As his head got pulled under the water’s surface, Squirrel realized that Azulfa was not going to do anything. He was going to drown. Right here. Outside Mellifera . . .
Splash!
Squirrel felt the water crush him. Then, suddenly, two paws gripped his skull and yanked his head. Squirrel’s face broke the water’s surface.
Streams came jetting out of his frozen nose and mouthfuls of cold water spluttered out of his mouth. Blessed air filled his lungs, and he became vaguely aware that he was moving. When he stopped, he was on the solid riverbank, with Des’s paws around his head.
For a moment he just lay there, next to Des, breathing heavily. Finally Des said, “That could have been a very watered-down way to go, mate.”
As Squirrel realized that Des had jumped in and saved him, he managed a wet smile. It faded quickly. Azulfa was looking at him. Her eyes flashed with something he could not quite place.
“Come boys, let’s go. We can’t afford to dillydally,” was all she said, and she swiveled on her foot, stalking off into the velvety purple darkness.
“It creeps me out, and we haven’t even gone in yet,” whispered Squirrel, staring at the rusted wrought-iron gate.
“Don’t worry, mate. I’ll be right behind you,” said Des, swallowing loudly. Azulfa cawed in agreement.
Squirrel nodded gratefully. With a deep breath, he swung the gate open. It creaked noisily.
“Here goes,” said Squirrel, squinting. He spotted something that looked like a massive glowing white onion and broke out into a jog. “Over there. Let’s get this done quickly.”
Swroooosh. Fush. Swrooosh.
As Squirrel’s feet landed on the ground, millions of dust particles swept into the air. He closed his eyes and almost tripped over a mound. “Be careful, the ground is uneven,” he said, coughing.
“I can barely keep my eyes open,” said Des, shielding his eyes with his paws.
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” whispered Azulfa, her low voice sounding even lower through the dusty haze.
“What do you mean?” asked Squirrel, rubbing his eyes. He looked down.
A bony hand with discolored blue fingernails lay there, sticking out of the soil.
Squirrel gagged as he flung his foot over a dusty mound. But just as he was about to break into a run, his back foot got caught, and he flew nose-first straight to the ground.
A heavy, musty stink hit Squirrel. He opened his eyes and a scream died in his throat.
He was lying on the bare body of a dusty, dead bee, his nose on a decomposing shoulder. The bee’s skin was torn, showing her rotting flesh. Parts of her body were wrapped with a tattered old cloth; others were sickly naked.
Squirrel jumped up, his fur cold with disgust. He heard the brittle bones under him shatter. He felt sick. He had been trampling on thousands of moldy bee corpses, hidden under a thick layer of gray dust.
“NO!” said Des, retching as he saw the gross gangly bees.
“We must be quiet,” whispered Azulfa, jumping over a skull. “Let’s move.” She grabbed both Squirrel and Des and pulled them toward the white tomb.
They drifted into an edgy silence, broken only by the crackle of bee bones under their feet. When they reached a raised, translucent platform, they stopped. On it was a hexagonal white structure with a big onion dome.
“This is it,” said Azulfa, stopping at the bottom of a flight of stairs.
“Well, let’s go,” said Squirrel, taking the steps two at a time. The white steps were not cool as he had expected them to be. They were hollow, almost warm. He turned around to say something to the others, but they were not behind him. Instead Azulfa was holding Des back with a powerful wing, preventing him from following Squirrel up.
“What’s going on?” asked Squirrel, feeling uneasy.
“We’ll keep watch,” said Azulfa. “You go in, fetch the stones, and come back out.”
Squirrel nodded and slowly walked toward the upside-down bulb. Did he want to go alone? No. Especially since he might be entering a small, enclosed area. But Azulfa was right. Someone needed to keep watch. So Squirrel ignored his fear and claustrophobia and went in.
“Get the slate-blue stones. Get out. Get the slate-blue stones. Get out,” Squirrel chanted to himself, trying to swat his fear away. He walked into the grim shadows on the far side of the white-bone building. There was a slit in the wall. Sucking in his stomach, Squirrel wriggled sideways through the opening.
He found himself on a ramp. It spiraled all the way down to the dark pit of the earth. The rest of the space was a hollow wind tunnel.
Squirrel looked up. The white dome sent ghostly shadows shimmying into the abyss. He blinked as a silvery form that looked like a bee playing the cello floated toward him and then piddled away into the darkness.
He rubbed his eyes. Just focus, he told himself. Two slate-blue stones from a tomb; Buried close, in a white-bone womb.
Squirrel frowned. Buried close, in a white-bone womb.
It sounded as though he had to go down the ramp, into the womb of the Bone Tomb. His gullet snapped shut like a matchbox. His heart rattled in its cage. Sweat beads squeezed out of his cold temple. Claustrophobia.
“I’m not going to give in to this. I’m not going to,” said Squirrel aloud. Oddly, hearing his voice in the funnel of the tomb was calming.
“I’ll just keep talking to myself,” he said as he started walking down the ramp. “I’ll just keep breathing and talking to myself.”
“Thank goodness for that dome. At least there’s a smidgen of light . . .”
He stopped.
In front of him, on the ramp, was a white, rectangular box. On it lay a bee, embalmed in wax so that she was preserved perfectly. She wore a purple gown and a peaceful expression. Her reddish hair, adorned with a silver circlet, cushioned her head. A plaque read: QUEEN MARIUM.
Squirrel moved on. A few steps down the ramp was another white table with a dead Queen on it. Her eyes were wide open, a scared expression on her face. Quickly Squirrel went farther down. Every few feet, he saw a wax-caked Queen of the past. He gulped; he was in some ghoulish museum of the dead.
Squirrel forced himself to keep going, but the image of the corpses made him tremble. The truth was this: For the first time since his journey began, he was truly scared. He did not want to be alone in here.
And now that he was alone in the dark tomb, the nagging doubt that he had been pushing to the corner of his mind crept back and took hold of him.
The thing is, Squirrel knew he was not supposed to be on this quest. Not yet. He should have heard his mother’s first message later in his life—when he was older. Specifically, when he was married. After all, it was the Wedded Wine that triggered his first memory. And Wedded Wine, he knew, was only drunk at one’s own wedding. Perhaps Squirrel was not equipped to handle this journey. Perhaps he was too weak to be facing these dangers. Perhaps he was too young to find Brittle’s Key and Brittle’s Map. Perhaps he was not ready to discover his name and get his freedom.
“I should keep talking. The more I talk to myself, the better I feel. So if I want to talk to myself, I will,” muttered Squirrel, trying to distract himself.
“I’ll deal with this one step at a time. It’s pitch-dark down there, but I can see right now. That’s important. I must keep going. And I must look out for any stone that could be a shade of blue or gray . . .”
As he spoke, the ramp leveled under Squirrel’s feet. He was on flat ground.
Despite the darkness, Squirrel’s blue eyes cut through the shadows. He was in a small white crypt. In the center of the crypt he saw a rectangular white trunk, similar to those on which the corpse Queens lay. On the trunk was a single blood-orange blossom and two gray-blue stone plaques. The stone plaques had two halves of a poem etched on them.
He read the poem aloud, trying to focus on the words instead of the small, enclosed space.
Love
I have learned
Is the al
chemy most potent
A drop lets copper shine like gold
A look sweetens bitter into honeyed dew
A kiss transforms night to the sunniest noon
But this cursed alchemy is a reversible boon
A fight shatters a whole into fragile few
A memory loses its warmth till icy cold
Until passion and love are latent
And all that is earned
Is wisdom.
Squirrel realized this must have been the poem that Queen Apize had written about her ill-fated love. Unfortunately, he could not appreciate it because the walls, the floor, and the ceiling seemed to be shrinking in on him, crushing the breath in his lungs. He fell to his knees, choking. Claustrophobia squeezed his neck.
“Keep talking,” Squirrel said, battling spasms of nausea. “This must be ‘the earth’s white womb.’ Now, where’re the stones I’m looking for?” He looked at the walls, but they were pure bone—all smooth and white.
He crouched on the floor and felt around. Nothing.
“What if the stones aren’t here? What if they’ve been moved?” Squirrel whispered, his heart spinning like a top in his chest. He closed his eyes. He was about to start hyperventilating when he heard something that zapped every thought from his mind. Two voices sliced through the tomb.
“Well, whaddya reckon ’e’d be doin’ here?” came one scratchy voice.
“We don’t care, dumdum. We just have to check,” came a screechy answer.
Squirrel went as still as the dead Queens. He would have recognized the voices anywhere: It was the two Kowas who had been looking for him at the wedding and stalking his tree house. How had they found him here? In a tomb outside Mellifera?
Clak. Clak. Clak. Footsteps slapped against the ramp, echoing through the hollow tomb.
Squirrel knew he had to hide. And fast. They would reach him in a few moments, and then he was as good as gutted and stuffed. Frantically he fell to his knees and began to crawl silently toward the white table.
He reached the trunk in the middle of the room. There was a small gap between the floor and the raised white platform. Squirrel wedged his shoulder into the gap and, with a squirm, he shoved his foot into the crack. Curling his paws beneath the rectangular table, he pushed with all his might. Slowly, silently, the table lifted just enough off the ground. Squirrel rolled through the gap, and the table dropped with a soft thud.
Damn! A soft thud might as well have been a loud boom. The Kowas, with their supersonic hearing, would be upon him like flies on fruit.
He was hidden, but there was that crack. He needed to find something to cover the slit. Not knowing what to do, he reached out and grabbed the two stone plaques with the poem on it. Squirrel quickly lined them against the gap so that he was completely hidden. He waited, not daring to breathe.
If he was discovered, he was dead.
“I tell ya there ’ash definitely a noishe,” Scratchy said.
“ ’Course there was a noise, idiot. I was here too. You think I’m deaf?” said Screechy.
Squirrel gritted his teeth to keep from groaning. The Kowas were pelting down the ramp. Squirrel could hear their sharp claws scuffing the white floor on which he lay.
“Well, whoshe to know? You could be deaf. It wouldn’t be the firsht thin’ wrong with ya.”
Screechy did not answer. The tomb was silent except for a pair of footsteps walking toward the white stone casket under which Squirrel lay like a marinating piece of meat.
“Eeaaoo. Donouchme,” came a shrill squeal.
“Garrrh. I can’t shee a darn thin’,” said Scratchy.
“You gruntin’ gargoyle. If you ever try ’n grope me in the dark again, I’ll poke your eyes out,” came the earsplitting response.
“Shut it, you vain vixhen. I ain’t tryin’ to touch ya.”
“Eeeek, let’s just drop it. There’s no one here. Let’s just . . . What was that?” said Screechy, her voice climbing even higher.
Squirrel cupped his mouth to stop breathing, but it was no use. He was sure that they could hear his pulse pounding. He put his face against the gray stone, hoping the stone would muffle his breath. And in that moment of dark fear, he really saw it.
The stones were not gray; they were dull blue. Actually, they were slate blue! And the stones were buried in a white-bone womb. His memory had told him that the stones were ‘stolen,’ and hadn’t Nizza said that the Queen’s poem that was etched on special stones was taken from some distant land?
Squirrel’s heart pounded even louder. These had to be the stones he was looking for. Right there in front of him. Right there within his reach. Right there, under the beaks of two killer Kowas.
“Shorry, just had to let out a squelch of gas. Now shtop wastin’ time and let’sh get outta here. It’sh too dark. There ain’t no way he could be ’ere. I’m shure he’sh in Mellifera.”
“Oh, you hell-smell! That’s gross. I’m outta here.” And with that, Squirrel heard Screechy’s and Scratchy’s razor claws scrape the ramp as they took off.
Squirrel waited till the birds had left before taking a full, deep breath. What had happened to Azulfa and Des? Why hadn’t they stopped the birds? Something was horribly wrong . . .
Worried about his friends, he tucked the two slate-blue stones with the poem on them safely into his PetPost belt and pushed hard on the underside of the table. As he hurried up the ramp, his head spun like a mill. How did those Kowas know where he was? Where were Des and Azulfa? And could these two stones with the poem actually be the stones he was looking for?
Not a single star pierced the blanket of night, yet Squirrel could see quite clearly. In fact, he realized, he was lucky that he could see better in the dark than the Kowas. Otherwise they might have found him.
Just then, he saw a floppy-eared figure patrolling the platform. He recognized him immediately. It was Des. At least he was all right. But what had he been doing all this while?
Des ran over to him. “You sure took your time in there, mate. Must say, it’s been no fun walking around this morgue alone. Did you get the stones?”
“Where were you? And where is Zulf?” said Squirrel, not bothering to respond. He wanted answers first.
“We split up. Zulf went to check out that side, and I’m guarding this side.”
“Well, you’ve been doing a lousy job,” spat Squirrel.
“Huh?” asked Des, looking confused.
“I had a couple of visitors in there,” said Squirrel.
“Whaddya mean? The bees caught you?” Des’s big brown eyes were full of concern.
“It wasn’t the bees. It was the Kowas.”
“WHAT?”
“You really had no idea?” asked Squirrel softly. His brow collapsed into ripples. A deep frown weighed down the tips of his mouth.
“Of course not!” protested Des. “You think I’d let them in without a fight? I’d at least have barged in to warn you! They definitely didn’t enter from this side, mate. I’ve been on the lookout. Honestly, I have!”
Squirrel looked at Des and knew that his friend was telling the truth. He began to think—if Des had really been watching carefully, and if he had not seen anyone, then . . .
“Aaaaaaaah.” The groan came straight from Squirrel’s belly. His knees buckled and he fell on the floor. “I’ve been so, so stupid!”
“Squirrel, what’s going on?” asked a low, cold voice from behind them.
Swiveling, Squirrel saw Azulfa walking toward them. She looked surprised.
“Squirrel was just telling me that he had—” started Des.
“I was just annoyed with myself for not taking one of those feathers you keep lighting with the blue flames down there. It was really dark,” Squirrel butted in.
It was not the best cover-up, but he looked at Azulfa defiantly, daring her to challenge him. She looked back at him, her beady black eyes blank. Finally she said, “Yeah, I used the last feather that I could light in your kitchen. We should have
saved it, though. Some fire light could have been useful in there.”
Des, who was watching this exchange with a bewildered expression, began to sputter. Thankfully, before he could say that Squirrel had not been talking about light at all, Squirrel shot him such a bullet of a look that the dog shut up.
“So did you get the stones?” asked Azulfa, her eyes searching Squirrel’s body. Squirrel thought he saw her feathers bristle as they rested on his belt, where he had tucked the stones.
“I did,” said Squirrel with a curt nod.
“Good. Well, should we carry on, then?” asked Azulfa.
Squirrel nodded and turned his back to Azulfa. While his paws tied the strong petal rope Azulfa had cut from Cheska’s wedding tent around his waist slowly, his mind whirled. He had to escape. He and Des had to get away—as far away as possible. But there was nothing he could do just yet. First he had to get to the next potion. He had to get to Darling Tea Hills safely.
So Squirrel turned around and flashed Azulfa his most disarming smile. “How long will it take us to get to Darling, Zulf?”
Squirrel’s friendly smile worked. Azulfa’s narrowed eyes relaxed and she said, “Till next nightfall, I think.”
“Great! Well, I’m starving and grumpy,” said Squirrel as an excuse for his prior brusqueness. “We’d better have a quick nibble before leaving. Anyone for some candy?” As he spoke, Squirrel reached into his pocket and produced a fistful of the Raisin D’Ettys he had been carrying around.
Greedily Des grabbed four and stuffed all of them into his mouth. Azulfa used her sharp talons to lance two. “Thank you,” she said.
“Alrighty, now up, up, and away,” said Squirrel, pulling his face into such a wide smile that his cheek muscles began to ache. But he kept the expression plastered on his face. He could not let Azulfa catch on to the fact that he had discovered the truth about her. Right now his life depended upon keeping up appearances.
Hills of Heart
The Madame kneeled before the Colonel, her head bent.
“Colonel, we couldn’t find them in Mellifera,” she whispered. Yards of black silk covered her head, stretched all the way down to her toes, and formed a clothy pool on the floor. Through her veil, her yellow eyes were fixed on the mess of fabric. “Squirrel wasn’t where you said he would be.”
The Tale of a No-Name Squirrel Page 11