Surprisingly, even Rutger—who was propped up on at least three pillows and a very large book—was finished, wiping his mouth and laying the napkin on his bowl. “Sato, I had no idea you could stuff your face like that. You’d make my mama proud.”
Windasill grinned as she leaned forward and reached for the ladle in the big pot of stew. “Care for another helping, Master Sato?”
Suddenly, as if a switch had been flicked inside of him, Sato realized he was terribly, horribly, awfully full. He dropped his spoon and looked up, hoping the feeling that he might explode at any second didn’t show on his face. “No, thanks. I think I might’ve taken one bite too many.”
“Oh, rubbish,” she said through an exaggerated frown. “There’s always room for more duck dumpling stew. Isn’t there, my sweet?” She glanced over at Tollaseat.
Mothball’s dad puffed out a big cloud of wispy smoke. “Methinks the lad’s proven himself quite nicely, me love. Let him rest up an hour or two. Then we’ll bring out the desserts.” He emphasized the last word in a roar with his wide eyes twinkling. He put the pipe back into his mouth and chuckled lightly.
The thought of dessert almost put Sato over the edge. “Sounds great,” he managed to get out.
“Tell us a story,” Mothball said, looking at her dad. “Been quite some time since we’ve ’eard you make somethin’ up ’bout the war years, it ’as. Sato ’ere might enjoy your boastin’ for awhile.” She looked over at Sato and winked. “Won’t quite know what’s true and what’s not, but it’s fun to listen to, ya can trust me on that one.”
Rutger pounded the table. “I second the motion. After a meal like that, a body needs to hear a good tale or two.”
Tollaseat scrunched up his face into something very serious, looking around the room at each person in turn. “Wanna hear a story, do ya?”
“Yeah,” Sato said at the same time as everyone else. He was surprised at himself, but he suddenly wanted nothing more than to hear this tall, kind man tell stories about the old days, even though those old days would be very different from days in Reality Prime.
Tollaseat leaned back, his chair creaking, and shifted so that the elbow supporting his pipe-holding hand rested on the other arm. He took a puff or two then started talking, swirls of wispy smoke slowly drifting toward the ceiling.
“Back when I was a wee lad, barely ten and six—that’s sixteen to you, Master Sato—just when the growin’ pains started stretching me arms and legs, life was sweet and terrible. Sweet in that me mum and dad were alive and well, the crops were growin’ right sprightly, and I’d just met me future love”—he nodded toward Windasill—“at the August Festie. But it was terrible, too, yes indeed. That ruddy summer marked the worst we’d had yet with the Bugs, it did.”
He coughed and reached out for a sip of water before taking another puff from his pipe. “Late one night, I was sleepin’ nice and cozy in me bed, dreamin’ of good days to come. Mayhaps dreamin’ about Windasill, even. Most of the fightin’ with them nasty Bugs was off in the far country, ya see—just frightenin’ tales and rumors to the likes of us, it was. But we knew things were quite bad, and that blokes like myself might have to run off and get to soldierin’ and whatnot. But that night, all was well when I put on me long johns and dozed to the soft sounds of the breeze and the stream out back.
“But then came the knock on the door.” He leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. “Woke me right up, it did. I remember sittin’ up, perkin’ me ears. Heard the footsteps of me dad, heard the door creak as it swung open, heard the murmurs of conversation, though I couldn’t make out any words. Then . . .”
He trailed off, a glazed look coming over his face. Sato felt his own face redden in embarrassment. Maybe the old man—
Tollaseat slammed his hand against the table. Dishes rattled and his pipe went skittering across the floor. Windasill quickly jumped up to retrieve it and returned it to her husband. As she sat down again, Sato waited breathlessly for what Tollaseat might say next.
“Can’t quite say what sound it was I ’eard next,” Mothball’s dad continued. “A groan. A sigh. Maybe a bit of a whimper. But for some reason, it sent me brain spinnin’ with alarm. I jumped from me bed and scrambled out to the main room. Right there in front of me, a ruddy Bugaboo was on top of me dad, his hands raised, claspin’ the biggest sword you ever did see. Mum came in right then and screamed a sound you’d never believe ’less your own ears were there to ’ear it. If I’m honest with ya, which I am, ’twas that sound—me mum splinterin’ the air with all the anguish in the world—that made me move. Even more than seein’ me dad ’bout to meet the pointy end of a sword.”
Sato leaned forward, sure he’d never been so captivated in his life.
Tollaseat barely paused between sentences now. “Acted, I did. Ran straight for the hearth—the ashes still glowin’ hot—grabbed the iron poker me own Uncle Kent forged, gripped it with both of me ruddy hands, swung it up, and charged that Bug. Saw the fear in that loonie’s eyes. Saw them widen and turn into pools of pure white. He started to say somethin’, started to move, started to swing down with his arms and his sword. I screamed and swung that blessed iron poker. I swung it with every bit of strength cloggin’ me pores and joints. I swung it straight for the Bug’s face.”
He paused then and took a long pull on his pipe. Scanning Sato and the others at the table, he finally blew out a stream of smoke. He looked down at the table, his eyes full of shadowy memories.
“What happened?” Sato whispered, unable to help himself.
Tollaseat, still staring at the empty plate in front of him, answered in a haunted voice. “I missed him. Completely missed the ruddy buzzard.”
Sato swallowed heavily, slumping in his chair.
“Killed me dad, the Bug did.” Tollaseat finally glanced up, his gaze resting on Sato. “But I saved me mum. I was able to run off the Bug. Swore the rest of me life to hunt them down, one by one, ’til every last one of them buggers was dead and rottin’.”
The pipe went back into his mouth, and complete silence settled on the room. After a long minute, Sato looked at Mothball, her eyes moistened with tears, and then at Rutger, who was probably unaware he was still nibbling a biscuit. Both of them were staring at Tollaseat. After a moment, it became evident the story was over.
“Thank you for sharing, dear,” Windasill said, patting her husband on the arm. “’Eard it a thousand times, I ’ave, but I marvel at your courage every time. Never forget you saved your mum that day, dear. Never forget.”
“Wish I could’ve met Grandpa,” Mothball said, a choking clog in her voice. “But ’tweren’t for you, Daddy, I wouldn’t’ve spent me whole childhood with Grandma. Thanks be to ya, Daddy. Thanks be to ya very much.”
Sato was stunned. He’d expected a story more along the lines of a fairy tale, maybe a funny or an embarrassing moment. But Tollaseat had just shared probably the most terrifying, pivotal moment of his life. And Sato had absolutely no idea what to say. He stared at his plate, feeling the heavy weight of all the food he’d eaten.
“Right cheerful, don’t ya think?” Tollaseat said, a smile breaking through the gloom on his face. “Not quite sure why I told that story. Meant to tell somethin’ else, I did. But it just popped out of me mouth.”
“Important we remember,” Mothball offered, giving her mom an uncomfortable look.
“Yes, me sweet,” Tollaseat replied. “Reckon I wanted Master Sato ’ere to understand why them Bugs aren’t just a joke, even though they look it. Crazy, they are. Vicious little rats. But underestimate ’em, and you’ll be lookin’ up at ten feet of dirt soon, you will. Be wary while you’re about these parts, is all I’m sayin’.”
Sato merely nodded, still unable to speak. He didn’t know why, exactly, but that story had touched him, made his heart ache with sorrow. And then it hit him why.
Sato, too, had seen his father killed right in front of him. Burned to death by Mistress Jane’s flying flames. Maybe that
was worse than seeing your dad stabbed by a sword. Maybe not. It didn’t matter. Something came over him in that moment.
He stood up. “Mister, um, Master . . . Tollaseat?”
Mothball’s dad lowered his pipe, looked at Sato with dark eyes, and Sato somehow knew the old man had already figured out what he was about to say.
“I want to help,” Sato said, trying to sound like an adult and hoping no one laughed. “I want to help your people fight the Bugs.”
Chapter
18
~
Towers of Red
Tick,” Master George whispered. “I need you to listen to me very carefully. And do me a favor.”
Jane had brought them to a room several levels above the prison cell in which they’d been held captive. She’d left a couple of guards at the door. The creatures in full armor were human in shape but all comparisons ended there. Tick hadn’t gotten a good look, but he swore he saw horns or tusks coming out of their shadow-hidden faces and large bulges on their backs.
“What?” Tick asked.
In response, Master George handed him a small, metal tube.
“What’s this?”
“What do you think?”
Tick looked over at Paul and Sofia, hoping they were listening. But both of them were trying to look through a grime-covered window. “Is it a message for somebody?”
“Precisely,” George whispered.
“For who?” Tick asked. “And what do you want me to do?”
“It’s a message for Sally. It’s short, but he should get the point. I want him to gather the Realitants so they’ll be ready on a moment’s notice. For what, I have no idea—but he needs to get them to headquarters straightaway.”
That made perfect sense to Tick, but he had a bad feeling about this all the same. “And . . . what does that have to do with me?”
Master George looked at him, his eyes shifting slightly back and forth. “Well, er, well, I need you to . . . wink it to Sally.”
“What?” Tick rasped, way too loudly.
Sofia noticed. “What are you guys talking about over there?”
“Never you mind,” Master George answered, surprisingly harsh.
Sofia, of course, completely ignored him and walked over, dragging Paul with her. “No secrets, boss. What’s going on?”
Tick couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Master George look so perplexed. His face was red, eyes darting around the room, sweat trickling down his temples. “Someone’s going to hear us!” he exclaimed in a half-shout, half-whisper.
Tick didn’t like it that Master George had asked him to use his power in the first place. Only a half an hour ago, Jane had threatened to kill his family one by one if she sensed him using Chi’karda. “How am I supposed to wink the message? Even if I could, even if I had a clue how to do it, I can’t risk Jane finding out.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Master George said, throwing all the frustration he could into the last word. “But perhaps you can risk it when she’s . . . occupied with whatever she has planned. If we don’t gather the other Realitants to help us, it may all be quite moot anyway.”
Tick slid the message tube into his pocket. The old Brit was being coy, but Tick knew exactly what he was really trying to say. “So you think it’s okay to sacrifice my family for the greater good. Let them die if it’ll save the world. Worlds. Whatever.” Tick couldn’t believe how bitter he sounded. To make it worse, Master George had a point. But not one Tick could accept.
For the hundredth time, he felt an overwhelming, gloomy sorrow squeeze his chest and lungs. His sisters. His mom and dad. Jane had them. No matter what, he had to save them. No matter what.
But how?
“Tick?” Sofia asked, jolting him back to reality. “You okay? What does he want you to do?”
“We need to stop talking about this,” Master George said. “Right now!”
“Dude,” Paul said, “what are you two freaks talking about?”
Tick looked at him and shook his head. “It’s nothing—George just wants to get a message to Sally.” He turned his attention back to Master George. “Don’t you have a way of talking to him? Through your nanolocator or something?”
Master George shook his head. “I think she’s done something to us. Shielded us somehow. I’ve tried making contact several times. Nothing.”
“Since when is Sally in charge?” Paul asked. “Rutger finally explode or something?”
“Maybe he ate one of his own Ragers,” Sofia added.
By the looks of it, Master George was not amused. He turned his back to the three of them and walked over to a corner.
Sofia elbowed Paul in the arm. “Way to go, smarty.”
“You, too, Godzilla,” he replied. “Your comment was worse than mine.”
Tick couldn’t remember a time when he’d been less in the mood to listen to his friends fight. “Guys! You think this is all some kind of stupid joke?” As soon as the words were out, he regretted them. Especially when he saw the look on their faces—shock, mixed with a little hurt.
“What crawled up your pants and started biting?” Paul asked.
“Tick’s right,” Sofia said, her eyes never leaving Tick’s. “His family’s been taken. I can’t imagine . . . what that must be like. We need to take things more seriously.”
She looked away, and Tick saw an expression he couldn’t quite identify come over her face. Regret? Longing? Whatever it was, it was something to do with her, not him. He thought about all her comments in the past, the subtle remarks here and there about her family—none of them very nice. Maybe she was wishing she had parents and siblings whom, if taken, she’d worry about as much as he was worried about his. The twisted thought added to his sadness.
“Well, we still have to be ourselves,” Paul said. “Tick, dude, sorry, but if we get all mopey, then we might as well just give up and die. You know I don’t think this is all a joke, man. Give me a break.”
Tick looked at him, surprised at the angry tone of his voice. Paul was always laid back, taking what came at him. Even his sparring words with Sofia were always filled with obvious jest.
Tick shook his head. “Okay, whatever. This is all stupid anyway. We’re sitting here in a soap opera while Jane’s planning something diabolical. What are we gonna do?”
Master George was still in the corner, but he turned around to face them. “We need to stay on our guard and look for the first opportunity that comes along. I’ve no idea what that may be, and I’ve no idea what we’ll do. But something will come along, and we must be ready.”
“What about Tick’s family?” Sofia asked.
Tick had been wondering the same thing, but reality hit him then. He didn’t know what it was—maybe it was the distressed look on Master George’s face, maybe it was something in what he’d said. Either way, Tick realized a heavy truth. This wasn’t just about him and his parents and his sisters. Jane was planning the single worst thing to ever happen to humans in the history of the universe. At least, that’s what it sounded like. Her plan involved destroying an entire world full of people.
Could he really put his family above that? If it really came down to choosing between them and dozens, hundreds, thousands, even millions of lives, what would he do? What should he do?
He wanted to scream. No one should have to make decisions like this, especially not a fourteen-year-old kid. In that instant, his hatred for Jane changed into something more powerful, more acute. Every single molecule in his body wanted her dead.
“Tick?” Paul asked. “What are you staring at?”
Tick realized his eyes were focused on a greasy, dark smear on the stone on the opposite wall. He shook his head, scrambling the thoughts in his mind. “Sorry. Just thinking.”
Master George walked back to him and the others. He held a hand out and squeezed Tick’s shoulder. “Master Atticus. I give you my word that I will do everything in my power to help save your family. I will give my life, if necessary. But in r
eturn, you must promise me that you’ll look at the bigger picture and do whatever it takes to stop Jane before she does something apocalyptic. I know her, my good man, and when she says she’ll destroy the Fifth Reality, she means it. She has no reason to boast with lies. We’re talking about billions of lives, Atticus. Billions.”
Tick couldn’t meet his gaze. He couldn’t promise himself or anyone else that he’d be able to make the right choice if it came down to that. All he could see in his mind were his parents, Lisa, and . . .
Kayla. Thinking of little Kayla just about shattered his heart.
Unable to do anything else, he nodded.
“Very well,” Master George said. “We can only take things step by—”
tingle
“—step.”
In the small blip of time between his last two words, everything changed. As Tick was looking at their leader and listening to him speak, he felt the familiar tingle shoot down the back of his neck. The room around them disappeared, replaced by red rock.
He noticed the others spin around, just as he did, to see where Jane had brought them with her strange winking powers. They were in the middle of a desert, towering spires of stone standing all around them, jutting up from a natural rock wall that more or less encircled them. Tick couldn’t see one plant, not one weed, or anything close to the color green or even brown. Everything was reddish-orange, jagged and rough, all sharp corners and cracks and crevices. Desolation.
The sun was behind a massive tower of stone, but the heat was suffocating. Tick already felt himself sweating.
“I don’t see any tombstones,” Paul muttered, and Tick couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or making a very good point.
“Realities help us,” Master George said. “If she can wink people to anywhere she wants so easily . . . Let’s hope a lot of poor saps were killed here at some point in history.”
“That’s a cheerful thought,” Sofia said.
Just then, Mistress Jane appeared in front of them. As always with winking, there was no puff of smoke, no flash of light or sound. One second she wasn’t there, and the next second she was, dressed in her usual yellow garb and her shiny red mask. Her face was pulled into a genuine smile. It gave Tick the creeps.
The Blade of Shattered Hope Page 10
