A canopy of trees filtered the diminishing rays of sunlight, giving the forest before him a dark, unfriendly aura. He parked the motor by the side of the road, stuffed a first aid kit into his apron, and continued the search on foot. Surely that crazy dog hadn’t gone beyond the Star Points. Even if Midas came from somewhere beyond the Star Points, he wouldn’t go back there, would he?
“Forbidden!” That’s what Angel Vesta called the land beyond the Star Points. Forbidden! He didn’t like the sound of the word. Forbidden sounded dangerous. He’d checked the robot sensors monitoring the paths to the maintenance building for unauthorized trespass. Nothing. How could something as big as Midas simply disappear? Surely he didn’t try to swim out into Dolphin Bay, or even worse, into the Rogue Sea. Anything could happen to him out there.
Only a few more hours of sunlight left and still no Midas. Walking the entire length of the Star Points’ fence would take a normal-sized person a whole day. A man with legs as short as Dr. Leaf’s, even longer.
He calculated he could drive the distance from the first Star Point at the maintenance building to the last Star Point at the Dolphin Sea by suns down. The motor was slow, but slow might be an advantage when searching for a large animal like Midas.
An eerie sound wafted through the air like wind blowing through a canyon or tunnel. He stopped the engine and listened. It must have been his imagination. He turned the key to start the motor, and the sound started up again. It came from a clump of bushes near the forks. He got out and moved cautiously toward the bushes. Someone or something is here and it sounds hurt.
“Midas! Midas! Bark if you can hear me.” The whimpering sound came from behind a clump of overgrown bushes near the cliffs.
“Midas. Do you hear me?” He responded to the whine by stepping toward the bush and fell forward into a hole, landing on something big, furry, and alive.
“Midas!” He was greeted with a wet tongue licking his face.
“What have you gotten yourself into?”
Midas tried to stand then dropped back to the ground, his right paw lodged in between a crack in the rocky wall.
“Now see what you’ve done to yourself. Be still. Let me see if the bone is broken.” His fingers moved up and down from the bloody paw.
“Let’s see if I can find something to pry you out of this fix you’ve gotten yourself into.” He tapped on the side of the shell-encrusted wall and tried to decide if it would be easier to try and chip away a part of the wall or find a way to ease the paw out of the opening. “Give me a minute to find something to make the opening big enough to free your paw.”
A rope ladder hung down from the ground above the cave. Stacks of shells and canvas frames as well as brushes, pens, and pots of paint were stacked neatly along the interior. Various tools for stretching canvas as well as colorful bottles of liquids were organized on rustic shelves. Dr. Leaf smelled a few of the bottles, stuck his finger in one, and smeared a few liquid samples on his finger. Paint, oils, and clean water? Would a combination of oil and clean water lubricate the paw enough to pull it safely out of the crevice? He had to try even if he used all the oil in the bottle. After a few tries, he was able to release the paw.
“Stay! I mean it! I’m going up to get a first aid kit. Don’t move.” Dr. Leaf pulled on the ladder, decided it was secure, and climbed up to retrieve his emergency kit from the motor. Now the question is how to get the dog out of the cave?
Midas watched silently as Dr. Leaf cleaned, stitched, and bandaged the deep, ragged cut exposing bone through blood and fur. He tried to be gentle, but with nothing to dull the pain, he was amazed at Midas’ pain tolerance.
“It is almost suns down, and I need to find help and get you back to the hospital.” He was surprised when Midas growled in disapproval and nosed him toward the back wall.
“We can’t spend the night here. What are you trying to tell me? It’s a wall and I don’t see a way out.” Dr. Leaf clenched his fist and knocked on the rocky interior to prove his theory and was surprised to feel a gust of cold air. He heard Midas whine then inch toward the narrow space between the outer cave and whatever was on the other side. He had no choice but to try and squeeze through the crack.
“Stay back, Midas. You can’t get through the opening and I’m coming back.” But Midas had blocked the exit with his body and was wiggling his way through the opening.
“Now see what you’ve done. We can’t turn around in here. You’ve got us stuck.” The little man wrung his hands only to be pushed farther down the passageway.
“All right. All right. I’m moving. You must know where we’re going.” He inched along shuffling his feet for balance, his hands extended for protection against the darkness. The narrow path curved and grew wider, allowing Midas to limp along beside Dr. Leaf. The air smelled cleaner; a few rays of sunshine sifted through the cave. Somewhere water was flowing. Dr. Leaf scrambled to keep up as Midas barked and led the way.
“Midas, come back here. You don’t know what’s out there,” he yelled before sliding feet first into a shallow creek.
“Help. No. Don’t come near me. Midas, where are you? What have you gotten us into now?” The water barely covered the buckles on his boots, so he pushed himself up and was able to cross the stream.
“Midas, where are you?” The bark sounded far away. Grumbling, he adjusted his glasses and followed the sound.
Something flickered on the edge of the creek. It flickered again in another place. He moved slowly through the cavern, his eyes searching for the random flashes of light.
“Aha.” He reached out and picked up a small iridescent object, dropping it in surprise when it wiggled. Was it a starfish? He retrieved it from the sand. Its glow warmed his palm before pulling its points inward. He lowered it back into the water and watched it dig into the dark, loose sandy banks of the creek. He stood entranced, watching the on-off glow of shells and starfish along the edges of the stream.
He felt Midas nudge him with his nose, gently first then a real push, urging him to go deeper into the cave. His choices were limited since they were already past the first obstacle, and Midas seemed determined to overcome the pain of his injured paw. He led the way slowly with Midas nudging him deeper and deeper into the cavern.
First, there was the faint glow of light then the sweet fragrance of something familiar. Could it be honeysuckle? They followed the stream to a moss-covered archway. He could see light ahead.
“We’re out! Good boy, Midas.” Dr. Leaf practically danced down the tree-lined path. Midas dropped to the ground, licking his leg and panting.
“But where are we?” Nothing inside this space looked familiar. He’d never seen trees like these. Their smooth, thin silver-colored trunks had no limbs but were topped with a mass of spiky bright-green leaves fanning out high above the ground. Shells glistened in the black-sand banks of the stream. Then he saw the clusters of spotted berries hanging like grapes from graceful vines threading through the trees.
“Spotted berries!” Dr. Leaf gasped and stood on tiptoe to pluck a cluster of the dark berries with orange spots. His long nose twitched as he brought them close and sniffed. He squeezed the rich red pulp from the thin skin, rubbing it between his fingers. Carefully, he flicked his tongue out to taste. They had to be the spotted berries, the ones he needed. They had the same yeasty smell and taste, even if they grew on trees and not bushes.
“Blessed be, blessed be. Midas, I think we’ve found the spotted berries.” He bumped his head against Midas’ nose and hugged him as tight as his short arms allowed.
He rubbed one berry on Midas’ paw. “It’s a test,” he told the dog. “One berry can’t hurt you, and it might speed the healing.” He picked several clusters and stuffed them into the pocket of his apron. Midas barked, limping back and forth, pressing Dr. Leaf to follow.
“Midas. Stop playing. We need to gather these berries and take them to back to TLC.”
Midas continued to sniff at the moist ground, moving through the berry bushes until he found a crack at the base of a moss-covered wall. He barked and took off in a three-legged trot.
“Midas, come back!” Dr. Leaf shoved another cluster of berries in his apron before resuming the chase to keep up with Midas.
“We need to get back to TLC and Angel Vesta to tell her about the berries. I’ll bet they have already found Halo. Wait for me. We need to leave.”
Midas ignored his protests, continuing to follow his nose, growling deep within his throat.
“This is the end of the cave. See? The wall is solid, sealed off from whatever is back there. We might even be past the Star Points. Let’s give it up.” It was no use, he was talking to himself. Midas had disappeared again.
“Midas. Where are you?”
~ ~ ~
Halo tossed and turned in her sleep. She dreamed of a gray-sand beach, a jungle of twisted vines, giant leaves, and grass that grew as tall as her head. Slimy things crawled under her feet, she swatted at insects she couldn’t see, and every step she took led deeper into the dark jungle. Lost, hungry, and afraid, she struggled to run, but the grass tightened around her ankles, and she fell. The black stones poking up out of the sea came alive, threatening to overtake her. She woke up screaming.
She jerked up into a sitting position and stared across the gray-black water and the tall black stones surrounding the beach. Morning dew flickered silver. The rising suns began their ascent for a new day. Her predicament wasn’t a dream.
She remembered talking to the big fish, the one with mismatched eyes. Eyes like Asia. It wasn’t a figment of her imagination. Clusters of wish berries lay beside the sand bed where she slept. A stack of empty branches on the other side were evidence of last night’s dinner.
She licked her dry, cracked lips and wiped sand and saltwater from her puffy eyes. What more could happen? She had already died once. The big fish had kept her alive and brought her here, but where exactly was here? It was not a pretty place like White Feathers, for sure.
She actually liked living at White Feathers even if she didn’t fit in or have a talent to give the angels. She liked Dr. Leaf even when he was grumpy. She liked the TLC creatures, and they liked her, too. She remembered hearing Angel Vesta say not everyone had a gift like Zadie’s music, or the triplets’ gift to work with metal and jewels, or even Annie’s gift to sing.
Why did Annie do such mean things? She really did destroy their raft and cause Zadie to almost drown. Now why would anybody do that?
“Please don’t let Zadie die, or die again,” she begged God and hoped the angels would intercede for her, too. Zadie and Jet had lived somewhere before coming to White Feathers, so they must have died once, hadn’t they?
Giving one’s best gift to the angels wasn’t everything. Angel Vesta said it wasn’t necessary to have the best talent in order to earn wings. Good students could still fly with the angels on their thirteenth Birth Day. Angels did all kinds of things to help people, animals, fish, birds, and everything that lived on the worlds. Being an angel would be great, but she really wished she had the kind of gift it took to be a helper to a Guardian angel like Asia. Guardian angels helped real people everywhere, and some of them actually visited Earth. What if she never made it back to White Feathers at all? What would happen to her on Birth Day?
A wave sloshed on her feet, dangerously close to her stash of wish berries. She scooped up an armload of branches, carrying them to the edge of the jungle, away from the incoming tide. She needed to find a safer place to sleep, too.
She didn’t like sleeping so close to the water, but she didn’t want to sleep in the jungle, either. Now was the time to find a safe place to sleep and store her berries. She decided to search the area between the jungle and the beach, or maybe the cliffs, but the cliffs were her last choice.
Her dream had seemed real enough, but she carried the longest of the sticks she could find. Some protection was better than nothing. She wouldn’t let herself think about what might be in the jungle. She’d dreamed of rock monsters coming to life out of the sea, like in the Saturday morning cartoons. What a funny thought. Explain cartoons at White Feathers, a place with no TV, movies, or even video games. Now that was something she hadn’t thought about in a long time.
“Ouch!” Her toe collided with something sharp in the sand. She reached down, dug with both hands, and lifted out an odd-shaped wiggling object. A starfish similar to the one on her necklace squirmed in her palm. It pulled its points inward toward the center and made a sound like air coming out of a balloon before changing its iridescent blue color to a dull brown.
“Don’t wiggle. I won’t hurt you.”
She dropped the starfish and watched it bury itself in the sand. She stood still watching the waves break into ripples carrying hundreds of shells to the beach before ebbing back into the dark waters. She dug into the sand and retrieved the starfish, but it no longer glowed or moved. She sobbed, telling herself she’d killed it and returned it to the water. Her starfish necklace had color, even out of the water, and glowed like the stars when the suns slept. Hers must be a different kind of starfish, although it was surely related to the ones here on the beach.
The suns blazed high in the sky, fiery balls of gold and red coming together in the center of the midday sky. She munched on a cluster of wish berries, finger-combed her matted curls, and continued to wait and watch for her fish friend.
The jungle on this end of the beach had a rock cliff blocking passage to the other end of the cove. She needed to find a new place to call home base before suns down in case no one came to find her. A better place to sleep and a good spot to store the remaining wish berries would be a dream come true. Maybe the fish would come back tonight. She hoped it would.
Eating wish berries gave her renewed strength and she was ready to explore. The sand was firmer near the cliffs than on the beach. She thought about her terrible dream of rock people coming out of the cliffs and the slimy things scooting under her feet. But the part about the biting insects was real and she had the stings to prove it. Her tank top didn’t provide much protection, and she wished for jeans and a tee-top. She pushed through the seagrass until she came to a narrow path which led to a steep rock wall. The wall began at the edge of the jungle and ended in the sea.
~ ~ ~
Jet was awakened by something knocking against the side of the ABC. He moved fast, hitting the dashboard with his shoulder. He took a moment to remember where he was and why he was in an ABC stuck in an ocean in the middle of nowhere. A quick glance at the rear of the boat confirmed the fact that Koze remained out of commission. He stretched his long legs to stand when Gamy slammed against the side of the ABC again, knocking him backward into the seat. The boat teetered and moved a few inches back from the vise of rocks, locking it in the swirling sea waters.
He saw a giant gray-blue head, eyes glowing purple and blue shoot up from the water, exposing nearly half of its huge bulk then belly-flopped into the sea a second time. Waves radiated from the dive, spraying against the rocks and raising the water level enough to free the ABC from its rocky prison.
Jet lunged for the wheel, struggling for control, his fingers aching, and his clothing soaked from the torrent of water creeping dangerously high in the boat. The big fish surfaced again, steadying the boat with its body, pushing it away from the rocks toward calmer, but deeper water. Jet leaned back on the seat, stunned, afraid, knowing he did not have the ability to communicate with the fish called Gamy.
The water rose up around his ankles, alerting him to the next real danger. What if the ABC sank? He lifted the seat cushion, retrieved life jackets, ropes, and a pail. He slipped the vest over his head, buckled it in place, and secured the other one on Koze. He bailed out the water accumulating around his feet by the bucketful. Gamy stayed beside them, its body touching and guiding the boat as the suns rose in a fiery mist on both sides of the sea.
Jet felt the ABC beach itself on the shallow water near a shore. Jet was confused. He didn’t know where they were, but pulled the ABC onto the shore, securing it with a rope tied to one of the rocks. His hands burned from blisters, his arms ached, and he still had things to do. He checked the ABC for punctures, leaks, or engine problems, and finding none, he sat on the beach wondering what to do next.
Why try to go back to White Feathers at all? He’d ruined Zadie’s chances to play her music and the triplets’ chances to present their gifts, too. If only he hadn’t gone back to that forsaken cave to get the shells. He pulled his knees up to cover his face, to hide from the truth.
He hadn’t tried to find the cave. The cave had found him when he’d found a shortcut to get to the maintenance building. He wanted to drive the new ABC. He’d seen a furry thing, no bigger than a cat, streak through the forest toward the cliffs. He’d chased it to the edge of Shadow Forest before falling into the cave. Why hadn’t he left? Why had he kept going deeper into the cavern where he found the sparkling shells? Why did he keep going back? Why did he want to scrape out and save the colors inside the shells use them to create new paint colors? He could never show his paintings to anybody, anyway. Stupid. That’s what people like him were called. Stupid.
His thoughts were interrupted when Gamy leaped up and back into the sea, creating a wave strong enough to push the boat onto a more secure place on the dirty gray-sand beach. Now what? He was alone again, watching the gray-blue fish tail returning to the depths of the sea.
~ ~ ~
“Midas, I’m warning you. Come back, Midas. Midas?” Dr. Leaf walked slowly, feeling his way along the moss-covered wall. He struggled to keep up with Midas now that the wish berries were helping with the pain. He didn’t like this place, too wet, too spooky, and too quiet except for the sound of his feet sloshing through the wet sand.
“Midas. Answer me. Where are you?” Then his feet slid from under him again, tossing him backward, causing him to slide on his bottom under a wall and flop to the ground out the other side. He hit the ground hard, the fall taking his breath away. Above him the treetops reached toward a cloudless blue sky. He tried pushing himself up by using his elbows then stood to test his legs, arms, and back. His glasses dangled on one ear, minus the other earpiece, but otherwise intact. The tip of a cliff soared through a jungle of seagrass, bushes, and rocks. He could hear the splash of waves beyond the cliffs, salty breezes carrying the sweet honey smell of blossoms.
There were footprints in the sand, and paw prints. The only sound was the occasional buzz of an insect. He knew he had to follow the paw prints. Whatever was out there might be Midas and, if not, he hoped it would be friendly. He’d started out this morning intending to find Midas and return to TLC by suns down. Now he’d be lucky to get back by morning. How long had they been in the cave anyway? How would he find his way back? He searched the pocket of his apron for something to mark the trail. He found a roll of gauze, a few shells, and a handful of the precious spotted berries. He ripped the gauze in small pieces and used them like flags on the sea grass. When the paw prints turned, he marked the place with a shell.
Dr. Leaf didn’t want to part with a single spotted berry. No telling how long it would take them to grow, especially in a different soil mix. Maybe they wouldn’t even grow in his garden, but he had to try. They were his most important healing medicine.
The sounds of waves grew louder as he followed the paw prints along the edge of the cliffs to a narrow strip of gray-sand beach. Where was Midas? Why didn’t he bark? What if something or somebody found him and hurt him?
If I call for him, I might be in danger, too.
All sorts of what ifs went through his head as he continued following the paw prints along the beach. He came to a sudden stop when the paws encountered two human foot prints coming from the opposite direction. The prints mingled, then became a battleground of smears and swirls.
Midas been captured. That explains why he didn’t bark. He’s been taken, stolen. He would never follow a stranger unless he was forced. The prints led back into the jungle.
Dr. Leaf set his jaw, broke off a sturdy limb from a bush for a weapon, and set out to follow the two sets of prints. He’d find Midas. No stranger could keep him prisoner long.
First, he heard laughter then a bark, and next, a shout. He ran toward the sounds as fast as his short legs could carry him. He stopped and listened again before spotting Halo’s fuzzy red hair and Midas’ golden fur. They were rolling in the grass, laughing and barking. Dr. Leaf forgot all about being mad and, with tears of happiness, leaped in to join their hugs and laughter.
“Thank heavens! I’ve found you.”