Death of the Body (Crossing Death) (6 page)

The snake lurched forward and we fell back. I felt myself hit the ground and heard Hailey and Ralph fall near my side. I tried to rebound but an unseen force pinned down my body. The world seemed to shift and I could feel the use of magic around me. My gaze was thrust into darkness, another spell cast by the energumen.

“Edmund!” Hailey called out to me, “What do we do?”

I didn’t know how to answer her. If the energumen took us we would be dead, but if we used our powers to stop it the men would undoubtedly see and we would meet the same fate as our entire race. My mind, which had maintained rational much longer than I would have expected it to during this whole ordeal, was blank.

My friend, my friend! What is wrong?

This voice was familiar, but that familiarity sent another shock of fear coursing through my body—not for me—but for the owner of the voice. “Max! Stay away!” I called, but I was too late.

I heard a growl and a loud bark followed by the snapping of Max’s powerful jaw. The response was a rhythmic chuckle that hissed. My mind conjured up images of Max fighting the snake, unaware of the evil contained inside. His growls were like the ones down in the cellar, when his white fangs and yellow eyes glowed viciously in the pale light. Those images, terrifying as they were, seemed playful compared to the murderous look in the empty eyes of the possessed snake.

Another snap of teeth, then a whine, and I knew it was over. I could hear Max’s heavy breathing but his growls changed to high-pitched cries. The energumen would come for us.

I didn’t know who cast the spell, but the sound of it was thunderous. The blindness was replaced by piercing white light. I could hear the energumen scream as it was ripped from its host. The spell was so healing that, for a few seconds, I thought myself invincible.

All that gave way when I heard the screaming.

At first it was far away, like in a dream, but as I slowly realized I was still lying on the ground, the screams grew closer and louder. I opened my eyes to see frantic children running around us as they fled up the hill. I got to my feet quickly. I thought I saw Ralph do the same, but his red hair was swept away into the crowds of screaming human children.

I only made it up the hill a few steps before two children barreled into the back of my knees, knocking me back to the ground. I sputtered as the taste of dirt filled my mouth. Movement, different than the rampage of children’s feet, caught my eye. I turned my head to the left to see the snake, which was now just a snake, trying to escape the stampede. It nipped at a few heels that got too close, but with all the targets, it never got to sink its teeth into any.

A booming voice silenced all of the screaming. “Children! Sit down!” it commanded.

I whirled to see Madam Lucacious running up the hill toward us.

“Sit!” she demanded again as she lifted her dress above her ankles so her running legs could stretch for further strides.

The children began falling to the sitting position in waves. I rolled over and got into the sitting position as well, hoping to blend in.

Madam Lucacious stopped as soon as she was close to the first line of sitting children, which was still far enough away from me for comfort. It took me a minute to take in my surroundings. I realized all of us were now far enough up the hill that I could see over the town wall.

The spell must have triggered a reaction inside the town as well. I saw the same confusion and frantic behavior inside the wall as I had seen with the children.

A cold hand touched mine and I recoiled. I spun to see Hailey sitting by my side. Her expression was fearful.

Ralph?
I mouthed to her.

She shook her head, indicating she hadn’t seen him, but then motioned her head sideways down the hill. I followed her gaze to where Max was lying in a motionless heap of long black fur.

My feet reacted before my mind did. Before I could consider the consequences, I bounded to Max’s side. There were a few reactions from the children, and I was sure I had caught the eye of more than one adult, but I was sitting again so quickly that I must not have caused too much panic.

Max’s eyes were dull, but he was breathing. I ran my hand through his fur gently, not surprised to feel thick wetness under the fleshy parts of his stomach. The energumen had been cast out, but the snake was still naturally venomous.

I’m sorry,
his thoughts seemed to waft to me on the wind.

“You’ll be okay,” I said, a little weaker than I wanted to.

Max rested his head on my lap, closing his eyes while I stroked the fur between his ears.

When I looked back up, a large group of men had gathered at the base of the hill. Some appeared to be standing guard while others clamored excitedly, making large gestures with their hands in an attempt to visually explain to their neighbors the large flash they had seen. A quick survey revealed a few of the children mimicking their elders, clapping their hands together in an attempt to recreate the cracking noise they had heard.

I realized I was clinging to a hope that perhaps the spell would be misunderstood as a lightning bolt, but the gathering army of humans pushed that hope down to where it formed a pit in my stomach. Feelings of fear were becoming too familiar, but with that familiarity came greater control of the emotion.

I thought I was going to be able to erase any look on my face that might betray how I felt until the clamoring men grew silent. Every eye moved to the base of the hill as the air grew thick with tension. I could see some shuffling in the crowd before it parted and a man wider than the keeper at the gate stepped to the front, eyeing all of the children with contempt.

This man had an interestingly proportioned body. He was shorter than most of the humans I had seen. In that case, he was shorter than most of my people, but his thickness reminded me of a tree. The color of his skin was darker than I had ever seen, so dark that his head seemed to vanish against the black sky behind him—except for the whites of his eyes, which burned like lava.

It was Madam Lucacious who finally broke the silence. “General Dougal, your grace,” she curtsied.

The man spoke out of the side of his mouth without taking his eyes off us. “Madam Lucacious, in your opinion, what took place here?”

“Nothing I have ever seen,” she responded.

“Not natural then?”

“I don’t see how.”

I could see the muscles in the general’s arms tighten at her words. “Have you been trained in these matters?”

Madam Lucacious shifted uncomfortably, hesitating before she responded. “Told, yes. But not trained.”

“Did you see anyone on the hill?”

“Just my children.”

Dougal’s arm flew so quickly toward the man next to him that I didn’t actually see him grab the man by the shirt and reposition him so closely that their eyes met. The general spoke so low to the man that I had a hard time piecing together his sentence. “Take your battalion and cut off anyone found fleeing through the forest.”

The man dashed through the crowd and back into the city, a few others following him.

General Dougal turned back to Madam Lucacious. “Test them all. If any magics are found among them, kill them.”

The pit in my stomach leapt, bursting through my body like pinpricks. Every hair was standing on edge.

“Okay, children!” Madam Lucacious’s voice boomed, and she clapped her hands even though she already had everyone’s rapt attention. “Pluck a strand of grass,” she did this herself, demonstrating, “and hold it in your hand with your fingers curled around the base. Pretend your fist is a pot, with the blade sticking up.”

The pit in my stomach began moving upward again. I felt nauseated. This simple test would be successful, but how the humans had learned it bewildered me. I glanced at Hailey, whose colorless face stared at Madam Lucacious with horrified intensity. She already had her blade outstretched in front of her. I saw a second blade sprout between her shaking fingers.

The one power we couldn’t control was our connection to the earth. In fact, this connection wasn’t even a power, but the source of our powers. Placing a broken blade of grass in our palm, with our warm fingers around it had the same effect of being planted directly into the lifeblood of Mother Earth. Rather than comparing the plants between children, these humans would be able to see the plant
growing
in our hands.

The group of men at the base of the hill moved toward us. They carefully inspected the first line of children’s plants before excusing them into the town. Sixty children; probably fifteen men. The lump of fear I felt was now a physical lump in my throat. Still, I didn’t dare reach for my own blade of grass.

Through the thousand pricks of fear exploded a moment of realization: we were going to be discovered and then probably killed. I thought about Ralph—if he was any lower on the hill than we were he might already be caught. It felt like a long time had passed since he pulled me from the burning tree but it had been only hours.

Only fire cast by magic could have followed you back through the roots
, his words came to me, followed by the words of this awful test,
Pretend your fist is a pot, with the blade sticking up
.

If the events of this day were like dominoes stacked carefully in a line, those words were the catalyst that started them tumbling. If those dominoes fell in time, drawing the plans to a perfect scheme, their tumbling would reveal the artist behind those events.

A memory flashed through my mind, one of my happiest memories. My parents, both smiling, had taken me to a symphony a few years ago. Their faces were so excited to watch mine light up as I experienced live music combine with the songs of the planet. I found myself particularly captivated by the conductor who controlled the music. He timed the instruments with the vibrations of the planet. Without him, there could be no orchestration. My parents called him “the grand maestro.”

I shuddered violently as I began to understand the awful orchestration that had unfolded here. There was only one explanation, only one reason our town could have been destroyed by magical fire, only one reason these men would know our secrets: we had been betrayed. My shuddering stopped as my vision became perfectly clear. Only one of our own could have cast the flames that followed me back through the roots of Mother Tree. Only one of our own could have taught the humans how to distinguish us from them. And there was only one of our own who was still somewhere here, lurking in the shadows of the forest, or perhaps in the town. Our betrayer, the conductor, the grand maestro of betrayal, was Joshua.

Four

I didn’t have time for tears but they came anyway. They had threatened so many times during this ordeal that I finally couldn’t fight them. I tried to push my emotion into the planet and failed. Something in me finally broke. I felt alone. Even if Joshua came for us, we wouldn’t be saved. I didn’t know where my people were or if any of them were still alive.

Sobs rolled through my body while hot tears ran down my face. My breath was ragged. I cried for my people. I cried for our betrayal. I cried because I didn’t know what else to do.

My eyes were too blurred to notice when heavy boots were standing in front of me, but I felt someone rest their hand lightly on my head before speaking. I was too exhausted to care, so I didn’t flinch. This was it. This was the moment I would be caught, but I was overcome by apathy.

“Hey, kid, you okay? What happened?”

I was startled enough by the familiarity of the voice that one of the sobs rolling through my body caught in my throat. I rubbed the tears from my eyes so I could see clearly, recognizing the face of the man who was now crouched over me. It was the man from earlier at my house, Max’s owner.

It took me a minute to realize he thought my tears were for Max. I looked down at the black heap in my lap and curled my hand through the thick black hair. Max’s eyes were closed, the limp body cold under my touch. Tears sprang back to my eyes, this time for a friend I’d known just long enough for him to save my life.

The man, Clayton, if memory served, had compassion in his eyes. “Come on, let’s get back to the house,” he said. “It isn’t good for you to be out here now.”

I glanced down at Max.

“Leave him,” Clayton answered, his voice soft. “I’ll take care of him after you are asleep.”

I knew that following this man back into town would ensure my survival for at least a little while, so I stood and followed him down the hill.

I watched as the general’s eyes followed us closely.

“I know the boy. He is not who we seek,” Clayton stated as we passed him. The testimony seemed to ebb any suspicion.

When we reached the town gates, I glanced back toward the hill. From this vantage point, Ralph’s red hair stood out like a bush on fire. I was glad to see he had found Hailey. They were sitting together and managed to make their way up toward the tree line, putting the maximum distance between them and the small army descending upon the children. Still, I knew I had to do something to help.

Clayton noticed my hesitation. “Come on, boy. The other kids will be fine.”