The Midnight Gate

by Helen Stringer

  “You don’t know?” said Miss Parker in a voice that was a little too loud.

  She glanced at the door, then strode over to Steve and lowered her voice.

  “You defeated him with a herb? Whatever gave you that idea?”

  “I … that is, we thought that adding something to the poison might change it, that’s all.”

  Miss Parker looked at him and sighed. “So it was luck.”

  Steve nodded.

  “And the Keres?”

  “Their wings … they—” began Belladonna.

  “I know about their wings,” snapped Miss Parker.

  “I thought we were going to die, then I thought of the door. The first door, the one in the theatre. I reached for its handle and I said the Words.”

  “What words?” Miss Parker’s eyes bored into Belladonna.

  “The … my grandmother says they’re … um…”

  “You said Words of Power,” said Miss Parker.

  “Yes.”

  Miss Parker looked at her sharply, then strode to the office door and locked it. Belladonna watched her quick movements and impatient glances and realized that they were taking a chance on Miss Parker being a force for good.

  “Has anyone ever made it before?” Belladonna asked, trying not to sound nervous.

  “No,” said Miss Parker in a matter-of-fact manner, “except for Old Ones, of course. But no living people.”

  “But why do you … Are they your friends?” Steve was clearly still suspicious and Belladonna could see him fingering the plastic ruler, just in case.

  “Who?”

  “The Keres … the manticore.”

  “No,” said Miss Parker. “No, they are not. And you can put that ruler away right now.”

  Steve reluctantly slid it back into his pocket, but he was far from convinced, and Miss Parker seemed to realize that she was going to have to provide a bit more detail if these particular students were ever going to trust her again.

  “There was a Chinese thinker,” she said. “He wrote a rather tedious and obvious treatise on war. Well, I thought it was obvious, but then I’ve been around since the Beginning. Anyway, he said, ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’”

  “So the Keres are your enemies?”

  “Their loyalty does not lie with me,” she said, as if that was sufficient explanation. “Now, what brought you here?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Would I have asked if I did?”

  “But why not?” asked Steve. “If you’re such a big deal, why don’t you know what’s going on?”

  “Do you have any idea how big the Land of the Dead actually is?” she asked, in that way that teachers have of making you think that maybe they already told you this and now there was going to be a test. “Everything that ever lived and died? Can you even begin to comprehend?”

  “Well, I…”

  “And there’s this school, which seemed like a good idea at the time but I have to tell you is more trouble every day, what with government requirements and inspections, parents constantly wanting meetings about their dull children, who they are inexplicably convinced are ‘gifted,’ and pupils who seem utterly incapable of just sitting still and learning things.”

  Her gimlet eye settled on Steve as a prime example of just that kind of recalcitrant pupil and he squirmed uneasily.

  “I got taken into care,” said Belladonna.

  “I know. I’m really sorry about that, Belladonna, but Mrs. Warren has always poked her nose where it really doesn’t belong. She was like that as a child and hasn’t changed a bit.”

  “You knew her when—”

  “She went to school here.”

  “Well, maybe you don’t know her as well as you think. I got put with these foster parents and they seemed really nice at first, but it turns out they might not be human.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “They’re living in a building that doesn’t exist and using Belladonna to bring pieces of the Dark Spaces into this world, apparently,” said Steve.

  Miss Parker looked at him for a moment, her face calm but her eyes slightly narrowed.

  “Say that again.”

  “I was having really strange dreams,” said Belladonna. “Only it turned out they weren’t dreams; the Proctors were drugging me and then taking me out during the night to … I don’t know … make the bits of Darkness come. And now they’re everywhere, all over Shady Gardens, standing in sort of groups and waiting.”

  “Shady Gardens?” said Miss Parker quietly. “That’s where you’re living?”

  “Yes, but Steve has video of—”

  “So they’ve found the Circle,” muttered Miss Parker.

  “Belladonna’s been getting really sick, with headaches and things and the Wild Hunt said—”

  “You called the Hunt?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have any idea how dangerous they are?”

  “Well, yes, but Belladonna needed to get away from the Proctors and we thought they might know where her Aunt Deirdre had gone.”

  “And did they?”

  “No.” Belladonna picked up where Steve left off: “But they said that it was probably me, that I was the one making the stones come and … well, all the things in my dreams. But they’re not dreams, so we thought the best thing would probably be to look for the nine thingies that the parchment talked about.”

  “The parchment?”

  “Edmund de Braes gave it to us. They turned out to be coins, nobles—”

  “But they can only be seen by—”

  “We know,” said Steve. “We took Elsie with us.”

  “Elsie? But she can only haunt the school.”

  “We took a bit of the school along too,” said Belladonna proudly. “It was Steve’s idea. We took that little rug from the front door.”

  “Anyway,” continued Steve, “we found the nobles, but there were only eight and the rhyme said that the other one was in the House of Ashes, so we went to the Land of the Dead to find it. Which is a bit annoying, really, because we could’ve just come upstairs instead of wandering all over creation and nearly getting killed.”

  Miss Parker looked at them both for a moment, then strode over to her desk and pressed a button.

  “Hold my calls, Jane,” she said. “Something’s come up. I’ll be out the rest of the day. See if Watson will cover sixth form Latin for me.”

  “Yes, Miss Parker,” said the distant voice of Mrs. Jay’s mousy assistant. “Is there anything I can—”

  “No. Thank you.”

  They watched as Miss Parker clicked off the button and walked back to the bookcase. She was still carrying the lacrosse stick, and nothing could have looked more unlikely. Miss Parker may once have been the sporty type, but now it was hard to imagine any situation in which she would run. I mean, thought Belladonna, she keeps her glasses on a little chain around her neck!

  “Stand back,” said Miss Parker.

  Belladonna and Steve backed away toward one of the windows.

  “Oh, and close the blinds. We don’t want anyone seeing this.”

  They obediently shut the window blinds. Miss Parker nodded, then held the lacrosse stick in front of her.

  “Aturrha-hadar,” she intoned.

  Belladonna jumped at the guttural sound. It was like the Words she spoke, and she knew what it meant.

  “Darkness,” she whispered.

  “Very good,” said Miss Parker. “Your Ancient Sumerian is coming along well.”

  Only she wasn’t Miss Parker anymore. The lacrosse stick had collapsed in and telescoped up, until it was little more than the length of Steve’s ruler, and her pointy bobbed hair seemed to shiver to its roots before running down her neck, over her shoulders, and nearly to the floor in two fat black braids, while the frumpy blue suit stretched and moved across her body like liquid until it re-formed again as dark blue robes clinging to Miss Parker’s thin frame and dusting the floor. The sleev
es trickled down her arms and draped themselves over her long white hands and her face assumed the pallor of death. Once the metamorphosis of her appearance was complete, the remains of the lacrosse stick retracted into her hand for a moment before emerging again and expanding into a huge silver-capped ebony staff inlaid with gleaming ivory and festooned with shreds of mourning veils.

  Miss Parker stretched her arms and sighed happily.

  “Oh, that feels good!” she said.

  Belladonna and Steve just stared. Any relief they’d felt at Miss Parker’s assurance that the Keres were her enemies vanished at the transformation—because now she looked like one of them.

  “You’re a Kere!” whispered Belladonna.

  “What? Oh, don’t be ridiculous, child. Open the door, Evans.”

  Steve did as he was told and heaved the bookcase open again. Miss Parker marched through, followed by Steve, but Belladonna hung back.

  “You’ve done well,” said Miss Parker, glancing back. “Now come with me.”

  Belladonna glanced back at the office door. She didn’t want to follow Miss Parker down the green corridor that led to the Keres, but she took a deep breath, turned her back on the office, and walked back into the House of Ashes, pulling the door closed behind her. It was only after it clicked shut that she realized they weren’t in the green corridor at all but in a vast obsidian hall bounded on each side by a forest of pillars six or seven deep. The ceiling was so high that it was lost in shadow, although she could see something moving up there, making slow languorous circles in the night air. The hall itself appeared to be empty, though Belladonna was aware of dozens of eyes watching in awe as the Queen of the Abyss strode through.

  She ran to catch up with Miss Parker, who suddenly stopped and peered into the shadowy pillars on her right. Belladonna followed her gaze but could see nothing. Miss Parker waved a hand and the shadows crept away as if they were living things, revealing a man clad all in black, sharpening a large scythe.

  “Hello, Edward,” said Miss Parker.

  The man in black bowed his head and continued working on his scythe.

  “Busy day?”

  “Not too bad.”

  Miss Parker smiled briefly and walked on to the center of the room, where she was suddenly surrounded by several small, hunched creatures that seemed more like rounded piles of old clothes and trash bags than anything else. She spoke quietly with them for a few moments, after which two scuttled off in different directions. She turned around, obviously expecting Belladonna to be right behind her.

  “Come over here!” she said. “This is no time to be dawdling. Tell me about your foster parents.”

  Belladonna told her about Mr. and Mrs. Proctor and about Grandma Johnson trapped in a nonexistent room in the nonexistent building.

  As she spoke, the two small creatures returned, each carrying a tray covered with a black cloth.

  “How interesting,” said Miss Parker, in a tone that suggested it wasn’t interesting at all. “These are your things; take them.”

  She pulled the cloth from the trays and revealed the gifts that Belladonna and Steve had left for the guardians. They eagerly put everything back into their bags and raced to catch up with Miss Parker as she strode across the cavernous hall.

  “Hurry,” she said, without looking back. “We have to go.”

  They passed out of the hall and through a succession of dismal rooms.

  “And these bad dreams … describe them to me.”

  “They lead me outside and Mr. Proctor puts something around my neck. Then … I say some Words, but it doesn’t feel like it’s me. It’s as if I’m watching from a corner inside my head.”

  “Hm. Clever,” muttered Miss Parker as they reached the foot of a spiral staircase. “Carry on.”

  “And then these stones appear. A stone circle. But it’s not like any of the ones in Steve’s mum’s books. It looks new. And I keep saying Words and the Shadow People come.”

  They climbed the staircase in silence and Belladonna found herself staring at another of the spider curtains. She glanced back at Steve, who was on the stair behind her, and saw him shudder at the sight of the entwined arachnids.

  “Bartamakh,” muttered the Queen of the Abyss.

  The spiders immediately sprang to life, crawling over one another away from the right-hand doorjamb. The effect was like a curtain drawing itself, and as soon as the opening was wide enough, Miss Parker marched through.

  Belladonna felt the cold sting of night air on her cheek as she followed, stepping out onto the roof of one of the soaring towers of the House of Ashes.

  “We must go to Mynydd Anhrefn,” said Miss Parker calmly.

  “Where?” said Steve.

  “It’s a mountain. Hop in.”

  Just as Belladonna was wondering what, exactly, they were supposed to hop into, the clouds parted and the bright moonlight illuminated the top of the tower.

  Steve’s mouth dropped open, and Belladonna felt for a moment as though her heart had stopped. She’d never seen anything like it. There, on the roof, a mere two meters away, was a large black chariot inlaid with gold and dripping with mourning crepe and the braided loops and tassels of funeral passementerie. It had two huge black wheels, the outer spokes of which were studded with deadly curved blades that glistened in the moonlight.

  “Get a move on,” said Miss Parker, in a tone most people use when they’re urging the reluctant family dog to jump into the back seat.

  Belladonna and Steve stepped into the chariot and looked around. There was no seat, just a narrow bar across the top, over which a set of black reins had been loosely draped. Belladonna peered into the darkness in an effort to make out what would be pulling the chariot, but all she could see was something large and dark shifting about in the shadows.

  Miss Parker jumped in beside them, picked up the reins, and gave them a sharp tug.

  “Come on, Odysseus!” she snapped. “Wake up!”

  A growl issued from the shadows. The sort of growl that Belladonna had once heard from the lions at the zoo right before they had been fed. It was deep in the throat and so low it was felt more than it was heard.

  The creature in the shadows slowly uncoiled itself and shuffled into the light, stretching its great leathery wings and tasting the air through its open beak.

  Steve gasped and stepped back from the front of the chariot.

  “That’s a pterodactyl!” he whispered.

  “Yes,” said Miss Parker. “He’s rather magnificent but terribly bad tempered.”

  She snapped the reins again and the pterodactyl hissed at her, his deadly white teeth catching the moonlight and sending a shiver down Belladonna’s spine, but he obediently took his place at the front of the chariot.

  Belladonna shifted uneasily; she couldn’t see how the whole heavy equipage was ever going to get airborne, but before she had time to really think about it, Miss Parker struck the chariot sharply with her staff.

  “Adhu-bakha!” she commanded.

  The chariot slowly rose up and hovered about three feet above the top of the tower. Miss Parker snapped the reins again and the pterodactyl spread its huge wings and launched itself off the battlements, dragging the chariot behind as it plummeted toward the ground. Belladonna held her breath as the crenellated walls beneath rushed up to meet them. But just as she’d decided that there was no way they’d ever be able to pull out of their dive, the dinosaur caught an updraft and soared up and away, his wings beating lazily in the darkness.

  The chariot shuddered as he hauled it upward, gaining altitude with each strike of his wings.

  “He does this on purpose,” said Miss Parker. “Always so dramatic.”

  The mourning cloth and passementerie snapped and fluttered in the wind as the chariot circled the House of Ashes twice, while clouds of bats poured from the tops of the towers and formed a throbbing escort.

  Belladonna looked down as they sped over the lake, the inky waters shimmering in the moonlight. Ahe
ad were the forests that bounded the lake and the sweeping expanse of desert with its huge, knife-edged dunes.

  The journey to the lake seemed so long ago and she wondered what Elsie and her parents were doing now. Had they stayed at the lake, waiting for their return? Or had they driven back to the spectral version of the town? She glanced up at Miss Parker, the Queen of the Abyss, as she stood tall and regal, her hair and robes barely moving in the icy wind, the black reins wound around her long white fingers, and for the first time she thought that everything really might work out alright. After all, the Proctors were nothing, less than nothing when compared to this woman who had seen the worlds born and would probably see them die. How could they even think that whatever they had planned could possibly work?

  “Miss Parker?” she yelled, straining to be heard above the clash and clatter of the wind and the chariot.

  “Yes?”

  “What did the Keres mean when they said the walls between the worlds were coming down?”

  Miss Parker turned her head slowly and looked at Belladonna.

  “What?” she said.

  And in that moment, that split second, Belladonna noticed something in the eyes of the Queen of the Abyss. Something that didn’t belong, something that she immediately knew the ruler of the Land of the Dead had never experienced before, and something that shattered her new optimism.

  She saw fear.

  23

  The Ninth Noble

  THE CHARIOT RATTLED and hissed as it flew through the night sky. Belladonna stared into the darkness, afraid of what she had seen in Miss Parker’s eyes and unwilling to make things worse by asking any more questions.

  Steve seemed not to have noticed. He was gripping the bar at the front of the chariot as though he were on the best fairground ride ever, his eyes shining as he watched the powerful beating of the pterodactyl’s wings. He noticed Belladonna watching him.

  “This is superb!” he yelled, straining to be heard above the howling wind.

  Belladonna smiled. She had to admit, all things considered, that it actually was pretty superb. I mean, she thought, that’s an actual dinosaur! And they were flying. Really flying.

  She looked up at the starless sky of the Land of the Dead and at its shining blue moon, half hidden behind burgundy clouds. All was quiet except for the wind, the steady thump-thump of Odysseus’ wings, and the occasional high-pitched chirp from the bats that crowded on either side of the chariot. It was all so beautiful. She held on to the crossbar, closed her eyes, and leaned back, drinking in the wind and the freedom of the flight. Tomorrow she would have to face the Proctors, but tonight she was flying with the Queen of the Abyss and she decided that she really needed to take a page out of Steve’s book and just enjoy the moments that were fun without thinking too much about a future over which she really had no control.