May Bird and the Ever After (5 page)

L
ate the next morning May put on her favorite black tank top and black denim overalls and walked out onto the front porch. She sank into the rocker, balancing a bowl of oatmeal and a glass of orange juice in her hands. Somber Kitty appeared just behind her, slipping his way through the crack in the screen door and perching by her feet.

She yawned, her mouth gaping like a bat cave. Last night her mom had gotten her out of bed to watch a meteor shower. They'd laid on a sleeping bag on the back porch and competed over how many racing, fiery balls they could each point out.

Things had started nicely enough, but soon May had started trying to steal her mom's meteors, and vice versa. After that they'd started poking each other to cause distractions.

“You care more about winning than about me!” May had shouted, laughing.

Mrs. Bird had laughed too.
“That's not true. I care about you more than all the meteors. Even more than most of the smaller comets.”

“Ha-ha.” May had rolled her eyes.

They'd stayed up until long past midnight.

But even though May was tired this morning, she wasn't
sleepy.
It was the kind of day where the world seemed full of promise. The dragonflies were humming, and the sun beating on the porch made the wood smell woodsy. It felt like it was a Day that Meant Something.

May thrust her hand into her pocket and felt the map. She wanted to think it had jumped into her pocket on its own. But she knew that wasn't quite true.

She drank and ate quickly. If it was a Day that Meant Something, she wanted to find out what that Something was.

In the breeze Somber Kitty stretched his body long and thin as a rubber band, and then leaped up onto her lap. He licked her chin, thumping his paw down on her chest to hold her in place.

“Yuck.” May scrunched up her face. She stood up and brushed him off with the slightest move of her wrist, though he struggled to stay on. He clung to the waistband of her short overalls, dangling like a set of keys on the school custodian.

“Mew? Meow? Meay?”

“C'mon, Kitty, off.”

Somber Kitty let go, bounced back onto his rubbery hind legs, and watched her walk to the edge of the deck, then down into the grass of the front yard. He jumped down behind her and lifted his paws gingerly. Already the sun had scorched the grass so that it was brown and dry.

“Mom, I'm going in the woods,” May called in through the screen door.

“Don't go too far, baby,” her mother's voice called back.

May pulled out the map, looked at it once more, and tucked it in her pocket. Her bike was lying right there on the grass in front of the stairs. She picked up the tasseled handlebars and set the bike to moving, straddling it and standing on the pedals. A pin-wheel she'd stuck into the rim at the back of her seat spun and glinted in the July sun. She bumped along the grass to the edge of the woods, where a dirt trail zigzagged its way into the trees.

May was flying, leaves tickling her bare arms on either side as she flashed and bumped and jostled past the trees. Somber Kitty raced behind her, stopping only to clean his paws occasionally, or bite a gnat out of his fuzzy coat before racing to catch up. When May skidded to a halt right in front of the fallen tree that marked where the bike track ended, he skidded too, leaping at the last minute to avoid a collision and wobbling through the air to land on his feet on the other side. May slid off her bike as she laid it down and stepped over the tree, slapping at the mosquitoes on her legs. The mosquitoes, she'd always assumed, got their water from the blood of the squirrels that got
their
water in Hog Wallow.

Two bobwhites were introducing themselves to each other somewhere in the shade of the trees.

“Bobwhite?” asked one, its chirp sounding almost human, the way bobwhite chirps did.

“Bobwhite?” the other replied politely.

May took a deep breath and started walking.

An hour or so later she stopped, parted her bangs like curtains so that the breeze could blow on her forehead, and surveyed
the area around her. This part of the woods was full of large, old trees—oaks and maples and sumacs that stood a mannerly distance apart from one another. May knew that if she walked forward and to the left, she'd meet a sloping hill where the trees grew smaller and closer together. She knew if she walked ahead and turned right, she'd run into a dried creek bed and a collection of giant, flat boulders that had served, in the past, as ships, forts, and stages for Somber Kitty's dance routines.

Immediately to the right, and just through a little rise of pines, were the Endless Briers. May had tried many times to find her way through the prickly plants, always winding up stranded and itchy a few feet in, and gloomily plucking her way back out again. She pulled out the map. There was no way she could go around them and get home by dark.

May shrugged.

She walked to the edge where the thick of it began, a few smaller plants catching against the fabric of her sneakers.

“Nasty prickers,” she said, high-stepping.

“Meayy.”

May looked over her shoulder. “You should go home, Kitty.” Kitty was standing a few feet behind her, staring at her curiously. He looked over his shoulder, then back to her as if to say,
Are you kidding? Things are just getting good.
She watched him skillfully picking his way through the same small plants she just had. May rolled her eyes and stepped farther into the briers, feeling the sting of them on her legs and her bare ankles. Slowly she made her way, treading on fallen logs and scattered rocks to stay as far above the ground as possible. Within ten or fifteen minutes she'd made it so far into the patch that she couldn't see where the briers
ended in any direction. Somber Kitty shot out in front of her, leaping from log to log, darting ahead, ducking under low branches playfully. They backtracked several times, running into impossible walls of plants and turning back to find an easier way.

It seemed to take forever. Fifteen minutes later the briers still stretched as far as May could see in every direction. Another fifteen and it was the same, and the knot in her ribs from yesterday started gathering again. She wondered if maybe just crossing the briers was dangerous. What if she couldn't make her way out?

Somber Kitty, finding it all terribly easy and starting to get bored, now turned back to watch her struggle through the densest patch she'd run into yet.

“Kitty, maybe we should turn around.” May peered up at the sky. The sun was getting lower. She'd started too late. Somber Kitty, tilting his big ears downward in sympathy, turned and started walking back toward her.

“Wait.” May stuck a fingernail into her mouth and nibbled on it. There was a small, clear patch a few feet away. If she leaped just right, she could make it. She bent her knees, jumped, and landed hard on both feet. She looked behind her. It didn't make much sense to turn back now.

A few minutes later the briers began to spread themselves out, getting farther and farther apart, until May hardly had to slow down at all to pick the odd one off her sneaker. The ground, she noticed, began to change almost immediately. Instead of the hard, dry dirt back near her house, the ground here was softer, a tiny bit mushy, almost
wet
The knot tightened. Looking back to the wall of stickers she'd come across, she felt so far from home. In fact, May felt too far.

Somber Kitty trotted on ahead, glancing over his shoulder occasionally to encourage May to catch up. He crested the top of a hill and disappeared. The next second, May heard a strange growl up ahead.

“Kitty?”

May crested the rise in a rush, ready to defend her cat, and at the same time she realized two things. First, that the growl was coming from Somber Kitty. And second, that they had reached the lake.

Kitty's tail stood pencil straight, his pointy ears trembled, and the growl seemed to come from deep in his throat.

“What is it?” She followed his gaze to the small, black body of water in front of them, disbelieving. It was only a small lake, which took the form of a misshapen 0 in the clearing. But it was bigger than anything May would have dreamed she would find. Nothing, not even a lily pad or a spare leaf, floated on the dark, glossy surface of the water. It rippled just slightly at the edges, where it touched the rocks of the shore, and mirrored the thin, white clouds circling overhead. This lake was full and deep and thriving. It was as if May was standing in the rain forest instead of the dry hills of Briery Swamp. It couldn't be as deep as it looked.

May took a step forward and tripped, righting herself again. She turned around to see what had tangled her feet.

Just behind her, lying on its side, was a bear trap with a jagged slit down the middle and rusted metal hinges. It was connected to a little chain and a rusted metal post lying flat on the ground.

May wondered how old the trap was and who had left it there.

Thinking that it might still be dangerous, she bent over, picked it up by the chain, and tossed it in the lake. It landed with a
splash, sending out tiny black waves. She felt, suddenly, like she shouldn't have done it. She looked around, checking the woods. Up above, the clouds had started to drift away, as if startled. May swallowed.

She looked around again. There was no sign of a house or a farm. No lady.

“Meow? Meay? Meeeaayyy?” Somber Kitty moaned, pacing back and forth toward the edge of the woods, as if he wanted May to follow him home.

“It's just water, Kitty.”

May walked to the wet tip of the lake and leaned over the edge to look at her own reflection. There she was, her short flat bangs parted to the sides, her black top and overalls, her knobby arms and legs. And there was something else: a tiny shimmering light.

Standing up straight again, May looked at the sky. There was the sun, up behind the filmy clouds that were darting away. She looked down at the water, then up again. But the sun's reflection was in a whole other place entirely. This light almost looked like it was
in
the water. May leaned a little bit farther, squinting. The light moved, quick, like a fish.

May sucked in her breath. She knew she'd lost her balance the moment it happened. She swung her arms out at her sides to right herself, but it was too late. She toppled forward and hit the water with a splash.

May's arms splayed out in front of her, and for a moment she stayed motionless, feeling the cold sting of the water and swallowing a mouthful of it before she started flapping her limbs.

She paddled up and took two strokes toward the edge of the lake, breaking the surface and reaching for the shore.

And then she felt it. It felt like a set of very strong fingers, grasping her ankle. They rested there for a moment, tightening, and then
yank!

May went under. She scooped out her arms and flapped them wildly, much harder than before, feeling the fingers still around her ankle. With all the energy she had she yanked both knees forward, and the hand went slipping off with a jerk. May lunged for the shore again, Somber Kitty's high-pitched, panicked meow ringing in her ears. She felt just the slightest brush against her calves as she pulled herself up onto the dirt, and whatever it was slipped off again, giving May a chance to scramble up onto dry land, panting and heaving.

She turned to face the water and crawled backward, just as Somber Kitty jumped in front of her like a lion defending his pride.

May reached, grabbed him, and yanked him back to her chest. They both watched the water, waiting for whatever it was to surface.

It didn't.

May stood up and started to back away, slowly, carefully.

If she had been paying attention to anything but the pounding of her heart, she would have noticed that every creature in that part of the woods had gone quiet. She didn't look up to see that even the filmy white clouds were gone completely

At the top of the rise, she turned her back on the lake and started to run.