Thieves of Weirdwood

by Christian McKay Heidicker

  “Arthur Benton!” the hand said. “How lovely of you to visit!”

  “Um…,” Arthur said, sliding back a few inches. He was afraid the cell’s occupant would try and strangle him, or worse, shove him to the breakers below. How did this patient know his name?

  The hand tilted, like the head of a curious dog. “How are you this fine rainy eve?”

  It opened and closed its fingers in a mimicry of speaking while the patient in the cell provided the words. The young man’s skin was dark, his lighter palm flashing each time the hand opened its “mouth” to talk.

  “I’m all right,” Arthur said. “How are you?”

  “I’m splendid!” the voice said, the hand opening and closing. “Would you like to see my drawing?”

  “Uh, sure?”

  If there was one thing Arthur knew about unsettled people it was that you didn’t argue with them. He got up on his tiptoes and peeked through the bars. The patient was eighteen maybe, and something about him looked familiar …

  “You’re not gonna grab me, are you?” Arthur asked.

  “Not if you look at my drawing!” the hand said in a singsong voice. “Ha ha!”

  Arthur hesitated. The sea roiled below. One misstep and he’d plummet to the same fate as his hat. He inched a bit closer and peered through the bars. The cell’s drawing was meticulously made from spit and cobwebs. It looked like a map of Kingsport, only everything was backward. The Gilded Quarter was to the west while the cliffs of Greyridge were to the east. Two robed figures walked the cobwebbed streets: a boy who looked a lot like Arthur and a girl holding two swords.

  Arthur frowned. Was that the girl from that weird Manor’s forest room? Sekhmet? It couldn’t be …

  “Who are you?” Arthur asked.

  “My name is Graham,” the hand said, bowing. “But it’s my last name you’ll find interesting.”

  “Okay,” Arthur said. “What’s your last name?”

  The hand cleared its throat. “I build the fort so it’s wide and strong, and the ladies have somewhere to lay. And if the thieves and husbands keep out, then breakfast will be on my tray.”

  “Huh?”

  “The boy has never heard a riddle before?” the hand asked.

  Arthur loved riddles. He’d solved dozens in Alfred Moore’s books, refusing to flip to the answer before he’d figured out the solution himself. But he’d never solved a riddle while balancing on a lip of limestone, facing a mental hospital patient who could push him to his death.

  “Let’s see…,” Arthur said, heart quickening.

  Riddles were designed to force your brain into a box that it couldn’t think its way out of. You had to take a mental step back and consider every possible reading of the words.

  “A fort?” Arthur considered. “I don’t think it’s an army barracks. That’s too obvious.”

  The hand nodded encouragingly.

  Arthur considered the phrases somewhere to lay and breakfast will be on my tray. So it was a fort that provided breakfast. When Arthur had first heard it, he’d thought the word lay had been grammatically incorrect. Ladies lie down. But if it wasn’t, then the ladies were laying something …

  “Are you a chicken coop?”

  The hand’s fingers puckered in disappointment. “No, I’m sorry. I have to push you to your death now.”

  Arthur slid away. “I don’t know what it is!”

  The hand threw back its head while the guy in the cell laughed. “I’m kidding! You must remain alive to face the wonderful and terrible things that await you.”

  Arthur relaxed. Kind of. He considered the riddle again and realized the wording suggested it wasn’t about the chicken coop itself, but the person who built it.

  “A coop builder … Coop … Coop maker … maker.” Arthur’s heart lit up. “Cooper?”

  “Yes!” the hand cried and did a little jig. “Graham Cooper! That’s me!”

  “I knew you looked familiar!” Arthur said, feeling a little relieved. “Are you related to Wally Cooper?”

  The hand nodded fervently. “He’s my brother!”

  Arthur wondered why Wally had never mentioned Graham before. Harry was a little odd, but Arthur never pretended like his dad didn’t exist.

  “Wally’s my friend,” Arthur said, hoping Graham would let him pass.

  The hand snaked closer, finger to nose with Arthur. “You, my fair gentleman, are a liar.”

  Arthur recalled the last moment he’d seen Wally—crawling on the ceiling of the spiral hallway—and he fought down the guilt. Graham must’ve been the reason Wally wanted to join Arthur’s heist in the first place. So he could pay his brother’s hospital bill.

  “Your brother’s getting the money,” Arthur said. “He’s going to get you out of here.”

  The hand shook its head. “Wally’s a sweet child. But I’m in here because I choose to be. I had myself committed on purpose.”

  “What? Why?”

  “To meet you, of course! This is exactly where I’m needed to usher in the Great Slumbyr.”

  “What’s the Great Slumbyr?” Arthur asked. The name made his heart tremble, though he wasn’t sure why.

  Graham’s hand ignored him. It gazed toward the backward drawing of Kingsport and sighed. “My brother is doing his part. Wally’s nearly through the Mirror now. Ready to be reversed.” The hand looked back at Arthur. “Ready for another riddle?”

  “Um, do I have a choice?”

  “I rise with a gasp, and it begins, an evening of sorrow and tears. And though death and carnage may ensue, when I fall the night fills with cheers.”

  Arthur thought a moment. When would people ever cheer for sorrow and death?

  “Oh,” he said. “That’s easy. You’re a theater curtain.”

  The hand tilted its head. “Are you sure?”

  A chill went through Arthur. “What else could it be?”

  The hand gave him a reassuring smile. “Don’t be afraid, Arthur. The end of the world won’t be as painful as most people believe.”

  Arthur had flashbacks of the Pox: the streets filled with coughs and wailing, the creak of carts collecting the dead, his mom’s skin turning papery yellow as the disease consumed her from the inside out.

  Arthur swallowed. “The world isn’t going to end.”

  The hand chuckled. “Oh, but it will. And you’re going to make it happen.”

  “Me?”

  “I refuse to tell you any more!” the hand said brightly. “It could spoil the surprise. Anyway, your solution to my riddle was close enough. You deserve a prize.” It disappeared through the bars, and the cell fell silent.

  “Hello?” Arthur said, voice echoing against the stones. “Graham?”

  Had he left? That was impossible. The cell’s door was almost certainly locked.

  Arthur squinted into the darkness. He thought he saw the cobweb drawing ripple like waves on a dark pond. Then the hand came shooting through the bars with something clamped between its fingers. Arthur let out a little yelp of surprise, but then recovered when he saw the object. It was a Golden Scarab. A pendant shaped like an ornate beetle that gleamed in the faint storm light. Graham set it in Arthur’s palm.

  “This precious object comes from the Temple of Kosh,” Graham said with quiet reverence. “I bought it from a Mirror merchant for a song. Literally.” He chuckled, then grew serious again. “You must promise me you will not sell it. Or tell anyone who gave it to you.”

  Arthur closed his fingers around the Scarab. “Okay. I promise.”

  The hand bowed. “You may pass now, Arthur Benton. And don’t be scared. The Veil will fall before the year is through. And you’ll receive the cheers you’ve always craved.”

  Arthur slid past the window, ducking in case Graham made a grab for him.

  Once Arthur was clear, the hand bid him farewell. “Don’t get kissed by any dolls! Hee hee.”

  Arthur rubbed his hatless head. What was all this talk of dolls lately?

  As he made
his way down the hospital walls, across the cliff face, and back along the fence, he thought about this strange exchange—Wally’s mad brother, the drawing of Arthur and Sekhmet, the strange riddles, the Veil, the Great Slumbyr. He also remembered the conversation between Sekhmet and her father. What had they said? The fall of the Veil would bring the end of the world?

  Arthur reached the Port and paused. What would Garnett Lacroix do if his father was locked up and his friend was being held captive by evil robed people? Arthur reached into his pocket and pulled out the onyx knocker, which he’d managed to steal on his way out of Hazelrigg. At least the Gentleman Thief would be proud of him for one thing.

  6

  WEIRDWOOD

  Breeth talked a lot for a dead person.

  “Every time someone walked by, I’d creak the rafters and rattle the floorboards and scream, ‘Hello-o! Why are you ignoring me?’ If they walked past the piano, I’d play the loudest, silliest song I could: ‘Oh, my name is Breeth, I’ve got keys for teeth, and I’ll bite you if you don’t answeeerrrrrr!’ No response. They didn’t even blink. I think it’s because they’re used to this Manor moving all by itself. Also, that piano was the kind that plays itself.”

  Breeth opened a door for Wally and then shut it behind him.

  “Anyway,” she said, continuing down the hallway. “I thought I was going to be stuck here forever! Just creaky old Breeth, haunting musty walls until the universe turned itself inside out. But then you came along, and now I can finally come out of the woodwork! Get it? Ha ha!”

  At first the constant gabbing made Wally nervous. He kept glancing over his shoulder, worried the ghost girl’s voice would draw unwanted attention. He had to constantly remind himself that he was the only one who could hear her.

  “Through here!” Breeth said, creaking down another passage.

  She may have been noisy, but having a ghost companion was as good as having a lock pick. Better really. No door went unopened, no corner unchecked. As they traversed the tangled hallways, Breeth said things like, “This wing’s safe!” Or “Trust me, that way’s boring,” Or “Yeeshk. Definitely not down there.”

  “Why not?” Wally asked.

  “That’s where I was killed.”

  “Oh.”

  They found their way out of the forest wing and arrived at a new wing that seemed to be dedicated to time. Wally followed Breeth through a courtyard growing with pocket watch flowers and through a room with what could only be described as a moondial.

  Breeth continued to talk. “One time I was inside a pencil, trying to write H-E-L-P when a fly landed on me. Suddenly, the whole world looked like a kaleidoscope, and I realized I’d accidentally slipped inside the fly’s buzzy little body! I was stuck! I lived an entire life as a fly. I had a little fly wife and a pile of mouse droppings that we called home. Mouse droppings are way more delicious than you’d think, by the way. Oh, and we had maggot babies! They were so cute and pudgy. I died of old age the next day.”

  They arrived at a widely curving hallway lined with grandfather clocks that ticked in perfect sync—tick tick tick. The hall was dark, but Wally was able to follow Breeth’s brassy voice, echoing through the clocks’ chimes.

  “Why haven’t we reached the exit yet?” he asked.

  “’Cause this Manor refuses to hold still.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Depending on which wing you’re in, the hallways grow like branches or rotate like gears. One wing is super melty.”

  “What? Why?”

  “It has to be like that in order to fit itself inside other buildings. Like the one you broke into.”

  “Okay, but why?”

  “The Manor travels to different cities so it can fix stuff. And by that I mean so the people inside it can fix stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  Breeth possessed a wooden clock face. “Okay, so this is really complicated and took me a while to figure out, but you seem smart, so I think you’ll get it. Weirdwood Manor sits on the border between the real world and the imaginary one. All the doors on the south side of the Manor open onto places in the Real. Like coffee shops and toy stores and one time a bathhouse. That was gross. The doors on the north side lead to the Fae, or imaginary places. They’re filled with things people in the Real dreamt up, like unicorn cobblers and cloud cuckoo land and one time a goblin screamatorium. That was scary.”

  Wally’s mind wanted to reject these ridiculous ideas. Then again, he was talking to a ghost-possessed clock.

  “Sometimes,” Breeth continued, “a creature from the imaginary side manages to make a hole—or Rift—in this thing called the Veil, which separates the Real from the Fae. Then a creature Fae-born will slip into the Real side and cause a bunch of trouble. An imp might steal people’s dentures, or a giant will sneeze lava all over a circus or something.”

  Wally hugged his elbows. “Did those things really happen?”

  “Maybe! It’s definitely possible. But that was just an example. Anyway, whenever Fae-born creatures escape into the Real, this Manor travels to that place and squeezes itself into an empty building, and I squeeze with it—kind of like putting on too-tight stockings. Then the Wardens of Weirdwood go in, catch the imp or giant or whatever, send it back to the Fae, sew up the Rift in the Veil, and then the Manor is off to the next problem.”

  Wally’s thoughts felt more tangled than ever. But that didn’t matter. He didn’t need to know about this stuff. He just needed to get back to Kingsport and start pickpocketing. He had wasted an entire night in this Manor.

  It dawned on him that if he brought Breeth to the gambling dens, she might be able to control the wooden roulette table so it always landed on black. She could even reshuffle the paper cards in the deck, stacking it in his favor. With Breeth fixing the fixed games, he’d be able to pay off Graham’s hospital bill in a couple of days.

  So long as he made it out of this Manor in one piece first.

  The clock hallway curved on and on, refusing to end. Wally remembered the passage that had uncoiled like a sprout.

  “I’ve seen a hall like this before,” he said. “I’m not sure it’s going to end.”

  Breeth paused in a clock, ticking with thought. “Huh. You might be right. I was talking so much I got distracted. I’ll head up to the next floor and figure this out. Be right back. Don’t get caught or eaten.”

  He frowned at the ceiling as she creaked away. Why did she have to say it like that?

  Wally waited in the darkness. The grandfather clocks ticked. The air smelled of dust and gear oil. He hadn’t realized how soothing Breeth’s presence was until she was gone.

  After a few moments of ticking nothingness, a light came bobbing around the bend. With it came the faint scent of sea salt. Wally took a step back.

  “Breeth?” he whispered toward the ceiling.

  The light cast a spindly shadow. It twined and slithered like a giant snake. Upon its head, two horns stuck out of a mane of hair. Wally’s nerves went electric. Was this one of the Fae-born from the imaginary side of the Manor? Had it escaped?

  “Breeth!” Wally whispered again with more urgency.

  The shadow drew closer, its body coiling like wisps of smoke. The hallway curved behind Wally. If he ran back the way he’d come, he might loop right back around to the dragon and a quick, crisp death.

  He opened one of the clock’s glass doors and tried to hide himself inside. He didn’t fit. The swinging pendulum kept striking his shoulder. He tried to pull himself out, but his pant cuff caught on one of the hinges.

  “Come on!” he mumbled, frantically tugging at it.

  He was just able to free himself as the light rounded the corner.

  The shadow didn’t belong to a monster, but a boy. The boy stopped and stared. He was about Wally’s age but held himself with more poise. He was tall and muscular and wore simple, ocean-colored robes and a silken cap. He held a candle and a glass of milk.

  Relief tingled through Wally. Wh
at had looked like a dragon tail must have been nothing more than the shadow of the black braid hanging out of the boy’s cap.

  “You’re just a kid,” Wally said.

  “So it would appear,” the boy said in a voice like royalty.

  Wally studied the kid’s face. He didn’t have scales or fangs—only a smear of red at the corner of his lips, like he’d just eaten a jam sandwich.

  “You’re that thief the Wardens caught,” the kid said.

  “Uh … no,” Wally said, taking a step back.

  “Where I come from, we execute thieves on the spot.” The boy’s eyes sparkled like the sea at daybreak. “Drown them, actually.”

  “Good thing I’m not a thief then,” Wally said, slowly backing away.

  What he wouldn’t give to have Arthur’s charm right then.

  The boy wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his robe, and the red smeared like blood. He set his glass of milk on the floor near a roman numeral VI set in the marble and drew out a calligraphy brush. He painted a strange symbol that hung in the air. The moment the symbol was complete, something whizzed over Wally’s head, shaving off a bit of his hair.

  CUCKOO!

  It was a bird, sprung from one of the clocks. Another darted from the clock opposite, and Wally ducked right before its razor-sharp beak took out his eye.

  The boy picked up his milk. “Enjoy the rest of your stay, thief.”

  Wally ran. The boy and his candle vanished around the bend as more birds sprang out of the clocks, pecking at Wally’s head.

  CUCKOO! CUCKOO! CUCKOO!

  Wally hadn’t run far before he circled around the hallway and arrived back at the boy, who started to paint another strange symbol. Wally didn’t wait to find out what this one did. He turned and ran back the way he’d come—only to find two people running toward him. One was Amelia, the redheaded woman with the eye patch. The other was huge, with blond hair, pink cheeks, and lederhosen—like someone had blown up a baby to the size of an ox.