May Bird and the Ever After (30 page)

The girl nodded over her shoulder. “You better get going. End of the line's that way. If you get there in time, they'll give you a number to mark your place. See?”

Chomping, the girl held up her number, which was scrawled on a glowing tile: 30,090.

“Uh, thanks.” Glancing from time to time at the Edifice, May drifted along the crowd, hoping that she might catch a glimpse of a round pumpkin head and a yellow tuft of hair. She happened to see the front of a newspaper held in someone's hands. May could just make out part of one headline:
LIVE ONE BREACHES CITY GATES
. . .

Suddenly the crowd began to rustle and move about. Everyone gazed at the landing on top of the courthouse stairs. A figure draped in a white cloth, with two holes for eyes, drifted out, ghouls on either side of him.

The ghost spoke loudly, his voice booming. “Hear ye, hear ye. Today's session is closed. Please come back tomorrow, thank you.” All over the square a resigned grumble arose, and spirits began to drift and disburse in all directions.

In a matter of minutes, though, the square was empty, and there was no Pumpkin. The only thing that stood between May and the Edifice was empty space, dotted with a couple of stragglers. “Pumpkin, where are you?” she whispered sadly.

Keeping wide of the front stairs and the entrance, May walked
with unsure steps to the west wall of the Edifice, stopping inches away. Etched into the marble, in every spare space, were words in different languages. She read the ones that she could.

I wish my mom would feel better.

I wish I had a parrot.

I wish I could fly

Before her eyes, new words would squeeze their way in with the ones that were already there. May reached out to touch the words, and a bolt of lightning ran through her fingers.

She leaped back, staring at the Edifice. Then she walked back across the square and into the nearest alleyway, dragging aimlessly until she found a sign pointing toward Sewerside.

Sewerside turned out to be every bit as undesirable as the spirits at Mausoleum 387
A
had promised. May tried to blend in as she walked along, but she had to fight not to gag at the smell. Now that she had arrived, she realized she had no idea how to find the hotel. The whole area was much bigger than she had expected.

Eventually she noticed a skullophone booth standing on a corner. On a hunch, she ducked into it and looked for a phone book. There was one in the slot below the skull. She flipped through the hotels section. Final Rest . . . Final Rest . . . There it was, right between Fade to Black Bed-and-Breakfast and the Float On Inn.

Next to the name of the hotel were two and a half gravestones. May read:

Located on one of Sewerside's quietest streets, the Final Rest is a popular haunt for outlaws, lost souls, and other spirits looking for a resting place that combines privacy and
discretion. We recommend that families and those not desiring to associate with scalawags look elsewhere for their accommodation needs.

“One-seven-eight Many Moans Way,” May read, out loud this time. She looked around her. “Well, that helps,” she muttered sarcastically.

“What else do you need?” a nasal voice asked. May looked at the skullophone. Then at the skullophone book. Then at her feet. A woman was sitting under the grating, with plugs in her ears, staring up at May. “It's no Shangri-la, but we like to think we're an efficient city. What more were you looking for?”

“Um, I need to find out where one-seven-eight Many Moans Way is.”

The woman rolled her eyes. Her face was blue. “Just look at the map. In the back.” She pointed one stump of a finger toward the book.

“Oh.” May flipped through to the last few pages. There it was.

May looked at the index, then traced a line to Many Moans Way with her fingers, then looked outside the booth to see what street she was on.

“That's only three blocks away! Thank you.”

The woman nodded.

A few minutes later May arrived at two large but decrepit doors, covered in cobwebs, with ghostly spiders dangling from every corner. The building itself was small and squat, and looked like it would be too cramped for a house, much less a hotel. There was no mark on the door but for the street number.

May pulled on one of the handles—gently at first—and then
with all her might. It opened with a loud groan, sending a cloud of dust flying at her face and setting off a jangling bell.

May hurriedly stepped inside and waved her hands in front of her face, coughing.

When the dust cleared, a small man in an ascot stood before her, grinning with a mouthful of crooked teeth. His face was covered in red bumps, a few of which oozed green.

“C'min C'min.” He waved May forward. A name tag on his vest read
CONNER O'KINNEY.

He ushered May into a dingy marble foyer that sprawled below a giant chandelier covered in webs and spiders. At one end a large marble staircase with an ebony banister that had been mostly rotted away spiraled upward. May could hardly believe she was in the building that had looked so tiny from the outside.

“What can I do you for?”

“I'm looking for a room, sir, room nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine.”

“Ah, you want that one, do you? Not a problem, not a problem.”

Conner walked behind a large wooden desk that was missing one leg. May watched him as he flipped through the pages of a book, unable to keep from staring at the scars on his face.

“The fever, it was,” he said, making May blush and look at her feet. “No need to be embarrassed, child. Took my whole town. Plenty of nice specters walking around with boils like this. Let's see, nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine, nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine. Oh.” Conner frowned. “Oh, I'm sorry, that's right, the room's taken.”

“By a ghost with a big head?” May begged breathlessly.

“Mm, no, it was a specter in fact. Can I interest you in another
room? I have a suite just a few floors below that's quite as popular, and available.”

May shifted from foot to foot, crushed. “Well, do you mind if I wait in the lobby awhile? I'm hoping to meet someone.”

Conner frowned. “Most spirits coming in here don't relish being looked at. Discretion is one of our selling points.”

“Well, can I just get a room on that same hall?” May couldn't quite believe her own pushiness. But she set her chin.

Conner, apparently annoyed now, looked in his book. “Ninety-four forty is available. Just follow the stairs up to the ninth floor. Turn left and it's the four thousandth, seven hundred and twentieth door on the left.”

“But, four thousand . . .”

Conner already appeared preoccupied, so May did what he'd said.

She followed the marble staircase, which swept past each floor regally. Again May marveled at how so much space could fit into such a tiny building.

When she reached the ninth floor, she entered into a seemingly endless hallway and started walking. But it only took a few minutes to get to door 9440. She stopped, deciding to walk down to room 9999 and, if she could get her courage up, knock on the door and ask the spirit there if they would mind changing rooms or if they'd keep an eye out for Pumpkin.

The hallway was lined with several full-length portraits. Each was a painting of Conner himself, standing with a spirit who, May assumed, had been a customer. The one she stood in front of now had darkly slanting eyes, tan skin, and a massive beard.
TO CONNER
, it was inscribed,
THANKS FOR THE COMFY BED AND THE FABULOUS SERVICE. XO, ATTILA
.

“Excuse me, miss,” a voice said, and a hand clapped down on May's shoulder, giving her a little jolt before spinning her around.

A figure stood there, looking no worse for the wear, and grinning. He was wearing a big straw hat, a jangly necklace with a miniature Eternal Edifice dangling from the bottom, and a sack over his shoulder. A length of chain curled out of one side of it with a tag attached that read
MY HOUSE GHOST VISITED THE CITY OF ETHER AND ALL I GOT WERE THESE LOUSY SHACKLES
.

Before May could throw out her arms to hug him, or even exclaim, Pumpkin wrinkled his nose at her. “You smell horrible,” he said.

Standing on the balcony of the ninth floor of the Final Rest Hotel, a guest was treated to a view of the seedier buildings of Sewerside, a slice of the city wall, and in the distance, a gaggle of pyramids far across the desert.

Tonight those triangels were surrounded by giant points of light—fires lit for an all-night vigil being held while the inhabitants of the pyramids looked for Big Ears.

When the alarm had sounded the evening before, just as Somber Kitty's paws had hit the ground after his long tumble from the sky, every inhabitant of New Egypt had fanned out over the desert after him, swinging their nets and beating the small desert bushes in search of the missing cat.

Hours later, long after most had finally floated back to their homes for rest, Somber Kitty crept out from behind the reeds along a wide stream full of green liquid and peered around to make sure the coast was clear. His ears tilted in the direction of the pyramids, listening for any suspicious sounds.

It seemed that he was safe.

Staying alert, he crept up to the edge of the stream, where he discovered several handwoven baskets, apparently made by the Egyptians, sitting on the bank.

Somber Kitty sniffed them, then touched the surface of the stream with one dainty paw, shaking off the liquid with a wrinkle in his nose. It smelled horrible.

He backed up and let his eyes follow the current toward the horizon, where the city he had seen from his chamber rose up, far away and majestic. It still gave him a trembly feeling to look at it, way down in his gut.

Somber Kitty looked at the baskets resting by the river and, after thinking for a moment, nudged one into the stream with his nose. He stood back and watched it float along and out of sight.

He looked back toward the city.

“Meay?” he asked.

A noise arose from behind the bushes.

Somber Kitty didn't think twice. He put his front paws into the next basket and pushed it forward with his back legs, yanking them inside at the moment the basket hit the water.

The basket tottered, but stayed afloat, and only his tail could be seen above the lip of it as it drifted with the current, in the direction of Ether.

M
ay stood on the decrepit balcony of room 9440, staring down toward the streets of the city and listening to the noises that drifted up. Everyone moving around below looked tiny, like little toy ghosts. Pumpkin still lay snoring in the room behind her.

The beds—there were two—were moldy and rotten, sagging in the middle and covered in dust, which Pumpkin had found delightful. They had burst into the room, laughing and joyful and hugging each other, talking about their adventures—May relating what she'd seen at the Eternal Edifice, and Pumpkin talking about slipping away from the gargoyles by ducking under a souvenir cart. They'd bounced on the beds awhile and played Old Maid with a deck of cards they'd found in the drawer, and May had let Pumpkin cheat. Then Pumpkin had shown May all the things he'd bought.

He'd presented her with a locket he'd bought in a trendy neighborhood at the edge of Sewerside. It was in the shape of a coffin that broke into two
halves—one for each of them to wear. Put together, it read
BEST FRIENDS
, and words had been engraved on the back:
PUMPKIN
&
MAY, NEVER TO BE DEARLY DEPARTED
. Afterward they had listened to the sirens of the city, which had gone off three times in a row.

“Do you think that's for us?” May had asked, peering through the sliding glass door at a distant gaggle of gargoyles circling at the edge of the city.