The Moon Dwellers

by David Estes

  “If you’re really meant to be together, then he couldn’t have died. He might be captured, tortured even, but somehow he’ll find you.” I can’t tell if her words are wise beyond her years, or simply the vivid imagination of an innocent child. Either way, they comfort me.

  “G’night, Elsey,” I say

  “Love you, Adele.”

  “Love you, too.”

  Although I’m sure it is hours later, it feels like I start dreaming the second my eyes close. It isn’t of Tristan this time, for which I am strangely relieved. It’s like I know that if I dream of him I will only see death. Thankfully, my mind gives me a reprieve from such pain. Of course, the alternative isn’t much better.

  I dream of war. The star dweller army is destroying all of the Moon Realm, running rampant across the subchapters. It’s like I am on the outside of a looking glass, watching the horror unfold before my eyes. For some reason I’m not angry at them. I know they are just frustrated at being the scum of the earth, treated like rats by the sun dwellers. Used, abused, stepped on.

  The sun dweller army is coming, their legions of troops marching forward, their armor polished and gleaming. I can see them, but the star dwellers can’t. I scream, try to warn them, but no one can hear me through the mirror. No one except Rivet, that is, who is leading the sun dweller army. His black eyes look right at me, challenging me to come down. I don’t want to, but know I have to.

  I swim through the mirror, pushing it to the side and behind me, like it’s made of a strange viscous liquid. Gravity grabs me and pulls me to the ground. Rivet smiles as he tightens his bow string. He shoots me through the heart.

  You know how they say you can’t die in your dreams? I do. The pain is so intense, so real, that I cry out in my sleep. But still I don’t wake up, clinging to life in my dream by reaching for a sky I have never seen, as life ebbs from my broken body. I die tonight.

  When I do wake, I am surprised to find myself very much alive with three familiar faces hovering anxiously over me. “We’re here, Adele,” Tawni coos. “It was just a dream.”

  “So real,” I murmur. “I died.”

  Elsey’s face is clouded with concern. “You’ll never die,” she says.

  “You got that right,” I say, trying to put on a strong face for my sister although I feel weak from the nightmare.

  “We need to eat something and then keep moving,” Cole says. For all the emotion that Cole displayed when we were at Tawni’s house, he seems equally emotion-free now. Rigid, soldier-like. It doesn’t bother me.

  We eat quickly, swallowing the tasteless canned beans in gulps, like it is a race.

  Because of Tawni’s watch, we know we’ve only slept four hours and that it’s still early in the morning. Cole suspects that Rivet and his men have slept even less, so we need to keep moving. When we start out, I am already dreading the day’s hike. My ribs are sore and tender, but by gritting my teeth and breathing through them, I can control the pain.

  Elsey seems to have slept better than me, bouncing along beside me and chattering away. “I’m so glad to be out of that orphanage,” she says. “Some of the kids were nice, and I’ll miss Ranna for all of eternity, but the rest of it was dreadful. We all slept in the same room and ate the same porridge every day. They only let us go outside once a day, and the rest of the time we had to do chores around the place. Once a month they let us take a bath. How was the Pen?”

  “About the same,” I say. “Maybe a bit better, to be honest.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To find Mum and Dad.”

  “Really? You think they’re alive?”

  “Tawni thinks that Dad is. And I bet if he is then Mom is, too.”

  “Oh, sweet joy! We’ll rescue them, won’t we, Adele?”

  “Of course,” I say, not sure at all.

  It feels good knowing where my father is, even though getting him out will be the equivalent of a suicide mission. Between knowing about my dad and having Elsey around, I feel like I am at least half a person again, a significant improvement on the empty shell I had become. But there is still a huge part of me missing, because I haven’t saved my dad yet and don’t even know where my mom is. I wonder where she is, what condition she’s in. Despite my assurances to Elsey, I know there is a good chance she’s dead. I try not to think about it.

  Chatting with Elsey makes the day go by so much faster. She is like our little motivator, constantly saying positive things in her very proper-sounding way. Once she is done grilling me about what I’ve been doing while we were apart, she focuses on Tawni and Cole, asking them even more questions. They tiptoe around some of the serious things we’ve already discussed, and focus on telling funny stories from their childhoods.

  All in all, it isn’t a bad day, and before I know it, we are stopping again for the evening. We haven’t eaten since the morning, so we are all famished. We devour our canned food again, except this time I actually enjoy it. I don’t think it’s the taste of the food, though; I think it’s just that being free of the Pen and back with my sister makes the bland food taste good—it’s the taste of freedom, I guess.

  When we finish eating, Cole brings up the topic we’ve all been ignoring. “How the hell are we going to get out of these caves?” he says.

  “Are we lost?” I say, making a bad joke.

  Tawni laughs anyway—snorts actually, as she is taking a sip of water when I speak. That gets us all laughing, with Elsey’s infectious giggle keeping it going for a long time. Even Mr. Serious joins in, smirking at first, then chuckling, and finally full out laughing. We all need it.

  “If we just keep going, we’ll come out somewhere eventually, right?” I say.

  “How much do you know about the Lonely Caverns?” Cole asks.

  “Not much. They connect three or four subchapters, don’t they?”

  “Yeah,” Cole says. “For each grouping of subchapters there is a cavern that acts as a hub to connect them all. The Lonely Caverns are the hub for subchapters fourteen to seventeen. They’re used by miners to travel from mine to mine. The miners stick to the main tunnels, which we left almost immediately. According to the maps I’ve seen, the caverns are a hundred square miles.”

  Tawni adds, “And we’ve made so many turns that we don’t have the first clue as to which direction we’re headed. We may have been traveling in circles all day, or we may have cut a path straight across—impossible to say for sure.”

  “Best guess?” I ask.

  Cole says, “I think we’re going to end up somewhere in subchapter sixteen. We headed straight east when we first entered, and I’m pretty damn sure we haven’t cut back across any of the main tunnels, so that means we’re still headed east, unless we got completely turned around and are now headed south and west again, back the way we came. We should know soon enough, because we’d end up rejoining the main tunnel.”

  “Okay,” I say. “So we just keep walking?”

  Cole shrugs. “No other choice.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Tristan

  These days not many people believe in God anymore. I’m not sure I do sometimes. Those above are enjoying themselves too much to stop to think about whether they’re blessed. And those below are too jaded. My mom did, though. She believed with all her heart that there is a greater power out there, one that cares about us, watches over us. She said bad things still have to happen, because they help us learn and grow, but that in the end we’ll be saved.

  I could use a little saving.

  I wake up with a nasty bump on my head. I don’t even remember getting hit. It throbs like hell.

  I try to sit up, but it is difficult with my arms and legs tied.

  It is dark. Not like a cloudy night with the moon and stars blocked; dark like the sun, moon, and stars don’t exist, which they don’t in our world. Plus there are no overhead cavern lights, no streetlights, no houselights. I work out that we’re in a cave pretty quickly.

  It all comes flashin
g back. The girl—no, Adele—running, being chased by my father’s demons. My intervention. Rivet’s gleaming eyes. Our salvation by the same men who surely now hold us captive.

  You’ll make a pretty prize for the star dwellers indeed.

  From the man’s words, it doesn’t sound like they are star dwellers, unless he is talking about them in the third person. I don’t think so.

  A light flashes in the dark. It moves closer.

  The man holds the torch in front of my face. It burns my eyes while they try to adjust. I shut them tight, and then slowly open them, squinting for at least a minute. The whole time the man waits patiently for me to get them open.

  When I do, I gasp. I know he is the man who spoke to me earlier, the one who killed Rivet’s men. He isn’t wearing his hat this time, and I can see his face, which is what makes me gasp. Half his face is swollen red and bubbling with blisters. Whether a lifelong disease or a fresh scar, I do not know.

  “My face got damn near blown off by the heavy artillery,” he growls. “Pretty sight, ain’t it?”

  “What do you want?” I ask.

  “From you?” he says. “Nothin’. All you gotta do is come with us. I hope I’m not makin’ it sound like you’ve got a choice. ’Cuz ya don’t. Yer comin’. As sure as the sun ain’t shinin’, yer comin’.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Just a guy. A guy fed up with bein’ crapped on by yer kind. For once the damn star dwellers got the right idear. Fight back.”

  “But they’re killing your own people.”

  “Eh. So they’ve got their target a bit mixed up. But it’s workin’, ain’t it? We’re goin’ to join ’em, and others will, too. So the plan worked, eh?”

  My head is spinning, half because of what this guy is saying to me, and half because of the blow I took to the head, probably from the butt of this guy’s gun. “Look, man, I’m not the one you want. I’m not like them. I hate my father. I’ve left the Sun Realm and I’m not going back. Just let me go and I’ll stay out of the whole thing. Please.” I feel like I am begging, my voice higher pitched than usual, all toughness stripped from it, leaving just a child’s voice.

  “Okay,” the man says.

  “Really?”

  “Nah, just messing with you. Ha ha ha!” The guy’s laugh is as rough as the stones around us. “Yer my prize, kid. We can use ya. Yer one hell of a bargainin’ chip.”

  He leaves the torch nearby and moves off into the darkness. Using my elbows as levers, and by twisting and balancing on one shoulder, I manage to get myself into a seated position so I can take in my surroundings—or at least what I can see of them.

  Roc is sleeping nearby, his forehead marked by a puffy, red welt. They haven’t bothered to give us blankets or pillows or anything, so my body is sore and cold from lying on the hard cavern floor all night.

  There are several other men sleeping nearby. I am sure there are more, at least a dozen, but the light from the torch only extends in a small sphere. I assume we are somewhere in the Lonely Caverns, most likely not very far in, as the men won’t have wanted to carry our limp bodies for very long.

  I have no idea how long we’ve been out, but I hope it wasn’t long, for with each passing minute Adele is traveling further and further away from me.

  How twisted are the hands of fate? Pretty twisted, I’d say. Mangled and knobby; old and decrepit. Every time you’re granted a stroke of good fortune, it’s offset by a calamity. Like Adele escaping from prison right when the star dwellers attacked. Sometimes the good luck is even caused by something bad. Like when Adele’s path crossed ours at that exact fateful moment. Had Rivet not been chasing her, perhaps she would have arrived later, and I wouldn’t have seen her. We might’ve missed each other by taking different routes, like two companies of miners passing in the night, unknown to each other.

  My father doesn’t believe in fate. He says we make our own fate. So far, he’s been right about that. I sort of believed him until now. But after everything that has happened, I know there are other forces at play. Forces that want Adele and me together, and that will keep giving us chances at it. I hope that force hasn’t given up yet.

  Roc stirs in his sleep and then opens one eye, clamping it shut again immediately when the light hits it. He raises a hand to his temple, gingerly feeling around the red bump, cringing each time he touches a raw nerve.

  “You okay, man?” I whisper, trying not to wake the other guys.

  “I think so. You?”

  “About the same. Just a knock on the head. I think it was done gently enough to not cause any permanent damage. I think they want us alive to use as hostages.”

  “Hostages for what?”

  “They’re taking us to the star dwellers, who will then try to get to my father through me.”

  “What’re we gonna do?”

  “Not much we can do. Go along for the ride, I suppose.”

  A familiar voice echoes through the cave. “That’s right! There’s nothin’ you can do!” Each of the men around us awakes with a start, some of them jumping up and grabbing weapons, looking for someone to fight.

  “It’s just me, you idiots,” the voice says, as a figure steps into the light. It is the guy with the burnt face. “Time to move,” he says.

  “Move where?” I ask.

  “None of yer damn business,” he says.

  With impressive speed, the men get packed and move out. I ask for water but am denied. They do, however, unbind our feet so we can walk easily. Our hands remain tied in the front. I smile when they don’t bother to retie them behind our backs. In the front gives us lots more room to maneuver in the event that an opportunity arises.

  But no chances for action come up today. Our march feels endless, especially with no water to quench my burning throat. Roc and I are separated—sandwiched in between two guys each—so we aren’t able to talk to each other. When I do risk a question to one of my guards—a simple Can I stop to go to the bathroom?—it is answered with a rough jab to the abdomen with the end of his rifle.

  Not a good day.

  Twice we hear echoing voices bouncing off the walls from somewhere in the cavern. We stop suddenly and everyone strains to listen for more sounds, trying to discern who it might be or what direction it is coming from, but all we get is silence, and it is near impossible to determine where the sound originates from. I wonder if it’s Adele and her friends, somewhere in front of us in the caverns, moving by some twist of fate in the exact same direction as us. Or it might be Rivet with a new troop, replacing the men who were killed by our captors. Whoever it is, they stay out of our way and we out of theirs.

  I don’t know the Lonely Caverns well, but from studying Roc’s map I know enough to realize we are sticking to one of the four main tunnels, which intersect at a hub near the middle. We are essentially using the cavern as a conduit to move to another subchapter.

  At the end of the day’s march, my legs are on fire and my wrists rubbed raw by the constant chafing of the tight ropes that bind them together. My mouth and esophagus are so dry I can’t swallow. My head started really pounding halfway through the day, and it is all I can do to ignore the urge to collapse and curl up into a ball. I am sure Roc’s day hasn’t been much better than mine.

  Thankfully, they sit us down together while they prepare the evening meal, probably because we are easier to guard if we are in one place. Roc looks like hell, his face pale and his eyes barely open, and I wonder if I look any better. One of the guards finally shows mercy and gives both of us two gulps of some kind of liquid that tastes like dirt. It’s the best dirt I’ve ever tasted, and I would drink the whole bottle if they let me.

  Speaking is difficult, but I don’t know whether we’ll get another chance, so I use my recently moistened tongue to lick my chapped lips and attempt a few sentences. “You gonna be all right, Roc?” I say.

  Roc manages a tight smile and says, “It’s nothin’ compared to all the chores you make me do around the
palace.”

  I grin. I know Roc will be all right as long as he keeps making jokes. “Speaking of which, I’ve got a few for you this evening if you don’t mind?”

  “As long as it involves knocking a guard or two on the head and getting the hell out of here, I’m game.” I’ve never heard Roc say anything that violent before and for some reason I find it really funny. It appears that our little trip away from the Sun Realm is changing him already.

  “If you take six, I’ll take the other six,” I say.

  “How ’bout I take three and you take nine,” Roc counters.

  “Seven and five—that’s my final offer.”

  “Deal,” Roc says.

  We should probably take the time more seriously, try to come up with a real plan, but I think the little bit of joking helps more than anything else would.

  We don’t knock any guards on the head tonight. We are just too tired. Plus, they keep two watchmen awake at all times, who are charged with guarding us and the camp at the same time.

  Despite not having a pillow or blanket for the second night in a row, I sleep like a dead man, nestling my head in the crook between my forearm and bicep.

  When I awake, the pain in my head is gone. I struggle to a seated position and look around. Roc smirks at me. “How’s your head?” he says.

  “Never felt better,” I say honestly.

  “Mine, too. I think there was some kind of medicine in the drink they gave us last night.”

  “Probably a slow-acting poison that will kill us in a few days.”

  “Probably,” Roc says.

  One of the guards is watching our exchange with interest. He is a stocky guy with a shiny bald head and graying beard. He says, “My daughter’s in love with you.”

  Roc says, “Me?”

  I laugh.

  Baldy says, “No, you,”—motioning to me—“the one with the good head of hair and pretty-boy smile. She’s got a poster of you up in her bedroom. Cost me a whole week’s pay. She will never forgive me if I don’t get an autograph when I have the chance.”

  I’ve had some strange requests in my life, but this one takes the cake (if we had any cake, that is). The whole world is exploding, we are captured by a gang of misfits, and one of my captors wants an autograph?