“Do you suppose we died back at the school and this is heaven?” asked Justin.
“No, it’s called Green of Evo... something,” I said.
“Evoluii,” said Yeri.
“Yeah that’s it, and I think it has something to do with that book in the cellar,” I said.
“Oh my gosh, it’s true!” cried Emily. “When we heard a loud thump back in the cellar we both thought you were hiding on us, until Justin found the book on the floor and we....” she sniffled. “We just read a bit of it.”
“Next thing ya know, we’re here in this weird place,” Justin interrupted and Emily burst out in tears.
“We didn’t have a chance to tell our parents!” she cried.
“Let me guess,” I said to Justin. “You didn’t write that note on the book did you?”
“What note?” he asked.
“Apparently not,” I sighed. “So how’d you find me?”
“We saw the arrow dug into the dirt and we figured it was some sort of sign for us to follow.”
“Do you have your phone?” I looked at Emily.
“Yeah, but it’s not gonna do us any good,” she whimpered, pulling it out from her back pocket. “I’ve been trying to call home all day and I can’t find a decent signal. See!” She showed me her phone that had no bars.
“I don’t have my medication.” I whispered to Justin. He knew how important it was for me and likely remembered the time at music camp, a few years ago when I forgot to take it and passed out while walking back to our cabins after supper.
“You don’t have any?” he asked.
“Nope, I checked my knapsack.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Surprisingly fine, considering all I’ve been through, but I’m supposed to take it daily and I’ve already missed a day.”
“Am I the only one that thinks that a talking mouse is a little odd?” asked Emily.
“Gerbil,” I corrected. “And yeah, about as odd as that monster bird,” I said. “Hey, did you guys see the faeries last night?”
“Faeries?” Emily looked at me through her tears.
“As in cute, little people with wings?” asked Justin.
“Yeah... well kind of, but not so cute, and they’re actually a lot different than people,” I replied.
“We didn’t wake up here till this morning,” said Justin. “I’m guessing about five hours ago, though I can’t say for sure cause my watch isn’t working for some reason.” Justin’s finger tapped gently on his watch.
“I don’t understand how all this is happening,” said Emily. “Faeries aren’t even real!”
“Yeah and neither are talking gerbils, or monster birds that try to kill you,” I replied.
“Hellkite bird are very, very nasty,” said Yeri.
“Oh my gosh, we almost died,” said Emily. “And you saved me!” she cried out and wrapped her arms tightly around Justin.
Justin looked past her strangling grip at me, his eyes wide with surprise. And then, as though he wasn’t sure what to do next, he slowly lifted his arms up around her to pat her back in an awkward but assuring hug.
“But how are we going to get home?” She pulled back abruptly.
“Yeri knows how to get to Lockhart,” I said. “He’s going to show us the way.”
Justin and Emily looked at Yeri who had been grooming himself on my shoulder during the conversation. He quickly stopped.
“Ah yes, we go to Tesqua through back door. Come.”
—
On hands and knees, we crawled over gnarled roots and through twisting, tangled paths, as Yeri sat on my shoulder directing us. The darkness seemed to go on much further than the exterior of the tree would allow and I figured we must’ve crawled into some sort of underground tunnel below the tree.
“Ouch!” I flinched. “Try not to pull my hair.” I squawked at Yeri.
“If you not lean so far forward,” he replied. “It very, very hard to hold on.”
“How can I not lean forward when I have to crawl?” I asked.
“Shhhh you two,” Emily snapped. “I think I hear something.”
We all stopped and listened. Yeri’s ears perked up, and I felt his whiskers twitch against my neck as he sniffed.
“I hear it,” I said noticing a faint whistling sound. It was the kind of sound a strong wind made when it found a small hole or opening to blow through.
“Yes, yes, door is very, very close now. Come!” said Yeri motioning us to continue.
Rounding a large root, I saw a sliver of light just up ahead.
“I see it!”
We crawled up together to see there was another opening very similar to the one we had entered, however most of this doorway had been blocked by sand.
“Where did all this sand come from?” asked Emily, picking up a handful of it.
“It from storm; she blow sand everywhere,” said Yeri. “Biting and make mess of everytink. Very, very nasty she is.”
“It sounds miserable out there,” said Emily. “Maybe we should wait till the storm’s over.”
“No, no, storm no end. She blow for many, many sun. Ever since great fire and Maker disappear, dere has been curse on land. Ruin everytink. All of family move away.”
“Wait a sec. Are you talking about the same Maker Prospexi was talking about?”
“Who’s Prospexi?” asked Justin.
“The faery I met last night.”
“I do not know dis Prospexi you talk about, but dere is only one Maker,” said Yeri. “When he disappear many, many suns ago, bad tings happen. Sun no set in Tesqua and rain no fall. Ground dry up and all storm break loose.”
“What do you mean disappear?” I asked.
“You know... poof, gone. No one see him since.”
“How does someone just disappear?” asked Emily.
“I know not much about it, but I still write him, hoping one day he return. But we no wait for storm to end, because dere is no end. We need to go now, dat is if you still want to go? Maybe you change mind, no?”
“Is there any other way to Lockhart?” I asked.
“Another way maybe? But I do not know it,” he said.
“Then I guess we’ll just have to face the storm.”
“We’re not going anywhere until we dig ourselves out of here,” said Justin, who was already pulling handfuls of sand away from the doorway.
It was as though we were all gerbils, the way we burrowed through the tree’s back door, but the more we dug the more we felt the wind and its relentless pelting of sand.
“It’s brutal out there,” Justin coughed and lowered the visor inside his helmet. Emily tightened the straps of her bonnet to keep the sand off her face.
“Hey Justin, are you going to use those goggles?” I asked seeing them hanging loosely around his neck.
“Here, go for it!” he said, lifting them over his head and tossing them to me. “We better cover our nose and mouth too,” he coughed. “I can already taste the grit.”
I pulled the goggles over my eyes and began adjusting the strap around my head, when I noticed Emily had a funny smirk on her face. I panned over to see she was watching Justin who now had his shirt off and seemed to be struggling with it.
“What are you doing?” I asked him.
“I’m trying to rip off a piece to cover over my mouth,” he grunted.
Emily giggled.
“What?” he shrugged, noticing both of us were watching him. “It’s not as easy as it looks!” he insisted through gritted teeth. But the more he grunted trying to rip his shirt, the more Emily and I laughed. “There’s a thick seam at the bottom - see!” He said with frustration as he held his shirt out towards us. “You wanna try?”
“I’ve got my own shirt to torture, but I think Emily was eyeing to help you
,” I teased.
“What? Was not!” she denied and flashed me a dirty look.
Justin’s face turned beet red and I suddenly realized that maybe there really was something going on between them. What happened at music camp that they weren’t telling me? I looked over at Justin and still saw that scrawny little kindergartener who peed his pants the first time we got sent to the principals office. We had been friends forever and I couldn’t imagine him interested in any girl, especially Emily. She wasn’t even his type. This was definitely a mistake that I needed to prevent.
“Argh!” sighed Justin, still unsuccessful in ripping his shirt with his teeth. “This is maddening!”
“Let me see dat ting,” said Yeri, scrambling over to rescue him.
Justin lowered his shirt down and Yeri quickly nibbled a weak spot into the seam, allowing Justin to easily rip a four-inch-wide strip off the bottom.
“And what about me?” Emily looked down at her cute little floral T, that was too small to have anything ripped off it.
“You can probably take a piece off that big bonnet of yours,” I suggested.
“But I need it for my head,” she huffed. “Besides, it’s too nice to ruin.”
“Seriously?” I said, ripping myself a small strip off the waist of my old grey t-shirt that I cared little about.
“Here,” said Justin, ripping his long strip in half. “You can have half of mine.”
“Princess,” I coughed.
Tying the strips of cloth over our faces we managed to cover our mouth and nose, while still being able to see. Emily had her bonnet, I had the goggles and Justin flipped down the visor from inside his funny looking helmet as we climbed up and stood just inside the back entrance of the tree. Yeri didn’t seem to need anything other than his fur, but it was his home after all, so I figured he was used to it.
Peering out at the landscape through the goggles I saw a very different scene than had been at the front of the tree. It looked like a desert. Yeri picked up a small stick and pressing the end of it into the sand he drew a circle with a horizontal line below it.
“Dis is Tesqua,” he said. “Dis is my home!”
I looked out at the barren wasteland that he seemed so proud of, where a hazy sun sat high in the muddy sky above the flat horizon. I glanced back down to the similar lines he had drawn, but they had already been obliterated by the wind.
“That symbol you drew, what does it mean?” I asked through the cloth tied over my nose and mouth.
“It mean Tesqua. Land where sun never set.”
It seemed strange that this place could exist without me ever hearing about it, and my home really did feel far away.
“Let’s go,” I said and stepped out into the howling wind with Yeri on my shoulder. I looked back at the tree we had come out of. It was much different than the one we had entered; similar in size, but this tree looked lifeless. Like driftwood on a beach, it was parched and grey and without any leaves, as though it had died many years ago but left remains still standing, half buried in the sand.
“I can’t see a thing!” Emily hollered through the wind. “How far do we have to walk in this storm?”
“Far!” I hollered back.
“How far?” she yelled.
“Aye yi yi,” Yeri sighed and slumped back under the tent of my hair. “Dis is no goot,” I heard him mutter to himself. “Dis is mess of trouble and trouble is not what I want.”
“What trouble?” I asked.
“Dat way take us south,” he said tersely and pointed his tiny finger out through my hair. “We go now. I take you through Tesqua and on to Lily Palus.”
“Thank you!” I said, smiling behind the cloth over my face. “You will not regret this Yeri, I promise.”
“Regret is what I already have,” he sighed.
—
It was a long and silent hike through the blasting sandstorm as we leaned into the wind, walking one behind the other with our faces sheltered the best we could. Yeri soon mastered riding on my shoulder and I think he found our journey was not all the sacrifice he had expected. He often stuck his head out from my hair, correcting our direction as we took turns leading and drafting behind each other from the push of the wind. It was like hiking through a snowy blizzard back home, but instead of cold, wet snow soaking through my winter boots and mitts, this storm was hot and prickly with sand filling my sneakers, grinding uncomfortable blisters onto my feet.
“We’re going to need to find some water soon,” I said with lips that had begun to crack. Even with all the sand in the sky, the heat from the scorching sun somehow managed to pierce through it, making me very thirsty.
“Water is at Lily Palus. You drink when we get dere.”
“Do you even know which way we’re going?” asked Emily. Her voice was irritable and she seemed discouraged by the difficult hike.
“De sun, she guide me. It hard to see, but she dere.” Yeri pointed skyward. “Do not worry so much, I know Tesqua through and throoooughhhh!”
I suddenly fell face first into the sand, bringing Yeri with me and like dominos, Justin and Emily followed in a pile on top. It was as though we had crossed through a wall of sudden stillness where the noise and sting of the wind immediately stopped and all was calm - too calm.
Chapter Seven
Demoror Ari
“Gtff me!” mumbled Emily, her face pressed into the sand. Her legs flailed above her as she tried to push herself upright. All three of us were heaped on top of each other in a twisted pile of body parts. I managed to escape the pile and stand up.
“What happened to the wind?” I spit out some gritty particles of sand and removed the goggles that were clouded with dirt, letting them hang down on the strap around my neck. I could see again. Just a few feet away Yeri was digging himself out of a sand bank.
“Check it out guys!” Justin had taken off his helmet and dropped it to the ground.
Incredibly, we were standing inside a large calm area within the stormy desert. It was sunny and deathly quiet without a cloud or grain of sand in the air. Yet all around us, the storm raged on like a towering wall of tossing sand reaching up into the sky. It was as though a giant circular chunk of the storm had somehow been removed.
“Is this what they mean by the eye of the storm?” I asked.
“I don’t think it usually works that way,” said Emily. She looked pitiful sitting in the sand with the strip of cloth still hanging loosely around her neck and her hair tangled into what looked like a birds nest on her head. Her blue mascara and sparkly eyeshadow had smudged into a mess around her eyes and I couldn’t help but giggle.
“Oh, you think you look any better?” she chided. “You’re covered in dirt with two ghostly circles around your eyes from where your goggles were.”
I hadn’t even thought about how I looked.
“I guess we’re equal then,” I laughed, knowing it probably bothered her more.
Looking at the storm wall beside me I stuck one hand into it and felt the tossing sand pelt against my arm. ‘How does it do that?’ I wondered.
“Oh my gosh!” sighed Emily. “Have you seen anything so beautiful?” She patted down her hair, as if she was trying to gather her composure. Tugging the tattered bonnet back over her head, she waltzed off.
Turning around, I saw what she’d been enchanted by. In the centre of the windless region, about fifty meters away, a sparkling, white castle shimmered brilliantly in the sunlight, as though a hundred thousand diamonds had fallen upon it. It was extraordinary.
“WOW!” I said under my breath.
“It looks edible!” said Justin.
Come to think of it, it did remind me of a pillared white wedding cake you’d find in one of those exclusive hoity-toity shops. Except this one was huge!
It was as though all our cares and concerns had been carried off with the wi
nd, as I suddenly found myself with both Emily and Justin at the base of a series of frosted steps that climbed up to the soaring fortress.
Several tall shimmering pillars lined the steps, welcoming us with what seemed like a grand salute. The sun’s rays bounced off the castle’s crystalline surface and made it look magical.
A cool draft poured down the steps and over my feet as I walked up towards the arched entrance. It crept up over me with each step I climbed, refreshing my parched body. Curious, I reached out to touch one of the pillars.
“It’s ice!” I said rubbing my hand along the frozen, mirrored surface. ‘How can it possibly stay frozen in this heat?’ My sand-covered hand left a dirty wet trail over the surface, and drips of water ran down my fingers, hands and wrists making sand-free streaks along my arms, before finding their leave as drops off the tip of my elbow. I stuck out my dry pasty tongue and licked the pillar. I was extremely thirsty. Justin laughed, but then did the same with another pillar, both of us wanting to quench our thirst.
But Emily, who seemed more interested in learning who the owners of the castle were, had climbed the remaining steps and stood beneath the arched doorway.
“Demoror Ari,” she said slowly.
The words sounded strangely familiar. “What did you say?” I asked. Letting go of the shiny wet pillar I hopped up the last steps to join her.
“Demoror Ari, right there,” she pointed to a large icy cherub carved out from the door. Its hands held an ice sash that hung down loosely below its body acting as a huge decorative door-knocker. Across the sash of ice the words Demoror Ari were etched.
I’d seen those words before, but I couldn’t remember where.
“I sure hope they have food!” said Justin.
My stomach rumbled in response.
“Come on, let’s find out who lives here.” I stepped forward onto the threshold and took hold of the door-knocker.
‘Rap, rap.’ I hit the sash against the solid ice door and before I could knock a third time the sash broke off and fell to the ground shattering into thousands of ice shards.
“Oh no!” stammered Emily. “Look what you’ve done!”
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