by Mira Bartók
But Belisha merely tossed her head back and laughed again.
Miss Carbunkle whispered to the creature hidden inside her cane, “This is our hour of glory, my pet! We shall astonish them all!”
She did exactly what Mardox had told her to do before they left her chambers: she closed her eyes and recited the dark, ancient words he had given her. Then she held her cane above her head and released her manticore into the sky. The creature shot out of its wooden prison in a burst of blue smoke.
Through the cuckoo clock and down into the dungeon the Rat went, carrying Peevil by his tail. When Wire reached the bottom of the stairs, he headed to the cells where Sneezeweed had locked up the one-eared Fox. But instead of his nemesis cowering behind bars among dozens of other groundling slaves, he found, to his surprise, row upon row of empty cells.
The groundlings were silently escaping through another exit, up to Kestrel Hall.
Wire pinched Peevil’s tail hard, and he let out a desperate squeak. “Shut up, you stinking little bottom-feeder,” said the Rat. “I know your friends are here, and you’re going to help me find them. Just watch.”
In the factory next door, Arthur struggled to carry the heavy Songcatcher in his arms while Trinket guided him toward the door.
Arthur stopped. “Trinket,” he whispered, “it’s Wire! I can hear him! And he’s got Peevil! Let’s hide and see what he does next. We’ll surprise him at the right moment. Come on!”
He clumsily set the Songcatcher down on one of the worktables, and he and Trinket quickly scooted under it.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” said Wire. “I have your little friend. He’s having a grand old time, aren’t you, my little mousie-mouse?” The Rat began to swing Peevil in circles by his tail. Peevil squeaked out in pain.
“Why, I think this mouse deserves a little jolt of something special.”
Wire flipped a switch, and a terrible roar started up. Then, with a blast of steam and a screech of the whistle, the Monster’s gears clicked into motion.
Arthur scrambled out from under the table. “Fly out of here and get help!” he cried to Trinket.
But try as she might, Trinket couldn’t get her mechanical wings to open. Something was stuck. Arthur and Trinket watched in horror as Wire dropped Peevil onto the conveyor belt heading straight toward the Monster’s mouth.
The wide belt slowly creaked forward, then began to speed up. Peevil tried desperately to run, but the best he could do was scamper in place, moving closer and closer to his doom.
Arthur tried to get to Peevil, but Wire blocked his way at every turn, taunting him, hissing, and dancing from side to side. Arthur glanced around for something, anything, to fend off the Rat. He spied a cartload of beetle widgets at the tail end of the Monster and dashed to it. He shoved the cart as hard as he could at Wire. But the Rat jumped out of the way, and instead, the cart flew right into the Monster, which started shaking violently, sending out a cascade of bright-blue sparks.
Wire backed off. He took one glance at the Monster, which looked like it was going to explode any moment, and fled from the room.
Arthur ran forward and snatched up his friend just in time. “Run, Peevil! Help the others! Go! We’ll be right behind you.”
Arthur had one hand on each side of the Songcatcher and was about to lift it once again when the Monster began to roar like a beast, a deep rolling sound that made the very ground tremble beneath them. The glass “eyes” of the Monster blazed a bluish white, and a blast of steam and sparks flew out the top.
Then, in an instant, the Monster exploded into flames, sending beetles, gears, and bits of metal flying every which way, including straight at Arthur’s head. A beetle hit him between the eyes, and Arthur toppled to the floor under the Songcatcher and passed out cold. Trinket hopped back and forth, trying to dodge the flying debris. Then fire spread through the factory room in seconds.
The dungeon was in flames.
IN THE COURTYARD, Miss Carbunkle anxiously watched her manticore as he battled the Night Crow high above her, near the top of the Wall. Belisha was much larger, and she could use the light from her eyes to distract the beast. She could attack him with her beak and claws as well. But Mardox had a couple things in his favor.
The end of his tail was deadly. And it was nearly dawn.
Belisha bore down upon the beast, catching him by the middle in her great claws. She tried to snap off his head with her giant beak, but Mardox flattened the tines along his back and slipped away, then came at her again and again with his tail. He pushed the Crow closer and closer to the great stone Wall.
They fought there in the driving rain, as the headmistress, drenched to the bone, called out encouraging words to her beloved pet and hurtled insults at the Night Crow.
Mardox wanted to drive the Crow into a corner, then attack her straight on with the poisonous tip of his tail. And it looked like his plan was going to work.
But just when the manticore had forced Belisha into the very same corner where Arthur used to hide, below the weeping gargoyle with the drooping eyes, Wire appeared in the courtyard.
What is this? wondered the Rat, taking in the shocking scene: two monstrous creatures battling in the air, and the headmistress below, cheering one on. But there was no time to even think about this, for they were all in danger.
He quickly told Miss Carbunkle about the fire, and about the intruders who were trying to steal the Songcatcher at that very moment. “Sneezeweed, the coward, ran off. I told you he was disloyal, my lady.”
Before she could say anything, they both heard a sputtering sound above their heads.
“It’s D.O.G.C.!” exclaimed the headmistress. “Help is on the way!”
She shouted up at what appeared to be three D.O.G.C. officials in their signature black bowler hats, riding steam-powered flying bicycles above the courtyard. One looked as if he had a white cat clinging to his back. “The intruders are in the cellar! There’s an entrance at the end of the hall! Break the door down if you have to!”
The officials landed in front of the door and rode their bicycles right inside. Miss Carbunkle called after them, “And alert the fire brigade! The orphanage is on fire!”
“Already did,” one of the officials shouted back. “Saw the smoke on our way in, ma’am.”
The rain dwindled to a drizzle, and a pink light began to glow on the horizon. Wire and Miss Carbunkle stared up at the two fiercely determined creatures, who were now easier to see in the approaching dawn.
Mardox still had the Crow backed into a corner, right in front of Arthur’s old gargoyle. The manticore grinned, his tiny sharp teeth gleaming. “I shall kill you, Crow, and oh, how deliciously slow and painful it will be!”
Belisha twisted this way and that, trying to dodge the creature’s tail.
And then the sun began to rise.
“Kill it!” cried Miss Carbunkle. “Kill it now! We shall triumph together!”
Mardox twisted his tail around and hovered in the air, his stinger poised near the great Crow’s face. “After I kill you,” hissed Mardox, flicking his black tongue, “I shall eat you, beak and all! After that, I’ll do the same to your friends. Tonight, I will feast.”
Plink, plank, plunk. Behind Belisha’s head, the last drops of rain dripped onto the roof and buttress above, and then, plink, plank, plunk, the sad-eyed gargoyle’s tears stopped.
The last tear fell from the gargoyle’s eye.
The solstice sun rose in the sky and shone, in all its glory, directly onto the great Crow’s face. She shut her eyes tight and let out a wretched, ancient cry — a crow’s caw mingled with the howl of a wolf. She twisted her head away from the light and cried once more.
But when she moved aside, Mardox saw the gargoyle face-to-face. It looked just like him.
The gargoyle blinked. And in the ways of the old magic when twin meets twin, the manticore began to turn to stone.
Mardox’s poisonous stinger and tail were first to change. His mis
tress could see him writhing in the air, screeching in pain and anger. “My pet! What’s wrong? What is it?”
For years, she had kept her beloved away from mirrors so he could not see his reflection, but now he had seen his droopy-eyed stone twin — the twin that had always been there, waiting for him to come.
Mardox’s four feline legs transformed, became heavy, and crumbled off. Then his body, the sharp black tines along his back, and his face — his beak-like snout, his droopy eyes, first the left, then the right — and finally his large rubbery ears became granite. His leafy green wings were the last to turn to stone.
He crashed to the ground and broke into hundreds of pieces.
“Nooooo!” cried Miss Carbunkle. She ran to him and crouched over his broken body, now a pile of rubble. The headmistress wept for the first time in thirty years.
The Rat placed his gray bristly hand on her shoulder and in a silky voice said, “There, there, mistress. It will be all right. Wire will take care of things; don’t you worry a bit.”
As the Rat comforted his companion, a strange rumbling like thunder began beneath the earth. Wire and Miss Carbunkle lost their balance and fell. Then the Wall — ever so slightly — shook.
WHEN ARTHUR AWOKE, he was alone in the dungeon. He called out for Trinket, but there was no answer. He was certain Trinket had died in the fire that was now raging around him. The smoke was so thick, he couldn’t see a way out. He was trapped and terrified, and began to cry.
And then he began to howl.
Arthur wailed into the tongues of flame that licked the factory walls, wailed into the crumbling dungeon choking with smoke. And his painful cry turned into the word “why” — the word that had always burned inside him. Why had he been born? Why couldn’t he remember who he was? Why had he been brought to this terrible place, and escaped it only to return? And why, oh why, had he been given a gift, only to have it taken away? For he would surely die that night, alone.
And the word “why” became a long, sorrowful note, and the note a wordless song from his parched and aching throat.
It was a wailing song of loss, and he sang it out into the burning room in his clear, sweet voice.
The song was sad, and ancient, and wild. He sang it with all his heart, with every ounce of life in him. He sang it until he couldn’t sing anymore.
And when he was done, he remembered everything.
His mother, her voice, the stars. How she sang to him, how she held him up to the sky that night and said, softly, proudly, “You are the Wonderling. We have been waiting such a long, long time.”
He remembered the animals that gathered around him in a circle. He remembered their voices too. He understood every word they said.
And he remembered a family. His family. Mother, father, and three sisters.
Then he remembered how the people came bearing torches. They were burning down the grove of trees behind a big white house. And all the animals that had gathered around — he remembered how they scattered, running from the towering flames. One tree had burned particularly bright, then crashed down in a blaze of red. It was the giant fire monster from his dream, but it wasn’t a monster at all. It was a great oak tree. And inside the tree was his family’s home.
Then he remembered a box — a music box with a little golden key. It had a bird on it and smelled like roses. On the box was a W — for Wonderling. Just like the W embroidered in gold thread on his blue baby blanket. The W he had thought was an M.
Moments before the fire, his mother had turned the key and a melody had flowed out from the box. It was the lullaby he had carried with him all his life. “Someday, you shall sing,” she said to him, kissing the top of his head and then his ear, for he was born with only one (a sign, just like the white-leaf shape on his russet chest, just like his gift of listening, of understanding).
Then her face came to him in all its singular beauty, and he felt her heart beat against his as she sang her lilting song.
As Arthur struggled to breathe in the smoke-filled room, he heard his mother’s voice inside his head, saying the words she had spoken moments before the fire destroyed his home and consumed the rest of his family: “You are the Wonderling. It is your destiny. You must sing to the lonely, comfort the frightened, and awaken the love in sleeping hearts.”
Then, in an instant, she was gone.
Now he had nothing left but his memory, and the song. What good were they to him now? He was meant to sing. He knew it as surely as he knew his hands were both human and fox. This was his destiny.
But it was too late. A plume of smoke engulfed him, and the world faded from his eyes.
ARTHUR AWOKE to something plopping into his lap.
“Trinket!” he cried. “I thought I’d lost you forever!”
Trinket had simply dropped out of the Songcatcher’s bell, where she had hidden to dodge the flying debris. But when a beetle widget hit the crank, it activated the machine and the Dreamometer, lulling her to sleep as she listened to the same set of military marches over and over again. “Thank goodness that bell thing got so hot,” said Trinket. “Otherwise, I’d still be asleep in there; gone crazy from all those marches!”
The room was filling up with smoke and getting hotter. Trinket and Arthur burst out coughing at the same time.
“We have to get out of here,” cried Arthur. “Can you fly?”
“I can’t! My wings are broken,” said Trinket. “And the propeller’s not working either.”
“Okay — we’ll try to run out. I’ll grab the Songcatcher. Maybe it’ll block the flames. Get inside my shirt. Let’s go!”
Arthur held the heavy machine in front of him and staggered through the leaping flames. The heat was unbearable, but they made it safely to the next room. They were heading to the Kestrel Hall exit when Arthur heard a sound.
Inside one of the cells were two very small groundlings huddled in a corner, protecting an even smaller one who had been too scared to leave. It was Baby Tizer, the one who refused to grow larger than a hedgehog.
Arthur was struggling not to drop the Songcatcher. He held on tightly to the beautiful machine that had given him the gift of so many sounds and songs. The machine that was, truly, a miracle. He had to save it.
And yet . . .
His friends would surely die if he did.
In the end, the choice wasn’t hard at all.
Arthur dropped the Songcatcher, and as it crashed to the floor, he scooped up the three groundlings and ran. As they ran, Arthur breathlessly told Trinket that he remembered his mother, and what she had said before she died.
“You were born to sing, Arthur! That’s been your destiny all along!”
“I know!” said Arthur, who felt the strangest thing — happy about knowing the truth and yet terrified that he and the others might die.
When they got to the top of the stairs and Arthur pushed open the door, they gulped in smoke. The fire in the cellar had begun spreading to the rest of the Home.
“Arthur, look!” cried Trinket. There were three figures on flying bicycles heading in their direction. Arthur could see a big eye on each of their black bowler hats.
“Oh, no!” cried Arthur. “It’s the D.O.G.C.!”
Before they could escape, the three bicycles sputtered, burped a blast of steam, and landed right in front of them. Then Arthur heard a familiar friendly voice. “Hullo, Spike, m’ boy!”
Quintus, Bone, and Squee (who was wearing a white cat mask), were piled one on top of the other on the first bike, inside a giant overcoat, with Quintus’s face partially hidden beneath his oversize hat. Thorn and Throttle were on the second bike, and, to Arthur’s and Trinket’s surprise, sitting on the third bike, on Cruncher’s rabbity shoulders, was a raven-haired boy with elfin ears, a wooden sword hanging from his belt.
“Pinecone!” cried Arthur and Trinket at the same time. The little boy was grinning from ear to ear and not showing an ounce of fear.
“Crikey,” said Quintus, “that’s one big b
ird!”
“How did you know to come?” Arthur exclaimed. “And Pinecone? How — ?”
“Listen,” said Quintus. “Short story is your mate sent a message sayin’ some lady was gonna destroy all the music in the world, an’ I says, if there ain’t no music, I might as well be dead. So I procured these here bicycles, an’ the rest, as they say, is history. When we shows up at this lad’s house” — he gestured to Pinecone — “an’ found ’im cryin’ in the woods, sayin’ you lot forgot ’im, I had to bring ’im along, didn’t I? Now, let’s get you two out of here! We just flew past t’other end — the front of the building’s on fire too.”
Arthur looked at Trinket and knew just what she was thinking: How would they get everyone out now? But there was no time to think. He and the others scrambled up onto the bikes and rode straight out the door into Kestrel Courtyard.
The courtyard was a whirlwind of chaos. Nurse Linette, who had led everyone outside and then gone back in to wake up the sleeping groundlings in Kestrel Hall, was now tying a large sheet around Belisha’s eyes to protect her from the light. Sneezeweed (whom the prisoners had tied up) was sitting in a puddle on the ground, honking into his handkerchief, saying over and over again, “It wasn’t my fault! It wasn’t my fault!”, while next to him, Mug and Orlick, who had slept through most of the ordeal, grumbled, “Whatever it was, I didn’t do it!” The local police had arrived and were trying to maintain order while volunteer firefighters were relaying buckets and hoses down a ladder propped up against the Wall. With all the other ancient doors besides Hawk Hall having been sealed by Miss Carbunkle long ago, the one and only exit to the Home was now utterly impassable.
And the fire continued to spread.
Miss Carbunkle and Wire stood in the middle of the courtyard. The headmistress was in shock, staring at the pile of stones that had once been Mardox. She was so stunned by grief, she didn’t even notice the chaos around her until Wire nudged her and whispered, “Look over there, madam. We’ve been taken for fools.” He pointed at Quintus, Arthur, and the others.