Always October (20 page)

With a sigh, Ed grabbed my arm and hissed, “Go to the tapestry!”

As the other Poets formed a line of defense, we crawled toward the weaving. I had to keep one arm scooped under LD in order to support his back while he clung to my neck, so I was doing a one-handed crawl, which slowed us down some.

When we reached the tapestry, Ed began to chant. Though his words were drowned out by the roars, growls, bellows, and shrieks that filled the air behind us, they must have worked, because the image on the fabric shivered, then vanished.

In its place was a glowing blue wall.

“Go through!” said Ed urgently. “Now!”

Glancing back, I saw the High Poet still struggling to hold off the four-armed monster. “Go!” he roared when he saw my hesitation.

“The humans are getting away!” bellowed Mazrak. “And they've got the baby! Press forward!
Press forward!
”

Clutching LD to my chest, I plunged through the blue wall.

S
purred on by Mazrak's cry of rage, I followed Jake. As soon as I touched the blue wall, my skin tingled all over. I felt myself being pulled forward, as if caught by a giant vacuum cleaner. When the pull, and the tingle, ended, I found myself in complete darkness.

The shouts and screams of the battling monsters had disappeared. All I could hear now was LD sobbing, and Jacob whispering, “Shhh, little buddy, shhhh, shhhh. Everything is all right.”

I wondered vaguely if it was a sin to lie to a baby.

“The poor beebums,” Mrs. McSweeney said. “He's got every right to be frightened.”

“Grampa?” I whispered. “Are you here?”

“Yeah, I'm here. Not sure I should be. I've got a pickax that wants to bury itself in some monster's belly.”

“Do you think we should go back and help?” I asked.

“No,” said Jacob firmly. “The Poets wanted us to get LD away from that fight.”

“Jacob is right,” said Mrs. McSweeney. “Besides, I'm not certain we could go back even if we wanted to.”

“Then what do we do now?” Grampa asked.

The answer came from Luna, who said, “I suppose we keep going. I'm here, by the way, though no one bothered to ask.”

“Oh, I knew you'd make it through, darlin',” said Mrs. McSweeney. “You were the only one I
wasn't
worried about. Though I suppose we should check on one more thing.” Raising her voice a bit, she said, “Invisible Ed, are you with us?”

Silence.

“Probably stayed behind to fight,” said Grampa at last. “Useful guy to have on your side, someone nobody can see.”

“Then Luna has put her paw on it,” said Mrs. McSweeney. “We keep going.”

“Go where?” I asked. “How can we tell which way is forward when it's pitch-black?”

“And what if there are big pits in the floor we might fall into?” Jacob added.

I wished he hadn't thought of that.

“Luna?” said Mrs. McSweeney.

“Do I have to? You know it makes me itch!”

“You don't
have
to do anything, darlin'. But it would be helpful.”

Luna sighed, then begin to purr. It was a lovely sound, rich and rumbly. That was no surprise, really. What
was
a surprise was that her pure-white fur began to glow. Soon she looked like a cat formed out of moonlight.

“That is cooler than the breeze from Mothra's wings!” I murmured.

LD, who still had his head buried against Jacob's shoulder, peeked out, then cooed appreciatively and shook his rattle.

The glow wasn't much, but in the extreme darkness it made a huge difference. We could now see that we stood in a narrow, smooth-sided tunnel. How far it stretched ahead we could not tell; the light provided by Luna reached only ten feet or so.

We turned to look behind us. Nothing but a stone wall.

“Craziest dang place I ever heard of,” snorted Grampa.

“Crazy or not, there's only one way to go,” said Mrs. McSweeney.

Luna took the lead. Switching her luminous, extravagant tail, she started down the tunnel. Jacob and I followed close behind. Grampa and Mrs. McSweeney came last. Every once in a while Mrs. McSweeney would take the baby, cooing at him as if he were the most precious thing in the world. Which, in a way, I guess he was. When she wasn't carrying LD, I could hear her bickering with Grampa. Even though they were arguing, it didn't sound angry, more like the kind of disagreement that occurs between old friends. I began to wonder if they liked each other more than I had thought.

My mind kept going back to the battle in the Council Chamber. I was terribly worried about the Poets. Though we had barely met them, I had really liked them.

The tunnel twisted and turned, but that was no problem now that we had some light. The big question was how we were to get back to the surface. The Poets had said the tunnel would lead us out, but not how far we should go or what we might find along the way … not to mention what might be waiting for us if we
did
get back to the surface. How secret was this tunnel? If Mazrak and his crew had won, or fled, would they know where this would let us out?

That question was replaced by a new, more urgent one when we came to a place where the tunnel forked.

“Uh-oh,” said Luna. “Now what?”

The rest of us gathered around her to study the situation.

“Maybe both tunnels lead to the surface?” said Jacob hopefully.

“Yeah, and maybe a little pink bunny is gonna come hopping along to show us the way out,” snapped Grampa.

I flinched at the harsh words. The uncomfortable silence that followed was broken by Luna, who said, “Stranger things have happened, Mr. Carker. For example, you might find yourself traveling along a tunnel deep beneath the world of monsters with only the help of a glowing cat to show you the way. Oh, wait. I forgot. You're already doing that.”

“Never did like cats,” muttered Grampa. “Talkin' cats are even worse.”

I had spotted something that interested me. Moving closer to the spot where the tunnels split, I said, “Luna, dear, would you come here?”

Tail waving like a banner, she trotted to my side.

“Do you mind if I pick you up?”

“Not at all. I appreciate you being courteous enough to ask.”

I bent to scoop the cat into my arms, then lifted her to the wall of the tunnel on the left. I squinted at the stone for a while, then said, “Someone carved a set of symbols here. I recognize them from papers we found at Jacob's house.”

“What do they say?” asked Jacob.

I shifted Luna so I had one hand free, which I used to tuck the end of my thinking braid in my mouth. I chewed as I studied the symbols.

Frustration! Without the code key, I could make no sense of them.

“Look lower,” said Luna softly.

I crouched down and found additional marks, not carved but scrawled on the rock with what looked like charcoal:
SF WUZ HERE
.

Spitting out the braid, I read the words aloud.

Grampa snorted but managed to keep from saying anything, for which I was grateful.

“Are there markings on the wall of the other tunnel?” asked Mrs. McSweeney.

Still holding Luna, I went to examine the tunnel on the right. “None at all,” I reported.

“We might as well take the tunnel that has the markings,” she said. “We don't have anything else to go on.”

“I really don't know if they mean anything,” I protested. “Heck, they could even be a warning!”

But no one had a better idea, so a minute later we started down the tunnel on the left.

As we traveled, Jake and I told Mrs. McSweeney some of what had happened after we'd arrived in Always October.

We had been going on like this for about ten minutes when we came to a dead end. My gut clenched. “I'm sorry!” I moaned. “I told you I didn't know if those symbols meant anything.”

“Wait,” Jacob said. “Look!”

I saw what he meant. Gouged into the stone were indentations that looked like handholds. When I put my hand into one, I was delighted to discover that past the front edge the opening dipped down, making it easy to get a solid grip.

“Maybe this is our escape route!” I said.

Jacob sighed. “Even if the handholds lead to a way out, how could we climb it with the baby?”

More frustration!

What made it even worse was that when I looked up, I was sure I saw a glimmer of light. It was as if the light was teasing me, saying, “See? If you could just figure out how to get up here, you would be free!”

When I pointed out the light, Jacob said, “Lovely. But it doesn't solve the problem of climbing with Little Dumpling.”

Brainstorm!

“Maybe we could tie him to your back with that webbing Keegel Farzym gave you.”

Jacob shook his head dubiously. “I think we should go back and try the other tunnel.”

“No, no!” cried a familiar voice. “This is the right way. This is the
only
way. Come this way or die!”

B
oth parts of Sploot Fah came scrambling down the rock wall. When he was about ten feet overhead, he leaped to the floor, landing directly in front of us.

“Nice kitty!” cooed the one on the right, gazing at Luna.

The cat, who was crouched at Lily's feet, nodded her acceptance of the compliment but said nothing.

“Well, and you must be Sploot Fah,” said Mrs. McSweeney.

“I am!” cried both parts proudly.

“Why did you say ‘Come this way or die'?” I asked.

“Good way to get attention,” said one with a shrug.

“Besides, it's true,” said the other. “Sploot Fah
knows
tunnels.”

“Sploot Fah
knows
digging.”

“Sploot Fah knows many things, including where bad monsters wait for good babies—”

“Also where peoples carrying good babies can get up top safely.”

“And you just happened to be here waiting for us?” said Gnarly. “Sounds kinda suspicious to me.”

“Perhaps you should tell us more,” said Lily gently.

Both halves of the little monster began to speak at once. They stopped, scowled at each other, then began flipping their hands forward. I realized they were playing a game something like Paper, Scissors, Stone. Only instead of phrases like “paper wraps stone,” this one involved terms such as “gimwitz crinkles fludgnuks” and “fludgnuks bash borgle!”

When they were done, half the creature sighed and took a step back. The other half, who I guess was the winner, stepped forward.

“Sploot Fah was suspicious about baby,” he explained. “Sploot Fah had
questions
. So Sploot Fah followed, sometimes over ground, sometimes under. Then Sploot Fah saw that Mazrak also followed peoples. Sploot Fah don't like Mazrak, because—”