Always October

by Bruce Coville

  I put a hand on her shoulder. She shook it off.

  “Lily,” I said softly. “We have to move on. If we don’t, Luna will have gotten herself stuck in there for nothing. Mazrak is on our trail. Who knows how close he might be?”

  Face still buried in her hands, Lily nodded. She gave one last, shuddering sob, wiped her arm across her eyes, and got to her feet. “All right,” she whispered. “Let’s get moving.”

  There was no mistaking Teardrop Hill, for in the moonlight it did indeed look like a giant tear. It was tall, and quite steep. Even so, we might have been able to climb it … if not for the fact that the stone it was made of was smooth as glass.

  At its base yawned a dark opening about nine feet high and six feet wide.

  “Tunnel of Tears,” said Toozle, stopping about ten feet away and pointing. The fear in his voice was obvious.

  “Why don’t we go around?” I asked. “It wouldn’t be that much farther.”

  “Not much farther but lots dangerouser. Big traps and bad critters on each side. Tunnel is sadder but safer.”

  “Why is it sadder?” Lily asked.

  “Because it is Tunnel of Tears! You’ll see. Come on.”

  We glanced at each other. Lily shrugged. “No point in waiting.”

  Side by side, we stepped forward. The instant we entered the tunnel, a wave of loss and despair swept over me. It was if every sorrow or pain I had ever experienced—from the smallest cut I had received as a stumbling baby to the heart wrench I’d suffered when Dad disappeared—had flooded back in one enormous wave of grief. My knees buckled, and I began to weep.

  To my right I heard Lily sobbing; I suspected that what tore at her heart right now, even more than the loss of her parents, was the fate of her grandfather. That and her guilt over Luna.

  LD, who was still in my arms, let out a wail so filled with grief that it doubled my own heartbreak.

  How could a little baby have so much sorrow in him?

  Maybe he missed his mother.

  Suddenly Toozle flung himself to the floor. He began beating at his own head, screaming, “Half gone! Half gone!”

  “Jacob!” Lily cried. “Stop him!”

  I thrust the baby at her, then dropped down beside Toozle and grabbed his arms. The little creature was far stronger than me, but his grief made it hard for him to focus his strength.

  “Stop,” I hissed. “Stop it, Toozle!”

  “Half gone!” he wailed, thrashing beneath my grip. “Half gone, can’t go on.”

  Finally I picked him up and flung him over my shoulder. Still sobbing myself, I started forward. “Come on,” I said, between the choking spasms of grief. “We have to keep going.”

  Toozle beat at my back, still screaming, “Half gone! Half gone!” But his blows were not hard, and I knew he was not trying to hurt me. It was just that he had so much pain, he couldn’t hold it in.

  I don’t know how far we had gone when we came to a wall of silvery mist.

  “That must be the Veil of Tears,” whispered Lily.

  We hesitated for a moment, then stumbled through. We were encircled by mist, a ring about thirty feet wide. Ahead of us, on a throne of ivory, sat the Queen of Sorrows.

  She didn’t stay seated long. When we came lurching through the mist, she leaped to her feet. A look of horror—horror, but something more, something I did not yet understand—twisted her face.

  “By the Eight Wings of Drakus, what have you done?” she cried.

  Then she ran straight at us.

  I thought it was finally over. We had made it this far, but the Queen was so big, and we were still so shaken by our trip through the tunnel, that I didn’t think there was any way we could stop her from tearing us apart.

  Still, when she went for Lily and Little Dumpling, I dropped Toozle and leaped forward to protect them. I can’t say I was being brave, because I didn’t have time to be afraid. It was as if my body moved on its own. I stood in front of Lily with my hands upraised, ready to fend off the Queen or die trying.

  Her words, gushing forth on a wave of pain, made me drop my hands and step back.

  “My baby!” she wailed. “My baby!”

  Her voice throbbed with grief, with horror, with longing.

  “Why have you brought him back to Always October? Why have you brought him back to me? What kind of monsters are you, to be so cruel?”

  LD stretched his arms toward her, crying out to be taken. Plucking him from Lily’s arms, the Queen of Sorrows cradled him against her chest, then sank to her knees, weeping.

  It was too painful and too private to watch, and I turned away.

  After a few minutes the monster’s sobs began to fade. I turned back and saw Lily kneeling next to her, patting her back. She had to reach up to do it, because the monster—Meer Askanza, I suddenly realized—was so much bigger than she was.

  LD was gooing happily, patting his mother’s cheek as her enormous tears dropped to his face.

  Toozle stood watching in amazement. He looked exactly the way I felt: baffled, and uncertain of what to do.

  This moment when no one was moving gave me a chance to get a better look at the monster, who was weirdly beautiful. Her enormous eyes were tinted red—though whether this was their natural color or only a result of her weeping I could not tell. Her skin was blue, not quite as deep as a robin’s egg, but close. Glossy hair, jet-black, tumbled down her back like a waterfall of ebony. Her hands, clutching LD tight to her bosom, were long and bony. She wore a robe the deep purple of a sky just before full night.

  I had been working through something in my head, and suddenly it clicked into place. According to the story Mrs. McSweeney had told us, Meer Askanza was the child of Arthur Doolittle and Teelamun.

  That made her my father’s half-sister.

  Which meant she was my half-aunt—a blood relative!

  I was still trying to absorb this when Meer Askanza took a gasping breath and climbed to her feet. Still cradling LD, she said fiercely, “Do you have any idea what it cost me to take this baby to Humana? Any idea what it cost me to leave him there? Do you not comprehend the terrible risk of bringing him back here?”

  We looked at each other, uncertain of what to say.

  “I could kill you now with very little problem,” said my half-aunt. “So you had better answer me!”

  Fear loosened my tongue. “You left him on my porch,” I said quickly. “My mother and I have been taking care of him, but the night before last—at least, I think that’s when it was—a monster named Mazrak came through my closet and tried to kidnap him. Another monster called Keegel Farzym showed up and brought us to Always October to get away from Mazrak. We’re trying to get the baby back to Humana. Keegel Farzym was going to help us, but we got separated when Mazrak and some other monsters attacked us.”

  Meer Askanza’s face was hard and angry. “Mazrak!” she spat, making the name sound like a curse word. She turned and went to her throne. She seated herself, still clutching LD, who was shaking his rattle and looking as happy as I had ever seen him.

  “Have you met with the Council of Poets?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Lily. “They’re the ones who told us we must get the baby back to Humana.”

  Meer Askanza nodded. “What is your path, and what is your plan?”

  Between the three of us—me, Lily, and Toozle—we managed to get out a more detailed explanation of what had happened and where we were supposed to go next.

  My half-aunt looked troubled at the mention of Flenzbort but nodded. “That makes sense, in a terrible kind of way.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then said, “I must tell you my story before you can continue. That is the toll to pass through the Tunnel of Tears: the King or Queen of Sorrows must explain the grief that carried him or her to this place. In turn, you must listen, and absorb some of my pain, and make it your own before you can go.”

  “So sometimes it’s a king, and other times a queen?” asked Lily.

  Meer Askan
za nodded. “The Ivory Throne is reserved for the saddest monster in all of Always October. I will remain here until someone experiences a grief greater than mine. That may never happen, for my sorrow is vast and deep, and I see no way for it to ease. Indeed, I expect it will only grow worse once you leave, for to have held my babe once more and then be required for the good of both worlds to let him go again will be almost too much to bear.”

  She drew a deep, shuddering breath, then began her tale. We already knew some of it, of course—that her mother, Teelamun, had come to our world, fallen in love with my grandfather, then returned to Always October to give birth.

  However, the next thing she said gave my life one more twist toward the strange: “My brother and I were greeted with great rejoicing.”

  The sentence itself was simple. What it implied was not.

  “Brother?” I cried.

  “Yes. I am one of a set of twins.”

  31

  (Lily)

  THE QUEEN OF SORROWS

  I think Jacob actually staggered when Meer Askanza informed him that she was one of a set of twins. I was pretty sure I knew what he was thinking: in addition to having a monstrous half-aunt, this meant he also had a half-uncle who was part monster.

  And I thought my family was weird!

  I could tell he was too shocked to continue right then, so I picked up the conversation. “Where is your brother now?”

  “Hot on your trail, I fear,” she replied.

  That seemed to point to one candidate. With a shudder, I whispered, “Mazrak?”

  “Of course.”

  Toozle groaned.

  The queen glared at him, then said, “Be still while I tell the rest of my story so that you can be on your way. Time is short and the cause is urgent. You may find something of use in what I have to tell you. Whether you do or not, say it I must.”

  She drew a deep breath, then continued.

  “My brother and I were happy little monsters, at least for the first years of our lives. We were doted on by our mother, and by our grandfather, Keegel Farzym. Alas, as time went on, Mazrak became surly and restless. Once we had been close and told each other all our secrets. Now he withdrew from me and wrapped himself in anger.

  “Mother told me it was just a stage, but in time I came to realize it was more than that. While I was curious about our background, about being half human and half monster, and longed to see the human world, and to meet our father, Mazrak viewed the situation differently.”

  “In what way?” asked Jacob.

  Meer Askanza sighed. “My twin felt an enormous rage at not having a father. Some of that anger he focused on Mother, blaming her for taking us away from him. But as time went on, his anger turned inward, directed against himself.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “He hated being half human—hated the division he felt within his heart. He was tormented by this halfness. Sometimes it seemed as if he wanted to tear himself in two, divide the monster self from the human … just as he now wants to tear apart the two worlds.”

  She closed her eyes. “As it worked out, I am the one who has been torn in half.”

  At a sound from Little Dumpling she shook her shoulders and opened her eyes once more. Caressing his head, she said, “In time Mazrak’s anger grew so overwhelming that I began to fear him. Yet he was my twin, my other half, and I longed for him as much as I feared him … longed for the closeness we had felt when we were little. So I made a bad choice.”

  She fell silent. I didn’t want to rush her, but I was painfully aware of the passing time. “What did you do?” I asked at last.

  Stroking LD’s brow, she said softly, “Wanting to be close to my twin, I aligned myself with the monsters gathering around him … monsters who agreed with his growing conviction that Always October should separate itself from Humana and become a world unto itself.”

  LD shook his rattle.

  “In time, I fell in love with one of them—rebels do have their charms—and took him for my mate. A few years after that, I gave birth to Dum Pling.”

  Meer Askanza snuggled LD closer and sniffed his head, just as I liked to do. Then she raised her eyes. Looking directly at me, the Queen of Sorrows said, “Having a baby changes everything, including how you view the world. Shortly after Dum Pling was born, my grandfather, Keegel Farzym, managed to get a message to me, asking me to meet with him and my mother. I missed them terribly, for I had not seen them since I’d joined Mazrak’s band of plotters. So a few nights later I slipped away from our home to the place Grandfather had suggested for our meeting.”

  She sighed heavily. “I soon wished I hadn’t. Though our reunion was joyful, I could tell they were uneasy. When I pressed for the reason, they told me things I did not want to know and showed me things I did not want to see … things that convinced me that if Mazrak had his way, it would be the end of Always October.”

  I noticed that Toozle had edged close to me. He was clinging to the tail of my flannel shirt, completely caught up in the story.

  Meer Askanza closed her eyes. “They finally persuaded me that the only way to prevent this was for me to take Dum Pling to Humana and leave him as a link to bind the worlds.”

  Toozle whimpered in sympathy.

  “Couldn’t you have been the link?” asked Jacob. “You’re also part human.”

  “Naturally I asked the same question! Alas, I am too old. If I had been brought to Humana when I was as young as Dum Pling, I would have assumed human shape, just as he did, and taken my monster form only once a month. But now that my body is long-settled and the Octobrian side dominates, I would not serve to hold the worlds together.”

  I nodded, thinking how terrible this must have been for her.

  “I wanted to stay in Humana with Dum Pling, of course, but …” She gestured at her face and body. “Though my mother can pass for human, I cannot. To remain in the human world would have meant remaining in perpetual hiding, living ever in fear of when the ‘monster’ might be discovered.” She shuddered. “It’s never pretty when humans discover a monster … or even someone they merely suspect of being a monster. My poor little Dum Pling would never have had a normal life with me, never had friends or playmates. We would never have been free of the need to hide, never been free of fear. I don’t mean the fear of the dark and what might be hiding in it, but the darker fear of those who would fear us and, given the chance, destroy us because of that fear. With a human guardian he would have a chance for a normal life.

  “I resisted the idea with all my heart. But as terrible as the thought of leaving my child was, even more terrible was the idea of having the world to which he was born dissolve around us. Where, then, would Dum Pling be?”

  She looked down at the baby.

  “This was a terrible thing to ask of a mother. But life sometimes forces us to monstrous choices, asks of us things far more fearful than the simple frights we all must endure.

  “My decision was made even harder because I was not entirely convinced my grandfather and my mother were right. But what if the odds were only fifty-fifty? What if the chance was only one in ten that they were right? Should I gamble our entire world to keep my baby with me?” She sighed. “In truth, I might have bet the world. But I could not bet Dum Pling’s safety. So I agreed to their plan, which was that I would bring my baby to the human world and leave him with my mother’s old friend, Mrs. McSweeney.”

  “How were you going to bring him to our world?” I asked.

  “We decided to open a portal in the nearby cemetery, in the same place where my mother came through to Humana, where she wanted to meet Arthur Doolittle. Now, the easiest time to pass through the Tapestry is at the full moon—not when it’s full here, since that is almost all the time, but when the moon is full in your world. Thinking it would be less expected, we chose the opposite time, the dark of the moon. Grandfather and Mother created the portal, and on the appointed night I slipped away from my home, babe in arms.”

  Jaco
b spoke up. “If you were supposed to take him to Mrs. McSweeney, how did he end up at my house?”

  Meer Askanza’s expression soured. “Our plan was discovered. As I was about to pass through the portal, someone burst out of the woods in pursuit. Grandfather and Mother leaped to block him and managed to hold him off as I fled. I made it through but had no idea how many might be after me, how soon I might be caught.

  “It seemed likely that if our plan had been discovered, my pursuers would know where I was intending to go. So I made a desperate decision. Instead of heading for McSweeney Monster-friend, I diverted to the home that had been my father’s. I left the baby there and returned to the original route, expecting to be apprehended at any moment. Yet there was no pursuit. Even odder, when I tried to return to Always October, I found that the portal between the worlds had been sealed and I was trapped in Humana!”

  Stomach clench! “Where, exactly, was this portal?” I asked uneasily.

  “In one of the mausolea in the cemetery close to Jacob’s house. They make natural entry points.”

  “And, um, what would cause the portal to seal?”

  “The touch of a human.”

  My cheeks began to burn. “That was my fault! I went into the mausoleum that night. The wall was glowing …”

  “That was the portal,” confirmed Meer Askanza.

  “It was so beautiful I couldn’t resist. I touched it. I’m so sorry!”

  “No, no! It was a blessing! If the portal had not been sealed, Dum Pling and I might have been captured and dragged back to Always October. If that had happened, the Unravelers might have acted already by now. And who knows what horror might have flowed from that possibility.”

  I smiled in relief. “I guess that explains the angry voices I heard from the other side!”

  Meer Askanza nodded. “I’m sure it does. Of course, even though the sealing of the portal was a blessing, it also created a great problem … namely, how was I to return to Always October?”

  “How did you get back?” asked Jacob.