by Dan Poblocki
“That’s why we’re here,” said the woman. “To help.”
Poppy’s heart fluttered with hope. She pinched her arm, not trusting her eyes and ears. “What do you mean, ‘That’s why we’re here?’ ” she asked. “How did you know we needed help?”
“We have an appointment with Cyrus Caldwell,” said the man. “But we seem to have gotten lost in this monster of a building, and I’m afraid we must have missed him.”
Poppy took a slow step back, closer to Marcus. Her skin prickled with dread. “Cyrus Caldwell. We read about him in those files we found,” she whispered. “The director of the orphanage. The one who died decades ago.”
Dash backed toward where Azumi was crouched on the bed.
“Can you tell us where we might find him?” the woman called, her teeth gleaming from the shadows as she grinned.
The couple stepped into the room, and the daylight dimmed even further. The man wore a charcoal-gray suit. His dark tie was attached to his white shirt with a gold pin in the center of his chest. His hair was slicked into a part, like someone Poppy had once seen in an old television show. The woman was shorter than him, but in her bright-red wool dress she looked almost as large. Delicate white pearls hung from her ears, and a wide-brimmed white hat seemed to float like a halo over her head. There was something familiar about these people. They had a half-hopeful, half-desperate air around them that reminded Poppy of a couple searching for family.
“Oh, you poor dears!” said the woman, as the children continued to back slowly away. “We must have frightened you so, bursting in like popping balloons! Pop-pop-pop! You mustn’t have very many visitors here at Larkspur.”
“You’d be surprised,” Dash murmured.
“We are Mr. and Mrs. Fox,” said the man. “Foxes in the henhouse! Ha-ha!” He turned to his wife and smiled.
“You can really get us out of here?” asked Marcus.
“Marcus!” said Poppy, peering at him from the corner of her eye. “Shh. They think they’re going to adopt us.”
“Adopt us?”
“Well, of course we are, silly heads,” said Mrs. Fox, looking directly at Poppy. “Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted, Poppy? Parents? A family?”
The question hit Poppy square in the chest, nearly knocking her breath away.
“How do you know her name?” asked Dash, turning to Poppy and glaring, as if she’d said something wrong.
“Oh, we know all about little miss Poppy,” said the woman. “On the phone, it was quite clear that Mr. Caldwell just adores her.”
Poppy began to tremble. “B-but I’ve never met him!”
“Are you sure about that?” asked the man, grinning strangely. Holding hands, Mr. and Mrs. Fox stepped into the aisle between the two rows of beds.
“Stop!” said Dash, holding up his hands. “Don’t come any closer.”
But they ignored him. “We only have to finalize everything with Mr. Caldwell, and then it will be settled,” said Mr. Fox. They took another step, the dusky light from the window finally revealing their faces. “What do you say … Poppy?”
Poppy covered her mouth to hold in a scream.
THE FOXES’ SKIN was waxy and drawn. Their lips were sunken, their eyes hooded with darkness. Mrs. Fox opened her mouth, and a line of spittle pooled over her chin before dripping onto her red dress. “What’s wrong, dear?” she asked. “You look ill.” She pulled off her gloves, exposing withered, skeletal fingers. She reached toward Poppy, her ruby nails like claws. “Let me feel your forehead, dear. You might have a fever.”
“No!” Poppy yelled. “Don’t come near me!”
Mr. Fox put on his hat. His cracked lips deepened into an unnatural frown. “Cyrus mentioned that your birth mother couldn’t wait to get rid of you. I’m starting to see why.”
Poppy’s cheeks burned as if he’d slapped her face. “Cyrus doesn’t know anything about me! And neither do you!”
“Coming with us would be better than what you have now.” Mrs. Fox smiled. “A great big fat nothing. A huge pile of no one … ” Drool spilled out of her mouth again. She used one of her gloves to dab daintily at her chin and neck, missing most of the liquid. “Home take. We’ll … ” She drifted off for a moment. “Then you’ll see. Different be … There … ”
“Home, yes,” said Mr. Fox, edging forward. “China dolls … Canopy beds … Chores, of course, but what home … isn’t home without … a little bit of work?”
The Foxes were almost halfway up the aisle now.
“You’re not real!” Poppy shouted out. “You’re … you’re just his puppets! Cyrus is going to have to try harder if he wants to break us!”
Azumi’s face went red. “Poppy! You’ll make them angry!”
The Foxes released a gritty sound from their chests, something animal and dangerous. The noise was terrifying, but somehow it also made Poppy glad, as if she’d struck a blow.
Her gaze fell upon the doorway behind Azumi and Dash. Another door was only several feet from where she and Marcus stood—an escape route! She bent down and grasped the frame of the bed in front of her. “Flip these up!” she yelled. Together, she and Marcus lifted the bed onto its side.
The mattress fell to the floor with a satisfying slump, and the metal frame stood like a barricade separating them from the phantoms. The Foxes quickened their pace.
“Hurry!” Poppy shouted to Azumi and Dash, who flipped a bed frame too. “Now shove them together!” The four slid their upturned bed frames together just as the Foxes reached them. Clink! The couple wailed and clawed at the frames like animals trying to get in at meat.
“Push them back!” Poppy cried out from the spot where the two beds met, clasping the joint. But the Foxes were stronger than their wasted bodies made them appear.
Mr. Fox shoved hard, and the juncture of the two bed frames gave. Poppy and Marcus were pushed behind the frame on the right, separated from Dash and Azumi, who were struggling to hold the other one in place. Mr. Fox continued to force Poppy and Marcus backward toward the window. Across the room, Mrs. Fox grabbed at Dash and Azumi.
“There’s a door right by you!” Poppy yelled to them. “Go!”
Marcus felt the doorknob pressing into his back. He swung the door open as Mr. Fox hoisted himself up and began to climb the bed frame. Marcus grabbed Poppy’s bag and hauled her through the dark doorway. As he pushed the door closed behind them, Poppy caught a glimpse of Dash and Azumi slipping through the opening in the opposite wall.
The house had split them up.
DASH SLAMMED THE door shut and pulled the knob with all his weight. He could feel Mrs. Fox yanking it from the other side, twisting it back and forth. The knob started to slip through Dash’s slick palms. “Azumi! A little help?” He felt her reach over his head. There was a click as Azumi flipped a bolt into place, and Dash loosened his grip on the knob.
“That woman’s not getting in here,” she said.
They were standing at the top of a set of spiral stairs. Black iron slats swirled into the shadows below, while a cracked skylight overhead barely illuminated the slim space.
“Ghosts.” Dash shivered. His brother’s face popped into his head, a perfect mirror of his own. “They said they were looking for Cyrus Caldwell.”
“Yeah, they had ‘an appointment.’ Probably back when the orphanage was still open.” Azumi shuddered. “I don’t think they ever managed to leave.”
“This is such a mess!” Dash cried out, covering his face with splayed fingers. “I should never have let Dylan out of my sight.” His voice rebounded into the stairwell. Out of my sight … my sight … It sounded as if his brother were mimicking him. “And now we’re all separated! It’s like the house is doing this on purpose—trying to isolate us.”
“We’re not all separated.” Azumi smiled wanly. “You have me! There’s hope yet.”
Dash tried to smile back, but he couldn’t force his mouth into the right shape. “Thanks,” he said. “I need to remember that.” He t
ook a deep breath, trying to calm down and think. “So. How do we get back to Marcus and Poppy?” he asked.
“Right now, we only seem to have one option,” said Azumi. She nodded at the twisting staircase.
The Trickster hides in the darkness.
He makes his eyes wide, so the audience will see his performance from inside the sad clown mask that Del Larkspur gave to him.
Dash and that girl are coming down the spiral stairs. Their footsteps on the metal make a bing-bing-bing sound.
He knows the camera is out there somewhere, focused on his face, his mask. Everyone is waiting for Dash and the girl to reach the steps over his head. This will be the Trickster’s time to shine, to make an impression on the director and the producer and the other members of the cast.
According to Del, Dash has no clue what is about to hit him.
The Trickster forces a snicker down his throat. Del was so right to put him and Dash in separate roles. He’d never imagined that playing an “evil” character would be so much fun.
The Trickster wonders if Dash is having fun too.
Bing-bing-bing.
The dark is closing in. The Trickster needs air. He reaches for the clown mask. His fingertips go prickly as he yanks it away, the plastic tugging at his skin as if the inside of the mask were coated in a thin layer of glue.
Strange.
Tremendous pain creeps across his hand. His mind flickers with disconcerting yet familiar images: his body atop a metal slab in a morgue, his family standing over an open grave, his brother’s bed in the psychiatric ward … These aren’t memories, are they? The Trickster drops the mask. It clatters to the floor, and the pain, the visions, everything evaporates.
A voice speaks in his head: We only get one shot. Do not ruin this. You don’t want to disappoint Del.
Bing-bing-bing.
The footsteps are ringing louder now. Only one or two more turns around the spiral and then—
He bends down for the mask and then slips it back on. It feels more natural now, less tight. Everything is fine. He sighs.
“Do you hear that?” Dash’s voice echoes from above.
The Trickster freezes, not wanting that inner voice to yell at him again, not wanting to feel that dripping pain, not wanting that flood of memories to—
“I don’t hear anything,” answers the girl. “What was it?”
“Breathing?”
He covers his painted, plastic frown with his hands. He’s going to laugh and ruin everything!
“Come on, we shouldn’t waste time,” says the girl. “There’s got to be a way for us to catch up to Poppy and Marcus.”
Bing-bing-bing.
He feels his body buzz with excitement. The spiral staircase reverberates with their steps. The two are just overhead.
Any second … any second … any second now the Trickster will reach out from under the staircase and … and … and snatch—
Dash couldn’t move his foot.
Something grabbed his ankle and twisted it. His body tumbled forward. Dash screamed, swinging his arms, reaching for the curved railing, but his forearms hit the edge of the iron steps below and the world flipped. His legs catapulted over his head, and he landed on his back on a flat cold surface.
His heartbeat echoed loudly in his ears, agony like an alarm clock, crying wake up, wake up, wake up!
Azumi rushed down the rest of the steps and crouched beside him, and Dash heard soft laughter echo out from underneath the stairs. He craned his neck to catch a glimpse of whoever was hiding there, but the sound stopped abruptly.
Had the laughter sounded familiar? It couldn’t be. Could it?
Dylan! Dash struggled to call out, but his tongue refused to cooperate.
“Dash? Dash! Answer me!” Azumi was staring down at him. “Can you move?” Dash wiggled his fingers. Relief. He nodded and Azumi let out a breath. “What happened?”
“Someone … ”
Azumi shook her head, confused. “Someone … what?”
Tripped me, Dash finished in his mind. “I-I lost my footing,” he said aloud, closing his eyes, refusing to look again toward the darkness under the stairs.
MARCUS AND POPPY were in a hallway drenched in late afternoon light. As the sun began to settle behind the distant line of trees over the grassy meadow, a saw blade of shadow crept up from the floor onto the wall across from old lead-paned windows.
Marcus turned away from the view, glancing back at Poppy. She was still kneeling, grasping the shuddering doorknob. “Poppy, we bolted the door,” he said. “I don’t think he can reach us anymore.”
Worry filled Poppy’s eyes. “What if he can unbolt the door?”
Marcus grimaced. He hadn’t considered that. “How about you let go of the knob and see?” he said. “If the door starts to move, we can hold it shut until Mr. Fox tires himself out.”
“Do ghosts get tired?” Poppy asked.
Marcus shook his head, trying to hold in his frustration. “The longer we stay here, the harder it’ll be to find the others.”
Poppy considered for a second. “Well, you’re right about that.”
“Gee, thanks,” said Marcus, his throat tightening.
She slowly took her fingers away from the knob, her eyes glued to the bolt. It held. Poppy waited several more seconds before she finally leaned back. “That was … I can’t believe … ” She sighed and stood up. “Now how do we find Azumi and Dash? That was so stupid—I should’ve named a place for us all to meet!”
“Maybe this is better,” said Marcus. “If you’d told them somewhere specific, like the game room or something, Cyrus might have made it impossible for us to reach it. You know? Like, he would’ve put up some sort of roadblock.”
Poppy sighed. “So what do we do?”
“You’re asking me?”
“Of course!”
“We walk,” he said, trying to sound self-assured, surprised that she wanted his opinion. “Remember how my piano music led you and Dash downstairs to the ballroom when you were lost?”
Poppy blinked, unimpressed. “Yeah?”
“Same thing here. We’ll call to them, and they’ll probably be calling for us too. We’ll find one another.”
“That works,” said Poppy, nodding to herself. Her eyes seemed glassy, as if she were already tired of him. “Just keep an eye out for the Foxes or anyone else you don’t recognize.”
They headed down the bright hallway, away from the dormitory. “Dash! Azumi! Dylan!” they called.
Behind them, Mr. Fox’s phantom fists pounded at the door. On their left, several doorways opened into darkened rooms that they instinctively veered away from.
A warm breeze wafted toward them from farther down the passage. It was followed by a stench so horrible that both Marcus and Poppy had to stop and cover their noses.
“What is that?” Marcus asked.
Poppy shook her head, swallowing down her nausea. “Once, back in the city, there was a dead rat in the alley outside the bedroom window.” She pointed in the direction of the breeze. “This is worse.”
“I think I’m going to throw up,” said Marcus.
“Breathe through your mouth.” Poppy nodded them forward again. “Where do you think it’s coming from?”
“An open grave? A sewer? Someone with really bad breath?”
As they walked, the breeze grew into a wind. Fierce gusts ruffled their clothes. And the stench only got worse.
A few feet ahead of them, there was a turn—a new hallway that snaked back into the depths of the house. A few dim sconces illuminated the familiar blue Gothic wallpaper. Marcus wondered if the heartbeat sound was still thumping through its dark vines—like the musical rhythms that used to dance through his mind. He hated how quiet everything was without it. “Dash! Azumi! Dylan!” he called out.
A gust of wind stopped Marcus in his tracks. “I can’t stand this smell. We have to turn back,” he said.
“Wait,” said Poppy, standing at the junction. “I h
ave an idea.”
“I’m not going to like this idea, am I?”
“Rules of the real world don’t seem to exist at Larkspur, right?”
“If you say so.”
“I mean, everything we’ve experienced so far has sort of pushed us in certain directions,” said Poppy. “Something didn’t want me looking through the files in that office when we first got here, so a fire started. We found the door with the nails in it, and before we could even figure out what that was all about, a kid in a mask showed up and attacked. The Specials chase us unless we get close enough to grab for their masks.” Poppy frowned. “If the house and the things inside it are puzzles that Cyrus built, then maybe his solutions are in the places that are the hardest to reach.”
“So you think Cyrus wants to keep us from going down that hallway,” said Marcus. “The one where the wind is coming from.”
“There’s got to be something down there that he doesn’t want us to see. Maybe even a way out.”
“But if he can move the walls around, why wouldn’t he just block off the hallway? Maybe he’s playing some sort of reverse psychology. Like: Don’t go in there!” Marcus cupped his mouth and whispered, “But actually … do!”
Poppy glared at him. “I don’t know, Marcus.”
“And what if it is a way out? Do we just leave the others?”
“I’d hate for that to be the case,” said Poppy, stepping back into the breeze. “We’ll figure it out later.” The breeze lifted her hair from her scalp, pushing it off her forehead. For a second, Marcus was struck by how much she looked like the girl from the portrait they’d seen just before Dylan ran away. Consolida Caldwell—Poppy’s girl in the mirror. The ghostly friend who had stood beside Poppy her whole life.
Marcus tried to smother a pang of jealousy. He’d had a secret friend his whole life too, a musician who sent him bursts of notes, pieces of song that danced through his head and out his fingers. Everyone had called Marcus a prodigy, but he only cared about the music that wrapped around him day and night. It wasn’t until he arrived at Larkspur House that Marcus discovered who the Musician really was: his uncle Shane, who had gone missing as a boy. Who was presumed dead. The songs were a protection for Marcus, but the house had silenced them. Now the quiet sounded so big Marcus was sure it would swallow him whole.
