Alight (22 page)

Something is coming, something that the animals fear.

A new sound: a rustling, a fast scurrying across dead leaves and past soft vines.

Bishop looks at me, makes a motion for me to hide. I kneel, look back down the trail: Kalle is already out of sight, but Borjigin is standing there like an idiot.

“Borjigin,” I whisper, “
get down
.”

He looks at me, dumbstruck and afraid, then slips under a yellowish-green plant with leaves bigger than he is.

The rustling increases. I hear it from several areas at once, all to my right. Something is coming our way.

A creature runs across the trail—brown with yellowish spots, four legs, about the size of the pigs we saw on the
Xolotl
. It doesn’t have eyes like us, but rather a line of three shiny black dots down each side of its strange head. The creature vanishes into the underbrush on the other side of the trail.

Could we kill that, eat it?

I remember how good the pig tasted.

On my side of the trail, rattling and rustling; more of the odd brown creatures, following the first. And behind them, something strange—it looks like a big snake, dirty-yellow and as thick as my thigh, silently rising up from the underbrush. Long, wicked-looking barbed pincers spread wide, ready to strike.

A second brown animal scurries across the trail, then another, and another. A chubby little one scrambles between Borjigin and me. Smaller than the rest…it must be a baby. Its foot catches on a root; it tumbles forward, rolling, splashing up mud.

It is so close I could reach out and grab it.

The snake-thing shoots forward: pincers snap together, punching through the little animal’s flesh. The baby squeals in pain and terror. The snake rises up, its prey held between the pincers. Short legs kick helplessly. Pinkish blood pours down.

The underbrush shudders and parts as something big rises up—the snake is only
part
of this predator, some kind of elongated nose. The beast stands on four long legs. Tawny fur splotched with brown stripes. Below where the thick snake meets the head, a wide mouth filled with white teeth as long as my fingers. Powerful shoulders and chest slim to narrower hips and muscular legs. Just like with the pig-creatures, the three glistening black dots on either side of the head must be its eyes.

The baby’s squeals, so
loud
.

The snake-trunk suddenly whips down, smashing the baby into the trail so hard I feel the impact through the ground.

The squeals change to wet grunts.

The snake lifts it again—the baby is still twitching—then slams it down again.

No more grunts. No more movement.

The snake-trunk curls inward, placing the dead animal into the long-toothed maw. Close, chew, crunch.

Swallow.

The snake-trunk suddenly rises up, stops. I see four little flesh spots on the end, above the pincers. They open, draw in air, close, open.

My blood runs cold:
Does it smell me?

The snake-trunk twists this way and that, sniffing.

The monster’s head is heavy, bony. Beneath the dirty fur, I see twitching muscle and shapes of ribs so flat and thick they make me think of armor. Its chest is a solid plate of curved bone, a shade darker than its fur. My hands tighten on my spear—if this thing attacks, I don’t even know where to stab it.

Sniff-sniff…

Without a sound, Bishop is crouching next to me, axe clutched in his hands.

The snake swings to Borjigin’s plant. The only thing between him and those gore-smeared pincers is a single wide, thin leaf.

Sniff-sniff…

The yellow-furred animal takes a step back. The trunk contorts, the pincers lurch up and away—a stream of goo shoots from each of the nostrils.

Did it just
sneeze
?

The beast turns and runs into the jungle. As big as it is, it instantly vanishes into the underbrush.

A few moments pass. Then, almost as if someone slowly turns a hidden dial, noise returns to the jungle.

Coyotl slides out of the jungle onto the trail, runs past us, straight to Borjigin’s plant. Coyotl rips the leaf away, revealing a shaking, terrified boy, then kneels, puts his arm around Borjigin and speaks so softly I can’t hear.

Bishop and I stand. I feel wobbly, like I was just in a fight, even though nothing touched me.

“I don’t understand,” I say. “Why didn’t it attack? That little animal couldn’t have been more than a mouthful.”

Visca appears as unexpectedly as Bishop did. I will never get used to how the circle-stars move with such silence.

“We didn’t smell right,” Visca says. “We must not smell like food.”

Kalle steps out of the underbrush.

“An allergic reaction, perhaps,” she says. “Maybe it has never smelled anything like us before.”

Bishop shakes his head. “I doubt that. Someone built the fire pit, someone built the city. There are people on Omeyocan.”

Visca shrugs. “Then our clothes, maybe? Could be a smell on those?”

More questions for which we do not have answers.

“We keep moving,” Bishop says. “The next animal might like the way we smell. Visca, move out.”

Visca turns and walks down the trail, barely making a sound.

I’m supposed to be in charge, but out here, Bishop is giving the orders. That’s fine for now—my pounding heart is crushing my chest and lungs. I don’t think I could focus on anything other than staying on the trail.

Bishop points at Borjigin. “And you need to be
quiet
.”

Coyotl steps between them.

“Leave him alone, Bishop. He’s doing the best he can.”

Borjigin says nothing, just stands there, shivering.

Bishop glares at Borjigin, then at Coyotl, then turns and heads down the trail.

—

We walk through the jungle. Tiny bugs are starting to land on me, but they don’t bite. It’s more annoying than anything else.

That big predator scared the hell out of me. An hour later and I’m still not feeling right. It was like a bear or a giant wolf, with an elephant’s trunk that ended in ant pincers. What do we even call it? Snake-wolf? Bear-bug? Hard to think of a name, because there are no easy comparisons to Matilda’s memories.

The buzzing of the blurds. The hoots of unseen animals echoing through the canopy. The heat. The humidity. The red sun blazing off yellow leaves. We are in so much trouble right now, yet my love for Omeyocan overwhelms me. This is my
home
. It was my home before I ever set foot here. I don’t want to be anyplace else. Not ever.

Up ahead, Visca stops. He holds up a fist.

Bishop jogs back to us. The leaves seem to part for him, he seems to slide
through
them as if he has no substance at all.

He puts one arm around Kalle, the other around me, nods toward a tree trunk on the right side of the path. He wants us to hide.

The three of us kneel behind the tree trunk. I look around: Visca has vanished. Borjigin is on the other side of the trail, hiding behind a fallen log. Coyotl is with him, vine-wrapped and nearly invisible.

The wind changes slightly—I catch a faint wisp of burned toast.

Then I hear it. A noise, soft, regular…branches sliding off something…a faint crackle of twigs snapping underfoot…

This is it—we’ve found the fire-builders. My breathing sounds so loud. My heart hammers.

Will they accept us? Teach us how to hunt and prepare food? Can our two cultures live side by side? Or will this go the other way—will we have to
force
them to tell us how to survive?

I see movement down the path. Through the yellow leaves, I glimpse a flash of red and green.

Will they be young, like us, or old, like the Grownups?

The fire-builder comes around a thick tree trunk, into view.

My stomach drops.

The fire-builders, who lurked in the Observatory’s shadows, who smell like burned toast…

They aren’t like us.

They aren’t Grownups.

They aren’t
people
at all.

B
orjigin’s hiss of fear slices through the jungle.

The fire-builder stops.

Underbrush and dangling vines partially obscure it. It’s not an animal—animals don’t carry tools. Is that a club it’s holding?

I feel numb. Not the “blanked-out” sensation I’ve grown used to, this is something else…a feeling of
nothingness
.

It wears rags for clothing, frayed strips of yellow, green and blue—the colors of the jungle—tied around long, thin, strong arms. Between the strips of cloth, I see wrinkled, dark-blue skin.

It is almost my height. Head wider and longer than mine. Eyes,
three of them,
middle one set slightly above the bottom two, a shallow triangle of eyes that flick about, searching. Even from a distance, their color jumps out: bright blue, like O’Malley’s. Below the eyes, a wide mouth: purple lips curve downward in an exaggerated frown.

Matilda’s memories struggle to define what I see. A flashfire of images:
toad-mouth frog-mouth fish-mouth.

That head swivels suddenly, looks left. The creature comes closer, pushing past encroaching branches. Something strange about the way it moves.

I see its legs now: rag-tied, thick and powerful, bent like it’s sitting on an invisible chair. The creature is leaning forward, so much so I don’t understand why it doesn’t fall flat on its strange face.

Both legs push down at the same time, softly springing the creature forward. Not a step, a
hop,
both long feet coming off the trail. It lands silently.

The three blue eyes flick down the trail, side to side. I think it heard Borjigin and is searching for the source of the sound.

The fire-builder turns, looks back the way it came, and I see why it doesn’t fall—a
tail,
long and thick, balances out the forward lean.

It turns our way again, still searching, still wary. Strange, long hands adjust their grip on the club.
Two
fingers, not four, thicker than ours, as is the long thumb. Arms are wiry, corded with muscle.

That club bothers me, but I don’t know why. Long and thin, like the handle of Farrar’s shovel, but half wood, half metal. Nothing dangerous on the tip—no axe head, no spear blade. The club widens and flattens at the other end, the end held close to its body; maybe that part is for smashing things, just like Visca’s sledgehammer.

A tap on my arm. Bishop, both hands on his red axe, nostrils flaring, staring at me. He gives his axe a single shake, asking me a silent question:
Should I kill it?

Is this creature alone? If it spots one of us, will it sound an alarm? It doesn’t seem to be wearing anything like the Grownups’ bracelets, nothing that could hit us from a distance. Bishop can surprise it, kill it quick. This thing isn’t like us—it is
other
—and we face so many threats already.

I don’t know what to do.

Blue eyes scan the trail, the underbrush.

Two small hops bring the creature closer.

It wears a lattice on its chest, kind of like a necklace: it’s made of bones. A bulging bag hangs from its hip.

Only a few steps away now—it wouldn’t have time to react before Bishop buries his axe in that wide head.

I glance across the trail. From my angle, Borjigin is barely visible behind a covering of wide leaves. I can’t see Coyotl at all. I have no idea where Visca is.

The fire-builder rises up slightly. The heavy tail rests on the ground, supporting its weight. It opens its wide mouth and barks out a single, harsh syllable.

More movement from farther down the trail. It wasn’t alone. Three rag-tied creatures that look just like the first. No, their skin isn’t as wrinkled, and they’re a different color. Two are a purplish blue, the other is purplish red. The purplish-red one is the smallest of the four.

Then, two more creatures, less than half the size of the others—
children
. Their skin is a bright, deep red.

Bishop tenses. He’s going to attack.

Kalle puts her little hand on his arm. Wide-eyed, she shakes her head.

That small gesture brings me back to our desperate situation—we need help. If we can eat what these creatures eat, it doesn’t matter that they aren’t human.

I look into Bishop’s eyes, mouth the word
No
.

The six creatures suddenly spring down the trail. The adults move quietly and gracefully. The little ones have to make twice as many jumps to keep up. Those two are tiny, with big, blue eyes—I can’t help but think of them as
cute
.

All of them continue down the trail, vanish into the jungle.

Everything has changed. Children.
Families
.

Their scent—burned toast—the same thing I smelled at the fire, at the hole in the wall…and at the Observatory. Creatures like these were watching us there. They didn’t attack.

Bishop whispers in my ear: “What do we do now?”

I have no idea. I should have tried to talk to them, but I was too stunned, too afraid.

How long have those creatures been on Omeyocan?