May Bird, Warrior Princess Read online

  But though all the rides were in motion and the snack bars were brimming with goodies, there wasn’t a spirit in sight. It was completely empty.

  May scanned the ground for a glimpse of a single soul. The cobblestone way beneath them branched into other pathways that led to the rides, and here and there the ground was interrupted with pits marked with arrows pointing downward and signs such as THIS WAY FOR AN UNFORTUNATE SURPRISE or COFFIN CANDY DOWN HERE IF YOU DARE. They crossed over a metal mummy-filled swamp, past a collection of rockets promising excursions to view nearby stars, a boat basin at the side of the Styx Streamway that, May assumed, must be for all the visitors who would normally be arriving from all over the realm. But there was no one.

  Up ahead May could see the black curtain where she’d entered, and she realized they had been going in a big circle. The spirits in the air began to slow down their dancing and flipping, singing slower and slower, their voices beginning to wane. The coffin slowed to a stop, and the spirits floated back into the doorways above, waving mournfully before the doors slid shut. May and Somber Kitty looked around, then May scooped the cat into her arms and climbed out of the coffin.

  As soon as she landed, a map floated into her hands, seemingly from nowhere, showing the different rides, each lit a different eerie color. What next? it asked. May stared. “I don’t know,” she muttered out loud.

  Perhaps the Murderous Mansion? it suggested.

  May shook her head. If she wasn’t here for Pumpkin, why was she here? Taking a deep breath to keep her tears at bay, she drifted onto one of the cobblestone pathways, finding herself in a grove of dead, forbidding trees whose limbs seemed to reach out as if to grab them. Maybe there were others. Maybe the knaves had been lying. She wasn’t ready to let herself crumble yet.

  “If anyone’s here,” May muttered, gazing around, “where are they hiding?” Aside from the whir of the rides and the flash of the lights, nothing moved or made a sound. May sighed, looking down at her map again.

  The Tunnel of Horror had begun to flash.

  May climbed into the waiting boat at the mouth of the Tunnel of Horror and put Kitty beside her on the bench. The water underneath them was dark, obscuring whatever might be lurking underneath. As soon as they were both sitting, the boat lurched into motion. May held on to Kitty tightly as they were swallowed by darkness, listening to the drips of the cave around them.

  May’s fingers scratched nervously behind Kitty’s ears. He wriggled out of her grasp, his green eyes giving her an annoyed look in the dark.

  They waited for what would jump out of the dark to scare them. A whispering began all around them, terrifying, low, and menacing. Out of the corner of May’s eye, she caught a light to the right, and down an alley she saw a sign: HORRIFIC HAMBURGERS—FILL UP BEFORE YOU FREAK OUT. The vaguest sound of laughter issued from behind the door of the building. Was it a recording, or actual spirits? May wondered. The boat stopped momentarily. She hesitated a moment, while it lurched into motion again, and then she grabbed Kitty and hopped out.

  The door to Horrific Hamburgers was heavy, and it opened with a creak as May pushed with all her strength. She nearly stumbled back when she saw the room full of spirits that waited on the other side. They were all sitting around at various tables and along a mahogany bar, watching holo-vision. There was a woman in a black suit holding the hand of a young brown-skinned girl in a pink party dress, and a couple in colorful clothes and beads sat hand-in-hand, though one hand was not connected to a body. A girl with long black hair, wearing a sari, nodded at her gravely. A few blobbish, misshapen ghosts with horns and big teeth and bulbous noses and blue lips stared at Somber Kitty and nudged each other, and then turned their attention back to the holo-vision.

  The filmy bartender—who had a handlebar mustache above his blue lips and wore an apron and cuffs, grinned over at her.

  “Pull up a stool, young miss. Have a Slurpy Soda.” He gazed at Somber Kitty.

  May floated up to the bar. The bartender poured her a glass of the slimy and putrid-smelling drink. She took it politely into her hands but couldn’t bring herself to sip it. She had never thought to wonder what was in a Slurpy Soda, but it smelled like worm pee and moth breath.

  “Where ya fleeing from?”

  “Excuse me?” May asked. The bartender smiled at her sadly.

  “Ether, northern regions, Seaside?”

  “Fleeing?”

  “Which Cleevilville did they turn your town into? Mine was seventy-three. All my friends …” He trailed off sadly, turning his attention to a glass mug, which he began to polish.

  “So is this … a hideout?” May asked.

  He looked at her askance, clearly surprised that she didn’t already know. “One of the last in the realm, long as none of the dark spirits find us.” He sighed, laying down the mug and picking up another one. “We’re making the best of it.” He glanced again at Somber Kitty, who’d wrapped himself around May’s neck like a scarf. “We get all kinds. But it’s not every day we see a cat spirit. They were the first to go, you know.”

  May knew. Cats had been the first animals banished from the Ever After, because the evil Black Shuck Dogs were deathly afraid of them. Now all the animals—even the Shuck Dogs—were gone … to no one knew where.

  May took it in—the room full of misplaced spirits, hiding in the belly of the Tunnel of Terror. And they were the lucky ones. It made her want to cry. “Actually, I came here looking for my friend,” May said, her throat starting to knot up. “But he …” May couldn’t bring herself to say it. She cleared her throat. “He …”

  Seeing the tears welling in her eyes, the bartender pulled a decayed, hole-riddled tissue from his vest pocket and handed it to her.

  “Hey, you’re that girl.” May looked up. It was the girl with the sari who’d spoken. A few spirits looked from the holo-vision in her direction again, curious.

  “Oh yeah,” another one said. “It’s that one who’s supposed to save the world from certain doom.”

  “Who?”

  “May Burg or something.”

  “Bird,” May said. “May Bird.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  A few spirits eyed her curiously and then turned back to the holo-vision.

  “No wonder there’s no hope,” someone muttered darkly, but May couldn’t see who. She looked down at herself selfconsciously—taller, but still as skinny as ever. She felt like apologizing for herself. She hadn’t turned out to be much of a warrior.

  “Don’t mind them,” the bartender said listlessly. “They’re just depressed. It’s because we know Cleevil’ll find us here one day too. There’s nowhere to hide anymore.”

  “But … why aren’t you trying to do anything about it?” May asked. Someone, maybe the same someone as before, laughed. The bartender scowled in their general direction.

  “May Bird, ha,” a spirit muttered.

  “Well, The Book of the Dead’s been wrong before,” someone else added.

  “It has?” May sputtered.

  Several spirits laughed. “Sure! You don’t think the future’s set in stone, do you? It hasn’t even happened yet,” one explained.

  The bartender interrupted. “Now, you were saying something about looking for someone….”

  May shook her head, still absorbing what the spirit had said about The Book of the Dead. Could it have been wrong? Was it possible? “It’s just,” she said dazedly, “I came here looking for my friend Pumpkin, but …”

  It was as if May had shot an arrow through the middle of the room. Everyone looked over at once.

  “Pumpkin? The singer?” the bartender asked.

  May nodded, taken aback.

  “You’re friends with the Pumpkin?” the girl in the sari said.

  May nodded again.

  Now everyone in the bar was hopping out of their chairs, circling around her, reaching out to touch her and shake her hand.

  “I’d love an autograph,” someone said.

  “You do
n’t have a lock of his hair you’re willing to sell by any chance, do you?”

  “Sightings are very rare.”

  May was befuddled. “Sightings?”

  A few spirits nodded. “It’s a shame, but he likes his privacy.”

  “But …,” May said, her heart twisting sharply. “But I guess you haven’t heard. He … he was turned into nothing.”

  Everyone paused, very shocked. And then a roar of laughter swept the room.

  “Oh, he’s good,” someone said, nodding.

  “Typical Pumpkin.”

  May, bewildered, swept Somber Kitty into her arms, nervous, wondering if these spirits were lunatics. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you believe everything you read in the paper?” the girl in the pink party dress asked, grinning. “Pumpkin’s always spreading rumors to put off his fans. A few months ago it was that he ran off with Mary Washington to Elysian Acres. Before that he was abducted by aliens.”

  “Ha, aliens,” said one woman with a knife sticking out of her head. “Everyone knows aliens don’t exist.”

  “Pumpkin lives!” someone shouted.

  “You’re all fooling yourselves,” the bartender interrupted. “Pumpkin got turned into nothing. I saw the picture myself.” The half of the spirits who hadn’t spoken up seemed to agree, and they nodded.

  May felt like she was being twisted into a million shapes—the hope she’d been beginning to feel plummeted again.

  “It’s all wishful thinking,” one of the blobbish ghosts boomed. “Spirits’ll make up anything because they want to believe it. I heard a rumor just the other day he’s hidden himself in the karaoke lounge, over on the far side of this very park.” Several spirits laughed.

  The bartender smiled his sad smile. “’Course we don’t dare venture out of the Tunnel of Terror. Never know when the ghouls might wander down here into the Pit.”

  But May, Kitty at her heels, was already pushing open the door.

  Chapter Twelve

  The White Knuckle Karaoke Lounge

  LIVE MUSIC! REFRESHMENTS!

  May stood and stared at the entrance to the White Knuckle Karaoke Lounge, which she had found using her map. It was perched on a slight rise, on a dark, empty hill at the far end of the park. She swallowed, then pushed her way through the double doors into a dimly lit hallway. It stretched into the darkness, framed records hanging on the walls, all spinning and giving off soft music in countless languages. Moments later she emerged into a smoky room. A handful of spirits sat in red-upholstered chairs facing a small black stage, one of them smoldering, as if he’d just been on fire.

  The stage before them was lit by a single spotlight. And in the single spotlight, on a moldy red couch, facedown, lay a lanky figure singing into a microphone.

  “Alll byyyyy myyyysellllllf …” The voice was mournful and painful to the ears, resembling the sound of a dying cow. “Don’t want to be dead by myself … anymore….”

  May stood rooted to the spot. “Mew,” Kitty whispered, breathlessly.

  Hearing Kitty, the figure’s head perked to the right, just slightly. It sat up, swiveling halfway. May rushed forward. At that moment she felt herself grabbed by the elbows and yanked backward. Two spirits in red velvet suits had jumped out of their seats and had her by either arm. Somber Kitty leaped to her side and sank his teeth deep into one of the spirits’ ankles. He howled.

  “Pumpkin!” May yelled, struggling.

  The figure onstage turned all the way around now, still holding the microphone to its lips. The large, lopsided, pumpkin-shaped head, all white and pasty, the big black eyes, the crooked mouth, would have been terrifying to someone who didn’t know the creature they belonged to. Pumpkin’s yellow hair flopped as he looked at May in astonishment.

  “Pumpkin, it’s me!” May yelled.

  For a moment, pure joy crossed Pumpkin’s face, his crooked mouth widening into a ghastly smile. But the moment it did, it turned downward into an angry frown that he directed first at her, then at Kitty, then off into nowhere, as if he’d forgotten they were standing there. With a flick of his finger, he summoned the smoking ghost from where he had risen to the edge of the stage, and whispered something into his ear. The ghost nodded and straightened up, addressing May with thin blue lips under a thin black mustache.

  “He says, ‘Look what the cat dragged in.’”

  May looked at Pumpkin, who crossed his arms and looked off backstage as if he were bored. He began plucking at the split ends of his yellow tuft of hair. May was speechless. She opened and closed her mouth a few times in Pumpkin’s direction, and then in the direction of the smoldering ghost, and sputtered, “Who are you?”

  The ghost, his mustache twitching, straightened his blackened necktie. “I’m Pumpkin’s publicist. Avril.”

  “Your publicist?!” May yelled to Pumpkin, baffled. Pumpkin turned to Avril and whispered something, then crossed his arms again and looked away.

  “Pumpkin has asked that you direct all questions to me.”

  “Pumpkin …” May groaned. “What? Why?”

  Pumpkin seemed to consider whether to answer or not. And then he whispered something to Avril.

  “He says in case you don’t remember, you abandoned him to a life of loneliness and sorrow.”

  May’s heart sank. She hung her head. “Tell him I’m sorry. But I’m back now.”

  Pumpkin sighed loudly, then whispered.

  “He says he’s almost been captured by ghouls lots of times and you weren’t around to help.”

  May searched for some way to reply, to defend herself. “But he wanted me to go. He said he hoped I’d never come back.”

  Pumpkin seemed to consider this for a long moment, and then another whisper, and Avril turned to May. “He says he thought he meant it at the time, but he didn’t.”

  May didn’t know what to say to that. Pumpkin shot a glance at her, and his lopsided forehead wrinkled. He smoothed out the tuft on top of his head thoughtfully. And then he leaned over and whispered again.

  “He says how does he know you won’t leave him again?”

  May bit her lip, hopeful. “I don’t know. Pumpkin, I’ll just do my best. I’ll try my best to never let you down again.”

  Pumpkin looked interested now. He stared at her and mumbled something.

  “He says you look different. He says you don’t look like a little girl anymore.”

  Because she couldn’t raise her hands, May shrugged her shoulders, helplessly. She suddenly felt tall and gangly and unwieldy, perched there on her coltish legs, her long black hair tangled. “I grew up,” she said to Pumpkin apologetically, her voice creaking a little. “And, well.” Her voice cracked. “I also … died.”

  Pumpkin gave a small jerk. A big tear formed at the ridge of his left eye and slowly dribbled down his cheek. He nodded to the two ghosts holding May’s arms, and they let her go.

  May hesitated for a moment. And then, swooping like a Dodo bird, Pumpkin sprang forward, flinging his long arms wide open. May made up the distance, and in a moment she was in his cold embrace, being hugged so tight she felt like she might shrink into nothing. Pumpkin pulled back and gazed at her, his smile huge, hugged her again, pulled back again. Then he let out a squeal as he scooped Somber Kitty into his arms.

  “Mwah mwah mwah mwah mwah!” He covered Somber Kitty in kisses, and Somber Kitty pretended to be disgusted, though he obviously liked it. He licked Pumpkin’s nose, and Pumpkin squeezed him tight.

  Finally May pulled back and gave him a nervous, hopeful look. She was almost as tall as his chest now. “Pumpkin,” she gushed, hardly able to catch her breath, “where are the others? Where’s Bea, and Fabbio, and Lucius? What about Isabella and Arista?”

  Pumpkin’s smile descended, once again, into a deep frown.

  He looked around at his publicist and bodyguards as if they were suddenly in the way. He sighed theatrically. “Where does a star go to get some privacy around here?” But the look he gave May was anyth
ing but theatrical. And it filled her heart with dread.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Lorelei

  So the spirits are just hiding here waiting for the end of the Ever After?” May asked.

  Pumpkin had led May across the amusement park, through a series of camouflaged doors hidden in the dead trees, to a gate behind the giant vampire head, where it couldn’t be seen from the sky ride.

  “They’ve lost hope,” Pumpkin said. “I guess everyone has.”

  He spoke quietly into a small black box: “Pumpkin is the best,” and the gate creaked open. May watched in amazement, then followed him through. They came to another gate, where he held his face up to a tiny camera perched on the nearest black tree. A laser shot out of it and scanned his eyeball. “Match,” a computerized voice said. May’s mouth dropped open.

  “I had it built last year,” Pumpkin said, replying to her expression as they drifted on to a third gate. “You’d be amazed what you have to do to keep out the paparazzi. Thought it’d be a good place to hide from the public eye. And also, go on lots of rides. I never thought I’d be hiding out here for good.”

  A tiny, sooty creature with pointy ears, a miner’s lamp attached to its head, floated out of the keyhole of the gate.

  “What is—”

  “Tommyknocker,” Pumpkin said proudly. “They’re very rarely seen or caught. This is one of the few we have in captivity.”

  “Password?” the tommyknocker squeaked.

  Pumpkin looked at May, ready to impress, and then screwed up his face to be very serious and said in a thick British accent, “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain.”

  The tommyknocker bowed, pressing a button that opened the gate. “Welcome home, Your Famousness.” As soon as he thought they weren’t looking, he set about taking off the hinges of the gate with a tiny screwdriver. Somber Kitty, curled in Pumpkin’s arms, let out a low growl.