May Bird and the Ever After

by Jodi Lynn Anderson

  Somber Kitty arched his back and hissed, leaping sideways and waggling in the air toward the boat. In a maneuver of amazing skill he teetered on his two side paws as they hit the bow, then shifted his weight into the boat, setting the craft in motion.

  The cat trembled under the frontmost bench seat for several minutes. Eventually his desire to look for May overcame him. He snuck his eyes and nose up over the rim to gaze at the shore as it drifted away. Several robed creatures now stood there, pointing and waving toward him. He darted under the seat again, his tremble becoming a shake.

  If he had remained aft, he would have seen the sign marking the path his boat drifted into, though he could not have read it.

  The sign, crooked and glowing, leaning as if it might fall into the water, announced Somber Kitty’s destination in bright green letters: PIT OF DESPAIR AMUSEMENT PARK.

  All had gone quiet now. Pumpkin and May stayed quiet too for a few moments, May gazing at the zooming stars above, still not quite believing them.

  “Am I dead?” she finally croaked.

  “Oh, I really don’t think so.”

  “Then what am I doing here? What is this place?”

  Pumpkin turned his sad, droopy eyes to her and grimaced, his mouth stretching extra wide. “I’m not the best spirit to ask. Arista is. He’s very smart.”

  “Where’s Arista?”

  “Back home.”

  “Home?” May asked hopefully.

  “Back home in Belle Morte,” Pumpkin said, nibbling a finger. “Belle Morte? But what about my mom? What about Briery Swamp?”

  Pumpkin shook his head. “Oh, my.” He eyed her sadly. “You should really ask Arista.”

  “But when do we see him? How far to Belle Morte?”

  Pumpkin seemed to consider, his eyebrows scrunching. “I’m not sure. I’m just a house spirit, you know. The next sign should tell us.”

  A few minutes later they drifted past a gnarled tree that curved over the water. A sign hung from it that read: FIERY FORK, 48 MILES, BELLE MORTE, 1,300,017 MILES.

  May gasped. She couldn’t even imagine how far that really was. “How long will that take?”

  Pumpkin sighed, flinging his arms behind his head dramatically. “Ages. Most of the night probably. You should rest.”

  She sank down in her seat, staying as far away from Pumpkin as possible. There was no way she was going to sleep. She stared up at the zipping stars that spread out over the dusky sky. An hour later it hadn’t gotten an ounce darker, and Pumpkin was snoring gently, his huge head lolling on his skinny neck, his wide mouth open and drooling.

  May tugged at the top of her black sparkly bathing suit nervously, then shoved her hands into the pockets of her shorts. Her hands closed on a piece of paper, and she pulled out the scroll she’d picked up at the movie theater.

  In red, drippy letters, the front of the brochure read: I’M DEAD, SO NOW WHAT? As May watched, the letters dripped down off the page onto her hands. May lifted up her fingers to see if it was ink, but there was nothing on them.

  She opened to the next page, dazed. It was blank for a moment, and then a glowing green picture of a skinny man with a hangman’s noose around his neck appeared. He lifted his hands in the air questioningly, his shoulders shrugging. More drippy writing scrawled itself beneath him. “Don’t panic. The Afterlife can be scary! But that doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyable, too. Talk to your local Undertaker about ways to make the most of your Eternity. All visits are confidential!”

  May turned the page. Again it stayed blank for a moment, before a glowing blob oozed across the page. It formed itself into a jellylike mass, from which suddenly sprouted two big round eyeballs and a pair of horns. The creature smiled at May. She flinched.

  “The Ever After is filled with lots of strange spirits, some you won’t recognize from your life on Earth. Don’t panic. Only a few are truly evil.” The blob creature moved its head to look behind itself, then its eyes widened in terror, as if something were chasing it. It went blobbing off the page. From the far right side of the paper, a dripping, dark, manlike creature appeared, with long gangly arms and a hunched back. His face was deformed into a mask of hatred, and he was dripping with slime. He drooled, rubbed at his nose with his forearm, and loped off the page.

  May’s blood ran cold. She quickly turned the page. What appeared there scared her even more. Two red eyes appeared on the page. “Remember, Bo Cleevil is watching you!” The eyes flared brighter red, and then disappeared, replaced by the line “Have a pleasant stay!”

  May closed the brochure. It vanished from her hands immediately.

  Pumpkin rolled over onto his side loudly, mumbling and snoring and flinging his cool arm across May’s shins. May stared at him. He was, without a doubt, the ugliest thing she had ever seen. She wondered what he had looked like when he was alive. She wondered what had happened to him to make him look the way he did now. She gently pulled her feet out from under him.

  She laid back and watched the stars zooming overhead. It reminded her of the night she and her mom had watched the meteors, and that planted a seed in her throat that grew into a lump.

  The lump grew as she thought of how mean she’d been to Somber Kitty the last time she’d seen him. She might never see him again.

  That was her last thought before she fell into a sleep so sound, she didn’t notice when someone had carried her off the boat.

  That evening news traveled quickly along the Styx Streamway System about a fugitive cat who had been spotted leaving the southeast portal, heading toward the Pit of Despair Amusement Park. Several Dark Spirits were dispatched with nets, daggers, and spears. But one creature and his slew of dogs, to the surprise of many, stayed away.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Beehive House

  Bzzzzzzzzzzzz May was lying on a bed, in a room with a low, rounded ceiling. She sat up, feeling like she’d had a long, vivid nightmare.

  “Bzzzzzzzzz.”

  The noise was coming from beyond a door that was rounded at the top, like the ceiling.

  “Bzzzz. You didn’t dream at all last night, my dear,” she heard from the other room. “Slept like the dead. Come have some soup, zzzzz.”

  The voice tapered into a series of long, soft buzzes. May slowly slid out of bed, tiptoed up to the doorway, and put her hands against the wood. She gave it a tiny nudge.

  From the sliver of room that revealed itself, May could make out a small, sloped space, and a man in the middle of it with his back turned. He was a very tiny, very old man—only a little taller than May—in a long cloak that was interrupted every six inches with a yellow stripe, or a black one. He reminded May of—

  “A bee. Yes, I get that all the time. Only natural, I suppose. My great-great-grandmother was part bee. She was also part goblin. Lord knows how that happened. But I assure you, I don’t favor the goblin side. Come on out, won’t you?”

  The man turned and smiled warmly. May gasped.

  “Oh come, dear, no need to be so dramatic.” He frowned as he waved a hand in the air in a come hither gesture. “You’ve been around Pumpkin for way too long already.”

  His eyes were completely shut—but what had made May gasp was that they had no way of opening. There were no eyelashes, no lids, just skin where his eyes should have been. Two antennae twitched on top of his head. His chin was adorned by a pointy, triangular white beard.

  Was he—

  “Blind? Certainly am. Have been my whole life.”

  Oh. Was he reading her mind? And who was he? He wasn’t like the ghosts she’d seen last night. Like Pumpkin, he didn’t look like a person at all. And where was Pumpkin?

  “That’s a tough one. I’m one of a kind, as we all are, of course. I’m a spirit first and foremost, but. . .”

  The man shrugged indifferently, turning his back to her again and throwing around this and that pot. “It’s hard to explain to a Live One.”

  May ran a hand down her arms and pinched the skin inside her elbow. Her skin w
as slick with sweat. “Pumpkin’s in the back with the bees, by the way.”

  “Um.” Her voice came out rusty, like it needed to be oiled. “Sir? Where am I?”

  The man didn’t seem to notice that she’d finally used her real voice.

  “Beehive House, Belle Morte. The most frequented vacation spot in the southeast. Belle Morte, that is, not Beehive House. I like my privacy, actually. I’m Arista.” The man turned again, and his hand shot toward May truly as an arrow, as if he could see perfectly well after all. His antennae stood stiffly, proudly. “And you are May. Pumpkin told me. Do you have a last name?”

  May faltered for a second, surprised. “May Bird. Sir, I thought—”

  Arista nodded. “I can’t read what you’re not thinking,” he said, in answer to the question she hadn’t asked. “You weren’t thinking your name, so I couldn’t see it.”

  “See it?” May shook her head. “But what I—”

  “See the words. You know how these things go. It’s a bee thing.”

  May blinked at him.

  “Didn’t you know bees are psychic? Oh, of course not. Live Ones don’t know much of anything, of course. Now, let’s see . . .”

  Arista ducked into a cupboard, his antennae drooping to accommodate him, and pulled out a large wheel of white cheese that seemed to be jiggling slightly. He laid it on a plate that was half its size. “I haven’t entertained a Live One in at least two hundred years, so you’ll just tell me if I don’t put out enough. These are offerings from the Glastonbury Tor in England. Only a couple of years old. Very nice.” He opened a jar and began to dip out something that looked like honey, laying it down on another plate. “My last living guest was a Russian magician, quite more frightful-looking than you, I assure you, and he wasn’t a big eater, you understand. Of course, people don’t leave offerings for us like they used to, so it was probably for the best. I barely have enough soul cakes to make three solid meals. . . .”

  May opened her mouth to ask the questions she’d asked Pumpkin last night. Was she alive, or dead? Where was she? How could she get home to Briery Swamp and her cozy room and her kitty?

  But what Arista did next made her mouth clamp shut. With the snap of his fingers a cupboard flew open and a skeleton-shaped loaf of bread came out of it as if it was on rollers. It rolled down to the counter, where Arista lifted it, revealing thousands of tiny spiders that had carried it along the way. May gasped.

  “So you and Pumpkin finally introduced yourselves to each other. That’s nice. He’s been talking about you for so long.” Arista closed the jam jar and dug into the cupboard again, his antennae twitching this way and that energetically. “I’m sure it was the thrill of his life. He showed real promise yesterday, going to get you. Has troubles, Pumpkin, you understand. In ways he doesn’t . . . but, yes . . .” Arista seemed to lose himself in his thoughts. On the table the cheese continued to jiggle.

  “There you are. Have a seat.”

  A table stood in the middle of the room. One of its legs was missing, and it was covered in dust and cobwebs. Arista brushed a few of them aside, again moving as deftly as if he could really see them, and laid the plates down in front of an empty chair.

  The chair, too, was covered in silky, gossamer webbing. On the floor a brigade of spiders had gathered around its legs and were slowly pulling it out for her. Some were spinning more webs across the seat. May gasped.

  And then she realized it wasn’t the cheese jiggling, it was something in the cheese, squirming. In fact, it was the maggots coming out of the cheese. There must have been hundreds of them. Her hands flew to her mouth.

  “You don’t like the helper spiders? Really, they’re quite reliable. . . .” Arista patted her with one limp hand. Then he sat himself in the chair opposite May’s. She steeled herself and sat too. “I haven’t seen a Live One in so long, I forget how disorienting it can be.” He pushed the plate toward her. “Try some honey. I raise the bees myself—”

  A door slammed behind them, and suddenly Pumpkin walked into the room. A blue, dusky glow followed him through the doorway.

  “Pumpkin, May has awoken. She’s every bit as lovely as you said. Not at all ghastly, like most of them.”

  Pumpkin appeared to be speechless. He walked over to a lounge chair in the corner of the room and sat on it, then pulled his knees up to his face.

  “Moody fellow,” Arista muttered to May, “but I must admit, it’s not every day a ghost goes to . . . well. . .”

  Goes to Earth to kidnap children? May scowled at Pumpkin. Above his knees Pumpkin blushed all the way to the roots of his yellow tuft of hair.

  “It’s hot in here, Pumpkin. Can you cool us off a bit?”

  Pumpkin sighed deeply. He poked his mouth out above his knees. “I’m exhausted.” Then he ducked back behind them.

  “Pumpkin, really, you are the laziest servant I’ve ever had.”

  His mouth appeared again. “Fine.” Pumpkin sucked in a breath, and then let it out, the air coming out of his mouth frosty. The whole room seemed to get cooler. He huddled back down against his legs.

  “Better.” Arista cut a chunk of cheese for himself and began nibbling tiny bits off and chewing them very slowly, indolently, wiping a maggot from the corner of his lips and tucking it into his mouth.

  May cleared her throat. “Won’t he eat?”

  Pumpkin’s eyes widened, and he shook his head furiously a few times.

  “Zzzzz, Pumpkin doesn’t eat or drink. Most ghosts don’t, though a lot do like honey and honey alone,” Arista said matter-of-factly, lifting his own cup and sipping from it daintily. “Specters are often big eaters, but only for the idea of it. They cling to the past so. Poor dears.”

  May blinked in confusion.

  “Specters, my dear,” Arista raised his voice as if she was going deaf. “You don’t know the difference?”

  May shook her head solemnly. “Oh, my. I forget how much you wouldn’t know, being a Live One. Specters have lived. Ghosts haven’t. Simple as that. Get it?”

  May stared.

  “For instance, I doubt you’ve ever seen a living person with antennae on his head?”

  May shook her head.

  Arista nodded, satisfied. “Exactly. You’ll find you like ghosts much better than specters. Their kind can be so . . . yes, they’re quite conceited. ‘I’ve lived and you haven’t’ and all that. You know . . .”

  May blinked.

  “Very like Live Ones in that way. ‘I exist, but ghosts couldn’t possibly’ all that nonsense.” Arista had begun to frown disdainfully.

  May shifted in her seat, feeling they were getting away from the point. “Excuse me?” May squeaked. “Arista? How did I get here? Did Pumpkin make this happen? Am I dead?”

  “Oh, dear,” Arista said, frowning. “Zzzzz, you are impatient, aren’t you?”

  She nodded in Pumpkin’s direction. “He said I’m not dead, but—”

  “My dear Miss Bird,” Arista said plainly, “have a look at yourself over there, won’t you? Then I’ll be able to see you properly, through your own eyes.” He pointed to a tall, floor-length mirror across the room. May did as she was told, walking over to the mirror and staring at her disheveled form.

  “You see? You are very much alive. Look at you. You’re still solid, you don’t float, you’re very colorful. I quite like looking at you, actually—it’s a nice change.”

  May turned back from the mirror. “But”—May thought hard—“the first time I fell in the lake, I started seeing ghosts. Maybe . . .” May lit on an idea. “Maybe I was half dead? And now—”

  “You weren’t half dead. Who ever heard of such nonsense. You simply got your sight back, that’s all. Live Ones are born with it, and then they quickly lose it. You got yours back.”

  May pondered this, still confused.

  Arista tapped his forehead in a gesture of impatience. Apparently the answer was too obvious to say. “Really, with your extraordinary imagination, and you didn’t even guess.
I’d expect more from you, according to what Pumpkin tells me.”

  May looked at Pumpkin. An idea was hopping around her brain. If people were born with sight . . .

  “When I was little, I think I drew you.”

  Pumpkin nodded, letting his knees fall slightly to reveal a hopeful little smile.

  “Oh, dear, you really take the cake, don’t you. My dear, Pumpkin is your, ehhh, house spirit. If Live Ones paid any attention at all, you would know that. Every house has one. Pumpkin is my manservant during the day—he helps me with house chores and raising the bees. At midnight he comes to you. He’s known you your entire life.” There was a hint of pride in the smile that Pumpkin gave the two of them now.

  May frowned back at him.

  “Another house spirit might have left you for dead.”

  May stared at Arista. “I don’t understand,” she murmured.

  “Of course,” Arista sighed, “not being dead is maybe the worst curse that could possibly befall you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Arista chewed on another chunk of cheese and spoke with his mouth full. “Being alive will cause you great trouble.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Live Ones are no longer welcome in the Ever After.” Arista stood from the table. “You must get out of the realm. That is your only hope.”

  “I don’t understand,” May said, a stone sinking in her gut.

  “I mean, if they catch you here, you will be dead. Worse than dead. And they will catch you eventually. There are spies everywhere.”

  May stared in shocked silence at Arista’s face.

  He motioned at her, his antennae drooping somberly. “This is only scratching the surface, zzzz. I understand why it might be confusing. Come with me.”

  May followed Arista through an arched doorway on the side of the room into another, dimmer area, its curved walls lined with shelves of books, all the spines of which were blank until May focused on them and words began to blur themselves onto the paper. In one corner of the room was an old television set. Above it hung a gleaming silver clock with tiny skeleton hands for hands. And on a wide wooden desk sat a gleaming white skull and what looked like a glass globe, only it was blank—with no continents or oceans mapped out along its curving surface.