The One Tree of Luna (11 page)

“Robin Beaumont, you are under arrest, everything you say can and will be held against you
…” Goodi TwoShoes read me my rights.

You see, I didn't know it and Dad never found out. But that was the Night of the Zombies. The night that everyone who ate too many of our Evil Genius Pills turned into stark raving mad, flesh-eating zombies. And, all over the world, they killed tens of thousands of people before they were finally destroyed.

It was Goodi TwoShoes who figured it out, who traced the outbreaks to us, who set up the arrest, who thought that Dad was another raving zombie — the white hair gave them away — and shot him four times in the chest while a fireman hosed him down with gasoline.

They never lit the match. My assault had done that much.

 

And so that's how I lost my father and ten years of my life.

The cops found everything, took it all. Except my room. I guess if I hadn't been working so hard on it, maybe my Dad would still be alive. If I'd told him about the anti-blackhole shield or what happens when you combine it with an equally strong mini-blackhole generator, maybe he'd still be alive. But I didn't. I was afraid. And … to be totally honest, I thought that this one time I could have something that was all my own.

The Anomalizer. What happens when a blackhole generator and a blackhole shield operate at the same time? An anomaly. A void in the space-time continuum. Whatever is inside is no longer here or there — it just is.

Which is why no one found my room.

And which is why Goodi TwoShoes will never worry about my next report. Because in five minutes, I'm going to attach my special micro-Anomalizer to that prick's car and he's going to go nowhere … forever.

And after that? We'll see.

My name is Robin Redbreast. You killed my father. You stole my childhood. Prepare to …

Nerius Stimpton Poddlemore bore his name with all the grace that a youngster could manage.
When his parents took over the ancestral home of Poddlemore, they enrolled him in the local
primary school — but that didn't last.

In fact, it took a mere six months before Nerius was no longer in school.

When he had healed and the snows had lifted, Nerius would take walks in the garden or sit in his room reading. His parents informed the school that he was being home-schooled which, if leaving a child alone all day from breakfast to dinner was schooling, was perfectly accurate.

Freed from the bullies of school, one would imagine that Nerius would have found in nature much peace and enjoyment. Instead, he used nature to vent his anger on the world that had bred bullies and parents who could possibly believe that Nerius was a decent first name.

One day, he noticed a murder of crows gathered in the nearby field, picking at wheat and such-like. He gathered himself a handful of good-sized stones and proceeded to rain them upon the crows.

The crows dodged his ballistics and cawed and crowed their dismay, flying away from their food with obvious irritation.

This so delighted Nerius that it became his daily exercise for weeks on end until, finally, the murder of crows was enlarged with the presence of one particularly stout bird. Nerius spotted him — it was an instant challenge. He knelt, scooped a handful of stones and fired them off in rapid succession at the large crow.

What Nerius didn't know was that this was the King of crows. Of all the crows. The King
dodged the missiles easily and, with a low “
caw!
” urged his minions to retaliate,
being the first to dive from on high down upon Nerius' uncovered head.

Thud!
Nerius cried in pain as his scalp was scraped.

Whack!
Another crow caught his arm and tore through jacket and shirt both, leaving a bloody streak.

Caw!
A third crow circled, with talons extended and tore his cheek.

Bawling in agony and terror, Nerius raced into the safety of his home.

When he tried to venture forth the next day, the crows stooped upon him. Defeated, Nerius took to staying indoors.

One day, thoroughly depressed, Nerius happened upon a chess set. He slowly taught himself the game, playing in the big bay window that looked out onto the back garden.

As the days turned to weeks and then into months, Nerius got good. As his fear of the crows turned into absorption in the magic of chess, Nerius grew braver and, instead of playing with his back to the window, turned to let the light fall upon his board.

It was a full fortnight before Nerius noticed that he had watchers. The crows watched as he played. At first he was startled but then felt triumphant, raising each piece and moving it carefully, as though battling the very crows with his brilliance.

A year passed. It got to be a new game, playing with the crows watching. He particularly liked the way the King crow watched his every move.

Spring came and one day, as Nerius was working through a particularly difficult chess problem, there was a clatter on the window. He looked up. The King crow pecked on the window, nodded at him, fluttered off. Nerius stared with growing surprise as the King of crows repeated the move.

The next day, greatly daring, Nerius took his chessboard and the pieces outside into the garden. He set them up and waited, scanning the skies anxiously.

Crows arrived, settled nearby and cawed. Nerius took a deep breath but remained where he was.

A loud “
Caw!
” announced the arrival of the king crow. It took position opposite
him.

“Do you know the rules?” Nerius said. The king crow nodded. Nerius wasn't convinced and carefully explained and demonstrated the movements of all the pieces from pawn to king. And then, as he'd read, his picked up a white pawn and a black pawn, shuffled them behind his back and held his hands out to the King of crows.

“You pick,” Nerius said. The King crow tapped Nerius' left hand lightly and Nerius exposed the black pawn. “I go first.”

And the game proceeded. Nerius won. He was worried until the King of crows seemed to nod at him and the whole murder of crows flew off.

The next day, Nerius ventured forth once more. And the king came and they played.

They played and played as Nerius grew older, as his parents died one by one, and were buried in the family plot. They played through winter, through spring, through summer as Nerius got older and older.

And Nerius Stimpton Poddlemore became the world's greatest human chess player.

One day, though, the King of crows came for his daily match but Nerius did not come forth. Days passed and other humans came and took a body from the old Poddlemore house and the place was only surrounded by crows as Nerius' remains were buried up on the hill with his parents.

On his grave, strangely to all the villagers, he had ordered a chess board made of marble.

 

Years passed. 

One day the Poddlemore house was full again. There was another little boy with an equally unfortunate name.

And one day he came out into the back garden and heard a loud “
Caw!
” from above. He
looked up and a murder of crows were winging their way toward him with a heavy burden.
Awestruck, he stood rooted to the spot until the birds landed and laid a marble chess board
on the grass in front of him.

He looked at the crows and saw how the largest of them, the king of crows, hopped on the board and off again.

“Do you want to play?” the boy asked.

The King of crows cawed loudly. The boy turned and ran inside. In moments, he was back again — with a set of ancient marble chessmen.

He set them up, took two pawns,  black and white, and put them behind his back, then put his hands out again and said to the king of crows, “You pick.”

This anthology is a collection of short stories that I originally published under the title,
Six
.

Since then, friends have given me several good suggestions, the best of which were “Get a better title!” and “Get a better cover!”

So I did and I did.  And, because I always liked illustrations, there's an illustration for each story.

I would like to thank Margaret Johnson for her brilliant marketing advice: “Your cover sucks, get a better one.”

To that end I received invaluable help from Jon del Arroz for taking me under his wing cover-wise, telling me that my original cover idea was not evocative of the stories and arranging for an inker and colorist. Thanks, Jon!

I would also like to thank Heide Nichols who has been such an ardent fan of these stories that she's been promoting them to everyone she can. She tells me that high school students loved
Six
because it was less daunting than larger volumes. I hope that increasing that number to seven (with the inclusion of
Robin Redbreast
) won't put them off.

Finally, why I try to avoid errors, it's rather in the nature of the beast that they occur, usually in the most embarassing places. For those, I take all responsibility and beg your forgiveness and understanding.

— Todd McCaffrey, February 2014

Todd McCaffrey is an American author of science fiction and fantasy. The second child of Anne McCaffrey, author of the Pern series, McCaffrey grew up surrounded by science fiction, fantasy, and plenty of dragons. His love of reading was supplemented by a fascination with space travel and exploration, and after growing up in both New York and Ireland he eventually earned a degree in mechanical engineering at the College of Technology (now Dublin Institute of Technology). He then earned his pilot license and subsequently flew solo across the United States—twice. McCaffrey has also served in the US Army and worked in computer programming. He is the author or coauthor of many books and short stories, among them
Dragonholder: The Life and Dreams (So Far) of Anne McCaffrey
and eight books in the Pern saga, including
Dragonsblood
. He lives in Los Angeles, California.