May Bird and the Ever After (14 page)

T
he television, which Arista called the Holo-Vision, I showed nothing but ads. That morning May, Pumpkin, and Arista sat on the couch in front of the glowing three-dimensional screen, waiting for a cab to arrive. Arista had called at ten past six.

At the moment they were watching a commercial for something called Crook-Be-Gone cologne. A man in a black-and-white-striped prison suit sat in an electric chair, holding a bottle straight toward them so that it came out of the set, his hair standing on end. “When the smell of thievery keeps you from entering your favorite city,” the man said, “Crook-Be-Gone will have you smelling like a normal, law-abiding citizen. Proven to fool sniffing phantoms nine times out often.”

They'd already seen an ad for getting rid of annoying exorcists, one for the freshest soul cakes in Belle Morte, and another featuring a psychic who could tell you who had murdered you (in the case of a poisoning or other mysterious death). May had been confused by all of them. What were sniffing phantoms? And why did smelling like a crook keep you out
of your favorite cities? And what did crooks smell like, anyway?

Another commercial was just coming on. This one was a spine-chilling group of words popping out of the screen, warning the public against the danger of Live Ones. May nibbled her nails as she read, “If you see a suspiciously lively looking spirit lurking in your town, don't hesitate to blow your Bogey whistle.”

Pumpkin was glued to the set, his eyes big. Arista shook his head. “What a bunch of nonsense. Pumpkin, isn't May proof that it's all. . . ”

A bloodcurdling scream shattered the room.

May leaped in her chair and looked around frantically.

Arista merely sat up and said, “The cab.”

May followed him and Pumpkin into the kitchen and did as Arista had told her to the night before. She crawled into the big basket of dirty clothes Arista had left by the door, letting them pile the clothes on top of her head—thickly enough so that she couldn't be seen through the filmy garments. She peered out through the cracks between the fabrics.

The first thing she noticed when they opened the door was that, though it was morning, it was barely lighter out than it had been the night before. The doorbell sounded again, rattling the walls.

“We're already here, good man,” Arista said irritably, then muttered under his breath, “You'd think they'd hire drivers with heads. But no. The tourists want a headless horseman, zzzzz. Nine times out of ten.”

May heard the sound of a door opening, and then felt herself being hoisted into the cab.

“The Undertaker's, please,” Arista said, low. The carriage started.

“You can come out and have a look, my dear. We have trick windows in the deluxe cabs.”

May climbed out of the basket and sat beside Arista, across from Pumpkin.

Arista pointed to a dial on the ceiling. “We can set it to look like one of these things to those on the outside—just a novelty really, but good for privacy. Each cab has a different set of options. . . .” The glowing words next to the dial read:
KING ARTHUR AND QUEEN GUINEVERE AT GAME OF PINOCHLE, SLEEPING SKELETON, BIGFOOT,
and
UNICORN DISCUSSING SOMETHING SERIOUS.
Arista turned the dial to the first option.

May stared out the window. It seemed like a normal window to her. Through it she could see that they were on a sandy road with nothing on either side of it but desert. The sky was still filled with flashing stars.

“No. No need to worry about being seen in a deluxe cab.”

May sat back. “Arista, what happens if I do get seen?”

Pumpkin and Arista looked at each other.

“Then the Bogeyman comes, my dear.”

“Who . . . who is the Bogeyman?” May ventured to ask.

“Zzzzz.. He and his Black Shuck dogs scour the realm looking for Live Ones, patrolling the portals for strays and answering any distress calls.”

“Distress calls?”

“If anyone sees a Live One, a call goes out to let him know. Each spirit has one of these. They were talking about them on TV, remember?” Arista and Pumpkin both reached into their shirts and pulled out a long, gleaming cylinder hung from a chain.

“Each spirit has a Bogey whistle?” May asked, disbelieving.

“You blow on it and the sound that comes out is very high pitched. Only his dogs can hear it—from any part of the realm. And they travel with lightning speed. The Bogey himself is mostly blind. They are his eyes and ears.”

May shivered, remembering the sound of the dogs back at the portal. “Can he read minds too?”

“Oh, no.” Arista nodded. “He's not like me. He's not completely blind either, he's just blind to pure goodness. He simply can't recognize it. The dogs help him with that.”

“Wh-What does he do to people when he catches them?”

Pumpkin whimpered and held his hands up to his ears.

“Oh, really, Pumpkin.” Arista's antennae drooped sadly as he turned back to May. “The worst fate that can befall a ghost. He sucks you up into nothingness.”

May tried to imagine becoming nothing. It made her stomach ache. Her lips began to tremble. “But why?”

“Who can say, dear? He works for Bo Cleevil. That's enough of a reason for evil.”

May scratched her chin. “Mom used to say that if I stayed up too late, the Bogeyman would get me.”

“Oh?”

“Well, actually, I always thought it was the boogeyman.” May remembered with an ache in her heart, staying up in bed, imagining what the Bogeyman was like. Usually he was very scary, and he liked to dance. And then she'd run into her mom's room and curl up under her covers with her.

“Well, actually, that's how he started out—dancing. Before he came up to this realm he used to throw big parties, apparently, for all the Dark Spirits, in South Place.”

“Hm.” May rested against the window, too overwhelmed to ask any more questions. She didn't think she wanted to know, anyway. For a few minutes all she could see was the endless stretching sand in either direction. A few tumbleweeds started to bounce into sight and roll past them.

May peered through the little slot at the front of the cab that gave a tiny view of the driver's seat. She could see the back of the horseman, who was indeed headless, his hands outstretched and holding a pair of reins that were connected to nothing but the empty space out in front of them. There were no horses. And just inside the front of the carriage, there was a little box with two sets of blinking numbers. One was marked
PRICE
and the other was marked
MILES
. The miles number clicked past 100, 150, 200, 250, 300.

“Are those really the miles?” May asked, and Arista nodded. “But we're not going that fast.”

“Things here are not like they are in the living world,” Arista said simply.

May moved back to the window just in time to see a woman in a bathing suit ride by on a rusty bicycle. Her skin was completely blue, like she'd stayed underwater too long.

And then Belle Morte proper came into view.

The town of Belle Morte crouched at the base of a set of enormous cliffs that curled out above it like giant black waves. May shrank back, hating the look of them immediately. But then curiosity overcame her, and she leaned forward again. The town itself was made of the same slate gray color as the cliffs. It rose in points, its roofs puckered triangles, reminding May of a bunch
of lopsided ice-cream cones—like houses that were a little bit melted, with irregular rectangular windows that shrank together at the top, blue glows emanating from inside.

Ahead May could see the main street that cut through town, festooned with blue lights on invisible strings. At the very end of it was a glowing blue box that looked like a phone booth and said
TELEPORT
on top.

“The Boulevard,” Arista said with a hint of pride in his voice. “Pretty, isn't it? Carved from rock from the cliffs. They brought the Easter Island people in to design them about thirty years ago. Of course, Easter Island was their minimalist phase. Dear, I can't tell you what it's done for tourism. Prettiest town in all of South Ever After.”

As they rolled into the edge of town, they passed a very tall building, at least seven stories tall, with flames leaping out its windows. A sign along the double doors read
TOWERING INFERNO HOTEL
. As May tried to peer through the front doors, a person plummeted past her window, letting out a horrible scream and landing on the road with a thud. Another person followed, and then another.

“Arista!” May cried. “Help!”

Arista chuckled, but he didn't bother to move. “Makes ghosts feel like they're in an actual fire. Very pleasing. Zzzz, very popular with specters who died in volcanic eruptions.”

May pressed her face to the window, amazed. The three figures lying on the road sat up slowly, their faces and bodies blackened and burned. They were all wearing togas. They stood and brushed themselves off, then started laughing and patting one another on the back.

“You see,” Arista went on, “that's the Pompeii crew. Very friendly for specters. Wish I spoke more Latin.”

The figures turned around and raced back into the hotel. A few seconds later came another set of screams, and May looked out the back of the carriage to see them lying in the road once again.

“But. . . why would they want to do that?”

“Like I said earlier. Specters. Stuck in the past. Spirits don't change, generally. They don't get older, they don't get smarter, or braver. Unlike you, zzz, spirits have no hope of growing inside or out. Specters are no exception. Anyway, it's a great hotel. Pumpkin loves the pool.”

“I like the slide,” Pumpkin added, blushing.

“Zzzz. Quiet now. We're getting into traffic soon.”

Just as he said it, a carriage like the one they were in zoomed past, and then another—neither of them pulled by horses. And then they got to the crowds. May held her breath, amazed. This wasn't like the crowd back at the Spectroplex, where everyone had been human-looking. These ghosts were all shapes and sizes.

A woman as gooey and soft as caramel, with long drippy eyes and a frown that hung down off her chin, sifted through a bag slung over her hunched, tiny shoulders. A moment later she pulled a length of long metal chain out of the sack and held it next to her ear, giving it a good solid rattle. A large white tag dangled from it on which were scrawled the words I
'D RATHER BE IN BELLE MORTE
. For a moment her frown lifted above the line of her chin, in an expression that May could only assume was a smile, and she stuffed the chain back into her sack and moved on.

“Lots of people in town on account of Lost Souls Day,” Arista
said. “Most of them traveling here from up north. Lots of money coming in.”

A bald man with devilish horns walked by carrying a knapsack, and then three clowns whispering to one another. One of them laughed at what another had said, revealing two rows of razor-sharp teeth. And then a carriage, racing from behind and coming out of nowhere, ran over him. May watched, stunned, as the other two clowns grabbed their knees, laughing. The third one stood up, his head completely flattened now, looking annoyed.

It was like every character from every nightmare May might have had, thrown together onto one street, shopping.

They passed a shop with a sign across the front door that said
SILK LADIES' FASHIONS FOR ALL ERAS
. In the window stood several mannequins, each hunched over or deformed in some way. One was missing an arm. Another had a hangman's rope dangling from her hand. One female mannequin wore a look on her face of pure terror while another stood beside her, her arms raised as if to startle the first, a snarl across her features. May shuddered.

“Why do those ladies look so mean?” she whispered.

“Oh, the Silkies,” Pumpkin whispered, widening his eyes. “They're murderesses.”

May shuddered.

“There's a group of them in town who like to have tea at the Public House,” Arista added. “They don't do anyone much harm, just like to talk and whisper to one another about the people they killed when they were alive. Compare notes, that sort of thing.”

“You couldn't pay me to get near one,” Pumpkin said.

“You couldn't pay Pumpkin to get near much of anything,” Arista replied, annoyed.

They pulled to a stop a few minutes later, in front of a large window full of shattered glass. “Okay, my dear, hop in.” Arista indicated the laundry basket—May obeyed, pulling the clothes over her head, but still leaving a few little cracks to breathe and see.

They climbed out of the cab, Pumpkin and Arista holding either side of the basket. There was the sound of jangling as Arista paid the driver. Then the sound of the door closing. Through the cracks of the basket, May got just a glimpse of the carriage as it drove away In the window, to her amazement, were a bearded man and a beautiful woman, both wearing crowns, playing a game of cards.