Balance Keepers #1: The Fires of Calderon (4 page)

A
t first, no one spoke. Unless you counted the way Farnsworth was greeting the newcomers. He ran circles around them, yipping at the top of his little dog lungs.

“Hey, little buddy,” the girl said, though she didn’t reach down and pet Farnsworth. Instead she looked up at Albert as if he was Farnsworth’s owner. “Your dog is excited.”

The girl had the wildest, curliest blond ponytail Albert had ever seen, complete with pink streaks. She was wearing jean shorts, a purple T-shirt that said
Falcon Swimming Team
, tall black socks over her skinny legs, and a pair of hiking boots covered in mud.

“Oh, he’s not my dog,” Albert stammered. “He sort of led me in here, I guess. But he’s not mine.”

The Path Hider raised an eyebrow, but he didn’t speak.

“Whatever you say, Freckles,” the girl said.

Albert started to say his name, but the boy who had arrived with the girl asked a question.

“Hey, so, uh . . . where the heck are we anyway? I’ve never seen this part of Texas in my life. Must have taken a serious wrong turn on that cow trail.”

The boy was a foot taller than Albert, long and thin like a tree branch. He had small almond-shaped eyes behind black-rimmed glasses. A mess of dark hair stuck out from beneath a red baseball hat.

Both the boy and girl stared at Albert like he was supposed to answer their questions.

“There’s no time to sit and stare like Hoppers in the moonlight,” the Path Hider said, and again, Albert noted that he had no idea what the man was talking about. “I need to get you three on your way, and fast.”

“Could you maybe explain what’s going on first?” Albert asked. “That kid says he was in Texas a minute ago, but I was walking down a trail in Wyoming, so it seems like this whole situation just got a lot weirder. And I didn’t think that was possible.”

The tall boy smiled. “I’m with Freckles.”

“It’s, uh . . . Albert,” Albert said. “Albert Flynn.”

“I’m Birdie Howell,” the girl added. “And I was out in the woods beyond my parents’ property. In
Oregon
.”

Birdie didn’t seem all that bothered by the fact that she was in a room under the earth, filled with pipes and steam and a bunch of people she’d never met before in her life. In fact, she seemed excited, bobbing back and forth on her feet like she couldn’t wait to explore.

The tall boy looked unsure, but he smiled again, and held a large hand out to Albert. “Leroy Jones,” he said. Albert shook his hand in what he hoped was a reassuring way.

All three of them—Albert, Birdie, and Leroy—stared at the Path Hider as he took his helmet off, revealing a shock of coppery-orange hair.

“It’s not my place to do the explaining,” he sighed. “And it’s too late for turning back. I’m afraid you’ll have to keep going.”

The Path Hider looked down at the dog. “Farnsworth, you know what to do.”

Farnsworth barked, his tail thumping over Albert’s ankles, then took off running across the steam-filled room.

“Go on, then.” The Path Hider poked Albert with a long, spidery finger. “Follow the leader. He knows the way.”

The Path Hider pointed across the room, past the old couch. Albert saw the wide mouth of a tunnel—something he hadn’t noticed before through all the steam.

“I’m not so sure about this,” Leroy said. He glanced nervously back and forth between Birdie and Albert.

Birdie bobbed on her toes. “That’s what makes it so exciting!”

Albert, feeding off of Birdie’s energy, found that he wasn’t afraid anymore either. He was determined to get to the bottom of whatever was going on. He’d also been wishing for a long time to have a real adventure, and to spend time with kids his own age instead of his younger siblings.

And here it all was.

This was a thousand times better than sorting through dead letters or hopping and blinking across town.

“I tell you what,” Albert said, turning to Leroy. “Birdie and I will go first and see what we’re dealing with, then you can follow. How about that?”

Leroy shrugged. “Works for me.”

“I’m game,” Birdie said, fiddling with her ponytail. “We’ve come this far down the rabbit hole. Might as well see what’s down there. Maybe it’s treasure, like we won the lotto!”

“Or a three-headed monster,” Leroy said, adjusting his baseball cap on his head. “But I guess if we’re going to get eaten alive, we might as well do it together.”

“Some advice, if I may?” the Path Hider called out to them as they reached the mouth of the tunnel. “Hold on tight and don’t lean out the windows. And know that you’re not in any danger. Not yet anyway.”

He waved good-bye with his long, bony hand and turned away as they entered the shadows. As soon as Albert, Birdie, and Leroy crossed into the tunnel, there was a whooshing sound, like wind. Flames atop copper torches flickered to life on either side of the tunnel walls. The fire was as blue and bright as the sky had been in Herman that morning, while Albert was hopping across town.

“You guys,” Birdie said. “I think there’s something wrong with these flames.”

Birdie reached closer and closer to one of the flames, then flicked it with a finger. Then she put her whole hand into the dancing light.

“The fire’s
cold
,” she said.

Albert held his hand out to test the blue flames as he walked by. They
were
cold, like he’d just dunked his hand into one of the streams outside of Herman. “That’s
awesome
!”

The sound of Farnsworth barking up ahead echoed off the stone walls.

“I guess we should keep going,” Leroy said. He produced a yo-yo from his pocket and spun it nervously in his palm. “Let’s see where the tunnel leads.”

They walked at a downward sloping angle for a long time, going deeper under the earth with each step. Water dripped from the rock walls, and overhead, the pipes and wires were still crisscrossing the ceiling.

Finally, Farnsworth came into view up ahead, his blue eyes lighting the curved walls with an eerie glow. The tunnel had opened up into a small cavern. Just above Farnsworth was a metal bar, thick as Albert’s thigh, and hanging from the bar was a large metal gondola with open windows. It reminded Albert of a car he’d once seen on a Ferris wheel.

At the sight of the trio, Farnsworth growled playfully and hopped into the gondola. It swung and creaked on its track, dangling back and forth like a pendant on a chain. On closer viewing, the box-shaped contraption was rusted and ancient.

“A gondola that’s about a million years old,” Birdie said, walking up beside Albert.

“No way am I getting on that thing,” Leroy mused.

“Yeah, I dunno, guys,” Albert said.

He didn’t want to admit it, but this time, he thought Farnsworth might have inhaled a little too much pipe steam. Birdie was right. The gondola
did
look like it might crumble under their weight. He thought about what the Path Hider had said, and Albert’s stomach fluttered at the thought of a ride that would require them to
hold on tight.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m tired of standing around,” Birdie piped up. She strode forward and hopped right into the gondola beside Farnsworth without a hint of fear on her face. The gondola groaned and swayed back and forth, but it held strong. “You guys coming?”

Okay,
Albert thought.
Birdie is either totally fearless or completely insane.

Albert settled on the former and took his place on the metal bench beside her. Farnsworth hopped onto Albert’s lap and wagged his little tail. The dog looked back and forth from Albert to Birdie, light from his eyes bathing them both in a deep blue.

“Leroy?” Albert leaned outside the box. Leroy was standing there, arms crossed, staring at the two of them like they’d just taken a large dose of crazy pills.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he said, staring at his toes. He took another long look at the rusted old track the gondola hung from. And then, like Albert and Birdie and Farnsworth before him, Leroy stepped inside.

Leroy hardly had time to put his yo-yo in his pocket and settle down on his seat before Farnsworth barked three times fast. There was a sound of a lever being thrown somewhere far behind them. The gondola began to move. It was slow at first, creaking along the prehistoric track overhead.

“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Albert said, holding on to the rail until his knuckles turned white as snow.

The gondola rolled along the rails, picking up speed, and soon it was plummeting into the darkness. Albert held Farnsworth close as wind whipped through his hair. Both Birdie and Leroy screamed at the top of their lungs.

Albert couldn’t see anything but flashes of blue light from Farnsworth’s eyes. The gondola took violent turns left and right, shooting down steep declines and swinging from side to side. Albert’s stomach threatened to sprout wings and fly right out of his mouth. He clutched Farnsworth so hard he was afraid the dog might explode.

A second later, the gondola suddenly shot upward through a stone cavern, completing a double loop that left everyone gasping for breath. Then, after a final, gut-wrenching turn, the gondola settled down, slowing to a more leisurely pace as it glided farther under the surface of the earth.

Farnsworth stared in Birdie’s direction, bathing her in beams of light. Her ponytail was puffed up like a mass of cotton candy, but she was beaming.

Albert smiled back. “If I’d have known it was going to be like that, I never would have gotten in this thing, but that was actually kind of incredible!”

For the first time, all three of them were laughing. As they caught their breath, they entered a wide space dotted with hundreds of bright blue flames, and gazed up into a stalactite-filled ceiling far overhead.

“Stone fingers!” Leroy yelled, pointing at the long stalactites. “I’ve seen them in books.”

Chunks of glittering diamonds sparkled everywhere, embedded in the walls, and when Albert got brave enough to poke his head out the window and look down, he was pretty sure the darkness went on forever.

“It’s amazing!” Birdie yelled, but just as she said those words, something swooped through the gondola—in one window and out another—right in front of her face. She let out a little shout.

“
Whoa
. Did you guys see that?” Albert asked, spinning in his seat to see where the creature had gone.

“Did something just fly through this gondola?” Leroy asked as the blood drained out of his face. He sank down lower into his seat.

Without warning, the cave filled with black-winged creatures pouring out of holes in the walls. Some were the size of Albert’s fist, some almost as big as his head.

“Bats!” Albert screeched.

He’d seen bats before on television and online, but he’d never been in the same space with even one, let alone thousands of them. As the bats flew around in the open air, dipping and diving, Albert’s heart hammered in his chest. He felt something land on his shoulder, but didn’t have the courage to turn his head and see what it was.

“Uh, Albert?” Leroy said. “Something furry just landed on you.”

It was like Leroy’s saying it made it real. Albert jumped up and started flailing around. “Get it off!” he yelled.

Leroy assumed a karate pose for a kung-fu kick while Birdie tried to get a closer look.

Albert calmed down a bit knowing these new friends had his back.
Just bats, Albert. Just bats. It’s not like Dracula’s coming to eat you . . . hopefully.

“Can you hear them?” Birdie asked.

Albert took another deep breath and listened. The bats were
singing
. It wasn’t a language Albert knew, but it was almost like the bats had human voices, high-pitched and strange.

Farnsworth barked and the singing bat on Albert’s shoulder finally flew away, out into the swarm that grew thicker as they went.

Leroy sat back down and turned the brim on his red baseball cap forward again. “I was about to put a move on that thing, big-time.”

“
Sure
you were.” Birdie giggled, and Leroy’s face went red as a cherry.

The bats followed the gondola through the cave, singing their strange song and flapping their furry wings. Albert felt like he was in a trance, unable to move or blink. After a while, Farnsworth’s head drooped on Albert’s lap and the lights in the dog’s eyes went out. They traveled down the track and through the swarm for a time, adrift in a sea of blue flames.

The bats didn’t follow when the gondola unexpectedly sped up, and as Farnsworth raised his head and his lights went back on, all three kids felt as though they’d awoken from a dream.

“Never trust a swarm of singing bats. Especially furry ones,” Leroy said. “What just happened?”

They rounded a corner into colorful light that made Albert shrink back and shield his eyes.

“Documents, please, ladies and gentlemen,” a woman’s voice said.

Albert blinked his eyes a few times, letting the lights settle in. The gondola had stopped at some sort of suspended platform. On it sat an uneven metal booth that looked like it could only be held aloft by magic. The sides were made of thin sheets of copper, buckling at random places, and the countertop looked like it was made from the hood of an old car. Behind the platform there were barrels stuck to the walls, as if they were simply floating, full to the brim with lumpy things Albert couldn’t quite make out.

A short, stocky woman stood behind the counter. Albert was shocked to see a black snake slithering around her shoulders and neck.

“Documents, please,” the woman said again, more impatiently this time. Albert and Birdie stared back at her, unblinking. Leroy dug in his pocket and held out a yo-yo.

“Oh, for Calderon’s sake,” the woman said. Her snake hissed in a most unfriendly way. “I’d know a fresh set of Keepers anywhere. It’s the moon eyes, like you’ve seen a ghost!”

“We didn’t see any ghosts,” Birdie piped up from her seat. “But we did see some crazy bats that sang to us back there.”

The woman smiled and sat heavily on a metal stool that groaned, as if it was about to crumble beneath her weight.