by Hana Tooke
“How about sideways then?”
One of the crossbeams of the mast groaned, snapped, and plummeted down past them. It hit the river with a hiss of steam, and a spume of icy water slapped at their legs. Milou and Egg pressed themselves against the side of the swaying, burning ship. Egg clasped her hand, looking resigned and defeated.
“Milou, I am so sorry—”
“Egbert Poppenmaker. Now is not the time for apologies, of which I have plenty of my own to make. Now is the time to not die.”
Egg nodded. Milou turned her attention back to the ship’s side, looking for an escape route. Suddenly, the image of Lotta sliding down that rope from the laundry-room window came to her. If she and Egg were going to survive, they would have to start thinking like Lotta. There were plenty of loose ropes dangling down the side of the ship. Milou grabbed the nearest one with both hands.
“Here,” Milou said. “Hold on tightly to this with me. We’re going to have to swing ourselves to the next rope over there. If we can make it to the front of the ship, we can climb that anchor line down to the dock. Ready?”
Egg nodded once, his expression grim. Pushing their feet against the hull, they swung themselves sideways, hitting the next porthole hard. Milou only just managed to clasp her hand around the next rope and haul herself and Egg onto it.
They hung there for a moment, panting heavily. Another piece of flaming debris fell past them. The fire was roaring so loud now that Milou could barely hear the dockworkers’ shouts. A loud bell began to chime; a fire cart had arrived.
“Seven more portholes to get past,” Egg said with a forced smile.
They swung twice more, with faltering success. Milou’s hands were beginning to burn, and her shins and ankles were battered. Milou hoped that the others had gotten to safety. Her eyes were streaming, and she couldn’t stop coughing. Beside her, Egg was struggling too. If they didn’t hurry, they’d suffocate.
“Come on,” Milou rasped. “We can do this.”
They made for the next rope, only for it to suddenly fall away loose before Milou could reach it. She and Egg swung back the way they’d come, hitting the side of the ship with such force most of the air left her lungs. Her ears gave a sudden, agonizing pinch.
“Up!” Egg gasped.
Wheezing in pain, Milou looked up. Above them, leaning over the side of the ship, haloed by firelight, was a large figure. Despite the cloth that covered his face, Milou recognized the small, beady eyes.
Rotman.
Their eyes met, and his murderous expression made her heart stop. Dizziness skewed her vision and she blinked furiously to see what he was doing. Rotman held a sandbag over the railings, right above Milou’s head. He smiled cruelly before launching it off the edge.
Milou’s stomach dropped to her knees, but before the sandbag made contact with her upturned face, she was pushed sideways. She watched in horror as the sandbag hit Egg square in the chest, knocking him away from her. She reached out with one hand, her fingertips grazing his shawl as he flew backward.
Egg landed in the water with a heavy splash, his limbs splayed out and his eyes and mouth open wide in shock. The water seemed to hollow out around him, then the waves changed direction and swallowed him whole.
He was gone so quickly, Milou scarcely had time to process what had happened.
Egg had pushed her out of the way and taken the hit for her.
Smoke clung to her hair and her face. Milou was growing dizzier. She looked up, but Rotman was gone. She looked down again. Egg didn’t reappear. Bubbles erupted from where he had sunk; his shawl bobbed on the surface.
Egg couldn’t swim.
But neither could she.
Something pinched at her ear, and a shadow wrapped around her hand. As she readied herself to jump, a voice, made only of the breeze, spoke to her in a desperate plea.
NO!
It was so quiet and insubstantial she would probably have never heard it, had it not spoken right into her tingling ear. The shadow around her hand swelled.
“I have to,” she rasped.
And then her fingers uncurled from the rope. A heartbeat later, her feet hit the canal, and the icy water closed over her head, sucking her down into the darkness.
THIRTY
MILOU DIDN’T NOTICE THE cold straightaway. It struck a few heartbeats later, constricting her body from head to toe. She thrashed and kicked, but that just seemed to make her sink faster. The darkness left her blind, so she could not tell which way was up. Bubbles rushed in her ears. Again, she thrashed and kicked, praying for the surface, but the icy water held her firm. She was going to drown, she realized. Then, in her left ear, that insubstantial voice once more said: NO!
A hand clasped around Milou’s leg, and she stifled a scream of surprise. Egg. He pulled her toward him, and they held each other tightly. She’d taken a deep breath of air when she’d jumped, but already her chest was burning to let it out. She kicked her legs with what little energy she had left. The voice returned, quiet and garbled.
STOP.
A bubble of air left her lips, tickling her cheek.
STOP.
Milou stopped kicking.
GOOD.
Beside her, Egg was thrashing just as wildly. She squeezed his hand until he calmed. Her chest was burning now. Another bubble escaped, tickling along her cheek toward her ear. They were sideways, she realized. Using weak arms, she pushed at the water until the next bubble tickled up around her nose, to her hairline. Toward the surface.
YES.
Milou began to kick her legs again, small, controlled movements. Her head was spinning and the pressure in her lungs building into agony. Still, she kicked. Slowly, painfully slowly, she and Egg began to rise.
She broke the surface. The cold winter air felt blissfully warm as she sucked in a lungful. Beside her, Egg was doing the same. His hair was plastered down his cheeks, and his eyes were barely open. He looked as ill as she felt.
They floated on their backs, clasping each other’s hand tightly, looking up at the smoldering wreckage of De Zeehond, listening to the clamor of the panicked dockworkers. Her vision was blurred and her eyelids felt heavy. The burning in her chest faded as her consciousness started to drift. She was only vaguely aware of Egg’s grip on her hand loosening. Even less aware of the water that slowly lapped over her face.
She was sinking again.
NO!
Water sloshed up her nose, then up over her eyes. This time, however, she didn’t have the strength to fight it. All she could think was that now her family would never find her. It wouldn’t occur to them to look at the bottom of the North Sea Canal for her. Perhaps she’d wash ashore, but no one would know who she was.
NO!
She’d die a nameless orphan.
MILOU!
Egg’s hand disappeared from hers completely, leaving her entirely alone as the water swallowed her once more.
MILOU!
It was warm now. Gloriously so. Milou’s eyes were open only a thin slit, but the water seemed clearer this time.
MILOU!
There, just out of reach on the canal bed but growing steadily closer, was a gate.
Just like the one in Liesel’s story.
Milou sank toward it.
NO!
The water began to darken, until once again she was completely blind.
MILOU!
Milou’s arm was suddenly yanked hard, nearly wrenching it from her socket. The water over her face disappeared, and then she was in the air. Her vision showed little more than a speckled haze, in which she could make out the shape of a round head with slightly wonky ears.
Her back collided with something hard, and water erupted from her lips. It burned her throat. Someone was coughing loudly, as if their lungs were trying to escape out through their throat. She realized it was h
er.
“Milou?” The voice seemed both familiar and new, raspy and quiet.
“Milou?” The next voice was more recognizable, sweet and soft.
“Milou?” The last voice was like home.
The voices merged as they called her name again. They blurred together until Milou couldn’t tell where one started and one ended. The only thing she knew was that the combination sounded like a lullaby. Her eyes closed and she fell into a deep, restless sleep.
* * *
Milou woke to the world swaying and rocking. The first thing she noticed as her eyes blinked open was that there was a bright night sky above her, a smattering of stars twinkling in the glow of the not-quite-full moon. The next thing she noticed was the moving silhouettes of trees in her peripheral vision. She blinked. Like floating wraiths, they continued to glide past.
Her heart stuttered. Her body remained frozen and heavy.
Had she entered Theodora’s nightmare?
A pale face loomed over her; a wonky frown, disheveled blond hair, and crooked ears.
“Milou?” Sem asked, his frown easing as he smiled down at her in relief. “Oh, thank goodness you’re awake.”
Milou let out a groan as a shiver shook her shoulders. She was still wet and cold. Lotta’s woolen coat was draped over her, shielding her from the wind, but it wasn’t quite enough to remove the chill in her bones. With Sem’s help, Milou sat up. They were in a paddleboat. Lotta and Fenna were each holding onto a notched axle, rotating it in synchronization to power the two paddle wheels on their side of the boat, propelling them down the canal at a steady speed. At the front of the boat, wrapped in Sem’s velvet jacket, Egg slept fitfully. Beside him, drying on the boat’s edge, was his soggy shawl.
“What—”
“Pieter showed us to a lifeboat,” Sem said quietly. “I thought we’d lost you both.”
Milou blinked. “Where is Pieter?”
“We dropped him off halfway out of the city,” Lotta said. “He climbed onto a barge heading south. He said his family is in Rotterdam.”
“Where are we?” Milou asked weakly.
“Look,” Sem responded with a tiny smile.
Milou rubbed her eyes. She realized they were passing Edda’s house. Just ahead was their windmill.
They had made it home.
Her gaze flicked back to Egg. The reflection of moonlight from the water sent a rippling glow over his sleeping face.
They had all made it home.
THIRTY-ONE
MILOU SPENT THE NEXT day in her cupboard bed, being force-fed herbal concoctions by Fenna. Her wracking cough eventually abated, but her chest was still sore. In the cupboard bed on the other side of the room, Egg was in a similar state. He’d woken only a few times since they’d returned. Every now and then, he would mutter her name, apologizing and weeping, reliving the trauma of De Zeehond in his fever-laced dreams.
Milou had the same problem.
Whenever she drifted off to sleep, without fail, she dreamed of smoke and darkness, of sea creatures trying to pull her to the dark, murky depths of the ocean and toward those ghastly iron gates. And no matter how much she kicked her feet, she could never find the surface. It was an Ocean of Nightmares. And so Milou tried her best not to sleep, instead staring at the blank pages of Liesel’s still-unfinished story. If she didn’t find an ending soon, and they couldn’t begin rehearsing it, their entire plan would crumble—opening night was in just three days.
The kitchen door opened with a creak, and Lotta and Fenna walked in.
They each held a mug of steaming liquid in their hands, and Milou could smell the nauseating herbal mixture from the other side of the room.
“It smells like old socks and cheese,” Milou groaned, pushing herself as far away from Fenna’s mug as she could get.
“Drink,” Fenna said, in a quiet, raspy voice that nevertheless sounded like music to Milou’s ears.
Fenna reached forward, pinched Milou’s nose, and pushed the mug to her lips. Milou’s mouth opened in protest, which gave Fenna the chance to pour the warm liquid in.
“Ugh,” Milou groaned, coughing and gagging. “It tastes like old socks and cheese too.”
Fenna smiled, then took Lotta’s mug and turned her attention to Egg.
Lotta looked grave. “At least you’re both alive.”
“I guess Emiliana earned all that money I handed over . . .”
Lotta frowned. “You didn’t give her all your money.”
“Yes, I did. And I don’t regret it.”
Lotta shook her head. “No, you didn’t. I found the coin pouch in your pocket. Sem used it to place your advertisement this morning.”
Milou opened her mouth, then closed it again. Emiliana must have slipped the money back into her pocket when she’d given her that strange warning about shadows and spirits.
There was a spluttering noise from the other bed.
“That’s disgusting,” Egg groaned.
Milou slowly got to her feet. The ground no longer wobbled quite so much underneath her, but her head still felt a little dizzy as she hobbled over toward Egg with Lotta holding her arm.
“I’ve had enough of this,” Egg said, scrambling out of his own cupboard bed, only for his legs to fold beneath him the moment he tried to stand.
Lotta and Fenna each grabbed one of his arms, hoisting him up. Egg shrugged them off and pitched forward again, but this time his arms went right around Milou’s neck, and he pulled her into a fierce hug.
“Gah!” she spluttered around a mouthful of his hair. “You’re surprisingly strong for a nearly drowned person.”
“Oh, Milou,” he said, squeezing her tighter. “I’m sorry I almost got us all killed.”
Milou tried not to wheeze as she squeezed him back. “And I’m sorry I made you feel like your quest wasn’t as important as mine. All four of you have helped me so much, and I should have been there to help you. You have just as much right as I do to find answers about your family.”
“I know, but it was reckless to go straight to Rotman. I wish I’d made a proper plan.”
“Why did you go to Rotman?” Lotta asked.
Egg leaned against the bed and grimaced. “He was the only person I knew who had traveled widely. I just wanted to know for certain if Edda’s theory was right . . . if my shawl really did come from Java. I thought I could pretend to want to go with him, ask him about my shawl, and then run away again.”
“I probably would have done the same thing,” Milou admitted. “Or something equally as reckless, no doubt.”
“I was desperate,” Egg said, reaching into his cupboard bed for his shawl. He wrapped it around his neck and looked down at it. “And I still have no idea where to start.”
Milou’s heart twisted painfully. “As soon as Speelman is off our backs, we’ll sit down and work it out. Together. If we have to knock on every door in Amsterdam to find someone who can tell us more about your shawl, we will. I swear it.”
“Together,” Egg repeated with a small smile. Then he swayed.
Lotta looked at him sternly. “You should get back into bed.”
“I want to get up for a bit.”
He cast a nervous glance at the wooden walls of the cupboard bed, and Milou knew it reminded him of the ship’s hold.
“Why don’t we get some fresh air,” she suggested.
Lotta and Fenna narrowed their eyes. Then Lotta sighed.
“If you two are determined to ignore all medical advice, then you might as well come and see what we’ve been doing while you’ve slept.”
* * *
The sun was so bright, Milou and Egg were temporarily dazzled as they hobbled out the front door. Lotta led Milou by the hand, and Milou led Egg, and they walked down the path to the barn. The theater door opened with a delightful creak. It sent shivers up Milou’s
spine and made Egg shudder beside her. Lotta grinned wickedly.
“I degreased the hinges a little more.” She beamed, leading them inside. “For atmosphere.”
Milou stood on the threshold and gaped. Sem, Lotta, and Fenna had transformed the interior. There were ghosts, made from thin white gauze, suspended from the rafters on rotating wires, floating across against the night-sky backdrop in a whisper of fabric. The carpet had been cleared of mud and dust; the seats had been straightened and their holes sewn up with thick stitches. The stage was hidden behind two new curtains, made of black Amsterdam velvet with the words “A CARNIVAL OF NIGHTMARES” written in elegant swirls across it. Fenna was dangling from the roof of a wheeled booth at the far end, painting the words “WARM STROOPWAFELS” in bright red across the roof.
What made Milou’s skin tingle the most, however, was the large skeletal Night Tree that sprouted from the left side of the stage, its black branches creeping along the floor and ceiling to wrap around the stage like a frightening frame. Sem was halfway up the tree’s trunk, attaching claws and bones. His hair was sticking up, and bits of gray web dangled from his left ear.
“What do you think, Papa?” Lotta asked Puppet Papa, who was currently reclining on a seat at the back of the theater, watching them work. “Splendid, isn’t it?”
“It’s amazing,” Egg said.
Milou was speechless.
“Come and sit in the front row,” Lotta said. “The best is yet to come.”
They followed her down the aisle and sat quietly, dumbfounded, in front of the stage. Lotta disappeared through the curtains. Sem and Fenna came to sit beside them.
“You’ll like this—” Sem started, but his voice was drowned out by a sudden loud voice that made Milou jump out of her skin.
“WELCOME, FIENDS AND GHOULS.”
Lotta’s voice blasted through the room, tinny and impossibly loud. The curtains opened, and Milou found herself staring at the giant fangs of a monstrously large puppet spider. Its legs twitched, and its pincers snapped. There was a creaking sound, and then the puppet spider started walking off the stage and over Milou’s head. She ducked and squealed as the beast went sailing over her head and over the rows of seating, suspended from a cable she hadn’t seen until just then. It wriggled to the back of the barn, then reversed all the way back to the stage, the curtains closing behind it.