There was another sound, an odd sound, from above my head. It was a sort of rolling, thumping noise, like small boats tied at a dock when a big swell or a wind comes along and bumps them against the pilings. Nothing especially scary in that, so why was the skin at the back of my neck crawling? Because boats don’t float in basements.
So what did? I squinted up at the ceiling. It was hidden in darkness.
Then a flicker of movement attracted my attention. At first I thought somebody was getting up to go look for the bathroom.
A shadowy form rose from where one sleeper lay, but as I watched I saw that the lumpish, sleeping shape didn’t change. The rising form was just a dim figure like a cutout, drawing itself out of the sleeper and drifting upward toward the ceiling. There it hung, turning and rolling and bumping slowly with a horrible nightmare motion among another dozen shadows like itself, which I had taken for a single layer of ordinary nighttime gloom.
Before my eyes two more shadows drifted upward. I could see the window through one of them.
Understanding bloomed silently inside me like a poison flower: in the morning, the bleary-eyed bums would be wakened and sent away. They would shamble off wondering why they felt a little weird, maybe thinking that Indian food didn’t agree with them. Sometime later Brightner would come down into the supposedly empty basement room. He would reach up (with what? a broom? a magic Claw?) and hook the helpless, bobbing shadows down one by one, and send them to join the crowd in the phantom rink.
One shadow, livelier than the others, scrabbled wildly but soundlessly at the ceiling with its fingers. I thought I could make out the scoop-nosed profile of Dirty Rose.
I turned and fled up the stairs, thinking only of getting out.
The door to the alley had been closed and locked.
I was shut in with the lady with the sari, and the sleepers in the basement and the desperate phantoms that were oozing out of them.
Not having a lot of other options, I got a grip on myself, more or less, and tried to take stock. Here at street level, I could look straight into the kitchen. It was empty, not a soul in sight.
I listened hard. I heard tap water dripping, and faint twangy piped music, and somebody walking around on the floor above my head—soft steps, quick and light. Pink Sari, probably. Should I be afraid of her? If she was mixed up with Brightner, yes.
The footsteps stopped and I heard someone sigh and the creaking of a chair. Pink Sari or someone was busy doing the day’s accounts or whatever you do after a restaurant has closed its doors for the night.
What now? In the stairwell below, the handlebars of the last lone bike gleamed. The idea of the lady in the sari riding her wheels home in the middle of the night, gauzes flying, should have made me smile.
It didn’t. My mouth, my whole self was cramped with fear.
I opened an unimportant-looking door on my right. Strong smells, exotic and overwhelming, washed over me. I looked into a narrow pantry of shelves loaded with plastic buckets labeled in black Magic Marker: “Gum,” “cloves,” “mango powder,” “ground cumin seed,” “black cumin,” “black mustard,” “green cardamom,” “black cardamom,” “black salt.”
“Black” flavorings? Black magic! Hastily, I shut the door.
I crossed the gleaming kitchen and went out through the swinging doors into a short passageway that had a sign, “Restrooms,” and two doors, right and left. Nobody was in either of the restrooms, which was a very good thing because suddenly I was desperate to use one, and I did.
The dining area of the restaurant was two large, dim rooms full of round tables with chairs upended on them. An illuminated exit sign gleamed red over a fire door on my left. A partition topped with a row of potted plants marked off the two dining rooms from each other.
I slipped in and padded quietly around, taking a look under the tables, behind the bar, inside the tiny hatcheck room. Beside the cash register was a dish of the same little seed-candies Brightner kept on his desk at school. I could smell them: sugary licorice, sweet and inviting.
The one thing every kid who’s ever read a fairy tale knows is, when you’re in the ogre’s castle, don’t eat any of the ogre’s food or you’ll be stuck there forever.
I turned away from the candies and saw the painting on the wall behind me. I had to jam my knuckles in my mouth to stifle a screech.
Above the booths along the back wall someone had painted a life-sized dancing monster with tusks, a long, bloody tongue, a yellow necklace of cut-off heads with closed eyes, and four flexed and threatening arms: Kali, dancing with curled toes on a heap of people she was trampling underfoot.
How in the world could I see her so clearly in this dim, after-hours light? But I did. She capered, gleefully brandishing her clawlike hands, glowing somehow with her own light, and leering into the dining room with eyes like two illuminated billiard balls.
How could anybody sit under that thing and eat a meal? Of course, if you sat under it you wouldn’t actually see it without craning your neck.
I made myself walk over and touch the paint on the wall. That’s all it was: paint on a wall.
Hot paint, hot to the touch!
As I snatched my hand away, something moved up there: a quick flicker of motion in the middle of Kali’s forehead. In one blink, an eye appeared, a wide, rolling, bloodshot eye right above the meeting point of the painted eyebrows—the third eye of Kali, staring right at me!
The piped music suddenly blasted out an ear-splitting shriek with wobbles in it, like maniacal laughter.
In a panic I bolted for the alley door, crashing into tables and sending chairs flying on my way. The door was just as locked as it had been before.
Light steps came pattering down the stairs. Where to go—the basement, with the shadows bobbing against the ceiling? Not on your life.
I yanked open the door to the spice room and leaped in. The door shut behind me, closing me in with utter blackness and warm, odorous air.
Outside, two quick steps—and a key turned in the lock.
Trapped! Whimpering, I flapped around in that narrow, stuffy space, gasping for breath as if I were suffocating and knocking the plastic tubs every which way.
Someone who I guessed to be Pink Sari called to me from the other side of the door in this light, musical voice: “Are you all right, young lady? You will be Valentine, isn’t it? I was told that you might come. Are you all right? My husband would be very upset with me if he found you hurt in any way.”
Her husband?
“Who?” I squeaked.
“But you have met him,” she said, all tinkling and social, “at your school.”
I had fallen into the hands of the Bride of Brightner.
10
Specialty of the House
“YOU’D BETTER LET ME OUT,” I croaked. “I’m feeling terrible. I’ve got a bad heart.”
“Oh, don’t say such a thing of yourself!” she cried sweetly. “I am sure you are of very good heart indeed.”
“My boyfriend is outside, waiting for me,” I threatened shakily. I couldn’t help thinking of Lennie, who was pretty big and strong for his age, but not, unfortunately, either my boyfriend or outside Kali’s horrible, awful, witchy Kitchen.
A delighted chuckle from beyond the door: “Oh, I am trembling—but only a little! If this fine boyfriend so fears to face me that he lets you come here alone, will he be brave enough to face my husband to save you?”
I unpeeled my fingers from a splintery wooden upright of the spice shelves and felt my way to the door, where I sat down because my legs wouldn’t hold me. I was now in an icy sweat of pure terror.
“Where is he?” I said. “Your—your husband?”
“I do not ask my husband where he goes or when he comes back,” she said lightly. “It is for him to tell me what he thinks I should know.”
Trying to flatten out the tremor in my voice, I said firmly, “Well, maybe he doesn’t think you should know this, but I do. He’s dating my mother!?
??
There was a moment’s silence. Then she sighed, a fetching little sound of womanly knowingness and resignation. It made me want to gag.
“But this is only a seeming thing,” she said. “I am the true wife, the one he keeps by him always and comes back to always. A little ‘dating’ is completely nothing.”
Maybe she actually didn’t know what kind of monster she was married to?
“If he’s such a nice guy, then what’s he got going downstairs,” I said, “poor people sleeping in what you tell them is a safe place, while you steal their—their . . . ” I didn’t know what to call the shadows.
“Oh, those?” she said casually. “Mere shavings from the soul, totally harmless, of course.”
“I’ll bet,” I said, with a shudder. I was glad she couldn’t see me. “How do you—make it come out of the people?”
“The food is very special food, you see, not just wholesome and good-tasting! While our guests sleep, they dream. They dream their fears, and flying from them, they fly out of their bodies a little. The part that flies out, the fear, is gathered by my husband so that the lucky sleeper wakes refreshed and relieved of all this fearfulness. He brings great peace to so many troubled souls this way.”
In a pig’s eye, I thought. Could she really be innocent in all this? I wanted to think so. That would mean that at least I had some chance of persuading her to let me go before Brightner came back from Buffalo or ice-skating or wherever he was.
“He’s sure got a nice deal worked out,” I said. “He chases other women while you stay here and run things for him.”
She laughed. “Of course, this is the way things are. Men, even great men, even such men who have found their destined mate and partner, even they have this urge to pursue other ladies. It has happened before, but it is Ushah he does not leave, and so Ushah stays with him. All the others he puts away, one after the other.”
“All?” I said, horrified all over again. “How many are there?”
“Oh, I don’t even bother to keep count,” she said airily. “It doesn’t matter, as I told you.”
Like heck it didn’t! I was talking with the number-one wife of Bluebeard. And he was after my mom. After, nothing—he had her! The rich spice smell was making me a little sick to my stomach; or maybe it was just fear.
I shouted, “Well, whatever he usually does with his—his ladies and those other poor people, he won’t get away with it this time!”
“Oh, my poor husband,” she mocked. “To have you so angry with him! He will explain to you when he comes, and then you can apologize for these rude things you are saying. Luckily for you, he will be in a very good mood when I tell him how you came by all on your own, after hours, when there was no one around to notice if you got yourself locked in the spice pantry.”
I heard her walking away. I yelled after her, but she didn’t come back.
Well, there was some comfort: she might have poor Dirty Rose down there in the basement, but she didn’t have Gran. She’d have boasted of it if she did.
On the other hand, she did have me. I had to find a way out of the spice pantry.
I started by checking over every inch of it in the pitch-darkness. There weren’t a whole lot of inches. I even pulled down some of the spice buckets and climbed up the shelves to try getting a window open. There was one, tiny and gritty-silled, but it was completely painted over and jammed shut. It wouldn’t budge. I tried for a long time.
Eventually I conked out. I remember feeling hopelessly convinced that I would never see the light of day again, except past the bulk of my deadly enemy, Dr. Brightner.
I woke up very thirsty and with a runny nose and eyes that itched like crazy. I was allergic to something in here. Sitting by the locked door, I sniffled like a baby, shaking and scared. I couldn’t even tell what time it was. My watch has little luminous points on it for the hours, but they need some kind of light bouncing off them to show up. In that hole of a room—well, if not for the absolutely overwhelming smell of those spices, you could have used the place for a sensory deprivation experiment.
I wasn’t going to be found looking all wet and runny, like a little kid, by piggy old Brightner; not if I could help it. I began hunting through my pockets for something to blow my nose on.
I found something. I found the silver glove.
As soon as my fingers closed on that soft, crumply leather, I had to smother a shout of laughter: what a jerk I was! What a relief that Gran wasn’t here with me to see what a jerk I was!
The first thing I should have insisted that she teach me about the glove was to remember, in a pinch, that I had it! Which is not something that comes naturally to a person raised in a world that doesn’t believe in magic (or wearing gloves just for pretty, for that matter). For example, when tough kids start following you in the park in New York, the first thing you think is not likely to be, gosh, have I got my magic glove with me?
You panic. I had panicked. It was now time to get unpanicked and try seriously using my head.
I put on the silver glove and I whispered to it, “I need to get out of here! Help!”
The glove seemed to hug my hand like a promise.
I pressed my ear against the door and listened. Something had wakened me, and pretty soon I heard it again: running steps, shrill curses in an accented voice, and great thumpings on the walls. What was Ushah up to? And did I really want to know? I imagined her beating the dust out of those poor, lost shadows.
“—Dirty creature!” she shouted as she passed the door in a rushing swish of fabric. Then came another screeched curse. Whatever it was about, the fuss seemed to have taken her out of the immediate vicinity.
Not daring to breathe, I turned the doorknob slowly with my gloved hand. The latch slipped softly free without even a click. In a burst of confidence, I opened the door and stepped out of the spice pantry into what seemed by comparison to be wonderfully cool, fresh air.
The kitchen was still empty, lit only by daylight from one window. Afternoon light—I checked my watch. I had slept for something like fourteen hours! A black sleep from those black-magical spices, so here it was Monday afternoon.
On Mondays lots of restaurants in New York are closed. Ushah was probably alone here, and for the moment not nearby. I could hear the sounds of muffled pursuit not far off.
Good—whatever was running from Ushah, it would help keep her busy while I checked the office upstairs for signs of Gran. Which I meant to do immediately, before I could really think about it and chicken out.
First, though, I had to be sure there was a way out of this place. Shutting the spice pantry door softly behind me, I headed for the side door, which was still shut and locked. The silver glove would take care of that, I was sure. The doorknob turned slowly, but it did turn.
Increasing noise from below: I ducked behind some crates stacked in the passageway, my heart hammering. Ushah was making such a racket herself that it would take more than a thundering heartbeat to get her attention. I hoped.
A small animal streaked up the stairs. Ushah came dashing after it, waving a mop and screeching. She cornered the creature—it was a gray cat, all puffed up and spitting with fear and rage—at the door to the pantry.
With her back to me Ushah moved in on the cat, snarling softly, “When I find which one let you in—oh, such stupid people! Feeding you on the sly, hey? Telling each other how you will keep mice away. ‘Health inspector’ means nothing to them, I have to think of everything! Well, you won’t steal food here again!”
The cat ducked an Olympic-powered whack of the mop and tore back down into the basement with Ushah pursuing in full cry.
I gathered my nerve for a quick run upstairs to the office—and a prickling sensation rolled through my sinuses. I grabbed my nose and pinched it hard—too late! I was blown backward by an enormous sneeze.
In the one second of silence that ensued, I clambered to my feet and made a break for the alley door in a crash of toppling crates. Flinging open the
door, I tore out into the light of a clear, late New York afternoon.
I couldn’t do anything for Gran here now. Or for myself, either.
I am a fast runner. I ran.
“Stop, thief!” shrieked Ushah, the Bride of Brightner. That voice would have turned a charging bull, and for a second it turned me, or my head anyway, while my feet kept flying.
Out of the doorway behind me, soaring over the tumbled crates, came a fury in pink. She sat sidesaddle on a bicycle that spun madly down the alley after me, glittering with a light of more than polished chrome.
I knew The Claw when I saw it.
Never have I run like that. Never, ever, have I dodged and slid and zipped so madly and dangerously through the narrowest gaps between people and cars, and trucks parked two-deep in the narrow crosstown streets.
The bike darted behind me, leaping obstructions like a skeleton horse, skidding on its tires as it sped on my trail carrying Ushah in her gossamer pink sari. Like some colorful Indian fantasy of a western witch on her broomstick, she flew after me on a bike that she didn’t need to pedal with her daintily slippered feet.
Her face was the snarling face of Kali.
Now I knew who had flown the killer kite in Central Park when Gran and I rode the flying carpet!
Ushah sat the jumps like an equestrienne champ and screamed like a banshee, “Thief! Thief! Stop, thief!”
God, the unfairness of it—she, who helped her husband steal people’s souls, calling me a thief!
For once there was some justice in this world. New Yorkers are cautious about getting mixed up in other people’s business. People turned to stare but nobody tried to stop me. I zigzagged like a streak of lightning, heading for the only sanctuary I could think of.
Like a lot of shops in New York, The Makeup Stop has a locked street door. You ring and wait to be let in.
Not me. I whacked the door handle with the silver glove, flung myself inside, and slammed the door behind me. I stood panting in the pretty little mirror-walled boutique which belonged to the mother of my friend Barb. With Ushah’s screech building up outside as she came zooming after me, I dove past the counter and between the print curtains into the back room.