The three stood there for a moment—Lucius, May, and May’s soul—staring at one another helplessly. “Why don’t you try closing your eyes again and getting her back?” Lucius suggested.
May did. She tried and tried, but every time she opened her eyes, her soul was still standing out in the corridor, staring at her forlornly. “I guess she can’t get back through the bars,” Lucius offered. “She doesn’t seem very talkative, either.”
“I suppose I’ll just be going now,” Lucius said with a sigh. Then, at May’s look of shock, he giggled. “A joke! You don’t think I’d leave you in there without your soul, do you?” He turned to May’s soul. “I’m going to go look for a key.”
Lucius zipped away in a ball of light. While he was gone, May and her soul stared at each other nervously. May thought about trying to make conversation, but she wasn’t sure about what to say.
Several minutes went by before Lucius came zipping back, dangling a key in his hand. “That was easy,” he said, looking dazed. “Very odd. The ghouls weren’t even at their posts.”
He felt around the invisible bars, zapping himself several times. May and her soul both winced sympathetically. Finally, he got it. “There!”
With a click! and a snap! and the sound of a door sliding open, May looked at the empty space, gingerly stepped toward it, and tiptoed across the threshold. There was no zap. No nothing. And a moment later she was standing beside her soul The two reached out to touch each other’s hands, and a blinding white light suddenly forced May to close her eyes. The emptiness inside went away as quickly as it had come, and her eyes fluttered open.
Lucius’s grin infected her, and she smiled widely.
“Let’s go find my cat,” May said, turning businesslike.
Ding! Ding!
The floor beneath both of them shook. “What’s that?” May asked. It sounded like the chimes of a giant clock.
Lucius looked up toward where the sound was coming from. “The big clock. It’s nothing.”
They zipped off down the hallway.
Chapter Thirty
A Sack of Dust
Deep in the woods of Briery Swamp, Ellen Bird was no longer charmed by what she saw in the lake. The swimmer beneath its surface had begun to stretch into eight glowing points. Her smile had widened to reveal a malicious grin.
An arrow of fear raced down Ellens spine. The creature, now horrible instead of beautiful, reached toward her …
And then it stopped.
As quickly as it had come, it turned and swam in the other direction, down, down, down, until it was only a point of light, and then the light went out.
May’s mother turned for the woods and ran home.
Far above, all over the star known as the Ever After, Dark Spirits left their posts. Goblins and ghouls swarmed out of the villages toward the sea. Mummies and zombies ambled along side by side in the direction of the water. Every mean and twisted soul in the realm converged on South Place for the largest meeting of evil in the history of the Afterlife.
• • •
In Hocus Pocus, Pumpkin, Fabbio, and Bea had made it to the city limits before deciding to entrust Isabella to the others and try to follow after May Bird. Aghast, they watched from a sewer grate as Dark Spirits great and small clambered to the edges of the sea and leaped in.
“This is bad,” Bea observed.
In fact, though nobody said it, they were all thinking the same thing: It was beginning to look as if the Lady had led May into a trap.
Above May and Lucius, the ceiling rocked with loud thuds. They both looked upward ominously, then at each other, then hurried on ahead, looking this way and that for Somber Kitty.
About ten minutes later they passed an arched opening onto a crumbling stone staircase that led downward.
“That’s the Bogey’s bedroom,” Lucius said, turning dim.
May peered down the stairs, then up the hall. “Well,” she said, biting her lip. “It could be that Kitty’s already found his way there.” She started down the stairs, then turned to Lucius. “You can stay here if you want. I’ll be right back.”
Lucius peered over his shoulder. “No thanks. I’ll come with you.”
They found the door at the end of the hall. It protruded from the wall in the shape of a dog’s snout, two stone fangs jutting from the jowls and a knocker hanging from the great stone nose.
May hesitated a moment, looked at Lucius, then pushed on the nose. The door creaked open. She drifted inside, followed by Lucius.
The room was decorated in black and gold. An enormous bed covered in a black velvet blanket dominated the space, the headboard carved with fearful faces. Stuffed animals—nine little Black Shuck dogs in all—were scattered across the pillows. There was a closet door and a black bureau next to it with gold, skull-shaped knobs. On top were several knickknacks—trophies for Realm’s Deadliest Henchman, the Scariest Spirit Award, and several South Place Dance-Off ribbons, including one for Realm’s Baddest Break-Dancer.
May looked at all these things in awe as Lucius hovered by the door. Her heart thrummed.
“Oh …”
“What?” May looked at Lucius, who had turned pale.
“Someone’s coming.”
Lucius grabbed the back of her shroud and yanked her down, shimmying both of them under the bed. They lay there, sick with fear.
A moment later a pair of feet drifted into the room. Another moment later two knees in black trousers appeared as the figure knelt on the floor. One unmistakable, horrifying suction-cup-tipped hand swept a wide arc under the bed. Back and forth. May pressed back, the fingertips within inches of her. She grabbed Lucius’s hand, her own sweaty and trembling. And then the horrible fingers closed around something near her feet: a white, shiny piece of fabric.
The Bogey’s hand disappeared, and he stood up. Then there was a rustle as the fabric was unfolded. From under the bed, it looked like a sequined, bell-bottom jumpsuit. While May watched in horror, the Bogey changed into the jumpsuit. And then he drifted out of the room.
After a few seconds passed, May tapped Lucius’s back. “He’s gone.”
They peered out at the door for a moment longer, wanting to make sure. “In that outfit he really looked like a boogie man,” May finally whispered.
“There must be a trapdoor or something,” Lucius replied. May realized with a start that they were under the bed, right where she had been trying to get to all along.
“You’re right!” She pivoted around on her belly and started searching the floor, coughing at the dust bunnies.
They felt all over the floor with their hands. Nothing. There was only one other thing underneath the bed, tucked back in the far corner—a tiny sack of some sort. May ignored it, feeling frantically along the ground. Finally, she and Lucius crawled out from under the bed and stared at each other.
Reconsidering, Lucius ducked back under and pulled out the little sack. They both looked down at it. May’s heart fell into her feet.
FOR MAY BIRD, the tag said.
Glowing on the bag itself was a stamped label: SACK-O’-STARDUST.
May read the fine print under the stamp: This Sack-O’-Stardust handcrafted by the spirits of North Farm. Good for inducing sneezes, putting out fires, and not much else.
She raised her eyes, pale as Lucius. “What does it mean?”
Lucius opened the sack. “There’s a note in here,” he said, pulling it out and handing it to her.
May stood with her back to the Bogey’s closet and slowly unfolded the paper. What it said made her blood run cold.
May,
Home is behind you now.
Sincerely,
The Lady
May grabbed the sack from Lucius’s hand and looked into it. “Dust,” she whispered. “It’s just dust.” Was this a prank? A joke? May squatted and looked under the bed again—but there was nothing there.
May’s body heated like a flame.
“The Lady of North Farm …,” Lucius muse
d. “I hear she’s very tricky.” He looked at May sympathetically. “I suppose it was all rumors after all.”
“But she said …” May thought back to many things the Lady had said. And what she kept coming back to was this: that she was good, but also partly evil.
“Did you do something to make her mad?” Lucius asked.
May’s head was spinning wildly. She couldn’t speak or even think. She had relied on the Lady. She had counted on the Lady.
She had been wrong.
May clenched her fists, her eyes filling with tears. “What do I do?” Helplessly, she peered at herself in the Bogey’s mirror.
The anger boiled inside her like lava. She waited for the tears to creep back under her eyelids, and then, with one shuddering breath, she pulled her bow from her back and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?”
May turned to Lucius. “To get what belongs to me.”
As she floated out the door, Lucius zipped after her in awe. “Wait!”
May swiveled on him, her eyes flashing. “I’m not going to let things happen to me—to us—anymore. I’m going to make them happen.” Her mouth straightened into a determined line. “I’m going to start with the Bogey. I’m going to make him tell me where my cat is.”
She turned away quickly and strode ahead.
“You’ve gone mad!” Lucius yelled behind her, trying to keep up.
And he was right. May was so mad, she could hardly see.
In fact, floating down the hall, her bow in hand, the super-novas on her bathing suit exploding, her black hair flying, she was the very picture of a warrior.
Commander Berzerko turned the corner into the cavern of the Swallowed Souls, meeting her prey’s eyes, her canines poking out of her jowls in a crocodile-like smile.
Somber Kitty, his back to the swamp, panted, his tongue hanging out of his mouth in an unsightly, embarrassing manner. His tail stood straight up. He swiped out with one tired paw, but caught nothing but air. “Meay.” His knees gave way.
The commander, letting out a thin, satisfied hiss, took a step closer. And then she floated into the air, puffing out. Her fur became spiky, smoke poured from her ears. Somber Kitty wiggled his nose, sniffing the air. He tilted his head to the left and the right.
“Mew,” he said curiously.
And then Commander Berzerko’s tail lashed out toward him.
At that moment Kitty’s fatigue, which he of course had been faking, disappeared. With astounding energy, he leaped sideways, dodging the tail gracefully.
And then Somber Kitty did what any cat who knew martial arts would do. He gave Commander Berzerko a swift karate chop. The commander careened against a nearby wall and bounced back, howling.
As she flew by him, Somber Kitty leaped into the air and executed a lightning-fast judo kick, sending the commander flying across the cavern like an air hockey puck. The commander let out a mew of surprise as she sailed right into the swamp.
She scrambled against the edges of the bubbly ooze, letting out a long screech. But the bubbles, barking and snarling, dragged her down.
One outstretched paw remained above the swamp’s churning surface for a moment longer, and then it, too, sank out of sight.
Nothing remained of Commander Berzerko but a small and sparkling object lying on the shore.
Somber Kitty sniffed the glistening diamond collar with disdain, then hurried away.
Chapter Thirty-one
The Dastardly Disco
It had been an agonizing few minutes for Beatrice, Pumpkin, I … and Fabbio. They just didn’t know what to do. Hurry into the lighthouse and head after May Bird, which also meant heading into pretty certain doom? Or stay where they were, which would leave their friend in danger? Nobody, of course, considered choosing the second option. But they couldn’t quite figure out how to tackle the first.
“I don’t know how, but I’m going after her,” Pumpkin finally said, pushing up against the sewer grate as Bea held him back.
“Pumpkin, wait!” She grabbed the bottom of his trousers, but Pumpkin kept floating forward, until—holding on with all her might—Bea flopped out onto the street in a heap.
Fabbio leaped out of the sewer and tried to pull her back by her feet. “We are just … needing to … think of a plan, Punkin.”
It was as they were pulling Beatrice like a jump rope when they noticed a pair of familiar slitted green eyes staring at them through the lighthouse doorway.
Beckoning.
• • •
The Bogey, whom May and Lucius had caught up with a mere two halls away from his room, drifted on ahead, and May drifted along behind him, Lucius tugging on her shroud from time to time and making an Are you crazy? face.
“You don’t have to come,” she whispered over her shoulder, never taking her eyes off the Bogey’s back.
They floated all the way up to the first floor of South Place behind him, then twisted through a maze of hallways.
Soon they came to a pair of double doors at the end of a hall. The Bogey paused, straightened his white bell-bottom jumpsuit, adjusted his top hat so it sat just so, and pushed through the doors and through a thick curtain.
May and Lucius slipped in after him, peering out from behind the curtain as the doors closed behind them. They were in a dark room sparkling with purple strobe lights crisscrossing the floor. Somewhere far above, someone coughed.
“And now, introducing your host …”
May stood up straight, pulled an arrow from her back, and aimed.
From all around, a thrumming beat began. From above, a spotlight focused on the Bogey.
“… the Bogey!”
And then the world seemed to come to a halt.
May’s heart froze within her as her eyes drifted upward to take in an enormous hall—nine stories high, layered with hundreds of jagged balconies piling one on top of the other to the ceiling. And each one was teeming—teeming—with ghouls, goblins, zombies, trolls, mummies, and every other dark thing that had ever roamed the realm. There were so many tiers extending so far up that May couldn’t even see beyond them.
An enormous clock ran up one side of the vast hall, with an equally enormous golden pendulum, and draped across it was a banner lit by a spotlight:
REALM takeover KICKOFF PARTY
The strobe lights flickered across the masses that were clinging to the balconies like countless germs. Their teeth were large, their claws sharp, and their faces were set with malice.
The first beats of a song began to pound over loudspeakers all over the walls, shaking the floor. May and Lucius shrank back against the door. In the middle of the floor the Bogey thrust his arms upward in a dramatic maneuver. And then he began to dance.
The Dastardly Disco had begun.
Chapter Thirty-two
Somber Kitty Dances at midnight
South Place appeared to be deserted. But Fabbio, Bea, Pumpkin, and Kitty knew better.
“Where is everyone?” Beatrice asked. With no one to hide from, they were winding down the spiral of the realm in a fraction of the time it had taken May and Kitty.
“I have very bad feeling no words can describe,” Fabbio offered. “Which is not usual for me,” he added in a whisper.
Ignoring their gut instincts, which told them to escape while they still could, they followed Somber Kitty farther and farther downward.
Up ahead, they could hear the sound of impossibly loud music.
As May and Lucius watched from the cover of the curtains, the ghouls and goblins and zombies poured down from the balconies—climbing, scrabbling, practically dripping from the tiers above to join the Bogey on the dance floor.
Blame it on the sunshine,
Blame it on the moonlight, Blame it on the good times,
Blame it on the boogie …
Everywhere, they fell into the same steps as the Bogey: Step, step, growl. Step, step, growl, lurch.
It was the world’s most terrifying line dance.
Back and forth, around and around, the Dark Spirits jerked and slithered.
For the length of the song, the Dark Spirits did their dance, and the two friends behind the curtain looked on in awe. When the music finally stopped, a microphone descended from somewhere far above, landing in the middle of the floor, where the Bogey scooped it up. The clock marked the time: 11:56.
“In a few minutes the guest of honor will be arriving.”
The Dark Spirits scrambled back up to their seats, snarling and stomping as they arrived in their rows, until only the Bogey was left on the floor.
“He’s taken a trip down from his fortress to make a special announcement,” the Bogey continued. “So special that you’ve all been excused from your haunting duties for the night.” More snarling and stomping. “At the stroke of midnight he’ll be arriving….
The music leaped to life again. Everyone peered at the clock. It was 11:57. Every head turned in the direction of the ninthfloor balcony, which was completely empty. May, too, stared at the empty balcony. She knew, of course, who would be appearing there. Her fear had turned into a ribbon inside her, tying her to the place where she stood.
Lucius took hold of the back of her shroud and whispered in her ear, “We’ve got to get out of here.”
• • •
Far down at the end of the hall Somber Kitty saw a pair of double doors. He sniffed the air, then turned back to the others.
“Meay,” he said very surely, and zipped ahead.
The others hurried after him.
May let Lucius pull her backward, toward the doors. One step. Two steps.
Thwap!
As the doors behind them burst open, they went hurtling forward, sailing through the slit in the curtains and sliding onto the dance floor. Pumpkin, then Beatrice and Fabbio, came sprawling after them. Only Somber Kitty stayed on all fours. The group landed in a tight knot, in full view of all the spectators.
The hall went completely quiet.
For a moment no one knew what to do. May pulled her death shroud tightly around herself as she and her friends stood slowly, peering about the hall. The Bogey was frozen in place, his white eyeballs glinting at them. Even the thousands upon thousands of Dark Spirits were still as statues.