Chapter 4
4
“MJ!”
My mom ran for me before I even got out of the car. She was waiting anxiously at the door with two suitcases, already packed, and a belt bag over her chest. Her hair, tinged with gray at the roots, was a mess, haphazardly pulled into a bun, pieces falling out. She looked tired. More exhausted than I’d ever seen her.
“I was afraid of this,” she said as she hugged me. She leaned back and took my face in her hands. “But I never guessed it would go so bad so fast.”
We both looked up at the menacing sky. It was still swirling with clouds, and they were getting darker by the minute. As before, the storm seemed to be trailing us.
She started looking me over. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. “I’m fine.”
“Michelle!” Elias hugged my mom. His two companions nodded to her.
“Is it true, then? Jun is dead?” she asked, her voice quavering. My father’s name was Vivencio, but my mother called him by his nickname, the one used by his intimates.
“I’m so sorry,” Elias told her. He cleared his throat. “You have the amulet?”
She said that she did, so he loaded the suitcases in the trunk and slammed it shut. “Let’s go.”
Mom and I crammed into the back seat. Elias got in the driver’s seat, and then we were off again.
Looking into my eyes, Mom pulled something out of her pocket. A rough, pale crystal attached to a thick silver chain. “This is your father’s amulet, an anting-anting. It’s made of a very rare salt mined beneath the Paulanan Mountains of Biringan.” She placed it in my hand. “Your dad gave it to me, to hold until you were ready.” She got quiet, like she was remembering something, and then shook her head. “Anyway, it’s yours now.”
I rubbed my thumb against the grainy exterior. It was rough, yet it twinkled like a gem and seemed to glow from within.
“Here,” she said, taking the amulet from me and slipping it over my head. “Keep it with you. Protect it at all costs. Because it will protect you.”
“How?” It was pretty and everything, but I didn’t see what protection it offered.
“If used correctly, it repels evil.” She reached for my hand, and when I looked up, I saw that her cheeks were wet with tears. With a start, I realized that she still loved my father deeply and had sacrificed being with him to hide me from his enemies.
It was so dark now that we needed headlights to see in front of us, despite it still being early afternoon. I could also tell it was getting harder to control the car, with gusting winds pushing it onto the shoulder. I looked out the window, but there wasn’t much to see. All the streetlights had blown out. There were no other cars on the road either.
More thunder rumbled, and it seemed to stretch on and on, forever. Lightning bolts flashed all around us. Elias’s jaw was clenched tight; his hands gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white.
More lightning again—red this time—like veins full of blood against black clouds. It made everything around us look like it was on fire. I held on to my mom’s hand as the car picked up speed. We flew down the highway, passing signs so fast I couldn’t even read them.
Bright flashes of yellow and red and even green and blue. Then something smacked against the windshield. I screamed. “What is that?” Whatever it was kept coming— smack, smack, smack . Like globs of mud hurled at the car.
No one answered me. Then I spotted what it was: frogs.
It was raining frogs.
“Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?” I shouted.
“It’s the insurgents. They want us to give up,” Elias yelled back. “They think we’ll be cowed by their show of strength.”
Their show of frogs , more like. Although, to be honest, it was sort of gross. When the frogs hit the windshield, they splattered their amphibian guts all over the place. Eeks. Point to the insurgents.
The car veered suddenly, yanking us to the right.
We were headed straight into the mountains.
Lightning flashed. I spotted something in the rearview mirror. Another car. Without headlights.
“Someone’s following us,” I announced.
Elias nodded. “I know.”
I started to turn and look, but he blurted out, “No, Princess!”
I sank down in the seat so my head was below the window.
Along with the car, the storm clouds trailed behind us. “How do we lose them?”
“We get to Biringan,” my mother said through gritted teeth.
“What happens if we don’t?” I asked.
“Everything you’re seeing now and worse. Tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes erupting. You name it. Everywhere in the entire world,” Elias replied. “Except none of us will actually be around to see it.”
He hit the gas. I looked at the speedometer. Well over one hundred miles per hour again. And still the car behind us seemed to be gaining ground.
Elias glanced at the side mirror. “Come on,” he muttered.
Just then, there was a terrible crashing sound, metal crunching. I heard it before I felt it, and noticed everyone else in the car being whipped around before my brain registered that it was happening to me, too. I felt my mom’s arms reach out to protect me as the car rolled, then finally came to a stop.
I tasted blood in my mouth.
There was a second of silence.
Elias turned around. “Out!”
I broke from my mom’s embrace as all the doors opened and everyone jumped out. I slipped in the mud, and pain traveled down my entire leg. My mother yanked me up with one arm. We followed Elias and the others through the woods. Branches scratched my face and snagged at my clothes, but I barely noticed. My only thought was getting away from the insurgents.
Lightning. I saw eyes in the dark. Woodland animals, peering out at us from behind the brush, as if they were spying on us.
“Nearly there,” Elias called out.
The rain turned icy then, whipping against my face and burning my cheeks. We pushed on, stomping over sticks and leaves and mud, even as the droplets became chunks of hail. Elias yelled, “Watch out!” as a huge frozen ball the size of an orange hit the ground near us.
We put our hands over our heads and pressed forward. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. Hail bounced off the ground. A piece hit my mom, and she cried out. But we couldn’t even stop to make sure she was all right.
Amid the chaos, the hail became snow, then a blizzard. All I could see in front of me was white. I tried to focus on Elias’s dark clothing, but then I lost sight of that, too. If I hadn’t felt my mom holding on to me, I wouldn’t even have known she was there.
This is how it ends, I thought. The bad guys win.
Both my legs ached now, and I was freezing. I had the urge to lie down in the snow and go to sleep. I slowed. My mom pulled. “No,” she shouted in my ear. “We have to keep going.”
“I don’t want to,” I said, though she couldn’t hear me. I could barely force myself to take another step.
My mother yelled for Elias.
Then, out of nowhere, I saw light.
First it was dim, but it got brighter and brighter, and then the snowfall thinned, until it was merely drifting down, and I saw where the light was coming from.
A huge, glowing outline of a door in front of the massive stone face of the mountain.
“There it is, MJ. The portal to Biringan.” My mom encouraged me. “You’re almost there. Keep going.”
Elias pushed, but the door wouldn’t open.
Behind us, I heard a commotion. Stomping through the woods. Flittering. Like the sound of butterfly wings fluttering together. Sounds that no human could hear, but Elias and I could. We who were from the other place. More winged battalions. More munduntug hunters. The insurgents were right behind us. Hurry, hurry, hurry.
But the door wouldn’t open.
They were getting closer.
“What’s happening?” my mother asked Elias. “Why won’t it open?”
“They’ve enchanted it against us,” another patianak told her.
Elias looked at me. “Princess!” He waved me over frantically.
I limped up to the door, and he pointed to my necklace. “Hold it against it!” he shouted.
I touched the anting-anting to the door handle.
At that, there was a loud click, and the door began to open.
The stomping was right behind us. The door was opening too slowly, partially enchanted by whatever dark spell our enemies had cast on it. Come on, come on, come on.
“Get in,” Elias called out. “Squeeze if you have to!”
But it was too late. They were on us now. So many of them, even more than had come for me at school. Some were on foot and others were flying down from overhead. One of them landed between my mom and the door, blocking her. We were surrounded. And they were armed.
They charged, swords raised, and our patianaks charged back, metal clanging.
My mom ducked around the insurgents and ran for the door, bodies falling around her.
“Go!” Elias screamed at me.
I had one foot in the door. I just needed my mom. Come on. Come on.
Another insurgent swooped down at me, blade ready. I jumped back from the portal.
One of our warriors appeared and knocked him away from me. They rolled on the ground together, struggling. I watched as the insurgent plunged his sword into the warrior.
Elias appeared next to me, breathing heavily, with green blood all over his armor. He held out his hand. I looked around—we were the only ones left. All our allies were dead.
I was just steps from crossing into Biringan.
“MJ! Go!” my mother yelled, even as the remaining insurgents closed in.
No! I wouldn’t leave her.
Then Mom reached into the bag strapped across her chest. When she pulled her hand back out, she was holding a sword.
I stared at her in awe.
She smiled. “Another gift from your father.” Then she raised it up over her head, and it burst into flames. “I’ve got this,” she shouted at me. “Go with Elias!” I could see the sky over us again, dark and swirling, pulsing with electricity.
“What about you?” I couldn’t just leave her behind. She couldn’t take them all on her own.
“I said go!” She turned away from me and charged for the insurgents.
This time, when Elias offered his hand I took it, and we ran for the portal. As we passed through, I looked behind me and saw my mother beyond the closing door, wielding a blade of fire that prevented the hunters from getting to me.
My mother, a warrior and a queen.