Grim Hill: The Secret Deepens

by Linda DeMeulemeester

  A holly branch from the tree beside the tunnel had actually reached out and grabbed me.

  CHAPTER 28 A Deadly Clash

  TURNING AROUND, I watched in horror as the leaves and branches on the tree shifted, spilling the snow from their treacherous leaves as they reached out toward me. Then the leaves of the tree grew even larger and more terrifying. It was like looking into a diabolical kaleidoscope – the leaves twisted and turned until they settled into the shape of a giant holly man who towered above me.

  “My tithe,” a voice boomed so loud that my ears ached and the last of my courage shattered. The holly man took one step toward me, and the leaves that made up his shape quivered as he moved. When he slammed his foot down, the whole ground shook.

  “Oh crap,” was all I could say.

  Clive pushed his brother into the tunnel, and then he raced toward me with Jasper close behind. In a pathetic attempt to defend me, Clive whipped out his own holly branch and brandished it like a sword. Jasper produced his white feather and waved it. Of course Jasper had his feather. He’d been suspecting the fairies were involved when Sookie had made Skeeter disappear. But I wouldn’t listen.

  For a moment I thought the boys’ weapons would help because the green man hesitated.

  “Pathetic mortals.” The giant holly man’s laugh was so cold and evil I started to run, but the mass of green leaves shook and shifted, blocking the tunnel. Then he jolted his terrifying head in my direction, and my knees buckled under me. My legs turned to Jell-O.

  Clive dropped the holly branch and fumbled until he pulled his flashlight from his pocket. When he aimed the light at who was surely the Holly King Forenza had mentioned, a few dangerous, sharp leaves wilted back, but the holly man was so huge, there was plenty of him left to do lots of damage. The Holly King blasted us again with an ear-shattering cry. Jasper and I moaned in pain, and Clive dropped his flashlight.

  In a desperate attempt to survive, I yanked the bare rowan branch from my pack and began poking it at the oncoming monster. I knew that if I lived, I’d remember his laugh in my nightmares for the rest of my life.

  The towering, hideous creature lurched forward as we cowered.

  A dark shadow fell over us and across the snow in the shape of some gigantic prehistoric bird. The Holly King bellowed, but this time in an agonizing scream. Clive, Jasper, and I collapsed to the ground and covered our ears.

  The air twisted around our bodies strong enough to lift us a foot off the ground. We were caught in the middle of a tornado.

  “Grab onto something,” I cried out, and I took hold of a black branch as the wind tore away its silver leaves. Clive and Jasper held on to the branch above mine, and I had to duck their kicking feet.

  Leaves flew as if someone was taking a chainsaw to a holly tree, and more howls sliced open the air. The giant shadow wings of the sky creature flapped and thundered.

  There was another blast of air, only this time it was warm. I smelled cherry blossoms and lilac and briefly wondered if this was what it was like to die – that you remember something pleasant in your last moment.

  The holly man seemed to grow even larger, but this time there were spaces between his leaves and branches. Then in another ear-splitting clap, all his leaves blew apart and scattered around us as we covered our heads.

  When the last leaf seemed to settle, we let go of the branches and slipped to the ground. As I stood up, a robin flew past me and landed on a black branch above my head, the one that Jasper and Clive had just dropped from. The bird’s chest moved in and out rapidly, and its feathers were mussed as if he’d just been in a fight with a cat and had barely escaped. He cocked his head my way and let out a weary chirp. I must have been delusional by this time because it almost seemed as if the little bird had told me to run for it.

  Muddled thoughts moved sluggishly through my brain as I wondered what had happened to the giant pterodactyl that should be scooping us up and tearing us to pieces right about now. I felt someone tug me forward and I dimly noticed Jasper dragging me into the tunnel. Clive and Skeeter were just ahead and were already on the first steps of the staircase.

  Even as we raced up the stairs, I could hear the clamor of footsteps behind us. I’d given my flashlight to Mia, and Clive had dropped his on the ground so there was no light to hold back the fairies. We ran even faster. As we neared the top of the stone staircase inside the dark tunnel, we began to sputter and choke as smoke billowed toward us. Coughing, we burst through the doorway onto the human side of Grim Hill.

  “Are you trying to smother us?” gasped Jasper.

  Mitch, who’d been fanning the fire with branches of holly leaves, paused, his branch hovering near the flame of the Yule log. “We were only following orders.”

  “And don’t stop,” I managed to choke out as we heard a treacherous clamor of angry shouts behind us. I grabbed a handful of ivy and threw it on the fire. “Where are the other kids?” I asked frantically, looking for my sister.

  “Mia and Amarjeet took them down the hill,” said Zach. “They’ll be tucked in their beds when their parents begin to come out of the spell.” He looked at the stairwell. “I hope we make it back to our beds,” he gulped.

  “Come on – hurry – build up the flames,” I cried to the others.

  Zach and Emily joined Mitch and fanned the Yule logs, while Jasper and I grabbed more holly and ivy and threw it all on the fire. Tons of red glowing eyes winked back at us from the entrance of the staircase.

  “Shine the flashlights!” I shouted. Mitch, Zach, and Emily turned the flashlights on and aimed them at the tunnel. Screams echoed up from the underground passage. Jasper and Clive grabbed a flaming branch and waved it in front of the tunnel. Skeeter was about to do the same, but I grabbed the burning branch from him.

  The deep purple sky began to lighten at the edge of the horizon. It was dawn and the solstice had passed. I’d forgotten how time moved differently between Fairy and our world. Then with an eerie creak, the door began to slam shut as white hands and long curling fingers reached from within the passage trying to hold the door open.

  The hill began shaking and we were forced back from the entrance while rocks began shifting and moving on the ground, bouncing around as if we were in the middle of an earthquake. We all ran from the rubble until the shaking stopped.

  When it seemed safe, we moved through the crushed rock and brick and looked for the doorway into Fairy.

  But all we could see was a pile of dirt.

  CHAPTER 29 The Secrets Deepen

  THE PORTAL TO Fairy had disappeared, so now there was no way back.

  Or so I hoped.

  “We’d better get down the hill and into our houses before the town wakes up,” I said, feeling more tired than I ever had in my life.

  As we trudged down the hill, my head ached and my stomach cramped. The last time I’d had anything to eat was breakfast, and now it was almost dawn the next day. You didn’t notice the hours and minutes passing in fairy time, but it still wore you out – it was as if you’d just played a three-day soccer tournament. I reached down and grabbed a handful of snow and shoved it in my mouth. The cold water dripping down my throat helped my terrible thirst. Then I took some more snow and rubbed it on the holly scratch along my hand, which eased the burning a little.

  Everyone else, though, acted a lot more energetic. Skeeter was babbling something about how he had such an “awesome time” and couldn’t wait to go back there to “play.” Zach, Mitch, and Emily kept doing high-fives and were calling themselves “fairy fighters.”

  Didn’t they realize how close we had come to total disaster?

  Clive ran up from behind and began walking beside me.

  “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “I won’t ever tell how scared you got – and that you started crying. I was scared too. But guys don’t cry.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said, “that was only an illusion – I had to fake …”

  Then Clive patted me on the shoulder. “I sa
id I’d never tell.” Then he joined Mitch and Zach and shared his own Fairy battle tales.

  I wanted to argue with him, but finally I realized it just wasn’t worth it. For one thing, lots of people cried – girls and guys. If Clive couldn’t figure that out, it wasn’t my problem. And if he thought I was really sobbing, I guess I could live with that too – especially when I heard Jasper laughing behind me.

  “Next time,” Jasper said, “maybe you’ll listen to me when I say something’s just not right.”

  “And maybe you’re starting to understand what it’s like trying to deal with Clive,” I muttered.

  “Oh, let me see,” said Jasper. “Can I understand what it is like trying to deal with someone who is smart, brave, insanely focused, fiercely protective of a younger sibling, and confident to the point of being pig-headed … does that sound like anyone else you know, Cat?”

  I didn’t bother answering, but I couldn’t stop the smile that began to spread across my face. I hadn’t smiled in a long time – maybe not since the last time Jasper and I had argued.

  As we got closer to my backyard, Sookie flew from the house and ran toward me, trudging through the snow in her blue housecoat and fuzzy slippers. She squealed in relief and hugged me. Then she smiled at Jasper and grabbed Skeeter’s hand.

  “Father Winter has gone to sleep,” Sookie announced approvingly. “I don’t hear him anymore.” But then a slight frown tugged her lips, and looking up at me, she said, “He was furious with you, Cat.”

  “Oh well, he’s sleeping now,” I said, though even mentioning the Holly King made my hand burn again.

  “Where’s Buddy?” asked Sookie.

  Buddy – oh no.

  Sookie’s hamster had completely slipped my mind! And now there was no possible way of getting him back.

  “I don’t see him – where is he?” Sookie asked again as she beamed up at me in an annoying, trusting way. Guilt turned my stomach inside out. Oh crap, little Buddy … Sookie was going to be so –

  “Here he is!” With a grin, Skeeter produced Buddy from a pocket inside his coat. The hamster peeked out from Skeeter’s thick mitten, twitched his nose, and leaped onto Sookie’s shoulder. She squealed with glee and tried kissing the animal’s tiny face.

  I breathed a huge sigh of relief, thinking I owed Skeeter big time.

  “You did it, Cat – you are the real Queen of Mystery.” My sister looked up at me, beaming.

  “What do you mean?” I shook my head in confusion.

  “Remember how you once told me you had no special talent, I mean, besides soccer? Well, you are the queen of solving mysteries.”

  I just hoped I could live up to Sookie’s admiration. Exhausted, I said, “Let’s get you back inside.”

  The dawn was crisp and cold, but already the thick clouds were breaking up and scudding across the sky. It felt just a bit warmer, but not warm enough for my sister to be standing out in the snow in only a nightgown and a housecoat. “We should help Mom get into bed.”

  “How are we going to explain all this to my gran?” asked Clive, shaking his head.

  “My guess is you won’t have to explain anything,” said Jasper. “None of us will, especially if you let me bring Skeeter back to the hospital with me. We’ll all end up exactly where we’re supposed to be.”

  “Shouldn’t we tell the adults the … the truth?” asked Clive. “Is it right to keep all that’s happened secret?”

  “No one would ever believe you,” Emily said. She shook her head. “I tried telling my parents about Grim Hill after Halloween, and trust me, if you don’t want your family giving you weird stares for a few days and whispering to each other as you walk by, just let it go. Besides, after a week, you’re not going to be so sure anything strange really did happen.”

  “That’s right,” I agreed. “Most likely, today there will be some excuse about a horrible storm last night and about people having fever dreams …” I drifted off. Grownups had ways of explaining everything that didn’t fit with what they thought the world should be like. “As Emily said, memories of our creepy experiences just seemed to drift away.” Maybe Amarjeet was right – I was getting to be an expert in otherworldly encounters.

  “I don’t think I’ll forget,” said Clive. “And I’m pretty sure Skeeter won’t.”

  Sookie and Skeeter were whispering to each other and laughing as if they’d just spent the night at a carnival instead of wrapped up in the fight of our lives. And then my skin prickled as they both began to sing that eerie tune that I’d heard Sookie hum alone in her room while she stared out her window at Grim Hill.

  Those other children had been crying and were afraid when Amarjeet and Mia had taken them out of Fairy – they’d been desperate to go home. That seemed quite sensible to me. But Fairy had a different affect on Sookie and Skeeter – why?

  CHAPTER 30 A Grim Return

  I SAID GOODBYE to my friends and dragged Sookie away from Skeeter. Every part of me ached, and as I climbed the porch one step at a time, I told Sookie, “I think you need to get a safer hobby – maybe parachuting.” She laughed, but I was only half-joking. I’d had enough of the adventurous life, and it felt great to finally crawl into my own soft, warm bed.

  Late the next morning, my mother was waking me up. The scent of hot chocolate wafted into my room.

  “C’mon, Cat, it’s not like you to sleep so late. We’ve got to go into town and get some Christmas shopping done. Christmas is only a few days away.”

  I tugged my flannel housecoat on and stumbled down the stairs to the kitchen. Sookie was already up and was crunching her frosty oats. She was almost bouncing off her seat in excitement. “C’mon, Cat, we’re getting our tree today! You never sleep later than me – it’s already nine-thirty.”

  I expected my mother to act as if nothing happened last night, but Sookie? However, when the phone rang and my mother went to answer it, Sookie gave me a sly wink. I decided she didn’t seem to have as much trouble as I had juggling the magical world and our world. This morning I felt as if I had horrible jet lag and was still recovering from a night of weird dreams.

  “Good news,” said my mother when she returned to the kitchen. “That was Mia’s mom on the phone – she was calling us from the hospital. Jasper and Skeeter are out of the hospital, and everyone is getting better. The flu epidemic is over!” Mom leaned against the counter and admitted, “That terrible bug seemed to skip Sookie, but I was so worried you were coming down with it, Cat.”

  Skipped Sookie – Mom had that right. But like the last time, Mom seemed to have no recollection of the night that just passed – of her sitting in a chair watching her kid walk out into a blizzard. It wasn’t just her though, none of the adults remembered the night before. When I talked to Jasper later that day he said the teachers thought that they’d stayed all night at the school with the children whose parents hadn’t been able to make it through the snow to pick them up.

  Like I said, adults had a way of rationalizing everything. Still, it ended up being a good holiday. Everyone in town was relieved that the worst of the cold weather was over and that there were no more bizarre temperature fluctuations. While most of the snow melted away, there was enough snow left on the ground for a white Christmas.

  This was our first Christmas since my parents’ divorce, and I wondered how different it was going to be. We didn’t hear from our dad at all. Mom said he was working on a special project, and that he’d get in touch with us when he could. Mom let Sookie and me stay up all night Christmas Eve watching DVDs and playing Christmas music until we both fell asleep on the couch. Christmas morning, Sookie still managed to wake up early – it was the only day of the year she was a morning person. We opened gifts, and I got a cool pair of jeans and a green sweater that actually matched the streaks in my hair. Sookie got a fancy new hamster cage for Buddy that had tunnels and a maze. She and Buddy played with it all day. We invited Jasper and his parents for turkey dinner, and I decided that as long as you could have a
bunch of people together on a holiday, it still felt pretty special.

  But all good things had to end, and after a week of lazing around, it was time to return to school.

  The first morning back, Jasper and I found our friends crowded around my locker. As usual they were talking about soccer.

  “Because of the snowstorm, they rescheduled the intramurals for the third week in January,” Mia said to me. “What a lucky break, huh?”

  I’d say! And I was glad my friends realized they needed me on their team. So I was surprised when Mia added, “That announcement gave us a chance to make a great decision, Cat.”

  “What?” I asked, confused. “What am I missing?”

  Zach, Mitch, and Clive sauntered over and stood beside us. Clive said “Us, what you’re missing is us?”

  “Huh?” was all I could say.

  “We’re going to have a co-ed team,” said Emily. “I mean, what a waste when the girls were competing against the boys.”

  “Exactly,” said Zach. “Instead of trying to expose each others’ weaknesses, if we play to each others strengths we’ll make the gold team – and then we’ll be unbeatable.”

  “Cool!” said Jasper.

  But who will get to be the team captain, I wondered. A girl or a guy? The bell rang and I went off to science class with Mia. We had a pop chemistry quiz, and I got 19 out of 20 – a record high. Smiling to myself, and imagining my picture one day up on the giant collage Ms. Dreeble had created of important women scientists, I tossed my textbook in my backpack. Ms. Dreeble called me to her desk.

  She looked right at me and sighed. “Cat, that is a good mark you got on your science quiz. But I’m concerned that soccer-wise, it is still so hit-and-miss with you.” She drummed her pencil on the desk. “You didn’t even show up after school the day of the intramural game – after I explicitly reminded you to be on time.”

  “But the bus was turned back, and the game was cancelled. So it didn’t count.”