Joshua and the Lightning Road

by Donna Galanti

  Then screams shattered the silence behind us as a great ringing of metal clanged. The hall door screeched open and horses thundered in. Soldiers sat high on them, swinging their swords at castle guards who chased them by horseback. The chandelier flames bent to their will. The intruders galloped the long hall toward us—and Hekate and the Child Collector led the way.

  King Apollo hoisted himself up from his chair arms. The jeweled bottle swayed across his chest, the scroll inside taunting me.

  Three. Giant. Steps. That’s all it would take for me to rip that bottle from around his neck just like Sam told me to do. Hekate and the Child Collector stopped before the king, next to Leandro as I hid at his side.

  “Call off your guards, Apollo,” Hekate ordered.

  The king held up his hands and the guards froze. Heavy breathing surrounded us in the sudden quiet, and the air pulsed with smoke and sweat. Swords and vapes pointed at us from all directions.

  “I’d hoped for more from you, Hekate.” King Apollo sighed and sank back on his chair with shaking arms. “We could have planned something together, you and I. Instead, you attack me.” His shoulders slumped. “You are a traitor. Like my son.”

  “Give it up, Apollo,” Hekate said, snapping the reins of her prancing horse. “Your family lost your powers long ago. Even your son defies you.”

  “Your small band of loyal followers stand no chance against my soldiers,” said King Apollo. A sheen of sweat popped out on his upper lip, and he wiped it away with a trembling hand.

  But even as the king spoke, many of his guards, who stood beside him and lined the walls, left his side and stood behind Hekate. King Apollo rose with a fist thrust toward her, and his few remaining guards shuffled their feet, eyeing one another.

  “I have your soldiers on my side now, Apollo. More will follow, along with the people of the Lost Realm, and someday all of Nostos when I claim the powers of your ancestors. You inspire no loyalty at all. You sit on your throne and do nothing, while I can deliver the sun to the Lost Realm people.”

  She pointed a finger at him. Blue sparks rippled along it, and Apollo flinched. “You lie, Hekate.” He sat back down with a thud. “No one but the Oracle can bring back the force of the sun here.”

  “I can, and there will be no Oracle. I’ve killed every one since the gods fell.” She sniffed the air, and I moved closer to Leandro who put a hand on my wrist. “And if there is a new one, I will destroy him as well.” She peered around the room.

  “No one will follow you,” Apollo said. “You’re an Ancient Evil One!”

  Hekate laughed. “And you are nothing, so-called king. Admit defeat, Apollo.”

  “It’s time for a new ruler,” the Child Collector said, digging his heels into his horse. “And my sister and I are taking all the Reekers for our own use. Starting with this one.” He trotted over to the pavilion and pulled Finn off it, holding him tight on his horse as Finn struggled.

  “Let me smell him.” Hekate leaned in and clutched Finn’s shirt, her long black curls falling over his face. He pulled his head back as she breathed deep. “Nothing special here.” She thrust him back into the Child Collector’s arms.

  “No!” I lunged toward Finn, but Leandro held me back.

  All heads turned my way. The Child Collector’s one eye stared into the two of mine, his charred face an angry red. “You’re next, Reeker boy,” he said with a snorty laugh. “And you’ll find out soon enough if the cadmean beasts bite better than you.”

  “Ah, our little fugitives, Cronag,” Hekate said, her black eyes stinging mine. “Those who escape the power mill face painful consequences. Perhaps you are the one I seek.”

  She trotted toward me on her horse, a menace whose full power I did not want to discover. A whiff of sweet roses flew up my nose as she inhaled my scent. Leandro stepped back, dragging me with him. Her eyes widened and she uncurled a crooked finger in my face—and I saw my vaporized body hanging over me—when a loud boom rang through the hall.

  The air crackled. A ring of light whipped above us.

  Blast!

  It struck the platform, splitting it in two. The king tottered on his chair and fell on his side. I lunged for him but tripped and cracked my ankle on the platform with a cry as the Child Collector’s horse danced in circles. I scrambled up on the stage, barely missing a hoof to the head, and fell on King Apollo, grabbing the bottle around his neck. He struggled to get up and pushed me away, but I kneed him in the chest and tugged harder. The chain snapped. He cried out, grabbing at me, but I stumbled back with the bottle—and into the Child Collector on his horse. He snatched me up by my collar, and I kicked him hard in the leg. With an angry shout, he dropped me hard on the floor. I landed on my sore ankle and yelled in pain.

  Boys ran off the platform in all directions. Hekate’s horse reared up and bolted off, but she held on fiercely, shrieking. Blue fire and screams pierced the air as flames licked hungrily at the wooden stage.

  A ball of ominous smoke grew behind us. Yells rang out. “What is it?” “Do you see it?”

  Men and boys ran through the ash-filled air in a blur of confusing shadows. Leandro held me tight to his chest, knife drawn, and Charlie held tight to him.

  “I’m getting Finn,” I said, struggling against him. “We can make a run for it!”

  But the Child Collector rushed past us on his horse with Finn in his grasp. Then he was gone with Finn. Again.

  A figure moved confidently toward us through the smoke and chaos.

  It was my grandfather.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Bo Chez flung a ball of fire over our heads. It unwound into a fiery whip. Boom! The air crackled again. Leandro held us back with one hand, his knife pointed at Bo Chez with the other.

  I shoved his knife down. “No! It’s my grandfather!”

  A fiery lasso reined us in with its twisting blaze, and electricity crackled across my skin. Smoke blew thick, forcing an acrid taste in my mouth, and the shouts grew fainter. The hall vanished, and I stood in the woods alongside Leandro, Bo Chez, and Charlie. Had Bo Chez transported us from the castle to here? The towers stood faint in the distance through the trees.

  Bo Chez crossed his thick arms over his wide chest, his pointy hair gleaming in the mist.

  “Bo Chez!” My confusion over who he was melted away as gladness filled me, and I hugged him hard as he smiled down at me. It had to be the most wonderful, warm hug of my life. Questions wanted to burst from me, but for now I clung to his cheese and peanut butter smell, and the woods, the fog—even the very people after us—slipped away in his giant presence.

  Leandro put his knife down and bowed to Bo Chez. “It’s an honor to meet a Storm Master. Thanks for the rescue.”

  Bo Chez nodded, but his smile disappeared and he held out my arm to see my sun mark.

  “Hekate branded me. It says—”

  “There is no more noble a cause you bear. I know it well. Each realm has their own slave brand with an epigram that begins with these same words.”

  I pulled my arm away and stumbled back, twisting my sore ankle again. “Epigram?”

  Bo Chez looked me up and down as if to find other marks on me. “A short phrase invented by the Greeks to inspire one to live for today because life is short.”

  My brain was a mix of all the events we’d survived so far, and now my grandfather’s entrance and his knowledge of this world, and the homey feeling he brought with him, was fading fast. “How’d you find me?”

  “Your pictures led me,” Bo Chez said.

  Joshua was here.

  Still here.

  Death was everywhere here too, and I twisted my hands in my pockets. “I got the gate codes, but we lost Finn again. They grabbed him and—”

  “We’ll get him, Joshua,” Leandro said. “We haven’t come this far to lose him. He won’t be lost forever.”

  Like your wife and son.

  I held up the tiny bottle that spun
with color and freedom, and unrolled the scroll inside. It contained picture combinations for destinations to be used with the Lightning Gate key—and there was the combination to Earth.

  “Put that bottle away where it’s safe, Joshua,” Bo Chez said quietly, and I obeyed, sliding it deep in my pants pocket. I held the fate of so many in my hands, including my own, on a quest thick with danger and destiny.

  Then something occurred to me. “Wait—we don’t even need the codes now, right, Bo Chez? If you made it to Nostos from Earth, then you can get us home again on the Lightning Road!”

  Bo Chez shook his head. “My power to create lightning to travel—like all my powers—only works on Nostos, not Earth. And it took all my strength to use it again here. It’s been a long time. Anyway, I knew you and Finn had been taken when I got home, looked for you, and found the broken window. I waited in the attic, hoping for a Child Collector to come back again for another kid. Lightning doesn’t just strike once when they’re involved. When one did, I forced him to bring me here. It was easy. He was a fresh recruit and terrified of me.”

  That was definitely not the one who stole us.

  Leandro bowed to Bo Chez. “You must have been very persuasive, sir. But what if this Child Collector talks?”

  “Don’t worry. He won’t be doing any more talking.”

  Bo Chez seemed to swell bigger before me, filling my view. His muscled hands were clenched tight, and I thought about him killing a man, or cutting out his tongue, or sealing his mouth, like Lo Chez’s—or maybe not even being my grandfather.

  “When the Child Collector stole Finn, it was like I’d been around him before,” I finally said.

  “It’s possible,” Bo Chez said, his lips thin, holding in secrets.

  “Allons! We need to get Prince-man, get Finn, and get back home,” Charlie urged us.

  A bell rang over and over in a steady rhythm.

  Leandro looked at Bo Chez. “Charlie’s right. We need to get the other boy first. We’ll fill you in, sir, on the way.”

  And so we ran to find Sam.

  “Wait, Bo Chez,” I pulled him back. He looked at me, waiting, and so did Leandro and Charlie. Guilt burned alongside my anger, and shame, and I placed the lightning orb in his hand. It felt weird to give it back to him, as if it had become mine along the way. “Sorry I took it.”

  He closed his hand around it, covering it with his sturdy fingers. “I understand, Joshua.” He handed it back to me. “Keep it for now. You may need it if we get separated again.” He touched my head softly with his big hand, and we ran to find Sam.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Leandro neared the spot where we left Sam and motioned us down. We knelt on the forest floor, behind bushes, and the bark and pine needles poked into my pants, adding to the growing discomfort of my thirst and damp clothes. Then a horse brayed. And another. Laughter rang out, long and cruel—Hekate.

  “Your friends won’t recognize you now, traitor. Since you won’t tell me where they’ve disappeared to, you can suffer in silence. You don’t have long. And neither will your friends!”

  Another familiar voice rang out, deep and menacing. “Serves you right.” The smell of sour milk and burnt grease blew over me. We all crouched further down.

  “Your father is done, like you. I’ve got the castle and all the workhouses now!” Hekate said.

  “But, Kat, you promised me the bakehouse,” the Child Collector said.

  “Yes, Cronag,” Hekate said in a softer voice. “If you can whip these Reekers into shape for me, you can run the bakehouse. They’ll make all your favorite disgusting foods.”

  “And bacon beer. Lots of bacon beer.”

  “Enough! If your stench hadn’t covered up his smell, I would have grabbed the Oracle sooner. We’ll reorganize the workhouses soon enough and set out to conquer all of Nostos, but for now I want the Oracle. And that Storm Master is mine.” More cruel laughter. “Then I’ll take care of the rest of Apollo’s heirs.”

  Hooves hammered by our hiding spot, heading away from the castle. Hekate’s sickly sweet rose scent rolled by and, in the wake of the Child Collector, a putrid breeze. I peered over the top of a bush. An army of horses roared past in the forest as Hekate’s soldiers followed her on a mission.

  Her robe streaked behind her, a green-gold blur parading like a battle pendant. She whipped her horse on as the Child Collector oozed over his poor horse, straining to keep up. And there was the top of Finn’s head.

  Then they were gone. Sticks and pebbles stuck to my knees. It felt good to stand, my legs numb from kneeling on the hard ground.

  “We’ll get him back,” Leandro said, pounding a fist on a tree trunk. “We know which way they’re headed.”

  “We need to get Sam first.” I strained to find him in the gloomy woods. Leandro pointed. Sam was curled up on the ground, facing away from us.

  We all ran over and, with my hand on his shoulder, I rolled him toward me, but fell back when I saw his wrinkled face. His white hair was streaked with gray and his hands were bony with knotty knuckles and long, yellow nails. He smelled like an old book that had been closed for a long time.

  I crab-walked backward fast, my hands scratching across dead bark. Leandro pulled me up, and we all stared at Sam in silence.

  “What on Earth?” I said.

  “This is not of Earth, Joshua,” Leandro said in a low voice. “It’s an Old World curse.”

  Sam, the old man, struggled to get up. I closed off my fear of touching him and pulled him up, supporting him under his arms.

  Sam looked at me with a creased forehead. “Did you get the codes?” It came out a whispery rasp.

  “Yeah.”

  He half-smiled, then bent over coughing. “Hekate, cursed me.”

  “Bo Chez, what do we do?” I said.

  He thumped a fist to his jaw. “There’s nothing we can do.”

  Leandro nodded. “There’s no cure for the Old World curse. You can only slow its effects down.”

  “There must be a way to stop it!” I protested. Even Charlie had nothing funny to say for once.

  “The one way to get rid of it is give it to someone else,” Leandro said, sharing a meaningful look with Bo Chez.

  “How do you do that?” I stiffened. My hands were pressed up against Sam’s paper-dry skin. “Is he contagious?”

  “No, but he must decide whether to pass this fatal curse on to someone else. Or he can choose to accept his own death,” Leandro said. “We’ll bring him with us. It’s time to move now. We have the codes to get back to Earth.”

  “Is that all you care about, the codes? I mean, look at him!” I said, waving a hand at Sam.

  “Yeah,” Charlie shouted back.

  Leandro’s voice boomed at me. “Don’t pretend that you don’t want to use the codes too. If Sam is to die, at least we can save ourselves.”

  Leandro was right, and Charlie must have thought so, too, because he was silent.

  “We now have another problem, Joshua,” Leandro said. “Hekate thinks you’re the Oracle.”

  “She does?” Bo Chez said, staring at me.

  “It’s dangerous for her to think so,” Leandro said.

  Bo Chez nodded this time, still looking at me with puzzlement.

  Sam coughed again. “She’ll never stop coming for you.” His hair seemed grayer than it had just a moment ago. His face more lined as the curse developed with super speed.

  My arms shook from holding him. Bo Chez took him from me and held him like a sick child, just like when I had strep throat and he fed me popsicles and ice cream. He sat with me for two days, telling me funny stories to ease the pain. He even slept in the armchair one night. He was no mother, no nurse, but he stayed. Soon after, I remembered wishing to be sick again so Bo Chez would be by my side night and day, just one more time.

  “He’s growing older by the minute,” Bo Chez said.

  “How long does he have?” I said.<
br />
  “Days, perhaps. The young ones last longer. Unless we can find the Moria plant. It wards off death. When crushed up and placed under the victim’s tongue, it slows down the advance of the spell. It could give him a few more days … or weeks.”

  “Otherwise Sam will die from old age?” Charlie said. It was the first time he’d ever called Sam by name.

  Bo Chez nodded.

  “Leandro,” I said. “Where can we get this Moria plant?”

  “If the Lost Realm grows any at all, we’ll find it in the greenhouse.”

  “What about other realms? We could go there. Wouldn’t one of them help?” There had to be others on this world who would come to our aid.

  Leandro shook his head. “There are worse fates for you in other lands if you’re caught. You could end up working with the cadmean beasts to mine coal in the Fire Realm. Or thrown in the water and chased by hydriads for fun in the River Realm races.”

  Or used as bait in the Arrow Realm. Staying here was way safer than any of that.

  “But even if we find this plant, he’ll still die?” Please say no. But he nodded. “Then we’ve got to give the curse to someone else. But how?”

  “Sam must cut off a lock of his hair and burn it,” Leandro explained. “Then fling the ashes on the person he chooses to pass the curse on to. Only his hand can achieve it, but I don’t know the spell for it.”

  “I do,” Bo Chez said. “We had to memorize them in Storm Master training in case we ever encountered this curse weapon in warfare. It goes, ‘Ashes to dust, is what’s left of me. Unless, to live, I pass this to thee. Then ashes to dust now you will be.’ Can you remember this, Sam?”

  “I think so.” His voice quavered as he repeated the spell. “I know it. It’s similar to an old childhood rhyme we would sing. But—” He coughed again and couldn’t stop. And I was dumbfounded by the rhyme that came to Bo Chez so easily. He had lived a whole different life before me.