Joshua and the Lightning Road

by Donna Galanti

  The rest of us landed in the field behind Bo Chez. He was a madman. His pointed hair glinted like steel knives in the mist. Leandro threw me arrows then turned, threaded an arrow to his bow, and fired again and again. My fingers ached and shook as I pulled back my bow.

  We fired arrows upon our enemies, and the cries of pierced soldiers filled the air.

  And still, they drew closer.

  I ran out of arrows and gripped the lightning orb, ready to throw it. But where to aim it? The Child Collector came into view, and I flung the orb. It skimmed the good side of his face and exploded on the ground past him. He screamed and fell off his horse. Hekate raised her hand. Blue sparked from her fingertips.

  Bo Chez stomped the ground with one foot and swept his arms up. Wind blew up in a funnel before us, like a glass tube, surrounding Hekate and her men and separating them from us. They tried to break through the clear tornado but couldn’t. Hekate’s horse bucked, pawing at the walls of the storm funnel to break through. Her army had no better luck. They were trapped in the eye of the storm.

  Bo Chez shook his hands in the air. Rain fell inside the storm circle. Terror filled me at what Bo Chez had unleashed. He didn’t need the lightning orb for power. It was all inside him. Telling stories at home, he’d gesture with his big hands—and now he was acting out those stories.

  And so was I.

  The orb sailed through the tornado, cutting through the wind. It moved toward me and fell into my hand, warm from battle.

  “Get Finn!” Bo Chez’s voice came to us on the winds he ruled. “I’ll hold them off.”

  Leandro pushed Sam, Charlie, and I toward the four kernitians who had bravely waited for us, and again we rode off into the sky. As we rose, Bo Chez grew smaller and smaller, no longer a titan.

  Leandro coaxed us on. “Faster! To the power mill. Let’s hope Finn was taken there!”

  Charlie hollered a French war cry as we raced along. He gripped his kernitian’s neck, his long legs folded up so far his knees touched his ears. Sam’s wizened face crinkled in a smile and Leandro spurred his stag on, a fierce warrior.

  And in that moment, as we came together for the same cause, I knew for sure we could fight our way out of this together, and all of us missing kids could benefit from the fight. A rush of words spilled out as my plan formed. Leandro, Sam, and Charlie nodded—they were in.

  Behind me, Bo Chez was gone from view, and soon lights pierced the gloom ahead. We had reached the power mill.

  For the last time.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  We landed before the power mill. Its scattered broken windows and sagging roof didn’t intimidate me now. It sat, sad and pathetic, like a homeless person on a bench in the park. Chooga-chooga boomed through the air and tugged on my nerves. The lightning orb pulsed a soft blue between my fingers, beating in sync with my own thumping heart. Leandro aimed his bow at the giant double doors to the power mill.

  “Blast it good, Joshua, so we can go home,” Charlie whispered.

  The words over the door caught my eye again: Bring light of life upon this land, for death awaits you in the resting. Toil on!

  “Yeah, well, death awaits you now,” I muttered. “How about that, Lost Realm?”

  I threw the orb at the door. It exploded, and I staggered back as wood nicked my arms and face. Only a jagged hole with flamed edges remained of the door, and the chooga-chooga died as wheels creaked to a stop. Boys stared at us from inside the power mill.

  Four guards slowly rose from where they’d been knocked to the floor. Leandro pulled back his bow. One. Two. Three. Four times. The guards collapsed—and this time, they didn’t get up. The lights around the power mill dimmed and smoke chugged slower from its chimney, belching a final spew before disappearing.

  All four of us stepped through the shattered doors and over the guards. Their vape spears lay on the floor, hissing. Sam picked them up. He handed us each one. It vibrated in my hand with a hot tingle.

  “Point the vape away from you,” Sam said. “Whoever holds a vape commands its powers. Just point it at your target and press this button on top.”

  My vape’s tongue flicked in and out. I now commanded the power that had destroyed my mother—and I wanted the chance to use it.

  Dozens of eyes fixed on us. None of them Finn’s.

  “Are there any other guards here?” Leandro said loudly.

  Sweat broke out across my face from the steamy heat inside the power mill. No one spoke for a long moment. Then a skinny boy stepped forward. “Only these four. The others left with Hekate and the Child Collector.”

  From the silence burst questions. “Where’d you come from?” “Are we saved?” “Can we go home?”

  I held up the vape, its power demanding silence, and the cries faded away. Hundreds of boys stared at me with desperate eyes, their breaths pumping in and out eager for rest and rescue. “You’re all going home. But we haven’t got time.”

  I quickly told them our plan to fly them all to the Lightning Gate on kernitians and send them home through the Lightning Road. “Let’s go.”

  Cheers rose up through the power mill as kids scrambled down to us. Their sour, hot wind rushed over me. There was Lo Chez! He grinned as he ran past. The curse had ended. And through the craziness, a familiar voice called my name.

  “Joshua!”

  Finn! Through the grates, he poked his head out from the third floor. He waved to me with both hands. He was the best thing I’d seen in a long, long time. His smiling face shut this world out: the evil Hekate, the disgusting Child Collector, the red-eyed beasts, the sweaty power mill, death in The Great Beyond.

  I pushed against the impatient kids going down as a garble of accents raced around me. All I’d been through was for this moment. This place wouldn’t get to keep us. Then Finn was in front of me.

  He punched me twice on the arm. “Ham.” That kind of hurt felt good.

  “And cheese.” I punched him back.

  Other kids hollered at us as they passed, but it was like me and Finn were the only ones there. He grinned so wide his eyes disappeared into tiny slits and his freckles looked like they’d pop. We started talking at once.

  “Finn, I thought you were—”

  “You came to rescue me?”

  “And Bo Chez! He’s from this world too. I was so scared—”

  “Bo Chez? No way!”

  “—you were dead.” I finished up.

  “You saved me, Joshua.”

  We punched each other at the same time and laughed, then ran down the steps of the power mill.

  Finn pointed to my weapon. “Nice spear.”

  “Nice outfit.” I yanked on his purple shirt.

  He laughed then grew serious. “Sorry I didn’t recognize you in the castle. I just couldn’t believe you were there. For me!”

  “It’s why I came.”

  We grinned at each other. “Ready to catch a ride out of here?” I said.

  He just nodded. “Come on!”

  With a signal from Leandro we walked outside. He had released the other kids from the nearby bunkhouse, and they added to the crowd. I looked up into the gray sky. Earth was out there somewhere, far from Nostos, and we were helping change life for both.

  I put an arm around my best friend to introduce him. “Finn.” Sam and Charlie smiled, and Leandro gave me a big nod. Then I called out to my animal friends. Leandro joined me. Together we asked the kernitians to help us once more. Finn stared at me, amazed, but there was no time to explain. Would they come? They certainly didn’t owe us a thing.

  Then again, even animals, at times, like to play the hero.

  Through the murky haze the kernitians came. The first few landed before us and they kept coming. Enough to carry every last one of us to the Lightning Gate. It was Sam who would take them there.

  We showed the scared kids how to mount the flying deer. One boy cried.

  “It’ll be okay,” I tol
d him, and helped him up.

  When all the kids were loaded, I nudged Finn. It was time to say goodbye again, but this time by choice. “Go with Sam. Get through the Lightning Gate and get home, okay?”

  Finn turned to me with wild eyes and pink cheeks. “No way, Joshua. After all this? We stick together.”

  “Ham?”

  “And cheese.”

  My legs felt like jelly as they let go of all the tension I’d been carrying in them, and I leaned my head on his shoulder, then pulled away. “Cool,” was all I could say. We both blew out big breaths at the same time then laughed, the awkward moment gone.

  The power mill lights flickered and the smoke from its work slipped away. The bulbs atop the power poles exploded like a string of Christmas lights popping one by one. The light inside the power mill surged, then dimmed again.

  Leandro told the kernitians where to go and pulled the Lightning Gate key from his satchel. He hesitated for a moment, then handed it to Sam. “You’ve suffered greatly from the curse,” he said. “I hope your trip to Earth brings you new life.”

  Sam nodded solemnly and tucked the flattened box into the top of his pants. He would send this first group through the Lightning Gate while the rest of us rescued the others from the remaining workhouses. He only needed one other thing.

  “Here’s the codes.” I handed him the bottle. “And here, take my vape. You may need an extra.”

  And I thought of Bo Chez holding off Hekate and her army. What if something happened to him? Could I go home if Bo Chez didn’t survive? The idea seized me like a Child Collector and wouldn’t let go.

  “Bo Chez,” was all I managed to say.

  “He’ll be all right, Joshua,” Sam said through his wrinkles, cocking his head. “He knows you didn’t mean what you said.”

  But there was no way of knowing. “Light of Sol go with you, Sam.”

  “You too.” He motioned for the kids to follow him as he rose in the air. His vapes pointed the way. I had to believe I would see him again.

  Then Leandro, Charlie, Finn and I took off for the bakehouse, leaving the darkened power mill behind us.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The smells that greeted us as we neared the bakehouse made my stomach rumble, remembering that tasty agrius beast.

  Finn clung to his kernitian and peered anxiously below.

  “You won’t fall off, I promise,” I said.

  He just shook his head and clung tighter. “Scary.”

  “Not as scary as being picked up by those monster birds.”

  “Jeez, did they stink!” Finn said.

  “And not as scary as riding that Lightning Road,” I said.

  “Yeah, with that smelly Child Collector.”

  “He’s nasty, isn’t he?”

  “Would I ever like to whizzle on him,” Charlie said with a disgusted groan, and explained to Finn about the mizzle-whizzle thing.

  Finn snorted. “Yeah, mizzle is definitely not enough for that creep. We could rain a triple whizzle-fest on him.”

  We all laughed together as if we were doing something normal, like hanging out at a baseball game, or biking, or building a fort, not flying on magical creatures through a strange land.

  The moment over, we landed on the forest floor. The outline of the bakehouse blended into the trees. No light shone through its windows with the power out across the Lost Realm.

  We found ourselves at a small back door. There was no sound of any baking going on: no machines mixing, no chefs yelling, no pots banging about. Smoke slunk from the chimney above in a pitiful spew. I pulled down slow on the heavy metal latch, but it wouldn’t budge. A chill moved through me.

  “We have to blast our way in again,” I whispered, and pulled the orb out of my pocket, motioning for my friends to get back.

  Finn said, “Hey, isn’t that—” I flung the orb at the door.

  White light blazed before us and made smithereens of the door. The orb floated back and fell into my hand, its electric power surging through me. Finn’s mouth hung open. Once again, there was no time to explain.

  The detonation blew out a hole larger than the door itself. Tiny fires spit around the edges, the smell of burnt wood sizzling in the air. Leandro stepped into the darkness, his vape and dagger ready. Charlie held tight to his vape while Finn clutched the back of my shirt.

  I followed Leandro into the black hole and bumped into him as soon as we entered the room, then saw why. The only light in the room was a small candle burning on a table, and around it were four guards, the card game they were no longer playing spread out before them. They pointed their vapes at us.

  One of the guards jabbed his vape in the air. “What have we here?”

  Leandro was calm. “Just a group who means you no harm if you release the children.”

  The guard grunted. “Are you the reason we lost power?”

  “Yeah, and you’ll lose a lot more than that if you don’t let us in,” I said, getting madder by the second and running out of patience with this world. “Where are the kids who work here?”

  “We locked the Reekers in the main hall.” The guard flicked his finger to a door behind him. “But it won’t matter to you because you’re not getting in there.”

  The men moved around the table to face us, their four vapes to Leandro’s and Charlie’s two. The lingering scent of cooked meat now stunk.

  Leandro smiled at the men, lowered his vape, and put his dagger away. “We don’t want any trouble, just the children. Hekate has taken over the Lost Realm, and it doesn’t look like Zeus cares to interfere with her plans.”

  The one guard stepped closer, his stink wrapping around me like a cloak. “And we’re to guard the children until she returns. We should lock you in the basement, and then Hekate can decide what to do with you. I’m guessing it won’t be fun.”

  Leandro smiled at him. “Hekate won’t be coming back.”

  The guard frowned, his voice a low growl. “And why is that?”

  Charlie’s vape hissed at its competition across the room.

  Leandro just kept smiling. “She’s been delayed in a storm.”

  “What storm could—”

  Before he could finish, Charlie’s arm shot up. Zap. Zap. Zap. Three guards disappeared in a blaze. The last guard jerked away, but Leandro zapped him and he vanished in a streak of light. A fried onion stench floated over me and was gone.

  Charlie stood taller. His vape’s tongue flickered with a satisfactory hiss. “It’s not our day to die.”

  “Wow.” Finn’s mouth hung open again.

  “Yeah, wow, Charlie,” I said.

  He flicked his bangs away and hunched over again then Leandro gathered his cloak and together we kicked at the door to the main hall until it crashed down. The force ricocheted up my leg, fueling on my adrenalin to finish this mission. A group of girls and boys stood before us. Gloomy light stretched across the tops of their heads from windows covered in crooked metal bars, casting dull-striped silhouettes on the floor.

  “It’s over,” I said, stepping out of the shadows. “Time to go home.”

  Red, the girl from the auction pit, came toward me. “Are the guards gone?”

  I nodded. “We vaporized them, but now we’ve got to make it to the Lightning Gate—and fast—to get you home.” The kids were silent, as if they didn’t believe me. Some peered behind us as if expecting to see the guards.

  “It’s true.” Leandro held up his vape and shook it. It hissed to the crowd before us. Some took a step back, but not Red.

  “The guards have been whispering about some Oracle come to take over their world. Someone with powers.” Red walked toward Leandro. “Is that you?”

  “I fear it is not.” Leandro looked at me.

  Red figured it out and turned to me. “But I hear Hekate wants you dead. Why? Because of your powers?”

  I shook my head, not having words to explain, but Red persisted. “Show us
your powers.”

  The kids began chanting her words, ringing in my ears like the chants of the korax.

  “Powers! Powers! Show us your powers!”

  They stomped their feet, the call grew deafening, and the pounding words pumped through me faster and faster, my new destiny shaping inside me. I had the power to help not just one but many.

  “Enough! Stop!” I held up my hands and the kids instantly fell silent, driving a new feeling of power within me. They were listening to me, trusting me. “If you want to get back to Earth, we have to go now.”

  “He’s right,” Red said. “Let’s go.”

  I nodded at her, grateful, and Charlie and Finn led the quieted kids outside while Leandro grabbed what food he could and I called more kernitians for help. It was really happening—we’d soon be leaving Nostos and its Lost Realm.

  Leandro placed his hand on my shoulder and its strength vibrated into me.

  Stolen kids filled the clearing behind the bakehouse and Charlie and Finn helped them mount the kernitians. Charlie chose to lead this group to the Lightning Gate and return to meet us at the greenhouse. He sure didn’t need to follow me anymore.

  “Charlie?” I said. “Watch out for getting mizzled on.”

  “Or whizzled!”

  “I told you mizzle was a real word,” Red yelled down to me.

  Charlie then charged into the air, his vape pointed like a lance. The kids followed him as if he were their hero leading their rescue.

  And I guess he was.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  We landed at the greenhouse. Torch flame licked across the glass building, illuminating it like sun splashing through a crystal. It felt good to pick rocks and smash the words etched in glass over the main door: Mortal seeds cast into the soil of life feeds those worthy of its rewards. Reap on!

  I smashed the glass harder. Reap this, you stinkers!

  Leandro quickly vaporized two surprised guards and released the kids we found in the cellar. They were dazed and covered in dirt but smiles lit up their faces when we explained the plan. Then we called the kernitians back and they arrived with Charlie in front.