Always October

by Bruce Coville

  The mystery calls. Though it breaks my heart to go, I can stay no longer. Forgive me, wife. Forgive me, son. I have done the best I could.

  With love and regret, Arthur

  “It’s your grandfather’s farewell note,” whispered Lily.

  “Has to be,” I said, forcing the words past the lump in my throat. “But what does it mean? Is it a suicide note?”

  Lily shook her head. “Hard to tell. The ‘mystery’ could mean the world beyond this life. But it could just as easily refer to some earthly mystery instead.”

  We opened the second notebook. It was also in code. However, even in code it was clear that this was written by the same hand that had done that farewell note.

  Lily gasped.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I should have spotted it with your father’s book, but it just hit me. Don’t you recognize those symbols?”

  I felt like an idiot. “That silver disk!” I cried. I pulled it out of my pocket.

  “It’s a code key!” said Lily excitedly. “This is what your grandfather was talking about—it’s the key to the family mystery! It’s got to be the way to translate those notebooks. Oh! I just realized something. Hand it to me, will you?”

  I passed it over. Lily ran her finger around the edge, and I saw her lips moving as she counted the symbols.

  “Twenty-six,” she said triumphantly. “Same as the letters in the alphabet.”

  It seemed so simple. But it wasn’t. The obvious answer was to match the top symbol to “A” and then just go around the dial matching the rest of the alphabet. We tried that with the first few words of my father’s notebook and got total nonsense.

  “It’s here,” said Lily firmly. “I’m sure of it. You know I love this kind of stuff, Jake. And I’m good at it. Will you let me take it, and one of the notebooks, and see what I can do?”

  I hesitated. This was definitely a job for Lily’s puzzle brain. But I didn’t really want to pass it over to her. It didn’t feel right somehow.

  “Let me work with it tonight,” I said. “If I don’t get anywhere, I’ll hand it over to you tomorrow.”

  Her face fell, but she nodded and said, “Okay, that’s fair.”

  The next day I handed the code key, my father’s notebook, and three of the maps to Lily.

  “Take it,” I said bitterly. “I almost broke my brain trying to figure it out. I hope you have better luck than I did!”

  Then I went to the library and used a school computer to check the exact date of the coming full moon. I wanted to know in advance when LD was likely to make his next transformation. It was a relief when I discovered it would occur on a Friday night, since I knew that if LD did have another transformation, I would be too wired to go to school the next day.

  Things got more complicated that same afternoon, when Mom said, “I’ve decided to go to the National Fibers Conference, Jake. I hate to do it, especially now, what with the baby and all. But it’s my best chance to pick up some new commissions and we really need the money. Mrs. McSweeney has offered to stay with you and LD while I’m gone.”

  I blinked, then asked, “When are you leaving?”

  “I head out next Friday and get back late Sunday night. Jacob? Are you all right?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Fine.”

  That wasn’t true, of course, but I couldn’t figure out any way to tell her that I suspected LD might turn into a monster again that same Friday night. When I thought about it, I decided maybe it was just as well Mom wouldn’t be here. If anyone could handle a baby monster, it was probably Mrs. McSweeney. She was as tough as anyone I’d ever met.

  Two nights after Mom told me about the fibers conference, something started howling in the distance after the sun went down.

  “What was that?” I cried the first time I heard it.

  “Probably just a neighbor’s dog,” said Mom, looking up from her loom. “Or maybe a coyote,” she added after a moment, plucking a strand of blue yarn from the pile she was working with. “I’ve heard they’ve started to move back into the area.”

  When I asked Lily if she had heard the howls, she nodded vigorously, adding, “Grampa says he thinks it’s wolves. I like the sound.”

  Then she sang a brief song about the wolf eating Little Red Riding Hood.

  The howling continued, louder and closer every night.

  13

  (Lily)

  MIST IN THE MAUSOLEUM

  We heard the howling too, and I could tell that it was making my grandfather nervous.

  As for me, all I could think about was trying to crack the code. I knew the secret was in that silver disk, but I couldn’t tease it out. I tried matching every other letter to the ring of symbols, going A, C, E around the edge and then starting over with B, D, F, and so on. I tried doing the alphabet backward. I was positive, or at least almost positive, that the symbols matched the alphabet. But how, and in what order?

  The one thing that puzzled me was that the moon symbols—the two full and two half circles—would pop up in the written pages sometimes.

  It took me longer than it should have to figure it out, but I finally cracked the code on Wednesday night when I realized that the moon figures were signs, telling me where to set the code key!

  For example, when the black circle appeared in the notebook, I would set the arrow so that it pointed toward the black circle on the code key. The symbol in the outer ring just above that became A, and the alphabet marched around the code key in that order. When a different moon symbol appeared, say the half moon that bulged to the right, I would reset the arrow, and the symbol it pointed at then became the new A.

  Even after I figured this out, the work was slow and painstaking.

  It was also spine tingling.

  I couldn’t wait to report to Jacob the next day. What I had read was so sensational, I had a hard time keeping the top of my head from blowing off!

  “What is going on with you?” asked Jacob when we got to the cemetery the next afternoon. “You’ve been twitchy as a mouse at the Cat Convention all day.”

  I took a deep breath, then said, “I think it’s real.”

  Jacob scowled at me. “What’s real?”

  “Always October! I think it’s real, Jake! I know your father thought it was real. He figured out how to open the safe, just like we did. He cracked the code and read your grandfather’s journal. I don’t know what’s in there for sure, since I only had your dad’s to work with. What I do know is that your dad started trying to find a way to get to Always October, because he believed that’s where your grandfather went. He talks about someone named Mazrak. It’s kind of spooky. He says things like, ‘Mazrak says blood calls to blood’ and ‘Am I on the right track, or simply losing my mind?’ and …”

  I hesitated.

  “And what?” demanded Jake.

  “The last entry—I skipped ahead, because the translating is really slow work—the last entry says, ‘Mazrak wants me to go to the cave.’”

  Jake turned pale.

  The next day in school, Friday, I watched Jake grow more anxious with every passing hour. He blew the math test, which was no surprise. I mean, really, how could a boy with a baby monster on his hands concentrate on how many quarters Eugene owed Penelope if she sold him thirty-two percent of her lemonade stand? Even so, it did nothing to improve his mood.

  When school was over, we returned to the mausoleum, but Jacob was too nervous and restless to talk. Finally he said, “Sorry, Lily. I gotta go home.”

  “I understand. But meet me here tomorrow morning, okay? I won’t be able to rest until you tell me what happened! I might even sleep out here, so I’ll be ready no matter how early you come over.”

  “Do you really sleep out here?”

  “Sure. It’s very restful.” I let out my best spooky laugh, hoping to get a smile out of him. He just rolled his eyes, uncertain whether I was kidding or not.

  “I’ll come over as early as I can,” he promised, then added glo
omily, “assuming I live through the night.”

  “I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”

  I meant that very sincerely. I didn’t want to lose him. I didn’t tell him that, though. It was a little too mushy.

  I also didn’t tell him that I really did intend to sleep in the mausoleum … or at least stake the place out for a while. I was sure it was connected with what was happening at his house, and I hoped I could gather some useful information. An hour or so after I had supposedly gone to bed for the night, I slipped into my jeans and flannel shirt, crawled through my window, and headed for the mausoleum.

  The full moon was enormous, silvering the dew that already coated the ground.

  I could hear the howling in the distance.

  About halfway to the mausoleum I heard something else: a roaring and shouting from the direction of the main gate. Turning, I saw an enormous creature racing in my direction!

  I know every tombstone in that cemetery, so it was easy for me to get a sense of the creature’s height, and let me tell you, he was BIG.

  Only he wasn’t the one doing the shouting. That was coming from another enormous creature who was chasing him.

  Look, I like weird stuff as much as the next person. More, actually. But I’m not crazy, and I knew the best thing for me at that moment was to get out of the way. But where? Were the creatures I had already spotted the only ones here, or had the whole cemetery been invaded?

  I considered turning back and running for the house, but that would take me closer to the creatures. So I ran forward, instinctively heading for the mausoleum where Jacob and I had our clubhouse.

  The door was open. The moment I entered, I knew things were as bizarre in there as they were out in the cemetery. Instead of being black as a coal bin at midnight, the place was filled with a thick, gray mist. The mist itself was laced with lines of flickering purple light. The air smelled clean, the way it does after a nearby lightning strike. I flinched the first time one of the purple lines touched me, but it did no more than send a tingle over my skin.

  Terrified, but also excited, I groped my way forward.

  I didn’t scream until a figure stepped out of the mist, grabbed me by the arm, and hissed, “What are you doing here?”

  14

  (Jacob)

  WHAT CAME THROUGH THE CLOSET

  As I sat at the kitchen table that Friday night, sneaking tidbits of food to Luna, I wondered if I should warn Mrs. McSweeney about what might happen. Problem was, I couldn’t figure out how to bring it up without sounding like I had gone bonkers.

  Maybe she would just sleep through the whole thing.

  The thought wasn’t all that comforting.

  Of course, that was assuming it was actually going to happen.

  I wondered if I would hear that voice again. Well, not if I had to go back in the closet to do so; I had no intention of doing that a second time. But I kept thinking about what the voice had said about the baby not being ours. I knew he wasn’t ours, not really. But the note in the basket certainly made it seem as if he had been left on our porch by his mother. Was the note a fake? Had LD been kidnapped? If he didn’t belong in our world, it would be good if his people could come for him, wouldn’t it? Was that what the voice intended to do?

  I hated that idea, and I knew Mom would totally freak out. On the other hand, we didn’t really have a right to the baby. And what about when he became a teenager? They grow hair and get weird all on their own. Who knew what would happen if you added a monthly monster transformation into that mix?

  These things were tumbling through my mind as—an hour after Mrs. McSweeney had tucked LD in for the night—I quietly set up the camera and tripod in the little guy’s room. True to my father’s style, the camera was top quality. By plugging it in so it didn’t rely on battery power, then setting the image quality to a lower resolution, I could record for nearly four hours before the cartridge was full.

  I couldn’t decide if I should stay in the room or not. Part of me wanted to be as far from here as possible. Another part felt I should be present to witness whatever happened.

  I decided to stay but moved the rocking chair next to the door, in case I needed to make a quick escape.

  Then I settled in to watch.

  Under the circumstances, I didn’t think it would be possible to fall asleep. Somehow, I did. I don’t know how much time passed before a noise woke me.

  I rubbed my eyes, then blinked. The room was oddly bright. After a moment I realized the light came from the full moon shining through the window. At the same time a series of snorts from LD’s crib brought everything back to me. It was monster time!

  I hurried to the crib.

  Green fur had sprouted again all over the baby’s sleeping form, his ears were larger than ever, and he had to be two or three inches taller than when Mrs. McSweeney had put him to bed.

  I decided I needed a close-up, so I went to the camera to adjust the settings. Though I tried to be quiet, my movements woke Little Dumpling. The baby opened his eyes, blinked, then scrambled to his feet—an infant monster in duckie pajamas that were splitting at the seams. As I had the sudden thought that I hoped he wouldn’t outgrow his diaper, he clutched the bars of the crib, threw back his head, and howled.

  Answering howls sounded from outside the house.

  A cold shiver raced down my spine. Then I heard another set of noises, this time coming from the closet!

  I turned. A sliver of light had appeared under the closet door. That was disturbing, since I knew the light bulb in there wasn’t working. Even more disturbing, thick tendrils of smoke, glowing red and smelling of sulfur, began curling out.

  The doorknob rattled as if being turned from the inside. The rattling stopped, replaced by a pounding so fierce that the door bulged outward.

  The smell of sulfur grew thicker.

  “Up!” pleaded a voice. “Up! Up!”

  LD was urgently stretching his furry little arms in my direction. In one hand—or was it a paw?—he was holding that green rattle. I quickly adjusted the camera to a wide view so that it took in both crib and closet, then raced to get the baby.

  “Up! Up! Up!” he cried.

  His obvious fear melted my heart, and I hoisted the little guy into my arms, desperately hoping he wouldn’t sink his still-sprouting fangs into my neck.

  “I think we should get out of here, kiddo,” I said.

  “OUT!” agreed Little Dumpling.

  I backed toward the hall. Before I had gone three steps, the closet door burst open. Inside was an orange-skinned, red-eyed, fang-mouthed monster. Visible only from the waist up, the bare-chested, scaly creature was bathed in red light and surrounded by billows of curling smoke. Raising an enormous, muscle-bound arm, he pointed a thick finger at me and said, “I’m glad to see you were ready. Please bring me the baby.”

  Despite the harshness of the creature’s voice, his words were calm, even pleasant. I might have considered doing as he asked, despite the way he looked, if LD hadn’t locked his arms around my neck, screaming in terror.

  My stomach twisted. If the baby had shouted, “Daddy!” I could have handed him to the monster in the closet with a clear conscience and left the two of them to enjoy their reunion while I got my butt out of there. But the way LD clung to me, howling and trembling, made it impossible to consider that.

  I would have got my butt out at that point anyway, taking the baby with me, except my legs had stopped working. The only thing that kept me from melting into a puddle of terror was that the monster in the closet didn’t seem able to move either. Well, that wasn’t quite true. He was moving but appeared to be struggling against some invisible barrier.

  “You will need to bring me the baby,” said the monster. “He must return home, and I cannot yet enter the room.”

  I heaved a sigh of relief. I wasn’t sure how long “yet” would last, but at least I had some breathing space. And even though the monster sounded like a grizzly bear might if it learned to spea
k, his tone had remained reasonable. But why was Little Dumpling screaming and trembling this way?

  “Bring me the baby!” ordered the creature in the closet. This time his voice held a sharper edge.

  “NO!” screamed Little Dumpling, tightening his hairy arms around my neck. He dug in his claws a bit as he did. “NO! NO! NO!”

  As if things weren’t bad enough, at that moment the window slid up and another monster thrust his head into the room!

  That was too much. My legs suddenly working again, I ran for the door.

  It slammed shut in my face.

  Little Dumpling howled in new terror.

  Ignoring the fact that I had missed the lamp and the back of the chair, I touched the doorknob three times and tried to turn it.

  It was frozen in place.

  I struggled with it for a moment, then pivoted and pressed my shoulders against the wood, realizing I didn’t want my back to the monsters.

  Looking to the window, I saw that the new arrival was deep blue. His head was bald, but he had a bushy black beard, so long that it disappeared from sight beneath the sill. A single eye stared at me; a black patch covered the spot where the other eye should have been. Looking directly at me, the newcomer growled, “If you wish to live to see morning, come with me!”

  Though I was sure I wanted to live to see morning, I was not sure that going with this guy was the way to do it. Little Dumpling was no help. Furry face buried against my shoulder, he whimpered, “No, no! Bad, bad, bad!” But whether he was referring to the first monster, the second monster, or life in general at that moment, I couldn’t tell.

  The monster in the closet—the orange guy with red eyes—turned toward the monster in the window. “Do not interfere, Keegel Farzym! You know the baby is ours!” Turning back to me, he bellowed, “Bring … me … that … child!”