May Bird and the Ever After (12 page)

B
zzzzzzzzzzzz May was lying on a bed, in a room with a low, rounded ceiling. She sat up, feeling like she'd had a long, vivid nightmare.

“Bzzzzzzzzz.”

The noise was coming from beyond a door that was rounded at the top, like the ceiling.

“Bzzzz. You didn't dream at all last night, my dear,” she heard from the other room. “Slept like the dead. Come have some soup, zzzzz.”

The voice tapered into a series of long, soft buzzes. May slowly slid out of bed, tiptoed up to the doorway, and put her hands against the wood. She gave it a tiny nudge.

From the sliver of room that revealed itself, May could make out a small, sloped space, and a man in the middle of it with his back turned. He was a very tiny, very old man—only a little taller than May—in a long cloak that was interrupted every six inches with a yellow stripe, or a black one. He reminded May of—

“A bee. Yes, I get that all the time. Only natural, I suppose. My
great-great-grandmother was part bee. She was also part goblin. Lord knows how that happened. But I assure you, I don't favor the goblin side. Come on out, won't you?”

The man turned and smiled warmly. May gasped.

“Oh come, dear, no need to be so dramatic.” He frowned as he waved a hand in the air in a come hither gesture. “You've been around Pumpkin for way too long already.”

His eyes were completely shut—but what had made May gasp was that they had no way of opening. There were no eyelashes, no lids, just skin where his eyes should have been. Two antennae twitched on top of his head. His chin was adorned by a pointy, triangular white beard.

Was he—

“Blind? Certainly am. Have been my whole life.”

Oh
. Was he reading her mind? And
who
was he? He wasn't like the ghosts she'd seen last night. Like Pumpkin, he didn't look like a person at all. And where was Pumpkin?

“That's a tough one. I'm one of a kind, as we all are, of course. I'm a spirit first and foremost, but. . .”

The man shrugged indifferently, turning his back to her again and throwing around this and that pot. “It's hard to explain to a Live One.”

May ran a hand down her arms and pinched the skin inside her elbow. Her skin was slick with sweat. “Pumpkin's in the back with the bees, by the way.”

“Um.” Her voice came out rusty, like it needed to be oiled. “Sir? Where am I?”

The man didn't seem to notice that she'd finally used her real voice.

“Beehive House, Belle Morte. The most frequented vacation spot in the southeast. Belle Morte, that is, not Beehive House. I like my privacy, actually. I'm Arista.” The man turned again, and his hand shot toward May truly as an arrow, as if he could see perfectly well after all. His antennae stood stiffly, proudly. “And you are May. Pumpkin told me. Do you have a last name?”

May faltered for a second, surprised. “May Bird. Sir, I thought—”

Arista nodded. “I can't read what you're not thinking,” he said, in answer to the question she hadn't asked. “You weren't thinking your name, so I couldn't see it.”

“See it?” May shook her head. “But what I—”

“See the words. You know how these things go. It's a bee thing.”

May blinked at him.

“Didn't you know bees are psychic? Oh, of course not. Live Ones don't know much of anything, of course. Now, let's see . . .”

Arista ducked into a cupboard, his antennae drooping to accommodate him, and pulled out a large wheel of white cheese that seemed to be jiggling slightly. He laid it on a plate that was half its size. “I haven't entertained a Live One in at least two hundred years, so you'll just tell me if I don't put out enough. These are offerings from the Glastonbury Tor in England. Only a couple of years old. Very nice.” He opened a jar and began to dip out something that looked like honey, laying it down on another plate. “My last living guest was a Russian magician, quite more frightful-looking than you, I assure you, and he wasn't a big eater, you understand. Of course, people don't leave offerings for us like they used to, so
it was probably for the best. I barely have enough soul cakes to make three solid meals. . . .”

May opened her mouth to ask the questions she'd asked Pumpkin last night. Was she alive, or dead? Where was she? How could she get home to Briery Swamp and her cozy room and her kitty?

But what Arista did next made her mouth clamp shut. With the snap of his fingers a cupboard flew open and a skeleton-shaped loaf of bread came out of it as if it was on rollers. It rolled down to the counter, where Arista lifted it, revealing thousands of tiny spiders that had carried it along the way. May gasped.

“So you and Pumpkin finally introduced yourselves to each other. That's nice. He's been talking about you for so long.” Arista closed the jam jar and dug into the cupboard again, his antennae twitching this way and that energetically. “I'm sure it was the thrill of his life. He showed real promise yesterday, going to get you. Has troubles, Pumpkin, you understand. In ways he doesn't . . . but, yes . . .” Arista seemed to lose himself in his thoughts. On the table the cheese continued to jiggle.

“There you are. Have a seat.”

A table stood in the middle of the room. One of its legs was missing, and it was covered in dust and cobwebs. Arista brushed a few of them aside, again moving as deftly as if he could really see them, and laid the plates down in front of an empty chair.

The chair, too, was covered in silky, gossamer webbing. On the floor a brigade of spiders had gathered around its legs and were slowly pulling it out for her. Some were spinning more webs across the seat. May gasped.

And then she realized it wasn't the cheese jiggling, it was something
in
the cheese, squirming. In fact, it was the maggots coming
out of the cheese. There must have been hundreds of them. Her hands flew to her mouth.

“You don't like the helper spiders? Really, they're quite reliable. . . .” Arista patted her with one limp hand. Then he sat himself in the chair opposite May's. She steeled herself and sat too. “I haven't seen a Live One in so long, I forget how disorienting it can be.” He pushed the plate toward her. “Try some honey. I raise the bees myself—”

A door slammed behind them, and suddenly Pumpkin walked into the room. A blue, dusky glow followed him through the doorway.

“Pumpkin, May has awoken. She's every bit as lovely as you said. Not at all ghastly, like most of them.”

Pumpkin appeared to be speechless. He walked over to a lounge chair in the corner of the room and sat on it, then pulled his knees up to his face.

“Moody fellow,” Arista muttered to May, “but I must admit, it's not every day a ghost goes to . . . well. . .”

Goes to Earth to kidnap children?
May scowled at Pumpkin. Above his knees Pumpkin blushed all the way to the roots of his yellow tuft of hair.

“It's hot in here, Pumpkin. Can you cool us off a bit?”

Pumpkin sighed deeply. He poked his mouth out above his knees. “I'm exhausted.” Then he ducked back behind them.

“Pumpkin, really, you are the laziest servant I've ever had.”

His mouth appeared again. “Fine.” Pumpkin sucked in a breath, and then let it out, the air coming out of his mouth frosty. The whole room seemed to get cooler. He huddled back down against his legs.

“Better.” Arista cut a chunk of cheese for himself and began nibbling tiny bits off and chewing them very slowly, indolently, wiping a maggot from the corner of his lips and tucking it into his mouth.

May cleared her throat. “Won't he eat?”

Pumpkin's eyes widened, and he shook his head furiously a few times.

“Zzzzz,
Pumpkin doesn't eat or drink. Most ghosts don't, though a lot do like honey and honey alone,” Arista said matter-of-factly, lifting his own cup and sipping from it daintily. “Specters are often big eaters, but only for the idea of it. They cling to the past so. Poor dears.”

May blinked in confusion.

“Specters,
my dear,” Arista raised his voice as if she was going deaf. “You don't know the difference?”

May shook her head solemnly. “Oh, my. I forget how much you wouldn't know, being a Live One. Specters have lived. Ghosts haven't. Simple as that. Get it?”

May stared.

“For instance, I doubt you've ever seen a living person with antennae on his head?”

May shook her head.

Arista nodded, satisfied. “Exactly. You'll find you like ghosts much better than specters. Their kind can be so . . . yes, they're quite conceited. ‘I've lived and you haven't' and all that. You know . . .”

May blinked.

“Very like Live Ones in that way. ‘I exist, but ghosts couldn't possibly' all that nonsense.” Arista had begun to frown disdainfully.

May shifted in her seat, feeling they were getting away from the point. “Excuse me?” May squeaked. “Arista? How did I get here? Did Pumpkin make this happen? Am I dead?”

“Oh, dear,” Arista said, frowning. “Zzzzz, you
are
impatient, aren't you?”

She nodded in Pumpkin's direction. “He said I'm not dead, but—”

“My dear Miss Bird,” Arista said plainly, “have a look at yourself over there, won't you? Then I'll be able to see you properly, through your own eyes.” He pointed to a tall, floor-length mirror across the room. May did as she was told, walking over to the mirror and staring at her disheveled form.

“You see? You are very much alive. Look at you. You're still solid, you don't float, you're very colorful. I quite like looking at you, actually—it's a nice change.”

May turned back from the mirror. “But”—May thought hard—“the first time I fell in the lake, I started seeing ghosts. Maybe . . .” May lit on an idea. “Maybe I was half dead? And now—”

“You weren't half dead. Who ever heard of such nonsense. You simply got your sight back, that's all. Live Ones are born with it, and then they quickly lose it. You got yours back.”

May pondered this, still confused.

Arista tapped his forehead in a gesture of impatience. Apparently the answer was too obvious to say. “Really, with your extraordinary imagination, and you didn't even guess. I'd expect more from you, according to what Pumpkin tells me.”

May looked at Pumpkin. An idea was hopping around her brain. If people were born with sight . . .

“When I was little, I think I drew you.”

Pumpkin nodded, letting his knees fall slightly to reveal a hopeful little smile.

“Oh, dear, you really take the cake, don't you. My dear, Pumpkin is your, ehhh,
house spirit.
If Live Ones paid any attention at all, you would know that. Every house has one. Pumpkin is my manservant during the day—he helps me with house chores and raising the bees. At midnight he comes to you. He's known you your
entire
life.” There was a hint of pride in the smile that Pumpkin gave the two of them now.

May frowned back at him.

“Another house spirit might have left you for dead.”

May stared at Arista. “I don't understand,” she murmured.

“Of course,” Arista sighed, “
not
being dead is maybe the worst curse that could possibly befall you.”

“What do you mean?”

Arista chewed on another chunk of cheese and spoke with his mouth full. “Being alive will cause you great trouble.”

“What do you mean?”

“Live Ones are no longer welcome in the Ever After.” Arista stood from the table. “You must get out of the realm. That is your only hope.”

“I don't understand,” May said, a stone sinking in her gut.

“I mean, if they catch you here, you
will
be dead. Worse than dead. And they
will
catch you eventually. There are spies everywhere.”

May stared in shocked silence at Arista's face.

He motioned at her, his antennae drooping somberly. “This is only scratching the surface, zzzz. I understand why it might be confusing. Come with me.”