May Bird, Warrior Princess

by Jodi Lynn Anderson

  “Yeah,” Gwenneth said, nodding at the other two. “I remember something about that.”

  “And ye’re saying ye found it?” Petey asked, squinting at her.

  May nodded. She wasn’t used to lying, and she felt a guilty blush creeping up her face. She could feel her ears turning red.

  “So if the Jibber were here,” Petey went on, “he’d say ye’re telling the truth, and not to send you seven leagues under?”

  May’s throat went dry and icy. “Yes,” she said evenly.

  Petey hesitated. “Well he is here.”

  May went cold. It was impossible. Wasn’t it? She peered around, as if John the Jibber might be standing right behind her.

  There was an uncomfortable silence in which Gwenneth cleared her throat and exchanged a questioning glance with Skippy. And then Petey reached deep into his pocket and pulled out a rubber band. “I got this via Pony Express, from the City of Ether, a few weeks after ye two left.”

  “What is it?” May asked.

  Petey looked at her as if the answer were obvious. “Why, it’s John the Jibber. They turned him into a rubber band.”

  The other knaves’ mouths dropped open.

  May stared at the rubber band, speechless.

  “You told us that was only yer lucky rubber band,” Skinny Skippy said.

  “What’re ye doin carryin’ around John the Jibber with ye everywhere ye go?” Gwenneth added derisively.

  May had to look down at her feet and bite her lip to keep from laughing. Clearly Petey believed the newspaper stories that said Jibber had been reincarnerated on his last trip to Ether. Reincarneration was what happened when you got dropped into a reincarnerator. You got changed into something else.

  “’Tis me lucky rubber band too,” Petey said, defending himself, but looking sheepish. He gazed down at the rubber band. “So what do ye say, Jibber? Does the girl lie?”

  To no one’s surprise but Petey’s, the rubber band didn’t answer.

  He gave it a good shake, then his lips started to tremble. He rubbed his scraggly beard thoughtfully. “No worries,” he said, smiling broadly, but the smile disappeared as he pulled the rubber band close to his lips and whispered, “Johnny, me boy, are ye mad at me?”

  “You know,” May said, “you have nothing to lose. If I take you to the treasure, you can let me go. If there’s no treasure, you can still turn me in.”

  Petey swiped a tear from his eye and sniffed. “He’s always giving me the silent treatment,” he said. Then he looked around, embarrassed, made a big show of hardened carelessness, and dropped the rubber band on the ground. “And where is the treasure, then?”

  “It’s close.” Right near the Pit of Despair Amusement Park, May thought.

  She stared at him, waiting for his answer. They just needed to head in that direction, so she could have some time to think. And then … and then she didn’t know. Hopefully, since there were only three of them, she and Kitty could throw them off. They had fought worse.

  Skinny Skippy waved his water gun at her. “Well, let’s go then, lassie.”

  As they moved on, she looked over her shoulder. Behind them, thinking no one was watching, Petey scooped up the rubber band and tucked it into his pocket, with all the love and care of a jeweler for his finest diamond.

  Chapter Ten

  Vampires!

  Yo ho, yo hee, I died upon the sea

  Now I seen the light, it’s clear and bright

  There be no more thieving for me

  And if you believe I’m telling you right

  I got another one for thee.”

  The knaves seemed to have no dearth of songs about death and thieving and lying. They had already sung “When I Get My Hands on Your Booty,” and this was the seventeenth verse of “Still Knavey After All These Years.”

  They had traveled out through the western gate of Ether, past a deserted village called New Venice, built on canals stretching off the Styx Streamway, and now they were moving southwest along a great, empty road full of potholes and lined with glowing old motels like the Forever Night Inn and the Sleepy Hollow, all deserted. Somber Kitty kept pace, one of his tiny ankles now tied to one of May’s, so they looked like they were running a three-legged race.

  By the blue campfire that night, May and Somber Kitty sat cuddling by the fire as the knaves hooted and hollered and enjoyed themselves. May was too distraught to notice. She was imagining a world full of dark spirits. She was imagining Briery Swamp full of ghouls.

  May pulled out her picture of Pumpkin and looked at it. Somber Kitty patted his paw against Pumpkin’s face affectionately. Was he okay?

  Why hadn’t she stayed and fought when she’d had the chance? Now everything was worse than she had ever imagined.

  May thought of her friends—Beatrice, Lucius, Captain Fabbio, Pumpkin. If she got them back, she wouldn’t let them down again, that much she was sure of. This time she would do it right.

  She looked down at Kitty, making muffins on her knees. A thought flashed at her. She wiggled her hands so that her ropes slid under his claws. It was worth a try.

  Somber Kitty gave her a keen look, and set to work making muffins.

  May felt a shadow behind her and started, turning to see Skinny Skippy staring over her shoulder. She moved closer to the fire, pulling her hands to her stomach.

  “Petey …,” she ventured after a moment, seeing that the knave was in an especially thoughtful mood, rubbing his rubber band gently against his cheek. “Is it true, about the dark spirits taking over the Earth?”

  “Ay and sure it is, lassie. Cleevil’s got it all figured out. Gotten so powerful he’s trumped all the old rules, he has. Using The Book of the Dead to tell him how to get around things, I s’pose. And hardly any spirits left to go against him.”

  “Do you know what he does with all the spirits, once he takes them away?”

  “Well, lassie,” Petey said. “Nobody knows, really. The dark spirits come in and out—ghouls, goblins, mummies, the vamps, taking in prisoners and coming out empty-handed again. Once they’re taken beyond the Platte of Despair, nobody ever hears from ’em again. I’ll tell you one thing,” he went on. “They say his castle’s like a maze inside, workers always building rooms and such to confuse anyone who tries to get in, keeps getting taller and taller, with Cleevil tucked away at the very top so nobody can reach him. A bit paranoid, he is.”

  Gwenneth laughed. “And where’d ye hear all this, Petey? From the birdie what lives in yer backside?”

  Petey straightened up defensively. “I hear things. Hm,” he said, gazing across the featureless plains, “rock, sand, more rocks, yep, this is the spot….”

  He gave a whistle. “Ye, see, lassie,” Petey said, avoiding her eyes. “We’re gonna use yer ransom money to build us a new grotto.”

  Suddenly several rocks began to shake and roll as they were pushed aside, and knaves drifted out from pits they had dug underneath them. Three swarthy pirates with daggers, a gang of nasty-looking numbers wearing black-and-white-striped prison suits, and a gaggle of bandits with handkerchiefs over their mouths. It was a knave reunion.

  In two seconds flat, the numbers of May and Kitty’s captors grew from three to twenty-three. And they went from being merely trapped to being surrounded.

  On their second day of traveling, Somber Kitty managed to get May’s ropes unraveled. And the knaves began to get restless.

  A sign came into view up ahead. It was big and silver, stretching in an arch across the desert. It read ALMOST THERE AT THE PIT OF DESPAIR! An hour after that they came to another: 100,000 SOUVENIRS FOR SALE! THE PIT OF DESPAIR! And still later, another: THREE TACO STANDS! THE PIT OF DESPAIR!

  Finally, up ahead a giant square billboard appeared, with a huge red arrow pointing straight down and above it the words YOU’VE ARRIVED! THIS WAY FOR THE PIT OF DESPAIR AMUSEMENT PARK!

  “Pumpkin,” May whispered. She kept her hands down, pretending they were still tied. She felt restless and nervous
, and she still had no plan. Skippy had floated up beside her, for several minutes just drifting along, making her feel uncomfortable.

  “They say he begged and begged, yer friend.”

  May turned toward him. “What?”

  “They say he begged to be set free. It was in all the news-papers. There was a whole crowd of people watching, of course. Being how famous he was and all. But they took him anyway.”

  “Who?”

  He nodded at May’s pocket, where she had tucked her picture of Pumpkin.

  May squinted at him, her stomach aching. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Skippy stared at her in shock. “What! Yer best friend and ye didn’t even know!” He laughed incredulously. “But every soul in the Ever After heard about it. It was in all the papers. There were holo-pics and everything. He was trying to sneak off, like, through the city, headed in this very direction. They say Cleevil himself got him. Turned him into nothing on the spot.”

  Every word he spoke throbbed in May’s ears. She crossed her arms to keep them from shaking. She shook her head, her throat suddenly very sore. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Here.” He dug through the sack that hung over his shoulder and pulled out a ratty old newspaper. “I kept a copy, a souvenir, like. Everybody did, what with him being so famous and all.”

  He handed May the paper. On the front was a photo of nothing in between two ghouls. REALM’S MOST BELOVED SINGER TURNED INTO NOTHING ON THE SPOT.

  May let out a small cry.

  “Ah, crying, eh? No use.”

  May swiped a frantic tear from her eye.

  “Well, too late now anyway, idn’t it?”

  “Let the girl be.” Peg Leg Petey had appeared beside them, pulling out a wet, gooey hanky and stuffing it into May’s hand. May, in shock, only let the hanky dangle limply in her hand.

  Skinny Skippy whipped a water gun out of his pocket. “Lay off, hey, Petey? I’m tired of waiting around.” He turned his water gun on May. “I’m getting the feeling you don’t know where any treasure is, lass.”

  He tightened his finger on the trigger. In an instant Peg Leg Petey had leaped in front of her, pulling out his own water gun. “Ye’ll not touch a hair on her little head,” he growled.

  Skippy laughed. “Well then, so long, Petey….”

  Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech!

  All the knaves jumped, turning to look toward the horizon, where three black dots had appeared far in the distance. “Vampires,” Petey whispered.

  May swooped Kitty into her arms, her ropes flying off, and ran.

  “She’s getting away!” voices shouted behind her. She turned to see a gaggle of knaves running after her, pulling out their water guns. “Freeze right there!” But May kept going. Behind her she heard a screech, louder, and then felt a black shadow fall over her. She looked back just in time to see a pair of pale hands scooping Skinny Skippy into the air. He dropped May’s bow and arrows onto the sand as he was whisked upward. The other knaves scattered as the vampires gave chase.

  May bit her lip, gazed at her bow and arrows, and then doubled back, scooping them up. She stood up in time to see one of the vampires sailing down toward her. She looked back over her shoulder. She could run for it, but if the vampire saw her disappear into the Pit of Despair, it would surely follow.

  She forced her feet to stand still.

  As it loomed closer, she took aim—praying that she still remembered how—and fired, the force throwing her off balance. The vampire turned to stone midair and skidded past her. May gazed down at her bow, amazed at her own shot.

  A screech in the distance was enough to set her on her feet again.

  She took off in the direction of the Pit.

  The sign was only a few feet before her now, and still May saw no indication of the entrance beneath it. She looked over her shoulder, saw the vampires turning in her direction, and slid across the sand like she was sliding into first base, slipping just under the lip of the sign as another vampire soared overhead and past her, unaware. And then she found she was still sliding, and then falling into the dark.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Pit of Despair

  May and Kitty were sliding downward and around and around a dark basin, like water being flushed down a toilet. Then they were falling through the air. May wondered how badly it was going to hurt when she landed. They fell and fell, until the opening was only a pinprick of light. And then she hit something and bounced, and hit it, and bounced again. She couldn’t see what it was because it was pitch-black all around her, but it felt like a trampoline. Eventually the bounces became smaller and smaller until she was lying on her face on mesh netting. Kitty flopped across her head. May rolled over and rolled off, landing with a thunk on the ground.

  She stood and looked around. Everything was black but for a rectangular booth up ahead, lit from within by an eerie blue light. A figure stood inside the booth, also glowing with blue light, very still. She had on a moth-eaten cardigan sweater with a white collared shirt underneath. Her short hair was curled and frosted, and she wore glasses.

  Warily, May drifted close enough to see that she wore a name tag: Edith. She was looking not at May, but off into the darkness to her right, as if she were bored.

  “Uh.” May hesitated, then cleared her throat. “Um, excuse me.” Slowly, as if on a wheel, the woman turned toward her. She was missing one eye, and a worm crawled out of the hole where her missing eye had been. She said nothing, apparently waiting for May to speak.

  May curled her fingers together, trying to buck up her courage. She was still reeling from the news about Pumpkin. “I was hoping this was the Pit of Despair Amusement Park?”

  Slowly, as if it took all the effort in the world, the woman looked down at a roll of tickets sitting on the counter.

  “Oh,” May warbled, digging in her pockets. “Oh, how much?”

  The woman only stared at her blankly.

  May remembered the money she’d picked up in Belle Morte and pulled it out of her pocket. She pushed it across, hoping it was enough.

  The woman stared at it for a moment. Then her crumbling, withered hands slowly ripped one of the tickets from the wheel and pushed it back at her through the slot.

  “Thank you.” May looked around at the darkness, then back at the woman questioningly. The woman let out a long sigh, and then turned in the direction she had been looking before.

  Now that May looked harder, she could just make out what looked like a black velvet curtain there. She gulped, she and Kitty exchanged a glance, and they walked in that direction. The curtain opened slowly before them, but nothing was on the other side but darkness. She stepped inside and let the curtain fall shut behind her.

  Far, far above—maybe twenty stories over her head—a red light began to flash. A moment later a deafening buzzer went off all around them, shaking the ground beneath their feet. There were loud clickings and rumblings high up in the air, and in the red glow May could now see she was indeed in an enormous pit, lined with hundreds of tiers going up farther than the eye could see. Along the tiers were doors, and each door was opening. May started to back up, but suddenly she was being lifted from underneath and she fell down, into a floating wooden coffin. Grabbing Kitty, she tried to scramble out, but in a moment they were too high to leap.

  Figures began to emerge from the doors, and it took a moment to see that they were mechanical, made of metal, moving like the animatronic Santa Clauses Bridey McDrummy kept on her lawn in Hog Wallow. There were thousands of them—spirits dressed like undertakers and women with hair full of cobwebs, white faces, and darkly circled eyes. They floated off their tiers, hung by gossamer strings from an unseen ceiling, and spun all over the place, executing languid flips and circles in the air, all around May, singing in haunting, mournful voices:

  When things are just too good

  or you’re missing a good scare,

  we’ll set your knees to knockin’

  deep in
the Pit of Despair.

  If you’re up for feeling down

  Or you want to raise your hair,

  look no farther than the realm’s top thrills

  deep in the Pit of Despair.

  Come inside, forget your cares

  It’s worse in here than what’s out there.

  Plus we’ve got funnel cakes to spare

  deep in the Pit of Despair.

  The coffin lifted them higher and higher, and in another moment it was like every bit of electricity in the universe zapped into life all around them, lighting up the immense darkness and revealing a great amusement park beneath them. It was enormous, dazzling, and dark—glowing with eerie purple, green, and blue lights.

  The coffin began to move swiftly downward, into the thick of the scene before them, zipping along above a candlelit cobblestone pathway that wound its way through the park. Mechanical spirits, still singing, circled the coffin, holding glowing signs that said THE GRAND TOUR.

  Rides zoomed and soared on either side of them. Giant slides, sprinkled here and there, reached up so high May couldn’t see where they began. They passed a gaping cave to the left, a crooked sign dangling above it glowing with the words TUNNEL OF HORROR. To the right was a huge house of decayed splendor, its front terrace sagging into the ground, its shutters dangling from the windows or lying on the floor, and screams of terror issuing from inside. A sign by the railing read MURDEROUS MANSION. They drifted past NIGHT ON BANSHEE MOUNTAIN, a mountain that arched crookedly overhead, fire shooting from crevices near the top, and then past HOUSE OF VAMPIRES, the entrance a vampire’s mouth standing wide open. There were waterfalls of what smelled like Slurpy Soda, rusty silver stands selling Putrid Pops and skullcakes in a rainbow of colors ranging from blood red to rot brown, and countless shops bursting with souvenirs—stuffed mummies, chainsaws, shackles imprinted with PIT OF DESPAIR in bright letters.