The Secret Room

by Antonia Michaelis

  “Hey!” the person called. “It stinks something terrible at your place! Is it you that smells like that?”

  I looked over at the fence.

  But I didn’t have to. I knew who it was without looking: Tom was standing on the lawn, leaning both his elbows on the top plank of wood and holding his nose.

  His sister Anna was standing next to him, her eyes huge with fright, looking at me and the charred blanket.

  “You should shower more often!” cried Tom and snickered. “And why are you dressed like that?”

  I looked down at my pants that were wet and black with soot. I looked at the large cooking pot at my feet. It was still half full of water.

  I don’t know how it happened—the momentum from all the excitement and running around was probably just still flowing through me.

  I lifted the pot up calmly and went over to the fence. Tom stared at me, dumbfounded. He was so dumbfounded that he didn’t budge. I lifted the pot up and, without a word, emptied it onto his head.

  Then I stepped back, satisfied, and watched the water run down Tom’s collar, watched the way it made his light hair darker and ran down his soaking shirt in rivulets, over his pants and into his sneakers. It really was a big pot of water.

  Tom stood there gasping for air. He wanted to say something, but first he opened and closed his mouth a couple times because he couldn’t think of anything.

  It made him look like a big fish without fins.

  “You—you—, ” he finally said. “You can’t do that!”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I can’t?”

  “He’s soaking wet!” cried Anna.

  Her bulging eyes had gotten even bigger, but now there was anger in them too.

  “He’ll catch his death of cold!” she cried and stuck her pointer finger out at me reproachfully. “And you’ll be to blame!”

  I tucked the empty pot under my arm and shook my head.

  “No, he won’t. It’s summer. Just take your brother home, and make sure he changes his clothes! You’re a little wiser than he is.”

  Anna seemed to like that because she smiled cautiously and took Tom by his wet sleeve and pulled him away from the fence. “I’m—I’m going to get you back for that, you— you grimy scarecrow,” he growled.

  “Take a look at yourself,” I answered cheerfully. “And anyway, I have other things to do.”

  When I looked back once more from the patio door, I saw that Anna had also turned around. She was standing in the middle of the lawn, waving.

  “Why do you look like that?” Arnim wanted to know when I was back in the secret room.

  “Don’t ask! I had to soak a sofa.”

  “A sofa?”

  “Yes,” I said and sighed heavily. “And because I had really gotten into it, I also soaked Tom.”

  “I see,” said Arnim.

  We went over to the last painting, the very last one with the black and white spotted bird instead of me.

  “When I leave this time, either everything will be okay,” I whispered, “or it will end here.”

  Arnim nodded.

  “Are we going to see each other again?” I asked.

  Arnim tilted his head thoughtfully. “Maybe ...”

  Then I wrapped my warm arms around his cold body, and we stood like that for a while, totally silent.

  “Keep your fingers crossed!” I said. And then I touched the painting. Just a few seconds later I landed on the tiled floor of the courtyard next to the sheet of glass.

  There was a tiny silver lock on the side, just like on the cage. I stuck the key in it and turned it.

  The glass sprung open like a door. Yes, and there was the knife, right below me, glistening.

  The chamber was much deeper than I had thought. I sat down on the edge and lowered myself into it carefully.

  The knife was waiting for me.

  “Take me,” it seemed to say. “Take me with you, and let me finally do what I was meant to do.”

  I lifted it and ran my finger along the horsehead scabbard.

  What had this knife been made for? And who had made it?

  “Because everything has an opponent,” it answered silently. “For every evil thing there’s a good one, for every black thing there’s a white one, for every sad thing a happy one.”

  “And you?” I asked after I had struggled out of the chamber. “Are you the Nameless One’s opponent? Then why haven’t you done anything to stop him before?”

  It was as if a quiet laugh came out of the metal and into my fingers. “I didn’t have anyone to hold me,” it replied. “I can’t do anything by myself. That’s why it was so easy for him to lock me in here.”

  “But now—now you have me?”

  “And you have me,” said the knife.

  Then I felt something touch my shoulder.

  I was so startled that I took a step forward—and in front of me was the chamber where the knife had been, and now there was no thick sheet of glass to keep me from falling in.

  The Nameless One, I thought. This time he would kill me.

  But before I touched the floor of the chamber, I had wings again and instead of fingers I had bird claws that were holding the knife. I flapped wildly and desperately, trying to get away from the cruel ruler of the palace. But when I looked around, there was no lion and no eagle to be seen.

  Just a yellow bird and a green one, following me into the air.

  “Where is he?” I called to them in confusion. We flew in wide spirals, higher and higher into the air whose darkening blue revealed the approaching evening.

  “Who?” cried the green bird, Spinach Luggage.

  “Him!” I cried. “The one with no name! The powerful one! The ...”

  “Shut up!” chirped Yellow Pea of Santorini. “No one’s here. It’s just us. It was us who sat on your shoulders. We had to get you to fall so you’d turn into a bird again. Because you have to hurry, boy! Hurry!”

  “He’s on his way here!” Spinach Luggage added.

  I desperately tried to fly faster.

  We flew over the sinister heart of the palace, over staircases that led to nothing and towers that were split in half. The knife was heavy in my claws, but it gave me a feeling of security.

  Spinach Luggage and Yellow Pea were flying over the black-and-white chaos a short distance ahead of me. It was good that they were there, the two birds and the knife. I wasn’t fighting all by myself anymore.

  But we didn’t get far.

  We had just flown over the first jagged parapet next to the courtyard with the sheet of glass in it when a black shadow appeared above us in the evening sky.

  Now he’ll send out his storm clouds, I thought, let his thunder rumble, and summon his storm. The shadow came closer and closer. Soon it was soaring high above us, and I saw his yellow eagle eyes.

  Why wasn’t he preparing to dive down? He looked like he hadn’t seen me at all...

  “He hasn’t,” said the knife in its cold, silent language. “Look at your feathers, Achim!”

  I turned my head. And it was a good thing that it had rained and Ines had lit the candle, that she had forgotten to blow it out, that I had put out the fire on the sofa and had dragged the charred blanket out to the yard and that...

  Because now my feathers were speckled black and white like the palace below me. The soot that had stuck to my pants and sweater also stuck to my bird feathers. There were no more violet speckles, no more green legs. There were just a few feathers that were still white, sticking up here and there out of the black.

  I had the best camouflage imaginable. From above I must have blended in with the palace like a chameleon.

  The Nameless One’s keen, glowing eyes looked for me in vain.

  But he saw the two small birds flying with me, the yellow and green ones. And with a cry of rage and disappointment, the eagle swooped down onto them.

  I watched them flap for freedom. But they weren’t fast enough.

  Like a bolt of black lightni
ng, the Nameless One dove down from above, his mighty wings churned the air like water, and he hurtled by so close I was almost thrown off course.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw an explosion of green and yellow feathers.

  “Keep flying,” said the knife. “Don’t turn around.” But I turned around. Just once.

  And then, lying amid all the confusing black and white, I saw two small patches of color. Limp and lifeless, they lie on the ground and didn’t move, the eagle’s huge dark body perched over them silently and threateningly.

  A little later, I landed in the palace garden. My sooty wings became sooty sweater sleeves again, my sooty claws became sooty shoes, and even my heart felt like it’d been through a fire.

  “But he can’t kill them!” I whispered desperately. “They were already dead! He can’t kill them again! They have to be here! They have to be sitting in a cage here somewhere!”

  I felt around in my pants pockets for the tiny silver key.

  I ran from tree to tree, from cage to cage, and with wild frenzy I let lock after lock snap open, let bird after bird fly to freedom.

  Soon I was surrounded by colorful fluttering and excited twittering, confused tufts of ruffled feathers bouncing all over the white gravel path. You would have thought that someone had unexpectedly emptied a box of paints all over the palace garden.

  I didn’t stop to watch the spectacle around me. I raced back and forth in zigzags like a scampering rabbit, the knife in one hand, the key in the other, looking for the two small birds that might have saved my life.

  “I can’t find them!” I cried desperately to the trees. “Where are they? Where?”

  But the trees didn’t answer. Their rustling had petered out; their leaves were still.

  And the chirping and chattering had fallen silent.

  My cry echoed through the palace garden like the beat of a drum, and I felt frightened and stopped running.

  “Where are they?” I whispered once more, very quietly.

  Then, as if on cue, the freed birds flew up from the ground, and the air was suddenly filled with the beating of their wings, hundreds and hundreds of them climbed into the air through the beautiful, sad trees and swung into the sky as one huge flock.

  I tilted my head back and watched them go.

  The night was coming. It took the colors from the birds and painted them gray and black, but its darkness couldn’t harm them. Soon, on a bright sunny day, they would gather with all the others and start their long journey south.

  Arnim, I thought. Arnim, I’m here.

  I haven’t forgotten you.

  I’m coming.

  “I can’t find them,” I said and put the key back in my pocket.

  “No,” answered the knife. “The Nameless One is still guarding them. But now we have to hurry because he won’t guard them forever. He knows that you’re here.”

  I looked back at the palace.

  And there, in the approaching night, a thunderstorm was brewing, bigger and more powerful than all the storms I had ever seen—much bigger than the storm when he had caught me with his lightning.

  “He’s on his way,” said the knife.

  CHAPTER 12

  In which a fight takes place in a

  storm and the tower collapses

  I wanted to run to get away from the Nameless One’s terrifying storm. But just then the knife’s horsehead scabbard began to change. It stretched, slipped away from me, and grew and grew—and then a gray horse was standing in front of me. It shook itself as if it had been sleeping too long.

  I climbed onto its back.

  “Hold on tight,” said the horse that had been a knife the moment before. It unfolded two gray wings and climbed into the air, like the recently freed birds, but much faster and more powerfully.

  We raced ahead of the storm as if we were nothing more than a crazy part of the weather itself. The wind whooshed around my ears, and I had to cling to the horse’s gray mane so I wouldn’t get blown off.

  “Like that’s good,” murmured the horse, “now we’ll leave him behind, the Nameless One, that old thief. Let him try to catch us. He won’t catch up with me.”

  I nestled my face against the horse’s neck and was astonished at how warm and alive it felt.

  “Who were they?” I asked. “The two birds? Spinach Luggage and Yellow Pea of Santorini? Why did they help me? You know why, don’t you?”

  And despite the roaring wind and the rolling thunder, the gray horse understood what I had said.

  “Didn’t you ever wonder where your parents were?” he asked back.

  “They died,” I answered. “Maria from the orphanage told me. It was an accident, like Arnim, but they were sitting in an airplane, not crossing the street.”

  “So they died,” said the horse.

  He didn’t say anything else.

  But I understood. “You mean—the two small birds—the yellow one and the green one—they were once my parents? And—they remember? They recognized me? After such a long time?”

  “Details,” said the horse. “Details change. Hearts don’t change.”

  “And I,” I whispered, “I lost them!”

  And if I hadn’t already used up all my tears that afternoon in the flower shop, the horse’s gray mane would have gotten wet, so wet that the birds in their nests below us would have thought it was raining.

  It was almost dark when we saw the prison tower looming before us in the distance.

  I turned around and immediately wished that I hadn’t. The towering clouds were so close behind us that they were almost touching the gray horse’s tail.

  We raced ahead of it to the tower and around us the first bolts of lightning began to strike the plains. But they missed their target.

  In the middle of the blackness behind us I had seen something blacker and more threatening than anything else. Something that was soaring on wide wings, coming closer and closer, flying as fast as we were. It was the Nameless One. His yellow eyes burned holes in the darkness.

  Then we reached the tower. The vine’s white and black flowers glowed in front of us like big, round stars—yes, even the black ones were glowing though I didn’t understand how it was possible.

  The horse’s gray coat of hair was also shimmering brightly, and fine, silver steam rose from his nostrils into the icy night.

  “When we land,” said the hose with his silent voice, “you can’t waste any time. I’ll turn into a knife again, then you’ll pull me from the scabbard and use me to cut the plant’s stem. One slash will have to do; any more will take too much time. No matter what happens, act quickly. He’s really close already...”

  Yes, he was close. So close that the horse couldn’t say anything else. Because at that moment, the Nameless One caught up with us.

  I think I screamed, but the roar of the storm drowned out every sound.

  The horse spun around, rose up on his front legs, and whinnied with a voice of thousands of silver bells and millions of clinking glasses. I saw his moon-colored hooves flash. I saw the Nameless One racing toward us, his talons extended and his sharp beak open with an enraged cry.

  And I felt the impact as the giant eagle’s body crashed into the horse in midair. They were both big, and their powerful, outstretched wings glowed like torches in the night.

  I don’t really know what happened next.

  I just know that I clung to my companion’s mane desperately and that I couldn’t tell what direction was up and what was down. Sparks flew around me in the night and the smell of my own fear mingled with the red smell of unleashed rage—a rage that had built up over thousands of years and had become enormous. It had been waiting, this rage, lying in wait, and now its time had come.

  The battle between the two animals lasted an eternity, and at the same time, it just lasted a matter of seconds.

  Maybe that battle was the only thing in the world. Maybe it didn’t even happen. I can’t really say.

  I closed my eyes so that I wou
ldn’t have to watch, and fear rang through my ears.

  Arnim, I thought, Arnim. That was my single thought.

  Then it was over.

  There was a cry, a terrible cry, and it took me a little while to realize that it was the gray horse that had made it.

  His throat, the one I was clinging to, jerked to the side. Between my fingers I felt something sticky.

  Blood? Could the horse bleed? I licked my finger, and it tasted salty.

  Salty like tears.

  I lifted my head to look for the Nameless One in the blackness of the night. I couldn’t see him.

  “He’s dead,” said the horse, and even though he spoke without a voice, I could barely hear him. “But I’m dying too. I can feel it. This is the end. Let’s take the final step.”

  We landed at the foot of the tower. The horse’s movements had lost their smoothness, and he landed in the grass like a broken kite. I had just slid off his back when he fell to his knees and then rolled onto his side. I wanted to throw my arms around his neck. “Wait!” I wanted to cry. “Don’t leave me!”

  But there was no longer a gray horse next to me. However, lying there in the tall, damp autumn grass was the silver knife. The storm had broken up into individual clouds, and a pale moon was shining over the strange spectacle.

  A short distance away, a large, white body was lying in the grass, glowing faintly. I didn’t have to go any closer to know that it was the body of a lion. But he wasn’t dead—I didn’t know if it was possible for him to die at all. I saw him breathing, and I suspected that he was just gathering his strength.

  “When we land,” the horse had said, “you can’t waste any time. I’ll turn into a knife again ...”

  I swallowed and lifted the silver object from the grass. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the lion move.

  “One slash will have to do, any more will take too much time. No matter what happens, act quickly...”

  I looked into the eyes of the horsehead carved in silver. “This is the end,” the eyes seemed to say. “Let’s take the final step.”

  And I did it.

  I slid the knife out of the scabbard, pulled my arm back, and slashed the vine’s stem, right where it was growing out of the earth.