May Bird Among the Stars (12 page)

Somber Kitty's fuzz stood straight up, and his tail twitched. May was up ahead, flat on her back, with a bouquet of red roses in her hands and more red roses strung about her hair. Her eyes were closed. She was lying under a glass dome, like a cake.

“Meay?” Somber Kitty whispered. He gingerly stepped up to the glass and tapped the area around her cheek with his paw. “Meay?”

This reminded him distinctly of a movie he had watched
with May when he had first come to live at White Moss Manor, on the night of May's birthday May had cried over the television set, and Somber Kitty, then a kitten, had watched the moving picture over her shoulder: a beautiful woman with a red ribbon in her dark hair lying under a glass dome surrounded by seven little men. Bewildered, Somber Kitty hadn't understood what May was crying about, but her tears had filled him with more despair than usual. Since then he had always associated birthday cake with sadness and had never asked for scraps.

“Meay?” he asked again, tapping on the glass. May did not move. “Meay?”

Somber Kitty sniffed the glass, then sneezed.

He was slightly insulted. If this was a trick, it was a pretty paltry attempt at one. This May in front of him smelled like ice. The real May smelled like a combination of peanut butter balls, dried leaves, green grass, silver sparkles, and Ivory soap.

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Somber Kitty turned in the direction from which the sound had come, just down one of the side tunnels. He cocked his head, wondering what on earth could have made it.

Bzzzz. Bzzzz

Somber Kitty flapped his tail madly, wondering. The sound reminded him of a bee.

Curiosity made up approximately 45 percent of Somber Kitty's soul. And that is why, though he knew it was probably dangerous, he tramped down the tunnel to investigate.

T
hunk.

The sound that came from above May was the exact same as a stopper being pulled from a bathtub. May would have flinched, had she not been made of stone. As it was, she could move only her eyeballs. But that didn't help much, because whatever it was, was directly above her head.

A beam of white-hot light, the kind she had seen only once before, poured in around her. Her heart began to pound in her frozen chest.

There was a rattle and a crunch as she felt herself being broken free of the ground at her feet, and then she was being pulled upward through the round hole that had been created in the ceiling. A moment later she was outside again, the snow blanketing the ground but no longer whipping its way through the sky.

Whatever was carrying her turned her around, and May's heart fluttered. She was surrounded by bright, white, comet-like spirits. North Farm spirits, she realized, like one she had seen in the Eternal Edifice. They parted, revealing a glowing sleigh—majestic, red as rose petals, and dripping with bells.

Inside it, leaning out at jaunty angles, were three stone statues that looked exactly like Pumpkin, Beatrice, and Fabbio.

May was carried to the red velvet bench and set down next to them. Her eyes scanned the sleigh for the one missing thing.

Somber Kitty,
she tried to say, but her lips wouldn't move.

The sleigh slid into silky motion, and May tried again with all her might to open her mouth, to yell for her cat, to beg the spirits to stop. But only her pinky moved, and it moved only a millimeter. One tear of frustration squeezed itself out of her eye and down her stone cheek as the sleigh crested the rise of the tallest mountain of the Petrified Pass. And then her eyes were greeted with the view of what lay on the other side.

May, Pumpkin, Beatrice, and Fabbio beheld an enormous forest, dense with trees clinging to one another like wet herbs, the canopy of leaves dusted with a layer of snow. Squawks, squeals, and screams of wild creatures—animals!—rose up from the dark places to greet them. The smell of woods wafted into May's petrified nostrils. If her heart had not been frozen, it would have beat a different rhythm. A woods rhythm. A rhythm of home.

At the edge of the trees, just before they entered a wide, shady path, they passed a sign that said
WILD AND WOOLLY NORTH FARM.
The sleigh hurtled from the starlit expanse of the snowy mountain into the dark, lush greenery of the woods.

Shadows sliced across their path, made by the trees far above. Some were covered in enormous spiky briars, others were wrapped in strangler vines, and still others drooped vibrant flowers.

The trees on either side of the path seemed to bow toward
them as they passed. And from the corner of her eye, May could see vague faces in the lines of the bark, watching.

All along the path, one name seemed to be whispered through the leaves with excitement:
May Bird.

Ahead of them, one tree rose above all the rest. Its branches curved and bent this way and that, its boat-shaped leaves were shiny and droopy and unruly, its limbs stretched out above the forest ceiling like fingers. Gigantic white flowers dripped from its branches. It was the tree May had seen all along—in the stamp on the letter she'd received back home, in the leaves above the lake, in the clouds above the City of Ether. May knew it in her petrified bones: It was the tree of the Lady of North Farm.

Other sounds closed in around them—loud crowing, rustling leaves, the buzzing of insects. The woods were alive with great translucent birds flitting here and there—birds May had seen in pictures: dodos, albatross, vultures. She glimpsed enormous Venus flytraps, glowing scarab beetles, and ferns so large that they looked like they belonged with dinosaurs. A ghostly murder of crows skimmed the air just above their heads, followed by a lone owl peering down at them.
Who? Who?
it asked.

May Bird,
the trees whispered.

The sleigh turned down a path to the left and continued, away from the tree, at a thoughtful, steady float.

Several minutes passed before May noticed a plume of steam rising up ahead. When the sleigh slid to a halt, they were in front of a muddy bog dotted with round, bubbling pools.

One by one, the travelers were plucked from the seat where they were perched and dumped into the pools, with only their shoulders and heads staying above the water.

The warmth of it went straight to May's core. After a few moments she found she could wiggle one hand. Her whole body began to go warm and soft, as if she were a frozen turkey thawing. Her heart seemed to start thawing too, and every part of it that melted ached for Somber Kitty

Glurp!

Each of the travelers was lifted gently out of the water and carried to a tiny log cabin, where they were laid on four identical beds, facedown. May felt warm, glowing hands kneading her shoulders, karate-tapping her back, pulling on her toes. Her body went as limp as chocolate pudding, and a yawn escaped from her lips.

Somewhere nearby, Pumpkin groaned. “No tomatoes. No
tomatoes!”

May summoned the energy to swivel her neck and look in the direction of the others, lined up beside her.

Pumpkin appeared to be talking in his sleep. Fabbio's stony face was turned to her, but he still stared blankly ahead. A tiny tear dribbled a crooked line from his eye to the tip of his mustache. Beatrice lifted one hand sluggishly to her face and smoothed back a messy piece of hair.

“Purmkin,” May whispered, her lips rubbery and awkward. She licked them and tried again. “Purmkin, ake up.”

Pumpkin looked at her with a start. “Oh,” he murmured, with a relieved smile. Then his eyes scanned the room. They widened at the sight of the North Farm spirits, but then they immediately searched the ground. Then his face grew stricken. “Where's Somber Kitty?” he whispered.

•   •   •

An hour or so later May and the others were all sitting up. The North Farm spirits had left them, though they could tell by the blinding light shining through the crack under the door that at least a few of them were guarding the cabin.

Pumpkin merely lay on the mud floor in despair. Great tears ran down his cheeks and froze in streaks. “I can't live without him,” he cried, and rolled over to watch his tears dribble into the dirt. “I never told him how much I … I …” He broke down in sobs.

The group had curled up in a corner of the room together, huddling to warm their bones, which were still a little cold. In fact, Fabbio's big toe had not thawed in the least, and he studied it distraughtly, occasionally wiggling it with his fingers.

“What do you think they'll do with us?” Beatrice asked.

May shrugged.

They sat in silence for a long time. Finally, Fabbio broke the silence. “I have thought poem about my feelings.
Ahem.
It is called ‘Ode to a Petrified Toenail,' and it go like this:

“Once I had a lovely toe,
hut then one day it turned to stone.
Which one, you ask? It was the pinky!
It was my favorite toe, I think-y.
But where there was this little toe
There is only a shoe full of woe!
Eeny meeny miney moe
I will never he in a foot fashion show
To play soccer I will never go To flip-flops I must say no.”

Creeeeeak.

The door to the cabin creaked open, and everyone started. A spirit stood in the doorway, motioning them forward. They emerged onto a footpath and followed.

The spirit illuminated the shade and curved this way and that along the trail. Finally, a swath of dim light appeared up ahead, and they all arrived at a snow-covered pasture. A hundred paces ahead of them was another tiny cabin, smoke rising from its chimney and cobwebs clinging to its eaves.

The white spirits drifted aside, leaving the path open to the front door.

“Where are we?” Pumpkin said darkly. Bea sidled up just behind Fabbio's arm and linked her hand through the crook of his elbow.

May looked at the North Farm spirits, who watched her calmly with their slitted eyes. Everyone seemed to be waiting for her to do something. She swallowed and walked up to the door. A magnolia flower was carved into the wood.

May raised her hand to knock and then lowered it.
What If …?

There was a sudden jiggle of the knob from within, then a slow, agonized creak. The door opened.

May blinked at the two figures before her, and she almost fell over.

Somber Kitty stood on the floor, flapping his tail at her impatiently, as if to say,
What took you so long?
The other figure
floated back a few inches and surveyed her with blind lidded eyes.

“The Lady doesn't live here, to answer your question,” Arista said, his antennae twitching invitingly
“Zzzz
But won't you come in anyway, my dear?”

I
t was a very embarrassing spectacle for a full-grown house I ghost, but Pumpkin did not seem to notice.

“Pumpkin,
zzzz,
you are not a child. Will you
please
remove yourself from my lap. Why don't you go back to hugging and kissing the cat?”

Pumpkin nibbled his fingers, but he wouldn't budge. He had planted himself on Arista, and he was not letting go. His legs swung back and forth as he bombarded his master with questions. “How's Belle Morte? How's my grave? Have you gone to the Towering Inferno Hotel without me? How're the bees? You didn't get a new house ghost, did you?”

Arista blushed. Out of a sense of decency, Fabbio picked at some lint on his uniform. Even Somber Kitty pretended to be licking his belly. They had all gathered in Arista's parlor in this new place, sitting on moldy but comfy chairs.

“Zzzzz,
all in good time, Pumpkin. But surely you all have more pressing questions than these,
zzzz
Isn't that so?”

The group stared back at him, dumbfounded.

“Zzz,
well, let's see. Why don't you start by telling me what happened just now, in the Petrified Pass?”

Arista's lidded eyes were turned in Bea's direction, and his antennae pointed toward her thoughtfully

Bea wrapped her arms around her knees. “It was frightful. Suddenly, there was no snow. We weren't even in the mountains anymore. We were in a big field, and my mother was there. She was all the way across the field, and for some reason, she was carrying two suitcases. We each saw the other, and we were about to dash toward each other, only someone else was there. Someone I couldn't see.” Bea shuddered. “They took her away.”

Fabbio waved a finger in the air. “I did not see this. Back there in the mountains I see my men. In the snow. I call out to them, and they see me, too. Only,” Fabbio sniffed, “they run away. They call me ‘Wrong Way Winky.' They say I get them lost in the Alps and that is why we all died. They strip me of these.” He gestured to the shiny medals gracing his uniform, looking surprised to see them still there, then shook his head and turned his attention back to his frozen toe. “Me!
Captain
Fabbio!”

“That's nothing,” Pumpkin warbled. “I ran into a group of spirits who work for the Shakespeare Song and Dance Revue. I don't know what they're doing all the way out here.” He snorted sadly now and wiped his eyes. “They asked me to audition. Only …” Pumpkin scrunched up his eyes, unable to look at the others. “Only, when I did, they threw tomatoes at me. They said my song choice was uninspired and that I was just a two-bit, no-talent house ghost. And they said the only place I'd ever get a singing job would be on a cruise ship.” He dropped his
face into his hands and began to cry tears of sorrow this time. “A cruise ship!”

Something was beginning to dawn on May. “Petrified,” she said.

“What?” Beatrice asked.

“I don't know.” May looked at her hands.

Arista studied her closely with his blind eyelids. “What do you think happened, May?”

“We saw our worst fears. The things that most petrify us. Pumpkin's scared of failing in front of an audience.” She turned to Bea. “You're scared of your mother being lost forever. Fabbio's scared that it was his fault that his men died.”