Race to the Sun

by Rebecca Roanhorse

  But the monster doesn’t attack. Instead, it makes this horrible wail that forces me to cover my ears. It’s the same sound I heard earlier and mistook for ghosts. And then the monster shudders, and right before my eyes, it gets blurry and turns into Mr. Yazzie. Then it shudders and blurs again, and this time it becomes a cockroach. It scuttles off into the darkness before I can squish it with my shoe.

  “Nizhoni!”

  I whirl around, ready to fight again, but it’s just Davery, huffing as he finally catches up to me.

  “Why…did…you…stop…running?” he asks, between gasps for air.

  “Mac!” I cry. “They turned him into a monster!”

  Just then, the canyon rumbles, and tiny rocks slide down the walls as they start their trash-compacting routine again.

  Davery looks panicked, and I know we can’t stay in here any longer. There’s no sign of the real Mac anywhere anyway.

  Mr. Charles got him.

  At that thought, my knees buckle and I almost fall to the ground. But Davery, even though he’s barely caught his breath, grabs my arm and hauls me forward.

  By the time we stumble out of the corridor exit, the walls are so close together we have to squeeze out sideways. It’s a tight fit, but we do it, and just in time. Not two minutes after we’re clear, the canyon closes with a mighty bang. Behind us now is a solid wall, the path we followed less than a crack in the rocks.

  And stretching to the left, running parallel to the riverbed and extending all the way across the valley floor, is the Rainbow Road. It’s no longer a faraway glimmer, but an up-close ribbon of bright colors.

  It makes me want to cry. It’s like a taunt. Because I flunked the first test.

  “How could I lose Mac?” I wail. “I was supposed to protect him! Some hero I am.” I sink to the ground and put my head in my hands.

  Davery sits down next to me and puts an arm around my shoulders. “You were totally heroic back there. You ran faster than I thought was humanly possible, without stumbling in the dark, and you fought off the Mac monster.”

  I know he’s trying to make me feel better, but all I keep thinking is that I’m a complete failure. “I should never have let Mac out of my sight,” I say between sniffles. “I should have run after him right away, and—”

  “Mac acted impulsively, as usual,” Davery says. “He didn’t listen to Spider Woman, or to you. It sucks that he’s gone, but he did it to himself.”

  “He’s just a kid!” I protest, pushing Davery away in frustration.

  “A kid with ancestral powers, remember?” Davery says. “He’s related to Born for Water. Don’t underestimate what he can do against an enemy.”

  “But Mr. Charles—”

  “If it’s true that Mr. Charles got him,” Davery cuts in, “then he’s probably in the same place your dad is now. We’ve got to keep going. If we find one of them, we’ll find the other.”

  I nod and wipe away my tears, feeling a little better. “At least maybe he’s not alone, then.”

  “We’ll rescue them both. But first we have to get through these trials and get the weapons we need. Mac would understand. We need to stay focused.”

  “But how can we keep going if I failed the first trial? Aren’t I disqualified?”

  “Doesn’t look like it to me,” Davery says, pointing at the ground. “The Rainbow Road is your proof.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I say, standing up and trying to pull myself together. My legs feel shaky, and I feel a tension headache coming on. What’s worse, I’m going to have to do like a month’s worth of Mac’s chores for this. “We thought the talking rocks weren’t going to be so bad. What’s our next trial?”

  “Knives,” Davery says. “A field of knives.”

  “Great,” I say, sighing heavily. “Something else trying to kill us.”

  “Knives shouldn’t be too hard,” Davery says optimistically. “We just need to avoid the pointy end.”

  That sounds like it’s going to be easier said than done, but we don’t have much choice but to move forward, since the rock wall has cut off our access to anything behind us. We walk on the rainbow. Slowly the landscape changes, the desert cliffs and sandy dunes giving way to a scrubbier green with low mountains squatting on the horizon. The sun keeps rising in the sky, and in the distance, light glints off a small lake. It’s pretty here—different from Canyon de Chelly, but pretty all the same. The rainbow at our feet stays steady, but soon the solid ground turns into swampy marshland, and before we know it, we’re wading through ankle-deep water. The lake extends farther than I expected. All around us are tall thin reeds, and eventually they become so thick it’s hard to push our way through.

  “Wish we had a knife of our own about now to cut through these reeds,” Davery says. He swats at the gnats that have started to swarm around our heads in annoying clouds.

  “Ouch!” I say as something pokes me in the calf. I look down, figuring there’ll be a bug bite, but all I see are more knee-high stalks of brown reeds.

  “Hey,” Davery says, reaching for his own calf. “These reeds are sharp.”

  “And getting sharper,” I exclaim as one cuts me on the back of the hand.

  “Uh-oh,” Davery says. “I think we found our field of knives.”

  “What do we do?” I say as another reed slices my leg.

  “Maybe we should turn back.”

  We stop in the middle of the swamp. Davery and I stand back-to-back and survey our little patch of land. We’re surrounded on all sides by reeds tipped with razor-sharp cattails. We’ve only made it about halfway across the valley, and the Rainbow Road behind us is already fading. Ahead of us, the colors are still strong.

  “I don’t think we can turn back.”

  Davery swallows nervously. “I’m fresh out of ideas.”

  I shift, the mud sucking at my sneakers. And suddenly I have an idea.

  “Grab some mud,” I tell Davery.

  “What now? I’m already dirty enough.”

  “No, you’re not! If we cover our skin and clothes in mud, it will protect us from the reeds.”

  Davery’s eyes light up. “Genius!” he says.

  “I think that’s the first time you’ve ever called me that.”

  “Well, it’s the first time you’ve had a really genius idea.” He scoops up a handful of swampy mud and starts coating his arms with it.

  “Whatever,” I say, doing the same thing. The seat of my jeans is still pretty much covered in mud, so I concentrate on covering my legs and arms. “I have genius ideas all the time. How ’bout that time we had to share that vanilla shake and you said get two straws but I said no, get an extra cup and then we can each have our own?”

  “That’s a pretty low bar for genius.”

  “How do I look?” I ask, holding out my muddy arms and hands and doing a little spin. I am covered in mud up to my neck.

  “Terrible,” Davery says as he pats the last of the mud onto the backs of his own hands. “But I think beauty is a secondary concern at the moment.”

  “Counting my basketball uniform, this is the second set of clothes I’ve ruined this week.”

  Staying close together, we start walking forward slowly, careful to stay on the rainbow road. I can feel the sharp reeds brushing against my legs, but this time, they don’t cut. It’s working!

  “I think it’s even keeping the gnats away,” I say.

  “Uh-oh,” Davery says. “I know what’s keeping the gnats away, and it’s not the mud. Look up!”

  Above us, dark thunderclouds have started to gather. They’re rolling in heavy with rain, just like the ones we woke up to this morning.

  “If the rain washes us off, we’re done for!” says Davery.

  I feel the first big drop of water hit my face. Another splats on my nose. And then the whole sky opens up, as if someone turned on a faucet, and the rain falls in a drenching Super Soaker–like downpour.

  “Hurry!” I say. “We need to get through this field!”r />
  I take off, but it’s hard to run on the swampy ground, and my legs are stiff with mud, and the rain is blinding, so it’s more like I stagger through the reeds.

  “I can see the edge,” Davery says from behind me. “Keep going. Stay on the Rainbow Road.”

  I do as he says, stumbling forward as best as I can. When I start to fall, I reach out to steady myself and a reed slices my palm. I look down. The rain has washed all the mud off me. Oh no! I can see the end of the marsh now, too, but we still have a way to go and all my protection is gone.

  I tuck my hands inside the sleeves of my hoodie and keep going. The reeds whip me and it feels like I’m being cut by tiny razor blades. I’m sure my legs are bleeding, and my favorite jeans are getting shredded.

  Finally, I stagger out of the reeds and into the clearing on the other side of the swamp. I drop to my knees. Davery lurches out behind me. His jeans are also torn, and his hands are bloody. He falls to his knees beside me, soaked and exhausted.

  “We made it!” I say triumphantly. “Trial two, in the dust!”

  “Not only did we make it,” he says, wheezing, “but we definitely became more stylish.” He lifts one leg in the air, showing off his ripped jeans.

  “Pretty cool,” I admit. “This story is definitely going on my YouTube channel.”

  “You don’t have a YouTube channel,” he says.

  “Not yet! Goals, Davery. I have goals.”

  He rolls his eyes and gets to his feet. Puts a hand up to shade his face. “It’s stopped raining,” he observes. He swats the air. “And the gnats are back.”

  The timing of the rain is suspicious, or maybe just unlucky, but I definitely don’t want to stick around the swamp and get eaten alive by gnats. “Let’s keep going,” I say. Thankfully, the Rainbow Road still stretches before us. “What’s next?”

  “A prom of thorns.”

  I groan. “I don’t think I can take any more nature trying to make us bleed.”

  “Maybe it isn’t literally thorns…” Davery says thoughtfully. “A prom…What could that mean?”

  I look around. We’re still in the middle of nowhere, basically. I can’t see any houses, and we haven’t met any people since we left Spider Woman. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing—I don’t think we’re going to come across a school dance out here.”

  “Then what’s that?” Davery asks, pointing into the distance.

  Maybe I need glasses, too. I squint to see better. Sure enough, there’s some kind of building ahead. It’s one story and square, and it looks a lot like the gym back at our school. We start walking toward it, and eventually I can hear music wafting our way, something catchy with a lot of bass and a woman singing, but we’re too far away for me to make out the words.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say.

  “Not kidding,” Davery says.

  Because I see now that the Rainbow Road is leading right up to the doors of the gym. If we want to stay on the road, we have to go inside.

  “Well, you said you didn’t want any more nature. I guess the Holy People heard you.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t think they’d make us go to high school.”

  “Well,” Davery says. “Who’s going in first?”

  “Not me.” This close to the gym, we can feel the dance music thumping under our feet and hear voices inside, laughing and shouting.

  “You know,” Davery says, “we’ve survived red-eyed monsters, rocks that want to crush us, and reeds that want to slice us into deli meat, but I think I’m more afraid of what’s behind these doors.”

  “High school kids,” we both say at the same time.

  “At least it sounds like they’re having a good time.” I stick out a leg. “And we do look fashionable.”

  He shakes his head. “Remember what the song says—a prom of thorns. Thorns, Nizhoni. This is not going to be good.”

  I swallow nervously. “We have to go anyway.”

  “I know.”

  “On three. One, two…” And before I can say three, the double doors swing open.

  “Welcome!” shouts a friendly voice. It’s a boy in an honest-to-goodness tuxedo—black pants and jacket, and he’s even wearing a black bow tie speckled with tiny fake diamonds. He’s Navajo, with short black hair and dark brown eyes. Brown eyes are a relief. I was half expecting them to be red. The boy looks a little like my cousin Freddie, except Freddie’s not as cute as this guy. He gives me a big grin and holds the door open so we can enter. “Come on in!”

  “Might as well,” Davery says with a sigh.

  Not surprisingly, the gym is decorated for a school dance. Rainbow-striped crepe-paper streamers hang tastefully from the beams and are taped up in flowerlike clusters along the walls. Giant poster-board picture frames, hand-painted and liberally sprinkled with glitter, invite kids to pose for photos with their friends. On the stage is a huge video monitor playing short clips of what look to be the best moments of the school year—sports events, science fairs, plays, and class trips. Spotlights hit the disco ball that hangs from the ceiling, making the room twinkle. Round tables that seat at least eight people each line the dance floor. The centerpieces are colorful balloon arrangements, accented with ribbons and confetti. Loose balloons float lazily around the room, drifting around the dancers’ feet.

  A DJ spins beats, earphones pressed between her shoulder and right ear as she works her deck. I recognize the song she’s playing. It’s the newest radio hit, the one my dad always turns off because he says the lyrics are not appropriate for kids our age. But nobody here seems to care that we are too young. I look around and realize there are no adult chaperones. Only teenagers. And they all seem to be having fun.

  “Would you like some punch?” another voice says. We turn, and a girl is holding out two red plastic cups. She has on a beautiful silver dress that sparkles and stands out against her brown skin. Her black hair is tied back with a matching ribbon.

  “Thank you,” I say, taking the cup. I’m actually pretty thirsty and the punch looks delicious.

  “Don’t drink it,” Davery warns me.

  I stop, the cup already halfway to my lips. “Why not?”

  “In all the stories, the heroes go somewhere and drink or eat something that’s been enchanted and then they get stuck there.”

  “If the heroes never eat or drink anything, how do they survive?” I whine. “They would die of dehydration.”

  Davery frowns, shrugs off his backpack, and digs around inside it. “Remember how you didn’t want Mac to drink soda pop at Spider Woman’s house? It’s the same thing.” He hands me his water bottle. “Have this instead,” he says. “Let’s not take any chances until we figure out this trial.”

  Disappointed, but seeing how he might be right about not ingesting food or drink from strangers, I set the cup down on a nearby table and take a swig from his bottle instead. The water is warm, and there’s no way it tastes as good as that punch. But I swallow it anyway.

  We make our way around the gym, looking for signs of monsters or anything that might resemble the thorns the song warned us about. To my surprise, everyone is friendly. They greet us with smiles and seem to know our names. A couple of kids ask us to join them at their table, but Davery says we shouldn’t, so we keep moving.

  “Don’t accept any gifts, either,” he warns me tersely.

  “Why not?”

  “That’s another trick they use to trap you.”

  I sigh and take another drink of boring water. “I don’t think anyone’s trying to trap us. Maybe this isn’t a trial at all. It could just be a chance to relax, like we did at Spider Woman’s. Maybe the Rainbow Road knows we need a break.”

  Davery gives me a Don’t be naive look.

  “Whatever,” I say.

  I watch a boy and girl skip by, headed to the dance floor. The DJ starts up a new track, and everyone cheers.

  “Hey, isn’t this your favorite song?” I ask Davery.

  He pauses to listen. “It is,
” he says, surprised. “I know all the words.” He sings a little, and his voice is perfectly in tune.

  “Since when did you learn how to sing on-key?”

  He presses a hand to his throat. “What’s going on? Why do I sound so good?”

  A girl comes up next to us. It’s the same girl who offered us punch earlier, the one in the shiny silver dress. “Do you want to dance?” she asks Davery.

  His eyes get really big, and he looks at me for help.

  “He can’t dance.”

  “Oh, come on,” she says, laughing and grabbing his hand. “One dance won’t hurt. I’ll show you some steps.”

  “How ’bout you?” asks a voice behind me. “Care to join me?” I turn to see the cute boy in the tuxedo standing behind me, his hand extended.

  I glance at Davery and he shrugs. We haven’t had anything to eat or drink in this place, so maybe dancing is okay?

  “Sure,” I say. The four of us walk to the middle of the floor just as the DJ starts a new song, and this time, it’s my favorite. And I decide that, after everything we’ve been through, I’m going to have some fun and dance with this cute boy.

  After the song is over, a new one starts, and I can’t believe it, but it’s my second-favorite song, so we keep dancing. And then some new kids join in, and there’s one big group on the floor, and everyone is super nice. Unlike my classmates back at ICCS, these kids like me!

  When we take a break and sit down, the high schoolers want to know all about us, so we tell them about Mr. Charles and the buzzards and the trials we’ve been through.

  “At first I thought Abalone Shell Boy was going to crush me with his fist,” Davery says, “but then I impressed him with my knowledge of sea snails. Next thing I knew, he was handing me a chunk of his shoulder.”

  The girls surrounding him ooh and aah.

  “And when the rock walls were closing in, I tore down that corridor with superspeed. The night vision really helped,” I say.

  “Night vision?” says the boy in the tux. “That’s so cool!”

  Davery and I exchange grins. We feel like superstars. I thought having ancestral powers was the best thing in the world, but this might be even better.