He hesitated. “Don’t know, never asked them.”
Ali had a sudden inspiration. “Is it made from gold?”
Paddy stared at her a long time. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
Ali nodded to herself. Leprechauns craved the stardust, and tried to steal it, because it was related to gold, and was just as valuable, if not more so. The fact excited her for reasons she did not understand. And the fact that the fact had come to her, out of the blue, also thrilled her. One thing for sure, the stardust was important, she would have to learn more about it.
“The elementals want to get rid of us because we’re destroying the Earth,” Ali said carefully. “If they succeed—if there is a war and they win—what will they do next? Will they stay in our dimension?”
“Paddy not sure, thinks so. The elves want to turn the world into a forest. The dwarves have an eye on your cities. All that concrete and asphalt excites them—makes their beards grow faster. If you ask Paddy, those two will be fighting over your world in no time.”
“How would the leprechauns feel about that?” Karl asked.
“No one cares how leprechauns feel. Whatever happens, happens. We go about our business, keep to ourselves.”
“How about the trolls?” Ali asked. “Are they friendly with elves? Dwarves?”
“Trolls have no friends. Feed them and tell them what to do and they do it. Don’t feed them and they eat you. Trolls are as dumb as rocks.”
“Do they turn into stone in the sun?” Ali asked.
“Don’t like it, for sure. Their skin gets hard.”
“But they have to be in direct sunlight?” Ali asked.
“Aye.”
“What do they hope to win in this war?” Ali asked.
“Trolls do not hope. They eat, they sleep.” Paddy added in a softer voice, “Eat boys and girls if they’re available. If Lord Vak allows it, and he has.”
“This Lord Vak sounds like one angry dude,” Steve said.
“Aye. Lord Vak is very powerful,” Paddy said.
It was time to rest. They were exhausted. Barely saying goodnight, Cindy and Steve crawled into their tents and went to sleep. Paddy pulled up a pile of leaves for his back and a rock for his head. Tilting his green hat over his eyes, he also went straight to sleep. Ali was left with Karl to clean up. The moon had finally come up over the eastern ridge. Even without a fire, they could see each other clearly.
“I’ll take the first watch,” Karl said, as he put the nuts and bread back in Cindy and Steve’s backpacks. He had mostly equipment in his own pack: the crampons and ice axes.
“That’s not fair. You’re as tired as I am,” Ali said.
“Sure. But you’re the boss, remember? Besides having to hike, you have all that responsibility. It must wear you out.”
Ali blushed. “I don’t feel like the boss.”
“Someone has to be. It can’t be me.”
“Why do you say that?”
He nodded toward Cindy and Steve. “They’re your friends. They hardly know me. They certainly haven’t accepted me yet.”
“I think you scare them with the pace you set.”
“I just want to get you to the top on time.”
Ali looked in the direction of Pete’s Peak. Standing in the middle of the forest, they could not see the top of the mountain. All day, they had got only glimpses of it. But she continued to feel as if it called to her. One thing was certain, when they left the shelter of the trees, they would be exposed. Whoever or whatever was in the forest would see them.
“Can we make it in time?” she asked.
“It’s going to be tight. Tomorrow, we’ll be hiking deep into the night.”
“Is that safe? At the top with the snow?”
“It’s very dangerous,” Karl admitted. “But the moonlight will help.”
Ali sighed. “There’s another danger. When you went into the gorge with Paddy, I heard trolls behind us. I never saw them but I’m positive they were there.”
“Stalking us?” he asked.
“Looks like it.”
“Have you heard them since?”
“No.”
“How come you didn’t tell me earlier?”
“I wanted to get you alone. I didn’t want to scare the others.”
Karl scanned the woods. With the bright moonlight glistening on every branch and leaf, the forest appeared enchanted, wrapped in a snowy white spell. They could have stumbled into a fairy tale, Ali thought. They had all the necessary characters present: trolls and leprechauns, talking trees and dark fairies. The only problem was that she was never going to live happily ever after. Her mother was dead; she was never going to have another mother.
“Don’t keep secrets from me. I need to know,” Karl said.
“I won’t do it again.”
He paused. “Am I being a jerk?”
“Why do you say that?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea how you see me.”
“I have no idea how you see me.”
He grinned. “You have the power, Missy. I have to like you.”
She smiled, too, but it was a sad smile. “That’s not a reason to like someone.”
He did not reply, just lowered his head. Did he think she was scolding him? She had not meant to. She supposed she still had to learn how to talk to boys, particularly to ones she liked. To escape the uneasy moment, she bid Karl a hasty goodnight and crawled into her tent, wiggling into her sleeping bag. The wash at home had done the bag a world of good; it no longer stunk.
She did not seal the pup tent opening.
The wind continued to blow; she left her coat on. She watched as Karl stepped to the edge of their camp and sat on a boulder, his back to her. In many ways, she thought, he was as important to their adventure as she was. From the start he had taken charge. They would have been lost without him.
Ali closed her eyes, tried to sleep. She was exhausted, yet sleep did not come easily. For some reason, her right arm ached. The skin on the back was tight; it felt on the verge of tearing. Of course it wasn’t just some reason that made it hurt. It always bothered her when she thought about that night.
The night her mother died. Her twelfth birthday.
She remembered so much and so little. She had been driving home at night with her mother, from a play at school. She had been one of the stars in the play, Frogs and Freaks. She had been the main frog, in fact, Princess Wartly. She was not sure where the play had come from, but had heard a student at school from years before had written it.
The story was about a bunch of frogs who ruled the world, and a group of freaky creatures who were trying to steal the toad’s power. Steve was in the play as well—a giant ogre who always needed his back scratched.
After the opening night, on the way home, she chatted excitedly with her mother. Being onstage was a new experience for her. She loved having the warm lights on her face, and thrilled at how the audience followed her every word. Her mother shared her excitement. She promised Ali she would go to every performance.
“You don’t want to do that,” Ali said. “You’ve seen it—you know what’s going to happen next. You’ll get bored.”
Her mother took her eyes off the road, glanced her way. “Nothing you do bores me,” she said.
Ali snorted. “Yeah, sure. What about when I scream at you?”
“When do you scream at me?”
“All the time, in my head. I’m just too polite to do it out loud.”
Her mother reached over and took her hand. “You are more than polite.”
“I’m also a great actress? A better liar?”
Her mother chuckled. “No, I’m talking about something else.”
“What?”
Ali never forgot the change in her mother’s face right then. Their talk was light, frivolous—nothing they were saying really made much sense. They were just goofing off. Yet when her mom looked over at her, it was as if her eyes were suddenly connected to a river that was capable of washing
away the pain of the world. In that instant, it was as if the person who had given birth to her and raised her was more than human.
Her mother reached over and tugged gently on her left ear. “You’re my daughter, Ali. You always will be. And you have magic.”
That was all Ali remembered. Except the flash of red light; it had come from every direction at once. She had never heard of red headlights before.
Then she woke up in the hospital, and her father was sitting beside her and telling her that everything was all right. But his eyes were bloodshot; he looked like he had aged twenty years since she had last seen him. Her head and arm were bandaged. The skin on her arm felt like it was on fire.
“What’s wrong with me?” she mumbled.
“You got a bump on the head and you burned your arm a little,” her father said. “You’re going to be fine.”
“Where’s Mom?”
He blinked, several times. He tried to stop her from seeing his tears. She saw them anyway, and then he didn’t have to answer her question.
Nothing was all right. Nothing was fine.
“She’s dead,” she said, and knew it was true.
Her father told her the story. It was a short story.
There had been an accident. She had been thrown from the car. Her mother had not been so lucky, and the car had caught fire. Her father didn’t say so but it seemed her mother had been burned to ash. When they buried her, three days later, all they had was a vase full of ashes. They put the tiny vase in a big coffin, and watched as it was lowered into the ground. The people at the burial home had sure saved money on the cremation, she thought bitterly.
That was all Ali knew.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mommy,” she whispered as she tossed in her sleeping bag.
Ali awoke with a start. Her voice had startled her. Had she been asleep? Strange, she did not remember passing out. Yet it felt much later.
Ali climbed out of her tent and stood. Karl continued to sit on the boulder, his back to her. His head was down now, though. He might have been asleep.
The moon had risen high in the sky. She must have been asleep for several hours. The woods were bright, it was like daytime. Yet the light could be wiped out in a second by the shifting clouds.
Staring at the sky, Ali saw the clouds as vast kites made of cold mist. She was supposed to have control over the water element. Could she pull their strings? Or were they under the control of another? The clouds seemed to haunt the sky. It was as if they had entered the human dimension from the elemental kingdom. The cold wind blew and she shivered.
Ali realized Paddy was missing. But even as she searched for him, he reappeared. He could have been sleepwalking, or maybe he had just gone to pee. He stumbled back into camp, his eyes half-closed, and plopped down on his pile of leaves. A second later he was snoring peacefully. But he talked to himself as he slept, occasionally mumbling the name Lea, and it made her wonder if he had a girlfriend in the other dimension.
Ali walked over to Karl. He raised his head as she neared, looked at her. “What are you doing up?” he asked in a quiet voice.
“Your turn to sleep. What time is it?”
He checked his watch. “Two-fifteen.”
She sat beside him on the boulder. The moonlight suited him. It took away his tan but made his clear blue eyes gleam all the brighter.
“I don’t even remember falling asleep,” she said.
“You were tossing a lot.”
“You were watching me?”
“I was keeping an eye on the whole gang,” Karl said.
“Did you see Paddy leave and come back just now?”
“I saw him leave. That was a while ago.” Karl glanced over his shoulder. “Did he just come back?”
“Yes.”
“I must have dozed for a few minutes.”
“That’s okay, you’re exhausted. Let me stand guard.”
Karl stood and yawned. “Wake Cindy or Steve before dawn. They have to do their fair share.”
“I will,” she said, although privately she thought it would be better to let her friends rest. She did not feel tired anyway. Her right arm continued to ache, though.
“Wake me if you hear anything. Anything at all.”
“Sure,” she promised.
Karl patted her shoulder. “Goodnight Ali.”
“Goodnight. Sweet dreams.”
Karl crawled into his tent. Ali stood and walked silently around the camp. Better to move, she thought, keep warm. But the jacket Steve had given her was thick and comfortable, and it had a hood. She was glad she had taken the time to fix it. It was not like she could afford a new jacket. She wondered if her father would notice the switch.
Ali thought about her father then—the long lonely roads he traveled to support them both. He could be halfway across the country by now. She wished there was more she could do for him. He was a great man, he had not deserved to suffer so much.
The moon vanished. Just like that, the clouds stole it away, and the forest was plunged into a deep gloom. Again, she felt as if the clouds taunted her. She and her friends were at a mile and a half elevation. The clouds couldn’t have been that much higher. Yet they looked far away, untouchable.
The rain came a few minutes later. For a moment the wind stopped to let it fall. Then the drizzle was grabbed by the breeze, and whipped into her face. More than anything else she wanted to climb back into her tent and try to stay dry.
Ali feared the night, though, now that it was so black. She knew she had to stand guard. She feared the things Nemi had told her, especially about the elementals who stalked the forest, looking for humans. It was still not clear to her why they had suddenly decided to attack after all these years. They hadn’t even tried to talk to humanity about the pollution. People deserved a chance to change their ways.
“Listen to me, I didn’t think so a few days ago,” Ali said to herself. Last week she had wanted to scream at the lumberjacks. Now she just hoped Ted got better.
The rain did not get heavier but it did manage to work its way deeper into her hair and skin. She began to get real cold. One shiver led to another; soon she was trembling like a leaf. Even walking did not help. It was then she decided she had to do something drastic.
Ali did not know how to call on her power. The first time—with the trolls—it had just come. The second time—when she had grabbed Paddy—the same thing had happened. But now she sat on the boulder and willed it to come.
“Now,” she whispered.
It was not long before her call was answered.
A strange heaviness grew in the pit of her stomach. Yet the sensation was not unpleasant. It was almost as if that part of her body got thicker, more dense. She felt a strength there, a power that seemed to tell her without words that it could be moved. But moved where and for what reason?
She had an answer to that question.
“Rise above and form an umbrella over my head,” she said.
Ali felt the energy spread out. There was no magic light, nothing to see or hear, but it was definitely there. She felt as if her body expanded with the power, until she was ten times bigger. Of course she remained the same size, but she had to tell herself that was true. Otherwise, it felt as if she was the invisible umbrella.
More important, the rain stopped falling on her head.
“Cool!” she gushed as she saw how the rain came within fifteen feet of her head before pouring off to the side. The force field—she did not know what else to call it—was dome shaped. She willed it to expand further, to cover her friends, and was delighted to see it obey. The drizzle no longer fell on their tents, nor even on Paddy.
Still, the force field did not feel separate from her. Only then did she realize her power came from inside, not outside. She wished Nemi was with her to see what she was doing.
Then something odd began to happen. At first she wondered if it was connected to the use of her power, but then dismissed the idea. The clouds came lower, swoop
ing in like a bank of fog. That was not so unusual, but when they began to flash with lightning she got worried. Because this lightning was not accompanied with thunder. And it was red.
“Red lightning?” she said aloud. “There’s no such thing.”
A dark figure flew out of the clouds. Ali caught only a glimpse as it swooshed by. Bat shaped, it appeared as tall as she, with wide black wings and a skull-like head. At its center burned a red light. It shook its claws and that red light caught fire. A laser bolt shot past Ali’s head and struck the tree behind her. The bark exploded in flame and a large branch crashed to the ground.
“We’re under attack!” Ali shouted.
The cry was not necessary. The noise of the toppling branch woke everyone. The gang was on its feet in seconds. But they were dazed, they did not understand what was going on. Ali did not know what to tell them.
Three more figures came out of the clouds. They flew just above the trees. The red light at their centers swelled like exploding lightbulbs. More laser bolts flew toward the ground. Ali ducked—all the guys did, including Paddy. But Cindy was too stunned. A bolt caught her on her left shoulder and she went down with a loud cry.
“Cindy!” Ali cried, rushing to her side. Cindy’s shirt was on fire. Quickly, Ali put it out and grabbed Cindy and dragged her behind a tree. The creatures had disappeared for a moment but Ali knew they would be back. “Can you walk?” Ali shouted at Cindy.
Cindy nodded, grimacing in pain as she held her arm. “What are they?” she gasped.
“Do you know?” Ali shouted at Paddy, as he leapt behind the rocks.
“Dark fairies, Missy!” he shouted back, peering into the foggy night.
“What should we do?” Steve asked, reaching for a stick.
“Run!” Paddy said.
“We can’t run! Cindy’s hurt!” Ali called, as she leaned Cindy against a tree. Ten feet to her left, another tree had caught fire. Red smoke poured into the glowing clouds, creating a ghastly soup. “How do we stop them?”
“Use your powers!” Paddy advised.
“Yeah! Use your powers!” Steve agreed.
The creatures came again, six this time, a hideous line of giant bats in the burning night. Not sure exactly what powers she had at her command, Ali stepped from behind the tree and tried to raise the magical umbrella that had protected them so well from the rain. The energy field expanded; she felt it stretch out like an invisible wall before the swooping monsters. Once more, for the third time, she saw them twitch their claws and watched as the red light blossomed at their centers.