by Dan Poblocki
“There’s another ledge a few feet below the one you’re on,” called out Azumi. “Be careful, but hurry!”
“Can you make it?” Poppy asked Dash.
Dash’s face was contorted with pain. “I’ll try.”
Poppy held on to the stonework with one hand and helped Dash down to the next ledge with the other, trying not to get tangled in the messenger bag that still looped across her chest. When Dash made it, he balanced on his good leg and reached up to guide her down too.
“Only a little bit farther,” called Azumi.
Poppy looked up. The Specials were already helping one another climb the space just above them. Matilda whipped her head down to face her.
“Dylan!” Dash cried out to the group overhead. “I know you can hear me! Fight it. Whatever it is. You’re stronger than this!”
But Dylan threw back his head and chortled. Matilda shook her head pityingly at Poppy and Dash.
“Please,” Poppy said, her voice barely rising over the wind. “We want to help you. Just like we did for Randolph. And for Esme. You can be free too!” Poppy thought of the moment when she’d first removed Matilda’s mask in the elevator, of the girl’s surprise, which was apparent in her bright blue eyes. She remembered talking to her in the music room, gaining the first hint that the house’s foundations might have cracks, that there might be a way to actually beat away the evil that lived here. But then Matilda’s mask had reappeared, and she ran off, back under the control of Cyrus, or Larkspur.
Matilda pulled one of her monstrous dolls from a pocket in her uniform and waved it at Poppy. Its ceramic face was smashed open. It was bald and naked, and it looked heavy. She held out her hand and released the doll.
It dropped quickly, smacking Poppy’s shoulder, knocking her off-balance. Poppy swung her arms out, as if she could flap back to safety, but she felt herself tipping away from the building.
Dash tried to grab at her T-shirt, but he only managed to get his fingertips on the bottom of the hem as Poppy tumbled off the ledge. And that was enough to pull him forward too.
The pitched roof rushed toward them from below.
DASH LANDED ON his back. Pain erupted in his rib cage, like nothing he’d ever felt before. When he tried to catch a breath, it felt as though his lungs had evaporated. Slowly, slowly, the air crept down his throat, its crispness shocking him back into the world.
He was alive at least. Wasn’t he? He couldn’t be sure of that anymore.
Poppy had fallen beside him. She was rigid with pain, her head cradled in her hands.
Above, the stars glared down. The sky was filled with constellations that Dash didn’t recognize from the textbooks he and Dylan had studied on set. He felt the sloping roof beneath him begin to shift, and he realized that both he and Poppy had started to slip.
They slid faster and faster toward the sharp line of the roof edge. Poppy cried out and flailed her arms and legs, searching for something to grab on to, but she only managed to clasp Dash’s shirt. He pressed his hands down flat on the roof, to try to slow them, but the slate was slick, and every bump they hit seemed to hurry them toward the green copper gutter. “Hold on, Poppy!” he shouted. “I’m going to try and grab—”
Just then, Dash felt a sharp yank at his collar, and together, he and Poppy arced across the slope, just missing the drop. She had her arms wrapped around his waist, stretching his spine. Their momentum slowed and then stopped. He choked as the cotton collar squeezed his windpipe. But then he felt someone clasp his forearms and pull. Looking up, he saw Azumi, her face red as she strained against his weight. Marcus was crouched beside her in the nook of the gabled window, holding Dash’s shirt in his fist. “Can’t … breathe!” Dash managed.
“Sorry!” said Marcus, giving him some slack.
“You take Dash,” Azumi said to Marcus. “I’ll grab Poppy.” Marcus helped Dash climb forward as Azumi pulled Poppy to safety.
The Specials were still up on the tower, watching them. Dash wondered how long they’d stay there.
“Are you hurt?” asked Azumi.
“I don’t think so,” said Poppy, settling into the nook above the gabled roof. Somehow, the pink messenger bag was still looped across her chest.
Dash’s palms stung, scraped raw during the slide. His forearms and his ankle continued to ache. And the spot on his back where Dylan had elbowed him throbbed. “I’ll live,” he whispered, his voice still weak.
“Which way do we go?” asked Azumi.
Marcus nodded toward the edge of the roof several yards away. “Maybe we can keep climbing down from here.”
“We’re still at least three floors up,” said Poppy. “What if we slip again?”
Azumi pointed away from the tower, where the spine of the roof shot off into the dark. “I think the roof slopes in that direction. We’ll be closer to the ground.”
“Yes,” said Poppy. “Then we run for the driveway. The gate is down the path through the woods.”
“Guys!” Dash shouted. “We have to go! Now!” He pointed at the tower.
They all turned just in time to watch the four Specials leap from the ledge. Wham!
The Specials hit near the peak by the tower wall and then disappeared, slipping down the other side. Several pieces of slate tiles broke off and slid—clink, clank, clink, clank—before falling over the edge a few feet away.
Dash, Poppy, Azumi, and Marcus lurched to their feet. They held hands and slowly made their way up the slope, moving away from the tower and the Specials. When they reached the ridge of the roof, Dash glanced over his shoulder. The Specials and his brother were only several dozen feet back, rising crooked and broken to their feet. They turned to look at the group, as if they sensed his gaze.
Dash cried out, “Go! Go! Go!” He pushed the others ahead of himself, limping along as quickly as he could.
Azumi had been right. Here, the roof pitched downward at a steep degree. Only a handful of yards stood between them and what looked like a one-story drop down to the ground. The pitter-patter of sliding tiles rang out from behind them, but no one dared to look back.
As Dash limped along, his arm slumped across Poppy’s shoulders, his mind was racing, tripping through time. He thought of his brother, of the accident, the guilt he’d carried all the way across the country. Dash pushed himself to go faster, ignoring the pain that shot through his ankle, not because he was afraid that the Specials were gaining on them—they were—but because he finally understood that maybe Dylan was actually unreachable.
The others were moving just as quickly. There appeared to be only a hundred more feet until they reached the edge of the house. The Specials howled and screamed, their muffled voices growing louder as they careered closer. Dash thought he felt a sharp fingernail scratch at his spine, and a yelp escaped his throat.
But then, a strange thing happened. The footsteps behind them halted. The Specials’ cries went silent.
Everyone slowed. At the same time, the roof beneath their feet started cracking and squeaking like ice over a frozen pond.
Several steps ahead, Azumi and Marcus skidded to a stop. Dash and Poppy did the same. “What are they doing?” asked Poppy.
Dash turned back. The four masked kids had halted farther up the slope. The roof looked strange at the place where they’d paused. And then Dash realized why they’d stopped. The roof there was still slate. But farther along, where Dash and Poppy and Azumi and Marcus were now standing, the surface of the roof reflected the stars above them. Little points of white light sparkled all around their feet, as if the group was floating, weightless, in the sky.
“Oh, no,” said Poppy, looking down. Her own face stared back darkly. “Are we standing on glass?” For a moment, there was a strange blur in the reflection below. It looked as though another person were standing beside Poppy, shivering and shaking and jerking like mad. “Connie?” she whispered, her voice a squeak. “Is that you?”
Dash glanced at Azumi. The surface shuddered and then sh
rieked. They both managed to say, “The greenhouse,” right at the moment the roof shattered and the house swallowed them up.
GLASS RAINED ALL around in huge chunks like great, dangerous icicles, and in little flecks that tinkled to the ground like sleet.
Azumi was draped on a high branch in a gnarled tree, her arms dangling down on one side, her legs on the other. It felt like someone had slammed a two-by-four into her gut. She could barely move, barely think, never mind call out and ask if everyone else was okay.
Careful to not make a sound, Azumi pulled herself up onto the branch. Glancing around, she took in the wide hole in the ceiling several dozen feet overhead and the speckled sky beyond. Near the edge of the hole, a large piece of glass—bigger than the stones on the path below—was hanging precariously from a thin piece of the bent metal frame. Looking down, she couldn’t make out the others.
If the fall didn’t kill them, she thought, then the shards of glass—
She remembered the phone in the pocket of her denim jacket. Pulling it out, she swiped on the light, and then scanned the area below her. Using branches near the trunk, she lowered herself through the canopy. With each step, more of the forest floor was revealed—rippled and rocky and covered with carpets of green moss that seemed to glow in an odd way whenever her light hit it.
Azumi froze. There was a body! It was lying on the ground just beneath her, cradled in a pocket of earth created by one of the tree roots. Red hair. Khaki pants. Marcus! She wanted to shout out to him, but remembered what lived in the greenhouse and managed to hold it inside. She scrambled the rest of the way down the tree and rushed to his side.
“Marcus,” she whispered, pressing her fingertip to his cheek. He flinched, and she yelped in both surprise and relief, her voice echoing briefly through the woods. “You’re okay,” she told him, though she knew she might have also been talking to herself. “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.”
Marcus curled his shoulder away from her touch and then mumbled, “But, Mom, it’s the weekend. I don’t want to get up yet.”
Azumi pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. It wasn’t even that funny. Her adrenaline was pumping, making her woozy. She shook him hard, whispering in his ear. “I’m not your mother.”
Marcus’s eyes flashed open, as if he was waking from a nightmare. He looked at her and then scrambled to sit up, but when he bumped his knee against the trunk, he yelled out, “Oww!”
“Shh! We’re not alone in here.”
“In here?” he repeated. “In where? We’re outside.”
“We’re not,” she whispered. “We fell. Remember? The roof caved in. We’re in the greenhouse. Well … sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?”
“It’s hard to explain.”
“No,” he yelled, looking around but finding only darkness. “No! We got out of the house. We escaped!”
“Keep it down, you idiot!” Azumi said.
“No! We got out! This is … just a dream! We’re dreaming, right?”
She reached out to slam her hand over his mouth. From a few feet behind her, she heard someone whisper, “Hey!” Both she and Marcus spun to see where the voice had come from. Azumi shone her flashlight at a nearby tree. Behind the thick trunk, a vaguely human shape seemed to watch her.
“Poppy? Dash? Is that you?” Azumi asked.
“Just get over here,” said the voice, louder this time. It was Dash. “Hurry!”
From somewhere deeper in the shadows, there came the sound of footsteps crunching through fallen leaves and pieces of glass. Shivers prickled across Azumi’s skin.
They were completely exposed. She switched off her phone’s light and then poked Marcus in the chest. “Yelling? Really? C’mon. Before it gets here.” Then she poked him again, harder, frustrated.
“It?” Marcus echoed, brushing her hand away.
“You don’t want to know.”
Azumi crawled quietly toward the tree where Dash was hiding. Marcus followed at her heels. The footsteps crunched closer. A funky scent filled the air—dirt and mildew and rot. It was enough to make her gag. She covered her mouth and then slipped into the shadows across the stone path.
There, she found Dash and Poppy huddled together. Beside them was crouched another figure who was looking at her with worry—her sister.
MORIKO RAISED HER finger to her lips.
The thing beyond the tree trunk was almost upon them. Azumi turned to find Marcus cowering behind her, covering his nose and mouth with both hands. His eyes were wide with terror, and he was trembling. His head was knocking against some leaves, making them shake and rattle.
Azumi pulled him close, away from the foliage, and hugged him. To her surprise, he stopped trembling and almost seemed to relax into her arms. Just like a stupid baby. The others were frozen. Azumi shut her eyes and silently recited a little norito that her obaasan had taught her, hoping a prayer might help.
The footfalls stopped a few feet away. The thing swiveled back and forth, searching. Its stench grew stronger, overwhelming, like the neighborhood compost piles back in Washington. All of a sudden, it lurched toward them, emitting an earsplitting screech. Its bony hand grabbed a hank of Moriko’s hair and yanked her head backward. Dash stood and turned his phone’s light into the corpse’s face. Distracted by the glow, the figure glared at him and then growled. Azumi yelped, taking in its rotting floral dress, the torn burlap sack over its skull, its sticklike limbs, the noose hanging from its neck. Poppy let out a scream and Marcus clung to her side. “Let go of my sister!” Azumi cried out, springing forward. But the figure swiped at her, knocking Azumi back. Her heel caught on a root and she fell.
Moriko tried to swivel around and face the thing, but its grip was too tight. Poppy, Marcus, and Dash leapt on them. The force of their collision was enough to free Moriko and knock the corpse a few feet back. Moriko scrambled up the path toward Azumi. Azumi reached out for her, but the thing grabbed Moriko’s foot and jerked her toward it again.
“Stop it, you disgusting freak!” she called out. It was too strong, Azumi knew. There was no way even the five of them could stop it. It would overcome Moriko, and then the rest of them, one by one.
From above, something squealed, high-pitched, like an ancient, giant bird. Everyone looked up in time to catch pinpoints of light glinting off an object that was hurtling from the sky. A moment later, there was a crash, and the corpse was on the ground, spiked by the enormous piece of glass that Azumi had seen dangling from the rooftop.
The group let out a breath. Azumi scooted across the ground, not caring that she was scuffing her knees raw. She threw her arms around her sister and her cheeks grew wet as tears leaked from her eyes. “Are you okay?” Azumi whimpered.
“I’ve been through worse,” said Moriko, shifting her head back and forth as if popping her neck into place. “How about you? Anyone hurt?”
The other three did not answer. They were all staring at the mess that the glass had made of the corpse. Marcus whispered, “That was … really … really … really close.”
“I can’t look,” said Poppy, turning away. Dash followed her several yards up the path.
“Wait, Azumi,” said Marcus. “This is your sister?”
“Yes!” she cried out, before slapping her hand over her mouth and looking over her shoulder, worried about attracting another dead thing. “I kept telling you guys she was here, waiting for us to come back,” she went on quietly. Azumi turned to Moriko again. “You have no idea what we went through.” She glanced down at the body lying on the path surrounded by glimmering glass. “Well, maybe you do,” she said. “I feel like I’m losing my mind. I think we all do.” Azumi’s chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath. “Please, Moriko, can you just get us out of here?”
Moriko took Azumi’s hands and held them in her lap. “I said I would. And I will.” She glanced at the others and then raised an eyebrow. “And if your friends can all remember how to be very, very quiet, I
might even get them out in one piece.” Poppy and Dash nodded sheepishly. Marcus only stared at her as if in awe. “Where’s your brother?” Moriko asked Dash. “Didn’t you find him?”
“He … He wouldn’t … ” Dash choked, unable to finish, then clenched his fists and stared at the ground.
Moriko sighed and nodded. “Don’t worry, Dash,” she said, her voice soft. “Later. There’s always hope.” She turned to the others. “Follow me. And watch out for any more falling glass.”
A warm breeze arose as they walked, rustling the leaves and bringing more of that horrible smell from somewhere deeper in the woods. Poppy and Marcus glanced at each other, remembering the hallway that had led to the rotunda and the classroom. “If this stench is any indication, I think we’re definitely heading the right way,” he said. But Poppy turned away, as if not wanting anything to do with him anymore. Marcus hung his head and watched the ground, not wanting to fall.
They walked and walked, stopping every now and again to hide whenever they heard scuffling from the brush.
Poppy couldn’t get Cyrus out of her mind. He had tried to help rescue Esme. And she hoped that giving him the journal like Connie had told her had freed him—he’d looked peaceful for just a moment, before he fell. She hoped it had fixed something. It felt good, if only for a moment, to imagine that the only family she knew wasn’t actually a group of monsters, even if they were ghosts.
Poppy kept her eyes on Moriko and Azumi, who were a few yards ahead. Marcus shuffled forward, moving toward the sisters, but Dash hung back, limping along beside Poppy.
“I can’t believe Dylan tried to kill me.” After a moment, Dash sniffed. “No, maybe I can. Maybe I deserved it.”
“Of course you didn’t deserve it,” Poppy whispered. “Don’t be silly.”
“Do you think I should still track him down and try to reason with him?” asked Dash. “Moriko said there’s always hope.”
