by Carrie Jones
One second later Bloom was smiling. “Let’s go!”
He urged them up the stairs.
“The feather?” Annie asked.
“Still got it.”
Johann and SalGoud had managed to get the trapdoor open, and the sunlight streamed down into the chamber. They stood on a green lawn surrounded by big white buildings and walkways. Tourists snapped pictures of them as they urged Annie, Jamie, Eva, and Bloom to hurry up and out.
Below them, the Bugbear howled, and it was such a strange and unpleasant sound that the tourists went still. Then they began to applaud, thinking it was a play or street performance.
Eva bowed as she popped through.
Annie didn’t seem to even notice. She yanked Jamie up and out, and then Bloom rushed through onto the street.
“Shut it!” she ordered.
She was almost too afraid to look at what was happening down below, but as the trapdoor closed, she could see the Bugbear still fighting off skeletons, could smell the acid stench of bones and dust evaporating. Then the wooden door shut completely, and she was grateful to not have to hear anything else.
“Well, would you look at that,” Eva said, admiringly. She went down on her hands and knees, feeling around the grass for the trapdoor, prodding her thick, strong fingers into the dirt. “You can’t find it again. It’s just gone—poof!”
“Must be one way,” Jamie reasoned as some tourists snapped pictures and yelled for an encore.
Eva stood up. “I’ll give you an encore!”
She started to do a happy little dwarf dance right there, all stamping feet and ax throwing.
Bloom sighed, exhausted, and smiled. “She’s such a show-off.”
While Eva played to the crowd, a sweaty Johann explained that they were on the College Green inside Trinity College, which was established by an English queen centuries ago.
“Where are the secret societies?” Jamie interrupted, studying the fronts of all the large government-looking buildings, all white and seemingly marble, and all facing in toward the square.
“Underground and hidden in plain sight,” Johann blurted and then looked a wee bit embarrassed. He started explaining how dwarfs built the subterranean parts of the library that had over five million books, but abruptly stopped his boasting. “I’m sorry about all of that. But I know you’ve got to get the feather to be successful. I just know it.”
“Because of the prophecy?” Annie asked.
“Yes.”
They all stared at him. The tourists applauded for Eva and began to drift away.
“I’ve got more!” she bellowed, wiping the sweat off her brow despite the chilly air. “I could ax dance all day.”
“She could,” Bloom said, “or at least until she passed out.”
Johann led them past the Berkeley Library and Arnaldo Pomodoro’s Sphere Within Sphere bronze sculpture, which sat on the stone patio outside the library’s walls.
“The artist has made a bunch of these,” Johann said, pausing to touch it reverently. “The craftsmanship is almost worthy of a dwarf, I say.”
They all paused by the sphere, although Bloom’s impatience showed in his foot tapping on the ground. Annie, however, was awestruck by the spinning globe within a globe. It was so beautiful. The bronze shone in the sun, which had just managed to come out from behind a sheath of clouds. Tourists hopped up the steps to the platform that the sphere sat on, ready to take a picture. They were quite cheery and laughing; Annie smiled, happy that some people didn’t have to deal with boiling acid and could just be joyful. But her attention quickly turned back to the spheres. They seemed to resonate somehow. They reminded her of time stopping, of the vibrations of the strings …
“What do they do? The spheres?” Annie whispered, reaching forward to touch it.
“Nothing—” Johann began.
Pink liquid exploded from outside of the inner sphere. It sprayed the tourists posing nearby and both Annie and Johann, who were closest to it. The tourists screeched. Eva drew her ax as Annie staggered backward, hitting SalGoud but not knocking him over. Johann began to laugh hysterically as did the tourists on the other side of the sphere.
“Oh!” Annie gasped as Bloom started trying to wipe the pink liquid off her face. “Oh!”
“That is not nothing!” Eva bellowed.
In the confusion, the tourists who had been sprayed began laughing uncontrollably as their companion looked on helplessly and then began clicking away, taking photo after photo as if the spraying sphere was the most natural thing in the world.
Annie started giggling, too.
“Annie?” Bloom asked, pausing in his efforts to wipe the pink liquid off. He studied the corner of his cloak, which he had been using. None of the liquid had come off Annie. In fact, it seemed to be seeping into her skin. Johann’s, too. “This … this isn’t coming off you. Why are you laughing?”
“They’re taking pictures …” She giggled, pointing at the tourists and then falling on her butt—bam—right on the cold stone surface.
Johann snorted and started giggling, too. He plopped down next to Annie and made his feet wiggle in the air like babies do.
“Hahahaha!” Annie laughed. “Oh—hahahaha! Your feet!”
“It’s not actually funny, is it?” Jamie asked SalGoud. “I mean …” He motioned at Johann and Annie who were pretty much rolling around on the ground, giggling.
“To be laughing this hard,” SalGoud finished for him. “No. It is not. While laughter may be the best medicine, forced giggling while your skin is turning … Wait … Are those …?”
Everyone huddled around Annie and Johann examining their faces.
Eva threw her hands up in the air, disgusted. “You’re both polka-dotted.”
“Hee … Hee … Hee …” Annie kept giggling, pointing at Johann’s yellow-and-green polka-dotted face, which contrasted nicely with her purple-and-orange polka-dotted skin. “We look like we’re in a kids’ picture book.”
“With heffalumps or something …,” Johann added. He was having a hard time talking while he laughed. “Or helphants or eggplants. What am I even saying? Ack … giggle … I am so giggly giggling …”
“I would not be giggling if I were covered in polka dots,” Eva exclaimed, hustling them forward. “Where is your pride? I expect this from Annie, but you—Johann Murray-Broadsword! You are a dwarf. Dwarfs do not giggle.”
“I am not giggling. I am chuckling,” Johann retorted as he giggled. “Chuck-chuck-chuckling—upchuck buckling—chucky-chukasauris.”
Eva threw up her hands. “Let’s just get you back to the car before anyone else notices anything. It will be freaking fine. It’s all going to be freaking fine. First we fall into some abandoned underground city, then there’s a Bugbear and burning acid and skeletons that attacked my elf, and now this … Seriously, you all cannot stay out of trouble for one sec.” She paused, thinking, and shrugged. “Actually, that makes me kind of proud of you. Now try to blend in and not giggle so loud or be so spotted.”
But as they trotted through the streets of Dublin, past the police officers and tourists, the double-decker buses, the bicycling college students and foreign workers, everyone did indeed notice. People cheered and gave thumbs-up signs, applauding Johann and Annie’s “excellent use of face paint.”
“That must be for the game,” some footballers said coming out of a pub whose dark wooden exterior walls were brightened with green shamrocks. “Brilliant.”
A weird tickle of doom began stirring in Jamie’s chest. It wasn’t exactly anxiety. It wasn’t exactly panic. It was a feeling that something terribly bad was about to happen.
They hurried past the shops and pubs and the tourist knickknack places selling woven Irish sweaters, tweed hats, and stuffed-animal sheep emblazoned with the Irish flag. A stray cat, gray and white, trotted behind them for a while. It reminded Jamie of the one who’d helped him at his grandmother’s house, the one with the dullahan, the one who had appeared in Aurora, the
one who kept showing up, impossibly often.
He tried not to stress about it and instead pay attention to the street, the tourists, the cold against his face, and Annie and Johann, who seemed to still have an impossible case of the giggles.
“I’ve touched that sphere a million times before, and that has never happened. I’m telling ya, not ever.” Johann giggled even though his words were gruff. “Why now?”
“Maybe it’s because Annie touched it,” SalGoud answered.
Johann giggled again. He rubbed at his cheeks as if they hurt from laughing so much. “But why would that do anything? Why would it do that just because Annie touched it? It makes no sense—unless … What if it’s some sort of trap? Like a Stopper detection device or something?”
Just then a group of footballers heading out of another pub pointed at the sky.
“Would you look at that?”
“How do they do that?”
“You’re seeing that, right? Because I feel like someone may have put a little extra something in my shepherd’s pie!”
Turning his head to see what the football fans were talking about, Jamie gasped. Three winged creatures—each half bird and half woman—were soaring down the street. Their metal wings made clanging noises as they flapped in the air, propelling them.
SalGoud whispered, “Snatchers … I don’t … I thought they weren’t real.”
“What?” Eva stopped dead still, face suddenly ashen. SalGoud didn’t even look again, merely seized her and carried her beneath his arm as they all ducked into the pub that the football jersey–wearing men had just come out of.
“Hurry … Hurry …” Bloom held open the door and popped inside.
They all scurried to a window booth and stared out onto the street.
“Oh …” Annie giggled. “They are so beautiful.”
“Ethereal. ‘Ethereal’ is the word.” SalGoud sighed.
“And deadly.” Eva moved some malted vinegar and packets of brown sauce out of the way, crawling up onto the table to get a better view. “Look at the sight of them, just soaring away, la-di-da, not even caring if the humans see them. And who are they about to snatch? Huh? You know they don’t just randomly appear somewhere. The Snatchers have a mission. They always do … My dad says—”
A lilting voice came from behind their table, female and knowing. “Why, I would say that the Snatchers are most likely after you.”
17
Hovering Snatchers
Skinny with birdlike collarbones herself, the waitress who had spoken was shaped like a pear. Her shoulders seemed too small to carry the giant tray of steaming dishes in her hands, and her neck seemed too narrow to support her head. And her head seemed too little for all the thick, brown hair that fell around it in waves.
“You … What … I’m sorry, ma’am, why would you think that?” Annie asked, trying to be polite. She giggled. She groaned. Giggling was not polite. She giggled again.
Eva clamped a hand over Annie’s mouth. It smelled of dirt and metal.
“Well …” The woman’s eyes twinkled and she shifted her weight to her other foot. “The fact that you and the lad over there are polka-dotted and neither of ya can stop giggling is evidence number one to saying that they are looking for you.” She nodded sagely as if proud of herself, and then her stance stumbled a little under the weight of the tray of shepherd’s pie, colcannon, fish and chips, and some sort of meaty stew. “Why don’t you settle in? Hide the polka-dotted giggling ones from the window and check out the menus. I don’t think you’ll be leaving for a bit with those things out there. I’ll be right back to take your order.”
“But—” Bloom started to protest, but the waitress had already whirled away, vanishing through a narrow doorway that seemed to lead to another part of the establishment.
The entire pub wasn’t what Annie expected. She imagined more of a scary, seedy bar with dark lighting and beer smells, but this place smelled more like ground beef sautéed with onions. There were tons of booths and tables, not just a big bar with stools, although the pub certainly had those, too. Along the walls were crooked black-and-white photographs of mostly men. Jaunty Irish singing lilted through the loudspeakers. It was quite a different atmosphere from what was going on outside as the three Snatchers swooped down the street, talons out and ready to grab anyone in their path.
Annie, still giggling, motioned everyone forward. They all leaned over the wooden table, knocking the silverware about and displacing it. The little moneymaking gnome in Eva’s pocket whimpered and popped out, looking slightly smooshed. He scampered onto the table, slid across it, and then dived into Eva’s side pocket before anyone really noticed he’d moved.
The children’s heads were all close together as Annie asked, “What do you think? Should we stay?”
Johann giggled. “Those … things … are out … so, yes … I vote … plus, food.”
Jamie’s stomach growled loudly, agreeing.
Annie’s eyes met his and he gave a bit of a nod. She shifted her gaze to Bloom. “It seems like the wisest course of action. Plus, I’m hungry, too.”
Eva flopped back onto the upholstered bench. “Good. I’m famished. You still got the feather, Bloom? Good.”
She didn’t actually wait for Bloom to answer and yanked a menu out of the holder at the end of the table and didn’t offer it to anyone else. SalGoud passed the remaining menus out courteously. Just as he gave Annie hers, one of the Snatchers paused outside the pub window.
Eva shoved Annie beneath the table. “Get down. Get down!”
Johann clambered below it himself, meeting Annie among everyone’s smelly feet. They both giggled even though they were much too scared to be feeling giggly at all.
“What’s happening?” Annie pulled on Bloom’s pant leg and giggled.
“The Snatcher is looking inside,” Bloom explained. “Her face is pressed against the glass. She’s really pretty.”
“Totally pretty in a creepy, kill-you-soon-by-ripping-you-apart-with-my-talons kind of way,” Eva agreed. “I like it. I mean I would if she wasn’t after you guys,” she self-corrected. “I mean I would if she was only after Johann or something. Wow. I am totally getting the Irish stew. Did you guys see that plate go by?”
“Eva!” Bloom scolded. “Focus. There is a Snatcher … Right. There.”
His voice squeaked a little.
Jamie swallowed hard, his appetite suddenly gone. The Snatcher’s dark-brown eyes stared into his.
“Not you,” she mouthed and moved on, staring at Bloom, and then SalGoud. Each time she said the same two words. Not you.
Relief flooded Jamie’s heart. Not him. She did not want him. But then he remembered who she really, probably did want … He crossed his legs, kicking Johann in the shoulder. There was a big oomph noise and then more giggling.
“I’m not a football.” Johann laughed.
“Shh … Stay hidden. Just … just … stay hidden.” The words sounded panicked, but Jamie didn’t care. He was panicked.
The Snatcher hit the window with her fist. More people in the pub noticed her.
“Would you look at that?” the bartender said.
“That can’t be natural,” a granny sort of woman said, standing up at her table to get a better look. “What do you think she’s doing? Some sort of stunt for a TV3 show?”
“I’d be staying back and praying if I were you,” said one man, making the sign of the cross across his chest.
“I think she must be a supermodel,” the granny said. She fished some glasses out of a large, fabric purse. “Oh … she’s so pretty …”
The Snatcher hit the window a second time. Everyone at Annie’s table jumped. Annie was so startled her head hit the bottom of the table, jerking it.
“Stay still. Stay quiet,” Bloom hissed.
“Oh …,” the bartender said, spotting Annie and Johann. “Are you kids hiding from her? Is that your mum?”
Another man from the bar peered at them. Annie giggled a
nd gave a little wave. “Oh, they’re spotted. I bet that’s why they’re in trouble.”
“Should we tell their mum? She might be worried?” the bartender asked jovially.
“Worried?” The granny shook her head, standing up. “She looks like she’s ready to kill someone. And look at the wings on her. And the talons. That’s not their mum. This is a television show stunt, and these children aren’t involved at all. Are you?”
None of them answered for an awkward moment.
Annie giggled.
Johann giggled.
Jamie cleared his throat.
But Bloom was the one who finally answered, “She’s not our mom, ma’am, and we don’t think she’s very nice. And there are two more of them outside. We’d all rather they just go away.”
The music stopped.
The bar went silent.
For a moment, Jamie thought that maybe Annie had stopped time, but no—everyone just went quiet by their own choice. Glancing around the room, he tried to locate an escape path. The people of Aurora had taught him to never trust a crowd or a crowd mentality again.
Jamie wondered about the folks in the bar. What could they possibly be thinking as they stared at a Snatcher; two polka-dotted, small-size kids; himself; Eva; a ridiculously tall boy; and a remarkably handsome guy wearing a cloak? They had to seem pretty weird. The police at the airport had certainly thought so. The customers and workers at this pub place didn’t even know them. Maybe they would turn on them, grab pitchforks and …
Jamie’s imagination created a huge, terrifying scenario that involved them all running across burning fields, chased by Snatchers AND bar customers wielding farm tools. He shook his head. Nobody even kept farm tools like hoes and pitchforks and rakes in a bar. Did they?
He cleared his throat again and whispered to SalGoud, “I bet there’s another exit in the back in case …”
“In case what?” SalGoud whispered back.
“We aren’t going to do anything to you kids.”