Nieve (8 page)

“Night school,” she said tonelessly. “We're starting night school.”

“Night school?”

Alicia nodded and licked her lips, her full attention devoted to the grim pastry in the bakery window. That's when Nieve saw that her tongue was black. It wasn't simply stained from eating black candy, but had turned black. She tried not to stare, but it was so freakish and ugly. Not that Alicia noticed.

“I don't want to go to school at night,” Nieve said quietly. Amazing, but she was beginning to feel sorry for Alicia. “Going during the day is bad enough. Why do you?”

“No choice. You'll have to go, too. The truant officer will come and get you. He's horrible. I've seen him. He'll come at night and drag you out of your bed.”

“I'd like to see him try,” Nieve said stoutly.

“Don't worry, you will.” Alicia finally turned to look at her.

Nieve saw then how zoned-out she was, her eyes drained of their usual spark and glint. This wasn't the exasperating Alicia she knew. Exasperating, but still lively and full of herself and with-it. Those treats aren't jawbreakers, Nieve thought, they're
mindbreakers
.

“Alicia, listen, don't eat any more of those candies or anything else like them. They're
really
not good for you. They're harming you.”

“That's a laugh,” Alicia said, not laughing at all, but turning once again toward the window to stare and stare at the black cake.

Nieve knew she had even more reason now to see Mayor Mary. She backed away from Alicia and ran headlong to the clinic, troubled, but not without hope that Mary would understand what was happening and know how to stop it. When she arrived, however, and pushed eagerly through the door, she found the clinic abandoned. No one was minding the front desk and no one was seated on the chairs lined up against the wall reading tattered old magazines and waiting their turn for whatever medical advice the mayor had to offer.

Unsure of what to do next, Nieve walked over to the receptionist's desk. She'd noticed that a pile of papers had fallen onto the floor beside it, along with a couple of pens and a tongue depressor. A coffee mug with a jokey
I'd Rather Be
Dancing
inscription lay toppled over on the desk, as if the mug itself had given dancing a shot and it hadn't worked out. Drips of coffee were splattered on the pages of the appointment book and a large, sloppy stain had spread over the ink blotter. She touched it – still damp. Several empty medicine bottles sat on the blotter, lids tossed aside. She picked one up and read the label:
SCATTERBRAIN'S SUPER-DUPER
EXTRA-STRENGTH HEADACHE PILLS.
Mary must have come down with a terrible headache, Nieve concluded. No surprise there. The headache must have been so sudden and sharp that she'd knocked over her coffee and the papers and . . . and . . . had gone home.

At a loss, Nieve supposed she'd have to go home, too. Spotting a box of tissues on the filing cabinet next to the desk, she wondered if it would be okay to take it if she left a note promising to replace it later. Hesitating – it didn't seem right – she heard a faint muffled sound coming from somewhere in the back. She crept over to the door of the consulting room and put her ear against it. Nothing. As quietly as possible, she turned the knob and opened the door a crack. She peeked in, but saw no one. Nor was there anywhere for a person to hide – or be stashed – since the room contained only a couple of chairs, an examining table, Dr. Morys' desk, a small cabinet, a garbage can, and a sink. This was a room she was familiar with, having seen Dr. Morys here for some bad colds and sore throats, and once a sprained ankle. (“Ahh, Nieve no more running for you, I'm afraid,” Dr. Morys had said. Fortunately, he'd winked at her when he said it.)

She heard the voice again, still muffled but louder, so slipped into the consulting room and crept over to the window that overlooked the lane behind the clinic. Outside were three child-sized figures dressed in black leggings and short cloaks, baggy hoods over their heads, obscuring their faces. They were struggling to load a body into the back of the idling ambulance, a body that was wrapped from head to foot like a mummy in gauzy swaths of spider silk. Their captive was fighting hard, squirming and wriggling in an effort to wrench free. Muzzled, the captive's angry protests were smothered, the voice squashed and unrecognizable.
Almost
unrecognizable.

Nieve tugged desperately at the window, trying to yank it open. It was jammed shut. The only way out was through the front door. She tore out of the consulting room, ran past the reception desk, and out the door. Without slowing, she turned sharply at the corner of the building and sped down the alley beside the clinic . . . but she was too late! By the time she got to the back lane, the ambulance was pulling away. Frantically, she searched the ground, seizing a rock to throw at it, a last ditch effort to stop them, but already the ambulance was speeding down the lane toward the road that led out of town.

She hurled the rock furiously in its wake.

Mayor Mary! Nieve had failed her, but what could she have done? Not only had she been outnumbered, but the figures themselves, although small, were
not
children. When the ambulance had peeled away, spinning its tires and spitting gravel, one of the abductors had turned to stare at her. His hood had fallen onto his shoulders revealing a bald head and a clenched, rag-grey face. His yellow eyes, taking her in, were as sharp as pins.

–Nine–
Truant

“
T
he nights are getting longer,” Sutton said, staring out at the starless sky.

That's for sure
, Nieve thought. Longer, denser, and more
sudden.
At exactly five o'clock the dark had come racing in from all sides and swallowed up what little light was left in the day.

“Dad?” She tried to get his attention, not easy these days. She'd never known her father to stand around so much like a gowk – Gran's word – aimless and jingling the loose change in his pockets. “
Is
Gran home yet?”

“Nope. She'd drop by if she were, wouldn't she?”

“Guess so.” She listened to him jingling his change, which reminded her. Reaching into her pocket, she said, “Here's that ten dollars.”

He smiled down at her, accepting the bill. “Hey, thanks En. I'll pay you back.”

“No Dad, it's your–”

“This'll top up what I need for the sitter.”

“But–”

“Nieve is old enough to stay on her own.” Sophie had swept into the room, dressed to the hilt in a black evening gown and satin heels, tear-shaped onyx earrings and matching necklace. Splashy compared with her usual working clothes, but Nieve knew this job involved high-class sympathy. Probably lots of weeping of a snobbier sort, snivelling discreetly into lacy hankies between sips of champagne.

“I don't want her to be alone,” Sutton shrugged. “I called Becky to come over.”

“Unnecessary.” Sophie pulled on a pair of long black gloves. “You're not a baby, are you, dear?”

Nieve shook her head, watching her mother tug on the gloves, flexing her fingers and smoothing the wrinkles out of the silky material. The gloves disguised but didn't completely hide the ring she was wearing, which rode like a bony bump on her little finger. But then, Nieve had caught sight of it before the gloves went on . . . and the ring had caught sight of her! That's what it seemed to do anyway. The ring's stone was as soft and black as a pupil, and she could have sworn that she saw a thin golden membrane falling quickly over it, blinking as it vanished into her mother's glove. It
was
the same kind of ring she'd seen earlier on Dunstan Warlock's fat finger, too.

“Did you get the tissues?” Sophie asked briskly.

“Darn,” Sutton said. “Forgot.”

Sophie sighed and snatched up her evening bag from a side table. “You'd forget your head if it wasn't attached.” This was the sort of thing she usually said with a fond laugh, but Nieve didn't hear any fondness in it, only impatience. Plus something else, something harder. “Come on, let's go.” Her mother marched down the front hall, spikey heels drilling into the hardwood floor. “Don't be late for school,” she called back to Nieve.

Becky didn't show, which probably meant that Sutton hadn't gotten around to calling her. Nieve
hoped
that's what it meant. She liked Becky, they had a riot when she came over. She was game for anything, and didn't head straight for the TV, with the inevitable detour to the kitchen, the moment she walked in the door. Yet tonight she would have happily put up with someone who devoured all the treats in the house while settled like a zombie in front of the tube. Her mother was right, she didn't need a babysitter, and she liked being on her own, but it was so unnaturally dark outside, and she felt so . . . uneasy.

Nieve curled up on the living room couch and began thinking things over, while staying alert to any unusual noises. The problem was that there was
too
much to think over. She picked up a book off the coffee table, new, but probably one of those tear-jerkers her parents liked to read. She opened it, stared unseeing for a moment at a page of print, then snapped the book shut. Ignorance is bliss, isn't that what her dad said?
I
wish
, she thought. Then,
no
,
I don't
. Somebody had to do
something
, and more and more she felt it was going to have to be her and her alone.

She kept replaying over and over in her head what she'd witnessed behind the clinic. What should she have done? After seeing Mayor Mary so horribly dragged off, she ran to the police station for help, and had found Theo Bax gone, too. His wooden swivel chair lay tipped over on the floor and nothing remained of him at his desk except two small piles of fingernail clippings neatly mounded on either side of a half-eaten doughnut. Next, she'd tried the Town Hall, but the clerk there had only laughed at her and told her to run along. She knew that Mrs. Welty would listen to her, and she did, but then – speechless and dazed – the postmistress had walked promptly into the Post Office supply room and locked herself in.

Goblins, Nieve thought. Not that Mary's abductors exactly fit the description. And not that she believed in such things. More likely they were criminals dressed-up in costumes and masks. Short criminals. Circus performers down on their luck. Actors.

She didn't believe that, either.

A bell began to toll, slowly, mournfully.

The only bell in town, in the cupola of the Town Hall, had been silent for years. Silent since Dr. Morys, as a young man, had climbed onto the roof and stolen the clapper. He claimed that the bell, like a harbinger of dread news, cast a pall of gloom over the town, and he couldn't stand listening to it anymore. Nieve had to agree, hearing it now. The sound was distant, but still seemed to vibrate in her bones and shake her spirits into her socks. Listening to it, she pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them. It tolled nine times then stopped.

Nieve wondered if Mortimer Twisden had it fixed for his wife's wake. Or maybe it was the bell for night school.
Don't
be late
. . . how did her mother know about night school? Well,
too bad
, she wasn't going. Child dropout. So what if she had to dig ditches for the rest of her life? She clenched her hand into a fist and punched the arm of the couch, sending a cloud of dust spiraling up, motes illuminated in the lamplight. One thing, she'd keep the ditches free of Weed Inspectors!

On her way home that afternoon, she'd encountered more of his vile weeds, and other icky kinds as well, some with red spots that oozed like sores, others metallic-grey with knife-sharp leaves that clattered and clinked together. Clumps of them were spreading out of control and wiping out whatever got in their way, and not only greenery, she suspected. Nieve had skirted around them as best as she could, and yet one low, toady plant shot a coiling tendril along the ground as she passed and almost snagged her around the ankle. She stomped on it and took off, giving the rest of them a wider berth.

Before going in the house, she'd checked under her bedroom window to see if the one that had mysteriously vanished had sprung up again. What she found was even more upsetting. Footprints. They were too large to have been made by Mary's abductors, who had small thick feet shod in leather boots. And even though the prints were about her size, they weren't hers. Whoever made them hadn't been wearing shoes. She'd squatted down, studying the prints with mounting alarm. Bare feet and only
four
toes on each foot! No mistake, someone, or some
thing,
had been spying on her, watching her through her bedroom window while she'd been asleep and defenseless.