The 13th Sign

by Tubb, Kristin O' Donnell

  I looked for Gemini, but she had again disappeared. If she were gone, then a Keeper was likely nearby. I stiffened.

  The owner must’ve seen us staring at the old woman. “That’s Sylvie,” he said, lifting his bearded chin at her. She flicked on the fan attached over the basket. The balloon on the ground started quivering to life, puffing full of air.

  “Your mom?” Brennan asked.

  The man chuckled. “I’d know a few more cuss words if she was.”

  The Ellies and Brennan laughed.

  “Naw, Sylvie’s had a hard life,” the man said. He shifted the toothpick to the other side of his mouth with his jaw. “Got a son she never talks to. Truth is, we don’t pick our family. Some of us’d be better off if we could.” He shook his head.

  As we got closer to the balloon, a cell phone rang. I jumped at the sound. The scrap of a woman unfurling the balloon ripped open a pocket on her jumpsuit and jabbed a button. “Yeah?”

  An Ellie shivered. “Guys…” she warned in a whisper.

  The expression on the woman’s face changed from sour apple to applesauce as she listened over the next minute or so. “But Chuck’s okay? I mean, everyone on the ferry’s okay, right?”

  She marched toward us, but the intensity of her knit eyebrows made it too difficult to see if her eyes were Keeper black. The closer she got to us, the hotter I burned with alert. I stood straighter.

  But she passed us by. She crossed to a silver pickup truck, hopped inside, and sped away.

  “Well, I’ll be,” the hulking hairy man said. He spit the toothpick on the ground. “Chuck’s her son. Never thought I’d see the day.”

  “You can say that again,” Brennan muttered. I elbowed him but smiled. Looks like I had made a happy lapse in judgment. My shoulders fell. I felt my armor coming off.

  And I actually smiled a little. Because Sylvie proved that maybe some good was springing out of these changes, too. Maybe some families were out there reuniting, some marriages repairing, because of me.

  Maybe even my mom and dad? If she found him?

  If she did find him, if they reunited…how could I ever change them back?

  “Families,” the owner said, echoing my thoughts. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him poke another toothpick into his mouth. “So many secrets.”

  The way he said it make my skin prickle. I looked at him. He was staring at me, two beady black eyes in his face of fur.

  “I know the truth about your father, Jalen,” he said. “I know what really happened.”

  Had he said it? I shook my head. No. But I moved closer to him, as if I expected that the truth could only be told in a whisper.

  “You want to know what happened, don’t you, Jalen?” The toothpick stabbed the air between us. “You want to know the truth.”

  No. I wasn’t ready to know for sure. Not when my hope that he might be alive was flickering again. “No.” A step closer.

  “Yes, you do.” The owner’s hairy face no longer looked like a teddy bear. He was now a grizzly, his soft furry face now a mass of sharp pointed whiskers. He grabbed my arm with his strong hand.

  “No!” I tried to shake loose.

  The owner threw his head back and growled. He shrank into mist, his hand on my arm burning like acid. The massive hairy person withered to a tiny hard black spot gripping my arm, whiskers transforming into buggy legs. The toothpick stretched, hardened, curled, its point now bearing a nasty stinger. The smelly vapors disappeared, leaving behind a single scorpion. I screamed and flung the creature off my arm to the ground.

  “Scorpio!” an Ellie screamed, leaping back. “It’s—”

  I stomped squarely down on the scorpion with a single oomph. Scorpion guts oozed onto the pavement, and its jointed, curved tail twitched.

  The four of us inched forward, huddling over the dead creature.

  “That’s it?” Brennan asked. “That’s all?”

  We waited for the birthstone, another sign, something. But there was nothing. One of the Ellies shrugged and pulled out her copy of The Keypers of the Zodiack and read:

  “‘Scorpio, the scorpion. November 23–November 29. Scorpio, thou art a mystery; secrets, magic, and taboos haunt thee to thy core. Others are drawn to thee for thine intensity, thy piercing intellect. Thy generosity and confidence make thee a loyal friend. Thou art on a quest for self-improvement, under which lies a nasty competitive streak and a lust for power. Relentless, thou art, and thy insensitivity makes many an enemy. No one can pierce another’s soul to the degree that thou art capable. Such power might be passion, might be possession. Honesty is a weapon to thee, as thou cravest truth at all cost. Thy cunning, suspicious nature leads to much brooding, but ultimately, thy wary temperament serves thee well. Thou art a master of persuasion, Scorpio. Know that thy fire to succeed can be either a triumph or a downfall.’”

  “Honesty is a weapon,” I thought with a smirk. Scorpio did know the fate of my father. The truth was his poison. He’d drawn me near so his sting would be fatal.

  I leaned over the scorpion guts smeared across the pavement. “Low blow, Scorpio.”

  It was like I’d taunted the thing, because BOOM!, the scorpion’s guts exploded. Waves of scorpions—hundreds and hundreds of them—scurried out of the dead scorpion’s shell like it was a bottomless pit.

  And this swarm was on a mission. They jerked and clicked toward us, shells shimmering, tails twitching.

  “On the basket!” an Ellie shouted. “Up!”

  We clamored on top of the empty basket, which was still lying on its side. But the weight of the four of us on the side of the basket caused the wicker to buckle. And because it was woven, the scorpions could climb it. Their torturous tails inched closer, jerking, jointed tails like the vertebrates in a spine.

  We could outrun them, sure, but I’d come to realize throughout these Challenges that I had to defeat them, not just outlast them. But it was obvious that we didn’t have time to come up with a plan here.

  The side of the basket sunk lower and lower, the scorpions climbed higher and higher. We had to jump off and regroup somewhere else.

  “One at a time,” Brennan was saying. He’d come to the same conclusion. He pointed to a spot about three feet away where the swarm dwindled. “Jump there.”

  One of the Ellies went first. The force of her legs springing off the basket caused the basket to buckle further. She was in the clear, running for a warehouse. But the drooping basket gave the scorpions an advantage. Two or three of the larger insects trickled over the top where Brennan, the other Ellie, and I teetered. We stomped and swiped at them, but with each motion, the basket wobbled, threatening to topple us into the nest of scorpions below.

  The other Ellie jumped and made it into a clearing. I shivered. The crabs had been sharp and slimy, the other animals of the zodiac, ferocious. But facing thousands of stinging creatures nearly unglued me. They were just so…buggy.

  “You go next!” I shouted over the din of a thousand creatures. Brennan shook his head. I glared at him and pointed at a clearing just a few feet away. “Go!”

  Brennan rolled his eyes but leaped. The basket crunched under the force, the side sunk lower still. I could now hear the balloon’s fan beside me as it chewed up scorpions and spit them out. Thank you, fan, I thought as I swiped away another bug.

  At least, with scorpions, you knew when they were about to attack. They grab you with their nasty insect arms, arch their tails over their heads, and take aim before they strike. This courtesy allowed me to spot and flick away the ones ready to strike before swiping away the others.

  The balloon attached to the basket was now puffed with cool air from the fan, but scorpions were moving inside it quickly, trying to crawl up the slick interior fabric. I knew from the experiment we did with weather balloons that this balloon wouldn’t rise with just the cool air filling it. It needed hot air from the flame to rise.

  The flame! It had not yet been lit. But to light it from here, I’d have to lie do
wn on the side of the basket and stretch above its opening, allowing myself to be covered in scorpions in the process. I spasmed with shivers.

  It would work, though, I knew it. I eased down to my knees, then onto my belly. Virgo’s birthstone wedged uncomfortably under my leg, and I scowled thinking of it, still here in my pocket. A scorpion sprang into my hair. I about lost it before pinching it dead.

  “What are you doing?” Brennan yelled from across the launch pad.

  First, I guessed I had to turn off the fan, or the balloon would rise when I turned on the gas. I didn’t want that.

  I wanted a flame thrower.

  I leaned over the edge of the basket, took a deep breath, and plunged my right hand into the swarm of scorpions to turn off the fan. The back of my hand felt like it had been stabbed with a hot needle, and it immediately began to hum with pain. I had been stung.

  Fan off. The balloon began to wilt, and the many scorpions trapped inside made the collapsed fabric jump and pop. The gas nozzle was next to the fan. I reached for it with the same hand and tried to turn the nozzle like a faucet, but pain from the poison made my hand so numb it was useless. I took another breath, swiped an arched scorpion off my shirt, and plunged my left hand in toward the gas nozzle. My left wrist was stung as I turned on the heat.

  A blue flame shot up with a hiss, then morphed into orange-yellow fire. The kind of fire that signals power. Scorpions screamed and sizzled, melting under the heat.

  I scrambled to my feet and jumped to the closest clearing, but not before my ankle got pierced by a scorpion sting, too. My hands were both numb, but I managed to push the heavy basket in a circle, torching every shiny, nasty bug in sight. I think I was screaming, too. Because really, torching scorpions calls for it.

  Brennan saw what I was doing and raced back through the swarm of scorpions to help me aim the fire by rotating the thick basket. Within minutes, the scorpions were nothing but a pile of cinders. A light breeze lifted some ash up and away. I didn’t even see the black snakestone birthstone poking out of the coals; an Ellie pointed it out to me.

  The stone was hot to the touch, but after a few minutes, I could lift it and chant. I was afraid I’d drop it, my hands were so numb, but the charred remains of Scorpio illuminated and crawled into the sky.

  “You get stung?” I asked Brennan. My tongue felt like it was three feet thick.

  He smiled. “Three or four times, I guess.” His words were mushy, too. I smiled back.

  “Thanks, Brennan,” I said, wrinkling my nose at the sound of my words.

  Instead of answering, he winked. I was surprised to feel a tingle like a shooting star.

  It’s the stings, I told myself. The stings.

  “Good news,” the Ellie who had run into the warehouse said. She stepped over the charred remains of the Saints balloon. “There’s another balloon in the shed.”

  We dragged it out. Well, Brennan and the Ellies dragged it. I pushed with the limp mitts my hands had become. Brennan shuffled and every once in a while had to stop and feverishly scratch the places where he’d been stung.

  We laid the basket on its side and unfolded the balloon, just like the lady in the jumpsuit had done. This balloon was dusty, and flipping it around the lot made the Ellies sneeze—both tiny, delicate sneezes that sounded like ch!, so different from the honking blast of a sneeze that Ellie had once had.

  The balloon was decorated with a giant skull and crossbones. One of the Ellies placed a hand on her hip when she saw that. “Really?” she asked. Brennan chuckled.

  The fan clicked on and filled the balloon. As it puffed to life, I thought out loud: “How are we going to pay for this?” One of the Ellies smirked at me. I dropped my shoulders at her glare. “I mean, we can’t just steal this thing.”

  “Use that birthstone,” the Ellie said. She pointed to my cargo pants pocket. “I told you, that thing’s worth gobs of money.”

  Brennan shook his head and dashed into the warehouse. When he returned, we righted the basket and climbed aboard. “What did you do in there?” I asked, more to take my mind off the flight than anything else.

  He shrugged. “Left Sylvie my credit card.”

  Those darn stings. Tingling again.

  The four of us crowded into the basket. It was cozy, like standing in a large bathroom stall together. I thanked our lucky stars (lucky stars—right) that Gemini could come and go as she pleased. This basket would be very tight with her. As I thought it, a wind lifted from below, poofing our hair, the balloon—telling us, I think, that Gemini was never far.

  The balloon was ready. I swallowed. My throat felt like it was closing. I didn’t know whether it was from the scorpion stings or the heights I was about to face.

  An Ellie’s hand was on the gas nozzle. “Ready, Jalen?”

  Wow—I must’ve looked terrified, too. I took a shaky breath. “Sure,” I said, but my voice squeaked, my tongue still numb.

  The instant the gas heeshed, I felt like I was going to throw up. I sat on the floor of the basket and looked at two pairs of Ellie knees and a set of Brennan knees. The sensation of going up and up and up made my eyesight black out to a tiny pinpoint of light.

  “How is this not freaking you out?” I asked Brennan.

  He pointed down and grinned. “It’s the water that freaks me out. Not the height. See how veeeery far away the water is from here?”

  “Really?” I asked.

  He gulped. “Sorry.”

  An Ellie rubbed my back. “We’ll get there, Jalen. We’ll get there.”

  The swaying of the basket, the warmth of the gas flame overhead, the rubbing of my back. It was silent. I lifted my chin and stood.

  And I could see for miles. The Mississippi River arched below, as curvy as its name implies. The West Bank was now far behind us, and the twinkling, glittering lights of downtown New Orleans, already flickering in the afternoon sun, lay ahead.

  “I’m coming, Nina,” I whispered. “Please, hang on.”

  My words were whisked away by the wind.

  What you don’t know before you hijack a hot-air balloon is that you can’t steer the thing. You are carried on the whims of the winds. You can go higher and lower, depending on how much hot air you pump into the balloon, but you must go where the heavens decide to take you.

  Much like my entire day.

  The gusts carried us over the river, thankfully, but they pushed us north. Nina’s hospital lay much farther west. Brennan tried easing the gas valve shut a bit, and we plummeted. He opened the valve again and we soared. I wasn’t sure which sensation I hated more.

  If we didn’t figure out how to land this thing soon, we’d be so far north, we’d be near Lake Pontchartrain. Way out of our way, with much time lost.

  One of the Ellies huffed. “Let me try it,” she said. She nudged Brennan aside. But before she even turned the nozzle, we heard a whistle and we started to plunge.

  “I didn’t even touch it!” Ellie said.

  Brennan shook his head and pointed into the balloon, crumpling over our heads. “You didn’t. Look.”

  An arrow had punctured our balloon.

  A black tip of arrow, lodged way up inside our balloon. It was so tiny but so deadly. One little pinprick for our balloon to pop! I cursed myself. I led my friends into a balloon after arrows had been fired at us for hours. What was I thinking?

  “Get down!” I yelled, dragging Brennan and one of the Ellie’s shirts down with me. And we were dropping, dropping, dropping…My heart thumped in my throat when I thought of our landing. Because we were crouching, I had no idea when we’d hit. Every second was excruciating, thinking this might be the second we smashed into the ground. No this second. This one. This one…

  Brennan tugged out of my grip, stood, and reached up. He blasted the flame full force. An arrow zipped toward him, lodging in the crook of his shirt, under his arm. His eyes widened. He drooped to the floor of the basket. He’d slowed our freefall, but had he been hit?

  An Elli
e pulled him toward her and slowly extracted the arrow. No blood. She peered through the hole in his clothes. A perfectly clean slice through the armpit of his shirt, but no hit.

  “Sagittarius, the archer.” An Ellie tapped her messenger bag where The Keypers of the Zodiack was stowed. All this time we’d had arrows zipping past us, and I’d not once looked at the Sagittarius horoscope. Avoiding Sagittarius, my old sign, was something I was good at.

  We kept plummeting fast, fast enough for my T-shirt to billow out with air from below. We fell and we fell and we fell. My new worst nightmare. And it was compliments of my original horoscope sign.

  The basket crashed into the ground. The wicker crumpled like paper. The four of us were thrown out of the basket like a game dice from a cup. My arms and legs flew wildly. My head slammed against a cold slab of marble.

  I wasn’t knocked out, but I was dizzy and disoriented. One of the Ellies pulled me behind a mausoleum.

  We’d crash-landed in a cemetery, and by the looks of it, the Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1. Some of the bodies buried here saw the Civil War; some, the American Revolution. In a city below sea level, like New Orleans, the graves aren’t underground. They’re in mausoleums, row upon row of stone altars and chapels, tiny concrete homes for the dead. It’s not a graveyard, with trees and grass and things that are living to offset the things that are dead. No, this cemetery was fully concrete and stone—ground, walls, statues, all of it. All of it, the color of bones.

  I blinked, my vision wavering over the angels and gargoyles and saints that cast stretchy shadows in the late-afternoon sun. The wrought-iron fences (gates to keep in the dead?) around many of the graves were rusting. The concrete on many of the mausoleums was crumbling. This was where things came to decay.

  Where we hid, candles flickered in colorful rows and fresh flowers were stacked neatly at the foot of the grave. Someone had been here, recently, mourning their loss. My throbbing head flickered momentarily to Nina. No, I scolded myself. I won’t think of her here.

  “Do you think Sagittarius is here, too?” Ellie whispered. I nodded.