The Orphan Army (5 page)

“Oakenayl,” said the girl, “find Mook and Halflight and tell them what's happened. Tell the other orphans, too. Tell them the witch was right.”

The witch.

Witch?

The word “witch” seemed to ignite inside Milo's head.

How many times had he dreamed of a witch? The Witch of the World. She'd spoken to him so often in his dreams, and he'd written down every word in his dream diary. Now, hearing this mysterious girl mention a witch made a freak moment even freakier.

The girl looked like she was going to faint. “Tell . . . tell the others that the prophecy was right. The shadows are falling. Go now.”

“I can't leave you alone with this boy,” insisted Oakenayl.

“Why? You think I can't handle one human boy?” said the girl, a new sharpness in her voice.

“I didn't mean—”

“Please, go tell the others to search the forest and all up and down the bayou. We need to find who
really
did this. Maybe there's still time.”

“I don't like it.”

“Please . . .
go
!”

She spoke like a grown-up, but the panic in her voice made her suddenly sound very young. Like a little kid. There was so much fear there that Milo could taste it. Bitter and wrong.

“Go,” she said one last time.

There was no answer except a rustling of leaves. This time Milo looked over his shoulder to see who had been holding him. Hating whoever Oakenayl was and whoever was helping him—all those crushing hands and arms.

He stared.

And saw no one. There was nothing there except an oak tree wrapped in vines. No people. No brutes with powerful arms.

His panting mouth formed a soundless “Oh” of surprise.

They were gone.

Gone so fast.

Gone without sound.

He turned back to the girl, who was getting to her feet. Tears still ran from her eyes, and her lips trembled with fear and shock.

“Who—what . . . ?” He wheezed as he sat back on his heels. “What was that . . . all about . . . ? Who
are
you? Who are the orphans? What's going on?”

She angrily wiped at the tears. “The shrine is defiled. The Heart of Darkness has been stolen.”

“What the heck is a Heart of Darkness?”

She glared at him with eyes that looked both frightened and a little crazy. It was so intense that it scared Milo. He'd heard lots of stories about crazy people out in the wilderness of what was once America. People driven insane by loss of family or loss of world. Was that what he was seeing? Milo wished Barnaby, the pod-leader, was here. Even though Barnaby was only a few years older, he knew a lot about the world. Especially about refugees and rogues.

“I thought you were a sorcerer,” she said in a soft and distant voice, “but you're only a boy. You're only one of
them
.”

“Them?” he asked, rubbing his bruised throat. “Them
who
?”

“You're probably happy the Heart is missing, aren't you?” she continued as if he hadn't spoken. “Now your kind can finish what you started.”

“Finish what?”

Her lip curled into a sneer. “Without the Heart, you can finish killing us all.”

“Whoa! Wait. What are you
talking
about? I'm not a Bug. I—”

She cut him off. “Your kind was killing us long before the Bugs got here, boy.”

“Stop calling me ‘boy.'”

“It was you who drove us into the shadows. It was you who pushed us to the edge of nothingness. It's because of you that there aren't many of us left.”

She spat on the ground between them.

“That's total garbage,” Milo fired back. Despite his fear, he was getting tired of this crazy girl and her wild accusations. “I never killed anyone. Never. And the people in my camp? All we're doing is fighting the Bugs to try to
save
this planet.”

“You want to save it for
you
,” she countered. “Not for us.”

“Who's ‘us'? Can you even
try
to make sense?”

She came over to where he knelt and stood looking down at him. “If you could,” she said, “you'd kill me right here and now.”

“That,” said Milo, “is the stupidest thing anyone's ever said to me.”

“It's true.”

“No, it's not. Why would I want to kill you?”

“Because that's what your kind do.”

“What's with the ‘your kind' stuff? Am I supposed to know what that means?”

Something flickered in her eyes. Maybe it was doubt. Milo didn't know her well enough to tell.

When she didn't answer, Milo got slowly to his feet. The girl backed up a few steps, and he didn't try to close the distance.

“Look,” he said with as much patience as he could manage, “I don't know who you are or who you think I am. But I'm just a boy—as you keep pointing out. Milo Silk. That's all I am. I don't kill people, and I don't want to kill people. I don't want to kill anyone. I don't hate anything that much. Except for the Bugs. Not too crazy about them.”

She sniffed. “And why do you hate them? Because they're monsters?”

“Aside from the fact they destroyed a lot of the world? Gee, let me think,” said Milo sourly. “How about I hate them because they took my dad? He was a good guy. He was a teacher. Before the invasion, he taught music. Even after the invasion, he taught people how to play music and sing so we wouldn't all go crazy. The Bugs took him, and now he's gone. So, yeah, I freaking hate them for that. Does that work for you?”

The girl's expression changed again. After a pause she said, “I never knew my father. The Bugs took my mother and grandmother and all of my aunts. Everyone I love.”

“That's what I mean,” said Milo. “I may not be an orphan—and I'm sorry you are—but everyone's fighting the Bugs. If you think someone's stolen something, I kind of think that's where you should start looking.”

“How would they even know what it is?” she asked. “They have insect minds.”

“How would I know? Maybe if you told me what this Heart of Darkness thing is, I could help you figure it out.”

Hostility seemed to drain slowly from her expression. It left her looking tired and, for the first time, like a kid, rather than a kid trying to pretend to be an adult.

“It's not safe here,” she said quietly.

He snorted. “Well, yeah, nowhere's safe. That whole alien invasion thing.”

“No,” she insisted. “This
place
isn't safe, boy. You need to leave.”

“Why?”

There was a sound far off on his right, and they both turned in that direction. It was impossible to tell if it was a falling branch, a running deer, his pod-mates, or ­trouble. The girl raised her head and sniffed the air like a bloodhound taking a scent. Then she immediately began backing toward the wall of burned shrubs, putting distance between herself and Milo as well as from the broken pyramid. There was sudden panic in her stiff posture and in each word she spoke. “You need to leave now.”

There was another sound, and Milo turned to see a rabbit cut through the grass. When Milo turned back to the girl, she was gone.

Absolutely and completely gone.

Like she'd never been there at all.

Milo looked for footprints and found none. He sighed in frustration and confusion, and quickly bent to retrieve his items, muttering to himself about crazy girls, homicidal rogues, and the general craziness of the world. The last thing he picked up was his slingshot. As he straightened, he wondered if the dog whose eyes he'd glimpsed earlier belonged to the girl.

As if in answer to his thought, he heard a soft sound behind him, and once more he turned, ready to fight or run.

And once more he froze in place.

Standing on the other side of the clearing, right where he'd stood a moment before, was an animal. Big and gray, with eyes the color of a winter moon.

It was not a stray dog.

It wasn't a Stinger or a gator or a bear.

And it wasn't a little girl.

The thing that stared at him with those cold eyes was a wolf.

M
ilo's mouth went dry and his heart nearly froze in his chest.

The wolf was only twenty feet away.

He could get a stone out of his pouch, load it into the slingshot, aim, and fire. But could he do it fast enough or hard enough to stun the wolf before it could close the twenty-foot gap between them?

Not one chance in ten billion.

Milo was absolutely certain that if he tried, the wolf would kill him. No question about it. This wasn't a contest he could ever hope to win.

The wolf, seeming to sense his thoughts, wrinkled its muzzle to show him all of its razor-sharp teeth. There were a lot of teeth in that savage mouth.

The wolf took a single step toward him. Slow and careful.

“No!” said Milo.

The animal paused, and those pale eyes narrowed for a moment as it cocked its head to listen to what the wind had to say. Milo turned too, hearing it now. Off to the northeast of where they stood, there was the sudden sound of voices and footfalls. No rabbits or falling branches this time. It was the unmistakable sound of people moving through the forest. Milo had no idea if that was the girl returning, or that brute Oakenayl, or if it was his friends—Shark, Lizabeth, Barnaby, and the rest of the pod.

He turned back to the wolf.

But it was gone.

The woods were empty, and there was no trace at all that it had ever been there. Not a print, not a bent strand of grass.

Beyond that spot, the burned clearing waited to be explored, the wreckage waited to be examined, which was why Milo and his pod were here.

However, all he could do was stand in the place where the girl had been and stare at the spot where the wolf had stood, trying to understand what had just happened.

He was not, however, able to understand a single thing.

FROM MILO'S DREAM DIARY

I had the dream about the party again.

It was different this time. Not sure what that's about. It was the same for a long time. Now there's new stuff happening.

It started the same way. With lots and lots of food.

Shark and I were sitting at a big picnic table. There was so much food. More than we ever have at one time. More than we have in the whole camp, even in the storage carts. Months' worth of food. Roasted turkeys and boiled hams, grilled ribs and pots of boiled crabs. Shark had a steak so rare it almost mooed when he cut it. A mountain of mashed potatoes and an even bigger one of yams. Every kind of vegetable. I couldn't even name all of them. Bowls of gravy and a foot-long tray of bread stuffing that was baked crisp along the top, the way Grandma used to make it.

I miss Grandma. I hope it was quick for her when the bombs fell.

She would have liked the party. It was crazy, 'cause I kept being hungry and kept being able to shovel more food down. So good. And we threw scraps to Killer, too, who was hiding under Shark's chair.

The dream always starts happy like that.

We heard a sound in the sky. Like thunder. We all knew it wasn't, but nobody said anything. We were too busy eating.

I remember Dad was there too.

He's always so tall in my dreams. Taller than I think he really was, but I don't remember. I was smaller when he got lost. He was talking to Mom, not looking at me. But it felt good to have him there.

Is he still out there somewhere? Is he still alive?

I hope so. I prayed about it for a long time, but he's still gone.

Are prayers ever answered? I don't know.

A lot of people must have prayed when the invasion started. The Bugs are still here, so I really just don't know.

Anyway, that's when tonight's dream changed from the one I had most nights.

Someone said, “Do you want this?”

And I turned to see an old lady sitting right next to me. She had to be like a million years old. She had so many wrinkles I couldn't even see her eyes. Dressed all in gray clothes covered in dead flowers and spiderwebs all over them. Really creepy.

She had a bread plate in her hands, but instead of rolls and corn bread, it was filled with these little crystal eggs. I think they were eggs. They were all the same size, about an inch and a half. The size of crow eggs, but these looked like they were made from crystals. Smooth and sparkly. And it looked like they had little lights inside them. Not electric lights. I couldn't see any bulbs. But they glowed.

I started to take one, but the old lady said, “Be careful. I think they're ready to hatch.”

That's when I realized who she was. It was the same voice I heard when I dream about the Witch of the World. It was
her
!

I started to pull away, but then she said, “Go on. Take one. They won't bite. Not yet.”

And I took one. It was really weird. The egg was warm and soft. It looked like crystal, but it felt like skin. It made me sick to my stomach to touch it.