Gustav Gloom and the Nightmare Vault (16 page)

BETRAYED BY HAIR ON A MOUSE

They ran.

It wasn’t the first time that they’d had to run for their lives from a writhing mass of jet-black tendrils. Most houses don’t require visitors to do that kind of thing even once, let alone thrice; it just isn’t the kind of situation that ever comes up anywhere else.

They couldn’t run back in the direction they’d come, not with October blocking the way, so they had to use the last of the stone walkways, the one that stretched out into the unseen distance, with nothing but a bottomless plunge into darkness on both sides.

Fernie yelled, “Where does
this
lead?”

“I don’t know!” Gustav yelled back. “I’ve never been out any farther than Hieronymus Spector’s cell!”

The path wasn’t wide enough for them
to run side by side, so they ran in single file, Gustav just an arm’s reach ahead of Fernie. Mr. Notes’s shadow flew through the air over both, neither following nor leading, just keeping up, in what could have been either protectiveness or a desire to be protected. He kept saying, “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.”

With the path so narrow and the threat of slipping over the side so disastrous, none of them bothered to look over their shoulders to see if October was gaining; they just kept running, hoping to eventually arrive somewhere useful.

Unfortunately, the farther they went, the less reliable the section of stone path became; it began to look more and more ragged at the edges, marked by rough spots wherever pieces of stone had chipped off. The churning sea of darkness on both sides became rougher, too, with more and more ripples of shadow spilling over the sides and covering the stone, like surf reclaiming a sunken pier.

“I’m not sure how much farther we can go!” Fernie cried.

“I know!” Gustav yelled. “I don’t think there is anything out here—just empty space, kept in case there are any more prisoners!”

Then the stone path dipped below the surface of the shadow sea. Gustav plunged into darkness up to his knees, billowing up all around him as he continued to stumble in the same direction, only barely slowing down. Fernie sank in up to her knees, too, shrieking as she thought of the sharks Gustav had mentioned. She slowed down, too, long enough to turn around and see if October was still coming—and yes, there he was: a distant, lumpy man-shape bobbing along at the center of the storm of tendrils originating from his open mouth.

Mr. Notes’s shadow stared at the sight. “I’d offer to give up my life to slow him down, but I don’t think I could slow him down.”

“Don’t bother,” Gustav said as he continued to run on the submerged path. “You wouldn’t.”

Mr. Notes’s shadow said, “I could tell him I know where to find the Nightmare Vault. It would be a lie, but I could tell him that.”

Fernie shook her head. “I already told him that earlier tonight.”

Gustav whirled in place. “Really? Even
I
didn’t tell him that. I just told him I’d look for it.”

“I needed him to chase me instead of chasing Pearlie.”

“That would do it,” Gustav said. He took another step farther onto the path and sank another three feet, his head immediately vanishing from sight. The black mist over his head churned a little harder, as if from the struggles of a little boy fighting to surface.

Fernie cried out and almost leaped in after him. “He’s drowning!”

Mr. Notes’s shadow blocked her way. “It’s not
water
, Fernie. It’s more like a thick fog. You’ve been in places like that and still been able to breathe, right?”

“But there are sharks in there!”

“Right now,” Mr. Notes’s shadow said, “I think we have bigger problems.”

Unwillingly, Fernie looked where Mr. Notes’s shadow pointed. Not nearly far enough behind them, the gaining form of Howard Philip October had turned back. The cloud of black tendrils carrying him had retreated inside his mouth, leaving him to stride on his own two feet back to a place he’d already passed: the glowing cage of Hieronymus Spector.

He stepped onto Spector’s island and tilted his head slightly, listening to what the imprisoned shadow had to say.

Fernie felt a pang of fear. “Hieronymus is telling him everything he told us.”

“I’m afraid it’s worse than that,” Mr. Notes’s shadow said. “If I know Hieronymus, he’s doing what he promised and telling October
more
than he told you.”

Fernie’s fear became something much worse: the end of all hope. She hadn’t stopped October or saved her sister and father; she’d failed so badly that the end of the entire world was coming. Before long the shadows of ancient monsters would run loose, and everything good would be swept aside for the new kingdom Lord Obsidian wanted to build.

Visible again now that October had pulled the shadow tendrils back in, the sprawling maze of stone paths and the distant glowing cages of Hieronymus’s fellow prisoners all seemed to blur as the tears welled in Fernie’s eyes.

Then a voice behind her said, “What’s wrong?”

She whirled back around and saw Gustav standing in waist-deep shadow-stuff. Puffs of black mist, disturbed when he surfaced, slowly sank on all sides, like soap bubbles.

From his expression, he had no idea whatsoever why Fernie would be crying.

Mr. Notes’s shadow said, “Hieronymus is telling October where to find the Nightmare Vault.”

Gustav didn’t seem disturbed by that at all. “Yes. He said he was going to.”

Fernie cried, “We’ve got to stop him!”

Gustav seemed curious. “Who’s
him
in that sentence? Are we supposed to stop Hieronymus from telling October where to find it, or October from rushing off to get it?”

Fernie didn’t understand why he was so calm. “Both!”

Gustav looked past her, to Hieronymus’s island, where the discussion between the ice-cream man and the traitor shadow seemed to have ended. October had sprouted his tendrils again and was allowing them to carry him back in the opposite direction.

Gustav shook his head. “I’m sorry, but Hieronymus has already said everything he’s going to say, and October’s already on his way to get the Nightmare Vault. So we’re too late to stop either one of those things. Would you settle for getting there first and saving the world?”

Fernie said, “What?”

Gustav addressed Mr. Notes’s shadow. “I’m
sorry, but if you follow us under the mists, you’ll probably just attract sharks, and I’d rather you didn’t. Is it okay if I ask you to just find your own way out?”

Mr. Notes’s shadow seemed torn between loyalty to Gustav and relief at being spared any dangerous encounters with sharks. “Should I meet you in the grand parlor?”

Fernie cried,
“What?”

“If we’re not there in an hour,” Gustav told Mr. Notes’s shadow, “it’s because we got killed.”

Gustav’s shadow friend nodded. “That’s what I would have figured, anyway.”

Fernie’s mouth opened and closed and opened and closed. “What? What?
What!?
”

Gustav glanced at her, and though he didn’t smile with his lips, there was a hint of one in his eyes. “Well, come along, then.”

He strode down the path until his head disappeared under the gray waves of shadow-stuff.

Fernie had time for one last worry about being eaten by sharks before the urgency of the moment took over and she had to follow, running where she would have preferred not to go at all.

She almost shrieked and turned back as the path dipped beneath her feet and the shadow-stuff rose over her head, but Mr. Notes’s shadow had told the truth: Despite the promise of sharks and the surface that behaved like waves on an ocean, the darker regions into which she had plunged were not very much like water after all. They were just gray mists, a shade darker and sootier than what she’d been passing through before. Walking through them didn’t feel any worse than being in the shadow of a wall that stood between herself and the sun. As long as there was still a stone path beneath her feet, walking in the stuff was not very uncomfortable at all.

It was far spookier, though. There was nothing to see but the path itself, a dim straight line at her feet, as it headed downward into the murk…that, and the faraway black shapes of finned, toothy creatures who looked very much like sharks, swimming in the shadow-stuff the way the ones she had seen at the aquarium swam in water. There seemed to be an awful lot of them, and they weren’t nearly far away enough to suit her.

Gustav was twenty steps ahead, not running
but walking very fast, his arms pumping with determination.

It only took her a second to catch up. “Why won’t you tell me what’s going on? Didn’t you hear me say
What?
all those times?”

He kept walking. “Yes, I did. I thought it was odd, but I can cry out my last name, too. Gloom! Gloom! Gloom!”

The realization that he was teasing her at such a serious moment made her furious.
“Gustav—”

He cut her off. “Do you still have the glass globe I gave you? I still have mine.”

Fernie had been carrying it all along, though it had been long minutes since she’d bothered to think of it. “Yes. Can I ask you a question?”

“You ask me questions all the time.”

“Why aren’t we running?”

“There’s no point. We’re not being chased at the moment. And we don’t want to slip and fall over the side, not here and not now; not considering what’s at stake, how far we’d fall, and the terrible part of the Dark Country where we’d land. Just keep moving. I saw an exit not far ahead.”

She supposed it didn’t matter all that much whether they were walking or running, not when
Gustav was walking faster than most people could run. So she did her best to keep up, shivering a little when she saw a host of darker shapes gliding by in the mists. “What about the sharks?”

“Them? I never said they were dangerous to
us
. There are worse ones, farther down, but the ones swimming near the surface are only dangerous to shadows. That’s why I told Mr. Notes’s shadow not to come with us; they would have eaten
him
right up. Us, they won’t even bother—especially since neither one of us has a shadow right now and don’t even
smell
good to them.”

Now that Fernie looked, the dark shapes swarming about in the mists did seem to be keeping their distance. “But what about—”

“Sorry,” Gustav said. “It’s my turn. I get to ask you one.”

“Come on! You haven’t explained anything yet!”

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s still my turn. I wanted to ask you about what you told Hieronymus. About my being your best friend.”

She couldn’t believe he wanted to talk about that
now
. “Come on, Gustav. You know we’re friends.”

“Oh, I knew we were friends, but I didn’t know we were
best
friends. Is that true?”

“Why would you believe it wasn’t?”

“It’s just surprising,” he said, “because it makes sense for
you
to be
my
best friend. I’m stuck behind the estate gates and haven’t met a lot of people. Any friend I made, even a bad one, would still be my
best
friend, just because there’s nothing else she could be. But you…you’re out in the world. You’ve been to school. You must have known a
hundred
kids in your life. Am I really
your
best friend?”

“Don’t be stupid,” she said irritably. It had only been two weeks since she’d introduced him to her sister as “
by far
the coolest friend I’ve ever had,” which as far as she was concerned meant the same thing. “
Of course
you are.”

He fell into silence as they hurried down the slanting stone path, which wound through shadowy murk among the shadowy sharks beyond the shadow prison in the most shadowy place of his shadowy house.

He remained silent even as a small mote of light appeared up ahead and grew larger as they approached, revealing itself as a portal to a brighter place.

The path through the Gloom house’s darkest places led straight back to hope, after all.

A FINE SUMMER DAY IN OCTOBER

Gustav and Fernie passed through the portal and found a little set of curving stone stairs, which led upward through a murk already far lighter than anything they’d been passing through for some time. When they ran up those stairs and emerged into what would be considered dry land if they’d been traveling through water, a circular vault door at the top slid aside to reveal a dingy hallway identical to the one that had led to the shadow prison in the first place, except reversed.

Even the warning on the door was reversed: