could hear the creature stirring, with grunting and a random clicking of legs, as if it were awakening suddenly from sleep, followed by a shrill hissing of both surprise and anger.
“Stop!” shouted Thorn. Beatríz froze herself in place, facing the enemy with her eyes wide open—and struggling to not tremble. There was an interminable moment of silence when the Mortejos must have been staring straight into Beatríz’s eyes. Then, she heard the din of the millipede’s woody legs clicking and clacking with a regularity that told her it was advancing toward her.
Suddenly, when the Mortejos was a mere ten feet away, Beatríz started to tremble, and the creature, its mouth wide open and baring dozens of thin sharp teeth, rushed at Beatríz! Immediately, a horrified Thorn screamed, “Now!”—hoping against hope that Beatríz would hit the Mortejos before the creature hit her.
At the same time that Beatríz’s arm struck downward, the creature planted its teeth into her abdomen while Thorn dove at the creature with his knife. Beatríz fell fast and hard on her back, the creature’s mouth clamped to Beatríz’s body and its own body lying lifeless, the knife belonging to Beatríz plunged deep into one of the creature’s awful eyes. Finding the Mortejos dead, Thorn pried its jaws away from Beatríz’s belly. She also seemed to be lifeless, and Thorn began to sob. The others had by this time scrambled out from the tunnel and, in the eerie light of Thorn’s eyes, knelt around Beatríz, touching her head and hands, whimpering, and saying, “No, Beatríz! No! No!”
Thorn gained his composure quickly and began to examine the wounds to Beatríz’s abdomen, finding to his surprise that her stomach was only badly scratched, the jaws of the Death Eyes having progressed no further than the depth of Beatríz’s leather skirt. “She may be alive! She may still be alive!” yelled Thorn, with unrestrained hope. “The jaws never entered her stomach—just her clothing! She killed it at the last possible moment, and she’s unconscious, but the Mortejos could not have killed her, at least not by biting her,” Thorn continued, while he checked her pulse and breathing.
Thorn could find no pulse, so he put his face under Beatríz’s nose to learn if she was breathing. All waited quietly for the verdict, staring at Beatríz’s inert body in the soft glow enveloping her. “She’s breathing!” yelled Thorn. “Not much, but she’s definitely breathing. Jamie,” ordered Thorn, “cradle her head in your lap and pat her cheeks lightly. Elli, Alex, gently pat her hands; I’ll get some water.”
Thorn returned quickly from the side tunnel with a leather pouch and began sprinkling drops about Beatríz’s face. The four of them continued their various tasks for more than an hour. Beatríz was still breathing, ever so barely, but there was no discernible movement in any part of her body.
“C’mon, Beatríz!” Jamie said, encouragingly.
“Please, Beatríz!” pleaded Elli.
“Pweez don’t be dead, Butweece!” said Alex, with a softly sobbing voice. “Pweez!”
A short while later Thorn checked Beatríz’s breathing again, but this time discerned nothing. He was about to say to the others that it was time to stop, when, like an eruption, Beatríz sat up, just missing hitting Jamie’s head that was bent over hers. She coughed deeply and then screamed, “Elli! Elli!” and reached into the bluish darkness for Elli’s face.
“Beatríz, I’m right here! Here!” exclaimed Elli, as she placed Beatríz’s hand on her face for Beatríz to see that it was true. Beatríz embraced Elli and began to cry—Elli held her for several minutes, saying nothing.
Her head once again cradled in Jamie’s lap, Beatríz asked quietly, “What happened? Where is the Mortejos?”
Thorn smiled. “You killed it, Beatríz! You killed it, just as you had planned. Its body is right here—and quite dead, I can assure you.”
“I killed it?” Beatríz asked again, with more of a statement than a question.
“Yes,” said Thorn, his voice soft and reassuring—and punctuated with celebratory chuckles.
“But . . . but how did that happen?” Beatríz asked, in disbelief. “The only thing I remember is all of us in the tunnel and my suggesting I confront the Mortejos.”
Elli laughed and said to Beatríz, “You did just that, Beatríz, just as you and Thorn planned it—and so bravely, too! And you saved all of our lives!” Elli squeezed one of Beatríz’s hands with both of her own and gave her a kiss on the cheek. All four of Beatríz’s companions beamed smiles of gratitude and pride.
Then, after what seemed like a grand ceremonial pause, Thorn spoke. “We must begin moving again as soon as we can. Who knows what else has heard the commotion that will not be kindly disposed toward us. Beatríz, how are you feeling? Can you move, even if only slowly and with assistance?”
“Actually, other than a bit of a headache and a sore stomach, I think I’m fine. If we need to move, then I’m all for it.”
“Okay. Get your things and follow me—just as we were before this business with the Mortejos began.”
Thorn was in the lead, his eyes now popped entirely out of their sockets for maximum light. They had walked for perhaps ten minutes when they heard in the distance behind them a distinctive sound, as of many pieces of wood breaking apart. Thorn stopped. “This is good,” he said. “It means that other creatures who might otherwise be chasing after us are, instead, eating the Mortejos. By the time they’re finished with it, we will be much too far from them to worry about.”
The five continued at a relaxed, but productive, pace. They soon arrived at the T intersection and turned to the right. And, as Thorn had informed them earlier, the tunnel began gradually to ascend and the air began to thicken, making it easier for them to breathe and move with less effort.
After traveling for nearly eight hours following Beatríz’s victory over the Death Eyes, and with only a few brief stops to rest, they found another significant widening of the tunnel where they could sleep for the night. Thorn, however, who needed very little sleep and who could remain alert at will for days on end, once again said that he’d keep watch. But before allowing the children to crawl into their skins, Thorn made sure there was a small tunnel opening nearby into which all of them could crawl in the event of their need for a fast escape.
The four children slept soundly for nearly sixteen hours while Thorn remained alert, but with his eyes closed—opening only occasionally to check on things. Thorn then awakened them and, once all had eaten some breakfast, they continued on what was supposed to be the final leg of their journey through the forest underground. Indeed, it was about eight hours following breakfast that they ascended more sharply toward the world above and began to hear muffled noises and feel vibrations beneath their feet. Within two to three hours of reaching close to the surface, all heard the slight, but distinct and chilling, sound of the Thrashers clearing trees just above them. They paused and then moved on. Once they had left the sound of the Thrashers behind them, there was only the sound of their boots treading softly on the compacted earth and their breathing to disturb the otherwise complete silence.
Then, abruptly, Thorn stopped and sat down, bidding the others to do so as well. “This is where I leave you, my dear friends.”
“But,” interjected Alex, “we ah stiw in the tunnow.”
“The tunnel ends after another fifty yards, and you will find yourselves outside the forest. I’ll see to it that you get to the opening. From there I do not know which way you are to go, because I do not know your destinations,
