Alight

  From outside, I hear the horn again. Then, an answering call from the other direction—so close they must have been just ahead of us on the trail. Did they see us come in here?

  O’Malley rushes down the rickety stairs, stands in water up to his knees. I descend a few steps, lower the trapdoor slowly, ease it into place, then join him.

  Grunting and chirping outside: the Springers are close.

  I look out the slot made by the missing board. Thin moonlight reveals two long blue feet tied up with strips of cloth. The feet are so close I could reach through and touch them.

  We hear the Springers talking.

  The floor above us creaks. There are at least three of them up there—if they find us, we’re dead.

  O’Malley’s cold, wet hand takes mine. His strong fingers grip me tight. He is calm, resigned to this situation. I admit I didn’t expect this from him. I would have thought he’d panic, or do something stupid to give us away. Instead, his steady presence gives me strength. His eyes tell me something deep and overwhelming: if he has to die, he is glad he gets to spend his final moments with me.

  I loved this boy before he even woke up. I was the first thing he ever saw. Will I also be the last?

  The floor above us creaks again, the sound of a Springer hopping from one spot to the next. Then the creaks move closer to the trapdoor.

  The creaks stop.

  We wait.

  I peer out the slot, through the underbrush. No feet, just rain.

  We stand there, still and motionless, for a long time. Any simple noise—a cough, a sneeze, a heavy breath—could mean our death. We listen to the rain come down. We wait.

  I hear the horn blare. Distant, barely audible: the hunters have moved on.

  When the floor creaks again, I start to shake.

  Short hops, each producing a creak, the creaks coming closer to the trapdoor. A straggler? Or is it a squad of them, five or more, hoping to flush us out so they can shoot us dead? If it is only one or two, maybe we have a chance.

  I grip my shovel with both hands. O’Malley draws his knife.

  Maybe we will die, but we won’t go easy.

  The trapdoor slowly opens. Darkness beyond, hints of motion…a Springer. They have found us. If we can’t see them, they can’t see us. I wait, coiled and ready to strike. When the stairs creak, I will thrust the shovel point up at my enemy.

  I can’t breathe, I don’t dare breathe.

  “Hem?”

  That single syllable makes me sag with relief.

  Barkah has come for us.

  Soaked and freezing, I climb the stairs.

  Barkah hops back, giving me room.

  He is not alone.

  He stands with three Springers, all with lush, young, purple skin like his. I instantly recognize Lahfah, by both his face and the wooden splint on his leg. His face contorts in what I can only think of as an alien sneeze, and he lets out that broken-glass laughter.

  “Hem!” he says.

  The other two are wide-eyed, two-fingered hands fidgeting on their muskets. Are they afraid? Do I horrify them? When O’Malley climbs the stairs and stands next to me, the two guns snap up. Hammers lock, barrels point at us.

  “Don’t move,” he says quietly.

  “Wow, Kevin, thanks for that brilliant advice.”

  This isn’t the time for sarcasm, but does he think he’s the only person on this planet with common sense?

  Lahfah hops between us and the guns, a fast movement that obviously causes pain in his broken leg. He yells at the new ones—that’s the only word to describe the awful noise he makes. The two new ones yell back.

  Barkah lets out a single, sharp shout. The yelling stops. The two new Springers lower their muskets. There is no question as to who is in charge here.

  “I see it, but I can barely believe it,” O’Malley says. “I mean, I know you told us about them, but…well, they aren’t human.”

  I’ve never seen O’Malley in awe before. He stares at each Springer in turn. The two new ones stare at us in equal astonishment.

  The rain beats down. The leaking roof creates the same quivering mud puddles I saw last time. The waist-high statues gleam wetly.

  Barkah hops to me, reaches out slowly. I see the fingers of O’Malley’s hand twitching, drifting toward the jeweled hilt of his knife.

  “No,” I say, calmly but firmly. “Pull that and we’re dead.”

  O’Malley forces his hand still.

  Barkah touches my sternum. He looks at his friends.

  “Hem,” he says.

  Then Barkah’s finger slowly moves toward O’Malley. O’Malley stiffens, as if he’s about to run back down the stairs.

  “Don’t you move,” I say, forcing a smile. Then I wonder if smiles might be horrifying to them, with all those bare teeth and our squinty eyes.

  O’Malley forces a smile of his own. “What if they have diseases?”

  “Then you and I will be sick together. Stay still.”

  Barkah’s fingertip touches O’Malley’s sternum. Barkah looks at me, waits.

  “Ohh, Malley,” I say, sounding it out. “His name is O’Malley.”

  Barkah starts to talk, stops. His frog lips wiggle as he imagines how to make the sounds.

  “Ohhh-malah,” he says.

  I laugh at the simple mispronunciation. I say the name slower, sounding it out, “Oh…mal…eee.”

  Barkah concentrates. “Ohhh…mah…lah?”

  O’Malley looks at me, astonished. An alien just said his name—or at least tried to—and just like that, Barkah isn’t quite as alien as he was a few moments ago.

  “Oh-mah-lah,” O’Malley says. He laughs with delight and relief. “Good enough for me.”

  A word pops into my head. I reach out and touch O’Malley’s sternum.

  “Kevin,” I say.

  Barkah thinks on it a moment, then says, “Kevin.”

  O’Malley’s face lights up. “That’s perfect!”

  “Kevin,” Lahfah says.

  “Kevin,” the other two Springers say in unison.

  I shake my head in amazement. “Of course, your name is the one they can pronounce correctly.”

  Lahfah pokes one of the new Springers in the chest.

  “Tohdohbak,” Lahfah says.

  I repeat the name as carefully as I can. So does O’Malley.

  Lahfah points to the next one: its name is Rekis. Rekis seems pleased when O’Malley and I pronounce that name correctly. The delighted Springer hops from foot to foot.

  The moment is surreal—we are introducing ourselves to aliens, who are probably teenagers just like us. We are laughing, together. This is simple, natural. Why was there ever a need for violence, war and death?

  If these Springers are with Barkah and not with the army, maybe they aren’t soldiers. Are they too young to serve? I have no way of knowing. Whatever their role, I don’t have time to worry about it—there is a war to stop.

  How do I communicate that to Barkah?

  I pantomime drawing on my open palm, point to Barkah’s bag. He understands immediately, hands me a swatch of fabric and a stick of charcoal. I lay the fabric flat on a dry bit of floor. I point to Barkah, make a single mark. I point to Lahfah, make another. Then a mark each for the other two Springers.

  I look up at Barkah, waiting to make sure he understands.

  Lahfah does first. “Kayat,” he says, pointing to himself, then he points at Barkah—“jeg”—then at the other two Springers—“nar, bodek.”

  “He’s counting,” O’Malley says. “Their words for one through four.”

  Simple math, simple drawings. They understand.

  I need to tell him I saw the Springer army. I point in the general direction of Uchmal. I start making marks as fast as I can: parallel, short, leaving enough space so I can make ten, twenty, thirty, forty.

  I point to the marks. I point to Barkah’s musket. I point to my head.

  “Bang,” I say. I slump down and play dead.

/>   The two new Springers jump away, babbling to each other.

  Barkah quickly silences them.

  He pulls a roll from his bag, flips it open—it’s a map of Uchmal. Rough, but I can spot the river, the waterfall, the big main roads, the mostly round city wall. The mountains to the west, the lake to the north, that crescent-shaped clearing to the northeast. It’s everything I could see from the top of the Observatory—I wonder if that’s where he was when he drew it.

  Barkah lays the map on the floor, then chirps a command. Rekis and Tohdohbak scramble to the dirt and rubble. Each of them brings back a handful of small rocks.

  Barkah takes a rock, holds it between his finger and thumb. He moves it through the air, makes a strange noise with his mouth—like a little boy’s impression of a rocket engine.

  He sets that rock on the map, looks at us.

  “The shuttle,” O’Malley says. “That’s where the landing pad is. They know exactly where we are.”

  Have they known all along? I think of Aramovsky saying how the Springers could come attack us whenever they like.

  Barkah taps my cluster of marks, then he places three rocks outside the city walls, at the edge of the crescent-shaped clearing. He reaches into his bag again, pulls out three small, wooden spiders. He sets them on the other side of the clearing. He looks at me, waits.

  “That must be where the Springers want to fight,” I say.

  O’Malley leans in. “Three spiders. But the Springers got Coyotl’s spider, didn’t they? Shouldn’t there only be two?”

  “Maybe Barkah doesn’t know we don’t have it anymore. He’s not marching with that army, so maybe he’s not part of it?”

  The prince pushes the three rocks representing the Springer forces into the middle of the clearing. He pushes the three spiders out to meet them.

  He pulls out more wooden toys, the ones with the wheels. He sets them on the map, in the jungle behind the clearing, on the Springer side of the battle lines. Then, he starts placing rocks with the carts. Dozens of rocks. He places more on the sides, and even more in the jungle behind the spiders.

  “A trap,” I say. “They’re only going to show a few of their troops, lure the spiders out into the open. They’ll have our people surrounded from all sides. They’ll destroy us.”

  How long have the spiders been slaughtering Springers? How long have the Springers cowered underground, waiting for a chance to fight? And along we come, mastering the spiders, getting them to march to our command. Maybe this is the moment Barkah’s people have been waiting for, a chance to put all the spiders in one place so they can battle it out once and for all.

  I don’t know how they will lure Aramovsky to that clearing, but I don’t think it will take much. Even if Bishop recognizes the trap, will anyone listen to him? Aramovsky has total control. He has already said he wants to march to the jungle and bring the war to the Springers—he’s going to get my people slaughtered in the process.

  Barkah makes one final drawing: a few lines, a half-circle, and it’s done—a ziggurat with the sun rising behind it.

  “Daybreak,” O’Malley says. “They’re going to spring the trap at dawn.”

  “How do we stop it?”

  O’Malley doesn’t answer.

  I take Barkah’s hand. He pulls back at first, surprised, but maybe the look on my face lets him know I mean no harm. His skin is warm, his grip strong.

  “We have to stop this battle,” I say. “You are royalty, or whatever—you have to get them to stop.”

  O’Malley’s eyebrows rise. “Royalty?”

  “Something like that,” I say. “The one we think is the leader, he has the same necklace Barkah has. They are the only Springers we’ve seen with that kind of decoration.”

  That inexpressive, stone-faced look washes over O’Malley’s face.

  “To stop the battle, we need a unified front,” he says. “You ask our people for peace, Barkah asks his.”

  “But Aramovsky won the vote. You were there, he’s not going to listen to me. And we don’t know if Barkah’s father—or mother, or whatever—will listen to him.”

  O’Malley reaches down to the map, moves the spiders back to the edge, then does the same with the rocks representing the Springers. The two sides are once again poised for battle. He walks to where the floor is dirt, looking for something particular.

  “The Springers hate us because of what the Grownups did, what the spiders do,” O’Malley says. He bends, picks something up. “Many of our people hate the Springers because of Visca’s death and Aramovsky fanning the flames.”

  He picks up another bit I can’t see. He walks back to the map.

  “Those are key reasons, but mostly, I think the sides hate each other because we’re so different,” he says. “Different is scary. What we need is a gesture that shows we’re not so different after all. A gesture that sends a clear message—no one has to die, we can talk to each other.”

  He has two bits in his palm: a ground-up piece of green glass, and what might have once been a small coin.

  O’Malley gestures at Barkah with the coin. “This is you.” He then gestures to me with the piece of glass. “And this is you.”

  He places coin and glass next to each other in the center of the clearing, right between the two opposing armies.

  “The two of you, together,” he says. “Show both armies it’s possible for us to get along. If our people want to fight, they have to go through you, Em. If Barkah’s people want to fight, they have to go through him.”

  I imagine the lines of Springers with their muskets and knives and axes. O’Malley is asking me to stand in the middle of that clearing, face them down as they rush forward, eager to kill us and take their planet back.

  I look at Barkah. He’s staring at the map. I wonder if he’s imagining being next to me in that clearing, staring at mechanical monsters pounding toward him, the same machines that killed his sibling, that drove people underground.

  Will he be brave enough to stand there?

  Will I?

  Do we even have a choice?

  The sun will rise in a few hours. I could go back to the shuttle, but I already tried talking my people out of war—I failed. Aramovsky is just too powerful. And I get the strong feeling that if Barkah could have stopped this on his own, he already would have.

  O’Malley slowly reaches for his belt. I see Rekis and Tohdohbak stiffen, but O’Malley doesn’t draw the knife—he removes the entire sheath, blade still inside. He sets it in front of Barkah. O’Malley raises both hands, palms up, takes a step back.

  “Peace,” he says. “Peace.”

  It is an impossibly simple association: hands empty, a show of not having weapons. The knife is dangerous; O’Malley could have used it to attack, but he makes a point of giving it to the being that could be his enemy, that could use it against him.

  O’Malley is unarmed. Defenseless.

  Barkah stares at the sheathed knife. He pulls the hatchet from his belt, the one he used to hack the long-necked monster to bits. He offers it to O’Malley, handle-first.

  The combined gestures of trust are unmistakable.

  O’Malley takes the hatchet. He bows.

  “Thank you,” he says.

  Barkah, the Springer that might be a prince, picks up O’Malley’s sheathed knife and slides it into his belt. That’s not what O’Malley intended, I don’t think, but maybe an exchange of weapons means something to the Springers.

  Barkah picks up the piece of glass and the coin. He makes a fist around them, turns his body to face me square. There is something ritualistic about the motion, like he wants to make sure I understand how serious he is.

  “Peace,” he says. “Hem, peace.”

  Lahfah lets out a singing sound that makes me jump. Barkah and the other two Springers join in. I look to O’Malley. Wide-eyed, he shrugs.

  The singing stops. Each of the Springers reaches into its bag and comes out with different kinds of food: a long vegetable that l
ooks like a white carrot; a handful of berries in a pocket of cloth; a chunk of dried meat; and something that makes me think back to the warehouse and Farrar’s poisoning—alien culture or not, there’s no mistaking the round, bumpy form of a homemade cookie.

  I’d pushed my hunger down, forced it to hide away, somehow. Now it rears its head, undeniable and overwhelming.

  The Springers tear their bits of food in half, offer the halves to us. I wind up with dried meat and half a cookie; O’Malley holds some berries and part of the carrot.

  “This is ceremonial,” he says. “Sharing food, and the singing. It must be part of whatever they think the weapon exchange means.”

  I sniff the cookie. The scent sends my hunger soaring.

  “Not eating might insult them,” O’Malley says. “But we don’t know if this stuff is poisonous.”

  I sniff the cookie again, smell a trace of that purple fruit.

  “Only one way to find out,” I say.

  I pop the cookie into my mouth. Why not start with dessert? Sure enough, it is sweet—crumbly and chewy at the same time. There is a funny taste to it, but overall it’s delicious. Maybe anything would be delicious after two days without eating.

  “Oh well,” O’Malley says. “If they can’t give us safe food, we’re going to starve anyway.”

  He takes a big bite of the carrot. He chews once, twice, then his eyes close in pleasure.

  “So good,” he says. “Actual, real food.”

  I bite into the meat. It’s so spicy it burns my tongue a little, but I don’t care. I eat it all.

  The Springers eat, too, big mouths taking surprisingly dainty bites. They are giving O’Malley and me funny looks. Maybe the way we eat is disgusting to them. I glance at O’Malley—he’s smiling, chewing with his mouth open. Berry juice dribbles down his chin.

  Well, he’s disgusting, anyway.

  I think about Farrar’s horrible experience. If this food does to me what that food did to him, it won’t take long. I close my eyes, wait for the choking to begin.

  It doesn’t.

  The only bad thing that happens is my stomach grumbles even louder.

  It worked. We can eat their food. If we can figure out where to get the purple fruit, how to use it, the whole reason for Aramovsky’s war will vanish.