“Forgot a flashlight! Here are some books! Have a sandwich.” Gramma Doris zinged all the items down on a slide that magically appeared out of thin air. It, too, was made of rainbows.
“Please don’t make me stay here,” Jamie begged. “I need to help Annie.”
“We don’t even know where that girl is!” Gramma Doris said, face frowning. “I can’t lose anyone else today, Jamie. My old heart can’t handle it. I want you safe. No ifs, ands, or bottoms.”
The door shut again and he was in the dark. Alone without even a regular-size wolf or chair-size dwarf to keep him company.
The last time Jamie had been trapped in this same hole beneath the floor of Miss Cornelia’s, he had company. Sure, they were all terrified of the crow monster who wanted to freeze them for the trolls’ later use. Annie, Eva, Bloom, and Tala were all equally petrified—Eva had even passed out—but there had been a certain kind of comfort having his friends with him. Even if he had died then, or been frozen in feathers, he knew that he wasn’t going to die alone.
That was kind of a big deal.
Or at least it seemed like kind of a big deal to him especially at this exact moment when he felt very much alone.
“It’s all going to be okay,” he whispered, turning the flashlight on. “It will totally be okay.”
And he spent a good amount of time eating his sandwich and reading The Magical Burrens of Ancient Ireland and How They Inspired Guinness and Pubs and All Sorts of Wonderful Things, which was much more informative (although much more boring) than the Irish graphic novel that Gramma Doris tossed down, Captain Awesomepants of Aurora Defeats the Devil Dog.
After rereading that for what seemed like the thousandth time, Jamie stood up. “This is ridiculous.”
He tapped on the ceiling with the end of his flashlight. He yelled the word “help!” over and over. He tried to create a psychic link between himself and the pixies, which is what Captain Awesomepants of Aurora did to enlist their help to defeat the dastardly Devil Dog. That didn’t work either, not that Jamie thought it would. It was pretty obvious by now that he wasn’t magic, no matter how much he wished he was.
He began pressing on the walls in a systematic manner, moving from high to low, from one end of the room to another, tapping here, following it by a good press, over and over again until he thought he must have touched every square inch of those walls three times.
Frustrated, he flopped to the floor, and momentarily gave up.
“There has to be something that I’m not thinking of,” he muttered, but the truth was that when all four of them had been trapped here last time (five counting Tala), they’d done this same exact thing, examining all of the stone walls for secret places and hidden levers that would reveal an escape route.
The ceiling! Maybe it was in the ceiling! They hadn’t checked there. Standing on tiptoe, Jamie reached up and began to prod the ceiling with his flashlight. Once again, he worked methodically. He didn’t want to take a chance on missing any potential spaces that could lead to an exit. Sighing, he felt as if he was never going to be able to get out of there. Pointless … it was all so pointless … Here he was stuck, and Annie … Who knew what was happening to Annie? His heart beat faster as he pushed his anger back down into his gut. He had to find a way out. He had to. It didn’t matter if it was dangerous out there. What mattered was …
The flashlight pushed in a stone.
The stone’s movement made a scraping noise.
A huge piece of the ceiling retracted.
Jamie jumped back as dust fell. He coughed once, twice, in the swirling cloud of particles. When it cleared, there was a ladder, gleaming and brand-new looking, resting in front of him. He didn’t even hesitate, just barreled up, two rungs at a time. It led to a corridor with gleaming white walls and violets sprouting out of them. Some of them seemed to be wilting a bit, probably because Miss Cornelia was missing, but the effect was still dazzling. Gently he touched one of the violets with the tip of his finger.
“Jamie …,” it whispered.
“That’s my name.”
“We’ve been waiting for you …”
“For me?” He pointed at his chest and then felt sort of ridiculous and quickly put his hand back down. “Why? Are you sure?”
Talking flowers were so odd, but everything about Aurora was odd, wasn’t it? Standing a bit straighter, Jamie waited for an answer.
“Because you will save us.”
Jamie lifted an eyebrow.
“We are dying without them.”
“Without who?”
“The elves.”
And then he heard it—something thumping down the corridor, which seemed to come to an end and then turn right or left. It was a noise quite different from the lilting, broken sounds of the violets.
There in front of him were hundreds, literally hundreds of rabbits with horns … jackalopes, actually. They were on the cover of the Magical Burrens of Ancient Ireland book Gramma Doris had thrown down. The jackalopes all rushed forward in a mad cluster. Jamie pressed himself to the side of the wall to resist being trampled. He hoped he wasn’t hurting the flowers.
“Whoa … whoa … slow down,” he said as they thumped past him, a thundering wall of fur and noise. “What are you even running from?”
And then at the end of the corridor, he spotted something … A small horse. It saw him, met his eyes, and then reared up on its hind legs as if looking about. It screamed out a piercing cry and then followed the jackalopes down the hole, scampering past Jamie as if he wasn’t even there. A Grant. That’s what that was. That was in another book from Gramma Doris, and there was also one about a bow and arrow made of gold.
Then Jamie heard another noise—altogether different.
“Do you have gold?” the violets whispered.
“Gold?” Jamie asked. Fear and confusion mixed and made his whisper as ethereal as the flowers’.
“It will keep you safe. Hurry.”
Gold. Gold. Gold! Jamie’s mind raced. He was too young for gold teeth and too poor for gold jewelry, not that he was flashy like that anyway. And then he remembered.
Jamie whisked out the timepiece that the scorpion man had given him in the forgotten room. It shone like gold, but he didn’t know … It could be fake.
“Is this …?” Jamie didn’t get to finish asking his question because a headless man shot out from behind the corner. No, that wasn’t right. He had a head; he palmed it in his own hand like a basketball. He thundered toward Jamie, astride a black horse. In his right hand, the man held a whip made of spinal bones. With that same hand, he threw buckets of blood upon the flowers, which shrieked but did not die.
“Jump on!” said the flowers closest to Jamie. “Jump on and tell him where you want to go …”
“But you …”
The man and his horse filled the corridor. This was not the same black horse that he had seen with the evil crow monster. Jamie sensed that immediately. But what it was, he did not know. There was no time to think at all.
“Just go. We will return in the spring. Go! Tell him who you want,” the flowers insisted just as the headless man reached them.
He did not pause; just threw more blood. Jamie ducked beneath the bucket’s contents as they spewed across the flowers, and in a flash the man was past him, heading toward the dead end of the corridor. Jamie scrambled after him. The horse pulled a wagon made of skeleton bones.
Three strides. Four. And Jamie was close enough to leap. He threw his body forward and grabbed the end of the wagon, hands wrapped around what appeared to be human legs. He tried not to worry about this, or even think about it, but hauled himself on board, the timepiece chain wrapped around his wrist, secure.
The skeleton head turned to face him.
“Who dares ride with me? I am the dullahan.” The creature rasped through the hole where its mouth once was.
Jamie stuck out his watch. “I do. Take me to Annie.”
“Gold!” The creature recoiled a
nd its head faced front once more. “So be it.”
It picked up another bucket of blood, ready to throw it.
“And no more blood!” Jamie demanded.
The surviving violets made a little cheer, but he couldn’t focus on that … Instead … instead … They were heading straight toward the wall, the very solid-seeming wall. They’d smash into it and wreck.
“Hey!” Jamie yelled. “There’s a wall! You might want to slow down!”
But instead the dullahan sped up, smashing forward, the bones of the wagon chattering and clanking. There was no way they were going to stop in time even if they wanted to. Jamie screamed and held on tightly to the wagon’s side. The dullahan urged the dark horse forward, lashing it with the whip of bones. The horse screeched and kept going—and kept going—and smashed right through the wall without even stopping. The wall stayed there, but the horse and then Jamie’s wagon flew right through it without even a hitch or a stop or an anything …
“We’re like ghosts,” Jamie whispered and then realized that they were in the kitchen of Aquarius House and then—smash—they went through the wall into the dining room where a bewildered-looking Ned the Doctor sat with a cup of hot chocolate and the full-size forms of Eva and Canin in front of him. Ned raised his hand in greeting and then—whoosh—they were through the exterior wall and out into the cold Maine air, racing across the barrens and toward the ocean, faster and faster. The speed whipped the air against Jamie’s face. He tucked into a ball, trying furiously to stay on the wagon and stay warm. He pulled his hat out of his parka pocket and tucked it over his head, thankful that he had fallen asleep in his coat and hadn’t taken it off. He couldn’t imagine how cold he’d be without it.
“Excuse me … um … dullahan … um … sir …,” Jamie began.
The skull in the man’s hand didn’t turn.
“You are taking me to Annie, right? You aren’t just … um … taking me?”
The skull began to laugh.
10
The Maker of the Town
Jamie was already terrified of the dullahan’s headless body, his whip made of vertebrae, and wagon made of bones, but the speed that they were traveling toward the cliffs above the ocean brought that terror to a whole new level. He couldn’t jump because they were going faster than a car. He couldn’t talk to the dullahan and ask him to slow down. He had tried. The dullahan just laughed. No, that wasn’t quite right. The dullahan just cackled. Jamie couldn’t make sure that he was even truly taking him to Annie on this hell ride.
And the cliffs were coming closer.
They slammed through trees and past low-hanging branches. They powered across the snowy terrain and through any obstacle as if they were not trees or stones or walls, but just made of thin air.
A tree—right through it.
A rock wall—right through it.
A random troll—right through her. Even as the troll roared and shook her fist, the dullahan tossed a bucket of blood upon her and she screamed, hissing and melting into the ground, leaving a puddle of green and red.
Where were the buckets even coming from?
It made no sense.
And Jamie’s poor nerves shattered. Watching the troll die from the sizzling blood, even if it was an evil, hideous, murderous troll, made his stomach churn.
“Hey! That’s mean!” Jamie yelled.
The dullahan didn’t respond.
Jamie scurried forward in the cart, crawling over the long bones that were fused together to make up the carriage floor. “I’m serious. That’s evil right there.”
The skull turned to stare at him. Jamie didn’t back down. “I mean it. I know it was a troll and everything, but still …”
A bucket materialized in the dullahan’s hands. The creature’s body turned around to face Jamie. His heart stopped. Was the headless man going to throw the bucket on Jamie?
“I have gold!” Jamie thrust the timepiece in front of him.
The dullahan shrugged.
“Well, go ahead then, but I … I …” Jamie thought about what it must be like to be headless and riding around forever, throwing blood on people, afraid of gold. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry you have to live …” Was it even alive? “Or, un-live this way. I’m sorry that you have no head and your horse seems to have an attitude problem and … Yeah, yeah … I’m just sorry.”
The dullahan’s attention jerked to the left. A gray-and-white cat slinked across the snow. It was the same cat who had led the rescue at Jamie’s grandmother’s house, who had shown him where the Gnome of Protection was, who had attacked his grandmother to keep him safe.
“Do not hurt that cat!” Jamie implored him, grabbing for the bucket.
The dullahan easily yanked it out of Jamie’s reach.
“I mean it!”
The dullahan’s skull turned to face the cat.
“Look!” Jamie’s voice rose frantically even as the cat slinked closer, seemingly unconcerned by the headless horseman, the stomping, snorting horse, or the wagon made of bones. “Look! I have gold!”
The dullahan shrugged again.
Jamie thought quickly. He had a gut feeling. He had to take his chance. Sometimes you have to give up your power to get control. Leaning forward and climbing up the horse behind the dullahan’s body, he sat behind the skeleton. The head jerked back in his direction, eyelessly staring at him.
“I’m giving you the gold,” he said and dropped the watch into the bucket.
The blood sizzled and turned … and turned … to something white.
“Milk?” Jamie whispered even as the skeleton in front of him jerked and spasmed, falling to the ground and shattering.
The horse reared, obscuring Jamie’s view of the dullahan. Jamie clutched the horse’s back, struggling to stay on. Two seconds later, the cat was sitting in front of him and the horse’s four hooves all fell to the ground.
Where was the dullahan, though? Jamie scanned the place where the skeleton had fallen. There was no skeleton. In its place stood a man dressed in the kind of clothes that Jamie imagined pilgrims would wear: beige pants held up with tan suspenders.
The man stared at the timepiece as it dangled from his hand. “How clever of him to make me fear the one thing that should save me. Mayhap that’s why they call it fool’s gold? Although, this is true gold, but yet …” His attention riveted to Jamie. “I have the young master to thank, do I not?”
He bowed with a flourish, twirling his arm in the air as he took off his cloth hat. His head stayed attached to his neck, luckily. “I thank thee, young master.”
“Y-y-you’re welcome,” Jamie stuttered. “Are you …?”
“I was once the monster of whom you were afeared. Even the best of us can be twisted, young master. Even the best-souled men can be accursed; do not thee forget it.” The man sighed. He was somewhat transparent. He noticed this himself. “I was once a living man, the originator of this magical town, and then the demon spawn himself took vengeance on my soul.”
“The Raiff?” Jamie was piecing it together even as the cat made itself comfortable on his lap, purring. The horse had calmed down as well.
The man grimaced and returned his hat to his head, which Jamie realized was firmly attached to his body. He let out a breath of relief. He didn’t want the man’s head to fall off anytime soon.
“Are you …” Jamie racked his brain for the name SalGoud had mentioned in his impromptu history lesson so long ago.
“Thomas Fylbrigg. Yes.” The man took off his hat again and bent over with a flourish before righting himself and extending his hand. “Founder of Aurora and Time Stopper. Now dead, it seems, though I can’t recall the moment of my death. I am sure it was at the hands of my former friend and current demon, the Raiff. I was left to wander the secret halls of Aquarius House until I met a young man with a noble heart.”
“Me?” Jamie pointed at his chest.
“Very much so,” Thomas said kindly as Jamie’s shyness and doubt became obvious in the s
ad lines of his face. “Not many would mourn the loss of a troll.”
“I wouldn’t say I mourned it,” Jamie admitted. “It just didn’t seem like a fair fight.”
The ghostly man took a step forward, placed a hand on the horse, and studied Jamie’s face. “Young master, you do realize that this world is full of death and there is nary a fight that is truly fair.”
“I do.”
“And how do you propose to keep your heart noble in a world so full of evil?”
“I … I don’t know.” Jamie’s hand stroked the cat’s head. She purred.
“Very well, then. An honest answer.” The man jumped back up on the horse. The wagon, it seemed, had disappeared for good. “I feel compelled to finish my ride. Do you still wish to seek …” He paused. “I have lost my destination.”
“Annie.” Jamie perked up. “Annie Nobody.”
“Annie Nobody,” he repeated. “Ah … I have located her … She is with … Oh, well, isn’t this interesting? Oh, to be alive again and able to help … At least I have my head now, thanks to thee. I shan’t complain.” He pressed the horse’s sides with his feet. “Ho! Let us journey, young master, who has not given me his name. My last journey on this earth, it shall be, so let us make it a good one.”
“I’m Jamie! James Hephaistion Alexander!” Jamie shouted as the cat jumped gracefully to the ground.
“I am pleased to make your acquaintance, James Hephaistion Alexander, great rescuer, boy of noble heart, keeper of justice, and ender of curses. Let us ride!”
Jamie swallowed hard, as they moved forward toward the ocean. “Wait … Where?”
Jamie’s voice returned to a high place that he now called the Panic Place. It was a good octave above his normal voice, like he’d suddenly become a soprano in show choir instead of a reluctant baritone.
“Sir?”
The horseman rode faster.
Jamie tapped Thomas’s back, but his finger went straight through his ghostly body. In fact, Jamie was pretty confused how he was even staying up on the horse, since that was ghostly, too. If he survived all of this, didn’t turn troll, and didn’t get kicked out of Aurora, then he was going to definitely have to look up the physical properties of ghosts, because it just didn’t make sense to him that he could be riding a ghost horse and have it feel solid beneath him while at the same time be able to put his whole entire arm through Sir Thomas DeFylbrigg or Thomas Fylbrigg or whatever his official name was.