What Came From the Stars (12 page)

Tommy pulled up the sheet.

There was nothing on the trestle table.

“There’s nothing here,” said Tommy’s father.

But Patty pulled on his arm and her father looked down at her. Then he looked at Tommy.

“It was the O’Mondim,” said Tommy.

Their father drew Patty to him. “We’d better go home,” he said.

Tommy and Patty nodded.

They left without even giving Patrick Belknap his cowboy hat back.

That night was the coldest yet, and cloudy. Before he went up to his loft, Tommy—with Patty and their father—watched the sea from the front windows, but without the moonlight, they could barely see the whitecaps breaking.

After he went up to his loft, Tommy watched the sea from his dormer window. Still, only the breaking whitecaps. And nothing interrupted their rhythm.

In the morning, when they went out to do the dawn, they watched the sea from the top of the dune. Everything was quiet, and the chain stayed cold.

All day, everything was quiet, and the chain stayed cold.

That night, everything was quiet, and the chain stayed cold.

On Monday, Tommy held Patty’s hand when they got on the bus, and if Cheryl Lynn Lumpkin even looked his way, he began to take his glove off—and she looked somewhere else. Mostly she looked at the houses along the coast, which is where everyone else on the bus was looking, wondering if any of those houses had been broken into overnight. Wondering when their own houses might be broken into.

Tommy didn’t think they needed to worry. He knew, somehow he knew, that there was no more need for the break-ins.

But they watched anyway, driving under the maples getting ready to shake down their last curling red leaves.

And then, once again, everyone on the bus had even more to wonder about.

There was the first police car that sirened out from behind the bus, lights flashing, wailing.

There was the second police car that turned onto Water Street barely a block ahead of them and went after the first, wailing just as loudly.

And then the third and fourth—Massachusetts state troopers this time—cutting in front of the bus, blue lights eerie in the early light.

When the bus got to William Bradford Elementary, all four police cars were twirling their lights in the parking lot. Mr. Zwerger and Mr. Burroughs were standing out front, watching the buses come in and pointing them all toward the first grade side.

Except Tommy’s bus.

When Mr. Zwerger read their bus number, he said something to Mr. Burroughs, and then he went to talk to the gathered policemen.

Mr. Burroughs walked over to the bus, waved at Mr. Glenn, and came on. He looked across the rows of seats and finally saw Tommy. He walked down the aisle and leaned toward him.

“Tommy,” he said, “something’s happened.”

Tommy felt Patty’s hand grip his.

“I’ve called your father. He’s coming right away.”

It wasn’t Mr. Burroughs’s fault that Tommy had heard those same words once before. And that Patty had heard them too.

Tommy thought he was going to throw up.

“I want you to come with me,” said Mr. Burroughs.

They had heard those words too.

Patty held on to Tommy’s hand. She wasn’t going to let go.

“Both of you,” Mr. Burroughs said. “Miss Minerva is waiting for you in the main office, Patty. Your father will come there first to pick you up.”

Tommy and Patty gathered their backpacks and followed Mr. Burroughs off the bus. No one spoke. But everyone on the bus watched. And every policeman in the parking lot watched while Tommy and Patty walked across the parking lot and into the school. And every teacher in the halls of William Bradford Elementary watched while they walked down the first grade hall to the main office. And there, everyone in the office watched while Miss Minerva came to take Patty’s hand. Tommy didn’t want to leave her, but Patty nodded to him. She would be okay.

On the way down the hall to their classroom, Mr. Burroughs watched Tommy. “Listen, Tommy,” he said. “There isn’t anything you want to tell me, is there?”

Tommy looked up at him. “Like what?”

“Like how you can cut a cake like no one has ever cut a cake before. Like how you can make a drawing that seems to move. Like how you suddenly think there are two suns in the sky.”

“There’s only one sun in the sky.”

“And, Tommy, is there someone who wants something you have?”

“Something I have?”

Mr. Burroughs nodded.

Tommy thought. “Mrs. Lumpkin,” he said, finally.

“Mrs. Lumpkin?”

“She wants our house.”

Mr. Burroughs shook his head. “I don’t think this is Mrs. Lumpkin.”

“Is there anything you want to tell
me?”
said Tommy.

“See for yourself,” said Mr. Burroughs, and they walked into the classroom. They didn’t have to open the door—Tommy thought this was pretty familiar—because the door had already been torn off, broken in two, and thrown down the hall.

It was probably the only thing in the classroom that was in two pieces—everything else was in a whole lot more. Every chair, splintered. Every desk, smashed. Mr. Burroughs’s desk, smithereens. The whiteboard, shattered. The books, shredded. The shelves they had been on, pulverized. If a hurricane had roared into Mr. Burroughs’s classroom overnight, it couldn’t have looked any worse.

And the fah smell! Something stank as though it had been dragged up from the bottom of the sea. Like rotten seaweed, only more rotten than any seaweed that had ever rotted before.

The chain warmed.

The smell in the room, the fah smell, was the smell of hate.

The smell of the Field of Sorg Cynnes on the day the O’Mondim overwhelmed the battlements at Brogum Sorg Cynna, when Elder Waeglim held to the last and perished under the trunco of the O’Mondim, when Bruleath of the Ethelim stood in his place and rallied the Valorim against the Faceless Ones. The stench of their defeat lingered in the air through many risings of the Twin Suns, and the Valorim were avenged on that field, but the hanoraho did not blow at the settings of the Suns, or their risings. And the O’Mondim had vowed dark vengeance upon the Valorim, and upon those who stood under the shelter of their Art.

“Tommy?” said Mr. Burroughs.

And Tommy was afraid, deep down.

Mr. Burroughs took a step toward him. “Tommy, are you all right?”

And then Tommy looked at the wall of the classroom, written on with a black marker before all the markers had been snapped in three pieces, and he saw these words:

PEPPER GIVE US WHAT WE WANT

“This isn’t Mrs. Lumpkin,” said Mr. Burroughs.

Tommy nodded.

When his father got to the classroom, holding Patty beside him, he didn’t think it was Mrs. Lumpkin either.

“Any ideas about what they want?” said one of the policemen.

“None at all,” said Tommy’s father.

“You kids got any?”

Tommy and Patty shook their heads.

The policeman put his hands on his hips. “Someone who’s pretty good at breaking things up knows your name,” he said, “and they know what school you go to. I guess they probably know where you live.”

“I’d say so,” said Tommy’s father, looking around.

“And they think you have something they want.”

“They’re wrong,” said Tommy’s father.

“It doesn’t much matter,” said the policeman.

It was Mr. Zwerger who suggested Mr. Pepper take Tommy and Patty home, and the policemen said they’d send a patrol car along with them—just to be sure everything was okay back at the house.

Mr. Zwerger said maybe they should take a couple of days. Maybe even take the rest of the week. Until things got cleared up.

It seemed to Tommy that Mr. Zwerger wasn’t too eager to have them in William Bradford Elementary School.

Mr. Pepper went into the main office with the principal to sign them out while Tommy and Patty waited in the hall. And when they were alone, Patty reached up to her brother’s chest to feel the chain through his shirt.

“I think so too,” he whispered.

She yanked it once.

“I can’t give it to Dad,” Tommy said.

She looked at him, waited.

“Because it’s harder and harder to remember her,” he said. “I can hardly remember her voice. Sometimes I can’t remember her face. Or her ... But with this...”

He couldn’t finish. Tommy Pepper tried not to cry outside the main office of William Bradford Elementary School.

Until Patty put her arms around him.

It came to the heart of Remlin that he might betray the Lord Mondus, and so save himself from what he knew was most certain. And it came to him that he might stand with Young Waeglim. So it was that Remlin left the Seats of the Reced and brought one of the O’Mondim with him, and he had the ykrat unknotted and the door opened, and he entered into the black hollow cell of Young Waeglim.

It might have come that Young Waeglim would have allied himself with Remlin. But that is a story never to be told. For when the door opened, Young Waeglim’s mood was glad, and he sprang with the strength of twelve upon him, and tore the orlu from the hand of Remlin. And neither Remlin nor the O’Mondim with him ascended from that cell.

But Young Waeglim did ascend, wearing the robes
of a Councilman who sat in the Seats of the Reced, blinking against the hard light with downcast eyes, and when his back was to the Reced and no alarm sounded, he looked up, and marveled at what the City of the Ethelim had become in its rucca ruin.

Everywhere was desolation. The wind blew across the pedestals where once had stood the forms of Harneuf, and of Githil, and of Elder Waeglim himself. The gliteloit of the shops were all shattered, their shards still in the streets. All light was blackened out. Even the great crystal columns of the Hall of the Valorim lay upon the ground.

The air was unfere, rucca with the odor of O’Mondim filth, and Young Waeglim wept, and he did not hide his tears, for such tears cannot be hidden. He kept his hand on the orlu of Remlin, and if one of the O’Mondim had come his way then, grievous would have been his fate, and quick.

In his tears, Young Waeglim did desire, more than his life, that the Art of the Valorim would come back to this world, for now that he was free, the Art could do much to rebuild what the O’Mondim and the faithless Valorim had cast down.

Then did Hileath, daughter of Bruleath, come upon Young Waeglim, and at first her heart was hardened, for she thought he was a Councilman. But as she watched, often he fell against the side of a ruin as one
who knew hunger for an old friend—as did all the Ethelim now. So when he fell and did not get up, her heart rose, and she went to him, and when he opened his eyes to her, she saw they were pale, and she knew him as one of the Valorim. She was amazed, for she thought that the Valorim were all gone from this world.

“You must rise,” she said. “It will not be long before they come. ”

But she was too late. Far down the ethelrad, four of the O’Mondim came, trunco drawn.

And Hileath remembered the tales of her father, Bruleath, of the kindness of the Valorim. She remembered the nights when Elder Waeglim had told her the tales of her father’s bravery, of how her father had saved the life of Elder Waeglim at Sorg Cynnes, and of how they stood together as brothers, resolving to battle side by side, and to win or perish, together. She remembered how Elder Waeglim had given his life at Brogum Sorg Cynna to save the Ethelim.

Hileath spoke. “The O’Mondim will come upon us,” she said.

She saw him grip his orlu. She knew that he would not flee.

Young Waeglim took the life of the first before the O’Mondim knew an enemy was upon him. The O’Mondim’s trunc fell to Hileath, who grasped it hot from the O’Mondim’s hold.

The second O’Mondim had only the time to cry out before his long body too fell bereft of soul—if souls hide in the bodies of the O’Mondim.

But the other two set upon Young Waeglim with mighty blows, and Young Waeglim was sorely weakened. The trunco flashed down upon him with cold clanging, and his arms and shoulders were bloodied, and he was driven back upon the shattered glite, and fell.

Then did Hileath, daughter of Bruleath, remember again the tales of her father, and she came upon the O’Mondim, and they fled from her onslaught. And Hileath spoke to Young Waeglim. “Now is the time to remember the days of the Valorim. Now is the time for sure hearts, for keen orluo, for glory in battle.
”

And Young Waeglim, hearing Hileath, rose, and they stood together, resolving to battle side by side, and to win or perish, together. And the O’Mondim drew upon them again, and with a cry did Young Waeglim slaughter the first of the O’Mondim, and took the life from him. But Hileath was sorely pressed, for with a blow, the O’Mondim did shatter the trunc of Hileath. Then did the O’Mondim rejoice—but not for long. For Hileath threw herself against him, and when he fell, his hand opened, and his trunc fell to the street.

Hileath found it, and the O’Mondim never rose again.

Then did Young Waeglim let himself be led, and they staggered upon the ethelrad until they came to the house of Bruleath, who first saw his daughter, and then the pale eyes of the Valore, and Bruleath saw in those eyes the eyes of his friend, Elder Waeglim.

That night, the green alder from the Valley of Wyssiel that Bruleath had kept so long was opened, and there was rejoicing in the house. But they let no light shine, and their cheer was quiet, for the O’Mondim were in the streets, and Young Waeglim knew that they would never stop their hunting for him.

At seven thirty, on the Tuesday after the Fall Festival, in the Assembly Room of the Plymouth town offices, the Plymouth Planning Commission held its hearing on the request for an easement across the property of Peter R. Pepper for the purpose of building the PilgrimWay Condominiums, the request coming from Lumpkin and Associates Realtors of Plymouth, Massachusetts.