I put my arm around Kevin’s shoulder and led him out of the room. “We’d better hurry. We’re late.”
We hurried up the stairs and out of the theater. Mom and Dad were waiting in the car. Kevin and I climbed into the backseat.
“Mark, how was the show?” Mom asked.
“Awesome,” I said.
THE MANDIGORE
BY CLAIRE LEGRAND
Grandma Ruby had never trusted libraries.
“Don’t go,” she told Clark one gray day, when he was twelve years old and in the seventh grade, and quite frankly hating life at the moment. It was Mrs. Lundgaard’s fault. She was his history teacher, and she had assigned him a twenty-page paper on the Industrial Revolution for his end-of-semester project.
Nina got to write a paper on the Civil War, which was so much easier and more interesting—and also bloodier.
“Don’t go where, Grandma?” Clark said, shoving a wrapped peanut butter sandwich into his bag. If he was going to be stuck at the library all day, he needed provisions.
“To the library.”
Clark tried not to roll his eyes. Dad said they had to be patient with Grandma Ruby. “I have to go. I have this stupid paper.”
“Bad idea. It’s a bad idea.”
“Yeah, I think so, too. You shouldn’t have to write research papers on the weekend. It should be illegal.”
“In the dark, the rabbits wait
Hide their bellies, hide their eyes
In the dark, the rabbits run
Slit their bellies, slice their eyes . . .”
Grandma Ruby rocked in her chair, whisper-singing. Clark shivered, even though he had heard Grandma Ruby sing like this hundreds of times. Dad said she had been sick ever since Clark’s aunt Mara died. Well . . . “died.” It was the sort of thing where Aunt Mara disappeared one day and they hadn’t ever been able to find her. Eventually they’d declared her dead, and there had been a memorial service. So the family could move on, that sort of thing.
Clark had never met Aunt Mara; she’d only been around his age when it happened. She’d been the baby of the family, the little princess, the youngest of five.
And then, one day, she was gone.
Grandma Ruby had gone looking for her, Dad said, even though everyone kept telling her not to. “I can find Mara,” Grandma Ruby had insisted. “I know I can. She’s my baby girl.” So Grandma Ruby had left one night, while Grandpa Jim had been sleeping. Weeks later, after the police and the state troopers and even the FBI had been out looking for her and Mara, she’d come back.
Ever since that day, when Grandma Ruby came stumbling into the house with her eyes glassy and vacant, her hair tangled with twigs, her clothes stained with mud, she had been . . . different.
Sometimes she sang songs, and not the kind of songs you’d usually think about grandmothers singing.
“In the dark, the wolves are waiting
In the dark, the trees say run
The trees taste fear, the trees see blood
The Mandigore, he’ll find you
The Mandigore, he smells so sweet . . .”
Grandma Ruby looked like she might cry, but she never did. Clark and his parents had to give her these eyedrops constantly, because she hardly ever blinked.
“Grandma, are you going to be okay?” Clark made Grandma Ruby look at him. “I really need to go. Mom’s at the store. Dad’s upstairs. He’s working, but you can always ring the bell. Okay?”
Clark placed Grandma Ruby’s hand on the bell attached to her wheelchair. She seized Clark’s hands, gripping them hard enough to hurt.
“Don’t go,” she pleaded. “Mara said don’t go.”
“Grandma. Mara’s dead.”
“In the dark, Mara waits
Hides her belly, hides her eyes
The Mandigore, he has a crown
The Mandigore, he wants a treat . . .”
Clark left Grandma Ruby there, singing to herself. He didn’t have time to listen to her weird songs. And he hated it when she sang about Aunt Mara. It made him think of Aunt Mara, twelve years old, just like him, hiding somewhere. Afraid. Waiting.
Twenty minutes later, Clark banged on Nina’s beat-up screen door. He tried to ignore the overflowing mailbox and the sound of Nina’s dad yelling at Nina’s brothers. Nina’s dad was always yelling these days. Nina said he never used to, before he’d lost his job.
When Nina finally appeared, her eyes were red and her cheeks were wet. “What?”
“Why are you crying?”
Nina rubbed her face dry and came out onto the porch. “I’m not.”
Clark grinned. “You were watching last night’s episode again. Weren’t you?”
“No.”
“You totally were.”
“All right, all right. I’ve watched it five times this morning. Are you happy?”
“Yes. You’re even more obsessed than I am.”
“So? Who cares? You’re supposed to be obsessed with Noctiluca. That’s why shows like that exist. So we can obsess over them.”
Noctiluca was this sci-fi show. It was kind of like a space opera, with an evil government and rebels and epic battles and romance (which Clark said he didn’t care about, but, in fact, he was totally rooting for Gertie May, the folksy engineer, and Nathaniel Vandeventer, the snooty doctor, to get together), except instead of it taking place in outer space, it was set in this underwater world. Kind of like the lost city of Atlantis, but with hundreds of cities instead of just one. The main cast was a motley crew of thieves with hearts of gold. Noctiluca was the name of Captain Farriday’s subship. It glowed underwater, like a bioluminescent jellyfish.
Clark had been the new kid at his school this year. His family had moved to the island from the mainland to get away from the old house, where the family had been living when Aunt Mara disappeared. Clark’s dad was hoping maybe this would help Grandma Ruby, who was getting worse.
“It’ll help her to get away from old, bad memories,” Clark’s dad had explained. Which was all well and good, but it’s not like Clark’s dad had to deal with being the new kid at school.
On his first day, Clark had seen a poster on the cafeteria bulletin board—a poster for a Noctiluca fan club, which met after school on Thursdays in the auxiliary choir room.
Clark decided to go, even though part of him thought it might be a bad decision, socially. He had never talked to anyone about his love for Noctiluca. He wrote stories about Noctiluca, collected the DVDs and comics, and watched cast interviews on YouTube. But he never talked about it. Not until that first Thursday, when he went to the auxiliary choir room (which was more like an oversized closet) and met Nina.
“Marry, kiss, kill,” Nina had said immediately. “Gertie May, Commander Talia, Captain Farriday.”
“Um. Hi? My name’s Clark.”
Nina had glared at him. “Answer the question. Marry, kiss, kill.”
“Um . . . okay. I’d marry Gertie May. Because you can’t kill her. It’d be like killing a puppy. And I wouldn’t want to kiss her because . . . well, that’d be mean to Dr. Vandeventer. Because he loves her.”
Nina had nodded solemnly. “Continue.”
“Kiss Commander Talia because . . .” Clark had blushed. “Well, because she’s hot.”
“Agreed,” Nina had said. “I’m dressing up as her for Halloween. Just FYI.”
“Okay . . .”
“And why would you kill Captain Farriday? That’s pretty harsh.”
“Because he would want me to. Because he’d rather die than have any of his crew get hurt. They’re like his family. He’d do anything for them.”
Nina had stood up to shake his hand. “Congratulations. You’ve passed the test. You’re now officially part of the Noctiluca fan club. Let’s get started.”
“Shouldn’t we wait for everyone else?”
Nina had laughed. “Dude. Clark, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Usually it’s just me reading fan fiction in here. Alone
. Do you actually think anyone else at this stupid school is smart enough to recognize the genius of Noctiluca?”
“Um . . . no?”
“Right. So let’s get started. You can be vice president.”
That’s how Clark and Nina met. Eight meetings of the Noctiluca fan club and eight weekend Noctiluca marathons later, they were best friends. Clark gave Nina a pack of special edition Noctiluca trading cards for her birthday. She never went anywhere without them. Nina drew these Noctiluca comics for Clark, in which Captain Farriday looked suspiciously Clark-like, only if Clark were older and less gangly-looking. The comics were Clark’s favorite thing in the world.
Nina was the only person Clark had told about Grandma Ruby’s songs, and her fear of libraries.
Nina thought Grandma Ruby would make a great character on Noctiluca. Someone who knew the government’s secrets, but had gone through so much torture her mind was screwed up, and you had to decipher her creepy songs to discover the truth.
“Come on, crybaby,” Clark said to Nina. “Come with me to the library before it starts raining. We’ve got to finish our papers.”
“I don’t want to. I want to watch it again. So, did you cry when Gertie and Dr. V finally kissed?”
“No.” Except Clark had, all over his popcorn. He was glad he and Nina had this policy to watch new episodes alone, and to only watch it together when they were both ready to share the emotional experience.
“You totally cried.”
“. . . Maybe a little.”
Nina grinned. “You big softie.”
They rode their bikes to the library because it was mid-November and pretty soon it’d be too cold on the island to ride bikes. Even now, the wind was biting and salty, so cold it stung. The sky was full of thick, dark clouds that looked like fists.
Nina rode ahead of Clark, because she always liked to be first, and Clark let her, even though her creaky bike was a million years old and Clark could have totally beaten her if he’d wanted to. But this way he could fall back and watch her dark hair flow in the wind like an ebony banner. This way he could think cheesy, bad-poetry things about Nina’s hair, and imagine himself to be as handsome and smart as Dr. Vandeventer, and no one would ever know.
By the time they got to the library, the storm had hit.
They locked their bikes, ran inside, and stood in the lobby, dripping rain on the rug. Clark wished his reflection in the glass door didn’t look so awkward.
A man hurried over with some towels. He was youngish, with those thick-rimmed glasses that made you look stylish in a nerdy kind of way, the kind Clark could never pull off. The man had messy brown hair, the kind of messy Clark knew girls liked.
Clark hated the guy on sight.
“Well, hello!” the man said to Clark. “I’m Mr. Dunn. I’m the librarian here. I didn’t think anyone else would come today because of the weather.”
“We can leave if you want,” Clark said. “In fact, maybe we should—”
“Don’t be stupid, we have to finish our papers.” Nina took a towel from Mr. Dunn and smiled. “Thanks, Mr. D.”
Mr. D? “You know him?” said Clark.
“Nina is one of our regulars,” Mr. Dunn said, handing Clark a towel.
Clark took it, but he wasn’t happy about it. “A regular?”
“She’s a big fan of our graphic novels section. The Noctiluca collection in particular. Checks out a stack every weekend.”
Clark turned to Nina. She wasn’t looking at him. “But Nina, I thought you had all the Noctiluca comics. You keep them under your bed because they’ll be worth something someday. You said—”
“Yeah, well, I lied, okay? I don’t have money to buy all those books, Clark. Don’t be stupid.”
Nina stalked off into the stacks.
Clark watched her go. He knew Nina’s dad hadn’t worked in a long time, and that Nina’s mom worked two jobs, and that Nina had three brothers. He knew all that, but he hadn’t really thought about it until now, and what it really meant for Nina, and that made him feel like an idiot.
“I’m sorry,” Clark mumbled, his cheeks burning, but Nina was too far away to hear.
“Well! Let me know if you need anything,” said Mr. Dunn, his hands in his pockets. He smiled down at Clark. The overhead lights glinted off his glasses, making it hard to see his eyes.
Clark frowned, shoved the wet towel at Mr. Dunn. He felt rebellious, a little like Noctiluca’s rough-and-tumble mercenary, Jones. He shrugged off his wet coat, left it on the floor. Made his way to a table and sat and opened his notes and stared at them. A clock on the wall ticked through thirty minutes. An hour. He wondered where Nina had gone.
Thinking of Nina made his chest feel too tight to breathe.
Then he heard laughter—Nina’s laughter. And someone talking to her—a deep, male voice. Mr. Dunn.
Clark gripped his pencil so hard it snapped in half.
And that’s when he saw it. Right then, when his thoughts were roiling in his mind like the storm clouds outside. Right then, as he was imagining himself to be older, more muscular, cooler—like Dr. Vandeventer. Maybe even like Captain Farriday, who always knew just the right sarcastic, funny thing to say.
That’s when he saw the kid with the fangs.
It was this flicker in the corner of Clark’s vision, like when you get something stuck in your eye.
But it wouldn’t go away, and it started to take shape—a skinny, pale figure. A boy, he thought. Two glowing eyes through a mask. Some kind of creature-mask, an animal. Sharp ears and a snout. Fangs. Arms and legs too long for its body, like someone had stretched him out. Crouching in the shadows, peeking around the corner of the nearest bookshelf.
Clark froze, this figure caught in his peripheral vision.
Then he snapped his head to face the boy, and the boy disappeared, like he had never been there in the first place. A shadow flickered across the tables, fast, and then darted up the bookshelves toward the ceiling, and then was gone.
It was like one of those tricks of the eye, when you see random shapes float behind your eyelids, and when you chase them, try to follow them, they fly away.
Clark stared, not blinking, not breathing, waiting for the boy to come back. At least, he was pretty sure it had been a boy. There came a series of clicks, like a wild animal speaking to its pack. Clark tried to follow the sound. He peeked behind the nearest bookshelves, climbed onto the table so he could see higher up. But nothing was there. He was alone. Everything was quiet, except for the rain hitting the roof. Everything smelled like books.
“Nina, I saw something.”
Nina did not look up. She stared hard at the computer, writing furiously in her notebook. She was sitting by the wall farthest away from the windows, where the shadows were thickest. To Clark’s eyes, they seemed to crawl, as if they were full of invisible, wriggling things.
“Nina, listen to me.”
Nina ignored him.
“Nina.” Clark ripped her notebook away. “You’re not even paying attention to what you’re writing. You just wrote ten lines of scribbles.”
Nina raised an eyebrow. “Your point?”
“Look. I saw something.”
“Me too, Clark. I’ve seen lots of things. It’s what eyes are for.”
“I’m serious, Nina. There was this kid, okay? But he was wearing a mask, and he had fangs, and then when I tried to look right at him—”
“Is everything all right, kids?” asked Mr. Dunn, appearing out of nowhere. One minute, it was just Clark and Nina in the glow of the computer—and then, the next minute, Mr. Dunn was there, his hands in his pockets, smiling. The light from the computer reflected off his glasses. Clark couldn’t see his eyes.
“We’re fine, Mr. D,” said Nina. “Clark’s just being annoying. He’s distracting me while I work. He claims to be seeing things.”
Clark wanted to shake Nina. She could talk for hours about subships and deep-water parasites and whether or not Commander Talia used to
work for the Company, but she wouldn’t take him seriously now?
Mr. Dunn chuckled. “Seeing things, huh? Seems a bit early in the day for that. You haven’t even been working for that long.”
“It’s nothing,” Clark said. He wanted Mr. Dunn to go away. More specifically, he wanted Mr. Dunn to shrivel up into nothing, to never have existed. If Mr. Dunn hadn’t talked about Nina and the Noctiluca graphic novels, Clark would never have made Nina mad, and they would be working together right now, and maybe they would share Clark’s peanut butter sandwich while reading Noctiluca fan fiction on Clark’s phone. Maybe she would scoot closer to him while they read.
“He says he saw a kid. With fangs.” Nina shook her head. “A kid with fangs and a mask. I think he’s trying to scare me. Which, yeah, good luck with that, Clarky. I’m not the one who had nightmares for days after watching ‘Waylaid.’ I’m not the one who still, to this day, has to watch that episode with all the lights on.” Nina looked up, her eyes flashing. “Isn’t dat wight, wittle Cwarky?”
Clark found himself caught between twin urges—the urge to melt into a puddle, seep into the floor, and be gone forever; and the urge to yell and scream and kick the table until Nina stopped making fun of him.
That’s when he saw it for the second time:
The kid with the fangs, and the mask, and the too-long limbs. Hovering in the shadows underneath the “Read” poster featuring Sir Patrick Stewart.
Clark held his breath, keeping the masked, fanged kid in the corner of his eye. The longer he waited, the clearer the kid became. It wasn’t a boy this time. It was a girl.
“A kid, huh?” Mr. Dunn said, and Clark blinked, startled, and the girl at the edge of his vision was gone. A shadow raced through the darkened room, zipped between chairs, bled up the wall in a black patch. It hovered near the ceiling, like the shape of something too far beneath the water to see clearly.
“Tell me about this kid,” Mr. Dunn was saying. “What did he look like?”
Clark tried to speak, but his throat was scratchy. He couldn’t stop staring at that dark spot on the ceiling. “What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly that. What did he look like, this kid you saw?”