At the bottom of the driveway, Holsapple’s riggers were digging a trench in the field. As the pickup turned onto the highway, One Eye raised his shovel in the air and slowly swung it back and forth, as if he were waving goodbye. The trench looked just like a grave and, this time, Ernie couldn’t turn away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The Puzzle
IT WAS A LONG, windy ride down Highway 99. Crouching in the bed of the pickup, Ernie secretly cracked open the cab’s panel window so he could hear what Russ and Betty were saying. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Russ reach for her hand. “I know it’s a wild story, but what if he’s telling the truth?”
Betty pulled her hand away. “What are you talking about? Now you think there’s a spaceship in Harvey’s basement?”
Russ clenched his jaw but didn’t reply.
“Joey would never go inside that house on her own,” Betty declared stormily. “Look at his background—a dozen foster homes, no respect for authority, constantly in trouble. We don’t know what that kid’s capable of doing. What if he hurt her?”
When Russ’ gaze shifted from the road to the rearview mirror, Ernie averted his eyes. He was surprised that Russ would still stand up for him after everything that had happened. “I just don’t think so,” he heard Russ say. “I don’t think he’d do that.”
“Well, maybe it’s time you think again.”
Ernie’s attention shifted from the distraught couple to the black Cadillac approaching fast from the opposite direction. He stood up as the Caddy zoomed past with the twins in the front seat. He watched even after the car disappeared around the curve. His back ached and his leg still burned from the black slime on his jeans.
The pickup was coming to a stop when Ernie hopped out and ran for the house.
“You stick close,” called Russ. “I want you right by my side, you understand? Ernie!”
Ernie bolted through the kitchen and down the hall. He banged open the door to the crib room and stopped in his tracks—everything was tossed and thrown and ripped and ruined, the bureau overturned and the crib destroyed. He searched madly through the wreckage until he found the shoebox torn in half, the eyedropper shattered. He pictured what must have happened and felt sick to his stomach. The twins.
Ernie searched desperately, hoping against hope to find Runnel somewhere in the room. As he came along the wall, he saw a fragment from his baseball card sitting on the windowsill. He picked it up and realized he was looking into the eyes of Ernie Banks. Perplexed, he scanned the ground outside the window. There was another card scrap lying in the dirt. He hurried to the door and checked down the hall. He could hear Betty crying in the kitchen.
“We’ll find her, I promise,” comforted Russ. “Let’s check with your mom again, then start calling the neighbors.”
Ernie shut the door, then slipped out the window and collected the fragment. Scouring the ground like a bloodhound, he recovered a third card scrap near the corral. He matched it with his other pieces to form the face of Ernie Banks. He found another fragment by the wheat and flattened stalks that indicated a tiny trail. Mesmerized, he followed it.
Standing on the kitchen threshold, Russ stared at Ernie’s closed bedroom door while Betty talked on the phone. “I don’t know, Joey said she wanted to show that boy Dad’s old tractors.” She paced back and forth the length of the phone cord. “No, Mom. He came back by himself last night. Russ just figured she was home with me.” She watched Russ stride down the hall. “That’s right. The Goetzes are organizing a search party. Everybody’s meeting here at noon.”
Russ rapped on the crib room door. “Ernie?” Not waiting for a reply, he opened the door into the ransacked room. “What in God’s name?” At his feet was the photograph of him and baby Shawn, now shredded. It felt like a punch in the stomach. Through the window he could see Ernie racing up the field.
Russ climbed out the window and ran across the yard, shouting, “Ernie, get back here! Ernie!” The boy was already disappearing over the first knoll. Furious, Russ turned back to the house as Betty hurried from the porch. “What happened?” she asked.
“He’s gone. We’d better call the sheriff.”
With his gaze fixed on the ground, Ernie hustled through the field, claiming card scraps. At the boundary fence he found an arrow-shaped fragment pointing toward the scorched Holsapple wasteland. He set it in his palm with the other pieces. The Ernie Banks puzzle was almost complete. With a defiant look to the distant manse, he jumped the split rail and hustled across the blistered earth like a hawk searching for its prey. Up ahead, something glinting in the sun caught his eye. He sprinted past derricks and ratcheting oil pumps, not slowing until he realized what it was.
There, waiting patiently at the heart of the wasteland, was a puddle. As he got closer, he could see a tiny Cubs insignia floating in the water. He picked up the soggy emblem and added it to his puzzle, now a fully restored Ernie Banks card. He gazed at his reflection in the mirrored surface, swirling the water with his fingertips, then looked back at Ernie Banks in his palm. It seemed to be the end of the trail. But why here? Why a puddle? And how can a puddle even he in this dried-out place?
The sound of a car engine broke the spell. He spun around to see the black Cadillac zooming along the boundary fence. Fighting the urge to flee, he kept his focus on the puddle. The puddle. There was something about the puddle that he had to understand. The Caddy veered onto the field in a cloud of dust. It was coming fast and bearing straight for him. His mind raced back to the underground spring beneath Derrick 19. It was like a secret door that opened into the hideaway. But how? He probed the shallow water with his hands, unsure what he was looking for.
The Cadillac charged like a raging bull eager for the kill. Ernie jumped up and down in the puddle, but nothing changed. Then he remembered the one thing he shared with Runnel. He ripped off his sneaker and sock and planted his foot with the spiral birthmark squarely in the puddle. The earth instantly opened, plunging him downward just before the Cadillac shot past at seventy miles an hour.
As the puddle hatchway closed behind him, all that remained were the fragments of the Ernie Banks card floating in the water.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Underneath
ERNIE LAY SPRAWLED in the dirt of a decrepit tunnel. It smelled dusty and stale like an abandoned house. Groaning, he rolled onto his back and stared up at the puddle through which he’d just fallen. It was like a window floating in the air. He squinted into the sunlight filtering through the water, still mystified that it didn’t spill down.
Suddenly two ugly faces appeared in the puddle, Angus and Axel. Ernie sprang to his feet, but when the twins didn’t react, he realized they couldn’t see him. The puddle was like a one-way mirror—you could only see through it from underneath. The frustrated twins kicked and stomped in the water. They looked like a heat mirage shimmering in the desert.
Ernie sensed something moving in the dark just beyond the shaft of sunlight. A tiny figure emerged from the shadow. Runnel limped into the light, gripped Ernie’s jeans, and rested her bandaged forehead against his knee.
“Shawn…Fra…zier,” she whispered.
“Runnel,” he whispered back.
Ernie wasn’t sure what to do, so he just touched the top of her head and grinned. When dirt from the tunnel ceiling sifted onto their heads, they looked up to see Angus and Axel digging at the edges of the puddle. As they slung the dirt faster and faster, they began to transmogrify into something hideous. Black slime oozed from their pores and claws grew from their hands and feet. Their heads bulged to three times their original size and their noses became grotesque snouts. Coarse hair sprouted over their entire bodies and their leathery tails pounded the earth.
Ernie gaped in fear as the monsters clawed down so fast that heaps of dirt nearly buried Runnel. A thick tail smashed into the Underneath and knocked him off his feet. His head struck the ground hard. Runnel cried, “Mata-ki, mata-ki, lo!” as the tail raked acro
ss the dirt. She tugged his arm, but Ernie was woozy and couldn’t move, like in a nightmare when something’s chasing you but you can’t run. She jumped on his chest, slapped his face, and squealed, “Lolo, lolo!” He struggled to his knees just as the monster jammed its head into the tunnel and screeched, its hideous breath fouling the air. A raspy tongue shot out like a giant lizard’s, but Runnel and Ernie scrambled just beyond its reach. They escaped into the dark tunnel, where the beast was too big to follow.
With a terrible snarl, Axel yanked his head out of the ground. The twin Troggs, standing in two fresh pools of black slime, yawped angrily as they shrank back to human form. They’d almost captured the boy who had come to destroy them.
Ernie ran hunched over so he wouldn’t scrape his head on the tunnel ceiling. Riding on his shoulder, Runnel released fireflies from a pouch on her belt to light the way in the pitch black. They swarmed ahead with their lantern torsos flashing in a changing constellation. She chirped, “Akadie-lo! Akadie-ru! Kaday, kaday!” while pointing left, right, and straight, guiding him ever downward. Ernie lost his sense of direction, and even for Runnel it was difficult. The Holsapples had ravaged much of the Underneath with their blasting and mining and drilling.
As they wound deeper and deeper into the earth, Ernie felt fear in the pit of his stomach. Where is she taking me? He couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever breathe fresh air again. Just when he didn’t think he could run much farther, Runnel pointed to a faint glow up ahead where the tunnel seemed to end. They passed through a snarl of dead vines to emerge on a ledge overlooking a vast cavern. Ernie had the strangest feeling he’d been here before, at least in his dreams, but it was different now.
Like the world above, everything was parched and dry. A giant oak tree stood with exposed roots in the middle of a fissured lake bed. It looked like it was about to fall over. The tree was glimmering with a feeble blue light that seemed to haunt the deserted cavern.
As they descended the dusty slope, Ernie was careful not to fall into any of the numerous holes dotting the hillside. Looking down, he could see that they were homes where little creatures like Runnel must have lived. It reminded him of the secret hideaway he and Joey had found. Like that one, these dens were dark and abandoned. It was clear that something terrible had happened.
Ernie stepped over a thin stream threading across the lake bed. He glanced at Runnel riding on his shoulder. Her expression was pained. He didn’t know if she was still suffering from the wounds inflicted by the Holsapple monsters, or if it was from the sadness of returning to this ruined place. She pointed to a stone hut at the top of a knoll.
As they approached, Runnel climbed down his body. Ernie watched her limp to the hut and disappear inside. He hurried to a window chiseled out of stone, and sprawled on his stomach. Through the opening, he saw Runnel reuniting with four other tiny creatures. One spun her in a circle while the others jabbered excitedly. Runnel finally quieted them. “Wawaywo,” she said, then pointed to the window. They turned and looked at Ernie as if he were a ghost. No one said a word.
Ernie rose to his knees as the little ones came outside. They approached with timid smiles. Runnel introduced each one by name. Ernie’s mind flooded with long-forgotten memories. So that’s Root. He thought he remembered jumping through a puddle with him. And he’d gone down a big waterfall with the littlest one. He remembered laughing in a thunderstorm with the one she called Cully. And Buck, the one with the scar on his cheek…had they slept with bears? Though initially hesitant, they soon surrounded him, their kindly eyes brimming with joy, touching him as if to make sure he was real.
When Cully beckoned him into the hut, Ernie squeezed through the front door on his belly. Above him, a mobile dangled from the ceiling, vibrant carvings of hundreds of creatures that covered the room like a canopy. He couldn’t help but wonder what had become of all the others. Sitting in a circle, they shared a meager meal of ground wheat paste. Ernie thought it tasted like cardboard but ate it anyway.
As impossible as it seemed, Ernie sensed that he belonged with these little creatures. They felt familiar, like members of a long-lost family.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The Choice
THE LAST OF THE Puddlejumpers hurried across the dry lake bed, chattering nonstop. Ernie couldn’t understand what they were saying, but there seemed to be some disagreement, and he was sure it had something to do with him. As they passed beneath the giant oak’s drooping branches, Ernie reached up to touch one of the last crystal acorns clinging to a branch. It was identical to the Acorn he was wearing around his neck, except this one flickered with a pale light. He’d always wondered where his Acorn came from, but he could never have imagined anything like this.
When Runnel pointed toward a hollow at the base of the tree, he entered the dark interior. His first step launched him headlong down a water-polished groove. He slid down and down the oak’s intertwining roots until he tumbled into a bed of soft sand. The others tumbled right behind. This place, too, was bone dry and eerily quiet. A gray crust coated the walls, muting veins of gemstones and silver.
They trudged across the sand, then passed through a threshold in the rock. Buck and Cully’s lanterns lit the way down a winding stairway. To keep his balance, Ernie kept one hand on the outer wall, its surface polished smooth. He stopped to peer over the side, but the others nudged him on, as if they were late for a very important rendezvous.
They reached an oak platform suspended on ropes of hemp over a gorge that led even deeper into the earth. A torch embedded in the wall provided a shadowy light. When Ernie crossed onto the platform, it swung precariously under his weight, and, for a moment, he was afraid the ropes might snap and they would tumble into the blackness, never to return.
At the edge of the swaying platform, a lone Puddlejumper was moistening the rock wall with a sponge affixed to a birch pole. She was taller than the others and had long white hair. Runnel called out her name. When Pav turned and saw Ernie, her eyes filled with tears. Ernie watched as she put down her pole and came toward him. Gazing into his face with piercing green eyes, she touched her heart, then stood on tiptoe to touch his. It was the same way he’d said good-bye to Nate, and now he understood why.
As Ernie’s eyes adjusted to the light, he began to see the most astonishing creature in the texture of the rock. It was a face two stories high. A woman’s face, the same one from his dreams. Her emerald eyes twinkled for an instant, and Ernie gasped in wonder, disbelieving he could be under the scrutiny of such an awesome creature. She seemed to be in pain, her respiration a mournful wheeze. Pav returned to her care, using the sponge to circulate water trickling down her forehead to her eyes, nose, and mouth.
Summoning her strength, the stone being began to speak an ancient tongue only understood in the primordial deep. Her words reverberated in a cacophony of sound that encompassed every language spoken since the beginning of time. To Ernie it felt like a wave of energy brushing against him, until the most extraordinary thing happened. As her words echoed off the canyon walls, suddenly he could understand. She was MotherEarth. He listened in astonishment.
“Wawaywo—your return brings hope to the Kingdom.” She paused to gather her breath, then spoke again. “Listen close, for there is very little time. The river is dry and my little ones are nearly gone. Only you can save them, only you can bring back the rain.”
Pav gave the pole to Cully, then, with a sense of urgency, began to grind colorful minerals from pouches on her belt using a mortar and pestle.
The voice of MotherEarth rumbled through the rocks, and Ernie could hear her say, “You must make the journey into the Most Dark and plant your Crystal Acorn where the fire burns hot and forever.”
Overwhelmed by it all, Ernie murmured, “I don’t understand.”
“You will.”
MotherEarth persisted while she still had the strength. “Go to the place where my little ones are suffering and dying.”
A chill ran down Ernie’s spi
ne as he remembered the ladder in Holsapple’s cellar that led into the oval chamber where he’d found the injured Runnel. He swallowed hard. I saw a red glow outside the porthole. Was that the fire! He tried to stop his hands from shaking.
“I can’t go there,” he pleaded.
MotherEarth insisted, “You must. You were chosen.”
“But I’m just a kid. They’ll kill me if I go back there,” he said, unable to hide his desperation. “I think they already killed my friend.”
Pav added a single wheat grain to her ground powder, then caught a water droplet trickling from MotherEarth’s chin. She stirred her concoction with a wheat shaft. To Ernie’s dismay, she motioned him to bend down. When he did, she took the Crystal Acorn from around his neck. He watched as she pried off its cap, then poured her muddy brown concoction into the hollow.
“Matuha kalo-lo,” Pav announced as she presented the potion. Root and Runnel, Buck, Cully, and Chop all pressed eagerly around him.
“Drink and become one of us,” said MotherEarth.
“Matuba ka-lolo,” they repeated, telling Ernie it was time to sip the Acorn so that he would become a Puddlejumper—not only in spirit, but in body, too.
Finally Ernie understood the purpose of his Crystal Acorn. He wanted to help them, he really did, but they were asking the impossible. “I can’t,” he stammered. “I think I have a dad now. I might have a home.”
“This is the way home,” she replied softly, her voice weakening.
Runnel tugged on his sleeve with an imploring gaze. He looked at the others impatiently waiting for him to drink. It felt like one of his old crazy dreams, but this time he couldn’t wake up. All he could think about was Russ and the farm. He had to find Russ. He needed to explain and make everything right. At last he found his voice, but all he could say was, “I’m sorry.”
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