Beyond the Firefly Field (20 page)

Before he could find its source, the beam of light gleaming from the ceiling dimmed to nothingness. Panicked, Getch hurried back to the safety of the tunnel in near darkness.

“Oh! How beautiful!” Penny cried again as she saw the last ray of sunshine illuminating the quartz before it disappeared for the day. Kast had led her through a series of tunnels, and they came out at the lake's shore.

“How did you get sunlight to travel all the way down here?” Penny probed.

“We asked the beetles to bore holes through the tree trunk. Then slimy slugs slipped through the holes, leaving a slimy trail on the walls, allowing light to shine down here. There are lots of holes, and during the day, light shines through many of them at the same time. When several quartz piles light up, it's really bright down here.”

“Oh! How wonderful!” Penny exclaimed when she saw white light radiating from the far-away village on the island. Like moonlight, it spread a delicate light on everything around the cavern. The village was too tiny to see in the distance, as the island in the lake was far from the shore. Penny realized how small she must be if there could be such a large lake in the bottom of the tree. Being the size of a grain of sand made Penny homesick, where everything was predictable and there were few surprises. She felt tired and longed for the cozy comfort of her own bed. She was dreading the long climb back up through the tunnels.

“We should be getting back now, and I know a tunnel where the way up is less steep. It's a long, curving tunnel that's longer than the ones we came down, but easier to go up,” Kast said.

Kast gave Penny a slight tug and walked along the shore in the water. Penny took her shoes and socks off and joined her, splashing up a soothing spray. After a while, Kast leaned into Penny, giving her a nudge to shore.

“That water felt good. How come it's so warm?” Penny asked as she watched the last ripples of their passing spread away from shore.

“The sunlight in the crystals heats it during the day, unless it's too cloudy, then it stays cool. Look, the tunnel is right over here.”

They walked up a gentle slope to the opening. Wood dust covered the cavern floor and lake bottom, and Penny thought it was like walking on sand.

“Come earlier next time and we can go to the island,” Kast said as she started to climb the crude tunnel steps.

“I thought you said this was an easy tunnel to climb,” Penny complained as she looked at the steps.

“It will be. Come on,” Kast replied, still climbing.

Penny quickly looked at the village, then gave a sigh and slowly started scaling the steps.

With a sigh, Clayton climbed down the steps. He had buzzed almost all the way around the raised platform in an exploratory frenzy. Though frequently searching the room from his lookout, he still couldn't locate Penny. He saw the table where Kast and his sister should have been working, and spied SeeLee talking to her mother on the other side of the room, but found few clues to tell him where Penny might be hiding.

It wasn't until Clayton actually arrived at the table where Penny should have been sitting that he started to worry. Kast and Penny were nowhere in sight. It was getting late, and he knew they should be going home.

He looked back at his friends who were still busy exploring furniture and had no sense of the passing time. It must be much later than he thought, and he didn't know where Penny was. He kicked himself for leaving Penny's side. He imagined going home and announcing, “Hey, Mom, I lost Penny,” and even worse, explaining where. With growing dread, he headed to the place he last saw SeeLee and MarJoReAn talking. After a few steps, he changed his mind and went back to get his friends.

“Hey guys. We've got to go, and I can't find Penny,” he said.

The boys, interrupted from the intensity of their searches, looked at one another. As if waking from a dream, they quickly realized how much time must have gone by.

“We've got to go,” the twins and Brian chimed together.

“Hopefully, Karl's right about the time warp stuff,” Ron said, looking at Karl's wrist.

“I forgot to find even one watch that worked because I was so excited to get here,” Karl said apologetically. “I did ask a fairy if he knew what time it was. He just gave me a strange look and said, ‘It's right now.'”

“Let's go find SeeLee,” Clayton said, pointing to her last known location as he hurried down the steps.

As the boys approached SeeLee and MarJoReAn, Clayton noticed MarJoReAn had stopped talking. She looked into the distance with a look of surprised concern on her face. She rose halfway to the ceiling with SeeLee following close behind.

Just then, a fairy came through a higher tree branch door. MarJoReAn made eye contact with the fairy and nodded her head. The fairy nodded back, as if he had received a thought mail. The fairy reopened the door and shouted to those on the other side. He then flew quickly to a tunnel opening where SeeLee and her mother had just landed. Almost immediately, a dozen archer fairies soared through the door and flew single file straight into the tunnel. SeeLee's brother was one of them.

“Come on!” Clayton commanded as he headed quickly for the tunnel. His friends followed, while the furniture makers in the room continued their activities as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. This gave Clayton some hope that nothing out of the ordinary
was
actually going on, and he was just an older brother worrying too much. But this strange behavior made the other fairies' actions more puzzling.

When Clayton finally reached the tunnel, there wasn't a fairy in sight. Tunnels stretched every which way, and Clayton felt lost. How would he find them? With growing alarm, he wished they had left some sign of their passing—hopefully, footprints.

With growing alarm, Getch recognized his own footprints in the dust. After quickly running up the crude steps, he stopped. How could he have been so careless? Even now, someone could be following his marks from the beginning. In a panic, he crouched to smooth his tracks as he slowly walked backward up the tunnel. Much of the floor was made of hardwood where there was no dust to leave tracks. As he scrambled, he froze. Voices. He could hear voices echoing in the tunnel. He tried to cover all evidence of his presence, but as fairy voices closed in, it became more difficult. He scrambled faster, and the fairy voices grew closer. Finally, he felt solid wood underneath. He picked up speed before the fairy trackers came into sight around the curving tunnel wall.

The creature was relieved to find the adjoining tunnel to be mostly dust free, and he could gain time speeding through as he raced to safety. He was even more relieved when he reached the dark side room concealing his tree root. The tunnel there was hardwood, so his initial tracks couldn't be traced.

Back at the root, as Getch opened the hidden door, he heard fairy voices again. If he went back down his root tunnel now, he would be a hero to his kind. With news of an escape route, plenty of water, and an opportunity to take revenge on the fairies, he, the Mighty Getch, would become the best known of all the grimlings.

But if he could bring back captured fairies, he would surely become a tribal leader. He might even be named Overlord of all the different creatures! Getch fantasized about leading the grimlings to the surface and in a battle the fairies would never forget. If there were any fairies left. Then they would kill all the humans, too.

With his heart pounding and hair standing on end, Getch readied himself to spring on the unsuspecting fairies. He planned to shove them into the wall, pound them into unconsciousness, and drag his captured to the prison caves as a conquering hero. Just as the voices were upon him and he was about to strike, Getch was startled by a deep, commanding voice.

Startled by a deep voice, Penny stopped talking as she and Kast passed another small, dark, empty room positioned off the tunnel.

“Kast!” was all the voice said.

“ArEnTa!” Kast cried excitedly and ran to her brother. He was standing in front of a bevy of archers with a stern look clouding his face.

“Where have you been? Mother has been looking for you,” ArEnTa scolded, trying to be stern, but his face collapsed into a fractured smile as Kast made the short leap into his strong arms.

“I was showing Penny the lake,” Kast explained proudly and pointed down the tunnel.

“That's nice, but it really would have been better if you told Mother before you took off,” he reminded her.

“I was just showing Penny my room, and then she wanted to see the lake.”

“Again, next time you better tell Mother where you are going,” was ArEnTa's gentle reprimand. SeeLee and MarJoReAn wandered into view as the archers parted to let them pass.

“There you are, my little wildflower,” MarJoReAn crooned as her face radiated happiness and love. Turning to those behind her, she said, “I no longer sense a presence.” The archers, however, filed past her and continued down the tunnel.

“It's time for Penny to go home now. Her brother is looking for her,” MarJoReAn said. Clayton and the others soon appeared and joined the fairy group, relief replacing the worried look on Clayton's face.

“There you are! It's late and we have to go. I was very worried when I couldn't find you,” he said with a big-brotherly, stern stare.

“You were busy exploring the furniture, and I was just going to see where Kast lived. Then she showed me more of the tree. But I should have told you, and I will from now on. I'm sorry. Did you know there's a lake at the bottom of the tree?” Penny asked, quickly changing the subject.

“It's as big as Marsh Lake, and there's an island in the middle of it with a village where the Old Ones live.” Penny went on and on as everyone trekked back up the tunnel. At one dark part of the tunnel, Penny was cautioned to be quiet so some creature could continue to nap. After that interruption, she continued talking about the beautiful home SeeLee's family lived in. Just as she seemed to run out of words, they walked through a tunnel that opened to a waterfall.

They were back at the chamber where they had first parted from SanDroMonEnLor. He rejoined them briefly on their trip back up through the tunnels but left again when summoned by another worried-looking fairy.