The Road to Nevermore

by Christopher Lincoln

  The last sight Mr. Bones saw of Stonehamm Cottage was the luminous eyes of his wife, pleading for him to be careful.

  Chapter 23

  Gloom and Doom

  The sentinels bundled Billy, Pete, Roger, and Uncle Mordecai into Shadewick Gloom’s vestibule, then took up guard positions on either side of the door. One of them had taken Pete’s sword. It looked like a knitting needle in the demon’s massive hand.

  Opposite the prisoners stood a table holding Gloom’s prize possessions. And tucked into alcoves, bookcases, and wall sconces were more. Altogether his bell jar collection numbered fifty heads: some from ghosts, others were skulls, and there were even a few ex-heads of state. But the center of the rambling table was reserved for the collection’s crown jewel.

  “Uncle Grim!” Billy cried, bounding forward, but a quick flick of a sentinel’s spear pole sent him sprawling. If he hadn’t been buttoned tight in his raincoat, his bones would have scattered everywhere.

  “Hold fast, Billy,” Pete whispered.

  The disturbance woke several heads. Their muffled wails vibrated among the crystal domes, waking others. Grim blearily opened his eyes, his blue glow guttering like a nearly spent flame. “Hurry,” he mouthed to Billy, and then his eyes flickered shut.

  Billy couldn’t tell if this was so he could concentrate, or if Grim had passed out. Sitting up, he shouted, “We will!” not having the faintest clue how he would go about hurrying anything along. Still, it was good to see his uncle again—even so tiny a portion of him.

  Billy’s relief lasted only as long as the time it takes to open a shadowport.

  “Oooooh, presents for me? How thoughtful,” Shadewick Gloom’s warbling voice echoed as he strode up the hallway.

  The sentinels snapped to attention. “They said you were expecting them, so we brought them here,” one explained with a salute.

  “And we found the prisoners with these.” The larger sentinel held out the golden wishes.

  Shadewick Gloom brushed past Billy and snatched the coins. “Naughty, naughty.” He turned to the prisoners, flipping a coin off his ivory thumb. It spun in the air, held in place by Gloom’s magical gaze. “Didn’t anyone tell you you’re not supposed to bring these over to the Dark Side?”

  Tossing up the rest of the coins, the shadowy skeleton dispatched them with a squiggling purple arc of energy. Flecks of gold drifted slowly like wounded snowflakes and melted into the floor. Pete grabbed for his empty scabbard, Roger grimaced at the squandering of perfectly good gold, and Mordecai looked as if he wanted to melt away himself. But Billy was surprised by the weakness of the blast. Back at Stonehamm Farm, Shadewick Gloom’s bolts had rocked the cottage.

  “Seems I was wasting my time on Earth,” Shadewick Gloom mused as he sidled toward his bell jar collection. With a sharp finger bone he plinked the crystal holding Grim. “A lucky stroke you were the perfect bait.” Shadewick Gloom’s gaze circled the room, then landed smack on Billy. “Not a totally useless trip, though. I did get reacquainted with your dad.”

  The look on Gloom’s face would have made a shark blanch.

  “Reacquainted?” Billy croaked. His heart felt as if it were trying to climb into his throat even though it wasn’t there.

  “Oh yes! Lars Bones, expert secrets keeper, master of fibs and fabrications. I didn’t just tuck him away when he was last in Nevermore. No. He was one of my favorites. You should have seen him squirm when I introduced him to a few of my favorite interrogation techniques. Too bad the Investigative Branch was forced to release him. I did hate tossing him back.”

  “You … you’re the one who gave him that scar,” Billy gasped.

  “Well, in a roundabout way, yes. But you are the one who really deserves the credit.” Gloom glided toward Billy, his shadow robes wafting like smoke. “He squealed out the whole story. How you’d come to the closet … how he, your mother, and your uncle conspired to break so many of the Afterlife rules—especially when your uncle brought you back to life. I didn’t put all that together until I saw your dad a few minutes ago.”

  Billy blinked as if he’d been stunned by a photographer’s flash.

  Gloom’s eyes brightened when he saw remorse sweep across Billy’s face. “Delicious! Guilt makes for the best nightmares. I’ll suck yours out like marrow from a bone.”

  “That’s where yer wrong.” Pete shot Shadewick Gloom a look that should have sent him to the Realms Below. “Ye are the one who made Lars grovel, all right, but he stood up to yer blasts until the bones of his skull smoked. Ye are the one who stood behind yer powers, afraid to face him skeleton to skeleton.” He strode up to the shadowy skeleton until they thumped belly to empty belly. “Yer the one that tortured Lars Bones … not Billy!” Pete backed Gloom off with another bump and then turned to Billy. “Ye gotta swear off guilt right now, boy. It weren’t yer fault!”

  But Billy wasn’t feeling the slightest guilt—something much darker filled him now. Rage. He clamped his bony fingers into fists.

  “Silence, pirate!” Shadewick screamed, then fired a bolt at Pete. It was little more than a fizzle. Pete sidestepped the sparks easily, but he seemed more concerned with the look in Billy’s eye.

  “Ye have to let go of that, too, me boy. It’s worse than guilt. Let’s see if we can find some justice here. It’ll do us both better than revenge.”

  Billy spun away from Gloom’s next shot as Roger joined Pete’s advance. Uncle Mordecai glanced from Pete to Roger to Billy and then to Gloom. His crotchetiness must have got the most of him, because he joined in too, shouting, “Leave the boy be, ya great rollicking git!”

  Everyone looked at Mordecai as if he’d just dropped out of a nut tree.

  “Looks like yer spent, Gloomy,” Pete chuckled. “If I had me sword, ye’d be bone bits by now.”

  “Restrain them!” Shadewick Gloom commanded, and then, sliding by the obliging sentinels, he headed toward his bell jars. He paused in front of Grim’s jar, his shadow robes gathering round him like a storm. “Hmmm, I’ve been going about this all wrong.” He strode to his darkroom with the bell jar. “March the prisoners this way.”

  The sentinels herded Billy and company to the rear of the palace. When they arrived, Shadewick had already set Grim’s head on the workbench and was heading toward a wall-sized aquarium at the back of the room. Blobby shapes slapped against the glass, spreading like hands on a windowpane. Gloom fished one out with a small net. The creature’s tendrils sparked purples and reds as it tried to wriggle away.

  Across the room, the sentinels took up positions on either side of a shadowport. A key hovered in its center as the black vortex swirled, humming a tortured pitch.

  “I don’t know what I was thinking,” Gloom mumbled. “Should have done this long ago. Pop a dread onto Grim’s head; he no longer controls his own thoughts. Then, voilà, time starts, and I’m the new master of death!” He shimmered with self-congratulations.

  Time starts… . This might be it for Millicent! Worry jangled through Billy like a clock alarm.

  Gloom grabbed the bottom of his net and flipped the dread over. It flopped out onto the workbench with a sickening smack. Tentacles snaking to Grim’s head, the dread fitted itself over as if it were wiggling into a pair of tight trousers.

  “That should do it,” Shadewick gloated.

  Inside the dread’s gelatinous body, Grim’s jaw was thrown open—locked in a scream. Billy closed his eyes, not in disgust, but in the deepest kind of concentration. Blue light flared around his bones. Dark sparks of eternal energy glittered over his lids.

  “Time should be ticking by now… . How’s this possible?” Gloom fussed. “You!” He whirled, pointing a talon sharp finger at Billy.

  “Get that thing off Grim’s head!” Pete shouted to Roger as he charged Gloom.

  Roger and Mordecai pitched in behind, but Shadewick Gloom blasted them with two sputtering bolts, sending them skidding across the workbench. Everything including Grim’s head was swept to the floor. He f
ired two more bursts at Pete and Billy, but missed.

  “Why are you just standing there?” Shadewick Gloom screamed at the sentinels.

  “Waiting for orders,” the larger one rumbled.

  “Well, grab them, imbeciles!”

  With two massive swipes, the sentinels grabbed Billy and Pete and hauled them up by the collars. They didn’t bother with Roger and Uncle Mordecai, who were passed out on the floor.

  “Pin the pirate so I can attend to the boy.” Shadewick stole to the tank and fished out another dread.

  “It is our duty to obey,” the sentinels answered mechanically.

  Gloom approached Billy, his net squirming as much as his smile. “Seems you’ve acquired some of Grim’s powers. That explains why time hasn’t started and how you rebuffed me back at the cottage. Impressive, boy.”

  Billy didn’t dare say anything. It was taking every link of his concentration to shackle time.

  “I’m sure Miss Chippendale will be impressed, too. The Investigative Branch is itching to get their hands on your parents. Really aren’t fond of defeats, you see. And where do you suppose Mommy and Daddy will end up, boy?”

  This time Gloom almost got him. Billy screwed his eyes into deeper concentration.

  “I’ll have your whole snug little family in Nevermore soon, along with your deliciously guilty nightmares!” Gloom lifted the net above Billy’s head, ready to overturn it.

  But instead of shrinking in fear, Billy seemed transfixed, mumbling, “blindly obey.” Then his smile lit up the room. He turned to the sentinels. “Excuse me, sirs, but isn’t it against Dark Side rules to do a good deed?”

  “The inquisitor would say that is so,” the larger one rumbled.

  “I was just wondering why you haven’t arrested him?” Billy cocked his head toward Shadewick Gloom.

  “Eh?” Gloom clacked back a step.

  “He’s been working with the Light Side Government. You heard him admit it. And Lightsiders are always doing right.”

  Pete’s smile added to the room’s sudden glow. “True enough, they wouldn’t be on the Light Side unless they were judged good-deed doers.”

  The sentinels dropped their load and turned toward Shadewick Gloom.

  “Don’t listen to them. They have no authority here.” Gloom stamped a shadowy boot.

  “Yer thick with responsibility in helpin’ the Investigative Branch. I’d be hornswoggled if they ain’t awarded ye a medal by now,” Pete said in a sugary voice, and then looked up over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t want that inquisitor feller practicing his lashes on yer backs, would ye, lads? Why don’t ye take him?”

  The towering demons locked glances. After two sizable nods, they grabbed Shadewick Gloom. But he wriggled in their grip like a gaffed marlin. And he would have gotten away, too, except for some sly skeleton thinking.

  “Dump that thing on his head!” Billy cried, pointing to the net.

  The sentinels wrestled it out of Gloom’s hands, upending its contents onto his head. Gloom’s arms fell limp to his sides and the dread burbled a gooey, “Num!”

  Tossing Shadewick over his shoulder like a sack of soiled laundry, the large demon turned and marched out of the darkroom. The smaller sentinel followed.

  When the crunch of their last footstep echoed away, Billy clattered over to the bench and burst into laughter.

  Uncle Grim’s head was nestled between Roger and Uncle Mordecai. Roger was coming around, but Uncle Mordecai was still knocked silly. “What’s so funny?” the skeleton dandy asked, sitting up slowly.

  “Your hat.”

  The dread had slipped off Grim’s head and was trying its utmost to work its way over Roger’s. His old top hat was crowned with a dread, looking very much like a glob of struggling pudding.

  Roger scrambled up to his feet and sauntered over to the aquarium, where he examined his reflection in the glass. “Hmmmm, not very dashing.” With a flick of his wrist he flipped the hat into the aquarium, where it sunk unceremoniously to the bottom. Pete chuckled quietly to himself from across the room, his eyes filled with twinkling affection.

  Billy hunkered down next to Uncle Grim’s exhausted but smiling face. “Well done, Billy. You kept time stopped just long enough for that dread to slide off my head.”

  “I was wondering why it got so easy all of a sudden. Thought I was getting as powerful as you.”

  “Unless I’m mistaken, you’ve more power than you can imagine, but I need you to promise you won’t think about using it. I still need to straighten things out with Oversecretary Underhill.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Billy promised. He wasn’t in an awful hurry to endanger his uncle or the rest of his family.

  Grim shut his eyes again, and somewhere not far away his body breathed a sigh of relief. “Now you might want to smarten things up around here. You can begin by gathering me up. I think we’ll be having company in a minute or two.”

  “How do you know that?” Billy asked.

  “My body is riding on Fleggs. I can feel the rush of wind and his unmistakable gallop.”

  Chapter 24

  Nevermore No More

  BWANG! URG! THUMP!

  Along with Mr. Brittleback’s grunts and Millicent’s shouts, these were the loudest sounds in Nevermore. The skeleton and Millicent were holding their own against the dreads.

  Millicent screamed, “There’s another one behind you!”

  “Got it!” Mr. Brittleback leaped, swinging his shovel. The shot knocked the groundskeeper’s head clean off its shoulders.

  Millicent wished she could do more to help, but she had to content herself with cheering him on. So far, half of the nasty blobs had been sent to the Realms Below.

  As Mr. Brittleback leaned on his shovel handle, thankful for the break, a swift wind kicked up dust as hoofs sparked up the carriage road. A magnificent midnight stallion cantered to a stop. Atop Fleggs sat Grim, body joyfully reunited with head, which now bore a wide smile.

  “Bartemis!” Grim called down.

  “Mill!” Billy poked out from behind his uncle’s cloak.

  “I suppose you’ll need some saving, now.” Grim’s eyes crinkled cheerily.

  “Thanks for the offer.” Brittleback held the shovel by the end of its long handle. “But it won’t be necessary.” He wound up and, with one stroke, knocked all five dreads off their victims’ heads.

  Billy leaped off Fleggs and clacked over to Millicent. “How are we supposed to save you when you’ve gone and saved yourself?”

  Millicent grinned. “Well, you could have, if you hadn’t waited so long.”

  “Dad’s going to be disappointed, after calling out the cavalry and all.”

  “The cavalry? You and Grim?” Millicent laughed.

  “Not us. Them.” Billy pointed to a column of distant figures.

  Colonel Siegely led the way aboard his horse, Clattershanks, but he was overtaken by Ned, who cut a less dashing figure. The burly skeleton was mounted on a runaway horse. He looked as if he couldn’t dismount soon enough, unlike the hundred stone-faced soldiers that trotted behind him.

  “All that for me?” Millicent tried to wrap Billy in a hug, but her arms were only half there. He settled happily for a smile.

  Grim dismounted and helped Mr. Brittleback lay the unconscious ghosts and skeletons he’d battled side by side.

  “Hope they aren’t tempted to give me a whack when they wake up.” Mr. Brittleback grimaced, dropping the last ghost into place.

  “Aside from their splitting headaches, I should think they’ll be most thankful.” Grim strode up the line to examine several ghosts laid out on the end. “Boos borough, Sheets, Ghostly, and White. You can’t say Shadewick Gloom hasn’t a sense of humor: turning the most senior members of the High Council into groundskeepers.”

  “Cornelia Chippendale will be mighty surprised when these gentlemen return.” Mr. Brittleback clattered from one groundskeeper to the next, sprucing up their clothing as best he could.

  �
�Chippendale!” Millicent turned to Billy. “She was here. She was the one who sent Shadewick Gloom to get us in the first place, and she was really mad that he hadn’t captured you, too.”

  “A witness tying Chippendale to the Dark Side. That’s sure to help,” Mr. Brittleback chirped.

  “Yes.” Grim tapped his chin. “But I’m not sure that’s enough. Chippendale is slippery as eel sweat. I don’t want any surprises when we face her. For example why was she after Billy and Millicent?”

  Why? Billy tapped his own chin, unaware of how well he was copying his uncle.

  “She loves her power,” Mr. Brittleback mumbled. “Been clawing her way to the top of the council ever since Pickerel disappeared.”

  Billy met Millicent’s glance.

  “Chippendale knows about Pickerel!” Billy blurted.

  “And she knows that we know,” Millicent added right behind him.

  “That’s got to be it,” Grim agreed, “but how did she find out? I know I didn’t blab.”

  While Grim chewed on this, Pete, Mr. Bones, Roger, and Colonel Siegely arrived on skeleton horseback.

  Mr. Bones smiled at Billy and Millicent. “I might have known you’d have things sorted out by the time we arrived.”

  “Aye, got to say they make a wily pair.” Pete nudged Mr. Bones in the ribs and Jenkins smiled at the children like he’d just hatched them from two eggs.

  Billy skipped over to the riders. “The missing council members!”

  “Hah! Like to see Chippendale wriggle out of this one … blaming all this on me when she was the one who disappeared ’em.” Pete dismounted with surprising grace for a bandy-legged sea dog. “We should round ’em up and parade ’em under her nose this second —”

  “Not quite so fast, Pete,” Mr. Bones interrupted. “We have a little more business to attend to.” He nodded toward Millicent, who was drifting as fast as she could toward a nearby tomb.