Gwen managed to slam the door in time. The dragons thumped and crashed against it, and it took Phineas leaning on it with all his weight to get it steady enough for his mother to bar it again.
Meanwhile, I was crying. I’m talking six-year-old kind of crying, mouth open, no sound coming out, tears and snot everywhere. I couldn’t help it.
Gwen made the noises you’d make to soothe that same six-year-old as she led me up to the kitchen. “It’s all right, you’ve only gotten a tiny bit on you,” she said. “We can fix that right up.”
A tiny bit? That was a tiny bit?
Phineas followed us into the room and laid Wulf on the kitchen table.
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked through my hitching sobs and gulps of air.
Wulf was bleeding in several places, where he’d been gouged by claws, but the obvious wounds weren’t what I was asking about. His breathing was loud and wheezy and high-pitched. Completely unnatural.
“The same venom you got,” Phineas said. “It looks like one of them spit at him while he was trying to bite it, and some got in his throat.
The same thing that’s going on on my face is going on in Wulf’s throat? That will kill him.
Gwen pressed me down when I jerked and tried to stand.
“Be still,” she said. “Phineas can take care of him.”
She spread a cooling ointment over my face, which was awfully nice of her, considering I’d just endangered her home and her sick husband. For a dog, which made perfect sense to me, but was probably hard for people who didn’t have pets to understand.
“Sorry,” I murmured. “For running off.”
“No need to apologize,” Gwen said. “I’ve met Wulf before, you know. When he’s come to get Phineas. I’d have done the same thing.”
To my great relief, the ointment eased the pain almost immediately. Not enough to make it go away, but enough for me to take it without humiliating myself further, anyway.
“What does this venom do?” I asked. “How bad is it?”
“It burns, then paralyzes,” said Gwen. “Once you can’t move, the dragon sucks the blood out of you. Like a spider.”
I looked at my beautiful bloodhound—less beautiful now, with mustard-colored foam coming out of his mouth—and started to cry again. “Then his throat will get paralyzed, and he won’t be able to breathe.”
Phineas shook his head as he forced some cold tea down Wulf’s throat. “The paralysis takes a while to set in. I’ll get him straightened out before that. Or mostly before that. I don’t think he’ll stop breathing, but he definitely won’t breathe easily.” He looked up at me. “No vet in your world is going to know what to do for this. You’re going to have to leave him here with me. I’ll bring him back to you as soon as I can.”
“What do you mean, leave him here? I’m not going without him! And you’ve still got your father to handle. Just tell me what to do and I’ll take care of him.”
Phineas stared at me. “I know you love the dog—”
“Don’t you dare just a dog me, Phineas—”
“—but what if it’s Warren?”
That stopped me. I blinked at him. “What if what’s Warren?”
“Lydia, why do you think Wulf came? Just to visit? There’s obviously some emergency back home.”
Good point. I’d been so focused on rescuing Wulf, I hadn’t had time to question why he was there in the first place.
What if it’s Warren?
It wasn’t easy, leaving Wulf behind. Or Phineas either, for that matter, with Eric’s health still in question and Amias on the loose. But I didn’t see as I had much choice.
Phineas took me to the clock level of the tower, to the one I’d correctly guessed was set to my own time, and set up the ritual there.
“November eighth now,” he said. “Where to? I can sort of program in a location, if I focus on it.”
“Wulf was at Martha’s,” I said. “I’ll start there.”
“All right. But listen, the veil isn’t thin anymore. I don’t know how this will affect you. It shouldn’t be as bad, going back into your own world versus entering a plane you don’t belong on. But I’m pretty sure it’ll still be damned uncomfortable.”
Damned uncomfortable turned out to be a great way to describe it. But it was nothing I couldn’t handle, more like falling into the canteen than traveling to Phineas’s plane. Painful and dizzying, but not to the point where I was sure I was going to die.
When I felt a solid world beneath me again, I took a breath that smelled suspiciously like cat pee, and rolled over to find myself in Martha’s living room, on the rug near the hearth.
“There you are! Oh, thank goodness. I was hoping Wulf knew what I wanted him to do, but I wasn’t sure. And Jack Nimble was no help at all.”
I sat up. Martha looked absolutely frantic, her face red, her forehead beaded with sweat. Her eyes widened even more when she saw me.
“Dear heavens, what happened to your face?”
I shook my head, too worried to get into it. “What happened here?”
Martha pulled me to my feet.
“It’s Norbert,” she said.
I’d been so focused on Warren that for a second my ears substituted his name for Norbert’s, and my heart felt like it stopped.
“Warren?” I whispered.
“Norbert,” Martha repeated.
“What happened?” I asked again.
“When I told Charlie you’d gone to see Phineas, he said we’d better try to bring you back. In case you knew what happened to Norbert. Or maybe in case Norbert was with you, after all. He wasn’t, was he?” Martha peered into her fireplace, like she thought Norbert might pop out of it.
“No. Norbert is missing?”
“I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that. He was spying on…” She glanced over her shoulder, as if to verify we were alone, then whispered, “Madeline.”
I shook my head. “No. I told him to stop and besides, she’s in jail. She can’t be sending emails, not from any computer he could get to.”
“It wasn’t her. It was the computer in her office, though. I don’t know what this email said, but it was about an attack or something, Charlie said. Norbert was trying to warn you.” Martha gave me a stern look. “Charlie was very angry.”
“So Norbert needed to warn me, and?” I prompted.
“And when he couldn’t get a hold of you, he went to New Guinea to find you.”
I struggled for patience. “Do you mean New Hampshire?”
“Yes! New Hampshire. That was it. He left Charlie a note, which I have not read, but I gather it said everything I’ve just told you, because that seemed to be all Charlie knew.”
Right. I’d called Martha before I went to Phineas’s plane, but in my hurry I hadn’t thought to call Norbert, too. He would have thought I was still in New Hampshire. Had he found out that Amias had tricked us about where he was going to attack? Was that reason enough for Norbert to fly up there to try to find me?
“And Charlie hasn’t heard from him since?” I asked. “This was on Halloween?”
Martha nodded. “Or maybe he left the day before. Probably you just missed him. But Charlie went through Norbert’s credit card transactions, and, oh Lydia, this is bad. Maybe you should sit?”
“Martha, just spit it out!” I shouted.
Martha raised her chin, the way she did when she got determined, or offended, and said, “He was in Lady’s Slipper. He paid for gas, so Charlie knows for sure he was there on Halloween.”
“Sure he was in Lady’s Slipper, I told him the name of the town. So what?”
“Oh. Right. You wouldn’t have seen the news, where you were.” Martha put her hand on my shoulder, and I saw her throat bob up and down as she swallowed.
My hands and feet were suddenly cold, and I decided to sit down after all.
“There was a big explosion at some sort of commune or cult or something near there,” Martha said. “Nobody knows what caused it.”
“And Norbert…” my voice caught.
“They haven’t identified all of the bodies yet. But Norbert is gone.”
The flock at the Homecoming feast had seemed smaller because it was smaller. It had been split up, and some of them sent to Traven Farm. Amias had attacked both places at once. I couldn’t absolutely prove that this was the case, but it was the only explanation that made sense.
Something went wrong, maybe with our fires, or maybe Amias started one of his own. Either way, there were multiple explosions and a large fire that spread to the surrounding forest and took quite a long time to put out. They’d found no survivors, but they had found quite a few bodies.
Dental records suggested that Norbert’s was not one of them. We knew he’d been in Lady’s Slipper on Halloween. Had he found the farm? Or had he escaped the attack? The only thing we knew for sure was that he never came home.
They’d released quite a few names of the victims they had identified. Claudia was on the list. Rebecca was not.
The obvious conclusion was that Rebecca hadn’t died because she’d been a part of Amias’s plot, like her sisters. But I wasn’t convinced. However mixed my feelings about her were, I had seen her with the other witches. I was pretty sure that both her affection and her sense of responsibility for them were genuine. Using her farm as bait to keep Phineas and I from the real target, I might have believed. But I didn’t think she’d be party to murdering her own.
So maybe whatever had happened to Norbert had also happened to her. Had they been taken prisoner? As hostages? Or had their bodies simply been buried too deep in the mess to be found yet?
Two hours after I’d arrived at Martha’s, I was sitting in her kitchen, trying to digest all of this. The only thing I could think to do was go to New Hampshire and start at the farm, looking for clues like a detective might.
But the site of the explosion was closed off while they were still investigating. By the time I could get anywhere near the place, the trail was bound to be cold.
“Anyway, Charlie was already there,” Martha said. “He was asking around town, trying to retrace Norbert’s steps. But nobody remembered seeing Norbert. Not even the people at the gas station where he used his credit card. Charlie put up flyers and everything.”
Charlie should have told me that himself, but he’d slammed his front door in my face, once he found out I didn’t know where Norbert was. I shouted through it, asking to see the note Norbert had left, and to check his computer for whatever email had set this whole thing off. But nothing would make Charlie open that door.
Eventually I left Martha’s and drove home in a stupor. It was much too quiet without Wulf there. The apartment was cold enough to set me shivering, but my face felt hot. I went to splash some water on it, and was shocked by what I saw in the mirror.
Gwen had neutralized the dragon venom before paralysis could set in, but most of my face was burned. The skin, a sickly yellow rather than the expected red, was shiny, and already starting to peel.
Helen Turner was standing behind me in the reflection, of course. But this time, Claudia was there, too. I didn’t meet either of their eyes.
I turned off the lights, so I wouldn’t have to look at either my ghosts or myself. But I didn’t go to sleep yet. Instead I got into bed with my laptop. I’d left my cell phone behind at Traven Farm when I’d gone to find Phineas, but I could check my voicemail online. Maybe Norbert had left a message.
In fact, he’d left three. The first said that Amias’s plan was bigger than I’d realized, and that we—me, Phineas, and the witches—were all in danger.
But we weren’t the only ones in danger, Norbert. Why didn’t you stay home?
His second message said pretty much the same thing. The third said he was coming to find me.
Right back at you, Norbert. I’m coming to find you, too. As soon as I figure out how.
I had other messages. They would have been really unpleasant, if I hadn’t had Norbert’s to compare them to. I’d lost one of my two active clients, and was on the verge of losing the other. And the people who were supposed to be rebuilding my house had called to tell me I’d missed an inspection. They’d tried repeatedly to contact me, and since they couldn’t, they were delaying construction until I got back to them.
So I had no job, and I was pretty much homeless.
I had a hard time finding the energy to care.
The next day, I went to Martha’s to try a few of her honeysuckle rituals, to see if we could get an inkling as to where Norbert was. As we had yet to successfully find anyone with these spells, I had very little confidence that they would work now. But sitting around doing nothing was much worse than trying something and failing.
I banged on Charlie’s door for a few minutes before going into Martha’s house, but it was only so I could tell myself I tried. I knew he wouldn’t answer.
We burned honeysuckle candles, drank honeysuckle tonics (I do not recommend this), even made a poppet and stuffed it with dried honeysuckle flowers. We mixed and matched these methods with every incantation we could think of until we’d tried pretty much every possible combination, and the air in Martha’s kitchen was so heavy with the smell of honeysuckle it was sickening.
As far as I could tell, none of it did a damn bit of good.
The only thing I could really drum up any hope for as I stumbled through the last ritual was that I wouldn’t vomit from yet more tonic. I got through it feeling sick and drained, and no closer to knowing anything.
But Martha was smiling. “Finally!” she said. “I don’t know why that ritual would be better than any of the others. Honestly, it was the one I had the least hope for. But maybe it’s a cumulative effect.” She looked into the bag of dried honeysuckle. “Just when we were almost out, too.”
I sat up straighter. “You saw something?”
Martha looked taken aback. “You didn’t?”
“No.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say I saw anything, no. Felt, more like.”
“What was it?”
“It was only quick, but I’m sure it was Norbert. He’s in the dark.”
“That’s it?” I asked. “But that could mean anything.”
Martha shook her head. “It’s dense, this darkness. Almost like it’s meant to block us out.”
“It may very well be. He might be—”
Max came into the kitchen, and I stopped talking. Martha was determined not to discuss any of this in front of him.
But it seemed he’d overheard something. He tilted his head to one side and regarded me with his solemn eyes. “Do you mean Norbert? Is that who you’re trying to find?”
“Yes,” I said.
“But don’t you worry about it, dear,” Martha interjected. “We can find him.”
Max shrugged. “He’s with Mark.”
“What?”
As if to protect him from the intensity of my tone, Martha stepped in between me and Max.
“What do you mean, dear?” she asked, much more gently than I had.
“Just what I said. He and Mark are together. And you’re right, they are in the dark.” Max frowned. “It might be a grave.”
My heart went into my throat. “Do you mean they’re dead?”
He shrugged again, unconcerned. Not for the first time, I wondered whether he really understood what death was. When Penny had died, he’d been inconsolable for days. But at other times, he seemed completely indifferent, even to people he was fond of. But then, his mind had been broken long ago.
“How do you know this, Max?” I asked. Martha gave me a small smile, approving of my tone now.
“I saw him, through Jack Nimble’s eyes. On Halloween. Jack Nimble can see other places on Halloween. Did you know that?”
I shook my head. I didn’t know it, but it didn’t surprise me. Cats were supposed to have ties to other worlds, weren’t they? And Max had a history of seeing through animals. As far as I was concerned, he was at least as good a source of in
sight as honeysuckle.
“You saw Mark and Norbert together?” I asked.
Max nodded. “And a lady. I don’t know who she was, but she looked scary. I told Jack Nimble I didn’t want to look anymore, after I saw her face.”
Could that be Rebecca? I swallowed. “Max, I don’t want to upset you.”
“Okay. Good. I don’t like for any of us to be upset.”
“But do you remember if this lady you saw had short hair?”
Max shook his head. “Oh, no. Her hair was really long. She was tripping over it. And hiding behind it. She looked very old.”
I had no idea who that could be.
I left shortly after that, and was lost in my own thoughts, trying to fit together what Max had said, as I walked to my car. I hadn’t noticed the time.
“Lyddie!”
My head snapped up and my heart slammed against my ribs at the sound of Warren’s voice. He was running up the driveway. I barely had time to reach for him before he’d launched himself at me.
They were coming back from the bus stop. I closed my eyes against the hatred in Charlie’s face as I hugged my little boy close.
“When did you come?” Warren asked. “Dad said you weren’t visiting any time soon, and—” He let out a little cry when I put him down and he got a look at my face. “What happened to you?”
“I got hurt,” I said. “But don’t worry, it looks a lot worse than it feels, now.”
“How’d you get it?”
“Well. It was kind of a grownup thing. I can’t really give you the details.”
“But you’re okay though, right?”
“I’m okay.”
“Did you come to look for Norbert? Martha said you would look for him. Did you find him?”
“Not yet, Warthog,” I said. “But don’t you worry. We’re not giving up.”
Warren nodded and, with uncharacteristic despair, said, “I miss him, Lyddie.”
“I know, sweetie. We all do.”
“That’s enough,” Charlie said, and I knew he’d only stayed quiet as long as he had because he was waiting until he could keep his voice under control. “Warren, go inside and get your snack.”
Crook of the Dead (The Adventures of Lydia Trinket Book 3) Page 16