Maya and the Rising Dark

by Rena Barron

  My antics! I almost said. What about you sneaking around out here?

  But I held my tongue so I didn’t make things worse. The twins would tell our parents, and we’d both be grounded for the summer. An awful feeling sank in my chest at the thought. I’d been lucky that Miss Ida hadn’t told Mama the first time she caught me out at night.

  “We were performing empirical research,” Frankie said, speaking up first.

  “What?” Miss Lucille said, her face puzzled.

  I was pretty sure she didn’t expect an answer, but Frankie took her seriously. “Empirical research is when you try to learn something by experiencing it or observing it. In this case, we were—”

  “Enough!” Miss Ida shouted. “You’re both in big trouble.”

  “Did you see the werehyenas too?” I asked.

  Both twins went rigid. Miss Lucille’s expression was unreadable for someone who grimaced so much. Miss Ida was less careful. I could see the fear in her eyes. Whatever was going on in our neighborhood, they definitely knew about it. Was that why they always took late night walks? Had the twins been looking for the werehyenas earlier? Instead of answering my question, Miss Lucille pointed toward home.

  “March,” Miss Ida said, and we did.

  There was no talking on the way back. Frankie and I exchanged a glance, and I bet that she was thinking the same thing. All clues pointed to two old ladies in matching pink bonnets who had always been a little suspicious. One of these days I would ask them how they could now walk without their canes, but that was best for another time.

  Miss Lucille kept her eyes on us while Miss Ida peered into the dark corners and alleys. They both were jumpy. Twice they whispered something to each other in a language I didn’t recognize. The words were flowery and slid together like a song.

  It was nice and calmed my nerves until I saw Papa standing in front of our house. He’d only been gone since Saturday night and never came back so soon after leaving. His face was grim, and Miss Lucille and Miss Ida looked like they were the ones in trouble.

  “Take Frankie home, please,” Papa said. His voice was ice, and I’d never heard him use that tone with anyone. He was going to ground me for the entirety of seventh grade, or until high school, or maybe for life.

  “Good luck,” Frankie whispered before she left with the Johnston twins.

  “Papa, I . . .”

  His sharp look cut me off. “Upstairs, Maya.”

  Without another word, I marched up the stairs and into our house. At least Mama hadn’t come home yet. I couldn’t bear to face both of them. I started to flop down on the sofa, but Mama would kill me if I got alley muck all over it. Papa let me clean up, then I crept back into the living room where he sat in his recliner.

  “I’m sorry, Papa,” I said, unable to hold his hard stare. “I know I shouldn’t have gone out at night. I shouldn’t have broken the rules, but—”

  “There’s no but, Maya,” Papa said.

  “I know, but—”

  “I said no buts,” Papa snapped. “You could’ve been hurt.”

  “We were attacked by werehyenas, like from your stories,” I said, feeling foolish.

  “Tell me everything.” Papa sucked in a deep breath. “From the beginning.”

  Which beginning? The beginning when I stood at the chalkboard while black lightning cut across the sky? The beginning in which a man made of ribbons drained the color from our neighborhood in a dream? The beginning when shadows reached out of the darkness and grabbed my arms? The beginning when werehyenas threatened to eat me and my friend?

  Papa grimaced as he listened to my story, but he didn’t say I was making it up. I told him everything. Everything that was real. The man made of shadows was only a bad dream, and I didn’t want to talk about him. He still scared me.

  “Maya, I’m disappointed that you didn’t tell any of this to me and your mother before now.” Papa leaned forward, his elbows digging into his knees. “I know that I haven’t been completely open with you about my job, but it was to keep you safe. What you did tonight was dangerous.”

  I glanced at my feet. He was right. I messed up and had almost gotten Frankie and myself eaten by mythical beasts in the process.

  “I know, Papa,” I said.

  “I don’t have much time.” He frowned. “I left in the middle of urgent work that I must get back to . . . but I need to tell you something about my job.”

  My belly flopped. He was leaving again.

  Whatever Papa was about to say, it had something to do with all the weird stuff happening. He didn’t seem surprised by anything I said—not the world turning gray or the werehyenas.

  “Remember I told you I’m a structural engineer, yes?” he said.

  I nodded but dared not interrupt in case he decided not to tell me.

  “My specialty isn’t buildings.” Papa sighed. “I’m the guardian of the veil.”

  When I frowned, he added, “Think of it as an invisible barrier that keeps our world safe from creatures much worse than werehyenas.”

  My heart raced at this news, and two things jumped out at me. First, the veil. The symbols on his staff: the sun, a leopard with raised paws, and a river. I remembered what it meant now: I am the guardian of the veil. Miss Lucille and Miss Ida said that the veil was failing and that he would handle the darkbringers. I wouldn’t have guessed the twins were talking about Papa.

  “Guardian of our world,” I said, almost afraid to know. “What other world is there?”

  “The Dark,” he said, his voice dropping low. His words hung in the air between us, and the tick-tock of the grandfather clock was the only sound in the house. It counted down to some horrible truth that was stranger than any of his stories.

  “Is that where the darkbringers live?” I asked, and Papa flinched.

  “Yes,” he said, his eyes worried. “The veil is ancient, Maya. Usually when there is a tear, it repairs itself much like a scab grows over a small cut. But time has weakened it, and some tears are too deep to heal on their own. I mend those parts of the veil that can’t fix themselves. It’s hard to explain how, but think about the way you would patch up a hole in a blanket by sewing a piece of cloth over it. That’s what I do and what it means to be the guardian.”

  This was way too much information to take in at once. Excitement and fear coursed through my chest. It was like someone had plucked my wildest dream (or nightmare) from my head and breathed life into it. But I was also scared because I remembered what the twins said about the war. Holes in this veil were why all the weird things had been happening in our neighborhood. Something had slipped through into our world.

  “I’ll tell you more when I get back.” Papa stood up. “There’s trouble brewing, and I must stop it before it’s too late. No time is safe, but I need you to promise me, Maya, that you won’t go outside at night alone or with your friends again, okay? The enemy is strongest under the cover of darkness.”

  I jumped to my feet too. I didn’t protest about him leaving or about not going outside. After the werehyenas, I didn’t want to meet these darkbringers. “I promise.”

  “It’s complicated,” Papa sighed, “but by the time we go to Comic-Con, you’ll understand everything.”

  I didn’t understand what Comic-Con had to do with the veil and his job, and there were more important questions on my mind.

  “Does Mama know that you’re guardian of this veil?” I asked, and he nodded.

  “I think I saw a darkbringer in my dreams,” I finally confessed. “He was made of shadows.”

  Papa grimaced and put his hands on my shoulders. They weren’t steady and strong like usual; instead, they shook. Only a little, but it was enough to make my knees wobbly as if I’d caught his fear like a common cold. “Maya, this is important,” he said. “What else do you recall about the dream? Was he close to you or far away?”

  I told him everything I could remember.

  “He’s no darkbringer.” Papa glanced to the floor, looking def
eated. “He’s the Lord of Shadows, their master.”

  “He sounds like something out of my comic books,” I said, thinking Papa was joking, but he wasn’t. Whoever or whatever this man was, he scared my father too.

  “He’s as real as you or I,” Papa explained. “He’s trapped in the Dark, but he can enter our world through dreams—which are crossroads between our two worlds.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “How do you know this Lord of Shadows?”

  Pain settled on Papa’s face. The Lord of Shadows and my father had history, and it wasn’t anything good. “He’s taken too much from me to bear, Maya,” Papa mumbled, almost to himself. “One day I will tell you that story too.”

  After an uncomfortable silence, Papa grabbed his staff from beside the recliner. “I have to go now,” he said, “but I want you to keep my staff.” He flashed me a reassuring smile. “It will serve you well.”

  I took it, feeling proud. My father was cooler than any make-believe superhero or spy.

  As I walked him to the door, Papa said, “Miss Ida and Miss Lucille will stay with you until your mother gets home, okay?”

  I wrinkled my nose but ducked my head when Papa narrowed his eyes at me. I resisted the urge to ask how the cranky twins were involved with this veil and the war they talked about. “Maya, listen to me,” he said, his tone serious. “If you ever see the Lord of Shadows again in your dreams, run and find a place to hide.”

  “But what can he do in a dream?” I asked.

  “He can kill,” Papa answered, his voice grave.

  Eight

  All bullies are not created equal

  Mama grounded me for two weeks, which was generous, considering that I broke the rules twice. I didn’t complain when she handed down my sentence after a lengthy talking-to that I wouldn’t soon forget. It could’ve been much worse. Eli’s grandmother was a yeller. Frankie’s moms argued with statistics and facts, but my parents used the Voice (trademark).

  We didn’t talk about Papa’s work, or about the veil or the darkbringers. Instead, Mama reminded me that even without the Dark, our world was dangerous. She cited the crime rate, robberies, gangs, drugs. People on TV talked about the South Side like we were on another planet. They didn’t care that Chicago was more than skyscrapers and shopping and deep-dish pizza. That the people who lived in my neighborhood were no different from them. Now that I thought about it, our neighborhood rarely saw any trouble before the werehyenas. That couldn’t have been by accident—we had the cranky twins on patrol, but there had to be more to it.

  I reread all my volumes of Oya: Warrior Goddess while grounded, but even they couldn’t take my mind off Papa. I searched the pages for mention of the mythological creatures from his stories. They were all there: the werehyenas, the kishi, the impundulu. But also Bigfoot, the bogeyman, and the abominable snowman. I’d always thought that Papa had got the ideas for his stories from the comics. We used to read them together when I was little. Now that I was over the initial shock, I had a thousand and one questions for Papa, starting with where and what was the Dark? I tried to keep my mind busy, but I couldn’t help but worry, especially now I knew how dangerous his work was. I couldn’t help but feel a little mad at him, too. How could he and Mama keep a secret this big from me? Me not telling my parents about the world turning gray was bad, but them hiding a whole world from me was even worse. I understood that they wanted to protect me, but I wasn’t a little kid anymore. I could handle the truth.

  After school ended for the summer, Mama let me go outside to meet my friends for the first time in weeks. I jetted down the porch steps with Papa’s staff in tow, to where Frankie was waiting for me.

  “I thought your mother would never let you out,” she said as we headed for Eli’s house.

  “I can’t believe it either,” I said, dodging a stray basketball from a group of older kids playing on the sidewalk. “How did your moms take the news about your superpowers?”

  Frankie winced as she adjusted her glasses. “They went with my original theory that someone slipped something in the pudding at school, so they think we hallucinated the whole thing. And since I haven’t been able to make the light come again, I can’t prove them wrong.”

  “Maybe it only happens when you’re scared,” I said. “Like for self-defense.”

  Frankie rubbed her chin. “I’m definitely fine with not being scared again anytime soon.”

  An ice cream truck cruised down the streets with music playing over the loudspeakers. But even ice cream couldn’t cheer me up. I wanted Papa home. We passed the snow cone stand and an elotes cart. The sweet smell of roasted corn and butter and chili made my stomach growl. It was hot outside, and people sat in folding chairs on their porches or perched on cushions on their cement steps.

  When we reached Eli’s house, Nana was tending to a row of cabbages in the garden. Jayla rode Eli’s back as he weaved between tomato vines. Every year the garden had exactly seven different vegetables—Nana’s favorite number.

  “More killer robots at twelve o’clock,” Eli proclaimed to his sister.

  Jayla grinned, and her brushy ponytail bounced as she held on to his neck. “Run faster!”

  For a grandmother, Nana didn’t have a wrinkle in sight, even though her hair was completely gray. She wore it in braids that ringed around her head like a crown. “Well, if it isn’t the night owls,” she said, grimacing at Papa’s staff. She looked like she wanted to snatch it from my hands. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson.”

  My face felt hot as I squeezed the staff tighter. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Can Eli come to the park?” Frankie asked. “We promise to behave.”

  Jayla wriggled off Eli’s back and ran over to Nana, almost crushing a cabbage underfoot. “I want to play in the dirt too!”

  “Back before dark.” Nana cut her eyes at Eli. “We have the bingo championship tonight.”

  “Oh, I won’t miss it.” He grinned. “I bet on old man Lucas.”

  “You bet against me?” Nana scowled. “Your own grandma.”

  “But you never win, Nana,” Jayla chipped in, her face serious.

  Nana murmured something under her breath as Jayla plopped down beside her.

  “Any more news?” I asked Eli on the way to the park.

  He’d been gathering stories of other weird things happening in the neighborhood. “No other werehyena sightings,” he said. “I’m still mad that I didn’t get to see them.”

  I bit my lip, hoping the werehyenas weren’t stalking another neighborhood. Frankie and I got lucky because of her magic. If not for that, we would’ve been dog meat. I really wanted to tell them about Papa, but I didn’t know if I should, since he’d kept this guardian thing secret even from me. I swallowed and held my words inside for now.

  “A sinkhole formed in Mrs. Wallace’s backyard this morning.” Eli frowned. “But nothing strange outside of that. Totally not fair how boring it’s been.”

  Both Frankie and I gave him a scathing look. Werehyenas threatening to eat you and writhing shadows were far from boring. After that, we needed all the boring we could get.

  “What?” Eli shrugged. “You got to see something cool.” Then he rolled his eyes at Frankie, a goofy look on his face. “She even has powers, she’s a magical being now.”

  I thought about how the leader of the werehyenas had called us godlings and wondered what it meant. Was it like being a god, but not? Like a pretend god?

  “I haven’t been able to replicate the light or the force from that night,” Frankie said, brows scrunched into a frown. “So it doesn’t matter.”

  “Replicate.” Eli shook his head. “Stop with your fancy talk, just say you can’t do it.”

  Frankie glanced at her feet. Like me, she hated failing at anything. “I’m glad you were around to see it happen, Maya. Or else no one would believe me. Miss Ida and Miss Lucille told my moms that I have a vivid imagination.”

  “Ugh, I hate when adults say that.” I win
ced. “It’s the worst.”

  It was almost noon by the time we got to the park. A bunch of kids were on the playground and more on the soccer field. Some adults walked around the track. Other families set up barbecue grills and picnic blankets. An older kid who looked like he was in high school brushed by Eli on his way to the soccer field.

  “Fiend!” Eli called after him. “Can’t you see we’re having an important conversation?”

  The kid flipped Eli the finger over his shoulder.

  “I get the feeling that no one else knows about the weird stuff happening because of Miss Ida and Miss Lucille,” I said. The cranky twins had tried to convince Frankie’s moms that nothing happened, but why? Were they protecting Papa’s secret about the veil too? “It’s like they’re doing damage control.”

  “Maybe they’re possessed by evil spirits,” Eli offered. “One day they’ll try to turn us into zombies, and we’ll have to spray them with ketchup to snap them out of their trance.”

  My mouth fell open, and I blinked at Eli. “That’s your most ridiculous theory yet.”

  “More ridiculous than the spiders in tiny tap shoes?” Eli asked, quirking an eyebrow.

  “Definitely,” Frankie and I both said.

  “The ketchup made it over the top,” Frankie said, her nose turned up in disgust.

  “It should be paintballs,” I said. “It’ll be more fun too.”

  “Well, well,” said a snarling voice from behind me. “What do we have here?”

  I spun around to see Winston, the wannabe rapper/­basketball star from science class. He was taller than Frankie, who was the tallest of the three of us. But instead of being lanky, he was big, with an even bigger attitude. He had a low ’fro with a lining so precise that it looked tattooed along the top of his forehead. Per his usual style, he wore a blue Golden State jersey (number 30)—he never seemed to run out of new clothes either.

  He was with his cronies, Tay and Candace, two more clueless bullies who always messed with other kids. Tay had his hair in alternating red and black cornrows and wore a dozen gold chains around his neck. Candace was both a chess whiz and queen of the deadliest death stare at school. She held the record for making the most kids pee their pants. Currently standing at forty-seven, including those who had done so more than once.