August and Claudette observed with curiosity as the pirate scrambled about unsteadily on all fours, then gripped the cage bars in huge fists. Awkwardly, like a weird and jerking spider, the half-faced lady clambered onto his back.
“What are they doing?” wondered August. “Oh, wait. Oh, no!”
The showgirl was scrabbling onto the others, and the small prince onto her, forming a human tower. Five grubby little fingers appeared over the opening.
August slammed back the lever, but it was too late; as it grinded and whirred, the rising trapdoor was simply lifting the pile of zombies along with it.
* * *
* * *
“Use all your strength, Claudette!” cried August. “Every ounce.”
The DuPonts were once again in the Malveaus’ carriage-house closet. Claudette braced herself against the closed brick-clad door as August fumbled desperately around the edges searching for the concealed latch.
“Where is it? Oh, where is it?” he babbled in a panic. Click.
As he threw himself beside Claudette, August heard a dull thud and felt the faintest vibration. He glanced at his undead relative. Another thud, the faintest tremor.
“This one’s much thicker than the prop room door,” he said, nodding hopefully. “I’m sure it will hold.”
With a violent crash, splinters of wood and brick went flying, and a yellowed, withered hand smashed through the door, grabbing August’s arm in an enormous fist.
“But you’ve only been here for one night!” Belladonna said in disbelief as she placed laundered clothing on the table. “How could you possibly have picked up four more zombies? Is that…Jacques LeSalt? Where the devil did you get them all?”
August was seated on the carriage bench, surrounded by a swaying, grunting, dribbling assortment of undead persons, who peered at and occasionally prodded him with something that seemed like curiosity.
The boy looked up at his cousin with resigned exhaustion.
“I found them in there.” He indicated the open closet door. “Or maybe they found me. I’m not sure.”
Belladonna walked over to gaze at the jagged-edged void that had been the rear closet wall.
“So,” she muttered, mostly to herself, “there really was a secret passage. And the zombies were…”
“In the theater,” confirmed August. “I guess these are the performers from Orfeo DuPont’s Dance of the Dead. They must have been moldering back there ever since Orfeo left town. Whatever ‘left town’ means. That’s how Mr. Saint-Cyr put it.”
“Disappeared,” muttered Belladonna absently, “would be more accurate.” She turned back to August. “At least, that’s what Mama told me. By all accounts, Orfeo DuPont set out on a fishing trip one day, with nothing but a packed lunch and a rod. No one ever saw him again.”
“Well,” grumbled August, “whatever became of him, he certainly left me with a mess bigger than a tick on a heifer’s behind. Ow! Stop that!”
He smacked away the small prince’s probing finger from his ear.
“You’ve got quite a fan club there,” observed Belladonna.
“They’ve been at it all night. I tried to sneak out, but they follow me around like puppy dogs. Like they’re obsessed with me. This is a disaster, I tell you! I can’t even get rid of one!” August glanced resentfully at Claudette, who, perched on the cot, had discovered the Carnival bubbles in her pocket, and was repeatedly attempting (and failing) to jam the ring-shaped wand into the bottle’s neck.
“Now I’ve got five. Five! That’s five zombies too many, wouldn’t you say? Why me? What do they want with me? As if the butterflies weren’t troublesome enough. What will Aunt Orchid think? And Aunt Hydrangea.” August’s expression grew bleak. “Beauregard. Everyone!”
He looked at Belladonna imploringly.
“I have to find the gallery that bought your jewelry and my model. You really can’t remember the name of the place?”
Belladonna shook her head apologetically.
“Gallery Macaroni? Macramé? Something like that.” She shrugged her shoulders, uncertain. “We’ve searched the city,” she assured him, “but there’s no such place.”
August sighed and bit his lower lip as he lifted Jacques LeSalt’s withered hand out of his pajama pocket.
“That man who held the séance last night,” the boy mused. “The…clairvoyant, is it? Mr. Slug or Snail or something.”
“Professor Leech? Mama thought he might help her find the stone you’re both so obsessed with.”
“Yes, him. Do you know where I might find this professor?”
Belladonna shook her head.
“But Mama might.”
August grimaced. He did not relish the prospect of seeking out his formidable aunt.
“Could you”—he winced—“watch my zombies while I go ask her? Make sure no one sees them?”
Belladonna regarded her cousin as she might a raving lunatic.
“I am quite sure I don’t know how to entertain one zombie,” she protested, “never mind five. Besides, as you say, they seem mighty fond of you. I doubt your undead friends will do what I tell them.”
At that moment, from Claudette’s direction, a flurry of bubbles danced through the air. The small zombie emitted a gleeful and self-satisfied gurgle.
The bobbing soapy orbs instantly attracted the other zombies’ attention, as they had attracted Claudette’s on first encounter. The undead creatures drifted, transfixed, toward the airy, flexible spheres, poking, grabbing, grunting, and starting with seemingly endless surprise when the bubbles popped.
“Well that,” said August, cheering a little, “at least solves that.”
“It does?”
August picked up his pile of laundered clothing.
“Claudette, give those bubbles to Belladonna. I’m sure she blows the best bubbles. All of you are going to love them!”
Morning light filtered through the courtyard’s palm fronds, replacing the winter chill with a welcome, sunny warmth. Beyond the crunch of gravel beneath his feet, August could hear another sound, repeated yet irregular—a slicing, whooshing, and light metallic clashing.
To enter the back door of 591 Funeral Street, one was forced to pass by the rear wing of the house, which extended down one side of the courtyard. Here, several dining chairs were clustered on the brick path before two sets of open French doors. Through these, August could see that a large dining table had been pushed aside to accommodate the activity from which the slicing, whooshing, clashing sound derived.
Two pirates were engaged in a sword fight, one advancing in aggressive attack, the other retreating in frantic defense. A third pirate stood facing the wall, admiring his distinctly crooked mustache in a gilt-framed mirror from which a sheer black cloth had been pulled aside.
“Hit!” announced the assailing pirate as the side of his slim blade whacked the ribs of his opponent.
“Ow! That hurt,” protested his victim.
“What do you think?” the third pirate absently asked of the mirror. “Earring or no earring?”
Upon hearing their voices, August realized that the colorful buccaneers were in fact his cousin Beauregard and his friends, Langley and Gaston, all attired in costume. Beauregard was taking a victory lap, both fists in the air.
“Bloody Beau,” he crowed, “claims another victim. He’s the deadliest blade on the high seas! Come, come, Gaston.” He leaped to the center of the room, feet spread, knees bent, his blade standing at attention before his face. “Let’s go again.”
“Ummm…” Gaston was hesitant.
“Fencing requires discipline,” insisted Beauregard, “and precision. Now, en garde!”
“Shouldn’t—shouldn’t we,” stammered Gaston, “be wearing those mask thingies?”
“The practice tips are on,” responded Bea
uregard, touching his finger to the rubber guard at the tip of his weapon. “Don’t be a baby.”
“Well, I don’t really…”
“Allez!” bellowed Beauregard, dropping his saber to horizontal and lunging forward. He advanced, attacking savagely, sword thrashing this way and that. Gaston awkwardly scrambled backward, knitted cap bobbing frantically as he parried the incoming blows as best he could.
“Ow! No, wait. Ow! Ow! Stop!”
Porcelain, glass, and silver rattled alarmingly as Gaston backed into a slender-legged buffet. With a deft maneuver, Beauregard whipped the sword out of his opponent’s grip. It cartwheeled through the air and came clanking to the floor. The side of Beau’s saber was suddenly pressed against Gaston’s ample cheek.
“Surrender?”
Gaston frowned stubbornly.
“Surrender, friend,” Beauregard’s voice was ominous. “Bloody Beau shows no mercy, and there’s no one to help you now.” He glanced behind him. “Is there, Langley?”
“Huh?” responded Langley, still considering the earring.
There was a metallic, slithering clatter as Gaston’s blade suddenly returned across the floorboards to rest at Beauregard’s feet. Baffled, the blond boy dropped his guard and turned to discover the cause of this unexpected development. Gaston promptly snatched up the sword and poked the tip into Beauregard’s chest.
“Hit!” he cried happily.
But his victory was dismissed with an absent swat of the hand. Beauregard was glaring at August in the doorway.
“Oh,” said Beauregard with disdain. “It’s you.”
August was studying his cousin’s head, wondering if the hat and pirate wig concealed dark roots.
Beauregard sneered darkly. “What are you looking at? Not enough butterflies for you?”
“N-n-no,” stammered August. “I mean, nothing.”
He turned to slip quietly away but, as he did so, caught Gaston’s eye. The ginger-haired boy nodded, touching his sword to his forehead with a discreet smile of gratitude that caught August by surprise. He recalled Gaston’s reluctance to participate in Beauregard’s heartless game of catch with Claudette’s eyeball.
August decided to remain where he was.
“Why,” he asked cautiously, “are you all dressed this way?”
Beauregard crossed to the dining table, where he laid down his saber and picked up a bottle and a rag.
“These are our costumes for the Carnival Grand Parade,” he said without looking at his cousin.
“The Weepy Widows,” chimed in Langley, “always sponsor the best and biggest float.”
August smelled the pungent odor of mechanical oil as Beauregard wiped down his blade.
“My grandmother,” Langley explained with an air of boredom, “is the most generous contributor. She said they wouldn’t see a penny from her unless they gave us all a spot on this year’s float.”
“I don’t see why,” grumbled Beauregard, snapping the cap back on the oil bottle, “they had to have some stupid cat as grand marshal.”
“Officer Claw?” said August in surprise. “He’s amazing. A shining example to feline-kind across the universe. I can’t wait to meet him.”
“Meet him?” Beauregard spun around, sword in hand. “Why would you meet him?”
August hesitated, sensing danger.
“Um…well…Claudette won us places on the same float.”
A beet-red flush coursed up Beauregard’s neck and into his cheeks.
“You?” he said incredulously. “And that thing—that putrid undead DuPont monster? On our float? Well.” Beauregard, shaken, searched for thoughts and words. “You won’t come. You can’t come.” He waved his saber vaguely at August, who had concealed the bulk of himself behind the doorframe.
“But,” August muttered meekly, “we won the tickets fair and square. Officer Claw is my hero. Well, one of them. Certainly, my cat hero. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Simmering, Beauregard slowly crossed the room. Only the right side of August’s face was now visible.
“If that raggedy, stinking zombie”—Beauregard placed his sword tip on the doorframe, inches from August’s nose—“embarrasses us in any way…” He leaned into the sword with such force that it bowed alarmingly.
“I’ll find the Zombie Stone,” August promised hoarsely. “It will solve everything.”
“If you shame this family…again. If you ruin this for me…” Beauregard’s expression was as dark as thunderclouds. “Then, I’ll, I’ll…”
Beauregard’s sword snapped in two.
* * *
* * *
August hesitated, his fist on the knob of the back door. But his dread of confronting Orchid was outweighed by the urgency of finding the Zombie Stone.
As he entered the house, the boy was instantly transported to his nightmare of the previous evening, for he heard the strains of a harp—light and celestial, yet deeply resonant. He realized suddenly that the music in his dream had not been dreamt, for the melody he heard now was the same one: beautiful, but of a crushing sadness that was close to unbearable. Despite himself, August’s eyes were suddenly hot with tears.
The music room was thick with the scent of gardenias, and August was surprised to discover that the musician was a familiar figure in black gown and veil. Her posture and aura were so altered, however, that for a second August wondered if this was indeed his aunt Orchid. Her neck was bowed, so he could not see his aunt’s face, but her shoulders and back seemed heavy, as if burdened by a thousand sorrows. Her slender fingers moved with a leaden elegance, as though coaxing the mournful tune from the strings of a broken heart.
Orchid looked up, suddenly aware of a presence, and for the briefest of moments, August saw fatigue and frailty and sadness in her face. But it was replaced almost instantly with the cool and inscrutable Malveau composure.
Immediately behind her hung the portrait of Orchid’s family before it was visited by tragedy, and August was again struck by the contrast of the woman today and the softer, carefree one of yesteryear. She reminded him of the girl featured in the carriage house newspaper clipping, the girl smiling breathlessly as she was crowned with a tiara.
“What are you doing in here?” Orchid asked impassively, standing and rubbing her long fingers.
“Why,” asked August, emboldened by genuine curiosity, “is there an old picture of you in Aunt Hydrangea’s tiara and sash? It was Hydrangea who won the Miss Pepper Princess pageant.” He paused. “Wasn’t it?”
Orchid picked up her palmetto fan and slipped into a chair by the fireplace, fanning herself. She smiled strangely.
“Hmm,” she said, eyeing August, clearly contemplating what to say next. “No, August,” she said matter-of-factly, “it was not. I won the pageant.”
August gaped, unconsciously stepping forward.
“What? But she wears that tiara all the…It’s her whole…I mean, it’s who she is!”
Orchid nodded.
“It is true that she was a contestant. And she was quite disagreeable to her own sister, to me, when I entered to compete against her.”
“I can kind of see,” August suggested cautiously, “why that might upset her. Why did you enter, ma’am?”
Orchid looked away quickly, studying her fan.
“It’s a free country, is it not?” she said irritably. “Why should Hydrangea’s happiness be of more consequence than mine?”
“So…why does she think that she won?”
Orchid sighed, fanning herself. “After I left Locust Hole, she became increasingly, well”—she glanced at August—“the way she is now. She was convinced that the pageant had been stolen from her. That the tiara was rightfully hers. That she had been…betrayed.”
Orchid softly snorted.
“My life had move
d on. I had a husband. The twins. Château Malveau. What did I care about some small-town competition and a rhinestone trinket? So”—she shrugged—“I let her have it: the tiara, the title, the illusion. All those around her indulged the fantasy, unwilling to deny her some small victory.”
August ran his finger down a nearby column, feeling a sense of guilt. He was beginning to realize that his caregiver was even more fragile than he had understood.
“Poor Aunt Hydrangea,” he muttered. “She depends on me; I should never have left her. Perhaps…perhaps I should go home.”
“Hydrangea,” observed Orchid, “is likely stronger than you imagine. Besides, I thought you were set on finding that little chunk of Cadaverite for your loving aunt Orchid?” She spoke with the quiet intensity of a coiled cobra. “To—what was it—make up for past mistakes?
“Who knows, child, what rewards might await the party that fetches me that particular jewel?”
The woman locked eyes with her nephew, and August was reminded of her intimidating power of persuasion. What was she implying, he wondered? School again? Money? It was within her power, he was certain, to make Hydrangea’s life a less impoverished one.
He considered too his own mission: to rid himself of increasing numbers of highly inconvenient zombies.
“I am, ma’am,” he agreed, nodding, “set on finding the Zombie Stone.” He straightened, recalling his purpose in seeking out his aunt. “I thought I might start with Professor Leech; he didn’t really get to finish his reading last night. Do you know how I might find him?”
Orchid scoffed.
“Leech? Champagne Fontaine is a nitwit for trusting that oily fraud. I doubt he’ll be of much use to you.”
August shrugged. “It’s a start.”
“Very well.” Orchid flapped her fan toward the foyer. “The so-called gentleman likely left his calling card. Try the silver tray in the foyer.”
The Zombie Stone Page 9