by Nadia Aguiar
“I hope this is the right place,” said Maya, looking around. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
They were indeed in the middle of nowhere—the Borderlands of the West and the Neglected Provinces, Milagros had told them. But it was a clear, bright day, the sky blue and hopeful, and although the earth was spongy, they were happy to be back on land. They soon found a dirt road that unrolled through the rice paddies and past a distant windbreak of trees whose tops were turning silver in the sunny breeze. Simon took out the compass and took a bearing northwest.
“I guess we go on this for a while,” he said. He and Maya each held one of Penny’s hands, swinging the little girl every few steps until their arms got tired. Putrid masses of waterweeds gave way to broad plashy rice fields, stretching green and luxurious on either side. It seemed that there wasn’t another soul for miles. For the first time in a while, Simon began to relax. At least for the time being they were safe from the Red Coral. Penny ran ahead and dug in puddles for oily little tadpoles that wriggled in her palms. Every now and then a lone tree cast a cooling shadow on the road.
The sun was high when Maya stopped in her tracks. “What is that?” she said, turning her ear to where the red dirt road disappeared into the scalloped golden hills in the distance.
Simon listened. “I don’t hear anything,” he said.
“Shh,” said Maya, lifting her finger to her lips. “There it is again!”
Whump! Sssaaaa!
Simon heard it then, too.
Whump! Whump! Sssaaaa!
Simon grabbed on to the smooth-limbed branch of a tall tree growing beside the road. He wedged his foot in the fork, hoisted himself up, and climbed boldly, foot over hand, like a monkey to the top. He popped out at the top and looked around to get his bearings. Yes, there was the way they had come, and ahead of them the golden hills. The marshy earth spread all around, standing pools of water reflecting the swift-streaming clouds, and—
Whump! Whump! Ssssssssssssaaaa!
The wind picked up the final hiss of the sssaaaa! and carried it at speed up to him at the top of the tree. He squinted but couldn’t see anything—where was the sound coming from? A breeze swished through, flattening the leaves, and suddenly Simon had a clear view out of the tree to a cloud of dust rising on the dirt road in the near distance. Wrapping his knees around the branch, he struggled for his binoculars, and when the next breeze swept the leaves back what he saw almost made him topple out of the tree. Dropping the binoculars to hang around his neck, he began to scramble recklessly back down.
“A whole lot of people are marching this way,” he said, jumping down from the last branch and landing on the ground near his sisters. “There was a lot of dust—I couldn’t really see them—but they’re definitely marching. We need to hide!”
Maya grabbed Penny’s hand and ran into the boggy earth off the road toward the tree. The rice was too short to hide in. Simon was about to follow them when he stopped suddenly.
“Footprints!” he cried, rushing back to the road and jogging alongside it to make sure that there were no telltale prints anywhere. Happily the road, raised out of the paddies, was hard and dry in most places. He was about to turn back when he saw Penny’s heel marks in a mucky hollow—she had been playing some sort of hopscotch there, he remembered. He kneeled to pat them smooth. The steady thumping and answering rattling was growing louder and Simon could feel the vibrations through the earth.
“Simon—come on!” Maya called to him from the tree.
Simon clambered quickly up the tree and joined his sisters. Penny was sitting snugly in the fork of a branch and Maya was next to her. Simon climbed a little higher and crouched down to wait. The group was fast approaching, singing something, something without words and without a tune, just a series of guttural thumps and whumps. Even the breaths between the cries sounded fearsome. Who were they?
Whump! Through a break in the trees Simon saw a bare foot come into view. Then another, and a horde of them after that.
Whump! Whump! Sssaaaa!
They weren’t singing, Simon realized. The thumping sound was from their feet, beating the ground in rhythm, and the sssaaaa! sound was from some jangling instrument they carried over their shoulders.
“The Maroong,” he whispered.
Through the leaves he caught fragmented glimpses of enormously tall men and equally tall women. Their faces were pinkish in the sun and their shiny shaven heads were painted with jungle dyes. He saw a helmet with polished sea tusks that stuck out at awkward angles and reptile scales glittering like armor over torsos. Jewels flashed in lips and ears. He saw that they carried crude weaponry—spears tipped with giant tusks and heavy wooden clubs set with ragged sharks’ teeth. Whump, ump, whump, whump! Ssssssaaaaaa. Whump, ump, whump, whump, ssssssaaaaaa! There had to be a few hundred of them. They raised their clubs, glistening with poisonous resin, up to the blue sky.
Then Simon realized this was not an ordinary work gang heading to the ophalla mines. They were warriors ready for battle.
What was the Red Coral planning that needed not just workers, but soldiers?
Where were they marching? Isabella had been kidnapped and the government was in shambles—was the Red Coral going to take over all of Tamarind? Where are you, Helix? Simon thought. If he were with them Simon was sure he and his sisters wouldn’t be stumbling around so blindly.
The children kept quiet as mice. They waited until the footfalls were far away and then Simon slid down from the tree and crept out to the road.
“All clear,” he said. Maya and Penny climbed down after him.
“What do you think the Red Coral are up to?” Maya asked, dusting off her hands and looking down the road where the Maroong had vanished.
“Whatever it is, it’s bad,” said Simon grimly.
Penny was bending down to look at a tooth that had fallen off one of the Maroong’s weapons. “Whoa,” said Maya. “What has teeth that big?”
“Some animal in the East, where they come from, I guess,” said Simon. He looked at his little sister then and wished that her legs were longer. “We’ve got to go a little quicker now, okay?” he said to her. “Piggyback?” He bent down and she jumped onto his back and latched her arms around his shoulders.
With greater urgency, they pressed on.
* * *
The land grew rapidly hotter and drier over the next few miles and soon the children left the lush rice paddies behind. The earth they trod on now yielded little life. A rare shady tree stood here or there, sucking up all available water for a mile around it, allowing nothing else to grow. The fuzz of a type of hardy dandelion drifted in the breeze from somewhere far away but found no place on the arid soil to make purchase. Simon had never seen anywhere in Tamarind like this before—where was the lush, humid jungle they knew? A mountain range loomed blue in the distance, like a chalky heap of rubble. He checked the map to be sure they were going the right way, then they kept walking until they saw the mountain that cast the triangular shadow Milagros had described to them.
“I think this is it,” said Simon. “This is Hetty’s Pass, where Milagros said that big battle was ages ago that the general won. And there’s the triangle shadow she told us about.”
“Now what?” asked Maya. “Milagros never really said what to do once we got here.”
Simon took out his binoculars and scanned the valley.
“There’s a hut on the plateau up ahead,” he said. “Let’s start there.”
As they walked, Penny tilted her head sideways and looked at the mountain ahead of them. “I see a face,” she said, but the others weren’t paying attention. “In the mountains, see? There’s the nose and there’s the mouth and there’s the chin.”
“Mmm-hmm,” murmured Maya, taking Penny’s hand. “Now, come on, you have to keep up.”
Penny trotted to catch up, but she kept her eye on the ridge in the distance, sure of what she saw.
* * *
The sun beat down brutally an
d the dry breeze sapped the moisture from their skin. Simon had to veer to miss a parched tumbleweed that rolled past. Soon they drew close to the little adobe hut on the plateau. A few pieces of faded washing, dried stiffly by the sun, flapped in the breeze.
“There’s laundry,” said Simon. “Someone must live there.”
Maya stopped to wipe the sweat off her face. “Question is why anyone would choose to live here,” she said. “Can this really be where Milagros meant?”
As they drew near they saw a man sitting on a bench outside the hut, chewing olives and spitting the pits onto the earth as he watched the children approach. A pair of polished boots sat on the stone steps, their leather soft and worn with age.
“Wait,” said Maya in a low voice. “We have no idea who he is—he could be dangerous…”
“I don’t think Milagros would have sent us to someone dangerous,” said Simon. But as they neared the hut he grew nervous. Maya was right; they didn’t know who this man was. He was old, but he was far bigger than Simon and looked very strong. How would Simon protect his sisters if he had to?
The man didn’t rise when they stopped awkwardly in front of him. The shadow he cast, even when sitting, was enormous. He had great hands, a broad face, a flat nose, a big mouth, ox-broad shoulders, and a torso like the barrel of a tree. His hair was white but his skin was bronzed dark and leathery from the sun and deep creases cleaved his thick neck. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up. He moved only to kick the front door of the hut closed with his huge, filthy bare foot so they could not see inside.
Simon felt his knees trembling slightly. Penny huddled close to Maya. But then the man spoke and put them at ease.
“Water’s there,” he said, nodding to a pump beside a roofed well near the house. “Well’s dry but the pump’s good. Help yourselves.”
Gratefully the children cranked the squeaky pump and rinsed the dust out of their mouths and took a long drink. A mule with soft floppy ears grazed on stubbly roots of grass in a tiny enclosure. It looked up at them and blew gently through its nostrils. Simon saw that around the side of the house was a pen with three ostrillos, like the one Señora Medrano had but bigger.
He stood up, refreshed, and regarded the man thoughtfully. Something about the straightness of his back and the focus of his expression, intense but unrevealing, gave Simon the impression that he might once have been a soldier. Simon wondered why he had kicked the door of the hut shut when he saw them coming. Now that they were there Simon wasn’t entirely sure what to do. He was growing tired of explaining who they were and what they were doing there, and trying to gauge how much information to reveal and how much to withhold. Also, he was weary from walking all day and in the end his weariness made him bold: He opened his backpack and took out the two ophallagraphs from the Gazette Extraordinario.
“I’m Simon and these are my sisters, Maya and Penny,” he said. “We’ve come to see if you know anything about these.”
The man got to his feet abruptly, knocking over his chair, and looked in astonishment at the ophallagraphs. Suddenly finding themselves in his shadow, Maya and Penny took a step back but Simon stood his ground. The images glowed brighter in the shadow the man cast. He looked down at them, the white-blue light reflecting on his sun-worn face.
“Where did you get these from?” he asked harshly.
Simon felt sweat trickle down inside his shirt. Had he miscalculated in showing the ophallagraphs? “One is from Señora Rojo and Señora Medrano—” he began but got no further.
The man’s face suddenly turned deep purple.
“Those devils!” he roared. “What do they want with me now! Where are they and what are they doing together? I thought they hadn’t spoken since the day they tried to kill me!”
Enraged, the man clenched his bulging fists and turned and looked down the hill all around them as if he expected to see other people coming. What had he meant … since the señoras had tried to kill him? Simon took a big step back, Penny dived behind Maya, and the three of them stood there quaking.
“We’re alone!” Simon said hurriedly. “We’ve come alone!”
A breath of cool air from the mountains blew open the door of the hut and before the man could close it again Simon caught a glimpse inside. Leaning in the corner was a cluster of rifles. Pistols hung on the wall in between maps depicting wavy lines of marching regiments; mounted armies fording rivers; fleets of boats slanted in the wind; and Xs and arrows had been drawn to mark supply lines, advances and retreats, defeats and victories … They were all battle maps. Simon felt a jolt of recognition.
They were right now standing on the site of the Great Battle of Hetty’s Pass.
Who had won that battle? Who else would choose such an inhospitable place to eke out a life?
What had Milagros said? What appears alive is dead and what appears dead is alive.
Crafty Milagros—she had led them right there! Only how had she known that he was still—
“Alive!” Simon practically shouted. “You’re General Alvaro and you’re alive!”
Maya looked at Simon in confusion and the general’s face immediately turned seven deeper shades of violet. With one hand he picked Simon up by the arm and hauled him three feet off the ground. “Who are you?” he bellowed, shaking him. Simon’s teeth rattled and he couldn’t speak.
Suddenly Penny roared and charged the general and began kicking his leg viciously. “Leave my brother alone!” she shouted. The general looked down at her in astonishment. “GET THIS CADET OFF ME!” he hollered at Maya. “CONTROL YOUR SUBORDINATE!”
Maya ran forward and scooped Penny off the ground and Penny immediately burst into tears. “He’s hurting Simon,” she wept.
The general dropped Simon, who stumbled backward.
“Who are you?” General Alvaro growled.
“Simon Nelson,” said Simon, rubbing his arm. “Sir,” he added for good measure. “And these are my sisters, Maya and Penny.”
The general glowered at Penny. “That cadet should be on probation,” he said. “She’s got wicked little feet. And that racket is maddening—make her stop, for the love of all that’s holy.”
“I won’t stop, I won’t stop,” Penny sobbed, but Maya patted her back until she quietened down and her weeping subsided to hiccups.
“It’s okay, Penny, I’m fine,” said Simon. He was so pleased with his discovery that he didn’t even care how roughly the general had gripped him. Milagros thought he could help them; that’s why she had guided them here, Simon was sure of it. She had said the general was someone she’d want on her side in a battle! And they had just seen the army of Maroong marching west to join the Red Coral—surely a battle of some sort was what they ultimately faced against the Red Coral.
“We’ve come to ask for your help,” Simon said urgently. “The Red Coral Project—”
“I know there are Outsiders here!” snarled General Alvaro. “And I’ve seen the changes beginning again. But the Extraordinary Days are over! They’ve been over for a long time. I’m retired! I came here so I would be left in peace!”
“But Milagros sent us here—she knew you could help,” said Simon.
“Milagros!” said the General, aghast. “She’s involved in all this, too? My, oh my, oh my … you can all turn around and march right back to those insufferable señoras and that witch Milagros and tell them I am done with all three of them!”
“But the Red Coral Project is destroying Tamarind!” said Simon passionately. “How can you just sit here?”
“If you had eighty-year-old bones, you’d just sit here, too, I assure you,” said the general, scowling. “Those two crows—they almost killed me! I still have shrapnel from Medrano’s Infernal Machine in my leg and if I had been just a few seconds slower that boleadaro from Rojo would have cut me in half instead of the twenty-foot palm that it felled! If Bellagio hadn’t helped me escape I have no doubt whatsoever they would have finished the job!”
“Dr. Bellagio?” asked M
aya, gazing enraptured at the general. “He knows you’re alive?”
“Of course he does!” said General Alvaro dryly. “The man’s my doctor—I hope he knows the difference between when I’m alive and when I’m dead. Those two señoras of yours, they got their knickers in a twist, but I was a free man—I’d made no promises! It wasn’t my fault if they— Ah, to hell with them!”
Simon signaled Maya to be quiet. She obviously very badly wanted to keep asking questions, but with what Simon knew was sheer will she clapped her mouth shut and waited.
“Milagros—” began Simon, but the general cut him off.
“I’m an old man now!” he said testily. “My time has passed. We protected Tamarind for as long as we could. Many among us lost their lives for her. We were part of something then—we were needed. But that time is dead and gone. What you’re talking about is a job for young people. You do it!” He paused before adding, “I’m already forgotten. I’d like to stay that way.”
Just then a cold wind came down from the mountains where Penny had seen the face, making them shiver. Then it was gone and the sun was warm once again. The general glanced up at the hills. At last he sighed. “Let me see those ophallagraphs. Maybe I can help you with them at least. Come inside with me.” He looked down at Penny. “White flag, cadet?”
Penny wrinkled her nose suspiciously but followed her siblings.
“How are the señoras?” grunted the General as he went into the hut.
“They’re okay,” said Maya.
“Hmph,” muttered the General.
The adobe hut was a single room. There was a table and near to it some chairs made of brown jacaranda wood so dark it was nearly black. A single straw cot sat in the corner. Dented copper pots and pans hung on the wall next to a stove fueled by dry ostrillo dung, the odor of which filled the hut. A wooden trunk with an imposing A carved into it crouched beneath a fur of dust, and on it reposed a cigar case filled with musty old cigars, a bronze sextant, a silver inkpot, and the moth-eaten flag of an army that no longer existed. They sat at the table and Simon took out the ophallagraphs.
