If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late (25 page)

“Welcome to the greenroom. Make yourselves at home.”

Ms. Mauvais gestured grandly around the dingy backstage waiting room as if she were welcoming them to a palace, her gauzy gold gown rippling with every movement.

Palms sweating, pulse racing, Cass looked around for a way out; there was only one door, and there were no windows.

As if deliberately mocking her, Dr. L relaxed, feet up, on a long couch. A near life-size photo of a tropical beach was pasted to the wall behind him.

“Can I offer you something to eat from craft services?” Ms. Mauvais asked, indicating a long table piled high with all kinds of food.

The homunculus eyed a big standing rib roast with bones sticking up in a circle, making a crown. Meat juices puddled on the plate underneath.

“Yeah, I’ll take . . . some of that.” He pointed at the roast, his eyes glistening.

“The crown roast? It does look . . . bloody, doesn’t it? You can have the whole thing —
if
you tell us where Lord Pharaoh’s grave is.”

So
that’s
a crown roast, thought Cass. You’d really have to be a cannibal to find one of those appetizing!

With enormous effort, the homunculus tore his eyes away from the roast. “Never,” he said, practically trembling with hunger. “I’d rather starve.”

“Oh, what a noble little creature you are,” said Ms. Mauvais.

“Hardly,” sneered the homunculus. “But compared to you . . .”

“We have other means of convincing a person — or whatever you call yourself,” said Dr. L from the couch. He studied the homunculus with a scientific eye.

“Go ahead and try,” said the homunculus. “No torture can compare to what I endured from Lord Pharaoh when I was young. And death doesn’t scare me — at my age, it would be a relief! You should try it yourselves!”

“I’d really rather not,” said Ms. Mauvais. “In fact, you could say
not
dying is my life’s work.”

“We’re patient. And resourceful,” said Dr. L. “Let’s see — what means of persuasion do we have on hand?”

As his glance fell on Cass, the homunculus visibly stiffened.

“I think you just found it,” said Ms. Mauvais.

Dr. L smiled grimly. “I think I did.”

Don’t worry, nobody laid a hand on Cass — other than the electric blue
sock♥roach
® who was still gripping her arm. But Dr. L’s description of what he would do to her if the homunculus didn’t tell them where the gravesite was was so horrifying I shudder just to think about it.

And you know me — I’m as coldhearted as they come.

Imagine how Mr. Cabbage Face reacted.

I know the homunculus comes off as a gruff and surly sort of fellow. But remember his history: he’d been so ridiculed and abused as a child he couldn’t bear to see another child treated harshly.

Then there’s this: Cass was the heir of the Jester. When he looked at her ears (if not her face) he saw his old friend. His only friend. The one he would have sacrificed all for.

“All right,” he said, struggling with himself. “I’ll tell you. Just don’t touch the girl!”

Perhaps it would have been wiser to leave Cass to whatever tortures the Midnight Sun might have had in store — if their finding Lord Pharaoh’s grave was really going to be as disastrous as the homunculus predicted. But I confess I sympathize with him and like him better for his choice.

Dr. L nodded, as if the homunculus were merely confirming something he’d known already.

And Ms. Mauvais’s frozen face cracked just slightly into something like a smile.

“Good. Now, give me that key,” she said.

His large hand shaking, the homunculus removed the skeleton key from around his neck.

For the first time since he’d hung it there centuries ago.

A moment later, hidden in the crowd, Yo-Yoji and Max-Ernest watched Cass and the homunculus being escorted out the gate, surrounded by a cluster of silver-clad bouncers.

“We have to follow them!” said Max-Ernest.

“Well, come on then,” said Yo-Yoji.

The two boys made it out of the stadium just in time to see Cass and the homunculus pushed into a waiting limousine. Ms. Mauvais and Dr. L climbed in after them and a bouncer slammed the door shut.

As the gleaming vehicle took off into the night, Yo-Yoji and Max-Ernest ran after it. But it was no use — they’d never catch up.

They stood, panting, under the harsh lights of the huge parking lot.

“What do we do now?” asked Max-Ernest, miserable.

“I dunno. We don’t even know where they’re going.”

“Wait — I just remembered!” Max-Ernest pulled the Sound Prism out of his jacket pocket.

He motioned Yo-Yoji to his side then turned the Sound Prism around in his hand. Beyond the sounds of the concert behind them, they heard cars honking, a baby crying . . .

Then, faintly, in snippets, the sound of Cass speaking in the distance.

“I can’t believe . . . told . . . WHISPER LAKE! And now . . . to the GRAVEYARD!”

Walking around in circles as if he were trying to get a better cell-phone signal, Max-Ernest managed to focus on the voices in the limo.

“Shush, girl!”
they could hear Ms. Mauvais say.

Cass spoke in an oddly clear voice, emphasizing certain words:
“It’s too bad they won’t know to FIND PIETRO and tell him to MEET US THERE.”

“It’s almost like she’s trying to tell us to find him,” said Yo-Yoji.

Max-Ernest shook his head in amazement. “Only Cass could boss us around — even when she’s a mile away!”

“Yeah, well, she’s got a good teammate.”

“You mean you?”

“No, you, dude.”

“Oh.” Max-Ernest grinned, surprised. “So are you ready to go save Cass?”

“Definitely.”

Without having to confer out loud, they both started running in the direction of the nearest bus stop.

N
o, not that kind. Although that would be bad enough.

I mean, the ending of
life.

Which, come to think of it, is why I hate the ending of a book so much. Because it’s a kind of death.

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who like graveyards and those who don’t.

When I was younger, I loved graveyards. They weren’t spooky so much as mysterious. Each tombstone another story to uncover. Another life to learn about.

Now that I’m older — I won’t say how old — I
hate
graveyards. The only life — or rather death — I see in the tombstones is my own.

Believe me, if I didn’t have to end this book in a graveyard I wouldn’t. (OK, so I lied — it
is
that kind of ending. Or the beginning of the ending.)

Come to think of it, who says I have to end the book in a graveyard?

Just because that’s where Dr. L and Ms. Mauvais headed with Cass and the homunculus, just because that’s where a big climactic confrontation and dramatic resolution to the story I’ve been telling took place, who says I have to write about it?

Contrary to what some may believe, this is still my book — isn’t it?

If I want to, I could take things in a radically new direction.

Like this:

Just when Cass thought they were all headed for the graveyard, the limousine got caught in the tractor beam of an alien spaceship that sucked the limousine up into its belly. As luck would have it, the aliens were on a mission to find a survivalist to lead their disaster-prone planet. . . .

Or this:

Just when Cass thought they were all headed for the graveyard, Ms. Mauvais and Dr. L both suddenly fell into anaphylactic shock, thanks to a pill the homunculus dropped in their champagne. . . .

Or even this:

Just when Cass thought they were all headed for the graveyard, she blinked and woke up. She, Cassandra — a survivalist? She laughed. What a funny thing for a ballet dancer to dream about. . . .

No? None of those versions ring true? I’m betraying you, my reader, by taking off in these wild directions?

Well, I tried.

Your criticism is harsh but fair.

I’ll tell you what — you know how much I like deals — I will write the graveyard scene, if, and only if, you hold my hand through it.

You be the strong and courageous one, and I’ll provide the commentary. If you’re the kind of person who happily runs through graveyards laughing at death, so much the better.

Now: how to start our ending?

Normally, when a writer doesn’t know how to start, he might begin with a description of place. But I did that already — you read all about the graveyard and Whisper Lake in the camping chapters.

I have an idea: why don’t we show how the place has changed since we last saw it? How much time has passed. That sort of thing.

To make our job easier (and maybe a little less scary), let’s pretend we’re making a movie and imagine that Whisper Lake and the surrounding mountains are being filmed from high above in a helicopter — that’s called an aerial shot.

What we see from up here in the sky is that the entire mountain range has been blanketed in snow, and Whisper Lake has been frozen over. In fact, it is snowing now, very softly, giving our movie the look of slow motion.

Little specks of color move against the white background — people, we see they are, as the camera pushes in. They make tracks through the snow, all converging on the same point above the lake.

We watch as one by one these silent hikers salute each other. Strange — for a second, it looks as though they have no hands. . . .

Oh — I know why! It’s because they’re all wearing white gloves that don’t show up against the snow. . . .

From her earthbound vantage point, tied to a tree some twenty yards above the grave of Lord Pharaoh, Cass made the same observation.

Gloves.

She knew what they meant. She’d seen these same sinister people on a similar occasion at the Midnight Sun Spa. They were the acolytes of the Midnight Sun — and if they were gathering like this it could only be because something truly terrible was about to occur.

What was once Lord Pharaoh’s grave was now a large gaping hole, surrounded by frozen clods of mud.

A team of silver-clad men — bouncers from the concert — stood in the hole removing dirt and rubble so expertly and methodically that I have to believe they had dug up many graves before.

Around them, the Masters of the Midnight Sun — several still in sock♥roach® costumes — stood in a wide circle, chanting something deep and resonant like a yoga master’s Om, yet somehow much darker and more foreboding.

Impervious to the cold, Ms. Mauvais stood on the edge of the grave, her gauzy gold gown blowing in the wind. Snowflakes swirled around her.

Like a high priestess, she spoke to her congregation:

“A great man was buried here. No, a great
being.
Even a god. For he had the power to create life itself! Who knows what miracles Lord Pharaoh would have achieved had not his own creation turned against him? This miserable, ungrateful little creature here —”

She gave a dismissive kick to the homunculus who was lying in the snow beneath her, his hands and feet bound together with rope. “But now we will continue Lord Pharaoh’s work, and we will be gods ourselves!”

With excited cries, the gravediggers hoisted a large and cumbersome coffin out of the grave, and laid it on the snow.

An oozing, festering crust covered the entire casket save for a gleaming golden lock. The coffin seemed almost to be alive.

“Behold — in this coffin lies the Secret we have so long sought!”

“The Secret . . . the Secret . . . the Secret . . .” chanted the crowd.

“Doctor . . . ?” Ms. Mauvais looked expectantly at Dr. L.

He nodded and stepped forward, skeleton key in hand. The coffin’s golden lock beckoned.

“You don’t want to open that!” warned a gruff voice from the ground.

“You mean
you
don’t want us to open it,” scoffed Ms. Mauvais.

“Me? It’s nothing to me,” the homunculus responded. “This isn’t my time. This isn’t my place. I’m not one of you.”

“Are not Lord Pharaoh’s papers in there with him?” asked Dr. L.

“Among other things, yes.”

“And is not the Secret written there?”

“I don’t know anything about that,” said the homunculus, as if the Secret were the least of his concerns. “But I’m telling you, if you let out what’s in that coffin — then everything and everyone you see around you will die. And it won’t
smell
very good, either! I speak only out of concern for the girl, you understand —” He gestured awkwardly toward Cass, without looking at her. “And because I think the trees deserve to live.”

“Perhaps we should listen to him,” said Dr. L, turning to Ms. Mauvais. “His words have the ring of truth.”

“Are you mad?!” yelled Ms. Mauvais, sounding quite mad herself.

By now, snow had started to pile on top of Cass’s head and shoulders and feet; she looked as if she were one of the statues in the graveyard.

Cass had long ago memorized the symptoms of frostbite: discoloration of skin, tingling or burning feeling, numbness. But she’d never before experienced them.

Unfortunately, her extensive research on the subject did her no good now. How did it help to know that if her frostbite was left untreated her skin would gradually darken until it became black and began to loosen from her flesh? That her nerves would be damaged beyond repair? That she would probably fall prey to gangrene?