May Bird Among the Stars Read online

  The rest of the travelers peered over the edge of the basket, befuddled, as they rose into the air.

  Fabbio, finally, looked over the edge with interest. “What a cute little kitty.”

  Everyone but Somber Kitty agreed.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Petrified Pass

  May and Kitty went tumbling across the grass, rolling lopsidedly along until they ran up against a giant rock and came to a dead stop. May sat up, rubbing her head, trying to get her bearings. Somber Kitty let out a groan and tumbled out of his papoose. The hot air balloon lay deflated along the rocky ground, the basket turned sideways.

  Pumpkin lay in a blubbering heap a few feet away Beatrice was helping Captain Fabbio stand up and brushing off her dress.

  “This not my best landing,” Fabbio said, flapping his hands against his medals to dust them off. In fact, after hours of soaring above the empty highlands, the balloon had suddenly and without warning descended downward, dumping them out in an unseemly mess.

  Recovering themselves, everyone looked in May’s direction. Pumpkin let out a scream. Bea’s hands flew over her mouth. May turned to see what they were looking at, then gulped.

  It wasn’t a rock she had plowed into—or at least not a rock in the traditional sense. It was, in fact, a giant skull, standing at least six feet high, its huge tooth-addled mouth gaping in terror. And what lay beyond it was even more chilling.

  Somber Kitty leaped at May, his claws catching onto her shorts, and climbed back into his papoose.

  From the sky, the flat plains beneath them had looked as if they might stretch on forever. But the view from the ground was something quite different. Up ahead, the stars disappeared, casting a long, eerie swath across the sky. The landscape—what they could see in the distance—was dark and dry, steeped in shadows and strange mounds. Beyond it, white snowy mountains rose, sending a cold mountain wind down upon the travelers and making them shiver.

  The prairie—dead, dry, still, and cool—was littered with countless giant skeletons. They were lying, as if resting, and their forms were intact, though here and there a clavicle had tumbled out of place, or a spinal disk or a shoulder blade.

  Sharing the landscape with the skeletons were a few enormous trees—some standing upright, some lying sideways, but all far from alive.

  Beatrice drifted up to the nearest tree and tapped on it gently, then rubbed her fingers together to get off the dust and turned to look back at the others.

  “Petrified,” she said.

  “Me too,” Pumpkin moaned. “Let’s turn around.”

  Bea shook her head. “Not petrified as in scared, Pumpkin. Petrified means that it’s turned into stone.”

  May had read about places like this in one of her travel books. There was a petrified forest in the desert in Arizona. “But I thought nothing in the Ever After gets older?”

  “These are older than old,” Fabbio said definitively, drifting in and out of one skull’s gaping mouth. He didn’t even have to duck.

  “Oooh, don’t do that,” Beatrice said, tugging his shoulder and pulling him back. “This whole place gives me a terrible feeling.”

  “Meay,” Somber Kitty said ominously He jumped out of his papoose, landing gracefully, and took up a protective stance beside May, facing the mountains, as if whatever danger there was lay directly ahead of them.

  “Which way do we go?” Beatrice asked. Everyone looked at May.

  May scanned the landscape, rubbing her arms from the chill. “Forward, I guess.” Her eye lit on another stone—this one different than all the others. “Hey, look at that.” They all approached it slowly, and Bea read the inscription out loud:

  “Here lie the Frost Giants

  And here they stood

  They were believed into life

  And then forgotten.

  Now only their lonely breath

  Drifts upon the mountains

  And guards the way with fear.

  In other words, NO TRESPASSING!!

  —Signed, H. Kari Threadgoode Secretary to the Lady of North Farm”

  May touched the letters of the signed name in wonder. H. Kari Threadgoode.

  “Sounds like their breath could be really bad,” Pumpkin said. “Maybe we better not trespass.”

  May was already stepping past the tombstone. She turned back to look at the others. “You don’t have to go.”

  She turned to look toward the mountains again, and then she felt Bea’s arm link through hers. “I adore skeleton-strewn prairies.”

  May looked at her, then at Fabbio and Pumpkin as they floated up to join her. “Are you sure?”

  Fabbio pulled his uniform straight and zipped ahead of her, thrusting one finger in the air. “Now we go.”

  May looked at Pumpkin. He straightened himself like Fabbio had, thrust a finger in the air, said, “We go,” and zipped along behind him.

  Somber Kitty watched the others float into the Petrified Pass. Then he looked over his shoulder uncertainly. “Meow,” he said softly. Which meant, Doesn’t anyone else realize we escaped certain doom back at Risk Falls? And that it will surely follow us?

  But Pumpkin only turned around and started making kissy noises. “C’mon, Kitty Don’t be scared. They’re just bones.”

  Somber Kitty gave him a look that was meant to be sobering, but it only made Pumpkin’s face bunch up in a smile. “Awww. You are sooo cute. C’mon.”

  Sighing, his nose wiggling for a scent in the air and his whiskers fluttering, Somber Kitty looked over his shoulder again. He supposed it was up to him alone. But what could he do?

  Finally, he licked a paw and then dug it into the sand, right at the boundary of the pass. Carefully, he scraped the paw this way and that, working quickly It was only a few moments before he sat back and looked at his creation.

  He had to admit, it wasn’t bad, considering his limited resources.

  Minutes later, May knelt to retie her shoe just as the entire sky flashed. An enormous face appeared across the length and breadth of the sky, its eyes obscured in a tangle of leaf-shaped clouds, its pupils trained on the one tiny spot of earth where May crouched.

  Only Somber Kitty happened to be looking upward at the time, and he let out a howl. But by the time the others followed his gaze, there was nothing to be seen above—nothing except layers upon layers of clouds.

  Cautiously, carefully, they moved forward.

  For hours May and the others made their way across the plains on a slow, steady rise that climbed closer and closer to the mountains.

  Pumpkin and Somber Kitty fought to be in front, but though Pumpkin had the advantage of floating, Somber Kitty always managed to take the lead—shooting out ahead just as Pumpkin caught up again.

  They were near the dislocated kneecap of a giant when May finally looked behind her. She could see the miles they’d crossed stretching out behind them, scattered with the hollow remains of giants and trees. But there was still a long stretch ahead.

  “Well, how about we rest here?”

  Pumpkin crossed his arms and looked toward the giant’s massive skull uncertainly.

  “I guess there’s nowhere that isn’t spooky,” Beatrice said.

  “This is good place,” Fabbio offered, pulling a pair of binoculars out of his pocket and surveying the landscape. It was noticeably colder than it had been when they’d started out, and May blew into her cupped hands and pulled poor Kitty tight.

  “Do you think if the Lady chooses, she’ll just … zap you home?” Pumpkin asked.

  “I don’t know.” But that was sort of what May had been thinking. Hoping. She couldn’t imagine crossing the pass twice.

  After they had set up camp, Bea started on a letter she planned to mail to Coffin Confidential, a talk show that specialized in making specters’ dreams come true, sometimes uniting them with lost loved ones.

  “My mom always said that when something is lost, you just have to rest your mind,” May said. “And then when you least expect i
t, it’ll come back to you.”

  Bea looked at her, hurt. “You think I’ll never find her.”

  May flinched, alarm fluttering in her belly. “No, I do! I just—” It just seemed that maybe if Bea stopped pushing so hard, just for a while …

  But Bea had already stood and, her nose in the air and her letter tucked under her arm, started floating off across the plain, leaving May watching her back, bewildered. What had she said?

  That night all sorts of things kept them up. The wind howled down upon them from the north, causing May and Somber Kitty—the only two who felt the cold—to huddle together in their sleeping bag, their teeth rattling. The mountains—which again did not seem to be getting any closer—danced with strange lights, flickering here and there like lightning bugs. Even Beatrice, sleeping at a cool distance from May, had no explanation for them.

  When May finally slept, she dreamed that the breeze coming down from the mountains was the breath of the Lady herself.

  “Meow”

  Commander Berzerko stood before the group of goblins and zombies she’d summoned. They had rendezvoused just a few minutes before, at a graveyard just north of the Dead Sea.

  In her left paw she held a marker. With her right, she pointed to a collapsible blackboard, indicating a drawing she had just completed:

  The commander sniffed a pawful of catnip, then surveyed the crowd. “Meow?”

  The group gazed back at her blankly. Not one of the zombies or goblins present knew how to speak cat. But, since their recruitment that morning, no one had had the nerve to tell this to Commander Berzerko yet. So far they had just nodded a lot as she’d pulled out maps, done drawings, even sketched the occasional portrait.

  “Meow?” the commander asked.

  The zombies shifted uncomfortably. A few goblins nodded. Neither group looked at the other. Unbeknownst to the commander, zombies and goblins had been sworn enemies since 1912. (That year the goblins had determined that zombies had the worst outfits of any group of spirits in the realm.)

  “Mew meow?” Commander Berzerko directed her gaze at an unfortunate goblin in the front, who’d been examining his cuticles. The goblin started and looked up in horror. Clearly aware that he was being asked a question, he pretended to be thinking really hard. He began to tremble and sweat profusely. He looked at the others helplessly. “Ufffff, meow?” he ventured.

  “Meow?” Commander Berzerko considered, with deadly calm. Her eyes narrowed. And then something strange began to happen. Her fur stood up on end. Her body began to shake. Her green eyes widened and crossed. She floated several feet into the air like a balloon. All over her body, her fur formed itself into shiny black spikes. Her claws shot out into the air, smoke flowing madly from her ears. But most horrible of all was what happened to her tail.

  “Meeeeeoooooooooooooow!” The tail shot out and wrapped itself around the goblin, whipping him into the air and dangling him before the others as he screeched.

  And then the screeching stopped. Commander Berzerko began to shrink to normal size and float back toward the ground. Her spiraled tail unraveled itself, revealing no sign of the goblin who had been there a moment before. And then something fell from the last curl of the tail with a clatter.

  A glittering black diamond.

  Commander Berzerko scooped the diamond up with one paw and tucked it somewhere inside her collar as the Dark Spirits before her watched, shocked.

  Calmly, she returned her attention to the blackboard and pointed once again to the figure of the cat with the big ears.

  “Meow,” she said. Which, though no one understood, meant, Leave this one to me.

  May awoke to a gentle tap on her cheek. Kitty was staring at her proudly, wearing something filmy and gray. It was a little kitty coat.

  Behind him, Fabbio sat with a tiny silver needle and a little sewing bag. “Now be very still, I am needing to finish hem.” Noticing May staring at him, he sniffed. “What, you thinking it is unmanly to sew?” He nodded toward the white, snow-blanketed mountains in front of them. “This cat. He was not made for cold mountains.” Then he muttered, “Beatrice teach me how.”

  May smiled. Fabbio’s blue lips curled upward, his mustache curling with them. His eyes darted to the mountains. “Anyway, I no sleep.”

  May thought the lights must have kept him up too. And then another thought came to her. “Is this place like where you died, Captain?” she asked, pulling a petrified twig from the ground and rubbing it thoughtfully between her fingers. She knew Fabbio had died parachuting into the Alps. That was where he had lost all his men.

  Fabbio stopped sewing for a moment, then nodded, his face taking on a cast as stony as the kneecap they rested against. “Yes…. But was not my fault!” he added sharply, his nose going red.

  “I’m sure it wasn’t.” May rolled her twig.

  “Good morning, you two.” Beatrice emerged from behind the kneecap. “Come on. I’ve built a fire.”

  May gave Bea a tentative smile, and, to her relief, Bea smiled back. It looked like she’d been forgiven.

  Somber Kitty quickly glanced at the mountains, then disappeared around the kneecap in a flash.

  “My sentiments exactly,” May whispered.

  On the third day, a light snow began to fall. By the morning of the fourth day, far up the side of one of the steepest mountains, it had whipped itself into a storm, and May couldn’t see past the ends of her fingers. She, Bea, and Fabbio had to hold hands to keep from losing one another. Somber Kitty had let Pumpkin hold him for a while, pretending he didn’t like it, and occasionally he peeked out of the collar of Pumpkin’s coat, where he lay hidden, protected from the storm. Pumpkin drifted along happily, singing about a sepulcher in Sarasota, where his sweetheart waited for him.

  “We have to be close to the peak,” May said, pulling herself uphill by a petrified limb. She shivered under her shroud.

  “What’s that?” Beatrice cupped her hand over her eyes and squinted forward.

  Up ahead of them, a dark hole opened up in the snow. A neon sign just at the top of it said NORTH FARM, THIS WAY.

  The travelers looked at one another. A warm glow came from the tunnel.

  “What do you think?” Beatrice asked.

  “I think we go!” Fabbio said. “Clearly, this is shortcut.”

  May gazed at the opening. It seemed odd that the Petrified Pass, seemingly so forbidding, should invite them in. But May was freezing, and everyone’s looks urged her forward. Even Somber Kitty had poked out of Pumpkin’s coat again, his ears pointed toward the tunnel with curiosity. A tiny voice inside May said to keep trudging uphill, but she wanted to ignore it.

  “Let’s just go in and see,” she said unsurely. The travelers hurried into the mouth of the cave.

  Behind them, the neon lights flickered and then went out.

  The zombies and goblins came to a stop and shivered. Ahead of them, the mountains of the Petrified Pass leaped from the horizon crookedly, sharp and menacing. Even Commander Berzerko’s fur stood on end as she paced the line that separated the pass from the highlands, sniffing at where the trail of the living girl and the living cat made a straight track toward the mountains.

  Now sure that the travelers had gone that way, and keenly able to scent that their trail led all the way into the mountains, she smirked, her canines poking out of her jowls.

  The commander motioned a paw to the goblins, who began spreading themselves along the edge of the pass and hiding wherever they could. The zombies she sent farther east, to hide themselves in the traditional zombie style. All the exits from the pass would be covered.

  Of course, it was probably unnecessary. No one who ventured into the pass ever came back out again.

  The commander sank back on her haunches to watch … and wait.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Petrified, Period

  In the hush of the tunnel May’s and Kitty’s breath furled itself across the air, drifting farther into the depths as if inviting them forwa
rd. Dripping, thawing water echoed around them. Large lumps grew out of the ground on either side of the cave, but it was hard to tell exactly what they were.

  Though it was still cold, there was no wind to whip the chill into her bones, and May loosened the collar of her death shroud. She noticed it had torn in one place and that her vivid, living body showed through the tear.

  “Hello?” Pumpkin called, smiling and delighted as his own voice bounced back at him. “Pumpkin is the best!” he called, cupping his long white fingers to his ears, his tuft flopping in the breeze. His echo returned again and again.

  “Shhh!” May and Fabbio hissed.

  Beatrice drifted up to one of the lumps, then gasped. “May, come look.”

  May hurried to her side.

  The lump wasn’t just a lump, but a statue of a ghoul—sharp fangs protruding from under its lips, its arms held up over its eyes as if in terror.

  “How odd,” Beatrice said.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be in here,” May said. But already Fabbio had drifted down the passage.

  “I have found the way,” he called proudly, following a glowing blue arrow on the ground. Somber Kitty leaped out of Pumpkin’s coat and onto the ground, dropping back and rubbing between Pumpkin’s legs.

  They all reluctantly followed Fabbio. More statues emerged from the darkness: ghouls, goblins, even the occasional ghost or specter. One held a camera up to its face.

  “You don’t think that’s one of the holo-tographers that book talked about, do you?” Beatrice whispered in May’s ear. “The ones that never came back?”

  May shivered.

  All of the statues looked terrified. The number of them increased the farther they went, until they were practically butting up against one another.

  “I think we should turn around,” May said, swiveling to look back at Bea and Pumpkin. But the passage behind her was empty.

  From above, the sound of a deep breath being exhaled swept through the cave, followed by a gust of frigid air.

  “Pumpkin? Bea?” May whispered, then scanned the ground. “Kitty?” She shivered, and her heart thudded against her ribs. The cave seemed to have gotten about twenty degrees colder. She looked up the tunnel in the other direction, where Fabbio had drifted too far ahead to be seen.