“They call us the Others,” said the silk merchant silkily. And something Begehren had said echoed in the children’s memories.
“And we have been watching you,” continued the old woman, “for a long, long time. We thought, perhaps, you were special. That you would, perhaps, be able to get the Glass. Were you?”
Jack turned to Jill. She took a deep breath, and then she held out the disc, encrusted with Eddie’s stomach juices.
“What is that?” the ponytailed man demanded.
“Don’t play with us, children,” said the silk merchant, his pale eyes glowing in the dusk. “We had a bargain. You remember the terms.”
The two men stepped closer to Jack and Jill. The shadow of the great house enveloped them all. Its windows twinkled with yellow candles.
The snake-oil salesman snarled. “Have you failed us? That is not the Glass.”
The silk merchant grabbed it from Jill’s hands. He turned it over. “What is this crud on it?”
Jill swallowed. Jack said, “From the stomach of the Eidechse von Feuer, die Menschenfleischefressende.”
The Others stared at the children. Then the old woman reached for the disc and said, “Let me see that.” The silk merchant gave it to her, and the Others huddled around. The dusky light, gray and blue and yellow, filtered through the trees. The old woman drew a deep breath, and then began to chant:
Mirror, mirror, of the truth,
Old in years, long of tooth,
Reveal to us your honest hue;
Shine to us like you were new!
Around the disc, the three strange figures bowed and hummed. Then they all began to make disgusting gurgling sounds in their throats. Finally, they all spat on the disc. The old woman rubbed it with her elbow.
Suddenly, in the clearing, there was a light much brighter than the dying light of dusk. It shone clear and clean and silver and true out of the small disc.
“Yes . . .” the old woman murmured. “I think it is . . . It may be . . .”
The silk merchant said, “We must test it! We must try it!”
The oil salesman was grinning like an idiot and clapping his hands together. “At last! At last!”
“Come with us,” the old woman said to the children. “We will try it. And then you shall have your reward!”
Something about the way she said this did not inspire joy in Jack and Jill. They wondered why.
* * *
The foyer of the great stone house was grand and bright, with rich carpets on the floor and paintings in gilded frames hanging from the walls.
“You have a lovely home,” Jill said politely.
“Thank you, my dear,” replied the old woman. As she said it, the oil salesman bolted the front door behind them. Jack saw him pocket a large iron key. The old woman said, “We need some time with the Glass. To ensure that it is indeed what you say it is. Feel free to look around.”
Jack and Jill watched the three pale-eyed Others disappear through a small door. It shut quietly. The children looked at one another.
“Let’s get out of here!” the frog hissed, hidden deep in Jack’s pocket.
Jill looked to Jack. “Maybe, for once, we should listen to him. I don’t trust them.”
“Too bad,” said Jack. He gestured at the heavy door, bolted shut. “They have the key.”
“We can try a window,” said the frog.
“Come on,” Jack gestured. “Let’s just have a look around.”
“I say we start by looking at the windows,” the frog insisted.
They began to explore the house. Each room was different, and each more luxurious than the last. Great beds sat on plush rugs or shining, polished floors; the wallpaper was a riot of color in one room and a luscious cream in another; grand salons sat silently under towering, painted ceilings.
As they explored each room, the children’s nervousness grew. What if it wasn’t the Glass after all? What would the Others do? They wouldn’t really kill them, right?
Furthermore, they noticed that the house had no windows.
“I don’t get it,” the frog murmured. “There were windows on the outside. Lots of them.”
Jack wiped his brow with his sleeve and found that it was wet. Jill had begun chewing her bottom lip.
“What’s taking them so long?” Jill wondered.
“Do you think that’s a good sign, or a bad sign?” Jack asked.
“Bad sign,” said the frog. “Definitely a bad sign.”
They were on the first floor again. Jill walked to the front door and tried it. It would not budge.
“I’m going to ask,” said Jack. His hand was on the door to the Others’ room.
“I wouldn’t,” Jill said.
“Me neither,” agreed the frog.
But Jack turned the knob and opened the door. He peered in.
The room was empty.
“Where are they?” Jack asked, scratching his head.
“Did they leave when we were looking around?” Jill wondered.
“I do not like this,” the frog said. “I do not like this at all.”
The room was not quite as spacious or grand as the others, but it had a definite, delicate beauty. The floor was covered with a rug as deep and pure a blue as the sea. And, like the sea, it seemed to rock and shimmer beneath them. Around its border was a filigree of golden thread that looked for all the world like the pristine coast of a magical land. The children were mesmerized. “Look at this stuff . . .” muttered Jack. Against the wall stood a chest. Inside were stacked bar upon bar of gold that glittered red instead of yellow. Jill examined a small cherrywood box, sitting on a side table. Cautiously, she opened it. High ethereal music rose from within: “Come, come, where heartache’s never been . . .” Jill shut it quickly and shivered. She looked at Jack. He hadn’t heard a thing. He was examining the plush blue rug.
“Where are they?” Jill whispered.
“Not here. Let’s go,” said the frog.
Jack had lifted a corner of the rug. Its blue shifted, the golden border spreading out into the middle, as if the water of the sea were draining away. And then Jack said, “Here. They’re here.”
Jill moved to his side. Under the rug was a large, stone trapdoor.
“That’s weird,” said Jill quietly.
“Yes, it is,” replied Jack.
“Why would they hide that?” Jill asked.
For a moment, no one uttered a word. And then Jack said, “Why don’t we find out?”
* * *
And now, dear reader, I will give you a little warning. I have not warned you much through the course of this book (and occasionally I forgot to until it was too late—sorry about that).
But now I must indeed warn you. I do not know if little children are reading, or hearing, this book. After all that revolting bloodshed with the giants, and then the goblins, not to mention that horrible scene with the mermaid and the drowned girl, I certainly hope they are not.
But in case they are, or in case older children are reading this story and do not appreciate having the bejeezus scared out of them, or in case you are an adult and you just aren’t really in the mood to be upset, I warn all of you:
This next part is not so nice.
* * *
It took both children, using all of their combined might, to lift the heavy stone trapdoor. Behind it, beneath it, was darkness. The small flames of the candles in the room fluttered as a rush of wind came up from the pit.
“Uh, guys?” said the frog, peering just above the edge of Jack’s pocket. “We’re not going down there, right?”
But Jack and Jill had come too far, done too much, to turn back now. Besides, the only door to the house was locked, and there were no windows. Where else could they go?
“Okay?” said Jill.
“Okay,” said Jack.
“Not okay,” said the frog.
Jill reached her foot probingly into the impenetrable gloom. Her foot touched something. She put weight on it. The something held.
She stood on the something and reached her foot forward again. Again, she found something to rest on. She shifted her weight carefully. This something, too, held her. And now she could tell what the somethings were. They were stairs.
Jack and Jill, holding hands, descended into the heart of the darkness.
One step, and the children stopped. One more step, and they stopped again. The stairs were not even, but rather knobby and irregular. They twisted around and around in a tight spiral. Jack’s and Jill’s clasped hands were slick, and they held onto one another so hard they could not feel their own fingers. One more step. And another. And another.
And then the obscurity was softened—there rose, from beneath, an eerie, flickering yellow. A few more steps, and Jack and Jill found a candle that seemed to hang, suspended, in the darkness. Jack reached out his hand and found a curving wall. It was not smooth. It was strangely ridged, oddly bumpy. He let his hand trail along it as they descended to the floating candle.
When they were but a few steps away from it, they began to make out what held the candle up. It was a strange candlestick, extended from the wall. The candlestick was long and straight and smooth in the middle, but at either end was a rounded protrusion. Even in the flickering yellow candlelight, the children could see that the candlestick was white. Bone white.
And then Jill was screaming. Jack turned around, threw his arms around her, and then, because she would not stop screaming, he clapped his hand over her mouth. Jill’s eyes were wide, and they were rolling around in her head. Jack whispered, “What? What?” But still her eyes rolled. He tried to follow their frantic gaze. He looked at the candlestick. Then he followed the wall down. Then he examined the stairs that they were standing on. A cry rose to Jack’s lips, but he clamped them shut and held it in. The candlestick, the walls, the stairs were made of human bones.
“Run!” the frog cried. “Run!” Jack’s hand shot out and clamped his mouth shut, too.
Jack’s and Jill’s eyes locked in the darkness.
They stood up.
* * *
Okay.
Imagine you were over at someone’s house. Let’s say for a playdate.
Your friend disappears for a moment, and you happened to go looking for her. You look all over the place. Then you look in the basement.
And let’s say that you discover that the basement was composed entirely of human bones.
I hope, in such a situation, that you would do the sensible thing—and run away as fast as you possibly could.
In other words, I hope that you would not do what Jack and Jill did.
* * *
For Jack and Jill had seen cruel giants, and murderous mermaids, and child-snatching goblins, and Eddie. It was going to take more than a bone staircase to make them run now. Once on their feet, they pushed the horror in their chests down as far as they could, clasped hands once more, and started down the stairs again.
The staircase twisted around and around, and now distantly spaced candles in candlesticks of bone lit their way, leaving just a single stair in complete obscurity before the dim light of the next candle made their horrible surroundings visible again.
And then the stairs ended, and a series of candles lit a long hall. Jill covered her mouth. Jack looked away. The walls, the ceiling, the floor were all made of bone.
Down the long, gruesome corridor, Jack and Jill saw a square where the flickering candlelight was brighter. Slowly, walking as silently as they knew how, they approached it. It was a doorway.
Stronger candlelight danced through it. Jack looked at Jill. She nodded.
Slowly—so slowly that you would not have seen him moving if you did not know that he was—Jack extended the edge of his head past the bone door frame, until nothing more than his ear and his eye would have been visible within the room.
Jack jerked his head back.
Jill stared at him. He gestured for her to do as he had done. Just as slowly, just as imperceptibly, Jill moved her head so that with a single eye she could see the contents of the room.
The first thing she saw was a light fixture—an enormous chandelier, in fact—hanging from the center of the chamber. It was suspended from the vaulted ceiling by tangled cords of rib bones, interlocking crazily. Below them hung the nine-pointed chandelier, each point made of a skull resting on a platter of pelvises. Strung between the nine points were femurs, hanging like laundry from a drooping line. The chandelier was covered with candles, dripping their yellow tallow over the white bones. Jill’s gaze ran upward to the ceiling. It gave new meaning to the term rib vaulting. Ribs were extended in undulating curves from the top of the walls to the center of the ceiling, where a line of skulls smiled down at Jill. And one could tell, from the chandelier, from the ceiling, from the walls and the floor, that these were not just any human bones. They were the bones of children.
From the rib vaulted ceiling, long cords of rope hung taut, and at the end of each cord was a sack. A yellowed, bloodstained sack. Just about the size of a child’s body.
Below these sacks, in the center of the room, stood a bone altar. On it sat a shining circle. It was, without any doubt, the Seeing Glass, its surface now perfectly clean, perfectly clear.
Before the Glass, before the shrine of bone, knelt the three Others.
“Please!” the silk merchant moaned. “Show us your secrets, great Glass! Give us your wisdom!”
The Seeing Glass sat on the altar, silent.
“What must we do for you?” pleaded the oil merchant. “Mirror of truth! Show us your power! We beg you!”
The Seeing Glass stared down from its shrine, impassive.
“Guiding light of the Goblin Kingdom . . .” intoned the old woman. “Repository of the world’s greatest secrets . . . Giver of power . . . Keeper of truth . . . Please . . .”
“We are so close . . .” the silk merchant whispered.
“We have sought ye a thousand years . . .” murmured the oil salesmen.
“Please!” cried the old woman. “PLEASE!”
Nothing.
The old woman sighed bitterly—a sigh of a thousand years of frustration—and lifted herself to her feet. “I will try to read the spell again,” she said. She approached the Glass. Jack’s and Jill’s heads now both peered, ever so carefully, around the bone door frame.
The old woman bent her silvery head over the glass. “Fo timb hat da jeek, bok no father,” she read. “Fo timb hat da jeek, bok no father! Fo timb hat da jeek, bok no father!”
“What the heck does that mean?” whispered the frog. Jack clamped his mouth shut again.
“EVERYONE!” she bellowed. “EVERYONE CHANT IT!”
“Fo timb hat da jeek, bok no father!” they chanted. “Fo timb hat da jeek, bok no father! Fo timb hat da jeek, bok no father!”
“It isn’t working!” the old woman cried. “It doesn’t work!”
“They will pay!” the silk merchant bellowed, on his feet now. “Just like all of the other children have paid for failing!” And he gestured violently at the bones and bloody sacks above their heads.
Jack’s and Jill’s eyes followed his gesture and then met. Jill jerked her head toward the stairs. Jack nodded and straightened up.
“Yes . . .” muttered the old woman. “We must admit it. They have failed.” She shook her head.
“I bet they’ll taste good, though,” the oil salesman shrugged. “That is a small consolation.”
The children’s faces went white.
Jill made a small movement toward the stairs.
Jack, on the other hand, s
tepped into the room.
* * *
Jill turned, saw Jack, and had a heart attack. The frog had two. In a row.
The Others spun. For a moment, they stared, too stunned to speak.
And then the old woman managed to say, “Just who we were looking for.”
The two men moved toward Jack and clamped their hands around his thin arms. “Hello there,” said the silk merchant.
“It turns out,” smiled the oil merchant, “that this Glass of yours isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” Their grips felt like they would crush Jack’s bones.
“Turns out,” the silk merchant agreed, “it’s a fake.”
The old woman shook her head. “And we did have a deal.”
Jack’s chin was set and his eyes were flashing like flint when he said, “Let us try. Let us try to make it work.” Jill was standing in the doorway behind him, watching him, trembling.
The old woman slid up to Jack and lifted her face to his. “You have an hour to make the Glass work. Our patience has expired.”
And she swept past him, past Jill, and out of the chamber of bone. The silk merchant flashed Jack a smile. For the first time, Jack noticed that his teeth were like pins, tiny and sharp, sticking up from blue gums. Jack shuddered. The silk merchant laughed and left. The oil salesman followed him.
* * *
Jack and Jill walked up to the Seeing Glass, now clean and clear. They brought their faces before its shining pane.
In the Glass, Jack saw a boy. His face was lined with sweat and caked with filth. His mouth was set in fear.
In the Glass, Jill saw a girl. Her hair was wet and matted to her forehead. Her skin was blistering and deathly pale.
Above their faces, along the top of the Glass, ran a strange script. It read, “Fo timb hat da jeek, bok no father.”
“What does it mean?” whispered the frog, peering from Jack’s pocket.