But it hadn’t seemed real until the moment he’d seen his son vanish. And now Edgar didn’t know if he could ever forgive himself for letting Tick go. If something happened to his boy…
Dejected, a sinking weight of despair filling his stomach, Edgar finally gave up and headed for home. He was about to have a very long night explaining things to his wife.
Tick didn’t know what else to do-where else to go-except back to the cemetery. Something must have happened when he’d performed the ritual-something horrible. He’d messed it up somehow, sending him to the wrong place or time. He thought back to the crazy things Mr. Chu had told him about quantum physics. Where was he?
Once he left his neighborhood, he couldn’t run another step. He slowed to a walk, breathing heavily, constantly looking behind to make sure no one was following him-especially the creepy man who’d answered the door at his house.
It was a weird feeling to suddenly feel like the only place you’ve ever lived is no longer yours, occupied instead by some monster of a man willing to kick a little kid. Tick had run the gamut of emotions in the last hour-excitement that the special day was here, disappointment when seemingly nothing had happened, dejection and despair, panic and fear that his home wasn’t his home anymore. Now he just felt numb as he slowly made his way back to town. To the cemetery. It was the only place where he could hope to find some answers.
He tried to take in his surroundings as he walked, searching for signs that other things about his hometown were different than what he was used to. But the darkness was too great and all he saw were shadows hiding other shadows. He almost pulled out his flashlight, but thought better of it-who knew what lurked in this new nightmare. He wanted to remain as hidden as possible.
As he entered the town square for the third time that night, he realized the lack of lights couldn’t be a coincidence-the place was a haven for nothing but ghosts and ghouls. Where was he? What had happened to this place that should feel so familiar but instead seemed so alien? His heart hurting, his body exhausted, Tick picked up the pace again and quickly ran across the waterless fountain area and down the small road until he reached the entrance to the cemetery.
He didn’t know how he’d missed it before, but Tick saw that more than half of one side of the stone archway had crumbled and fallen to the ground into a pile of dusty rubble. Dozens of rods from the iron fence were missing or bent, looking like the mangled teeth of a horrific robot. The moon vanished entirely behind a large bank of clouds, casting everything into sinister shadows. The tombstones seemed bigger, less defined, leaning at odd angles.
Tick rubbed his hands over his arms, standing in the same place where he’d performed the magic-words-and-foot-stomping ritual. He finally realized what he was feeling.
Terror. Absolute, shrill, make-your-hair-stand-on-end terror.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a light come on.
He sucked in a quick intake of air as he turned to see a small spotlight shining on a single tombstone, about thirty yards deeper into the cemetery grounds. Compared to the heavy darkness around him, it seemed like the sun itself had changed its mind and come back for a nighttime visit. Realizing he hadn’t seen a spark of electricity since leaving for his house and returning, Tick felt like he was witnessing some kind of magic trick.
Curious, he walked toward the light, ignoring the fear constricting his chest.
He stepped around several large graves, almost tripping on a stone border around a particularly wide one. He kept his eyes riveted on the bright spot, scared it might be a trap, but not knowing where else to go. As he got closer, he saw that the light came from a large flashlight, sitting alone in front of a grave. He looked around the area, squinting his eyes to see if any monsters or zombies were hiding in the shadows, readying themselves to jump out and eat him.
The light hurt his vision, and he knew if someone was out there, he wouldn’t be able to see them. He focused on the brightly displayed tombstone, now close enough that he could read the etched words, dusty indentations on an old black-gray slab of granite.
Everything in his mind immediately vanished, all fear and thoughts washed away in the disbelief of what he saw before him. Tick fell to his knees, unable to take his eyes away from the words on the grave marker.
Tick looked at the dates.
According to the tombstone, he’d been dead for three years.
Chapter 38
Sitting Down
Before Tick could completely process the fact he was looking at his own grave, he heard a noise behind him. He twisted around, still on his knees, and for a split second thought he saw the reincarnation of Frankenstein’s Monster. A scream formed in the back of Tick’s throat. But it quickly fell mute when he realized the figure was someone very familiar, standing just a few feet away, towering over him.
Mothball.
Tick quickly stood up, relieved to see a familiar face, the questions flying out of his mouth before he had his feet under him. “Mothball, what’s happening? Where am I? How did-”
The tall woman held up a hand. “Best the little sir keep quiet for a moment, let yer tall friend do the talkin’ for a bit.” She stepped forward and bent over to pick up her flashlight, grunting with the effort. “Not every day ya get to see yer own tombstone, now is it? Downright spooky, it is.”
“Mothball, what’s going on?” Tick felt tears forming in his eyes now that the initial shock of seeing his name on the granite slab had settled into a stark reality.
“What’s going on?” Mothball repeated. “I’ll tell ya what’s going on. The little sir did it, he did. Solved Master George’s riddles, made it quite nicely. Got lots of learnin’ to do now, ya do. Hope yer mind’s still got some empty spots.”
Tick couldn’t shake the sick feeling in his stomach. “Mothball, why does this grave have my name on it? Who’s that crazy guy living in my house? Where is my family?” His voice broke on that last word, and he suddenly wondered if he really wanted to know the answer.
“One question at a time, if yer wantin’ any answers.” She pointed down at the tombstone. “There’s a fine reason that there piece of rock has yer name on it.” She paused. “Yer dead here, little sir. Dead as a mouse that’s got no heart, you are. Smell worse than Rutger’s feet I’d wager.” She offered Tick a smile, but he was in no mood to laugh.
“What are you talking about? How can I be… dead? I’m standing here talking to you.”
“I take it back, then. Yer Alterant is dead-that’s what I meant.” Mothball sighed and fidgeted, looking as uncomfortable as a vampire in a cathedral.
“An Alter-what? Mothball, please just tell me what’s going on.”
Mothball stepped closer to Tick, put one of her huge arms around his shoulder. Her flashlight was pointed at the ground, but it still illuminated her face enough to show creases of concern in her temples and brow, her eyes full of something indescribable-sorrow or compassion. “Perk yer ears, Master Tick, methinks I need to tell ya something.”
Tick stared up at her, waiting. “What is it?”
“Life’s a bit harder than you’ve ever known, it is. Different, too. When ya finally meet Master George, yer going to learn things that’d be a mighty bit hard for a grown-up to hear, much less a young’un like yourself. How it all works-the whys and hows and whatnot-better be leaving to me boss, I will. But I can tell ya one thing before we shove off.” She paused, looking away from Tick into the darkness of the graveyard.
“Yeah?” Tick prodded.
“This… place. If things had been different for you, Tick-if different choices had been chosen, different paths taken-well, that really could be yer little self under this here pile of dirt. This version of the world is fragmented, as Master George calls it. It’s weak, splintering, fading. All words I don’t use much, I’ll admit it. But we wanted ya to see it, to feel what it’s like to see yer own self dead as a stump.”
Tick shook his head. “But I don’t get it, Mothball. Are you saying thi
s is another version of our world? That I did something here that ended up with me dead?”
“No, no, no, you’ve got it all wrong. I’m not saying yer dead because of anything ya did directly-at least, not for sure. Probably never know, we will.” She took her arm away, throwing it up in the air, frustrated. “Oh, this is rubbish-need to get a move on, we do.”
“Wait!” Tick reached out and grabbed Mothball’s shirt. “What about my family. Are they okay?”
Mothball knelt down on the ground, bringing her eyes level with Tick’s. “They’re right as rain, little sir. You don’t have to worry about them at’all. See what I’m tryin’ to tell ya is that the choices we make in this life can lead to things we’d never s’pect to have anything to do with us. Realities can be created and destroyed.” She gestured with her head to Tick’s tombstone. “That little feller might ruddy well be you for sure, he could. But ya just might have the power within yer beatin’ heart to make sure it doesn’t happen. That’s what it’s all about, really.”
Some of Tick’s anxiety and fear had vanished. Though he didn’t have a clue what Mothball was talking about, he felt… moved, which made him feel very adult. “Mothball, when do I get to actually understand what it is you’re talking about?”
Mothball smiled as she stood back on her feet. “Not much for speeches, I’ll admit it. By the looks of it, you’d rather listen to a croakin’ toad than hear me go on a bit. Righto, off we go.” She moved away from the tombstone and walked deeper into the scattered graves of the cemetery, the beam of her flashlight bobbing up and down with each step.
Tick fell in line behind her, having to take two steps for every one of hers, adjusting his scarf and backpack as he went. “When you say ‘off we go,’ where exactly are we off-we-going to?”
“Ah, Master Tick,” she said over her shoulder, “glad we got the bologna-and-cheese talk out the way, I am. Now’s time for the fun part. Hope yer excited.”
“I am, trust me. Anything to get away from this place.”
Mothball laughed, a booming chuckle that seemed sure to wake up a few dead people. “Don’t like the deadies, do ya? That’ll change, it will. Most times it takes a place like this to go off winking, it does.”
“Winking? What’s that?”
“Find out soon enough, ya will. Ah, here we are.” Mothball stopped, then turned around to face Tick. She shone her flashlight on a small patch of unmarked grass. “Have a nice sit-down, we will.” When Tick didn’t move, she gestured for him to sit. “Right here, chop-chop.”
“Why do we have to sit down?” Tick asked as he sat cross-legged in the exact spot where she’d shone the light.
Mothball sat across from him, folding up her huge legs underneath her. “No offense, lad, but methinks I’ve had enough of yer questions for now. Save them for Master George, and we’ll all be a mite happier indeed.”
Tick knew something amazing was about to happen, and his insides swelled with butterflies, like the last moment before a roller coaster shoots down its first gigantic hill. “Whatever you say, Mothball. I’ll shut up.”
“Now there’s a line I’d wish old Rutger’d learn to say. That wee little fat man could talk the ears off a mammoth, he could.”
Tick laughed, but didn’t say anything, keeping his promise.
“All right, that about does it, I’d say,” Mothball said to herself as she settled her body, growing still. “Just keep yourself nice and comfy there, lad, and good old Master George will wink us away any minute.”
There was that word again. Wink. Tick almost asked about it, but kept quiet, nervously pulling on his scarf.
“Feel a little tingle on yer neck and back, you will,” Mothball whispered. “Things’ll change then, right quick. Try to keep yer pants on straight and don’t go screamin’ like a baby or you might just drown. Come to an understanding, have we?”
Tick nodded, his thrill of anticipation suddenly turning a little sour. Drown?
Before he could dwell on what she meant, he felt cold pinpricks along the back of his spine, a quick wave that he might not have noticed if he hadn’t been waiting for it.
Then, as promised, everything changed.
In less time than it took to form a single conscious thought, Tick found himself thousands of miles from the graveyard. He sat in the same position as before, but now he was sitting inside a small raft, bobbing up and down in the middle of a dark and choppy sea of black water.
And it was raining.
Chapter 39
A Lot of Water
Nothing happened to mark their transportation from one place to another. No booming alarm, no bright flash of light, no movement of any kind. Tick and Mothball simply went from sitting across from each other on a small patch of grass in the middle of a cemetery to sitting across from each other on a raft in the middle of the ocean.
Heavy, cold rain fell from a sky Tick couldn’t see, pelting his entire body, sluicing down the inward sides of the small boat and forming a standing pool of water. Mothball still had her flashlight fully ablaze; the light cast an eerie cone of radiance revealing countless pellets of rain and a small circle of angrily churning waters just a few feet from where they floated. The raft rocked back and forth, up and down, already making Tick’s stomach ill.
Mothball shifted her body until she was on her knees, then shone the flashlight somewhere behind her. Tick leaned to his right to catch a glimpse of what she was looking at and saw a huge structure floating nearby, rigid and unmoved by the uneasy sea. He couldn’t make out much as Mothball scanned the area with her light, but it appeared to be a building of some sort, a huge square made out of silvery metal walls, rivets and bolts scattered all over its slick and shiny surface. It seemed impossible that it could be a large boat or ship. It was just there, solid, like its foundation went all the way to the ocean bottom.
“Won’t be but a moment!” Mothball yelled over her shoulder, working at something with her large arms and hands.
“Where are we?” Tick screamed back, several drops of heavy rain flying into his mouth, almost gagging him.
Mothball turned and looked at him, her hair and face soaked. “Middle of the ocean, we are!”
“Thanks a lot-figured that one out on my own!” Tick slicked his rain-soaked hair out of his eyes.
Instead of replying, Mothball set her right foot against the edge of the raft and pulled on something, grunting with the effort. After a second of hesitation, a bright light suddenly flared against the darkness of the storm, accompanied by the heavy groan of bending metal and the scrape of rusty hinges. Mothball had opened an enormous door of solid steel that led inside the boxy structure. Tick caught a glimpse of a long hallway lined with cables and wiring and thick ductwork.
“Made it, you did!” Mothball yelled into his ear as she grabbed him by the shoulders, helping him across the unstable raft and toward the opening. “You’ll be speaking directly with Master George in a moment. Up ya go!” With a playful roar she picked Tick up and half-threw him through the open doorway.
He landed with a squishy flump, scrambling to stand up. Every inch of his body drenched, Tick rubbed at his arms, shivering from the uncomfortable, cold feeling of wearing wet clothes. His scarf drooped off his neck, soggy and seeming like it weighed a hundred pounds. He swung his backpack off his shoulders and placed it on the metal grid that made up the hallway floor.
Mothball crawled inside and closed the heavy door behind her. It slammed shut with a loud boom that rattled the entire structure. “Nasty business, that,” she muttered as she climbed to her feet, stooping to avoid hitting her head on the low obstacles that ran along the ceiling. “Don’t you worry, Master George is sure to have a roaring fire lit. Come on, now.”
She started down the hallway and Tick followed, barely able to contain his anticipation of meeting the man behind all the mystery.
Mothball rounded a corner and came upon a stout wooden door. Tick thought it seemed out of place inside a huge metal box floating on t
he ocean. She paused, then rapped three times with her large knuckles. “Got the last one, I did!” she yelled through the dark oak.
Muffled footsteps sounded from the other side, then the click of a latch. The door swung wide open and Tick’s five senses almost crashed and burned trying to take in everything at once.
Beyond the open doorway was an enormous room that looked like it had been plucked out of an ancient king’s castle and magically transported inside the metal building. Fancy, fluffy, comfortable — looking furniture sat atop lush carpets and rugs; the walls were covered in dark wooden bookshelves, complete with hundreds of leather-bound books; a massive brick fireplace cast a warm and flickering glow upon the whole room as the fire within it roared and crackled and spit. Several people were in the room, scattered amongst the plush furniture.
Tick recognized Sofia at once, sitting on an overstuffed chair next to the fire; when their eyes met, she stood and waved. Next to her was a couch where a tall, dark-skinned boy sat, grinning from ear to ear. That had to be Paul. An Asian boy sat next to him, short dark hair framing his angry, scrunched-up face. Tick thought he looked like he’d just been told he hadn’t passed a single one of his classes at school. Rutger was there, too, his little round body perched atop a pile of cushions. He leaned back, clasping his stubby hands behind his head like he owned the place.
And finally, standing by the door, his hand still on the inside handle, was a man dressed in the fanciest suit Tick had ever seen, black and pinstriped, a long golden chain marking where his pocket watch hid for the moment. His face was puffy and red, like he’d just walked ten miles through a freezing wind. A round pair of glasses perched on his nose, making his dark eyes seem two times bigger than they were. His balding scalp was red and slightly flaky. Tick thought he looked a little odd and a little anxious, but somehow nice all the same.
The Journal of Curious Letters 1r-1 Page 21
