May Bird and the Ever After (17 page)

In the square you could have heard a pin drop. In every direction, all the spirits had come to a standstill. All eyes were squarely trained on one spot. May started to back up to where the basket had fallen, as if she could crawl back in and everyone could forget the whole thing.

Suddenly a scream rang out from one lady in a dark gray dress. And chaos broke loose.

Spirits started screaming, moaning, groaning, screeching, and wailing. Everywhere they were knocking into one another, banging into carriages and walls, scurrying through the doors of buildings to hide, while others hung out of the windows above to see what all the ruckus was about. The awnings over the shop windows began slamming down all over the place, the carriages peeled off and down the rock road, and one souvenir vendor lifted the whistle from around his neck and, meeting May's eyes, blew on it, then crawled under his booth.

“Oh, we'd better hurry,” Arista said, grabbing the basket and zipping forward, then freezing in midair to turn back and look at May and Pumpkin. “Well, what are you waiting for? Run!”

As May tried to keep up, Pumpkin and Arista zipped along in front of her, a trail of clothes spilling out behind them. Arista
shoved the basket into Pumpkin's arms and fished through his pockets. “I always keep one teletoken on me, just in case,” he was saying. “If I can just—”

“There,” he said, interrupting himself and motioning to the glowing blue phone box May had noticed on the way in. They turned toward it now, Arista digging at himself frantically as he floated. They stopped outside the booth.

“What are you looking for?”

Arista ignored her, but Pumpkin stuttered, “We c-can't make it home on f-foot. We have to t-teleport.”

“But. How do—”

May's voice caught right in her throat at a faint sound in the distance. She and Pumpkin looked at each other.

“Oh, dear. Oh, dear, it's the Bogey. Of all the times to misplace it. . .” Arista clasped at himself.

Sure enough, the sound got louder and more pronounced, separating itself into faint barks and yelps. May and Pumpkin looked out across the hundreds of miles of sand at the edge of town. There, in the distance, and so small it almost seemed like she could be imagining it, the tiniest cloud of sand rose up above the horizon.

“Get in!” The force of Arista's hands pushing her through the door of the booth knocked the wind right out of May. Pumpkin squeezed in behind her, then Arista.

“Oh, these things are always too small,” he said, still digging frantically in his pockets. “Oh.” He looked out at the desert, his antennae twitching wildly. May peered out through the window of the booth and across the sand. The Bogey had to be moving fast. Already May could now clearly see the cloud of sand looming larger and larger.

“Drat!” Arista reopened the door of the booth and squeezed out. “I think it was in my other robes!”

He started following the long trail of laundry that stretched across the sand into town, frantically yanking up this and that robe and rifling through its pockets.

Crack crack crack.
May moved to the door of the booth and leaned out. She could now clearly make out several dark spots on the horizon.

“Arista, hurry!” May looked over her shoulder and watched him pick up another robe, then another, and another. She looked through the door of the booth, leaning over Pumpkin, who had curled into a ball.

Beyond him, the Bogey approached. The specks had enlarged into dogs. Though they were still probably a mile away, May could tell they were humongous—the size of horses, with red gleaming eyes and huge teeth dripping with drool. But somehow they weren't nearly as frightening as the figure riding on the sled behind them, cracking a long black whip. He wore a dark suit and a top hat. A fireball of fear shot into May's stomach.

“Found it!” Arista cried, floating back toward them, then freezing at the sensation of the Bogey and his dogs. His antennae twitched wildly. Then he started moving again, floating toward them at top speed and slamming into May with a shock. The whole booth shook. It began to fall to the side.

May could see the Bogey clearly now, the sand flying out behind him in a great whirlwind. Snow white hair tufted out from under his hat. His chin stuck out long and curved at the bottom, like a hook. His eyeballs were completely white.

May felt dizzy.

And then, as May's legs began to sway, the Bogey smiled at her, revealing rows of pointy teeth. He lifted his odd, knobby fingers to the side of his head and tipped his hat. He would be upon them in seconds.

Arista held up the token, found the slot with one hand, and slid it in.

Zap!

The clock in Arista's study struck ten. May stood watching it as two tiny doors on the bottom slid open, and ten tiny skeletons slid out to dance, circling ten times before sliding back in. She walked back into the kitchen.

Once they had arrived outside the house after teleporting, Arista had ushered them inside, saying the dogs would be coming to check all the houses in the region, and that they would have to move quickly. Now, just minutes later, Pumpkin stood beside the front door, holding a knapsack. They had each packed packs full of the supplies Arista had insisted on: a bottomless water bottle; a whole slew of soul cakes and skeleton crackers; his last two teleport tokens; a city-finder compass that had three points on it: Right Way, Wrong Way, Scenic Way; and a starlight, which looked like a flashlight and was powered by cosmic dust.

At first May had been too paralyzed with fear to focus on his instructions. The horrible vision of the Bogey was burned onto her brain. She still had to concentrate to keep herself from swaying on her feet.

“What about ghouls and goblins and stuff?” she had finally asked.

Arista shrugged. “If ghouls see you, they'll eat your guts.” This
had sent Pumpkin into a shivering fit. Now he stood in the doorway, his fingernails jammed between his teeth.

“Arista, the Bogey . . .” May had wanted to say that she couldn't bear to go outside, when she knew
he
was out there somewhere too.

“Will find you here if you don't get moving,” Arista completed her sentence for her. “Head north. That'll take you to the sea. You won't see anyone. Hardly anyone ever goes up close to it. But keep an eye out anyway. I hear there are spies in even the remotest areas, though I think that's probably just a rumor started by Bo Cleevil.”

“I'll see you when you get back,” Arista said, turning to Pumpkin.

“How long do you think it will take us to get to Nine Knaves Grotto?” May asked, still dazed.

Arista shrugged. “I don't know much of the world outside Belle Morte. A week or more, probably.”

They walked outside.

“North is that way.” Arista pointed. He patted May on the head. “You two be careful.” His antennae twitched thoughtfully. “The Bogey will still be in town looking for you. Don't go anywhere near Belle Morte. Write me from wherever you end up, May. Good luck.” He hugged her tightly. “I hope you find your way back to your mother and your cat.” He peered in the direction of town once, then he turned and hurried inside.

May and Pumpkin looked at each other, May trying to buck up her courage. She hefted her pack up higher onto her back, then looked in the direction they'd come from. Even Arista's little hive house seemed familiar and comforting compared to the path
ahead. But then, they couldn't stay. She took a deep breath. “Well, we'll never get anywhere if we don't move forward.”

They made their way along the sand, a shy, skinny, black-haired girl and a tall, gangly ghost with a pumpkin-shaped head, leaving one pair of footprints behind them.

I
'm starving.”

May slowed to a stop and let her sack slide down from her shoulder onto the sand. Without a sun above them to show the day passing, she couldn't tell how long they'd been walking, but it seemed like it must have been three hours or more.

“How long do you think we've been at it?”

“I don't know, but I'm exhausted.” For the past several minutes Pumpkin had been lagging behind, moving as if every inch pained him. Now he plopped down into a sitting hover above the sand.

May sighed. Pumpkin didn't know much of anything. She wondered if it wouldn't have been better to leave him back at Belle Morte. Then she felt guilty for the thought.

She pulled out her water bottle and swished it around in front of her. She'd drunk out of it many times already, but the level of water hadn't gone down even an inch, just as Arista had promised. She still couldn't quite believe it. She took several huge gulps, then wiped the cool bottle across her sweaty forehead.

“Hey, do you see that?” Pumpkin asked, pointing forward.

There was a black line on the horizon. “Do you think that's it?”

“I don't know.”

They both walked another few minutes, and after a few more, they arrived at the sea.

The body of water that stretched itself out before May and Pumpkin wasn't so much an ocean as it was a giant oil slick lying lazily across the horizon. It looked like something that might have dripped out of a car, except that it was endless and vast, so big that they couldn't see any end of it, and it filled May with a sick kind of dread. Up to this point everything she had seen since the portal had had a slight glow to it. The sea was the opposite of that—it was a complete
absence
of glow.

“I guess I didn't know how black, black could get,” May muttered softly.

“Mmm-hmmm,” Pumpkin agreed.

May wanted to say that the water was also, somehow, enticing. It took effort to tear her eyes from it and look around to figure out where they were. She looked left, then right. To the right was more desert. To the left, cliff met with beach, creating a narrow strip of sand beside the water. Like the sea, the strip seemed to go forward endlessly. It looked desolate and lonely.

She gazed out at the sea, which lapped at the sand lazily with oily little sighs. It was actually hard not to look at.

She must have been staring for a while, because when she tore her eyes away, Pumpkin had laid out a feast in front of her—honey, pomegranates, three tiny cakes decorated with tiny coffins. He'd arranged it all in the shape of a smiley face, and was now lying down a few feet away, resting, his body hovering an inch above the sand.

“Oh, thank you, Pumpkin.”

Snort.
Pumpkin was already asleep and snoring.

May gobbled up all of the food that had been put out for her, almost guiltily, since Pumpkin couldn't have any. When she was finished, she brushed the crumbs off her bathing suit and stood up, rejuvenated. The water pulled her eyeballs back in its direction. It looked so cool and dark. Maybe she would just dip a toe into the water.

Kicking off her shoes, she padded across the sand. She was just a few feet from the water's edge when she came to a stop. The water glistened and winked at her. It almost seemed as if, just to accommodate her, each gentle wave was reaching toward her softly.

“Umph!”

She felt herself being yanked from behind, and then she was on the ground, a tangle of legs and arms that sorted themselves into Pumpkin's and hers.

“Oh, dear,” Pumpkin breathed, dragging her backward like a crab.

“Pumpkin, what's the—”

They both climbed to their feet, breathing hard and looking at each other. May's body buzzed with the tiny electric shocks where Pumpkin had touched her.

Finally, when he'd caught his breath, Pumpkin sighed. “Oh, dear, I should have told you.” He frowned and looked down at his feet. “How could I forget? Stupid.”

“Forget what?” May demanded.

Pumpkin's mouth settled into a straight, determined line. “You must never, ever touch a drop of the Dead Sea.”

May glanced out at the water, then back. “Why not?”

“It'll take you.”