The Moon Dwellers (37 page)

I can
hear Cole and Tawni whispering, making quick decisions about which si
de tunnel to take next.
They a
re taking the most convoluted route
possible
, almost trying to get us lost in an
effort to lose Rivet, who will
surely be pursuing us again soon, if not already.
But with ea
ch twist and turn, they recite
the full list o
f the directional changes we have
made so far
out loud
, trying desperately to rem
ember the way back out.
I try
to memor
ize what they are saying, as a backup, but ge
t co
nfused halfway through.
I’m still not thinking clearly, am
still a bit of a mess.

But listening to the sounds of their voices also helps
.

Eventually I ge
t control of my b
ody
and am
able to save Cole a lot of effort by walking
on my own again.
When I do, Elsey appears
by my side, illuminated by a
flashlight
she is carrying.
I notice that I have one as well—we all do.
Funny how I ca
n’t remember them being turned on or
even
someone giving one to me.
We fall
back from the others right away.

“Adele,” she says
, her violet eyes radiating compassion.
“Are you okay?”

I pu
t my arm around her as we walk.
What can
I say to her?
Actually, Elsey, I’m a complete wreck because
a guy I have a massive crush on
, a guy I’ve never met, a guy whose father abducted our parents, is dead, all because of me.

Instead, I say
, “I’m okay now, Elsey, sorry to scare you like that.”

“I wasn’t scared,” she says
.
The matt
er-of-fact way in which she says it mak
e
s
me be
lieve her.
Perhaps my sister i
s ma
de
o
f a tougher substance than I am.
Or maybe she i
s just too young to unders
tand the true horror of what has just happened, i
s just happy to have her big sister back.

“You’re very brave,” I say
.

“What happened back there?
Who was the guy that saved us?
He knew your name, Adele.
”

My face tightens and I try
to
get control of my emotions—take
a deep breath.
“It was no one,” I say
.

“Tell me,” Elsey says
.
“I’m not a child anymore.”

There i
s so much truth in her eyes
that
I kno
w
she i
s right.
Although she’
d
only been at the
orphanage for six months, she’
s
chang
ed, matured.
Ten years might’
ve passed in her mind.
I ca
n’t always protect her anymore.

I decide
on
the
truth.
“This might sound impossible…in fact, I’m not sur
e I believe it myself…I might’
ve been seeing things…I was probably mistaken, but—”

“Adele, p
lease, just tell me,” Elsey says
, interrupting my ramblings.

I ta
k
e another deep breath.
Why i
s this so hard?
Just say it.
Say it.
Say it!
“I think it was Tristan
Nailin,” I blurt
out, feeling dread wash over me,
as if
by speaking his name I have
cemented his fate.

I expect
Elsey to giggle, to look at me with knowing eyes, to say
Sure it was, Adele, I believe you
, using the
sarcasm that I taught her
.
She surpri
ses
me by saying, “I thought so.”

“You what?” I say
, unable to hide my surprise.

“H
e looked like Tristan,” she says
with a slight nod of her head.
“I mean, not as good looking as in the magazines, but…”

“I though
t he looked even better,” I say
defensively.

Elsey eyes
me curiously.
“Since when did you think
Tristan was handsome?” she says
, sounding more grown up than ever.

“Since, since…oh, I don’t know.”

Elsey smirks
a
t me.
“You can tell me the whole story
later
.”

It dawns on me.
Why was Elsey so easily convinced that it was Tristan?
She does
n’t seem to f
ind it strange at all that he
appeared out of nowhere
in a remote part of the Moon Realm.
“Elsey….why’d you think it was Tristan?
Was it just because he looked like him?”

Now she giggles
, finally sounding her own age.
“Because of the news, of course.”

My heart flutters and I know she i
s about to tell me something important, so I stop
and call
to Cole and Tawni
, who co
me jogging back, their eyebrows V’d in con
cern.
“What’s wrong?” Cole says
.

I motion
to Elsey to speak.
“Tell them what you were
about to tell me,” I instruct
.

Elsey’s eyes widen
.
“You mean, you don’t
know
?” she says
incredulously.

“We’ve
been kind of
…
busy
,” I say
.

“Right,” she says
, changing her tone to that of a lecturer.
“Well, all the kids gathered in the big room to watch the telebox this morning, like w
e always do.
This kid we call
Wiz suggested we watch the news, like he always does.
He always gets voted down and we watch something else, but this morning he put it on before anyone could say anything.
You guys were all on the screen.”
She waves her hand across us.

“We saw that,” I say, hoping that i
sn’t her big news.

She changes
course,
her voice softening as she says
, “I just knew you would come for me, Adele.”
Fin
ally, she fully sounds
like a little girl again
, the little sister I remember, before life’s challenges
forced her to grow up before anyone should have to.

I put an arm around her.
“I’ll always come for you.
Now, wha
t else did you hear on the news?
”

Elsey’s eyes light
up.
“That Tristan ra
n away from home!” she exclaims
.

“What?
He…
ran away
?”
I look
at
Tawni and Cole, who a
re staring at me.

“Yep.
And apparently he was headed for the Moon Realm, subchapter six I think they said.”

“That’s only a sing
le train ride from here,” I say
, finally connecting the dots.

“He was
coming to find you,” Tawni says
.

Cole sha
k
es
his head.
“C’mon, seriously.
These
strange
feelings and all that rubbish again, really?
Coincidence I reckon.
If he really was trying to get away for a while, he probably just picked a place where no one would think to look for him.”

Elsey touches
my arm.
“Why would Tristan have bee
n coming to find you?” she asks
.

I tell her everything.
Cole stalks off and pretends
not to li
sten, but Tawni stays
by me
, even ho
ld
s
my hand for part of it.

Elsey is ecstatic when I finish
.
“He
did
come for you,” she says
positiv
ely.
Under her breath, she says
, “No matter what that other guy says.”

It is then that I realize we have
n’t had time for
introductions.
“Elsey,” I say
.
“Thi
s is Tawni.
My friend,” I add
.

“It’s very nice
to meet you, Elsey,” Tawni says
.
“Adele’s told us so many nice things about you.”

At that, Elsey beams
.

“Cole,” I say
, a bit louder to get his attention, “come meet Elsey.”

He saunters
over, his dark skin glowing a strange orange
color under the
illumination of the flash
light
s
.
“
Hi, Elsey,” he says
.
“I’m Cole.”

My sis sti
ck
s out her hand and sha
k
es
Cole’s big paw.
“Tristan
was
looking for my sister,” she s
ays
definitively.

“Oh, great.
Now it’s
three
against one,” Cole says, grinning.
At least he does
n’t seem frustrated anymore.
“We’d better keep moving.
I think we’ve probably done a good enough job of losing ourselves in here, but they’ll keep searching until they find us.”

We walk for hours.
Time seems
to stand still inside
the caverns.
Cole and Tawni gi
ve up on tryi
ng to remember which route we’
ve taken.
I think they realize that we a
ren’t going to be going out the way we came
in
anyway.

The caverns a
re ominous and scary, and yet beautiful at the
same time.
Around every bend i
s another stalactite or stalagmite, some impossibly big, some carved by nature into complex patterns, more intricate than a master carver could ever hope to emulat
e on a museum statue.
We pass
under g
iant stone archways, and cross
natural rock b
ridges, some so thin that we have
to crawl across on our stomachs, tryin
g not to look down at the never
-
ending drops
into darkness on either side
.

Much of the t
ime we a
re able to walk upright, the jagged ceiling rising well above us.
But at other times
we a
re forced to stoop, or even c
rawl.

I am
be
at, so I kno
w Elsey must
be tired, too.
At first she keeps
up a constant chatter,
talking
about anyt
hing and everything.
She talks
about
her time in the orphanage, asks
a million qu
estions about the Pen, and tries
to get
us all to agree
that
we a
re on a fantastic adventure.
Eventually
,
she
ceas
es
tal
king completely
,
though, so I know she is getting tired.
We need to stop, but none of us seem
s
to want to mak
e the call.
I think we all feel that every additional footstep gi
ve
s
us a greater chance of survival.

Cole, who is leading, finally stops and si
t
s
on a fl
at stone rock that looks like someone has
p
ut
there as a bench.
He says
, “I think we’ve gone far enough.
It must be the middle of the night.
Even Rivet will have to stop for sleep.”

We a
re all too tired to disagree.
Or even to eat.
Instead
,
we go
straight to bed, four ducks in a row, pressed up close to each other for warmth.
Cole and then Tawni a
nd then Elsey and then
me.

“He’s not
dead, you know,” Elsey whispers
.

“Who?”
I say, although I kno
w the answer.

“Tristan.”

“Oh.”

“If you’re really meant to be together, then he couldn’t have died.
He might be captured, tortured even, but s
omehow he’ll find you.”
I can’t tell if her words a
re wise beyond her years, or simply the vivid imagination of an inno
cent child.
Either way, they comfort me
.

“G’night, Elsey,” I say

“Love you, Adele.”

“Love you, too.”

Although I’m sure it is hours later, it feels like I start
dr
eaming the second my eyes close.
It i
sn’t of Tr
istan this time, for which I am strangely relieved.
It’s like I know that if I dream of
him
I will
only
see death.
Thankfully, my mind gi
ve
s
me a reprieve from such pain
.
Of course, the alternative i
sn’t much better.

I dream
of
war.
The star dweller army i
s destroying all of the Moon Realm, running rampant across t
he subchapters.
It’s like I am
on the outside of a looking glass, watching the horror unfold before my
eyes.
For some reason I’m not angry at them.
I kno
w they
a
re just frustrated at being the scum of the earth, treated like rats by the sun dwellers.
Used, abused, stepped on.

The sun dweller army i
s coming, their legions of t
roops marching forward
, their armor polished and gleaming
.
I can
see
them
, but the star dwellers can’t.
I scream, try to warn them, but no one can
hear me
through the mirror
.
No o
ne except Rivet, that is, who i
s leading the
sun dweller
army.
His black eyes look
right at me, cha
llenging me to come down.
I don’t want to, but know I have
to.

I swi
m through the mirror, pushing it to th
e side and behind me, like it’
s made of a strange
viscous liquid.
Gravity grabs me and pulls me to the ground.
Rivet smiles as he tightens
his bow
string
.
He sho
o
t
s
me through the heart.

You know how they say you
can’t die in your dreams?
I do
.
The pain i
s so intense, so
real
, that
I cry
out in my sleep.
But still I do
n’t wake up,
clinging
to life
in my dream
by reaching for a sky
I have never seen, as life ebbs
from
my broken body.
I die to
night.

When I do wake, I am
surprised to find myself
very much
alive with three familiar faces hovering anxiously over me.
“We’re here, Adele,” Tawni coos
.
“It was just a dream.”

“So real,” I murmur
.
“I died.”

Elsey’s face is clouded
with concer
n.
“You’ll never die,” she says
.

“You got that right,” I say
, trying to put on a strong fa
ce for my sister although I feel
weak from the nightmare.

“We need to eat something
and then keep moving,” Cole says
.
Fo
r all the emotion that Cole
displayed when we
were at Tawni’s house, he seems
equally emotion-free now.
Rigid, soldier-like.
It doesn’t bother me.

We eat
quickly, swallowing the tasteless c
anned beans in gulps, like it i
s a race.

Because of Tawni’s watc
h, we kno
w we’
ve
only
slept four hours and that it’
s still early
in the morning.
Cole suspects that Rivet and his men have slept even less, so we need
to keep moving.
When we start out, I am
already dreading the day’s hike.
My ribs are sore and tender, but by gritting my teeth and breathing through them, I can control the pain.

Elsey seems
to have slept better than me, bouncing along beside me and chattering away.
“
I’m so glad to be
out of that orphanage,” she says
.
“Some of the kids were nice, and I’ll miss Ranna for all of eternity, but the rest of it was dreadful.
We all slept in the same room and ate the same porridge every day.
They only let us go outside once a day, and the rest of the time we had to do chores around the place.
Once a month they let us take a bath.
How was the Pen?”

“About the same,” I say
.
“Maybe a bit better, to be honest.”

“Where are we going?”

“To find
M
um and
D
ad.”

“Really?
You think they’re alive?”

“
Tawni
think
s that
D
ad is.
And I bet if he is then
M
om is, too.
”

“Oh
,
sweet joy!
We’ll rescue them, won’t we, Adele?”