by Tad Williams
He had scarcely produced it from his jacket pocket before Tyler snatched it away. Tyler pulled the cider jars close and applied the flame first to one of Colin’s torn-off sleeves, then to the other. The fabric was wet but gasoline had soaked up into it from the jar and after just a few seconds both wicks caught and burned with a blue-yellow flame. Lucinda cowered away, thinking they might blow up any second.
“Don’t worry-that’s not how these things work,” Tyler said. “At least I don’t think so. Steve, you grab that one.”
“Me?”
“No, the other Steve. Look, my sister can barely sit up and Needle looks like his arm’s broken. Come on, dude. Hero time.” But although he spoke bravely, her brother looked pale and frightened, his lips almost blue in the weird storm light.
“Don’t do it,” Lucinda told him. “It already got Ragnar and Mr. Walkwell!”
Tyler only shook his head. He stood up, holding the jug away from his face; after a moment, so did Steve Carrillo.
“If we live through this,” Steve said, “I’ll need to use your phone to call home. My folks are probably really pissed.”
And then he and Tyler went loping down the rainy garden rows, slowed by the weight of the heavy jugs.
“Lift your feet,” Lucinda heard Tyler yell. “Don’t let those white things get a grip on you!”
Lightning flashed so bright that for a long moment everything before Lucinda’s eyes went black, even as the thunder made her very bones shudder. Then she dimly saw the lights of the two jugs bobbing near where Ragnar had stopped.
“You’re too close!” she screamed, but Tyler was also shouting.
“Throw it high, dude!” her brother called to Steve. “They have to break!” And he swung his own by the ring at the neck, spinning himself and the jar round and round like an Olympic hammer-thrower, then let it go. It flew up and then plopped down into the mud without breaking, a foot short of the pile of dead animals clustered against the greenhouse’s iron structure. The flame was still burning, though it guttered in the rain, and as gasoline spilled out of the jar it made a growing but unimpressive pool of blue fire.
“No!” Tyler shouted in despair. “Steve, you have to do it! You have to hit the greenhouse!”
Steven Carrillo stared for a moment as another lightning flash turned the entire garden into a kind of stage set, rows and rows of flat pictures, each set in front of the next-garden plants, the greenhouse itself, mountains, and sky. Then Steve bent down. For a moment, Lucinda thought he was going to set the cider jar down and simply walk away in defeat, but he was bending for balance. He spun, surprisingly nimble, holding the jug in both hands, and then let it go. It flew end over end, flaming wick rotating like a Catherine wheel, its arc not as high as Tyler’s but a little longer. Lucinda’s heart rose-it was going to reach the greenhouse!
It thumped against the uppermost part of the structure without breaking, the impact deadened by the pale, doughy globs growing out of the frame. For an instant it teetered there and it seemed the monstrous thing would simply draw the jug itself like a sea anemone snatching a fish, but it was too heavy and too delicately balanced. It fell away, rolled down the mound of dead creatures at the base, and smashed into the other jug, breaking them both. Fire splattered up the sides of the greenhouse and the pale, doughy flesh where it had oozed through the broken panes. More fire spread across the ground. The white tentacles spasmed in shock and what could only be pain. !!!!!!!!
The greenhouse-thing’s screaming thoughts, if anything so primitive could be called that, ripped through Lucinda, knocking her flat on the ground and leaving her dizzy, unable to make her arms and legs work. It was the worst thing she’d ever felt in her head, a convulsion of fiery agony that seized her and shook her like the jaws of some great beast. When the worst had passed she could only lie still for long moments with rain splashing her face, then finally found the strength to drag herself upright again, although the fungus-monster’s sensations of alarm and pain still battered her.
The part of the white thing that wasn’t on fire was stretching even farther into the sky now, mouthlike holes gaping in the pale spongy mass as if a thousand voices screamed at once, but all Lucinda could hear above the storm was the whistle of escaping gases. In its pain the creature had lost control of much of its network of threads, and Ragnar was busily tearing himself loose. When he could move his legs again he staggered over to Mr. Walkwell and yanked him free, but the farm’s overseer did not move and Ragnar had to carry him away from the burning greenhouse: Simos Walkwell, who could lift the farm wagon with one hand, looked as shrunken and lifeless as a withered turnip, but at least he was free. Beside Lucinda, the fungal strands fell away from Colin Needle and withdrew into the ground.
But suddenly, just when it had seemed they had destroyed their terrible enemy, the mass of the main fungus body began to split open above the places where fire was blackening its flesh. A transparent ooze began to flow from these cracks, extinguishing the flames that had been scorching the thing’s surface. The echo of its power still pulsed in Lucinda’s head, its single-minded need to spawn, its mindless determination to spread itself to the winds. The thing was not beaten.
Lightning flashed again.
“Everybody, back!” Ragnar shouted. “Quickly!” He bent and picked up the fence post from where it had fallen short and advanced toward the greenhouse like a knight marching into a dragon’s cave. Lucinda could barely hear him over the thunder and a bizarre whistling noise that was coming now from the thing, but she did as he had said, pulling Colin by his good arm until the boy finally managed to crawl on his own. She turned to look for Tyler and Steve hurrying after her, and saw something behind them she would never forget, although she would wish for the rest of her life that she could.
The charred white and black mass was stretching wider now, its strands quivering with the spores they were about to release, but the truly horrible thing was that was that for a moment she could see something of Gideon’s own face and shape forming itself out of the main body’s moving white surface, as if the fungus had tasted her great-uncle so deeply and so long that it wanted to be him.
A blinding flash of light whitewashed the sky. Ragnar threw the fencepost-spear again and this time it shivered through the air and thumped into the thickest part of the monstrous fungus, the wire trailing like a row of silver sparks. Thunder boomed and boomed again, very close, then the sky exploded in a monstrous flash, so powerful that the ground lurched, knocking her off her feet again. Blue fire crackled and arched where the fence post stuck out of the ground, and white strands curled into blackened threads all around the ruined greenhouse.
The body of the thing, a grotesque and unstable copy of Gideon, swelled and began to grow bigger-for a mad moment Lucinda thought it would pull itself out of the greenhouse wreckage and walk-but then burst into gouts of dripping fire. The monstrous Gideon face twisted in agony or fury, then fell back into bubbly nothingness. Spores poured out but caught fire and disappeared in clouds of burning sparks, popping in the air, vanishing like the falling fireworks at a Fourth of July show. Inky black smoke curled from the melting wreckage and was swept away by the wind.
Lucinda felt a hand on her arm, then one on the other side. It was Tyler and Steve Carrillo lifting her out of the mud.
“We’re alive,” was all she could say. “Alive.”
Tyler nodded, shook his head, then nodded again. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re alive.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she told him. “You guys have to carry Gideon. Ragnar knocked him out, but that thing had him really bad.”
With the boys awkwardly cradling the unconscious Gideon, they all turned their backs on the smoldering greenhouse and began to make their way back across the garden, toward the house. Colin was staggering along under his own power, holding his arm against his chest. Lucinda moved up to offer him some support, but he turned away from her and continued to make his own slow way. Ragnar was carrying Mr. Walkwell. The
sight of the old man’s closed eyes and limp form frightened her.
“Is he all right, Ragnar? He’s not… ”
“Simos is alive,” the big man told her. He didn’t look as though he could claim much more himself. “But he is in a bad way.”
“We won, didn’t we?” she asked, but she said it quietly, mostly to herself.
“Oh, one thing, Luce?” Tyler said from behind her, grunting a little as he tried to balance his share of their great-uncle. “If you were going to go and lie down? There’s… there’s kind of someone sleeping in your room.” She turned to look back. Tyler had a funny expression on his face, a little nervous, but also quite proud. “You remember Grace? Gideon’s wife?”
Lucinda had no idea what he was talking about and was so battered and exhausted that she didn’t think she could string two more words together, so she opted for just one.
“Whatever.”
Chapter 41
Like a Rolling Snake
Steve Carrillo’s parents came to pick him up about noon, and as they pulled up to the front gate in their pick-up and got out they looked as though they hadn’t got any more sleep the previous night than Tyler and Lucinda and the rest of the folk at Ordinary Farm.
“By the time you get done being grounded,” Mr. Carrillo told his son, “you’re going to be ready for the retirement home.”
“It was all my fault, sir,” Tyler said. “It was my idea. Steve was just helping me… ”
“Helping himself to a big punishment,” said Mrs. Carrillo sharply. Behind her, Alma and Carmen, who didn’t know yet what had happened, made mocking faces from the back seat. Tyler gave them an embarrassed wave.
Hector Carrillo turned to Ragnar, whose visible skin was covered with stripes of purple bruises. “And how are you all?” Mr. Carrillo asked. “You said on the telephone that Gideon had a relapse.”
Ragnar nodded. “But he will be well, I think. The crisis has finally passed-for good, this time. He is being tended.”
“You didn’t take him back to the hospital?” said Silvia.
Ragnar shrugged. “He did not wish to go.”
“He still needs to talk to us,” said Hector, and Tyler realized that the man’s anger had not all been directed at his son and Tyler Jenkins.
“This time he will, I promise,” Ragnar said. “Things will change. You have my word on it.” He extended his hand and Hector Carrillo took it. They shook, then Hector asked, “Where’s Simos? He usually comes out to say hello.”
“He… ” Ragnar’s face grew somber, but all he said was, “You must forgive him. He had a difficult night.”
“Hey, Jenkins,” Steve shouted to Tyler from the rear window of his father’s truck. “If you get a chance, come see me before you leave. You don’t have to call first. I mean, it’s not like I’ll be going anywhere… thanks to you…!”
Tyler couldn’t help smiling as they drove off. Steve was a good guy-a real friend. “Is Gideon really going to talk to them about their property? How’s anyone going to make him?”
The Norseman was still looking grim as he opened the gate. The power to the fence was off and had been since the electrical storm. The remaining pair of manticores were safely padlocked in their adobe brick barn. “Things will change around here. They must.”
Only one more day remained until Tyler and Lucinda took the train back home, and Ordinary Farm was as sharply divided as ever, with most of its residents on one side and the Needles on the other. Nothing had been resolved, of course: Gideon no longer seemed to be brainwashed but he had only been conscious for short stretches and had been too tired even to sit up, let alone deal with the weighty matters that needed his attention. Mr. Walkwell was not much better, and was being nursed on the couch in the same room with Gideon, so that Sarah and her helpers could watch over both patients at the same time. Tyler didn’t know what the greenhouse monster had done to him, but Simos Walkwell had only woken up for the first time the previous evening, and still hadn’t said much more than a few words, although Sarah said he seemed better this morning. Interestingly enough, Tyler had also discovered that there were now several gunshot holes in the Snake Parlor walls. Obviously things that night hadn’t only been happening beyond the mirror and out by the greenhouse.
Although nothing permanent could be accomplished until Gideon was back in charge, Ragnar and Sarah had at least managed by sheer stubbornness and threats of force to chase Mrs. Needle away from Gideon’s bedside and the Snake Parlor in general, so the witch had retreated behind the locked door of her part of the house. Colin spent most of his time with her, or at least in his room, which was about what Tyler would have expected.
The previous summer the Jenkins kids might have stayed silent about things and wouldn’t have expected to receive any useful answers even if they had asked questions, but now something had changed, not least of which was how Tyler and Lucinda felt about things. Even if they hadn’t become the heirs to the farm (despite all the chaos of that night, it didn’t seem as though anybody had actually managed to change Gideon’s will) Tyler knew that their great-uncle had at least been planning to do it. The way he figured it, they had a right to know what was going on. And he was pleasantly surprised to find out that Ragnar Lodbrok, at least, seemed to agree.
Tyler found the Norseman examining the blackened wreckage at the back of the garden. It was still hard to believe what had happened out here only a couple of days before, but as they stood looking at the melted ruins of the metal greenhouse and the yards-wide crater of blackened vegetation and scorched animal carcasses, but the evidence was right in front of him. It looked like someone had firebombed the place.
“We will haul away the metal bars,” Ragnar said. “They have a furnace in Liberty where they melt old metal. That will make sure the seeds are dead.” He poked with his foot at a part of a bird lying on the ground. Tyler had no idea what kind of bird it had been. “The rest we will bury. If I knew a priest I would bring him to bespell the demon’s grave.”
“It wasn’t really a demon, was it?” Tyler asked. “More of a big mushroom, really.”
Ragnar looked at him with disbelief. “If that thing was only a mushroom then the Fenris wolf himself is just a pup and the Midgard Serpent no more than an eel.”
Tyler couldn’t think of anything to say to that. “What’s going to happen with the farm?” he asked after a while. “After Lucinda and I go home? You can’t just let Mrs. Needle get away with everything she did, can you?”
“It is not so easy, Tyler Jenkins,” said Ragnar. “They are like Gideon’s kin. And would you have us kill her and leave her son an orphan?”
“You could kill him too.” Tyler saw the look on Ragnar’s face. “I’m just kidding!”
“I do not much like the boy, but his crimes are nothing like his mother’s,” the Viking said. “It would be hard to imprison her, but possible.”
“Why don’t you just throw her out?”
“So that she is out of our sight and reach, like that terrible man Kingaree?” Ragnar and others had searched up and down Kumish Creek but had found no body or any other sign of Jackson Kingaree. “Should we send her out to roam the world with all of Ordinary Farm’s secrets in her head, plotting mischief against us? Against Gideon?”
Tyler frowned. Put like that, it really wasn’t very simple. “But she can’t get away with what she did! What she tried to do! She could have killed us all!”
“I know,” Ragnar said. “And when Simos is well again, we will do our best to make a plan to keep her from doing evil.”
“What are you going to do?”
The Norseman shook his head. “I have not talked to Simos, so I will not share my thoughts yet. Gideon is still master of this place and still my thane-not you, young Tyler. Not yet.” He looked at Tyler’s outraged expression and a trace of amusement crept over his broad, bearded face. “What, do you hate secrets so much? Don’t you have a few of your own, boy? What about the woman hidden in your sister’s room?”<
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Tyler flushed. “Grace? But that’s different-that’s a good secret. And I’ll share it with Gideon as soon as he’s well enough to know what’s going on. Besides, she’s barely been awake herself.” Much to Lucinda’s irritation, of course, since it meant she had to share her brother’s room. Grace seemed to be sleeping off the effects of her years of fugitive existence in the mirror-house, waking only to take a little nourishment and peer around in confusion before going back to sleep again. The kitchen women had been nursing her (when they were not ministering to Gideon and Mr. Walkwell) with Ooola the Ice-Age girl taking the lead, perhaps fascinated by someone even newer to the modern world than herself.
“Remember, you are not a grown man yet… ” Ragnar began, as if Tyler didn’t already know that, but the Norseman was interrupted by a flutter of wings as a small shape swooped down out of the hot, bright sky. (The lightning storm an the rain had passed with that terrible night and already seemed as distant as an old nightmare.) A second later Tyler was laughing and trying to keep tiny hands from pulling off his eyebrows and poking up his nose.
“Zaza! You’re back! I missed you, girl-I’ve hardly seen you all summer!”
Ragnar watched the winged monkey climbing on Tyler’s head, then looked to the misshapen blob of metal and charcoal that had once been the greenhouse. As he stroked his beard another faint smile curved his lips. “Animals know much we do not, Tyler Jenkins. If the little ape will come to this place again, perhaps we do not need a priest after all.”
With Zaza riding shotgun on his shoulder, Tyler followed Ragnar out to the Reptile Barn where the Three Amigos and Haneb were clearing up the wreckage left by the manticores’ break-in. Lucinda was there too, standing a few yards away from the Desta’s pen. The young dragon was pointedly ignoring her, and Tyler thought his sister looked miserable, like she had a crush on some high school big shot who didn’t even know her name.
The manticores had had caused a great deal of destruction in the huge barn, tearing open metal cabinets and scattering feed bags and canisters everywhere, terrorizing and killing some of the smaller or slower animals (Tyler was glad those remains had already been cleaned up) and generally creating as much havoc as an entire herd of elephants. Tyler could still see one of the stepladders hanging from a beam thirty feet overhead, but couldn’t begin to guess how it had gotten there.
