Alight (The Generations Trilogy #2)(52)

This is it—we’ve found the fire-builders. My breathing sounds so loud. My heart hammers.



Will they accept us? Teach us how to hunt and prepare food? Can our two cultures live side by side? Or will this go the other way—will we have to force them to tell us how to survive?

I see movement down the path. Through the yellow leaves, I glimpse a flash of red and green.

Will they be young, like us, or old, like the Grownups?

The fire-builder comes around a thick tree trunk, into view.

My stomach drops.

The fire-builders, who lurked in the Observatory’s shadows, who smell like burned toast…

They aren’t like us.

They aren’t Grownups.

They aren’t people at all.





Borjigin’s hiss of fear slices through the jungle.

The fire-builder stops.

Underbrush and dangling vines partially obscure it. It’s not an animal—animals don’t carry tools. Is that a club it’s holding?

I feel numb. Not the “blanked-out” sensation I’ve grown used to, this is something else…a feeling of nothingness.

It wears rags for clothing, frayed strips of yellow, green and blue—the colors of the jungle—tied around long, thin, strong arms. Between the strips of cloth, I see wrinkled, dark-blue skin.

It is almost my height. Head wider and longer than mine. Eyes, three of them, middle one set slightly above the bottom two, a shallow triangle of eyes that flick about, searching. Even from a distance, their color jumps out: bright blue, like O’Malley’s. Below the eyes, a wide mouth: purple lips curve downward in an exaggerated frown.

Matilda’s memories struggle to define what I see. A flashfire of images: toad-mouth frog-mouth fish-mouth.



That head swivels suddenly, looks left. The creature comes closer, pushing past encroaching branches. Something strange about the way it moves.

I see its legs now: rag-tied, thick and powerful, bent like it’s sitting on an invisible chair. The creature is leaning forward, so much so I don’t understand why it doesn’t fall flat on its strange face.

Both legs push down at the same time, softly springing the creature forward. Not a step, a hop, both long feet coming off the trail. It lands silently.

The three blue eyes flick down the trail, side to side. I think it heard Borjigin and is searching for the source of the sound.

The fire-builder turns, looks back the way it came, and I see why it doesn’t fall—a tail, long and thick, balances out the forward lean.

It turns our way again, still searching, still wary. Strange, long hands adjust their grip on the club. Two fingers, not four, thicker than ours, as is the long thumb. Arms are wiry, corded with muscle.

That club bothers me, but I don’t know why. Long and thin, like the handle of Farrar’s shovel, but half wood, half metal. Nothing dangerous on the tip—no axe head, no spear blade. The club widens and flattens at the other end, the end held close to its body; maybe that part is for smashing things, just like Visca’s sledgehammer.

A tap on my arm. Bishop, both hands on his red axe, nostrils flaring, staring at me. He gives his axe a single shake, asking me a silent question: Should I kill it?

Is this creature alone? If it spots one of us, will it sound an alarm? It doesn’t seem to be wearing anything like the Grownups’ bracelets, nothing that could hit us from a distance. Bishop can surprise it, kill it quick. This thing isn’t like us—it is other—and we face so many threats already.



I don’t know what to do.

Blue eyes scan the trail, the underbrush.

Two small hops bring the creature closer.

It wears a lattice on its chest, kind of like a necklace: it’s made of bones. A bulging bag hangs from its hip.

Only a few steps away now—it wouldn’t have time to react before Bishop buries his axe in that wide head.

I glance across the trail. From my angle, Borjigin is barely visible behind a covering of wide leaves. I can’t see Coyotl at all. I have no idea where Visca is.

The fire-builder rises up slightly. The heavy tail rests on the ground, supporting its weight. It opens its wide mouth and barks out a single, harsh syllable.

More movement from farther down the trail. It wasn’t alone. Three rag-tied creatures that look just like the first. No, their skin isn’t as wrinkled, and they’re a different color. Two are a purplish blue, the other is purplish red. The purplish-red one is the smallest of the four.

Then, two more creatures, less than half the size of the others—children. Their skin is a bright, deep red.

Bishop tenses. He’s going to attack.

Kalle puts her little hand on his arm. Wide-eyed, she shakes her head.

That small gesture brings me back to our desperate situation—we need help. If we can eat what these creatures eat, it doesn’t matter that they aren’t human.

I look into Bishop’s eyes, mouth the word No.

The six creatures suddenly spring down the trail. The adults move quietly and gracefully. The little ones have to make twice as many jumps to keep up. Those two are tiny, with big, blue eyes—I can’t help but think of them as cute.



All of them continue down the trail, vanish into the jungle.

Everything has changed. Children. Families.

Their scent—burned toast—the same thing I smelled at the fire, at the hole in the wall…and at the Observatory. Creatures like these were watching us there. They didn’t attack.