by Alane Adams
He couldn’t stay in the same room as his mother. Sam ran out of the kitchen and flung open the front door, ready to run as far away as possible, but a flood of black-winged creatures flew in, knocking him backward.
His scream echoed through the house. They clawed at Sam’s face, trying to scratch out his eyes. He covered his head with his arms. The same kind of creature had attacked him at his locker.
Rego burst in, sword drawn, and started flailing at them. “Shreeks,” he muttered. “Filthy witches’ spawn. Endera’s had them tracking your every move.”
Sam’s mom crowded in behind Rego as a new swarm of shreeks erupted out of the chimney. They flew like a black ribbon across the room, heading straight for Sam.
“Rego!” he yelped. “Do something.”
The dwarf slashed at them, sending them squealing and spinning away, but more poured in through the front door. Lagos swooped in and sniped at them, tearing them to pieces with her claws, but there were too many. Sam grabbed a lamp by the neck and swung it at a cloud of shreeks. He missed and nearly hit Rego on the head.
“Get him out of here,” Abigail said to Rego. “I can handle them.”
Rego put his hand on Sam’s back and shoved him toward the kitchen.
Sam reached for her. “No, Mom, we can’t leave you.”
But Abigail seemed to be in a trance. Her head was cocked to the side, and she held her hands out, murmuring words that tugged at Sam like a faint memory. A strange blue glow emanated from her palms and then shot out in a streak of light. As the shreeks hit the light, they evaporated into a puff of white smoke. Sam watched in awe as his mother doubled over, breathless, as though she had just been punched in the stomach.
“Come on, lad,” said Rego. “Out you go.”
They spilled onto the porch as a dusty brown pickup careened across the grass and screeched to a halt, gouging rivets in the lawn. Leo and three Umatilla men jumped out of the back. They grabbed Sam’s arms and lifted him into the truck bed. As Rego levered himself in, the vehicle took off.
A cloud of shreeks swirled above the house, pouring down the chimney like ebony rain. Sam lunged for the side, determined to jump, but the men held him back.
“We can’t just leave her there!” Sam cried in a panic.
Rego rested against the wall of the truck bed, cleaning shreek skin from his nails with the tip of his knife. “Your mother can take care of herself, boy.”
Sam struggled to pull free, but the Umatilla just stared at him silently, their faces unyielding. He appealed to Leo. “Help me. I need to go home.”
Leo nodded. “Yes. It’s time, Sam. My father is preparing the way.”
Sam’s hands trembled when he realized Leo wasn’t talking about Sam’s little house in Pilot Rock. He was talking about this other realm, this place called Orkney. “You swear on your life she’ll be okay?” he said to Rego. “Swear it.”
Rego drew his fingers in an X across his leather vest. “By Odin’s blood, I swear it.”
Sam relaxed a little, then tried to orient himself to the blur of scenery passing by outside. “Where are we going?”
Leo explained proudly. “On the top of Pilot Rock is a sacred stone that can open the doorway between this world and Orkney. My father is a guardian. He will light the stonefire and help you cross over safely.”
“Stonefire? What is that?”
“An ancient method of travel between the realms. Don’t worry, Sam. It’s going to be all right.” Leo put a sympathetic hand on Sam’s shoulder.
Sam didn’t know what to say. He sat staring at the horizon as the truck bounced down the highway toward the reservation. Tears blurred his eyes. His father was dead. And his mother was most definitely a witch. She had used magic to wipe out those shreeks. Some crazy things had happened in the past few days, but that was the craziest.
They left the main road and entered a dirt lane, heading deep into the Umatilla wastelands. The familiar boulder loomed ahead as twilight settled over them, cooling the air. A glow came from atop Pilot Rock. A large blaze burned, lighting up the night sky.
Leo’s father was up there, preparing an ancient portal so that Sam could go “home” to a place he had never heard of. When the truck finally pulled to a stop, Sam jumped down onto wobbly legs. Leo looped a polished wooden bow and a quiver full of arrows over his shoulder. He handed Sam a serrated knife in a leather case.
“Take this. The Shun Kara may be here.”
Sam held it, trying to understand. “Why are you helping me? Have we met before?”
A muscle twitched in Leo’s jaw. “One day, you will understand. My people are connected to your world. We still believe in the ancient gods. When they need our help, we are their allies.”
Rego yelled at them to get moving. The other men would stay behind to guard the trail. The way was narrow and rocky. One false step, and he would plunge off the side into an abyss. Halfway up, Sam stumbled over something in his path.
A red tennis shoe.
“Wait,” he said, kneeling down to pick it up. Recognition hit him like a punch in the gut. “This is Howie’s.” He looked from Leo to Rego. “What’s Howie’s shoe doing here?”
Rego’s face tightened. “There’s sure to be trouble ahead, lads; stay on your toes.”
They continued on, hurrying now with renewed urgency. As they neared the top, shouts rang out. There was a loud pop and an explosion. Rocks tumbled down around Sam, knocking him off the edge of the trail. He grabbed a branch as he went over the side, kicking furiously to find his footing. Then Leo was there, pulling him back onto solid ground.
“Hurry, Sam—the portal has been opened.”
The smell of smoke reached them as they crested the boulder. The top was smooth and flat, barren of trees and shrubs. In the center, leaping flames burned a phosphorescent orange around a stone the size of a refrigerator. The stone glowed with a silvery light that shimmered and flickered, as if the rock were transparent. This must be the stonefire.
The doorway to another world.
Two days ago, Sam would never have believed it. Now, he barely glanced at it. He was more concerned with finding Howie and dealing with the three enormous black wolves that stood in front of the stone, defying them to pass.
The Shun Kara paced back and forth in the dancing firelight, fangs bared, growling deep in their chests. Leo’s father faced off against the beasts, a sturdy lance his only weapon. A bloody gash ran down his leg.
“Dad, are you okay?” Leo ran to join his father, and the first Shun Kara attacked, loping straight for Leo. Before it could crouch and leap, Chief Pate-wa impaled the beast in the shoulder, taking it down in a lifeless lump. Leo reached his father, putting his shoulder under the chief’s arm.
“Get Sam out of here!” the chief shouted. “It’s not safe for him.”
Sam understood when Ms. Endera stepped out of the shadows, holding Howie and Keely by the scruffs of their necks.
Keely screamed Sam’s name when she saw him.
Ms. Endera sent him a triumphant glare before letting out an evil peal of laughter.
Sam started to run forward, but Rego tripped him and knocked him to the ground. He looked up to see Endera step into the flames, dragging his friends with her through the shimmering stone.
“Keely!” he shouted, stretching his hand out, but she was gone, along with Howie. Furious, he rolled onto his back. “Why’d you do that?” he shouted at Rego.
Rego hauled him to his feet. “Don’t be a fool, lad. She’s using your friends to get you to follow her. She’s got a trap waiting on the other side.”
“Listen to him, Samuel,” the chief shouted, leaning on Leo for support. “The witches don’t want your friends; they want you.”
Another Shun Kara broke from the pair and ran straight for Sam. He fumbled for the knife at his side, but Leo already had an arrow notched. He let it loose, and the arrow embedded in the beast’s shoulder. It rolled to a stop at Sam’s feet.
Sam looked at Leo
. His new friend nodded, offering silent support. Sam gathered his courage. Nothing was going to stop him from going after Howie and Keely. He took a step forward, then stopped as Endera’s giant lizard came from behind the stone. It roared, standing like an alligator on two legs, beating its chest with its clawed front feet. Lizard-Platz was blocking the entrance to the stonefire. The lone Shun Kara prowled between them.
“Step aside, Sam. We have to kill that thing,” Rego said, holding his sword.
“No way!” Sam yelled. “That’s Mr. Platz. You can’t harm him.”
“Sorry, lad. He’s not your Mr. Platz anymore.”
The lizard beat its chest again. And then its roar choked off into a squeak. Suddenly, it began to change; its talons retracted, and its snout shrank down. Hair began to sprout on its head, and then, a moment later, Mr. Platz stood there, looking dazed and confused.
“Sam?” He staggered a bit as he peered across the plateau at his student. “Where am I?”
Sam was as surprised to see Platz as his old teacher was to see him. Endera’s exit must have broken the spell keeping Platz in his lizard form. But the English teacher was still in grave danger.
“Watch out, Mr. Platz!”
The Shun Kara had turned and started loping toward the disoriented teacher. Sam didn’t stop to think. He ran, tackling the wolf as it leaped at his teacher, and tumbled into the stonefire with it. Sam fell into heat and flames, ready to be scorched, but there was only coldness and pain as the beast’s claws scraped his belly. He took Leo’s knife and plunged it into the mat of black fur. Then the world went dark.
Chapter Eight
Endera Tarkana let out a shriek of elation as she emerged from the stonefire. Dropping the two squealing children, she filled her lungs with air after their suffocating journey. She watched with amusement as Howie frantically patted out the flames on his raggedy clothes. The girl was more demure, or maybe she was in shock. She got to her feet, looking around her silently. Only the clenched fists at her sides revealed that she was seething inwardly. Good. Keely would need strength to withstand what was coming. Endera let out a low whistle. From the shadows of the trees surrounding the stone portal, a bevy of witches appeared.
“Where is the Barconian boy?” The commanding voice came from Hestera. As the eldest member of their coven, Hestera fancied herself in charge. She hobbled toward them, bent over a knobby cane topped by a magnificent emerald-colored stone. “Does he live or not?”
Endera sauntered forward to greet her. “Hestera, dear sister, were you not even a little worried about me?” She pouted playfully.
The old witch bared her teeth. “Your survival was never in doubt, Endera. You always find a way. This cannot be the boy.” She sniffed Howie up and down. “He smells weak.”
“Back off, you bag of bones.” Howie put on a brave face, but Endera could see his fear. His bottom lip quivered, and his pupils were dilated. He had just made a fatal mistake, however. Before she could intercede, Hestera struck like a snake.
“You dare speak to me like that?” Hestera’s bony hand shot out to wrap around Howie’s throat as she dragged him closer. The boy’s face turned purple as her grip tightened.
“Leave him alone!” Keely kicked at Hestera until a pair of witches grabbed her by the arms and held her back. “Make her stop,” she yelled at Endera. “Why did you bring us here if you’re just going to kill us?”
The girl had a point. Endera clapped loudly. “Hestera, enough.”
The old witch whirled on Endera. “You waste our time. This child is not a Son of Odin.” She continued to squeeze the boy’s throat. He began to go limp.
Endera stepped forward, laying her hand on Hestera’s arm. “Patience, Hestera. These children are the bait in our trap. The boy we seek will be coming through that portal any moment.” She pointed back at the stone. “You will see. You will all see.”
“Then we wait here and kill him!” Hestera cried, releasing Howie. He dropped to his knees, his hands on the grass as he sucked in huge gulps of air. The other witches murmured in agreement.
“The Son of Odin is under my protection,” Endera commanded. “If he dies, we can’t achieve our goals.”
“You and your plans,” Hestera mocked. “That boy is a threat. We cannot afford to let him live.”
“He has no idea of his potential. Take these brats back to the dungeons. Leave me with some of my sisters, and I will have the boy eating out of our hands. If my plan succeeds, we will gain unfathomable power. If I fail, you can kill him personally and feed his corpse to the Shun Kara.”
Hestera hesitated, and then finally relented.
Behind Endera, the stone began to glow and crackle with electricity.
Endera shooed the others toward the trees. “Quickly, before we are seen.”
In a puff of green smoke, the witches vanished, taking the captives with them. Endera and the small remaining band faded into the woods, disappearing from sight as the stone began to open.
From the shadows, Endera paused to be sure the Barconian boy made it safely through. She watched as Sam tumbled into sight with a Shun Kara wolf on top of him. Her stomach clenched. It would do her no good if one of her pets harmed the boy, but the beast lay still and unmoving, a knife sticking out of its ribs. With another thump, the nosy dwarf tumbled through, landing next to the boy and jumping to his feet. He checked Sam and then took a seat on a stump. Satisfied, Endera hurried after her sister witches. Her plan to bring the boy to Orkney had succeeded. The next step was to help him discover who he really was.
A foul animal stench filled Sam’s nostrils, rousing him from his stupor. He felt as if a load of bricks had landed on his chest. Gasping for air, he opened his eyes and saw the gaping mouth of a Shun Kara. Yelling loudly, he pushed off the brute and then scrambled away on all fours. The animal rolled over onto the grass as limp as a dishrag, the hilt of Sam’s knife buried in its rib cage. Its sticky blood covered his hands and arms. Sam wiped his hands on the grass, trying to get his heart rate back to normal.
Across from him, Rego sat on a tree stump, whittling. In the tree behind him, Lagos ruffled her singed feathers.
“You could have gotten it off me,” Sam said, feeling wobbly. He put his head between his knees and took several deep breaths.
“Aye, I could have,” Rego agreed, continuing to whittle. “But I didn’t want to disturb your beauty sleep,” he quipped, his whiskers twitching.
“This isn’t funny,” Sam said, raising his head. “That witch has my friends. Howie and Keely could be dead already.” He staggered to his feet, fighting dizziness. “We have to go after them.” Bright spots danced in front of his eyes. Traveling through the stonefire had left him light-headed.
“They’re long gone. Smell that sulfur? They spirited themselves away. And your friends aren’t dead, lad. Not yet. The witch didn’t bring them all this way just to kill them—though it probably would have been better for them if she had,” he added.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means nothing good ever comes from a witch.”
Sam took a proper look around. So this was Orkney. Place didn’t seem half bad. The day was warm. He filled his lungs with air from this new world. It was kind of crazy, but he was excited. The air had a faint pungent odor like the burnt sage from his mom’s cooking. A large stone stood nearby, charred and cracked from their passage. Sam couldn’t remember much of the journey; he had been too busy trying not to get eaten by the Shun Kara. He did remember a sense of falling and a lack of oxygen.
By the looks of it, they were on top of a large boulder like the one back in Pilot Rock. In fact, the closer Sam looked, the more he realized it was the same boulder. Only now, the big rock wasn’t perched on the edge of the barren Umatilla waste-land. Below them, rolling green hills spread out like a lush carpet. Sheep grazed peacefully among the rocky cairns that lined the landscape. In the distance, white-capped waves crashed against the coastline under an azure sky. Sam could on
ly shake his head in amazement. It defied explanation, but after he had seen Mr. Platz change back from being a lizard, anything seemed possible.
Sam squinted up at the sky, and that’s when his excitement turned to dust. Blood-red veins ran across the face of the sun, splitting off into thinner capillaries. He frowned, trying to make sense of it. His head felt like someone had dropped a sledgehammer on it. A wave of nausea came over him so strongly that he thought he would faint.
He tried to drag his eyes away, but he was transfixed as waves of envy, rage, and a sense of pleasure flooded him at the same time. As he stared at the sun, another plump vein sprouted, sending a fresh trail spiking across its yellow face.
Without warning, Sam’s legs were swept out from under him, and he landed on his back with a loud woomph. He looked up at Rego and shouted, “What’s your problem?”
“Don’t be daft, boy. You can’t stare at the sun and not get poisoned by it.”
Not wanting to alienate the only person he knew in this place, Sam did his best to tamp down his temper. He picked himself up, brushing off the dirt. “What happened to it?”
“Witches,” Rego said, as if that explained it. “Here, this belongs to you now.” He tossed Sam the leather pouch Sam’s father had worn. It had a drawstring knotted in a long loop. Sam hefted it, feeling the weight of the rock inside.
“What’s so special about it?” He hesitated. Part of him wanted to throw it back at Rego, but another part craved a little piece of his dad. Finally, he slipped the pouch around his neck. The weight felt reassuring and heavy.
“It’s what remains of Odin’s Stone. A powerful talisman of the gods. The witches ground it into dust years ago to destroy its power. This remnant survived. It’s small, but it still contains Odin’s breath. Your father would have wanted you to have it.”
Lifting Lagos onto his arm, Rego stroked her feathers, then launched her into the air. “You’re my eyes now, Lagos.” She sprang off his wrist and took to the sky, circling once above them before heading away. He shouldered his pack. “We should be moving. There’s still a long journey ahead.” Without waiting for Sam’s answer, the dwarf began trudging down a narrow trail.
