May Bird and the Ever After (13 page)

May followed Arista through an arched doorway on the side of the room into another, dimmer area, its curved walls lined with shelves of books, all the spines of which were blank until May focused on them and words began to blur themselves onto the paper. In one corner of the room was an old television set. Above it hung a gleaming silver clock with tiny skeleton hands for hands. And on a wide wooden desk sat a gleaming white skull and what looked like a glass globe, only it was blank—with no continents or oceans mapped out along its curving surface.

Arista reached out his hands and laid them on the globe. Suddenly it came alight.

“Ohhh,” May breathed. Arista smiled.

“Nice, isn't it, dear? Zzzz, Christmas present from Pumpkin. He bought it at an estate sale. Copernicus has a company that makes them, have you heard of him?”

May nodded.

“Poor fellow got summoned to the northeast last year and never came back. Too rebellious a mind, I suspect. That happens these dark days. Here . . .”

The glow within the globe had begun to separate itself into thousands of tiny points of light. The glass surface disappeared completely.

Inside the globe May recognized the spiraling Milky Way from fifth-grade science, the same class where she'd learned about Copernicus. “There's yours,” he said, pointing to one of the millions of dots. A little square of light loomed up where he'd touched, and formed a miniature vapor Earth, complete with swirling clouds. Words appeared beside it.

Earth
Population: 6,087,983,408
Portal Type: Water
Portal Count: 4
Please look both ways when haunting.

Arista wetted his thumb with his puckered, wrinkled mouth, spun the globe, and then with his crooked old pointer finger, staked out a dot in the swirling mass—a star, one that looked just like all the other stars, tucked deep in a spiral cloud on the other side of the globe. It lit up extra bright when Arista touched it. Tiny writing appeared above it, with a miniature May beside it, complete with knobby knees and straight short bangs, and wearing a black sparkly bathing suit and shorts. Next to her stood a miniature Arista.
You are here,
it read.

May almost choked.

“But, but Earth . . . it's so far away!”

Beside it a box had popped up like the one for Earth, and this read:

Arista seemed not to have heard her. “You see, we're a tiny realm, and we orbit very fast. That's why the stars go by us so
quickly. I believe on Earth they appear more still, isn't that so?”

“How will I ever get home?” she asked, ignoring his question.

Arista's antennae twitched thoughtfully. “Oh, that's quite impossible. Live Ones can't get out of the Ever After once they get in.”

“But you just said that's what I need to do.”

“Yes.”

“But you're saying it's impossible.”

“Yes.” Arista frowned.

“But you're saying I'll be killed if I stay”

“That's true.” Arista seemed confused.

“But what should I do?”

Arista considered. “My dear, I hate to tell you, but I simply don't know. Zzzz, Bo Cleevil will make sure you're found, that's certain.”

May remembered the eyes that had appeared in her brochure and shivered. “Arista, I don't understand.”

Arista looked at her and shook his head. “Why don't you sit, my dear?”

May sank onto an overstuffed black velvet chair, and Arista sank onto the seat by his desk.

“Bo Cleevil is our most powerful spirit.
Horrible
spirit.” Arista's antennae swayed and drooped. “How horrible I don't think anyone really knows. He rules the realm.”

May swallowed.

“You see, the realm is made up of four corners.” Arista pulled a faded piece of parchment out of a drawer and lifted a quill pen out of its inkwell at the corner of his desk. In bloodred ink he traced out a four-cornered sketch, then divided it into four parts,
then tapped his quill onto the paper. May scrunched her nose, queasy. Was it really blood?

“Oh, don't get caught up in trifles, dear. Here.” He tapped again, on the lower-right corner of the drawing. “You and I are far down in the southeast and not far from the Dead Sea. Bo Cleevil lives here, in the northeast.” Arista pointed toward the upper-right corner. “And the Northern Spirits live here, in the northwest.” He pointed to the upper-left-hand corner. “I won't concern you with the west. It's very empty but for the desert and some ancient settlements. They're trying to draw more tourists out with the Pit of Despair Amusement Park. The City of Ether lies at the very center.” He pointed to where the four lines intersected in the middle of the paper. “And South Place lies deep beneath all of it.”

“Now as you can see there are four kinds of inhabitants in the realm. Ghosts, Specters, Live Ones like yourself, and Dark Spirits. The Dark Spirits—poltergeists and goblins, ghouls, demons, that sort—live in South Place. They're not allowed in the Upper Realm, but they sneak up from time to time. And when they do, you can be sure it is to serve Bo Cleevil. And then, of course, the Bogey. That's who came after you with the dogs.”

Even Arista seemed fearful for a moment. He tugged at his antennae, agitated. “He helps to clean out the territories. Gets rid of all the spirits Bo Cleevil sees as troublemakers. Only ever visits Earth in children's nightmares.”

“But”—May looked at the globe again—“There aren't many Dark Spirits compared to the ghosts and specters. Can't everyone stop him?”

“Well, zzz, everyone is too afraid. And many just don't think
about it. Spirits don't like to use their heads. Especially the ones who've lost them in horrible accidents, or beheadings. Too lazy to think.

“Plus, zzz, Bo Cleevil's filled spirits's minds with all sorts of notions—that specters are better than ghosts, convincing ghosts that specters are conceited.” Arista sniffed. “Which they are, I must admit. And then there's you. Zzz, most spirits believe you Live Ones only care about one thing: exorcism. That's why you must never, ever show yourself to any but a select few. We believe you are spirit killers.”

“But that's not true. I . . .”

“You don't need to convince me, dear. I don't buy into all that poppycock. I am not too lazy to think.” Arista waved at his shelves of books. “There are good and bad Live Ones, the same way there are good and bad spirits. But Bo Cleevil, I'm afraid, is above all, a liar. Anything that makes spirits more afraid, makes his power grow. And as long as spirits are afraid of other things, they won't think too much about him.”

“But what does he want?”

“Zzz, I have no idea, dear. Nor do I know what he looks like. Bo Cleevil himself never leaves his fortress in the northeast, beyond the Platte of Despair. It's very treacherous there, and few who ever go come back. Those that do have been struck dumb by fear and can't describe what they saw.”

“You should do something,” May urged. For the moment it didn't seem so strange to be having a discussion in a study on a star billions of miles away from home. Her imagination painted a picture of Bo Cleevil that was too big to ignore.

“I think there's not much to be done,” Arista said cheerfully.

“It's too much bother to go against the flow. From what Pumpkin tells me, you should know something about that, May.”

“But that's no excuse.” May stared, frustrated, and then blushed. Recently she had tried with all her might to go
with
the flow. She just hadn't figured out how to do it.

May looked at the distance on the globe, longing with a throbbing in her heart for home. Then she remembered her letter. She dug into her pocket and pulled it out.

“Arista, I got this . . .” She held it out to him, smoothing the soggy paper out with both hands. As she did she noticed with a gasp that the picture of the lady in the trees had reappeared on the envelope. At the same moment Arista recoiled.

“Oh, my.”

May looked up at him. “What's wrong?”

“Zzzzz?.
Oh, my. Please put that away. Zzzzz. I had
no
idea.”

May looked at her letter, then tucked it back into her pocket. She stared at Arista, befuddled. “It says there's a Lady on a Farm. It says she needs my help. And back at the Spectroplex I saw . . .”

Arista's antennae described a wild circle, like the propellers of a helicopter. “Don't show that to just
anyone.”

They stared at each other for a moment in silence. Then Arista's antennae perked up straight and still. “Yes. We'll call the Undertaker. We must. You can show it to her.”

“The who?”

“The Undertaker. She'll know what to do.”

“Can she help me get home?”

But Arista wasn't paying attention. He was already leaning over his desk, toward the skull that rested on the corner.

The mouth of the skull opened, a green glow emanating
from inside. A low, crackling groan arose from the mouth, then a few more groans, and then a moment of silence.

May studied the globe while they waited, thinking tearfully of her mother and her cat. It took her a moment to notice that the globe was blinking very oddly, and the population number was rising one, falling one. Rising one, falling one.

“Arista, what's . . .”

“Well, I say,” Arista muttered, reading her mind and putting his hands on the globe. “That's odd, I've never . . .”

“You have reached the office of the Undertaker,” the skullophone boomed. “If you have recently died and are looking for employment, please press your skullophone's right molar. If you are worried that you might be exorcised, please press your skullophone's right front tooth. If you would like to speak to a dead operator, press your skullophone's left front tooth.”

Arista sighed and pressed the left front tooth.

“Hellooooo,” a spine-chilling voice rasped.

Arista cleared his throat. “I'd like an appointment.”

“Let'ssss ssssee. We have a sssseven a.m. availablllllle . . .,” the voice hissed.

“Dear sir, you don't have any later?”

The line went dead.

Arista shook his head. He smiled weakly at May's confusion. “Zzzzzz. The Undertaker's assistants always think they're better than everyone else. Their bosses are very vain, and I suppose it rubs off. All that power over death. I'll handle this.”

Arista waved May out of the room.

May trailed back into the kitchen, where Pumpkin was busy making hand shadows on the surface of the cupboard. “I'm a
water demon” he growled, the shadow he made really resembling the horrible woman in the lake. “I'm not scared of you,” he said in another voice, his hands fluttering into the shape of himself. May watched, confused.

A second later Arista emerged. “We have an appointment for seven in the morning.”

Pumpkin turned, saw May, and blushed.

“Now we just have to figure out how to get you into town, unseen, on one of the biggest vacation days of the year.”

As May slept that night in her tiny nook of a room, the globe in Arista's study continued to blink oddly. Something had entered the Ever After that it did not know what to do with, a creature it hadn't processed in more than two hundred years.

One million, three hundred thousand, seventeen miles away, the cause of the confusion was curled under the bench seat of a small boat as he drifted down the Styx Streamway.

Somber Kitty was only a few miles from the Pit of Despair Boat Basin, sound asleep, when his nose began to twitch. He sat up with a start, his large ears rotating like satellite dishes.

A scent he recognized was drifting up the river toward him, and it made his back arch and his fuzzy coat stand on end.

The cat planted his front paws on the side of the boat and stared downstream. There was nothing to see but the gentle curves of the water through sand and low beach brush. Still a low growl emanated from Somber Kitty's throat. The air was full of the smell of danger.

His slitted eyes darted to the shore on either side of the boat, calculating the distance. It was several feet away, an impossible
jump for a person to make. But Somber Kitty didn't think twice. The muscles of his hind legs coiled like bedsprings, and he sailed forward, hurtling onto the sand.

He landed on all fours with a small breeze blowing at his back, gave his shoulders a few much-needed licks, then looked around furtively. He was on a scrubby beach dotted with scrawny bushes and large quartz boulders. He looked right, left, and up for the moon, but saw only zooming stars. He leaped onto a rock to get a better view. And then he crouched backward and hissed.

There before him, traced in the sand at the base of the rock, were the eyes of a lady, her face hidden in the sand-traced leaves of an enormous tree. Above her, one hand extended upward, with one finger pointed along the sand.

Somber Kitty's eyes followed the direction of the finger, then darted back to the lady. But the tiny breeze scattered the sand, and the face disappeared.

“Meay?” Somber Kitty asked the sand. But there was no answer. Not knowing what else to do, he followed where the hand had pointed.