Arrow no doubt wanted to tell this Crankas that his map should be burned like his plane was, that his plans stank more than a pile of capybara dung. But this was new for Arrow. The introduction he had had to humans being dishonest and unkind was nothing compared to this. And worse, the man still treated Arrow like a treasured friend. Confusion wove within the thick fear around the boy’s head.
Finally he stepped out of it.
“Uhhnn…” He held his belly. What was wrong? Worry snaked through my leaves. “I need to get some anise. My tummy’s bad.”
Crankas’s eyes grew wide with concern. “Oh no. Let me get you some medicine. It’ll clean you right up.”
He began to walk toward another table of supplies, but Arrow said, “No. The anise is good. There’s some close by. Ahhh.”
He held his belly tighter and scrunched up his face as he had done many times when he had pain. But there wasn’t pain in his energy, only a tiny sliver of hope. “I won’t be long.”
“Okay. Hurry back,” Crankas said.
Arrow nodded, then scurried for the tree line. He didn’t stop when he passed the first trunk. He didn’t even stop when he passed the anise bush. He ran and ran, tears streaming down his face.
Until he heard the BANG.
23
THE PETALS ON AN ANISE BUSH NEAR THE BURNT CIRCLE STRUGGLED TO HOLD ON. IT WASN’T THEIR TIME TO GO, BUT THEIR CONNECTION WAS WEAK. ONE BREATH OF WIND, AND THE PETALS WERE BLOWN AWAY.
The noise made Arrow freeze and tore the birds from their trees.
It was a noise Arrow wouldn’t know, but I remembered it well. It had echoed around the forest many, many rings ago, when the Imposters lived under our leaves. Before I hid us away. I hated to hear it again.
The bang was followed by shouts from the machiners. Then a shout from a voice Arrow recognized.
“Let go of me. Let GO!”
Arrow ran in the direction of the voice, his feet light and silent. When he was close, he slid behind a tree, heart thumping, and peered around.
His toes dug into the dirt. Three of the machiners towered over a smaller, skinny boy. Val. He was struggling as one of the grown humans gripped his left wrist.
I had been so concerned with the camp and the human machines, I had not noticed the boy had ventured south. I reached out now, felt for other small footsteps, but the boy seemed to be alone.
“Found this coming toward the camp,” a wide man said as he dragged Val into the Burnt Circle. “Looks like that other kid wasn’t telling the truth about being alone.”
Wiser strode to them, eyes on Val.
Crankas hurried to the tree line, peering into the shadow. “Did you see where Arrow went?”
Val glanced at Crankas when he heard Arrow’s name. His eyes darkened, then he quickly drew his gaze to the ground.
Arrow shrunk behind the tree, but no eyes were on the forest. All the machiners had halted their tasks and now glanced between Crankas and Val. The ones who had brought Val to the Circle shook their heads in answer to the question.
A hardness edged into Crankas’s eyes. He turned on Val. “And where did you come from?” A sickly smile oozed onto his face.
Val’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t reply.
Arrow took advantage of the machiners’ focusing on Val. He crept out from behind his trunk and stalked around the edge of the Burnt Circle. I hoped he would not be discovered.
He was heading toward the tree where he and Petari had been hiding, but before he got there, he spotted her beneath a fern.
Her eyes were on her brother too, so she must not have heard Arrow when he sidled up next to her. He touched her shoulder and she jumped, letting out a scream. But it was quickly silenced by Arrow’s hand over her mouth.
“What is he doing here?” Arrow whispered.
He pulled back his hand, and Petari shook her head, tears welling in her eyes.
“Val must’ve followed me. He can never trust that I’m okay. He always has to come after me. He makes me so mad.”
“Why did you let him come?”
Petari shrugged. “I didn’t know he was even here until I heard that gunshot.”
“Was that the bang?”
Petari nodded. She pointed at the machiners. “Those things are guns. They can kill people. I guess I should be grateful they only shot in the air to scare him and didn’t just shoot him on sight.”
She swallowed. “What are they going to do to him? You’re friends with them. You have to tell them to leave him alone.”
Arrow glanced at Val through the trees. Crankas was still talking, and Val was still silent.
“They’re not my friends. They murdered a tree like it meant nothing, because it was in their way.” Arrow’s gaze dropped. “You were right. They said they were going to save the forest, but they’re not. They want to tear apart the Shimmer Cave, and clear trails, and build things called ‘resorts’ so people can come and stay.”
Petari shook her head. “See? I told you they—”
“I know. I know. I have to stop them.”
“And we have to get my brother away from them.”
Arrow nodded. “That too.”
“I know you don’t like him, but he’s my broth—”
“He doesn’t like me.” Arrow’s voice lifted, and Petari brought her finger to her lips to shush him. Arrow glanced at the machiners, then started again, quieter. “He doesn’t like me, but I’ll still help him.”
“Good. So tell them to let him go.”
“That won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“If I go back there, they’ll do the same thing to me that they’re doing to him. They’ll think I lied about being alone in the forest, and they’ll want me to tell them where Val came from.”
“So lie. Tell them you’ve never seen him before, and you don’t know anything about him.”
Arrow gawked at her. “Why would that make them let him go? They’re still going to want to know where he came from and if there are others.”
Petari gritted her teeth for a few breaths, then plopped her head into her hands. “What are we going to do?”
Arrow took another look at the camp. Most of the machiners had gone back to work, and only Wiser and Crankas were with Val now. They were talking to each other instead of the boy, locked in a heated discussion. I picked up their words from a lizard scurrying by.
“It’s the best option,” Wiser said. “I’m telling you; he’s got friends in there somewhere.” She peered into the forest. “If we go tramping around, they’ll hear us, and we won’t be able to defend ourselves. But keeping him here will bring them to us. We’ll wait them out. I’m in no hurry, and we’ve got plenty of work to keep us busy.”
“It makes me nerv…,” Crankas said, before the lizard was out of earshot.
Arrow spied the two talking and whispered, “We’ll have to sneak him out when they’re not around.”
Petari groaned. “There are so many of them. They’re always around.”
“Then we’ll keep watching until we find a way.” He ended his sentence with a small smile, and she returned it.
“Arrow?” she whispered.
The boy looked at her.
“I really am sorry about the village. It was wrong, what they did. They were scared about the food supply getting cut off. Not that that’s an excuse, but they’re not bad people. We’ll be better.”
Arrow waved away her words, then turned back to Val, confusion swarming around him.
Wiser instructed Mora to tie Val to a chair too far into the Burnt Circle for Arrow and Petari to get him without being seen. Wiser went back to supervising the other work, unpacking more metal parts, clicking them into another six-legged beetle machine. Crankas paced along the tree line, peering out between the trunks. Occasionally he’d take a quick trip inside the shadow of the forest, just a few steps, neck craning presumably to look for Arrow. Then he’d retreat to his safety net within the Burnt Circle.
Staying out
of sight, Arrow studied the metal beetle that had killed the palm and disintegrated it so quickly. Oxsen wasn’t inside it now, and the machine sat alone. Its legs had curled up, making it looked like a dead insect on its back, but I knew it could quickly be brought back to life whenever the humans wanted.
It shook me to my roots to think how much more of the forest it would destroy.
As the sun continued its path and no opportunity to rescue Val had become clear, Arrow motioned for Petari to follow him to a hidden area farther away.
“We’re going to have to wait until it’s dark,” he told her. “We can sneak him out tonight.”
Petari shook her head. “We can’t leave him there. What if they kill him?”
“They won’t do that.”
“How do you know?”
Anxiety escaped from Arrow, but he pushed it down. “I haven’t been around as many humans as you have, but from what I’ve seen so far, they get fearful and suspicious and want lots of information. The machiners want that from Val.”
“We should get the others. With more of us, we’ll be able to get him out.” So much worry drenched the soil around the girl. My leaves twitched for her.
Arrow leaned closer. “No!” His voice was fierce. “Even if all of your group were here, we’d still be outnumbered. They found Val, and they’ll easily hear the rest of your group tramping through the forest.”
Petari opened her mouth to speak, but Arrow continued talking.
“And if the machiners don’t attack your herd on their way here, they’ll track them after they’ve got Val. Just like Claw would. All the way back to the village. Back to Ruthie.”
Petari chewed her lip.
“Harpy eagles don’t get their prey in packs,” Arrow said. “They hunt alone and capture monkeys when they’re not looking. We have to be like the harpy.”
Petari frowned at the boy, but her worry seemed to subside a little. She knew he was right. “Okay, so what do we do?”
“When it’s dark, we’ll sneak him out and cover our tracks back north.”
“That will only work if they stop watching him long enough,” Petari said.
“We need something that will pull their attention.” Arrow narrowed his eyes, thinking.
“A loud noise is always good.”
Arrow gazed at her. “When Crankas was first here, I made bird sounds to get him to look in the direction of the food I’d brought. We could do that again.”
“There are so many bird noises here, I bet the Stilters have become pretty used to them. Plus we need something that will keep them busy for a while.”
Arrow pursed his lips, then his eyes lit up. “Wait, I’ve got an idea. And I know how we can stop them from destroying the forest too.”
“Perfect!”
I couldn’t imagine what Arrow was planning, but if it would stop the machiners, he had to try. Still, I feared for his safety.
I steadied my roots for more.
24
SEEDS IN A BRAZILIAN MAHOGANY TREE WAITED FOR A WIND TO PICK THEM UP AND SPIN THEM DOWN FROM THE CANOPY TO GROW NEW TREES. BUT BEFORE A WIND PASSED, THEY BECAME DRY AND BRITTLE AND FELL AWAY.
Arrow led Petari west, past the Burnt Circle and out toward the Shimmer Cave. The journey wasn’t long, and before Petari could wonder where they were, Arrow pointed to a flower the color of clouds, with a long round tongue pointing at the sky.
“You’re going to stop their machine with flowers?” Petari crossed her arms. “For all your forest-boy knowledge, Arrow, I don’t think you understand how flowers really work.”
Arrow smirked. “You’ll see. We need the flowers, the stalks, and the leaves.” He started pulling them off, whispering “Thank you” under his breath. “There are glands outside the flowers here, in the stalks and under the leaves, and they make nectar. See?”
He rubbed his fingers along the outside of the petal, then offered it to her to smell.
Petari leaned in and sniffed. “That’s sweet.”
“Yeah, and it tastes sweet too. But better yet, it’s sticky. Feel.”
Arrow turned over one of the leaves, motioning for her to touch it. She did, then pulled her fingertips away, rubbing the sticky substance between them.
“Eww. That’s gross.”
“It’s not gross. It’s useful. Harvest as much as you can. I’ll be back in a few breaths.” Arrow pushed one of the stalks into his waistband. “And keep your ears open. If you hear the slightest noise that’s not made by you, get in that bush and stay still.”
Petari nodded. “Don’t worry. Those people are louder than my brother’s farts. I’ll hear them coming a mile off.”
Arrow cocked his head like he didn’t understand. Petari smiled. “A long way away.”
“Good. And if it’s a jaguar or something else?”
“I run and shout for you.” She rolled her eyes. “You’re just like Val, acting like I can’t do anything.”
“If we were in your Barbs or Stilts, I’d listen to you.”
Petari opened her mouth, then shut it again. Finally she said, “I’ve got it.”
Arrow shook his head, then began his journey again.
His footsteps scurried north and west, not traveling far, but covering a lot of ground. At times, he stopped, picked up a stick, but put it down again and kept walking. Finally he crouched next to a stick lying over a raised root. He picked it up, leveraged it against the ground to test its strength, then dragged the pointed edge across his shin to test its sharpness. Satisfied, he searched for another, until he finally found exactly what he needed.
Using the ends of the sticks, he foraged the forest floor by lifting the leaves. This way and that he roamed, occasionally crouching low, inspecting, marking with a raised twig, then moving on. After a while, markers stuck up across the ground like hairs on a porcupine. Then he hurried back to Petari.
She had piles of the philodendron flowers, leaves, and stalks around her when Arrow arrived, each pierced to release the sticky nectar.
“This better work,” she said. “I’ve never been this sticky in my life. Are you ready?”
Arrow nodded. “Ready for the first part. Here’s your stick. Let’s get these over to the ant colonies.”
Bending down, he reached around a pile of leaves and crushed them into his chest. Petari followed, and they took their stash to Arrow’s porcupined area.
Dumping the leaves on the ground, he pointed at the markers. “Be careful when you touch those. Each of these colonies is filled with ants and they’re fast.”
“We have ants in the outside world too,” Petari said.
“Probably not like these.” Arrow waved her to another colony. “If these big ones bite you, the pain will be so bad, you’ll probably want to die. And it’ll hurt like that for half of the sun’s path across the sky.”
Petari’s eyes widened. “You can deal with those ones.”
Arrow turned away, hiding a small smirk. “Okay,” he said, “we make trails with the sticks and rub the nectar into the soil to attract the ants.”
“You mean little ditches like this?” Petari dug the point of her stick along the ground.
“Yes. And keep the trails apart until we get close.”
“Gotcha.”
They got to work, rubbing nectar onto the ends of their sticks and dragging them across the ground, leading away from the marked ant colonies. At random intervals, they left a piece of a crushed philodendron leaf or stalk in the path. They worked hard, not noticing the sun ambling along its path, but soon they had trails carving their way to the Burnt Circle.
Once again close to the machiners, Arrow pulled Petari behind a bush. “Now let’s get ready for the second part.”
She nodded, then followed Arrow piling the rest of the leaves and stalks under the bush. They pushed their sticks into the brush so they looked as though they belonged as well.
Next, Arrow showed Petari how to weave a carrying hammock like the one he had given to the machiners. She cou
ldn’t quite get it to work, but Arrow’s was large enough for their plan.
Hammock in hand, they took to the trees, moving from trunk to trunk by balancing carefully on the close branches. Arrow showed Petari how to be silent, looking for the strongest tree limbs that wouldn’t creak. A few more branches, and they were high up in the tree line of the Burnt Circle. They kept their eyes on the humans below, while also searching for their prize.
It didn’t take Arrow long to find frogs. He had always loved to study the frogs and lizards in the forest, predict which way they would jump and be there to catch them.
Petari scrunched up her face as her hands clasped around one, opening her mouth to release a silent EWWWW. Before long, though, she was picking them up as quickly as Arrow, watching for his nod or shake sign to let her know if the frog was poisonous and should be avoided.
Before the sun was too low, they had a collection of frogs croaking in their carrying hammock.
Then they waited.
Petari’s heart beat faster and faster with every breath. She could see her brother from where she was perched, watched as he studied the mud at his feet. I knew she couldn’t see the despair radiating around him—humans didn’t pay attention to that—but perhaps she could read it in his slump.
Finally the sun waved goodbye, but the machiners didn’t. They settled around a circle that had the look of fire, but none of the warmth. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought it was magic, but no doubt it was one of their outside-world “tech.” They talked, laughed, ate, and drank. Beyond them, the sun-powered domes lit up paths, making Arrow shiver. He and Petari watched and watched, waited and waited, annoyance creeping into the branches around them.
Then Wiser approached the machiners’ fire and clapped her hands.
“All right,” she said loudly, furrowed brows pointing at each of the humans in turn. “I want everyone asleep in ten. We have a lot of catching up to do tomorrow. Oxsen, you’re on duty tonight.”
The female who had powered the metal beetle stood. “What about the kid?” She nodded toward Val, who was sleeping with his head hung over his chest.
Arrow Page 18
