The Last Stand of Daronwy Read online

  “Who threw that?” Mrs. Rochard stood, hands on her hips. “Who threw that?” She looked around, but no one said anything. “Jeremy, pick that up and throw it away.”

  His face went red with shame at being called out. Snickers spread through the back of the class as he picked up the pieces of slimy, spit-covered paper. His ears filled with the rest of the blood that could not fit in his flushed cheeks. He stared out the windows on his way back to his seat and wished more than anything to be in that downpour; to listen to the sound of water falling through the pines, to feel its icy touch on his skin, soaking him to the bone.

  No sooner had he sat down than another ball flew at him. Jeremy dodged it, bending backwards in his chair.

  “Travis! Lee! Your names are going on the board. And if you throw another one, it’ll be the principal’s office with you!”

  Travis slumped down in his seat. Lee merely crossed his arms.

  “If you’ve got time to cut up, you’ve obviously finished your math, so let’s get out our history books.” Groans and mumbled protests rippled among the desks. “No complaining. If you didn’t finish it, then it’s for homework.”

  Jeremy rolled his eyes, firing a sizzling glare at Travis, who didn’t notice. Mira caught his gaze and gave a smile as though to say it wasn’t that bad. But it was that bad. There was hardly any daylight after school. If he had to waste it on a mountain of homework that everyone knew Mrs. Rochard was only going to throw away, he’d never get to Twin Hills.

  History dragged on forever. It was Mrs. Rochard’s favorite subject and today she droned on and on about the pioneers and how they had to clear the forests they had found so that they could plant their crops. She talked about how even Bridge City had once been all forest, but had been cleared at the turn of the century when people moved here to work in oil—a new kind of pioneer, she said. Jeremy raised his hand. “You mean there were forests everywhere? And they’ve all been cut down?”

  “Not all of them, but the ones that people needed to cut down to survive, yes. That’s what progress is. It is the making of something new from something old.”

  Forests everywhere had been cut down, before he was even born. What chance did he have to find adventure or magic? Those qualities bled out of the world as each tree fell, and here he was, stuck staring at Mrs. Rochard’s blackboard. It wasn’t fair. Why had he been born when there was no more adventure left, no more magic, after all the forests had been chopped down? He stared through the droplet-dappled window at the unbroken line of trees behind the school. Mrs. Rochard’s voice droned on while Jeremy imagined he was walking beneath those branches.

  At lunch, Jeremy slumped forward, dragging his feet as he shuffled through the cafeteria line, accepting his square chunk of pizza and carton of milk. Lunchtime was their only freedom except recess. But today, since it had been raining, Coach Plesaint—or Coach Penicillin, as the students called him—organized them into the gym to do stupid fitness tests.

  Jeremy sat down across from Mira and Daniel with his lunch tray.

  “Why was Travis throwing those paper wads at you?” Mira asked.

  Jeremy shrugged. “I don’t know.” Homework would bury him tonight; he’d never get outside before dark. He took a sullen bite of his flattened, square pizza slice. Daniel performed a passable Bill Cosby impersonation, making Mira laugh. Jeremy grinned, finding it impossible to feel sad when Mira laughed.

  The shrill bleat of a whistle sliced through Daniel’s next joke. Every head in the room swiveled toward Coach Penicillin, who doubled as a cafeteria monitor.

  “Come on, y’all. You couldn’t have forgotten everything since December. You’re too loud; we’re going to yellow.” He switched the traffic light they had affixed to the wall from green to yellow. Once it landed on red, no one could talk. Sooner or later, it would land on red. It did every day.

  “I hate that light,” said Daniel, his impression forgotten.

  “Me too.” Mira frowned in its direction, but her eyes followed someone behind Jeremy. Jeremy turned to see Travis pull some girl’s hair. She squealed a piercing note and threw her milk at him. It missed, hitting a chair and then the floor. Someone threw a handful of chips. Another shrill whistle froze the action like a strobe.

  “Travis, sit down! What’s going on? The light’s going to red.” The light went red and a sullen silence settled like a moth-worn blanket over the room. “You know you’re not allowed to get up until we tell you it’s time to go back to class. Now, sit down! And be quiet!”

  Jeremy pushed away his tray. He laid his head on the table and hoped that he’d wake up in some world where he’d never have to sit in another cafeteria ever again.

  Once the bus dropped him off, Jeremy marched inside and greeted his dad, threw his bag on the floor of his room, and walked outside. He crossed the street in what was left of the gray winter light, slipping beneath the trees and following the trails into the center of Twin Hills. Bright yellow-green blooms of algae dotted the pond; a musky, half-rotten scent emanated from its tannic, rainbow-slicked water. Jeremy hunted for the ragged break in the impenetrable weave of branches along the southern side of the pond; the trail that would lead him to the fallen tree.

  Some unimaginable force had pushed the gigantic oak to the forest floor, leaving it to rest on its uppermost limbs. Jeremy scrambled up the ramp of the trunk and sat on what would have been the top of the tree. Here, twenty feet above the ground, he still felt tiny when he looked up at the slender pines that ringed the oak’s grove, leaving an open clearing of sky directly above him.

  Jeremy inhaled a long breath, then let it out. His shoulders relaxed and his mind wandered away from school, homework, and Travis. He thought about the map that was on the beginning pages of The Hobbit. Why shouldn’t Twin Hills have a map, too? If people had known the names of those other forests, they would not have chopped them down to erect cafeterias with stoplights and refineries with smokestacks. If he could write down all the names of the places in this forest, everyone could know what they were. No one at school knew the names, unless they happened to live on Vermont Street. His mom and dad didn’t know the names. A map could protect Twin Hills.

  A soft, cold rain began to fall in giant drops, and a sing-song whistle cut through the stillness of the forest. Shoo-wheet! That was Dad’s call. Jeremy inhaled the bouquet of sulfur on the cooling wind, warning of the storm’s resurgence, and slid down the trunk of the great tree, his arms windmilling for balance. He ran across the trails south of the pond, through the bike ramps in the front forest of Twin Hills, and out onto the streets. It started to rain harder as he sailed across the concrete and into his garage. His dad stood there, watching the drops fall. “Time for supper.”

  In the beginning, the wind gave names to all things beneath the gaze of the Creator. Like all trees, Daronwy’s grove used those names for themselves, for all life that connected to the unending web. Driven to name everything in their miniaturized world, humans did not listen, did not even believe that there were names for all things before their eyes opened to the sun. And so, Daronwy watched as Jeremiah wandered beneath branch and bough, scratching out names for them on his pad of recycled bark. Some names the sapling did not bestow. For many seasons, the children had called the northern edge of the forest Helter Skelter. That edge had seen the worst of the destruction in the fire and it had grown back twisted by the tree-brethren’s hatred of humankind and determination to keep humans out of their realm.

  The forest had been called Twin Hills for longer than the North had its own name. Two small, melting rises of clay, left over from the excavated abomination and baked hard in the fire, stood to the south and east of the pond. Their existence in an otherwise flat landscape gave Twin Hills its human name. Jeremiah called the pond Algae Pond for the ubiquitous fluorescence that dotted its shallows, concealing its black origin—an origin he did not know was linked to th
e tar pit on the pond’s northern bank. Charred remains of brethren still lay half-buried in that foul muck. Poisoned and cursed, nothing grew there. It was the one place the trees could not reclaim; they could only surround it in blackberry and briar.

  Daronwy remembered the names of the fallen. Two hundred seasons ago, their dying screams pierced the wind as their mutilated bodies were nailed into a tower the humans believed could puncture the very bark of Earth herself. Her black sap gushed forth, igniting a venomous inferno. Vengeful flames decimated the tower and left all those on its north side a smoking ruin. The remaining cavity became the pond with an apologetic upwelling of water. Screams of the burned and fallen still shimmered in the shadows where the wind would never reach. These old memories stoked Daronwy’s hatred, and vines across the forest twisted tighter in accordance with his bitter thoughts. But a quaint breeze sang of peace. Jeremiah stood at the edge of the pond, drawing furiously and crossing each line out. Seasons must cycle so quickly to these fickle beings, spurring them into a furious rush toward a future they imagined they could control.

  The paper was scuffed and worn thin by the eraser. Everything depended on the shape of the pond. He stood atop one of the twin hills, screwing up his face to stare at it a different way. It was roughly oblong, but flattened along the edge it shared with the tar pit. He erased it again, and did not hear Travis and Lee crunching along the sandy area between the pond and the tree’s thicket that he had just named the Mini Desert.

  “Whatcha doing?” Travis asked.

  Jeremy glanced up, startled. “Nothing.” He stuffed the pencil into his jeans pocket and started to look for a way down the hill.

  “What’s on that paper?” said Lee.

  “Nothing.”

  “Give it to me.” They stopped at the base of the hill and Travis stuck his hand out.

  Jeremy eyed the drop off the sheer edge. It was six feet at most. Six feet into the sand of the Mini Desert. He could do it. “No.”

  “Give it to me!”

  “No, it’s mine.” Jeremy made for the edge, ready to jump. They were faster. He saw the hand come over his arm, grabbing the notepad. He tried to hold onto it, but other hands pressed into his back, and he pitched forward, toward the edge of the rock.

  He tumbled, hitting his shoulder on the edge, then bounced into open space. The ground thwacked against his back. He choked and gasped, and his head swam for a moment. Then he realized he no longer held the notepad and jumped to his feet.

  “What is this? What do all these lines mean? What is T.H.?”

  “Look at that. What is H.S.? You’re so stupid.”

  “You’re an idiot.” The voices wafted down from above. He was too dizzy at first to look up. Then he found Travis and Lee staring at the steno pad, flipping through the pages. Lee pointed. “Is that supposed to be a tree?”

  “Give it back.” Jeremy ran around the hill, ready to climb up after them. To his surprise, they rushed down to meet him.

  “Give it back!” he said, throwing a wild punch at Travis, who easily dodged it. An arm crossed his shoulders, a foot shot into his shins, then Jeremy was on the ground again. Before he could get up, a leaden weight crushed him into the dirt. Jeremy coughed into the rough gravel. Travis took a fist of hair and slammed Jeremy’s face into the ground. “Shut up.”

  Spitting sand, Jeremy tried to rise again. His face got slammed back into the pebbles.

  Travis stood. He and Lee took turns ripping each page from the notebook and wadding them into a paper ball. Jeremy pressed himself back to his feet. He lunged at Travis, who threw the ball and the remnants of the notebook to Lee. He ran toward Lee, who threw it to Travis.

  “Give me that back.”

  “Oh, he wants it back,” sang Lee.

  “You’re such a loser.”

  Jeremy charged Travis. Travis threw the paper to Lee, but Jeremy would not be deterred. He drove his shoulder into Travis’ chest, sending them both toward the edge of the cliff. They fell and rolled down the slope. Travis wound up sitting on Jeremy’s chest. Jeremy grabbed for Travis’ hands. A punch just missed Jeremy’s nose, connecting with his forehead. Jeremy covered his face and rolled over. Travis laughed and stood. Feet crunched away on the gravelly sand.

  “Do you want it now? What are you going to do about it, you crybaby?”

  Jeremy sat up and thought about chasing them, but they were halfway across the Mini Desert. His eyes stung, and his stomach ached like he was going to be sick. He sat on the ground, following them with his eyes.

  “I want it back! Give it back!” Lee mimicked in a high falsetto.

  Travis laughed, wagged a finger toward Jeremy. “If you want it, you can go get it!” He lofted the wad of paper into the pond and they laughed again, running down the trail toward the street.

  The maps floated among the rainbows on the surface of the black water. Anger drove Jeremy to his feet one painful movement at a time. He sprinted down the trails, not running after them, but running to be free of them. He cut through the bike trails and across the empty lot, up his driveway, and did not stop until he had thrown his aching body onto his bed, stained clothes and all. He grabbed a fistful of pillow. “Travis.” He punched it. “Lee!” Punch.

  Chapter Three

  Father Pat sat in Dad’s chair at the dinner table. Dad sat next to Jeremy, across from Rosalyn, and Mom sat at the other end. Steaming bowls of chicken and sausage gumbo sat before them. The thick, earthy broth made Jeremy’s mouth water, but he didn’t dare touch it. Father Pat was praying, his close-cropped white head bowed over his bowl. He wore the usual black suit with his white priest’s collar. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” He raised his head and smiled, continuing in his Irish lilt. “Thank you again for inviting me over. It’s quite kind of you.”

  “Of course, Father,” Mom said. “I hope you enjoy it.”

  The gumbo warmed Jeremy’s belly and tasted like black pepper on his tongue. Jeremy smiled. “It’s really good, Mom.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Have you been out fishing lately?” Dad asked the priest.

  “Well, the Christmas rush is a pretty busy time.” The Father chuckled and Dad laughed. “I managed to get out last week. I didn’t catch a thing, but it was good to be on the water again. I’m thinking you have only warm weather fish down here. They never bite in winter.”

  “Could be. What were you using?”

  “Black and orange worms.”

  “Did you fish in Ireland?” asked Jeremy.

  “Pa fished. And me two older brothers. I’d sometimes go and help with the nets.”

  “What did y’all catch?”

  “Cod. And any other white fish that Pa thought he could sell.”

  “Were you out on the ocean?” asked Rosalyn.

  “Aye.”

  “Cool!” said Jeremy.

  “Not when a storm was a-blowing in. I’ve seen waves twice the height of our boat. I decided to take on a profession that kept my feet on the ground.” He eyed Jeremy. “Has school started again?”

  Jeremy’s shoulders bent forward. “Yes, sir.”

  “Still hate it, do ya?”

  “Yes, sir.” Jeremy stared into his gumbo.

  “Jeremy, you have to see that school is merely what you make of it. Have you been to your woods lately?”

  “Yes, sir. I made some maps of the trails and—”

  Rosalyn interrupted. “I love school! Today we made… ”

  Jeremy stopped listening and ate his gumbo in silence. After the dishes had been cleared from the table, Mom, Dad, and Father Pat drank coffee in the living room. Jeremy went to his room, picked up the finished maps of Twin Hills, and brought them back out. He waited for a break in the conversation. None came, so he raised his hand.

  “Can I sho
w Father Pat my maps of Twin Hills?”

  Mom looked at Father Pat. “Oh, it’s fine,” he said, smiling and gesturing to the maps with his hand. “Bring them here.”

  Jeremy grinned and sat down next to him on the couch, unfurling the map of Twin Hills. “This is the forest across the street from here. See, there’s the street.”

  “Aren’t there more than two houses on this street?”

  “Well that’s mine, and that one is Daniel’s at the other end. See, it has a chimney. I didn’t have time to draw all the others. Anyhow, this part,” Jeremy put his hand over the curved trails on the left side of the map, “is Helter Skelter. And this part,” Jeremy put his hand over the pond on the right side, “is Twin Hills. But we often call the whole thing Twin Hills.”

  “Why is it called Helter Skelter?”

  Jeremy shrugged. “It just is.”

  “Have I seen these?” his dad asked.

  “No, not yet, come look.” Dad sat on the other side of him. “I drew the whole thing like you’re looking at it from my room. North is to the left. See the compass rose? In front of the woods are these fun bike trails that Loren built with ramps and curves. But if you go farther, you get to the pond and the tar pit next to it. There are all these burned boards in the tar pit, but I didn’t draw those.”

  “A tar pit? With black tar?” asked Father Pat.

  “Yes, sir, and—”

  “You don’t swim in it, do you?”

  Jeremy’s nose crinkled. “No, sir. The pond has black water and bright green algae all over it; that’s why I called it Algae Pond. Then there’s Street Swamp down here below it, but there’s a line of hills there against it. Those are the Swamp Hills. And then as you go to Daniel’s side of the pond—”

  “The south side, son?”