Always October

by Bruce Coville

  She squeezed, and a beam of blue light shot out of the eye. It sizzled through the air and struck one of the attackers. The creature screamed and fell to the floor, writhing inside a bloodred force field.

  Iris jammed her eye back into her forehead, leaped from the table, and charged into the battle.

  Gnarly swung his pickax left and right, holding back a tall green monster whose long arms could not reach him past the arc of the makeshift weapon. Even more startling, with a shake of her knitting needle Mrs. McSweeney blasted out a bolt of energy that sent one of the attacking monsters smashing far against the wall.

  “Take that, ya big gobdaw!” she cried triumphantly.

  Suddenly, and for no seeming reason, the monster battling Gnarly fell over backward. Gnarly looked startled, then even more startled, then nodded and turned and sped back toward the table. Almost instantly Mrs. McSweeney joined him. Soon the two of them were under the table with Lily and me.

  “What knocked that monster over, Grampa?” Lily asked.

  “That Invisible Ed guy did it. Then he told us to git back here and he’d help us escape.”

  “Shouldn’t we help the Poets?” she asked.

  Mrs. McSweeney shook her head. “Right now the most important thing is getting Little Dumpling out of here.”

  I listened to all this as I continued to watch the battle. Keegel Farzym grappled hand to hand with a monster who matched him in height. However, the creature had four arms, and thus four hands, which put the High Poet at a definite disadvantage. Turning his head toward us, Keegel Farzym bellowed, “Jacob! Get the baby out now!”

  “How?” I cried.

  The answer came not from Keegel Farzym but from a whisper beside my ear: “Follow me!”

  It took me longer than it should have to realize it was Invisible Ed speaking.

  “How?” I whispered back. “I can’t see you!”

  With a sigh, Ed grabbed my arm and hissed, “Go to the tapestry!”

  As the other Poets formed a line of defense, we crawled toward the weaving. I had to keep one arm scooped under LD in order to support his back while he clung to my neck, so I was doing a one-handed crawl, which slowed us down some.

  When we reached the tapestry, Ed began to chant. Though his words were drowned out by the roars, growls, bellows, and shrieks that filled the air behind us, they must have worked, because the image on the fabric shivered, then vanished.

  In its place was a glowing blue wall.

  “Go through!” said Ed urgently. “Now!”

  Glancing back, I saw the High Poet still struggling to hold off the four-armed monster. “Go!” he roared when he saw my hesitation.

  “The humans are getting away!” bellowed Mazrak. “And they’ve got the baby! Press forward! Press forward!”

  Clutching LD to my chest, I plunged through the blue wall.

  23

  (Lily)

  TUNNELS

  Spurred on by Mazrak’s cry of rage, I followed Jake. As soon as I touched the blue wall, my skin tingled all over. I felt myself being pulled forward, as if caught by a giant vacuum cleaner. When the pull, and the tingle, ended, I found myself in complete darkness.

  The shouts and screams of the battling monsters had disappeared. All I could hear now was LD sobbing, and Jacob whispering, “Shhh, little buddy, shhhh, shhhh. Everything is all right.”

  I wondered vaguely if it was a sin to lie to a baby.

  “The poor beebums,” Mrs. McSweeney said. “He’s got every right to be frightened.”

  “Grampa?” I whispered. “Are you here?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. Not sure I should be. I’ve got a pickax that wants to bury itself in some monster’s belly.”

  “Do you think we should go back and help?” I asked.

  “No,” said Jacob firmly. “The Poets wanted us to get LD away from that fight.”

  “Jacob is right,” said Mrs. McSweeney. “Besides, I’m not certain we could go back even if we wanted to.”

  “Then what do we do now?” Grampa asked.

  The answer came from Luna, who said, “I suppose we keep going. I’m here, by the way, though no one bothered to ask.”

  “Oh, I knew you’d make it through, darlin’,” said Mrs. McSweeney. “You were the only one I wasn’t worried about. Though I suppose we should check on one more thing.” Raising her voice a bit, she said, “Invisible Ed, are you with us?”

  Silence.

  “Probably stayed behind to fight,” said Grampa at last. “Useful guy to have on your side, someone nobody can see.”

  “Then Luna has put her paw on it,” said Mrs. McSweeney. “We keep going.”

  “Go where?” I asked. “How can we tell which way is forward when it’s pitch-black?”

  “And what if there are big pits in the floor we might fall into?” Jacob added.

  I wished he hadn’t thought of that.

  “Luna?” said Mrs. McSweeney.

  “Do I have to? You know it makes me itch!”

  “You don’t have to do anything, darlin’. But it would be helpful.”

  Luna sighed, then begin to purr. It was a lovely sound, rich and rumbly. That was no surprise, really. What was a surprise was that her pure-white fur began to glow. Soon she looked like a cat formed out of moonlight.

  “That is cooler than the breeze from Mothra’s wings!” I murmured.

  LD, who still had his head buried against Jacob’s shoulder, peeked out, then cooed appreciatively and shook his rattle.

  The glow wasn’t much, but in the extreme darkness it made a huge difference. We could now see that we stood in a narrow, smooth-sided tunnel. How far it stretched ahead we could not tell; the light provided by Luna reached only ten feet or so.

  We turned to look behind us. Nothing but a stone wall.

  “Craziest dang place I ever heard of,” snorted Grampa.

  “Crazy or not, there’s only one way to go,” said Mrs. McSweeney.

  Luna took the lead. Switching her luminous, extravagant tail, she started down the tunnel. Jacob and I followed close behind. Grampa and Mrs. McSweeney came last. Every once in a while Mrs. McSweeney would take the baby, cooing at him as if he were the most precious thing in the world. Which, in a way, I guess he was. When she wasn’t carrying LD, I could hear her bickering with Grampa. Even though they were arguing, it didn’t sound angry, more like the kind of disagreement that occurs between old friends. I began to wonder if they liked each other more than I had thought.

  My mind kept going back to the battle in the Council Chamber. I was terribly worried about the Poets. Though we had barely met them, I had really liked them.

  The tunnel twisted and turned, but that was no problem now that we had some light. The big question was how we were to get back to the surface. The Poets had said the tunnel would lead us out, but not how far we should go or what we might find along the way … not to mention what might be waiting for us if we did get back to the surface. How secret was this tunnel? If Mazrak and his crew had won, or fled, would they know where this would let us out?

  That question was replaced by a new, more urgent one when we came to a place where the tunnel forked.

  “Uh-oh,” said Luna. “Now what?”

  The rest of us gathered around her to study the situation.

  “Maybe both tunnels lead to the surface?” said Jacob hopefully.

  “Yeah, and maybe a little pink bunny is gonna come hopping along to show us the way out,” snapped Grampa.

  I flinched at the harsh words. The uncomfortable silence that followed was broken by Luna, who said, “Stranger things have happened, Mr. Carker. For example, you might find yourself traveling along a tunnel deep beneath the world of monsters with only the help of a glowing cat to show you the way. Oh, wait. I forgot. You’re already doing that.”

  “Never did like cats,” muttered Grampa. “Talkin’ cats are even worse.”

  I had spotted something that interested me. Moving closer to the spot where the tunnels spl
it, I said, “Luna, dear, would you come here?”

  Tail waving like a banner, she trotted to my side.

  “Do you mind if I pick you up?”

  “Not at all. I appreciate you being courteous enough to ask.”

  I bent to scoop the cat into my arms, then lifted her to the wall of the tunnel on the left. I squinted at the stone for a while, then said, “Someone carved a set of symbols here. I recognize them from papers we found at Jacob’s house.”

  “What do they say?” asked Jacob.

  I shifted Luna so I had one hand free, which I used to tuck the end of my thinking braid in my mouth. I chewed as I studied the symbols.

  Frustration! Without the code key, I could make no sense of them.

  “Look lower,” said Luna softly.

  I crouched down and found additional marks, not carved but scrawled on the rock with what looked like charcoal: SF WUZ HERE.

  Spitting out the braid, I read the words aloud.

  Grampa snorted but managed to keep from saying anything, for which I was grateful.

  “Are there markings on the wall of the other tunnel?” asked Mrs. McSweeney.

  Still holding Luna, I went to examine the tunnel on the right. “None at all,” I reported.

  “We might as well take the tunnel that has the markings,” she said. “We don’t have anything else to go on.”

  “I really don’t know if they mean anything,” I protested. “Heck, they could even be a warning!”

  But no one had a better idea, so a minute later we started down the tunnel on the left.

  As we traveled, Jake and I told Mrs. McSweeney some of what had happened after we’d arrived in Always October.

  We had been going on like this for about ten minutes when we came to a dead end. My gut clenched. “I’m sorry!” I moaned. “I told you I didn’t know if those symbols meant anything.”

  “Wait,” Jacob said. “Look!”

  I saw what he meant. Gouged into the stone were indentations that looked like handholds. When I put my hand into one, I was delighted to discover that past the front edge the opening dipped down, making it easy to get a solid grip.

  “Maybe this is our escape route!” I said.

  Jacob sighed. “Even if the handholds lead to a way out, how could we climb it with the baby?”

  More frustration!

  What made it even worse was that when I looked up, I was sure I saw a glimmer of light. It was as if the light was teasing me, saying, “See? If you could just figure out how to get up here, you would be free!”

  When I pointed out the light, Jacob said, “Lovely. But it doesn’t solve the problem of climbing with Little Dumpling.”

  Brainstorm!

  “Maybe we could tie him to your back with that webbing Keegel Farzym gave you.”

  Jacob shook his head dubiously. “I think we should go back and try the other tunnel.”

  “No, no!” cried a familiar voice. “This is the right way. This is the only way. Come this way or die!”

  24

  (Jacob)

  A NEW GUIDE

  Both parts of Sploot Fah came scrambling down the rock wall. When he was about ten feet overhead, he leaped to the floor, landing directly in front of us.

  “Nice kitty!” cooed the one on the right, gazing at Luna.

  The cat, who was crouched at Lily’s feet, nodded her acceptance of the compliment but said nothing.

  “Well, and you must be Sploot Fah,” said Mrs. McSweeney.

  “I am!” cried both parts proudly.

  “Why did you say ‘Come this way or die’?” I asked.

  “Good way to get attention,” said one with a shrug.

  “Besides, it’s true,” said the other. “Sploot Fah knows tunnels.”

  “Sploot Fah knows digging.”

  “Sploot Fah knows many things, including where bad monsters wait for good babies—”

  “Also where peoples carrying good babies can get up top safely.”

  “And you just happened to be here waiting for us?” said Gnarly. “Sounds kinda suspicious to me.”

  “Perhaps you should tell us more,” said Lily gently.

  Both halves of the little monster began to speak at once. They stopped, scowled at each other, then began flipping their hands forward. I realized they were playing a game something like Paper, Scissors, Stone. Only instead of phrases like “paper wraps stone,” this one involved terms such as “gimwitz crinkles fludgnuks” and “fludgnuks bash borgle!”

  When they were done, half the creature sighed and took a step back. The other half, who I guess was the winner, stepped forward.

  “Sploot Fah was suspicious about baby,” he explained. “Sploot Fah had questions. So Sploot Fah followed, sometimes over ground, sometimes under. Then Sploot Fah saw that Mazrak also followed peoples. Sploot Fah don’t like Mazrak, because—”

  “Because Mazrak is a booger!” shouted the half of Sploot Fah who had stepped back.

  The half who was supposed to be doing the talking shot him a glare. The supposedly silent half clamped his hand over his mouth, then turned his back to us.

  Nodding in satisfaction, the speaking half said, “Mazrak is bad. Mazrak is mean. Mazrak does wicked things. Sploot Fah kept following, saw other bad monsters join Mazrak. So Sploot Fah knew bad stuff was coming. Sploot Fah knows paths, knows tunnels, and thought peoples would come this way. So Sploot Fah came to help, just in case, because Sploot Fah is GOOD!”

  “Done?” asked the other half.

  “Done,” said the speaker.

  The part of Sploot Fah who had been facing away scurried back. “Let’s move,” they said together.

  “But we can’t climb this wall with the baby!” I said.

  Both parts laughed. “Why climb wall? That would be silly!”

  With that, they leaped up, grabbed the same handhold I had first spotted, and hung from it.

  A chunk of wall about seven feet high and four feet wide tipped toward us.

  “Watch out! Stand away!” cried Sploot Fah.

  Both parts leaped down and scurried backward as the massive chunk of stone fell to the floor with a deafening crash.

  Little Dumpling screamed with laughter.

  When the dust cleared, we saw that where the slab had been was a continuation of the tunnel. It stretched into the distance, now dimly lit by lumnifung.

  “Opening door is tricky part,” said half of Sploot Fah.

  “No, no,” corrected the other half. “Opening door is easy. Opening door without getting squashed is tricky!”

  “You say true! Now come on, peoples, come on!”

  “But we need to go up!” I said. “To the surface.”

  “Go up right here and bad things will happen,” said one of the Sploot Fahs.

  “Very bad things,” agreed the other. “Like getting eaten!”

  “Sploot Fah’s way will get you up and out,” said the first.

  “Plus you won’t be anyone’s dinner!” said the other.

  So we followed the pair of creatures, or the creature who was a pair, through the opening. As we did, I took a step closer to Lily and muttered, “I hope we’re doing the right thing.”

  “It’s not like we’ve got an instruction book,” she replied. “And Keegel Farzym did seem to think these guys—this guy—were … was! … annoying, but not dangerous.” She frowned, “It’s certainly annoying to try to talk about them. Him! I can never figure out which pronoun I should use!”

  “I just hope Keegel Farzym was right,” I muttered. Then I touched the stone wall beside us three times.

  “Wait, wait!” cried both parts of Sploot Fah as we continued forward.

  “Now what?” asked Gnarly.

  “Where you brought up?” asked half of Sploot Fah. “In a barn?”

  Mrs. McSweeney laughed. “Your sainted mother used to say the same thing to you almost every day, Gnarly—for exactly the same reason!”

  “Have to close door,” explained the other ha
lf, to Lily and me.

  Looking back, I saw a pair of ropes, one dangling at either side of the opening. Each part of Sploot Fah went to a rope. Once in position, they nodded to each other, then leaped up and grabbed on.

  To my surprise the huge chunk of stone rose swiftly and silently, then clicked firmly back into the opening through which we had just passed.

  “Easier to close than to open,” said the half on the right.

  “Safer, too,” said the other half, dusting off his hands. “But now can go on.”

  “And I can stop this stupid glowing,” said Luna, sounding relieved.

  “It was much appreciated, darlin’,” said Mrs. McSweeney.

  “I’m glad. Even so, I’ll expect some extra treats when we get home. That is, assuming we do get home.”

  For some reason, I found the cat’s uneasiness one of the scariest things yet.

  As we went on, LD grew fussier and fussier. I started to stumble and realized I was exhausted myself.

  I suspected Lily’s grandfather wouldn’t say anything, and I was pretty sure Mrs. McSweeney was tireless. I also figured Lily wouldn’t be willing to admit she needed a break before I did. Telling myself it was LD I was concerned about, not me, I finally said, “Guys, I think we should take a rest. It’s got to be at least two in the morning by our time, and we’ve been through a lot.”

  “We can’t stop now!” protested Lily. “We’ve got to get LD back to our world before the dark of the moon.”

  “No, Jacob is right,” said Mrs. McSweeney. “If we just keep staggering on, we won’t be in shape to handle anything big that comes at us. And even if you don’t want to rest, that baby needs a break. The little beebums probably needs a diaper change, too … though how we’re goin’ to manage that, I can’t think. Mr. Sploot Fah, do you know a place where we can rest?”

  “Sure, sure!” said both parts. “Right here!”