The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding

by Alexandra Bracken

  “Those who trespass in our land”—Nell’s voice rang out clear behind me, along with the older woman’s—“now be blocked by my hand.”

  I craned my neck back, trying to see what was going on. The two of them stood there, Missy with a silver hand bell, Nell with a big leather book open in her hands.

  There was a pause as a bell rang three times. Alastor groaned in my ears, but that was nothing compared to the dogs’ reactions. They howled and yelped like they were being beaten. Even the one on me backed away. Nell wasn’t finished, though.

  “I bind you back to your realm, I send you back to your realm, I banish you to your realm!” The bell rang three times, and it was like a tornado dropped on my head. A black wind whirled free and wild, tossing books around, lifting the howlers off the ground, and sucking them down, down, down, into a thick blackness I wasn’t awake long enough to see.

  I drifted in and out of sleep, too exhausted to open my eyes, when I heard Nell and Missy whisper to one another.

  “While he’s still upstairs, please, let us leave, it’s not too late. The coven will protect you. We can end this now—”

  “You wouldn’t do anything, you refused to help, this is the only way—”

  “If you’re afraid of that man, then leave. Come to us, we’ll care for you—”

  “How could I? You know…” Nell sounded like she was in tears. “You know who he is. I have to stay.”

  “And this boy,” Missy began, her voice shaking. “This is not what our magic is meant for. How can you possibly untangle yourself from it all?”

  “I can’t,” Nell said. “It’s already too late.”

  Nell was right. Once Uncle Barnabas found out what was going on, everything changed.

  “You betrayed my trust! Not only that, but you have endangered yourselves and everything we’ve been working toward! How dare you? How dare you, when you know what the consequences are?”

  Since we’d been sneaking around behind his back for the last week, it only seemed fair that we let him spend a few hours lecturing us about it. I probably would have felt a little better about the decision if my skull wasn’t pounding so hard I thought it would explode.

  “Do you know what went through my head when I learned you’d been visiting that witch in secret? When I saw you pursued by the howlers?” he continued, pacing in front of us. Nell and I were slumped on the couch, looking like we had been dragged through a field of mud before being tossed out into a thunderstorm.

  “I’m sorry,” Nell said for the tenth time. “We’re both so sorry. You just have so much on your plate, and we didn’t want to worry you. We didn’t expect—”

  “You didn’t expect to be attacked by fiends? You didn’t expect anyone else to come after the malefactor? After Prosper?”

  We hadn’t even told him everything, and he was already this mad. Nothing about Rayburn, or Al taking control of my body, or the hob.

  Nell flinched, rearing back.

  “What are we going to do now?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

  “If you had taken care to get yourselves safely home, you would already know this.” Uncle Barnabas went to the desk, which had quickly regained most of its clutter after being ruthlessly cleaned. He retrieved a small cigar box and opened the lid, revealing three small, shriveled prunes.

  Not prunes.

  Toes.

  “Dead man’s toes?” I leaped up, taking the box from him. “They actually made it here?” Knowing my luck like I did, I hadn’t expected the toes to arrive within the month, let alone by my thirteenth birthday on Friday.

  Nell hung back on the couch, tilting her head to look at the ceiling.

  “Yes, well, it seems like fate is on your side,” Uncle Barnabas said, plucking the box out of my grip and placing it in a soft cloth. “We’ll take the next few days to make our final preparations.”

  Final preparations?

  I didn’t like the sound of that either.

  “I have rehearsal for the play tomorrow night, and the show starts on Wednesday. I can’t miss it without upsetting everyone,” Nell began.

  “I don’t want to hear another word about this stupid play of yours, Cornelia.” Uncle Barnabas whirled on her, throwing a finger in her face. “And we’ll be closed for business until further notice. From this moment on, neither of you leaves this house.”

  It was another few hours before I realized what—or rather who—was missing.

  “Where’s Toad?” I asked. “I haven’t seen him since…the first howler.”

  Nell sat up from where she’d been stretched out on her bed, her face buried in her pillow. Her dark, curly hair was standing up around her face like a full halo, bouncing as she quickly searched the room.

  “Huh,” she said, sitting back down. “He sometimes wanders off to visit with Missy or go hunting for his meals. I wouldn’t worry yet.”

  Is not the other changeling also missing?

  I was about to point that much out to Nell, but the look on her face, so tired and gray, made me bite my tongue.

  The snow outside had melted as rain set in that night and continued into Tuesday morning. It made it seem like the whole world was weeping, awash in its own misery. It could only have been painted in watercolor. The edges of the streets and nature seemed to blur with dark lines.

  On the other side of the bathroom door, the shower’s running water continued to sputter and spurt. Curls of warm, wet air escaped the crooked cracks around the door.

  “Prosper,” Nell whispered. “Maybe you should go.”

  “Go?” I pushed myself up so I could see her more clearly over the top of the couch. “What do you mean?”

  “Leave,” she said, keeping her gaze fixed on the bare tree branches outside. “Go back to your family.”

  “The people trying to kill me?” I said. “Don’t forget, you are my family too.”

  The shower cut off abruptly. The silence between Nell and me was so thick I could hear Uncle Barnabas as he dressed and quickly shaved. His glasses were still steamed over as he stepped into the attic, a large, familiar-looking leather book slung under his arm.

  Nell’s mother’s grimoire.

  He’d had it in his possession since we left Missy’s, and there hadn’t been a second he wasn’t watching it, holding it, reading through what pages weren’t enchanted to disappear to maintain privacy. Several times, I thought Nell would snatch it away from him, but in each instance she stepped away and left him to it.

  “Cornelia,” he said. “I need to speak with you. Alone.”

  They made as if to go out into the hall. I stood up quickly, recognizing my one chance for air and a small bit of freedom. “I’ll go check to see if Toad, uh, escaped into the backyard.”

  “I don’t think that’s wise—” Uncle Barnabas began.

  “Just the yard,” I promised. “You can watch me from the window.”

  “Then put on the iron bracelets before you go.”

  Something inside me recoiled, and I couldn’t tell if it was me or Alastor. Missy had given Uncle Barnabas four old, rusted iron bracelets that she claimed would have the same effect as a cut from a cursed blade. They were thin enough to not be heavy or cumbersome, but locking them over my wrists and ankles made me feel more like a prisoner than I’d have liked.

  I left them to their serious faces and conversation. I felt a nudge of guilt and worry over leaving Nell to him—not because I thought Uncle Barnabas would hurt her, but because I had a feeling he hadn’t even given half the tongue-lashing he’d wanted to the night before. It was one thing to yell at a nephew, and another to discipline your own kid.

  As I stepped outside, my feet sinking into the mud, I threw one look back up toward the attic window and saw nothing but the curtains.

  You should not have agreed to leave. They could be engaged in nefarious plotting.

  “It’s called trust. You should try it sometime,” I muttered, then cupped my hands around my mouth. “Toad? Toad! Are you bac
k here?”

  The snow and rain had turned an already hideous, overgrown yard into a swamp that seemed determined to suck me down into it. I made my way around the rocks and what was left of the lawn, checking the branches of the maple tree. Like a key inserted into a lock, each empty space twisted and twisted my heart.

  Hopefully he was somewhere warm and safe—dozing in Missy’s lap by a warm, crackling fire.

  A rustling noise caught my attention. I spun around, back toward the trash cans that Uncle Barnabas had yet to remember to put out on the curb.

  “Toad?” Another black thought crossed my mind. “Or is that you, Nightlock?”

  We had fed the hob and brought him back down to the basement the night before, locking him in. I wondered what Nell was planning to do with him after I was back at Redhood and Alastor was gone.

  You believe it will be as simple as that?

  Ignoring him, I made my way over to the trash can, pulling up the black plastic bags to make sure Toad hadn’t gotten trapped beneath them. And, because it’s just my luck, one of them split open at the belly, pouring out garbage everywhere.

  I turned my face up to the cold rain and tried not to groan in frustration. The only thing I could do was stuff the papers and wrappers into the other, less-full bags. I was nearly finished when my hand closed around an empty, beaten-up padded envelope.

  It was addressed to Uncle Barnabas from someone named John Smith in Sydney, Australia.

  It must have been the packaging the toes had arrived in…only, no, that didn’t make sense. The CUSTOMS stamp from the United States said it had arrived on September 1, not yesterday. Maybe the package had gotten lost in transit to Massachusetts, or this was for something else. Those were the only options that made sense.

  Because if Nell and Uncle Barnabas had all the pieces in place for the spell to remove Alastor this whole time, why were they pretending we needed to wait?

  I warned you, Al said. And he wasn’t even gloating. Fear passed through me like a shade, freezing my core. There is still time. We can escape.

  And go where?

  —

  Hours later, Alastor lay awake, opening the boy’s eyes to study the fattening moon through the window. The boy had not left the bells playing. There was no need. Every time Alastor tried to move his limbs, the iron bracelets weighed them down.

  The boy’s feeble heart was a thorny tangle of guilt, frustration, and longing. Alastor despised the taste of guilt—like overripe fruit, it was overwhelmingly sweet. Guilt was a sign of some goodness, however buried it might be, because it implied a human could still recognize right from wrong.

  The malefactor released a long, long sigh through the boy’s mouth. He needed to accept now that his conventional means of procuring a contract had failed, and would continue to fail. The boy’s heart, it would seem, was a rare sort: incorruptible by greed, incompatible with jealousy. Unlike Honor, he saw the destruction that Alastor’s good fortune wreaked on others. But like Honor, his one weakness, his truest wish, was nothing more than the survival and success of his family.

  If Alastor were to make a contract, his last, desperate chance of getting out of the boy’s body before the witch removed him by force and destroyed him, he would need to chase the tail of that lead. He would require somewhat drastic measures.

  “Servant,” he whispered.

  Nightlock’s eyes appeared at the foot of the couch.

  “Take the boy’s notebook,” he said. “I’ve instructions as to whom, by hook or crook, you must deliver this book.”

  The hob’s eyes glittered with excitement.

  “Come closer. I’ll tell you the way to Redhood.”

  In the end, Uncle Barnabas came around.

  I’m not sure why that surprised me so much. After the lecture he’d given us yesterday about how it wasn’t safe for us to leave before he and Nell could cast the spell to remove Alastor, I thought for sure we’d be stuck in the house for at least another day. But whatever they had talked about last night while they were downstairs, it was like Nell had flipped a switch in him.

  “Good morning, good morning,” he called as he came out of the shower. “I’m going to run out to grab some doughnuts, do you have any requests? Maybe you’d like some hot chocolate?”

  Trying to smooth things over with a little sugar, huh? Well, I wasn’t too proud to take a doughnut bribe.

  “Man, forget doughnuts, I’d kill for a Silence Cake,” I said.

  His pale brows drew together in confusion.

  “You remember,” I said. “The pumpkin leaves?”

  “Oh—oh yes. My word, I haven’t had one in ages. Sadly they’re not found outside of Redhood. What can I get you from the Witch’s Brew instead?”

  “I liked their glazed doughnuts,” I said, “and I’ll definitely take a hot chocolate. What about you, Nell?”

  Nell was still in her pajamas. She had been working on her homework even before I got up, and hadn’t moved an inch from her bed.

  Uncle Barnabas grabbed his coat and a beanie, tucking his wet hair up inside of it. “While I’m gone, you can tell Prosper the good news.”

  The news couldn’t have been that good. Nell cringed.

  I waited by the window until I saw Uncle B head out the back door and down the street. The bakery was only a block away, meaning we didn’t have much time to talk.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “Why is he acting like he swallowed actual sunshine?”

  Nell shrugged, keeping her eyes on her homework. “I explained to him last night about how important the play was to us. I convinced him to let us go to the performance tonight.”

  In exchange for what?

  “In exchange for what?”

  “Why do you think I had to promise him something?” she asked, her voice going high. “He said he would take us tonight, and I wasn’t going to question it. It’s not like he’s making you go to school today. You should be happy about that.”

  Was I happy about that? I kind of liked this school.

  It’s not your school, I reminded myself. This isn’t your life either.

  “He’s even going to watch the performance,” Nell continued. “He was just…out of sorts. They’re making cuts at one of his jobs.”

  So Uncle B really had just been in a bad mood after all. The poor guy probably wasn’t sleeping well, and knowing there was a fiend lurking less than five feet away from him wouldn’t help much on that front.

  Nell slammed her science textbook shut and jumped off her bed. She didn’t even look at me as she passed the couch. The bathroom door slammed shut behind her.

  Sensing she hadn’t already fed the hob, I pulled together a plate of potato chips and a banana to bring down to him. Only, when I opened the door to the basement, he was gone.

  “Nell?” I called through the bathroom door. The shower was running, so I had to shout. “Do you know where our little friend is?”

  “No,” she yelled back. “Why?”

  Alastor was quiet. Which meant one thing.

  “Where is the hob?” I asked. “Al. Seriously. Where is he?”

  But all I got was silence. That, and the horrible feeling all the players were stepping onto the stage, but no one had ever bothered to give me a script.

  Uncle Barnabas had arranged for none other than Madam Drummer to swing by and pick us up that evening.

  “I just have a few errands to run for our adventure tonight, but I’ll meet you there,” he said, when I made a face. “Buck up, Prosper. This will all be over in a few hours.”

  Sooner than that, if I didn’t jump out of the van to escape Madam Drummer’s long, poetic speech to Nell about how special this night was, and how we all had to cherish it and the memories we’d make, and also, don’t mess up the lines, but really, don’t miss your mark either, and don’t improvise, all right?

  It was a huge relief to finally be able to escape and head inside the empty auditorium. We were two hours early. That had felt ridiculous when we le
ft the house, but seeing Madam Drummer on stage, waving her arms, screaming for “lights, more lights, dramatic lights!” made it feel like not enough time. Nell turned to say something to me, a weird expression on her face, but one of the crew members dragged her off to go get her stage makeup and hair done. I tucked the iron bracelets more firmly beneath my sweater sleeve, hoping they weren’t noticeable under my socks and pants.

  I kept myself busy helping the crew run through one last practice of switching the sets out between scenes. There wasn’t really a reason for me to be there other than to watch the show, but I felt myself sucked up into the world onstage anyway. People were laughing and talking in nervous voices, drifting back and forth across the stage.

  A few girls waved to me and asked about where Nell and I were the past two days and why we missed school. Even Norton came and sat with me at the edge of the stage, trying to catch me up on what I’d missed in class, offering his notes. The other students noticed me. They wanted to talk about my backdrop—they acted like I’d been going to school there for years instead of a few weeks.

  Which is why it sucked so much that they thought I was Ethan White, not Prosperity Redding.

  You could stay here forever. It could always be like this….

  Yeah, yeah, I thought, rubbing the back of my neck. Still not buying what you’re selling, buddy.

  “Who’s that?”

  Norton’s soft voice made me look up. There was a flash of red at the back of the theater—copper red. I would have recognized that hair anywhere.

  It felt like my heart was going to jump out from my chest and escape out of my open mouth.

  No.

  No.

  NO.

  I knew the second Prue spotted me. The determined look on her face as she scanned the stage turned into one of total annoyance.

  That is your sister, is it not?

  “What did you do?” I whispered.

  I believe the true question is, Maggot, what will you do to her? What shall I make you do?

  The horrible memory of my hand closing around Nell’s throat flashed through my mind.