Return of the Evening Star Read online

  PRAISE FOR

  RETURN OF THE EVENING STAR

  “What a delight to read a story populated with such characters! Noble, brave, and compassionate, Chloe and her heroic ensemble remind us that even in the face of loss and seemingly certain doom, it is our connections to those around us that will save the day. Diane Rios writes with verve, wit, and deep humanity, painting a portrait of a world very like our own, however fantastical it may seem.”

  —Alexis Smith, author of the award-winning Glaciers and Marrow Island

  PRAISE AND AWARDS FOR THE FIRST BOOK

  IN THE SERIES,

  BRIDGE OF THE GODS

  2017 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards: Silver, Pre-Teen Fiction – Fantasy

  2017 USA Best Book Awards Finalist in Children’s Fiction

  2018 Oregon Book Award Finalist in Children’s Literature

  2018 Gertrude Warner Awards for Middle-Grade Readers

  Shortlist

  “Rios creates a fascinating world that mixes history and fantasy through descriptive language and vivid imagery. Short chapters help move the steadily paced story along. VERDICT: Readers will eagerly await the next installment; a solid purchase for libraries with robust fantasy collections.”

  —School Library Journal

  “Diane Rios is as gifted a storyteller as she is an artist. Her tales hearken back to a bygone era while still feeling both relevant and fresh.”

  —Gayle Forman, author of If I Stay and Leave Me

  “This middle-grade debut finds an audacious child—with a knack for bonding with animals—thrown into peril by her scheming uncle. In this appealing novel, Rios writes with an abiding love of nature, illustrating in scene after scene the power people may draw from it…An engaging adventure that shows the strength that can be discovered amid tragedy.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Author Diane Rios has created a world that is both perfectly natural and slightly magical. With mystery, poetic descriptions of nature, talking animals, and bravery, Bridge of the Gods is the powerful and inspiring tale of a young girl in rustic Oregon who, just at the moment she needs help the most, discovers that she is just a little bit special.”

  —Bill Zeman, author of Tiny Art Director

  RETURN

  of the

  EVENING STAR

  Copyright © 2019 Diane Rios

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

  Published 2019

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 978-1-63152-545-2 pbk

  ISBN: 978-1-63152-546-9 ebk

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018966189

  Illustrations by Diane Rios

  Book design by Stacey Aaronson

  For information, address:

  She Writes Press

  1569 Solano Ave #546

  Berkeley, CA 94707

  She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

  All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  To my husband, Greg.

  PROLOGUE

  CYGNUS YAWNED, HIS GREAT JAWS STRETCHING wide as a groan escaped him. Nearby stars fluttered indignantly as he shook his massive head, knocking them from their orbit. Cygnus was ready to awaken. He had been sleeping for millennia, a celestial hibernation that might have lasted forever. But something had woken him up.

  An ice-cold chill embraced him, and he felt his own stars shivering at the sound of a horrible, hissing voice coming from the deep, inky blackness of the sky.

  “They will all die.”

  Cygnus whirled, scattering stars and small planets as he tried to see who had spoken. Another massive constellation towered above him, its fangs gleaming white against the black velvet of space. It was Scorpius, the snake. The giant reptile slithered his own stars and planets toward Cygnus, hissing his warning again.

  “They will all die.”

  Cygnus was irritated. What in the gods was he talking about?

  “Stop your nonsense, Scorpius.” He growled menacingly. “You’re just stirring up trouble.”

  “Oh, there is trouble all right,” hissed Scorpius, undulating a line of meteors and small comets in the bear’s direction. “But it is not of my doing. There is a war brewing in the land below, Cygnus.”

  “War?” scoffed the great bear. “What war? A human war? Why should I care if the humans go to war? If they all kill each other, that’s no great loss.”

  “It’s more than that, Cygnus,” breathed the snake, his star eyes sparkling. “It’s a war between the animals and the men.”

  Cygnus looked at Scorpius. He said nothing.

  “Yes, and it is your loved ones who are at risk this time,” said Scorpius with slithery satisfaction. “All of your children and cousins below will be vulnerable in this war. The humans have new weapons at their command.”

  “New weapons? What do you mean?” demanded Cygnus.

  “They have made new weapons that move at incredible speeds, faster than any animal can run—even the fleet Awinita cannot outrun them. These weapons can be used to run down our people, to crush them, to mortally wound them, yet they are impervious to harm themselves. The animals have had enough, Cygnus, but they don’t have any idea what they are up against. All they can talk about is a meeting on the mountain. They are ready to fight back.”

  “Fight back?”

  “But they won’t win,” said Scorpius, hissing deliciously as he tasted the words.

  “No, they won’t win,” agreed Cygnus sadly. He turned to look down at the world below, a small world but a beautiful one, and one that he loved very much. He said simply, “They’ll need our help.”

  “Your help. I won’t help them,” Scorpius said disdainfully.

  “Of course, you won’t,” answered Cygnus bitterly. “But I know who will.”

  “Who?” asked Scorpius.

  “I will pay a visit to Silas,” Cygnus said. “It has been a long time since I’ve seen my old friend. Together we will see what we can do.”

  “Silas?” Scorpius threw back his head and laughed out loud. A tumble of comets fell from his fangs and spun out into the darkness, lighting up passing meteors as they did.

  “What can that old geezer possibly do?”

  Cygnus was disgusted by the snake—Scorpius was always such an annoyance. Still, he had woken Cygnus when surely, Cygnus would have slept another thousand years and left his poor earth children to their doom. Ironically, it seemed he owed the snake a debt of gratitude—with this irritating thought, Cygnus shook his great head again and growled.

  “You know as well as I do, Scorpius, that Silas the Stargazer knows the Evening Star. She could help, and he is the only one she will speak to.”

  “He is a fool,” spat out Scorpius, flicking his tail angrily and knocking three planets off their orbit. “And she is a fool for befriending him!”

  “You’re just jealous,” said Cygnus with a growl. “You know he loves her.”

  “Bah!” spat Scorpius in disdain. “Humans can’t love stars.”
<
br />   “You know nothing about it, Scorpius,” said Cygnus. “As usual. Now enough—I have an old friend to meet.”

  Fully awake now, the great bear constellation shook his magnificent mantle of sparkling stars, comets, and whirling galaxies and moved across the heavens toward the small blue-and-green planet.

  CHAPTER ONE

  WILL YOU PLEASE ASK THE MARE HOW FAR we still have to go?” Lord Winchfillin gasped in pain as his mount Raja stumbled over another branch lying across the road.

  The Artist laughed. “Ask her yourself! She can hear you perfectly well.”

  The two men were riding through the deserted streets of Tillamook Town. They had woken that morning at the Hotel Nell, and eaten a hurried breakfast provided by Faron the stable boy. After hearing the boy’s account of what had happened in the town, they knew they could not stay. They must get out while they still could and continue the search for their young friend Chloe.

  It wasn’t just Tillamook Town—the entire countryside was in chaos. Only a few days earlier, fleets of flashing silver ambulances had suddenly appeared on the roads of the sleepy, rural communities, and begun terrorizing the population. Hurtling down the dirt roads at unimaginable speeds, these speeding “horseless carriages” deeply shocked the people of the land who had never seen anything like them before. Shock turned to horror when the drivers hopped out, their faces covered by masks—and began taking their loved ones away. If the “patients” struggled, the drivers placed masks—attached to silver canisters—over their faces. The victim’s next breath would render them unconscious, whereupon the drivers would drag them to the waiting ambulances, shove them inside, and speed away—to where at first, no one knew.

  Soon there were rumors of a new hospital in the west, in a small fishing village called Fairfax, and reports of multiple ambulances seen on the roads there. So far, the local police hadn’t been much help—they were under attack themselves, and the most they had been able to do was to send increasingly alarmed telegraphs back and forth. Meanwhile the deadly drivers continued to comb the countryside.

  As the men and horses rode out of town, they each reflected on the last two days, which had been the most frightening of their lives. The Artist thought for the hundredth time of that awful moment he had lost Chloe.

  Hold on! he remembered shouting as Greybelle galloped for her life ahead of the speeding ambulance. The mare had been carrying the weight of two people and could not keep up the killing pace. The Artist had cued her to turn off the road, and he remembered the mighty leap she and Raja had made across a ditch and into the forest. That was when Chloe fell.

  I failed her, the Artist thought morosely, tears welling up in his eyes. If only I had felt it, if only I had known!

  Greybelle whickered softly as if she could read his thoughts. It roused the Artist from his sad reverie and he patted her shoulder. She probably can read my thoughts, he mused, half expecting the mare to agree.

  His companion, patron, and old friend the Earl Lord Winchfillin rode behind on the old gelding Raja, a bleak expression on his face. The Artist heard the little lord mumbling to himself indistinctly, “New curtains . . . imported silk . . . ruined.” Lord Winchfillin sniffed loudly.

  At the sound the Artist turned around in the saddle to face his friend. “Are you all right, my Lord?”

  “Oh yes, yes. Quite all right.” Lord Winchfillin wiped his eyes with a frayed lace cuff and recovered himself a little sheepishly.

  “Forgive me, I am just waxing maudlin over my old possessions. Silly really. You know, it’s a very good thing you discovered me when you did, my old friend!” he called forward. “If it hadn’t been for you, I might have starved in that burned house, or gone crazy, or been attacked again—if those demonic drivers had found me first!”

  The Artist nodded gravely and said, “Yes, it was very good luck that I found you when I did. I only wish I could have found Chloe, too.”

  “Yes, it is very unfortunate about the girl,” agreed Winchfillin, sobering. “She was such a sweet child, and a very hard worker!”

  “Is such a sweet child,” the Artist corrected.

  “Yes, yes—of course, she is!” Lord Winchfillin hastened to agree. “And I hope I thanked you both properly for doing such a wonderful job helping me prepare for my birthday party!”

  A stricken look crossed Lord Winchfillin’s face at the thought of his lavish birthday party and his magnificent home, both utterly devastated by the vicious ambulance attack.

  “My beautiful party.” He sniffed sadly. “And my poor guests! What do you think has become of them?”

  “Nothing good, I’m afraid,” said the Artist.

  “We must try to do something for them!” said Lord Winchfillin, sitting taller in his saddle. His pale, dirty face gleamed for an instant with an uncharacteristically heroic light, and words tumbled from his mouth. “They are all friends of mine! We must find out where they have been taken!”

  “In due time, my Lord,” soothed the Artist. “We will look for them as soon as we are able. First though, I must find Chloe. She may need our help, she may be injured.”

  The little earl looked at his friend sadly as he said, “So many missing.”

  The men and horses continued silently through the eerily quiet streets. Everywhere was evidence of the horror the community had been through. Windows were broken, doors kicked in, and the horses carefully picked their way around debris in the streets.

  The quiet was ominous. It was not the quiet of a town still sleeping, but an uneasy quiet of the fearful and the hiding. They passed the police station but did not stop. It was obviously deserted, the doors hanging from their hinges. A chair lay on the front steps as if it had been thrown there, or perhaps dragged from under someone who had been sitting in it.

  The little group hurried along as best they could. Although still uncomfortable in Raja’s saddle, Lord Winchfillin rode straighter and with greater ease now, having worked out most of the pains of the first day’s ride.

  They had a destination. They were traveling to the great mountain in the east. There had been rumors in the animal world of a meeting on the mountain. Whitestone the squirrel had told Greybelle the mare to go to the meeting with the men. It seemed that man was not the only one suffering from the ambulance attacks. Animals were being run down and killed by the hundreds, and many had had enough. It was time to do something about it. Whitestone told the mare that the animals might help them—for the greater good. It would be the only way to confront the speeding cars, for it seemed that neither man nor animal could do it on their own. And so the little group had turned their steps to the northeast—in the direction of the great silver mountain, Wy’east.

  Once they had moved beyond the outskirts of town and entered the sparse forest, the Artist decided it was time to share with his old friend something he had just recently discovered himself. With her blessing, The Artist told Lord Winchfillin that the mare he was riding, Greybelle, could talk.

  The earl didn’t believe it and laughed loudly at his friend’s joke.

  “But it’s true,” Greybelle had said simply.

  The look of shock on the earl’s face at the sound of the mare’s voice was comical. His cheeks drained of color, and his wide-open mouth shut up like a box.

  Since then he had avoided the entire subject. Greybelle didn’t speak again, preferring to keep quiet anyway, and they had ridden along in this way until the saddle began pinching.

  “But . . .” Lord Winchfillin wheezed huffily, “I’ve never spoken to a . . . horse . . . before. How do I do it?”

  “You just speak, of course!” The Artist laughed. “Just as you are right now! She can understand everything you’re saying as well as I can!”

  Greybelle said politely, “Yes, I can.”

  Lord Winchfillin looked a little sick. Gathering his courage, he took a deep breath and leaned forward in his saddle. “HELLO. I AM LORD WINCHFILLIN.”

  Greybelle whinnied, a bit indignantly. “I’m
not deaf!” she said.

  “Ah,” said the earl uncomfortably. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Good morning, Miss Greybelle. So nice to make your, er . . . acquaintance.”

  “And yours, sir,” answered the mare pleasantly.

  A remarkable array of emotions crossed the little lord’s face all in an instant—utter surprise, a pained distaste, a flutter of pride at the mare’s respectful address, all of which he tried his best to conceal. He remembered his manners.

  “Ah, yes, indeed. Quite right. Ahem.” Lord Winchfillin cleared his throat and said politely, “Please, my good mare, could you tell me how far it is to this mountain?”

  “I’d be glad to,” answered Greybelle. “We should be there by nightfall.”

  “Ah! By nightfall, wonderful. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you very much,” said the little man meekly, sitting back in his saddle. His usual garrulous prattle was turned off like a faucet, and for once the earl seemed content to ride quietly, thinking his own thoughts.

  The trail led through the foothills of a mountain range in front of them, the slopes dotted with scrub pines and strewn with large boulders. The horses spent the afternoon climbing the gradual incline, taking a moment here and there to rest in the shade of the trees. When the sun was high in the sky, the Artist called for a halt to eat what was left of the good pie Faron had given them that morning. The men dismounted and stiffly stretched their legs while the horses dropped their heads and began grazing on the thin grass growing in patches around the rocks. The splashing sounds of a nearby stream could be heard, and the horses and men drank their fill. Refreshed, the little group continued. As they climbed higher, the pines grew closer together, and the air became colder.

  They soon came to a ridge that overlooked a valley and stopped in wonder at the sight that greeted them. The green lowland stretched ahead under the bright blue sky, and a great river sparkling with the light of a million dancing diamonds ran the length of it. At the end of the valley, like an enormous king upon a godlike throne, sat the mountain. The great Wy’east.