I came to just as I heard, “Enjoy your new home, Reeker.”
My kidnapper had some nerve to say I stunk. He smelled like a wet dog that had been swimming in sour milk and burnt grease. And then I was flying through cold air as the man threw me. Out of the corner of my eye, figures dodged left and right to part the way for my landing. Fog and faces spun around me. My body slammed into something hard, and sharp pain flashed along my side as rock cut into my hands. Dirt filled my mouth, and I spit out slimy pebbles and sticks.
The faces around me became clearer as dozens of boys and girls crowded into me. A few stuck out their hands and pulled me up from the trampled ground of the dirt corral we were packed inside. Frantic, I swung around to find a way out, then saw the fence. It was made of wooden stakes lashed together with frayed rope. Each stake rose taller than any kid by a few feet, and at the top of each a metal spear tip glinted fierce, ready to pierce any who dared escape. Lanterns, hanging from poles surrounding the fence, glowed far too dim to see much of the forest that spread beyond. Trails of mist blew around us and threatened to choke me as I gulped the bitter tasting air, focusing on the ground to get my bearings.
Find the calm. You can do it. That’s what Bo Chez told me when lightning freaked me out, and freaking out would not help me find Finn. I stared in disbelief at the pale purple twilight sky and dim blue sun that sagged over me, the washed out colors sealing me into this strange painting. This was nowhere near home. My lungs finally unfroze and my legs stopped shaking as I stomped my feet on the rocky ground to get warm.
The kids checked me out. Some looked me up and down and some just stared at me with wide eyes and inched away. They didn’t seem to be a threat, and I had so many questions, but they silenced me with a collective shake of their heads. I rubbed the gravel off my hands, leaving behind stinging prick marks, and looked around my prison. The fence wound around us with no gate going in or out, and a giant platform as high as the stakes stood before us. The fence ended on either side of it, and on top of the platform sat a white-canopied tent with an open front, the flaps tied back like curtains. We had no such protection from the mist that breezed across my skin, covering me in a wet chill. The one way out of this prison was by two sets of stairs leading up to the platform on each side, and down the other side toward freedom. I considered making a run for it: up the steps, across the stage, down the steps, run fast into the woods. How far would I get, and to where?
“There’s no way out, boy.” My gray-cloaked kidnapper towered above me from the platform where he had thrown me. The angry-red side of his scarred face was partially hidden by his flopping hat, and under it, that one green eye burned into me just as it had in my nightmares when he’d tried to kill me with a lightning bolt. He tapped his thumbs on his fat stomach that spread under a dingy, white shirt, and his stubby legs were squeezed into black pants that clung to every bulge and rolled over the tops of his brown boots like a brim of blubber. He scratched his bumpy half-nose, snaking his eyebrow in concentration, then stuck a sausage finger up the good side of it and rooted around to pull out a green glob and flick it at me. It landed at my feet with a wet slap.
“That’s the only food you’ll get today, Reeker!” He laughed a deep, horrible laugh and then spit. A brown chunk plopped on my sneaker. “And there’s your dessert. Now they’ll put you to work with the rest of these Reekers.”
“Not before I find my friend you stole.” It burst out of me, sparked by a surge of courage.
The man jabbed the air at me with a crooked stick he pulled from under his cloak. My bite marks cut across his filthy hand. Good. His one eyebrow crinkled into a long, hairy snake as he scowled at me. The kids around me shrunk back, their sour sweat blowing over me as they moved, and beneath the smell of their fear lay the smell of rain and mud.
“Think you’re here for a play date, boy? I could have been a soldier if it weren’t for the likes of you Reekers. Now it’s payback time.” He tugged on the scraggly beard that flowed down his cloak, then spread out his hands. “Listen up, Reekers. You’re going off to work soon and good riddance. And you’ll work hard or you’ll lead a much more miserable life than need be.”
With that, he turned and swung his hefty, ugly self away from the platform, his gray cloak billowing behind him like a storm cloud. I heard a horse whinny and then the thundering of hooves. Probably the very horse on which he’d carted me from wherever we landed. There was no waking up from the nightmare this time. As soon as he left, the whispers began.
“I want to go home.” “How long do we have to stay here?” “Do you think they’ll let us go?” “What’s gonna happen to us?” “I don’t want to die.”
Their words churned around me when a boy leaned down in to my face. “Allo, where’d you come from?” He had dark skin and a strange accent and smelled like the mothballs Bo Chez packed in our winter clothes. I shook the spit off my shoe and straightened, reaching into my pockets. My mother’s photo and the crystal were still there. I gripped them tight, staring at the tall, skinny kid whose black hair sat plastered to his head. He tugged on the hem of his torn T-shirt to stretch it down, but it barely reached his waist, and his giant sneakers poked out from jeans that were way too short to be cool.
“New York.” My dry throat made it hurt to talk.
“I’m from France. We’re from all over.” The other kids nodded, many with dirt-smudged faces streaked with tears. Small groups huddled here and there, but a few stood alone and just stared at the sky as if it could magically whisk them away. There were about fifty of them and most were my age, but where was Finn—or a way out?
Two men on the platform held giant spears with tips that waved like flags blowing in the wind. A trick of light in the fog? No—hissing snakeheads with yawning mouths revealed shiny fangs. The heads darted back and forth as forked tongues flickered in and out, searching for something to strike. One head focused on me, its jaws stretched open wide as if it could swallow me whole. It leaned forward on the spear that held it in place, and venomous foam dripped from its mouth. Its glittery eyes told me just how eager it was to sink those fangs into my neck.
I shivered in my T-shirt and looked away at the outline of trees stretching beyond the fence into the unknown darkness. A burnt electric smell charged the air as static burst from the hanging lights like bugs being zapped. The eerie sound made the cold and damp even worse. Fear of not finding Finn—and of dying—crawled through me like a diseased worm.
The sounds of so many kids crying made my own despair worse, and I turned back to the tall boy hunched over. “Where are we? And who’s that guy in the cloak?” My voice must have gotten louder because he put his fingers to his lips.
“Shh. Don’t want those guards over here.”
I whispered this time, tapping my foot to calm my nerves. “Is this another country?”
He chewed on the skin around his fingernails and shook his head. “The Lost Realm of Nostos.”
“Where?”
“Another world connected to … ah … la foudre.”
Another world echoed inside me as I stumbled from my jittery tapping and twisted my foot. Pain shot through me, and the knowledge this wasn’t Earth. He grabbed my arm to steady me. I pulled on my bangs, a safer alternative to foot tapping.
“La what?”
He took his finger out of his mouth and waved it as he struggled for words. “The guard called it the lightning … lightning road.”
“What we came down?”
“Oui. A road of fire.”
“It didn’t burn.”
His eyes scrunched up and the finger went back in his mouth. “I thought I’d died and was going to hell surfing those flames.”
The wind whipped around my head like the fierce wind of the fire road. “Yeah, a scary space roller coaster. What happens if you fall off it?”
“I guess you die. You can’t breathe in space.” But we could breathe here, even with this foul, tart air coating my tongue. The boy scrunched further down. “Besides, where would you end up?”
“Somewhere better than here, and away from the gross man that took us. Who is he?”
The boy switched from finger chewing to knuckle chewing and leaned in closer. His bony arms and legs stuck out at angles, and he frowned his pointy face. “The Child Collector. Or one of them. He steals kids to sell them off here in the auction pit.”
“He called me ‘Reeker.’”
“Oui, they call us Reekers because they think we stink—odeur infecte. Ha!”
It would be great to infect that Child Collector with some nasty disease.
“I’ve dreamed about that guy.”
“Have you been here before?”
“How could I?”
The boy shrugged, as puzzled as me, and the guards yelled at us to shut up. The low buzz in the pit quieted down.
I lowered my voice. “I’ve got to find my friend. Did you see him? He’s got black hair with freckles.”
“They just sold off some kids to the power mill before you came. Maybe he was one.”
What kind of place sells kids?
Focusing on the tall kid took my mind off the awful mess I’d gotten myself into. He picked at his ripped black T-shirt with a faded skull on it and shuffled his worn sneakers. One had a big hole on the side.
“Why are you still here?” I said.
“Ahh, not sure.” The kid banged on his skinny chest. “Too tall? I’m Charlie.”
“Joshua.”
I stuck my hands in my pockets to find my chocolate stash and split it with him, careful to hide it from the other kids. He nodded, grateful, and stuck it in his mouth. “Sweet chocolat.” His big eyes widened then closed with happiness. Mine tasted like a piece of home. It melted, sweet on my tongue. Too soon it was gone.
“What do they want from us?” I said.
“They steal kids from Earth for their workhouses. Something about being slaves to the heirs of the gods.”
“What gods?”
“No idea.”
And to think I’d laughed at Bo Chez’s adventure stories. If only he were here to tell me how to save Finn like the heroes in his stories. I was no hero.
Suddenly, the other kids crowded in closer and shoved Charlie up against me, their heat swelling across me in waves. And then I saw why.
Four black foxes had joined the guards on the platform and trotted around them in loops—except they were unlike any foxes that had run through our backyard. Their heads were even with the shoulders of the men and their legs were as big as a horse’s. Fur covered them in slicked back, shiny spikes. They sniffed the platform and panted, thick tongues pulsing out of their mouths, and saliva dripped down in big gobs. Muscles rippled up and down their bodies like quivering arrows as their bushy tails swished back and forth. I flinched with each swish, my feet desperate to run, but they were frozen in place. The foxes jerked their heads up in unison, and it felt like spiders skittered up my spine. Red eyes glowed bright like lava and burned fiercely into mine, hungry for what I feared was me.
“Cadmean beasts,” Charlie whispered to me. The kids pushed us back, moving away from the monsters on the platform. I tripped, heading in the same direction, just as a big gust of wind almost knocked me over. Charlie grabbed my shoulder to keep me on my feet.
One of the guards stepped out from the tented canopy, lifted the top on a wooden chest, and hauled out a bloody slab of meat almost as big as the chest. He dumped it on the platform near us with a splat, and the foxes leapt at it, snarling and howling. Each pulled off a piece. They could just as easily lunge down into our pit and tear us apart, limb by limb. One of the beasts looked up from its feast and stared at me, coals of fire burning bright. Its ears twitched and juice dripped down its giant jaws.
And then it grinned at me.
My bones petrified right then and there, melding my body into one big, unmoving log. The beast went back to eating, savagely shaking its head back and forth as it ripped and shredded its dinner.
My toes curled under, wanting to hide.
And I knew: I was in over my head. Way over my head.