Feeling as if she had at least accomplished one thing for the day, Stella turned just as the service elevator binged open.
The elevator binged again, and the door began to close, but Stella lunged forward and thrust her arm between the door and the wall. It hit her wrist and stopped, then rolled back open. She stepped inside.
The door paused, open, as if asking if she was sure she wanted to stay. Then it rolled deliberately shut. A light blinked on. SSB the button read. Sub-Subbasement. Stella had never noticed that button before. The elevator descended slowly, picking up speed as it traveled down from 3 to 2 to G to B. It fell faster as it passed the Subbasement, then faster still, and faster, until Stella was dizzy with the swaying box. She felt like the garbage, tumbling downward into unknown space.
She was frightened. She pushed the emergency stop button, but the elevator did not stop. It fell and fell until, finally, abruptly, it halted. It didn’t crash. It stopped with a yank, then gently fell a bit farther as if to settle itself.
She pressed against the back wall as the door rattled open, revealing a ruin. Tall, half-crumbled columns stood beneath the open sky, like a forest that had survived a fire or flood. The floors were white marble. Overhead, the many stars were set with pointillistic illustrations of unfamiliar constellations. Unlike constellations in our world, these were easy to see. One was a mighty woman with wings driving a chariot. Another showed a large butterfly. It was a sky unlike anything Stella had seen in real life—it was a sky like an illustration in a book.
A station, she thought. I’m in a train station.
At the center of the station was a tall four-sided clock with both hands at twelve. Here and there, Sleepers bustled silently through the ruin. Stella wasn’t sure where to go, until she spotted an information booth. Just before she reached it, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. Something was streaking toward her—it was Anyway, and he was shouting something, but his tiny voice couldn’t carry far.
Stella raced toward him, and in a few steps, she heard him shout, “No! No! The other way!” It was then that she noticed his wide eyes, the panic in his voice—and the machine behind him.
It was all arms, all legs, like a spider made of pipes, and as it crashed across the station, everything—the constellations, the columns, the marble floor—everything shuddered and vibrated. Anyway was at the edge of it, staying inches ahead with every desperate step.
Stella stopped so suddenly that she slid, fell, and had to pull herself up again, scrambling to her feet. She and Anyway raced toward the elevator that she had just exited.
She could hear the tiny puffs of his breathing, felt the strain in her chest as she ran, trying to outpace this monstrosity.
“Don’t let it grab you!” Anyway shouted. “It’s an Inspector!”
Dead Mileage
STELLA AND ANYWAY RACED TOWARD the elevator, but the door was shut. She wanted to cry out, but she had no air. The distance between her and the elevator was closing, but so was the distance between her and the Inspector.
“Here! Over here!” A buzzing sound whirred toward them, and Anyway darted to the left. Stella was about to shout, “No, that’s the wrong way!” when she saw a golden flash in the air and realized that Spuddle was screeching, “Over here! Over here!” and turning small flips in the air.
Stella forced her legs to follow him, and the clockwork dragonfly hurtled toward an archway. A train, Stella thought. We’ll catch a train! But when they raced through the arch, the tracks were empty.
“This way!” Spuddle cried, zipping across the rails and then diving to the ground before disappearing completely.
“Don’t touch the third rail,” Anyway warned as Stella jumped down onto the tracks.
“I know.” She picked up the mouse and placed him in her pocket. At the center of the tracks was an open manhole. Spuddle popped up out and said, “This is it!” before disappearing again.
Stella looked at the hole. It was black, as frightening as the thing that was coming after them. But she forced herself to think of Spuddle, a bright glimmer in the dark, as she placed her legs at the edge of the hole and dropped inside.
She landed with a splash, but the water was only a thin puddle. Light trickled in from the manhole.
“Look,” Anyway whispered. She titled her head upward. As she watched, the metal thing stormed past, sending chunks of marble flying. From his place inside her pocket, Anyway’s tiny mouse heart whirred against hers at a rate of 500 beats per minute.
A spark flared, and Spuddle appeared. A small candle flame burned from his tail. It was barely enough to see by—it illuminated no more than two feet ahead of him, which wasn’t enough to reach the floor or the walls. But it was enough to see each others’ faces.
“What was that?” Stella asked.
“Ehrm,” Anyway said awkwardly. “Well, you see, I had to do a little unauthorized door-switching to find you again. . . .”
“The Inspectors didn’t like it much,” Spuddle volunteered.
Stella shuddered. “They’re worse than I imagined,” she admitted.
“I should hope so,” Spuddle replied. “Who would imagine those things?”
Stella turned to Spuddle. “So—where are we going?”
“To see Dr. Peavey, of course,” Spuddle replied. “To find out where Cole is.”
“I meant—which direction?” Stella explained.
He blinked at her brightly, causing the light to flicker. “I’m so glad you asked!” He blinked again, and then let out a little cough.
“Well . . . what’s the answer?” Stella asked.
“I don’t know,” Spuddle admitted. “Anyway?”
The Door Mouse sighed. “Forward,” he snapped.
“Excellent plan!” Spuddle congratulated him.
And so they went forward through the darkness with only a dim light to see by. Stella flinched and let out a small cry. “Something slithered across my foot!” She shook her leg, and her flip-flop flapped against her heel.
“Oh, that’s just a little bugaboo,” Anyway replied. “Try not to touch the walls—they can be very worrisome.”
They walked in silence. Stopping suddenly, Stella asked, “Did you hear that?”
Spuddle paused in the air. “I don’t hear anything.”
“What was it?” Anyway asked, his voice suspicious.
Every now and again, when Spuddle drifted close to one of the walls, Stella would catch sight of a complex web of cables and ducts. She would also catch movement—things crawling and wriggling along the pipes. She shuddered.
Time is a very difficult thing to have a sense of when you are walking along in the dark. Time didn’t make much sense in the Dreamway as it was, but inside this strange tunnel, alive with pipes and creatures, time almost ceased to exist. There was only this, only now.
They had been walking. They were walking. They would be walking. The future was something best left alone.
Stella stumbled, pitching sideways. She windmilled her arms to balance herself and fell against the wall. An insect scurried across her hand, traveling up her arm.
“Ouch!” It had bitten her. She shook it off, but the bite made her arm feel as if it was on fire. She stumbled again.
“Stop!” Anyway shouted as Spuddle cried, “What is it?”
But Stella didn’t answer. The darkness was parting. Ahead, there was a light. The light grew brighter and brighter, until the brilliance was as blinding as the dark had been. More than blinding—it was a white like the fire on her body, and she felt as if she were a flame, burning, burning away. . . .
She stood alone at the center of a stone labyrinth, wondering, Which way? Which way? In every direction, an identical opening. She took a step toward one, and then hesitated.
Maybe it doesn’t matter, she thought. Just as she was about to take another step, someone called her name.
She froze. Every hair on her body stood on end. It was Cole.
“Stella!” he cried.
>
Behind her.
Turning, she plunged into the gap between boulders, Overhead, the sun burned as she raced toward Cole’s voice. It was hot. The stone beneath her feet radiated through her flip-flops.
“Stella!”
It was to her left. She doubled back, racing toward the voice. Could she get to her brother? The stone walls rose above the crown of her head but cast no shadows.
“Stella!”
Forward, forward, and suddenly, she was out of it. The labyrinth was behind her, and before her stretched a vast ocean of sand, and nothing more.
Bitten
HER THROAT BURNED; SHE WAS so thirsty.
“Stella!” someone hissed. “Stella!” Needles scratched at her neck.
Stella’s eyelids were heavy; they opened slowly, then closed again as a light flashed into them.
“Stella, wake up!” Anyway scratched at her neck again with his sharp little claws. “Wake up!”
“Wake up! Wake up!” Spuddle’s high-pitched voice sounded like a shriek, even when he wasn’t panicked, as he was now.
Stella opened her eyes and managed to focus. “I’m . . . thirsty . . .” she croaked.
“We’ll get you water,” Anyway promised. “But you have to go farther. Can you stand up?”
Stella wobbled to her feet, careful to avoid touching the walls. She wiped her hands on her pajama top and brushed her hair out of her eyes. As she stood in a puddle of light, surrounded by darkness, she felt her heart sink. “How much farther?” she whispered.
“Not much,” Anyway said, and Stella decided to believe him.
“What happened?” Stella asked.
“A bugaboo bit you.” Anyway explained. He gestured contemptuously toward the crawlies on the wall. “It must have been a big one—I’ve never seen anyone get so sick.”
“Come, come!” Spuddle cried. “Hurry! And don’t touch the walls.”
Stella concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. Her arm throbbed; her throat burned. She had to move. She had to keep moving. The idea of getting stuck in this dark tunnel, the way she had been stuck in the labyrinth, of never getting out, that was something that she tried to keep at the edges of her mind. She didn’t want to look at it closely; it was too terrifying.
But it turned out that Anyway had been telling the truth after all. It wasn’t long before they saw something ahead. It wasn’t exactly a light; it was more like the end of the darkness. A patch of gray beckoned toward them, and Stella kept moving.
Spuddle raced ahead.
“Get back here, you dumb fly!” Anyway shouted. “We can’t see a thing!”
The dragonfly buzzed back, mumbling sorry, and had to content himself with doing nervous little flips in the air.
Finally, they came to the end and could see out into the gray. Steel beams and pylons decorated in a tangled mass of graffiti stood before them. Everything—even the ceiling—was painted in a colorful jumble and covered in a layer of dirt and grime. Low fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered here and there along the ceiling.
“Is it—is it a station?” Stella asked.
“Dead Mileage,” Anyway told her. “Nonoperational track.”
“Trains haven’t come here in centuries,” Spuddle agreed.
“But someone has,” Stella noted, looking at the graffiti.
“The Pirate,” Anway said darkly. “Dead Mileage belongs to the Pirate. The good news is that if we cut through here, we can get to the Nightmare Line faster. I think,” he added under his breath.
At the end of the duct, there was a drop of six feet to the track. Stella’s body blazed with pain as she landed on her feet, and she shuddered. The hallucination still clung to her like a spiderweb.
“Are you okay?” Anyway asked.
She sucked in a breath, then another. “Yes,” she hissed finally. She put her hands on her knees to help bring herself upright, but the pressure made her gasp.
“What is it? What is it?” Spuddle demanded.
“It’s just—my arm,” Stella explained. She pulled back her sleeve. The two puncture wounds oozed dark purple in the dim light, and her wrist was swollen.
“Bring it closer,” Anyway growled.
Stella held her arm near the mouse, so he could look at it. “Why is this happening?” she demanded. “This place isn’t even real—it’s all just . . .” she hissed an angry sigh. “My arm was fine,” she whispered to herself.
Anyway didn’t answer. He leaned forward, sniffing it, then recoiled. He looked up at Stella, his face a mix of rage and worry. “Let’s keep moving.” Anyway commanded, and—since they had no choice—they obeyed.
She reached for Anyway with her good hand and placed him back into her pocket. She was, after all, used to mostly using one arm. Then the friends made their way to the tracks. The platform came almost to Stella’s head, and even the space from the platform to the track was covered in paint. As they walked along the track, Stella inspected the graffiti. Some of it was beautiful—words like Hope and Faith painted in brilliant, interlocking letters. Every now and again, they would hear a soft noise, and the three would stop. But, always, after a moment all would be still, and they would move on.
“What—what does the Pirate—do?” Stella asked.
“Same as all Pirates,” Anyway grumbled. “Steals things, moves on.”
“He doesn’t follow the rules!” Spuddle said fiercely. “You can’t just take things in and out of the Dreamway!”
Stella blinked slowly, and then nodded. She forced herself to pay attention, to stay awake. It was difficult, though. Her brain felt as if it were made of wads of dense felt placed at the bottom of a murky well. Things were having trouble moving through it and traveling to her furry tongue. It was as if her synapses—instead of forming quick connections—had all decided to go for a long solitary walk in separate dark forests. “Is the Pirate with . . . the Inspectors?”
Anyway gave a little mouse snort. “No.”
Stella nodded, but talking was becoming more difficult for her. She was a flashlight with a weak battery.
And then she heard it—her name. Without thinking, she stopped and shouted, “Cole?”
Spuddle hushed her loudly, and Anyway said, “Do you want to get us killed?”
But she heard it, like an echo of the hallucination—it was Cole; he was calling her. She stumbled forward, trying to run, but her feet were clumsy, her arm stiff and throbbing, like too much sausage about to split the casing.
“Stop!” Anyway shouted, but she was staggering forward, toward the voice. “Stop! Stop!”
Crash.
This noise stopped them in their tracks.
“What was that?” Spuddle whispered.
Stella swayed on her feet, then sat down hard on the filthy tracks. Her eyes closed, then snapped open, then closed again.
“Oh, no,” Anyway said with a gasp. “Stella?”
She let out a groan. Anyway crept from her pocket and looked at her arm. It was a furious red; the bugaboo’s poison had gone deep.
Pounding foosteps echoed behind them.
“Is it—?” Spuddle asked.
“Not sure,” Anyway replied. “But no matter what, it’s not something we want to find us.”
Spuddle ticked and sproinged. “Oh, I shall file such a report! I’ll write a letter the likes of which have never been imagined—” His words ended in a scream as a figure raced toward them. Spuddle darted backward, but the figure reached out and plucked him from the air. The face remained in shadow as thick, strong fingers held the fly up to dark eyes.
“Well, what do we have here?” asked the Pirate.
The Pirate
IT WAS A SLOW, UNCERTAIN journey through the Dead Mileage, and Anyway spent the entire time berating himself for his lack of courage. He called himself miserable, wretched, useless, pathetic—enough words to make a thesaurus proud. “I know right from wrong,” Anyway griped. “And sometimes, I even care about the difference! Oh, why didn’t I put
up a fight?”
“What happened to her?” the Pirate asked, eyeing Stella.
“Bitten by the worry bug,” Anyway said. “A bugaboo.”
Spuddle squeaked. “This section of track has not been properly maintained—”
“Of course not. Nobody here but me.” The Pirate inspected Stella’s arm and then looked at her carefully. “How did she get in?” The Pirate’s voice was sharp. He pulled something from his pocket.
“Don’t touch her,” Anyway snarled as the Pirate leaned toward Stella. “I’ll bite your finger!”
The Pirate looked at him a moment with steady black eyes. He wore a leather cap with earflaps, a pair of goggles perched atop his head. “She’s sick,” the Pirate said. “She needs a small dose of Reality.” He held out a bottle. “I’ll cure her fears, but—it will take a while.” The Pirate pulled a cork from the bottle and held it toward Stella’s lips, but Anyway lunged at it, blocking the way.
“How do I know you’re not going to poison her?” Anyway demanded.
The Pirate chuckled softly. “You don’t have much of a choice, Door Mouse. But I don’t kill people,” the Pirate said. “Besides, I know her. That’s Stella Clay.”
Bitter Truth
“STELLA. STELLA!”
Stella forced open her eyes and found herself staring into a familiar face. This was the Pirate? He was her age. How could that be?
“Just another drop,” the Pirate said, placing something to her lips.
“Ugh.” Stella screwed up her mouth. “It’s awful.”
“The bitter truth.” The Pirate didn’t smile, but his eyes laughed. “Cuts through worry, even if it’s unpleasant.”
“You don’t have to drink any more of it,” Anyway said. He was perched on Stella’s knee, watching her closely. “Just a taste is enough.”
The Dreamway Page 10
