His dad’s last words were “Let’s Roll.” His dad loved exploring and finding distant, remote peaks before he gave his life defending his country from the destructive alien lights. Now he’s going on his own explorations, climbing by the light of the moon, and dodging ghosts.
All summer long, in the new Kingdom of Cashes Dade, a legend has slowly been born, about a kid who sings brightly from the remote peaks late at night when the moon burns blue. As the kids watch, ghosts slowly rise up from the misty meadows, and begin to move around. They appear to be dancing in the moonlight. The brighter the moon gets, the faster they appear to dance. Then the kid’s energetic singing echoes out across the mountains. No one can ever figure out where he is. No one ever sees him. But they can hear him, and so do the ghosts, because that’s when they stop dancing…
Josiah is a bright, active 12 year old who likes climbing, running, anything that involves moving. Josiah dreams about reaching the highest and most remote peaks in the world. He wants to explore and find things no one has ever found before. Mostly, he wants to discover secrets, secrets the dark spirits seem to be hiding. He also just really likes climbing. Are you like him? Do you like climbing? You see, even though you might not live close enough to climb any mountains, you might be more like Josiah than you think, because he climbs…everything. He climbs to the tops of tables, to the top of his desk, shelves, up walls to the roofs of homes if he can figure it out and get enough footholds. He definitely climbs trees and has built some really high (and really sketchy) tree houses. He even built a really, and I mean really, rickety bridge from two distant trees. No one besides him has ever been brave enough to try it. But what’s intriguing is not so much what he climbs, but how he climbs…
If you go climbing with Josiah, don’t tell him to pace himself. He will just stare at you, completely confused. He doesn’t seem to know what that means. When Josiah climbs a mountain, he starts off by shooting off like a rocket. He doesn’t do trails. He doesn’t work his way up, winding back and forth, no, he goes straight up, and he goes around…nothing. He flies over rocks. If a tree is in the way, he’ll push through it. He goes crazy fast up the mountain, but then he crashes. When you finally catch up to him, you’ll find him sprawled out in some awkward way, completely exhausted. He even complains about how tired he is and how hard it is to climb that fast. You would then think, “He’ll take it slower the rest of the way up.” But you would be wrong. After about a half hour, he sprints up the mountain again, flying up the slope. Then he crashes again, only to start it all up again. It definitely confuses the ghosts when they try to track him down.
Josiah doesn’t just climb, he sings as he climbs, but only at certain times. He sings with bright energy and really fast. For him, the faster the better, with notes always rising higher and higher. Josiah hates, not dislikes, not is kind of annoyed by, but hates slow music. He gets really agitated with slow songs. He just can’t stand them. He kind of bobs from side to side, taps his feet rapidly, and even waves his hands as if that will speed up the song, but it doesn’t work. He sings the most when he reaches the peak. He usually only sings when he finds a narrow point between two large rocks so his music will echo out through the mountains. He wants the ghosts to hear him, but not see him…
Josiah’s teachers didn’t think he was that smart because he struggles to understand complicated subjects, but no one else can figure out he reaches some of the high points he does, or how he builds bridges across trees, or how he sings across the mountains while remaining unseen. The dark spirits always stop dancing when he sings. They start drifting up the slopes desperately trying to find him. What is Josiah trying to find? Is he trying to find a key secret, or does he think he might meet the ghost of his dad? Why are the ghosts so interested in finding him? The clues might be in the lines of his song:
“The moonlight burns bright blue
Then the night fires cross the two
That’s when the Ghost Peak appears
But the only way is through your tears…”
