Liesl & Po

  Mo swung Liesl out of her chair with his free hand, and pressed her to his chest. Then, keeping Will, Liesl, and Lefty protected, he crashed back-first through the dining room windows and, amid an explosion of shattering glass, charged into the cool air outside.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  ONCE LIESL WAS OUTSIDE AND AWAY FROM THE smoke, she revived.

  “Po,” she said, with her first intake of breath.

  “It’s all right,” the ghost said. “I’m right here.” Po was still very weak and its voice sounded faint, but Liesl was comforted.

  “Where’s Bundle?” Liesl asked.

  A shaggy shape flickered momentarily in the air. Bundle was tired too. It had herded the ghosts back through the opening and returned them to the Other Side, and Po had closed up the door.

  “I’m all right too,” Will said, somewhat annoyed that the ghosts had been Liesl’s first concern.

  “Everybody’s in tip-top shape,” Mo said cheerfully. He ignored the fact that their clothes were black with smoke, their faces streaked with ash, and their wrists cuffed behind their backs. “Even Lefty here is happy as a clam. Though she might be happier with a clam.” Mo laughed at his own joke as the cat in the sling looked up at him—disapprovingly, Will thought. Then Mo leaned down to Will and whispered conspiratorially, “I only wanted to give you the hat, so’s you wouldn’t be cold.”

  “The house!” Liesl cried out. They were sitting at the edge of the pond, by the old willow tree, where Mo had felt they would be safe, and Liesl had looked behind her for the first time. “The whole house is burning!”

  The fire, driven now by that strange and unfamiliar wind, which had blown the real magic all across the countryside, had reached the very top of the peaked roof.

  “I’m afraid so,” Mo said. “From the crown to the cellar. There won’t be nothing to it but ash.”

  “The cellar . . .” Something had just occurred to Liesl, and she turned to Will, eyes shining. “Augusta buried my father’s ashes behind a wall. Remember? She said so. But now even the walls are burning.”

  Will nodded solemnly. “It looks like he’ll make it to the willow tree after all, Liesl.”

  Liesl squeezed her fists tightly. “Let it burn,” she whispered. “Let the whole thing burn down to the last piece of wood.”

  At exactly that moment—as the Lady Premiere and the alchemist were staggering toward them, leaning on each other, and Augusta was running toward the pond with her shoelaces on fire, screaming, and the old woman was riding the policeman’s back as though he were a pony, and beating him with her cane to make him go faster—the house gave an enormous shudder, and with a tremendous rolling crack collapsed in on itself.

  The walls came down. Wood turned to smoke and ash. The contents of the little wooden box were released, and drifted upward on tendrils of wind and air—upward and outward, over the sloping hill, and down toward the slate-gray water of the pond—and to the velvet-soft ground beneath the willow tree, where they should have been all along.

  Somehow, Liesl knew. She felt that the ashes had been returned, and as the last recognizable part of her old home was consumed in flame, she began to cry. But she was not sad; she was filled with joy and relief.

  After all that, she had done what she had set out to do. She had brought her father home so he could rest.

  Po and Will looked at each other helplessly. The single tear Liesl had shed in the hills had been bad enough, they both thought. This display of emotion was quite beyond the both of them.

  It was Mo who squatted down beside Liesl and began to comfort her. “There, there.” He patted her shoulder heavily. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Liesl could not explain that she was crying mostly out of happiness, so instead she just nodded.

  Augusta charged into the shallows of the pond, skirts hitched up to her knees, where her shoelaces were at last extinguished. She let out a loud howl of satisfaction and sloshed back up to the grass, where she collapsed ungracefully onto her rump. The sight of the ghosts had so unnerved her that she had temporarily forgotten about her stepdaughter. She whipped out a handkerchief and began mopping her face, repeatedly muttering, “Mercy. Mercy.”

  The old woman and the policeman had reached the pond as well, and the old woman had dismounted. Now that the fire was smoldering far behind them, and the house no more than a black, smoking pile of soot, the old woman felt able to express her outrage.

  “Well, I never!” She gesticulated wildly in the air with her cane. “In all my life! It ought to be illegal! I’ll take it up with the judge!” Without saying so directly, she made it clear that she was referring to magic; and fire; and ghosts; and the whole business.

  The Lady Premiere’s head was filled with visions of power. She imagined an army of ghosts; with it she could take over the whole world!

  “Again,” she croaked to the alchemist. “I want to see them again. I want you to call up the ghosts!”

  “H-here?” the alchemist stammered. Nobody had been more staggered by the ghosts’ appearance than he. Was it possible—conceivable—that he had, in fact, performed the Great Magic? It must be so! And yet he had done nothing out of the ordinary but wish for the magic to occur and the ghosts to appear.

  An idea, a pleasurable thought, began winking in the alchemist’s brain. Perhaps he was even more powerful than he had ever known.

  “Here and now.” The Lady Premiere was very pale, but her eyes glowed like stars. She looked like someone in the grip of a very high fever. “I must know. I must be sure.”

  “You can’t!” the old woman spluttered. “You won’t! It’s an outrage!”

  Nobody bothered to answer her. An uneasy hush fell over the assembled group. Liesl and Will knew that the ghosts had come through the door Po had opened—Po had told them so—but still, they couldn’t help but feel as though something great was about to occur. Unconsciously, they leaned forward, keeping their eyes locked on the alchemist.

  And indeed, there did seem to be some kind of magical, shifting quality to the air. Even the alchemist felt it: a power growing and swelling around him.

  Of course, what he could not know—what none of them knew—was that the magic was there. It was everywhere, unseen, shimmering, waiting to be called up. It was floating on the wind and skimming over the hard, dry earth; it was hanging like a curtain just beyond the visible world.

  The alchemist was not sure how he had called up the ghosts in the first place, so he did not know exactly what to do to raise them again. He took a deep breath and spoke out the words to the magic: “The dead will rise from glade to glen and ancient will be young again.”

  His voice rolled and echoed in the silence. For a moment, no one spoke.

  Then the Lady Premiere growled, “Nothing’s happening.”

  The alchemist giggled nervously. “I don’t know what could have possibly—”

  Liesl hushed him. “Look!” she cried out. “Something is happening.”

  She was right. Something was happening. That unseen curtain of magic draped everywhere and over everything all at once—that fine, invisible layer—became visible for one white-hot second. The air appeared suddenly to take on the quality of a rainbow, layered with color after color. Will gasped; Liesl cried out; the old woman made the sign of the cross.

  Then the earth began to shake.

  “What’s happening?” shrieked Augusta.

  The alchemist and the Lady Premiere were thrown off their feet. The alchemist landed on top of the Lady and became entangled in her fur.

  “Get off me!” she screamed, kicking at him.

  “Is it an earthquake?” Liesl asked.

  “It’s the magic,” Po said, and its voice was full of wonder.

  Then a column of gold, a finger of light, appeared. It stretched from the sky to the very center of the pond like a long, flaming braid binding them together—flashing, blindingly bright. At this even the Lady Premiere fell silent.

  All at once the hard, co
ld earth seemed to explode. The brown surface of the world dissolved and in its place was an impossible, an inconceivable, an unbelievable profusion of color: green grass and purple and red flowers; sprays of lily; white baby’s breath that covered the hills; nodding fields of bright yellow daffodils; rich purple moss. The trees burst forth with new leaves. The weeping willow tree was a mass of tiny pale green leaves, thousands of them, which whispered and sighed together as the wind moved through its branches. There were fat heads of lettuce in the fields, and cucumbers lying like jewels among them, and enormous red tomatoes surrounded by thick, knotted vines.

  And for the first time in more than 1,728 days, the clouds broke apart and there was dazzling blue sky, and light beyond what anyone could remember.

  The sun had come out at last.

  Liesl squinted and laughed. Will ducked his head, blinking back tears, embarrassed; he told himself it was just a reaction to the sudden brightness.

  Mo took off his hat and pressed it to his chest. Lefty jumped from her sling and began batting at a butterfly. The old woman fell to her knees and remembered what it was like to be young, and wept.

  “Isn’t it amazing?” Liesl could not stop laughing. “It’s like a dream. It’s better than a dream!”

  The alchemist sat dazed and dumbfounded, as the true meaning of the magic was revealed: The dead will rise from glade to glen and ancient will be young again. The dead had, after all, risen. From dead and dry things there was growth, and new life everywhere. And the endlessly long winter had at last turned to spring.

  From life to death and back again to life. It was indeed the greatest magic in the world.

  The alchemist decided, at that moment, to retire.

  At that moment, too, Augusta began screaming.

  “No! Please, no! Stay away from me!” She had raised herself on her knees and was staring out over the pond, holding both hands protectively in front of her.

  Liesl’s mouth turned to chalk. Her heart skipped in her chest.

  The figure of a man was walking across the surface of the water.

  And even though he was translucent, and the sunlight reflecting up from the pond rendered him the glassy-colored hue of a soap bubble, Liesl knew him right away.

  “Father,” she croaked out.

  He looked at her. “Hello, Lee-Lee,” he said in his old, kind voice. Liesl’s heart shook itself out and rose like a butterfly.

  “Evil!” Augusta was scrabbling frantically backward, like an overgrown crab. “Evil! Unnatural! Stay away from me!”

  The ghost of Henry Morbower whirled on her. Its voice turned low and furious. “How dare you use that word? The only evil here is your own.”

  Augusta turned sheet-white. “No!” she shrieked as the ghost continued to advance toward her. “Please! Have mercy!”

  “Why should I? You showed no mercy to me.”

  “An accident.” Augusta began to tremble. “It was an accident.”

  “Liar!”

  “I didn’t mean to! I only wanted you to be sick—just a little sick, so you’d be out of the way!” Augusta’s voice rose hysterically.

  “Lies again!” the ghost of Henry Morbower thundered. “You are a liar and a murderer!”

  Augusta looked around her frantically, searching for a means of escape. Her eyes were huge and wild. She went from resembling a crab to a cornered rat.

  “You!” She pointed at the alchemist. “It’s all your fault! You gave me the poison!”

  “I—I—I—” the alchemist spluttered nervously. “I did no such thing.”

  “You did! ‘Pernicious Poison: Dead as a Doorknob, or Your Money Back!’ Written right on the label!”

  “Dead as a doorknob?” repeated the old woman sharply. She had quite recovered from her earlier display of emotion. She struck the policeman with her cane. “Did you hear that? A common murderer! She must be arrested at once—for the Common Good!”

  “Well, I never,” Mo said, scratching his head.

  “My dear lady.” The alchemist seemed about to deny it. He stood, brushing off his cloak indignantly, and drew himself up to his full height.

  Then he turned, holding his hat tightly to his head with one hand, and began dashing up the hill.

  The old woman gave the policeman a sharp thwack on the shins. “Go on! Get after him! It’s criminal, I tell you. Making poison and hanging around with ghosts. He should be ashamed.” She sniffed loudly.

  The policeman began dutifully chasing after the alchemist.

  The ghost of Henry Morbower turned back to his daughter. He smiled. “It’s beautiful here, isn’t it, Lee-Lee? Do you remember how we used to have picnics by the pond? And you would always try and climb the tree, but you were too small for even its lowest branches.”

  She nodded. There was an enormous lump in her throat. She couldn’t talk her way around it. “Father . . . ,” she said.

  “I know, Lee-Lee.” Rays of light shone through the translucence. “It makes me ineffably happy as well.”

  “Yes.” Liesl nodded. “Yes, ineffably.”

  The ghost of Henry Morbower wavered, and became for a second no more than a shadow-impression; then it reappeared. Its head was tilted. It seemed to be listening. “I have to go now, Lee-Lee. Be good.”

  “I’ll miss you,” Liesl croaked out.

  “I’ll be here,” the ghost of Henry Morbower said, and then all at once was nothing more than air, and a few drifting golden petals that landed at Liesl’s feet.

  For a moment no one said anything. In the silence, Liesl sniffed and ducked her head so no one would see the tears snaking their way over her cheeks and down toward the tip of her nose. Everyone did see, but pretended not to notice.

  Then Will cried out sharply, “It’s Augusta! She’s getting away!”

  While everyone’s attention was riveted by the ghost, Augusta had been attempting to crawl away from the pond. Now, hearing Will’s shout, she sprang to her feet and began sprinting. She was surprisingly quick, despite her bulk and the long skirts she was wearing.

  The policeman, who was steering the alchemist by the elbows down the hill, groaned. “Not another one,” he said. “Not again.”

  “I’ll get her!” Mo said, quite pleased to have something useful to do. He had always fantasized that someday he would be part of a high-speed chase to catch a murderer, even though he was only a lowly guard. Now his dreams were coming true. He bounded off.

  Liesl swiped her eyes with her forearm. Something had just occurred to her. “Where’s Po?” she asked. “Where’s Bundle?”

  The air was empty all around them. Will shook his head, shrugging.

  “Over here, Liesl!”

  Liesl turned her head and gasped.

  There, standing a little ways off on a large sun-drenched portion of grass, were Po and Bundle. Or at least, they were Po- and Bundle-shaped; and yet instead of their usual shadowy, indistinct forms, they appeared to be growing bodies again, expanding into solid shapes. They were golden—they’d been dipped in gold—no—they were made of gold. And then the golden Po-shape turned into tan brown arms and shoulders, and a ring of curly yellow hair, and a laughing smile, and the golden Bundle-shape turned into a small, bounding, yellow mass of fur. A dog.

  Po was looking at Liesl. Liesl suddenly felt shy.

  Po said, “Boy.” Then he stretched out his fingers, wiggling them. “Peter. My name is Peter.”

  Bundle went, “Bark, bark.”

  “Thank you, Liesl,” the boy Peter said, laughing.

  “For what?” Liesl started to ask, but she was asking to emptiness. The boy and the dog had disappeared, just like that.

  “Where did they go?” Liesl demanded, to no one in particular. “What happened?”

  “I think—,” Will said. “I think they must have gone on.”

  “To Beyond,” Liesl said, and knew that it was true. For a moment she felt as if the breath had been knocked out of her. There was an aching in her throat, and the world around her see
med very empty.

  “It’s the way of things, you know,” Will whispered to her, as though reading her mind. “It’s how it ought to be.”

  “I know,” Liesl whispered back. And she did, really, deep down. “It’s just—”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know where to go. I don’t know what comes now.”

  “Don’t worry,” Will said. “We’ll figure something out.”

  Liesl managed to smile at him. She liked that word: we. It sounded warm and open, like a hug.

  “Got ’er,” Mo called out. He had caught up with Augusta and was holding her tightly, as she wriggled and kicked and tried to squirm her way out of his grasp: Now she was a fish on a hook.

  The old woman adjusted her hat more firmly on her head and brushed off her velvet coat. “Well,” she sniffed. “I think we’ve had quite enough for the day—of ghosts and criminals and fires and all that nonsense. Go on and cuff them and take them in.” She gestured to the alchemist and Augusta.

  “I can’t,” the policeman said meekly. In his short time with the old woman, he had grown quite terrified of displeasing her.

  She fixed him with a fierce glare. “Why ever not?”

  He ducked his head guiltily. “Only have two pairs of cuffs.”

  Liesl and Will exchanged a hopeful look and tried to look as innocent as possible.

  The old woman stared at them witheringly for a moment. “I see. Very unfortunate. Well, in that case, I suppose we ought to let the children go. We can’t have poison makers and murderers running around the countryside, can we? It goes entirely against common sense and decency.”

  The policeman, still dragging the pathetic alchemist by an elbow, extracted a key from his vest and squatted down to unlock Will and Liesl’s handcuffs. The moment they were released they stood up, rubbing their sore wrists. Liesl threw her arms around Will and he patted her once, awkwardly, on the back, and turned as red as the tomatoes in the field.

  The policeman placed handcuffs on the alchemist and Augusta and escorted both prisoners up the hill. For a long time, Liesl could still hear Augusta protesting her innocence and the alchemist muttering about conspiracies and useless apprentices—until the wind and the flapping of butterflies and the birdsong took over, and finally she couldn’t hear their voices at all.