Always October (26 page)

I leaped to my feet as she came stumbling out of the forest. I was so happy to see her, I didn't even mind when she threw her arms around me.

“Luna did it!” she said. “She came into the forest and found me and guided me out and …”

She turned.

The cat was nowhere in sight.

“Where is she?” gasped Lily.

“Can't both escape Forest of the Lost,” said Toozle softly. “Kitty cat must have made trade … kitty stay in so Lily can come out.”

Lily's chin wobbled. She dropped to her knees and buried her face in her hands. “Oh, no,” she sobbed.
“Oh, no!”

I put a hand on her shoulder. She shook it off.

“Lily,” I said softly. “We have to move on. If we don't, Luna will have gotten herself stuck in there for nothing. Mazrak is on our trail. Who knows how close he might be?”

Face still buried in her hands, Lily nodded. She gave one last, shuddering sob, wiped her arm across her eyes, and got to her feet. “All right,” she whispered. “Let's get moving.”

There was no mistaking Teardrop Hill, for in the moonlight it did indeed look like a giant tear. It was tall, and quite steep. Even so, we might have been able to climb it … if not for the fact that the stone it was made of was smooth as glass.

At its base yawned a dark opening about nine feet high and six feet wide.

“Tunnel of Tears,” said Toozle, stopping about ten feet away and pointing. The fear in his voice was obvious.

“Why don't we go around?” I asked. “It wouldn't be that much farther.”

“Not much farther but lots dangerouser. Big traps and bad critters on each side. Tunnel is sadder but safer.”

“Why is it sadder?” Lily asked.

“Because it is Tunnel of Tears! You'll see. Come on.”

We glanced at each other. Lily shrugged. “No point in waiting.”

Side by side, we stepped forward. The instant we entered the tunnel, a wave of loss and despair swept over me. It was if every sorrow or pain I had ever experienced—from the smallest cut I had received as a stumbling baby to the heart wrench I'd suffered when Dad disappeared—had flooded back in one enormous wave of grief. My knees buckled, and I began to weep.

To my right I heard Lily sobbing; I suspected that what tore at her heart right now, even more than the loss of her parents, was the fate of her grandfather. That and her guilt over Luna.

LD, who was still in my arms, let out a wail so filled with grief that it doubled my own heartbreak.

How could a little baby have so much sorrow in him?

Maybe he missed his mother.

Suddenly Toozle flung himself to the floor. He began beating at his own head, screaming, “Half gone! Half gone!”

“Jacob!” Lily cried. “Stop him!”

I thrust the baby at her, then dropped down beside Toozle and grabbed his arms. The little creature was far stronger than me, but his grief made it hard for him to focus his strength.

“Stop,” I hissed. “Stop it, Toozle!”

“Half gone!” he wailed, thrashing beneath my grip. “Half gone, can't go on.”

Finally I picked him up and flung him over my shoulder. Still sobbing myself, I started forward. “Come on,” I said, between the choking spasms of grief. “We have to keep going.”

Toozle beat at my back, still screaming, “Half gone! Half gone!” But his blows were not hard, and I knew he was not trying to hurt me. It was just that he had so much pain, he couldn't hold it in.

I don't know how far we had gone when we came to a wall of silvery mist.

“That must be the Veil of Tears,” whispered Lily.

We hesitated for a moment, then stumbled through. We were encircled by mist, a ring about thirty feet wide. Ahead of us, on a throne of ivory, sat the Queen of Sorrows.

She didn't stay seated long. When we came lurching through the mist, she leaped to her feet. A look of horror—horror, but something more, something I did not yet understand—twisted her face.

“By the Eight Wings of Drakus, what have you done?” she cried.

Then she ran straight at us.

I thought it was finally over. We had made it this far, but the Queen was so big, and we were still so shaken by our trip through the tunnel, that I didn't think there was any way we could stop her from tearing us apart.

Still, when she went for Lily and Little Dumpling, I dropped Toozle and leaped forward to protect them. I can't say I was being brave, because I didn't have time to be afraid. It was as if my body moved on its own. I stood in front of Lily with my hands upraised, ready to fend off the Queen or die trying.

Her words, gushing forth on a wave of pain, made me drop my hands and step back.

“My baby!” she wailed. “My baby!”

Her voice throbbed with grief, with horror, with longing.

“Why have you brought him back to Always October? Why have you brought him back to
me
? What kind of monsters are you, to be so cruel?”

LD stretched his arms toward her, crying out to be taken. Plucking him from Lily's arms, the Queen of Sorrows cradled him against her chest, then sank to her knees, weeping.

It was too painful and too private to watch, and I turned away.

After a few minutes the monster's sobs began to fade. I turned back and saw Lily kneeling next to her, patting her back. She had to reach up to do it, because the monster—Meer Askanza, I suddenly realized—was so much bigger than she was.

LD was gooing happily, patting his mother's cheek as her enormous tears dropped to his face.

Toozle stood watching in amazement. He looked exactly the way I felt: baffled, and uncertain of what to do.

This moment when no one was moving gave me a chance to get a better look at the monster, who was weirdly beautiful. Her enormous eyes were tinted red—though whether this was their natural color or only a result of her weeping I could not tell. Her skin was blue, not quite as deep as a robin's egg, but close. Glossy hair, jet-black, tumbled down her back like a waterfall of ebony. Her hands, clutching LD tight to her bosom, were long and bony. She wore a robe the deep purple of a sky just before full night.

I had been working through something in my head, and suddenly it clicked into place. According to the story Mrs. McSweeney had told us, Meer Askanza was the child of Arthur Doolittle and Teelamun.

That made her my father's half-sister.

Which meant she was my half-aunt—a blood relative!

I was still trying to absorb this when Meer Askanza took a gasping breath and climbed to her feet. Still cradling LD, she said fiercely, “Do you have any idea what it cost me to take this baby to Humana? Any idea what it cost me to leave him there? Do you not comprehend the terrible risk of bringing him back here?”

We looked at each other, uncertain of what to say.

“I could kill you now with very little problem,” said my half-aunt. “So you had better answer me!”

Fear loosened my tongue. “You left him on my porch,” I said quickly. “My mother and I have been taking care of him, but the night before last—at least, I think that's when it was—a monster named Mazrak came through my closet and tried to kidnap him. Another monster called Keegel Farzym showed up and brought us to Always October to get away from Mazrak. We're trying to get the baby back to Humana. Keegel Farzym was going to help us, but we got separated when Mazrak and some other monsters attacked us.”

Meer Askanza's face was hard and angry. “Mazrak!” she spat, making the name sound like a curse word. She turned and went to her throne. She seated herself, still clutching LD, who was shaking his rattle and looking as happy as I had ever seen him.

“Have you met with the Council of Poets?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Lily. “They're the ones who told us we must get the baby back to Humana.”

Meer Askanza nodded. “What is your path, and what is your plan?”

Between the three of us—me, Lily, and Toozle—we managed to get out a more detailed explanation of what had happened and where we were supposed to go next.

My half-aunt looked troubled at the mention of Flenzbort but nodded. “That makes sense, in a terrible kind of way.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then said, “I must tell you my story before you can continue. That is the toll to pass through the Tunnel of Tears: the King or Queen of Sorrows must explain the grief that carried him or her to this place. In turn, you must listen, and absorb some of my pain, and make it your own before you can go.”

“So sometimes it's a king, and other times a queen?” asked Lily.

Meer Askanza nodded. “The Ivory Throne is reserved for the saddest monster in all of Always October. I will remain here until someone experiences a grief greater than mine. That may never happen, for my sorrow is vast and deep, and I see no way for it to ease. Indeed, I expect it will only grow worse once you leave, for to have held my babe once more and then be required for the good of both worlds to let him go again will be almost too much to bear.”

She drew a deep, shuddering breath, then began her tale. We already knew some of it, of course—that her mother, Teelamun, had come to our world, fallen in love with my grandfather, then returned to Always October to give birth.

However, the next thing she said gave my life one more twist toward the strange: “My brother and I were greeted with great rejoicing.”

The sentence itself was simple. What it implied was not.

“Brother?”
I cried.

“Yes. I am one of a set of twins.”

I
think Jacob actually staggered when Meer Askanza informed him that she was one of a set of twins. I was pretty sure I knew what he was thinking: in addition to having a monstrous half-aunt, this meant he also had a half-uncle who was part monster.

And I thought my family was weird!

I could tell he was too shocked to continue right then, so I picked up the conversation. “Where is your brother now?”

“Hot on your trail, I fear,” she replied.

That seemed to point to one candidate. With a shudder, I whispered, “Mazrak?”

“Of course.”

Toozle groaned.

The queen glared at him, then said, “Be still while I tell the rest of my story so that you can be on your way. Time is short and the cause is urgent. You may find something of use in what I have to tell you. Whether you do or not, say it I must.”

She drew a deep breath, then continued.

“My brother and I were happy little monsters, at least for the first years of our lives. We were doted on by our mother, and by our grandfather, Keegel Farzym. Alas, as time went on, Mazrak became surly and restless. Once we had been close and told each other all our secrets. Now he withdrew from me and wrapped himself in anger.

“Mother told me it was just a stage, but in time I came to realize it was more than that. While I was curious about our background, about being half human and half monster, and longed to see the human world, and to meet our father, Mazrak viewed the situation differently.”

“In what way?” asked Jacob.

Meer Askanza sighed. “My twin felt an enormous rage at not having a father. Some of that anger he focused on Mother, blaming her for taking us away from him. But as time went on, his anger turned inward, directed against himself.”

“Why?” I asked.

“He hated being half human—hated the division he felt within his heart. He was tormented by this halfness. Sometimes it seemed as if he wanted to tear himself in two, divide the monster self from the human … just as he now wants to tear apart the two worlds.”

She closed her eyes. “As it worked out, I am the one who has been torn in half.”

At a sound from Little Dumpling she shook her shoulders and opened her eyes once more. Caressing his head, she said, “In time Mazrak's anger grew so overwhelming that I began to fear him. Yet he was my twin, my other half, and I longed for him as much as I feared him … longed for the closeness we had felt when we were little. So I made a bad choice.”