The Lord of the Curtain

by Billy Phillips

  Or is this neurosis being triggered by my creeping descent into the world of the living dead?

  Bones and Crabbit led her and Tin Man into a dense thicket of pines. They all followed Gruncle Derek, who was tracking the song of the crooning nightingales.

  There was no life where they walked, no movement except for a low, billowing fog that obscured the forest floor they trampled across.

  And there’s no fleshy food!

  The spiritless stretch of island finally began to change color, from listless gray to patches of lush green. Signs of life accompanied the sweet song of male nightingales broadcasting carnal desires to the females in the branches above.

  Caitlin felt a pleasant tingling as the birdsong filled her. Her chest began to lighten.

  The yearning for flesh—and Billy Bones—was diminishing.

  Whatever was acting on her might not have been as potent as the witch’s brew, but it sure tasted better.

  Tin Man’s deranged demeanor also softened to a soothing calm. His eyes shifted in color from lurid red back to

  nickel silver. The foamy secretions ceased seeping from his mouth.

  Gruncle Derek broke into an impromptu Irish jig. “Bloody marvelous! It’s working! Tin Man, you’re a blessed genius!”

  It took only minutes for civility to return to Caitlin and Tin Man, as the magic of the nightingale songs aroused sparks in the green band, giving them the ability to resist and diminish the cravings.

  Bones and Crabbit unhooked their chains from the rods and unlocked their manacles. The two pirates then scurried off, eager-eyed, in the direction of the lagoon.

  “Good luck, mates,” they shouted in unison.

  Caitlin massaged her neck and wrists as she watched the sun fall below the horizon. Dusk had set in. Now she had to find Peter Pan. He was the only one who could map out the location of the shut-off valve. Which meant he was their last—and final—hope.

  Derek pointed to the south. “We head that way—to the far side of the island.” The group hustled on, tracking through shrubs and bush, past coconut palms and silver pine.

  Night fell, swallowing the twilit sky as Caitlin’s crisp, long shadow dissolved into the darkness.

  A hazy, orange glow flared up in the distance.

  Sparks from embers flew into the air like flitting fireflies, then quickly extinguished into coils of smoky trails.

  A blazing bonfire and circles of lit torches raged on the beach up ahead.

  Caitlin, Tin Man, and Gruncle Derek strode toward the flickering flames as the roar of revelry and rowdy partying grew louder. So did the beat of drums and notes of lilting melodies.

  Caitlin walked along the sea’s edge. Frothy night waves lapped up onto the sand, creating a curved line where wet met dry. The dry sand was soft and clung to the damp soles of her feet, while the wet sand was smooth and firm underfoot and made for a smooth walking surface. She alternated between walking on the wet and dry. The sensuality of this simple act took her mind off her traumatic close call with descending into a permanent living death.

  Thick, humid air began to fill her lungs. It had an almost narcotic effect. The rhythmic drumming could be felt, pulsing, through the ground. Although they were still a distance away and the scene was obscured by thick reeds, Caitlin’s telescopic eye allowed her to see the frenetic bobbing of heads and the impact of shoulders slamming into shoulders on a crowded dance floor of uneven sand. The movements were so vigorous, they kicked up a cloud of sand that rose to the knee. The music that carried them forward came from a drum circle—the innermost ring around the fire, where children and teens danced with tongues out. Some wore war paint and iridescent feathers. It appeared that one ghoul was somehow dancing while levitating three feet in the air.

  Is that who I think it is?

  They made it through the reeds and to the gyrating wall of dancers. But how were they to find Pan?

  “Can you locate him?” Tin Man asked.

  Caitlin’s eye stared intently into the crowd, zooming and refocusing and scanning. . . .

  Her concentration was broken by a harsh and jagged voice.

  “Names?”

  A young man about twenty years old stepped in front of them. He crossed his arms and blocked their path. He wore a vest woven from dead vines and a pair of shredded board shorts. Apart from the open vest, he was shirtless, muscular, and wiry in a zombie-surfer kind of way. Caitlin couldn’t help

  but focus on the three hairs that sprouted from the middle of his chest.

  “We’re here to see Peter Pan,” Derek announced with confidence.

  “Ha,” said the boy curtly. “Only the inner circle gets to Pan.”

  Tin Man muscled his way forward. “Excuse me,” he said haughtily, “but we’re on the list.”

  “Is that right?” The boy pulled out a clipboard and squinted at it intently. “Your names?”

  Caitlin thought fast. She stared at the clipboard. Even though she could only see its back, it was as if her new eye could see right through it. She could read the names as clear as day.

  “This is Jack Frost!” Caitlin said, pointing to Tin Man.

  The boy sneered at him. “Since when is winter-white frost the color of silver?” he said.

  Tin Man’s eyes flared red in anger.

  You sell it, Tin Man!

  “When the color white is lacking the pigments found in the Green Spectrum,” Tin Man said, “white becomes silver.”

  “And I’m Goldilocks,” Caitlin interjected.

  The boy narrowed his eyes. “So I suppose golden-blonde hair becomes auburn red when it lacks green pigments too?”

  “Totally.” She gestured to Gruncle Derek. “And this is Robin Hood.”

  Derek nodded.

  The boy laughed and said, “Robin Hood, or Robin Hood’s grandpa?”

  “Just check the list,” Caitlin said.

  Surfer boy ran his finger down the sheet of names, muttering to himself as he found each one. “Jack Frost . . . Goldilocks . . . and . . . Robin Hood. Okay, go on in.” He gestured toward the fire. “Pan’s in the center ring.”

  Caitlin, Tin Man, and Gruncle Derek strolled past the bouncer and into the first ring of the drum circle. Torchlights encircled the drummers, their flames setting the night sky ablaze as if it had been full of a legion of fire-breathing dragons. The torches were made from thick bamboo poles pitched in the sand. Lit bulrushes were set inside the hollow of the bamboos like wicks. They scented the air with the sweet, tangy smell of roasted animal fat. Caitlin’s mouth watered. The savory smoke whetted her palate. She sighed, grateful the island’s songbirds had tamed her hunger.

  She moved among the partiers and drummers, absorbing the sights. She was right about the identity of the dude dancing in the air. He was performing some kind of mystic Arabian dance atop a flying carpet. An engagingly ghoulish Aladdin. His magic lamp was hooked to a belt that held up his shredded Arabian pants. He wore a tattered, open

  vest that revealed a smooth boy’s chest smeared with red war paint.

  Caitlin grasped Derek’s hand tightly and made her way toward the innermost circle. Hot, humid wind blew across her face; the muggy weather made her clothes cling to her flesh.

  The crowd was thicker there, dense with revelers. Bodily smells from sweaty boys cavorting all about filled her nose with a carnal essence she had never experienced in the prim and proper hallways of Kingshire Academy. Her hips began to move, and her knees bent in time with the hypnotic rhythm. Her body begged to dance, almost as if the hedonistic environment compelled her to do so involuntarily.

  As she moved to the beat of throbbing drums, she passed a living-dead Ivanhoe and encountered a dancing, dead Romeo and Juliet. She stopped. She watched in awe as the star-crossed, living-dead lovers incorporated poisoned potions and plunging daggers into their performance.

&nbs
p; First they circled each other, each reaching out a tender hand to touch the other’s bleach-white face. Then Romeo pulled a glass vial from his pocket, took a swig, and fell to the sand, his face contorting, his body convulsing. As he lay writhing on the ground, Juliet pulled out a dagger. She drove the blade into her own chest. She collapsed too, and then smiled sinfully as Romeo sprang to his feet and helped her up to do it all again.

  Gruncle Derek, meanwhile, had taken notice of a particular pirate pawing three girls.

  “Well, I’ll be jiggered,” said Derek. “That’s Long John Silver’s new second-in-command—Israel Hands—with his filthy hands all over those three poor wenches.”

  “The wicked stepsisters of Cinderella,” Tin Man noted.

  I miss Cindy. I miss everyone.

  Adjacent to the pawing pirate was a pint-size Tom Thumb. He was nibbling at the fingers of pint-size Thumbelina, teasing her with tender kisses and small bites.

  Suddenly, a high-pitched battle cry rang out above the dancers.

  Caitlin swiveled and found Gingerbread Man—needless to say, he looked good enough to eat.

  He was balancing on a tall rock and beating his chest. Each blow sent crumbs and icing into the frenzied crowd.

  Caitlin, Tin Man, and Gruncle Derek shoved their way through the sea of slamming shoulders to reach the inner circle. The crowd grew denser. Caitlin climbed onto a rock.

  She scanned the party grounds, then zoomed her eye dead-center on the innermost circle and its ring of torchlit drummers.

  She found him.

  The indisputable Peter Pan.

  CHAPTER Thirty-Six

  Blackbeard seemed flustered, awkward, and definitely uncomfortable as he held a weeping Natalie in his arms, her face buried in his shoulders.

  He coughed. “Um . . . er . . .”

  He cleared his throat. “Uh, look ‘ere, little one. I says this tiara can dry all that wet from yer eye. I’ll just set ya back down on yer feet, and we’ll put it back on yer skull.”

  Natalie only squeezed him tighter. “I don’t want to stop crying!”

  He groaned. “Jeez, lass. I don’t want ta have ta break yer pretty teeth or nuthin’, but I can’t give ya the comfort ya need. I’m tryin’ to give ya somethin’ priceless, I tell ya.”

  He wrangled her arms loose, unwrapped her legs, and then set her down on the floor.

  Natalie wiped her soaking-wet face with both sleeves, one arm after the other.

  She sniffled. “And what would that be?”

  “The feelin’ ya had when the tiara sat on yer skull.”

  “Yeah, well, now that it’s not on my head, that memory is gone. All those feelings have been extinguished. So I’m not interested. I feel like it wasn’t even real. Probably a trick. Like hypnosis or something.”

  Blackbeard snatched her by the shoulders and spun her around so that her back was facing him. He tied a bandana around her eyes, blindfolding her.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Givin’ ya another taste.” He positioned her hands behind her back. Roped them together.

  The grinding pull of chains grumbled again, and the moving wall reverberated against her eardrums.

  He’s taking me out of here . . . but to where?

  “Let’s go.” He pushed her from behind to get her moving. “Walk!” He set his grubby hands on her shoulders, directing her.

  He led her out of the cavern, guiding her as they walked on what felt like cushions of air. It almost felt to her as if the gravitational field had been altered. He made a sudden right turn . . . then went straight . . . he turned her to the left . . .

  another left . . . straight. Finally, they curved in a half-circle. Then he spun her around twenty or maybe thirty times, so that she was beyond disoriented. She wobbled onward through more twisting routes.

  Then something changed in a terribly strange way.

  She walked about twenty more paces, and then her bodily senses suddenly became so acute it defied description. She felt as if all the molecules and cells composing her body were augmenting all her faculties and powers of perception. These molecular, cellular impressions told her that she had entered what felt like a vast cosmic bubble the size of a sun. It seethed with celestial activity and teemed with both corporeal and disembodied intelligences.

  They were floating toward the precipice of infinity.

  How she knew all this, she could not say. But she was willing to admit to herself that the strange sensation might be nothing more than a mere fabrication of her own mind.

  And I’m not even wearing the tiara!

  Her skin tingled as if pricked by a million needles.

  Otherworldly sounds sent shivers down her spine. She heard a shrill, high-pitched tone accompanying a primordial bassy drone, haunting and grave. Flyby whirring and whooshing sounds evoked images of shooting stars, meteor showers, and other interstellar phenomena. Barely audible voices in various alien tongues seemed to be whispering across distant galaxies and through myriad spatial dimensions, amid the reverberating ringing of the spheres.

  The aroma of ozone and fresh rainfall intensified, and she felt as if every pore in her body had been gifted with the sense of smell. As she absorbed all this, trying to make sense of it, Blackbeard lowered her head gently and helped her to step through a hatchlike opening.

  The sounds, scents, and cosmic sensations vanished like a bursting soap bubble.

  The atmospheric vibe in the new space was shockingly different—and familiar.

  Robins chirping. Soft winds murmuring. And through the texture of the blindfold, she saw either the dim light of dawn breaking or the evening dusk.

  The buccaneer slipped off her blindfold and untied her hands. The idea that she had arrived at a familiar place went swiftly out the window.

  Natalie was standing in a dimly lit, fantastical forest. The trees were some kind of exotic species she had never seen before, and they smelled as sweet as marzipan. Some trees were double trunked, each sprouting its own set of limbs and branches. Some trees were even triple trunked. Other trees featured concentric coiled branches that reminded her of spiral galaxies, and some had branches growing in patterns that evoked fractals or snowflakes. There were trees bearing long branches that were braided, double braided, triple braided, and even quadruple braided. The sunlight refracting through the forest canopy painted the trees custard yellow, gingerbread brown, and kale green.

  Wow!

  And then there were columns of sinister-looking trees whose menacing branches reminded her of the arms and spindly fingers of bad men who did bad things to little children.

  This was some kind of alien forest—alien even compared to Wonderland and all the places Natalie had visited the year before.

  Natalie and Blackbeard moved deeper into the woodlands. The forest floor was damp and soggy, but the air smelled of nougat.

  Blackbeard put his arm out abruptly to stop her. “Shh,” he said. “Hear that?”

  Natalie heard a faint rustling. “What’s that?”

  “Signs of undead activity,” Blackbeard said.

  He lifted her over a muddy puddle and set her safely and cleanly on the other side, then pointed. “Over there.”

  The terrain took on a different smell. The sweetness was gone. The dusky smell of a dank basement entered her nose, or maybe it was more like the damp smell of the old camp trunk her dad had pulled out of storage after ten years. The smell grew stronger and more putrid as they crept along. Then a new smell wafted over. . . .

  Wet dog!

  Blackbeard stopped again and held perfectly still. He must have smelled it, too.

  A faint, guttural growl rumbled beneath a pair of red, glowing eyes that moved toward them in the dim light. Slowly advancing, the eyes grew larger, brighter . . . and then they narrowed. A husky figure some seven feet high appeared befo
re them, silhouetted by the reddened glimmers of moonlight. She saw a head and neck covered in patches of thick, winter-white fur, ears pointed up like a German shepherd’s. But the rest of him. . . .

  All werwulf!

  CHAPTER Thirty-Seven

  The seven-foot-tall werwulf had a face that was half man, half wolf. He stood upright, on two feet.

  “A White Wulf of Wyndonham,” Blackbeard whispered, apparently unnerved by the creature.

  Its narrow eyes shone arterial red. And the werwulf was decaying. Torn segments of rib cage and thigh exposed bare bone—bones that were ghost white, with tendons and surrounding tissues of ivory white. Its flesh was a bleached white, and patches of matted, arctic-white fur clung to him.

  “Why so stark white?” Natalie whispered.

  “Long ago, the first of this species swallowed the sun in their kingdom. They’ve been white ever since.”

  What does that even mean?

  A rustling in the woods corralled their attention. More eyes appeared among bushes and trees in a flash, like pairs of fireflies bobbing and hovering, methodically forming a circle around them.

  “Leave this to me, peewee princess, ya’ hear?”

  Princess?

  “Yes. Princess,” echoed a deviant voice from behind the brushwood. “Don’t you worry your pretty little princess head. We’ll take good care of you.” The tone dripped sarcasm.

  The seven-foot-tall werwulf deferentially receded as the talking werwulf stepped out of the brush and into a beam of moonlight falling through an opening in the trees.

  His appearance was chillingly perverted. He brazenly wore a red-hooded cloak over his bone-white, hairy body. “Three guesses where the caped hood on my back and the blood on my tongue came from.” He quirked the upper left corner of his mouth and licked his pale lips with a long white tongue, dotted red with fresh blood drippings.

  The cloaked wulf burst into a leering laughter.

  The circle of werwulves in the woods followed suit, moving closer in a maniacal frenzy of baleful laughter.