May Bird and the Ever After (36 page)

H
ello?” May was crouching at the bottom of a dark pit, her arms wrapped around herself, shivering. “Is anyone there?”

“May?” Pumpkin's voice echoed back to her.

“Pumpkin! I thought they'd taken you! Where are you?”

“I don't know. I'm in some kind of pit.”

“Me too!”

Another voice rose out in the darkness. “Hey, are you two all right?”

“Beatrice!” Fabbio called. “You okay?”

“I think so.”

“I'm okay,” May called. Everyone voiced agreement. But May knew none of them were okay. John the Jibber was gone. And there was no one who knew how to help them. They were caught. May rubbed at her elbows and knees where they'd been scraped a few moments before, when she'd been dropped into the pit.

Then she began feeling along the walls. And then, with a gasp, she felt her shoulders. Her knapsack was gone. It must have been torn off in the struggle.

Suddenly a blue glow illuminated the area, and May looked toward a giant Holo-Vision screen mounted in the wall.

“You all have this HV?” Fabbio called. Again everyone voiced agreement.

The blue screen dissolved into a scene of a specter—the same one who had been in the movie at the Spectroplex—with a knife in his chest. He smiled at the camera, seeming to smile directly at May.

“Hello, and welcome to the uppermost dungeons of the Eternal Edifice. On behalf of the great Bo Cleevil, we would like to extend our regrets that your stay is under such unfortunate circumstances.”

“What circumstances? What's going to happen to us?” May asked as if the man could hear her, but he went on talking.

“Because you are being detained for questioning, you may at this time enjoy a few extra minutes or hours of the afterlife before you are destroyed completely. To prepare for your execution, you may like to empty your pockets of all valuables at this time. You may also wish to say a silent good-bye to all of those that you have ever loved. Remember to remain in your pit patiently until the ghouls come to get you. Though of course”—the man chuckled softly—“you have little choice.”

He turned serious again, his big dark eyes focused on the camera. “Remember, execution is, quite literally,
nothing
to be scared of. Once you have vanished from existence completely, you won't know the difference.”

He gave a chilling smile. “Have a pleasant stay!” Suddenly the HV blinked off, and the pit was enveloped in pitch-blackness once again.

“Ohhhh,” Pumpkin moaned.

“We've got to get out of here,” Beatrice moaned.

“No worry, Beatrice, I will find a way.” The grunts of Captain Fabbio leaping and jumping and trying to climb carried into May's pit. But May had gone numb. She crouched down against the wall and hugged herself tight, staring toward the darkness of the ceiling. At any moment the boulder covering the pit would be pushed aside, and she would be dragged out. She would never see her cat, or her mom, or her woods, or anyone again.

“Pumpkin,” she finally called. “I'm so sorry. You'd be back in Belle Morte if it weren't for me.”

There was a long silence, and then, “I really didn't have anything else to do.”

“Hush, you two,” Beatrice called. “You sound like you're giving up! We just have to think.”

May was thinking a lot. She was thinking of how she had thought once that if she could go somewhere else, she could
be
someone else. But she had come here, clear across the universe, and her life had not amounted to much of anything. She was thinking how much she had let everyone down.

They waited in silence for a long time. But for all their thinking, nobody came up with a way out of the pits. Occasionally May heard the muffled sound of ghouls jabbering above, and then the scrape of a boulder being moved from its place, and terrible screams as a spirit was dragged out of its pit and away.

“I just hope it's not the Bogey who does it,” Beatrice said heavily, her earlier note of hopefulness gone. “I couldn't take that. I'd rather be . . . destroyed by the ghouls.” Then came the
sound of her softly crying, and the weight of May's guilt hung more heavily on her shoulders than ever.

She reached out toward the dirt in front of her and began to trace a picture of Somber Kitty, to make up for all the ones she hadn't drawn of him at home. She sank back and placed her hands against her hips, missing him. Her fingers skimmed the tops of her shorts.

And then, like a spark of lightning, she remembered the vial of seawater in her pocket.

It must have been hours before a scraping sound came from above May, and the boulder covering her pit was moved, letting light spill in and admitting two ghoul faces who jabbered at May. May's heart threatened to pound its way out of her chest as she watched them throw down a ladder made of chains and climb toward her. They dragged her back out of the hole, where she quickly looked around the room, a great gray cell filled with boulders to mark each pit. She was careful not to scream or call out, though she wanted to. She knew Pumpkin was scared enough as it was.

“May, is that you?” Beatrice called.

“Be brave,” May called back. The ghouls pulled her into a long hallway and up a set of stairs, through two gleaming steel doors into a huge room made completely of glass. The doors slid shut behind her.

The room was enormous and gave a complete view of the dusky sky, as well as the city beneath their feet. In the middle of the floor was a large circle, sliced into parts. And beyond that a gold and purple chair that looked a lot like a throne.

Through the window May could see the buildings of Ether stretched out below, and then farther, the barren outskirts—a vast field of gravestones—and beyond that, the desert. A tiny stripe curved its way outward from the great cemetery, curling around the northern outskirts of the city, and then shooting farther north. May realized with an extra thud in her chest that that must be the northern railroad. And then the height made her so wobbly she had to move away from the window.

A sliding sound behind her made the hairs on her neck and arms stand up. Without turning around, she knew by the silence the Bogey had entered the room. Slowly, her body feeling numb, she turned around.

The Bogey smiled his horrible smile at her and waved his fingers in a long, lazy movement. He sat in his throne and continued to smile.

Behind him were two ghouls who, at his silent command, scurried forward and grabbed onto her arms, holding her tight.

She squirmed as the Bogey drifted up again and over to her, stroking his hands along his long pointy chin before running them gently through her hair, his empty white eyes shining. May stayed perfectly still.

When the Bogey finally spoke, his voice came out of a set of speakers at the top of the room. It was a hoarse whisper.

“You were very fortunate in opening the Book. It is a great honor. My master, long ago, was able to open it too. Can you guess what it told him?”

May swallowed, and shook her head just slightly.

“The Book told him that a Live One would come to destroy him.” The Bogey patted her head. “But it didn't tell him who.”

May clenched her teeth and tried to stand completely still.

“So he set guards at each portal to protect our world from those like you. It seems you got through anyway.”

Now the Bogey pulled his hands together and cracked his knuckles one by one. Behind him May could see the southern part of the city. A tiny plume of smoke, she noticed absently, had risen up in the distance where the train tracks met the horizon.

“You have led us to the answer, to your name in the Book. Now you must tell me, how were you planning to do it?”

May tried to move her arms slightly, but they were pinned solidly by the two ghouls. She was still trying to take in what the Bogey was saying. “I. . . I wasn't planning anything. You have the wrong person.”

The Bogey's hand shot out and grabbed her at the top of her bathing suit, his frigid knuckles grazing her collarbone. “The Book doesn't lie. Tell me how.”

“I don't know.” May scrunched her shoulders up against the deadly fingers digging into her throat.

The voice, though still hoarse and whispery, came through the speakers so loudly that the glass all around them began to vibrate. “What kind of weapon is it you have that you think can destroy a power as great as Bo Cleevil?”

May shook her head. “I don't have a weapon.”

The Bogey's eyes glinted at her for a long moment. Finally he nodded. “It doesn't matter anymore. You will never get a chance to use it.

“Search her,” he said to the ghouls, still talking through the speakers. “Bring me anything you find. Then dispose of her.”

He tilted his top hat at her, then turned and drifted toward the doors. With the push of a button they slid open. But before he went out completely, the Bogey pushed another button. He floated through the doorway a moment before the circle in the floor opened up, full of blackness and gaping at May. She stared at it, petrified. She knew instantly that that blackness was what nothing looked like. She tried to scrabble backward, thrusting her hand toward her pocket.

“Hbbblgglglg,” one ghoul said to the other.

While the one took both of May's flailing arms tightly in his hands, the other stuck his slimy claws into her pockets, pulling out her quartz rock. He let out a squeal when he saw it, and the other ghoul swiped at it with one hand while holding May's wrists with the other, fighting for the rock. It went flying across the room.

In a flash the first ghoul had his claws back in her pockets again, digging for more treasures. Grunting, he jerked out the sea capsule and held it up high.

This time the second ghoul let go of May completely. The creatures tackled each other, their hands closing over the capsule. May held her breath. She took a step back.

Smack!
Both ghouls looked straight at her the split second before they vanished completely.

May swooped to grab her quartz rock before she sprinted out the doors and back to the room of the pits.

“Pumpkin! Bea! Fabbio!”

“May!”

She followed Pumpkin's voice to the nearest pit and lunged against the stone. “I can't move it!”

May tackled the stone again, pushing with all her might. It gave a little bit, then a little bit more, until there was room for May to throw the chain ladder down into the open space. A moment later a pair of long fingers appeared on the ledge of the pit, and Pumpkin squeezed his way out, shaking all the way.

He and May peered around.

“Beatrice, Fabbio!”

They followed their voices to two other pits and, with great effort, rolled the boulders out of the way.

Once the group was all on level ground, they sprinted for the door opposite the one May had been dragged through before. They ran out into a long passageway.

“The floaterator!” Pumpkin pointed.

They sprinted down the hall. Beatrice jammed her finger into the Down button. At that moment, the light said it was at floor 3,987.

“Ay, Dio mio”
Fabbio muttered, shifting his parachute on his back.

Slowly the floaterator made its way up. While they waited, the group looked frantically over their shoulders. Finally, there was a
ding
in front of them—and a chorus of chatter came from behind the floaterator doors.

“Run!”

With Beatrice, Pumpkin, and Fabbio speeding along in front of her, May pounded away from the floaterator. The floaterator door had opened behind them and a chorus of ghoul voices rang out as the ghouls gave chase. The group zipped through the dungeon area littered by boulders and turned right, stopping only when they'd zoomed straight into the glass room and realized they were trapped.

May dove for the button that would close the doors. Beatrice searched for a way to lock them and finally slammed her small white fist into every button there was until they heard a great magnetized sound. The doors seemed to have locked.

Outside, a heavy thud announced the arrival of the ghouls and that they were trying to break the doors down.

“What'll we do?” Everybody looked at May.

“My guts!” Pumpkin cried, darting behind May and holding her shoulders, gazing at the doors.

May stared out the window at that curious puff of smoke in the distance. Suddenly she realized what it was.

“There's the train north,” Beatrice said sadly at the same time May thought it. Beatrice was breathing hard, sticking her finger against the glass and pointing beyond the northern gate of the city. “That's the station I read about,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at the door. May could make out a little dot that marked the station.

“I wish we were on that train,” Beatrice said, “headed out of the city.”

“I always wanted to see snow,” Pumpkin warbled. The ghouls outside the doors slammed into them harder and harder.