Fortensia put her hand into the water to test it. Clearly satisfied, she plopped down into the rocker and put her bare feet into the steaming mixture. She melted into the chair, closed her eyes, and moaned with relief.
Anni sat there in silence and studied her surroundings. Though meager at first sight, the cozy room looked perfectly suited to the likes of someone as rugged as Fortensia.
“Still here? Must have dozed off. Suppose you’re wondering where your room is. Last room at the top of the stairs over there. Just pull the hook.” Fortensia smiled and pointed across the room. At the far end, against the mountainside wall, stood a narrow doorway with a rickety stairwell leading to the upper floors.
“By the way, Jay delivers food from the Noos from time to time. If you want something, write a note and stick it on the pitchfork outside the front door.” Fortensia closed her eyes and resettled into her chair.
Anni walked through the doorway and up the staircase. It creaked under her weight. On the second-floor landing, she saw Fortensia’s bedroom, the only room on the floor. The stairs ended on the third-floor landing, but there was no door or room in sight, only a square hook resting in the ceiling. Anni gave the hook a tug and, without warning, a wooden staircase shot down and pinned her to the floor. At first, she thought she was trapped, but after a little nudge, the stairs easily pushed back into place.
She righted the stairs and climbed up. Submerged in darkness, only a mere crack of light fluttered against the attic wall. Anni tiptoed her way toward the light as plumes of dust wafted up her nostrils. She pulled back a ratty curtain. Starlight revealed a small room with a sleeping bag propped in the corner.
“You can come out now,” Anni whispered to Brat. “No one’s here.”
Brat shuffled in her pocket. “I’m fine right here, thanks.”
“Suit yourself, but you’re going to have to come out sometime.”
Anni unrolled the sleeping bag and got inside. She used her backpack as a pillow.
“I hope Lexi’s okay,” she muttered into the darkness. “And not scared…”
Brat shifted himself out of her pocket and laid down on the backpack beside her head and said, “She might be stronger than you know, but I’ll do whatever I can to help you find her.”
“Brat, what do you know about Mabel and why she was banished from here?”
“Moppins, that was a sad story. For centuries, Elkins put their faith in an old legend of an Elemental prince who would come along and save our people, our planet, and allow us to live in harmony with the humans—teaching them our ways so they could evolve and take ownership of their choices. So it happens, an Elemental boy was born on Mineralstone Isle, a special kind of birthing Zephyr, and he matched the description of the legend. He was born to two old families, Murdrock and Moon. A great celebration was to take place in the human realm in honor of his birth. Mabel was head of the protection detail, along with dozens of the finest Elementals at her command. Only, things went very wrong, and for some unexplained reason, she was absent from the ceremony. I’ll save you the gory details, but later, the Fectus claimed responsibility. The Prince, Eleck, was kidnapped along with his mother, a sweet woman named Isobella, and his father was killed on the spot. Thousands of Elementals lost their lives that day; it’s the Great Catastrophe of our time. Mabel took full responsibility for her absence. Her name was tarnished and she was asked to leave Moon Zephyr. It also marked the last day Elementals were born. Mineralstone and a couple others like it went defunct—Elemental teens like Daphne and Squirt are the last of our kind.”
Anni didn’t say anything else. They both drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, nutty smells of hickory wafted up through the cracks in the floorboards. Anni peeled herself away from the army-green sleeping bag. In the daylight, the attic was actually bigger than she thought, but soot covered every surface.
“Morning, sleepy head.” Brat was perched on her head. “You slept an entire day.”
“What? No!” Anni shot straight up. “I lost a whole day? This can’t be happening!” This was the worst way to wake up: furious with herself. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“Couldn’t. Maybe it was the lake, or too much Funk,” he said. “Daphne and Squirt couldn’t wake you up, either. Yugi looked at your eyeballs, then gave Fortensia some tonics. By the way, I’m not sure, but I’m a little worried she saw me when she poked her head in.”
“That’s another thing to worry about.”
“She’s downstairs. And if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to hide out up here today.”
“No way. You go where I go. Come on. In.” Anni pointed at her pocket.
She made her way downstairs. Brat grumbled a few choice words at her but stopped once he heard Fortensia whistling.
Fortensia was hunched over a pot facing the fire. “Mornin’. Glad to see you finally came around. Have a seat…” She handed Anni a bowl of what looked like gruel. “For your strength. You’ll need it today.”
Anni warily eyed the food.
“Go on. It’s porridge. You know, human food. We don’t all eat twigs and puffs of air to survive, you know. I’m an Earth Elemental. I need more substance than most of the lot here does. I travel to the human realms every week.”
Anni took the bowl and wondered where Fortensia went in the human world. She was ravenous, but it tasted delicious. When she finished, bits of porridge were still stuck to the side of her cheeks.
“Healthy appetite. I like that.” Fortensia offered Anni another bowl.
Immersed in her bowl of buttery oats, Anni was grateful. When she finished, she spotted a decorative wooden perch sitting on Fortensia’s coffee table that hadn’t been there the night before; it was big enough for a parrot.
“Suppose you’re full now? All right, we’ll get started soon enough.” Fortensia stuck two fingers into her mouth and whistled, but Anni didn’t hear a sound. Fortensia smiled. “Can’t give you the tour without Jasper.”
A large, glowing orb, about the girth of a volleyball, whisked into the cabin. Anni pressed against her chair as the buzzing object flitted around her, sniffing like an excited puppy until it finally sat on the wooden perch. Brat shivered in her pocket.
“Anni, Jasper. Jasper, Anni. Jasper helps me in the caves.”
Squat, with long feathery wings, Jasper was 100 times the size of a regular insect and resembled a dragonfly. Fortensia placed a small umbrella over the birdhouse and cooed, “But he hates guano droppings, don’t you, Jasper?”
Jasper buzzed brightly in reply.
Fortensia filled her belt, grabbed Jasper’s perch, turned to Anni, and said, “Let’s go.”
Disintegrated rail tracks at the mouth of the cave trailed deep into a long, dark tunnel. Huge boulders lined the cave’s entrance. Inside, creatures like Jasper flitted about, lighting their way. As they walked deeper, Jasper’s light shone the brightest.
Ahead, Anni noticed that the tracks had crumbled into the ground, and two lonely mine carts sat like decaying antiques, barely held together by bits of wood. Anni breathed a sigh of relief that the tracks ended because the carts looked positively dangerous.
“Hop in,” said Fortensia, pointing to the farther of the two carts.
Anni gaped at Fortensia like she was insane.
“Safer than it looks. Trust me.”
Not in the mood to question Fortensia’s sanity, Anni climbed gingerly into the front seat and buckled two small straps over her lap. It was all she could do to humor Fortensia because there was no way they could move without tracks.
Fortensia squeezed in next to her, holding Jasper in her lap. The cart’s wood creaked and moaned as if about to explode into a shower of tiny toothpicks.
“Down,” the woman said with a robust force.
The cart took off like a bullet—not down, but straight ahead.
“Hold on.”
Anni gripped the sides of the cart as it barreled forward. She liked the feel of the musty wind as
it rushed past, suddenly thrilled by the speed at which they throttled forward without more than a foot’s worth of light ahead of them. Jasper glowed and buzzed happily in his dropping-proofed perch.
Fortensia’s face broke into a broad grin. Wanting to see more, Anni leaned over to inspect the view to the left of the cart. Despite Jasper’s glow, all was dark below.
Without warning, the cart hurtled forward. Anni screamed and Fortensia laughed as the cart shot straight down, not on an angle, but on a ninety-degree free fall without any tracks beneath them. Something glimmered below; it was the ground, and it was coming up fast. They were going to crash. Every muscle in her body tensed. She clenched her eyes, jaw, and fists, bracing for the collision. But no collision came.
A luminous glow, brighter than Jasper’s light, surrounded them. Anni peeked through one eye. The cart floated over a sparkling riverbed, the light almost ethereal, and slowed to a stop.
Fortensia clapped her hard on the shoulder. “Good girl. Kept your marbles on the way down.”
Anni was only able to steady her breath because she was shaking all over. She wasn’t the only one; Brat was shivering inside her pocket.
“Come on. Hop out. Take a look around.” Fortensia pointed to a mountain-sized pile of slimy guano. “This is it!” She smiled like a mother hen.
Anni climbed out of the cart. She looked up at the dark shapes that flitted above. “What are those?”
Fortensia laughed. “What, the Raterons? Why, they make the guano. I provide room and board for their service; that’s our agreement.”
“Funny, they look like Fleet messengers.”
“Shhh,” said Brat, who trembled when the Raterons rustled and shrieked above.
“Well, don’t you tell them that,” whispered Fortensia. “In fact, I wouldn’t mention that word in here. They’re all part of the Raterons species, but that lot over there,” Fortensia pointed, lowering her voice further. “Calls ’emselves Pirats. Don’t know the particulars, but they don’t get on with them Fleet Raterons. And I don’t get mixed up in any of their business, other than packing up the guano. Neither should you.” She gestured to the largest mound, next to a radiant riverbed. “All right, down to business. This pile of guano here needs to be bagged, sealed, and shuttled to the top. First, I need you to help load up the hover-flats. See those bags? All of them gotta go.” She pointed to a wall of prefilled guano bags and two long, empty pallets. “All right, you can suit up over there.”
Next to some spades and lanterns were extra coveralls and rubber boots, about Anni’s size. She dressed and wrapped a scarf around her mouth and nose. First, Fortensia showed her how to scoop, bag, and seal the guano. Then they filled up one long hover-flat and half of another before Fortensia got ready to leave.
“Gotta take this lot to the loading dock. Jay will come back for the second hover-flat. Fill it up and leave it up top. I won’t see you ’til tomorrow morning. Oh, and before I forget, there’s another cart over there. Only two directions. Hook it to this hover-flat and say ‘Up’ to get to the top and ‘Down’ to get down here. Cart’ll do the rest. Much as I’d like to chat, these bags won’t sell themselves. You’re a tough nut; you’ll be fine.”
Anni watched Fortensia hook her carts up; it seemed easy enough. She climbed back into the cart, leaving Jasper behind for Anni, bellowed “Up,” and shot into the air like a rocket. As Anni watched, she felt something trickle down her head and shoulders.
“Gross,” said Anni when she realized it was guano droppings. “What am I doing in here? This is crazy. I need to leave, not scoop up this stuff.”
“Glad you think so,” whispered Brat. “What’s your plan?”
“You know, I think I got a good one. Why are you whispering?”
“Avoiding…” His tiny arm pointed upward. “Them.”
“Hmm,” she said, looking at how many more bags of guano she needed to load, when suddenly she figured it out. Anni grinned broadly.
“What?” Brat gave her a sideways look. “Why are you smiling like a three-headed Snaca-doodtod?”
“Because it won’t be much longer now, Brat. I just figured out exactly how to get us off this Zephyr. We’ll be home before you know it.”
THE BROUWEN
Lexi squinted as she and the other prisoners followed Mortimer through a cloud of steam issuing from a car-sized copper cauldron in the middle of a massive quartz quarry.
“Welcome to the Brouwen. You will be peeling, chopping, slicing, stirring, boxing, and jarring,” said Mortimer. He left a trail of slime behind him that was promptly swept up by a crew of small mutant creatures, half armadillo―half porcupine.
The vast crystalline crater looked out of place after walking down from the dank brown tunnels above. This room looked like a massive kitchen for cooking something, although Lexi didn’t know what it was for just yet. A steaming cauldron the size of a house sat in its center; the vapors escaping from it tickled Lexi’s nose and made her feel sick.
“This is where you will work and live. Unless, of course, anyone here would prefer a dark, dirty cell on the prison block.” Mortimer paused as if this was his attempt at a joke, or perhaps he was giving the four of them a chance to pick that option.
There were more slugs like Mortimer, but smaller, working around the cauldron. Human teenagers ran up and down ladders, others worked at tables, but all of them had heavy bags under their eyes. Lexi thought the private, dark cell sounded preferable.
Mortimer moved his small group through the crater and up to the mouth of an endless tunnel. “This is Bee Hall,” he said, waving absently at what looked like a subway tunnel lined with millions of small glass jars. Each one had tiny little creatures similar to lightning bugs trapped inside. They glowed a bright, electric blue color with a touch of gold.
“Oh,” said the girl Kat, who reached out and touched the glass of one of the small jars. Lexi watched as the wisp of light inside glowed even brighter, which then created a chain reaction to all the jars next to the first.
“Do not touch the ingredients!” said Mortimer in a frightening tone.
Lexi jumped back, trembling. This was the first time he made eye contact with them, and she didn’t like it, because his eyeballs were blood red.
“Only Brouwen Masters add the final ingredients to the Plantanana Juice,” he said, leaning over Kat and Lexi. “If you so much as lay another finger on those jars, you’ll get an audience with our Queen, the Naga Yaga herself. Trust me: most die of fright just from gazing into her lidless eyes.”
“Your lodgings are in the room behind here.” Mortimer showed them with a tiresome wave. “The first patch of dirt you see is your bed. Change into your uniforms and hurry back.”
Kat shrank back and raced into the room. Lexi followed her inside. One person lay asleep on the dirt floor, a bedraggled stick of a girl with matted hair.
Quickly, they changed into their rag uniforms and piled their human clothes in the cleanest dirt corner they could find. When Kat’s back was turned, Lexi hid her pearl necklace inside one of the folds of her clothes before she followed Kat back out.
“This way,” said Mortimer once they exited their dirt caves and headed back into the Brouwen.
Lexi took one more glance at the mysterious lights inside the jars. She had never seen anything like it before. The shelves looked like little beehives.
“You know what they are, don’t you?” asked Kat in a whisper.
“No. I don’t,” said Lexi. “Do you?”
“It’s why you don’t want to be an Elemental, not in here, anyway. Those lights, in the jars, come from cracked Opus Stones.” Lexi frowned at her. “Oh, I forgot. You’re human…uh, like me. The Naga Yaga does the cracking. She rips out the soul from the body while it’s still alive, puts them into these jars, and then they sell the cracked Stones.”
“What do they do with the lights in the jars?”
Kat pointed at the cauldron. “We’re the slave labor that gets to cook them.”
>
Lexi gulped. She couldn’t help but think that the lights had grown dimmer once Kat said that.
“Follow. Follow,” said Mortimer, stopping at a busy chopping table loaded with boxes of fruit that looked a lot like bananas. “You’ll be paired off with a sous-chef. You will do exactly what they say. Understand—”
At first, Lexi was so caught up and horrified by what Kat said that she didn’t notice the bedraggled girl who had been asleep in the cave when Lexi and Kat changed. Now this girl was fully awake and interrupting Mortimer. Lexi did, however, recognize what the bedraggled girl handed over to Mortimer.
“Happens every time,” said Mortimer dryly. “Which of you brought this pearl?”
MOONSTONES
“This is absolutely disgusting,” said Brat, sandwiched beside Anni. “I don’t know what I was thinking when you suggested this. Why in snoz’ sakes did I listen to you?”
“Shush! Do you want to leave the Zephyr or not? Now, be quiet and don’t move,” said Anni, peering through the small holes of the bag. “I think I can hear Jay coming. And whatever you do, don’t move a muscle.”
The soft crunch of footfalls surrounded them. Anni held her breath until the hover-flat rose off the ground and started moving. It wasn’t exactly comfortable with her and Brat stuffed inside the burlap sack surrounded by other bags of guano, but at least it would get them off the Zephyr, and through LimBough, where Anni and Brat could escape to the human world.
Brat made a face at her and crossed his arms in protest. It wasn’t like they were sitting in the guano; they had themselves sewn inside an empty sack, which was positioned on the middle of the hover-flat and surrounded and barricaded in by other bags on all sides so that no one would be the wiser.
Anni assumed her plan worked because Jay didn’t check the sacks and the hover-flat rose off the ground, business as usual. Jay whistled as if everything was normal. Anni and Brat sat in silence as the hover-flat made its long procession to the village. When they overheard Elementals talking, Anni smiled. They had reached the loading bridge.
Anni Moon & The Elemental Artifact: An Elemental Fantasy Adventure Series: Book For Kids Ages 9-12 (Anni Moon Series) Page 15
