May Bird and the Ever After Read online

  The truth was, nobody had ever said they needed her.

  “Mew,” was all she got in reply from someone who needed her very much. If a cat-to-English dictionary had been handy, and May had looked up “mew,” it would have translated into something like “curiosity killed the cat.”

  May climbed onto her bike, held her knapsack down for the cat to crawl into, and together they headed home.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Beyond the Endless Briers

  Late the next morning May put on her favorite black tank top and black denim overalls and walked out onto the front porch. She sank into the rocker, balancing a bowl of oatmeal and a glass of orange juice in her hands. Somber Kitty appeared just behind her, slipping his way through the crack in the screen door and perching by her feet.

  She yawned, her mouth gaping like a bat cave. Last night her mom had gotten her out of bed to watch a meteor shower. They’d laid on a sleeping bag on the back porch and competed over how many racing, fiery balls they could each point out.

  Things had started nicely enough, but soon May had started trying to steal her mom’s meteors, and vice versa. After that they’d started poking each other to cause distractions.

  “You care more about winning than about me!” May had shouted, laughing.

  Mrs. Bird had laughed too. “That’s not true. I care about you more than all the meteors. Even more than most of the smaller comets.”

  “Ha-ha.” May had rolled her eyes.

  They’d stayed up until long past midnight.

  But even though May was tired this morning, she wasn’t sleepy. It was the kind of day where the world seemed full of promise. The dragonflies were humming, and the sun beating on the porch made the wood smell woodsy. It felt like it was a Day that Meant Something.

  May thrust her hand into her pocket and felt the map. She wanted to think it had jumped into her pocket on its own. But she knew that wasn’t quite true.

  She drank and ate quickly. If it was a Day that Meant Something, she wanted to find out what that Something was.

  In the breeze Somber Kitty stretched his body long and thin as a rubber band, and then leaped up onto her lap. He licked her chin, thumping his paw down on her chest to hold her in place.

  “Yuck.” May scrunched up her face. She stood up and brushed him off with the slightest move of her wrist, though he struggled to stay on. He clung to the waistband of her short overalls, dangling like a set of keys on the school custodian.

  “Mew? Meow? Meay?”

  “C’mon, Kitty, off.”

  Somber Kitty let go, bounced back onto his rubbery hind legs, and watched her walk to the edge of the deck, then down into the grass of the front yard. He jumped down behind her and lifted his paws gingerly. Already the sun had scorched the grass so that it was brown and dry.

  “Mom, I’m going in the woods,” May called in through the screen door.

  “Don’t go too far, baby,” her mother’s voice called back.

  May pulled out the map, looked at it once more, and tucked it in her pocket. Her bike was lying right there on the grass in front of the stairs. She picked up the tasseled handlebars and set the bike to moving, straddling it and standing on the pedals. A pin-wheel she’d stuck into the rim at the back of her seat spun and glinted in the July sun. She bumped along the grass to the edge of the woods, where a dirt trail zigzagged its way into the trees.

  May was flying, leaves tickling her bare arms on either side as she flashed and bumped and jostled past the trees. Somber Kitty raced behind her, stopping only to clean his paws occasionally, or bite a gnat out of his fuzzy coat before racing to catch up. When May skidded to a halt right in front of the fallen tree that marked where the bike track ended, he skidded too, leaping at the last minute to avoid a collision and wobbling through the air to land on his feet on the other side. May slid off her bike as she laid it down and stepped over the tree, slapping at the mosquitoes on her legs. The mosquitoes, she’d always assumed, got their water from the blood of the squirrels that got their water in Hog Wallow.

  Two bobwhites were introducing themselves to each other somewhere in the shade of the trees.

  “Bobwhite?” asked one, its chirp sounding almost human, the way bobwhite chirps did.

  “Bobwhite?” the other replied politely.

  May took a deep breath and started walking.

  An hour or so later she stopped, parted her bangs like curtains so that the breeze could blow on her forehead, and surveyed the area around her. This part of the woods was full of large, old trees—oaks and maples and sumacs that stood a mannerly distance apart from one another. May knew that if she walked forward and to the left, she’d meet a sloping hill where the trees grew smaller and closer together. She knew if she walked ahead and turned right, she’d run into a dried creek bed and a collection of giant, flat boulders that had served, in the past, as ships, forts, and stages for Somber Kitty’s dance routines.

  Immediately to the right, and just through a little rise of pines, were the Endless Briers. May had tried many times to find her way through the prickly plants, always winding up stranded and itchy a few feet in, and gloomily plucking her way back out again. She pulled out the map. There was no way she could go around them and get home by dark.

  May shrugged.

  She walked to the edge where the thick of it began, a few smaller plants catching against the fabric of her sneakers.

  “Nasty prickers,” she said, high-stepping.

  “Meayy.”

  May looked over her shoulder. “You should go home, Kitty.” Kitty was standing a few feet behind her, staring at her curiously. He looked over his shoulder, then back to her as if to say, Are you kidding? Things are just getting good. She watched him skillfully picking his way through the same small plants she just had. May rolled her eyes and stepped farther into the briers, feeling the sting of them on her legs and her bare ankles. Slowly she made her way, treading on fallen logs and scattered rocks to stay as far above the ground as possible. Within ten or fifteen minutes she’d made it so far into the patch that she couldn’t see where the briers ended in any direction. Somber Kitty shot out in front of her, leaping from log to log, darting ahead, ducking under low branches playfully. They backtracked several times, running into impossible walls of plants and turning back to find an easier way.

  It seemed to take forever. Fifteen minutes later the briers still stretched as far as May could see in every direction. Another fifteen and it was the same, and the knot in her ribs from yesterday started gathering again. She wondered if maybe just crossing the briers was dangerous. What if she couldn’t make her way out?

  Somber Kitty, finding it all terribly easy and starting to get bored, now turned back to watch her struggle through the densest patch she’d run into yet.

  “Kitty, maybe we should turn around.” May peered up at the sky. The sun was getting lower. She’d started too late. Somber Kitty, tilting his big ears downward in sympathy, turned and started walking back toward her.

  “Wait.” May stuck a fingernail into her mouth and nibbled on it. There was a small, clear patch a few feet away. If she leaped just right, she could make it. She bent her knees, jumped, and landed hard on both feet. She looked behind her. It didn’t make much sense to turn back now.

  A few minutes later the briers began to spread themselves out, getting farther and farther apart, until May hardly had to slow down at all to pick the odd one off her sneaker. The ground, she noticed, began to change almost immediately. Instead of the hard, dry dirt back near her house, the ground here was softer, a tiny bit mushy, almost wet The knot tightened. Looking back to the wall of stickers she’d come across, she felt so far from home. In fact, May felt too far.

  Somber Kitty trotted on ahead, glancing over his shoulder occasionally to encourage May to catch up. He crested the top of a hill and disappeared. The next second, May heard a strange growl up ahead.

  “Kitty?”

  May crested the rise in a rush, ready t
o defend her cat, and at the same time she realized two things. First, that the growl was coming from Somber Kitty. And second, that they had reached the lake.

  Kitty’s tail stood pencil straight, his pointy ears trembled, and the growl seemed to come from deep in his throat.

  “What is it?” She followed his gaze to the small, black body of water in front of them, disbelieving. It was only a small lake, which took the form of a misshapen 0 in the clearing. But it was bigger than anything May would have dreamed she would find. Nothing, not even a lily pad or a spare leaf, floated on the dark, glossy surface of the water. It rippled just slightly at the edges, where it touched the rocks of the shore, and mirrored the thin, white clouds circling overhead. This lake was full and deep and thriving. It was as if May was standing in the rain forest instead of the dry hills of Briery Swamp. It couldn’t be as deep as it looked.

  May took a step forward and tripped, righting herself again. She turned around to see what had tangled her feet.

  Just behind her, lying on its side, was a bear trap with a jagged slit down the middle and rusted metal hinges. It was connected to a little chain and a rusted metal post lying flat on the ground.

  May wondered how old the trap was and who had left it there.

  Thinking that it might still be dangerous, she bent over, picked it up by the chain, and tossed it in the lake. It landed with a splash, sending out tiny black waves. She felt, suddenly, like she shouldn’t have done it. She looked around, checking the woods. Up above, the clouds had started to drift away, as if startled. May swallowed.

  She looked around again. There was no sign of a house or a farm. No lady.

  “Meow? Meay? Meeeaayyy?” Somber Kitty moaned, pacing back and forth toward the edge of the woods, as if he wanted May to follow him home.

  “It’s just water, Kitty.”

  May walked to the wet tip of the lake and leaned over the edge to look at her own reflection. There she was, her short flat bangs parted to the sides, her black top and overalls, her knobby arms and legs. And there was something else: a tiny shimmering light.

  Standing up straight again, May looked at the sky. There was the sun, up behind the filmy clouds that were darting away. She looked down at the water, then up again. But the sun’s reflection was in a whole other place entirely. This light almost looked like it was in the water. May leaned a little bit farther, squinting. The light moved, quick, like a fish.

  May sucked in her breath. She knew she’d lost her balance the moment it happened. She swung her arms out at her sides to right herself, but it was too late. She toppled forward and hit the water with a splash.

  May’s arms splayed out in front of her, and for a moment she stayed motionless, feeling the cold sting of the water and swallowing a mouthful of it before she started flapping her limbs.

  She paddled up and took two strokes toward the edge of the lake, breaking the surface and reaching for the shore.

  And then she felt it. It felt like a set of very strong fingers, grasping her ankle. They rested there for a moment, tightening, and then yank!

  May went under. She scooped out her arms and flapped them wildly, much harder than before, feeling the fingers still around her ankle. With all the energy she had she yanked both knees forward, and the hand went slipping off with a jerk. May lunged for the shore again, Somber Kitty’s high-pitched, panicked meow ringing in her ears. She felt just the slightest brush against her calves as she pulled herself up onto the dirt, and whatever it was slipped off again, giving May a chance to scramble up onto dry land, panting and heaving.

  She turned to face the water and crawled backward, just as Somber Kitty jumped in front of her like a lion defending his pride.

  May reached, grabbed him, and yanked him back to her chest. They both watched the water, waiting for whatever it was to surface.

  It didn’t.

  May stood up and started to back away, slowly, carefully.

  If she had been paying attention to anything but the pounding of her heart, she would have noticed that every creature in that part of the woods had gone quiet. She didn’t look up to see that even the filmy white clouds were gone completely

  At the top of the rise, she turned her back on the lake and started to run.

  Mrs. Bird was on the phone in the kitchen when May, soaked and sore, her legs nicked in several places from the briers, snuck through the back door and up the back staircase toward her room.

  The staircase ran up behind the kitchen, and above her own heavy breathing she could hear her mom’s muffled voice. “We’re not sure yet, Sister Christina, but we’re seriously thinking about it. Yes . . . Latin . . . really . . . and French? I’m not sure May wants to speak French. Well, she’s very into art class at her school. . . Oh, I see. Well, I think she’d miss it . . . Well, that’s true . . .”

  May tiptoed up to her room and changed out of her wet clothes into her softest silk pajamas and wrapped herself in the covers of her bed like a larva, shivering. Somber Kitty leaped up beside her, patting the crown of her head with his paw until she opened the top of the covers and let him come in too. He snuggled up against her and licked her wet cheek several times. They stayed like that for more than an hour.

  Finally her mother appeared at the door. “Honey,” she said. “I didn’t hear you come in. Are you feeling okay?”

  May stayed covered, biting her lip.

  Mrs. Bird came and sat on the edge of the bed. “I was just about to make dinner.” Somber Kitty’s head perked its way out of the covers at the word “dinner.” May slowly perked her head out too.

  “Did you take a bath?”

  May remembered her wet hair. “Um, yes.”

  “Honey, what is it?” Mrs. Bird said, leaning forward with concern at the sight of May’s face.

  May sat up and scurried into her mom’s arms, hugging her tight. “There’s something bad in the woods,” she whispered.

  Mrs. Bird’s grip tightened, and she pushed May to an arm’s length, so she could look in her eyes. “Did you see someone in the woods?”

  May looked at her and shook her head. “No. I didn’t see it. It’s . . .” May took a deep breath. “It’s in the lake.”

  “The lake?”

  The warm, worried look on Mrs. Bird’s face slid away to make room for a suspicious one.

  May snapped her mouth shut. She knew she’d made a mistake. There wasn’t a lake anywhere she was allowed to go to. May plucked at the threads of her quilt, and her mom rubbed her fore-head with one hand.

  Mrs. Bird sounded tired when she spoke again. “May, did you see someone in the woods?”

  “No. It was just . . .” A monster? What could May say? Her mom looked too brokenhearted to hear a story she wouldn’t believe. May looked at her desk, then traced her favorite quilted flower with her pointer finger.

  “May, why do you make things so hard? I don’t understand.”

  May didn’t reply. She pulled her lips together tight and tucked her chin.

  “I just can’t help but think . . . in boarding school, with all those other girls, you’d . . .” Mrs. Bird eyed her for another second, then felt her forehead. “You’re warm. I’ll get you some aspirin. And you’re grounded from going to the woods.”

  May smiled weakly to show she understood, but she knew it came out as a grimace. It didn’t matter anyway. Her mom was already moving into the hallway.

  May burrowed back under the covers. The fear was still crouched under her ribs, but after the talk of Saint Agatha’s, she wasn’t sure the thing in the lake was the only thing making the fear burn.

  And though she thought it would never let her get to sleep, she fell into slumber, much like a rock sinking into deep water.

  Somber Kitty, a spider, and a ladybug were sitting beside the stone path in the backyard just after midnight, listening to the crickets, catching flies drawn by the Birds’ porch lights, and nibbling on a blade of grass, in that order, when a figure emerged from the edge of the woods.


  All three creatures stopped what they were doing to stare as the figure moved forward, drifting along the stone path that led up to the back entrance of White Moss Manor.

  As it floated through the door, Somber Kitty merely gazed at it lazily. He was used to the creatures that drifted around the house at night. Watching the figure disappear up the back stairway, he merely lifted a lazy paw and licked between the soft pink paw pads. They tasted like summer grass. His favorite.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A Stranger Arrived

  May was in the middle of a dream. She had fallen into a great, black sea. A set of long fingers was holding on to her ankles. When she yanked her legs away, the hand held out a moldy old letter with her name on it. The fingers tapped on the paper of the letter. Tap tap tap.

  Tap tap tap.

  Tap tap tap.

  Hours after she had fallen asleep, May sat straight up in bed. She pushed her palms down on the bed to make sure she was really there and not still dreaming. Thank goodness. She breathed deeply and looked around her room, noticing her familiar objects in the shadows. Her mom had never come to her with the aspirin, or had she?

  She climbed out of her bed and dug her balled-up, wet shorts out of the closet, prying her waterlogged letter out of the pocket. She walked to the window and held it up by the light of the moon.

  Tap tap tap. May froze. The noise had come from just outside her door.

  May looked out her window to check the moon—it was high in the dark sky. That meant it was midnight or a little later. She laid her letter on the windowsill, trying not to creak as she crossed the floor to her door. She paused at the threshold for a moment to listen. The sound outside the door was very gentle, like a twig beating against a window. Or fingernails. She reached out and grasped the handle, opened it, and looked. There was nothing but the dark.

  Tap tap tap. The sound started again, but now it was farther away, up ahead of her in the darkness. May tiptoed toward it, pausing halfway—at the top of the back stairs—to look down toward the second floor. Nothing. She continued on to her mother’s bedroom door. The sound had stopped. She listened hard, to the chirping of crickets and the dry leaves rubbing against one another outside. And tapping again. Behind her.