CHAPTER 07: The Garden of Jubilee
Peg and Josie returned to Midnight Cruiser and while Josie grumbled about Miguel, Peg tried to think of a way to reveal him for the monster he really was. Despite running Miguel's words through her head, she worried that he was right. The Ministry might not know everything he was doing, but they wouldn't risk bad publicity this late in the Derby.
“I knew he was a jerk but I didn’t think he was also some self-righteous psycho.” Peg said as she sat at the edge of Midnite Cruiser’s coal bay.
“I wanna punch his face in!” Josie growled while stomping her feet.
“Yeah you made it very clear when you broke that table. The table cost most of our, or rather my, money just so you know.”
Josie apologized while stomping her feet a little softer.
“Either way, we’ll need to put a pin in the Miguel stuff for now and focus on the bramble.”
“Bramble? What’s that?” Josie asked..
“It’s a collection of thick vines tangled together covered in large thorns.” Peg explained, leaning against Midnite Cruiser. “To get to the finish line in the clouds we’d have to make it past these first.”
“That’s nuffin!” Josie asked. “Between me and Midnite Cruiser we can cut through that junk like butter.”
“Not necessarily.” Peg replied, shaking her head. “Do you know what ‘Hard Green’ is Josie?”
Josie tapped her chin and thought for a moment. “Maybe? I feel like I heard it before at the factory.”
“That would make sense, it's quite valuable material. Most of the Stalk is made from it. It’s impressively durable, harder than most metals, and that makes it quite difficult to harvest and quite expensive. The road we’ve raced on is Hard Green and the bramble is too.”
“So you’re saying that stuff is going to turn us into that holey cheese?” Josie asked.
“Well no, not exactly-”
“Donut maybe?”
“Enough with the food!” Peg groaned while rubbing her temples. “What I’m saying is that we can’t just brute force our way through the bramble. We’d never make it out.”
Peg looked back at Midnite Cruiser and smiled.
“That’s why Cruiser’s so much smaller than all the other vehicles. There will be pockets we can find that we’ll squeeze through. The other vessels will get torn apart or stuck but we’ll be able to slip through with minimal damage. As long as we don’t miss our shot we’ll be fine. Trust me Josie, I got everything planned.”
Peg turned to look at Josie expecting to find her trademark smile and confidence bursting from the seams. Instead Josie appeared deflated. She was looking down at the ground and mumbling to herself.
“I didn’t know that…” Josie whispered..
“Oh that’s not a huge deal. It’s so high up that most wouldn’t know-”
Tears started streaming down Josie’s face as she sat, gripping her legs and burying her face in her knees.
“There’s so much stuff we- that I don’t know,” Josie cried, unknowingly parroting the words of Peg’s assassin. She sniffled while wiping away tears but still not looking in Peg’s direction. “You weren’t the first team I talked to, ya’ know?”
Peg shook her head.
“I went to a few different teams, big ones. A few of them wanted me as soon as they saw how strong I was but then I told them why I wanted to go up.”
“To go to the top right? See the clouds?”
Josie shook her head.
“Not just the clouds I want to go to the top, the real top of the stalk. Where no one else has gone. Everybody laughed at me, called me a dumb kid who believes in fairy tales. But then I overheard one of them mention you and how your team all got up and left so I went to find you.”
The silence filled the air around them and hung heavy. Josie couldn’t take it and her crying got louder as she did her best to hide her face.
“When I was really little, my grandma and grandpa told me stories. Stories about a place at the top. A garden where everyone danced and was happy and no one went hungry. No one got into fights. I told myself one day I’d get there and…”
Josie’s crying became uncontrollable. She spoke between her tears as Peg watched, with her heart sinking as Josie seemed to fall apart.
“And-And I’ve always been strong! No matter how bad it got, I always took care of things! Always! But there’s smoke people and ‘dramble’ or whatever you called it and I don’t know anything and I-”
Peg was ready to mention how Josie had taken out ‘Smoke People’ all by herself or how she handled herself running with all the other vehicles in the Derby, but she didn’t. Instead she listened while Josie sobbed and beat herself down. This made Peg realize that from the moment she met her she didn’t see Josie for who she was.
Past the incredible strength, infectious smile and laughter there was a scared little girl. A girl filled with the same fear that Peg took years to push past herself. She thought about the nights after losing her parents where she cried herself to sleep knowing that she’d be living her life without them. Peg walked over to where Josie sat, kneeling next to her and reaching into her breast pocket.
“Jo, this garden. Do you mean the Garden of Jubilee?”
Josie’s eyes widened when Peg said the name. “You’ve heard of it?”
Peg pulled out a worn piece of paper from her breast pocket. It was a crude drawing of a field of flowers in the bright son. Depicted in the drawing were giants, people, animals and clouds but what was unique was that each and every creature was smiling, even the clouds.
“When I was little, my mom told me stories about the garden. It’s just like you described, a magical place far away in the sky. She would tell me stories at night of giants whose dancing would shake the earth, animals who would sing and play with the humans and clouds that would fill the sky with lights and laughter. I wanted to go so badly and my mom said one day she would and…”
Peg trailed off, as memories of her parents came to the surface. She smiled, holding back tears as she tilted Josie’s chin to look at her. She lifted her drawing up between them and right before Josie’s eyes Peg ripped it cleanly in half. She then handed half to Josie who sat there mouth agape.
“My parents knew there was more to this Stalk, to this world than we know and they promised to uncover every corner they could. Now I’ll make a promise to you. No matter what happens, even if we get separated, our goal is going to be reaching the top. We’re going to find the garden together and we’ll never have to be afraid because we’ll always have each other, Ok?”
Josie looked at the ripped picture then Peg and for the first time in their partnership was absolutely speechless. Thankfully, no words were needed when Josie reached up to grab her half of the picture and tears welled up in her eyes again. These were not tears of sadness or embarrassment like moments earlier. Instead, these tears freed her and lifted a humongous weight off her tiny shoulders. She leapt into Peg’s arms, hugging her tightly with a big grin across her face. Once her emotions settled she looked up at her quizzically.
“So how we gonna’ get past the clouds?” Josie asked.
Peg looked down and smiled. “Well about that…”
🌱🌱🌱
A familiar voice boomed over the loudspeaker cracking through the crisp early morning air. “WITH NO MORE DROP OUTS WE ARE HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE THE FINAL 9 TEAMS!”
Each team was named in placement order, with Josie & Peg’s ‘Midnite Cruiser’ coming in fourth and Miguel with the Ministry’s ‘Wings of Leo’ having a tight grip on first. The announcer explained the final leg of the race, going over the same things Peg had spoken of earlier about the Bramble. Josie looked around from the coal bay and noticed other team’s decided to take the approach of adding more shielding to their vehicles to withstand the thorns. The starter pistol exploded for the last time and the final leg of the Millennia Derby began.
Mere minutes into the race, the fight for first place began. The hulking machines tried their best to rip and tear through the thick bushes of thorny vines but as Peg predicted they were either torn to shreds or immobilized within the bramble. Midnite Cruiser on the other hand was making light work of everything. While the others were focused on getting through the thick thorns, they were able to drive through the course with ease. Peg kept her eyes peeled until she found the exact pocket of space she wanted.
“Haven’t seen anything yet!” Peg yelled out from the driver’s seat. “Just keep loading up!”
They continued ducking and diving through the bramble, taking light scratches here and there as the entanglement of thorns grew tighter and tighter. While searching for the perfect opening, Peg noticed a small group of people who seemed to have fallen from their vehicle and into the bramble. Every bit of logic in her brain was telling her to keep moving and ignore them. However, her conscience overrode her sensibility. In a split second decision, she veered off course to help them.
As she approached, she realized the people in the bramble weren’t people at all. Body doubles had been arranged in gruesome positions, covered in what looked like fake blood. Peg cursed, knowing she’d been tricked. Before she could get back on track, a shot rang out and landed squarely into her shoulder. Peg screamed in agony as Midnite Cruiser grinded to a halt.
Josie was busy shoveling coal, but the piercing sound had shocked her from her work. She jumped out of the coal bay and on top of Midnite Cruiser to get an idea of what was happening. Peg was clutching her shoulder as blood flowed freely down her arm. At that moment, she heard a rustling noise and saw none other than the huge ‘Wings of Leo’ emerging from the bramble. Standing at the coal bay, holding a pistol, was Miguel himself. Not only that, his pistol’s sight was locked squarely on Josie.
“You had every chance in the world to turn back,” Miguel said, pulling back the hammer. “I prayed all night hoping you’d listen. I’m so sorry.”
Miguel pulled the trigger. His aim was true and with one shot he landed a bullet directly into Josie’s forehead.
To Be Continued