by Colin Meloy
“No, no, no, no,” Curtis was repeating incessantly.
They stepped along the walkway, unsure of who might be awaiting them, but could get no farther than the top of the East Tower before they were stopped by a downed rope bridge; there was no place to cross. The night’s fall of snow had nearly obscured an army of footprints in the white blanket that covered every surface along the ravine. From their vantage, black clouds of smoke could be seen hurtling up from the caves in the rock face. Flames licked at a distant wooden structure; a staircase, collapsed in a black heap, smoldered in the cold air. A snap sounded, and Prue looked in time to see one of the ravine’s many zip lines break and fall with a resounding clatter. A fire gutted the last brace of its anchor and it, too, fell into the void.
“Brendan!” Curtis shouted, his hands cupped to his mouth. There was no answer. “Aisling! Anyone!” Still, silence.
Septimus dashed down a hempen cable to a lower structure on the cliff face; his voice echoed up shortly after: “All gone! Not a soul!” It was the first time that Prue had heard the rat sound genuinely concerned about anything.
“Maybe they got out, before the foxes arrived,” she suggested. Curtis continued to ignore her. “Listen, Curtis,” she said. “You’ve got to think that they’re smarter than those Kitsunes. They must’ve seen them coming. Maybe this is just a decoy.”
“A decoy?” asked Curtis, turning on her. “Are you kidding me? Do you know how long it took to build this camp? Months and months of nonstop work. This is not a decoy. This is the wreckage of a battle. A battle that destroyed a home. My home.” He slumped against the balustrade and folded his arms across his chest, burrowing his chin into his stole as if he was trying to climb into it to hide. Prue instinctively kept her distance.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “So sorry.”
“It’s my fault,” said Curtis. “I should’ve been here. I should’ve been at their side.”
“I shouldn’t have made you leave. I should’ve stayed here, where Iphigenia wanted me.”
Curtis’s face became flushed with anger. “Yes! You should’ve! It is all your fault. I told you to stay. I explained to you what we were supposed to do. But you had to go, didn’t you?”
“You could’ve stayed behind,” responded Prue, suddenly rising to the boy’s provocation. “I didn’t, like, force you to come or anything.”
“But you didn’t give me much choice, did you?” He had pushed himself up from his leaning position and was standing squarely in front of her. “You. Everything’s always about you, isn’t it, Prue? Big Prue McKeel: always knows what’s up. Always in charge. You never give much a thought to what other people might think, do you?”
“That’s not true and you know it.”
“Pah!” laughed Curtis. “I’ve been living in your shadow ever since we walked into this place. You just go steamrolling through, ruining everything in your path.”
Tears leapt to Prue’s eyes at the accusation. Curtis did not relent. “And we’re all expected to bend over backward for you, just like that. Well, I had a family here, Prue. Friends. And now they’re gone. I abandoned them.” He was viciously slapping himself in the chest as he spoke. “Like you’d know what that meant. Where are your friends, Prue, huh? Do you have any anymore? Am I your only friend, Prue? Huh?” When she did not respond, he said, “No wonder.”
Stung, Prue looked up at Curtis through tear-wet eyes. “Like you should talk. The bandit band isn’t the first family you’ve abandoned,” she said, though she immediately regretted it.
Curtis stared at her, silent.
She realized she’d reached the point of no return. Speaking loudly: “What about your real family? Huh? Your sisters? Your mother and father? Ever think about them? Talk about only looking out for yourself.” Prue wiped her eyes free of tears as she spoke.
Curtis’s lower lip jutted out from his face. “You take that back,” he said, jabbing a finger at Prue. “You take that back!”
“Easy!” Septimus’s snout appeared from over the balustrade. “Isn’t there some rule about fighting with your own friends? Something in the bandit code?”
“Like you’d know, rat,” said a huffy Curtis, crossing his arms.
“There you go. Lashing out. I can take it.”
Curtis seemed chastened; he stood quietly. Prue watched him, her eyes ripe with the threat of more tears. The rat stood on a crenellation and stared dolefully out at the smoking remnants of the camp. He tapped at his teeth with an idle finger. “Awful,” he said. “No way fifteen Kitsunes could do this, let alone three.”
Prue looked to Curtis. “We have to move on.”
He remained silent. Septimus studied him. Prue repeated herself. “We have to find the makers, Curtis. The tree—”
“Oh, quiet about the tree,” Curtis flung. “My place is here. With the bandits.”
“The bandits are gone, Curtis.” She stepped forward to place her hand on his arm; the boy flinched.
“Just leave me alone,” he said.
That was when the voice came from across the gap. It was a woman’s voice.
“Children,” it said. “Don’t tussle.”
Prue and Curtis looked over to see a black fox, her fur wind-whipped and stained with blood, appear from the mouth of a cave. A second fox trailed after her, baring its yellow teeth.
Prue stumbled backward; Curtis reached for the sling at his belt.
“I couldn’t help but overhear, and I have to say there’s really no sense in bickering over trivial things.” The voice issuing from the muzzle of the fox was familiar to Prue—she remembered that same feminine timbre detailing the anatomy of a flower stamen. “Don’t waste your last breaths on who did what and who abandoned who.” A narrow gap separated Prue and Curtis from the two foxes, once traversed by a short rope bridge. The animals leapt it handily, landing at the base of the circular stairs that climbed the outside of the tower. Curtis notched a stone into his sling and began swinging it.
“Back off,” he said. “Don’t you dare come closer.” Septimus was at his shoulder, gripping the fabric of his epaulet.
Darla sneered. “Oh? What are you going to do? Throw a pebble at me?”
As the foxes rounded the first set of stairs, Curtis found a clear shot and let the stone fly; it hit the second fox in the side with a resounding thump. The animal leapt and whimpered, nearly losing his footing on the stairs.
“Nice one,” prompted Septimus.
“Don’t do that again, boy,” said Darla. Curtis pulled another stone from a pouch at his belt and slipped it into the sling’s cradle. He stepped forward to meet their attackers.
“Plenty more where that came from,” he said defiantly. “You’ve got one more bandit to deal with before you’re done.”
Prue grabbed at Curtis’s coat sleeve and pulled him toward the walkway behind them. It led down the side of the tower wall toward the platform where they’d found the shattered lantern. They still had time to escape, she reasoned. She couldn’t imagine what had happened to the entire hale band of bandits, but she didn’t want to see what kind of work the two assassin foxes would make of a couple of preteen humans.
The foxes made neat paw prints in the snow that covered the tower stairs. Curtis let another stone fly. Darla dodged it, her hackles raised.
“I said,” she growled, “don’t do that again!”
With that demand, she crouched and leapt the last few stairs. She stalked her two victims, approaching them in a slow, methodical way. Prue was backing down the icy walkway, trying to drag Curtis with her. Curtis, for his part, was trying to load another stone into his sling. His fingers were cold; he slipped, and the stone fell with a thunk to the wood floor of the tower top.
“Come on, Curtis!” hissed Prue.
“Don’t bother running, children,” said Darla, clearly enjoying the final phase of her hunt. “You’ve really got nowhere to go. One way or another, you’re going to end up under our claws. We’ve been through a lot to find
you; I would appreciate it if you didn’t make this last moment too labor intensive.”
Curtis was cursing under his breath, searching in the bag for another stone; Prue let out a scream as she slipped on the walkway’s boards and slid several feet to where it leveled out. Hearing that, Curtis turned and, holding on to the banisters, shot down to where Prue had fallen. He helped her to her feet, and the two of them continued backing away from the approaching foxes.
“What happened to all the bandits? What have you done?” Curtis had abandoned the idea of fighting with the sling; it had shown no appreciable effect on the foxes’ advance.
“Oh, some died,” answered Darla casually. “Some ran off. They’re a scrappy bunch, I’ll give them that. But in the end, it really is brains over brawn. I’m sorry to say, Curtis, that they gave the both of you up rather quickly. So much for familial loyalty, eh?”
“You’re lying,” responded Curtis. They had arrived at the wooden platform; all that remained between them and the other side of the ravine where the coiled ropes lay was a rope bridge; they picked up their pace as they moved onto its rickety slats. The wind buffeted through the gap, and the bridge swayed and creaked. Septimus leapt down from Curtis’s shoulder and began capering along one of the anchor ropes. He’d nearly made it to the far side when he let out a shout: A woman dressed in a green tracksuit had just scaled down the side of the cliff wall where the ropes were and was approaching them from the other side of the bridge.
“Ah, Callista,” said Darla, seeing the woman. “So glad you could join us.”
“Don’t move!” whispered Septimus, returning to the two kids’ side. “We’re surrounded.”
The three assassins slowed their approach, two on one side of the bridge, one on the other. They stepped silently, deliberately. In the center of the bridge, Curtis and Prue were pinned together, back to back, staring at their oncoming assailants.
“This is it, Prue,” said Curtis.
“Uh-huh,” said Prue.
“I’m sorry I said those things back there.”
“Me too. I don’t think you’re selfish. I think you’re actually a really great person.”
“Really? You think that?” asked Curtis.
“Uh-huh.”
The Kitsunes came closer.
“Well, I think you’re pretty great too,” said Curtis.
“Thanks.”
The Kitsunes were now within leaping distance. Prue, in a moment of desperation, made a fleeting survey of her surroundings. There was no way they could escape past the oncoming assassins. The only way out was down.
She looked over the edge of the bridge into the darkness of the ravine. The implacable stone of the cliff wall disappeared into a veil of absolute black. In her searching, she chanced to see that the cable support by her hand was frayed down to the quick; a few single strands of fiber kept it intact. Swinging her knapsack over her shoulder, she retrieved the buck knife she’d stowed there. She flipped open the blade and flourished it dramatically over the cable.
“Come any closer,” she yelled, “and I’ll cut the bridge.”
“What?” said Curtis.
“What?” said Septimus.
The tracksuited Kitsune, Callista, paused in her slow creep. She looked at Prue skeptically. “You wouldn’t,” she said.
“Yeah,” agreed Curtis, his voice shaking. “You wouldn’t, right?”
“Try me,” said Prue. She craned her head over to see Darla, who’d stopped on the fourth plank of the bridge.
“You’re bluffing,” said Darla.
“No, I’m not,” said Prue.
“Are you sure you’re not bluffing?” asked Septimus.
Prue held the blade of the knife to the frayed rope. Darla watched her intently. She nodded to Callista, and the woman began to back away.
“Put down the knife, dear,” said Darla. “This is all very foolish. How about this: You submit to us and we’ll consider letting you live.”
Prue scoffed, “That’s the biggest load of junk I’ve ever heard. You killed Iphigenia. You evil, evil woman. Fox. Whatever. What’s going to stop you from killing us?”
“Alas, then we are at an impasse, yes?” sighed the fox. She set a single paw forward, closer to the children. Prue could see her haunches begin to quiver. It became clear she was about to pounce.
“Hold on, guys,” said Prue as she took a deep breath and cut the rope.
Someone screamed. Prue, in the flash of the moment, couldn’t tell who it was. It sounded like a woman, though she’d heard Curtis scream like that before. In any case, the world pinwheeled beneath her feet as the bridge gave way on one side and the wooden slats tipped sideways in a quick, violent motion. She heard someone else yell “NO!” as if they were mourning the loss of a dear loved one, as if they were witnessing one of the great traumatic experiences of their lifetime. In that flicker of time, she came to realize it was Darla, and she experienced a flush of sympathy for the woman-turned-fox. Prue’s hand, as if under the control of someone other than herself, shot out and grabbed one of the rope struts of the bridge, which was in the process of losing its bridge-ness, like a puppet snipped of its strings. Her body swung around, at the mercy of the crazed motion of the rope, and she saw Callista pitch, screaming, into the blank emptiness below them.
The strap of Prue’s knapsack made a hard jerk and was suddenly pulling heavily at her neck; she saw that it was Curtis, Septimus doggedly affixed to his shoulder, who’d managed to grab hold of the bag and was dangling above the ravine by a single buckle. The boy and the rat screamed in unison, at which point Prue realized it was, in fact, Septimus who’d made that very ladylike shriek just moments before. Her fingers steadily turned from bright, ruby red to bloodless white in the fraction of a second as the weight of both her and Curtis bore down on the thin rope in her hand.
“Curtis!” she shouted hoarsely. “I can’t!”
But at that moment she looked over to see Darla, having shape-shifted back into human form, swinging hand over hand toward her. Her floral dashiki was torn at the cuffs and stained with mud and blood. A look of absolute rage was in the process of distorting her face. She seemed to straddle the world between human and animal, as if in the violence of the instant, she was frozen in transformation. She reached out to Prue, and Prue could see the little filigree of black hair on her wrists and the claws of her fingernails. The world slowed to a crawl.
That was when the last support of the bridge broke and the entire apparatus split in two, with Prue and Curtis swinging one way and Darla swinging the other. Septimus clung to a single strand of fringe on Curtis’s epaulet, his feminine howl having turned into a steady stream of pronouncements: “Oh oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.” Prue watched Darla hit, hard, against the opposing cliff face, though she barely had a chance to revel in this turn of events when she, too, slammed against the rock. Her fingers, having valiantly obeyed the commands of their master for so long, simply went slack, and the three of them, Prue, Curtis, and Septimus, went spiraling downward, down into the blackness.
CHAPTER 13
A Promising Commission
The door shut heavily behind Unthank and he paused by the jamb, staring at the clutter of his office in quiet despair. He leaned backward against the hard wood of the door, which made the fedora on the crown of his head tip forward and fall to the ground. Swiping it up in a quick, agitated motion, he walked to his desk and threw himself into his chair, which gave up a squeaky moan. He tried to Frisbee the fedora onto the hat rack by the wardrobe, but he missed, pitifully. It tumbled into a nearby wastebasket. Unthank sat frozen for a time before he let his head fall into his palms on the surface of his desk.
A knock came at the door. “Joffrey, dear?” It was Desdemona.
“One moment, honey,” he called. He sat up straight and wiped his eyes free of the few tears that were beginning to show. “Come in.”
The door wheezed open. Miss Mudrak, in her sparkling gown, entered carrying a briefcase. “Are you ok
ay?” she asked.
“Yes, yes,” said Joffrey. “Just taking a moment, that’s all.”
“I have here the equipment.”
“Oh, right. Go ahead.”
Desdemona brought the briefcase across the room and, undoing the buckles, began placing the three white boxes on the shelf with their nearly identical counterparts. The little strips of tape on them read R.M., E.M., and M.S. She gave them an almost motherly look before she turned and faced Unthank.
“They will show, I think,” she said.
Unthank laughed under his breath. “Yes, maybe they will.”
“It seemed to me that the Chinese stayed longer on the screen. Her blip did not so disappear quickly.”
“You think?”
“I do think this.”
“Well, darling, sweetheart,” said Unthank, “apple of my eye, you’d be wrong.” He slammed his hand on the desktop. “All three of them. All three of their blips. Disappeared. Blip. Blip. Blip. Just like that. Once they’d gone twenty yards, easy. Gone.”
Desdemona was startled by his sudden explosion. “Do not be hard upon yourself,” she said. “Perhaps next time it will not be so.”
“Next time?” asked Unthank, exasperated. “What about the last time? Huh? What’s his name … Carl. Carl Rehnquist. The chubby kid. I worked for weeks, literally, on that copper … crown-thing. I studied volumes and volumes of research on the properties of copper and its effect on magnetic domains, saturation, and ferromagnetics. All that work—for nothing!”
“Calm yourself, darling,” soothed Desdemona.
“And why,” he said, standing up from his chair and walking toward the shelf of white boxes. “Why haven’t literally any of them shown up again? I mean, even if that particular salve or ointment or prosthetic didn’t work, you’d think that maybe one of them would find their way. What about those old men, those survivors? The ones who managed to get out? The ones I painstakingly interviewed? Were they all … lying to me?”
