by Fallon Sousa
“What if I’m not ready?” Priscilla muttered to herself, not entirely ready for them to hear her. Apparently, though, they could detect her voice anyway.
“Oh,” a young boy’s unfamiliar voice began. “You are ready. Maybe you just haven’t figured that out yet.” The little girl giggled again.
Priscilla looked up and saw the children. They were all around her, staring with their big, icy blue eyes and their pallid complexions. Staring at her. Suddenly, the children began to move away from where they stood at the center of the barren field, parting a path in the middle. Their actions were almost reverent, as if they worshipped the person who stood beyond what was visible to Priscilla.
She waited and waited for someone to come through the path. The thunder sounded once again, louder than it ever had before. Priscilla’s ears hurt so bad from the noise that she lifted her blood-soaked hands up to them, covering them as a child would, closing her eyes. From behind her attempted muffling, she heard the night sky quiet itself. By the time she opened her eyes and uncovered her ears, she could see the person who was standing at the base of the Moon Pirates, the person who must have been their leader. It was Michael.
Chapter Seven: Officially Moon Pirated
In that moment, Priscilla was completely and utterly stunned. Of all the things that she had expected to find in this unknown realm, learning that Michael, the cute guy she had met at the mall, was the leader of the Moon Pirates was the most shocking. Sure, when she first saw him while shopping earlier that day, Priscilla had known right off the bat that he was somehow associated to the Moon Pirates. However, she had automatically assumed that he was only the twin brother of a Moon Pirated child.
She had absolutely no idea whatsoever how or why Michael could go back and forth without getting trapped, or how he could be neither a Moon Pirated Child or a Moon Pirate, but, somehow, both. Priscilla was just as confused at that point as she suspected that she would be if she were right smack in the middle of the most confusing moment of her entire life. She had to find out exactly what was going on.
“Michael?” she asked him, glancing up from below. “What is this place?”
“This place,” he began, “is called Rumidon.” He briefly lifted his nearly transparent arm up to his head and pushed back a piece of ebony hair that had fallen in front of his face.
“Rumidon?” Priscilla inquired.
“Yes, Rumidon,” he said. “It means ‘stolen’ in our ancient language.”
“How can I get myself back home to my friends and family?”
“Well, you kind of can’t.” Michael let out a deep breath. “Once you get here, there is no going back home.”
“I’m a little confused,” Priscilla replied. “If there’s no going back from Rumidon, then how is it that you were just at the food court in a Boston shopping mall three hours ago, yet, now, you’re in Rumidon?”
Michael just stood there and laughed. “I’m the Prince of Rumidon,” he said. “I’m the original Moon Lighter, and also the original Moon Pirated Child.”
“When were you born?” Priscilla asked, straightening up her spine and crossing her arms, now a little more relaxed.
“Almost two hundred years ago,” he said. “I lived in Barcelona, Spain. Of course, everybody there was freaked out by how I looked. My parents rejected me, and so did my sister.”
“Your sister?”
“Yes,” he said, smirking wildly. “I don’t even have a twin, or a brother.”
“Go on.”
“I was a lot older than the others when it happened. I had just reached maturity the previous year. I was nineteen, not a child at all. My family was poor, and all I could think about for months was how badly I wanted gold to pay the apothecary to cure my sister from her blindness. One night, while I was sleeping, I was surrounded my so much gold; more than I had ever seen in my entire life. All of a sudden, I was completely overcome with an unnerving desire to save her. Her name was Maria, by the way. And, my birth name is Miguel.”
“Okay,” Priscilla answered. “What else?”
“Well,” he continued. “I kept thinking of how much I wanted it; how I would die for it to help Maria. Then, just when I thought I was going to wake up, the dream became real. The gold was all mine, too. The next morning, I found myself in my bed surrounded by it. My father was appalled. He thought that I had stolen it from the sovereign because one of his servants had miscounted his gold. My father gave me up to him and I was beheaded for treason; put to death. Ironically, the sovereign awarded my father not with money, but with the best doctor in the country for Maria. He received all of the gold. After I had died, the Moon itself offered me immortality and the price was that I had to recruit others to rule the night with me or else I would die for good.”
Priscilla was at a loss for words. "So," she began, "you're cursed to kidnap innocent children from their beds for the rest of eternity?"
"Basically, yeah," he replied. "It's the only way for me to stay alive."
"No. That's impossible," Priscilla answered. "You always have a choice to do the right thing, even if it isn't the right thing for you." At that point, she had grown rather angry with herself for ever having believed in Michael's--or, rather--Miguel's abilities.
Michael softened up a bit, looking Priscilla straight in the eyes. "Aren't you curious in the least bit as to why you, in particular, are here?"
"Well," she started, "I suppose I am...at least, a little." She bit down hard on her tongue, trying to fight back her desire to say things that she shouldn't. "Why am I here?"
"It's pretty simple," Michael replied. "If you decide to agree on a deal that I'm about to present to you, then the solution would be simple."
"You...have a deal....for me?" Priscilla asked him, confused.
"Why, yes," he answered, smirking wildly and vivaciously. "If you promise to free me and let me reside on Earth permanently, you can take my place and acquire my fate and my ability to cross over between the two realms whenever I please."
"If I do this, will my sister and all the others get to go back home?"
"Indeed, they will."
Then, Priscilla was hit with a sudden realization. "If I can take over for you, why didn't you just let the first person you took take over? You could have been free all those years ago."
Michael's smirk returned. "No, I could not have," he said, "because you are the chosen one; the one who must deliver the key to all our escapes. And, then, you may become free as well, and the legacy of the Moon Pirated Children will be a thing of the past."
"What key are you talking about," she asked. "Demetria never told me anything about a key. I never even got to finish all of my sessions with her. I'm not ready."
All of a sudden, Michael became completely silent. He did not only become silent in his voice, but in everything, even his breathing. He pulled a small piece of paper out from his left pocket, then blew on it with the breath he had apparently been saving. From far away, Priscilla could already see the backwards scrawl of the ancient text that was slowly forming on the crumpled, yellowing scrap of parchment. He handed it to her, then returned to his former statuesque posture.
It read:
Where words to show,
And knowledge grows,
It creeps and crawls
'Long grounds below.
For a moment, Priscilla was extremely confused, if not totally incompetent. Then, the answer crept into her mind like a lightbulb chasing after it's own wattage. The spider.
Within a matter of several seconds, Priscilla could feel herself spinning and whirling out of control. Her vision blurred even more, and her stomach started to churn with the queasiness of constant and continuous motion. Once again, Priscilla’s entire being had been combined with the magical, somewhat sinister, vortex; the vortex that was beginning to take more and more from her each time she entered into it.
Chapter Eight: Homecoming
Suddenly, Priscilla awoke, in her own home again at last. She go
t up out of bed quickly, her clothes from the day before clinging with sweat and rubbing noisily against the tacky sheets. However, she did it carefully enough so that her mother and father would not realize she had been gone. To her delight, after she had passed the door to their oversized, messy master suite, it was way past dark, and they were still fast asleep.
She crept down the stairs and all the way to her kitchen, stopping at the newspaper-laden table to grab a stale chocolate-chip cookie and some bitter coffee leftover from the previous morning’s brew. She took a bite of the cookie, which still tasted good, then devoured the rest eagerly. However, when she took her first sip of the old coffee, she got a mouthful of almost-moldy tasting ash water.
Then, she turned to the counter, where she spotted and then grabbed her father’s car keys off of the counter top. She hesitated for a brief moment. Should I? She thought nervously. Then, without any further morality-based delays, she snuck quietly outside to her front lawn, crossing over to the beat-up gravel driveway. As she passed her own mediocre car, she thought once again of taking responsibility for her actions and using her own. Then, her thoughts were pushed back. Nah, she thought. I need to do this in style.
When Priscilla finally arrived at the eerie-looking front of the Here the Word bookstore, her mentor, the old woman, Demetria, was waiting for her at the entrance door, holding it open so that she could walk in as soon as possible.
“Uh,” Priscilla stuttered, not knowing what to say. Her gaze froze on Demetria.
“I knew you would be here, child,” she said, looking down at her pupil, Miss Clarke with a look of both mischief and sorrow. She had always been somewhat well-known for her witchiness, even if that was a tad-bit off from her actual profession.
Once she had stepped foot inside the ominous doorway, Priscilla was once again led into the strange back room by her uncannily wise mentor. Demetria guided her all the way to the far end of the shelving, where she reached inside a secluded shelf and attempted to pull out a small, red box. Struggling with her weak, feeble hands at first, Demetria was finally able to open the tiny thing, revealing the spider that looked a little too much like Priscilla, Belinda, and all the other Moon Pirated Children. “Here,” she said, adding “I want you to have it so you can set Michael, Belinda, and the others free. Once and for all.”
“Wait,” Priscilla began, “I need to do something first. The right thing.” Her hands were trembling so fiercely that she thought they might fall off from over-exertion.
“Ah,” Demetria replied, smiling. This time, she appeared to be rather genuine. “So, you want to talk to Rory, I see?”
“Yeah,” she answered. Although she was still a little weirded out by Demetria’s super-intuition and psychic abilities, she knew much better than to acknowledge them at that point, since she had already expressed her gawky awe for them in the past. “I feel like I just…”
“Have to?” Demetria asked, looking over at the window as if her mind were in a totally different place, even if her body and her thoughts were there.
“Yes,” Priscilla responded. “I do. I feel that I have to.”
“Then, go.”
Priscilla glanced over at her tutor and nodded, then got back into her father’s car, driving the easy route to the diner where Rory worked. She rushed in like a maniac, and, when she stood before the humble waitress at the front counter, she was so sweaty and disheveled that every single person in the restaurant was staring her blankly in the face.
“Priscilla?” Rory asked, her face falling. “What are you doing back here again?”
“It’s about Lindsey,” she answered, trying not to be sick just from talking about it. “I know what happened to her.”
“Yeah, she got hit by a car.” Rory looked angry. “And, you can stop doing background checks on everyone in my family now,” she added.
Priscilla dragged Rory out back into the parking lot. “You don’t get it,” she said.
“No,” Rory began, “you don’t get it!” The waitress was clearly angry with her. “Now, I told you to back the hell off!”
“Why?” Priscilla asked her, suddenly feeling consumed by a force much greater than herself. “Did you have something to do with it?” she teased. “Did you kill her?”
“What?” Rory asked, clearly rather confused. “Why the hell would you even think that? I loved Lindsey. She is--I mean--was--my daughter.”
Priscilla let go of Rory’s arm. “Good,” she replied. “I was...uh…just checking.”
“Checking?” Rory was still pissed.
“Yeah.”
Rory walked away.
Once Priscilla had wormed her way out of the mess with Rory, she got safely back into her dad’s car, hoping it would stay in one piece. However, she was more than a little disappointed that Rory never got a chance to hear the truth. Sighing, she drove all the way back to Hear the Word Bookstore.
Once Priscilla had arrived for the second time that day at Demetria’s lair, she reluctantly followed the old woman out back again so they could get Priscilla back to Rumidon. Demetria instructed her to rest, so she laid down flat on the bench, while her tutor gazed into her eyes, coaching her into the realm of dreams.
Eventually, after a long process of slowly reduced hearing, Priscilla could no longer hear the soft, raspy drone of Demetria’s voice, and, in its place, although perceived by another sense entirely, the shady outline of Michael’s form began to materialize right before her very eyes. As she began to wake from her temporary stupor, Priscilla was assured by her own sight that she was still holding the box with the tiny, black, blue-eyed spider inside of it.
“Here,” she said, getting up and carefully handing the box over to Michael. “I’ve got it.” She placed it into his brawny, outstretched hand.
“Good job,” he replied, smiling once again. “I knew you would be able to figure out what the key to our escape was.” He was grinning now. Normally, Priscilla thought that Michael’s grins were just a little bit creepy, but, this time, she did not mind.
“It’s...nothing,” she said, trying her best to act humble.
“Nothing?” Michael asked, smiling almost ear to ear. “Really? You’re going to undersell yourself that much?” He laughed jokingly. Their friendship seemed easier now.
“Well,” Priscilla began, “Not that much.” She blushed. “So, uh...how do I save the world? Uh, I don’t mean the world world, but...Rumidon, I guess.”
“It’s...uh… a lot harder than it sounds, actually,” Michael replied. “First, I will have to eat the spider so it can kill me with its venom.”
“You have to what?” Priscilla asked, mortified. She had to swallow her spit a few times per thirty-seconds to suppress her gag reflex.
“Aw, come on! You’re telling me you’ve never seen a guy eat a bug before?”
“Actually,” Priscilla began, “I did see my kid cousin Tom eat a worm once, when we were both five. I couldn’t eat spaghetti for a year.”
“Wimp.”
“Am not.”
“Okay.” Michael wasn’t about to risk all of their lives over a petty argument. “Once that is...uh...done...then, you have to kiss me so I can transfer the venom to you. Because we’d both have the venom, both of our rights over Rumidon would be transferred to the spider. It will, by then, be dead, so Rumidon will disappear and everything in it will be restored.”
“That’s so disgusting,” Priscilla said. “Are you just trying to mess with me?”
Michael busted out laughing. “Of course I was. You didn’t think any one would actually have to eat a spider, did you?” He was nearly shaking by then.
“I hate you,” Priscilla answered in a playful, teasing manner. “You were just trying to gross me out. How immature.”
“It worked, though.”
She couldn’t even attempt to argue with that. “Well, then. What do we really need to do?”
“We have to kill the spider with a magic tree branch from the tree of Rumidon, and all of its p
ower will be released back up through the sky and into the moon, where it belongs. There’s like a ninety-five percent chance that we’ll all be freed that way.”
“That’s it.”
“Well, it’s not super easy.”
“No, I meant that there’s only a ninety-five percent chance.”
“What? That isn’t good enough for you?”
“No. Never mind. It’s plenty good enough.”
“Good.” Michael turned over the spider to Priscilla, saying, “Go ahead.” When she looked at him with a look of confusion, he added, “Run!”
Although she was unsure as to what he meant, Priscilla ran. She ran as fast as she possibly could, all the way to a giant, browned, lifeless tree that stood somehow still perfect, below the sparkling light of the moon. It began to thunder.
By now, Priscilla’s weak body was being soaked--no, not soaked--drenched, in icy cold rain that fell from a lightning-ridden sky. She could hardly move her legs beneath the increasing heaviness of her body; her clothes becoming soaked with the freezing rain-water.
Finally, after nearly fainting from exhaustion, Priscilla Clarke plopped down weakly below the tree, lifting up her right arm and painstakingly attempting to reach the lowest branch. She tugged and tugged with all of her might.
At last, the lone, wispy arm of the tree was firm in Priscilla’s hands. She clutched onto it for dear life, as if she might die should she lose it. And, to be quite frank, there was a good chance that she would have.
Thunder and lighting were violent in the sky that night, striking and thrashing in a way that Priscilla had never witnessed in the regular world. Rumidon seemed to be entirely possessed by some unseen force; some god-like entity that had the power to conquer anyone and everyone.
She looked down at the ground, carefully feeling her way through the damp grass with her left foot; hoping she would not accidentally step on the creature and be poisoned--not to mention--destroy the key to all of their survival.
