May Bird and the Ever After (28 page)

The giant fingers rolled her into the palm of his phantom hand and, May sat up, face-to-face with a gaping nostril that was twice as wide as May was tall. There was a great roaring sniff, and May went flying upward, her body catching deep in the nostril, like a plug. Everything around her had gone black, and May wriggled, nearly retching when she realized that she was rubbing against a layer of slime, her lungs ready to burst.

Sniff sniff sniff.
With every sniff May was pulled upward, deeper into the nose, her bare arms rubbing against the slime. She couldn't hold her breath anymore. The phantom began to blow. . . .

Puff.
May's breath went rushing out of her. As quickly as it had happened, she sucked more air in and closed her mouth again. But it was too late. There was another loud sniff, and she was sucked back in.

Sniff.

She could feel the phantom's head tilting slightly.
Sniff sniff sniff sniff sniff.

Please please please
.

Ding.

For a moment everything around May vibrated, and then she was shot out of the phantom's nose in a big huff.

Ding.

To her left the clock tower was striking twelve, and she peered over the phantom's giant thumb to see that the gate had cracked open and that crowds of spirits, thousands, had begun pouring out into the cemetery.

The phantom gave May another, gentler, sniff, then began to
lower her. Again May's stomach dropped as she sailed through the air, before arriving back down at the top of the wall and landing gently on the walkway. She put her hand over her chest. Her heart was thumping against her ribs heavily. She peered around for the little girl with the whistle and met her sunken blue eyes as she was being dragged away by her mother. “That's nonsense, honey,” May could hear the woman saying as they disappeared through the archway. “There are no Live Ones in the Ever After.” The girl extended her pointer finger one last time toward May, and then a twin pair of squeals, and they were gone.

Pumpkin was the next to disappear. He came back quickly, smiling with pride. “I don't know what you two were worried about,” he said, brushing his hands together as if he had actually accomplished something. And then John the Jibber went up.

May squeezed up against Pumpkin nervously and watched the sky. Far above them the phantom pulled John close to his face, sucked him into his nose, then quickly puffed him out. A hiss of white breath came out of his mouth.

“No, sir.” John's voice echoed down to the bridge, sharp and edgy as a knife. “Knave?” Chuckle chuckle. “I've been told I smell like knave before, but no, sir. Never nicked a thing in this life or the other one.”

May tightened her grip on Pumpkin, her whole body going cold. The eyes of several of the spirits on the bridge glued themselves onto the scene above.

“Not even a pack o' gum. A good, honest boy, I've always . . . Sir, I resent that. If you just put me down, I'll forgive your rudeness. Wait, no!” The phantom's hand swung downward, toward the incarnerator. The lid flung open, all on its own, with a creak.

Everywhere spirits peered toward the spot. Murmurs drifted from the crowd.

“Pumpkin!” May whispered, grabbing Pumpkin. “No!”

An agonizing moment passed as the giant hand soared. John's legs swung into view, and then the rest of him, so that he was dangling from the phantom's finger. Hurling himself with gymnastlike grace, he swung from the giant pinky onto the phantom's sleeve, and then began to clamber up his arm, holding tight to the fabric of the cloak. May had to clamp her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming. The crowd of spirits itself was stunned into silence, its surface spiky with pointing fingers.

John scrambled down the phantom's chest, but with one long, gaunt arm the phantom swiped at him, and he went flying into the air. He landed on the sand below the walkway.

“Oh,” Pumpkin moaned. He looked at May. “Do something!”

May was rooted to her spot helplessly, her mind racing.
Do what?
What in the world could she do?

Several hundred spirits backed into a wide circle around John, who looked back at May once in a horror-stricken plea for help.

May balled the fabric of her death shroud in both hands. She dropped to her knees and tore open her knapsack, rifling through it for something,
anything
that might help. Maybe if she threw John a teleport token, or used the comfort blanket to . . .

Then she stopped. The photo of May the Amazon stared back at her.

May glanced up. John had turned and run into the crowd. But for all his many steps, the phantom took just one and plucked
him out easily. Again the giant hand swung him toward the incarnerator.

May looked back down at the photo and set her jaw. She
was
that girl. With renewed courage May clasped the hem of her death shroud as she rose from her knees. “Wait!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. In one flash movement, she whipped off her shroud and waved it violently above her head, then shoved it into Pumpkin's arms. “Over here!”

Silence fell over those nearest her, and all eyes, even those of the phantom, turned to May. For a moment, everyone froze.

Then the spirits on the bridge went into chaos, plunging off the sides, rushing away from her, screaming. Within seconds most of them had their Bogey whistles to their lips. The phantom stumbled backward. As he did, he dropped John—right into the incarnerator.

May screamed. Pumpkin screamed. But John's scream was the most earth-shattering shriek May had ever heard.

The Jibber went hurtling into the can, at the same moment the phantom's hand took a giant defensive swipe at May and Pumpkin. Seeing it just in time, May grabbed her knapsack with one hand and the back of Pumpkin's shirt with the other and yanked him through the archway.

Still screaming they flew forward, landing on a silver slide that swept them downward, hurtling them into a pile on the ground inside the city gates. They quickly pulled each other up, clutching each other's arms like survivors of a shipwreck.

At a glance they saw they were on a wide boulevard that shot like an arrow between the enormous buildings of Ether. Alleys stretched this way and that off the boulevard. And all around
them stood a horde of stunned spirits, frozen in their activities of moments ago—pushing baby carriages, driving carriages, selling soul cakes from gleaming carts. The spirits watched the two intruders for a moment. A man in brown knickerbockers pointed and screamed. And then they all scattered like marbles.

Above it all an ear-piercing siren began to wail, and May looked up, gazing at the impossible heights of the spiky gray buildings. A deafening crack behind her brought her attention to the city wall. “Oooooh,” Pumpkin wailed. The stone gargoyles overhead had begun to move, layers of rock shattering and sliding off them, claws stretching and wings flapping slowly into motion.

“Oh, my . . .” Both May's and Pumpkin's heads lolled back on their necks senselessly.

“Do you hear that?” Pumpkin cried.

“Of course I hear . . .,” May snapped, but Pumpkin was already shaking his head. Their eyes met. The world around them seemed to go still.

“Not that,” he said, tucking a finger between his lips, waiting for another sound, and then pulled the finger out and pointed.
“That.”

May strained her ears. Above the siren, above the crumbling of rock behind them, there was the sound of dogs.

May grabbed her shroud from Pumpkin's hands and fastened it around her neck. And then they ran. May's legs kicked behind her, throwing up gray dust and debris. Pumpkin floated at her back, covering his head with his skinny arms and hunching his shoulders.

“In there!” May shouted, pointing to an alley just to their left. A giant swish brushed past her ear, and a pair of talons sliced the air next to her extended hand. She screamed and looked up to see the gaping jaws of the gargoyle poised above her head.

Scraaaavmwwwwkkkkk!

They entered the alley at a bursting pace, and the gargoyle vanished. May turned to see he had crashed into the entrance, too large to fit through it.

Now they were in a tangle of alleys, all cutting right and left and looping in on one another. May, with Pumpkin behind, crisscrossed at a sprint, trying to dodge two, then three gargoyles that soared above, unable to squeeze into the alley behind them, but right on their trail. Sharp talons swooped within inches of them, several times, forcing them to duck or roll across the ground, then get up and keep moving.

They were just turning another sharp corner when suddenly the area before them opened up into a wide space, and the next thing she knew, May was tumbling forward, landing underwater with a splash. She spluttered to the surface, finding herself in a canal full of green liquid. The smell of it hit May hard, taking her breath away before she looked up to see Pumpkin several feet in front of her on dry land, getting farther and farther away. She was being carried quickly away from him by the stream.

“Pumpkin!” she called. Pumpkin, his arms and legs flailing, was running after her along the side of the canal, reaching out his skinny arms toward her and calling “Wait!” She tried to paddle back but the current was too strong. She turned to looked behind
her and groaned when she saw there was a tunnel up ahead. When May looked back at Pumpkin, she had time to see a gargoyle—its talons cracking loudly, its giant teeth bared—swoop in just above his head, before she disappeared into blackness.

Far beyond the walls of Ether, at a settlement that was merely a gaggle of tiny triangles in the distance to anyone looking, Somber Kitty lay on his back, swatting irritably at a ball of silk thread that had been hung from the ceiling. He had already rubbed his nose and cheeks against the jewels that had been piled all over the floor for him to play with that morning. Miserably he had batted around a gold and diamond staff, watching it roll across the floor. Occasionally he had laid down in the sun that poured onto the chamber floor, his bald body stretching as long and drawn out as a sigh.

Whenever Somber Kitty looked away from his string toward the direction of the window, the sight of the tiny city on the horizon filled him with a strange sense of dread. The dread was lying heavily on his heart, when he heard the door to his chamber slide open, and he hopped up, his body spinning in the air and landing on all fours.

The woman standing in the doorway was the one who brought his milk tray every afternoon. She padded in, knelt on the floor in front of him, and bowed. Then she poured the milk into the gilded bowl by his bed.

As she repeated this ritual now, Somber Kitty scanned the area behind her, his tail going straight as a lightning rod. Usually when the woman walked into the chamber, she closed the door behind her.

The open doorway seemed to wink at Somber Kitty. And Somber Kitty's ears twitched in reply.

His slitty green eyes moved to the woman, still leaning over the bowl and dribbling honey into the milk. Then the eyes moved to the door. Back and forth.

Somber Kitty's body coiled up like a bedspring. He knew if he hesitated, the moment would be lost. In one glorious movement, he flew across the room, not landing until he was already through the doorway.

Behind him he heard the woman yell something, but he was already moving, dashing down the dark hallway, his claws sliding along stone so that he bumped into every wall he met. Finally he came to a place where he could turn either right or left. Again, without a moment's hesitation, he turned left and ran full speed, somehow coming to a perfect, graceful halt right at a huge square opening. He teetered at the edge of the open air, glancing along the wall that angled out beneath him. He surveyed the scene on the ground below. Impossibly far below. He looked behind him, seeing the group of guards running toward him.

Then he leaped forward, curled himself into a ball, and rolled.