May Bird and the Ever After

by Jodi Lynn Anderson

  Arista held up the token, found the slot with one hand, and slid it in.

  Zap!

  The clock in Arista’s study struck ten. May stood watching it as two tiny doors on the bottom slid open, and ten tiny skeletons slid out to dance, circling ten times before sliding back in. She walked back into the kitchen.

  Once they had arrived outside the house after teleporting, Arista had ushered them inside, saying the dogs would be coming to check all the houses in the region, and that they would have to move quickly. Now, just minutes later, Pumpkin stood beside the front door, holding a knapsack. They had each packed packs full of the supplies Arista had insisted on: a bottomless water bottle; a whole slew of soul cakes and skeleton crackers; his last two teleport tokens; a city-finder compass that had three points on it: Right Way, Wrong Way, Scenic Way; and a starlight, which looked like a flashlight and was powered by cosmic dust.

  At first May had been too paralyzed with fear to focus on his instructions. The horrible vision of the Bogey was burned onto her brain. She still had to concentrate to keep herself from swaying on her feet.

  “What about ghouls and goblins and stuff?” she had finally asked.

  Arista shrugged. “If ghouls see you, they’ll eat your guts.” This had sent Pumpkin into a shivering fit. Now he stood in the doorway, his fingernails jammed between his teeth.

  “Arista, the Bogey . . .” May had wanted to say that she couldn’t bear to go outside, when she knew he was out there somewhere too.

  “Will find you here if you don’t get moving,” Arista completed her sentence for her. “Head north. That’ll take you to the sea. You won’t see anyone. Hardly anyone ever goes up close to it. But keep an eye out anyway. I hear there are spies in even the remotest areas, though I think that’s probably just a rumor started by Bo Cleevil.”

  “I’ll see you when you get back,” Arista said, turning to Pumpkin.

  “How long do you think it will take us to get to Nine Knaves Grotto?” May asked, still dazed.

  Arista shrugged. “I don’t know much of the world outside Belle Morte. A week or more, probably.”

  They walked outside.

  “North is that way.” Arista pointed. He patted May on the head. “You two be careful.” His antennae twitched thoughtfully. “The Bogey will still be in town looking for you. Don’t go anywhere near Belle Morte. Write me from wherever you end up, May. Good luck.” He hugged her tightly. “I hope you find your way back to your mother and your cat.” He peered in the direction of town once, then he turned and hurried inside.

  May and Pumpkin looked at each other, May trying to buck up her courage. She hefted her pack up higher onto her back, then looked in the direction they’d come from. Even Arista’s little hive house seemed familiar and comforting compared to the path ahead. But then, they couldn’t stay. She took a deep breath. “Well, we’ll never get anywhere if we don’t move forward.”

  They made their way along the sand, a shy, skinny, black-haired girl and a tall, gangly ghost with a pumpkin-shaped head, leaving one pair of footprints behind them.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  By the Sea

  I’m starving.”

  May slowed to a stop and let her sack slide down from her shoulder onto the sand. Without a sun above them to show the day passing, she couldn’t tell how long they’d been walking, but it seemed like it must have been three hours or more.

  “How long do you think we’ve been at it?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m exhausted.” For the past several minutes Pumpkin had been lagging behind, moving as if every inch pained him. Now he plopped down into a sitting hover above the sand.

  May sighed. Pumpkin didn’t know much of anything. She wondered if it wouldn’t have been better to leave him back at Belle Morte. Then she felt guilty for the thought.

  She pulled out her water bottle and swished it around in front of her. She’d drunk out of it many times already, but the level of water hadn’t gone down even an inch, just as Arista had promised. She still couldn’t quite believe it. She took several huge gulps, then wiped the cool bottle across her sweaty forehead.

  “Hey, do you see that?” Pumpkin asked, pointing forward.

  There was a black line on the horizon. “Do you think that’s it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  They both walked another few minutes, and after a few more, they arrived at the sea.

  The body of water that stretched itself out before May and Pumpkin wasn’t so much an ocean as it was a giant oil slick lying lazily across the horizon. It looked like something that might have dripped out of a car, except that it was endless and vast, so big that they couldn’t see any end of it, and it filled May with a sick kind of dread. Up to this point everything she had seen since the portal had had a slight glow to it. The sea was the opposite of that—it was a complete absence of glow.

  “I guess I didn’t know how black, black could get,” May muttered softly.

  “Mmm-hmmm,” Pumpkin agreed.

  May wanted to say that the water was also, somehow, enticing. It took effort to tear her eyes from it and look around to figure out where they were. She looked left, then right. To the right was more desert. To the left, cliff met with beach, creating a narrow strip of sand beside the water. Like the sea, the strip seemed to go forward endlessly. It looked desolate and lonely.

  She gazed out at the sea, which lapped at the sand lazily with oily little sighs. It was actually hard not to look at.

  She must have been staring for a while, because when she tore her eyes away, Pumpkin had laid out a feast in front of her—honey, pomegranates, three tiny cakes decorated with tiny coffins. He’d arranged it all in the shape of a smiley face, and was now lying down a few feet away, resting, his body hovering an inch above the sand.

  “Oh, thank you, Pumpkin.”

  Snort. Pumpkin was already asleep and snoring.

  May gobbled up all of the food that had been put out for her, almost guiltily, since Pumpkin couldn’t have any. When she was finished, she brushed the crumbs off her bathing suit and stood up, rejuvenated. The water pulled her eyeballs back in its direction. It looked so cool and dark. Maybe she would just dip a toe into the water.

  Kicking off her shoes, she padded across the sand. She was just a few feet from the water’s edge when she came to a stop. The water glistened and winked at her. It almost seemed as if, just to accommodate her, each gentle wave was reaching toward her softly.

  “Umph!”

  She felt herself being yanked from behind, and then she was on the ground, a tangle of legs and arms that sorted themselves into Pumpkin’s and hers.

  “Oh, dear,” Pumpkin breathed, dragging her backward like a crab.

  “Pumpkin, what’s the—”

  They both climbed to their feet, breathing hard and looking at each other. May’s body buzzed with the tiny electric shocks where Pumpkin had touched her.

  Finally, when he’d caught his breath, Pumpkin sighed. “Oh, dear, I should have told you.” He frowned and looked down at his feet. “How could I forget? Stupid.”

  “Forget what?” May demanded.

  Pumpkin’s mouth settled into a straight, determined line. “You must never, ever touch a drop of the Dead Sea.”

  May glanced out at the water, then back. “Why not?”

  “It’ll take you.”

  May’s gut sank. “You mean, there’s a water demon?”

  Pumpkin shook his head, his large, droopy eyes earnest and solemn. “Oh, no. Much more powerful than that. Anyone who touches a drop of the Dead Sea will be immediately transported to South Place. Way down under the water.”

  “South Place?” It sounded like some kind of pretty beach. Like in Florida. But she remembered that Arista had said it was where the Dark Spirits came from.

  “South Place is a terrible realm. Very bad. The worst.” Pumpkin shivered.

  “Whoa,” May breathed, glancing out toward the water.

  “Actually,” Pum
pkin began sheepishly, tugging at May’s finger to get her attention again. “You shouldn’t even look at it.” A blush crept up his cheeks. “Arista told me to tell you.”

  May frowned. It made sense now. How enticing the water had looked. How she had felt drawn to it.

  May walked over to the spot where her sack lay, and she began packing up.

  “I’m sorry, May.”

  “That’s all right.”

  Pumpkin pressed a palm up against his lips and spoke through the cracks between the fingers. “Are you mad at me for forgetting?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?” May sighed. “Yes.”

  “Can I have a hug?”

  May had never hugged anyone but her cat and her mother. She didn’t know what to say. “Um, I guess so.”

  Pumpkin threw his arms around her and hugged her tight. She accepted it stiffly, trying not to flinch at his strange, cold touch. As soon as he let go, she hefted her pack and smoothed out her bangs with her index fingers, moving them apart.

  Pumpkin, who didn’t have much in the way of bangs, brushed at his tuft.

  When they started walking down the beach again, they stayed close to the cliffs as the Undertaker had advised.

  “Hey, look,” May said, pointing to a gaping black hole at the base of the cliff up ahead. “The Undertaker told me about those. They’re the Catacombs. What do you know about them?”

  Pumpkin shook his head. “It looks like a good place to have a sleepover. And tell Live One stories.”

  “Live One stories?”

  “You know, when you sit around with your friends and tell stories about Live Ones coming to the realm and exorcising you. Oh”—Pumpkin blushed—“I mean . . . never mind.”

  May didn’t reply.

  “It’s just, I think, most Live Ones are scary. But not you.”

  “I think most ghosts are scary.”

  Pumpkin shrugged. “Well, anyway, I never really did that. Sitting around telling Live One stories. But I always wanted to.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t really have any friends besides Arista.” Pumpkin sounded like he wanted to sound cheerful. “And he says Live One stories are for ghosts that don’t know ectoplasm from their elbow.” Pumpkin hunched his shoulders slightly. “Sometimes he says I don’t know my ectoplasm from my elbow.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true,” May said, after a moment, shyly.

  “I suppose you don’t have any friends either,” Pumpkin said airily.

  May shut her lips tight.

  A few hours later May made sure they settled far from any cave entrances but still under the cliffs, using their sacks as pillows. They were lying on their backs, May with a full belly and heavy, drooping eyelids. It had been a full day of walking, and her muscles ached. But she kept looking around, scared to go to sleep in case someone happened upon them in the night. She shifted a little closer to Pumpkin.

  “I miss my grave,” he said wistfully. “I can’t sleep when I’m away from it.”

  May rolled onto her side. “You sleep in one?”

  Pumpkin nodded. May was silent, trying to imagine that. “All spirits get one,” Pumpkin offered. “Even if you haven’t lived. Of course, everybody needs one to get to Earth for haunting.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That’s how I always get to your house. The graves are doors to the spirit pathways. You have your portals, for the spirits of the newly deceased to get to the Ever After. That’s what you came through. They only go one way. But each spirit gets a grave in the afterworld, to go back and forth.”

  May shot up. “But couldn’t I just go through one of those pathways to get home?”

  Pumpkin was shaking his head.

  “But—”

  “The grave paths are very complicated. Each spirit can only find his way through his own. If you tried someone else’s, you’d never find your way out. You’d be lost forever. A bunch of spirits have tried it. That’s why we have Lost Souls Day. To remind us of the golden rule of haunting.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Hopping grave-ys is for babies.”

  “Oh.” May tried to absorb this, thinking that maybe the spirits in charge could have done better. She rolled herself up into a ball on her side. Pumpkin did the same. Then she flopped over onto her back and watched the stars.

  “Pumpkin?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Pumpkin nod.

  “How long have you been my . . . house spirit?”

  “Mmmm, don’t remember. I moved in when the first house was built there—it was a tepee, actually”

  May’s mouth dropped open. “That must have been years ago!”

  “I don’t know. But it was very cramped. Smelled like . . . hmm . . .”—he tapped his lips, thinking—“venison.” May pictured Pumpkin cramped into a tent and stifled a chuckle.

  “What about our house? Where did you stay?”

  “All over. Mostly the attic, but I spent a lot of time in the kitchen. I liked watching you and your mom eat and talk. But sometimes it made me too sad.”

  May swallowed. “Why?”

  Pumpkin shrugged. “Just a feeling. I don’t know. You make each other sad sometimes.” May picked at her fingernails, her throat tight.

  Pumpkin cleared his throat. “And then . . .”

  “And then?”

  “I spent a lot of time with you. In your room.”

  Now it was May’s turn to blush. She thought of all the times she’d changed in her room. And all the times she’d picked her nose.

  “I loved watching you do your little projects—your drawings and your inventions and all the beautiful pictures you hung up on your walls. You kept the sight for a long while.” Pumpkin smiled, looking at May but past her. “We were such friends when you had it. You used to lie in your crib, waving at me.

  “But then when you got it again, you looked so scared. And that made me scared. You don’t get the sight back unless something serious happens. You have to be touched by a powerful spirit. I really didn’t know what to make of it.”

  “You followed me to the lake that night.”

  Pumpkin was quiet for a long time. “I saw you going into the woods. And I knew the portal was back there. I wanted to make sure you were okay.” Pumpkin frowned. “I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner. Then you wouldn’t be here at all.”

  “Well,” May hesitated. “Thank you. I’m sorry I didn’t thank you for saving me.”

  Pumpkin was silent for a few moments. “Welcome.” They both shifted awkwardly.

  “Pumpkin, Arista said you ghosts come to haunt at midnight. But all the stuff you’re saying means you were there before then.”

  Pumpkin shrugged.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be at my house now?” May asked.

  Pumpkin’s gash of a mouth straightened into its crooked line. “Yes.”

  “And you’re breaking the rules, for me?”

  Pumpkin didn’t answer. He blushed. “Are you gonna get in trouble?”

  “A spirit who doesn’t show up for work can get fired.”

  “What does that mean? They don’t pay you?”

  “They can revoke your Earth privileges.”

  “You mean you’d never be able to come back to Briery Swamp?”

  “I don’t know.”

  May nestled into her sack. Pumpkin did the same. And soon he let out a snore. May, on the other hand, was far from sleep.

  She was thinking of all the times she’d holed up in her room, making her art, coming up with her strange ideas, dreaming of faraway places in pictures. All that time she’d thought she’d been alone. She looked over at Pumpkin. He was lying on his back, his skinny arms flung out to the side, long and gangly. And delicate.

  Then she closed her eyes. She tried to see her big white farmhouse back in Briery Swamp. Maybe if she concentrated hard enough, she could really see it across all the miles, using mental telepathy. Where was her mom? Wha
t was she doing now? She concentrated, but only the backs of her eyelids stared back at her. No farmhouse, no Mom, no Somber Kitty.

  She could imagine though. Her mom was probably hunched over the kitchen table with worry, waiting by the phone. Or talking to the police. Somber Kitty was probably snoozing. Maybe he was glad after how she’d treated him. Glad not to get dressed up like a warrior cat anymore or dragged into school for dance shows. Glad not to be underappreciated anymore.

  May wished more than anything that she could show them both how much she loved them. She felt very sorry. Her whole heart was sorry for everything she had ever done to worry them. She closed her eyes and tried to send her love all the way to Earth. She didn’t know if it could travel that far.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Dark Spirits Afoot

  I always wanted to go to the beach,” May said. She and Pumpkin had been walking in silence for two days, only I talking when it was time to stop and eat, and even then, only exchanging a few words.

  May scanned the sky as they walked, then looked down the beach behind her to make sure there was no one in sight. “I like the woods a lot better.”

  Pumpkin nodded agreeably.

  “Once I get home, I’m never going to the beach again.”

  Pumpkin nodded again.

  May sighed. She’d never wanted so much to talk to someone. In school she’d always kept her mouth closed as much as possible. But Pumpkin was losing his scariness. In fact he was starting to seem less scary than some of her classmates.

  “So how do you like being Arista’s house servant?”

  Pumpkin shrugged. “It’s okay.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  Pumpkin shrugged. May didn’t understand how sometimes he could be so chatty, and then make it so impossible to pull out two words.

  They walked in silence some more, May searching her brain for another subject. “Well, what would you do if you could do anything?”

  Pumpkin looked at her, surprised. “What do you mean?”