What Came From the Stars (22 page)

“Selith, Tommim, selith,” said Ealgar.

“All right, I’m sorry. But I haven’t slept much and when I do sleep I dream about being chased by an O’Mondim and when I wake up there’s a battle with Mrs. Lumpkin’s car and I have four”—he felt his sides—“no, five cuts from Ouslim’s orlu and they sting like all get-out and I still don’t know where my father and sister are.”

“You weren’t chased by the O’Mondim, Pepper. He came out of the water and lay down.”

“Actually, Belknap, since you weren’t there that night, you don’t know that I
was
chased by the O’Mondim, starting with Plymouth Rock until I lost him at school.”

“You ran to the school?”

“The lights were on.”

James Sullivan called from the kitchen. “You know, I found seven eggs here. And I think some bacon, but it looks kind of old. Do you mind if I—”

“Why were the lights on?” said Alice.

It was snowing by the time they passed Plymouth Rock and headed up to William Bradford Elementary School. Ealgar was wearing two sweatshirts and Mr. Pepper’s pea coat, and even though his face was set hard, he looked around at the falling flakes and, Tommy saw, even tried catching them on his tongue. He held his orlu, and Tommy, running in front of them all, held the gyldn. He was limping a little bit.

They ran to the sixth grade side.

“You know,” said Alice—and it took her a while to say this, since she was breathing pretty heavily—“we could get in real trouble for breaking into school.”

Ealgar leaned forward and put his hand on the plywood across the sixth grade door. Then he turned to Tommy and pointed at Alice Winslow, then James Sullivan, then Patrick Belknap. “Gumena weardas?” he said.

Tommy shook his head.

“Nanig?”

“Nope.”

Ealgar stared at the plywood again.

“What did he say?” said James Sullivan.

“He asked if any of you were warriors.”

“And you said no?”

Tommy looked at him. “What should I have said?”

“Yes, you jerk,” said James Sullivan.

The wind came up against them from the ocean, and they all saw that it was not ... right. The snow swirled at their faces, no matter which way they looked, and it stung.

Ealgar turned. One by one he looked at them, and then he turned to Tommy. “Gumena weardas,” he said. He turned to Alice Winslow. “Gumena weardas,” he said again. And again to James Sullivan. And again to Patrick Belknap. “Gumena weardas.”

And they all stood a little firmer against the wind, and felt something strong and deep within them stirring.

Ealgar turned again to the plywood across the door.

The wind colder and pushing hard against them, almost shoving them back. The gray sky letting go more flakes. A dark squall gathering over the ocean, moving toward them quickly.

“Nu schulon habbe heardre earmas, heale cenre, mod bealda,” said Ealgar.

“He really is from another world,” said Patrick Belknap.

“We could still get in a whole lot of trouble if...”

Two slashes of the orlu and the plywood lay in splinters.

“...we break in,” said Alice Winslow.

Ealgar and Tommy stepped into the halls of William Bradford Elementary School, and then Alice Winslow, and James Sullivan, and Patrick Belknap too—who got inside just before the dark squall hit them. But it brought, with the snow, the rucca smell of decaying seaweed.

The halls were empty and dark, with that strange feeling that school halls have when they’re not filled with kids getting to class. No one hollering, no bells, no slamming lockers, no crumpled-up papers being kicked along, no teacher directing traffic, no smells from the school cafeteria or the gym or the science room. Every step they took echoed. They didn’t want to talk. They didn’t want to breathe.

“I’m going to go get my accordion,” said Patrick Belknap.

“What?” said James Sullivan.

“My accordion. I left it—”

“You know what, Belknap? Warriors do not carry accordions. They never carry accordions. They don’t even like accordions.”

“This one does.”

“Which only goes to show that—”

“Shut up,” said Tommy.

James Sullivan and Patrick Belknap figured that’s what Ealgar told them too.

They followed the sixth grade hall and looked through the windows into the classrooms. Everything was dark. All the desks were in janitorial order. No one, anywhere.

They turned around and went back toward the other halls.

No one in the fourth or fifth grade hallways.

They turned around and came back.

No one in the cafeteria.

No one in the gym. No one in the locker rooms—and Alice Winslow checked the girls’ locker room by herself, which Tommy said goes to show who the real gumena weardas was.

No one in the auditorium. They even checked on stage behind the curtain, and in the band room, and in the instrument storage room, and in Mrs. Low’s piano practice room.

No one.

They went to the second and third grade halls.

No one.

And then all the way down the first grade hall.

No one.

Until they turned around.

And Tommy saw the O’Mondim standing, almost touching the ceiling, his two good hands dangling low by his knees.

His eyes were watching them.

“Fah,” said Ealgar, and he raised his orlu over his shoulder.

But Tommy held Ealgar’s arm, and by himself, he walked down the dark first grade hallway. The O’Mondim was so still, so unmoving.

Except he was singing—humming really.

The Bach piece.

Tommy’s breath left him. And he heard her as clearly as if she were standing beside him: “Oh, Tommy, I love to hear you play. Especially the Bach. I want to cry when I hear you play the Bach. I want to cry because it’s so beautiful.”

Tommy looked at the face of the O’Mondim.

Something had scratched out most of the line the Art of the Valorim had made on the O’Mondim’s forehead, and now he was turning back to the sand he was made of. He seemed to be crumbling around the edges. His new eyes were almost gone.

“Fah,” said Ealgar again.

Tommy shook his head, and he took the chain from under his shirt and held it toward the O’Mondim’s face.

But the O’Mondim did not bend his face down to him. Instead, with his right hand, he pointed to the school basement door.

Then Ealgar was beside him. He looked down at Tommy’s hand.

“Ars Valorim,” he said, and shook his head. “Ne cynna se weoruld. Na se weoruld.” He held out his hand.

“Not yet,” said Tommy Pepper.

“Nefer se weoruld,” he said.

“After we’ve found Patty,” he said.

“Are we going down there or not?” said James Sullivan.

“We’re going down there,” said Alice Winslow.

She walked over and tried the doorknob.

“It’s probably...” began Patrick Belknap.

Alice Winslow looked around, then took the gyldn from Tommy’s hand and smashed it through the wire window in the door.

“...locked.”

Alice Winslow reached through the glass and opened the door. Then she gave the gyldn back to Tommy.

“Gumena weardas,” said Ealgar.

Tommy flipped on the switch and a small light came on at the bottom.

And Tommy went down, then Ealgar, then Alice Winslow and James Sullivan and Patrick Belknap. Down the stairs without speaking, the dry metal scent of basement all around them.

At the bottom, it was as dur as it was outside.

And as still.

Ealgar held up his orlu.

Tommy took the last four steps at a jump. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t care if anyone heard. He grabbed the handle of the metal door at the bottom of the stairs and pulled on it.

Locked.

It took five swipes with the orlu to tear it open, and Tommy leaped through the shredded metal.

“Dad! Patty! Patty!”

He flipped on the light switch.

“It’s me!”

And stretched out on the cement floor, close to the school furnaces, was Mr. Burroughs—very pale and very still.

And beyond Mr. Burroughs, Tommy saw his father.

And next to him Patty—Patty!—who was up on one arm as if she were just waking but still couldn’t move, and whose eyes were impossibly wide open.

Eyes looking behind him.

He took a step toward her, and he felt sleep pouring over him like the ocean, wave after wave, so heavy, so heavy, that all he could think about was lying down and closing his eyes. It was all he could think about. So heavy. He could hardly hear the cries on the steps above him, and even those sounds began to seem as if they came from farther and farther away, so far away that they had nothing at all to do with him.

He took another step toward Patty, and it was so hard to move his legs, since they seemed weighted with Patty’s white stones. For a moment he thought of touching the chain, but the idea of bringing his hand up was ridiculous. Impossible. Everything was so heavy.

Tommy Pepper closed his eyes.

And then, Tommy heard the Bach piece. From high above him, the Bach piece.

It was so beautiful, it made him want to cry.

And someone slapped his face. Hard.

He opened his eyes.

“Patty,” he said.

She pointed.

Tommy turned, and through the shattered metal door, he saw Ealgar with his orlu swinging high above his head. And Alice Winslow, James Sullivan, and Patrick Belknap behind him, all hollering.

And Mr. PilgrimWay.

Tommy shook himself, and again. “Patty,” he said.

Ealgar was hacking at Mr. PilgrimWay’s orlu, hacking and hacking with everything in him. And step by step, Mr. PilgrimWay was forced back and back up the cellar steps that led outside.

Tommy shook himself, still trying to get the sleep out of his head.

“Tommim!” called Ealgar.

Tommy ran out—sort of—onto the stairs, ducking below the flung orlu of Mr. PilgrimWay, which came so close that he felt its wind and hate. Then Mr. PilgrimWay drew his limnae from behind his back, and with a wave of his hand, he burst the basement door open behind him, and they were in the first grade hall, and Mr. PilgrimWay, with another wave of his hand, burst that door open, and the snow began to come in, white and thick. He rushed out into it, and Ealgar followed, hacking, hacking.

Tommy Pepper screamed at Alice and Sullivan and Belknap—“Get them out of there!”—and went after Ealgar and Mr. PilgrimWay.

He made sure he was holding his gyldn correctly.

The snow coming in from over the ocean was now blizzarding into a white blindness, and Tommy found Ealgar and Mr. PilgrimWay by the Plymouth Rock pavilion only by the sound of orlu on limnae. He ran after them and tried desperately to join the battle, but Ouslim the Liar moved so quickly, and so surely, that he kept Ealgar between them, and though Ealgar’s play was swift and great, so too was that of Ouslim, and Ealgar began to tire under the onslaught.

His right arm grew heavy. His orlu dropped.

And immediately Ouslim the Liar swung the limnae into Ealgar’s guts and Tommy heard the breath go out of him, and as he fell, Mr. PilgrimWay threw his knee against Ealgar’s face and snapped his head back into unconsciousness.

And he turned to Tommy.

He twirled the limnae in his hand.

“You don’t know how to hold that either, do you?” he said.

Then, as the snow flew wildly, Tommy was upon him.

Mr. PilgrimWay was startled—a gyldn against a limnae?—and he almost fell.

But he didn’t.

He balanced himself against the pillars of the pavilion, took the limnae with both hands, and struck. And struck. And struck with hate.

Tommy kept the gyldn level against the blows, but each one beat against his arms and almost knocked him down.

He fled to the beach.

Now the wind was a shriek, and the snow avalanched so fast against him that he could barely see Mr. PilgrimWay or the beating limnae.

He was hardly surprised when the limnae smashed the gyldn from his hand.

He fell back onto the snowy sand.

“Now is the end of all things, Tommy Pepper,” said Mr. PilgrimWay. Tommy could see the limnae quivering above him.

And then, he saw the open arms of the O’Mondim.

Whose two hands seemed to come right out of the blinding snow. They grasped Ouslim the Liar as with ykrat bands.

“Fah falettel,” cried Mr. PilgrimWay. “Mondim fah falettel!”

Tommy stood, and there, suddenly, was Ealgar beside him, who held his orlu as one who could hardly bear its weight. He was breathing as if there were not enough air in this world. But he was also watching the O’Mondim, watching as if he could not believe what it was he saw.

And as Ouslim struggled wildly, yowling into the blizzard air, the O’Mondim turned his crumbling face to Tommy, and Tommy and Ealgar heard him speak: “Eac naman Pepper.”

Ouslim slashed at the O’Mondim with the limnae, but the O’Mondim held him, and he turned and headed into the green waves, dragging the helpless Ouslim, who slashed at him again with the limnae, slashed again and again and again, shedding sand each time. But the O’Mondim did not stop. He dragged Ouslim into the white waves, past their breaking and into the depths, until with a final, horrible howl, they both went under, and the tormented water cascaded upward, and then again, and again, thrashed by the shrieking wind.

Ouslim the Liar was gone.

Immediately the wind dropped. The blizzard softened to easy, white flakes. Over the ocean, the sun came out and shone through the snow, turning the flakes gold.

Ealgar reached out his palm to catch them.

Tommy Pepper looked back toward William Bradford Elementary School, which glowed in the new sunlight. Everyone had come out—James Sullivan, and Patrick Belknap, and Alice Winslow holding Patty’s hand, and even Mr. Burroughs, who couldn’t quite stop yawning, and who was holding on to Patrick Belknap’s shoulder in case he might topple over into another nap right there in the falling snow. And his father.

Tommy dropped his gyldn and held out his arms.

And Patty, Patty, Patty came running to him, crying, smiling.

Tommy looked at her, crying, smiling, too.

Tommy held her close, so close.

And suddenly, out in the water, there was a terrible thrashing, and dark water spewed up into the air, so high, so high, and where it fell, the water churned and churned, and the waves that had begun to pound the shore came well up onto the sand, and Tommy and Patty had to run back out of their way.