Joshua and the Arrow Realm (18 page)

The birds hovered as if debating which side to follow.

“Why do you hesitate, korax?” Leandro yelled with a furrowed brow, raising his bow. Charlie tugged me along now, begging me to run. “You answer to Artemis. I've taken your brothers down. I'll take you down!”

Black wings flapped in slow motion as the two birds hung over us for what seemed an eternity.

“Trust light bringers.” The words flew around us like flames from a great blaze. A rush of wind flattened me and Charlie into a tree as the giant black ravens zoomed toward us. Leandro gripped his dagger, his smirk gone. Talons of curved bone slashed the air. Fat snake tongues pulsed from beaks. Beady electric green eyes zeroed in on me.

“The Oracle is here!” I screamed with emphasis. The korax tucked their black wings in and shot between the trees.

The leader reached us first with a loud
caw
to its partner behind him. “Save Oracle.”

Leandro backed up, puzzlement on his face turning to anger. He nocked an arrow to his bow and fired. Charlie and I dropped to the ground as the arrow zinged into the trunk where my head had been moments ago. Wind, propelled by the giant birds, cut through the air, plowing over us toward Leandro. His fingers flew. Arrow after arrow shot past us. The birds dodged left and right between trees, just missing the arrows and the cadmean beast's fiery breath.

Then our captors were gone. Beaks snatched them up and carried them off. A howl and a shout charged the air. I watched Leandro's legs dangle next to the kicking cadmean beast who continued to shoot flames, catching the treetops on fire.

“Hold the key!” Leandro yelled and threw his knife down. A road of flames followed them and the black mass of wings disappeared. The woods fell silent. Charlie picked up the knife and we both stared at the sky.

“What did Leandro mean when he said ‘hold the key'?” I said.

Charlie didn't answer. He popped open the knife and stared at me with a face I'd never seen before—a face full of hate.

“C
harlie, help get my belt off!”

He sawed through the end of his belt rope first to free himself.

“Do mine.”

Instead, he grabbed the fire belt and tied me to a tree before I knew what happened. I struggled to get loose, but it grew longer with Nostos magic as Charlie stretched it tighter, knotting it in place.

“Stop it!”

Charlie stepped back and thrust the knife in my face. “I don't want to hurt you.”

“Let me go!”

I threw myself against the tree to free myself but all it did was tighten my trap. I slumped over, my brain muddled with what was going on. How on Earth could I stop it? Except this
wasn't
Earth.

Charlie moved closer. The knife sparkled like a silver
fish as he tossed it from hand to hand, flipping in the air amongst the sun's motes. “Don't worry. She wants you alive.”

“Artemis.”

“Of course,” Charlie snorted. “She's my family now and all her people. You were a sad excuse for a brother. Always getting me into danger. What kind of brother does that?”

“Who
are
you?”

He spun the knife in my face. “We were supposed to have fun.” He yanked the flute out of my hand and stomped on it, smashing it apart like our friendship. “Instead, you drag me back here to follow you around once again. I'm sick of following you. Who put you in charge? Artemis promised I could be a leader! People will follow me now.”

“Can't you see she's put a spell on you!”

First Leandro, now Charlie. Artemis was taking down all my friends with her evil.

Breathe deeply. Find the calm
.

I did and backtracked through the events before Crazy Charlie became enemy number one. It happened right after Leandro was snatched by the korax. He'd said, “hold the key.”

It started to fall in place.

I'd seen enough spy movies where the bad guys hypnotize their victims and use trigger words to set them on a mission. When did Artemis have a chance to hypnotize Charlie? He wasn't alone with her and her slave, Hypnos. Wait … he was! When we were separated while getting hosed down in the dungeon. Was this
her
plan B?

Charlie paced around the tree, mumbling to himself. “I'm in charge. Hold the key. Yes. Yes. He's held. Must wait. Artemis and her men will find us. I'll get all the glory! No more Reeker for me.”

Each time Charlie passed behind the tree, I rubbed the belt against the rough bark, hoping to saw it in half. He caught me on one round and jabbed the knife at me as he continued his endless journey, making me dizzy as he circled. The sun blazed lower in the sky, and sweat trickled down the crook of my back. I closed my eyes to mere slits but kept them open enough to watch the knife passing by my throat.

If only I had the lightning orb! But I had nothing. Just me. No orb. No Lightning Gate key. No way home. Some hero to this world I turned out to be. I get taken off guard and captured by my own friend. I began to feel sorry for myself when those last thoughts gave me an idea.

Taken off guard.

Take Charlie off guard! If someone can be hypnotized with trigger words then maybe they can be un-hypnotized with trigger words. What were they? The clock was ticking. Artemis and her men would find us soon and I'd be in real trouble.

Think, Joshua, think!

“Charlie, I'm sorry I got you in this trouble. I tried to stop you from following me here, remember? We can get home again, but you've got to let me go.”

“I can't let you go. Your powers belong to Artemis now. She's going to steal them.”

“Then what?”

He stopped pacing. “Then you die.”

My knees shook and I sagged against the belt.

“Why'd you come with me, Charlie?”

He turned to stare at me. “I didn't want to be left again. Lose a brother again.”

“Then don't lose me now. We can still be brothers.”

“Why should I? My parents gave me no choice. My
mom won't come to America with my brother even if we do get back to Earth.”

“But you have a choice here, Charlie. Choose me and I'll help you get home to your brother.”

He stepped closer. His sweaty heat pouring over me. “No you won't. You'd go find your new brother and forget about me.” He shook his head. “No! Must hold the key.” His eyes pierced mine yet there seemed no reaching my friend Charlie.

“We're all we've got right now.”

His eyes froze in an unblinking stare. He flicked the knife and cold steel pressed sharply to my throat. I sank into the tree that offered no escape. Was this how my life would end? Bound to a tree by a friend on another world?

“Could you kill the friend you once saved?”

He didn't answer but pushed the knife deeper into my skin. He tilted his head, inspecting my throat as if deciding whether to stab me or not. Wetness trickled down my neck. Shallow breaths. In and out. In and out. The world began to spin.
Don't faint!

“Must. Hold. Key.”

“I'd rather die than be held,” I whispered. The Charlie I knew wouldn't kill his best friend. I needed to trust in him—trust the good Charlie that still lived deep inside.

His hand shook. The knife bit harder. His eyebrows rippled with doubt and his mouth twitched in trembling waves. The blade ripped into me with each shake of his hand. “Hold the key. Not destroy the key.”

“Release … the … key,” I wheezed out.

Blackness filled the corners of my mind. A buzzing grew in my ears until it thundered through me.

Right before I passed out, Charlie's eyes sprung wide with panic.

T
he black mist in my mind faded. I opened my lids. So heavy. Dim light poured in. Was this heaven? The roughness of leaves and sticks beneath me told me no. Somehow I'd gotten free of the fire belt and lay on the ground. The branches overhead nodded, welcoming me back. Dusk was here. I must've been unconscious for a while. I sat. Dizziness squeegeed my brain. When my head cleared, I saw Charlie sitting against the tree across from me, his head down, and his bony knees drawn to his chin. He rocked back and forth, humming the same two notes over and over.

I put a hand to my throat and came away with crusty blood. “Charlie?” I rasped out.

Tears streaked down his face. “You're not dead.”

My Charlie was back.

I shook my head and stood up, steadying myself against the tree, then walked over and pulled him up
along with the knife and belt resting at his feet. The dizziness eased and I glanced around the woods. We were alone with no way of knowing who or what would come for us next.

“I hurt you, Joshua … and the awful things I said.” Charlie wiped his face.

“It wasn't you. Artemis put you under a hypnotic spell back at her castle, and Leandro triggered it with his words. ‘Hold the key.' ”

“You broke the spell.” His tears slowed.

I remembered the last words I spoke. “Release the key.” I'd figured it out! Power swelled inside me. I'd saved myself and Charlie all on my own.

“It's all over now. We can go,” I said, as I wound the fire belt and clipped it to my belt loop, but Charlie didn't move.

We stood in silence until he spoke again. “Would you believe that I was a hero to my little brother?”

“Yes. You've been a hero to me, to the kids you saved in the Lost Realm and in the cave … to Apollo.”

“Some good it did.” He rocked on his toes and gazed up at the purple twilight sky. “I wish the river had taken me too.”

“Don't say that.”

The skin bunched up around his bright blue eyes. “Family's not supposed to let you down.”

Maybe another way could get through to him. I rapped the handle of the knife to his chest and he jumped. “Aren't you letting them down too?”

He looked shocked at the thought. “How?”

“Your family didn't abandon you. But you are if we don't work together to get back to Earth.”

His face sagged. “Like I abandoned you when I ran
from the cretan after us in the Wild Lands. I should have stayed and helped you fight.”

“That's not what I meant! I meant, so what if your parents do get divorced? Lots of people do. You still have each other. I don't have a mother or a father or a brother. You do. You can't forget them and make up a whole new family just because you want to.”

Charlie stooped over and stared at his fists.

He pressed his lips together, the tears rolling again. “I let you down big time. I should have been stronger. Not given in to hypnosis like you!'”

“Yeah, well, I forgive you. Isn't that what brothers do?” I attempted a smile.

“I'm no brother. I don't deserve any brother!”

He jerked around and ran through the trees.

“Charlie, wait!”

I stumbled after him, but the dizziness flared again. I fell to my knees. I tried to stand but slipped on damp leaves and fell again, jabbing the knife handle painfully in my gut. Charlie's black hair bobbed through the woods and was gone. Shadows crawled over me from the setting sun.

“Come back,” I whispered to myself.

Alone. Again. Abandoned.

Everyone I'd trusted betrayed me. Ash, Leandro, Charlie—even Apollo with his lack of faith. Now it didn't matter.

Everything I'd taken a leap of faith to trust in failed me: leaving Earth to come here again, believing I was the Oracle, and that I was going to save this world and all enslaved. Laughter bubbled inside over how ridiculous it sounded, but the laughter soon turned to great big sobs.

I ran like a crazed person, pumping my arms to fly
through the woods. I didn't care to where. Light grew beyond the trees. The Great Beyond. One jump. Fly into space and float in peace. Surrender to the nothing. I tripped on a tree root and fell with a
whump
to my knees, coming to my senses.

I didn't want to die—I wanted to forget.

The endless forest pressed around me, comforting me, offering me the chance to hide. No one needed me. As an only child growing up with only a grandfather, I'd never felt lonely. Here, now, abandoned by everyone I knew, loneliness stabbed at my heart.

Waves of tiredness overcame me. I curled up alongside a tree to rest but my mind wouldn't quiet. In the final light of day, I pulled out Leandro's journal, seeking answers and comfort in what used to be.

My Homeland

Journal Entry 55

By Leandro of the Arrow Realm

I have befriended a Wild Child. I did not mean for this to occur, but occur it did nonetheless. If I did not know any better, I think she planned our meeting. Her name is Ash.

On my weekly patrol of the Wild Lands borders, I became separated from my crew with my trusted hound, Lore, and came upon this wispy tall girl. I nearly shot her through the heart with an arrow as she sat in the shadow of a tree atop a giant agrius beast.

I calmed Lore down after it became
apparent this girl's beast was a trained pet and would do no harm.

“Why are you down here?” I asked her. “Don't you know the queen will use you as bait?”

She was not afraid of me and spoke words I will never forget. “I claim my own freedom and what keeps me here is nothing you people do. It won't always be like this. Change is coming.”

How could a Wild Child of the treetops know this? Her words lit the truth I knew all along: the Earth boy had a purpose in our world. My heart welled with emptiness after saying goodbye to him in the Lost Realm, adding to the loss of my wife and son.

She said no more as she led me back to my party, then disappeared in a flash before they saw her. I told no one of our meeting. Artemis could no longer be trusted nor could her men. And so the girl and I continued to meet, by chance—or not—it did not matter.

As she opened up, she gave me hope that the Oracle was no myth but the savior to bring our world out of darkness. She wanted to give her people, the Wild Childs, a choice: go home to Earth or remain a Wild Child. Either way they would be free to choose, but only if there was an end to mortal slavery. I knew in my heart who the Oracle was: Joshua.