Dekker and Riley stood up. “All right, but how will we know her?” asked Riley.
“She is the governess’s child, Harper Asphodel. Her family has ruled Understory for generations. She alone of the citizens here has passed freely between Nightside and Dayside in recent times.”
Dekker and Riley exchanged worried glances. “Sir, is Harper alive or dead?” Dekker asked the conductor.
The skeleton merely shrugged his shoulders. “Harper is the offspring of a living man and the governess, who was already a resident of Understory. Where young Miss Asphodel lies on her own journey into death, I cannot say.” He gestured toward the doors. “My time here grows short. Others of the Bone clan will help you.” The train whistle sounded, sending a shiver through the mass of spirits huddled near the ceiling. He bowed and retreated deeper into the station.
Dekker wrapped his sister in a hug as soon as the conductor was gone. He squeezed her until she started to gasp for air, then let go. “I can’t believe you came here by yourself.”
“Are you mad?”
“Yes, I’m mad! Aunt Prim said it’s super dangerous here. But mostly I’m relieved to have found you. I thought I’d lost you for good.”
“Well, I thought I could get the heart, if you couldn’t.”
“But there’s no way back for you.”
Riley shrugged. “I just thought it might be different somehow for us.”
“How? This isn’t some story where the good guys always win. This is for real.”
She picked up her pink backpack, and Dekker took her arm. As they began to walk, the spirits crowded in behind them. “It’s so cold here,” Riley said. “And thanks, Dekker. That’s twice you’ve saved me now.” She looked at him and frowned. “What happened to your face? Your skin’s falling off.”
Dekker cringed as he thought about the damage done by the bone sea. “Don’t change the subject. This place is bad for you.” He waved at several spirits that were crowding in against Riley’s shoulder, and they floated up, a short distance away. He shook his head. “And something’s not right. Everything here is stopped. I mean, I know it’s the land of the dead or whatever, but it’s a wasteland, except for you. Those spirits are fixated on you. Riley, are you even listening?”
Riley had turned away and was looking at a long bank of wide wooden doors. An inscription was carved above them: What you are now, we used to be. What we are now, you shall be. They could hear shouts and talking on the other side.
As quietly as he could, Dekker pushed on one of the heavy doors and looked through. “Harper never said Understory would be like this.” He gritted his teeth and looked back at Riley.
“What do you mean? What’s out there?” She pushed him out of the way and took a look. “Whoa, Dekker! What is this place?”
Seventeen
Dekker and Riley stepped out of August Key Station, and the doors swung closed behind them. Down a few stone steps was a square, filled with a strange collection of buildings from different time periods. A crumbling medieval castle loomed on one side. Another had a tired-looking 7-Eleven, a gas station and a row of miniature pyramids. Facing the pyramids was a group of rough log cabins and, behind them, a skinny white office building with blue neon lights pulsing up and down its sides.
An open space ringed by twisted, dead trees dominated the center of the square. In the very middle stood a tall clock tower; the skull in the center of its dark metal face looked toward the station. A half-finished stone bridge ended in a jagged edge partway across the square.
They stood at the top of the stairs, drinking it in. The whole scene was something out of a loud, crazy dream. Dekker could tell he was looking at a market, but not like the ones back home. People in various states of decay shouted, jostled and argued over merchandise. Other people stood on crates or carts, holding up items for sale, none of which Dekker recognized. Discordant music—some slow, some frenzied—spilled from several stalls. Awnings and tents surrounded the most freakish collection of people and creatures Dekker had ever seen. At one stall, a shirtless man with skin so tight Dekker could see the ends of all his bones was arguing with a cloaked figure about something in a green metal chest. As Dekker watched, three identical bald women, with sharp talons instead of feet and hooked beaks instead of noses, swept past. One of them caught his gaze and smiled. Rows of small, razor-sharp teeth flashed inside her mouth, and he quickly looked away.
He turned to his sister. “You know what? As long as we don’t draw attention to ourselves, I don’t think anyone will even notice us.” He grabbed her by the elbow and they walked down into the market, listening to the tumult and taking in their extraordinary surroundings.
“Coins, coins for the ferry! The grubby living forget to pay your way? Do it yourself! Genuine currency from ten different centuries! We’ve got it!”
“New skin for old! Get your new skin here! Your old skin accepted no matter how rotten. Feathers, fur and genuine human. We got ’em. Come on, sir, come on over here…”
Riley tugged on Dekker’s sleeve. “You could use some of that.”
“Did you see the knife hanging from his belt? No, thank you.”
“Messages in a dream!” boomed a tall hollow-looking man with pale-blue skin. He held a long wooden pipe in one hand and stood in front of a cart packed with glass bottles of every color. “Your message to a loved one or to those who wronged you at the end! Your voice inserted into the best dreams in the Bizarre, right here!”
Another corner of the market was filled with spirits, their blue light hovering around a cauldron spouting yellowish smoke that seemed to move of its own accord. Dekker breathed in the aroma of the smoke, and his mind was filled with the thought of all his favorite foods. “Can you smell that wonderful smell?” he said to Riley. “It makes me so hungry.”
But Riley pinched her nose and hurried him along. “It smells like rotten eggs, you weirdo. Keep moving.”
Dekker and Riley squeezed past a red fox that squatted on top of a huge pile of rags and oily cloths. “Winding cloths, shrouds, wraps,” it yipped. “Come and get them! Best prices in the Bizarre, guaranteed! Nothing not stolen from fresh surface corpses!”
They hurried past a booth where people wrapped entirely in white cloth were struggling to push an enormous iron casket up a ramp and into the back of a cart. One looked up as they passed and beckoned to Dekker with a wrapped finger. Riley pulled him deeper into the throng before he could respond. They wandered through the crowd in a daze. Dekker was unable to even guess how many beings were at the Bizarre. Five hundred? Five thousand?
Riley led him through the ring of trees and into the space surrounding the clock tower. It was the only empty space in the entire square. Dekker looked at the tower more closely. It was carved to look like thick black bones. At the top, two skeletal hands held up an open-face clock. A maze of wheels and cogs was visible inside, and in the center of it all sat a polished black skull set into a serrated disk.
“That clock is just like the one at Auntie’s house,” said Riley, “only bigger.”
Dekker nodded. “You’re right. But what we need is to find out where my heart is going to be auctioned. I don’t even know where to start.”
“I know—maybe your walkie-talkie will work down here!”
“No good. I didn’t bring it.”
Riley started rummaging through her backpack. “I did, just in case. Here it is.” She turned it on and started fiddling with the dials.
“Forget it. It only talks to the other one, which Cobb had when he got caught on the train, remember?”
Riley waved a hand in Dekker’s face. She had her ear pressed up against the speaker. “Shhh—there’s a tiny voice in here.” She yelled into the speaker. “Hello?…No, we’re in the market…Duh, I just said that. Some place called the Bizarre…Of course not. How dumb do you think we are?…The heart that’s gonna be auctioned…Really?…Okay, thanks…Yup… uh-huh…okay, I get it. Gotta go.” Riley switched off the walkie-talkie and
tossed it back into her pack. “Well? Come on.” She grabbed his hand and started pulling him along toward the foot of the half-finished bridge.
Dekker followed her through the maze of people and stalls. “Just hold on a minute—who was that on the walkie-talkie?”
Riley answered without looking back. “How should I know? Some voice. It said your heart is up for auction today.”
He hurried along behind her. “Did it say anything about Harper?”
Riley rolled her eyes. “Why, so you can see your girlfriend again? Ugh. That worked out so well before.” She ignored Dekker’s scowl and continued walking. “The voice never mentioned her. It said we have to win your heart back before it gets bought by someone else. It’s at some auction house by the bridge.”
“But we don’t have any money to bid with.”
“It’s not that kind of auction. It said to think of something valuable that people in Understory would want.”
Dekker scratched his head. “Like what?”
Riley jabbed him with her elbow. “You’re the dead one. Think of what you need. Like Christmas presents but gross instead of nice. Come on, this way. And the voice said to watch out for blood knights too.”
“What are blood knights?”
She shrugged. “I can’t know everything. Think armor; think dangerous stuff.” Dekker swallowed hard and followed his sister.
They arrived at the foot of the half-bridge, where a stairway led underground. It was flanked by two fifteen-foot stone giants, arms out, a flaming torch the size of a log in each hand. The firelight danced at their feet. “This is the place,” Riley said. “Torchlight Auction House.” As they approached the stairs, the statues took a step into the middle of the path and blocked their way.
Dekker looked up. “We need to get through.” The giants ignored him. It was as if they had always stood there in the middle of the path. Riley pushed on one of the giant’s legs, but it was like trying to push over a tree.
“Perhaps I can be of assistance?” said a silky voice behind them. Dekker and Riley turned. The woman wore a crimson silk cloak, clasped with a silver flower. Her smoky-violet eyes surveyed them and settled on Riley. Her dark brows came together in a flicker of concern for only a moment before her face took on the smoothness of polished alabaster. Wavy blue-black hair framed her face. “What have we here?” She took Riley’s jaw in her hand and lifted it up. “A living girl and”—she glanced at Dekker—“an undead boy. Tell me, what brings you to our fair city?”
“We need to get into the auction house. Can you help us?” said Dekker.
The woman arched an eyebrow. “Why don’t you sell her to me instead and avoid the hassle of the bidding process? I assure you, I can give you a better price than Monsieur Feu.”
“I’m not going to the auction to sell her. She’s my sister.”
The woman let go of Riley’s jaw reluctantly. “I am in a giving mood, so I will help you pass the giants—for a price.”
“Whatever you want. It’s a deal. Just hurry, please,” said Riley.
Quicker than either of them could react, the woman drew a razor-sharp blade from inside her sleeve and snicked off one of Riley’s pigtails. She held the hair to her nose, breathed it in, sighed and closed her eyes.
“Hey, no one said anything about that!” yelled Dekker.
The chunk of hair disappeared inside the woman’s sleeve, along with the dagger. “Oh come now. It will grow back in time.” She caressed the side of Riley’s head with her long, perfectly smooth fingers.
“Never mind, Dekker. She’s right,” Riley said. She looked up at the woman. “But you could have at least asked. Now, a deal’s a deal. Help us.”
The woman approached the statues and muttered something Dekker and Riley could not hear. The giants stepped to the side.
“Thanks, lady,” Riley said as she grabbed her brother’s hand and pulled him onward into the dark. The wide stone stairs led them deep below the foot of the bridge. At the bottom, they entered the umber glow of a firelit hall. A small crowd of creatures faced a stage where a tall man with a long, beak-like nose gestured at a cage on a table. The cage was draped with a silk cloth, concealing its contents. Dekker and Riley crept along the back of the hall and tucked themselves in behind a thick stone pillar in the shape of a troll, out of view of the crowd but still in sight of the auctioneer.
The man onstage, who was wearing a black suit and top hat, pointed at the cage. “Who shall begin the bidding on this fine piece, a pair of genuine basilisk eyes straight from the ancient, sacred crypts of Egypt?”
A skeleton draped in a red velvet cloak raised his hand. “I bid three ferry coins.”
“I bid five!” shouted a woman wrapped in bandages. The skeleton made a fist and shook it at her, his bones rattling as he sat down.
“Monsieur Feu, how do we know those are real basilisk eyes?” asked a man with close-cropped white hair, in a gleaming white suit.
“I assure you, sir, all items for sale at Torchlight are guaranteed and as described.”
“Perhaps a demonstration is in order,” replied the man in white.
The auctioneer clapped his hands, and a few moments later two guards in gray uniforms came through the curtain, dragging a little girl between them. She was wearing a pretty yellow dress, but her skin and eyes looked cold and gray.
“No, I don’t want to. Let me go!” she cried.
“Silence, child,” snapped the auctioneer. “You ought to have left Understory when you had the chance.”
She started to sob. “I already told you—I tried to leave, but I couldn’t. The station was locked. Everyone I asked said it’s been closed forever. No one can get out.”
Monsieur Feu motioned to the guards, and they pushed her face toward the cage. “Perhaps in a few millennia, when your body crumbles to dust, your spirit will continue on its journey.” He looked out at the auction-goers. “Look away, if you value your lives.” He lifted the silk cloth from the cage, and Dekker and Riley shielded their eyes. There was an acid-green flash, and when they uncovered their eyes, the girl had turned to stone, her final scream frozen on her lips. The auctioneer turned back to the man in white. “I trust that will suffice?”
With a white-gloved hand the man reached under his seat for a leather bag. “Three ferry coins and a transistor radio from Dayside, fully functioning.” The man in white pulled an old radio from the bag, its wood surface polished to a smooth cherry shine. He adjusted one of the dials. The crowd gasped as an old jazz song played from the single speaker.
The auctioneer smiled a tight, obsequious smile. “Going once, going twice, three times—sold, for three ferry coins and a Dayside radio, to Baron Winters.” The auctioneer solemnly stretched a spidery arm out for payment, counted the coins and held the radio up to his ear for a moment. He sighed, then switched it off and passed it to one of the guards. The other guard tipped the stone girl onto her heels and dragged her to the back of the stage.
“And now for our final item,” said the auctioneer. “A human heart, still beating and perfectly encased in crystal.” The guards returned carrying a clear crystal box sealed with bright red wax. They set it carefully on the table. A murmur rippled through the crowd. There, suspended in the air, beat a human heart the size of Dekker’s fist.
Riley tugged at Dekker’s arm. “There it is!”
The auctioneer pulled a small gavel from his inside pocket and rapped it sharply on the table. The buzz from the crowd died away.
“How fresh is it?” asked a bent stick of a woman near the back. She turned to another crone, equally old and bent, who sat beside her. “Likely one o’ them hearts robbed from the body but a moment afore death—not many beats left for us, I reckon.”
“Eh? Beets? I ’aven’t ’ad beets in a ’undred years,” replied the other, squinting at the stage.
Monsieur Feu cleared his throat. “Madam, as always, Torchlight assures only the finest quality. This heart was plucked from the chest of a living boy
only a few hours in Nightside, then secured by the city’s own guard.”
“Stolen by blood knights from the honest citizen wot took it, ’e means,” said the stick woman to the crone.
The auctioneer raised his voice. “The heart’s worth is almost beyond measure. It will only be sold if the reserve is met.”
“A complete set of manticore teeth,” called out Baron Winters, waving a white leather pouch in the air.
The pillar Dekker and Riley had been hiding behind suddenly stepped forward and raised an arm, and a voice boomed through the hall. “The king under the bridge bids the dream of a broken-hearted maiden.” A huge stone hand reached down toward the table on the stage, a glass vial aswirl with a cloudy blue liquid in its palm. The auctioneer took the vial and set it on the table beside the crystal case, frowning. He snapped his fingers and a guard appeared, carrying a large set of brass scales. The auctioneer set the crystal case that held the heart on one side, and the dream vial on the other. The scales balanced at first, then slowly tipped until the crystal box rested near the tabletop.
“A valuable dream, to be sure, Prince Ishii,” called the auctioneer in a condescending tone, “but unfortunately, one that does not meet the reserve. Combined with the manticore teeth, perhaps,” he started to say. But no one was paying any attention to him. With a start, Dekker realized that all eyes in the auction house were fixed on him and Riley. He shrank back against the wall. Then he realized that everyone was looking at Riley, not at him. The liquid that had spilled from her in the train station was dripping out where her braid had been cut off, gleaming pale and silver like a star.
“I believe we have a visitor,” said the auctioneer. “How unexpected. Guards, bring her to me.”
“No!” shouted Dekker, pushing himself in front of Riley. “We’re here to bid. On the heart.” The auction-goers seemed to notice him for the first time. He reached behind him, and Riley took his hand. “We paid to enter. We demand our right to bid.”
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