If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late (26 page)

She liked to think she would be brave enough to face amputation if it were ever required, but there was little chance that even such a drastic treatment would be available here; Dr. L was much more likely to chop off her head than her leg.

How, why, had she let herself become their prisoner? It was like the boat all over again — with one big difference. On the boat, Max-Ernest had been imprisoned with her. Now, here in the mountains, she was alone.

Cold and alone.

She looked out into the empty, snowy world around her. The Midnight Sun had scared even the birds away. Where was Max-Ernest now?

I should never have given him the Sound Prism, she thought. It was my only tool, my only power. Why did I trust him with it? What made me think he’d be able to get here to save me?

Wasn’t a survivalist supposed to save herself? And here she was, waiting helpless, tied to a tree like Snow White!

And now, she thought, I’m going to die.

Tears trickled down Cass’s cheeks only to collect in an ugly icy crusty combination with the frozen snot beneath her nose.

As Ms. Mauvais and Dr. L fought over whether or not to open the coffin, the homunculus was dragged through the snow and dropped next to Cass.

He looked up at her, a small sad smile on his face.

“The Jester would have been proud of you,” he said.

“Why? Look at me! I’m crying.”

“Oh, I don’t think he would have cared about that. He saw me cry once and told me it made me human. Only a miserable pathetic human wretch would shed tears like that, he said.”

Cass laughed through her tears —

“Sorry about the crown roast,” she said after a moment. “I shouldn’t have lied.”

The homunculus snorted. “The Jester wasn’t exactly famous for his truthfulness, either.”

“Well, thanks for not holding it against me.” Cass sniffled, unable to wipe her nose.

“You know, I used to dream about you. I even dreamed this — sort of.” She nodded in the direction of the open grave. “Max-Ernest says that a dream is the fulfillment of a wish. I couldn’t figure out what my dreams were wishing for — they seemed so scary. But I think I know now.”

“I thought I told you — I don’t grant wishes,” the homunculus joked, wriggling closer.

“But you did — that’s the point.” Cass was so cold it was almost impossible to speak, but she had to get it out.

“I think my wish had to do with wanting to know who my father is. Even though I never totally admitted it. Because I didn’t want to have to miss him or whatever. Or maybe just because I didn’t want to hurt my mom’s feelings. It’s kind of hard to explain . . . but what you told me about the Jester, and his pointy ears and everything, it’s the only clue I’ve ever had. I mean, I know he couldn’t be my father — then I’d be as old as you, but he could be my father’s father’s father’s father’s father — or something like that. Right?”

The homunculus nodded. “Something like that.”

“Anyway, I think that’s why I dreamed about you. Although it still doesn’t make any sense, considering I never met you before. . . .”

“Very little in this world makes sense,” said the homunculus with uncharacteristic solemnity.

They fell silent as the wind picked up.

Then, suddenly, Cass:

“Hey, what’s that?”

“What’s what?”

Cass cocked her head, listening. “Sounds like — horses?”

“I can’t hear anything,” said the homunculus. “Then again, I don’t have your ears.”

“What do you mean,
my
ears?”

“It’s your gift, isn’t it? The Jester could hear all kinds of things. Too much, if you ask me. Even without the Sound Prism.”

As Cass contemplated this, they heard Dr. L’s voice ring out — so loud it echoed across Whisper Lake.

“Hello, my fellow Masters of the Midnight Sun — this is your leader, Luciano, Dr. L, speaking. There has been a change of plan. This is not Lord Pharaoh’s grave. It contains no Secret.”

Still standing by the coffin, Ms. Mauvais looked at Dr. L in outrage. “What are you doing?”

He whirled around, distressed. “But that wasn’t me! Pay no attention!” he shouted at the Midnight Sun members.

“Everyone must leave — now!” boomed the voice of this other, louder Dr. L.

The Midnight Sun members mumbled and grumbled in confusion. Those who couldn’t hear the real Dr. L beckoning them to stay began to disassemble.

“Who’s speaking? Who stole my voice?” Dr. L shouted. “Pietro, is that you?”

But his voice was drowned by the sound of galloping horses. As everyone turned in the direction of the horses, the sock♥roach® nearest the grave ripped his head off —

“Owen?!”

He waved at Cass as he shed the rest of his lime green costume. “I’ll come get you in a second!” he shouted in the seldom-used voice she’d come to recognize as his own.

Then he wrestled a yellow fellow sock♥roach® to the ground.

“Pietro, where are you?” cried Dr. L, still looking for his brother.

As if Dr. L had summoned him from the beyond, Pietro arrived out of the trees on horseback at the other side of the graveyard. In his hand was what looked from a distance like a large snowball.

“Everyone, go home!” he shouted into the snowball as if it were a megaphone.

Alongside Pietro, a lively and diverse (which is a polite way of saying
rambunctious
and
ragtag
) sort of cavalry rode into the graveyard. With cheers and cries of “Ballyhoo!” they attacked (which is polite way of saying
created chaos among
) their gloved adversaries.

On one horse (which, in this case, is a polite way of saying
donkey
) sat the two little people seen earlier on the bus, still in their formal attire. As soon as they entered the graveyard, they jumped off and started running under the legs of the silver-clad bouncers, tripping them and occasionally biting their ankles.

The Bearded Lady also jumped off her horse (which in this case is a polite way of saying
elephant
) and started swinging her fists at unsuspecting Midnight Sun members.

The Strong Man, meanwhile, marched in on foot, supporting (which is a polite way of saying
wielding like human barbells
) two Chinese platespinners — and knocking over enemies on all sides.

Standing on top of a horse (which, in this case, is a polite way of saying
camel
), the Illustrated Man breathed fire from his mouth, lighting torches that he juggled then threw at fleeing sock♥roaches®.

In a cart behind him, the red-coated Lion Tamer waved his bullwhip and bowed this way and that as if before a cheering crowd (which is a polite way of saying he was
off his rocker
).

Alone among this brave-ish band, there was one who truly followed the Way of the Warrior: that was, of course, the one and only Warrior Wei. Lily wore full body armor over her black gi and had her horse-head violin strapped to her back as if it were a sword (which in fact it was).

Like laser beams, her eyes locked on her old nemesis, Ms. Mauvais, who was standing slightly removed from the melee, a look of intense rage on her face.

Screaming a vengeful word I cannot repeat (not because it was obscene, but because it was utterly unrecognizable), Lily kicked her heels into the sides of her horse and charged —

Just before she could make contact, however, Ms. Mauvais signaled six of her gloved gravediggers with a flick of her gloved wrist, and they blocked Lily’s way, pulling her off her horse.

By the time Lily kicked, chopped, and swung her way through the line of silver-clad thugs, Ms. Mauvais had disappeared — but, undeterred, Lily plunged into battle with the rest of the Midnight Sun. Running behind the circus folk, looking winded but also exhilarated, were two much younger and comparatively uncolorful people: Max-Ernest and Yo-Yoji.

Pietro stalled his horse next to them.

“Thanks for this —!” He tossed Max-Ernest the snowball which, of course, was actually the Sound Prism — and which Max-Ernest caught with two hands.

“Now, all we need is that —” said Max-Ernest. He pointed to the senile Lion Tamer, still standing on his horse, bowing to an imaginary crowd. “Hey, mister — can we borrow your whip?” he shouted.

Yo-Yoji looked at Max-Ernest in surprise: what the heck did he want a whip for?

Pietro urged his horse forward, then jumped off when he neared the grave. In the commotion, Lord Pharaoh’s coffin had been left unguarded.

“Pietro?!”

It was his brother.

Suddenly, they were face-to-face. And almost nose-to-nose. They were so close — so quickly and unexpectedly — that they each stepped backward as if frightened by a ghost.

Although Pietro’s face had aged so much more than Dr. L’s, their movements remained identical, and watching the two of them together was like watching one person standing in front of a mirror. (Or maybe like watching two people playing mirror in a drama class.)

“Nice trick with the voice,” said Dr. L, recovering. “I don’t remember that one.”

“I guess I’ve learned one or two since the Bergamo Brothers last performed.”

Dr. L smiled wanly. “You look . . . old, brother.”

“And so I am. So
we
are. Luciano, come home with me. It is not too late. You are not this . . . thing.”

He gestured to Dr. L’s handsome but lifeless face, his slick clothes, his telltale gloves.

“I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it.”

Dr. L blinked — for a moment he seemed almost to waver. To regret what he’d become. To agree to repent.

“You always thought you knew better than me, didn’t you?” he asked with a sneer.

“I do know better,” said Pietro.

They stared at each other — their old love for each other vying with their newfound hatred.

“Kill him!” Ms. Mauvais screamed, striding toward them.

Dr. L raised his gloved hand. He held the skeleton key like a weapon.

“Good-bye,
fratello mio,
” Pietro said sadly. “Do you remember this one . . . ?”

He reached down and grabbed a fistful of snow. “We used to use smoke —”

Before his brother had time to react, Pietro threw the powdery snow into his brother’s eyes, creating a sparkly cloud. He remounted his horse and escaped into the fracas.

A moment later, Max-Ernest and Yo-Yoji climbed up onto the boulder overlooking the lake, the boulder on which they’d stood when Cass first called the homunculus a few long weeks ago.

Below in the graveyard, chaos reigned.

“Are you sure this is going to work?” asked Yo-Yoji. He held the lion-tamer’s whip in his hand, and he flicked it nervously.

“Define
sure
,” said Max-Ernest, holding the Sound Prism so tight his knuckles were white. “Am I absolutely positive? No. Am I reasonably certain? . . . Uh, no. Do I think there is a good chance of success? Depends what you mean by good. Do I think it will work? Um, I hope it will. Does part of me think the plan is insane? Uh, yeah. Is it the kind of thing I would usually do —?”

“OK, I get the point!”

“Anyway, it’s a fact that a whip creates a sonic boom — I’ve read about it. It’s because when you crack it, it moves faster than the speed of sound.”

Yo-Yoji eyed the whip in his hand, as if wondering how it could possibly move that fast.

“Plus,” said Max-Ernest, standing a little taller, “it’s the only way to save Cass. Well, the only way I can think of. Do you have a better idea?”

Yo-Yoji gave the whip an experimental crack. Max-Ernest jumped back, startled.

“OK, you’re the boss,” said Yo-Yoji. He made a fist and looked meaningfully at Max-Ernest.

“Paper scissors rock?” asked his confused friend.

Yo-Yoji laughed. “No, like this —”

And he showed Max-Ernest how to bump fists.

It was strange for Cass, being on the sidelines of the battle waging in front of her in the graveyard. (Owen, it seems, was still too busy fighting sock♥roaches® to untie her.) In her fantasies at least, she was always the hero in these situations, not the damsel in distress.

Still, she was glad there were heroes around — even if they weren’t her. She’d barely caught a glimpse of her two friends, but it had been enough.

True, the Midnight Sun had numbers on their side. Not to mention just about every other advantage you could think of. But just knowing Max- Ernest and Yo-Yoji were there — and that they’d called Pietro just as she’d planned — made her feel hopeful.

She wasn’t alone, she realized. She had a friend. In fact, she had two. And more if you counted Pietro and Owen and Lily. She looked down at her feet: and the homunculus. How many friends could a person have? Perhaps there was no limit. She made a mental note to discuss the subject one day with Max-Ernest.

She thought again of the last time she’d been tied up — on the Midnight Sun boat. She hadn’t yet tried to reenact Max-Ernest’s worm wriggle, because she’d been under constant guard. But now, she realized, nobody was looking at her.

Even the homunculus, still tied up in the snow beside her, was absorbed in the scene in front of him, as though it were a movie.

She tested the rope for slack; sure enough, they used too much rope again. Then she kicked her shoes off — the first step — and, wincing, stood in her socks in the snow. Now she’d get frostbite for sure.

Imagining a future life without toes, she shimmied herself out of the rope. Sooner than she expected, she was tying her shoes back on, and
un
tying the surprised homunculus.

“Nice job, Jester junior.”

“Anytime.”

As she spoke, her voice was lost in the —

BOOM!!!

It sounded like a crack of thunder — followed by the loudest rumbling Cass had ever heard, indeed, the loudest rumbling the homunculus had ever heard, and he’d been hearing rumbling for five hundred years (though mostly in his own stomach).

“Look — it’s working!” said Yo-Yoji.

He and Max-Ernest watched as rocks started to shake loose from the peaks above.

“Yeah, but they’re not going in the right direction.”

“Maybe we should trying aiming for that? That’ll come right down on them,” said Yo-Yoji, pointing to a tall mountain peak that seemed to rise directly out of the graveyard. The snow on the peak was piled so high it created a lip —