by Becket
“It’ll be our secret,” he whispered with a wink.
Elizabeth Sasquatch thanked him with several more growls and yowls. Then she led them through the house.
They passed many strange and wonderful rooms. To their right was a room filled with grave-looking men in suits and hats, sitting at tall desks and writing with quills and ink. To their left was a room cluttered with steam-powered robots typing nonstop at computers. At their feet was a small room with a glass ceiling packed with several tiny people working in a library and carrying tall stacks of books and papers.
Finally they came to the Duchess’s door at the end of a long hall. On it was a copperplate with the words:
THE DUCHESS OF DUSK
KNOCK IF INSURED
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Duchess of Dusk & the Credoroom
Gates knocked on the door fearlessly.
A matronly voice spoke from the other side. “You are not allowed in if you have no Deadman’s Insurance.”
“It’s Gates.”
“Gates who?”
“The gateway.”
“What happened to your voice? Did I do that?”
Mr. Fuddlebee leaned close to the door. “That would be my doing, Dorothy.”
Several excited footsteps could be heard coming from around a desk and scuttling quickly toward the door. It swung open and instantly everyone was looking at the beaming face of the Duchess of Dusk.
She was a squat matron wearing a large black gown and her hair done up very high. She wore thick glasses that made her eyes look twice as large. They fluttered with good cheer.
“Oh my dear, Mr. Fuddlebee,” she gasped happily. “You are most certainly welcome. I know you’re well insured.”
“I got an excellent premium on my afterlife policy,” he confided.
With great enthusiasm the Duchess yanked them all inside.
“Come in! Come in!” she sang out in a merry tone.
But when she saw Bernard, Beatrice, and Berkeley, she stopped and stared at them.
“You look familiar. How long have you been dead?”
“We’re not dead,” Bernard answered.
“Then how long have you been undead?”
“We’re not undead either,” Beatrice replied.
“Are you witches or twits?”
Mr. Fuddlebee cleared his ghostly throat. “They are the occupants of the residence atop your facility.”
The Duchess was a little bewildered by all those words.
“Ock You Pants,” she said, trying to spell it out. “I have no idea what that means. Do they have any in my size?”
Gates spoke up. “They are the children who live in the house above the hollow.”
The Duchess gaped at the zombie cyber girl.
“You brought them to the hollow!”
“That was my doing,” Mr. Fuddlebee explained. “You see, I came to their house to investigate an odd and odious kerfuffle, and to my surprise I discovered an entrance to the hollow. I was under the impression that all entrances had been moved out of neighborhoods and placed in cemeteries.”
“This is New Orleans,” replied the Duchess of Dusk in a wry tone. “Things move a little slowly here.”
“That was supposed to happen over a century ago.”
The Duchess considered this.
“They don’t call New Orleans the ‘Big Easy’ for nothing,” she said at last.
Then she turned, walked up the wall, scuttled across the ceiling, and sat upside down at a large round table.
Bernard and Beatrice looked up in astonishment.
On the table on the ceiling were piles of cakes and cookies, pitchers of honey milk and iced tea, piles of plates and spoons, and place settings for many more than six.
Gates walked up the wall, across the ceiling, and sat at the table too.
The Duchess gestured to all. “Please, everyone, have a seat and help yourself. We cannot think on empty tummies.”
“That lemon sugar cake looks scrumptious!” Mr. Fuddlebee said and floated up to sit at the table too.
“How do we get up there?” asked Bernard who had always wanted to walk on walls and ceilings.
“Could your onbrella bring us up?” asked Beatrice, more interested in the delicious cakes than being upside down.
Berkeley did not have a problem. He made one of the chairs float down and scoop him up. In the next moment he was sitting at the table with his face buried in a vanilla cake.
“My dear children,” Mr. Fuddlebee called down to the other two Buttons. “This is a Credoroom. Just believe you can walk on the walls and the ceiling, and have no doubts in your heart, and you will find yourselves up here with us before you can say, Extrasnicklegiggloryeensyverby… Oh, dear, I seem to have forgotten the rest.”
This was a very new idea to both Bernard and Beatrice, yet they had grown to like Mr. Fuddlebee very much, so they were starting to trust him a little more.
Bernard put one foot on the wall and then another. He struggled to balance at first, but he soon found his footing. He believed he could walk up the wall, so he did what he believed. Then he almost ran the rest of the way up and across the ceiling to the table. Quickly he pulled out a chair, sat down, and cut himself a slice of pecan pie.
“Come on,” he called down to Beatrice. “It’s not as hard as I thought.”
She was not so sure. She placed one foot on the wall, yet when she tried to place the other, she fell right on her backside. She had read so many books about gravity that she could not believe a room like this was possible.
“Sometimes, my dear,” Mr. Fuddlebee called down to her, “it is easier to close your eyes and then give it a go. Crawl up the wall believing just in your heart that you can, not by thinking you can’t. You’ll soon see your mind following your heart, and you’ll be walking with the rest of us. It’s quite marvelous technology.”
Believing more in his words than in what she saw, she closed her eyes and crawled up the wall very slowly. Sometimes she veered too far to the right or left, but Mr. Fuddlebee always guided her.
“A little to the right, my dear… now to the left… excellent… you’re almost here… Good! Now open your eyes.”
She opened them and saw she was at the table on the ceiling. Seeing the floor above her head made her a little queasy and scared, and she almost fell back down. But Bernard reached out and took her hand.
“Sit beside me and have some cake,” he said, cutting her a large slice of chocolate—her favorite.
The Duchess of Dusk wiped cookie crumbs from her mouth and they all fell up to the floor.
“Now that we are all together and full of cake and cookies,” she said, “let’s talk about what’s happening.”
Gates and Mr. Fuddlebee explained how something had somehow snuck into the hollow, and was causing so much mischief that the mortals living in the house could hear it.
The whole time the Duchess watched them tell the story with wide eyes while shoving slice after slice of cake into her mouth.
“What could it be?” she wondered after a great gulp. “Gates is the best of the best. What could have gotten by her watchfulness? Oh, this is terrible news. Just awful! If I’m going to survive, I must have more cake.”
She took a whole butter cake and stuffed it into her mouth in one bite.
“There,” she said, looking relieved with her mouth full of cake and her lips covered in frosting, “that’s better.”
She turned to Gates and spoke, spitting crumbs in all directions.
“This sounds like a job for Gideon. If something is inside, he’ll probably know all about it.”
“Who’s Gideon?” Beatrice asked.
Mr. Fuddlebee leaned close to the three Button children and explained, “Gideon Gizmo is a mechmage. He is half mechanical, half magical, a cyborg like Gates here, except he knows many magic spells and powerful potions. Gates is the hollow’s gatekeeper and Gideon is its defragger. He cleans the system, keeping the machines magic
al and the magic mechanized.”
“He’s like a caretaker,” said Bernard.
The Duchess of Dusk leaned over the table and spoke cautiously, fearful someone might overhear her. “If you do visit him, you should be aware that Gideon’s motherboard has been a little cranky lately. She might shock the socks off you.”
A worried hush fell over the ground.
But then the Duchess shoved a cupcake into her mouth and sighed contentedly.
“Before you go, you must try some of the red velvet cake. It’s made with real velvet!”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Gideon Gizmo the Mechmage
Gates led Mr. Fuddlebee and the Button children from the Duchess’s house into the hollow’s maze of streets.
They passed several shops, many selling Halloween costumes, and many more selling Halloween candy, although no one was trick-or-treating.
“That happens on Trick or Treat Street,” Mr. Fuddlebee explained to the children.
They walked down one road and up another. The air was getting colder. Something like a fog was rolling slowly through the hollow, yet it had the scent of vanilla and cinnamon sticks. Lamp posts shone brightly with enchanted light that changed colors. Magic moths fluttered all around.
Soon everyone could hear the horrible sound of nagging. It was a motherly voice that began near the Snuckle Truffle Shop. It grew louder the nearer they got to Gideon Gizmo’s house. They passed the wolfman mall, they passed the wand maker’s shop, they passed the troll trinket trolley, and the mummy milk shake shop. And the motherly voice grew louder and louder and nagged more and more. It was almost blaring when they finally passed a group of goblins banging spoons on pots and pans, and crooning at the tops of their voices a song called The Pots and Pans Parade.
Gideon Gizmo lived in a jack-o-lantern house just outside the hollow, as if no one wanted him around. His house was not much to look at either. It was a small, crooked, ramshackle shack. Parts were overgrown with red vines. Parts had fallen in. And most parts were patched with makeshift machines of copper, steel, brass, iron, or chrome, all of which were blinking or buzzing or gushing out steam. The house looked like a patchwork quilt of mechanics, magic, and pumpkin.
Gates knocked on the front door, but the nagging inside was so loud it went unanswered. So she opened the door and went in. Mr. Fuddlebee and the three Button children followed.
There were not many rooms. The middle was the main room where there were also small spaces for a kitchen, a nook, a den, and a small library of one bookcase crammed full of books. On the walls were half-screwed in bolts, used as pegs for visitors to hang their hats and coats, because Gideon loved having lots of visitors.
Concealing most of those small places and pegs was a mess of machines and magic cluttering the house. There were piles of machine parts reaching up to the roof. And there were partly woven magic spells hanging in the air like mist.
And in the middle of it all was Gideon Gizmo the mechmage. He was almost three feet high. He wore a green cloak and a pointed blue hat. Half of him looked like an old mage. The other half was mechanical. He had one real eye and one machine eye, one mechanical ear and one real one, and one mechanical arm and one real one. Instead of legs he had bulky wheels with treads. And covering over his mouth was a machine like a gas mask.
He was slouching, his head hanging low in sorrow. He did not notice the visitors in his house. The voice of his motherboard was blaring all around him.
“Gideon Gizmo, have you tied your shoes? And have you wired your circuits? And how many times must I tell you to put your spells and spare parts away when you’re done with them?”
It went on and on like this. The motherboard’s voice never shut off. She was constantly telling him what to do and never allowing him to talk.
Gates, Mr. Fuddlebee, and the three Button children were about to introduce themselves when alarms suddenly shrilled.
“Alert! Trespassers!”
Gideon now saw the zombie cyber girl, the elderly ghost, and the three Button children. And his whole face lit up with joy. He began beeping and whistling, inviting them in for a nice cup of magic cocoa.
But his motherboard shouted at him, “You naughty little gizmo! Do not touch these trespassers. They could be carrying a nasty virus.”
Gideon stopped in his tracks, slouched, and once more hung his head dejectedly.
“We are visitors, madam,” Mr. Fuddlebee tried to explain to the motherboard. “And I can personally assure you that none of us have any viruses or any malware, not even a sniffle or a head cold.”
“Gideon Gizmo, you’ve been hacked!” the motherboard thundered. “How could you let this happen? What a naughty little mechmage you are!”
Gates had had enough of this. She walked over to an access panel on the wall. She touched her fingertip to the ancient touch screen. Then her eyes clouded over as she interfaced.
Gideon’s motherboard started to protest, but her voice slowed and slowed, and then stopped altogether, until finally she shut down.
The next moment there was a long silence like that little jack-o-lantern house had never heard before.
Gates took her hand from the port.
“Now you’ve been hacked.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
After Meal Potions & A Mad Motherboard
Gideon Gizmo bowed low before his guests, beeping and whistling like a robotic bird.
“Your motherboard’s speech commands have been bypassed,” Gates told him. “Your communications are running on subroutines from your library. It’ll get you by for the time being.”
With a great burst of excitement, Gideon Gizmo wheeled up to the three Button children, shook their hands enthusiastically, and beeped and whistled at them, as if they had been having a wonderful conversation.
Beatrice glanced helplessly up toward Mr. Fuddlebee.
“I don’t understand him,” she mouthed, trying to be polite, not wanting to hurt Gideon’s feelings.
“He says,” Mr. Fuddlebee explained, “he has seen you three Button children from time to time. He must clean up not only the hollow, but also the homes of the dwarves who live in the ceiling high above. Dwarves can be lively fellows, yet they can make quite a mess. Sometimes poor Gideon must spend nights cleaning up pumpkin mead. He says he’s seen you three Button children from time to time, and he believes you would make excellent mechmages too. He says that, if you ever want to become part machine and part magical, he knows a great magic mechanic.”
The three Button children did not know what to say to Gideon, who seemed so kind. So all they said in the end was simply, “Thank you,” since that is often the best thing to say.
Gates knelt before Gideon.
“It is good to see you again.”
His face lit up brightly at her. He put his mechanical arms around her neck and gave her a great big hug. Then he started beeping and whistling away.
“I cut myself,” she answered him.
He beeped and whistled a little faster.
“Lunchboxes,” she answered.
He beeped and whistled even more enthusiastically.
“No, I have not heard the one about the programmer and the mice,” she said, and then she gave him a little laugh after he beeped out a funny joke.
“She has a very nice laugh,” Bernard said aloud without thinking. When he realized what he had said, and that Beatrice was giggling at him, he blushed and blurted out awkwardly, “It’s a nice laugh for a zombie cyber girl.”
Gideon Gizmo the mechmage looked from Bernard to Gates. Then he whistled something that made Mr. Fuddlebee’s cheeks blush a deeper shade of green.
The elderly ghost chuckled. “Oh my.”
“What did he say?” demanded Bernard.
But the ghost would not say, neither would the zombie cyber girl, who was also blushing a deeper shade of blue.
Gideon Gizmo then wheeled around and went to a panel on the wall. He pressed a few buttons and beeped out a command.
> A panel opened in the wall and in it was six cups. Inside them was a green drink. It had a mist to it; it flowed over the rim of the cups. Gideon Gizmos served one to everyone.
“What are they?” Bernard whispered.
Berkeley did not wait for an answer, but made his cup float off the tray and into his hands. He gulped it down happily, although he got most of it on his face and shirt.
“These are after meal potions,” Mr. Fuddlebee said. “And they are exactly what I could use. The velvet from that red velvet cake is not settling too well in my ghostly tummy.”
Gates set her potion aside and spoke urgently to the mechmage. “Gideon, we need your help. Something snuck into Halloween Hollow and I have not been able to find it. Do you know what it could be?”
For the first time Gideon Gizmo looked a little afraid.
“Oh, do not worry, old fellow,” Mr. Fuddlebee said encouragingly. “Whatever it is, you can tell us. You’ll be quite safe. SPOOK will watch out for you.”
The mechmage made some soft beeps and whistles. He waved his mechanical hand as he explained.
Gates and Mr. Fuddlebee listened with concerned expressions.
“What’s he saying?” asked Beatrice.
“He knows who snuck in,” Gates clarified.
“But his motherboard made him store it,” Mr. Fuddlebee added.
“The data is in her memory,” Gates grumbled.
“You’ll have to activate her again,” Mr. Fuddlebee told her.
Gates nodded with a worried look. “It’s the only way to access her memory.”
“What does that mean?” asked Bernard.
Gideon beeped in a very depressed tone.
Mr. Fuddlebee translated: “His motherboard’s voice will restart.”
“She will begin nagging again,” Gates said.
The zombie cyber girl went over to the control panel and once again placed her robotic finger on the dusty old touch screen.