What Came From the Stars (6 page)

Many days, many days, Young Waeglim sat with no hope—for who was there to rescue the last of the faithful Valorim? Would the Ethelim dare?

He listened in the dark as his companions wept and roared, until one morning—if it was a morning—Yolim cursed the Lord Mondus and said, “What remains for us to do but die?”

But Young Waeglim replied, “Tyranny may be overthrown. The Ethelim...”

Yolim spat. “Waiting for weakness is a maeglia hope,” he said.

“There is no strength left in the world,” said Taeglim, “but the strength of those who rule the O’Mondim.”

“If only we had the Art of the Valorim,” whispered Yolim. “Then even the First Seat would shake and fall.”

“The Art of the Valorim was not forged for such a task,” said Young Waeglim.

“But it might be held to such a task,” said Taeglim, “if the wielder had the will to do so.”

“If we knew where it was,” said Yolim.

And as the darkness grew thick and still again, Young Waeglim began to wonder. Had he done well to send the Art of the Valorim out of the world? Might he himself have wielded it, and in its strength, defeated the Lord Mondus?

Sitting on the First Seat in the Council Room of the Ethelim, the Lord Mondus twirled his rings. Already a force rose on the upper shore and Saphim sped northward with a great host. But unease labored in the Reced too. Spies told him of Calorim’s secret messages sent on fleet wings to the west. Calorim he would keep close, the Lord Mondus thought. He held his halin tightly.

Young Waeglim and Taeglim and Yolim slept long in the darkness, and when they woke, the air was damp and chill, and they drew in hard breaths, for it seemed that they could not find enough air to keep them alive. Yolim fell to the ground with his hands to his throat, gasping.

And Taeglim spoke to Young Waeglim: “Do you
know where the Art of the Valorim is? We must leave this place. Nothing else will save him.”

“It is gone from this world,” said Young Waeglim.

“Gone how?” Taeglim said. He took Young Waeglim’s arm. “How?”

Young Waeglim knelt down beside Yolim and reached his hands under his head. “I forged it into a Chain to send it far from the hand of the Lord Mondus.”

“We must be out of here or we die,” said Taeglim. “Is there no way to find it again?”

In the darkness, with Yolim seeming to perish by his side, Young Waeglim was moved with sorrow and compassion, and he said, “An O’Mondim who finds it may call back to this world, and so show where it lies.”

“And is there no other way?” gasped Yolim.

“One other,” said Young Waeglim. “One who receives it from a willing hand may bring it back. A willing hand, and a Song, and the beating of a great heart will make the Art of the Valorim stir strongly enough to bring the Chain and even its bearer across the stars.”

Yolim laughed, and his laugh was blacker than the dark.

“But this may not be, for there are none of the O’Mondim outside our world,” said Young Waeglim, “and no willing hand who knows of the Ethelim. The Art is gone utterly.”

Yolim laughed again.

“You see,” said Taeglim, “how even the longest hope revives the body?”

And Young Waeglim was troubled, for his heart told him something deep had gone amiss.

Three days later, Young Waeglim heard the sounds of O’Mondim coming down through the deep darkness toward them. The scraping of a foot against stone. A trunc against a thigh. Then the yellow light of torches upon the dampened air. The unknotting of the ykrat, the wrenching of the door, and Taeglim and Yolim were taken.

Young Waeglim listened for their sounds of despair. But only Yolim’s laughter came.

So Taeglim and Yolim were brought to the Council Room of the Ethelim and the Lord Mondus asked if they had learned how the Art of the Valorim might be found. And they told him that the Chain of the Valorim might be found by an O’Mondim who would call to this world, and that it must be given by a willing hand
—
or perhaps by a hand deceived—and joined with a Song and the beating of a great heart.

The Lord Mondus was well pleased. And glad were the hearts of Taeglim and Yolim, for their reward would be great.

The Lord Mondus leaned forward in the First Seat. “Are there others who know how to find the Art of the Valorim?” he asked.

“Only Young Waeglim,” said Yolim.

Then did the O’Mondim guards take Taeglim and Yolim by the arms.

Then were sounds of despair heard as had never been heard before in the Reced.

So of the faithless ones who sat in the Twelve Seats of the Reced, Taeglim and Yolim were the first to vanish.

This is how Tommy Pepper last saw his mother.

She was driving Tommy and Patty to William Bradford Elementary School.

She turned to the kindergarten side and Tommy waited while she walked Patty to the kindergarten door. Tommy saw her hug Patty, and Patty waved while their mother got back into the car. “Have a great day!” their mother called.

“I will,” yelled Patty. She skipped inside.

Then they drove around to the other side of William Bradford Elementary and Tommy got out of the car.

“Don’t forget,” his mother said. “Piano lesson today. So take the bus home.”

“Today?”

“It’s Tuesday.”

Tommy sighed. “I hate hate hate hate hate piano lessons.”

“Everyone hates hates hates hates hates piano lessons when they’re young. But when you’re older, you’ll thank me for making you take them now.”

“No, I won’t,” said Tommy.

“Oh, Tommy, I love to hear you play,” she said. “Especially the Bach. I want to cry when I hear you play the Bach.”

“Me, too,” said Tommy, “but not for the same reason.”

“I want to cry because it’s so beautiful,” she said.

“I want to cry because of the crappy thing you’re doing to me,” Tommy said, and he slammed the car door, and even though he knew she was watching him, he didn’t turn around, and he didn’t wave, and he didn’t yell back that he was going to have a great day. Not even when he heard the squeal of her wheels, which meant she was as angry as he was.

Good.

But that was the last time he saw his mother. And he never told his father, and he never told Patty, that it wasn’t the ice on the road. He was the reason she was driving too fast, he was the reason she couldn’t stop in time, he was the reason she...

He was the reason.

And he was the reason she began to disappear from the house, room by room. He was the reason her portrait of their family came down from the living room. He was the reason her portraits of her children came down from the front hall. He was the reason their father packed away her clothes, and her favorite books, and her music on the piano rack.

Tommy hadn’t touched the piano since then.

Their father hadn’t painted since then.

And Patty.

He was the reason.

Every time Tommy heard the squeal of tires, he wanted to run out into the road to stop her.

Every time he heard a car door slam, he began to cry.

Every time someone said how proud his mother would be of him, he knew she wouldn’t be.

And he hated hated hated hated hated Johann Sebastian Bach.

Hated.

When Tommy and Patty got home from school, Mrs. Charlene Cabot Lumpkin, wife of Lieutenant Governor Lumpkin, real estate developer, president for eight years running of the Women’s League of Plymouth County, and corresponding secretary (soon to be vice president) of the Mayflower Society, had driven to their house in her yellow Mazda and was standing in their living room—along with Officer Goodspeed of the Plymouth Police Department. Officer Goodspeed’s face was looking pale, but on Mrs. Charlene Cabot Lumpkin’s face there was more makeup than Tommy had ever seen on any one woman in his life. Parts of her were bright red. She smelled of sweet chemicals.

She glanced at Tommy and Patty, then turned back to their father.

Her long nails—red-light red—clacked as she moved her fingers.

“This house is an eyesore,” Mrs. Lumpkin said. “It has been an eyesore for three hundred years.”

“These are my children, Mrs. Lumpkin, Tommy and Pa—”

“How nice to meet you,” said Mrs. Lumpkin. “Tell me, which of you helped your father pull up the yellow flags? Or did you do it all by yourselves?”

“I already told you what happened, Mrs. Lumpkin. Tommy and Patty, this is Officer—”

“Yes, you did,” Mrs. Lumpkin said. “The flags all disappeared, just like that.” She snapped her red-light fingers and her nails clacked loudly. “Magic,” she said. “And tomorrow morning, just like that”—more snapping of fingers, more clacking of nails—“they’ll all be back in the ground.” She looked around at the three of them. “Let’s hope they stay there,” she said.

Patty took Tommy’s hand and held it tightly.

“Perhaps then,” said their father, “when the yellow flags go back into the ground, they won’t be on our land. If you remember, Mrs. Lumpkin, we own down to the high-water mark, and—no, excuse me, let me finish—we own down to the high-water mark, and we will not be selling. ”

“Fair market value, Mr. Pepper. That’s what Lumpkin Realtors offered.”

“No, Lumpkin Realtors offered well below fair market value, and I refused—and I would have refused even if Lumpkin Realtors had offered fair market value, or double fair market value, or triple fair market value.”

“Which is why we have filed for an easement so the town can assert ownership and finally make reasonable progress on our housing needs.”

“And so Lumpkin Realtors can make a more-than-reasonable profit. Don’t preach to me, Mrs. Lumpkin. I know the messenger. Tell your surveyors to keep your flags off our land.”

Tommy’s father put his hands in his back pockets. Tommy wondered if he did this to keep himself from strangling Mrs. Lumpkin.

“Fine,” Mrs. Lumpkin said. “If you want your eyesore for a little while longer, fine. Between you and the beach will soon be the PilgrimWay Condominiums. We’ll only lay out the easement. But you can’t stop progress, Peter. It’s for the good of the town.”

“This isn’t for the good of the town, Charlene. It’s for the good of Lumpkin Realtors.”

“It’s the same thing,” said Charlene Cabot Lumpkin, and she turned to leave.

“And, Charlene,” said Mr. Pepper, “you still have not paid for your portrait.”

Mrs. Lumpkin showed her very white teeth. “Your wife’s work was shoddy, Peter, and I do not pay for shoddy work. That portrait doesn’t look a bit like me.”

Mr. Pepper shook his head. “No,” he said, “I don’t think that’s it. I think it looks too much like you. But you didn’t want a portrait, Charlene. You wanted a tribute.”

“Didn’t you know, Peter?” Mrs. Lumpkin showed her very white teeth again. “That’s the same thing too.” She left. The only part of her that remained was the sweet chemical smell.

Patty went to open the front windows.

Officer Goodspeed took off his hat and scratched his head. “She gives me a headache,” he said.

“Tommy,” said his father, “did you move the flags?”

“Not a single one,” said Tommy.

“Patty?”

She was opening a second window. She shook her head.

“It wasn’t me, either,” said Officer Goodspeed.

Their father snorted a laugh. “I guess this means that there’s someone else on our side,” he said. “I wish I knew who.”

“Can they really take our land?” said Tommy.

Their father walked across the living room and helped Patty open the last window. He looked out at the blue sea: the waves, the gulls, the distant mountain range of clouds. “I think we all need a snack,” he said.

“A snack would be just right,” said Officer Goodspeed.

The surveyors were on the beach the next morning. Tommy and Patty walked past them on the way to the bus stop. They tried not to look at them.

On the bus, Cheryl Lynn Lumpkin asked Tommy, as loudly as she could, “When are you getting out of your shack, Tommy? Or did it fall down last night? I’d ask your sister, but she’s not—”

Tommy stood up and held out his hand toward her.

Cheryl Lynn’s face whitened.

She didn’t talk for the rest of the ride to William Bradford Elementary.

Tommy got off on the first grade side and watched Patty go in. “Have a great day!” he called. She waved. He wished she would yell back, “I will!” He wished she would, just once, just once, skip inside. But she didn’t.

And she didn’t look like she was going to have a great day, either.

Tommy walked around William Bradford Elementary to the sixth grade door, fingering the chain through his shirt. It had rained last night and the air was scrubbed clean and smelling enough of the ocean that he thought of seawater up his nose and the taste of brine and the feeling of sand all over him and the squish of seaweed underfoot and the roar of a high whitecap busting toward him.

Sitting on a scratchy blanket with Patty, his father. His mother.

His mother.

James Sullivan was standing by the door to the sixth grade hallway, tossing his authentic Tom Brady-signed football up and down.

“Hey, Pepper,” he called.

Tommy stopped fingering the chain. He looked up.

“Go long!”

Tommy dropped his backpack and went long as James Sullivan lofted a spiral—a wobbly spiral, but still a spiral—across the parking lot toward the recycling bins. Tommy sprinted over the pavement, through a long and deep puddle, and barely caught the authentic Tom Brady-signed football on the tips of his fingers, so that James Sullivan, and Patrick Belknap, watching from the sixth grade window, and even Alice Winslow, who was also watching from the sixth grade window, started to clap. It was that spectacular a catch.

“He makes you look good, Sullivan,” Patrick Belknap hollered.

“Kick off, Pepper,” called James Sullivan, and Tommy kicked off, dropping the ball and punting it end over end until it bounced up in front of James Sullivan, who grabbed it and began to run toward Tommy as though he were headed for the end zone at Foxboro, which probably he thought he was.