Thunder: The Shadows Are Stirring (Thunder Stories Book 1) (28 page)

Raz elbows her hard in the ribs and hisses out a “Quiet!” from between clenched teeth.

“Um. We
were
sent, and we’re searching for our sister and a friend, but we haven’t found them yet. Olivia and Ethan? They’re maybe coming in this direction …. They could be lost. Is that what you mean?”

Raz expression turns cagey. “Who sent you, hmm? For what purpose?”

“Yeah, see, that’s what we need to talk to the queen about.” I decide to be as upfront as possible and give the brief rundown on who we are and what we’re doing here, what Olivia’s attempting to do, and what we’re hoping the People of the Lake would be willing to do. I do not say who sent us.

Raz and Aisleigh put their heads together and whisper furiously. I can catch a few of the words. “This Olivia may have it … hold until … test ….” They turn back to me, hovering right in front of my face. “It is decided. You will meet with Queen Viola at her earliest opportunity. You are too big to fit into our chambers unless you are shrunk, so ….”

There’s another puff of sparkly powder against my face and my stomach drops off a cliff, my bones and body tissues are vacuum-sucked into oblivion, and the world changes completely. Holy shiste! The fairies are now as tall as we are, and actually they’re kind of pretty. In a crayon-hued, sharp-toothed kind of way. And all those knotholes and gaps in the roots and tree trunks and branches? Like the ones Mom would have called fairy homes back in our Layer? Yeah, those are now obviously doorways and windows. This place is a huge, wholly self-sufficient and distinct city, populated with thousands of fairies. Mom would’ve loved it. Who knows? Maybe she’d even been here before.

The four of us float in-between Raz and Aisleigh, down a quiet path created by two lines of rainbow-colored solemn-faced fairies, male and female, until we reach a branch of a tree several skyscrapers high. We are processed through a guarded door, led down a hallway and around a corner, and brought into a jail cell. If jail cells were wooden and surrounded by a moat of water. And in a tree. It’s the size of a small bedroom, entirely empty, with the water somehow surrounding all sides of our barred room without seeping in. I call out as the two fairy customs officials or police officers or whatever they are turn to fly away.

“Wait! All of our stuff, back at the waterfall—”

Raz raises her eyebrow. “The evidence, you mean?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess ….”

“Yes, we’re holding all of that. Oh! And see this water? If it senses any escape plots or attempts, you will receive judgment and be sentenced, um, immediately, shall we say. Don’t do it.”

“But when will we see Queen Viola? And what about our clothes and food and—”

Aisleigh clears her throat and bats her lashes. “The queen is being especially quick for you. Perhaps even as soon as a month!”

Raz cuts in, “And this is a prison. Priz-zon. What you have is sufficient for your needs. It’s not as if you are
guests
.”

My fists clench as tight as my jaw, but the two disappear in a blink and before I can cuss them out, Jamie stops me by touching my shoulder. “Whoa, Sam. Look around.”

In a corner of our cell, there’s a stack of warm, neatly folded clothes. In the middle of the room, a table is covered with all sorts of food—from apples and berries to some type of meat, like turkey or chicken, to loaves of bread and bowls of wild rice and soup and roasted vegetables and flasks of water. After we dress and eat, the table disappears. In its place are bunk beds and several packs of cards and board games, like checkers and chess. Huh. In case anyone’s listening, we call out our thanks for everything. In response, we get a distant sniff and harrumph, and I think I hear the flutter of wings but don’t see anyone.

A large rounded window appears in the branch wall on the outside of our bars and moat. It had been early morning when our swim was interrupted. Now the sun’s already starting to disappear. What happened to the day? Periodically, colorful faces peer through and either smile or grimace at us before dropping out of sight again. They are all good-looking, like they could be models, just spray painted; their faces could be carved from gemstones. Though I am obviously watching them, I feel like we’re purposely on display. I lie back in a bottom bunk and decide to tell everyone a story about how Olivia and Ethan somehow find us and everything works out the way it needs to. With Storm at my feet, I roll over and fall asleep. I’m so exhausted I barely wake up when the first explosion of thunder shatters the night.

Chapter Twenty-Three: This Sucks

(OLIVIA)

“
A
H, HOLY HAM-STEAKS
; I’m sorry, Ethan!” I grimace as I reach to pull him out of the knee-high swamp muck. I’d totally just slipped and grabbed onto the closest thing to me for support. Of course, that had been Ethan. I’d caught him off guard and completely slammed him to the watery ground, regaining my own balance without taking the plunge myself. Ethan glowers up at me through the hair plastered across his forehead.

“‘Holy ham-steaks?’ Where do you come up with these things?” He takes my proffered hand and, as I lean in to get a better grip, he gives a quick tug and I splash down next to him.

“Ethan Shea Stone! Ooo, that was mean!” I splutter, spitting foul water out of my mouth. “I
so
did not knock you down on purpose; you can’t retaliate like that!” I stand and splash him, using the palm of my hand, and we’re on the cusp of an all-out water fight when something brushes my leg and attaches itself to the side of my boot. Erp. Ethan notices my rigid posture and ceases fire. I slide my fingers down my leg and grab onto a snake about as thick as a garden hose. I close my eyes and place my fingers just below the head and pull. Wes warned us when we were heading out here that most of the water snakes in this area are quite likely to be poisonous, unlike our friends back in Orchard’s Spinney. But at least they’re a normal size.

Aw, frappity shoist. The thing is not letting go. “Um, Ethan?” I try again, picturing Xiaben and Marrah’s curved fangs, and this time I attempt to swoop the head up and back along a curved line, rather than yanking it straight back. I feel it slip free and I’m able to tug it out of the tough leather. “Never mind; I got it!” I wave it proudly in the air and hurl it as far away from me as possible. Ethan’s eyes widen as they follow the snake’s flight and he whistles low through his teeth.

“Sheesh, you’re something else. You know that, right?”

He steps closer to me and stares down into my eyes, grazing his knuckles against my cheek as he rubs away a water droplet. Unexpectedly, I feel shy and have the insane need to catch my breath. Searching for levity, I clear my throat. “What? You’ve never seen a gal chuck a snake before? There’s nothin’ to it. Come on, we need to get out of here.” Inside, though, I shiver at the unexpected warmth flowing through my body, and wish I could grab onto him and be a regular fifteen-year-old girl with her first crush. Not saving the world. Not leading this amazing boy, full of strength and light, to his possible death. It’s too much to think about now; I change my focus to our plans.

At times, we’ve been lucky and hit a solid patch of ground in the middle of the marshes; more often than not, though, we’ve had to wade through water and tramp through the countless grasses. We’ve seen all sorts of wildlife but almost everything has left us alone. We’re headed up to the lakes. My dream didn’t show much of the boys’ surroundings, but all that water makes me feel Lakeland must be involved somehow, since it wasn’t river or swamp water. We’d been planning to pass through the area anyway, heading even further north, up towards the mountains. We’ll use this opportunity to search for evidence of my brothers’ whereabouts. The tug inside me is steady and strong, like it senses a readying. Somehow, somewhere, pieces are falling into place.

A distant rumble of thunder spurs us to move faster. Last night, there’d been a spattering of rain, nothing much, but enough combined with the chill in the air to make another uncomfortable night’s sleep. If a lightning storm hits, there’s not a whole lot we can do about it; we’re the tallest objects around, not counting some of the plant stalks, and we’re, well, walking through water. Somewhere, I read lightning can strike like thirty-five miles away from the storm. Sometimes further, depending on the type. Not just a little freakish.

My mind jumps from weather systems and lands a little closer to my heart: I think about Thunder and Storm and wonder where they are in the whole scheme of things and whether or not we’ll see them here at all. I think about my brothers and that stranger-kid and wonder if they’re okay and if we’ll end up finding them. I think about Ethan and wonder what the future holds for him, for me, for all of us … What we’ve gone through has been a challenge, what we’re facing is possible annihilation.

Ethan stops without warning and I almost run into his back. “What is it?” I ask, grabbing onto his shoulders.

“Well. I think I was bitten.” He sounds much too calm for me to have heard right.

“Say what?!” I jump in front of him to look him in the face. It’s not the kind of joke he’d make.

“Um, yup. Being bitten. Now.” His face pales and he swears, groping around in the water, trying to lift his leg and balance at the same time. The thing is attached to his calf.

Criminy.

I dive for his leg, this time my knife in hand. I grab at the snake, like I’d done with my own a few minutes ago, lifting and arcing its head back, but this time I slice through its body before tossing it away from us. I note the sweat beading on Ethan’s brow. When I tug up his pant leg, I can see there’s no swelling, but there are two puncture wounds. Frap. I grope in my bag and pull out two shirts, which I tie tourniquet-style a couple inches above and below the puncture marks. I grab his hand and yank him towards the next patch of what may be firmer ground. When he starts to wobble, I sling his arm over my shoulder and make him hop at my side. His leg needs to be dry for me to apply any medicine. I examine his face and see that his left eyelid is drooping. Not a good sign.

He tries to talk, but the sound comes out garbled and drool seeps from the corner of his mouth. Oh, lord. I fight down my panic. We can do this; we’re almost there. I essentially throw him onto the ground, face first; I have to move fast before his nerves are permanently damaged. I’d read in our survival books that sucking on a snake bite isn’t scientifically proven to help anything, but I figure it won’t make things any worse. I kneel down and suck and spit and gag. And repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Thinking all along, “Oh, gross; Ethan, don’t you dare die on me. You owe me
so
big for doing this.” And I wonder, somewhat hysterically, if this is better or worse than rats licking him. Ugh, poor guy.

I stop my suck-and-spit routine and get soap and a bottle of water from the pack. After washing the wound, I smear on antiseptic, say a prayer, and reach in the bag for medicine. Thank you, dear Lord and Jamie! My fingers grip around a little jar. I don’t know how much to apply, or if he’ll need another application later on, but I smear on as much as I think should work and add a little extra for good measure. Rolling him over, I slip a couple drops of an energy booster between his lips and spend some tense minutes waiting at his side, watching his face.

I begin to breathe again when I see the tightening of his jaw, and my heart kicks into gear when his Adam’s apple bobs up and down in a swallow. I live through both of our lifetimes before his skin takes on its regular coloring and his eyes turn their clear, beautiful green. I allow a sigh of relief when he flexes his fingers, his feet, his toes. He turns his head to me and asks thickly, “Did you really just suck my leg?”

Nice first words, Bucko. “Um. Yeah.”

A sigh. “You’re gonna completely hold that over me, aren’t you?”

Now, I can grin. “Totally yes. For-
ever
.”

Silence. Then, “Hey, Liv?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“I know.”

~~~

T
HE DAY DAWNS BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL,
with a thick mist hugging the tops of the trees in the distance. I figure the fog must be rising from the lake’s surface.

We’d made it to firm ground and, last night, we camped with a fire blazing to dry our clothes and skin. It was necessary as a heat source, too: Fall has arrived in glory. While we clean up our breakfast, I notice Ethan is limping. I reapply the cream and we head on our way.

The trees are further than they look. To pass the time, I make up stories and sing goofy songs. After a while, Ethan joins in, leaving me doubled over as he “Day-Os” his way through my version of the Banana Boat song.

“… wanna go hooome!” I belt out, before choking on the next verse. We have broken through the tree line, and in front of us is the biggest lake I’ve ever seen—a mini ocean. If it existed in our Layer, “State Park” would be written all over it. My feet crunch over the coarse sand.

While it’s gorgeous, I now have no idea what we’re supposed to do. I hadn’t thought ahead to how we’d find my brothers in all the water. If we can’t find them, we still need to get around the lake. The mountains I want to get to lie way beyond it, and it’s not like we have boat access. Ugh.