catching the early sun. Distantly below, she sees the trees at the lagoon’s bank, so tiny from this height. Trees are twigs, the monkey at the water’s edge a mite. There’s so much space between her and where she will soon be.

  Then she’s aware only of falling.

  Mez scrunches her eyes shut, tries to blot out the tumbling world around her, tries to keep her anteater meal from rising up into her throat. The flat log kites on the wind, and when fear brings Mez’s eyes springing back open, the log mercifully blots out the view below. But then the log starts to spin, and it’s all she can do to hold on. She feels her claws tearing, the muscles in her legs burning. The log spins more and more, threatening to fling her free, then it steadies again and she’s beneath it, wind streaming at her back, fur whipping in her eyes. She sees Rumi managing to hold on with his gooey hands, his yellow-spotted body flapping against the side of the log, then there’s a tremendous thud against the back of Mez’s head as she splashes down.

  The force of the impact sends Mez’s claws raking free of the wood, and she’s hurled deep into the lagoon water. Tumbling and spinning, she can’t tell which way is which, wouldn’t know how to reach the surface even if she could get her shocked muscles to move well enough to swim.

  The air emptied out of her when she hit the surface, and her lungs instinctively inflate, sucking in a big mouthful of water. The cold surprise of it sets Mez’s mind to spinning, and she only just stops herself from breathing more water right into her lungs. Then she sees a little yellow shape in front of her, a kind face that she recognizes. Rumi starts swimming, and Mez manages to follow him. She paddles as hard as she can, following him to the surface where finally, sputtering, she emerges.

  Paws churning the water, Mez casts her head this way and that, trying to free it of enough muck so that she can see. As soon as she does, she casts desperately about for Rumi and Lima. She can’t see them, though, can see only chill dawn light illuminating the waterfall, the quiet banks of the lagoon. She starts paddling toward the nearest shore, but as she does she hears another horrible rush of wings, and ducks below water only a moment before a talon would have slashed her head.

  Mez spends as long as she can stroking below water, coming up stealthily only when she absolutely must breathe more air. She takes in a long breath, swimming a quiet circle, knowing she has only moments before the owls, with their uncanny hearing, locate her and attack again.

  She hears a piercing scream. She can’t place it at first, but then she realizes: It’s her name, stretched over one long, high-pitched call. Rumi
is croaking at her. Heedless of the noise she’s making, knowing only that she needs to help her friends, Mez paddles ferociously through the water, heading straight for the sound of Rumi: “Mezzz!”

  She hears the horror of owl wingbeats again, but Mez is almost at the shore this time. She zigs to the side, then as soon as her claws find purchase on the bank she twists so she’s on her back, facing up to attack, claws waving wildly in the air. She clubs talons away right before they would have raked her belly; though she’s trying only to defend, her claws sink into feathers and flesh, seizing and ripping into the scaly skin on the owl’s ankle. It screeches in anguish and takes to the air.

  Mez hasn’t had a chance to free her claws. For a moment she’s aloft, carried into the air by the shrieking bird. It flails and dips, crashing back to the ground. Mez works another paw into the owl’s chest in her attempt to leverage the first one free, digging in deeper than she means to, though the thick plumage on the bird’s front blunts the worst of her attack. “Leave me and my friends alone!” Mez bellows as loudly as possible, right into the owl’s sensitive ear.

  It screeches, apparently in even greater pain from the sound than from the panther claws digging into its chest. Mez’s instincts tell her to hold on and lock her teeth around the owl’s neck, to make this into a meal instead of a warning, but she knows that the other owls are still out there, and she has the safety of her tiny friends to worry about. Better to leave this one alive to warn off the others. So she forces her claws to release, steals away from the owl flopping on the muddy bank. Rumi has kept up his chirping call, leading Mez straight into the concealment of the jungle line.

  She hears more wingbeats, but they seem to be converging on the floundering owl behind her. Mez can’t afford a moment to look, can only barrel forward into the safety of darkness.

  Then she’s in a patch of thick reeds, stepping between their slick stalks as she heads into the trees. Rumi is there, hidden within some ferns and still chirping away, and once Mez is near enough he leaps so he’s on top of her back. He’s shivering and panicked, croaking without words, until he’s calm enough to speak. “Can I tell you how glad I am that that’s over?” he asks.

  “Agreed,” Mez says.

  “Where’s Lima?” Rumi asks.

  A quiet rustle, then Mez feels a slight weight on her ear. “I’m here, I’ve been on your head the whole time, and all I can say is wow,” Lima says. “And that you’re injured.”

  “I am?” Mez asks, flicking one ear and then the other. She doesn’t feel any pain, but maybe that’s because of the adrenaline of their escape. There is something warm trickling down the fur on her brow and into her eyes. Ah, now that she’s thinking about it, there’s the pain: one of the owls must have gashed her with its talons.

  “You’ve got two big cuts up here,” Lima says, tenderly picking through Mez’s fur with her delicate fingers. “Hold on, this won’t take a sec.”

  Lima goes quiet, and Mez can’t feel the top of her head anymore. No pain, not even the weight of the little bat. “Lima? What’s going on?” she asks.

  There’s no response for a long while. Then comes Lima’s muffled voice. “Sorry, all done. I can’t quite talk while I’m doing that.”

  Rumi hops to Mez’s head so he can join Lima. “Doing what?” he asks. “Oh, wow. Fascinating.”

  “Guys, I can’t see you on top of my head,” Mez says, aware of how ridiculous she must look. “What’s going on up there?”

  “Healing,” Lima says. “All it takes is a little saliva.”

  Rumi chuckles. “Did you hear that, Mez? A bat licked your head better.”

  “It feels kind of amazing,” Mez says dreamily. It’s like the top of her head is in a cheery little moonbeam.

  “So,” Rumi says, “healing is your magic! Fascinating. And here I thought you didn’t know what your power was yet.”

  “All bats can heal,” Lima scoffs. “It’s not that special.”

  “No,” Rumi says flatly, “I am certain that all bats cannot heal.”

  “I’m pretty sure I would . . .” Lima’s voice trails off. “Oh. Huh!”

  “Have you ever seen another bat heal?” Rumi asks.

  “Now that you mention it,” Lima says, “I guess I haven’t!”

  “A healing bat,” Rumi says in awe. “I wonder if these powers come with a random distribution, or if this is a reflection of your internal state, of the bat inside the bat, so to speak.”

  “What did you say?” asks Lima. “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Frog.”

  Rumi sighs. “No one finds the same things interesting that I do.”

  “I’m hungry,” says Mez.

  “Yes, well, let’s get going, then,” Rumi says with a sigh.

  “Looks like we took the shortcut after all,” Mez says as she shakes more water and mud off her fur.

  MEZ, RUMI, AND Lima move steadily through the night, trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible as they make their way through the rainforest. As often as not, Rumi and Lima are perched on Mez, clutching her fur as she creeps along. Though back home Aunt Usha often led the family over the shadowed jungle floor, Mez has taken to moving through the safety of the treetops. Jumping from branch to branch is slower, but she feels safer with the cover of the greenery and the surrounding leaves to hush any missteps—and Lima’s running commentary.

  “If having magical powers didn’t inspire murderous fury in every animal we met, I’d tell everyone that I can heal. Bats have this image, you know, of, well, draining blood, but that’s only really rude bats. I would never do that, of course, and I keep thinking that maybe, I don’t know, I could be an ambassador for the bats who keep getting their reputations slimed by—oh, is that a toucan? Hi, toucan!—these animals who don’t really know the first thing about bats ohwaitwhatisthat?”

  Well used to Lima’s running commentary, Mez doesn’t even look up to see what’s caught her attention. This time, though, Rumi tugs on her ear fur and points. “Mez, stop. Look down!”

  Mez is on the farthest edge of a branch high up in a fig tree when she halts and peers down, the jungle floor spreading out far beneath her. The lifting Veil casts the scene in the golds of dawn: dewy rain-soaked palms, the twisting arc of a river, mist shrouding it all. “It looks like everywhere else in Caldera,” Mez says.

  “Wait for the breezes to change again,” Rumi says.

  As Mez stares down, perfectly still on the branch swaying over the scene far below, her thoughts go to her family. She’s traveled through scenes like this with them many a time. I hope you’re okay, Chumba.

  Then the mists part and Mez sees what Rumi and Lima were so excited about. There, on the edge of the horizon, is what can only be the Ziggurat of the Sun and Moon: a giant stone formation washed in the golden light of early day, dew edging it in dazzling silver. The structure is wide at the base, each layer narrowing until the top layer is half as wide as the bottom, and taller than the tallest nearby tree. Mez has never seen anything like it, and can’t shake the feeling that this ancient unexplainable thing was meant to be hidden away.

  “We’re almost there!” Mez says, trying to sound eager for her friends’ sake.

  “Yes we are,” Lima whispers, her voice low and hushed.

  “Auriel is probably waiting for us,” Rumi says.

  Mez isn’t sure, but she thinks she can see movement on the ziggurat’s top level, can see figures peering out at the edge. Strange blue lights glow and wink along the stone surfaces. It’s too far away to know exactly what she’s seeing. “I guess we should head there,” Mez says.

  “Yes,” Rumi says.

  “Uh-huh,” Lima says.

  None of them moves.

  As if to make the decision for them, the branch Mez is standing on rattles and shakes. “What the—” Mez blurts, wrapping her paws as tightly as she can around the branch. It shakes again, and from the jungle far below comes a deep rumbling sound.

  The rumble seems to be centered on the ziggurat itself
. Clouds of dust and dirt rise from the earth around it, and the stones themselves seem to breathe, grinding against one another before settling back down. There are screeches of monkeys and birds over the ruckus, and Mez’s vision blurs and shifts as the tree shakes more wildly. She’s remotely aware of Rumi yelling in her ear, “Back to the trunk, back to the trunk!” and she retreats as best she can along the tremoring branch. Once her tail strikes bark, she scrambles down the tree, claws making ragged slashes in the trunk, seeds and dirt raining around her.

  The rumbling stops just as Mez reaches the ground. She nervously kneads the soil with her paws. “Did you see her blow the stones of the ziggurat around?” she asks. “Can the Ant Queen really produce that much force?”

  “Oh, sure she can,” Lima says. “Every bat knows that. We have a rhyme we sing to little batlings about her, to scare the living moonlight out of them: ‘Little wings, little wings, go see the Ant Queen! Little wings, little wings, lead her back home. Little wings, little wings, what have you done? Little wings, little wings, now we’re all chewed up and dead.’”

  “That’s . . . a beautiful song, Lima,” Rumi says.

  “All I’m saying,” Lima says, “is that if the Ant Queen can take down a whole bat colony at once, we’d better be really sure her prison holds.”

  They pause on the now-quiet jungle floor, each of them waiting for one of the others to start forward. “Well, I guess we—” Mez begins to say.

  Just then, the fig tree begins to creak. Mez watches it curiously, trying to figure out how such a sound could come from deep in its trunk. “Um, I—I do believe this tree has become unstable,” Rumi stammers. “We should, if we’re being prudent—”

  “Flee!” Lima yells.

  The bat takes off flying, whirling haphazardly through the air. Mez hurtles after her, two little yellow hands at the edge of her vision as Rumi holds on to her brow fur for dear life.

  The tree’s creaking becomes rumbling, and then suddenly it’s back into view, the massive trunk cracking and plummeting, its buttresses ripping up from the soil, taking more trees down with it. Mez darts this way and that, narrowly avoiding a sapling brought whipping down by the larger tree. The earth shakes with each strike, and Mez waits to feel clobbering death at her back, to be smashed into the jungle floor.