Full-Blooded Fantasy

by Steve Erickson

  “What’re they doing here?” Merle mouthed silently.

  Serafin shrugged his shoulders.

  There was a grating sound down below. The front door was opened. There were footsteps, then the voice of a soldier.

  “My lords councillor,” he announced respectfully, “the Egyptian envoy has arrived.”

  “For heaven’s sake, shut your mouth!” hissed the councillor in the purple robe. “Or do you want the entire district to hear of it?”

  The soldier withdrew and left the house, and his companion entered the room. It was the man from the boat, and even now he wore his hood drawn deep over his face. The candlelight wasn’t enough to illuminate the shadows under it.

  He dispensed with a greeting. “You have carried out what you promised?”

  Merle had never heard an Egyptian speak. She was surprised that the man’s words showed no accent. But she was too tense to evaluate the significance of the situation right away. Only gradually did its enormous import sink in: a secret meeting between City Council members and an envoy of the Egyptians! A spy, probably, who lived in the city undercover, or otherwise his Venetian dialect wouldn’t have been so perfect.

  Serafin was chalk white. Drops of sweat beaded his forehead. In shock he peered over the edge into the room below.

  The councillor in gold bowed respectfully and the two others did the same after him. “We are glad that you have agreed to this meeting. And certainly, we have carried out what you requested.”

  The councillor in scarlet nervously clasped his fingers. “The Pharaoh will show himself grateful, won’t he?”

  With a jerk, the black opening of the hood turned toward him. “God-Emperor Amenophis will learn of your request to join with us. What happens then lies in his divine hands alone.”

  “Certainly, certainly,” the purple councillor hastened to appease him. He cast an angry look toward the man in the scarlet robe. “We do not intend to question any decision of His Divinity.”

  “Where is it?”

  The councillor in gold held the jewel casket out to the envoy. “With most humble greetings to Pharaoh Amenophis. From his loyal servants.”

  Traitor, thought Merle in utter contempt. Traitor, traitor, traitor! It made her really sick to hear the groveling tone of the three city councillors. Or was it just the fear that was turning her stomach?

  The envoy took the jewel casket and opened the catch. The councillors exchanged uneasy looks.

  Merle bent over farther to better see the contents of the box. Serafin, too, tried to see exactly what was in there.

  The casket was lined with velvet, on which lay a little vial of crystal, no longer than a finger. The envoy carefully lifted it out, heedlessly letting the casket fall. It crashed on the floor with a bang. As one, the councillors jumped at the sound.

  Between thumb and forefinger the man held the vial up to the opening of his hood, directly against the light of the candles.

  “Finally, after all these years!” he murmured absently.

  Merle looked at Serafin in amazement. What was so valuable in such a tiny vial?

  The councillor in purple raised his hands in a solemn gesture. “It is she, truly. The essence of the Flowing Queen. The charm you placed at our disposal has worked a true wonder.”

  Merle held her breath and exchanged alarmed looks with Serafin.

  “The Pharaoh’s alchemists have worked on it for twice ten years,” said the envoy coolly. “There was never any doubt that the charm would be effective.”

  “Of course not, of course not.”

  The councillor in scarlet, who’d already made himself unpleasantly conspicuous, was rocking excitedly from one foot to the other. “But all your magic wouldn’t have helped you if we hadn’t declared ourselves ready to perform it in the presence of the Flowing Queen. A servant of the Pharaoh would never have gotten so near her.”

  The envoy’s tone turned wary. “So, are you then not a servant of the Pharaoh, Councillor de Angeliis?”

  The other’s face went white. “Certainly I am, certainly, certainly.”

  “You are nothing but a whining coward. And of those the worst kind: a traitor!”

  The councillor wrinkled his nose defiantly. He shook off the hand that the councillor in purple tried to place soothingly on his arm. “Without us you’d never—”

  “Councillor de Angeliis!” scolded the envoy, and now he sounded like an angry old woman. “You will receive recompense for your service of friendship, if that is your concern. At the latest when the Pharaoh makes his entrance into the lagoon with his armies and confirms you as his representative in office. But now, in Amenophis’s name, will you be quiet!”

  “With your permission,” said the councillor in purple, paying no attention to the wretched-looking de Angeliis. “You should know that time is pressing. Recently a messenger from Hell has arrived to offer us a pact against the Empire. I don’t know how long we can continue to resist that. Others on the City Council are more receptive to this messenger than we are. It won’t be possible to hold them in check indefinitely. Especially as the messenger has said that next time he’ll appear in public so that all the people will learn of his demands.”

  The envoy expelled his breath in a wheeze. “That must not happen. The attack on the lagoon is imminent. A pact with Hell can bring it all to nothing.” He was silent a moment as he considered the situation. “If the messenger actually appears, make sure that he can’t get to the people. Kill him.”

  “And the vengeance of Hell—,” de Angeliis began in a subdued voice, but the third councillor motioned him to silence with a wave.

  “Certainly, sir,” said the councillor in gold, with a bow in the direction of the envoy. “As you command. The Empire will protect us from all consequences when it once has the city under its control.”

  The Egyptian nodded graciously. “So shall it be.”

  Merle’s lungs desperately demanded air—she couldn’t hold her breath one second longer. The sound was soft, barely audible, but still loud enough to alert the councillor in scarlet. He looked up at the hole in the ceiling. Merle and Serafin pulled their heads back just in time. So they only heard the envoy’s further words but couldn’t see what was going on.

  “The desert crystal of the vial is strong enough to hold the Flowing Queen. Her regency over the lagoon is ended. An army of many thousands of soldiers stands ready on land and on the water. As soon as the Pharaoh holds this vial in his hands, the galleys and sunbarks will strike.”

  Merle felt a movement at her right side. She looked around, but Serafin was too far away. However, something was moving at her hip! A rat? The truth first hit her when it was already too late.

  The water mirror slid out of her dress pocket like something alive, with jerky, clumsy movements like a blinded animal. Then everything went at breakneck speed. Merle tried to grab the mirror, but it shot underneath her hand, skidded to the edge of the hole in the floor, slipped out over it—and fell.

  In a long moment, as if frozen in time, Merle saw that the surface of the mirror had become milky, fogged by the presence of the phantom.

  The mirror plunged past Merle’s outstretched hand into the depths. It fell exactly on the envoy, missed his hood, struck his hand, and knocked the crystal vial out of his fingers. The man howled, with pain, with rage, with surprise, as the mirror and the vial landed on the floor almost at the same time.

  “No!” Serafin’s cry made the three councillors leap away from each other like drops of hot fat.

  With a daring bound he swung himself over the edge and sprang into the middle of them. Merle had no time to consider this sudden chain of catastrophes. She followed Serafin over the edge, her dress fluttering around her, and with a loud bellow that was intended to sound grim but was probably anything but.

  The envoy avoided her. Otherwise her feet would have hit his head. Hastily he bent and tried to pick up the vial. But his fingers reached past the vial and brushed across the water mirror. For
a fraction of a second his fingertips furrowed the surface, vanished under it—and were gone when the envoy pulled back his hand with a scream of pain. Instead of fingertips there were black slivers of bone, which stuck out of the remainders of his fingers, smoking and burned, as if he’d stuck his hand in a beaker of acid.

  A mad shrieking came from under the hood. The sound was inhuman because no face appeared to give it; the screaming poured from an invisible mouth.

  Serafin did a cartwheel on both hands, almost too fast for the eye to see. When he came to a stop by the window, he held the vial in his right hand and Merle’s mirror in his left.

  Meanwhile the councillor in purple, the traitors’ spokesman, had grabbed Merle by the upper arm and tried to pull her around. With balled fist he raised his arm to strike her, while the two other councillors ran around like frightened hens, bellowing loudly for their bodyguards. Merle dodged him and was able to shake his hand off her arm, but as she did so her back thumped against black stuff. The robe of the envoy. There was a stench of burned flesh around him.

  A sharp draft whistled through the cracks of the boarded-up windows: Flying lions had landed outside in front of the house. Steel scraped over steel as sabers were withdrawn from their sheaths.

  Someone placed an arm around Merle from behind, but she ducked away under it as she had in so many scraps in the orphanage. She’d had practice in fighting, and she knew what she had to hit so that it hurt. When Councillor de Angeliis put himself in her way, she placed a well-aimed kick. The fat man in the scarlet robe bellowed as if he’d been spitted, holding his lower abdomen with both hands.

  “Out!” cried Serafin, holding the two other councillors in check by threatening to smash the vial on the floor—whatever that might bring about.

  Merle raced over to him and ran at his side to the exit. They turned into the corridor at the very moment the front door burst open and two bodyguards in black leather thundered in.

  “By the Ancient Traitor!” Serafin cursed.

  Nonplussed, the soldiers stopped in their tracks. They had been expecting a trick by the Egyptian, with men armed to the teeth, worthy opponents for two battle-hardened heroes of the Guard. Instead they saw a girl in a ragged dress and a boy who held in his hands two gleaming objects that looked not at all like knives.

  Merle and Serafin used the moment of surprise. Before the guards could react, the two were on their way to the back room.

  There, in front of the open window, the envoy was waiting for them. He had known that there was only one way of escape. At the back, out to the water.

  “The mirror!” Merle called to Serafin.

  He threw it over to her, and she caught it with both hands, grabbed it by the handle, and hit at the envoy with it. He avoided it skillfully, but that also left the way to the window free. His singed fingertips still smoked.

  “The vial!” he demanded in a hissing voice. “You are setting yourselves against the Pharaoh!”

  Serafin let out a daredevil laugh that surprised even Merle. Then he somersaulted past the envoy, between his outstretched hands. He landed safely on the windowsill and sat there like a bird, with both feet on the frame, knees drawn up, and a wide grin on his lips.

  “All honor to the Flowing Queen!” he cried out, while Merle used the moment to spring to his side. “Follow me!”

  With that he let himself fall backward out the window into the waters of the still canal.

  It wasn’t really his hand that drew Merle after him: It was his enthusiasm, his sheer will not to give up. For the first time in her life she felt admiration for another person.

  The envoy screeched and grabbed the edge of Merle’s dress, but it was with the fingers of his eroded hand, and he let go again with a yelp of pain.

  The water was icy. In a single heartbeat it seemed to pierce her clothes, her flesh, her entire body. Merle could no longer breathe, nor move, nor even think. She didn’t know how long this condition lasted—it seemed to her like minutes—but when she surfaced, Serafin was beside her, and life came back to her limbs. She couldn’t have been under for more than a few seconds.

  “Here, take this!” Underwater he pressed the vial into her left hand. In the right she was still holding the mirror, which lay between her fingers as if it grew there.

  “What shall I do with it?”

  “If worse comes to worst, I’ll steer them away,” said Serafin and spat water. The waves slapped at his lips.

  Worse comes to worst, Merle thought. Even worse?

  MAY BIRD AND THE

  EVER AFTER

  by JODI LYNN ANDERSON

  When May falls into a lake, she finds herself in the ghostly realm of The Ever After—but will she make it out alive? The Wizard of Oz meets Beetlejuice and Alice in Wonderland in this novel—the first of three featuring the adventures of May Bird.

  JODI LYNN ANDERSON grew up in New Jersey, where she spent a lot of time walking in the woods, pretending she was a queen. Today she lives in Roswell, Georgia, and spends a lot of time wishing she had a cat.

  Visit www.SimonSaysKids.com for more on May Bird and the Ever After.

  PUBLISHING EARLY FALL 2005

  Atheneum Books for Young Readers

  New York London Toronto Sydney

  CHAPTER 1

  A Sack of Beans

  Saint agatha’s boarding school for girls with high socks. May Ellen Bird, age ten, occasionally glanced at the brochure her mom had taped to her door that afternoon, and scowled. A few minutes ago May had taken her black marker and written the word “socks” over what had originally been the last word of the headline. Judging by the photos of girls in stiff plaid uniforms plastering the brochure, girls with “high prospects” was not nearly as accurate.

  The woods watched silently through the farthest east window of White Moss Manor as May tried to concentrate on her work. And sometimes, looking up from the curious project strewn across her desk, chewing on a pencil, May watched them back.

  Skinny and straight, with short black bobbed hair and big brown eyes, May ran her fingers over the objects before her—a clump of black fur, a light bulb, a jar, a book titled Secrets of the Egyptian Mummies, and some wire. Occasionally May swiveled to gaze at Somber Kitty, who laid across her bed like a discarded piece of laundry. His belly faced the ceiling and he eyed her lazily.

  Neither May nor Somber Kitty knew it, but passing squirrels and chipmunks thought the cat was decidedly ugly. He had huge pointy ears and a skinny tail, and he was mostly bald, with just a little bit of fuzz covering his soft skin. His mouth was turned down in a thoughtful frown—an expression he had been wearing ever since May had gotten him three years before, on her seventh birthday.

  May had disliked him immediately.

  “He’s bald,” she’d said.

  “He’s a hairless Rex,” her mom had replied. “He’s interesting.”

  “He looks depressed.”

  “He’s somber.”

  May’s mom had then explained that somber meant sad, which also meant melancholy. So that was the one thing they both agreed on. The cat was most definitely sad. It was almost as if, from the moment he had set his tilty green eyes on May, he had sensed her disappointment in him, and sympathized.

  May had not wanted him, of course. Her first cat, Legume, had died when May was six, and she had resigned herself to a life of grief. She knew there could never be another Legume, which, by the way, is another word for peanut. She’d insisted on wearing black ever since.

  But her mom had insisted on another pet. “You spend too much time alone,” she had said with big, brown, worried eyes even bigger and browner than May’s. Mrs. Bird had long ago given up trying to get May to bring home friends from school.

  “Why don’t you invite Maribeth over?”

  “She has the chicken pox.”

  “Claire?”

  “She’s only allowed out on President’s Day.”

  “Mariruth?”

  “Leprosy. It’s so sad.”
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br />   Finally one afternoon May had stood in her mom’s doorway, crossed her arms, and announced that she would accept a cat as long as it was a black tiger.

  She got stuck with Somber Kitty.

  Noticing her watching him now, Somber Kitty opened his mouth and asked, “Mew? Meow? Meay?”

  “That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” May replied.

  Knock knock knock.

  May’s mom poked her head into the room.

  “So what do you think?” she asked hopefully, smiling. “It looks like a great school, doesn’t it?”

  May crossed her arms over her waist and looked toward her bed. “Maybe if you’re a nun,” she offered thoughtfully.

  The smile on Mrs. Bird’s face dropped, and May felt her heart drop too.

  “Maybe it’s okay,” May added. She looked at Somber Kitty who looked at her. Their traded glance said Somber Kitty understood, even if Mrs. Bird didn’t: May could never be happy at a school like Saint Agatha’s, wearing high socks and stuck in New York City without the woods.

  “Well, it’s something to think about,” Mrs. Bird said hopefully, biting her lip. “I think the structure would be good for you. I’d live right nearby. And we could tour the city on the weekends.”

  May Bird ducked into the room, stooped down, and made her way to May’s desk. From the ceiling hung a number of objects: a dragonfly wind chime, a clothes hanger strung with old sumac leaves, old dry strands of ivy. At the window sat a pair of binoculars to watch for insects and critters, and a telescope aimed at the sky for looking at the stars.

  The walls were so covered in pictures that you couldn’t see the old calico wallpaper. They were drawings of Legume, of Mrs. Bird, of the woods, and of imaginary places and friends and creatures: some with wings and purple hair, black capes and horns, and one particularly spooky one with a lopsided head. There were none of Somber Kitty, who often followed Mrs. Bird’s eyes to the wall with hurt curiosity, searching for a likeness of himself.

  Studying the spookier, darker pictures, Mrs. Bird’s eyes sometimes got big and worried again. “You don’t want people to think you’re eccentric,” she’d say, looking more somber than a certain cat.