May Bird and the Ever After (9 page)

W
ay back in the woods, behind a patch of briers that stretched almost a mile wide in each direction, the only lake in Briery Swamp glowed and flashed like lightning. Around it, not a single critter could be seen. The fire flies had swarmed off. The insects, the night birds, the snakes, and the lizards had crawled or flown or scurried to other safer parts. The only movement came from a skinny, hairless cat who was slowly creeping out from underneath the thorn bushes.

Keeping low to the ground, mewing softly and sadly, Somber Kitty squiggled himself like a snake, up to the edge of the water.

“Meay?” he asked softly in a whisper. Nothing came back from the water except for the eerie twinkling light. Somber Kitty gingerly touched one paw to the water, then snatched it back, shaking off the wetness. He looked behind him, back to the path that led out of the briers.

Somber Kitty appeared to be caught in an argument with himself. Finally he tilted his chin down stubbornly, raised his ears and tail so that they shook with warlike energy, bared his teeth, crouched, and—snapping like a rubber band Finny Elway would have shot at Claire Arneson—went splashing into the water. He came up once, paddling madly. And then he disappeared beneath the surface.

Behind Somber Kitty, Briery Swamp remained silent. The lights of the lake flickered out. An owl landed on a nearby tree and let out a hoot. Critters trickled back to the sound of nibbling leaves.

In the woods of the swamp, all appeared to be normal. There was no one to notice what had been lost.

W
hen May opened her eyes, the first thing she noticed were the leaves. And that she was still alive.

“Ouch,” she whispered, rubbing at her face. She sat up and squinted at the brightness around her, fearful and dazed as she tried to focus on the leafy branch above her, which seemed to be waving at her for attention. Beyond it a pair of eyes—or were they just spots of sky showing through?—were watching her. May squinted harder, but in another moment the leaves rearranged themselves in the breeze, then nothing.

That's when May finally noticed where she was. She was on the shore of the lake. It all came back to her.

“That's weird,” she whispered. She remembered falling in. She didn't remember swimming
out
of the water and crawling onto the shore. All she remembered was the cold, strong hands around her legs and at the last minute, the ghost—from her house—reaching out to grab her. She shuddered. Had she imagined it?

May stood slowly, her bones aching. Her body felt flattened and doughy, like it had been stuck in a waffle iron. Why was it so light out? Had she slept all night? Her stomach turned over. “Mom.”

She searched behind her for the trampled brush that would mark the way she'd come in, but no path presented itself. May nibbled on her fingers. Her mom would be furious. She took a step closer to the woods and . . .

“Ah!”

Someone—or something—was crouching in the bushes in front of her. May stumbled back into the clearing just as the ghost from White Moss Manor rose and drifted forward.

He put one finger up in front of his jagged white lips and shook his transparent head. He was shaking slightly.

May held out her hands in a stop motion, fear making her legs tremble like kite strings. “Leave me alone.”

The creature bit on a finger, then looked around. “Shhhh. Oh, my. Don't get too close to that water. Sh-Sh-She'll come back for you.”

May blinked at him for a moment in shock that he had spoken, then recovered herself. “Leave me alone!”

The creature flinched, then widened his sad, droopy eyes at her. “Please. You're going to get us into trouble. There's s-s-something even worse. They may be on their way already.

May didn't bother waiting around to hear the rest. She darted across the clearing and burst into the trees. A moment later she emerged onto the clearing. She came to a dead stop, sucking in her breath. The lake lay before her, glossy and still. The woods she had just run into lay in front of her. The creature stood where she'd left him, peering into the woods all around them nervously. “It won't work. You'll never get out that way. Now come with . . .” He drifted in her direction.

May shook her head. “Stay away!”

She scrambled around the side of the lake and across the clearing toward the trees again, pushing into the underbrush. She just needed to get home. Once she got home . . .

And there she was again. Right back at the clearing.

May shook her head hard, then started toward a giant elm and a stand of pine trees. She put her arms out in front of her to move the low branches aside, this time going a bit more slowly. A few more branches pushed aside and . . . there was the lake.

May's lips started to quiver. Something was wrong. Something was very horribly wrong.

All the while the creature watched her, his great head tilted to one side, his fingers digging into his chin.

“You've got to come with me,” he said. “Th-Th-This is a dangerous place.”

“No!”

May tried to run into the woods three more times, each time her heart thudding a little bit faster, each time returning to the lake. “It's impossible,” she whispered. Tears trembled on her eyelashes.

The creature floated toward her again, reaching out his long skinny arms. “Please don't cry. Crying always sets off the detector.”

“Why won't you leave me alone?”

He frowned, his horrible gash of a mouth turning downward. “Ohhh, maybe we should start over. I'm Pumpkin. I'm trying to help you!”

May backed away a step, wondering if maybe she was dreaming.

A sound made the creature called Pumpkin stop and look toward the trees on the opposite side of the lake. May thought she heard it too. It sounded like dogs barking.

“The Black Shucks,” Pumpkin hissed, his droopy eyes widening in terror. “Oh, my. The Bogey's coming for you!” His whole body began to shake, his feet hovering above the ground unevenly. “Come on!”

Pumpkin reached out a long arm again, his fingers outstretched toward her. May gazed around at the trees. It was definitely the sound of dogs, but snarling, growling dogs, like dogs closing in on their prey. And something else that made May's blood run cold. A
crack crack crack,
like the sound of a whip. Every hair on her body stood up on end.

She looked back at Pumpkin.

“Come where?” She crossed her arms over her chest.

“Through the door. Ohhh. We've got to hurry.”

“I don't see a door.”

Pumpkin rolled his eyeballs around. “That's why ones like you never make it out. Come on!”

Pumpkin zipped to the edge of the woods, pulled some branches aside and revealed, to May's amazement, a black door. It seemed to stand on nothing, and to lead nowhere, except that there was a small gap across the top, emitting a bluish light. Across the middle, it read in big, red letters
ALL DEAD THIS WAY.

May gasped. Beyond the trees the sound of dogs had gotten louder.

Pumpkin raised his hand to the door, then lowered it to his lips for a moment, muttering to himself: “Knockitty knock? Knockitty knockitty?” He raised his fist back to the door and knocked out a strange rhythm.

The door creaked open, revealing not the forest behind it but
a big, dark, empty space. A faint shimmer of light came from the inside, like the flicker of a television screen.

“I'm not going in there,” May said, backing up and shaking her head. “And I'm not going with you. I'm going home.”

There was a loud yelp off in the distance. Pumpkin snapped his head to look, then he looked back at May, his eyes huge. “This is the
only
way! Hurry!”

The sound had gotten so loud that May's ears started to hurt. “Wh-What's coming?” she yelled above the din.

The Pumpkin creature put his hand up to his ear. “What?” he shouted.

“Who is it that's coming?!”

Crack crack crack.
Way back in the woods, May could hear the sound of wood splintering and trees falling. The barking and yelping continued to grow louder. She found herself sidling closer to Pumpkin until she bumped into him with a cold shock, then swiveled toward him. She didn't want to be too close to him, but she also didn't want to be near whatever was coming through the woods.

“Why should I trust you?” she cried.

Pumpkin shifted back and forth, drifting this way and that, wringing his hands. “You have to.”

An ear-splitting crash drew her attention back to the woods. Several of the farthest trees she could see were falling to the left and right, as if something huge and vicious were plowing through them. May and Pumpkin flinched as the trees fell. Whatever it was was making its way straight toward the clearing. May's knobby knees began to falter underneath her.

And then a set of cold white hands were around her arm,
sending zaps like electricity running up and down her body. May lost her breath. In an instant she was being yanked through the door as it slammed shut behind her.