What Came From the Stars

by Gary D. Schmidt

  “Stay out of the water!”

  James Sullivan shook his head. “That’s my football in there.”

  Tommy grabbed him by the arm. He pointed to the waves. “Are you blind?”

  “What?”

  Tommy watched the unmoving O’Mondim beneath the water.

  Patrick Belknap stood beside Tommy. “You see something out there?”

  Tommy couldn’t believe it. How could they not see him? He wasn’t so far out. He wasn’t even deep.

  James Sullivan shook off Tommy’s hand with the next wave and stepped into the water.

  “Sullivan!” Tommy stepped in with him.

  “Pepper, get off!” James Sullivan took another step into the water.

  “Threafta! You jerk, threafta!”

  But James Sullivan waded out. The O’Mondim did not move.

  Tommy watched.

  James Sullivan did not have to go far before the waves brought the football back in toward him, and when he finally grabbed it, he shook off the water and waded quickly back. “Was that such a problem?” he said.

  Tommy watched.

  James Sullivan shook the football. “If this is ruined, you owe me a football, Pepper. Again.”

  Tommy didn’t say anything.

  “Pepper!”

  Out in the water, the O’Mondim raised his ruined right arm. It was hard to see, with the water swirling, but it looked as if ... as if the O’Mondim was calling him in.

  Tommy felt the chain warm, hot around his chest.

  He shook his head. No.

  “Pepper, what are you looking at?”

  But the O’Mondim wasn’t calling him in. He was pulling someone out from behind him, someone smaller, someone who was in the shadows under the water and half invisible, someone...

  His mother.

  Tommy took a step into the water.

  She seemed to flow out from behind the O’Mondim.

  Tommy took another step.

  “Pepper?” said Patrick Belknap.

  “What are you doing? I’ve got the football.”

  She was so pretty, her long black hair held back from the swirling water with the red kerchief.

  Now the O’Mondim watched.

  Tommy felt James Sullivan and Patrick Belknap grab hold of his arms. He shook them off like the maeglia they were. They grabbed him again, and he took two more steps into the water, dragging them with him. His mother moved toward him, almost as if she was coming out of the deep darkness, almost as if she knew he was close, almost as if...

  He shook off the maeglia again.

  Another step. The waves higher. Someone behind him yelling his head off.

  The water up to his waist.

  His mother let the cool water lift her arms up to him. He could hear her voice! “Tommy.” He could see her face!

  “Tommy.”

  Then, he felt something hard and heavy thud against him.

  His eyes left his mother and he almost fell forward into the water. He turned, his hand up to the back of his head.

  He did not see the football—the not-Tom Brady-signed football—caught by the next wave, dragged to the bottom, and then let up again.

  “What was that for?”

  James Sullivan and Patrick Belknap looked at him.

  They were both standing in water past their knees, sopping wet.

  “Get the football,” said James Sullivan.

  And then Patty came to the water’s edge, dragging Alice Winslow by the hand.

  She was crying.

  “Patty,” said Tommy, “Mom is...”

  Patty let go of Alice Winslow’s hand and she lifted her arms and held them out to him.

  And Tommy took a step back out of the water.

  Immediately the tide began to pull, ripping against his legs, holding the not-Tom Brady-signed football under the surface and dragging it out quickly.

  “Tommy,” hollered Alice Winslow. “Oh my goodness!”

  But Tommy and James Sullivan and Patrick Belknap struggled out of the swirling water, and Tommy took Patty’s hands, and she threw herself around him and sobbed.

  Tommy looked back into the deep water. His mother, his mother, his mother was gone. The O’Mondim had moved farther out.

  And his empty face was no longer looking toward Tommy.

  He had turned to Patty.

  And with hatred and loathing in his heart, Tommy cried out, “Byrgum barut! Su byrgum barut!”

  The waves grew dark, and the O’Mondim was gone.

  And Tommy’s mother.

  And the surf grew low and soft.

  “I guess that’s the last I’ll ever see of that football,” said James Sullivan.

  Every school day now, Tommy’s father drove them to William Bradford Elementary School. Each morning, Tommy and his father said to Patty, “Have a great day!” and they watched while Patty walked to the first grade door, and they waited for her to turn and wave.

  “I will,” Tommy whispered for her.

  Then they drove around to the sixth grade door, where James Sullivan was always waiting for Tommy to go long and catch his throws on the ends of his fingers—except the throws were always messier than they should be because he had to use one of the William Bradford Elementary School footballs now, and they were short and stubby and beat up, and even Tom Brady couldn’t have thrown a spiral with one of these.

  But no one caught a football like Tommy Pepper, and James Sullivan kept heaving them out, just to watch them settle like homing pigeons into Pepper’s hands.

  At the first bell they would all go inside—the warm breezes were over, so they were always glad to go in—and they dropped their stuff off in their lockers and headed to Mr. Burroughs’s classroom, where the smell of the new paint was fading, but the tang of the rotten seaweed was still holding on. Mr. Burroughs said that once they finished the solar system unit, they’d try some olfactory chemistry experiments to see if they could eradicate the stench. “And if you don’t know what olfactory or eradicate means,” he said, “here’s a perfect opportunity to use our new classroom dictionary.”

  After Tommy was back for a couple of days, he could almost imagine the classroom was as it always had been, as if nothing had ever happened.

  After Tommy was back for three days, he could almost imagine that even if something had happened, it was over and done.

  After Tommy was back for four days, he figured even Mr. Burroughs had forgotten about what had happened in the classroom—everything was that normal. “Okay, let’s try this again. Who can name the planets in order, starting with Mercury?”

  A whole lot of hands went up. Alice Winslow named them all. In order.

  “Right,” said Mr. Burroughs. “Perfect. Now let’s have everyone take out a sheet of paper—it’s okay if it’s lined, Jeremy—take out a sheet of paper and draw the planets in order, showing their relative size. Moons count too. You’ll keep this for reference in your solar system folders—yes, Alice, I know there’s a chart in Science Today!, but there’s nothing like making your own.”

  Tommy drew all the planets in order. Showing their relative size. And their moons. As he worked, he kept his arm over the paper and drew thrimble, so that Jupiter’s red spot churned across the planet, and Mercury spun wildly, and Mars’s icecap glistened.

  After Tommy was back for five days, the new old desks just felt ... the same. And the classroom felt ... the same. The perfect columns of desks were messed up, half of the new markers were uncapped, the rows of books that Mr. Burroughs had begged from the other classrooms were all out of order, and the whiteboard was stained from the markers that were supposed to wipe off easily but never did. And the smell of the paint was almost completely gone. It was as if it had all never happened.

  Except for the rucca tang.

  After Tommy was back for six days, his father let him and Patty ride the bus to school in the morning—but he still picked them up in the afternoon, since Tommy had to stay a little late so he and Alice Winslow coul
d finish their sort of wobbly Styrofoam solar system project, which they were trying not to touch too much because of what would probably happen if they did.

  And after Tommy was back for seven days, Officer Goodspeed left the sixth grade hall and resumed his double patrols around Plymouth. The break-ins had stopped, but Officer Goodspeed wasn’t going to take any chances.

  And during the days, Tommy fell into routines that were old and familiar: the dawns, the rides to school, Mr. Burroughs’s classroom, catching footballs, the rides home along Water Street, homework on the solar system, supper, more homework on the solar system, reading with Patty. Sleeping.

  Sleeping, sort of. Because at night, Tommy remembered the O’Mondim in the water, and he remembered his name on the ruined classroom’s board, and his mother holding up her arms, calling his name. And he lay awake, and twisted his chain.

  But in the mornings, he always walked into Mr. Burroughs’s classroom sort of happy—he would never have told James Sullivan this—because they were talking about the solar system. And what could be more interesting than the solar system? When Mr. Burroughs drew the planets on the board according to scale, Tommy would draw them again in his notebook—always in thrimble to show they were revolving. And when Mr. Burroughs would start talking about Mercury’s hot surface or Venus’s poisonous atmosphere or Jupiter’s red spot or Saturn’s rings or Neptune’s moons or about how small all of this was compared to the vast galaxy and how small our galaxy was compared to the vastness of other galaxies, Tommy would lean back in his chair and, for a little while, forget about the O’Mondim.

  But Tommy was surprised at how much Mr. Burroughs left out.

  Like how if you are living on a planet with binary suns, twice a year the tides are so high, the waves touch the clouds, so you can never build settlements near the shore—except for the hruntum that would wash away.

  How you can feel the spin of a flat moon more and more as you walk toward its edge.

  How the colors beyond Earth’s short prism have sounds.

  How light was only one way to measure speed. There was Thought, too. How else could you get to another galaxy?

  And Mr. Burroughs didn’t seem to know about the nebulae that hide behind the black holes and defy them with their own weird gravity.

  Or why stars pulse.

  Or what is at the center of a planet made of gases.

  And if Mr. Burroughs thought the rings of Saturn were so special, hadn’t he heard about the Ring Spheres around Alorn? He must have. Everyone had.

  Tommy Pepper found it hard to understand why Mr. Burroughs left so much out.

  Tommy figured he should try to be helpful. So when Mr. Burroughs said that it would take an astronaut longer than four years traveling at the speed of light to reach Alpha Centauri, Tommy raised his hand and pointed out it would only take half that many seconds on Thought, and Mr. Burroughs had raised an eyebrow and said, “Thought?” and Tommy said, “Yeah, Thought,” and told him how light waves were tons slower than Thought waves. Mr. Burroughs had nodded his head and said yes, we can travel faster in our imaginations, and Tommy had smiled and said, “Exactly,” and then Mr. Burroughs said they were in science class not science fiction class and everyone laughed and Tommy realized that Mr. Burroughs had not gotten it at all.

  Tommy didn’t try to be helpful again.

  But Tommy really did like Mr. Burroughs.

  So when on the day he was going to moderate a classroom debate on whether Pluto was a planet or not, Mr. Burroughs did not come in to William Bradford Elementary School, Tommy Pepper started to worry.

  Mr. Burroughs had never missed a school day for as long as anyone could remember. Probably he had never missed a school day for his entire career.

  But he did not come in.

  And that morning, Tommy could hardly sit in his classroom, the fah smell of the O’Mondim was that strong.

  THIRTEEN

  Uprising

  So the Lord Mondus sent the O’Mondim to hunt through the City of the Ethelim until Young Waeglim was found—alive, for the heart of the Lord Mondus still yearned for the Art of the Valorim, and he would not take Young Waeglim’s life until the Chain was surely in his grip.

  But Young Waeglim lay hidden in the house of Bruleath, and as the Twin Suns rose and fell, strength came back to his arms and light to his eyes and hope to his heart. And he said to Bruleath, “Now is the time to gather those who would fight for the side of the Valorim. Now is the time to remember old promises and the battles that were fought.” And Bruleath sent word to those who had stood beside the Valorim in earlier days, and to their sons and daughters. And he gave to Young Waeglim the orlu and the halin that he had used when he fought beside his father. And when Young Waeglim bound the orlu and the halin to his waist and across his shoulders, Bruleath drew back at the sight of him, so fierce did he look—and so much like Elder Waeglim in the battles they had fought together.

  They waited three days while the word went abroad and the O’Mondim searched the city. Behind the gliteloit, Young Waeglim watched with glowing eyes as the Valorim banes roamed the streets and spread their fah filth. He stored his anger in his heart, and with white hands he gripped the hilt of the orlu.

  Finally, on a night lit only by a slanting of stars, Young Waeglim and Bruleath and Hileath and Ealgar left their home and headed to Brogum Sorg Cynna outside the City of the Ethelim, where the O’Mondim would never come for the memory of the vengeance taken upon them. And there, the pale eyes of the Valore saw many of the Ethelim—though most weaponless. But in their eyes, Young Waeglim saw not hope but fear. And his heart was filled with pity for what they had endured.

  “Is this what you have come to?” he said. “You who have fought side by side with the Valorim and taken the Reced and the city around it for your own? Is this the race that once drove the traitorous O’Mondim from the battlements, and with your own hands built up all that is good and noble around you? Did the Valorim bring their Art into the world for this?”

  But they murmured against him, and asked who he was to speak so. Had he lived in the city while it was torn by the O’Mondim? Had he been starved by their hands, been beaten by their hands, lost all by their hands? And now he comes, a lord of the Valorim, safe and well?

  And Ealgar’s anger was fired, and he stepped before them and spoke. He told of the Valore’s long, dark suffering. He told of the battle with Hileath against the O’Mondim. He told of how Young Waeglim had sent the Art of the Valorim away from this world so that it might not fall to the hand of the Lord Mondus. And he told how Young Waeglim was the last of his race, and the power of their Art was gone from the world.

  And they sorrowed for Young Waeglim and their misjudgment. They bowed the knee and swore they would fight with him against the Lord Mondus and the O’Mondim, as their fathers and mothers had fought before with Elder Waeglim.

  And then Ealgar, son of Bruleath, youngest and smallest of all, who could not remember the days of Brogum Sorg Cynna, so young he was, said, “Where is the Art of the Valorim, that we might fight with it?”

  And Young Waeglim said, “That you should be the one to ask speaks most well of you.” Young Waeglim put his hand on Ealgar’s shoulder. “There is a way,” he said, and his hand felt heavy to the boy, the heaviest thing he had ever carried.

  And Young Waeglim told them what must be done to retrieve the Art of the Valorim. When he had finished, he asked if Ealgar could do such a thing. And Bruleath, the father of Ealgar, offered to do it in his son’s place, but Young Waeglim said, “It is a task for the youngest and smallest, for the strength of one Valore alone is not the strength of the Valorim Ascendant, and the journey is as long as Thought.”

  And Ealgar felt his dreams come upon him. He remembered the stories of the Valorim. He remembered the stories of those who had fought with them. And his heart yearned to see again what the Silence had covered with dust and ash. So, with a voice that trembled not a little, Ealgar promised to do what Young Waeglim ha
d spoken to them all.

  And the eyes of the Valore looked again at the Ethelim, and this time, he saw hope.

  Then did Young Waeglim gather the Ethelim into companies, and each company chose two to lead them, and each of the two came to Young Waeglim, and the Valore saw that their hearts were good and their minds keen and if their arms had not the strength that he might have hoped to bring against the O’Mondim, still, good hearts and keen minds were nowhere among the Faceless.

  And what could there be against the Silence except battle?

  And Bruleath, who had been sent by Verlim the Destroyer for a sign of the Ethelim’s obedience, smiled grimly at the sign he would now carry back.

  But he sat apart with his son, and with Hileath, and they trembled for what was to come. For how could anyone hope to leave this world, and come back?

  Yet that is what Ealgar was to do.

  FOURTEEN

  Mr. PilgrimWay

  Tommy’s class was wondering how long it would be before a teacher showed up. James Sullivan was betting the whole day, and he was already starting to push the desks to one side of the room to make an indoor football arena—even though they had only a stubby William Bradford Elementary School football to play with—when Mrs. MacReady appeared at the door, looking a little startled.

  “Mr. Zwerger would like to see you in his office,” she said to Tommy, and “Why are you pushing those desks that way?” to James Sullivan, and “I think I had better wait here until your substitute arrives,” to the whole class. Everybody groaned. “I’m not paid to do this, you know.” Everybody groaned again.

  Tommy went to Mr. Zwerger’s office. The fah smell of O’Mondim was so strong in the halls, he wondered how anyone could stand it. Or didn’t they smell it? No one seemed to notice anything.

  He walked into the main office, and since Mrs. MacReady wasn’t there to make him wait, he knocked on Mr. Zwerger’s door. It opened immediately.

  Mr. Zwerger looked a little startled too.

  “Tommy Pepper,” he said quickly, “thank you for coming.” He almost pulled Tommy into the room, and taking him by the shoulders, he held Tommy between himself and the other man in his office.