The Chestnut King: Book 3 of the 100 Cupboards

by N. D. Wilson

  Henry couldn’t help but think of tumbleweed. He couldn’t help but think of Kansas.

  “What time will it be?” Henrietta asked suddenly.

  “I don’t know,” Henry said. “I tried to keep track of the differences, at least for a while, but it got really complicated. I even tried keeping a Kansas watch. But it’s not like time zones at all. Sometimes it’s hours ahead and sometimes it’s hours behind, but the difference is never too crazy. One day to me is never two to Zeke, or anything like that.”

  Grandmother walked with her face pointed up, like she was smelling her way. In the kitchen, she began humming.

  “Okay,” Henry said when they reached the back door. An old baseball bat lay on the floor to be used as a doorstop. “Here we go.” He put his hand on the knob and pulled the door open.

  The two girls giggled. After all, they were being very, very grown-up. They’d even snuck out of their bedroom windows in the middle of the night, and if that wasn’t grownup, then nothing was. They were shivering now, nearly frozen in the tall grass. But that didn’t matter. The two boys, one small and scrawny, one tall, freckled, and fleshy, sat with their legs crossed, facing them. They looked very serious in the moonlight, very important. Very sixth grade. Especially the bigger one. He was a new arrival in town, fresh from Wichita and an expert on cities. Rumor was, he’d been shaving for two years.

  “Aren’t you afraid of this place?” one of the girls asked. “The whole family and the whole house just gone? People say it was aliens.”

  “I ain’t afraid of nothin’,” the freckled boy said.

  “Nothin’,” added the smaller boy.

  “Not even aliens?” the girl asked.

  “Aliens ain’t nothin’.” Freckles pulled a cigarette out from behind his ear and offered it to the girls. “Smoke?”

  They both shook their heads. “Those aren’t good for you,” one of them said, and she scratched her nose. The other nodded.

  “Yeah?” Freckles asked. “What’s gonna happen?”

  The girls looked at each other, shivering in the cold. “Uh, you could die?”

  “Death ain’t nothin’,” said Freckles.

  “Nothin’,” said the sidekick.

  Suddenly, a doorway opened in the sky. Blinding light poured out of it; it poured around a shape.

  The girls screamed and ran, tripping through the darkness, faster than they had ever run before. Sidekick fell onto his back, gurgled terror, righted himself, and disappeared into the fields. Freckles tried to stand, but slipped. He tried to run, but caught his toe on a dandelion clump, grabbed police tape, and tumbled down into the muddy hole. The alien hole. The hole where, if you get too close, you get sucked off to Pluto.

  Quaking, squeezing his eyes tight, waiting for the light to pulse him into the stars, Freckles wet himself.

  * * *

  “Are they gone?” Henrietta asked. Then she laughed. “Those poor girls. I’d scream, too.”

  “Come on,” Henry said, and he stepped into Kansas, into the cold breath of an autumn night.

  The streets were quiet in Henry, and they moved through them as quickly as they could. The houses were all dark, all but one, where the blue flicking light of a television lit up the curtains.

  Grandmother began humming again, softly, humming with the night air and the crisp breeze. The moon was full and bright, making the already infrequent streetlights useless, and it lit up Grandmother’s hair like snow. She seemed to see the moon somehow. Despite her blindness, she seemed to sense the light and love it. Henry smiled. It was strange to think that this was the first time his grandmother, blind or not, had met this moon. She was becoming acquainted, making herself a new friend.

  “Right here,” Henry said, and he and his cousin turned their grandmother and helped her up the cracked curb. The three of them made their way up the broken walk toward the sleeping green house. Henry unlatched the screen door, and its hinges squealed at him. He made a fist to knock, but Henrietta reached out and pushed the glowing orange button by the door. After a moment, she pushed it again. A light flicked on inside.

  The door opened a crack, and Zeke’s mom peeked out. Her eyes widened, and she threw open the door. She was wearing an oversize tropical blue bathrobe.

  “Henry? Henrietta?” She tightened her robe. “What happened to you? What’s going on?” She pushed straying blond hair out of her face.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Johnson,” Henry said. “I don’t know what time it is. We’ve had some trouble.”

  “Come in, come in.” She took Grandmother’s hands and led her into the house. The living room had wood paneling and thick brown carpet. A plaid couch guarded one wall, and two balding, mint-colored recliners faced a television.

  “Mrs. Johnson,” Grandmother said, tasting the name.

  “Oh, don’t call me that. Call me Tilly.” Tilly Johnson lowered Grandmother into a recliner. “Antilly Johnson. My parents honeymooned in the Antilles, and apparently I was, well … They called me Ann.”

  Grandmother shut her eyes and put her hand on Tilly’s face. “I’ve seen you,” she said. “Laughing. My son showed me in his dream. Wheat hair, sky eyes.”

  Mrs. Antilly Johnson blushed. Grandmother dropped her hand and rocked slowly in her mint chair. “Ooh,” she said. “This I love.”

  “The handle’s on the side,” Tilly said.

  “Handle?” Grandmother found the lever, pulled it, and yelped as the foot rest swung up and the back dropped. “Ooh,” she said again. “Ooh.” And she shut her eyes.

  “Henry?” Zeke stepped into the living room, pulling on a shirt. “It’s two in the morning.” He squinted at the visitors. “What happened to you?’

  Henry looked at Henrietta’s soot-polished face and her flat, grease-covered curls, her burned and ripped clothes. Where should he start? James with his summons from the emperor? His father and Caleb leaving again? The fire? Fingerlings? His mother and sisters and brother, everyone gone?

  “Well,” he said. “Well …” The reality of it all suddenly collapsed on him. He’d been holding it off, refusing to comprehend. His legs felt weak, and a pressure built up in his chest. He dropped into the other recliner and covered his face with his hands. He couldn’t let himself throw up or cry. Not in front of Zeke. Not in front of Henrietta. What was he doing back in Kansas? What was he supposed to do? Where would the ships take his family?

  Without opening her eyes, his grandmother reached over and squeezed his arm.

  “Peace,” she said. “Peace. For now.”

  Henry looked back at Zeke and his mother. “My dad’s house got torched.”

  “Soldiers did it,” Henrietta said. “Henry got us through the cupboard in time.”

  Mrs. Johnson put her arms around Zeke. “The rest of the family?”

  “My dad and Uncle Caleb were gone,” Henry said. “The rest got taken by soldiers.”

  “Oh, kids.” Henry felt a hand on his head. “What are you going to do?”

  “If we could eat something,” Henrietta said. “And maybe take showers? That would help.”

  “Of course. I can make eggs? There’s some lasagna I could microwave.” Mrs. Johnson hurried into the kitchen and opened the fridge. “Cereal?”

  Zeke dropped onto the couch and looked at Henry. “Soldiers?” he asked.

  Henry sat up. “Not just soldiers.”

  “Her?”

  Henry shook his head. “But people from her.” He clenched and unclenched his hand, remembering the finger he had gripped and severed from a skull. He opened his mouth to explain and then shivered. He didn’t understand it all himself.

  “Cereal, Henry?” Mrs. Johnson held up a box. Henrietta was already shoveling down a bowl.

  “Please,” Henry said, and he levered himself out of his chair. His grandmother, as charred as Henrietta, snored beside him. Henry pulled a Technicolor afghan off the back of the couch and spread it over her. Already, he knew what he had to do, and his whole body felt clammy. Lickin
g his lips, he wiped cool sweat off his forehead. Then he walked into the kitchen.

  Strength. He needed strength for the dark paths.

  And maybe something he could throw up.

  “Henry?” Henrietta set down her spoon. “What? What is it? You look like you’re going to pass out.”

  Henry sat down and poked a round, whole-grain, honey-flavored island below the white surface. He missed cereal. He missed this kind of milk. Thinner. Colder. Consistent.

  “I’m going to Endor,” he said quietly.

  Henrietta laughed. “How? Why? Do you even know where it is?”

  Henry looked up into Henrietta’s eyes and watched her smile disappear.

  “I have a door,” he said. “You remember.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In the shower, Henry’s eyes went black watching the water stream and steam from the nozzle. So he shut them, slumped down into the tub, and let the hot, pressurized rain soothe his body and rinse his filth away. It couldn’t soothe his mind.

  He needed to find his father and Caleb. There was nothing Henry could do about the ships and the soldiers, and he didn’t want to face any more fingerlings by himself. But his father had gone to Endor, looking for the witch. Could the faeren help? Where was Fat Frank? Where was the witch? Maybe faeries knew how to kill her. He didn’t think so. Was his mother okay? Where had his family been taken? Not to Endor. To the emperor? Who was the emperor, and why would he do this to Mordecai’s family? Where were the ships sailing?

  To a garden. A garden where fingerlings grew and a man hung between two trees. He could see it. He didn’t want to, but he did. Henry’s tired mind staggered and slipped into dreaming, while his tired body slept, huddled up in a Kansas shower, water pouring down his head, his eyelashes and cheeks, pooling in his open mouth, dribbling down his chin.

  * * *

  A pale, blond man held up his hands. One finger turned to ash and faded. The rest blackened and grew, swaying and slithering like snakes. They wrapped around the man, and he was no more. They grew further, and Henry stood in the sky, watching the fingers coil around a great city like dark snakes of fog until the city had disappeared.

  Someone took Henry’s hand. The city and the blackness were gone. His grandmother was beside him now. The two of them stood on a hill overlooking another city, a towering, sprawling city, a gray city, a ruin, a graveyard where huge houses marked each tomb, where palaces with black stone windows loomed over streets paved with ash. There was no life around the place, outside the walls or in the hills. Inside the walls, behind sealed doors and windows, deep in the ground, entombed in lifeless rock, were the lives without end—the undying breed of Nimroth.

  Endor.

  Henry looked at his grandmother. She was younger in her dreams. Her eyes were focused and sharp. Her white hair was thick and pulled back into a braid.

  “This is where my dad is?” Henry asked. “Can’t you just find his dreams and tell him what happened, tell him to go home now?”

  Grandmother pursed her lips, and her eyes were sad. She shook her head slowly and then tapped her temple with a weathered finger. She reached over and tapped Henry’s temple.

  “My dreams,” said Henry, and he sighed. “My dreams. I know. My dad told me. You attached yourself to his dreams to keep him company, but now you’re attached to mine.” He looked back down at the ashen ruin. “I really have to go, don’t I? But what if I found my dad’s dreams? Could I do it? Could I find them?”

  A cat appeared on the hill beside them, a black cat with a white face.

  “No,” Henry said, and thrust it out of his mind. The cat was gone. He stared into his grandmother’s seeing eyes. “Could I?”

  Grandmother looked from Henry to where the cat had been. She shrugged and cocked her head.

  “Okay,” Henry said, facing the city. “I don’t want this.” He waved his hand at it and shut his dream eyes. “I want to see my father. Take me to my father.” That was wrong. There wasn’t any dream magic to take him anywhere. There wasn’t a guide. He had to find his own way.

  He thought of his father. He thought of the way he smelled of leather and forests and the cliffs by the sea. He thought of his laugh and the deep blackness in his eyes. He thought of the awkward wonderful moment when his unknown father had first kissed him on the head, and the scratching of his jaw.

  He opened his eyes, and he knew that he was not in his father’s dream. He was in a different kind. His father was in it.

  Henry stood on the side of a street. He had no body. He was part of a wall. Five men and five horses lay motionless, with limbs splayed in the dust. Ash drifted in the air above them. From a gaping doorway stepped eight men in black, with their hair in oiled knots. Between them they carried a glossy gray stone box, open and empty, the color of death, the length of a man. Black symbols had been inlaid along its sides, symbols that made Henry feel a sickness creeping over him, a cold sucking pulling at his strength. Into the end a black skull had been set, and black vines twisted out of its mouth and eyes and nose—the skull of a green man.

  The box was lowered into the street, and dust swirled slowly away from it. The eight fingerlings picked up a man, and as they lowered him into the box, Henry saw his face.

  Henry had no mouth to yell, no body to use in a fight. And then he did. He stepped out of the wall, ready to kill, ready to be killed.

  The fingerlings looked at him, and the world went black.

  Pauper son, a soft voice said. You would enter my dreams? You would brush your sour mortal soul against my immortal essence?

  Henry saw nothing. He sensed nothing but the voice. And then he was in pain.

  I had thought to save you for last, the voice said. To wait until your father was ash in my hands, but you die now, pauper son, dream-walker, pup to mongrels. You die now.

  Henry struggled, but he had no arms to flail. A flash of gold spun in front of him, a living word, a defiant war cry, a weed. It twisted with green.

  I can see, Henry thought. And then he heard, not the witch’s voice, not her anger or her deathly bitterness, he heard the dandelion’s burning song—a song of life, of laughter and death and life again, of wind and rain and sun, of ash and birth, of triumph and tragedy and victory in every defeat. He watched and he heard and he ached, not with a physical pain but with desire, with a yearning for everything the dandelion was, for everything it promised. Henry and the witch together watched the fire that guarded his soul, the place where a weed had taken root. Thick gray threads, arms, serpentine beams wrapped around the dandelion fire; they wrapped and contracted and smothered the burning weed song.

  While Henry watched, the dandelion died. The green went gray and joined the strands. The golden fire slowed and stopped and drifted away in ash.

  Grief, overwhelming loss, surged ice-cold over Henry as he watched the ash settle onto the witch’s gray rot. But then, while he watched, each spot greened where it landed. One hundred plants spun themselves leaves and burst into fiery bloom.

  Henry laughed, and the great, grinding death fought the noise and the heat and the life. A flower had become a choir, a flame had become a blaze. As more were killed, more bloomed, and suddenly, the gray serpents were gone. Henry, bodiless Henry, watched a single, slowly twisting flower say its name, and that name was a poem, and that poem was the history of the world—of all the worlds.

  The dream was his again.

  “Nimiane,” Henry said. Could the witch hear his mind’s words? Had she gone? The words of his christening, spoken by his grandmother, flooded back to him. “I shall be your curse.”

  A queen, a witch, rose from her bed between the trees and gathered up a cat in her arms. She was feeling something new. Was this fear? No. This was … urgency. The boy could not be allowed to grow.

  She walked into an oval clearing and passed through it. She walked beside a black pool and its fountain. It was time to begin bigger things. The fingerlings would bring her Mordecai, or he would bring himself, pursuing th
e bait of his family. The witch smiled. She looked forward to meeting his wife.

  There was no more reason to hide since the galleys had fallen on Hylfing. She had shown herself, and she was ready. She had made her fingerlings, and armies and fleets waited on her. She stood behind the throne of the empire.

  Old enemies would die. A new world would bow.

  “I just think there has to be a better way,” Henrietta said. Three backpacks sat on the kitchen table.

  Only one looked even slightly new.

  Zeke handed her a red plastic flashlight, now with fresh batteries. “Maybe,” he said. “But it’s not like Henry would want to go if he could think of anything else.”

  Mrs. Johnson was making a loaf of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. “How bad is this place?” she asked.

  “Bad,” said Henrietta. “Super creep.”

  Zeke turned around and faced his mom. “But Henry’s dad and Caleb are there. And they don’t know what happened.”

  Tilly Johnson bit her lip. She didn’t like seeing knives and a hatchet going into backpacks, especially not when she wasn’t sure how they’d be used. “You all at least need to get some sleep first,” she said.

  Henrietta pulled her wet hair back tight and rubber-banded it into a ponytail. “Maybe,” she said. “See if you can talk Henry into it.”

  “Henry,” Grandmother said. She kicked the afghan to the floor, but she was still asleep. “Henry? She has him. Henry?”

  Tilly hurried to the chair, grabbed Grandmother’s hand, and felt her forehead.

  Henrietta ran to the bathroom.

  “Henry?” She banged on the door. “Henry!” She tried the knob, but it was locked.

  Zeke swiped a straightened paper clip off the top of the door jam and stuck it in the small hole centered in the knob. With a pop, the door was unlocked, and Henrietta threw it open.