by Terry Griggs
Nieve flew along past shops and apartments, and it did feel like flying, she was so light-footed. It was like running a magical marathon – no pain or exhaustion involved. Like the wind I go . . . ha, something she used to say as a joke.
Did the wind ever get lost, though? Some of the streets were vaguely familiar from earlier trips into the city, and she did pass that grim art gallery and candy store again, so had to trust that on some level – street-level, down with her shoes – she knew where she was going.
The daylight helped. If she hesitated at all or slowed to a stop, it flowed down from her shoulder where it was perched like a tiny headlight (sometimes it even rode on her crown like an actual headlight), and skittered up the appropriate street, leading the way.
Once the landmarks became more familiar, Nieve was able to locate the road that led out of the city and back to town. Finding it was like meeting up with an old friend, yet she knew she had to keep a sharp lookout. The fields and ditches on either side of the road were overgrown with vicious weeds, clacking their leaves like knives, their meaty flowers reeking. She kept well away from them, running along the centre of the road while the whole time they snapped and hissed and lunged at her. A herd of horses in one field had not been so lucky. Nothing was left of them but skeletons, still standing and swaying slightly as if about to bolt. Unless the skeletal horses were themselves phantoms.
At one point, she caught sight of a group of children with white hair and pale, translucent skin, playing in one of the fields. She tried not to look at them, but they were having so much fun, laughing and skipping around, and they were so . . . attractive. She’d never seen such beautiful children before, and they spoke so sweetly, their voices musical and endearing. They waved at her and called out . . . come play, Nieve, join us, come on! Forget those ugly old people. Forget what they asked you to do. They don’t care if you’re alone and afraid, they don’t care if you get hurt. Come with us, we’ll take you to a secret place, the most wonderful place in the world, Nieve, forever safe . . . . Nieve gave herself a shake and pulled her eyes away from them. She began humming loudly to drown them out, and determinedly kept going, while they continued to spin an enticing, melodic web around her. She felt herself slowing, struggling, as though running in a dream and not getting anywhere. Although she knew she had to be because she soon passed a dilapidated barn on the side of the road out of which issued a rending, hair-raising screech. For some reason, this stopped the voices. It cut them dead, but not her.
Like the wind, she thought, a blistering wind . . . and she stormed on.
Nieve was running so fast that she didn’t see the figure that rose up directly before her until it was too late. It pulled itself up out of the dusty road, a huge, ragged apparition with a cloaked hoary head and fingers as long and sharp as ice picks. She ran straight into it, gasping with shock, as if she’d just taken a plunge into arctic waters. Once enveloped in it, she couldn’t see a thing, only a kind of cloudy nothingness. She was a cloudy nothingness. But no, she thought, that’s not true!
With every cell in her body straining to go forward, she pushed and kicked and punched, until finally she tore through the thing, ripping it apart. As she burst through, its body exploded into a freezing shower of ghostly hail that poured down around her, while its cloaked head spun off shrieking into the dark.
After that, Nieve thought, meeting a waft or two would be nothing.
She should be so lucky.
She had been running hard, going flat out and still curiously untaxed by the effort, when she realized that something else was following her. It, too, seemed to run without effort, moving swiftly and silently. And while it made no sound, she could feel it at her back, her skin prickling as it closed in. Was it the same shadowy creature that had followed her on her night run to Gran’s? Or was it like that winged terror that Gran had once told her about, the Wild Beast of Barriesdale? The creature had only three legs, yet bounded easily, half-flying, over hills and houses and rivers in pursuit of its prey.
Nieve poured it on, running even faster. The daylight quivered on the knuckle of her fisted hand, as if it were straining to pull her forward. But, no matter how fast she ran, the thing behind stuck with her, it was at her very back, its breath hot on her neck.
Concentrating all her effort on her feet – what would happen if she stumbled and fell? – and trying with all her might not to think of anything else, struggling to stay utterly focused, something Gran had said nevertheless flickered across her mind. If things start to go amiss, get word to me. Lias knows how.
What word? How? Lias knows . . . what!? Lias!!
She heard the roar of a car. It was barreling down the road behind her making an unholy racket – no muffler, radio wailing, horn blaring. The car was travelling so fast that Nieve was sure it was going to hit her. She scrambled to get out of the way, diving into the ditch, with no thought of the thing at her back or the clacking, carnivorous weeds.
The driver of the car hit the breaks and she heard an ear-splitting squeal of tires, followed by a tremendous BANG! and a CRACK!
Then silence.
Nieve peeked out cautiously. She could only guess – and hope! – that her beastly pursuer had paused in confusion for a split-second as the car bore down. A split-second too long.
Pulling herself out of the ditch, with a weed seedling gnawing on her sleeve, she checked to see if the creature was dead, expecting to see roadkill of the most revolting kind. But all that was left of it was a greasy smear on the road.
Then she looked at the car, knowing it couldn’t possibly be the silver one, which was too wimpy to flatten a monster. What she saw was more like a car skeleton. It had no body, no windows, no doors, and no driver. But it did have an engine, a chassis, seats, headlights, and a radio that was playing an obnoxious popular song full blast.
And . . . it had Lias!
He hopped out of the passenger side and ran over to Nieve, sidestepping the greasy smear.
“Didn’t I say you could run? Never thought we’d catch up with you. Hey, swank,” he eyed her shoes. Then he took in the smear. “Second one of those we hit. Nothing left for the crows, eh?”
Nieve was so happy to see him, all she could say, with a laugh of relief, was, “We?”
Lias nodded at the car. “A wild man on the road, even worse than Frances, but a mechanical genius.”
“Lirk!” Nieve saw two small hands appear on the steering wheel, one of which now saluted her. “How did you ever . . . say, isn’t that Frances’ car, what’s left of it?”
“Aye. We got to the hospital just after you left, got the lowdown, and here we are, your humble servants.” Lias gave a mock bow.
“Uh-huh,” Nieve smiled. “But I thought Lirk was . . . you know.”
“On their side? Turns out he’s Weazen’s nephew, and Weazen’s my old nursemaid, which you’ve probably figured out by now.” (She hadn’t.) “None of us have any reason to side with them, believe me.” He paused, looking sheepish. “Had to bribe Lirk with your friend’s elfshot, mind. But don’t worry, I’ll get it back. Say, we’re not the only ones who did some damage here.”
Lias walked over to the ditch where Nieve had taken refuge. There was a wide circular scorch mark where she’d been crouching, and strong smell of barbequed yuck permeated the air.
Joining him, she stared at it, puzzled. “What happened? It wasn’t burnt when I jumped in. Ick.” She wrinkled her nose. “Stinks.”
“It was that lux of yours,” said Lias. “’Tis a wonderful thing.”
Nieve raised her hand up to appraise the little daylight anew, but it had disappeared from sight (she could feel it hovering at the back of her neck). She did now notice the weed seedling, its tiny teeth clamped on her sleeve. Carefully, she tugged it off and looked at it, wriggling like a worm between her fingers. She was about to drop it into the charred ditch, but then changed her mind and stuck it in her pocket instead. Might be helpful to study it (also, it was kind of cute). She d
ecided that if it chewed a hole in her shirt, she’d get rid of it.
“Might as well hitch a ride with us,” said Lias. “We’re almost there anyway.”
“Yeah?” Nieve gave the car’s carcass a dubious once-over.
Lirk, who had fully reappeared, crooked grin and all, motioned impatiently to her, urging her to hop to it and hop on.
Funny that she was the reluctant passenger now, and Lias not. “They’ll hear us coming that’s for sure.”
“Aye, and quake in their boots! Let’s go.”
–Thirty-Two–
Molly
The trip to town was noisy. For one thing, they couldn’t convince Lirk to turn off the radio, his newfound passion. Worse he’d taken to shouting along with the songs, his voice gravelly and raspy. He wasn’t half-bad, either, a little tin-toned man singing the blues, but Nieve knew that if they drew the wrong kind of attention to themselves they’d all have something to moan about. If there was any other kind of attention left but the wrong kind.
They cruised into town past her house up on the rise, usually well-lit and inviting at night, but now sunk in darkness. All the buildings downtown were dark, too, including Wormius and Ashe’s apothecary, and farther on, more alarming still, Gran’s cottage. In Nieve’s absence, every single light in the town had been squelched, snuffed out, extinguished.
When they passed the lane that led up to the cottage, she had to restrain herself. How much time would it take to dash up there in her swift new runners to check on Gran? But then, who knows how much time they had to find the antidote before Elixibyss came after her, as Nieve knew she would. Not much, she suspected, not much at all.
How they were going to search Ferrets with Twisden at home was also a good question, although it was better to be forewarned of his presence.
They left the car at the gates hidden among some bushes. Seeing as there were no brakes, this proved crashingly easy to do. After brushing themselves off and shaking the twigs out of their hair, they sprinted down the long driveway. Nieve tried not to outdistance her companions, but she couldn’t help it, and had already been scouting around outside the house for several minutes before they caught up with her.
“Doors are all locked,” she said. “There’s only one light on. It’s coming from that same room I looked in before.”
“He’s there?” asked Lias.
“I was just going to check. Lirk, can you find a way in, maybe an unlatched window?”
“Aye,” Lirk grunted, and scuttled off.
Nieve moved around to the side of the house, stopping beneath the drawing-room window. Lias, following behind, kept going toward the back. “I’ve a way with locks,” he said. “Some locks.”
Handily, the wooden crate she’d used before was still in place. She clambered up, then stretched to her full height, standing on tiptoe to peer into the large drawing-room. It looked much as it had before, although the coffin was gone. The bodies, however, weren’t! They were propped up, leaning this way and that, in chairs and on sofas in front of the fireplace, which now had a fire roaring in the grate. She saw Theo Bax among them, and Mrs. Welty from the Post Office, and . . . she saw her father! He was off to one side seated in a red velvet wing back chair, stiff as a mannequin and staring blankly. Hypnotized, Nieve thought. They all were. Not total goners as she had earlier believed.
Twisden was wandering around the room, dressed in a yellow silk housecoat trimmed with skunk fur, overtop a pair of black and white check pajamas. He also had on a pair of novelty slippers, bright orange, with Pekinese dog heads sticking up at the toes. Holding a glass of champagne in one hand, while gesticulating with the other, he was making some sort of speech. Or practicing a speech, Nieve decided, as she strained to listen. He stopped and started, repeating some of the same phrases in a different order: “ . . . the passing of my dear wife Molly . . . my darling wife, dear Molly, passing to her reward so unexpectedly . . .my loving wife Molly . . . I’ve been so fortunate to meet a lovely young woman, Molly I know would approve . . . .”
Yeah, right, thought Nieve, as Twisden took a swig of champagne then went on to tell an anecdote about firing one of his employees. This he addressed to those seated around the fireplace, as if they were regular guests. He apparently found the story highly entertaining, guffawing and snorting as he recounted it, while his audience sat in stony silence. Eventually, their stunned reception began to bother him and, frowning, he stopped speaking and marched over to them. Moving from person to person, he poked at their mouths and rearranged their lips until everyone was wearing big smiles, Sutton included. That done, he took up a position before the fireplace and continued his tale (“. . . and then I said to her . . .”), basking in everyone’s fixed and weirdly amused expressions.
Until he noticed Sutton, whose mouth had drooped, which gave him an expression of both sadness and censure. Annoyed, Twisden strode over to him and prodded his mouth into a smile again. But it wouldn’t stick. Twisden jabbed at his lips repeatedly and with increasing roughness, but always with the same result. Sutton simply could not be made to smile.
“Listen up, dummy!” Twisden spat. He was getting very angry, and so was Nieve.
Before she could stop herself, she pounded hard on the glass. Twisden looked up in surprise. Catching sight of her face hovering in the window, glaring furiously at him, his mouth dropped open . . . and stuck. Without intending to, she’d given him a blasting. An über-blasting. He was thoroughly immobilized.
Lirk, who had found a way in and was hanging around the shadowy entrance, bolted into the drawing-room. He gave her a thumbs-up, then pointed toward the front of the house. She jumped down off the crate and ran around to the front, where Lirk met her at the open door. He’d also switched on a light, which flickered dimly in the foyer. This seemed to tickle him almost as much as Nieve blasting Twisden. “She don’t allow this!”
Nodding her thanks to him, Nieve said, “Why are you helping us anyway, Lirk?” He now had the fern seed and the elfshot, for what it was worth. What more did he want?
“Didn’t Auntie tell me to? When Weazen’s got a job for you, girl, you do it. Besides, you’re one of us, eh.”
One of them? Got that wrong. “Pardon?”
Lirk only cackled in response, making a noise like a maraca filled with thumbtacks, and said, “Got to get to work before old ratface snaps out of it.”
Nieve glanced around uncertainly, the enormity of the task confronting her. She didn’t even know what, precisely, they were looking for, let alone where to look for it in this huge, messy house. Peeking into the sitting room on her left, she saw chairs were flipped over, legs in the air, sofa cushions ripped open, drawers spilling their contents, piles of books and knick-knacks strewn on the floor. She had to wonder if the antidote hadn’t already been found, possibly by Twisden himself, given his cheery, champagne-swilling mood. Well, he wasn’t so cheery now.
“Psssst!”
Lias, on the second floor and leaning over the banister, was holding a flashlight and playing its beam over them.
“You’re in!” Nieve gazed up at him. “Is that mine?”
“’Tis,” he nodded. “Come up. Found something. Besides your torch, that is.”
Nieve and Lirk raced up the stairs, then followed Lias up another flight to the third floor and along the hall to a room at the end that overlooked the front drive. Pushing open the door, he said, “This one was locked, so I reckoned there had to be something interesting in it. Or someone, as happens. No lights in here, bulb’s missing.” He directed the flashlight’s beam along the wall to the right. “You know him, Nieve?”
Amid all the junk piled in the room – antique dressers and hat boxes and twig brooms and cauldrons and stuffed owls – sat a middle-aged man on a steamer trunk, obviously in the same submerged state as the people downstairs. He was swathed in cobwebs and felted with dust, but Nieve recognized him at once. “Professor Manning!”
Rushing over to him, she started to brush away the co
bwebs. A spider the size of a date scrambled behind his ear. “Gosh, he’s been here all along. Twisden stole the house from him.” Gently, Nieve stroked some of the dust off his face, which wore a kindly if baffled expression. He stared at her dumbly, vacantly. “If this is a kind of hypnosis, there’s got to be some way . . . .” She raised her hand, hoping the patch of daylight would put in an appearance so that she could see the professor more clearly. It didn’t, so she gave her hand a shake.
“Snap your fingers,” suggested Lias.
“Not one of my talents.” Besides, she thought finger-snapping might seem kind of bossy.
She gave her hand another shake, but it still didn’t appear, so figured she’d better try snapping her fingers anyway. After a couple of tries, she produced a snap that wasn’t very snappy . . . but it worked. The daylight zipped out of her sleeve, as if newly woken, perched for the merest moment on the end of her fingers, then hopped onto the end of Professor Manning’s fleshy nose, illuminating it.
“Hey!” said Nieve.
Professor Manning’s nose twitched.
“Ha!” said Lirk.
The daylight then swirled up onto his wide forehead and skated around, taking a few twirls in the inlets where his hair was receding. The Professor began to frown. Next, it dropped down and flickered across his eyelids, which themselves began to flicker, and then it zipped across his lips, unzipping them.
Facial tour complete, it flitted back up Nieve’s shirt sleeve.
Professor Manning began blinking rapidly and scrunching up his mouth. He twitched his nose a couple of more times before starting to come around. When he did finally, he registered considerable surprise at seeing two children and a peculiar, wry-faced little person staring intently at him.
“My word!” he said, flustered. “Has . . . has . . . anyone seen my pipe?” He began patting the pockets of his corduroy jacket, raising clouds of dust that made Lirk sneeze. “I seem to have mislaid it.”