by Greg Taylor
“Well, Calanthe,” Annabel said when they were out of earshot from the growing crowd behind them. “That was very interesting.”
“I did not like the way he was talking to you.”
“And I appreciate that you came to my defense, but we need to talk about how we’re going to deal with this kind of situation if it comes up again in the future. Okay?”
“You are protecting me from harm from my people, yes? Strobe is in Canada at this very moment, doing just that. I wish to do the same for you.”
“The point here is that you can’t be attacking boys at school like that. There are rules against that sort of thing. I mean, surely you have similar rules at your village.”
“It depends. Sometimes altercations between our people result in a fight to the death.”
“Wait. What did you just say?”
Annabel couldn’t believe what Calanthe had just told her. Before she was able to ask any more questions about this alarmingly brutal dekayi custom, Toby appeared from a nearby bathroom and walked over to them.
“Hey, you two. What are you doing in our neck of the woods, Annabel?” Toby frowned when he noticed the gathering down the hall. Adam had just emerged from the crowd, still clutching his injured arm, still looking dazed and confused about what had just happened. “What’s goin’ on down there?”
“I’ll explain later,” Annabel said as the warning bell clanged loudly, signaling a few minutes until the start of fifth period. Toby watched Adam and the dispersing crowd a couple of classrooms away for a moment, shrugged, then turned and followed his two girls.
15
The snow was thick and heavy and had instantly turned day to twilight. As soon as it had started, the helicopter had banked away from the expanse of forest and returned to the airport. The search for the dekayi village was suspended until the following morning.
Strobe sat brooding in his motel room. Holt and the other two MCOs had headed out for a night on the town—what little town there was—leaving “the minor” behind. As much as Strobe wanted to be one of the gang, he knew he wasn’t. He wasn’t the MCOs equal. His life experiences might have caused him to grow up faster than his contemporaries, his height might have put him eye to eye with guys twice his age, but Strobe was still only fifteen years old. Which made him someone who was caught between two worlds. A kid/grown-up.
Strobe clicked off the television, put on his jacket, and went outside. The snow was still falling, blanketing everything in a heavy white cover and muffling the sounds of the chains on the cars driving past and the jukebox thumping out an unrecognizable country song in the motel diner.
Strobe didn’t know where he was going. He just needed to walk. Somewhere. Anywhere. Actually, Strobe had done quite a bit of this type of not-really-going-anywhere kind of walking in the various towns and cities he and his mom had lived in over the past few years. The walks helped calm him down when he was in one of his moods.
Since coming to Hidden Hills, however, Strobe hadn’t taken as many of these aimless walks. That was because of Annabel and Toby, more than anything. Strobe’s two MCO partners/kitchen mates had managed the difficult feat of smoothing him out a bit. Making him feel a little less transient and more … connected to something.
Thinking of Toby and Annabel as he trudged through the snow, and particularly the recent high school boot camp with Calanthe, Strobe smiled. His crew back in Hidden Hills was a heck of a lot more fun to be with than the MCOs he was stuck with on this mission, that was for sure.
A big rig suddenly blasted past Strobe, spraying him with sludge and causing him to step away from the side of the road. Standing in the deep snow, Strobe looked at the hazy lights of the empty main street of town, the direction he had been heading. Instead of continuing on to town, Strobe turned around and started following his footprints back to the motel.
It was probably a good idea to go through his field backpack one more time, Strobe thought, make sure everything was in its proper place, all weapons were working flawlessly. He needed to be totally prepared for whatever he might discover in the woods bright and early the following morning.
Besides, Strobe didn’t feel like walking just to walk anymore. That feeling had suddenly passed. Maybe it was because Strobe knew he had a place to go back to after this mission in the Canadian wilds was over.
16
Toby woke in an instant.
He lay perfectly still, listening for the sound that had jolted him awake. All was silent, then …
Yes, there it was again. Something had hit his window. Definitely. Toby slid out of bed and cautiously approached the window. When he pulled down the bottom slate of the shutter and peeked outside, he couldn’t believe what he saw in the middle of his backyard.
Calanthe.
Seeing Toby at the window, she held up her hand in a hello gesture. Toby responded by holding up his index finger, then wondered if Calanthe knew that meant he’d be outside in a minute or so. Probably not.
So Toby quickly dressed and headed downstairs. Since becoming an MCO he had developed superior sneaking-out-in-the-middle-of-the-night abilities, so he wasn’t concerned that he might get caught. But what about Calanthe? How had she managed to slink out of the Oshiro household at two o’clock in the morning without anyone noticing? Stepping onto his back porch, Toby spotted Calanthe’s silhouette at the edge of the neighbor’s yard. As he approached her, she turned and disappeared into the woods. Following Calanthe, Toby felt a strange kind of thrill. He’d been woken up by a wildly unpredictable girl in the middle of the night who was leading him … where? What did Calanthe want to see him about?
Toby had no idea, and he didn’t really care. At some point he would discover what this after-midnight excursion was all about. In the meantime, he was kind of loving the surprise of Calanthe’s nighttime visit, the suspense of it.
It took about a ten-minute jog through the woods before Calanthe revealed their destination, a railroad bridge that passed over the stream Toby and Calanthe had been following. Calanthe led Toby under the bridge, stopped directly beneath the trestle, and leaned up against the rock wall.
When Toby joined her, the two stood side by side, staring silently into the darkness. Toby thought maybe Calanthe was allowing him to catch his breath before revealing what she wanted to see him about. He didn’t want to break the moment by asking any questions. He was perfectly okay just standing next to Calanthe under the bridge, surrounded by the still and silent woods.
Some time passed before Calanthe finally spoke. When she did, her opening line was a good one. “I’d like to tell you a story…”
* * *
A spellbinding story it was.
It was about a secret cave near Calanthe’s village that she would sneak out to visit in the middle of the night. It was a place only a few villagers knew about. Anyone who dared go there was well aware that if it was ever discovered that they had left their beds after curfew, they would be dealt with very severely.
To Calanthe, the risk had always been worth it. The cave was a magical place, after all, with illustrations painted on the walls by villagers of generations past, who had dared to even contemplate what was referred to in the village as the Beyond. The primitive paintings were of automobiles and airplanes and tall buildings. Of people dressed in bright, exciting clothes. Of televisions and exotic musical instruments such as drum sets and electric guitars.
The illustrations had been inspired by rumors of such things, passed down by a few rebel villagers who had reportedly discovered magazines left behind in the woods by the rare Outsider who had hiked and camped within walking range of the village. Whenever Calanthe felt herself slipping into the mind-set imposed on her by the village elders, she would take the risk, sneak out in the middle of the night—always when the moon was hidden in the nighttime sky—and make her way to the cave.
There she was able to remind herself that there actually was a different world beyond her borders. It was a place she knew she would run away
to some day. When the time was right. When she was ready. Calanthe had finally been ready just the previous month. And now here she was … in the world she had only been able to dream about for as long as she could remember.
“What was it that made you realize that you were ready?” Toby asked, taking advantage of a pause in Calanthe’s story to ask the question.
“Do you know why I brought you here?”
Toby shook his head, unconcerned that Calanthe had ignored his question.
“This place reminds me a little of the cave where I would go, with all the drawings and markings.”
Calanthe stood back to look at the graffiti that covered the walls under the bridge. “I don’t know what these markings mean, exactly, which makes them mysterious in a way that the drawings in my cave were mysterious.”
“When did you discover this bridge, Calanthe?”
“The second night after I arrived in Hidden Hills.”
“You haven’t been sneaking out every night, have you?”
Calanthe nodded.
“And here Annabel thought you were sleeping for twelve hours straight.”
Calanthe smiled. “I did the first night. I didn’t think Annabel would like me to be doing this, which is why I haven’t told her. I do feel the need to be out here, however. I like it.”
“I guess when you’ve lived your whole life in the woods … it must get into your blood, huh?”
Calanthe’s expression showed she didn’t get the expression “into your blood.”
“It’s like … the woods, nature … it’s inside you now. It’s become a part of you.”
Calanthe thought about that, then nodded.
“Is there anything else about your village you miss? I mean, it sounds like a pretty intense place, overall.”
“There were some good things. Your world seems very frantic by comparison. I’m not sure if I like that part of it. But mainly you could say growing up in my village was similar to what the rukh does to its victims.”
Toby was surprised at Calanthe’s statement. “What does the rukh do to its victims?”
“I have only heard of this, never seen it. But I have heard that the rukh sucks the insides out of the thing that it is attacking, leaving behind just the skin and bones.”
“That’s quite a trick.”
“In my village it is forbidden to have any thoughts that are unusual or original or different from what we are taught to think. It is as though the outlawed thoughts are sucked right out of us by the elder villagers, until that kind of thinking, those kinds of taboo thoughts, don’t even occur anymore.”
Calanthe fell silent. Toby had the feeling she had said what she brought him to the bridge to say, so he let the silence continue. Besides, he wanted to ponder what Calanthe had just told him. It was pretty scary, the notion of an adult population controlling their children’s thoughts and actions, in any way possible. It wasn’t only in Calanthe’s village that this kind of thing occurred, Toby knew. But Calanthe’s experience was beyond beyond, as Strobe would say.
“You know what?” Toby said, finally breaking the silence. “I’m really glad you got out of that place.”
Calanthe smiled. “Yes, I have experienced much in the little time I have been in your world.”
“You can say that again.”
“I have experienced much in the little time I have been in your world.”
“Actually, Calanthe, that’s just an expression. When someone says you can say that again? You don’t have to say the same thing—”
Calanthe had broken into a smile, which is what had stopped Toby in the middle of his sentence. “Wait, are you goofin’ on me? Did you know what I meant when I said that?”
Calanthe’s expression was a little playful, a little mysterious. When she turned and headed off into the darkness, Toby smiled and shook his head. He was about to follow Calanthe when something on the stone wall under the bridge caught his eye. Among the graffiti—some of it painted, some etched into the stone—was a freshly carved addition. It read, simply …
CALANTHE.
17
Finally! Strobe thought with relief.
He had just caught sight of something other than endless snowcapped forest, which was all he had been looking at through his binoculars for the past three hours. The MCOs’ search hadn’t begun until early afternoon, the snow not letting up until then. Strobe was elated that he had finally done what he had set out to do.… He had found Calanthe’s village. Just in the nick of time, too, seeing as it would be dark before long, night coming much earlier this far north.
“Over there!” Strobe yelled to the pilot, pointing out a small break in the forest, several miles off. “See it?”
When the helicopter got closer to the break, Strobe was able to confirm that he had discovered fallow crop fields, right in the middle of thousands of acres of forest. If it was the dekayi’s farmland, the village itself was hidden from sight under the thick canopy of snow-covered trees that completely surrounded and boxed in the fields. Before they had reached the open ground, Strobe yelled out to the pilot, “We go down here!”
“Back off, Tibbles!” Holt commanded. “I say where we go down. And when.” Strobe had just interrupted Holt’s afternoon nap with his direction to the pilot. Holt looked around for his binoculars, found them under his seat, then adjusted the lenses to study the crop fields in the distance.
“We go down here!” Holt yelled, returning Strobe’s glare with a jaunty grin. “Okay, fellas! Look lively! Time to rock ’n’ roll!”
Strobe and the other MCOs pulled on their backpacks and positioned themselves next to the open side door of the helicopter.
“Harris, you’re first. Then Dixon. Watch these two closely, Tibbles. You might learn something. We don’t want you to fall off the rope and crash into the trees, do we?”
Strobe waited until Harris and Dixon had descended from the copter and were heading toward the forest below before easing out of the copter door and sliding down the rope.
“Back off a bit, then hang for us,” Holt yelled to the pilot. “I’ll call when we’re comin’ out.” Holt hitched himself to the rope, then jumped out of the helicopter. In no time at all, the entire MCO crew had disappeared into the forest below.
* * *
Scanning the woods as he walked behind his three MCO mates, Strobe was struck by how quiet it was. It was also darker on the ground than it had been up in the helicopter, which gave Strobe the feeling that the surrounding forest was closing in on him.
Holt was leading the group. They were in single file, each scanning a particular area of the forest. “There it is,” Strobe heard Holt whisper up ahead. Turning away from his rear watch, Strobe saw the shapes of several wooden buildings through the maze of trees. When the other MCOs fanned out and selected a tree to shield themselves from view, Strobe followed their lead. He took his binoculars from his backpack and studied the buildings in the distance.
No sign of any people. No sound interrupting the stillness of the forest. No smoke from the rough-hewn, stone chimneys.
Strange.
“Harris, Dixon…,” Holt said. “Follow me. Tibbles … stay here and watch our backs.”
Strobe felt the rage rising from the pit of his stomach. “I’m not stayin’ here!”
Holt fixed Strobe with a glare. “You’ll stay here, or pay the consequences.”
“And what might that be?”
“Ignoring an officer’s command in the field will get your butt tossed from the program. Actually, I dare you to ignore my command. Go ahead, do it! Get your butt tossed. I’d love it. I never thought Harvey should let teenagers into the program, anyway.”
There you have it, Strobe thought as the three MCOs turned and walked stealthily off into the encroaching darkness. The guy hates me just because I’m a teenager. Strobe knew that Holt would continue to ride him until he did something that could very well get him thrown out of the KP ranks. So he decided right then and there he wasn’
t going to give Holt the pleasure. He would toe the line, in spite of how difficult that was for him, starting right now.
Slipping on his NVGs, Strobe made certain his crossbow was loaded and ready, then settled in for his rear-guard assignment. Until he heard otherwise, he was determined to steadfastly keep a watch out for any unusual movement in the deep, dark woods of the Canadian wilderness.
18
“Two Monstrosities!”
Halley—the person Toby had picked to take Strobe’s place for his Saturday-night shift—looked out of control as she placed the order form on the revolving wheel. Her eyes were wide and harried, her face flushed. Studying Halley with concern, Toby noticed that her white apron displayed yet another red pizza-sauce design. Over the past few hours, Halley’s apron had been a constantly changing canvas, featuring one zany abstract image after another.
“You know what, Halley? Take ten minutes.”
Halley looked at Toby blankly. “Sure?”
“Definitely. Matter of fact, take fifteen.”
“Whew. Thanks, Toby.”
As she left the kitchen, Halley passed a sleepy-eyed teen who was pulling several pizzas from the oven. At least Ron doesn’t freak out like this girl, Toby thought as he got to work on Halley’s order. He’s no Annabel, though, that’s for sure. Ron had been Toby’s choice to replace Annabel.
When Toby heard the Jaws theme thump ominously from a speaker at the front of the shop—it was the official KP greeting that alternated with a loud, ghoulish laugh and a high-pitched scream whenever someone entered the Killer Pizza shop—he went to deal with the new customers. Who happened to be Annabel and Calanthe.
“Your expression says it all,” Annabel said with a smile.
“Tell me about it. Any news from Strobe?”
Annabel shook her head.
“Guess that means he either found the village or he’s on his way back to Hidden Hills.”
