Button Hill

by Michael Bradford

  The guards onstage looked back, awaiting a signal. “A bid from a Daysider is most unusual. A ruling from the governess will be required. This auction is hereby suspended until a ruling can be made.” A ripple of surprise rolled through the crowd.

  “Actually, Monsieur Feu, no suspension will be necessary.” The woman who had helped them enter the auction house rose from the rearmost bench of the gallery and threw back her hood. Her voice cut through the murmur of the crowd, clear and confident. “According to the ancient laws of Understory, a Daysider may bid, provided he or she pays the price. The rules of the auction house must be upheld, lest the bridge crumble forever.” She made a motion with her long white index finger and drew Riley’s braid from her sleeve.

  Monsieur Feu surveyed the silent bidders. “It appears the price has indeed been paid.”

  The woman looked at Riley once more. “You may bid, little princess, and afterward we may speak about your future.”

  Dekker rooted in his leather bag and pulled out Aunt Primrose’s book. “We bid this field journal, The Book of Night and Day. It, uh, tells everything the keepers of Button Hill know about Nightside, and how to get here, and lots of other cool Dayside stuff.”

  “Dekker, no!” hissed Riley, but he ignored her, holding the journal above his head.

  “Bring the book forward so its value may be determined,” said the auctioneer.

  Dekker strode along the side of the hall and passed the book up to one of the guards. Monsieur Feu removed the vial holding the dream from the scale and replaced it with the book. The heart in its case crept upward but stopped just below the journal. “A more worthy bid indeed, but, alas, reserve has still not been met. Are there any further bidders?” he called to the crowd, handing the book back to Dekker.

  The raven-haired woman swept forward. “Narcissa Asphodel, Governess of Understory, bids fifty ferry coins and this Dayside device—an immobile telephone, I believe it is called.” She drew a bag of coins and a bright pink cell phone from beneath her cloak. The auctioneer placed the items on the scale. They balanced the heart in the crystal box perfectly. The governess smiled a bone-white smile. “I believe this will suffice, Monsieur.”

  The auctioneer smoothed the front of his dark suit. “Are there any other bids for the human heart? Going once, going twice…

  “Wait!” shouted Riley. “We bid…we bid…” She looked up at her brother.

  “We will reopen the August Key Station if you give us the heart,” said Dekker.

  The crowd erupted. Then the governess’s laughter cut through their shock. “The key to the station has been lost for many an age—since the time of my father, the last governor.”

  Desperate, Dekker climbed up onto the stage, pulling Riley with him. He looked out into the crowd, and before he knew what he was saying, he’d spoken. “Lost until now. But we came here from Dayside to find it.” The auctioneer, imperiously tall, looked down at them but said nothing. This close, Dekker could feel heat coming from his body like a wind, saw sparks leap from side to side inside his pupils. “Let us try, and we’ll bring it to you.”

  Monsieur Feu clapped, and when he opened his hands, a small emerald flame floated in the air. He blew on it gently until it floated onto the scale beside the other items. He removed the coins and pink phone. The flame settled on the scale and seemed to bloom. The flame side tipped downward until the heart box rose high above the tabletop. “The scales have spoken,” Monsieur Feu called out. “One human heart, going once, going twice, going three times, to be held in trust for the Dayside princess upon the reopening of August Key Station.”

  The crowd burst into applause, then quickly scattered as the governess swooped toward the stage. “We had an agreement,” she snapped at the auctioneer.

  The two guards crossed their spears in front of the governess, barring her way. “We agreed on worth, Governess, but we did not enact the ritual of bidding. And as you said, the rules of the auction house must be upheld.” The woman’s white cheeks glittered with fury, but Monsieur Feu held up a hand. “If the payment is not received, the heart will go back up for bid at the next auction.”

  “How much time do we have?” asked Dekker.

  Monsieur Feu brushed his fingers across the place where the governess had cut Riley’s braid. The liquid light dripped steadily out of it onto his hand. He brought his hand to his mouth, and the droplets disappeared inside. He sighed and closed his eyes. “Until the Dayside princess is no more.”

  “Well, that’s not so bad,” said Dekker.

  “And if you are unsuccessful in that time, not only will the heart remain here, but your death—and that of the Dayside princess—shall belong to me.” Monsieur Feu smiled widely, and Dekker glimpsed fires burning deep inside his throat. Narcissa shot him a murderous look, then turned and strode smoothly from the fire-lit hall.

  Riley glared at Dekker and gave him a whack on the arm with the back of her hand. “We’re in trouble again, aren’t we?”

  Eighteen

  “I said I’m sorry. What else do you want?”

  Riley had rounded on him as they left the auction house, her cheeks flushed with anger. “I can’t believe you bid something that’s impossible to get. I mean, of all the stupid things. Now we’re going to be stuck here forever, dead and alive.”

  “Cut me some slack. The book wasn’t enough, was it? Anyway, we stopped everyone else from getting it. Now all we have to do is figure out how to reopen the train station, and do it.”

  Riley continued to glare. “Oh, that’s all. Don’t forget about the weirdo in the market who wanted to sell you new skin, finding your freaky girlfriend, and blood knights, whatever those are. How exactly are we going to do this?”

  “Dunno. Find Harper, I guess, like the conductor said.”

  “You mean with her mother, the governess, wanting us dead, like, yesterday? Pfft. That’s going to be real safe.”

  Dekker looked at the furrow in Riley’s brow and thought of a sarcastic retort. Then he thought of their mother, in Dayside with Aunt Primrose, and what would happen to Riley if they didn’t make it back alive. “None of this is safe. I’m literally falling apart, and you’re leaking out. At least this way we have a shot.”

  Riley turned away and took several deep breaths. When she turned back, some of the color had gone from her cheeks. “What made you even think to bid that?”

  Dekker shrugged. “You said to think of something people in Understory would want. Well, those spirits we saw in the station wanted to move on, but the conductor said the station’s been locked down for ages. And the market’s crawling with the dead who can’t get to where they’re supposed to go. It has to have something to do with the train. Opening August Key Station will unlock everything.”

  “Wow, Dekker, that actually makes sense. Nice one.” She punched him hard on the shoulder. Her hand sunk into his flesh. “Ewww, you’re getting all soft, like a ripe banana.”

  Dekker tried to smooth out his shirt over the dent Riley’s fist had left. “Watch it—I bruise easily. What was that for?”

  “For not telling me first. Come on, let’s get going.”

  They made their way back through the market. It was less crowded than when they had first arrived, and several stall owners were beginning to pack up. The moon that had lit the space was disappearing behind the silhouette of the ruined castle. Dekker wondered what would happen when the light was gone completely.

  The red fox was stuffing its oily cloths into a sack. Dekker walked up to it. “Can you tell us where we should go now that things are closing up here?”

  The fox stopped its work for a moment. Its ears were pinned back against its head, its hackles raised. Fearful yellow eyes darted back and forth. “Every kind has its own place. You go to yours.”

  “But we’re from Dayside,” said Riley.

  Curling its lip, the fox barked out, “You lie. Go away, pest. I have no time for tricksters like you.”

  “No, it’s true,” said Dekke
r. “We’re both from Dayside, and we’re trying to get back. Or at least, she is.”

  The fox sniffed the air. “She might, at that…” With a glance over its shoulder, the fox leaned in and whispered urgently. “You run. Try to hide. The Nightclock is no more, and so the dark beyond the night creeps in. Soon the blood knights will come sniffing…” As it trailed off, the last of the moon disappeared, and the shadows in the market seemed suddenly thicker.

  “Where should we go?” asked Dekker, but the fox had vanished down a hole at the base of one of the dead trees that ringed the ebony clock tower.

  “Look at the Bizarre—or what’s left of it,” said Riley.

  Dekker looked around the square. A short time ago, it had been a shoving, shouting mass of buyers and sellers. Now it was completely empty.

  A skeleton was walking quickly toward them across the square, holding aloft a bright lantern. He gazed at them with hollow eye sockets. A scarlet and sable cloak was pinned at his shoulder. The figure was clearly a guard of some kind, like the other bone men Dekker and Riley had met but somehow more official looking. He swept back the cloak and extended a fleshless hand to the side. “Governess Asphodel invites the Dayside princess and her undead companion to dine with her.”

  “I don’t know,” said Riley. “She seemed pretty mad at us at the auction.”

  The skeleton clacked his jaw. “This would also extend to you protection from the Hirodu, who patrol the city for curfew breakers.”

  “When does curfew start?” asked Dekker.

  “Two minutes ago.” The guard gestured with the lamp. “This way, please.” Without waiting to see if they would follow, the skeleton turned and marched back the way he had come, his feet tapping out a rapid beat. They followed him along a road that pitched steeply up a rise. It was crooked and confused, and there was never a clear view of where they were headed or where they had come from. The buildings on either side loomed over the center of the road, so that only a thin slice of sky showed between the rooftops, and all the windows were shuttered. They passed no one as they walked.

  As they reached the top of the winding road, they heard shuffling. The skeleton raised his lantern high above his head. “Stay inside the light,” he rasped. Two creatures the size of fully grown crocodiles materialized out of the shadows, long and low to the ground. Their upper bodies swayed back and forth in the air, as if searching the air for their prey. They skulked to the edge of the lantern’s circle of light and stopped.

  The creatures had no heads or eyes, and their long necks ended in a sucker lined with three rows of small, needle-like teeth. Instead of hands, at the end of their arms were smaller suckers with the same vicious-looking mouths. Dekker heard Riley gasp quietly, and he pulled her in close. The creatures pressed the suckers in front of them, as if feeling along a wall, and gradually inched their way around the edge of the light cast by the lantern. Dekker looked more closely at them. Their skin wasn’t black, as he had first thought, but a deep purple, and it was encrusted with dried scabs. Something wet oozed out behind them.

  “The governess calls them Hirodu. Most call them blood knights, but they are not noble, and they will not treat you with honor if they catch you,” said the skeleton. “They can’t hear us or see us in the light. But they sense you, young princess. To meet them is most unpleasant for travelers who still carry flesh on their bones. It’s lucky I found you before they did.”

  The creatures groped all around the circle of lantern light, but finding no way in, they moved on toward the market square. As soon as they disappeared around the corner, Riley let out the breath she had been holding. Though he tried not to, Dekker thought of the wound one of those suckers would make, and how easily the teeth would bite into his skin. He wondered if the creatures would choose him first or Riley, and shivered. “Stay close to me,” he said, pulling her in beside him.

  After the Hirodu were out of sight, Dekker and Riley followed the skeleton as he shambled across a broader street and up to a set of wide wrought iron gates. The skeleton drew a key from inside his rib cage and unlocked the gates. He turned to them and bowed low. “Charnel House awaits.”

  They stepped through the gates and into a gray courtyard. At the far side stood a tall white mansion with darkened windows. They walked past a fountain in the shape of a flower that spat black liquid into a round pool. Small gargoyles dotted the high stone wall. Dekker, Riley and the skeleton climbed a set of bone stairs, sallow and cracked with age, to a set of bleached white doors. Carved into each door was a coat of arms showing a raven, wings swept back, leaning forward to peck at the eye socket of a human skull. The skeleton guard ushered them in. They followed him through a pallid white hall with ceilings that arched to a point high above. The walls were inset with bones arranged in intricate patterns.

  Riley tugged on Dekker’s hand. “Hey,” she whispered, “I think everything in this house is made of bones—look at that vase in the alcove.” Dekker looked more closely as they passed a series of tall vases recessed in the walls. A ring of femurs flowered out of a base of vertebrae. Each long bone was topped with a small, perfectly formed skull. Dekker looked around again—what he had taken for ropes or chains festooning the hall were graceful lines of interlocking fingers and longer, reed-like bones. Dekker tugged at the sleeve of his shirt self-consciously. He recognized the bones—they matched the ones sticking out of his own arm.

  “What’s with all the bones?” Dekker asked the guard, then immediately realized how dumb that sounded here.

  “Charnel House is a meditation on the fleeting nature of life. Its artwork honors the beauty to be found in death. When the governess continues her journey into the uncharted territories, her bones will be cleaned and added to these halls.” He stopped outside another lurid set of doors and turned to face them. “If you are here to ask for the heart, I must warn you—she has set great stock in acquiring an item such as this and will not part with it easily.”

  “Actually, we had the winning bid for the heart,” said Riley.

  “Shhh,” said Dekker.

  The skeleton scrutinized them through his hollow sockets. “Indeed? And what did you bid? Some trinket from the Dayside lands?”

  “Not exactly.” Riley glanced at her brother. “We said we would reopen August Key Station.”

  The skeleton arched his back and threw open his jaws, making a sound like a handful of dice rattling in a metal cup. Dekker realized he was laughing.

  “What’s so funny, bone man? We know someone—or something—closed the station and shut down all the departures. The conductor said we needed to get the trains running again, and fast, if my sister’s going to make it home.”

  The skeleton composed himself. “I thank you for that information, little brother. My kind guard many things, including secrets. We all do.”

  “And who are all your kind?” asked Riley suspiciously.

  “You have had to travel a great deal to reach Understory. Perhaps you have encountered other sentries like myself along the way?”

  “Sorta,” said Dekker, thinking of the agent at Tilted Station and the conductor. He showed the half-skull etched into his palm to the guard. “The conductor called me brother too, when he saw this.”

  The guard unfurled his long finger bones, revealing a full black skull etched across his palm bones. When Dekker saw that it was a perfect match for the half-skull on his own hand, a jolt of fear ran up his arm. “You have been marked by the Nightclock, but you are missing the full seal,” the guard said. “Your fate yet hangs in the balance. Things grow more interesting.”

  “The monster who stole my heart has the other half. My dog said one of us would have to die.”

  The skeleton nodded. “This mark gives you both allies and enemies. Not all would care to see the clock awakened. But the Bone clan is bound to answer its call. When the trains still ran from August Key Station, I was a warden to those on a darker journey. Now I wait for things to change, like all my brethren do. If we may assist
you in your quest, you have only to ask.” The skeleton pushed open the doors and ushered them into what Dekker guessed was a dining hall. The massive rib cage of some enormous creature supported a long burnished-wood table. Candlelight danced on the walls from a huge chandelier that hung from the ceiling.

  Dekker craned his neck and stared up at it. “I bet that thing has at least one of every bone in the human body.”

  “The governess bids you wait here until she can join you,” said their guide. “Dinner will be served shortly.” He bowed and turned to leave, then stopped. “A word of advice, brother. The governess cannot lie to you here, and she will know if you deceive her. But that does not mean you can’t guard what belongs to you. Choose your words with care.”

  “Thanks,” said Dekker. The skeleton bowed again and left the room. Dekker turned to his sister as soon as the door clicked shut. “Whatever she asks us, we can’t blab and give away too much.”

  “Okay…but we still have to be polite. She reminds me of Aunt Primrose, kind of old-school. Big on manners.”

  “I’ll remember.” Dekker tousled the short hair on one side of his sister’s head. He frowned. “Something’s wrong with your hair. It’s like the color’s leaked out of it. It’s not as yellow as usual. This one side is kind of grayish.”

  “Oh no!” Riley ran to a tall gilded mirror that sat in one corner of the dining hall. “You’re right,” she called back. “The side where the governess cut off my pigtail is all faded. Dekker, what’s happening to me?” She peered more closely into the glass. “Come here and tell me what you see.”

  Dekker stood beside her and looked in the mirror at his sister’s face. A pearly glow surrounded her reflection except on the side of her head where her hair had been cut. There it seemed as if the glow had been smudged, blurring her edges in the reflection, one side a ghost image of the other. She took Dekker’s hand. “Do you see that?”