by Mur Lafferty
“Besides,” she said, “we don’t have weapons. What are we going to do, throw dirt at the skeletons?”
Max lifted his pickaxe. “I didn’t say we would fight the skeletons. I said we would get rid of them.” And he started hacking away at the tree’s branches.
Alison realized with pride that she had done a good job making the pickaxe: it barely looked used. It would make a good headstone for their graves after trying to fight skeletons in lava, she thought grimly.
Below them, sunlight started to peek through the holes in the foliage and fall onto the patrolling skeletons.
YOU CAN’T SHOOT LAVA
Max hacked away at the tree’s branches with the pickaxe. He would have preferred to have a regular axe, but he figured if he asked Ali to try to craft something right now, she might shove him out of the tree for his trouble.
The shaded area shrank as he chopped, and skeletons had to choose either stepping into the lava or stepping into the sunlight. Max whooped as the first skeleton got edged out of the safe shade and into the afternoon sunlight. It burst into flames and picked up speed, running around frantically looking for more shade.
Max’s whoop turned to a cry of alarm as an arrow streaked past his head and got lost in the tree’s branches. “Look out, Ali, they’re mad!” he yelled, and kept hacking away at the tree. The sun was going down, and if they were still up here when night fell, then the skeletons would be able to wander freely around the farm.
And his mom might come home then. He’d been so preoccupied with the fear that she would catch them and punish them that he hadn’t thought of the actual danger they had created. Maybe the best thing would be punishment, because the worst would definitely involve his mom ambushed by a mob of monsters on her way home. “We gotta get rid of them before Mom gets home!” he yelled, hacking faster.
Ali wasn’t behind him anymore. He figured she must be hiding in the tree, protecting herself from more arrows. He’d have to save them both, then.
His chopping efforts were rewarded by several more skeletons bursting into flame, and a few who wandered into lava, but it was too slow, he was losing his race with the sun, and he thought he heard a donkey’s brays drifting down the path.
“Alison? Help!” he said as the first skeleton stepped out of the safety of the tree’s shadow into dim light…and nothing happened to it. The sun had sunk enough, and they were safe to emerge from their shadows.
The others took their cue from the first and stepped out, finding a better angle from which to fire arrows at Max.
He turned to jump into the foliage to hide with Alison, but she was right behind him, holding something.
“Here,” she said, thrusting the thing into his chest. It was a bow.
With her other hand she handed him three arrows. “Be careful, these are all we have.” She held up her own handful of arrows. “I can only grab the ones they shoot at us; I can’t make any more until we get out of the tree.”
She hefted her own bow and took aim. They’d both been trained at archery when they had been in school that year, but neither had particularly excelled. They hadn’t been that interested, with Ali focusing on crafting and animal husbandry, and Max focusing on history and architecture like the rest of his family. But they were required to learn how to protect themselves if they ever came across a skeleton, zombie, or creeper.
Twang went the arrow, and the shot flew wide. The skeleton she’d aimed at noticed her then, and fired back. She ducked. “Thanks!” she shouted at it, and grabbed the arrow that had just missed her and lodged in a branch. She fired again. This one struck home, going straight through the skull of a skeleton, making it fall.
“Nice one!” Max shouted, and remembered to raise his own bow.
Draw slow, mash the string into your face, and breathe. That was what his teacher had said—weird advice, he’d thought at the time. But whenever he didn’t do those three things, the arrow went wild, one of them striking a fellow student and sending him to the nurse for a potion, and Max to the office for discipline.
Don’t think about that. Think about the arrow. The only thing here is your arrow, and you, and your target.
Ali took down another skeleton. There were three left, and Max had all three of his arrows. He took one, nocked it, and then pulled the string as far back as he could, breathing out slowly and taking aim. There. He aimed for the one backlit by the lava flow.
Max let fly the arrow and it sailed straight into the sternum of the skeleton, causing it to fall backward into the lava where it quickly caught fire.
“Two more!” shouted Ali. “I’m out of arrows unless they shoot more up here. It’s all on you!”
Max wanted to give a snarky retort, or at least a brave one, but there was no time. One skeleton was drawing its bow, aiming at Max. He quickly nocked another arrow and let it fly, thinking of nothing else except the target.
The arrow went through the eye socket of the skeleton and it went down without loosing its own arrow. Ali whooped, sounding more excited than he’d heard since she’d come to stay with him. One arrow left. He grinned and took aim at the last one.
This skeleton wasn’t aiming at them. It was focused on something on the ground. Max and Alison might as well not even be there. He tensed, the string taut, and prepared to take the last one down and brag about it at dinner. He already knew what he was going to say.
“MAX! WHAT IN THE OVERWORLD ARE YOU DOING?”
Mom had come home.
The last arrow went wild, lodging into the hill where they had unleashed everything.
* * *
—
The fury of Max’s mother eclipsed the lava and the skeletons. With a howl of rage, she grabbed a shovel off Francine’s pack and swung with all her might, caving in the last skeleton’s skull. It went down with a clatter.
She ordered Alison and Max down from the tree and checked them both for injuries, her inspection getting rougher as she became convinced they were unharmed.
Satisfied, she stood back and held out her hands. “Bows,” she commanded. They handed them over without complaint. Max glanced over at Alison; her eyes were wide with fear, and he wondered if his looked the same. “Picks!” his mom said, and he reluctantly pulled his out and handed it over. He’d barely used it at all, and now it was gone. Just in case they had any other tools in there, Max’s mom went through their packs. She confiscated their shovels, their torches, everything they’d mined, and the wood Alison had gathered while in the tree.
“Where did you get these tools?” she demanded. The kids looked at each other, Alison shaking her head slightly at Max. He had to lie.
He shrugged and said the first thing that came into his head. “We found them. In the woods.”
“In an abandoned cabin,” Alison added when Max’s mom shot them a skeptical look.
He winced immediately. He wished she hadn’t said that. His mother knew someone who had recently abandoned a cabin, and she would not be happy if she thought Max had been exploring around there.
Max’s mom gasped and looked back and forth between them, and Alison actually took a step back from her.
“Not that cabin, Mom,” Max said, ignoring a confused glance from Alison. “Just one near Ali’s sheep pen.”
Max’s mom passed a hand over her face, rubbing her forehead, and sighed, looking very tired. “Go inside. Max’s room, both of you. Alison, I don’t want you back in your tower until I have searched it for any other tools.”
Would she find the door Alison had crafted? Max shared a panicked look with Alison. Mom was a builder; she might find it difficult to count the number of sheep milling about, or catch an escaped animal, but architecture she knew. All would be lost if she found that door into their secret workshop.
They gave her a quick nod and ran inside the house.
Alison and Max stood at the w
indow and watched Max’s mom place several torches in the garden and get to work digging a trench to stop the sluggish flow of lava. “This isn’t good, and it’s going to get worse when she finds our workshop,” Max said.
“I’ll be back,” Alison whispered, and then she raced out of the room.
Max stayed at his window, hoping Alison would be fast, whatever she was doing. You didn’t want to disobey your mom when you were already being punished for disobeying. That just led to a cycle of punishment that would keep him in his room until he was thirty.
He watched his mother work, feeling a sharp mix of resentment that she had taken everything away, and guilt that he’d definitely given her a good reason to do so.
“Blocked the door up,” Ali gasped, tumbling back into his room. “She probably won’t find it unless she thinks to dig into the wall.”
“She’s an architect,” Max said, realizing their role reversal as Alison said the ridiculous thing and he had to soberly point out the obvious. “You think I haven’t tried to hide things in walls before?”
“So, what, we just wait for your mom to kick us out?” Alison asked, joining him at the window. The trench had lengthened as the sun sank, and mobs started to groan from the perimeter of the light. Max’s mom didn’t look concerned at all, and Max knew if anything was stupid enough to attack her right now, it would get the business end of her anger.
“We wait for something, but I don’t know what,” he said. “I’ve never seen her this mad. At least when I almost drowned she was worried about me. Now she’s just mad. Maybe I should have let one of the skeletons hit me.”
Alison glared at him, and Max was relieved that he was back to his usual role of saying the weird thing.
“I guess we can’t do anything until she tells us what our punishment is,” Alison said.
“You’re such a rules captive,” he said, flopping down on his bed. “Follow all the rules, just like one of your own sheep.”
She stared stonily at him. “Clearly you don’t know sheep. They don’t listen to anyone but the bellwether. Certainly not the shepherd.”
“What’s a bellwether?” he asked, frowning.
“The one sheep all the other sheep follow. Usually the oldest ewe.”
“Oh,” he said. “How does a sheep rebel against the bellwether?”
“I’m not getting into this,” she said impatiently. “We can’t rebel until we know what to rebel against. You might decide to run away because you think she’s going to kick you out, when all she was going to do is make you replant the pumpkins.”
“You don’t know her like I do,” he grumbled.
“I know.” She looked out the window again. “She’s getting tired. We should help her.”
“You really think that would help us?” he asked.
“I didn’t say help us, I said help her.” She sighed. “But you’re right. That would probably cause more harm than good.”
“Believe me, right now she just needs to cool off,” Max said, staring at the ceiling.
The light in the room changed as the sun went down. “It’s too dark,” Alison reported. “She’s coming in. Let’s go see what we’re up against.”
Alison turned toward the door, taking a few steps before stopping. “Oh, and if I were a sheep,” she added, “I’d be the bellwether.”
* * *
—
Max’s mom was in a strangely good mood when she got into the house. She whistled as she put away the tools, and then hummed as she did a quick search of Alison’s rooms. She completely missed their secret workshop.
They had charred pumpkin pie for dinner. Alison and Max sat, staring at the person who really looked like Max’s mom, but couldn’t possibly be her because she wasn’t crying about his safety or shouting at them for their stupid mistakes. She merely had a conversation with them, or had half a conversation while they sat, eyes wide, waiting for the punishment to fall.
“When I was young,” she said, “I was chopping up a tree to collect wood, and set loose a bunch of spiders.” She paused to take another bite of her pie before continuing. “They fell on my head, bounced off, skittered all around, a few bit me.” She chuckled. “I was so scared I screamed.” She looked them each in the eyes so they understood the weight of her words. “I was the star apprentice architect. Screaming about a few spiders.” She took a deep breath. “So, I ended up squashing them with my shovel to save face. I just tore into them, waving the shovel around, smashing anything that moved. I may have caused more harm than intended, just by not wanting to look stupid. Made a huge mess, but the school quartermaster was really happy to get a bunch of silk to make bows.”
“Um,” Max said.
“That’s…nice?” Alison said.
“Today you both thought quickly on your feet. You protected yourselves. Mangling the tree was quick thinking, Max, and Alison, your bows were well made and probably saved you—and me, come to think of it. I’m proud of you, is what I’m trying to say,” she said. She took another bite of pie. “I’m furious, don’t get me wrong. I don’t know what made you decide to tunnel into the hill, and I don’t know where you got these tools. I’m taking them along with any others I find. Tomorrow you’ll clear the lava out of the garden, re-till the ground, and plant new pumpkins.”
Max deflated. He’d actually thought his mom’s uncharacteristic good mood meant he’d be off the hook.
Alison cleared her throat. “The cavern that I found in the hill. What if it spawns more skeletons? The hill is still open.”
“Well, once you carry enough water from the cove to the garden to cool off the lava, you will have enough cobblestone to plug the hole in the hill, won’t you?” his mom said conversationally.
Max thought about going back and forth, carrying water, and then mining out the cobblestone, and groaned. “Hey, Mom, I thought you wanted me to stay away from water,” he said, raising his eyebrows.
“Well, that was before you had an adventure with lava and skeletons,” she said pleasantly. “I’m sure a bucket of water won’t hurt you.”
Max winced. He couldn’t really argue with that. He was oddly happy that, even in the wake of being grounded, losing his tools, and rebuilding the pumpkin patch, his mom seemed to have lost her severe freak-out when it came to his safety. Regarding water, anyway. Her eyes had a wild look in them still, but she had acknowledged that this was not the same danger he’d faced in the water.
That had been an entirely different situation. He maybe could mention water around her, and maybe she’d even laugh about the lava and skeletons sometime in the future, but if she knew what he had hidden inside their secret workshop, she’d probably be much, much angrier.
Even Alison didn’t know what he’d hidden within a wall cavity of their workshop. But Max knew he’d have to tell her sooner or later.
For now, it would be best to move it from the workshop altogether. As for telling Ali, he decided on “later.”
* * *
—
We can’t do this anymore.
Alison lay on her bed, watching the moon through the skylight as it floated across the sky. She couldn’t risk losing the only home she had left.
Granted, Max’s mom hadn’t threatened to kick her out, but Alison didn’t know how many chances they had to push her limits.
But even as she lay there trying to convince herself not to break the rules anymore, she still missed crafting and tried to justify how she could keep making tools without getting in trouble. Even if they weren’t allowed to dig through the hill anymore, Max’s mom hadn’t said Alison couldn’t work on her crafting skills.
She tried to envision how it would work: She could take her tools to the village and sell them for materials. Then she could use those materials to make better tools. And sell them to get materials to make more tools to sell, to get more materials…
A frustrated sigh left her lips. She loved crafting, but it was empty if you didn’t do anything with the tools you made. Someday she wanted to make even better things: armor and weapons, mainly. But she would need a lot of materials for that. And the easiest way to get materials was to mine.
A fat spider fell on her skylight and skittered away. Startled for a moment, she laughed, thinking about Max’s mom. She said my weapon crafting was good, that my bows saved us all from danger, Alison thought. She said she was proud of us.
Alison decided then that if skeletons and lava couldn’t stop them, nothing could. She was good at crafting—Max’s mom had said so!—and she wanted to keep improving her skills, to take them even further and start making the weapons and armor that she’d always dreamed of, so that she could protect the people she loved.
With visions of legendary weapons and epic armor forming in her mind, she got out of bed and crept down the tower stairs. The door to the workshop was ajar, and her heart gave a painful lurch of fear, but the only person inside was Max. He was crouched over a chest and looked to be inventorying their remaining supplies.
He glanced up when she walked in. “Took you long enough. Where have you been?”
“In bed, where you should be,” she said, fully aware she was scolding him for doing exactly what she had come here to do. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“Me neither. Man, was she mad!”
“She had every right to be, Max.” Alison chewed on her lower lip, thinking. “That’s why we have to go back in when she can’t catch us.”
His eyebrows rose in surprise. “Really? I figured you’d want to keep following the rules and give up.”
She thought about telling him her goal, but she suddenly felt silly and didn’t want to say it out loud. So she just shrugged.
He didn’t need much encouragement. “I figure we have enough wood and metal here for you to make some more tools, and we can start excavating at night,” Max said. “Since Mom will keep a close eye on us during the day.”
