May Bird and the Ever After

  “May, is that you?” Beatrice called.

  “Be brave,” May called back. The ghouls pulled her into a long hallway and up a set of stairs, through two gleaming steel doors into a huge room made completely of glass. The doors slid shut behind her.

  The room was enormous and gave a complete view of the dusky sky, as well as the city beneath their feet. In the middle of the floor was a large circle, sliced into parts. And beyond that a gold and purple chair that looked a lot like a throne.

  Through the window May could see the buildings of Ether stretched out below, and then farther, the barren outskirts—a vast field of gravestones—and beyond that, the desert. A tiny stripe curved its way outward from the great cemetery, curling around the northern outskirts of the city, and then shooting farther north. May realized with an extra thud in her chest that that must be the northern railroad. And then the height made her so wobbly she had to move away from the window.

  A sliding sound behind her made the hairs on her neck and arms stand up. Without turning around, she knew by the silence the Bogey had entered the room. Slowly, her body feeling numb, she turned around.

  The Bogey smiled his horrible smile at her and waved his fingers in a long, lazy movement. He sat in his throne and continued to smile.

  Behind him were two ghouls who, at his silent command, scurried forward and grabbed onto her arms, holding her tight.

  She squirmed as the Bogey drifted up again and over to her, stroking his hands along his long pointy chin before running them gently through her hair, his empty white eyes shining. May stayed perfectly still.

  When the Bogey finally spoke, his voice came out of a set of speakers at the top of the room. It was a hoarse whisper.

  “You were very fortunate in opening the Book. It is a great honor. My master, long ago, was able to open it too. Can you guess what it told him?”

  May swallowed, and shook her head just slightly.

  “The Book told him that a Live One would come to destroy him.” The Bogey patted her head. “But it didn’t tell him who.”

  May clenched her teeth and tried to stand completely still.

  “So he set guards at each portal to protect our world from those like you. It seems you got through anyway.”

  Now the Bogey pulled his hands together and cracked his knuckles one by one. Behind him May could see the southern part of the city. A tiny plume of smoke, she noticed absently, had risen up in the distance where the train tracks met the horizon.

  “You have led us to the answer, to your name in the Book. Now you must tell me, how were you planning to do it?”

  May tried to move her arms slightly, but they were pinned solidly by the two ghouls. She was still trying to take in what the Bogey was saying. “I. . . I wasn’t planning anything. You have the wrong person.”

  The Bogey’s hand shot out and grabbed her at the top of her bathing suit, his frigid knuckles grazing her collarbone. “The Book doesn’t lie. Tell me how.”

  “I don’t know.” May scrunched her shoulders up against the deadly fingers digging into her throat.

  The voice, though still hoarse and whispery, came through the speakers so loudly that the glass all around them began to vibrate. “What kind of weapon is it you have that you think can destroy a power as great as Bo Cleevil?”

  May shook her head. “I don’t have a weapon.”

  The Bogey’s eyes glinted at her for a long moment. Finally he nodded. “It doesn’t matter anymore. You will never get a chance to use it.

  “Search her,” he said to the ghouls, still talking through the speakers. “Bring me anything you find. Then dispose of her.”

  He tilted his top hat at her, then turned and drifted toward the doors. With the push of a button they slid open. But before he went out completely, the Bogey pushed another button. He floated through the doorway a moment before the circle in the floor opened up, full of blackness and gaping at May. She stared at it, petrified. She knew instantly that that blackness was what nothing looked like. She tried to scrabble backward, thrusting her hand toward her pocket.

  “Hbbblgglglg,” one ghoul said to the other.

  While the one took both of May’s flailing arms tightly in his hands, the other stuck his slimy claws into her pockets, pulling out her quartz rock. He let out a squeal when he saw it, and the other ghoul swiped at it with one hand while holding May’s wrists with the other, fighting for the rock. It went flying across the room.

  In a flash the first ghoul had his claws back in her pockets again, digging for more treasures. Grunting, he jerked out the sea capsule and held it up high.

  This time the second ghoul let go of May completely. The creatures tackled each other, their hands closing over the capsule. May held her breath. She took a step back.

  Smack! Both ghouls looked straight at her the split second before they vanished completely.

  May swooped to grab her quartz rock before she sprinted out the doors and back to the room of the pits.

  “Pumpkin! Bea! Fabbio!”

  “May!”

  She followed Pumpkin’s voice to the nearest pit and lunged against the stone. “I can’t move it!”

  May tackled the stone again, pushing with all her might. It gave a little bit, then a little bit more, until there was room for May to throw the chain ladder down into the open space. A moment later a pair of long fingers appeared on the ledge of the pit, and Pumpkin squeezed his way out, shaking all the way.

  He and May peered around.

  “Beatrice, Fabbio!”

  They followed their voices to two other pits and, with great effort, rolled the boulders out of the way.

  Once the group was all on level ground, they sprinted for the door opposite the one May had been dragged through before. They ran out into a long passageway.

  “The floaterator!” Pumpkin pointed.

  They sprinted down the hall. Beatrice jammed her finger into the Down button. At that moment, the light said it was at floor 3,987.

  “Ay, Dio mio” Fabbio muttered, shifting his parachute on his back.

  Slowly the floaterator made its way up. While they waited, the group looked frantically over their shoulders. Finally, there was a ding in front of them—and a chorus of chatter came from behind the floaterator doors.

  “Run!”

  With Beatrice, Pumpkin, and Fabbio speeding along in front of her, May pounded away from the floaterator. The floaterator door had opened behind them and a chorus of ghoul voices rang out as the ghouls gave chase. The group zipped through the dungeon area littered by boulders and turned right, stopping only when they’d zoomed straight into the glass room and realized they were trapped.

  May dove for the button that would close the doors. Beatrice searched for a way to lock them and finally slammed her small white fist into every button there was until they heard a great magnetized sound. The doors seemed to have locked.

  Outside, a heavy thud announced the arrival of the ghouls and that they were trying to break the doors down.

  “What’ll we do?” Everybody looked at May.

  “My guts!” Pumpkin cried, darting behind May and holding her shoulders, gazing at the doors.

  May stared out the window at that curious puff of smoke in the distance. Suddenly she realized what it was.

  “There’s the train north,” Beatrice said sadly at the same time May thought it. Beatrice was breathing hard, sticking her finger against the glass and pointing beyond the northern gate of the city. “That’s the station I read about,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at the door. May could make out a little dot that marked the station.

  “I wish we were on that train,” Beatrice said, “headed out of the city.”

  “I always wanted to see snow,” Pumpkin warbled. The ghouls outside the doors slammed into them harder and harder.

  May watched the puff of smoke. If there was one fast way out of Ether, it was by train. Not that it mattered. Or did it?

  May racked her brain. She remem
bered tying herself to those balloons last year and trying to fly off her mother’s car. There was an idea buzzing just out of her reach, like one of Arista’s bees.

  “Would you really get on that train?” Everyone looked at May.

  “I would go with you, if we were going,” Beatrice said gently. “Why?”

  “Ah, I go where Beatrice goes,” said Fabbio. “It is a nice dream.”

  “I always wanted to see snow,” Pumpkin repeated.

  May stared at him for a long while, the buzzing in her head getting louder.

  The thuds on the door produced a great creaking sound, and ghoul-shaped indents appeared in the metal. A slit appeared between the doors.

  And then, in a flash, May had it. The idea sent a shock through her that was half hope, half fear.

  “Fabbio,” she said, her voice rushing out in one long breath. “Do you think your parachute can hold us?”

  Fabbio blinked at her for a second, and then smiled with trembling lips. “Yes, I am already thinking this,” he recovered. “Is great idea I have, no?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, and his smile dropped. He gazed through the glass at the distance to the ground below, then looked back at her, his brown eyes fearful. “Do we have choice?”

  May swallowed, remembering how—it seemed like a million years ago—her balloons had failed, and she’d crashed to the ground, hurt and embarrassed. She looked behind her at the wall of glass, so far above the ground. This wouldn’t be like a plunge from the top of her mom’s car. If it didn’t work . . .

  May gazed at the rest of the group. Her stomach flopped. “We can choose to try.”

  In one movement they lifted the Bogey’s throne and slammed it through the glass, which shattered into a thousand pieces and went flying toward the city below. May, Beatrice, Fabbio, and Pumpkin stood on the ledge. Everyone hugged Fabbio tightly.

  He leaped forward.

  Far below, Somber Kitty had managed to run the ghouls around in circles for several minutes, dodging their spears and their swooping hands, unwilling to leave the stairs that were his only way of getting to May. His energy, though, was beginning to give out. His tongue hung out of his mouth in an unsightly, embarrassing way; his small rib cage heaved. And it was becoming increasingly difficult to dart up and down the stairs, ducking and diving out of harm’s reach.

  Panting and bleary-eyed, Somber Kitty finally did the unthinkable. He slipped. Rolling lopsidedly down the stairs, his chin thudding on each step, he had a horrifying moment to wonder which was worse—the pain and fear, or the humiliation.

  A slimy arm scooped him into the air, squeezing him against a slimy body with a tight grip. Somber Kitty was too tired to fight very well, and the creature hung on to him easily. And then something happened that was, if possible, even more disturbing.

  Glass fell out of the sky. All of the slimy creatures suddenly froze, mumbling to one another and looking up. Somber Kitty looked too. There, sailing across the air and headed farther and farther away from him, was a tiny speck. Somber Kitty’s nose twitched and sniffed, his eyes narrowed, and he let out a howl.

  “Mmmmmeeaaayyyyyyyy!”

  With breathtaking strength, he twisted like a corkscrew, sliding right out of the slimy grip that held him. He landed on wobbly legs.

  Shaking his ears, he shot like an arrow toward the west gate of Ether, keeping his eye on the object in the sky above, and running with all his force for the desert.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The Station

  Pumpkin, May, Beatrice, and Fabbio careened across the sand, kicking up dust in their wake, each of them falling off Captain Fabbio like ticks falling off a dog after a flea bath.

  May landed with her mouth in the sand, which she spit and spluttered out as she sat up. Her bones ached.

  “Are you all okay?”

  Pumpkin was moaning. Beatrice and Fabbio were slowly levitating back up to sitting. The parachute lay tattered and flat behind them. They were several hundred yards from the walls of Ether.

  They all stood up, stared at one another groggily for a few moments, and then they started to smile.

  “Whoop!”

  “Yahoo!”

  “We did it!”

  “Mama mia, it is too good to be true!”

  May thrust her hands in the air, jumping up and down and clenching her fists in triumph. “We did it!” she yelled again. “We did it we did it we did it!”

  They all hollered and hooted and hugged one another.

  When they had all calmed down, they peered around them.

  “What do we do now?”

  Pumpkin asked. May spoke quickly, with authority.

  “The train station. Which way is it?”

  Beatrice stretched a long pale arm ahead of her. “The train was on its way. We’d better go fast. Unless we’ve missed it already.”

  The travelers hurried across the desert as swiftly as they could in the direction of the station they had seen from the air. It rose up before them, small at first, but getting larger and larger.

  May had just made out the roof when a massive sound came from behind them. They all turned to look. As they watched, the huge gates of the city slowly swung open. And then what looked like hundreds of black dots swarmed out through the gates.

  “Oh, my gosh,” May said.

  Beatrice threw her small hand over her heart. “Shuck dogs.”

  No one needed a second look. They started zooming now, and soon not only the roof but the whole of the train station was clear and vivid in front of them. They arrived at top speed, slamming to a halt right in front of the platform.

  “Do you see the train? Do you see it?” Beatrice asked, scanning the horizon. “How close is it?”

  May scanned the sand in both directions, hoping that if she saw the train, it would be heading toward them and not away. For a heart-stopping moment there was nothing to be seen on the desert but the Black Shucks in the distance. And also, strangely, a giant wooden mouse rolling along to the far left. May shook her head, befuddled. And then, there it was, a tiny plume of smoke in the distance.

  “Look,” May pointed.

  “That’s it!” Beatrice said. “Is it getting closer or farther away?”

  They all strained their eyes to see.

  “Closer!”

  Everyone cheered except Pumpkin. He stood with his fingers jammed in his mouth, frowning. “Ohhhhh.”

  “It’s good news, Pumpkin!” May assured him.

  Pumpkin groaned again. “It would be”—he pointed to the growing black blobs in the distance—“but I think the dogs are moving faster.”

  If May had been paying attention while she was flying through the sky, she may have seen a tiny speck, smaller than any ghost, trekking across the ground below, moving more and more slowly, like a car running out of gas. She also would have seen that the giant mouse, with hundreds of feet poking out from the bottom, was closing the distance between itself and the speck.

  Somber Kitty had known he was being followed for several minutes. The fact that it was by a giant wooden mouse did not faze him. There were all sorts of things in this world to confuse him, and he was too close to May to think of any of them anymore. He had seen her, with his keen eyes, land on the sand, and now she was running away. He had noticed, from the corner of his eye, the fast-moving train in the distance. And he had also seen the gates of the city open and a cluster of strange black specks pour out onto the landscape, moving at lightning speed.

  Those didn’t faze him either.

  Somber Kitty set his course and tried to push his tired legs faster.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The Black Shucks

  They could see the train clearly now—a long black snake curling its way toward them. It seemed to go on endlessly.

  May, Pumpkin, Beatrice, and Captain Fabbio watched it, willing it to go faster, looking back over their shoulders every few seconds, frantic. Both the Black Shucks and the giant mouse were getting clos
er and closer.

  The crack of a whip sent a sickening dread into May’s heart. Behind the dogs, the shape of the Bogey became clear, riding on his sled, his top hat secure despite the wind.

  Oh, please. Please please please, May thought. Please.

  “The train’s not going to make it in time,” Beatrice said, saying what they all, in the past few seconds, had begun to realize. “We can’t outrun them.”

  “Right.” May turned to them, pushing the fear way down into her gut and trying to pull out courage instead. “We need to look for weapons. Anything you can find. We’re going to have to fight them.”

  They ran around the station looking for things they could break apart to use as clubs. Fabbio pulled out his dagger. Beatrice held a length of pipe dug from the sand. May reached into her pocket and clutched the quartz rock. They all looked at one another, and May could see in everyone’s eyes that they all knew weapons wouldn’t help them. And there was no place to go.

  “I don’t have a weapon,” Pumpkin said.

  May’s lip began to tremble. Pumpkin stared at her hopefully with his fingers tugging at his wrinkled lips, trusting and innocent and helpless.

  “That’s okay,” she said, trying to sound brave. “You just stay behind me. If something happens, something bad, I want you to close your eyes and wait till it’s over.” May felt like that was all she could offer him.

  Tears began to fall from Pumpkin’s eyes. And that made them fall from May’s too.

  She reached out and hugged him. Everybody hugged one another one last time.