Joshua and the Lightning Road (17 page)

Then Bo Chez threw his ball of fire overhead. It grew into a blazing rope winding around Leandro and Charlie and, just like that, they were gone.

I needed the truth now from Bo Chez. In the weak light, his giant shadow grew even larger on the wall behind him. He moved toward me but wouldn’t meet my eyes. The damp air crawled on my skin and the water dripped in an empty rhythm. The cave walls moved in and out, threatening to swallow me. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, Bo Chez was looking at me. Then he sat down on the slab.

My voice came to me again. “One more story, Bo Chez. About you.”

He nodded, and began.

“My given name is Patrok. It means glory of the father—and I was for some time, until my father died. I got lucky with a new family when your mother and you came into my life. And I loved your mother like a daughter, Joshua.” He paused and sighed. “She was mortal, but I’m not.”

“What
are
you?” I could barely whisper it.

The skin wrinkled around his eyes and his massive shoulders fell. “I was a Storm Master, long ago, and came from the Sky Realm ruled by Zeus, the heir of the first Greek god Zeus.” He swiped his prickly hair, exhaled deeply, then went on. “You see, the myth of the twelve Olympians is true, Joshua, but what mortals don’t know is that they fell from power, lost their immortality, and left Mount Olympus to each rule lands of their own on Nostos.”

Leandro’s journal told me this, but the wall between me and Bo Chez grew taller, our division stronger in knowing he wasn’t from Earth.

“Did you come from a fallen god, too?” I sunk into Leandro’s cloak.

“Not exactly. I’m a blend. My people come from this world Zeus took over and renamed Nostos two thousand years ago. Since then, a new people evolved over time of mixed descent.”

“With your power, you must have some fallen god in you though.”

“Their ancient power, anyway,” Bo Chez said.

“How did you become a Storm Master?”

“My mother and father died in a war when I just turned twelve, and I became a ward of the gods. King Zeus took a liking to me, saw I carried the ancient power that only a rare few had—to command all weather—and so he drafted me into his service. I had no choice but to train as one if his elite soldiers: the Storm Masters. Our job was to protect Sky Realm, and other realms Zeus commanded to protect.”

“So you were trained to zap and transport?”

“That was part of it. I mastered the art of the storm. Hurricane. Tornado. Blizzard. Ice. Rain and lightning.” Bo Chez paused. “Hekate holds ancient power, too.”

“But she uses her power for evil,” I said.

“Yes.”

“And you were given the lightning orb by Zeus?”

“Yes. All Storm Masters receive one upon graduation. They are the original orbs created by the first Zeus and passed down from generation to generation as Storm Master’s retire. It’s a weapon to be used with care.”

“Jeez, do I know that.” Dizziness flared, and the room spun like a carousel. When my head cleared I asked, “But you never used the orb on Earth?”

He knotted his hands together and lowered his head, but he didn’t answer. The drip of the cave water made his silence worse. I tried another question. “And you really don’t have powers on Earth like you do here?”

“I’ve never tried to use them there. Well, there was one time … ”

“When? And why just once? Did it work?” My questions came out in one tumble.

“No, and power not used is power lost.” Leandro had said the same thing … .

But he’d only answered my last question, notching up my fear. “You wanted it lost?”

He looked up. “I left my world behind for that purpose.”

“So how did you end up on Earth?”

“I didn’t want to be a soldier, using my storm powers to fight. I saved up my soldier’s pay to bribe a Child Collector to send me to Earth when I was a young man.”

“And in your stories—” Pain flared, and I clenched my teeth to go on. “
You
were the lost Storm Master, weren’t you?”

He looked around the cave then back at me, his eyes crinkled at the edges. “Yes, but I never thought we’d be talking about this here.”

“Did you fall in love with Zeus’s daughter like in the Storm Master story you told me?” I said.

“Yes. Asteria was her name. I believed she was part of a secret order to protect the Oracle, but she would never confirm the truth. Zeus would have punished her severely if it was true because he wanted to find and control the Oracle for his own power. And Asteria’s secrecy became a crack between us. I never saw her again.”

My entire body ached on the cold rock. More uncomfortable was the thought of Bo Chez with a girlfriend. I shifted my legs and he put a hand on one, warming me.

“It didn’t matter anyway because, like the story, Zeus demanded that Storm Masters make a vow to never marry,” Bo Chez continued. “Zeus needed us to defend his land and his world. I was fine with all this until Asteria came along. She was so beautiful on the inside and out.”

His face blurred.
Don’t pass out!
Not when there was so much to know, just not of the yucky love stuff.

“My mother … ” I whispered.

“She showed up one day. And my life changed again,” Bo Chez said.

“How?”

“Even though your mother wasn’t my daughter, I became a father—and a grandfather.”

“You’re not my grandfather.” The absolute truth of it hit me like a fist to my chest.

“Not by blood.” His grip on my leg tightened as if to lessen the hurt of those words.

But I knew with certainty that I really was alone—here and on Earth.

“Tell me about her.” The pain in my side throbbed painfully, but then numbness crept in.

Bo Chez stood and paced the cave wall with his hands locked behind his back, his footsteps in sync with the
drip-drip
. “She said she’d been kidnapped as a child. Like you and Finn. She grew up working in the bakehouse in the Arrow Realm. That’s—”

“Where Leandro’s from,” I said.

“Yes, and when your mother was eighteen she was sent to the adult work camp. She didn’t give me many details about that. She escaped and somehow got a ride to Earth and—”

“Leandro’s wife was a prisoner there. She might have known my mother in the work camp!” I tried to sit up but the room raced around me in circles and I fell back, my heart racing.

“Maybe, we’ll never know for sure. But after she escaped she arrived at my house one day, alone and very scared. We had a deep connection, both being fugitives from another world.”

“And was I there?”

“No. You were born later.” Bo Chez stopped pacing.

“And my father?”

“I don’t know who he is. But from the way you carry ancient Olympian power, your father must be from Nostos.”

But my mother wasn’t, or was she? Playing Sam’s flute came to me. Why did I have powers from two realms here? It was all muddled in my head, and sharing it with Bo Chez right now was too difficult.

I tried to will strength back into my body but couldn’t even sit up. I pulled Leandro’s cloak tighter to me, fingering its woolen warmth and closed my eyes, drifting down the muddy banks of the creek behind our house where Finn was building our fort. I waved at him, then lay back in the creek’s lazy flow and began to float away … .

Bo Chez shook me. Home faded. “Wake up, Joshua. Don’t go to sleep. Hang on until Leandro and Charlie get back.”

I forced my eyes open. We were both quiet for a moment.

I had to know more. “Why did my mother go to your house?”

“It used to be her house. When a child returns to Earth through the Lightning Road, they return to where they left. When she got home, her family was gone. I promised to take care of her and help her find her family, but we never did.”

“That’s why we moved all the time—because you were looking for my mom’s family?” I said.

“Yes. That, and I didn’t want us to be found.”

“How come I never had these powers back home, Bo Chez?”

“Yours appear to be activated here as mine are.”

“But the lightning orb works there?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Do other things?”

“Yes,” Bo Chez said harshly, then his voice softened, and he placed a hand on the side of my head as he used to do when I was sick. “I’m sorry I made life so hard on you.”

“Not so hard.” It came out a whisper. All my life I’d thought Bo Chez
was afraid of lightning like me, but instead he could create it. He was more powerful than lightning itself.

“I had to protect you, Joshua. I was scared someday a Child Collector would steal you. I kept moving us around and had my name changed to Cooper, your mother’s name, so we could be a family. And we did become a family. Well, at least … we were.”

“We could still be.” I looked at his hands that had taken care of me. Wasn’t that what family
did? Even if it wasn’t blood family? He could have given me up for adoption, but he kept me. That counted for something.

“Did my mom really die?” Time pressed down on me as I needed the truth.

The
drip-drip
slowed as my breaths came faster, and I scraped my fingers alongside the slab, trying to hold on to it.

Finally, Bo Chez bowed his head and said the words I didn’t want to hear. “Yes.”

Hope fled as quickly as it came. “Because of me.”

Bo Chez jerked his head up. “No. There were other … things.”

“Tell me.”

Was it fever or confusion? Bo Chez’s figure blurred again.
Stay awake!

But that was it—as if Leandro’s cloak had been drawn over my head, I slipped into complete darkness, half-hearing these final words: “You
are
my grandson.”

Bo Chez shook me awake as Charlie bounded into the cave, Leandro close behind.

“I’ve found the one Moria plant,” Leandro said, catching his breath. “We broke into the greenhouse. There were only two guards out front. The majority of the army must be with Hekate.”

“The kernitians finally came out of hiding. We ‘hitched a ride,’ as you Americans say, all the way back here,” Charlie said, talking fast. “Stole some bong bongs, too.” He threw a bag of them onto my slab. Bo Chez handed me one, and it took all my effort to get the dry biscuit down, but my body craved food even though my tongue tasted like sandpaper. I ate another, drank water, and fell back on the slab, buried under the cloak, only able to move now from my waist up as numbness seized my legs.

“Bo Chez,” I whispered. “My legs.” He squeezed my hand. I felt like I was dying, inch-by-inch, like Sam. He was still curled up on his side, so still.

Leandro plucked a few leaves off the small plant, crushed them, and moved toward me.

“Sam,” I wheezed out. “Give it to him first.”

Leandro nodded and placed some under Sam’s tongue then mine. It was bitter and made me gag. He then pushed some right into my wounds. I moaned, and he mumbled an apology, looking at me with concern, his fingers pressing softer on my wound. Then he plucked the few remaining leaves and hid them in his satchel.

I peered up at Leandro, my tongue thick, my question on my face.

“If it’s going to work, it will do so in minutes,” he said.

Seconds ticked by with the drip of the water. The fever left me with each stride of Bo Chez’s pacing. My legs, once numb, prickled back to life. My foot twitched, and Charlie whooped as if I’d flown. I glanced at Sam, wanting to share this good news with him, but he didn’t move.

Leandro moved toward him, knife in hand. In a slash, Leandro cut a lock of Sam’s hair and placed it on a slab. Bo Chez then flicked his finger, and a spiral of light streaked out. Poof. The hair burned bright and turned to ash. Its smell lingered in the air. Leandro scooped it up and tied it in a small bag he pulled from under his cloak, then he handed it to me.

“Keep this safe for your friend.”

I paused—still in awe of what Bo Chez could do—and slid the bag in my pocket as I slowly stood.

Charlie grabbed me in a hug. “Joshua!”

“You saved me,” I said.

Charlie shrugged. “I just followed Leandro.”

“Pretty brave and cool of you.”

Charlie’s face split open in a huge grin and he chewed on a finger, shifting his feet about.

With new strength, I pushed Bo Chez about the one thing he had kept from me. “Tell me now. How did my mother really die?”

His face bunched up and he twisted his hands together, then finally spoke. “I’m sorry.”

“About what?” I said.

“I lied to you about your mother.”

I waited, still as stone. Even Charlie stopped chewing on his finger. The
pling-pling
of the water rang in rhythm with the breaths of my friends: Sam’s slow and steady, Charlie’s fast and anxious, Leandro’s deep and calming. And that’s when Bo Chez said, “She didn’t die when you were born.”

My brain felt like it was being squeezed in half. “W-what?”

“You saw her die. But you wouldn’t remember. You were only two,” Bo Chez said.

Panic blazed through me, as if lightning had struck.

“Stop.” Damp air wrapped around my throat threatening to choke me.

Bo Chez gripped my arms. “You need to know, Joshua.”

“So … dizzy.” I closed my eyes.

“Hold onto me.”

I squeezed his arms. “My chest hurts.”

“Open your eyes, Joshua.”

No!

“It’s time you knew the truth.”

So much had been taken from me. I couldn’t stand for any more to be.

I opened my eyes, and looked at the face of the only family I’d ever known. “What did I see?”

“The Child Collector vaporizing your mother.”

Charlie gasped, and Leandro growled. My hands fell away, but Bo Chez held me tighter.

The Child Collector killed my mother.

Something inside me silently broke.

I managed one word. “Why?”

“Part of a Child Collector’s job is to kill escapees, but the list is long, and their resources limited. That’s probably why it took so long for your mother to be found. I heard your mother scream one night. I grabbed the lightning orb and ran into her room. He stood there, laughing, his vape aimed at her. I tried to use my storm power, long abandoned, but it didn’t work, and before I could throw the orb, he blasted her with you right there in the bed where she’d been sleeping next to you. And then she was gone. Like that.”