Gustav and Fernie moved farther on down the path, which approached Hieronymus Spector’s cage from behind. Just ahead, the stone path split, with one branch leading to the stone island with Hieronymus’s cage and one continuing straight ahead into darkness.
The branch that led straight ahead was the last of the room’s many stone paths. It extended into the distance, a white line leading farther than Fernie’s eyes could possibly follow, with nothing but blackness surrounding it. The shadow-stuff to its left and right seemed to churn like a sea disturbed by unseen currents, some of it spilling over the path in waves. Fernie thought she could see darker shapes moving just under the surface: shapes with fins, sharp teeth, and great gaping jaws.
Gustav stopped Fernie just before taking the left turn to Hieronymus Spector’s island. “Are you frightened?”
Fernie could hardly believe the question. “You ask me that now?”
“It’s all right. You should be. Just don’t get any closer to his cage than I do. He has powers the others don’t have, and has been known to pull people in.”
“Okay.”
Fernie was not a girl who needed her hand held in scary places, but she offered Gustav her hand now. He seemed grateful to take it.
Hand in hand, they turned left, stepped onto the island, and approached the front of the cage.
She saw now why this cage of light was twice as large as any of the others. It contained one of the smaller cages, shoved up against the back of the cell. Hieronymus Spector was inside the smaller one, but seemed too large to be contained by it; parts of him spilled through the walls of light, only slightly diluted by them. They were angry black clouds that looked like thunderheads just before a storm.
The inner cage looked like it was falling apart, unable to contain the darkness Hieronymus commanded. Even the outer cage already seemed like it was chipping at the edges. Sometime soon, whoever maintained this prison would need to put both the little cage and the bigger one inside a still bigger cage before Hieronymus made a hole big enough to escape through; but just looking at the damage he had already done, Fernie doubted that even that would be enough to keep him from escaping eventually.
The shadow inside the smaller cage was that of a man with a square jaw and a high forehead, who did not seem imprisoned at all. If anything, he seemed patient, willing to wait for time to free him.
“Ahhhh,” he said as Gustav and Fernie came into view. “If it isn’t my old friend the halfsie boy. You must be in big trouble to venture as far as this part of the house. I haven’t seen you for more than a year.”
“I’ve been busy,” Gustav said.
“I’m not surprised,” Hieronymus replied. “As I told your true mother, when she came to me asking if there was anything that could be done to give you a normal life in the world outside, you are trapped here forever, and the shadow world will create any number of dangers to swallow up the boy it sees as a crime against nature. Those dangers will only get worse as you get older. Still, visiting your old friend Hieronymus before now would have been the polite thing to do.”
“You’re right,” Gustav said. “I’m sorry.”
“If nothing else, it would give me the chance to share more reminiscences of your departed true mother. The poor, poor girl; it’s so tragic that you had to bear such a terrible loss a second time, after what happened to the woman who only should have been your mother. Interesting, isn’t it, that the only thing they really had in common was you. Maybe you’re just bad luck to anybody foolish enough to love you.”
Fernie had never been the type to remain silent while her friends or really anyone was being bullied. “He’s not bad luck! He’s my best friend!”
Hieronymus seemed to see Fernie for the first time. “I hadn’t gotten to you yet, girl. I see that you cast no shadow. Tell me, girl, did Nebuchadnezzar’s shadow make you any special offers on the way in? Did he pretend to be a frightened little girl?”
Fernie thrust out her chin. “He didn’t fool me. I didn’t know that was his real name, but I knew he was something bad, and he didn’t fool me. You don’t fool me, either. You’re just a bully in a cage who doesn’t get to have any fun unless he’s saying terrible things to people. But I’m not going to let you talk to Gustav that way.”
The figure in the cage inside a cage tilted its head, as if amused by this. “And I should obey you why? I don’t even know your name.”
“My name’s—”
Gustav put a cold hand on her arm, stopping her. “Don’t. Just don’t.” He turned back to the prisoner. “This is between you and me, Hieronymus.”
“Maybe I don’t want to talk to you, hmmm? Maybe I’m mad at you for not visiting me for so long. Maybe I want to make new friends, somebody else who might be willing to visit me even when she doesn’t need information.”
Fernie almost retorted that she didn’t want a friend as mean as Hieronymus Spector, anyway. But Gustav spoke before she could: “And maybe if you don’t tell me what I need to know, I’ll never come back and you’ll lose the closest thing to a friend you do have. It’s better to answer me. What do you know about the Nightmare Vault?”
For the first time, Hieronymus sounded interested. “Oh-ho! Somebody’s looking for that old thing again?”
“Somebody very dangerous is looking for it. We know what it looks like but not where it is or why it’s so powerful.”
Hieronymus Spector chuckled a little. “I’ll only give the answer to that question to the poor girl without a shadow.”
Gustav glanced at Fernie, who nodded at him. “Just don’t give him your name.”
She nodded to show Gustav she understood, then faced Hieronymus. “Talk.”
“Do you go to school, little girl?”
“Of course I do. It’s still summer vacation right now, but it starts back up in a couple of weeks.”
“Do you read books?”
“Duh. Of course I read books. I’m not stupid.”
“It would be wonderful for you not to be stupid, but I believe I’ll be the judge of that. Have you ever heard the story of Pandora’s box?”
Fernie had. “It’s a myth, isn’t it?”
“It’s like many myths, little girl: a poorly remembered story from the hidden history of the world. What do you know of Pandora’s box?”
Fernie resented being forced to perform. “The way the story goes, once upon a time life was perfect and all the awful troubles of the world, all the diseases and the wars and so on, were locked away in the box so they wouldn’t bother people. Then this stupid girl named Pandora got curious about what was inside and opened the lid, letting them out.”
“That’s the story people tell, little girl,” Hieronymus said. “But it’s not what really happened; it’s just the closest their little minds can come to understanding it.”
Fernie rolled her eyes. “Maybe my mind’s not as small as you think.”
The dark clouds in the cage of light churned like smoke billowing from a fire. “And maybe it is, but I can explain it in words small enough to fit.”
Fernie knew that she was supposed to be angered by this, so she said nothing.
“The world’s always had troubles like, as you put it, ‘all the diseases and the wars and so on.’ But once there were even bigger problems: the creatures who lived at the dawn of time, before man, before dinosaurs, before even the stars, things so old and so terrible that they were never given names. They were terrible things, little girl…and though they all died, their shadows did not. They slept on, dreaming of the day when they’d take back what was once theirs. Long ago, before history, men and shadows worked together to gather up these dozing monsters and lock them up in a prison even more terrible than the one you see around you. To your eyes, little girl, that prison would resemble a small chest, about the size of a jewelry box. That is what your people now remember as Pandora’s box, and it has never been opened, not in all the years from the dawn of history to now. If somebody’s looking for it, he wants to wake
those creatures and set them loose on the world.”
Gustav nodded. “Why?”
“Because they would awake hungry, eat everything and everybody, then go far, far away in search of more food…thus leaving the world around us empty of life and ready to be taken by anybody else who wanted to fill it.”
Fernie understood. She was sickened by it, but she understood. “It’s…like knocking down a perfectly good old house so another one could be built in its place.”
“Oh, you are a smart girl. That’s right. Anybody who wants that box thinks he can tear down the world and put up a better one. Or, at least, one better for him.”
Fernie thought she saw a flaw in the story. “But we’ve been told what the Nightmare Vault looks like, and it’s much bigger than any old jewelry box.”
“That’s right. The box I describe is not the Nightmare Vault. For many years it was kept in a closely guarded chamber in the Dark Country, but then one day there was the latest in a long series of attempts to steal it…and the shadows guarding it grew afraid. So they asked me to ask Gustav’s grandfather, who they’d come to trust, to hide it where no evil man or shadow would ever be able to find it.”
Gustav’s grim expression was even more grim now. “That’s what Howard Philip October was looking for all those years ago.”
Hieronymus Spector seemed downright delighted by that. “Is this about him?”
“In a way.”
“He’s back?”
Gustav hesitated. “In a way.”
“How delightful! Do you know, I always thought it would be great fun to let that teller of silly stories into the house and take bets on how long it took him to either find the Nightmare Vault or walk into the wrong room and get himself killed stupidly. But your grandfather had no sense of fun. He wanted nothing to do with anybody who would even think of releasing the shadows from before time.”
With that last phrase, a cold breeze blew against Fernie’s arms, raising goose bumps. She hugged herself, wished her father had been here to hug her, too, and looked back over the path they had traveled. The mazelike stone walkways stretched as far as her eyes could see, and so did the cages of solid light, even if they were just specks of light, like stars.
As she watched, one of the distant specks behind her flickered out.
She barely heard Gustav asking Hieronymus, “Do you know where my grandfather hid it?”
“I’m not sure I should tell you.”
Gustav said, “I’m not going to open the box. I’m just going to hide it again.”
“I don’t care what you do. That’s not the reason.”
“What is, then?”
“Because,” Hieronymus said peevishly, “I’m stuck in a cage, and it might actually be fun watching your world get eaten if the person you’re trying to hide it from gets to it before you do.”
Another of the distant spots of light went out. Fernie took a step closer to the edge of the stone island and peered out into the distance, her heart pounding as she tried to figure out what was happening.
Gustav asked Hieronymus, “But what if he doesn’t find it? What if the world doesn’t get eaten and I get so mad at you for not helping me that I don’t ever come back and visit you again?”
Hieronymus said, “That’s a thought. I should give you something, just to keep matters interesting.”
Another spot of light went out. Fernie squinted and found that she could just barely make out movement: a churning, angry darkness between them and the exit that was moving closer with every second. She peered around the side of Hieronymus’s cage and saw Mr. Notes’s shadow racing toward her in terror.
Behind her, Hieronymus told Gustav, “The thing is, I didn’t see your grandfather hide it. I only know what he told me.”
Three of the distant lights went out.
Fernie said, “Gustav.”
“It’s important for you to understand that this isn’t exactly what he told me,” Hieronymus said. “He seemed to say that he still had to think the matter over.”
“That’s all he said?” Gustav pressed.
“He didn’t say that at all. Just something like that. Something that meant that.”
One of the few cells close enough to look like a cell and not like a distant speck of light started to flicker at the edges. A black line, like ink from an invisible pen, drew itself across the glowing box, cutting it in half. Another came down over the first line, cutting it in half again. Then the edges started crumbling, as if being nibbled by invisible mice.
Fernie suddenly realized what she was looking at: swirling tendrils of shadow, blocking her view of the cages as their master drew closer. “Gustav!”
Before she could yell, Hieronymus said, “Of course…if October happens this way…just to keep matters interesting, I’ll be sure to give him more helpful directions.”
Fernie couldn’t take it anymore. Nor could Mr. Notes’s shadow. Girl and shadow both cried out—in the girl’s case at the top of her lungs, in the shadow’s case at the top of whatever it was he used for lungs.
“Gustav! October’s found us!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
BETRAYED BY HAIR ON A MOUSE
They ran.
It wasn’t the first time that they’d had to run for their lives from a writhing mass of jet-black tendrils. Most houses don’t require visitors to do that kind of thing even once, let alone thrice; it just isn’t the kind of situation that ever comes up anywhere else.
They couldn’t run back in the direction they’d come, not with October blocking the way, so they had to use the last of the stone walkways, the one that stretched out into the unseen distance, with nothing but a bottomless plunge into darkness on both sides.
Fernie yelled, “Where does this lead?”
“I don’t know!” Gustav yelled back. “I’ve never been out any farther than Hieronymus Spector’s cell!”
The path wasn’t wide enough for them to run side by side, so they ran in single file, Gustav just an arm’s reach ahead of Fernie. Mr. Notes’s shadow flew through the air over both, neither following nor leading, just keeping up, in what could have been either protectiveness or a desire to be protected. He kept saying, “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.”
With the path so narrow and the threat of slipping over the side so disastrous, none of them bothered to look over their shoulders to see if October was gaining; they just kept running, hoping to eventually arrive somewhere useful.
Unfortunately, the farther they went, the less reliable the section of stone path became; it began to look more and more ragged at the edges, marked by rough spots wherever pieces of stone had chipped off. The churning sea of darkness on both sides became rougher, too, with more and more ripples of shadow spilling over the sides and covering the stone, like surf reclaiming a sunken pier.
“I’m not sure how much farther we can go!” Fernie cried.
“I know!” Gustav yelled. “I don’t think there is anything out here—just empty space, kept in case there are any more prisoners!”
Then the stone path dipped below the surface of the shadow sea. Gustav plunged into darkness up to his knees, billowing up all around him as he continued to stumble in the same direction, only barely slowing down. Fernie sank in up to her knees, too, shrieking as she thought of the sharks Gustav had mentioned. She slowed down, too, long enough to turn around and see if October was still coming—and yes, there he was: a distant, lumpy man-shape bobbing along at the center of the storm of tendrils originating from his open mouth.
Mr. Notes’s shadow stared at the sight. “I’d offer to give up my life to slow him down, but I don’t think I could slow him down.”
“Don’t bother,” Gustav said as he continued to run on the submerged path. “You wouldn’t.”
Mr. Notes’s shadow said, “I could tell him I know where to find the Nightmare Vault. It would be a lie, but I could tell him that.”
Fernie shook her head. “I already told him that earlier tonight.”
&
nbsp; Gustav whirled in place. “Really? Even I didn’t tell him that. I just told him I’d look for it.”
“I needed him to chase me instead of chasing Pearlie.”
“That would do it,” Gustav said. He took another step farther onto the path and sank another three feet, his head immediately vanishing from sight. The black mist over his head churned a little harder, as if from the struggles of a little boy fighting to surface.
Fernie cried out and almost leaped in after him. “He’s drowning!”
Mr. Notes’s shadow blocked her way. “It’s not water, Fernie. It’s more like a thick fog. You’ve been in places like that and still been able to breathe, right?”
“But there are sharks in there!”
“Right now,” Mr. Notes’s shadow said, “I think we have bigger problems.”
Unwillingly, Fernie looked where Mr. Notes’s shadow pointed. Not nearly far enough behind them, the gaining form of Howard Philip October had turned back. The cloud of black tendrils carrying him had retreated inside his mouth, leaving him to stride on his own two feet back to a place he’d already passed: the glowing cage of Hieronymus Spector.
He stepped onto Spector’s island and tilted his head slightly, listening to what the imprisoned shadow had to say.
Fernie felt a pang of fear. “Hieronymus is telling him everything he told us.”
“I’m afraid it’s worse than that,” Mr. Notes’s shadow said. “If I know Hieronymus, he’s doing what he promised and telling October more than he told you.”
Fernie’s fear became something much worse: the end of all hope. She hadn’t stopped October or saved her sister and father; she’d failed so badly that the end of the entire world was coming. Before long the shadows of ancient monsters would run loose, and everything good would be swept aside for the new kingdom Lord Obsidian wanted to build.
Visible again now that October had pulled the shadow tendrils back in, the sprawling maze of stone paths and the distant glowing cages of Hieronymus’s fellow prisoners all seemed to blur as the tears welled in Fernie’s eyes.
Then a voice behind her said, “What’s wrong?”
Gustav Gloom and the Nightmare Vault Page 11