Banshee Worm King: Book Five of the Oz Chronicles (14 page)

“Seriously,” I said sharply.

She sighed deeply.
 
“Fine.”
 
She rocked back and forth
on her heels.
 
“I’d stay.”

“Even if staying meant no one else could back home either?”

She scrunched her nose.
 
“You didn’t say no one else could go back.
 
That’s different. I mean I’d
definitely...”
 
She shifted her gaze up
for a few seconds and then back down.
 
“Oh, God, that’s hard to decide.”

“It’s impossible to decide,” I said.

She thought about the question a few more seconds and then
said, “Wait a second, what does this have to do with you and Lou?”
  

I avoided eye contact with her.
 
“Nothing.
 
I’m just talking.”

She snickered.
 
“No
you’re not.
 
Lou can’t go back, can she?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yes you did.”

I bit my bottom lip to keep from screaming at her.
 
“If you tell anyone I said that, April, I
swear I’ll...”

“You’ll what?”

I grabbed her wrist and squeezed.
 
“Please, don’t say anything.”

She pulled her arm free and took a sip of her tea.
 
“Okay. On one condition.”

“What?”

“Tell me why she can’t go back.”

I crossed my arms.
 
“I didn’t say she couldn’t.”

“Fine.
 
Don’t tell
me.
 
I’ll just ask Tyrone or Wes what
they think.
 
Maybe I’ll even ask Lou.”

I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath and held it for
a split second before I released it.
 
Leaning in I said, “She... isn’t like us.”

“How so?”

“Stevie Dayton, he created her.
 
He put her in our story.”

She mulled over what I’d said.
 
“What does that mean?”

“He made her,” I said hoping she would understand without
me having to come right out and say it.

“She’s not real?”

I couldn’t bring myself to confirm her question, but she
knew what my silence meant.

“Holy crap!”
 
She
looked past me and strained to see Lou sleeping near Gordy’s cot.
 
“She looks so... real.
 
Like the rest of us.”

“Of course she does,” I said.
 
“What did you expect?”

“I don’t know.
 
This
Stevie guy made some of these monsters, didn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“Those things don’t look like anything I’ve ever seen
before.”

Wes appeared out of nowhere.
 
“What are you two yapping about?”

“Nothing,” I said nervously.

“You’re yammering pretty loudly about nothing.
 
Woke me up.”

“We’re just talking about Stevie Dayton,” April said with a
smile.

I groaned underneath my breath.
 
She was going to say something.
 
I just knew it.
 
Why did I tell her?

“I was just wondering where he came up with all his crazy
monsters and stuff.”

Wes sat down at the counter and said, “Where he and his
Storyteller buddies came up with them ain’t near as important as how we’re
going to send them back to hell where they belong.”

Wes turned away and April winked at me.
 

I stood. “Right now I’m just worried about sending those
worms back to hell.”
 
I walked away
hoping against hope that April would keep her mouth shut.

***

I had to get away from everyone.
 
They were my family, but they were also
reminders of the family I no longer had.
 
It was exhausting being around them and trying to pretend that I didn’t
resent them for being survivors.

It took some great acting on my part, but I eventually
convinced the others I had to go on a bathroom break by myself.
 
I grabbed my backpack and headed out the
front door.
 
Ajax followed me onto the
deck.

“Go away, Ajax,” I said putting on a harness.

He let out a breathy woof to protest.

“I said ‘go away.’”

He sat back on his haunches.

“I don’t want you around, Ajax!
 
Especially you.”

He let out a throaty hoot and started to sign.

“Stop,” I said.
 
I
yelled so loud my ears burned.
 
“I don’t
want to have a conversation about this.
 
I can’t have a conversation about this.
 
I don’t understand your stupid sign language.
 
I don’t understand you.
 
You bug me.
 
Just go away!”

His mouth turned down while his eyes opened slightly
wider.
 
He was hurt by my behavior.

“Don’t look at me like that.
 
I don’t care if I hurt your feelings.”

I clipped onto the zip line.
 
“I don’t care,” I said just before zipping
over to the other platform.
 
I looked
back and saw Ajax hang his massive head.

Once I was on the other platform, I stared into the fog I’d
just zipped through and started hating myself for the way I’d treated
Ajax.
 
He knew why I really didn’t want
him around.

I forced myself to look away and headed down the first
treeway.
 
I wanted some distance between
the treehouse and me.
 
The way I figured
it, I had about thirty minutes before someone would come looking for me.
 

I didn’t disappear like Tyrone.
 
I lied to get away from the others. Somehow I
talked myself into believing that wasn’t as selfish.

I reached the next platform and took off my backpack to get
my water.
 
I dug through the contents and
pulled out a piece of paper.
 
The sketch
of the first Délon, the Pure.
 

A strong wind nearly blew the drawing out of my hand.
 
I gripped it tighter and stuffed it in the
pack.
 
I didn’t have the first clue what
I was going to do with the stupid thing, but I didn’t want to lose it.

I pulled out the bottled water and removed the lid.
 
Before I could take a drink, a toddler
stepped off the next treeway and stood on my platform.
 
I was stunned by the sight of him.
 

“Who are you?” I asked.

His mouth formed into a goofy grin. He held out his arm and
waved by awkwardly opening and closing his hand.

A huge white fury mass stepped onto the platform behind
him.
 
Tarek.

I looked back at the toddler.
 
“Nate?”

He waved again.

I bent down on one knee and watched him smile back at
me.
 
“Really?”

“Really,” Tarek said in his thunderous voice.

“He’s so big.”

“That is what happens to a human child over time.”

“I’m Oz,” I said to Nate.
 
“You don’t remember me.”

“He remembers you well,” Tarek said.
 
“We are here because he wanted to give you
something.”
  
He placed his huge hand
behind the boy and gently pushed him forward.

Nate’s face turned red with embarrassment.
 
He reached under his shirt, pulled out a
piece of paper and handed it to me.

It was a crayon drawing of a purple stick figure holding an
object and standing underneath a long yellow line.
 
The figure was standing on a pile of
rocks.
 
Another stick figure, gray and
bigger than the other, wore a crown and bloody grin.
 
A stick figure with long hair, smaller than
the other two, crouched down under a cloud made up of squiggly lines.

“Thanks,” I said. “You’re really talented.”

“It’s not an art project,” Tarek said.

I didn’t know what he meant, so I just said, “It should be.
It’s really good.”

“It’s a story,” Tarek said, “from a Storyteller.”

I looked at it again.
 
“A story?”

“That is what Storytellers do.”

I stood and approached Tarek.
 
Whispering, I said, “I’m not really sure what
this is.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Tarek said scooping up Nate in his
hand.
 
“When the time is right.” He
started to turn to leave, but I stopped him.

“Wait,” I said pulling the Délon drawing out of my
backpack.
 
“Take this.”

“It is not mine to take.”

“It’s not mine either.”

“No it’s not,” he said.

“What am I supposed to do with it?
 
The Délons want it.
 
They’re fighting over it.”

He smiled.
 
“I
know.
 
I’ve read the story.”

I cocked my head to the side.
 
“You’ve read the story?”

“I have.”

“I’m in it?”

“You are.”

“But I thought I didn’t belong in the Délons’ story?
 
It wasn’t my fight?”

“It wasn’t, but things were rewritten.” Again, he started
to walk away. But I stepped between him and the treeway.

“Rewritten?
 
If I’m
in the story, then you know what I should do with the sketch.”

“I do.”

I waited for him to elaborate, but he just stood there with
his creepy smile.
 
“What do I do with
it?”

“You do,” he said pushing me aside, “what is written in the
story.”
 
He stepped down the treeway
carefully carrying Nate in his huge hand.

“Give me a hint,” I said slightly pleading.

“I can only say,” he said stepping into a wall of fog, “it
is sometimes best to cause chaos than it is to encounter chaos in an effort to
avoid it.”
 
The fog swallowed him.
 
I heard the echoing sound of Nate giggling as
they passed over into their otherworldly hiding place.

I looked at the Délon drawing and muttered to myself, “It
is sometimes best to cause chaos than it is to encounter chaos in an effort to
avoid it.”
 
I shook my head and stuck
both drawings in my backpack.
 
“Thanks
for being so clear, you ugly fur ball.”

***

When I returned, Gordy greeted me wrapped in a wool blanket
on the front deck of the treehouse.
 
He
almost looked like his old self again.
 
He let out a “Cool!” when I landed on the platform.

“It’s a blast,” I said.

“I can’t wait to try it,” he said.

“You already have.”

His eyes widened.
 
“You guys put me on the zip line?”

“How else do you think we got you over here?”

“Man, I missed it.”

“How’s your leg?” I asked removing the harness.

He waved his hand in front of his face.
 
“It stinks because of that crap the jolly
green giant puts on it, but other than that, it’s fine.
 
Not sure why you guys got all bent out of
shape about it.”

“Trust me, if you saw it before Bostic treated it, you
would have been bent out of shape, too.”

He nodded and his face turned serious.
 
“Oz, Lou told me what happened.”
 
His cheeks turned red.
 
“To Kimball, I mean.”

“Yeah,” I said not knowing if that was the appropriate
response.
 
Was saying “Yeah” disrespectful?
 
It was a pointless thing to wonder, but I
didn’t want to do anything to dishonor my friend.

“I remember when you guys first got him.” He laughed.
 
“Fat little puppy.
 
His ears were floppy back then.
 
I hated you when you got that dog.”

“Hated me?”

“Well, yeah.
 
I
wanted a dog.
 
I wanted a fat little
puppy just like Kimball.
 
But my parents
were evil turds that wouldn’t let me even have so much as a picture of a
dog.
 
They let my sister get a cat, but
they wouldn’t even consider letting me have a dog.
 
I mean what kind of crap is that?”