Changing the Prophecy Chapter Nine

 

Chapter 9 Snared in a Net

After an excellent breakfast at the Wolf Circle, the travelers assembled in front of the community dining room to meet the tigers they would ride. Goldenrod provided four sleek yellow-and-black-striped tigers. “I figure the geebaching can ride with one of you,” Goldenrod noted. Guhblorin looked crestfallen until Elena put her hand on his shoulder and told him, “I want you to ride with me, amigo.” He perked up at her words.

The princess gently stroked a large white wolf as tears stood in her eyes. She was famous throughout the land for her love of animals and this wolf obviously held a special place in her heart. He bumped her with his head and whined softly. “I’ll be back before you know it,” Honeydew promised the wolf.

“They’re splendid,” Denzel declared appreciatively, as he stroked the tiger he had selected to ride. “Thanks a million,” he said to Goldenrod.

Maia produced a jar of powder from her backpack. “I think we should use the color change powder. I wonder if it will work on Elena.”

“Color change powder?” Elena inquired with a note of curiosity in her voice. “Qué es?”

“You see how the people here have a bright color that glows in their skin?” Maia asked her friend. Elena glanced at Goldenrod, who glowed bright yellow. “Well royalty doesn’t have that color glow and it makes us stand out, which is a problem when we want to keep a low profile,” Maia explained. “Anyone can recognize Denzel, Honeydew, and me as royals because we don’t have a bright color in our skin. Grandmomma Clover made this powder for us. One tiny sprinkle and we have color like everyone else so we can blend in better. Watch,” Maia concluded. She sprinkled powder on Denzel, whose skin immediately took on a bright-red glow. Denzel grinned and took a pinch of powder and sprinkled it on Maia, who developed a deep-blue glow. Then he dropped a pinch on Honeydew, who glowed sunflower-yellow.

“Now your turn,” Maia told Elena.

Elena began to protest, but Maia ignored her and quickly sprinkled the powder on her before Elena could mount a full resistance. For a moment, nothing happened, and Maia thought perhaps the powder wouldn’t work on a Latina from the Farland. But then Elena sparkled with a shimmery orange color. She giggled.

“You like it?” Guhblorin asked.

“Kinda weird, but I like it OK,” Elena replied.

Denzel scrutinized her. “I think it looks pretty good.” Elena blushed a deeper shade of orange, but Denzel didn’t notice since he had turned and mounted his tiger. “Let’s get on up outta here,” he called to the others, who each mounted their tigers. The enormous white wolf remained at Honeydew’s heel.

“Stay here,” Honeydew told the wolf, who looked up at her with sorrowful eyes.

The travelers rode out of the circle.

“We go this way.” Honeydew pointed to a path that led through a stand of fir trees. As the travelers started on the path, they heard Honeydew shout, “Biscuit!”

Denzel motioned his tiger to stop and he turned around to see why Honeydew had shouted. The large white wolf had followed them and it stood beside Honeydew.

“Oh no, Bisc, please go back.” Honeydew remembered the year before when her father had foolishly called his white wolves to their aid and Sissrath’s Special Forces had killed many of them.

“It might come in handy to have a white wolf as a traveling companion,” Denzel pointed out, hopefully.

“I don’t want to put his life in danger,” Honeydew responded.

“He looks capable of taking care of himself,” Elena noted. The wolves still made her nervous, even though she understood that the people of the Wolf Circle kept them as pets. “He looks a lot fiercer than we do.”

“Let him come with us,” Maia pleaded. “He wants to. He won’t be in any more danger than we will.”

“That doesn’t set my mind at ease,” Honeydew replied, but she relented. “His name is Biscuit,” she told the others. “But I call him Bisc for short.”

“What kind of a name is that for a wolf?” Denzel asked.

“How would you know the right kind of name for a wolf?” Honeydew demanded indignantly. “I raised him from a pup and when he was little he stole my biscuits off my plate. He would do anything for a biscuit, especially if it has raspberry jam on it. It’s the perfect name for him.”

Denzel shrugged as he headed down the path and into the fir trees. Bisc trotted happily alongside Honeydew. He stood as tall as her tiger and in fact Honeydew could have sat on his back, but no one would dare to insult a white wolf by suggesting that they ride it.

The group of travelers hiked all day over the Amber Mountains, with Honeydew guiding them. They eventually had to dismount from the tigers because of the rocks and rough scrub that filled the landscape. They wound up walking for much of the time and were so weary by nightfall that they ate their dinner quickly with little conversation and went straight to sleep after dividing the night into shifts during which each of them took a spell keeping watch.

They awoke refreshed and anticipated finding Guhblorin’s smelly passage soon. He promised that it would cut a whole day off their overland journey. They chatted cheerily over their breakfast of pears and cheese.

As they set off, Guhblorin pointed the way to the passage, and by late morning they reached the opening leading into the mountain. The travelers peered cautiously inside as they caught a whiff of a scent far worse than just old seaweed. It smelled like a fish left outside in the sun in a paper bag for a week. Elena and Honeydew cast anxious glances at the others to see if anyone else found the smell as offensive as they did. Meanwhile, Denzel produced a canvas bag and withdrew from it a stack of sachets filled with orange peels, cinnamon sticks, and cloves. He handed them out to the others. “Hold this under your nose to help get through the tunnel.” The tigers didn’t seem bothered by the strong fishy smell and Bisc appeared to love it as he ran in joyous circles and yipped. Once they entered the mountain, Bisc stopped every once in a while to roll around on his back, as if trying to absorb the stinky smell into his fur. He poked his nose into every nook and cranny, obviously delighted to sniff the repulsive aroma.

Fortunately, it took less than an hour for the travelers to make their way through the mountain. The foul odor wasn’t unbearable and the scented sachets helped considerably. Denzel couldn’t wait to share the knowledge of the smelly passage with Jasper, who would appreciate the significance of it to shave time off the journey from the Wolf Circle to Big House City. The group emerged amid scrubby brush and large gray boulders in the foothills of the Amber Mountains. They found themselves on the edge of a meadow that melted into rolling hills covered with low brush and heather-like plants bursting with tiny pink flowers. On the other side of the hills lay Big House City and its surrounding fields and forests.

“We’re going home,” Honeydew told Bisc, as she reached over to pat his neck. “This way,” she instructed the others, who followed her as she rode out. She knew the route, having traveled back and forth between Big House City and the Amber Mountains many times. The travelers rode for a couple of hours before stopping to eat the lunch that the people of the Wolf Circle had provided them for the journey. While they ate, a flock of skeeters arrived and circled above their heads. Denzel quickly examined his surroundings for a place to hide, but could find nothing in the landscape large enough to conceal them from the sharp yellow eyes of the birds, those eyes that didn’t miss a single detail. They gazed up at the skeeters in grim silence.

“What are they?” Elena asked, watching the skeeters swoop menacingly.

“A nasty bird with terrific eyesight that does scouting for Compost and Sissrath,” Maia answered.

“What kind of a name is Compost?” Elena asked.

“Definitely not a geebaching,” Guhblorin said.

“Not Latino, either,” Elena added, with a giggle.

“Maybe a used salad,” Guhblorin suggested brightly. Elena laughed out loud.

Denzel glared at the geebaching, who mumbled an apology as he buried his face in his sandwich. “Don’t get him started, Elena,” Denzel cautioned.

“It’s the perfect name for a stinky person,” Maia answered Elena’s question. “Trust me, you don’t want to meet him. He makes the smelly tunnel look like a stroll in a rose garden.”

“Do you think the skeeters will report us?” Honeydew asked the others.

“Yeah, I do, but we can’t do much about it,” Denzel said. “They’ve already seen us. Look around. No boulders or trees or anything we could have hid behind.” The travelers packed up their lunch and rode out. The skeeters had disappeared and Denzel felt relieved that at least the nasty birds hadn’t taken to following them.

Late in the afternoon, as they began to near the outskirts of Big House City, they came upon a puzzling sight. In the distance they saw a large grayish wall blocking their path. They approached with caution. Surrounded by sparse, slender trees and low-growing plants, the landscape still provided nothing behind which to conceal themselves from watchful eyes. They had no choice but to press forward in plain sight.

Guhblorin wrinkled his nose. “What’s that funky smell?” he asked.

“Don’t start,” Denzel warned.

“Seriously,” Guhblorin said, without a hint of humor in his voice.

“He’s right,” Honeydew agreed. “Something smells bad. Not as bad as the smelly tunnel, but icky.” Just as she said it, the others began to smell it too. It smelled like bad broccoli and old milk cartons.

When they drew closer to the grayish wall, Elena gasped.

“What?” Maia asked.

“Basura,” Elena said softly.

“Garbage?” Maia translated, incredulously. She had been studying Spanish in school and she practiced speaking it when she went to Elena’s house, where Elena’s family spoke Spanish to each other. Practicing with Elena’s family had helped her pick up the language quickly. She knew that basura meant garbage, but she wondered why Elena had said it.

Elena pointed at the grayish wall. “That thing’s made out of trash.”

Maia peered more closely at the grayish wall and realized that Elena was correct. The pile of garbage rose before them, twice as tall as a grown man, and extended for quite a distance from left to right across their path. The tigers came up short as the travelers gazed at the wall of garbage. Maia wondered how deep the wall was. Perhaps they were seeing the edge of a huge mound of garbage.

“Maybe it’s a dump,” Maia suggested.

“You mean a landfill? But Big House City doesn’t use a dump,” Denzel informed her. “They don’t put their garbage into a landfill. I can’t imagine how this garbage got here, or why it got here, for that matter.”

As they gazed at the wall of garbage, a huge mass, like a black cloud, rose up over the wall and into their line of vision. The sky darkened as the mass moved in their direction. Denzel did not care to wait around for it to catch up with them. “Run back toward those trees!” he yelled, and the tigers turned swiftly and bounded back in the direction from which they had come. However, even though swift, the tigers could not outrun the approaching mass, which, as it neared, materialized into an inconceivably huge flock of skeeters with glittering black wings. The skeeters appeared strung together by something they carried in their sharp talons.

If the travelers had split up, then perhaps one of them would have escaped, but they remained bunched together as they fled. The skeeters swooped low and Denzel felt a weight drop on him. Crushed between his collapsed tiger, who sprawled beneath him, and the weight on top of him that pressed him down, he could barely breathe. His lungs felt as thin as paper and they refused to fill with air. The tigers howled. With great difficulty, Denzel struggled to dismount his tiger, whose legs had buckled when the large cat had been pinned to the ground. Denzel slid alongside the tiger, which relieved him of some of the weight, and, as he gasped for air, he realized that the army of skeeters had dropped a thick net on them from above.

“Get off your tiger and lie down next to it,” he called to the others. “They dropped a net on us. If you can relieve the pressure of the net, you’ll find it easier to breathe.” A few moments later, he could tell that the others had followed his directions because he heard Guhblorin hollering in terror and Elena crying, which they could not have done if they hadn’t filled their lungs with air.

“Honeydew? Maia?” Denzel shouted over the racket of the howling tigers, screaming geebaching, and Elena’s wails. “Are you there?” Honeydew answered from surprisingly close to him, but Denzel couldn’t see her and he could barely move with the weight of the heavy net holding him in place.

Over the din, he heard Maia pleading with Elena, “Hey, chica, get it together. And make Guhblorin shut up. Calm your tiger. We’re under a net and we have to get out before Sissrath or the Special Forces show up to capture us. I can’t hear Denzel over this racket.”

“How do I calm my tiger?” Elena sobbed.

“Stroke her neck and talk gently in her ear,” Honeydew instructed.

Elena’s sobs became subdued while Guhblorin’s panicked hollering died down to a low whimpering.

“I have a knife in my backpack and I think I can cut through this net with it, but I’m having trouble getting to the knife,” Denzel informed the others. The heavy net pressed down on him so hard that Denzel could barely move. He noticed that the skeeters circled in a giant swarm overhead. They blotted out much of the daylight and caused a darkness that resembled that of an approaching rainstorm.

“I see them coming,” Honeydew called to Denzel.

“Who?” he asked urgently. “Who’s coming?”

“Look to the edge of the garbage wall. Whoever trapped us is coming,” she elaborated with grim resignation. Within moments of Honeydew’s warning, she, Denzel, and Maia figured out who had caught them in the net. Even stronger than the nasty smell of the garbage wall was the familiar decomposing-vegetable-smell of Compost, Sissrath’s second-in-command.

Denzel frantically tried to get his hands on the knife in his backpack, but even as he struggled to reach the knife, he realized that he could not escape Compost, who was nearly upon them, accompanied by a phalanx of Sissrath’s loyal Special Forces, the fierce warriors from the Mountain Downs.

Their captors pulled up short at the edge of the net. Compost was the filthiest character Denzel and Maia had ever met. He had nappy uncombed hair, a film of grime covered his skin, and his fat belly hung over the top of his pants and wiggled when he released his sinister laugh. His brown skin had a yellowish tint to it, like the skin of all the Mountain People, but Compost’s skin was a sickly acid-yellow color that looked nothing like the healthy golden-yellow glow of the people who came from the Wolf Circle in the High Mountain Settlement. Elena and Guhblorin peered out from underneath the net in fascinated horror.

“So nice of you to drop in,” Compost rasped gleefully. “I figured the Four would turn up right about now to save the day. Too bad, not going to happen this time.” A pair of boots clomped over the thick netting and came to a standstill in front of Denzel’s face. Then a gloved hand placed a foul-smelling rag over Denzel’s nose and he slipped into unconsciousness.