Hush-a-Bye

by Jody Lee Mott

  Skreeee. The last bolt. I closed my eyes and shivered.

  “But first, on this special night,” Hush-a-bye said, her voice no more than a whisper, “I’ll show you what the midnight stars look like from the bottom of the river. Good night, Lucy, sleep tight.”

  The hands began dragging me out through the French doors. I could feel the frigid water on my legs and hear the thrashing of river against the iron door and the groan of its hinges as it started to open. I didn’t resist. What for? There wasn’t anything left to do. Hush-a-bye had won.

  Then a small voice whispered faintly, far back in the dark room. “I’m so sorry, Lucy.” The lights flickered on. And the sight that greeted me nearly took my last breath away.

  No longer sitting on the bay window seat, Antonia was crouched on the floor with knees bent, the plastic bag crumpled at her feet. The box of safety matches was tucked under one arm, and in her hands she gripped the bottle of rubbing alcohol and pointed it straight at Hush-a-bye. And then Antonia squeezed it.

  A gush of clear liquid shot out. Hush-a-bye tried to slide away from it, but her body didn’t cooperate. She stumbled onto her side, howling and sputtering. The alcohol hit her square in the face, dousing her and the surrounding floor. Its sharp odor pinched my nose.

  Antonia dropped the empty bottle and took hold of the safety matches, her lips pressed tightly together. She drew one out and sparked it into a steady flame.

  “Whatever she’s done, she’s my sister, and I’m not going to let you throw her in the river like trash,” Antonia said. “You let her leave or you’ll go up like fireworks.”

  Hush-a-bye tried to push herself off the floor, a strangled gurgling coming from her throat. The blond curls, matted and dripping, slid off her head like a wig as she struggled to sit up. They fell with a thick plop on the floor. Scabby red patches covered her skull.

  “Deceit, deceit,” she hissed.

  The doll lifted her head and glared at Antonia. I shuddered. The green was all gone from her eyes. Everything was gone from them. They weren’t even black—just two liquid pools of emptiness.

  “Nothing but lies and deceit surround me.” Her hateful, hollow eyes grew large as half-dollars. “You think I’m some toy you can toss aside when you’re tired of playing?” She grinned, and green spittle dribbled down her chin. “Let me show you my real face.”

  A jagged crack split Hush-a-bye’s face from the top of her head down to her chin. Oily brown liquid oozed out. She jammed her fingers into the crack and pulled it apart. With a sound like breaking bones, the doll’s head ripped clean in two.

  “Throw the match!” I cried. But Antonia just stood there with deer-in-the-headlights glazed eyes.

  A monstrous mushroom-shaped head unfolded from the stump of the neck like some nightmarish balloon. It rose all the way up to the ceiling, then bent down and split from side to side, revealing a gaping mouth with dozens of jagged, spear-point teeth.

  “Throw it, Antonia!” I shouted. “Now!”

  But all the courage and confidence had drained from Antonia’s face. The lit match was burning down close to her fingertips. I tried to run to her, but I couldn’t move. The invisible hands still held me tight.

  “Throw it!” I screamed in desperation. “Antonia, throw the match!”

  Hush-a-bye’s doll body burst apart. The dress scattered about in shreds, and tendrils like steel cables spiked with hooked thorns wriggled out and wormed their way across the floor.

  One of them reached Antonia and wrapped itself around her ankle. She looked at in in a daze, like she couldn’t believe it was really happening.

  I strained against the invisible hands’ grip. “Don’t look at it! Look at me!”

  Another tendril grabbed her other ankle. The hooked thorns dug into her skin, but she didn’t seem to notice the pain. She just looked lost. The head let loose a howl that rattled the windows. The tendrils began pulling Antonia in, closer to the gaping mouth and rows of churning teeth. The match was nearly out. I had to do something.

  “Antonia Willa Bloom!” I yelled in a fierce voice that would have done our mother proud. “You’d better throw that match right now or I’m going to tell Mom, and then you’ll be in so much trouble!”

  Antonia blinked and turned to me with a bewildered look. For a single half second that felt like a hundred years, she just stared at me. But then I saw Antonia’s brain finally click into gear.

  She bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the smoldering match. We all watched as it arced through the air and landed on one of the tendrils. It hissed, a thin line of smoke rose . . . and the match went out.

  29

  MUFFLED LAUGHTER RUMBLED from the wicked mouth as it rocked back and forth high above us. Antonia stared intently at the wisp of smoke as it curled up, and she pinched at her bottom lip. She turned to me and whispered, “What do we do now?”

  I smiled weakly and whispered, “It’s okay, Antonia,” even as the invisible hands, tight around my arms, began to drag me out once more, icy water sloshing on my legs. “I found you and you came back to me. That’s all that matters.”

  We’d almost done it. We’d almost won. I’d come here to get back Antonia, and in a way, I guess I had. She’d tried to save me like I’d tried to save her. If nothing else, Hush-a-bye failed to change her into a monster like she was.

  We were sisters and we had each other’s backs, and no demon from hell could take that away from us. It was something, anyway. I think Antonia must have thought so too, because she paid back my smile with a wide grin of her own.

  Except that grin was a little too big.

  I was on the threshold of the French doors with the cold water practically up to my hips, wondering how long I could hold my breath until the river swallowed me up forever, and Antonia was grinning. Grinning. For a horrible two seconds that lasted about ten years, I thought she’d gone back under Hush-a-bye’s sway.

  Then I saw why she was grinning.

  A small blue flame no bigger than a nickel had sputtered and poked up from the floor like a baby cobra climbing out of its shell. And it was growing, larger and larger and brighter and brighter.

  Abruptly, the monster stopped laughing. The tendrils frantically unwrapped themselves from Antonia’s legs. They beat down again and again at the lick of flame, but every time the lick was walloped, two more sprang up and joined together to make an even larger one. The fire was spreading fast.

  The water around my legs suddenly drained away, and the invisible hands holding me let go. I fell forward onto a floor that was a shade hotter than a vinyl car seat in July. I shrieked and scrambled to my feet, quickly glancing out to the hallway as I patted my legs. The iron door had disappeared. I rushed over to Antonia, who was watching the show in front of her with a wild-eyed stare.

  The monster was now covered in yellow-orange flames. It thrashed wildly from side to side, shrieking like a banshee. Its tendrils lashed out, smashing against the ceiling and walls, and charred plaster rained everywhere. The stench of burning rot filled my nose, while smoke and super-hot air scorched my lungs.

  “We’ve got to get out,” I croaked, coughing, and took hold of Antonia’s hand. Antonia nodded once, still staring, and let me drag her out.

  We stumbled out of the French doors and made our way down the hallway, both of us coughing violently. The air grew cooler the farther away we got from the room, and the smoke faded.

  “I think we’re okay,” I said. Once again, I was wrong.

  Sounds of shattering glass and splintering wood erupted behind us. We jerked our heads around.

  “Doesn’t look okay,” Antonia said.

  At the end of the hallway, a huge red mass of raging fire had smashed through the French doors. It crawled toward us like a crazed lump of magma on flaming tentacles. Wallpaper curled and shriveled up, and doors exploded
off their hinges as it passed. And through the mad red blob of flame, I could still see the rows and rows of dagger teeth grinding and gnashing.

  Antonia and I exchanged the same what the crap! look. And we started running.

  By the time we made it to the top of the staircase, my lungs felt like all the air had been squeezed out of them. Beside me, Antonia was panting. The fire creature was a hundred feet away, but I could feel its searing heat on the back of my neck. I glanced down the staircase. It looked so much longer than I remembered!

  “Be quick, but be careful,” I warned as we raced down. Antonia’s fingers tightened around mine. About halfway down, I heard a crackling sound from behind us. Red light flooded the staircase and the lobby below.

  “Hurry!” I shouted.

  The two of us, no longer thinking about being cautious, scrambled to get away. We threw ourselves into a wild dash down the steps. Near the bottom, I lost my balance and pitched forward onto the lobby floor, dragging Antonia with me.

  The staircase groaned. I looked back. The fire creature was hurling itself toward us. Banisters snapped and flew apart as it rumbled past. The carpet sizzled and smoked. The staircase heaved and bowed under the weight and the flames. Then the staircase groaned one last time, and the whole thing collapsed with the fire monster howling all the way down into the basement.

  A column of dust and red flame shot up and broke against the ceiling. The floor trembled under our feet, and for a terrifying moment, I thought the whole hotel was going to fall apart.

  Then a sound like hundreds of wind chimes rang out. I looked up. The chandelier near the top of the stairs was vibrating. Each dangling crystal on it clattered against its neighbor.

  The ceiling above it cracked. The shaking grew more frantic. The crack split open, and white electric sparks shot out. Then the chandelier came undone. It fell gracefully down, down, down, and crashed like a thousand water glasses being thrown to the floor at exactly the same time.

  A rain of glass, embers, and burning shards poured down on me and Antonia as we crawled on our hands and knees toward what I hoped was the front entrance.

  “Where’s the door?” Antonia shouted. I looked around frantically. Orange light danced crazily in the lobby windows. The heat bit my skin, and thick smoke burned my nose.

  “There it is!” I shouted, pointing ahead of me. We flew forward, and I yanked on the handle and the door swung open.

  I pushed Antonia through and glanced back one more time. The lobby desk had collapsed. The staircase was nothing more than a jumble of broken, shattered, burning sticks surrounding a huge hole. The shards of the chandelier glowed yellow and red, and behind it the rest of the lobby was covered in flames.

  And in the middle of that bonfire I could see tendrils flailing about blindly, tossing huge beams about like they were toothpicks. But for all the destruction it caused, it couldn’t break free of the burning debris.

  The thing howled and bellowed and roared like nothing I’d ever heard, or ever cared to hear again. It was a roiling cauldron of pain and anger, but something about how alone it was, and the uselessness of all its thrashing about, made me feel a little sorry for it. But there was nothing anyone could do for it now, so I closed the door.

  Antonia stood in the darkness, looking puzzled. I ran to her.

  “We’ve got to get out of here in case that thing gets out of the lobby,” I said, grabbing her arm.

  Antonia cocked her head to one side but didn’t move. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.” She pointed over my shoulder. I turned, wondering what new horrible thing was coming for us now. As it turned out, nothing was.

  The hotel had vanished.

  And with it, the fire, the destruction . . . and Hush-a-bye.

  The tall birch trees swayed above our heads like they’d never left the island. The unscorched grass was brown and wet. A little ways off, the small red rowboat rested against the crook of the dead forked tree. Not a single sign anywhere of any hotel, let alone a burning one.

  The rain had stopped. A half-moon peeked out from behind a long, thin cloud. Stars flickered in the spaces between other clouds drifting across the night sky. A hushed wind rattled the birch branches, and crickets sang in the distant scrub.

  “Did we just dream all that?” Antonia asked hollowly.

  I was beginning to wonder myself. But then I spotted a shallow crater in the ground where the hotel had stood. Curls of dark smoke rose lazily from it.

  “What is it?” Antonia asked.

  “I think I know,” I said. “Come on. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about anymore.” Even though I said it, I still felt a few prickles of doubt shiver up my spine as we approached the smoking hole.

  The hole was about two feet wide, and the grass inside was black and shriveled. A charred doll’s head lay in the center. Its hair had burned away, its face and shattered eyes little more than a smoldering cinder. The body, arms, and legs were nowhere to be seen.

  “Oh, Hush-a-bye.” Antonia choked back a sob. “Lucy, we killed Hush-a-bye.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said in a ragged voice. “It’s only a . . . an old doll’s head. You can’t kill a doll.”

  Antonia leaned over and rested her head against me.

  “Lucy?” she said in a voice as quiet as I ever heard her use.

  “Yeah?”

  “Is Mom—”

  “She’ll be fine,” I said. “They’re taking good care of her.”

  “I . . . I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.” I could feel her whole body shaking next to me.

  “I know that,” I said, wrapping an arm around her waist. “Don’t fret about it.”

  “Okay.” She was quiet again, but I knew she wasn’t done.

  “Lucy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What happens now?”

  Every muscle in my body hummed with pain, but I ignored it. I watched the stars and the clouds that drifted past, and the red lights of a radio transmitter on a far distant hill. I was shivering from the damp night air, but there was a warm spot deep inside me, growing bigger and bigger.

  “I don’t know,” I said, squeezing her tight. “Whatever it is, we’ll get through it together. You, me, and Mom. All for one and one for all. Like the three musketeers.”

  “Okay,” Antonia said, “but I like Milky Ways better.”

  I let go of Antonia and stared at her. She looked up at me, sheepishly at first, then let her whole face bust open into a foolish grin. Soon enough we were both giggling loudly like fools, and the echo of it bounced from one hillside to the next until it sounded as if the river itself was laughing like it hadn’t laughed for a long, long time.

  30

  IT TOOK US nearly an hour and a half for Antonia and I to get off the island. With the river running fast, it was so hard to row to the other side.

  It didn’t take long for the EMT folks to find us, wet and exhausted, and they took us straight to see Mom. She was a little loopy from her head injury, but we still hugged and cried. Mom stayed in the hospital a couple more days, then the county moved us into a motel until we could find another home.

  The police and the medics tried to find out what happened. Antonia told a completely different story to each person she talked to. None of them fit together. Eventually, everyone gave up trying to figure out why she’d gone off on her own.

  As for me, all I said was I went looking for my sister, and I found her. Which was true enough.

  Mom never asked us what happened to the two of us that night. Truth be told, the hit in the head she received did something to her memory. The whole day was a total blank to her, which really freaked her out. She didn’t want to think about it too much.

  The first few days in the motel were the best. We huddled under the blankets in the huge king-sized bed and clicked like mad through the three million chan
nels on the flat-screen TV.

  “Can we stay here forever?” Antonia asked.

  Mom kissed her on top of her head. “Nothing I’d like better to do than to lay about with my firecrackers. But tomorrow I’ve got to get back to work. And you two need to get your keisters back in school.”

  Later that night, while Antonia was warbling in the shower, Mom sat next to me on the bed and put her arm around my shoulder. “Everything okay with you, Peppernose?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  She pulled my head onto her shoulder. “I know school’s been rough for you. It’s not easy being picked on.”

  I lifted my head and stared at her. “You know about that?”

  “Oh, I had a feeling,” she said, and smiled sadly. “I know what it’s like to be the new girl with the discount sneakers. But I figured I shouldn’t interfere and you’d eventually work things out for yourself. Maybe that was wrong.” She paused and rubbed my arm. “I’ve been thinking it would do you good to talk to somebody, you know, somebody who can listen and help you deal with all of this trouble. A nurse at the hospital was telling about a counseling program they have we might qualify for, so you could talk to someone about things at school, and friends, and . . . you know . . .”

  “Living with Daddy?” I could feel her grip tighten when I said the word. “Okay, but only if you come with me.”

  She took a much longer pause this time, then let out a long breath.

  “Okay, Peppernose. I’ll be there. Probably should have done this a long time ago. Believe it or not, I don’t always know how to be the best mom to you girls I can be. It’s not like there’s an instruction manual that I can flip to when I get stuck.”

  “Like an Idiot-Proof Guide for the Single Mom?” I said.

  Mom took hold of my chin and wiggled it. “You really are a little firecracker, aren’t you? Before you go back to school, I’m going to sew a warning label on your shirt. Danger: Sassy Girl Approaching.”

  “Mom!” I yelled, but then we both fell back on the bed laughing. It felt good to laugh like that.