Cattywampus

by Ash Van Otterloo

  Everyone around Katy swam in their own personal swamp of panic, but in that moment, Katy’s heart floated above it all. She understood what was happening better than anyone else in the room. Fear birthed suspicion, and suspicion created fear, around and around in an endless dance of confusion. She’d had a whole life to spend pondering why folks feared “different,” which left her with a more clear-headed kind of anger.

  Through a window, Katy saw the two zombie armies start descending from their separate hills, east and west of town. Her eyes caught, too, on a gray boy statue sprawled in the street outside. Her heart lurched. Caleb.

  Delpha screamed in anguish as a burly, shaking man aimed his rifle at Tyler’s chest. Click-click. Katy felt she was watching a tragic play where the heroine had forgotten her cue. That’s me, Katy realized. It has to be me, because there’s nobody else.

  She climbed atop the lectern, sending Podge scurrying from her shoulder to the floor. Katy studied the ivy outside the windowpane, swinging placidly in the breeze. Ivy, she considered, doesn’t give two hoots about people’s silly imaginary boundaries and boxes. It could climb anything. Overcome anything, with a clinging, tenacious love of life and desire to thrive. No matter who tried to cut it back and erase it, ivy stubbornly thrived, because it belonged in the world as much as any other plant. It didn’t apologize for claiming space. That was its nature. Katy understood its essence, maybe, because that’s part of who she was meant to be, too.

  She cupped her hands over her heart. She knew what to do. The universe had left a perfect, Katybird-shaped hole in its fabric, and Katybird decided to step right into it. There was no room for Doubt. She could sense the universe smiling at her, too, big and smug, because Katy was exactly the sort of girl it needed, and it had known all along.

  “Magic, I’m your girl,” Katy whispered. She smiled at the ivy. “Come on, then! Let’s talk!” she said—no, commanded—because she wasn’t taking no for an answer anymore. Her head tilted with the authority of a queen.

  Green light burst outward from Katybird’s chest, and she wobbled to keep her balance. For a minute, she thought she might be exploding, but when she looked down, magic poured freely from her fingers, too. People ducked and screamed as a deep green cloud collected in front of Katy—sweet, respectable Katy Hearn. Oscillating forms of trees and ferns and animals formed and faded within it, as if the timeless ideas of forest things had been conjured inside the mist.

  From the cloud’s roiling center glided a shimmering emerald form. Its body was composed entirely of dew-covered leaves, and its glowing eyes winked at Katybird in feral curiosity.

  “Aye?” came a melodic voice. “What is it thee wants with the ivy spirit, daughter of witches?”

  Katy shook her hair. “We need to protect these folks. Keep ’em in town hall until Delpha and I can put things right. An’ keep em’ from shootin’ each other by accident, would you?”

  “Whatever thee asks.” The thing wheeled backward and dissolved into a comet of light shooting for the door. Katybird jumped from the lectern and scooped up Podge in her arms as she ran. The slack-jawed deputies loosened their grips on Delpha and Tyler, who wriggled away and wasted no time tearing after Katy.

  Once the three were outside, Katy slammed the heavy door behind her with a clunk, then screeched to Tyler and Delpha, “Stand back!”

  Thick vines of ivy and kudzu exploded from the ground, weaving together with mind-boggling speed, encasing town hall in a wall of green. From inside the thicket of vines, Katy saw a glowing yellow eye wink at her, then vanish.

  Tyler thumped Katy’s shoulder, whooping. “That was … so much whoa! Your hands were all skkkshhhhh, and the vines were like, whoooosh! How’d you do that?”

  “I just did it, I guess,” Katy said, heart floating. She didn’t explain how she’d understood what it meant to be ivy, or about finding her Katy-shaped space. She wanted to hold that treasure inside for a while, just for herself.

  And now, I bet I can do my half of the Reverse-Curse, Katy realized. Love like hearth with coals aglow. But as she rolled the now-familiar words around in her head and envisioned herself saying them, something about the picture felt wrong. Something didn’t quite fit. Katy frowned hard. Was she doubting again?

  Before she could ponder it further, screeches ripped through the night. The three of them turned, wide-eyed, to find the army of Hearn zombies at the foot of a hill to the west, preparing to mount their attack against the McGills, who charged from a hill to the east.

  “We gotta get out of here,” Delpha hollered, already dashing down the street toward the back lot of the hardware store, where Puppet sat waiting. Heart climbing into her throat, Katybird joined Tyler as they chased after Delpha through the darkness.

  Katy glanced over her shoulder, heart in her throat. Glimmering torches of the opposing zombie clans converged at the head of Main Street like swarms of lighting bugs. Just ahead, Tyler and Delpha rounded the alley between the church and the hardware store, jumping the chain-link fence and tearing up the grassy hill to the cedars where Puppet waited.

  Delpha slapped her pocket with a horror-stricken look. “My wand’s gone!”

  “Your hair!” Katybird pointed to where the carved stick was jammed into Delpha’s thick braid.

  Delpha yanked it free and leveled it at Puppet. The shed sprang to life faster than Katy had ever seen before, and Delpha staggered forward, her face beaded in sweat. “C’mon!” she barked, crawling into the doorway.

  Katy and Tyler clambered in after her. All three jumped as a streetlight below exploded in a shower of sparks as one of the Hearn zombies hit it with an arc of lightning. A chorus of hyena-like howls made icy dread collect in Katy’s middle. There were so many zombies. A dozen of them already swarmed the vine cocoon around town hall like hungry yellow jackets at a picnic.

  “We gotta draw ’em off,” Katybird gasped.

  “Sounds fun,” Delpha quipped, face pale.

  “How do we hold their attention?” Katy whimpered.

  Tyler hesitated, then dug out a handful of flashlights and emergency flares from the bottom of his bag. Katy winced and thought of the old saying: “Don’t trouble Trouble, and Trouble won’t trouble you.” This was lobbing a stick of dynamite at Trouble, and there would be no going back. And what happened then? They couldn’t run forever.

  Tyler passed the girls each a flashlight. “This is such a bad idea,” he muttered, “but here we go.”

  “Hey, you ugly old buzzards!” Tyler hollered hoarsely toward the street. He pushed a cartridge into the flare gun and locked the barrel, then cocked the hammer, aiming high. The flare lit up the sky like a meteorite. For an awful second, the night fell completely silent. They had the zombies’ undivided attention.

  “You’re up, Katybird.”

  Suddenly, Katy felt almost too excited. I called up the ivy spirit, she reminded herself. I can do this, too. “I’m Katybird Hearn!” she screamed into the darkness, clutching Podge in one hand and waving her flashlight beam around with the other. “And I’ve got Delpha McGill with me! Catch us if you can!”

  It was like Katy had pressed a detonator. The night filled with the sound of footfalls and guttural shrieks that hurtled in their direction.

  “Run!” Tyler yelped. “Go, Delpha, go!”

  Delpha raised her wand, and the woodshed jerked into violent motion, throwing Tyler and Katy against a wall. Tyler fumbled to hold the door open so Delpha could steer better in the dark. Puppet galloped its way toward the rim of the valley outside of town, with the zombies swarming behind them in the distance.

  “Slow down, or you’ll lose them!” Katybird hollered.

  Delpha grimaced, but Puppet slowed to a trot. The zombies tore up the hill after them, closing the distance faster than Katy thought possible.

  “Speed up, speed up!”

  They whizzed all the way to the opposite end of town, up the hill, and into the forest, slowing and speeding up again as they tried to keep the zombie
clans at their heels.

  “Where are we going?” Tyler asked.

  “To end this,” Delpha said with a jerk of her chin. “To the Wise Woman Cemetery up yonder.”

  Katy waved her flashlight at the trailing zombies, whooping like a maniac, and they screeched in response.

  In the moonlight, Katy saw Delpha’s eyes were a little too wide. A tear track etched its way through dried blood and grime on her cheek. She’s scared spitless, Katy realized. It wasn’t until earlier, in the church, she’d realized Delpha was capable of crying, but she’d seen it then, too, after she’d fought with Tyler in the church. If you blinked, you’d miss the signs of Delpha’s need for people. But if you watched close for them, they were everywhere.

  Katy wracked her brain for helpful words. It was hard to know how to be there for Delpha. Delpha didn’t love nicely. She wasn’t huggy. But Delpha loved hard, and she’d worked herself ragged, when it came down to it, making sure everyone was safe.

  “Don’t know how we’re gonna do the Reverse-Curse with these zombies right on our tails,” Delpha grunted, swallowing hard.

  Tyler reached over and gave Delpha’s hand a squeeze. “When we get to the graveyard, I’ll take care of all the zombies. You and Katy, y’all just do the Reverse-Curse. Don’t worry.” His madcap grin seemed a hair forced to Katy, and his voice cracked. “I’ve got a plan.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that, Tyler. What sort’a plan? You can’t fight off both zombie armies at once!”

  “Yeah, but I can outrun ’em, at least as a Yow.”

  Katy frowned. “But your leg …”

  “Almost right as rain. It looks worse than it feels.”

  “No, Tyler. Just … no,” Delpha barked through clenched teeth.

  “Trust me this time, Delpha. I just need to keep ’em distracted until y’all get your spell done. Katy’s got it in the bag this time!”

  Katy started to protest, then realized he was right. She could do her part. She had to. She gave a quick nod of agreement.

  Delpha’s eyes brightened, still staring out the door. Her mouth relaxed into a tiny smile. “Okay.” Delpha rolled her shoulders, and Puppet sped down into the lonely crook of the forest that held the graveyard.

  White tombstones loomed ahead as Puppet stomped to a stop in the familiar clearing. Katy vaulted to the ground, butterflies in her chest, and then Delpha followed her, tumbling from Puppet’s doorway in exhaustion.

  The two girls ran to the center of the grassy circle, to the exact spot where Delpha had cast the “Wend-to-War” hex the night before. Katy glanced at Tyler with worried eyes. Tyler nodded and gave her a double thumbs-up, even as she saw his knees wobble in fear.

  “Hold my glasses?”

  “Give ’em here. And run fast,” Katy whispered, hugging Podge tight. “Don’t let ’em catch you.” A lump of worry squeezed her throat.

  Eyes wide, Tyler gave a quick nod, then tore off into the dark forest toward the zombies’ winking torches, howling.

  DELPHA TRIED TO FOCUS ON WHAT NEEDED TO BE done, but her body wouldn’t stop shaking. Did Clement make it to Mama in time? Were they both all right? The thought of the zombies hurting her mother had her stomach in knots. And there were so many things she wanted to say to Clement still. What if she never got the chance?

  A dog yelped somewhere in the forest surrounding the graveyard. Delpha lurched toward the sound. Tyler. Why had she agreed to let him distract an entire zombie horde? Stupid, she berated herself.

  “Delpha, we’ve got to focus,” Katy whimpered.

  “Right,” Delpha muttered. Soon, everything would be right again. She flipped her braid over her shoulder and tried to clear her head.

  “Ready?” Katy asked.

  Delpha tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. “With cunning mind an’ strongest will, I call the hex of war to still,” she croaked.

  Katybird bounced on the heels of her sneakers. “Love like hearth with coals aglow, my open heart makes magic grow.”

  They glanced at each other, then chanted: “These balanced pow’rs make evil quake. Together, watch the curses break!”

  Cicadas droned, and the cries of the zombies loomed even closer. Delpha’s eyes skittered across the tree line in confusion.

  “Why ain’t it workin’?” Delpha shouted, turning on Katy. “I thought you got your magic sorted out!”

  “Don’t freak out, Delpha! Let’s just try it again—”

  “No! I’ve done everything right! Why am I stuck doing this with you in the first place?” A whirlwind of feelings rose in Delpha’s chest. Sobs clawed up her throat, and she clenched her wand until her fingertips went tingly and dead. “None of this is fair. None of it! I’ve … done … everything.”

  Delpha couldn’t think straight. She was crazy with worry for her mama. For Tyler, and for herself and Katy, too, if they didn’t get the spell right.

  Katybird chewed on her lip and stared at Delpha, fidgeting. “I been thinkin’. Someone told me once that cunning folk sometimes tricked people into fixin’ things they didn’t realize were broke. Maybe the witches that wrote the Reverse-Curse were being crafty, too.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Delpha demanded.

  “It’s a little nutty, but hear me out,” Katy said, eyes shining. “Let’s say when you curse someone, you have to really mean it. When we did the ‘Wend-to-War’ hex that made the zombies, we were both spittin’ angry at each other. The curse got its power from inside us”—Katy tapped her chest—“and went outward. We were all gnarled up inside, and the curse just took the hate further.”

  Delpha frowned. “Okay. So?”

  “What if the Reverse-Curse has to go all the way in reverse? What if it’s meant to fix us?”

  Delpha snorted. “This is sillier than when you thought Puppet was a tree, Katy. We don’t have time for nonsense! Besides, I ain’t messed up inside!”

  “Well, I was!” Katy countered. “I wasn’t sure of myself. But I think bein’ around you changed me,” she insisted. “Your nerve made me jealous at first, but kind of in a good way. It made me try harder. Then in town hall, I had to find my ‘strongest will’!”

  Delpha crossed her arms. “So?”

  “So, maybe we’ve had it wrong this whole time! What … what if we traded our parts of the spell, Delpha? What if I’m supposed to do that first line, ‘With cunning mind an’ strongest will’?”

  Delpha’s pulse raced in excitement. If Katy was onto something, they could finally work the dad-blasted Reverse-Curse. But when Delpha thought about the second line of the spell—Love like hearth with coals aglow, my open heart makes magic grow—her mouth went dry as dust. “Nope. The second part ain’t me.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t love love the way you do.” Delpha didn’t add that she could hardly bring herself to say the words of Katy’s half of the Reverse-Curse without breaking down into tears. If Delpha went around letting people in all willy-nilly like Katy did, how would she survive when they left her? Her stomach clenched. What if Clement leaves again? Delpha hugged herself tight around her ribs. And why do I care?

  “If what you’re sayin’s true,” Delpha said, “and I have to mean it when I say it, then we’ll never break the danged curse.”

  “I guess the zombies are just gonna kill me, then,” Katy snapped, eyes flashing. “They’ll get Tyler, too. And my family will stay stone, and your mama and Clement will get killed …”

  “Why are you sayin’ all that?” Delpha cried through gritted teeth.

  “ ’Cause you’re actin’ selfish! I nearly killed myself trying to do the Reverse-Curse. Aren’t you going to at least try?” Katy demanded.

  Delpha dug her fingers into the damp grass. Why couldn’t Katybird understand? Love ruined you from the inside out. Delpha knew what was behind all those shut doors inside her heart. Inside, she was like Echo’s haint, all fragile down and feathers. If she pried herself open, where would those pieces fly off to?
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  The zombies were close enough now that Delpha could hear them screeching curses as they crashed through the trees just outside the graveyard clearing.

  “Love lets people smash you like a bug,” Delpha choked, squeezing her eyes tight.

  “Love puts you back together again when that happens,” Katy insisted.

  “I’m a lone wolf.”

  “Ain’t such a thing. There’s always a pack.”

  “I don’t have a pack.”

  “You’re the leader, silly goose.”

  Delpha’s head jerked up, and she met Katy’s eyes in surprise.

  “And we need you.”

  A dog howled in the forest, and frightened tears spilled down Katy’s freckled face. Delpha couldn’t deny it. She did care for them.

  Love had always felt like a rug about to be yanked from under Delpha’s feet. But what if it’s more like bones? Delpha thought. What if it’s inside you, like steel, giving you the strength to carry the people who need carrying? Delpha hated that she couldn’t control the way other people loved her. She hated that a thousand things could go wrong in their heads, keeping them from seeing the Right Thing to do, even when they cared. But Delpha McGill could control Delpha McGill, and right now, she could see clearly how to do right by Katybird and Tyler. And even if it meant opening each door in her heart and having everything inside it blow away in the wind, she reasoned, at least she’d know she’d done the right thing.

  “All right,” she whispered. “I’ll try.”

  The deafening crack of a lightning hex sounded a few feet away, and a young tree shuddered as it hit the ground beside them. Both girls scrambled away, and the heavy tang of ozone clung to Delpha’s nostrils.

  Two gray Yows tore into the clearing, heading off a McGill zombie who brandished a smoking wand. Tyler was still alive! And Clement had come for them! Through the trees, Delpha thought she caught sight of her mama, too, throwing rocks at a skeletal Hearn owl that swooped at her, talons extended. Mama, fighting off zombies, Delpha marveled. Maybe I can do this.