Banshee Worm King: Book Five of the Oz Chronicles by R.W. Ridley Page A

stared into the fog I’d
just zipped through and started hating myself for the way I’d treated
Ajax.   He knew why I really didn’t want
him around.
    I forced myself to look away and headed down the first
treeway.   I wanted some distance between
the treehouse and me.   The way I figured
it, I had about thirty minutes before someone would come looking for me.  
    I didn’t disappear like Tyrone.   I lied to get away from the others. Somehow I
talked myself into believing that wasn’t as selfish.
    I reached the next platform and took off my backpack to get
my water.   I dug through the contents and
pulled out a piece of paper.   The sketch
of the first Délon, the Pure.  
    A strong wind nearly blew the drawing out of my hand.   I gripped it tighter and stuffed it in the
pack.   I didn’t have the first clue what
I was going to do with the stupid thing, but I didn’t want to lose it.
    I pulled out the bottled water and removed the lid.   Before I could take a drink, a toddler
stepped off the next treeway and stood on my platform.   I was stunned by the sight of him.  
    “Who are you?” I asked.
    His mouth formed into a goofy grin. He held out his arm and
waved by awkwardly opening and closing his hand.
    A huge white fury mass stepped onto the platform behind
him.   Tarek.
    I looked back at the toddler.   “Nate?”
    He waved again.
    I bent down on one knee and watched him smile back at
me.   “Really?”
    “Really,” Tarek said in his thunderous voice.
    “He’s so big.”
    “That is what happens to a human child over time.”
    “I’m Oz,” I said to Nate.   “You don’t remember me.”
    “He remembers you well,” Tarek said.   “We are here because he wanted to give you
something.”    He placed his huge hand
behind the boy and gently pushed him forward.
    Nate’s face turned red with embarrassment.   He reached under his shirt, pulled out a
piece of paper and handed it to me.
    It was a crayon drawing of a purple stick figure holding an
object and standing underneath a long yellow line.   The figure was standing on a pile of
rocks.   Another stick figure, gray and
bigger than the other, wore a crown and bloody grin.   A stick figure with long hair, smaller than
the other two, crouched down under a cloud made up of squiggly lines.
    “Thanks,” I said. “You’re really talented.”
    “It’s not an art project,” Tarek said.
    I didn’t know what he meant, so I just said, “It should be.
It’s really good.”
    “It’s a story,” Tarek said, “from a Storyteller.”
    I looked at it again.   “A story?”
    “That is what Storytellers do.”
    I stood and approached Tarek.   Whispering, I said, “I’m not really sure what
this is.”
    “You’ll figure it out,” Tarek said scooping up Nate in his
hand.   “When the time is right.” He
started to turn to leave, but I stopped him.
    “Wait,” I said pulling the Délon drawing out of my
backpack.   “Take this.”
    “It is not mine to take.”
    “It’s not mine either.”
    “No it’s not,” he said.
    “What am I supposed to do with it?   The Délons want it.   They’re fighting over it.”
    He smiled.   “I
know.   I’ve read the story.”
    I cocked my head to the side.   “You’ve read the story?”
    “I have.”
    “I’m in it?”
    “You are.”
    “But I thought I didn’t belong in the Délons’ story?   It wasn’t my fight?”
    “It wasn’t, but things were rewritten.” Again, he started
to walk away. But I stepped between him and the treeway.
    “Rewritten?   If I’m
in the story, then you know what I should do with the sketch.”
    “I do.”
    I waited for him to elaborate, but he just stood there with
his creepy smile.   “What do I do with
it?”
    “You do,” he said pushing me aside, “what is written in the
story.”   He stepped down the treeway
carefully carrying Nate in his huge hand.
    “Give me a hint,” I said slightly pleading.
    “I can only say,” he said