The Last Stand of Daronwy

by Clint Talbert

  “Jeremy, wake up! Goodness, what am I going to do with you, son? How in the blue blazes did you get mud on your blankets?” Jeremy started awake, glancing around his room. The burning pain along the gashes in his back subsided. The sun had risen. His mom was standing over him, gesturing at the bed.

  “Um… I’m sorry.” His face blushed crimson, but fortunately Rosalyn cried out, “Mom!” and she turned away.

  “Well, get up and get dressed; you’re going to be late for school. Put those blankets in the wash. Rosalyn, it’s entirely too early for screaming. What is it?”

  Jeremy lay in bed, blinking at the ceiling, trying to clear the fog in his head. Memories of last night’s gunshots flashed past like a jagged tear of lightning across a black sky. Jeremy groaned. Did the green-haired man escape? Had the acorn and the grove been only a dream? Or had he crossed over again? He rolled out of bed, and realized he still wore his mud-splattered clothes.

  He dashed across the room and slammed the door. He pulled the clothes off, changing into school clothes. He had to do something with those muddy clothes. He pulled the blanket off his bed to wrap the telltale clothes in it. His pillow came with the blanket, and something clonked against the floor. Jeremy stepped toward the bed and crouched down. The acorn rested just beneath the edge of the bed. It was huge, as big as his fist. The scars on his back rippled with electricity, forcing him to gasp. An electric chill flashed up his arm as he picked up the massive acorn.

  The door flew open behind him. Jeremy spun, holding the acorn behind his back in one hand. His mom stepped inside, wagging her finger. “Jeremiah Trahan, you—oh.” She paused looking from the bundle of sheets on the floor to Jeremy. “I thought you went back to bed. Since you’re already dressed, put those blankets in the hamper and get your bag—you’re going to miss the bus.”

  Jeremy stared at the acorn again after she left. It was real. Another chill swept through him. He put the acorn in his backpack; he had to show this to Daniel.

  When he finally went down to the bus stop, a police van was parked at the edge of the road next to an expensive black car. Policemen walked around the nearest bulldozer. The Suited Man walked with them. Color flushed Jeremy’s face and his body shook. Would they know it was him? Would they find his fingerprints?

  “What are they doing?”

  He whirled around. “What?”

  Mira nodded toward the bulldozers. “What do you think they’re doing?”

  “Um… I don’t know.” He stared at his shoes, keeping his back to the police.

  She leaned close to his ear. “You did something to the bulldozers last night, didn’t you?” Jeremy swallowed, crossing his arms, avoiding her eyes. Mira continued. “Kelly woke up in the middle of the night, swearing she heard a gunshot. We could see the police cars out our window.”

  Jeremy tried to blink the tears away, remembering the gunshots, the way they stole his breath, the way they broke the deep silence of the night.

  Mira pulled his chin up to meet her eyes. She frowned, concerned. “Oh my God, did they shoot at you?”

  He tried to shake his head, he tried to find a voice he didn’t have. A tear rolled down his cheek. She hugged him, pulling him tight against her. He relished the feel of her arms, the softness of her hair against his face. For the first time since crawling out his window last night, he felt safe.

  “Mira and Jeremy, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g,” Rosalyn sang. “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage!” She laughed, but she was drowned out as the bus squealed to a stop. Mira let him go, smiling as her face flushed. Jeremy had to chuckle, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.

  Mira pushed him into a seat with Daniel. “So, will the bulldozers start?”

  Jeremy shrugged. “I don’t know, really. One might. I only had time to mess with one of them.”

  Daniel’s eyebrows raised. “One of what?”

  “Nothing.” Jeremy looked down.

  “What did you do?”

  Jeremy sighed, wondering what part to tell. Maybe not the part about the green-haired man and the acorn—not yet. He took a breath. “Swear to God you won’t tell anyone.”

  “Jeremy Trahan, that is the third time today I have caught you sleepin’ in class. Your name is goin’ on the board!” He watched Mrs. Livingston scratch out all six characters of his name on the blackboard. He tried pinching his arm to keep himself awake through the rest of English. His eyes were half-closed when he followed Daniel and Mira onto the bus to head home. He was too tired to talk. They sat together, bouncing over potholes. There was no smoke. No sooty rain. No fires. The bus stopped at the end of the street. He could see the hulking yellow monsters; they hadn’t moved. He followed Mira off the bus.

  “They haven’t moved!” she said.

  Jeremy grinned. “I know.”

  “Come on!” She pulled him into a run, and they ran down Nevada Street, into the chewed-up tracks. They ran past the slain bulldozers, past half-burned piles of trees. They ran to the pond, where the mountain of dirt stood, unmoved from yesterday. Today, without the smoke, they could see that only a small part of the wall had been flattened.

  “We can rebuild that,” she announced.

  “Yeah. Maybe tomorrow. I’m so tired.”

  “I have gymnastics tonight.”

  They walked back, hand in hand, passing the silent bulldozers. Jeremy stopped as he looked up at the Gateway Tree. “Look at that.”

  She frowned at the new “No Trespassing” sign. This one was made out of plastic. She dropped her backpack on the ground. “Squat down next to the tree. Put your hands against it.” Jeremy did as he was told. “Okay. Hold still.” She stepped onto his thigh. She slowly put weight on it. Then her left foot stepped up onto his left thigh. She stood over him. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, gonna put my foot on your shoulder. Ready?”

  He nodded.

  Her foot stepped onto his right shoulder. She pushed down, then brought her left foot onto his left shoulder. They wobbled.

  “Hold steady.”

  “Trying,” Jeremy said through clenched teeth. He didn’t dare look up.

  “Ugh! It’s stuck! I’m going to pull it. Ready? One… two… three!”

  Her feet launched off his shoulders, pushing Jeremy into the tree. She flew through the air, and landed in a crouch with the sign in her left hand.

  He rubbed his aching shoulders. “You got it!”

  “Of course.” She tossed her hair. “I know just what to do with this!” She sprinted to the bulldozer, vaulted onto its tread, and dropped the sign into the driver’s seat.

  Jeremy laughed, picking up her backpack.

  She leapt down and rushed past him, grabbing her backpack without breaking stride. “Race ya!”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Jeremy told no one about the acorn. Somehow, it seemed too incredible. Even though the acorn was real—even though it was four times bigger than any acorn he’d ever seen—it felt wrong to tell anyone. If someone questioned it, he knew his heart would break. He had, after all, been chosen.

  Jeremy shivered and wished he hadn’t left his coat in that other world, especially now that it was getting colder. He was standing on the edge of what remained of Helter Skelter. He was pretty sure he had found the mound where he’d first crossed over. There was a small clearing there, not far from the creek bed. Jeremy took a breath and looked to the gray sky. He closed his eyes, focusing on his breathing. His back tingled. One by one, he said a name and recalled a memory.

  “Travis Broussard.” A bald boy with his Oilers cap, asking to play soccer.

  “Father—” Jeremy’s voice cracked. “Father Pat.” The feeling of hands wrapping about his chest, lifting him to light a candle. A tear tumbled down Jeremy’s
cheek.

  “The Green Man.” A cold wind rushed through the clearing. The scars on his back seared, white hot. Jeremy gasped. As the whirlwind subsided, he said, “This is for you. For all of you.”

  Jeremy put the acorn on the ground, and started digging a hole deep enough to plant it. The deeper he dug, the more his back burned, and the more he began to cry. His hands were shaking by the time he lowered the acorn to the bottom of the hole. He pushed the dirt over it and patted it down. Jeremy remained on his knees, hands in the freshly turned soil. The scars on his back resonated with a low, inaudible hum, a vibration that worked its way up through his fingers, along his arms, and reverberated throughout his body. Jeremy took in a full breath. Perhaps this was the new beginning. Perhaps now they would halt the bulldozers. But, he still had to rebuild the wall. He had to keep the Tree safe.

  Jeremy rose and left the clearing near the small mound. He wandered across the chewed wasteland to the opposite side of the pond. He dismantled a burn pile into limbs he could drag and buried them standing along the line of the old wall. He filled in the gaps between them with longer sticks, working until the sun set beneath the leaden sky.

  In a sure sign that Christmas was near and that school was winding down, Mrs. Livingston didn’t assign any homework. Daniel and Jeremy walked to the bus. “Do you think your brother will be around tonight?”

  Daniel shrugged. “I don’t know. I think so.”

  “We’ll need his help to rebuild that part of the wall that they knocked down. I worked on it last Sunday, but we need to brace it with some bigger logs. We need his help to move them.”

  “I’ll ask him and Marcus when I get home.”

  “I’ll just get off with you, since we don’t have any homework. We can get started before it gets dark.”

  As the bus pulled away from the school, Daniel pointed, but Jeremy had already seen it. His mouth hung open. “What is that?”

  A dark cloud hung over their neighborhood. Smoke began to filter into the bus as they neared it.

  “Not again.”

  “How did they fix the bulldozers so fast?” Daniel whispered.

  “I don’t know.”

  The air was black when they stopped in front of Daniel’s house. Jeremy elbowed his way to the front of the bus. “Let me out!”

  “Jeremy!” Mira tried to grab his wrist.

  Jeremy leapt off the bus and sprinted for the woods.

  Smoke burned his eyes and choked his lungs. The thicket that should have been at this end of the street had vanished. He ran through the decimated dirt. He tripped on the wall. The few remaining posts looked like arms rising from the ground. The “No Trespassing” sign stared up from the sand. Where was the Tree? Jeremy squinted against the billowing smoke. If he walked straight from the sign, he should see the Tree. Where was it? He walked across the sand, kicking his way through broken branches.

  He found a splintered hammer and a spilled box of nails. He recognized the pieces of Marcus’ saw. This had been the grove of the Tree. He could just see the old rise where the Tree’s roots had pulled up the ground as it fell on its side. Sawdust and soot covered everything.

  “No…” He sank to his knees. He scooped up the sawdust and held it in cupped hands. “God, I asked you to keep the Tree safe! I asked you to keep this Tree, to keep Twin Hills! I asked you… I asked you. Why… why did you let them… why?”

  An empty, flat void filled this place. There was no feeling of welcome, no understanding, no peace. The trees were gone—and with them, the magic. The power of Twin Hills had been burned into the black soot that fluttered down into his hair. He remembered the Green Man and the gunshots. I couldn’t save anything.

  Was he really chosen? For what? Chosen to have his heart torn from his chest, burned, and fed back to him as ash? There was nothing left now. He was no Eaglewing. He failed to save Travis, failed to save Father Pat, failed to save Twin Hills, and now all those dreams were just ash on the wind. He bowed his head, beat the sawdust until he sobbed, and covered his face with his hands, screaming at a sky he couldn’t see. “Why did you let this happen? Why?” Two shapes appeared in the murk. He waved his arms. “Go away! Leave me alone!”

  As they came closer, he saw that they were Mira and Daniel. They knelt next to Jeremy, each putting their arms around him. Their heads pressed together, their shared tears falling into the tortured dirt.

  “Why’d they do this? Why?” Jeremy scooped up a handful of sawdust. “What—what kind of beginning is this?”

  Daniel shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  Epilogue

  Jeremy flung the Frisbee upward into the wind over the grass-covered wasteland at the perfect angle to make it fall back to him. He hated coming home to find more houses crowding each other in this quagmire of cul-de-sacs built on the bones of Twin Hills. He didn’t need this—especially not today. The ongoing argument with his parents clung to his skin like the sheen of oil that still danced on every body of water in southeast Texas.

  Maybe they were right; the computer science scholarship the refinery had offered him was a lot of money. If he didn’t take it, he might not be able to stay at University of Texas after this semester. And he had to decide by Monday. Unfortunately, the loan application that Mira had encouraged him to fill out wouldn’t return for another month. Jeremy sighed, watching the Frisbee sail over his head, not even trying to catch it. He wanted to study environmental law, not computers.

  Look at these houses, sitting on top of that pond and tar pit. None of them know about Travis; none of them will have any recourse if their kids die of leukemia. Jeremy didn’t even know what company had developed this land. Even if he still wanted to fight them, he couldn’t. Jeremy told himself for the thousandth time that he didn’t care. He checked his watch. Still an hour until Rosalyn’s high school pageant. At least coming home for this stupid pageant meant he wouldn’t have to return until Christmas.

  As he started toward the Frisbee, a black Mercedes slowed to the curb. Jeremy had the feeling he was being watched. The driver’s door opened and a tall, balding man got out. He wore a purple polo shirt and khakis. Jeremy blinked, then his fist balled. It was the Suited Man!

  The man had changed very little since the day Jeremy had spied on him from the remnants of Helter Skelter. The Suited Man was walking toward him, profaning the ground with every step of his wingtips. Jeremy sucked air through his teeth. I should punch him. Maybe then the Suit would understand! But what good would that do? Jeremy let his breath out, relaxing his hands. This battle was over, and the Suit had won. Hitting the old man now wouldn’t change that.

  “Hello,” the Suit said, “I’m Walter Schneider.” He held out his hand.

  Jeremy hesitated, still deciding, then took the hand. “Jeremy Trahan.” There was no glint of recognition in Schneider’s dark eyes. The handshake was firm, business-like. Schneider’s hands were silky-smooth, as though the hardest thing he’d done in the war for Twin Hills was pick up a pen to sign the checks.

  “Do you live around here?”

  “I used to. My parents’ place is over there on Vermont Street, but I’m in Austin now, at school.”

  “Ah, U.T.?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, son, you see, I am building these houses.” Schneider pointed at the homes. “And somebody is vandalizing my building materials. Spray painting my bricks, turning over the porta-potties, tearing up my gypsum. Really stupid stuff like that.”

  Deep inside Jeremy, a ten-year-old boy danced with rekindled hope. Who on Earth would still be fighting? Outside, the young man suppressed the smile, changing it into his very best frown of compassionate concern. “Really?”

  “Yes, and I was wondering if you might have any information about who might be doing it?”

  Jeremy paused, fighting to keep from laughi
ng. Who would still be fighting? It had to be Sy; he was only a sophomore in high school. Just then, a shadow flitted between two stacks of bricks behind Schneider, near one of the half-constructed houses. Jeremy blinked, uncertain he’d seen it.

  “What is it?” Schneider turned, squinting.

  “Nothing,” said Jeremy. An uneasy tingling spread across the old scars on his back. It couldn’t be. “It was just a bird,” Jeremy continued.

  Schneider turned to face Jeremy, crossed his arms, and leaned closer. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

  Jeremy held his hands up, taking a step backward. “No, I’m… I’m sorry. I’m afraid I really can’t help you. I’ve been away at college almost a year now, and all my friends are at school, too. I don’t know anyone here anymore.”

  Schneider stared at him, as though weighing that statement. “Here’s my card. If you think of anything, or if you hear anything, you give me a call. And remember, I’ll make it worth your while.”

  Jeremy took the card, which was printed on heavy, cream-colored cardstock with gilded edges and embossed type. He glanced at the name:

  Walter P. Schneider

  Owner

  Twin Hills Development

  Schneider walked back to his Mercedes and drove away. Jeremy affixed his eyes on the stack of bricks, bound together with a metal ribbon. He crossed the street, and in the mud next to the bricks was a single, round footprint. How is that possible? As if in answer, the old scars on his back burned in a way they hadn’t in years. A cold wind blew across the grass, coming from the last piece of Helter Skelter that had never been cut down. Jeremy walked toward that dark line of thicket. He climbed the barbed wire fence that Schneider had erected around it and dropped inside its dark, cloistered heart.