The Last Stand of Daronwy Read online

“Yes, sir, at the south side,” Jeremy grinned at his dad, “there’s a big open area of sand. So I called that the Mini Desert because it isn’t big enough to be a full desert. There is a faint trail that breaks off here, see the lines? If you go down that trail, you come to the Tree.”

  “The Tree?” Father Pat’s white eyebrows raised. “What kind of tree?”

  “An old oak. It was blown down a long time ago, but it’s still alive. You can climb up the trunk and sit up at the top of the tree. It’s in its own clearing. That’s my favorite place in the woods.”

  Father Pat stared through Jeremy. “Many years ago, when I was a boy, my great uncle—my grandfather’s brother—said that in the center of every forest is a great tree that leads all the others. And those great trees are usually old oak trees.” Father Pat chuckled. “I came to Texas looking for him. Ya know, I haven’t thought of him in years.”

  “What happened to him?”

  Father Pat shrugged. “I don’t know. Not long after he came to this part of Texas, our family lost touch with him. He came here to explore for oil after the big oil boom that started up near Beaumont at, um…” Father Pat gestured with his hands.

  “Spindletop?” said Jeremy’s dad.

  “Yes, Spindletop. Anyhow, you’re a very lucky lad to have such a forest near your house. There were not many forests left in my part of Erin when I was your age. You must always be thankful for this gift.”

  “Jeremy, it’s time you went and brushed your teeth,” said his mom.

  “Mom, I want to talk to Father Pat more.”

  “I told you to go brush your teeth. Tomorrow is school.”

  Jeremy sighed and marched out of the room. As he left, he heard his dad say to Father Pat, “That boy admires you something fierce.”

  “As I’ve told ya before, he’s a special child. Not many of his age are aware of the larger mysteries, neither in the church nor outside of it.”

  Drowning in the endless repetition of long division—dividing, subtracting, dividing the remainder—Jeremy bent ever closer to the table until his head was just an inch off it and the pencil bit into his middle finger. Tomorrow, Mrs. Rochard would just throw all this homework away, making all his work pointless. He put the pencil to the paper for problem 57 when trumpets erupted from the television in the living room, playing the liberating tune of The A-Team. Jeremy sighed and threw his pencil into the crease of the book. Crossing the kitchen, he pulled a plastic cup down from the cabinet and turned on the faucet, but only a trickle of water came out of the filter.

  Jeremy grimaced. He remembered the beginning of the year when a guest had spoken in his classroom about the Bridge City water supply. The man had talked about how the water was piped from the pools near the Neches River and then treated. Thinking of those scummy pools he could see from the highway and the Texaco refinery across the river, Jeremy had demanded his parents install a filter. Even with the filter, though, the water tasted like salty mud. Jeremy sipped the water that had trickled into his glass and wandered into the living room.

  “Dad, something’s wrong with the faucet.”

  “Okay. I’ll look at it when the commercial comes on.”

  Jeremy sat next to his dad on the couch and watched the A-Team battle in the name of farmers who were on the verge of losing their land. At the next commercial, he followed his dad into the kitchen. His dad scowled at the filter. He tried to unscrew it, but it held fast.

  “You want a wrench?”

  Dad changed his grip. “No, I should be able to—” The filter crumbled into shards of calcified metal. It ran through his dad’s fingers like corroded, black sand. They stared at the mess that had fallen to the bottom of the sink.

  “What happened?”

  “I guess it corroded.” Switching on the water, the stuff ran fast, swirling the ruin of the filter in the sink. He cleaned the nozzle of the faucet with a paper towel. “Do you want some water?” His dad extended a hand for the cup.

  Jeremy stared at the ruins of what had been a solid piece of metal four months ago and was now a pile of sludge on a paper napkin. “Can I have some iced tea instead?”

  “Sure.”

  The tea’s sweetness warred with the silty aftertaste of the water it was made from. But at least it didn’t smell like sulfur the way the water did. And the tea was boiled, which his mom said would kill anything that was in the water. Jeremy couldn’t shake the sight of the filter, though, black and dust-like, turning itself inside out in the sink. He shuddered.

  Chapter Four

  Jeremy knew what would happen next. His hands clenched the sides of his desk. Splinters bit into his fingers. “Pass your math homework to the front and open your social studies books to page 120,” Mrs. Rochard said.

  He passed his homework forward, shoulders slouching, eyes fixed on Mrs. Rochard. She mechanically glanced at the six pages of problems, marked something down in her book, and swept the pages into the metal trashcan next to her desk. Everyone in the class had been dismayed by this injustice at first, but neither their complaining nor their parents’ intervention had changed it. The other students had given up; their noses were buried in their books. Only Jeremy still brooded about this being wrong; that every paper swept into the trashcan was a collection of hours they would never see again. Anger quaked through his body, but there was nothing he could do. Jeremy sighed and bent to pull his social studies book out of his backpack.

  Jeremy skimmed the pages, trying to ignore the flick and swish of Mrs. Rochard murdering his time. Jeremy found he already knew everything it said about ancient Egypt. He let his eyes unfocus and imagined what the school would look like after Russia and America dropped their nuclear missiles on each other. Plants would take over. The roof would cave in, letting the sky shine through. The floor would buckle, the tile would break. Desks would become charred husks of bent metal frames. The glass in the windows would be blown out. It would smell like flowers instead of antiseptic cleaners. The decorations would hang to the ground, soggy with humidity. The cinderblock walls would crumble; birds would sing. Jeremy grinned. Once the school was destroyed, no one would be trapped within its walls ever again.

  “Jeremy, you seem to be finished. Can you tell us who found Tutankhamun’s tomb?”

  “Howard Carter,” he said, unwilling to turn away from his vision, reluctant to see the school intact. Sometimes there was no escape. The institutional clock frowned, ticking off minutes with sadistic lethargy. Mrs. Rochard’s voice droned on, forcing the intact building back into focus.

  When the bell finally rang and they lined up for recess, Jeremy wondered if they would be able to go outside. The last few days, a warm front had brought the temperature up to eighty degrees, which was not unusual for mid-February. What was unusual was that it had also stopped raining. Jeremy hoped against hope, muttering a prayer under his breath as they walked out the hallway into the warm afternoon. They turned left toward the gym and the playground. Jeremy craned his neck. The line marched past the rusted gym doors. They were going outside!

  Daniel gestured with a soccer ball and Jeremy followed, beckoning to Mira. The ball circled from Daniel to Jeremy, Jeremy to Mira, Mira to Daniel. They had just started when Tim shot between them and scooped up the ball.

  “Hey!” Mira sprinted after him. Jeremy and Daniel followed. Tim ran across the playground, heading for the stair-step fort wall of sunken telephone poles at the far end of the obstacle course. Travis and Lee hid behind the fort.

  “Mira!” Jeremy shouted, but she didn’t hear his warning. She flew across the playground, her fingers flailing just inches from Tim’s collar by the time they reached the fort. Travis and Lee burst from their hiding place, throwing handfuls of pinecones at her. One hit her in the head. She staggered into the fort wall. Lee raised his hand over her.

  Jeremy roared. Pinecones whizzed past. He sailed ove
r the fort wall, colliding with Lee. They rolled across the soggy grass. Lee was on his feet first and lunged at Jeremy as he stood. Caught off guard, Jeremy instinctively brought his right arm up in a block that caught Lee beneath the chin. Lee careened sideways, skidding into the fort with a thud.

  Jeremy’s eyes went wide. “I’m sorry.”

  A plastic jump rope flashed over his head and tightened around his arms. He struggled, but he couldn’t move. Travis laughed in his ear. Lee got up, face red, fists clenched. The rope tightened. “Get him!” yelled Travis.

  Lee grinned an evil smile.

  Jeremy tried to twist away. “Let me go!”

  “Kick him!” Tim screamed.

  Lee took three steps and punted Jeremy in the groin. Jeremy’s stomach lurched over, his vision blurring. His joints went soft with pain and bile spilled upward onto his tongue. He swooned into the side of the fort, but Travis pulled him straight. He wanted to cry, he wanted to scream, but he was afraid that he’d just vomit if he opened his mouth.

  “Kick him again!” laughed Travis.

  Lee reared back again. Jeremy twisted at the last moment, taking the kick on the front of his thigh. His leg buckled and he fell forward onto his knees. The rope cinched about his arms. Lee stepped forward, fist raised. Jeremy pulled his chin to his chest, bracing for the impact.

  Instead of a punch, a hail of pebbles peppered the back of Jeremy’s head.

  “Let him go!” said Mira.

  “Leave him alone!” Daniel echoed her cry. Rocks smashed into the fort and a pinecone whistled past his head. The rope went slack and Jeremy fell forward, landing hard on the ground, unable to catch himself. Fleeing feet trampled the grass.

  “You’re gonna get it!” someone shouted.

  In a second, Mira was beside him. “Are you okay?”

  Daniel appeared at his other side and helped him stand.

  Jeremy was still woozy. His friends helped him to the fort and the three of them sat down atop the sunken telephone poles.

  “Are you okay?” she asked again. “Did they kick you?”

  “I’m glad y’all came back. Thanks.” Jeremy looked from Daniel to Mira and sat forward. “Mira, you’re bleeding.” He pointed at his left temple.

  She reached to her right.

  “Other side.”

  She reached to her left, then blinked at the blood on her hands.

  “Uh-oh. Here comes Coach Penicillin,” Daniel whispered.

  “Oh no,” said Mira.

  The coach crossed the broken asphalt of the overgrown basketball court. He stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at them through his mirrored aviator glasses. “Why are y’all throwing rocks at Lee, Travis, and Tim?”

  “They threw pinecones at us and tied Jeremy up,” said Mira.

  For a moment, the coach stared at Jeremy’s mud stained, wet clothes. He saw the muddy footprint on Jeremy’s thigh. “They do that?” He pointed at the footprint.

  “Yes, sir. And Mira’s bleeding.”

  Mira turned her head, pointing. “Yeah, see?”

  Penicillin whispered something under his breath, but his expression remained inscrutable behind the mirrored, bug-eyed glasses. “Y’all head to the nurse. Next time, you come get me. Don’t take things into your own hands. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” the three said.

  Penicillin turned, walking back across the playground in long strides. The three shared a surreptitious smile: Travis, Tim, and Lee were in trouble. Unwilling to remain on the playground any longer lest the coach’s mercurial temper find them again, they ran toward the nurse’s office with Jeremy lagging behind.

  Jeremy got on the bus, glancing only at Travis and Lee out of the corner of his eye before squashing himself into a seat with Mira and Daniel. Daniel said goodbye and got off the bus first, then Travis and Lee left without even glancing in their direction. At last, he and Mira went to the front of the bus. As they walked down the steps, she finally asked the question that kept circling his mind. “What do you think our parents are going to say about this?“

  The cut on her forehead was little more than a scratch. Once the nurse had cleaned it up, it seemed like nothing at all. Jeremy shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  The bus rumbled away.

  “Well, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said.

  Jeremy looked at the ground, knowing there was something he ought to say, but he was unable to think of it. She crossed the street and went into her house, glancing back at him with a wave. Jeremy stared at the dark line of Twin Hills. The shadows stalked across the empty lot toward the houses without bending a single blade of grass. At length, he sighed and turned toward dinner and homework. Nothing was ever said about the fight. The dark quicksands of his mind swallowed the memory; it was still there, but not visible, just like the bruises.

  Chapter Five

  Slow, interstitial unfurling of root and tendril popped and gasped as the rain quickened. Daronwy’s gaze turned inward, back across the centuries to when he had stood upright and his branches brushed the underbellies of the clouds. In those days, Daronwy felt the rain falling from above and the upwelling of the Earth’s gifts from below. In those seasons, his happiness and his reign was complete. Magic coursed through the brethren. They celebrated sun and rain, summer and winter, as their ancestors had since the beginning of the wind. No one, especially not Daronwy, could have ever imagined that someday he would gasp in joyous glee as the rain soothed his lesions and nurtured his exposed roots. The storms always surprised him down here, unable to see the building clouds on the horizon. His only warning now was the change in the pressure of sunlight, and the tell-tale popping as the soil opened to receive the waters of the wind.

  Jeremy sat on the porch, staring through the sheets of rain at the dark line of Twin Hills. He wished that he could hear the sound the rain made on the needles, a sound like a slumbering dragon returning to sleep after almost waking. Listening to the water, he thought of the fountain in Hrad’din, the castle where the adepts lived. In the center of the pool stood a statue of a man-like being with four arms. It was an Edenkiri, a child of the mountains, and if legends could be believed, the first of the wizards. One pair of its hands were raised and water bubbled from them, running down the arms and the stone cloak that rippled as though it had been frozen during a hurricane. The other pair of hands held a shining ball made of hematite. Its silver surface glittered, reflecting the refracted light through the water. Mayflure would be there. Her sharp features were like Mira’s, her hair lighter, blonde even, unlike Mira’s. She looked up as Eaglewing stepped through the garden.

  “Hello,” she said.

  Eaglewing nodded to her, taking a seat next to her at the fountain. Their hands clasped and for a long time, they stared at the water bubbling out of the Edenkiri statue.

  “Do you really think that Kronshar is after the Stones?” she said.

  “It certainly explains the restlessness along the border. He’s trying to keep us busy so we won’t realize what else he’s doing.”

  She shrugged. “I suppose you’re right.”

  They sat in silence.

  She spoke again. “Naranthor has asked Scahel, Ravensvoice, and me to infiltrate Kronshar’s fortress at Khazim with him.”

  “I know. Four adepts are too many. It will be hard to conceal.”

  “You just don’t want me to go.”

  Eaglewing crossed his arms over his chest. He sighed. “It is not about what I want. You know that. But four is too many.”

  “It is a balanced party.”

  “I know it is.”

  “I have to go.”

  “I know that too.”

  “But you don’t like it.” Her prying fingers tried to tickle his ribs.

  Eaglewing pushed her hands away. �
�No, I don’t like it. Do you think Naranthor is able to lead a mission like this?”

  “Eaglewing, it will be okay.”

  “But the theft of the eternal flame at Jankmar… how could he have let that happen? He’s not been the same since.”

  She cocked her head. “If you’d lost one of the Stones, how would you take it? I think everyone is too hard on him. No one knew the flame was a Stone. If you ask me, the Midnight Wizard should have removed it when he first found out.”

  “Khazim is a dangerous place, Mayflure. Be careful. We’ve never penetrated that fortress before. By the Stones, I wish I were going.”

  “I’ll be fine. You worry more than my mother.” She planted a soft kiss on his lips.

  “Jeremy, what are you doing out here? It’s cold.”

  Jeremy blinked at the sound of his name and turned to see his mom standing in the doorway. “I have a jacket on.” The rain came down harder now, pouring sideways as the sky darkened. “Can Daniel spend the night tomorrow?”

  “Sure. Why don’t you come in and call him before you catch double pneumonia?”

  Jeremy cast his eyes toward Twin Hills, sighed, and followed her in.

  “Hey,” Mira said in her don’t-tell-anyone whisper voice.

  “Hey.” Jeremy followed her into the classroom. They put their backpacks on their desks, then sat facing each other.

  “Did your mom and dad ever say anything about the fight on Monday?”

  “No. Yours?”

  “No.” She looked away and stared.

  Jeremy followed her gaze to see Travis pulling his T-shirt down and stuffing a blue sweatshirt into his bag. “What are y’all lookin’ at?”

  Mira glanced back at Jeremy then said, “Nothing.”

  “Class, settle down. Let’s get started this morning.”

  Class droned on. Mira handed Jeremy a note that said, “Did you see that?” He didn’t get a chance to write her back before lunch, where Mira, Daniel, and Jeremy huddled over their plastic lunch boxes.