May Bird Among the Stars Read online

  The tents looked ancient, and many of the lights were either burned out or crushed. May shuffled up to one and peered in through a rent in the filmy fabric. She gasped. Inside was a ride with skeletal elephants wearing little yellow hats. She shuffled to the next tent, which held something called a Living Castle, with tiny metalwork people peeking out of its windows, their little metal arms waving, their little metal legs attached to wire pulleys that moved them forward and back into the shadows of the house, over and over. A third held It’s a Small Realm After All, a diorama of the whole of the Ever After that gave a bird’s-eye view of the Dead Sea, the City of Ether, the Hideous Highlands, and more. Upon closer inspection, May realized the diorama was full of motion. She leaned forward breathlessly to examine the tiny boats moving up and down the Styx Streamway, the hundreds of translucent pin-dot spirits moving around the City of Ether, a minuscule roller coaster zipping along its tracks in the Pit of Despair Amusement Park, and a darkly rippling Dead Sea.

  Nibbling a pinky nail, May searched the southern end of the diorama for the small town of Belle Morte, but only the Catacomb Cliffs had been reproduced, and May touched them gently, thinking of Lucius.

  She wove along the circus attractions, soon finding herself a few yards away from a squat building fronted by a sprawling, yawning porch overhung by a blinking neon sign on stilts that read EAT AT THE ETERNAL RESTAURANT! The porch butted right up against the cliff’s edge and was dotted with several view-finders—tall, rusted metal posts with binoculars at the top, like May had seen in postcards of the Grand Canyon. She climbed the rickety porch stairs and inspected one more closely A tiny engraving read SPY ON STARS BILLIONS OF LIGHT-YEARS AWAY! FEEL LIKE YOU’RE THERE!

  May smoothed back her bangs and gazed into the view-finder. It was like swimming in the ocean, then looking underwater with a pair of goggles. Suddenly, the stars surrounding the Ever After came into focus.

  BETA 7894553 IS FOR LOVERS!

  IF YOU LIVED ON BETELGEUSE, YOU’D BE HOME BY NOW!

  May pulled back and squinted at the sky. Nothing but tiny pinpoint stars. She looked back through the viewfinder and tilted it upward. Closer, just above her head, a long glowing banner of light being cast skyward from the Ever After read BORED OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE? TRY THE AFTERLIFE!

  Wow May had had no idea the universe was full of so many ads. She swept the sky, hoping to get a glimpse of Earth, but she guessed it was too far away to see. May was too deeply lost in thought to notice the figure hovering nearby until it floated close enough to touch her.

  Rumor had it that Commander Berzerko had been let out of her pen. That very morning the Wild Hunters had burst into South Place crying for their mommies and had galloped straight for the Bogey’s bedroom. Apparently, in their long and sordid careers tracking and trapping prey, they had never once come across a prize that fought back. Especially with noogies.

  Now the Bogey, it was whispered, had been forced to resort to the unthinkable. And all the Dark Spirits of South Place closed their casket doors a little tighter, looked over their slimy shoulders a little more often, and slept a little less soundly (though they still continued to snore). They were sure, every time they turned a corner on the Screamerplatz or walked along the banks of the Corkscrew River or wound their way toward their graves at midnight to haunt Earth, that Commander Berzerko would be there, ready to do … well, the thing that Commander Berzerko did best.

  And though they had good reason to be fearful, they need not have gone through all the trouble, for by the first evening of her release, Commander Berzerko was not in South Place at all, but at a teleporter in the abandoned town of Cleevilville #135.

  The commander stepped out of the booth and took a good look around.

  Her fluffy black fur stood high around her pudgy figure, lush and voluminous. Her long black tail bobbed coquettishly, like a pom-pom. Her fur was more than four inches long and standing up in all directions, making her look like a round black marshmallow or a fluffy black Butterball turkey on Thanksgiving Day.

  A tiny, delicate pink bow was positioned jauntily by one black ear. Her whiskers were long and wistful, her eyes wide, green, and irresistible. She wore a glittering collar of black diamonds.

  She lifted her head to sniff the air, revealing the glossy white teeth poking out of her jowls, and said one simple word: “Meow.”

  With the scent of the living cat fresh in her nose, Commander Berzerko headed north.

  Chapter Ten

  The Stranger

  Are you looking for something?”

  May jolted and stepped backward, tightening her death shroud. “Oh!”

  The spirit wore a dark, wide-brimmed hat, its shadow hiding his eyes and cheeks and revealing only a rough, scarred chin and a pair of curled, dry lips. The lips rose in a sneer.

  “Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. May rocked back slightly on her heels. His breath smelled sour.

  “That’s okay.” She gulped, blinking at him, her throat dry. He nodded toward the viewfinder.

  “I see you were taking in the view.”

  May swallowed. “Uh-huh. Yes. It’s, um … pretty?”

  He let out a low, gravelly laugh. He drifted past her and cast a desultory glance beyond the cliff.

  “I don’t find it all that pretty myself. Rather annoyingly”—he raised his arms and lowered them in a graceful shrug—“vast, I think. Too much space for me. Or maybe it’s too little of me for all that space. It makes me feel … small. Like a speck.” He turned toward her, and his lip curled again. “Do you ever feel like a speck, boy?”

  May swallowed. It took her a moment to realize that she was still in her warrior costume and that, indeed, she still looked like a boy. And then she tried to focus on the question. She remembered how far away the mountains of the north had seemed to her just a few days ago—how the distance made her feel like a speck. “Sometimes,” she answered.

  The stranger’s mouth turned down gently and coldly. He looked out at the stars again. Something about him made May very sad.

  “We are just Stardust after all.” He looked at May, then let out a cold, bitter laugh.

  “What do you mean?” May ventured.

  He looked at her as if she should already know the answer. “That is what all creatures great and small are made of. Leftover stardust. An atom exploded, and all the dust became the planets, the stars … and us. That’s all anything amounts to.”

  May considered this. She actually liked the idea that she might be made out of stars. She passed her hand over her death shroud thoughtfully.

  “You never answered my question.”

  “Question?”

  “Are you looking for something?”

  “Oh, no, nooo, just …” She looked at her feet. She shifted from one to the other. “Sightseeing.”

  “Oh?” He focused on her intently now. His angular features—the ones she could see—struck her for the first time as very handsome for someone old. Older than old. “How unique. Most spirits stopped coming here a long time ago. You must be a singular sort of spirit.”

  “I guess you could call me that,” May warbled.

  “I see.” The stranger nodded, then smiled, seeming to approve. “I see you are a loner. I like to be alone too.” He laughed, and his laughter crackled with bitterness. “Two peas in a pod …”

  May realized he was waiting for her name. She cast about, trying to think of one. It didn’t occur to her to use her own. Instinct told her not to. She looked toward the circus tents. “Dumbo?”

  “Dumbo?”

  May nodded, wanting to throw herself over the cliff for how dumbo she really was.

  “A singular name for a singular boy,” the man said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I like you.” He nodded. “Yes, yes I do. And, you know, I don’t really like anyone.”

  May didn’t know what to say to that.

  The stranger drifted right up to the cliff’s edge and kicked a stone over the side, wa
tching it drop. His shoulders sank slightly. “Vast,” he muttered. Again, May had the curious feeling of being sorry for and scared of him all at once.

  He turned back to her. “Aren’t you going to ask what brings me here? Make conversation? That’s what spirits do. Don’t you find me interesting?”

  “Um, what brings you here?” May asked obligingly

  He rubbed his chin scar with one grimy, weathered hand. “Looking for something.”

  “What?” May asked, her stomach churning.

  “A little thing, really. A girl.”

  “Oh?” May said. A tiny, almost imperceptible movement drew her eyes toward one of the tents. There, crouched and peering around one of the flaps, was a pair of green kitty eyes, in a hairless kitty face. May’s heart did a high dive.

  When she returned her gaze to the stranger, he was eyeing her thoughtfully. She could see just the faintest glow of his eyes from deep underneath the shadow of his hat.

  “She’s alive.”

  “Oh.”

  “She’s very small.”

  “Really?” May squeaked.

  “And she’s got black hair.”

  “Oh?”

  “She is traveling with a cat.”

  May couldn’t find her voice to say one more thing.

  The man watched her for a moment, frowning. His fingers jumped and danced at his sides, agitated.

  “There’s a house ghost with them. And maybe a couple of others.”

  May managed to nod.

  “I’ve been told she’s been destroyed. On the edge of the City of Ether.”

  The stranger scanned the horizon again, and May’s eyes shot to Somber Kitty. Only his nose protruded from the tent flap now, sniffing.

  The stranger sighed. “I feel that it’s not true. But then”—here, his mouth became slack, unsure—“the girl is probably nothing. I tend to be somewhat … paranoid.”

  His voice, as it fell on the last word, filled May with a deep, strange sadness. May couldn’t find the thoughts or the words or the voice to say anything. Her heart danced an achy-breaky jig under her ribs.

  “There, Dumbo.” He took hold of May’s shoulders, his icy hands sending cold chills straight down her spine, and turned her toward the precipice, pointing to the dots of light in the distance. “There’s Earth.” May squinted, but she couldn’t tell which one he was pointing at. “We are connected. We are Earth’s shadow, like the negative of a photograph. But one day Earth will be my shadow. I’ll be very popular. And then I’ll never be alone. Which reminds me …” The stranger lowered his arm.

  “Reminds you of what?” May asked, turning back around.

  But the stranger was gone.

  May looked about for several seconds, then clutched the front of her bathing suit with one hand, breathing deeply.

  She walked over to Somber Kitty and lifted him into her arms, feeling dread to the bottom of her soul.

  “We’ve got to get north,” she whispered to Kitty, placing him on the ground and letting him point the way back to Risk Falls.

  That night Ellen Bird stood on her wide front lawn and looked at the stars.

  Days had passed since she’d found the briars in May’s overalls. And every day it seemed as if the woods were inviting her in, whispering that the briars, somehow, knew where May had gone. But something kept Ellen from venturing into the trees. Something that sent shivers down her spine.

  Sighing, she wished upon one of the millions of stars above. One that seemed to flicker a little more dimly than the rest, like a patron star of lost causes. She wished that she would find what she was looking for.

  Tomorrow, she promised herself she would look for it beyond the endless briars.

  On a rise that drooped slowly toward the moat surrounding Risk Falls, a tiny figure stalked into view It was fluffy and round and wore a diamond collar that glinted in the starlight.

  “Puuuurrrrrrrrr,” Commander Berzerko said, sniffing the air, her keen slitted eyes scanning the trees for any sign of life beyond them. But it was no matter: The scent of the girl and her cat were so strong, so close, that the commander could have found them in the dark. She pawed the ground eagerly, making muffins in the dirt, sharpening her claws. This would be easy.

  She sauntered a few steps forward, then began to run.

  Part Two

  Into the Far North

  Chapter Eleven

  Two Cats

  I think I’m allergic to something,” Bea said tightly, pulling a hanky from her pocket and dabbing at her eyes gently.

  The group of travelers stood near the big straw basket of the giraffe-shaped hot air balloon, saying their good-byes. Pumpkin snuffled loudly every few seconds as tears ran out of his droopy eyes.

  “I have made a poem for good-bye,” Fabbio said, standing up straight. Everyone braced themselves.

  “Tortellini, pizza pie

  I have something in my eye

  Is a teardrop, big and blue

  Because we saying toodle-loo”

  On these last words, Fabbio’s voice became choked and he touched his fingers to his lips, bowing his head and closing his eyes.

  Zero grinned. “Listen, May Bird. Your escape from the hunters was truly spectacular.” He stuck his hands in the pockets of his long shorts. “And it’s so cool that you’re alive. What’s more risky than that in the Afterlife?”

  May blushed. To her amazement, when she and Kitty had returned to Risk Falls, she had been set upon by cheering spirits. No one had expressed a moment’s concern about what had been revealed back at the Wild Hunt. In fact, like Zero, everyone had been quite thrilled to have a living girl in their midst. In the fray, May had not told anyone about the Eternal Restaurant or the stranger she had met there. Oddly enough, she felt it was an event that belonged only to her, like a deep dark secret.

  Somber Kitty sat beside her on the ground, guarding the basket like a lion and staring southeast into the highlands. Occasionally, he let out a tiny growl and wove between May’s legs impatiently. May scratched the backs of her knees, flattered and horribly embarrassed. “Zero, you heard what I said. About Bo Cleevil. Risk Falls could be next. You’ll … do something, won’t you?”

  Zero eyed her seriously for a moment, then gave her a punch on the shoulder and a careless grin. “No worries, dude. Everything’s cool here.”

  May bit her lip and looked at Beatrice, who frowned with worry. Clearly, the inhabitants of this place, like so much of the Ever After, weren’t as worried as they should be. May climbed into the basket, which was laden with sleeping bags, camping supplies, and other gifts from the spirits of Risk Falls.

  “Queen Bea,” Zero said, taking Beatrice’s hand gently in his. Bea looked up to the sky as if she saw something very interesting above. But when Zero lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it, she stared at him, her eyes wide, a smile bursting out on her flushed face.

  And then she swiped away a little tear as she followed the others into the balloon, trying to climb in as daintily as she could.

  Only Somber Kitty remained on the grass. “C’mon, Kitty What are you waiting for?” May coaxed.

  Kitty glanced at her over his shoulder, then stood up and looked into the distance again, his tail sticking straight up. “Meow.”

  “Come, little Kitty,” Fabbio said, leaning over and lifting him by the armpits. Kitty dangled from his hands like an old shoelace, still staring southeast. He let out a sound like May had never heard before, something between a moan and a growl.

  May took him from Fabbio and held him close, looking at him, concerned. “What is it?” She followed his gaze toward the horizon, beyond the moat.

  There was something there. She couldn’t tell whether it was far away or just really small.

  “Well,” Zero said, “catch you later.” He untied one of the ropes holding down the balloon. With a thwap! and a zwing! the basket tilted far to the left.

  “This no problem,” Fabbio said, taking hold of the burner that steered the
balloon and thrusting it forward. The basket jarred even farther left, until it was almost sideways. Kitty went flying out of May’s arms, landing on all fours on the grass and shaking himself off.

  “Kitty!”

  May managed to scoop the cat into her arms just as the balloon started floating backward.

  Thwap! Zero untied the other rope. The balloon teetered there for a moment, as if it needed to rev itself up in order to ascend. Its occupants looked around dazedly. By this time, whatever was approaching them had crossed the moat and was dashing across the vale.

  “What is that?” Beatrice said, pointing. May could see now—it was small and actually not far away at all. It looked like …

  “Well, I’ll be …,” one Risk Falls spirit exclaimed.

  The creature was zipping toward them, its tail flouncing out behind it.

  May could feel Somber Kitty’s heart beating against his ribs. His fur stood up all around. He let out the loudest, meanest growl May had ever heard escape his lips.

  “Is that … a pink bow?” Pumpkin asked. They were still only inches above the ground, drifting slowly backward as Fabbio tried to steer.

  The creature approached the balloon far faster than anyone could have imagined. One moment it was a hundred yards away, and the next, it was only a matter of feet.

  Somber Kitty hissed and spat wildly, his whole body shaking.

  “Now for turning up the burner,” Fabbio muttered to himself, casting an indifferent glance at the tiny creature racing toward them. The rest of the group watched in awe.

  Then, inexplicably, when it was still several feet away, the creature leaped. It leaped higher and farther than any leap May had ever seen, seeming to fly at the balloon, one paw poised in the air, the claws extended and directed at the leg of the giraffe.

  “Ah!” Fabbio pushed something, and the balloon accelerated straight up. The creatures paw fell just short of the balloon, and it went plummeting toward the ground beneath them. A great howl of frustration issued from its throat as it landed on all fours, staring upward, its green eyes glinting.