Half World (11 page)

A pale gray neon light glowed blocky capitalized fake Grecian letters.

AGAME NO'S. Melanie wondered what the missing
letters were. The low murmur of voices coming from the room was quiet and almost soothing. She glanced over her shoulder, unable to stop herself. No one was staring at her, no one looked outwardly suspicious, but how could she be sure?

She ducked into the dark lounge.

Beneath the clouds of smoke Melanie could smell the sweetness of rum and the sharp antiseptic sting of vodka. Her mum had started out drinking hard liquor, but it was too expensive so she had switched to “healthier” beer. . . .

Vast rows of bottles glinted, lining the mirrored wall behind the bar counter. The bartender was as crisp and clean as a new one-hundred-dollar bill. He held his wares with a fine, cold grace, pouring liquid into glasses from bottles that never emptied.

Melanie slouched toward a dark corner with an empty curved booth seat, close to the exit. She could watch people as they entered and maybe figure out who it was that followed her.

A single candle flickered with a pale light on the round table. And peanuts! Salty peanuts in a bowl. Melanie's mouth watered. But was it safe to eat Half World food? Would it somehow trap her or make her sick?

Melanie looked around. It wasn't as if she could ask anyone. And she couldn't waste the question on the Magic 8 Ball. What if she had only one question left and she wasted it on peanuts?

Melanie slipped into the booth and sat down on the soft surface. She wondered if there was a legal drinking age in Half World. The alto sax twined around her, making her feel sleepy and sad. The place was three-quarters full, but most of the patrons were trapped in drunken stupors. Their heads lolled backward on the soft contours of the cushy booths and they snored loudly, snorting now and then for air as their larynxes collapsed.

“What'll you have, kid?” a tired voice rasped.

Melanie jerked with surprise.

The woman who leaned against her table looked hardly older than she was, but dark circles rimmed her eyes, blank and unseeing. A tray perched on one palm, the woman with the dead eyes and beehive hairdo had a tumor on her throat the size of Melanie's fist.

“Could I just have some water?” Melanie gulped. “Please?” she added.

The beehive woman didn't even answer. She wandered off, eyes staring sightlessly to one side.

“Trouble,” Melanie muttered, slouching lower into her seat. “Bad trouble in this place.” Hands shaking, she awkwardly slipped the backpack off her shoulders. She would try the 8 Ball again. Maybe this was the time it would give her an answer. Tell her where she should go next to find her mum. She had to get away from the Mirages Hotel. She wanted to find a safe place. Even in Half World there must be some place that was safe.

Melanie's eyes drifted back to the peanuts. Unable to stop herself, she selected one from the bowl and stared at it intensely. Would she be doomed to live out eternity in Half World for a single peanut? Her stomach writhed and growled with a deep gnawing hunger. She sniffed the nut. It smelled normal. Before she could change her mind Melanie popped it in her mouth.

It tasted like a regular peanut. The salt and fat made her want to swoon. Melanie had no more thoughts of enchanted food or fairy-tale traps. She grabbed a handful of the greasy snack and tossed it back. Keeping her eye on the exit, she continued eating with one hand as she awkwardly pulled at the zipper of the backpack with the other.

The first thing she noticed was the smell.

It was a heavy cloud that sank, settled around her in a wash of alcohol-sweet sweat, acrid cigarette smoke, and the putrid tang of dried puke. Slowly, unwillingly, she looked up.

A pale suit, outdated and too small, did little to hide an un-tucked dirty T-shirt. The man's beer belly flopped over the cinching of his belt, and his fly was down at half-mast. Flecks of old vomit had dried on the wide lapels of his suit where a crumpled tissue had been crammed into a buttonhole like a used carnation. Clinging to his arm was a beautiful woman with long black hair, wearing a floor-length black gown. Her eyes were completely rolled back in her head. Only the whites showed, gleaming, like peeled hard-boiled eggs.

The stinking body thumped onto the soft booth couch like a rotting corpse, the leather squeaking beneath its weight. It bobbled toward Melanie, unsteadily, and it opened its mouth. The wet sweet-sour breath of gin. The sweaty boozy smell was oozing from his very pores and the stink washed over Melanie's face.

“What'cha doing here alone, sweetheart?” the man leered. He slumped toward her, half falling, and his companion, despite her rolled-back eyes, grabbed his arm and pulled him upright. “Thank you, thank you,” he said, enunciating carefully and with great dignity. He turned to Melanie and blearily blinked his eyes. “You know, you kinda look like a girlfriend I used to have a long time ago,” he slurred. “Can you take off your sunglasses? Are you staying in this hotel?”

Melanie cringed backward, shaking her head. Something felt horribly wrong. Something about him. She'd seen him somewhere before. In the lobby? Was he the one who had been following her?

“Cat got your tongue?” He nudged closer. “Come on,” he wheedled. “Lemme see your eyes.” He raised both arms slowly, his hands extended to grab her sunglasses.

His hands.

He was missing the pinkie of his left hand. The flesh wasn't healed over with scars. It was ragged and bloodless.

His pinkie—

Melanie stared at his face.

Her heart stuttered.

The photo. On her mother's bed stand.

She pressed her trembling hand over her mouth.

“You sick, sweetheart?” the drunk murmured sympathetically. “You can puke anywhere you want. No one cares.”

This disgusting drunk was her father. . . .

She retched, chunks of peanuts burning sour and acrid, a mealy splat atop the table.

Her father nodded approvingly. “Better have another drink,” he advised. “Before the last one wears off.” He turned to his companion, who was waiting patiently beside the booth. “Let's take her to that penthouse party. You don't mind, do ya, hon?”

Melanie snatched her backpack and ran, ran, mindless. Sight-less.

“Hey!” her father shouted from across the room.

She didn't look back. She burst out of the bar and into the light. A rough arm wrapped around Melanie's neck from behind, clamping a hand over her mouth, stopping her scream. The sudden grab yanked the feet from under her.

The attacker began dragging her backward. As Melanie tried to kick and scream, the hand over her mouth tightened and gave her a little shake, the sunglasses falling off, to clatter upon the ground.

“You have something of mine,” a voice wheezed. “I can smell it!”

Melanie sagged with defeat.

She had been caught out. Her disguise wasn't enough.

The person who was dragging her was so wiry and strong. Her grip was like steel, and Melanie could not even dig her heels into the ground to slow their progress. The attacker kicked a small door open and yanked her through, dragging her down a long, cold, dark passage.

Melanie watched as she was pulled farther and farther from the light.

The small door swung shut.

SHE HAD BEEN
caught. By one of Mr. Glueskin's denizens. Or a random mad Half Worlder. Whoever or whatever it was, she was discovered. It was over before she had even found her mother. It was all over.

The despair and fear were terrible. She was paralyzed. She hadn't even the strength to struggle. She was dragged like a sack of rice down the long, dark, and narrow hallway. The stink of mildew made the air thick.

The steely arm around her neck shifted.

The clanking of a heavy lock, the rattle of chains: it must be the dungeon, Melanie thought dully.

A second door creaked open. Warmer air wafted outward and brought with it a familiar smell, one that for the life of her, she could not place—

Dust and books . . . the musty and slightly mold-tinged odor of ancient books upon books. It smelled like Macleod's, where tomes were stacked into piles and mounds, riches mixed in with the pulp, towering to the ceiling.

The sudden glare of light blinded.

Melanie was dumped unceremoniously onto the floor. The heavy door creaked shut and locked with a loud clank. The vast room filled with books and scrolls and parchment and stone tablets seemed to lean in toward her.

Melanie stared up at her abductor.

She was an ancient woman, dressed in cast-off clothing, her scraggly white hair tangled and knotted, her small eyes glinting wildly in her dark wrinkled face. Her abductor was scarcely taller than she was, and Melanie quaked at how she had managed to drag her body so easily. Melanie took a deep breath.

“Why—” Her voice cracked. She swallowed hard and tried once more, her words soft but clear. “Why have you brought me here?”

The woman suddenly dropped onto all fours. She shoved her face into Melanie's and the girl scrambled backward, even as the old woman scuttled forward.

“Uh! Uh!” Melanie gasped, until her way was blocked by a mound of books.

“You have something of mine!” the ancient woman hissed, her face too close. “Give it back to me!”

My life, Melanie thought, her heart gulping inside her throat. She wants to be alive. Like I am. She wants my life for her own. . . .

The maddened woman reached out with two gnarled hands. But instead of wrapping them around her neck, the old woman began patting the outside of Melanie's clothes. As if she was looking for something. She found the unzipped pocket and eagerly crammed her hand inside.

The old woman gave a jubilant cry.

She yanked her hand out, fingers clenched into a fist, the red strings of the jade amulet dangling.

“Oh!” Melanie cried out, reaching out to grab the woman's arm, but she scurried back, holding the amulet to her chest, her second hand pressed protectively over her closed fist.

“It's here! Found! After all these years. These eons! This interminable Half Life! Jade Rat! Jade Rat! You are returned to me!” The old woman's voice broke apart. She sank to her knees, eyes closed, and great tears rolled down her wrinkled face.

From between the cracks of her fingers a green light began to glow, stronger, brighter, and the old woman opened her eyes. Wonderingly, she opened her hand and the brilliant light filled the cavernous room. As if a warm breeze was lifting off the small bright stone, the old woman's tangled hair began to stir. For a moment the air smelled sweet, like a stand of young aspens after a spring rain.

Melanie, her mouth slightly open, could only stare with wonder. The green light flared, a halo around the old woman's torso, then it began to fade, growing dimmer, the rays shrinking, until all that was left was a small emerald ember inside the heart of the stone.

Melanie looked up at the old woman's face. The hard lines beside her mouth, the harsh glint to her eyes had faded. She looked human.

The old woman slumped to her bottom. She gazed at the glowing amulet in her palm. The face she raised was full of peace.

“Child,” the old woman said, gently. “I thank you. With all my spirit.”

Melanie gulped. Several seconds passed. “You're welcome,” Melanie said softly, accepting the old woman's gratitude. She didn't know exactly what had happened, but it seemed that she wasn't going to die. Yet.

They both sagged with a weary sigh.

There was a shimmer of movement in the old woman's trembling palm. The small jade amulet shivered from stone to creature, and Jade Rat, stiff whiskers bobbing wildly with excitement, ran up the old woman's arm to nestle against her cheek.

Melanie's heart gave a pang of envy.

The woman raised her hand to gently cup the trembling rat. “By what grace are you here with me, after all these years, dear, dear companion?” Great tears rolled down the woman's cheeks. Tears of joy.

“Gao Zhen Xi,” Jade Rat whispered with a softness Melanie had never heard before.

“I have been lost, in the mad cycles of Half World, for thousands upon thousands of years. And yet you have brought me light. I am like someone woken inside my own nightmare.” The old woman shook her head slowly. “Child”—she turned to Melanie—“how is it that you have brought change to this place?”

Melanie shook her head. “I've come here, to Half World, to find my mother. She's been kidnapped by someone called Mr. Glueskin. Ididn't know anything about Half World, but Ithink this is where my parents came from. My friend, Ms. Wei, she gave me Jade Rat for luck. She said she comes from a long line of scholars and archivists. . . . ” She looked around at the immeasurable numbers of books in the cavernous room. The ceilings, where bare lightbulbs shone, were over twenty-five feet high and arched like catacombs. “Why do you know Jade Rat? Do you know Ms. Wei?”