The Knaveheart's Curse

by Adele Griffin

  “Huh.” Maddy didn’t believe it. She began to prowl, swooshing around the kitchen, kicking up leaves, checking under the chairs and table and behind the hutch. Every time she sneaked up on another space, she snarled, “Aha!”—only to find nothing.

  But there was a presence here. Maddy’s animal instincts sharpened. “Dakooty, who else is in this apartment with us?”

  “Nooobody,” Dakota insisted. “La la la.” She began to sing at the stove top as she stirred the cocoa. She picked a leaf out of her ear.

  Nervous singing. The sign of a lie. Leaves sprouting from ears. The sign of . . . what!? Maddy remembered the car trip to Lullaby and how Dakota and her mom had brushed all of those leaves off their laps.

  Maddy waited until Dakota had handed her a mug of hot chocolate. “Drink up.”

  Quickly, Maddy made her eyeballs drain of color, dark to light brown to gray to clear. “Tellmewhoyouare.”

  Dakota’s eyeballs were harder than rubber. Boing, Maddy’s trick bounced off them, ricocheting her own hypnosis back on her to trap her in a trance that was instantly paralyzing and not much fun.

  “Your eyes are transparent—that means you’re part vampire!” Dakota gasped.

  “Your eyes refract trances—that means you’re part ghost!” Maddy gulped, ten seconds later, once she was released from the spell. Creepy! She wasn’t used to being tricked. Or frightened. Especially by kids her own age.

  She backed away from Dakota. “Okay, game’s up. Who are you, for real?”

  “I’m a hybrid,” Dakota admitted, advancing. “Otherwise known as the Australian ghost dryad. Mom is part dryad, otherwise known as a tree nymph. My dad is a ghost. Oh, but don’t run off just yet, Maddy. You haven’t finished your cocoa.”

  “A ghost? Your mom married a ghost?” Maddy wasn’t sure she’d ever heard of that before. Was it the cold or her nerves that were making her teeth chatter?

  “They eloped. Mom was a landscaper at the hotel that Dad was haunting,” Dakota explained. “Ghost marriages are the special privilege of dryads, as you know.”

  Maddy had thought that was just a rumor. Being part ghost and part tree nymph seemed more exotic than her own mix of vampire-fruit bat.

  “If your mom’s a dryad and your dad’s a ghost, then what are you?”

  Dakota looked pleased with herself. “Mostly human DNA, with some ghosty traits, and I’m dryad-ishly good at climbing trees. Plus I shed leaves when I’m feeling emotional—I got that from my mom.”

  “Yeah, I noticed.”

  Dakota plucked a tiny leaf from her nose. “There’re many of us in Queensland, so we had heaps of friends. But Mom and Dad wanted me to get to know more mortals. So we all moved to New York. Once Mom gets old and dies, she can join Dad in the afterlife. Then she’ll be with him always.”

  “Okay, but . . . where is he now?”

  “Haven’t you guessed?” Dakota pointed. “Dad’s in the portals.”

  “Mirrors, you mean?”

  “Not precisely mirrors. They’re passages to the Other Side. Dad comes out on special occasions, but like all ghosts, he needs to stay where he belongs. We keep it cold so he can see us and write us messages through the frost. Look—there’s one now.”

  Maddy’s eyes darted toward the portal, and she nearly jumped out of her sneakers at what she saw.

  The words on the surface of the mirror were jagged, as if traced by a single, frozen finger.

  PLAY A TUNE.

  “That’s a message from your dad?” Maddy asked.

  “Yep.” Dakota smiled. “Dad’s always around. He’s a stay-at-home ghost.”

  “He’s asking you to play clarinet?” Maddy wanted to stop trembling, but it was difficult. She wasn’t sure she could stay one more minute in this haunted apartment.

  “No, Dad wants to play a tune for you. If I face him while holding the clarinet to my mouth, the notes travel into my breath. Simple, really.”

  In all her centuries as a nightwalker, Maddy had witnessed just about everything, but rarely a trick as odd as the one Dakota proposed.

  “Interesting,” she said, with some doubt.

  “Dad might be a little shy. We’re not used to company.” Dakota sat in an armchair and motioned for Maddy to take the ottoman next to her. As Maddy sat, she pulled her cape around and tucked up her feet. On the off chance Dakota’s ghost dad was a biter. Most ghosts thought biting was funny, though it clearly wasn’t.

  The frost thinned. In the glass appeared the image of a young man.

  “Ooh.” Maddy gaped. He was perched in an armchair that was a replica of Dakota’s, and he held a clarinet. The only extraordinary thing about him—besides his ghostliness—was that he had one foot stuck in a paint bucket.

  “Why is your dad’s foot in a bucket?” Maddy whispered behind her hand.

  “That’s where it was when he died,” Dakota whispered back. “He was painting the hotel roof when he tripped over that stupid bucket. He fell forty-six floors.”

  “Sorry,” said Maddy.

  Dakota’s dad allowed a sad smile, then raised the clarinet to his lips. Then, as Dakota mimicked his movements, he began to play his ghost clarinet, and Maddy realized that this was the same exquisite tune she’d heard earlier, when she was waiting for Dakota to open the door. The piping notes melted away Maddy’s doubt.

  After he finished, Maddy jumped up and whistled through her teeth. “Woo-hoot! Your dad rocks!”

  By then, the glass had frosted over. Dakota’s dad bowed and vanished.

  But Dakota was beaming. “I haven’t had such a lovely afternoon in ages.”

  “Me either.” And because it seemed like the right time to say it, Maddy admitted, “I’m kind of a hybrid, too. My whole family used to be vampires, but we weren’t born that way. After the Bite, we had immortality and sustained ourselves on a part-blood, part-fruit diet. When we moved here to New York, we got the chance to exchange our immortality for a vegan lifestyle. We’re losing our vampire traits slowly as we build up our mortal blood.”

  “Wow.” Dakota smiled. “So we’re both hybrid immigrants. That’s cool.”

  In that moment, it seemed to Maddy more like a real-friends smile than a fake-friends smile, though she couldn’t be sure.

  “How about let’s go to my house now?” suggested Maddy. “No offense, but your apartment is colder than a hangman’s heart.”

  Dakota nodded. “Let me fetch my moleskin cloak. They’re all the rage among Queensland dryads. I don’t wear it in the New World because I’m trying . . .” She lapsed into silence. Maddy could guess what her half-a-day friend was too timid to say. Dakota wouldn’t wear her moleskin because she was trying to fit in with humans. Maddy knew all about that.

  They strolled down the sidewalk, elbow to elbow. Dakota’s cloak was long and olive green, with a peony pink lining and pink tassels. It billowed like a sail alongside Maddy’s wave of purple. A breeze snapped the capes higher, and as they crossed the street, Maddy could feel everyone’s eye caught by the splashes of color.

  Dakota and Maddy exchanged another smile. Old World-style capes rocked.

  Even Hudson seemed impressed when Maddy caught sight of him staring through the living room window. Hmm. Odd for Hudson to be in boy form.

  But her brother had opened the front door before Maddy had a chance to pull out her house key. Something was wrong.

  “Most sage sister,” said Hudson in the Old World language he often defaulted to when he got tense. “’Tis many a flummoxed moment I’ve awaited your arrival.”

  “What’s up, Crud?” Maddy asked.

  “A vexing and curious—”

  “In plain New World, please.”

  “Uh, sorry,” he stammered. “It’s Lex.”

  “My big sister,” Maddy explained.

  “Something’s wrong with her. Not even Pete can get her to stop. Come upstairs and see for yourself.” Hudson looked Dakota up and down, his eyes widening in surprise. “You too, Susanality. I didn’t re
alize you were one of us.”

  13

  LEXIE AT LARGE

  Lexie had grown—more. That was the first thing Maddy saw. Then she noticed that the walls of her sister’s bedroom were tar black.

  “Your parents let your sister paint her bedroom black?” Dakota blinked, dazzled, as she stepped inside. “Lucky!”

  “When did the paint job happen?” asked Maddy.

  “I did it myself, last night,” said Lexie. Her arms were moving like windmills as she threw books, notebooks, and her beloved vintage clothing into a couple of open garbage bags.

  “Should I text your parents?” whispered Pete. “They’re at the recording studio. They probably have a right to know that their oldest child has gone berserk.”

  “Not yet,” Maddy whispered back. “They’re really busy. And she hasn’t done anything destructive.”

  “Yet,” muttered Pete.

  They all watched in silence. But when Lexie dumped out her bowl of potpourri, Maddy had to speak up. “Hex, why are you chucking out your fave smells?”

  Her sister stopped and squinted. Her eyes had nearly doubled in size. They shone with a darkly emerald hue. Her hair had lightened further, to maple syrup brown with auburn tints.

  “I’m not chucking them. I’m losing them,” said Lexie in a husky voice. “Remember—‘The art of losing isn’t hard to master. So many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.’”

  “Uh, sure. Whatever you say, Lex.” Maddy wasn’t fooled by the charm of the quote. Her heart went into overdrive when she saw that her sister’s teeth glistened a translucent pink.

  Lexie’s attention moved to her mosquito net curtains, which she began to yank down.

  “Dearest sister, no! Those curtains took you a fortnight to sew and countless hours to drape just right,” Hudson protested.

  Dakota was less perturbed. “Wow. Is your sis the black sheep of this family or what?”

  “Not even close.” Maddy was indignant. “I’m the black sheep—Lex is the goody gumdrop!”

  “Well, she’s a licorice-flavored gumdrop today,” said Dakota.

  Hudson sidled over. “Examine the fingertips,” he whispered.

  Maddy jumped forward and grabbed Lexie’s hand. Lexie swatted her. But not before Maddy had seen. Sliced into every single fingertip of Lexie’s right hand were green-blue welts. “How’d that happen?”

  “Leave me alone.” Lexie snatched back her hand and then swept an autographed lyric sheet of folk singer Elliott Smith from her bureau so that it fell in the lawn bag.

  “Ooh,” Maddy gasped. In his too-short, doomed life, Elliott Smith had signed ninety-three autographs, total. That sheaf of music was Lexie’s best treasure. Maddy scooped it out of the bag and passed it to Pete, who rolled it up and tucked it into his pocket.

  “We must take action. ’Tis not our Lexie anymore,” said Hudson in his gravest Old World. “Afore mine eyes, mine sister has become a changeling.”

  Boom. Hudson’s Old World word blasted into Maddy’s head like a firecracker. Her heart hadn’t beat so hard since she won the chin-up competition in gym class last year. But then it had beat in victory. Now it was pounding with fear.

  She raced up the stairs to her room and grabbed her The Gospyll of Trydrbllel Species & Unknwyble Chryttres.

  In the index, under “chaengeling,” there it was.

  Chaengeling: Knaeveheart chaengeover, transfusion, heir, p. 1833. Chaengeling—Hynt of Chaenge, Poemme of the Tenth Knaeve, Boris Afanasyev, p. 616.

  With shaking fingers, Maddy flipped to page 1833.

  Chaengeling Knaevehearts: When a Knaeveheart is reddy to hand over the dynastie, transferring power to the pureblood heir, the chaengeover is comprehensive. From physycal characterístícs to persona to plasma, the Ninth Knaeve transfuses into the Tenth in a temporary state called “doubling.” A doubling ensures that the chainne of the Knaeveheart dynastie continues unbrokken.

  Maddy swallowed. Now it was beginning to make sense . . .

  Zelda. The mysterious cousin who was visiting from Denmark, who was staying with Lisi Elcris. The guitar-playing enchantress was actually transferring power—and everything else—into her sister. Sweet, fruity, poetry- and doomed-song-loving Lexie. And if Maddy’s hunch was correct, once that transformation was complete, the sister formerly known as Lexie would become the Tenth Knave.

  If Maddy didn’t figure out a way to stop it, Lex would then return to the Old World and begin serving her thousand-year rule of terror and destruction.

  “But I will stop it.” Though the challenge sank Maddy to her knees and made her feel a little bit sick to her stomach. Okay, this was really bad.

  She flipped pages to the “Storey of the Tenth Knaeve,” re-deciphering the phrases for clues. A particular line caught her eye.

  A family sircle makes a pact . . . defends the Knaeve from front to back. That would be Lisi’s family! That’s why those Elcrises were everywhere—the Candlewick Café, Club Lullaby, Dolly World . . . They were everywhere that Zelda was.

  “Aha,” she said.

  She tore down the stairs and motioned Dakota to join her in the hall outside her sister’s room.

  “You’ve been to Lisi’s apartment, right, Dakota?” she asked quietly.

  “Sure, lots of times.”

  “Cool.” Maddy retied her cape tassels.

  “What’s going on, Mads?” asked Pete as he stepped into the hall, Hudson close behind. “I can tell you’ve cracked a clue.”

  Maddy put a finger to her lips. “I think Zelda’s the Ninth Knave and she’s transferring power to Lexie. It’s all in the book. From glass-eyed witnesses daren’t blink to poison strings and picque. Doll’s eyes and guitar strings and picks, that is.”

  They stared at her. “A Knave? Like Vlad the Impaler? But . . .” Hudson shook his head. “No way. Lex is just a girl.”

  “So am I, but I’m the only one in the family with the ruby-and-gold Slayer’s pin. I destroyed the von Kriks, remember?” Maddy arched an eyebrow.

  “Point taken. What do we do next?” asked Pete.

  “Crud—you come with me. Pete, you watch Lex. Don’t let her leave the house or let her fall asleep—or else her blood will start to go Knave-y.”

  “Where are we going?” Hudson asked.

  Maddy slapped Dakota’s back. “My friend is going to show us the way. We’re off to pay a little visit to the family Elcris.”

  14

  THE FAMILY ELCRIS

  You’re flat outta luck, kids,” said the doorman. “The Elcrises are all playing golf at Club Lullaby.”

  “Is their cousin Zelda with them?” Hudson asked.

  “Oh, yes. She likes it out in the country air. She says she found a good nap spot.” The doorman shook his head. “You know teenagers. They love their sleep.”

  And so do millennial-old Knaves in dark, smelly, rat-infested Dumpsters, thought Maddy.

  “Plan B,” she decided as the threesome headed outside. “The King Kong route.”

  “You mean climb the building? But the Elcrises live on the ninth floor,” squeaked Dakota.

  “Hudson and I’ve spent centuries scaling heights,” said Maddy. “We’ve still got our excellent vampire skills. And you said you could climb trees. Think of the building as the highest tree you ever climbed.”

  Dakota looked uncertain. “I’ll try.”

  They decided to scale the back of the building that faced into the alley. That way, nobody would see them. Jumping and swinging from ledge up to ledge was a test of the most flexible hybrid grip and strength. Maddy went first to test and show the route.

  “This feels very scary—and illegal,” huffed Hudson from behind.

  “For humans, sure.” Maddy was too busy counting floors to pay him attention. Her vampire traits were out in full force. Sharpened teeth, double-jointed bones, and a steel grip in her fingers. Scaling buildings had been a primary Old World activity, when they’d looked for predator-s
afe places to roost. “This apartment isn’t even close to the challenge of climbing Notre Dame, remember, Crud?” she encouraged.

  “Mmph,” came the reply from below.

  Finally, the ninth floor. Maddy wrenched open the window and plop, plop, plop, they all dropped inside, to find themselves in a supply room.

  “The Elcrises live at the end of the hall,” informed Dakota as they stood and dusted themselves off. “I’ll lead the way.”

  “Here’s a question,” said Hudson as they tiptoed down the corridor. “If Lexie’s fate has been written into the Gospyll , then isn’t it her destiny? Which means that no matter what we do, we can’t change it?”

  “Go ask a philosopher. I’m interfering with Lex’s destiny no matter how it’s been set up.” Maddy was already kneeling to pick the Elcrises’ lock.

  “The Argos really don’t like it when you break and enter,” warned Hudson.

  “Well, I really don’t like having my sister’s identity transfused,” said Maddy.

  The lock held fast. “Cagey Knave,” said Maddy. “Zelda’s on to us. She hybrid-proofed the locks. Not even the family skeleton key could get us inside.”

  “Hey, I think I can help,” said Dakota. “My dad’s a ghost, remember? When I wear this cloak, I can pass through doors.”

  Passing through doors? No way. The perfect spy technique. “Seeing is believing,” said Maddy.

  Dakota closed her eyes, pursed her lips in concentration, and pressed all her fingers against her chin. Slowly, the pond green fabric of her cloak began to change, becoming slicker, thinner, permeating the pores of her skin until Dakota herself had taken on a green and filmy dimension. She stepped through the Elcrises’ front door as if it was made of water and was gone.

  A simple click and then the door swung open. Dakota gave a small bow as she stepped aside to let them pass.

  “Nice!” Maddy and Hudson high-fived her as they trooped through.

  The apartment was dark. In the kitchen, a blender had been left to soak in the sink. “Lisi told me her cousin makes fresh gazpacho every morning,” said Dakota as Maddy let her tongue unroll to test the rim.