The Chestnut King: Book 3 of the 100 Cupboards

by N. D. Wilson

  The ring of faeries burst into laughter.

  “Bring him for certainty!” one cried.

  Another reached up and poked Richard’s cheek. “I could do with a bit of struggling myself. Shall we then? You struggle first, and then I’ll give a go.”

  The laughter grew, and Anastasia watched Richard go red and then white. He picked up his spoon.

  “Leave him be,” Fat Frank said. “You take us all.” He scooped a chestnut up off the table and looked around the room. The aproned woman and a large, bearded cook stood in the kitchen doorway.

  Frank lobbed the cubed chestnut across the room. The cook bobbled and caught it with both hands.

  “When Mordecai’s returned,” Frank said, “give him that nut right off.” He pointed at Una, Anastasia, and Richard. “And remember these faces.”

  The big cook nodded and gave it to the woman. She tucked it into her apron.

  “Mordecai Westmore? The green man?” Jacques asked. “What has he to do with a waned faerie?”

  The other faeries quieted. A few shifted nervously.

  Frank inflated his chest. “That,” he said, “is something I think you’ll be learning.” He walked over to the door and stopped. Anastasia felt Una’s hand on her arm, and the two girls moved quickly after Frank.

  “Well,” he said. “Take us to your king. I got to learn the mushroom dance and get to ruining people’s gardens.”

  Coradin leaned against a wall, hidden from the moon in the shadows of an alley.

  “A tragedy is what it is,” a woman said. “My heart’s achin’ for Lady Hyacinth.” She dumped a mop bucket at Coradin’s feet and stepped back into her house.

  Across the street, Coradin watched the last of the townspeople leave the smoking ruin and walk away, taking their lanterns with them. He stepped out of the alley and crossed the street. He had roamed the city. He had watched the ships sail. He had watched the round faerie rescue three of the children in the struggle at the gate, and he had done nothing.

  His task was the boy. And the boy … the boy was somehow still closest to the charred house.

  He stood at the front door, where his blood brother had been killed, and he flared his nostrils. Traces of smoke drifted up in the moonlight. Blackened beams stood up from the ground in a jumble, like the bones of some monstrous creature.

  Coradin shut his eyes. Blood. The boy had the blood of Endor in his flesh. He need only find the traces. Minutes passed. Voices grew and faded in the street behind him. A bat flitted near his head. Still nothing. And then gray. Strands of gray, the smallest hints, moved in front of him. With his eyes still closed, he staggered forward, feeling his way on all fours through the rubble, following the spider-webs until they became strings and the strings became yarn.

  He opened his eyes.

  A slab of plaster and brick lay between his feet. Grunting, he gripped its edge and flipped it over. A fallen cistern, cracked and collapsed, still leaked dampness despite the heat of the fire and the warmth in the ruin.

  Coradin lifted off a large, cracked piece and threw it away. Beneath, in a shallow puddle, there lay a creature, small, winged, black by nature or fire, bluntly horned. Its goose wings were bent awkwardly, and in places its feathers were burned down to nubbed quills. Coradin gripped the loose skin on its back, lifting it from the rubble. The creature dangled limp from his hand, wing tips down, unmoving, with only the breeze rustling in its feathers.

  The boy’s gray traces were stronger. They were in the cistern. Coradin crouched and shifted his moon shadow. There was a small door, hinged to a box, now nearly collapsed to one side.

  With his free hand, he pulled out the damaged cupboard and held it up, dripping.

  He grows closer.

  “The way is small,” Coradin said.

  I will teach you.

  Coradin turned and moved toward the street.

  A snorting jaw clamped onto his arm.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Henry rubbed his head. Kansas had been crisp in the gray predawn, but here, in the old farmhouse’s new world, the sun was down, and there was no moon.

  The attic was as black as one of his dreams.

  He was sitting on his little bed, ignoring the wall of doors, ignoring their smells and flavors and muffled noises, ignoring Henrietta’s flashlight, which she kept flicking between him and the dark door on the bottom row. Door Number 8. Endor.

  They’d said good-bye to his grandmother and Mrs. Johnson and then walked through Henry, Kansas, casually enough, despite Henry’s oilskin cloak. At the bait shop, they’d ignored the stares of coffee-drinking farmers and bought as many new batteries as they could afford, along with a sizable stash of jerky. Then they’d trudged to the hole by the old barn and walked into a dark house, creaking in an empty world.

  “We don’t have to do this,” Henrietta said. “There has to be another way. We could go back to Hylfing and wait for your dad.”

  Henry blinked and shaded his eyes from her flashlight. She flicked the light on Zeke and then pointed it back down to the black door.

  “The door to Hylfing is closed,” Henry said. “Blocked or crushed or something. We can’t go back without going through Badon Hill and the faerie mound. And my dad said he wouldn’t be home until my birthday. If then.”

  “We can wait,” said Henrietta. She shrugged off her backpack and set it on the bed. “Your dad might find us.”

  Henry laughed. “Since when do you ever want to wait? You always wanted to explore the cupboards, and I never did. You even wanted to go through that one.” He pointed at Endor.

  “Yeah,” Henrietta said. “Well, things change. That was a long time ago—before a witch nearly killed us all and a wizard ripped the whole house out of Kansas.”

  Henry stood up slowly.

  Henrietta turned to Zeke. “What do you think? There’s got to be a better way, right?”

  Zeke bent his head side to side, stretching. “Henry’s got to find his dad, and he’s got to do it soon. And his dad’s on the other side of that door somewhere.”

  “Henrietta, listen.” Henry picked up her backpack and handed it to her. “I have to do this. I don’t want to. My head feels like it’s going to split already. I’m all clammy, and I’ll probably throw up again, but I have to do this.” He reached up to scratch his jaw and stopped himself. “But you don’t,” he added. “You can stay with Mrs. Johnson. We’ll come back for you. Do you want to go back?”

  Henrietta crossed her arms, uncrossed them, put her hands on her hips, crossed them again, and then tucked her curls behind her ears. She shivered.

  “I almost died with my arm through that door.” She sniffed. “But I’m not even going to answer that question.”

  “You don’t want to go back?”

  “Of course I do.” Henrietta sniffed. “And you do, too. But I’m not going to.”

  Henry smiled.

  Henrietta scowled. “I’m going to die in a cold black place and never be found. That’s what I’m going to do.”

  Zeke looked at both of them. “Are we ready?” he asked. When they nodded, he crouched and pulled off the small black door. A thin gold chain dragged out behind it.

  Henry felt dizzy. Dizzy and chilled. His jaw was piercing cold. His mouth felt like it was freezing shut. Gagging, he dropped to his knees in front of the door, and the wall went blurry.

  He could hear his cousin, talking from somewhere far away. “Don’t be sick.”

  And Zeke. “Henry? Henry, are you okay?”

  He had to do this fast or not at all. He needed every bit of dandelion fire inside him.

  Henry shut his eyes and fought to block the cold and the sucking and the awful wrongness of the door. He pulled his father’s necklace out of his shirt and made a fist around it with his right hand. He flexed hard, and the metal grew warm. He needed that fire. He needed his father’s strength. And his grandfather’s. He needed all of it.

  He could feel dandelions. There were some through the door to Ba
don Hill. And another door farther away and higher. And another. He felt for them all. They were already feeling for him.

  His arm warmed and then his shoulder. The gagging faded. Only his jaw was cold.

  He knew his eyes were black, and he opened them.

  The door to Endor drew everything to itself already. Every breath, every influence from the other open doors drifted toward the dark cupboard by the floor, graying as they came, slowly draining into nothingness.

  Strands drifted away from Henry’s face, twisting around themselves and snaking through the cupboard mouth.

  “Now or never,” Henry said, and he pointed his burning palm toward the door.

  The swirling stopped. The drain became a tangle as green and gold writhed and flinched away from the hole, as the gray death retreated against the wall and scattered and splayed when the colors came close.

  “Come on,” said Henry, and he swirled his hand around the opening, chasing gray, forcing the influences to mingle. He would need more if he was going to widen the world-seam beyond the wood of the cupboard. He scooted closer. The cold in his jaw became a tugging. His own gray strands quickened. He grabbed at all the other doors, intercepting their flows before they died, and blended them together. He built himself a swirl that was big and alive, and then he brought it down to the dark door.

  The mouth gaped. The seam, hungrier than any other, grew, and Henry slid forward on his knees. He pushed himself back away from the wall and stared at what he’d done.

  The room was gray. All the colors had died, and the seam, bookmarked by the small black cupboard, now gaped wide on the wall.

  It wasn’t getting smaller. It was growing. Henry blinked and struggled with the flow. It didn’t have to shrink, not until they were back through, but he didn’t want it to be growing while they were gone.

  His little bed slid against the wall.

  “What’s happening?” Zeke asked, leaning back. “Is this normal?”

  Henrietta jumped back through the bedroom doorway and stood in the attic.

  Henry gasped. “Okay,” he said. He’d slowed it down, but they’d still be able to duck through without crawling. “I’ll go first. Then Zeke.” He looked at his cousin. “Last chance, Henrietta.”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “But watch yourselves. I’ll be right behind you. I’m not spending an extra second in here alone.”

  Henry stood and stared at the swirling wall. “It’s still pretty big.”

  “What is?” Henrietta asked. “What are you seeing?”

  Henry didn’t answer. There was no way he could. Henrietta’s flashlight flicked all over the wall. Zeke’s was steady on the cupboard. It could have been higher. Henry turned on his own flashlight and adjusted his backpack. He faced the death-drain, took a deep breath, and then two more, and he stepped through.

  Henrietta jumped and bit her lip. She couldn’t help herself. Henry had walked straight at the wall, hunched a bit, and disappeared. Crawling through Grandfather’s cupboard at least felt like it made sense. But this, watching Henry in his cloak, groaning and wincing and dripping cold sweat, shutting his eyes and waving his hands around like a drunk weatherman? It gave her the creeps, especially with this door. She shivered again. Zeke checked her with his flashlight and then stepped in front of the doors.

  “Hold on a sec,” Henrietta said. “I’ll go next.”

  She hopped in front of him, and before she could think about it, squeezed her eyes shut, ducked her head, and stepped sideways toward the wall.

  It was like dropping too fast in an elevator. Her stomach rose, and everything in her stomach rose with it. And then weight, too much weight for her body, and a sudden stop.

  Cold. Very, very cold. But not in the way winters are cold, or ice cream. This was cold because nothing was moving, cold because there was an extreme absence of heat, an absence of any kind of life at all. This was death.

  “My nose isn’t bleeding.” Henry’s flashlight spotted her face. “That’s a first. But I did throw up. Don’t walk over here. Where’s Zeke?”

  “This is awful,” said Henrietta. She swung her beam around the room. Her knees were weak, and her skin felt like it did underwater. Zeke staggered into place beside her.

  All three lights spotted their way around the room.

  “I don’t like this,” Zeke said. “How do we get out?”

  Coradin held the animal in front of him in the moonlight. Its eyes were red and rolling in its skull, and its bellow was hoarse. More than just feathers had been burned. Avoiding the teeth and the butting head and the flapping wings, Coradin slid his hand to the animal’s throat. He squeezed, and the bellowing sputtered and stopped. He squeezed harder and knew that blood flow had ended. Harder and his fingertips found the spine.

  Kill.

  He drew a blade from his belt, turned the animal away from himself, and set the knife tip on the back of the neck. Slide it in, and the body would die immediately. The mind would live on, but only for a matter of moments, cut off from its own dead flesh.

  Kill.

  Hesitating, he relaxed his grip. The animal wheezed, breathing again.

  Now.

  He didn’t want to kill the creature. It had survived much. Like himself. And it was like no other animal he had ever seen. He tucked his knife back into his belt.

  A searing pain shot through his skull. Ice, cold and sharp, pumped through his veins. A voice, angry as a waterfall, roared in his head.

  Coradin!

  He dropped to his knees in the rubble, still holding the raggant. His joints throbbed. His head felt ripped open, split wide in the back. His fist tightened again on the raggant’s throat. Groaning, he threw the animal away into the wreckage and fell forward.

  The pain grew. His body shook. And then calm. Peace. Balm flowed through his limbs. His head was numb. He had no pain. He had nothing. His mind was clean, his trifling rebellion forgotten.

  Take the doorway.

  He rose to his feet and picked up the cupboard.

  The crypt was square. Black pillars held up a low-vaulted ceiling. They, and every other surface, were covered with scratches and etchings, strange symbols, shapes, and figures—scrawls of the imprisoned. Low, peaked doorways lined the walls, four to a side. Some were sealed, some were gapped open, and some had been sealed but now held nothing but shattered stone. All of it had been carved in shades of black. There were no cobwebs at all—those would have required living spiders—but a thin film of dust had settled over everything. A film disturbed in places.

  Zeke and Henrietta moved their flashlights from doorway to doorway. Henry turned and faced the wall behind them. It held doorways as well, but it also held a shelf, small and leaning slightly to one side. On it there were rotted books, a bird skull, the bones of a human hand, and what looked like a pile of rags. He let his light rest on an odd shape beside the rag pile, a small black pyramid, ten inches tall, intricately carved. One of its sides was hinged and open, holding a seam between the worlds. He could feel the swirl on the other side, draining things into this place.

  He chewed his lip. That current against them would make going back hard. But hopefully, they wouldn’t have to. They would find his dad and his uncle and go back with them.

  “Henry,” Zeke said. “Look at this.”

  Henry turned. Zeke’s flashlight lit up a large, flat, circular stone in the center of the room. Small symbols covered its surface. Beside it, a large circular space was free of dust.

  “It’s been moved,” Henrietta said. “How long ago?” She turned in place, scanning the doors.

  “No way to know,” said Zeke. He looked at Henry. “What now?”

  “Henry?” Henrietta asked. “The witch was trapped here, right? Did we think about that at all? If she couldn’t get out, how will we?”

  Henry shivered. His skin was tightening. Something was coming. Or someone. He shut his eyes. If there was a way out, they wouldn’t find it just trying every door. He needed to see the place.
>
  There was nothing. Nothing but still gray death and the swirling, dying flavors through the little door behind him. And then he saw something he didn’t understand. A faint web of deep purple with traces of green woven into the stone of a doorway. And another. A strand ran between them. Another strand, embedded in the stone, ran … he followed it over the ceiling and down the other side, down to the little pyramid, where it was frayed and broken.

  Henry opened his mouth, wishing he understood. He knew that these things had to be from his father, the strength of his grapevines stitching together the seams of lifeless rock, rock from which no strength could ever be drawn. But how did it work? Could he open it? And if those doors were sealed, then they had to lead out. He crossed the room and stared at the low arch and the smooth stone that filled it.

  Henrietta screamed, and Henry spun around. Through one of the shattered doorways, there peered a face. It was a woman’s face, old and shorn bald. She blinked at the flashlights, sniffed the room, and stepped in. She was wearing Henry’s old long-sleeved T-shirt, the shirt that Nimiane had pulled through the cupboard a lifetime ago.

  Zeke dropped his backpack, unzipped it, and jerked out his hatchet.

  “No way Out,” the woman said. “Only In. You have found In.”

  Henry slid slowly back toward the other two. “Who are you?”

  “I. I. I am queens.” Her shape flickered and changed, and suddenly, she was towering, tall, beautiful. “I am kings.” She became a man holding a gold mace. And then she shrunk back down to her wizened, shorn self and sat on the stone floor, crossing thin legs beneath ragged skirts. “I am Nia. And you are sweet-blooded childrens.” She looked up, blinking, and then shut her eyes and sniffed. Henry gasped and stepped back. She’d become a man again, tall, even seated, and broad-shouldered, with eyes like sharp holes hooded beneath a pale brow. A thin silver band studded with swirling stones sat in his night-dark hair. In one enormous hand, he cupped a small black ball, baseball-size, shimmering with white flame around the edges like a pale, eclipsed sun. In the other, he gripped three writhing serpents, all hissing and striking at each other.