Thief of Always (7 page)

      "You missed your chance there, kiddo," he said. "You could have been one of the greats."

      "It was a trick, that's all," Harvey said, concealing the strange unhappiness he felt. "A Halloween trick. It meant nothing."

      "There are those who'd disagree," Jive said darkly. "Those who'd say that all the great powers in the world are bloodsuckers and soul-stealers at heart. And we must serve them. All of us. Serve them to our dying day"

      He stared hard at Harvey all the way through this peculiar little speech, and then, with a nimble step, retreated into the shadows and was gone.

      Harvey found Wendell in the kitchen, a hot dog in one hand and a cookie in the other, telling Mrs. Griffin about what he'd seen. He dropped his food when Harvey came in, and yelped with relief: "You're alive! You're alive!"

      "Of course I'm alive," said Harvey. "Why shouldn't I be?"

      "There was something out there. A terrible beast. It almost ate me. I thought maybe it had eaten you."

      Harvey looked down at his hands and legs.

      "Nope," he said. "Not a nibble."

      "I'm glad!" Wendell said. "I'm so, so glad. You're my best friend, for always."

      I was vampire food five minutes ago, Harvey thought; but he said nothing. Maybe there'd come a time when he could tell Wendell about his transformation and temptation, but this wasn't it. He simply said:

      "I'm hungry," and sat down at the table beside his fair-weather friend, to put something sweeter than blood in his belly.

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      XI

Turnabout

      Neither Wendell nor Lulu was around the following day-Mrs. Griffin said she'd seen them both before breakfast, and then they'd disappeared-so Harvey was left to his own devices. He tried not to think about what had happened the night before, but he couldn't help himself.

      Snatches of conversation kept coming back, and he puzzled over them all day long. What had Jive meant, for instance, when he'd told Harvey that turning him into a vampire was not so much a game as an education? What kind of lesson had he learned by jumping off a roof and scaring Wendell?

      And all that stuff about soul-stealers and how they had to be served; what had that meant? Was it Mr. Hood that Jive had been speaking of; that great power they all had to serve? If Hood was somewhere in the House, why hadn't anyone-Lulu, Wendell or himself-encountered him? Harvey had quizzed his friends about Hood, and had the same story from them both: they'd heard no footfalls, no whispers, no laughter. If Mr. Hood was indeed here, where was he hiding, and why?

      So many questions; so few answers.

      And then, if these mysteries weren't enough, another came along to vex him. In the late afternoon, lounging in the shade of the tree house, he heard a yell of frustration, and peered through the leaves to set Wendell racing across the lawn. He was dressed in a windbreaker and boots, even though it was swelteringly hot, and he was stamping around like a madman.

      Harvey shouted to him, but his call went either unheard or ignored, so he climbed down and pursued Wendell around the side of the House. He found him in the orchard, red-faced and sweaty.

      "What's going on?" he said.

      "I can't get out!" Wendell said, grinding a half-rotted apple underfoot. "I want to leave, Harvey, but there's no way out!"

      "Of course there is!"

      "I've been trying for hours and hours and I tell you the mist keeps sending me hack the way I came"

      "Hey, calm down!"

      "I want to go home, Harvey," Wendell said, close to tears now. "Last night was too much for me. That thing came after my blood. I know you don't believe me-"

      "I do," said Harvey, "honest I do."

      "You do?"

      "For sure."

      "Well, then maybe you should leave too,'cause if I go it'll come after you."

      "I don't think so," said Harvey.

      "I've been kiddin' myself about this place," Wendell said. "It's dangerous. Oh, yeah, I know it seems like everything's perfect, but-"

      Harvey interrupted him. "Maybe you should keep your voice down," he said. "We should talk about this quietly. In private."

      "Like where?" said Wendell, wild-eyed. "The whole place is watching us and listening to us. Don't you feel it?"

      "Why would it do that?"

      "I don't know!" Wendell snapped. "But last night I thought, if I don't leave I'm going to die here. I'll just disappear one night; or go crazy like Lulu." He dropped his voice to a whisper. "We're not the first, you know. What about all the clothes upstairs? All the coats and shoes and hats. They belonged to kids like us."

      Harvey shuddered. Had he played trick-or-treat in a murdered boy's shoes?

      "I want to get out of here," Wendell said, tears running down his face. "But there's no way out."

      "If there's a way in there must be a way out," Harvey reasoned. "We'll go to the wall."

      With that he marched off, Wendell in tow, around to the front of the House and down the gentle slope of the lawn. The mist-wall looked perfectly harmless as they approached it.

      "Be careful-" Wendell warned. "It's got some tricks up its sleeve."

      Harvey slowed his step, expecting the wall to twitch, or even reach for him. But it did nothing. Bolder now, he strode into the mist, fully expecting to emerge on the other side. But by some trick or other he was turned around without even being aware of it, and delivered out of the wall with the House in front of him.

      "What happened?" he said to himself. Puzzled, he stepped back into the mist.

      The same thing occurred. In he went, and out he came again, facing the opposite direction. He tried again, and again, and again, but the same trick was worked upon him every time, until Harvey was as frustrated as Wendell had been a half hour before.

      "Now do you believe me?" Wendell said.

      "Yep."

      "So what do we do?"

      "Well, we don't yell about it," Harvey whispered. "We just get on with the day. Pretend we've given up leaving. I'm going to do a little looking around."

He began his investigations as soon as they got back into the House, by going in search of Lulu. Her bedroom door was closed. He knocked, then called her. There was no reply, so he tried the handle. The door was unlocked.

      "Lulu?" he called. "It's Harvey."

      She wasn't there, but he was relieved to see that her bed had been slept in, and that she'd apparently been playing with her pets recently. The doors to the doll's house were open, and the lizards were everywhere underfoot.

      There was one strangeness however. The sound of running water led him through to the bathroom, where he found the bath full almost to brimming, and Lulu's clothes scattered in the puddles on the tile.

      "Have you seen Lulu?" he asked Mrs. Griffin when he got downstairs.

      "Not in the last few hours," she replied. "But she's been keeping to herself." Mrs. Griffin looked hard at Harvey. "I wouldn't pay too much mind if I were you, child," she said. "Mr. Hood doesn't like inquisitive guests."

      "I was only wondering where she'd got to," Harvey said.

      Mrs. Griffin frowned, her tongue working against her pale cheek as though it wanted to speak, but didn't dare.

      "Anyway" Harvey went on, deliberately goading Mrs. Griffin, "I don't believe Mr. Hood exists."

      "Now you be careful," she said, her voice and frown deepening. "You don't want to talk about Mr. Hood that way."

      "I've been here...days and days," Harvey said, realizing as he spoke that he'd lost count of his time in the House. "And I haven't seen him once. Where is he?"

      Now Mrs. Griffin came at Harvey with her hands raised, and for a moment he thought she was going to strike him. But instead she took hold of his shoulders and shook him.

      "Please, child!" she said. "Be content with what you know. You're here to enjoy yourself for a little time. And child, it's such a little time. It flies by. Oh Lord, how it flies!"

      "It's just a few weeks," Harvey said. "I'm not going to stay here forever." Now it was he who stared at her. "Or am I?" he said.

      "Stop," she told him.

      "You think I am here forever, don't you?" he said, shaking off her grip. "What is this place, Mrs. Griffin? Is it some kind of prison?"

      She shook her head.

      "Don't tell me lies," he said. "It's stupid. We're locked up in here, aren't we?"

      Now, though she was shaking with fear from head to foot, she dared to make a tiny nod of her head.

      "All of us?" he asked. Again she nodded. "You too?"

      "Yes," she whispered, "me too. And there's no way out. Believe me, if you try to escape again, Carna will come after you."

      "Carna..." he said, remembering the name from the conversation between Jive and Marr.

      "He's up there," Mrs. Griffin said. "On the roof. That's where the four of them live. Rictus, Marr, Carna-"

      "-and Jive."

      "You know."

      "I've met them all but Carna."

      "Pray you never do," said Mrs. Griffin. "Now listen to me, Harvey. I've seen many children come and go through this House-some of them foolish, some of them selfish, some sweet, some brave-but you, you are one of the brightest souls I have ever set eyes on. I want you to take what joy you can from being here. Use the hours well, because there'll be fewer than you think."

      Harvey listened patiently to this. Then, when she'd finished, he said: "I still want to meet Mr. Hood."

      "Mr. Hood is dead," Mrs. Griffin said, exasperated by his persistence.

      "Dead? You swear?"

      "I swear," she replied. "On the Brave of my poor Clue-Cat, I swear: Mr. Hood is dead. So don't ask about him ever again."

      This was the first time Mrs. Griffin had ever come close to giving Harvey an order, and though he wanted to press her further, he decided not to. Instead he said he was sorry for bringing up the subject, and wouldn't do it again, then left her to her secret sorrows.

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      XII

What the Flood Gave Up (And What It Took)

      Well?" said Wendell, when Harvey came to his room. "What's the story?"

      Harvey shrugged. "Everything's fine," he said. "Why don't we just enjoy ourselves while we can?"

      "Enjoy ourselves?" Wendell said. "How can we enjoy ourselves when we're locked in?"

      "It's better in here than it is out in the world," Harvey said. Wendell looked at him in astonishment. "That's true, isn't it?"

      As he spoke he grabbed hold of Wendell's hand, and Wendell realized there was a ball of paper in Harvey's palm, which he was trying to pass between the two of them.

      "Maybe you should just find a quiet little corner and do some reading," he said, glancing down at their hands as he spoke.

      Wendell got the idea. He claimed the balled-up note from Harvey's hand and said: "Maybe I'll do that."

      "Good," said Harvey. "I'm going to go out and enjoy the sun while I can."

      That was exactly what he did. He had a lot of planning to do before midnight, which was when the note told Wendell they should meet to make their escape. Surely even the forces that guarded the House had to sleep sometime (the business of keeping the seasons rolling around couldn't be easy) and of all the hours to slip away, midnight seemed the most promising.

      But he didn't suppose it would be easy. The House had been a trap for decades (perhaps centuries: Who knew how old its evil really was?) and even at midnight it would not be so foolish as to leave the exit wide open. They would have to be quick and clever, and not panic or lose their tempers once they were in the mist. The real world was out there somewhere. All they had to do was find it.

He knew when he saw Wendell for Halloween that the note had been read and understood. There was a look in Wendell's eyes that said: I'm ready. I'm nervous, but I'm ready.

      The rest of the evening passed for the two of them like the performance of a strange play, in which they were the actors, and the House (or whoever haunted it) was the audience. They went about enjoying themselves as though this was a night like any other, heading out to play trick-or-treat with a show of loud laughter (even though they were both shuddering in their borrowed shoes), then coming in to eat their supper and spend what they hoped would be their last Christmas in the House. They opened their presents (a mechanical dog for Wendell; a magician's kit for Harvey), said their goodnights to Mrs. Griffin (goodbye, of course, not goodnight, but Harvey didn't dare let her know) and then went to bed.

      The House grew quiet, and quieter still. The snow no longer sighed at the sill, nor the wind in the chimney. It was, Harvey thought, the deepest silence he'd ever heard; so deep that he could hear his heartbeat in his ears, and every rustle of his body against the sheets sounded like a roll of drums.

      A little before midnight he got up and dressed, moving slowly and carefully, so as to make as little noise as possible. Then he headed out into the passageway, and-slipping like a thief from shadow to shadow-hurried down the stairs and out into the night.

      He left not by the front door (it was heavy, and creaked loudly) but by the kitchen door, which brought him out at the side of the House. Though the wind had dropped, the air was still bitter and the surface of the snow had frozen. It crackled as he walked, however lightly he trod. But he was beginning to hope that the eyes and ears of the House were indeed closed at this hour (if not, why hadn't he been challenged?) and he might make it to the perimeter without attracting attention.

      Just as he was about to turn the corner, however, that sweet hope was soured, as somebody in the murk behind him called his name. He froze in his tracks, hoping the darkness would conceal him, but the voice came again, and again called his name. It was not a voice he recognized. Not Wendell, certainly, nor Mrs. Griffin. Not Jive, not Rictus, not Marr. This was a frail voice; the voice of somebody who barely knew how to shape the syllables of his name.