It was too much of a coincidence. May’s stomach felt heavy.
She pulled the blanket onto her lap and unfolded it all the way.
Glowing green strands of embroidery formed themselves along the top edge, where the blanket came to a silky black border. She ran her fingers along the stitches as they appeared, curving around themselves in cursive letters.
For May. Remember to stay warm.
May gasped, then peered up and down the cave again.
Whoever it was, they were gone.
“What does it say?” Pumpkin asked, staring at the words.
“Here.” May held it out toward him. Pumpkin held up his hands in a stop motion.
“Reading is a lot of work. . . .” He sighed loudly for emphasis.
May sighed back and read the words to him. Then they sat staring at the blanket, thinking.
“Who do you think left this?”
Pumpkin shrugged, then his eyes lit up. “Maybe you have a secret admirer,” he ventured.
May rolled her eyes. “I don’t think so. Maybe it’s from Arista . . .” She looked at Pumpkin hopefully, but he was shaking his head so hard that the tuft of hair on top of his skull swayed.
“Arista wouldn’t leave his bees,” he said. “And he doesn’t like surprises.”
“No, I suppose it wouldn’t be him.” Arista didn’t seem like the type who would follow them into a tunnel and leave mysterious blankets on the ground for them to find either.
May looked down at the blanket. She reached a hand toward it and undid the last fold. Then she gave into the impulse to pull it around her shoulders.
The world around her went from dark to bright. May blinked, holding one hand up in front of her eyes. And then . . .
“Oh, my gosh.”
May had to blink several more times. “Oh, my gosh.”
She was in her bedroom back home, sitting on her bed and wrapped in the blanket. There were her pictures of Egypt and Samoa. There was her desk and her bookshelf. Above, her wind chimes tinkled. She reached out and touched them. They were real.
May looked around for Pumpkin, but he was nowhere to be seen. Then she sat forward to peer out her window. There was the view of the front yard and the woods beyond. “Mom?!” she yelled. “Kitty!”
She hopped up, ran to her bedroom door, threw it open, and froze. There was nothing coming from the other side but orange light.
“May?” A voice called. May didn’t answer. She didn’t want to.
And then the world around her went dark again, and she was facing Pumpkin, who held the blanket in his arms. “What happened?” he asked. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” May said, trying to shake the image of her house.
“You looked like you fell asleep.”
May took the blanket from his hands. “I was home!”
May pulled the blanket around her shoulders again, and once again she was in her bedroom. She reached for her bedroom window and opened it, but when she did, the familiar view disappeared, becoming the orange light again. She pulled the blanket off again, and she was in the cave.
That’s when she noticed a little white tag hanging off the bottom of the blanket. In awe May read it out loud: “This comfort blanket was handcrafted by the Spirits of North Farm.”
“Oooh,” Pumpkin said. “The Spirits of North Farm. Lucky.”
May held the blanket out at arm’s length. “North Farm,” she repeated, unsure as to whether it meant she was lucky or not. In fact it made her feel guilty. Caught.
“I wonder why they would send you a blanket.”
May ran her fingers along the words again: Remember to keep warm. She wondered whether she could trust Pumpkin with her secret. “There’s someone who sent me a letter in Briery Swamp. I guess it could be from her.”
Pumpkin looked hurt. “I wonder why she didn’t send me one.”
May cleared her throat. “The Undertaker said she might have taken an interest in me. That maybe I have someone on my side.” May didn’t say that the Lady had also asked for her help. She was too ashamed. She hunched her shoulders as if the Lady were in the cave with her, watching her, disappointed. The scary part was this blanket made it seem possible.
Pumpkin considered. “I hope she’s on my side too. I always wanted my own blanket.” He looked at May pitifully.
It was such a very Pumpkin look that May couldn’t help but smile.
A few minutes later they were on the move again. May reached into her knapsack every once in a while to sink her fingers into the soft velvet of her blanket, reassuring herself it was still there. She had tucked her letter and her picture in alongside it, and she ran her hands over those too. It all made her feel closer to many things that were far away, and that made her smile.
Up ahead, Pumpkin seemed to be in good spirits. He was singing some kind of cheerful tune. “When we met, after you crashed in that jet, I thought you were the one for meeee. You floated my way, all filmy and gray, and I just had to say gee.”
May wondered about it being a love song. Did spirits fall in love? She didn’t see why not. But Arista had said spirits didn’t grow or change. Did that mean they couldn’t? She was in such a good mood, she didn’t ask Pumpkin to keep his voice down, forgetting that someone or something might be in the caves, listening.
“You say banshee, I say bogey, let’s call the whole thing off . . .”
May was reaching around to touch her blanket again when a sound made her pause. It was faint at first, and then louder, click clack click clack. The skulls on the walls all around them were shaking and rattling. May leaned toward Pumpkin. “We . . .”
Ha ha ha ha ha.
The laugh echoed through the tunnel. It was high and delighted, like a child’s. Pumpkin’s knees began to knock together. “What’s that?” he whispered.
“I don’t—”
Suddenly May could see her shadow on the ground in front of her, growing larger and larger. She turned around just in time to see a white flash zooming down the tunnel before it hurtled past them, blowing their hair back and careening off the walls before disappearing into the darkness ahead.
May and Pumpkin both flattened themselves against the wall, breathing hard and peering up and down the tunnel. They stayed that way for several minutes. Nothing stirred. The skulls had all gone quiet.
“I think we’d better get out of the caves as soon as possible,” May said.
Pumpkin didn’t sing any more after that.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A Deadly Mistake
May watched more anxiously now for tiny caves that might take them out to the beach again. She was starting to think that coming into the caves had been a deadly mistake.
Pumpkin took to whistling softly to pass the time and settle his nerves, and May kept having to remind him to stop. On the fifth or sixth time that he forgot and started whistling again, May came to an abrupt halt. She turned on Pumpkin with a stem gaze and, ignoring the tiny cold shocks that she was getting used to, she reached out with her free hand and physically closed his lips together. They felt like dried worms. May grimaced.
“Pumpkin,” she said, “I really need you to be quiet.”
Pumpkin stared at her, looking comical with his long eyes searching hers and her hand still on his mouth, his lips puffing through them like fish lips. “Muuwt?” he slurred.
May scowled at him.
Puffffff.
With a sound like someone blowing out birthday candles, Pumpkin’s face disappeared in blackness.
“The light!” May whispered, letting go of Pumpkins lips. “It went out.”
“Maybe I have something in my bag,” Pumpkin offered. “Let’s see,” he whispered. “Food, water bottle, lucky silverstone . . .”
Ha ha ha.
May froze. A high, unkly laugh had come from behind her. Pumpkin’s teeth began to chatter. “What was—”
Hee hee hee.
This time the laugh came from in front of them.
Ha
a haaa heee hee haaa.
Laughing voices overlapped one another, climbing on top of one another and seeming to come from all different directions. The skulls on the walls began to shake.
May spun around in a circle.
“Maaaay,” Pumpkin moaned. He sounded near tears.
“What. . .”
HA!
The laugh was just beside her ear. May spun away.
“Run!”
Dropping her pack with a crash, May started sprinting, and slammed right into a wall. A batch of skulls tumbled down, hitting her heavily on the shoulders and arms and legs.
May backed up and started running again. She could hear Pumpkin wheezing and groaning right behind her.
“Look for a tunnel out!” she cried. But her voice got lost. Hundreds of voices rang through the caves, laughing harder and harder—joyfully, delightedly.
May scraped against each wall as she ran. She didn’t even know what direction they were going in now—they could be going back the way they’d come, which meant it would take hours to get outside again. May felt her legs start to give way. Her lungs pounded and squeezed against her ribs like an overinflated balloon. She couldn’t run much more.
And then she saw it. It was up ahead, so faint it could have been imaginary, the tiniest slip of dim dusky light. As she got closer, it became more defined: the jagged rock edges that marked the entrance, the gentle rise of the sand outside.
Ha!
She tore through the archway into the light, Pumpkin slamming into her from behind as she skidded to a halt. They emerged onto a tiny patch of beach, no bigger than a few feet across. And there, right at the tip of May’s toes, was the oily, greedy water of the Dead Sea.
Before she could back up, the water oozed forward, its tips stretching out and turning into long fingers of water that reached toward her. May sucked in her breath to scream, but a weight around her chest pushed it out of her in a whoosh. Suddenly she was being dragged back inside the caves, her feet making two long lines in the sand.
She only had a second to catch Pumpkin’s black, terrified eyes before she was pulled into the darkness.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Cave Dwellers
Deeper and deeper into the Catacombs, May was dragged, through low tunnels and tiny crevices no wider than her shoulders. She struggled and kicked, but her feet couldn’t find purchase in the sandy floor of the caves, and the light coming from behind her was blinding, making spots swim in front of her eyes.
Suddenly the space around her seemed to expand, and with an unceremonious thud she was tossed into a big cage that swung from the ceiling, right near a wall. She immediately threw her hands up before her face, shielding her eyes against the blinding light. And then the light zipped away and disappeared.
She waited in darkness for what seemed like half an hour or more, rattling her cage, wanting to get to Pumpkin. Then the light zipped in again and began to dim, helping her make out the vague outline of a human shape. It backed up a step or two.
When the light settled at a faint glow, May couldn’t believe what she saw. Staring back at her was a boy, no more than twelve or thirteen, with sandy hair and wide blue eyes rimmed with long eyelashes. He had pale, fair skin, slightly rosy at the cheeks. He was tall and thin, wearing a white button-down shirt under a blue jacket, and a blue-and-tan-striped tie. He stared at her, looking almost as surprised as she herself must have looked.
“I didn’t know you were pretty.”
The boy seemed to think better of what he’d said, because he blushed scarlet, then he zipped across the room, a flash of white light, disappearing. The hall went dark. May felt something in her back.
“Ahh!”
She swatted between her shoulders, reached down and grabbed whatever it was, and flung it across the room. The glow appeared again. And there, scurrying away along one wall, was a ghostly tarantula.
Ha ha ha!
There was a white zip of light across the room, and the boy was standing in front of her again, holding his hand over his mouth and chuckling. “It’s fake, you know! I really got you!”
“I don’t think it’s very funny,” May said boldly. The boy immediately stopped laughing and pulled his hand away from his mouth. He looked suddenly scared and worried.
“Really? I’m sorry.”
“W-What are you going to do with me?”
“Do with you?” the boy asked, his eyes wide, like doe eyes. “Do with you?” He scratched his chin and began to pace, illuminating the walls as he walked. “I guess the others want to see you. You’re certainly a strange type of spirit.”
May opened her mouth to say that she wasn’t a spirit, but then stopped herself.
She leaned against the back of her cage. “What do you want?” she whispered, trying to keep the trembling out of her voice.
The boy blinked his doe eyes at her languidly, confused. “Want? Oh, I don’t want anything. I’ve got everything I need right here.”
With that the boy zipped around the room again in a white flash, bouncing off the walls and ending up across the hall.
“Then why were you chasing us?” May squeaked.
The boy squinted at her, seeming to try to make the question out. “Why? Oh, I don’t know.” He began to laugh. “You should have seen your face when I blew out your light.” He broke into a delighted giggle. May clenched her mouth shut as he walked closer to the cage and stuck his fingers around the bars. Suddenly his eyes were serious again.
“Hey, do you think you might want to be friends?”
“Friends?” May whispered.
“Yeah.” The boy smiled tentatively. “Here, shake on it. . . .” He stuck his whole hand into the cage. May couldn’t hold back—she slapped it away.
“I’m not your friend! Pumpkin . . .” May’s pulse throbbed. She had to get out of here. She had to find Pumpkin.
The boy had gone completely silent, and his glow had all but died. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” To May’s shock, his eyes grew wide and sad. “I thought we were having fun. I’m sorry.”
May sat there in her cage, flabbergasted.
“Oh, I didn’t mean it!” the boy said with a moan. In a flash he zipped out of the room, leaving May in complete darkness.
“Wait! Come back! Come back!”
Her voice echoed back to her.
“Please!”
Nothing.
May rattled the doors of her cage as hard as she could, but it didn’t budge. Then she got quiet again and waited for several more minutes, straining her ears for anything. There wasn’t a sound to indicate that anything lived in the Catacombs at all.
May stood up and grabbed on to the door of her cage. “Heyyyyyy! Hey! Please come back!”
She quieted for a moment. Then she had another idea. “I forgive you! Please come back! I forgive you!”
Zip! A flash of light pinged against the walls, one, two, three times, and then there he was, standing in front of her again.
“That’s kind of you,” he said.
May nibbled her finger. She had to keep the boy by her and convince him to let her out—that much was clear.
“Wh-What’s your name?” May asked.
“Lucius.”
“Lucius?” May repeated. She’d never heard a name like it. “That’s really pretty.” She flashed what she hoped was a winning smile.
Lucius smiled back, clearly flattered. “It means ‘light.’ Appropriate, isn’t it?” He held up his brightly glowing arms to underline the point. “What’s yours?” he asked.
“I’m May Bird.”
“May Bird,” he repeated. “That’s nice too. I suppose you want out of there then?”
May nodded furiously. She boldly stuck out her hand, and Lucius shook it. Though he was full of warm light, his fingers were ice cold.
“Sorry. I’ve been stuck in the cage tons of times, playing jail-break. But it drives the other boys crazy ’cause I don’t mind it. Everybody else gets sick of it—I forget
that sometimes.” He floated up to May’s cage, pulled a giant key out of the pocket of his baggy, khaki-colored pants, and unlocked the door.
“Thanks.” She stared at him, her pulse racing now, like horses at the Kentucky Derby. “Pumpkin . . . did you see what happened to him?”
Lucius seemed to be searching his mind. “You mean the big-headed fellow?”
May nodded eagerly. “Yes, the big-headed fellow. I was wondering, could you, please, please, just see if he’s all right? I’m worried the sea might have taken him.”
Lucius seemed to consider this, eyeing her thoughtfully. “Why don’t we go check together?”
“Really?” May tried not to show how relieved she was. Something told her not to give Lucius a reason to change his mood. “Can you take me back to where we left him?” she asked gently.
Lucius nodded proudly. “Yes, I could take you with my eyes closed.”
“Please, let’s just go with your eyes open.”
The beach was deserted. May stayed well within the safety of the arch of the cave, but even from there she could tell that Pumpkin was nowhere on the small slip of sand. “No,” she whispered softly. “I think the waves must have got him,” Lucius said gravely.
“Yes, remember that one that was right up behind him? Yes, now that I think of it, that’s probably what happened.”
May’s eyes started to blur with tears. She swiped at them secretively.
“I’m sorry about it,” he said. “He looked like a perfectly nice fellow.”
“You’re sorry?” May cried, unable to hold it in. “Pumpkin!” She threw her hands up over her face, but then felt another pair of hands on hers, pulling them apart. Lucius had his face right up next to hers, and he was grinning.
“Just kidding. Gosh, you’re easy. Come with me.”
Back through the caves they went, twisting and looping until they heard a giggle up ahead.
“Ohhh. Ohhhhhhhh.”
May’s heart caught in her throat. “Pumpkin!”
She ran ahead, bursting into a small round room with a neatly made bed, a Holo-Vision set, and shelves full of model airplanes and old cars. Pumpkin lay splayed on his stomach on the bed, reading a magazine. “Pumpkin!”
May Bird and the Ever After Page 13
