Once again, the Chosen Ones were dumbfounded. “But the tunnel to the Outsider world is on the other side of the valley, and it is forbidden to leave Mother Mountain,” Crona said.
“We’re going to be breaking some rules today,” Conrad pointed out. “You’ll have to get used to that.”
While the Chosen Ones reluctantly decided on the best route to take, AnnA returned and jumped Jasper out, and Hanley brought Smitty to the ground.
Conrad pulled at his collar, his face red with frustration. “I’m useless with this collar on.”
“You’ll hurt yourself if you keep doing that,” Piper said. “And someone really smart once told me that you don’t have to have a superpower to be super powerful. Just do your best—that’s what I’m doing.”
No sooner were the words out of Piper’s mouth than she was suddenly struck by a cramp in her stomach so strong she doubled over and wrapped her arms around her middle. “Ohhh.”
“What’s wrong?” Conrad reached down to keep her from falling over. The rest of the kids stopped what they were doing to see what was the matter.
“I have a pain in my stomach,” Piper moaned.
Conrad looked through the group. “Where’s Jasper?”
“AnnA just jumped him out,” Smitty reported. “Plus, he couldn’t have healed her while wearing that collar.”
Conrad shook his head, his frustration returning anew. He had to think!
Piper groaned again, louder this time, and looked down at her belly, where a bright red light was starting to throb. “Conrad, look! It’s happening again.”
Even with his limited intelligence, Conrad knew what this meant. “The bugs are preparing to blow. We don’t have much time.”
Kayla and Mayla stepped forward. “We know a path that will lead us out.”
Grabbing Piper’s arm to help her, Conrad urged them on. “Let’s go! Go!”
As the burning in her stomach grew and the red light throbbed dangerously, Piper’s breath came in pants. Without the support of Conrad on one side and Jimmy Joe on the other, she wouldn’t have been able to walk at all. She was unaware that she was groaning loudly until Conrad bent down and whispered in an urgent, hushed voice that she must try to be quiet or they would be caught. Before she knew it, she was being handed into a floating raft made more of energy than matter and they were launching out over the valley to the mountain where the mouth of the tunnel could be reached.
Piper could feel the pain inside her brewing and burning. She felt her insides squeezing together like they were trying to pull her into herself. She closed her eyes and, with gritted teeth, used all her energy to withstand it.
CHAPTER
35
As Elder Equilla stood on the balcony of the council chambers overlooking the festivities below, a breeze came off Mother Mountain, traveled across the stone floor, and rose to her, pulling at her robes.
Equilla breathed in the breeze, holding it in her lungs.
Elder HaSim approached from behind, halting a respectful distance away, his hands clasped in front of his chest, his head bowed.
“They’ve escaped,” Equilla said simply, sighing out the wind.
“Yes.” There was a pant to HaSim’s voice; he had run a great distance to deliver this news.
“But there is more.” Equilla turned, directing her full attention to HaSim. “What is it?”
“They have taken our own with them—young ones, our most powerful and promising.” Elder HaSim raised his arm and pointed across the valley. “They enter the caves as I speak.”
Equilla blinked twice. “Chosen Ones willingly joining with Outsiders? Leaving Mother Mountain?”
Another breeze approached and wrapped itself around Equilla, twirling about her robes this time, plucking them. Equilla flicked it away.
“I—I cannot account for it,” HaSim continued. “The Outsiders must have tricked them or forced them.”
“No, they leave willingly. There is more to it.” Equilla placed her hands together, creating a steeple with her two pointer fingers and then pressing them to her lips. “One of them has summoned the winds of change; I can feel them swirling at the top of Mother Mountain and gathering force. This is the doing of Piper McCloud. She has called the wind, and it has answered.”
“You mean the flier? I heard tell that she is no longer in the sky.”
“But the sky is still within her.”
Elder HaSim considered the implications. “She is inciting rebellion.”
“She talks of a new world order, of unity between the peoples. She thinks it is possible.”
Both of them shook their heads at the same time at the impossibility of such a thing. HaSim stated the obvious. “She must be stopped.”
“Piper McCloud will not stop, and they will follow her wherever she leads them.” Equilla probed the situation, considering all the different aspects. “No, we must pressure a weaker mind, someone who lacks courage and conviction. Why wrestle with the wind when the weakest link will snap under the slightest pressure? Leave it to me.”
Elder HaSim bowed to Equilla’s greater wisdom. “The races must be kept separate for all our sakes.”
“It will be so.” Equilla bowed. “Asanti.”
“Asanti,” HaSim replied.
CHAPTER
36
The children moved as a group, staying close together as they cut through the bowels of the mountain. The tunnels were endless, dark, twisty things that went up, up, up and then sharply down. There were sudden turns and unexpected cavernous chambers, and once, the tunnel became little more than a crawl space. Around every corner was a junction, and the right path had to be painstakingly chosen at the risk of being lost in the maze of darkness.
It was hard work for Jimmy Joe to hold Piper up. Unconscious, she let out sharp unexpected groans from time to time, and her midsection throbbed with the red light. Once or twice she woke, and then she would look up at Jimmy Joe and, despite being the one in the greatest danger, reached out to comfort him.
“Don’t worry, Jimmy Joe,” she said. “We’ll get out of there. We’ve been in worse scrapes!”
“Worse than this?” Jimmy Joe couldn’t believe that.
“I’m not saying that this isn’t a bad one,” Piper admitted. “But if I’ve learned anything, it’s that you just got to keep moving forward and do what needs getting done. There isn’t anyone who’s going to do it for you.”
“Piper, stop talking and save your strength.” Conrad was supporting the other side of her. Jimmy Joe had watched him regularly check her vital signs as they traveled. Each time he did so, his face grew paler and his lips more tightly drawn.
“I’m fine,” Piper insisted, only to have the red throbbing suddenly increase so that she bucked with the force of it and was pulled back into a fitful sleep.
Without the sun in the sky or anything else to mark the passing time, there was no way to know how long it was taking them. It felt like an eternity. Rory Ray had taken it upon himself to assume the lead position, and, marching in front of the group, he set the pace, reveling in the danger and dirt of it all.
“Halt!” he called, raising his arm in an L shape, his hand clenched into a fist.
“What’s the problem?” Conrad called up.
“Come and see.”
Conrad directed Jimmy Joe to a flat spot where Piper could safely rest. “You watch over her until I get back.” Next, he trotted up to the front of the group, where Rory Ray showed him how the cave had dead-ended.
“We’ve gone the wrong way. We’ve got to go back.”
Conrad pulled at the collar around his neck. “No, no,” he insisted. “This is the way out. I’m sure of it.”
“You ain’t thinking straight,” Rory Ray said. “This can’t be the way, because we can’t walk through the mountain.”
Conrad approached the cave and put his hands on it, allowing his fingers to feel the rocks. “This is the way. It has to be!” Conrad’s brow twisted and furled in on
itself. He angrily tugged at his thoughts. “I need a light!”
Rory Ray quickly pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket and flicked it on. Despite its small size, it was shockingly powerful. He directed the beam onto the cave wall in front, and instantly they could see the problem; they weren’t being stopped by the side of the mountain—the wall in front of them had been built.
“Equilla finished her wall!” Conrad shook his head. “I should have known.”
“You mean we’re trapped in here?”
“Of course Equilla would seal us in,” Kimber said angrily. “Like this is any surprise!”
Daisy lumbered up to the wall and, even though she still wore her collar, thrust several sturdy kicks at it that, under normal circumstances, would have easily sent the whole thing crashing down. But without her super strength, the stone didn’t show a dent or mark.
“Stop, Daisy! You’ll only hurt yourself.” Conrad looked for other ways to take it down.
“Do we return to Mother Mountain?” Hanley asked with not a small amount of wishful hope in his voice.
“No, we find a way to break it down.” Normally, Conrad would already have had a plan, but as he stood looking at the sheer rock in front of him, he didn’t have a single thought.
“How?”
Uncomfortable silence followed. Looks were exchanged, shoulders shrugged, and foreheads furled up in contemplation.
“You know,” Rory Ray said gruffly, “this one isn’t that hard. Even I know what to do.” He pulled a stick of dynamite out of the side pocket of his combat attire. “I’ll take this baby down. There ain’t a wall that dynamite can’t take a bite out of.”
Conrad reacted. “You were carrying dynamite? All this time?”
“Marines have to be prepared for anything.” Rory Ray ran his hand over the wall, looking for the best place to lodge his arsenal, and pulled another stick out of his other shirt pocket.
Conrad held his hands in front of his chest like someone had a gun on him. “Well, I can’t think of a better idea.”
Rory Ray worked quickly to pick the best places to stage the explosives while the Chosen Ones watched in confusion.
“What is dine-might?” Kayla wondered aloud.
“Something we should get away from,” Conrad said. “Everyone, move back!”
Conrad helped Jimmy Joe lift Piper. They carried her into the tunnels, moving past several turns and far away from the others. He wanted to take extra precautions with Piper because he couldn’t anticipate how the explosion would affect her already unstable condition.
“Stay put until I come back.” Conrad looked firmly into Jimmy Joe’s eyes. “It’s up to you to keep her safe.”
“O-kay.” There was a quaver in Jimmy Joe’s voice.
As Conrad’s footsteps receded, a quiet fell over Jimmy Joe, and he realized that his breath was coming out in frightened gasps.
“It’s gonna be alright,” Jimmy Joe said to himself. “It’ll be just like Piper said—we’ll find our way home.”
The red light burned dangerously inside of Piper. What would he do if it got worse or she exploded?
As he sat in the dark, Jimmy Joe realized that this was not at all what he thought it was going to be like when he imagined himself doing missions. More than that, he realized that he didn’t want to be here: he wanted to go home. He liked the steady rhythm of farming and knowing what to expect, each day much like the one before. He liked the animals and the routine of it all and, truth be told, the quiet of the fields. If he ever got out of here, he was never going to leave Lowland County again.
It wasn’t a sound that caught Jimmy Joe’s notice but a movement of the dark. The dark itself shifted somehow and morphed, and then, in one heart-stopping moment, Elder Equilla stepped out of it, like a swimmer out of a pool, and was standing in front of him less than five horrifying feet away.
Jimmy Joe’s throat closed tight, and his chest heaved.
Elder Equilla watched Jimmy Joe’s distress with no discernable emotion on her face. Her hands were folded in front of her, her facial features arranged by serenity and a touch of mild curiosity. Jimmy Joe hadn’t appreciated before how beautiful she was: her brow was regal; her eyes shone with wisdom and a hard elegance. Her body was sculpted in graceful lines and draped in the finest cloth.
“You are an Outsider,” Elder Equilla stated, and instantly her gaze slid over him and down to Piper. “I have come to take Piper McCloud back to Mother Mountain. She is in need of our help: she’s dying.”
Jimmy Joe was not expecting this, and he forgot about himself enough to say, “She’s dying?”
“It is certain. I can help her.” Equilla took a step forward, but Jimmy Joe scrambled to his feet and opened his arms wide, shielding Piper. It was a feeble move in the face of someone so powerful, but it was all he could do.
“P-Piper wants to go home,” he said, his voice faltering. “She wants to stop the bugs.”
Equilla shrugged this off. “She is one of us. She must stay with her own kind.”
“But … Piper was born and bred in Lowland County, so we’re her kind.”
Equilla dispatched Jimmy Joe’s argument with a delicate flick of her fingers. “And did you treat her as one of your own?”
“She was tr-treated just fine,” Jimmy Joe stammered, a guilty flush creeping up the side of his face. “Sure, some folks didn’t approve of all her flying.”
“Chosen Ones value what she is. You must understand that the wisdom of our people has shown that peace and happiness are only formed when like stays with like. It is the only way.” Equilla’s eyes softened suddenly. “I know what you want, Jimmy Joe.” Equilla said his name carefully, dwelling on each syllable.
“H-how did you know my name?”
“I know many things. I know that deep inside you is the seed of a special ability.” A shadow of a smile touched Equilla’s lips. “Perhaps you should stay here too. There are those who could help you make that seed blossom, and then you, too, could be one of us.”
“Me? I have a special ability?” A jolt burst across Jimmy Joe’s skin, making the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand up straight. “Really?”
“It would need the encouragement of our most talented specialists to see it blossom. Only on Mother Mountain could that happen. There is nothing to fear when you live with us.”
Jimmy Joe felt his chest rise as he breathed in Elder Equilla’s dream for him. “But what about Piper…”
“If Piper returns to the Outside, she will fail. And after she fails, she will die.” Equilla sighed sadly. “As her friend, you could be the one to save her. It is up to you, Jimmy Joe Miller. This is your moment to be a hero.”
As Equilla said the word “hero,” it traveled out of her lips and seemed to become a real, physical thing to Jimmy Joe. It sailed away from her like an arrow, and at the place it impacted his chest, it exploded into fiery energy that almost lifted him off his feet.
“Hero,” Jimmy Joe breathed. Yes, he was a hero. He felt his body lean toward Equilla like she was pulling him to her.
“You belong here, Jimmy Joe. This is your place. You are home.”
Equilla reached out her hand, an invitation for Jimmy Joe to take it. Jimmy Joe’s hand rose up. The way Equilla talked about Outsiders was so familiar. It reminded him of something …
Equilla’s fingers fluttered in irritation. “Take my hand!”
As though drawn by an unseen force Jimmy Joe started to walk toward Equilla when a ruckus could be heard in the cave behind them. “Get down!” Rory Ray screamed. “Get down!”
“Outsiders are wicked and violent, and no good will ever come of them for you or Piper.”
Jimmy Joe stopped dead. Equilla sounded just like his mother. He had heard his mother say just the same thing about Piper and her friends, and he had believed his mother, believed every word she had said.
“You need to listen to me, Jimmy Joe Miller. Come to me.” Elder Equilla’s voice was comma
nding. “Now!”
“No.” Jimmy Joe’s arms fell to his sides. “I think…” Jimmy Joe thought deeply and intently. “I think that if Piper wants to go home, then she should go home.”
Equilla’s eyes flashed; a red blush crept up into her stoic face. “You are thoughtless and cruel—like all Outsiders. You could never have been one of us.”
Suddenly, an explosion rocked the cave, dust billowing toward them like a wall of water. The rocks above Equilla tumbled and shattered. Rushing back to Piper, Jimmy Joe curled his body over her to protect her from the rocks. He covered his mouth to keep the dust out and waited like that until things got quiet again.
“Jimmy Joe!” Conrad, Rory Ray, and all the others came running to him.
“I blew that wall apart!” Rory Ray smirked. “You should see the hole I put in that sucker.”
Conrad was right behind him, and even he had a smirk on his face. “It was quite the explosion.”
Myrtle looked at the mounds of fallen rock that had miraculously not crushed the two of them, and she considered the boy in front of her with respect and appreciation. “You did good, Jimmy Joe Miller.”
Jimmy Joe smiled.
Piper moaned loudly, the red light inside her all at once flaring up, angrily causing her body to buck.
“Let’s get her home!” Jimmy Joe said, reaching to lift Piper. With Conrad’s help, they gathered her up and ran.
CHAPTER
37
It felt to Piper like the reverse of being born; instead of pushing her out into the world, the red light inside of her was sucking her into its core—an impossibly cramped space that was agonizingly tight. She fought and struggled against it, but it was relentless.
The sound was the first thing to change. The intense chirping that had been ringing in her ears started to morph, as though someone were carefully tuning a channel, dialing it to receive a station’s coordinates. With a pop, the chirping became voices, thousands of voices crying out for help in a chorus.
The Girl Who Fell Out of the Sky Page 18