Liza was horrified. “We won’t—we won’t run into any scawgs, will we?”
“Perhaps,” Mirabella said, which wasn’t very comforting. “It’s hard to say.” Then she sped up again, leaving Liza to imagine being picked to pieces by an oversize iguana with vicious dog-breath. She thought she would rather have been smashed into splinters by a tree snake.
By now even the bushes of hope had stopped growing. On either side of them were sheer chasms of rock, dark slated stone, and no plant life whatsoever. The few lumpen that still pulsed among the rocks did so weakly, faintly.
“Almost—there—” Mirabella panted out. “Just—a—little—farther—to—the—top—”
Then, from ahead, came sounds of singing.
The voice came from just beyond the final bend in the mountainous path, past two enormous, ancient rocks that leaned together to form a vaulted archway over the path. Whoever it was had the worst singing voice Liza had ever heard—worse even than that of her father, who couldn’t even sing “Happy Birthday” in tune and had long ago given up trying.
They rounded a bend in the path, passed through the stone archway, and came suddenly to the end of the mountain. A small lip of rock jutted out over a sheer, vast, dizzying drop, an endless valley filled with floating mist.
A narrow wooden bridge stretched across the empty space, connecting the summit of their mountain to that of its twin, which Liza could make out very distantly, a looming dark shape beyond the mist. But the bridge did not seem particularly sturdy. Just looking at it made her feel nauseous.
“Are we—” She gulped. “Are we supposed to cross?”
“Not so fast!”
The voice came from a small pile of rubble. As Liza watched, the pile of rubble unfolded itself and stood, and Liza saw that it was not a pile of rubble after all, but an enormous mole, even larger and fatter than Mirabella, and dressed in gray robes so dingy and dusty and crinkly that Liza had mistaken the animal for stone. Its fur was the palest white, and its eyes—which were open, and twitching continuously back and forth—were clouded over, like a window completely covered in frost. The mole was blind, Liza realized.
“We come in peace,” Mirabella said, and despite the fact that the mole surely couldn’t appreciate it, she performed a low curtsy, so that her newspaper skirt touched the ground.
The mole’s nose, also a perfect white, trembled wetly. “A human girl and a rat. What’s your business on the other side?” The mole’s voice was a raspy, hoarse whisper. He must have been the one singing, or attempting to; only a voice so terrible could mutilate a song so badly.
“We go to the nests,” Mirabella said. “We have brought a gift for the queen of the spindlers.”
Liza knew Mirabella only said it to help get them across, but she did not like the way the mole turned his milky, unblinking eyes toward her just then, and smiled, showing small, sharp teeth inside a glistening pink mouth.
“Ah yes. A gift.” The way he said it was the way that a very hungry person might have said, A sandwich. “But nobody crosses the bridge without passing the test.”
“What kind of test?” Liza asked warily.
“You must answer a riddle,” the mole replied.
Liza’s heart sank. Patrick had been given a book of riddles for his birthday last year, and she had never known the answer to a single one.
The mole cleared his throat loudly, and then began to rumble out, in a horrible approximation of song:
“What always runs but never walks,
Often murmurs but never talks,
Has a bed but never sleeps,
Has a mouth but never eats?”
“Oh dear.” Mirabella took her tail in one paw and began to gnaw on it. “Oh dear, dear. How confounding. How confuddling! I’ve never been good with riddles, myself. Piddling things. Tricky, sticky, icky things.”
“What always runs but never walks …” Liza repeated to herself.
The mole let out a cackling laugh. “Do you give up?”
“Give me a second, give me a second.” Liza rubbed her forehead.
“Tick-tock, tick-tock!” the mole hummed, milky eyes roving endlessly. “Your time is running out.”
“You didn’t tell us there was a time limit!” Liza cried.
“Oh yes.” The mole smiled, showing his slobbery pink tongue. “Hardly any time left to answer at all. No one but the wise will journey ’cross the Bridge of Sighs.”
“But that’s not fair!” Liza burst out. This was exactly how things were Above: There were rules, but nobody told you about them, and you were somehow expected to know them anyway, and punished when you didn’t.
“Fair?” The mole sniffed witheringly in her direction. “There is no such thing as fair. There is only the way things are.”
This made Liza even madder. Suddenly she found she couldn’t control her anger. She was sure that wasn’t true. There was also the way things should be, and she knew it, and the mole knew it, and everybody Above and Below knew it, forever and always. Certain things were right, and certain things were not right. And she thought of Patrick, and she thought of her parents, and how they wouldn’t listen, and the anger rose and crested inside her, and her heart let out a pulse of protest, and she continued, “It’s not right, and you know it. We won’t be turned back. We came all this way, and nearly got thrown into the dungeon by the nids and eaten by tree snakes and had to follow the river to—”
Liza shut her mouth quickly.
“Had to follow the river …?” Mirabella prompted her encouragingly, but for a moment Liza stayed perfectly still and silent, as the gears in her brain went click-click-click into place, and the meaning of the riddle became clear.
She looked up at the mole, her eyes shining. “The river,” she said.
“We won’t be turned back because of the river?” Mirabella repeated confusedly.
“No, no, no,” Liza interrupted the rat excitedly. “I mean, that’s the answer to the riddle. A river runs and doesn’t walk, murmurs but doesn’t talk, has a bed and never sleeps, and has a mouth but doesn’t eat. That’s right, isn’t it?”
For a moment the mole let his disappointment show on his snout. Then he grunted, “You’re much smarter than you smell.”
Liza let out a whoop of satisfaction and chose not to worry too much about what stupidity smelled like.
“Well, that’s that. Tip-top, and top shape, and topsy-turvy, and oopsy-daisy, off we go,” Mirabella chanted. She adjusted her wig—which was again gravitating to the left—and started forward.
“Just a minute.” The mole raised both paws and stepped in front of Mirabella, blocking her path. Despite his blindness, the animal was surprisingly quick on his feet. “I didn’t say you could cross. You still have not paid the toll.”
Liza gaped. “But you said—”
“I said you must pass the test,” the mole said witheringly, showing his sharp teeth again. “But you must also pay the toll.”
“We haven’t got any money.” Liza balled up her fists, feeling as though she would like to punch the mole directly in his ugly white snout. “We haven’t got anything. My broom was snapped in two by a tree snake, and Mirabella lost her lunch box—”
“My purse,” Mirabella corrected her primly.
“Her purse, and I’m only wearing one shoe …”
“Then I’m afraid you’re out of luck,” the mole said, folding his arms over his tunic and spreading his legs apart so that he was entirely blocking the entrance to the bridge.
Liza jammed her hands into her pockets. She still had Patrick’s baseball, and the sock she had taken back from Mirabella, which was wrapped around her father’s glasses. She offered all of it to the mole.
“This is everything we have,” she said desperately. “Please—take it.” Patrick would forgive her for losing his baseball again. He would have to. And her father would never know the difference.
The mole snorted disdainfully. “Trash!” he spat out. “I ask for a toll, an
d you insult me with this stinking mound of human trash! Get out of here, before I set the moribats on you both.”
“Come on, Liza,” Mirabella said quietly. “We won’t find passage here.”
Liza felt tears pushing at the back of her throat, burning just behind her eyes. As she stuffed the sock, glasses, and baseball back in her pocket, her fingers brushed against the seeds of hope.
“Wait!” Liza cried out. She reached into the pocket of her pajamas, and withdrew several seeds of hope. She had no idea whether this counted as a toll, but she offered them up to the mole anyway. “Hold out your paw,” she said, and he did. His claws were dirt-encrusted and very sharp, and she was careful to avoid them as she counted three seeds into the very center of his paw.
Instantly the mole’s whole snout loosened. A slow smile spread across his face as he stroked the seeds lovingly.
“Seeds of hope …,” he said quietly, milky eyes roaming aimlessly. “Ah, yes. I never thought …” Then he lapsed into silence, a look of utter contentment on his face, as he continued to fondle the seeds carefully, shifting them from paw to paw.
Suddenly he seemed to remember that Liza and her companion were still there. He stepped abruptly out of the way, coughing.
“All right, then,” he said. “Off you go.”
Mirabella and Liza went forward onto the Bridge of Sighs, leaving the blind mole humming happily to himself, hunched over his seeds.
Chapter 14
THE GROANING TABLE
The bridge was made of very old wood that looked to Liza as though it would rot away at any second. It was very narrow, and they had to go single file—Mirabella, as always, taking up the lead. The bridge swayed dangerously beneath them, and Liza gripped tightly to the frayed rope handles.
She had been eager to cross, but once she was on the bridge she was filled with terror. The distant peak of the second Twin Mountain seemed miles and miles away, and on either side of them was a steep drop, a plummet of thousands of feet toward the River of Knowledge. Now Liza understood why the bridge was called the Bridge of Sighs: The air was filled with ghostly echoes, as though thousands of phantoms were lamenting the travelers’ progress.
“Don’t like heights, never liked heights, don’t like them,” Mirabella chattered nervously.
“Just don’t look down,” Liza said, although she very much shared the rat’s opinion, and did not feel nearly as confident as she wished to sound. The bridge gave another lurch, and she stifled a scream.
“Don’t look down, don’t look down, can’t look down, got to look straight. Straight, wait, don’t want to be late,” Mirabella prattled on, semi-hysterical.
“Please.” Liza was gripping the ropes so hard she could feel blisters developing on her palms. “Please, Mirabella. I am asking you, just this once. Please be quiet.”
“Hush up, shush up,” Mirabella chanted quietly.
At last they were within sight of the solid slate side of the second of the two twin peaks. Liza was tempted to break into a run, but she feared that any quick motions would cause the rotting wood to fall away under their feet. And so they made slow, shuffling progress along the bridge. Liza’s heart hammered painfully against her ribs, and her palms burned where the rope slid across her skin.
Just fifteen more feet … Liza told herself. Just twelve more feet. She imagined Patrick standing on the opposite side of the bridge. She focused on his face, held it in her mind, fixated on the three freckles at the tip of his nose, which in summertime merged and multiplied.
The bridge swayed beneath her; the wind sighed and heaved.
And then, underneath the wind, Liza detected another sound. At first she was sure she must be imagining it, and she paused for a moment, straining to hear.
Laughter floated to them through the mist. Someone—a few someones—were laughing in the darkness, among the swirling mists. Laughter rolled and echoed off the jagged rocks. Liza thought she heard bells, too, and a distant drumming, and she was instantly reminded of the time several years earlier when her parents had had their Christmas Eve party, and she had woken up in the middle of the night to the sound of muffled laughter, and crept quietly to the stairs, and seen her mother asleep on the couch, eyes closed, and a few people still in the living room, dancing in bare feet, while her father played the guitar. It was the strangest moment of her life, and had filled her with both amazement and terror. She had not even known that her father knew how to play.
This moment was just like that: Coming across music in such a barren, forbidding place made her feel both awe and fear.
She was so focused on the strange sounds she did not even notice that her feet were no longer on the swaying, tilting bridge; they had crossed over safely.
“Well,” Mirabella said, adjusting her wig. “Well, well. That was interesting. I’m not sure—oh, I’m hardly certain at all—that I like bridges. Nasty things. Swishing and swaying—sashaying!”
“Shhh,” Liza hushed her again. “I’m trying to listen.”
Mirabella muttered something under her breath about Below being a “free place of speech,” but Liza ignored her. There was a new quality to the air, a smokiness, and at first she could hardly believe it.
“Do you smell …” She inhaled deeply and her stomach growled. “Is it possible that … I think I’m smelling …”
Mirabella’s eyes suddenly widened, and a spark appeared in their center. “Meat!” the rat cried out. “Meat! Meat to eat!” And she dropped on all fours and began to scamper down the path.
“Wait for me!” Liza called after her. She ran as fast as she could, sending a shower of loose stones hurtling over the edge of the mountain and down toward the river below.
But Liza could not slow down. She had never, ever, ever in her whole life been so hungry: She realized that now. With every stumbling step, the smell of grilling meat grew stronger, and there were other delicious smells that hovered alongside it: hot pancakes and thick maple syrup, steaming bowls of chicken noodle soup, baked macaroni and cheese with buttered bread crumbs, golden french fries, chocolate-chip cookies straight from the oven, oozing butter.
The path turned a corner and opened into a broad, flat clearing, as though a chunk of the mountain had been lifted cleanly away, leaving a flat-bottomed bowl. At its center was a long wooden table piled high with every delicious food Liza could think of, and some she couldn’t: roasted turkeys with skins the brown of mahogany; vivid purple grapes that glistened in the cheerful glow of the torches, which had been set all along the periphery of the clearing and filled it with a festive, flickering light.
Four women were sitting at the table, laughing: one with brown hair, one with hair the russet red of an apple, one with jet-black tresses, and one with a braid that was the soft blond of early sunshine. All of them had the same pretty, round faces and large blue eyes, and Liza decided right away that they must be sisters.
They were laughing and singing. The black-haired woman had a tambourine in her pale white hands and was beating out a jangly rhythm while the red-haired woman strummed a tiny guitar. There were red flowers, with bulbs as large as Liza’s head, placed all around the table, letting off their own delicious scent—like honey and pine needles and a fresh ocean breeze, all at once. They seemed almost to nod in time to the music.
“Look, sisters,” the red-haired one said, glancing up from the table. “We have visitors.”
The black-haired one laid down her tambourine. All four women turned to stare, and Liza felt her cheeks burning, and swallowed several times. Her mouth was watering, and it was all she could do not to rush to the table and start cramming her cheeks with all the food she could, like a chipmunk.
“H-hello,” Liza said shyly.
“Hello,” the women chorused together. They were so beautiful they were almost frightening, despite their warm smiles.
Mirabella stood in anxious silence, fidgeting with her skirt and shawl and wig, until Liza reached out and elbowed her sharply in her furry side. Mir
abella jumped and landed in a deep curtsy, stuttering out, “Charmed, charmed. Very indebted.”
“Don’t be shy,” said the blond one. “Please—come and sit with us.”
“You must be hungry,” said the red-haired one, whose smile was the biggest of them all. “Very hungry.”
“Um—yes. As a matter of fact, we are.” As if to prove it, Liza’s stomach gave a tremendous gurgle.
“Please,” said the brown-haired one. “Eat with us. My sister was just about to play a song.”
“I’ll play,” the red-haired one said. Her teeth were large and square and white. “And you eat.”
“Eat, eat,” the other three murmured.
“Thank you.” Liza could have sobbed in gratitude. She nearly broke into a run crossing the clearing, and she could sense that Mirabella was also having trouble controlling herself. She wanted so badly to sit down, and tear at a turkey leg with her hands, and eat and eat, until she could barely stand.
Mirabella sat down next to the blond woman.
“What a lovely skirt,” the blond woman said, and she reached out and caressed Mirabella’s ears. “And what nice, soft fur you have.”
Liza had never known that rats could blush, but Mirabella did then. She turned a dark crimson, and even her whiskers took on a reddish hue.
“Thank you,” the rat muttered and then, deeply embarrassed, picked up a whole wedge of blue cheese and stuffed it unceremoniously into her cheeks so that no one would expect her to speak again.
Liza took a seat next to the red-haired woman, who had started strumming again softly. The music was lovely and reminded Liza of sunshine and endless laughter. She picked up a soft, warm roll and sank her teeth into its crust, and almost cried out with joy when butter dribbled down her cheek.
“You must have traveled very far,” said the black-haired sister.
“Mm-hmm,” Liza mumbled, with her mouth full of apple pie and sweet maple syrup. “Vewy faw.” She was too hungry to be embarrassed about talking with her mouth full.