Earth/Sky (Earth/Sky Trilogy)

by Macaulay C. Hunter

  “He typically runs north and hangs out in the woods. You can’t catch him until he’s ready, but I hike up there and leave bright red backpacks with supplies in some of his favorite places. Food, water, socks, a blanket, those kinds of things.”

  It was incredible that this was allowed to go on as a regular part of their lives. “Is there really nothing you can do to stop him?”

  “No. This is who he is, and right now we’re in his bad season.”

  “But . . . don’t you worry that he’s going to start a forest fire or something?”

  “He would never do that.” Adriel spoke with total certainty, leaving me no choice but to believe him. Mr. Rogers walked in with a stack of short stories and class began. The stories were handed out for us to read and answer the questions at the end, which took up the whole period. When class ended, Adriel said goodbye in a friendly tone and stayed after to give the teacher some of his missing work from last week’s absences.

  I passed Zakia on the way out of school, with the words people aren’t always what they seem ringing in my ears. No one else disliked him. In fact, he wasn’t even a student at this school and still managed to be pretty popular. Guys were hanging out to chat while he worked outside the office, filling a planter with the trenching shovel while the janitor hogged the good one to do the same across the concrete.

  In my bedroom, the points of gold on the feather no longer glinted. I turned it over in bewilderment and showed it to Grandpa Jack at dinner once the television was muted on commercial. “Do you have ostriches in Spooner or something?”

  He examined the feather. “Be news to me. You found this in the tree?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Must have blown in on the wind from somewhere. Never seen one like it.” He passed back the feather and ate everything on his plate except the vegetables.

  I felt like I was the adult and he was the child. “Grandpa Jack, eat your vegetables. They’re good for you.”

  “Gotten to be this old without eating them,” Grandpa Jack said stubbornly. “The other day at work, I was reading about these fellows who eat nothing but meat. That’s it. An all-meat diet. I might think about that.”

  “That’s insane!” I said. “Their hearts will explode.”

  “Is that a fact?” He took the television off mute since the commercials were over. “Well, least it’d be a fast way to go.”

  On Tuesday, Adriel was absent, so I figured he was either ill or his brother had gone off. It could have been both. It disappointed me to see that empty seat at lunch and in creative writing. I didn’t even have his phone number, and how ridiculous that he missed this much school! Mr. Rogers passed back copies of a play and packets of work to accompany it, and then gave out a sheet of instructions on a longer-term assignment of a story that was due at the end of the semester. The pile of papers grew higher at the chair beside me. When the bell rang, I scooped it up and loaded it into my own binder. Spooner wasn’t that big a place, so I could just drop it off in his mailbox once I knew where he lived.

  I got the address and thorough directions from London rather than Savannah, who would have teased. Spotting Nash and Diego hanging about my locker, I evaded them by going straight to the parking lot. The mail truck looked so silly out there, even in a sea of old cars. Hearing my name called as I got inside, I pretended that I hadn’t and drove away.

  The farther northeast one went in Spooner, the more dignified the city became. I wish I’d driven this way the first time, and then this place wouldn’t have seemed so ramshackle. One attractive house after another fell away in my rearview mirror as I tootled along, clutching the scrap full of directions in my hand. At Valley Oak Lane I turned left. The lots grew greater and greater in size, with fancy gardens on display before stately homes. No junked cars or molding sheds rested within untamed yards here. The very last turn-off on Valley Oak was Beacon, and there I turned right since it was the only option.

  There were two driveways on Beacon, both of which were labeled private and wended away into the trees. I bypassed the mailbox and turned into the second driveway. It was unfriendly to stuff everything in the box without even seeing if I could hand it to him personally.

  The driveway opened to an arched gate between stone pillars. The bars were pointed at the top like arrowheads. On one pillar was a call box. There weren’t any instructions on how to use it, so I depressed the button and hoped for the best. Through the gate was a manicured lawn embracing a swept walkway, and tall gnarled valley oaks curled their branches into the sky.

  I gawked unabashedly at the house beyond, which was far nicer than Downy’s incredible home in Bellangame. The Graystones’ very large home looked like an estate in Tuscany, with walls of warm-colored cut stone. A fountain splashed in front of huge windows to what I presumed was a living room. I was too far away to see inside. The rooms on the second floor had balconies, and one also had a staircase that looped around the side of the house to the ground.

  A woman’s voice came through the call box. “May I help you?”

  “Hi,” I said nervously. “I’m Jessa Bright, and I was just wanting to give Adriel his homework. We share a class.” That was dumb to say. If we didn’t have a class together, why would I be there with his homework?

  “Jessa!” the woman said in recognition. The gates suddenly parted and swung open. “I’ll send him down to greet you, if he’s still here.”

  Getting back in the mail truck, I drove it inside and followed the driveway around the lawn to a garage. This place was so grand that I felt like I should have dressed up to come over. I parked the truck, hoping it wasn’t going to block anyone in, and stepped down to the pavement. A door on the second story opened and a very pretty woman came to the railing. This must be his older cousin Drina, although they looked nothing alike. Where he was fair, she was dark, and her long hair rippled over her arms in the breeze. “He should be right out.”

  A door on the first story opened. Adriel came out with a red backpack over his shoulders and another hanging from one hand. It was clear I had surprised him, and I couldn’t tell if it was a welcome surprise or not. Drina went back inside at the ring of a phone, leaving us to stare at one another. He looked healthier than the day before, though there were still vague gray smudges under his eyes.

  I unzipped my backpack and said, “I just wanted to drop off your homework for creative writing, so you wouldn’t get so far behind.”

  “Thank you. That was kind,” Adriel said, taking it from me and leaning into the house to place it on a counter. The backpacks looked heavy and laden with goods.

  “Would you like help?” I asked. He looked at me quizzically. “With the drop points. Or company at least?”

  “You don’t have to do that.” Closing the door, he set the backpack on the ground and tightened the straps of the one he was wearing. “Really, it’s just a bit of a hike.”

  “I don’t mind.” I picked up the backpack to show him my offer was sincere. Swinging it over my shoulders, I said, “Which way?”

  “Will your leg hold?”

  “Yes.” He was reluctant to have me come along. I could feel it, and thought he might be embarrassed to have a brother so out of control. It would have embarrassed me, even if it wasn’t my fault, or really my brother’s either.

  Motioning slightly around the garage, Adriel said, “This way then. Just leave your own backpack there, no need to carry it along, too.”

  Behind the house was a patio with terracotta urns and a lovely table set for outside dining. It overlooked a darling garden with white benches among olive trees. The herb and vegetable beds were extensive. We followed a path through it to a flight of steps down to a sunny spot with deck chairs arranged about a fire pit.

  “You have a beautiful place,” I said as we circled it. “What do your cousin and her husband do for a living?”

  “Taurin and Drina invest well.”

  Very well, from the looks of it. Down another flight of stairs from the fire pit was
a lawn, and beyond that a gate in the ten-foot wall that lined the edge of the property. The gate was made of wood and rose as high as the wall, offering complete privacy to anyone in the backyard. He opened the latch and we passed through to a sunny stretch of land spotted with oaks. Sticking my thumbs through the straps of the backpack, I said, “When did he run?”

  “His bed was empty this morning,” Adriel said. “We’ll put one of these at the grove and the other at the waterfall. He turns up in those places a lot, especially the grove.”

  “Why there?”

  “It’s the way the wind sings through the trees. He loves to listen to it.”

  Desperate to know more about the girl he had lost, I asked about his other sibling instead. “Is your sister liking college?”

  “Kishi? She loves it. But she hasn’t been on time for a single class. She was famous for it at Spooner High, always coming in behind the bell. Most of the teachers just gave up on marking her tardy. I don’t think she’ll ever be on time for anything in her life.”

  “ADHD?”

  The ground sloped down from the bright spot of oaks, headed to a darker area of redwoods. “It’s not quite ADHD. Her brain just doesn’t prioritize.”

  “How does it not do that?” I asked in amusement.

  “She’ll walk to a class and see a pretty flower that Drina might like to plant in the garden, and she’ll want to know what it is. So she’ll rush to the library to look it up fast, and while she’s walking in, she might run into a friend and catch up for a bit, and then her friend might need help finding something so Kishi will volunteer herself. Meanwhile class is going on without her. Once the friend is squared away, Kishi remembers the flower, so she’ll grab up six books on botany and rush to the check-out line, sure that only two minutes have gone by when it’s actually ten. And she runs to class wondering why the hallways are empty and bursts into the room all sweaty with an armload of books that have nothing to do with the subject. That’s my sister. She’s great fun, but someone has to keep time for her.” Adriel laughed. “Something about you gets me talking. Enough, I’m not that interesting. Are you applying for college anywhere?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, finding him more than interesting. Even though I was a senior, college was still so abstract in my mind. I’d taken my SATs and gotten good scores, but that was all the energy I had put to it.

  “What do you love to do?” Adriel asked.

  “I have a lot of likes, but I’m still waiting on something to be more than that,” I said. “Are you applying anywhere?”

  “No, I’ll just take a few classes at the junior college like Kishi.”

  Appalled, I said, “But you’re so smart! You should be applying to Ivy League and places like that. What do Taurin and Drina think about your plans?”

  “They’re fine with them. Neither went to college, not any more than junior college classes that looked interesting.”

  It had been beaten into my brain that one had to go to college to be successful, but the house behind me was testimony to a different reality. Adriel extended a hand as we walked sideways down a slippery cut in the slope. His fingers were warm, and tight around my arm to steady me. Once on level ground, he let go and searched the earth. A child’s footprint was impressed in the mud around a puddle and I said, “Is that his?”

  “Yes,” Adriel said. “This way. Any siblings?”

  “No. I used to want a sister, but then I realized I’d have to share my room.” I laughed, hoping it concealed the twinge of pain from my left leg at this exertion. “You must think I’m horribly selfish.”

  “It’s understandable to want your own space.” We passed between two trees and jumped down into a groove. He nodded to it and said, “This is an old logging road. It’s a little easier to walk here.”

  The canopy was thick and green overhead. There was no hum of traffic, or any sign that civilization existed beside this slim road heaped with dirt. Ants crawled up the trees, the only wildlife in sight. It was strange to be in such a still world, and know how active it must be this very second over on Jacobo with cars in the streets, doors swinging open and shut in the stores, people in the crosswalks. The wind was blowing, but little of it ran over us in the groove.

  “How long have you lived in Spooner?” I asked.

  “We moved here about two and a half years ago from Thayler. That’s a tiny place almost at the border to Oregon, and has even more trees.”

  “That’s hard to believe. Sometimes I forget there’s even a sun in this place, since the canopy blocks it out.” An odd whistle came through the trees. “What is that?”

  Climbing out of the logging road, Adriel said, “The grove. I’m going to leave you there to do the waterfall on my own. Your leg is bugging you.”

  I accepted that he knew this without me having said it. “Will you be long?”

  “No. It’s less than a half-mile beyond, and it’s easier terrain once I climb out of here. Now these are the fairy rings.”

  The whistling had grown louder as we pushed past some tall bushes. I stopped walking in astonishment to take in the beautiful place on the other side, where the light came down blue-green. I could not have imagined a more stunning sight. Many circles of giant redwoods were streaming up into the sky along a rocky slope of gray and green. Some of the trees had dark hollows in their trunks. Adriel ran his hand along a burl and said, “Will you be okay here until I return?”

  “Yes,” I said, loving this place. “Where should I set this for him?”

  “Take it to the highest fairy ring there and tuck it inside the hollow. You’ll know which tree I mean. Rest your leg on the boulder in the middle and I’ll be back in no time.”

  I didn’t know what it was about this place that transformed the wind almost to a lullaby, some happy coincidence of twists and turns, dips and risings in the uneven landscape, the hollows in the monolithic trees. It was amazing how these trees lived on and on even with their trunks gutted by fire or fungi. I hiked up the slope to the ring in the distance while Adriel went east at a rapid pace.

  It was the first moment I had not regretted coming to Spooner. I wanted to stay in these magic surroundings forever, sitting in the blue-green of it and listening to the sweet hum of the breeze. Taking a picture only would have cheapened it. This place had to be seen and felt, heard and experienced. Or else no one would have believed.

  My leg whined about the activity and I ignored it to stand within that last ring and gaze down at the majesty of this world. It had stood here for how many thousands of years before I was born, it would stand all my life and go on standing long after I was gone. And most people had lived and would live all their lives without seeing it, or even knowing it existed. For Adriel to have brought me here was an honor, and showed him to be a better person than I. I didn’t want to share this place with anyone, not ever. This was a sanctuary.

  One of the trees in this ring had a great hollow within it. I went inside and looked around in the dimness. There was a protuberance just above my head that was the perfect size to seat a backpack upon, so I slung it off and heaved it up there. The red fabric could be seen by anyone coming into this ring.

  When I stepped back outside, I saw a boy standing below in a shaft of sunlight within another ring. He was looking away from me, his head of dark curls cocked to the side, and his olive arms were spread like he was embracing the wind rushing past us. I held my breath, knowing this could only be Cadmon. All he wore were dark blue sweatpants, not even shoes.

  I said nothing, but somehow he heard me. Turning around and bringing his arms close to his sides, he looked up to me through worried eyes and crouched a little like he was getting ready to run. I stayed still to keep from spooking him, not even putting out a hand to show I meant no harm. Adolescence had yet to make him gawky and pimply; he was an extremely beautiful preteen boy with arched eyebrows over light brown eyes and even features.

  The wind gushed around us and I closed my eyes to let the lullaby pull me
along. It was almost like the music from after the fall . . . the memory had barely stirred before it faded from my mind. I stilled even more to hear the last of the chords. I had tumbled from the cliffs and heard this unearthly music . . .

  When I opened my eyes, Cadmon’s face had changed to joyous upon me like we shared this secret. He spread his arms once more, the wind tousling his curls, and he laughed like the chimes of a bell. It was a sound of unequaled elation. Whatever was wrong in his mind, it did not prevent him from experiencing the enchantment of this grove. I spread my arms to show him that I understood. I had wanted to hoard this place, to keep it all to myself forever, and now I couldn’t imagine it without this wild little boy there. It was all right to share it with someone like him.

  The wind changed course and threw my long hair back over my shoulders. Light warmed my skin, the canopy shifting above to let down the sun. The song riding by us changed in its dance between crook and mound and branch, taking us along for the ride as the rapid exchange of light and shadow blocked my vision for the length of a measure. Then the wind died and the canopy fell back, the music releasing me from its hold. I looked down to the boy, wondering if I should say something now, and he had wings.

  Chapter Five: The Angel

  In this place, it did not seem so strange. It did not even seem real. They arched over his narrow back, the tips of each dark gray feather shining with silver points of light. The wings began to beat, stirring new music from the shivering grass and foliage around the boy’s feet. He lifted into the air and drifted up the slope to me.

  My thought was to back up, but my feet were rooted to the ground. He passed through a shaft of light, which set his wings ablaze with silver. Coming into the ring, he touched one olive foot to the ground as his wings beat more slowly, and then the second foot.

  A stronger wind wended through the fairy rings, carrying music with it. I extended a hand hesitantly to his wing and waited for permission to touch it once inches away. He flicked it forward into my fingers. The softness was indescribable: softer than that feather in my room, the softest touch I had ever known upon my skin, or in my heart.