May Bird Among the Stars (22 page)

After that came a wide-open space full of Dark Spirits, all sitting in the shadow of a craggy mountain. High up, an arching, glowing purple sign read
PHLOAT-IN PHANTASMAGORIA.

Beneath the sign, a giant ghoul, at least twenty feet high, moved back and forth to the oohs and aahs of the spectators who were watching. May let out a squeal and ducked just as one of the ghoul's arms moved above the raft, then swept back to land. She raised her eyes and peered over the side to see where it had gone, and then gasped.

It was only a projection.

As they floated on through, peering over the lip of the raft while lying on their bellies, May and Somber Kitty watched the giant holo-movie being projected into the air.

The film, which was silent and completely three-dimensional, showed two ghouls whistling and walking along the sea, looking pensive. Loud sniffles rose from the crowd. A song played in the background. It sounded a lot like “Wind Beneath My Wings,” one of May's mom's favorite songs.

The raft rounded a corner. As it did, May's eyes fell back to the crowd, and she saw something that made her limbs go tingly.

He was with a group of other captives, handing out slurpy
sodas to greedy, grabby ghoul hands. He looked beaten and almost
… withered,
his soul wispy-looking and dimmer than it had been the last time she'd seen him. His back arched over his work, and his head hung down on his neck, not a hint of mischief or youth in his posture, not a touch of light.

He was no longer luminous. But he was Lucius, no mistake.

At first Ellen Bird thought she was imagining things.

Up ahead, through an opening in the briars, she saw something she had never seen in all her years living in dry, droughty Briery Swamp. A lake.

Slowly, carefully, she pushed the last of the briars aside with her feet Her boots squelched as she stepped onto the soft muddy ground of the clearing and looked up at the dusky, cloudless sky.

Suddenly, with a sound like a giant light switch being flicked, the lake lit up.

Ellen, startled, took a step backward against the vines.

“Ouch!” She pulled forward again and gazed about. Nothing around her had changed, except the lake was glowing like a television set.

Wringing her hands together nervously, Ellen made her way slowly to the waters edge, until her toes came right up to it. She leaned forward and peered in.

The raft drifted into a cave lined by spindly walking paths on each side. May gazed over its back end at the purple light of the opening they had just come through, smoothed her bangs to either side of her forehead, and looked at Kitty. And then she stuck her hands in the water and began to stroke furiously.

Kitty looked at her like she'd lost her mind.

As soon as she had gotten close enough to the wall of the cave, she reached out and tried to jam her hands into a crevice. The current was too strong, though. By the time May finally managed to slow the boat, they were nearing the other side of the cave. May swept Kitty into her right arm and leaped onto the small dirt path.

As she landed, she remembered she should have somehow anchored the raft, but when she turned, it was already drifting away quickly, carried by the current.

May swallowed. And then she and Kitty made their way back toward the light.

At the lip of the cave the two paused and peered up along the bank of the river. No view of Lucius. May scrambled up the rise, Kitty reluctantly following right at her heels. They both ducked behind a rock.

Up in the air ahead, the phantasmagoria flickered. As the Dark Spirits in the audience jabbered, shushed one another, and sucked on their slurpy sodas, May scanned the crowd again for Lucius and caught a glimpse of him, drifting over by the concession stand. May looked about for a way to get his attention.

Before she could think of one, the last scene of the movie flickered to an end, and the ghouls began to move around, stretching their arms and blowing their noses.

As a couple of ghouls gestured and jabbered loudly, the prisoners started moving, Lucius among them. And May and Somber Kitty followed.

The ghouls and their captives disappeared down a series of alleys, then into a cave. Slinking in the purple shadows, May and Kitty trailed them, looking like flies drifting into a yawning mouth.

Through curving tunnels, they drifted on, May and Kitty shrinking back into nooks and crevices when the ghouls turned to chatter at one another. Lucius did not turn around or even swivel his head to the side, and May began to doubt herself, wondering if it was really him. They got farther and farther away from the river, curving this way and that.

Soon the group ahead came to an opening, and everyone stopped.

The ghouls shouted at their captives, directing them forward.

May and Kitty waited until they'd all gone ahead, then crept into a niche to the left and, hidden, took in the incredible sight around them.

They had come to an enormous cavern lined on all sides with rocks, smelly black water dribbling down their jagged edges. The walls of the cavern rose so high that no ceiling was in sight—only a gray, filmy mist. Slimy dark algae clung to the rocks and hung down in soppy wet strings. And here and there, nestled into crannies in the rocks, were what looked to be a thousand or more goblins.

Some were sleeping, some were gathered in groups listening to music or watching holo-vision, some were doing their nails or modeling clothes for one another. They smiled at each other with their impossibly long fangs, then occasionally tried to push each other off the rocks. One succeeded from time to time, its victim dashing against the rocks below and then slowly climbing back up again, laughing and pretending to think it was a good joke. And then it would reach the perpetrator and try to gnaw off one of its limbs.

A gaggle of them was dangling from the ceiling doing circus tricks.

Trash was strewn everywhere: shopping bags, dirty socks, discarded clothing, old tiaras. The prisoners dispersed among the trash and began to pick it up, dropping it into heavy black sacks.

Her heart pounding. May kept her eyes on Lucius, whose back was still to her. He was picking up one of the old socks sluggishly, too defeated to be disgusted. He merely let go of the sock and swiveled toward the next piece of trash.

May looked at Somber Kitty, wondering what to do to get Lucius's attention. But Kitty saw what she wanted and acted quickly, backing his hindquarters up to the edge of the crevice that hid them and waving his tail at Lucius. Lucius turned his dull eyes toward the motion, curiosity crossing his face briefly. He looked at his captors, who had sat down to a game of pinochle.

May and Kitty sank back into the crevice and waited with bated breath. Presently, an arm appeared in the open space, picking up a pink feather boa that was lying on the ground. And then Lucius's face appeared, peering in at them surreptitiously. His eyes widened, and at the same time, a tiny hint of a glow lit him up from the inside.

There was no time to lose. May leaped forward and, stretching as far as she could, grabbed him by the collar of his blue jacket, slapped a hand over his mouth, and pulled him backward.

Lucius tried to let out a startled yell, but Somber Kitty leaped on his chest, with back arched, and the yell died in his throat.

Lucius lay there, flat on his back, his eyes moving to May's. For a moment a big, mischievous smile started creeping to his face, but then something else seemed to dawn on him, and his face went dark and stormy.

“What are you doing?” he hissed. He swept Kitty aside and stood up, glaring at May.

She held her finger to her lips. “Saving you. Shhh.”

Lucius took this in, then shook his head furiously. “Uh-uh. No thanks. You've done enough already.”

Somber Kitty, who'd run to the head of the crevice to keep watch, gave them both an annoyed look, and they both shut
their mouths tight. Lucius backed up against the wall opposite May, looking alarmed and unsure whether to stay or flee.

May stared at the opening until, eventually, she felt Lucius eyeing her. Her cheeks burned.

“Something's different about you,” he finally whispered.

“I'm deader than before,” May murmured, annoyed. She had never told Lucius she actually wasn't dead at all—and she wasn't about to now.

Lucius considered this, then shrugged. “I don't really fancy being rescued by a girl, half dead or all dead. Especially one who got me trapped in an underworld of eternal torment and misery.”

May rolled her eyes at him. He kept his profile to her. He had the same messy blond hair, blue eyes, and flushed cheeks that May remembered. He was still taller than her, still older than her. But the smile was missing.

May softened. What he'd said was true.

“Especially one as inept as you,” he added.

May crossed her arms in front of her stomach. She didn't even know what the word “inept” meant. “I think
you're
the one who's inept.”

Kitty looked back over his shoulder and again scolded them with his glare.

“Sorry,” she whispered to Kitty.

They stood awhile, listening to the sounds of the goblins echoing around the cavern, nobody knowing quite what to do next.

“What are you doing with a cat, anyway?” Lucius finally asked.

Somber Kitty pulled his small death shroud closer with his teeth.

“Long story.” May gave Lucius a hard look. “Now, do you want to escape or not?”

Lucius looked surprisingly indifferent as he thought about it. Finally, he shrugged. “All right. I'm in. We should stick something in their ears,” he said. “I have all sorts of things I've nicked. Ecto-spasm syrup, Specter Spew shampoo, Soul Shrinker …”

“That'll never work,” May said. She didn't know what those things were, but she knew it was crazy to try to confront all those goblins. They'd have to sneak out. It couldn't be that hard, since they'd snuck their way in. “How do we go down from here?” she asked.

Lucius stuck his chin in the air. ‘“
Why
would we go down?”

May paused. “Um. I need to get something.”

“From where?”

“The Bogey's bedroom.”

Lucius's faint glow flickered. His pretty blue eyes turned wide and scared, and then his eyebrows descended darkly.

“You must be joking.”

Somber Kitty eyed him to let him know they couldn't be more serious.

Lucius shook his head and began to back away. “No. Definitely not. I won't go.”

“But …”

Lucius quickly drifted backward toward the mouth of the crevice. At the same moment Somber Kitty let out a hiss, and May swiveled to look behind her, a tiny yelp escaping.

She was faced by a creature directly in front of her, floating at shin height.

It was black and fluffy, with a pink bow in its hair. It stared at her and let out a tiny mew.

“Poor thing!” May whispered, reaching out toward it. Where were all these cats coming from? This one looked a lot like the one they'd seen at Risk Falls. Behind her, Somber Kitty growled.

“Mew?” the cat asked sweetly, tilting its fluffy head, its pink bow leaning jauntily to the right.

“Here, little kitty,” May whispered. “I won't hurt you.”

She expected the cat to either run away or float toward her shyly, but she did not expect what happened next. The small creature floated higher and higher into the air and began to puff out like a balloon.

In another second Somber Kitty had leaped between May and the black cat, his fuzz standing on edge, his tail straight as a flagpole, his teeth bared.

“Kitty? What—?” She reached for him, but as she did, something yanked her backward by the waist, and she let out a scream. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Lucius, squirming and struggling in the strong, stubby arms of a goblin.

“Kitty!” May's eyes shot to where Kitty had been floating just a moment before. But he—and the cat with the pink bow—were gone.

Ellen Bird stood on the lakes edge, mesmerized by something she saw inexplicably far beneath the surface. It appeared to be a point of light floating up toward her.

As it got closer, the light took the shape of a figure. And the figure got larger and larger, like it was coming from somewhere very deep, deep down. It looked to he a woman, now that it was closer A beautiful woman with hair swirling all around her. The woman flipped and twisted as gracefully as a water dancer.

When the mysterious swimmer was only a few feet away, her eyes met Ellen's. She smiled, and all of Ellen's worries and fears and sadness of the past months seemed to melt away. The frown on Ellen's lips—that frown that had been there since the day May had gone—slipped off of her face. Ellen Bird sighed, feeling amazingly peaceful. The woman's smile seemed to say, I see you. I understand you. I know.

M
any looked about. She was in a colorless, square room, open on one side. Lucius lay in a ball in the corner, hiding his face. Kitty was nowhere to be seen.

Posters hung on one of the walls covered with phrases like:
WHY TRY?
and
ALL WE ARE IS DUST IN THE WIND.
A book sat on a tiny table nearby:
Life: A Whole Lotta Trouble For Nothin'.
May stood up on wobbly legs and walked toward the side of the room where there was no wall, but as soon as she reached the threshold, there was a loud
zap!

“Ouch!” May grabbed her elbow and backed up.

“Invisible bars, silly.”

May swiveled. Lucius had sat up and was gazing at her forlornly.

“I've got to get Somber Kitty,” she said, turning back to the invisible bars. She reached out to push against them. Again, they zapped her hands. Undefeated, she kicked them. Then she tried to ram them, getting her shoulder and her back zapped over and over.