It crumbled away with the knowledge that he now hunted me.
My own father.
It couldn’t be true! Someone was using him. I resolved to find a way to get the Leandro I knew back.
Oak put a hand on my shoulder, warming it as Leandro’s once had, and pulled me back down from the stars in my head. “No. Sorry, son. He can’t be your father.”
The word “son” cracked a hole in my heart, ripping away the belief that for one moment Leandro had been my father.
Oak pushed up my sleeve and touched my forearm. “You don’t bear the birthmark of Leandro’s firstborn. Besides, his son would be older than you.” He pulled his hand away, leaving me cold all over, and pointed to the shabby bed. “My wife helped your mother deliver his son, Evander, in this room on that cot. She and the baby disappeared a few months later then so did Leandro.”
With all this exploding in my head, there was more—Leandro may not be my father but we now shared a mission: to find the lost family connecting us. Someday, if I ever got the chance, I’d have to tell him his wife was dead.
“Family means everything,” Apollo said. “Especially if you lose them.”
That was the truth.
“Sorry, Joshua,” Charlie said, stuffing his hands in his pockets with a shrug.
“I have a brother.” The words crashed out of me with the force of its reality. Those words spun through me with a strange happy-sad mix. Was he alive? Here? Or on Earth?
“Half brother,” Charlie corrected.
“Half brother,” I echoed and forced a smile up from the lump in my throat as if a full-blooded brother out there could stop Charlie and me from being “Earth brothers.” Now both our brothers were lost to us, except I’d never met mine and he may never see his again. Charlie had a new goal now—to find a replacement brother in me. I didn’t want to be anyone’s replacement.
“Does he look like me?” I asked Oak.
He clutched the pendant on his chain, then opened it up like a book. “See for yourself.”
Inside was a painting of my mother holding a baby. My brother. “You painted this?”
He nodded. “Your brother was only a few weeks old when he disappeared. He was born with a head of white-blond hair and a birthmark on his arm like—”
“A flame?”
His eyebrows shot up. “How did you know?”
“Leandro told me in the Lost Realm … and I see it there.” I touched the mini-portrait, not wanting to look away from the second-only picture of my mother and the first of my newly expanded family. Would it be better if I never knew? Would I become like Leandro, searching the world for years to find my lost family? It didn’t seem like any kind of life. Leandro might as well be lost with them, except now he followed a new mission as the queen’s henchman.
Oak closed the pendant and touched the lion etched on the front. “I had this made for your mother by our blacksmith, but I never had the chance to give it to her. She wanted the lion on the front for Leandro because—”
“He’s a lionheart.”
He nodded, dropping the pendant into his shirt and staring at the cot as if seeing another night in another time. “I’d always thought your mother and brother were killed when her relationship with Leandro was discovered. I never knew who turned them in …” He scowled, crushing his hand into a fist.
“She escaped to Earth and I was born there,” I said.
“My wife would’ve been glad to know she got to Earth and had another child. She must have found someone else …” He shook his big head. “Is she okay?”
“She died when I was two. She never even told my grandfather who my father was.”
“Sorry to hear.”
“A Child Collector found her and killed her right in front of me and my grandfather.”
Oak’s eyes widened and he slammed his fist into the table with a crack. “Monsters!” Fire reflected angrily in his eyes as a draft whipped the candle flames around the room in a frenzy.
“I killed him.”
His eyes grew bigger and he shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it.
“It’s true,” Charlie said, nudging me. “He blasted him with the lightning orb.”
“And … my friend here,” I pointed at Apollo, “killed Hekate with a curse.”
“That witch! I’ve heard about her evil doing.” He turned to me. “So, you’re a malumpus-tongue and can talk to animals. Like Leandro. Your father must be from the Arrow Realm. I don’t know how this all came about, but if you are the Oracle and the myth is true, you can free us from slavery. All of us in the WC have been waiting—hoping—for you. Leandro hoped for you to change this world so he could find his family again … now, it seems, your family too.”
I was divided again, split between two worlds as Nostos pulled me further into its secrets and pushed me away from my life on Earth—and getting back home. He’d once said to me: Home is a reflection of who you are. It defines you. If his words were true and this was my new home, I must accept how it defines me.
“Leandro believes you’re the Oracle,” Oak said. He put a hand on my shoulder again. “I will too.”
I swallowed hard not wanting to cry. Leandro and my family were lost to me, but help had arrived in a new friend.
Oak’s forehead creased. “If you are a malumpus-tongue with ancient power to speak with animals, you may have the power to do more, according to Leandro.”
My pulse raced, wanting to know … not wanting to know.
“Like get us home?” Charlie said.
“No.” Oak crossed his arms and paused. “The power to transform into animals.”
Charlie snapped his fingers. “Like Lore did!” Oak seemed confused and Charlie went into detail about our dungeon experience.
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head to rid myself of the image of turning into a beast. “Artemis said only a rare few can do it.”
“As the Oracle, there’s none rarer,” Oak said. “But a power this big comes with great responsibility. Not all who carry it use it wisely.”
“Very true,” Apollo said. “I’ve seen it.”
“Leandro can’t do that, can he?” I said.
“No, he talks to animals but only those with the rarest of malumpus-tongue powers can transform.”
How to transform—and into what creature?
We all stood in silence for a long moment. There was so much more to learn … especially about my mother. And there wasn’t much time. Where to start asking? Like what her life had been like here, things she said, and about her relationship with Leandro. Suddenly, the gong bashed the air in a frantic rhythm.
“A raid!” Oak blew out the candles while grabbing a glow stick and activating its green light. He threw my bow and arrows at me and shoved Charlie’s knife at him, then he pulled a bag out from under his cot and fell on his knees to the floor, ripping open the hidden door to the tunnel we’d first come through. He jumped down in the hole, his head sticking out like a ghost in the garish glow. “Come on, boys!”
Charlie inched away from the tunnel, glancing at the door that led outside. He pulled me aside and whispered between the gongs, “Joshua, we can run through the street. Find another way out!”
“You’ll have no chance once the WC guards get you,” Apollo said.
I agreed with him. “No, we have to follow him,” I said. “He knew my mother … my brother … Leandro.”
“But Leandro wants to hurt us now!” Charlie argued.
“No! We trusted him once. We could again. We’ve got to trust Oak now. We won’t make it here without trusting someone.”
I did trust this man, Oak, even though he’d held us by knifepoint—like Leandro had when we first met. Like Leandro, Oak was living on the edge, trying to survive, searching for a better life—for himself and his people. So were we.
“I can run fast,” Charlie said. “You too! Allons!”
“If they catch us, they’ll kill us—or worse,” Apollo said.
“Thr
ow us to the animals,” Charlie nodded miserably.
The floor shook as guards pounded on a nearby shack, yelling at the inhabitants to open their door.
“Enough debate!” Oak thundered, his face a light in the dark shadows. “The time to escape is now!”
I jumped into the tunnel.
Charlie carved his hands through his hair and jumped with Apollo right behind. Oak clicked the hatch shut and led the way hunched over, his scrawny shoulders filling the tunnel. Through the dark, we ran after him and the sickly beam of a glow stick.
Oak huffed as the tunnel split. He ran left, switching his sack to the other shoulder. “We’ve been tunneling our way out. There are too many booby traps and guards on the wall to get out that way. Many of us have been working on this tunnel for years and generations before that.”
“Where does it end?” I asked in between breaths.
“Someday it’ll go under the wall and into the forest of the Perimeter Lands.”
“What’s out there?” Charlie asked.
Oak’s face was like a ghoul in the ghastly shadows. “Freedom.”
When I thought my legs couldn’t carry me anymore, Oak stopped and felt around on the wall. “You’ll be safe here, for now. The only ones who know of this place are the parents.”
He pushed at the wall and a door opened. Light creaked through the crack. “The parents of whom?” I asked, the light burning my eyes.
We entered a cavernous room filled with lit candles along the edges of glistening walls and the smell of stale sweat—and dozens of kids staring right at us.
Oak pointed. “Them.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Oak set the sack on the floor and the kids pushed Charlie and me aside to hug him. The lines in his face softened as he smiled at them, wrapping his long, thin arms around as many as he could. They yanked on the sack but he shook his head and threw it over their heads to the side. The kids jumped on it, their long stringy hair hanging against dirt-smudged faces. One tall kid shoved the mob away, making them form a line. He started distributing food from the bag to the kids, and the crowd soon dispersed, darting off to darkened corners, hugging their meals with starved desperation. The rush of running water echoed around the sloped walls of crumbling rock along with the munching of food. I backed up into sharp stone, my feet crunching on scattered bread crusts and apple cores, and tore my hands away from the feel of slimy moss.
“Where’d they all come from?” I whispered, rubbing my fingers on my pants and sucking in musty air. They glanced at me with curious eyes as they fed their hunger. In all this ordered chaos, not one word was spoken, as if they’d been trained to be silent in the dark earth that hid them from life and death.
“Their parents are slaves of the WC,” Oak said.
“Like you,” Charlie said to him in a tight voice, then looked at me. “And your mom. C’est terrible.”
“Terrible, yes, but wonderful because they are alive … unlike my boy,” Oak said with a broken voice and red eyes.
“I’ve heard of the WC underground slaves,” Apollo said. “These kids get a second chance.”
“Second chance to what?” Charlie said, blinking fast.
“To live.”
In this moment, it seemed like weeks since I was zapped to Nostos, but I’d left barely four days ago. I came to free Apollo but there were so many here to free. With these lives at stake, one absolute truth filled me: I came here to save them all. Not in one realm this time—but an entire world. Every path I’d been on led to that truth. Whether I was this Oracle or not, I had a part to play on Nostos.
Apollo left our side to go to the kids. He walked the cave, stopping at each group to talk with them. Their conversations were too faint to hear, but he worked the room like a king with his royal subjects. He touched some on the head and the shoulder.
“Stay here with the others,” Oak said while watching Apollo with curiosity. “There’s food and water. An underground river runs through the back of the cave but stay away from it. You’ll be safe in the cave for now. Only the WC underground knows of this place. I’ll come for you after the raid is done.”
Oak turned away but I pulled him back. “You didn’t tell me about my mother.”
“There’s no time.” He placed a hand on mine. “I have to get back to my room. If they find me gone, they’ll think I’m out after curfew—or worse, escaped—and set the beasts after me.”
Charlie shuddered. “Fire-breathing mutts.”
My woeful face must have softened Oak for he squeezed my fingers. “Your mother was beautiful on the inside and out. Her laughter was infectious, and it’s why Leandro was drawn to her. She carried a shining hope despite the dark circumstances she suffered every day. She knew how to love well. She would’ve loved you very much.”
I let go of his hand, filled up inside but still wanting more—it was all I’d get for now. Oak turned again, opening the door, but my instinct kicked in: we couldn’t stay here.
“Wait!” I watched the kids scarfing down dinner with their fingers. “Maybe we can come up with a plan to get these kids out.” It sounded too huge to comprehend as it flew out of my mouth.
Oak stepped toward me. His head grazed the ceiling and clods of dirt rained around him as he curled his long fingers around my fist. “My top mission is to keep them alive. One step at a time, Joshua.”
Charlie nodded. “Oui, one step, but Joshua is good with coming up with plans.”
The gushing water gave me an idea. “What about this river? Let’s ride it out of here!”
Oak grasped my hand and bent his head to mine, blowing sour breath on my cheek. “Do. Not. Go. In. The. River.”
“It’s a way out.” I struggled to free my hand, but Oak’s boney fingers crushed mine with hidden strength.
“It’s a river of death.”
He saw my pained face and dropped my hand. “When we first found the subterranean river and moved the children to this cave, one desperate boy jumped in.”
Charlie leaned in. “Did he get out?”
“No, he came back.” Oak plucked both our shirts now, pulling us toward his stricken face. “Dead!” He flung us away from him. “Flippin’ dead, I tell you!”
“It’s a chance.”
“No! The river loops around. He came back to us from the other direction. His head bashed in. There’s no way out, except in death. Get it?” Oak twirled his mustache into vicious points.
“All rivers lead somewhere,” I said, not ready to relinquish hope of a watery escape, but the wind from the river shrieked around the hollows of the cave, predicting our death if we did.
Apollo returned to our side from his cave tour. “Let me go into the river. I have a powerful alliance with Poseidon; if I can get to him, we can work together.” He looked at all the kids, then back at us, flexing his muscles. “My father would’ve wanted it.”
Oak snatched Apollo’s hand and flipped his royal ring around, his mouth dropping open when suddenly the creak of the door scratched the air and a familiar voice called out. “What you been hiding down here, Oak?”
Ratchet! He strode right in with a big smirk.
Oak jumped around. “How did you find this place?”
“You’ve been sneaky lately so I followed you. The raid chaos gave me cover to see what you were doing and check up on my Reekers. Took a wrong turn but backtracked and found you now–and the Reekers.” Ratchet’s smile grew wider. “This is why you hoard your food. Like you always say Oak, one for the many, eh?”
I backed up with Apollo and Charlie, who’d flicked out his knife and held it behind his back.
“Oh, you’re not going anywhere, boys,” Ratchet said with a twitch of an eyebrow.
I believed him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Oak rushed to shut the door behind Ratchet. The candle flames flew sideways casting darker shadows. “Ratchet, you can’t know about this place!”
“What’s he mean one for the many, Oak?” I said.
How did a Wild Child rule work here?
“Never you mind,” he said, his voice like gravel thrown at me.
“Why, the honorable Oak and I catch runaway kids to exchange at the auction pit for food, don’t we?” He patted Oak hard on the shoulder while staring at me with slitted eyes.
I’d forgotten about this but defended Oak. “Yeah, so what? We know.”
He sneered at us. “What you don’t know is that he sells them for a higher price as bait for the queen’s Wild Lands hunt. A bigger gold mine of food for us, right, Oak?”
Oak flung Ratchet’s hand away with a stormy look but refused to answer and wouldn’t meet my eyes.
Ratchet laughed and went on. “We split the food, but now I see why he’s so skinny—he gives it to these Reekers.”
“You’re a Reeker too,” I said.
Ratchet pulled me to his side. “No, I’m a survivor.”
I shoved at him but Ratchet gripped me harder. “I’m taking this one up top for reward, Oak. One for the many, right?”
“No!” I kicked at Ratchet.
He shoved me away and grabbed Charlie and his knife. “Maybe this one instead.” I punched at Ratchet until the glint of the knife flashed at Charlie’s throat.
The huddled kids seemed closer to us than a moment ago. I blinked and they were closer still.
“Turn me in, Ratchet, but leave them alone,” Oak said.
His friend snorted. “You’re not worth anything.”
“I can tell you where there’s more,” Oak said quietly.
“You lie.” Ratchet waved the knife, holding Charlie tighter by the throat, his eyes popping. “You’re weak, Oak. My friends died in the volcanic mines in the Fire Realm because they were weak. That won’t be me. Come to think of it, exchanging this bunch will feed me for a long time.”
“No, you can’t trade them!” Oak sucked in a warbled breath. “I made a promise to myself … to their parents.”
Ratchet shook Charlie. “I take him now, and we trade them one by one and add to the stash—or, trade them all now, I turn you in, and your hide-n-seek game is over. Your choice.”
Joshua and the Arrow Realm Page 11
