May Bird and the Ever After (37 page)

May watched the puff of smoke. If there was one fast way out of Ether, it was by train. Not that it mattered. Or did it?

May racked her brain. She remembered tying herself to those balloons last year and trying to fly off her mother's car. There was an idea buzzing just out of her reach, like one of Arista's bees.

“Would you really get on that train?” Everyone looked at May.

“I would go with you, if we were going,” Beatrice said gently. “Why?”

“Ah, I go where Beatrice goes,” said Fabbio. “It is a nice dream.”

“I always wanted to see snow,” Pumpkin repeated.

May stared at him for a long while, the buzzing in her head getting louder.

The thuds on the door produced a great creaking sound, and ghoul-shaped indents appeared in the metal. A slit appeared between the doors.

And then, in a flash, May had it. The idea sent a shock through her that was half hope, half fear.

“Fabbio,” she said, her voice rushing out in one long breath. “Do you think your parachute can hold us?”

Fabbio blinked at her for a second, and then smiled with trembling lips. “Yes, I am already thinking this,” he recovered. “Is great idea I have, no?”

His Adam's apple bobbed up and down, and his smile dropped. He gazed through the glass at the distance to the ground below, then looked back at her, his brown eyes fearful. “Do we have choice?”

May swallowed, remembering how—it seemed like a million years ago—her balloons had failed, and she'd crashed to the ground, hurt and embarrassed. She looked behind her at the wall of glass, so far above the ground. This wouldn't be like a plunge from the top of her mom's car. If it didn't work . . .

May gazed at the rest of the group. Her stomach flopped. “We can choose to try.”

In one movement they lifted the Bogey's throne and slammed it through the glass, which shattered into a thousand pieces and went flying toward the city below. May, Beatrice, Fabbio, and Pumpkin stood on the ledge. Everyone hugged Fabbio tightly.

He leaped forward.

Far below, Somber Kitty had managed to run the ghouls around in circles for several minutes, dodging their spears and their swooping hands, unwilling to leave the stairs that were his only way of getting to May. His energy, though, was beginning to give out. His tongue hung out of his mouth in an unsightly, embarrassing way; his small rib cage heaved. And it was becoming increasingly difficult to dart up and down the stairs, ducking and diving out of harm's reach.

Panting and bleary-eyed, Somber Kitty finally did the unthinkable. He slipped. Rolling lopsidedly down the stairs, his chin thudding on each step, he had a horrifying moment to wonder which was worse—the pain and fear, or the humiliation.

A slimy arm scooped him into the air, squeezing him against a slimy body with a tight grip. Somber Kitty was too tired to fight very well, and the creature hung on to him easily. And then something happened that was, if possible, even more disturbing.

Glass fell out of the sky. All of the slimy creatures suddenly froze, mumbling to one another and looking up. Somber Kitty looked too. There, sailing across the air and headed farther and farther away from him, was a tiny speck. Somber Kitty's nose twitched and sniffed, his eyes narrowed, and he let out a howl.

“Mmmmmeeaaayyyyyyyy!”

With breathtaking strength, he twisted like a corkscrew, sliding right out of the slimy grip that held him. He landed on wobbly legs.

Shaking his ears, he shot like an arrow toward the west gate of Ether, keeping his eye on the object in the sky above, and running with all his force for the desert.

P
umpkin, May, Beatrice, and Fabbio careened across the sand, kicking up dust in their wake, each of them falling off Captain Fabbio like ticks falling off a dog after a flea bath.

May landed with her mouth in the sand, which she spit and spluttered out as she sat up. Her bones ached.

“Are you all okay?”

Pumpkin was moaning. Beatrice and Fabbio were slowly levitating back up to sitting. The parachute lay tattered and flat behind them. They were several hundred yards from the walls of Ether.

They all stood up, stared at one another groggily for a few moments, and then they started to smile.

“Whoop!”

“Yahoo!”

“We did it!”

“Mama mia, it is too good to be true!”

May thrust her hands in the air, jumping up and down and clenching her fists in triumph. “We did it!” she yelled again. “We did it we did it we did it!”

They all hollered and hooted and hugged one another.

When they had all calmed down, they peered around them.

“What do we do now?”

Pumpkin asked. May spoke quickly, with authority.

“The train station. Which way is it?”

Beatrice stretched a long pale arm ahead of her. “The train was on its way. We'd better go fast. Unless we've missed it already.”

The travelers hurried across the desert as swiftly as they could in the direction of the station they had seen from the air. It rose up before them, small at first, but getting larger and larger.

May had just made out the roof when a massive sound came from behind them. They all turned to look. As they watched, the huge gates of the city slowly swung open. And then what looked like hundreds of black dots swarmed out through the gates.

“Oh, my gosh,” May said.

Beatrice threw her small hand over her heart. “Shuck dogs.”

No one needed a second look. They started zooming now, and soon not only the roof but the whole of the train station was clear and vivid in front of them. They arrived at top speed, slamming to a halt right in front of the platform.

“Do you see the train? Do you see it?” Beatrice asked, scanning the horizon. “How close is it?”

May scanned the sand in both directions, hoping that if she saw the train, it would be heading toward them and not away. For a heart-stopping moment there was nothing to be seen on the desert but the Black Shucks in the distance. And also, strangely, a giant wooden mouse rolling along to the far left. May shook her head, befuddled. And then, there it was, a tiny plume of smoke in the distance.

“Look,” May pointed.

“That's it!” Beatrice said. “Is it getting closer or farther away?”

They all strained their eyes to see.

“Closer!”

Everyone cheered except Pumpkin. He stood with his fingers jammed in his mouth, frowning. “Ohhhhh.”

“It's good news, Pumpkin!” May assured him.

Pumpkin groaned again. “It would be”—he pointed to the growing black blobs in the distance—“but I think the dogs are moving faster.”

If May had been paying attention while she was flying through the sky, she may have seen a tiny speck, smaller than any ghost, trekking across the ground below, moving more and more slowly, like a car running out of gas. She also would have seen that the giant mouse, with hundreds of feet poking out from the bottom, was closing the distance between itself and the speck.

Somber Kitty had known he was being followed for several minutes. The fact that it was by a giant wooden mouse did not faze him. There were all sorts of things in this world to confuse him, and he was too close to May to think of any of them anymore. He had seen her, with his keen eyes, land on the sand, and now she was running away. He had noticed, from the corner of his eye, the fast-moving train in the distance. And he had also seen the gates of the city open and a cluster of strange black specks pour out onto the landscape, moving at lightning speed.

Those didn't faze him either.

Somber Kitty set his course and tried to push his tired legs faster.

T
hey could see the train clearly now—a long black snake curling its way toward them. It seemed to go on endlessly.

May, Pumpkin, Beatrice, and Captain Fabbio watched it, willing it to go faster, looking back over their shoulders every few seconds, frantic. Both the Black Shucks and the giant mouse were getting closer and closer.

The crack of a whip sent a sickening dread into May's heart. Behind the dogs, the shape of the Bogey became clear, riding on his sled, his top hat secure despite the wind.

Oh, please. Please please please,
May thought.
Please.

“The train's not going to make it in time,” Beatrice said, saying what they all, in the past few seconds, had begun to realize. “We can't outrun them.”

“Right.” May turned to them, pushing the fear way down into her gut and trying to pull out courage instead. “We need to look for weapons. Anything you can find. We're going to have to fight them.”

They ran around the station looking for things they could break apart to use as clubs. Fabbio pulled out his dagger. Beatrice held
a length of pipe dug from the sand. May reached into her pocket and clutched the quartz rock. They all looked at one another, and May could see in everyone's eyes that they all knew weapons wouldn't help them. And there was no place to go.

“I don't have a weapon,” Pumpkin said.

May's lip began to tremble. Pumpkin stared at her hopefully with his fingers tugging at his wrinkled lips, trusting and innocent and helpless.

“That's okay,” she said, trying to sound brave. “You just stay behind me. If something happens, something bad, I want you to close your eyes and wait till it's over.” May felt like that was all she could offer him.

Tears began to fall from Pumpkin's eyes. And that made them fall from May's too.

She reached out and hugged him. Everybody hugged one another one last time.

For a moment May remembered her picture, the one of her in the woods, dressed as a warrior with Somber Kitty at her side.
You are that girl,
the Undertaker had said.

May tried.

“Everyone get ready,” she said, cocking her arm back behind her shoulder.