“In The Dwarf Omnibus,” Michael was saying, “G. G. Greenleaf writes about dwarves being master dam builders. Not like elves. All they ever want to build are beauty parlors.”
Emma groaned and said that she and Kate didn’t want to hear about dwarves. “We’re gonna die soon enough; don’t torture us.”
The creature emerged from the trees behind them and began waving its sword.
“Come on,” Kate said.
As the children picked their way down the hill, Kate’s hand went to her mother’s locket. It was up to her to get them out of here, up to her to protect them. After all, she had promised.
“Are those …,” Emma said.
“Yes,” Kate said.
“And—”
“Yes.”
“What’re they doing with them?”
“I don’t know.”
The creature had brought them down out of the woods to a clearing beside the dam. Up close, it was indeed like a huge wooden wall—perhaps twenty-five feet thick—and the whole thing was bowed, curving in a gentle C from one side of the chasm to the other. The front faced a long stretch of still water. The back—nothing, a void.
But none of them, not Kate, not Emma, not even Michael, were looking at the dam.
The reason was simple.
They had found the children of Cambridge Falls.
In the center of the clearing, forty or fifty boys and girls were massed into a tight knot. Kate guessed the youngest was about six, while the oldest looked to be near Michael’s age. There was no shouting, no pushing, no running about; none of the behavior Kate knew was normal when children were gathered together. Fifty children, give or take, stood in one place, perfectly still and quiet.
And around them paced nine of the black-garbed, moldering creatures.
There was a harsh bark, and the children’s captor drove them forward.
“Emma,” Kate whispered, “we need to ask these kids questions. So don’t do anything, okay?”
“What’re you talking about?”
“She means don’t start a fight,” Michael said.
“Fine,” Emma grumbled.
The creature forced them into the back of the pack. Kate was relieved that most of the children seemed to be looking at the woods across the gorge and didn’t notice their arrival. One boy, however, was staring directly at them. He had a round face, a mop of wildly curly red hair, and very large front teeth.
“What’re you looking at, you—” Emma began.
“Emma.”
Emma closed her mouth.
“You ain’t from around here,” the boy said.
He kept his voice low, and the look on his face was one Kate recognized. She’d seen it on children who after years in orphanages had decided no one was ever going to adopt them. The boy had no hope.
“My name’s Kate,” she said, speaking in the same near-whisper as the boy. “This is my brother and sister, Michael and Emma. What’s your name?”
“Stephen McClattery. Where’re you from?”
“The future,” Michael said. “Probably about fifteen years. Plus or minus.”
“Michael’s our leader,” Emma said brightly. “So if we all die, it’s his fault.”
The boy looked confused.
“That thing found us in the woods and made us come here,” Kate said. “What are they?”
“You mean the Screechers?” Stephen McClattery said. A small girl had come up to stand beside him. “We call ’em that ’cause of how they yell. You heard ’em yell?”
“I hear ’em when I’m sleeping,” the little girl said.
Kate looked at her. She was younger than Emma and had pigtails and glasses with lenses that made her eyes look huge. She was clutching a very worn doll that was missing half its hair.
“Is this your sister?”
Stephen McClattery shook his head. “This is Annie. She used to live a house over back in the village.”
The little girl nodded vigorously to show that this was in fact true.
“Where do you live now?” Kate asked, though she already knew the answer.
“The big house,” Stephen said.
Kate glanced at her brother and sister. It was clear they were all picturing the large room with bars on the windows and row upon row of beds.
“You’re orphans?” Emma asked. “All you kids?”
“No,” Stephen said. “We got parents.”
“Then why don’t you live with them?” Michael asked.
Stephen McClattery shrugged. “She won’t let us.”
Kate felt a shiver of dread; surely here was the answer behind the missing children. But before Kate could ask who “she” was, one of the children cried out, and the mob surged forward. The children were jumping, screaming, climbing over top of each other, their fear of the creatures seemingly forgotten. Stephen McClattery and the girl had disappeared into the crowd.
“What is it?” Emma asked. “What’s over there?”
Kate strained to peer over the heads of the children. Across the gorge, figures were streaming out of the woods. She realized why the children were yelling.
“It’s their mothers.”
The figures on the other side were all women. They were waving, calling the children by name.
Kate looked around. The Screechers—that was what the boy had called them—were at the front of the mob, pushing the children back. This was their chance to escape. But where would they go? They were still trapped in the past.
Then it came to her.
“Michael! Do you still have the picture?”
“No, it disappeared when I put it in—”
“Not the one Abraham gave us. The other! The one you took with your camera! When we were in the room! Tell me you have it!”
Michael’s eyes went wide as he realized what she meant. Putting Abraham’s photo in the book had brought them here. So maybe the picture he had taken in the underground study would get them back.
“Yeah! Yeah, I got it right here!”
But even as Michael reached into his bag, there was a new sound.
Arruuuggga—arruuuggga!
It was coming from the trees behind them, and Kate saw the children and their mothers fall silent and look toward the noise. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then she heard the unmistakable chugging of an engine, and a shiny black motorbike emerged from the forest, its thick, knobby tires chewing through the dirt. The driver was a very small, very odd-looking man. His chin was long and thin, the top of his skull narrowed almost to a point, and yet the middle of his face was wide and flat. It was as if someone had seized his chin and the dome of his head and pulled. He had pale stringy hair and was dressed in a dark pin-striped suit and an old-fashioned bow tie. He wore a pair of bug-eyed goggles. He hit the horn.
Arruuuggga!
The motorcycle had a sidecar. But Kate couldn’t make out the features of the passenger. Whoever it was had on an old driving duster, a leather helmet, and the same bug-eyed goggles as the driver.
Arruuuggga!
The motorcycle bumped and chugged in a circle around the children and came to a stop at the edge of the dam. Kate noticed that the Screechers had not moved. They seemed to be waiting.
The driver shut off the engine and ran around to his passenger, who had already stepped clear of the sidecar. The figure removed its duster, goggles, and helmet and dropped them on the little man. Standing before them was a girl of sixteen or seventeen. She had flawless white skin and golden hair that fell to her shoulders in perfect ringlets. She wore a frilly white dress that seemed to Kate old-fashioned, and her arms were bare and slender. She wore no jewelry. She didn’t need any. She was the most radiantly beautiful creature Kate had ever seen. She seemed almost to exude life. Spotting a yellow flower at her feet, the girl let out a cry of delight, plucked it, then turned and skipped to the dam.
“Who is she?” Michael asked.
“That’s her,” Stephen McClattery said quietly. “That’s the Countess.”
“I don’t like her,” Emma said. “She looks stuck-up.”
The girl, or young woman (however one chooses to classify a girl of sixteen or seventeen), reached the dam and started up a set of stairs. Till now, Kate had been too focused on the children to take in just how massive the dam truly was. Rising six or seven feet above the lip of the gorge, it formed a sort of wide, curved bridge to the other side. Kate watched as the Countess, arriving at the top, danced across till she came to the center; there she stopped, poised over the heart of the gorge, backed by nothing but sky and the tree-covered walls of the valley.
She turned from the shawled mothers to the children and gave a little hop of excitement. “Oh, look! You all came! I’m so happy to see everyone!”
“She doesn’t seem that bad,” Michael whispered.
“Oh, shut up,” Emma hissed.
The girl’s voice was gay, and she had, Kate noticed, a slight accent.
“Now, I’m sure you’re all wondering why I asked you here. Well, you may thank my secretary, Mr. Cavendish.” She gestured toward the little man, who was attempting to plaster down his greasy hair. “Oh, isn’t he just the most darling thing! Well, he reminded me that today marks the second anniversary of my arrival in Cambridge Falls. C’est incroyable, n’est-ce pas? Two whole years we’ve been together! How perfectly wonderful!”
If anyone else thought it was wonderful, they kept it to themselves.
“And yet, Mr. Cavendish also reminded me that your men seem no closer to finding what I asked them to find than they were the day I arrived. Boo.” She stuck out her lower lip in a pout.
“She has a nice way about her, don’t you think?” Michael said.
This time Kate told him to shut up.
The Countess continued: “But do not despair, mes amis! Your little Countess thought and thought till her head hurt, and I’ve found where I went wrong! Yes, I blame no one but myself! You see, I told your men, ‘Find me what I want and I will go away. You’ll be reunited with your families. All shall be as it was.’ Quelle imbécile! How could I have been so dull-witted?! I ask your men to find something, and the reward for finding it is that you will be deprived of my company?! Is it any wonder no progress has been made?! You don’t want to let me go! You love me too much! I don’t blame you, of course. But it simply won’t do. So, difficult as it is, we must make you try to love me less.”
She waved her hand, and suddenly, one of the black-garbed, decaying creatures was striding toward the children. It reached into the mass of small bodies, and a second later, little Annie was tucked under its arm, being carried toward the dam. A cry went up from the children and the mothers. The creature stepped up beside the Countess and, holding the girl by the scruff of her jacket, dangled her over the edge of the dam.
Annie’s scream pierced Kate’s ears. Her legs kicked in the empty air. A woman on the other side of the gorge fell to her knees.
“What’s he doing?!” Emma cried, gripping Kate’s arm so hard it hurt. “He can’t—he can’t—”
The Countess put her hands to her ears and danced around in a circle, crying comically, “Too much noise! I can’t hear myself think!”
Finally, the cries subsided till there was only the sound of Annie’s whimpering.
The Countess smiled sympathetically. “I know! It’s terrible! But what am I to do? It’s been two years; that is right, isn’t it, Mr. Cavendish? It has been two years?”
The Secretary nodded his oddly shaped head.
“And believe me, mes anges, I do not enjoy playing the grump! But I must cure you of your excessive love of me!” The Countess picked up the doll that Annie had dropped and smoothed its patchy hair. “So, the word has already been sent to your men. They’ll find me what I’m looking for, or beginning this Sunday—I do hate Sundays, they’re so dull—beginning this Sunday, your town will lose a child each week I have to wait.”
With a giggle, she tossed the doll off the dam. As it tumbled into the void, cries rose on both sides of the gorge. Kate could feel terror race through the children. Then something brushed past her shoulder. She looked up and, seeing a torn, faded uniform, at first thought it was one of the Screechers. But something was different. The figure moved smoothly, without any of the creatures’ jerkiness. And it was enormous. Taller than any of the Screechers and two or three times as wide. If he’d been a man, he’d have been the largest man Kate had ever seen. As he passed, he glanced down. His eyes were a deep granite gray. Then he was gone, moving through the crowd of children, making directly for the beautiful creature on the dam.
“Who is that?” Emma asked. “He’s not a Screecher. You see his eyes?”
Up on the dam, the Countess nodded her golden head, and the Screecher pulled Annie back from the edge and tossed her toward the stairs. Sobbing, the girl scrambled to her feet and ran to join the other children.
“Well, this has been a delightful visit. You all look very well indeed! I like to see you taking care of yourselves. However, I must—”
“She’s seen him!” Emma said.
“Seen who?” As the man had passed, Michael had been busy cleaning his glasses, rubbing at the lenses as if he could somehow erase what he’d just witnessed. “What’re you talking about?”
The Countess was staring at the large man who was just then emerging from the mass of children. Kate saw her whisper something to the Screecher beside her, and the thing opened its mouth, and once again they heard the scream.
Michael and Emma put their hands over their ears, but it did no good. The other children reacted as if struck, many falling to their knees. Gasping, Kate watched as three of the creatures pulled their rusting, jagged swords and closed on the man. In an instant, the man was holding his own sword. The mob of children fell back. Emma was knocked over. Kate and Michael pulled her to her feet, stumbling backward so they weren’t trampled. Above the cries of the children, they could hear grunting and the clanging of swords, and then, one by one, the horrible screams were cut short.
When they had pulled themselves free from the throng, Kate saw the three Screechers lying on the ground. They seemed to be melting into the dirt with a horrible hissing sound. The man was breathing heavily. His head scarf had been ripped away. He had long dark hair and a scar down the side of his face.
“He killed ’em!” Stephen McClattery gasped. “He killed those Screechers! No one’s ever done that!”
Six more Screechers charged toward the man.
Atop the dam, the Countess was holding up the flower she’d plucked, gazing over it like a girl watching her dance partner across the room. Kate saw that Cavendish, her driver with the football-shaped head, was trying his best to hide behind the motorbike.
“He can’t fight six of them,” Michael said. “It’s too many.”
Apparently, the large man had reached the same conclusion. As the creatures moved to attack, he turned toward the dam and reared back.
“Die, witch!”
But before he could throw his sword, the Countess blew on the flower. Kate saw a golden swirl sweep toward the man and envelop him. Reared back, muscles tense, he became absolutely still. A Screecher kicked him in the chest, and the man toppled over, landing in the dirt and sending up a cloud of dust, still without changing position. The Countess gave a small laugh and skipped in place.
“Did you see that?” Michael said. “Did you see what she did?”
“She’s a witch,” Emma said. “Someone should push her off that dam. Or burn her. That’s what you do with witches.”
Kate knew they had to get away. It didn’t matter who saw them. And she was about to tell Michael to get out the book when the beautiful young woman turned and looked directly at them.
Kate felt as if she’d been stabbed.
The Countess extended her arm, her finger aimed at Kate’s heart. Her voice was a shriek. “Stop them!”
“Michael,” Kate hissed, “the book! Now!”
“Someone will see—”
“It doesn’t
matter!” And she reached into his bag and yanked the book out herself. The dark shapes were running toward them. One of them screamed. Then another. And another. Kate had the awful feeling of being held underwater, unable to get air. She couldn’t breathe.
“Where’s—where’s the picture?”
Michael didn’t move. Kate could see the creatures’ screams had frozen him in place. Then Emma slapped him.
“What—what’d you do that for?”
“The picture!”
Michael glanced at the dark figures closing in, throwing children out of the way. The Countess screamed again, “Stop those children!” He fumbled in his pockets, pulled out the picture, and immediately dropped it.
Kate fell to her knees, opening the book in her lap.
“Emma—grab my arm!”
Hands trembling, she reached for the picture, but Michael had put his foot on it.
“Where is it?” he said. “I can’t see it!”
“You’re standing on it! Move!”
The Screechers were getting closer. Their cries stronger than ever. She had to focus, focus.…
Then, for a moment, silence. It seemed the creatures had to breathe after all. Kate felt the air return to her lungs, her heart pump blood through her body. She pushed Michael out of the way and grabbed the picture. It was covered with dirt and creased from his shoe. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Stephen McClattery tossed aside.
“Hurry!” Emma yelled.
“Hold on to me!” Kate said.
As two dark shapes closed in, Kate placed the photo on the blank page. She felt a tug in her stomach, and the ground disappeared beneath them.
Kate blinked. Everything was dark. The air felt cool. She blinked a few more times, and then, as her eyes adjusted, relief swept through her. They were in the underground room in the mansion. She was kneeling on the floor with the book in her lap. Across the room, she could see the three of them, Michael and Emma and herself, their bodies outlined by the flashlights.
And then, suddenly, they were gone.
Kate felt herself being released. As if some force had been holding her in place.
“Kate.” Emma’s voice was beside her. Kate became aware of how fiercely her sister was gripping her arm. “Kate, where’s Michael?”
The Emerald Atlas Page 5