Gustav Gloom and the Nightmare Vault (19 page)

Fernie stared at her father, loving him but also hating him; knowing he was right but also that he was wrong; knowing that he only wanted to protect her, and also knowing how much it hurt him to hurt her.

She was too afraid of what would come out of her mouth if she tried to argue, so she said, “May I be excused?”

He looked like his heart had broken. “Fernie, if you need to talk about this—”

“No,” she said, knowing that he could not have felt worse if she’d thrown a tantrum and fought him. “It’s okay. I understand. May I be excused?”

His shoulders slumped. “Yes, Fernie. Don’t worry about the dishes. I’ll clean up.”

She took the dishes to the sink anyway, then went back to her room and closed the door, not coming out again for the rest of the day.

It wasn’t until the next morning, when her father was busy on the phone talking to real estate agents, that Fernie slipped outside and stood beneath the bright light of the morning sun. She cast no shadow until her shadow, who she’d sent to tell Gustav she wanted to talk to him, flitted across the well-kept pavement of Sunnyside Terrace and returned to her, with the proud air of a spy who had just accomplished a dangerous mission.

Across the street, Gustav stood at the fence with a shape that she recognized as Great-Aunt Mellifluous, both waiting to see what she would do. She went to them, meeting them at the fence instead of circling around to the gate.

Behind the iron bars, wearing another of his identical little black suits, Gustav had never looked so imprisoned. “Hi.”

Fernie’s eyes burned. “Hi.” She looked at Great-Aunt Mellifluous. “Hi.”

“Hello, dear,” Great-Aunt Mellifluous said. “I see that you’ve recovered from your ordeal. I know you sent for Gustav alone, but I wanted to apologize to you for not being there when you needed me; I wish I could have been with you throughout, but I had lots of hiding shadows to protect.”

“And a little boy,” Fernie was unable to resist saying, “who you didn’t.”

Great-Aunt Mellifluous drew back as if hurt, but nodded in acknowledgment that she deserved that much. “We’ll talk later, dear. There are many things that need to be said.”

She dissolved, like a creature of sugar who had just been doused with warm water, and joined the flowing gray mists at Gustav’s feet.

He blinked at Fernie. “You’re saying good-bye, right?”

She didn’t ask him how he knew. She supposed he’d always known. He couldn’t have been the boy he was, always looking out at the
world through the iron bars of the Gloom estate fence, and not known that there would always be times when the strangeness he lived with drove potential friends away.

She could only tell him. “My dad says we’re moving. Pearlie and I are both working on changing his mind.”

“That’s good,” he said, without showing much faith that it would amount to anything. “I’m glad.”

She closed her fists around the iron bars and squeezed them, as if just by wanting to she could twist them like pretzels, rip the fence down, and pull Gustav into the world with her. She looked away, warned herself not to cry, and then turned back to him with dry eyes. “But there’s more, Gustav. I…”

“What?” he said.

“Gustav…I spent all day yesterday lying in my bed, thinking about everything that happened to us…and I think I’ve figured out what you wouldn’t tell me. I know who became your mom after Penny died.”

“Really?”

“It had to be someone who witnessed everything that happened inside the car when
October’s shadows attacked. It had to be someone who was also able to take you from Penny and carry you away from the wreckage, alive, even though you hadn’t even been born yet. It had to be someone who could keep you safe inside her until you were ready to be born, someone who could be your mother with Penny gone. It had to be someone who would do anything to protect you; someone your father would trust, whose story your father would believe; someone who would stay with you and raise you long enough to tell you what happened; someone who, just by being your mom until something happened to her, too, would make you what Hieronymus called you, a halfsie, half boy, half shadow. There’s only one person I can think of who would fit all of that. Your mother was
the shadow of
the woman who
would have been
your mother. She was Penny’s shadow, left behind after Penny died.”

He said nothing.

Fernie went on: “That’s the real reason you start evaporating if you ever walk outside the house’s gates. It’s not because you’re like a vampire, burning up under the sun. That’s what I thought when we first met, but there’s a
big ball of sunlight in your house and it doesn’t bother you at all. No, you burn when you leave your property because only the shadow magic in your house can keep a halfsie boy alive.”

He couldn’t look at her.

Fernie waited until she couldn’t stand the wait any longer and burst out, “Where’s Penny’s shadow, Gustav? What happened to her?”

“I don’t know. She was just gone one day. But it must have been my fault. I know that much.”

Fernie felt her cheeks growing hot. “What?”

“That’s what I know, Fernie. That’s what I’ve always known.”

“I’m sorry, Gustav. But that’s the single dumbest thing I’ve ever heard anybody say.”

He seemed desperate for her to understand. “But if my parents hadn’t been about to have me, they wouldn’t have come back to this house. October wouldn’t have become afraid of them deciding he couldn’t stay. Penny wouldn’t have died. My father wouldn’t have gone after him, and wouldn’t be a prisoner wherever he is now. I wouldn’t be stuck here. All of that was my fault. Whatever happened to my shadow mom must have been my fault, too. Everything bad that’s ever happened here was because of me.”

He didn’t cry, maybe because he’d already cried all he could over these thoughts, but he did seem to wilt a little, as if wanting to crumble into nothingness where he stood.

Fernie had only a second to act before he would have turned away and she would have lost him forever. So she reached through the bars, grabbed his wrists, and pulled him toward her.

“Don’t you ever think that again,” she said angrily. “You weren’t even around when it all started and couldn’t have done anything to stop it. Nothing that happened to your family was because of you. It was all October’s fault. Everything bad that happened to your family was because of
him
.”

His pale eyes turned wide and startled as he considered this really quite simple point for what may have been the first time in his short but very strange life.

She saw it sink in and become real to him.

They hugged through the bars until the front door of the What house opened and Fernie’s father called her home.

Repeating a theme from the first volume: You would not now be seeing this book without the persistence of agents extraordinaire Joshua Bilmes and Eddie Schneider of the Jabberwocky Literary Agency. You would not now be reading it in its present form without the input of the members of the South Florida Science Fiction Society Writers’ Workshop, a group that includes Brad Aiken, Dave Dunn, Dave Slavin, and Chris Negelein. You would not now be enjoying the same experience free of verbal land mines and other clutter without the ace red pen of editor Jordan Hamessley and copy editors Kate Ritchey and Laura Stiers. You would not now be
ooh
ing and
aah
ing over the illustrations without the genius of artist Kristen Margiotta. You would not now be holding the divine artifact in your hands without designer Christina Quintero. You would not now be seeing any books from me at all without the patience, love, and constant encouragement of my beautiful wife, Judi B. Castro. You would not now be seeing a human being with my name and my face were it not for my parents, Saby and Joy Castro.

Also, just to keep matters interesting, you may have noticed that
chapter 3
of this volume makes reference to a man who was once saved from freezing to death, by a pig. I wasn’t kidding, people. That happened to me, at about age thirteen. So while we’re thanking everybody, let’s give a hearty thumbs-up to that pig.

Adam-Troy Castro
has said in interviews that he likes to jump genres and styles and has therefore refused to ever stay in place long enough to permit the unwanted existence of a creature that could be called a “typical” Adam-Troy Castro story. As a result, his short works range from the wild farce of his Vossoff and Nimmitz tales to the grim Nebula nominee “Of a Sweet Slow Dance in the Wake of Temporary Dogs.” His twenty prior books include a nonfiction analysis of the Harry Potter phenomenon, four Spider-Man adventures, and three novels about his interstellar murder investigator, Andrea Cort (including a winner of the Philip K. Dick Award,
Emissaries from the Dead
). Adam’s other award nominations include eight Nebulas, two Hugos, and three Stokers. Adam lives in Miami with his wife, Judi, and three insane cats named Uma Furman, Meow Farrow, and Harley Quinn.

Kristen Margiotta
attended the University of Delaware, where she majored in Visual Communications with a concentration in Illustration. Kristen received the Visual Communications Award for Excellence in Illustration, along with another colleague, during her final year at the university. When she graduated in 2005, Kristen began receiving commissions from buyers and selling her paintings. She also began exhibiting at regional galleries and events. In 2009, Kristen illustrated her first children’s book,
Better Haunted Homes and Gardens
, and made her southwest gallery debut at the Pop Gallery in New Mexico. Her first NYC gallery exhibit was at the Animazing Gallery in 2012. Besides being an artist and illustrator, Kristen teaches at the Center for the Creative Arts in Yorklyn, Delaware, working with creative and exciting students who enjoy the arts.