May Bird Among the Stars (19 page)

On the day of May's departure the undead piled in for warm hugs, and May accepted them gratefully.

“No time to get sentimental, people. C'mon,” Bertha said. “Now, nobody draw attention to themselves. Stay spread out on the Stubway—we'll all have our shrouds on, but we don't want a whole gaggle of Live Ones making themselves conspicuous. I'll take May and her friends. We'll all meet up at the Horror Huts Hotel. Remember, should something go wrong, we take the sewers out of town.”

She was waving the group into the teleporter booth. One after another, five select undead, adorned in death shrouds, stepped in, plunked a tele-token into the slot, and disappeared.

May's pulse raced. She looked at her friends, who were
putting on brave faces, except for Pumpkin, who was trembling from big head to toe.

Amelia pushed her flight goggles up to her head and took May's hand. “I'm so proud of you. We know you can do it.” She gave May a wink.

May felt a lump rise in her throat. She tucked Kitty safely underneath her shroud and plunked her token in the slot.

H
OCUS POCUS TRANSIT AUTHORITY.

“Here we are. Everybody out.”

They all clambered out of the teleporter booth and stood in a knot at the front of the depot. Bertha waved everyone forward as they drifted through the crumbling stone doorway.

They followed the stairs down to a platform where several other spirits were waiting, looking at their watches, rifling through their briefcases. And then there was a sick, lopsided rumble from the dark tunnel to the right, and slowly, slowly, the Stubway emerged along the tracks.

It was a hulking, crooked thing, its windows cracked and its metal body rusted and full of holes. It lurched toward the waiting passengers forlornly, like an old dog.

The Stubway didn't so much come to a halt in front of them as simply expire in an exhausted sort of way. Pumpkin clutched the back of May's papoose, causing Somber Kitty, nestled inside, to let out a quiet groan. The travelers were jostled to and fro as they drifted into the train and spread out along the aisles.

“Pardon me. Excuse me. So sorry,” Bea said.

Finally, they all settled in, and the doors creaked closed.

A voice came over a crackling loudspeaker above the handles. “Next stop, Wormhole.”

At Wormhole a tall specter boarded and squeezed up next to May. He had clearly died in a fire, as tiny flames ran up and down his clothes. May couldn't help but stare at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Mind if I smoke?” he asked.

May was about to answer politely when the train made a hard turn to the right. All of the passengers were flung against the left wall. May fell into Bertha.

“Don't worry. Just the wormhole.”

The train spiraled around and around, and then it emerged into the light of dusk, and they were back outside, moving slowly across the sand.

“What's that?” Beatrice asked, pointing out the window to a large, glowing blob in the distance, underneath a darkened sky.

“Hocus Pocus.”

Bea took hold of May's hand, her delicate fingers digging in. Otherwise, she was the picture of calm. As they all stared out the windows intently, the city and its citizens began to take shape ahead of them.

Hocus Pocus was completely dead. That is to say, it was as lively a city as one could imagine in the Ever After. Spirits crowded the streets, ghosts promenaded across dilapidated overpasses. They crisscrossed, drifted, disappeared into this and that gambling hall or glowing green club with peppy organ music blaring out through its windows. Occasional fights tumbled out of the double doors of saloons onto the streets as hearses and horseless
carriages jostled by. One spirit was jostled onto the tracks and yelled “Ouch!” as the Stubway ran over him.

A glowing sign hung over the tracks, burning brightly and sending lights disappearing into the dark, swirling Stardust clouds above:
A GAMBLING TOWN, A RAMBLING TOWN … WELCOME TO HOCUS POCUS.

Beyond the crooked, jam-packed roofs loomed the lighthouse. It was a dark black spire, fearsome to behold—every inch of it adorned with stone faces with gaping, fang-filled mouths. At its tip an enormous black light spun in circles, sweeping the sky with its heavy black shadow.

A ghoul crossing the street bumped into their train, grunted, and then rushed to catch up with a gang of ghouls up ahead. May bowed her head, tightening the hood of her shroud.

“Hey, Mister, room for one more?” one gaunt, dark-suited spirit asked, trying to drift into one of the windows. The car attendant threw him out. “Go buy a ticket, you deadbeat!”

The Stubway moved even slower now, on account of all the cars that pulled across the tracks ahead of it. Bertha muttered under her breath, something about Hocus Pocus drivers. May, Beatrice, Fabbio, and Somber Kitty had their faces pinned against the glass, mesmerized.

More glowing signs hung off the buildings at crooked, decrepit angles, advertising various attractions:

GHOULS, GHOULS, GHOULS! LIVE!

POLTERGEISTS ON ICE! ONE NIGHT ONLY!

SEE THE DREADED SILKIES MAGIC SHOW! YOU'LL BE AMAZED! ASTOUNDED! POSSIBLY ASPHYXIATED!

“May …” Beatrice waved to catch May's attention, then
motioned to the window in front of her, where May's breath had collected in a fog on the glass. Bea gestured that she should rub it off.

“Oh.” May furiously shined it off with her fist. “Ahhh!” She fell backward. A gaunt lady in a long dress was looking at her through the glass and made a slicing motion across her throat.

Bertha grabbed her up tight, looking around nervously. “Silkies,” she whispered. “Just cool your muffins.” She casually waved her dagger at the woman, who only smiled wickedly and drifted away.

The Stubway took a hard left turn onto a new street off the main drag, slightly less crowded, and May and Bea gasped. On their right stretched the oily black waters of the Dead Sea. Several Dark Spirits were down on the beach, star bathing and socializing. Some pushed vending carts from one beach blanket to the next, peddling Putrid Pops and slurpy sodas.

On a rise to the left, a black-clad witch peered out of a window painted with
FORTUNES, EARTH-COMPATIBLE HEXES, JUST IN TIME FOR HALLOWEEN.

“Oh, ohhhhh, can we please get a hex? What is a hex? What about a Putrid Pop?” Pumpkin was practically bouncing up and down.

“Here we are,” Bertha said, turning a sharp-eyed look at Pumpkin, causing him to immediately shut his mouth tight. The train wheezed to a stop at the East Hocus Pocus Station.

The travelers drifted out of the car. They gathered for a moment on the platform and looked at one another. Bertha drifted under a billboard that read
IF YOU DWELLED AT COFFIN VIEW
CONDOS, YOU'D BE HOME BY NOW!
“No tail draggin' now, hear? Let's get a move on.”

And with that, they followed her down an alley to a building shaped like a skull with a gaping mouth.

As soon as they'd secured rooms at the hotel, May went to the front desk to inquire after the telep-a-gram she'd hoped to receive from Typhoid Mary's, but there was nothing. Another dead end, she guessed. Upstairs, she watched Beatrice sadly. Bea was floating about the room, opening the curtains to let in the starlight and arranging the furniture to be a bit more homey. If possible, she seemed more melancholy than ever, though she wore a brave face.

If everything went as May hoped tomorrow, she wouldn't be around to see if Bea found her mother or not.

“Hey, Bea, do you want to take a walk with me?” May asked. Maybe they could share a slurpy soda. Or take in a poltergeist show.

Beatrice's eyes lit up. “Do you think we could?”

They both looked at Bertha, who was already busy sharpening a silver-tipped spear.

“I wish you wouldn't,” Bertha said, seeming flustered. “It's a rough town.” She eyed the girls' looks of excitement, seeming to give just a bit. “Well …” She leaned on one hip and gazed around the room. “Ohhh, I was a tadpole once. And as long as it's just you two. You can't take the cat, of course.” Somber Kitty let out a discouraged meow from where he had curled up on the bed.

Bertha cast a look at Fabbio, who was staring at the parking
lot and jotting down a haiku, then at Pumpkin, who had resurrected the handkerchief and put it back over his nose. “And I'm worried about those two.” Bertha shook her head. “Just don't talk to strangers. And hurry back, ya hear?”

“Okay,” May said, nodding. She pulled Bea out into the hallway.

“Strange things afoot today, girls,” the innkeeper said from behind his desk as they drifted through the foyer. “Be careful out there. The Dark Spirits are restless.”

They wound their way through the city streets, passing several large groups of ghouls and one smattering of goblins. Each time, they went stiff and quiet but tried their best to act naturally. And neither the goblins nor the ghouls seemed to take much notice of them.

Without having planned it, May found herself looking down each new street for Typhoid Mary's. She considered mentioning it to Bea but thought better of it.

And then there it was. Magnolia Lane.

May casually steered Beatrice to the right, the two girls drifting down the quiet, cobblestoned street.

About halfway down to the left, they came to it. The sign outside said
TYPHOID MARY'S CHATEAU FOR SENTIMENTAL SICKLIES: SERVING THE TYPHOID COMMUNITY SINCE
1920. The building itself lay behind a stone archway, with a broad stone porch.

Beatrice took May's hand. “May, look,” Beatrice said.

They drifted up the stairs onto the porch. A welcome mat at their feet announced
FLOAT ON IN.

“Do you think we should go in?” Bea asked.

“We might as well,” May said innocently.

Voices drifted down the corridor from a room at the far end of a long marble hallway just inside the front door. “Oh, maybe I'll just wait outside,” Bea said. “I can't take another disappointment. Maybe you should go without me. And you can just … let me know.”

“C'mon, Bea.”

May held her friend's hand tighter as they drifted down the hall and up to the threshold.

The room was full of spirits in all types of old-fashioned clothes, from rags to beaded cocktail dresses with bits of lace at the throat. On a table was a big coffin-shaped cake with yellow writing:
THEIR LOSS, OUR GAIN! HAPPY DEATH DAY, DOROTHY!

A woman, presumably Dorothy, was just blowing out her candles. Several of those spirits around her shook her hand and wished her well.

After a few more minutes May squeaked out an “Excuse me?”

Dorothy drifted their way. She wore a long, lavender dress, and her corn-colored hair was done up in a loose, old-fashioned bun. “Hello there. May we help you?” She looked back and forth between them with her sunken-in eyes.

“Yes.” May cleared her throat. “We're looking for Mrs. … Mrs. …” May looked at Beatrice to finish for her.

“Mrs. Isabella Heathcliff Longfellow,” Beatrice practically whispered, then looked back at May.

“And we were hoping,” May continued, “that you might know her.”

Dorothy nodded. “I do.”

May felt a shudder run through Bea's hand. She herself felt as if she'd just gone over the dip of a roller coaster.

“But she isn't here,” Dorothy said, her hand playing with the lace collar at her throat. “What a shame. She left just this morning. For the City of Ether.”

“But—but,” May sputtered. “We sent a telep-a-gram!”

Bea shot her a wide-eyed look of surprise.

“I'm sorry,” Dorothy said, sounding slightly offended. “We didn't receive any telep-a-gram. She goes away all the time.” Dorothy sniffed, then added with gravity, “She'll be gone about a month or so. Looking for her daughter.”

“But this is her daughter!” May shouted, waving Bea's hand at them.

Dorothy's dark eyes blinked, incredulous. “Oh?” she gurgled. “Oh, my! Oh, my dear! Truly?” She wrenched Bea's hand from May's and clutched it tighter, staring at her intently. “Why, yes! Yes, you are! You look just like her!”

Bea let herself be yanked all around like a rag doll. Her eyes had gone glassy.

“She talks about you all the time! She's been looking for you for
ages!
Oh, I'll dash off a telep-a-gram to her right away! She's riding the Bony Express! I know exactly which carriage….”

Several spirits had congregated in the room now, hearing that Isabella's daughter had arrived. Many were wiping away tears while others were exclaiming how remarkable it all was. Still others murmured to Beatrice that her mother was a wonderful lady. But Bea appeared to be in shock. She just stood there.

“You come back here bright and early in the morning and see if we haven't heard back from her. Oh, my dear!” In her frenzy, several strands of corn-hued hair had worked themselves loose
from Dorothy's bun and swung around her face, causing her to swat them away.

May looked at Beatrice for a response. But—nothing.

“Well, thank you,” May said tightly, backing away, her heart pounding. “We'll be back in the morning.”

“First thing tomorrow!” Dorothy practically shouted.

May floated Beatrice back down the corridor and outside onto the front steps, where she sat her down. “Bea?” She remembered something she had seen on TV about needing to pat people on the cheeks when they were unconscious. She tried this with Bea.

It failed to work for several minutes, but eventually, whether it was because of the patting or not, Bea finally turned to looked at May, her eyelids fluttering wildly like the tiny legs of a centipede bristling. Her eyes traveled over May's face in wonder.

“Tomorrow,” she said. And then she fainted dead away.