The Year of Shadows (38 page)

“He’s right here,” Richard Ashley said.

“I’m here, Olivia,” came Henry’s voice. I felt him grab my hand. Nobody grabbed hands like Henry did. “I’m right here. It’s okay.”

T
HEY PUT THE
Maestro in the ICU. That means Intensive Care Unit. That means You’ve Been Hurt Bad.

I let Richard Ashley and Henry lead me around. I was still in zoom-land, where everything but Henry’s hand in mine and Richard’s hand on my shoulder was a blur.

He will be okay,
they kept saying. The doctor was a tiny, serious man who reminded me of a bird. His touch on my arm was light, like feathers. He darted everywhere, like he was gathering twigs.

When I started imagining drawing Dr. Birdman, the genius half man, half sparrow neurologist, I finally snapped out of it. The things that make you the most
you
can do that. When everything else is zoomy and hazy and doesn’t make sense, you at least have that. Your hobbies. Your dreams. You at least have your sketches, or your trumpet playing, or your homework in its neat, color-coded folders labeled
HENRY PAGE, SEVENTH GRADER
.

They’re kind of like anchors, those things.

“Do you want something to eat?”

I found Henry standing in front of me. Past him, the Maestro lay in a beeping, wired-up bed.

“Richard gave me ten bucks,” Henry said. “I can get us food from the cafeteria. It’s always open, they said.”

I pried the words out of myself, like I hadn’t spoken in centuries. “What happened?”

“Oh wow, finally,” he said, and sat down next to me, on the ugliest couch in the world—gray and pink and faded blue. “You’ve been so quiet. They said you were in a state of shock.”

“Yeah.”

“Your dad was hurt pretty bad, Olivia. Broken bones, a major concussion. And he was bleeding on the inside. They had to operate.”

“Yeah.”

“But they think he’s gonna be okay.”

“Is he sleeping?”

Henry hesitated. “He’s in a coma. They said it’s because he hit his head so hard.”

“Why? What does that mean?”

“It’s like his body shut down, so it can heal.”

“When will he wake up?”

“They don’t know.”

I took a deep breath. When I let it out, I felt like crying. “It’s my fault.”

“What? No, it was the shades.”

“I said it,” I whispered. “I said, the other night: I wished it had been him instead of her.”

“Olivia—”

I grabbed Henry by the shoulders. “Don’t you get it? I bet the shades heard me. How could I have been so
stupid
, to say something like that? They heard me, and they’re mad at me because of everything we’ve done, so they decided to give me what I asked for.”

Henry grabbed me by the shoulders right back. “Olivia, he’s not going to die.”

“Did Dr. Birdman say that?”

“Who?”

“I mean the doctor.”

“No, he didn’t say that,
exactly
. He said he’s hopeful, though.”

“Hopeful doesn’t mean squat.” I drew myself into a knot, the couch making my legs itch. “Don’t tell me things you don’t know. And what is this couch, porcupine?”

“Richard decided it was hedgehog.”

“He’s here?”

Henry smiled. “Olivia, everyone’s here.”

“What do you mean?”

He helped me to the door of the ICU, and I peeked out into the lobby.

The entire orchestra was there—sitting, standing, spread out with blankets on chairs pushed together to make beds. Cups of coffee, food wrappers, and music on the ground. A couple people praying in the corner. Grace Pollock,
principal violist, listened to something on her headphones, her head bowed. Richard Ashley sprawled out on the floor, snoring.

“They’ve been waiting for news,” Henry explained.

I slipped back into the Maestro’s room, my throat too full for talking. The beeps of the machines keeping the Maestro alive pounded in my head like some giant, evil clock.

“What are you thinking?” Henry asked, following me.

“Do you think he’ll die?”

“No,” Henry said firmly. “I think he’ll wake up any minute with a really bad headache.”

“What if he doesn’t wake up?”

“He will.”

But we didn’t know that, did we? “And what about the Hall?”

“Closed, but still standing. Everything’s postponed, indefinitely. It would be too disrespectful, Mayor Pitter said, to destroy the Hall with your dad in the hospital and . . .”

Henry’s voice trailed off.
And possibly dying
, I finished for him.

“So the Hall’s safe for now,” I said slowly.

“For now, yeah. Olivia, there were reporters and everything. The whole city’s talking.”

“Where’s Mr. Worthington?”

“He’s hiding on the roof. The hospital weirds him out. Plus, I think sick or dying people can see ghosts better. This
one lady, she had all these tubes in her, and she pointed right at him, screaming. People thought she was nuts.”

I put my hands over my ears to drown out that stupid beeping. “Tabby’s doll is in Limbo. With the shades.”

Henry tried to pry my hands loose. “Are you okay?”

“I have to go.”

“What?”

I hurried toward the door. “I have to go into Limbo.”

Henry spun me around. “Are you crazy?”

“Look, if the Maestro dies—”

“He
won’t.
”

I pointed at the Maestro, lying there in his bed. So small, so tubed. Things like that shouldn’t be in a person. “He might, Henry.”

Henry couldn’t look at me.

“If he does die, he might become a ghost. And if he becomes a ghost, he’ll obviously haunt the Hall. And the Hall will get torn down, and the shades will come after him next. They’ll wait around the Hall until his ghost shows up, and then they’ll take him away.”

Henry sank down onto the porcupine couch. “I didn’t think of that.”

“We’ve got to get them out of here, Henry. We’ve got to get Mr. Worthington out and show the shades that they can’t just stick around here until they get what they want. Make them never want to come back here again.” I drew myself up tall. “I have to go into Limbo. I have to find that doll.”

“And how will you do that, exactly?”

I marched toward the door. If I stopped for even one second, I might chicken out. “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

Henry stopped me. “Olivia, you don’t know what the shades will do to you.”

“Whatever it is, they’ll fail.”

Henry put his hands on my face, just like Richard Ashley had done. His cheeks turned red. He dropped his hands.

“I’m coming with you,” he said, swallowing hard. “I can’t let you go alone.”

“No, you’re staying here with the Maestro. Someone has to keep an eye on him. And besides, I won’t be alone. I’ll have Igor.”

Henry put his hands in his hair. “Man, Olivia, for the last time, that cat is
just a cat
.”

“Nonnie says he’s a very weird cat.”

“Is that supposed to be better or something?”

“Just watch the Maestro, okay? And make sure no one sees me leave.”

“No way, I’m not going to just—”

I needed to shut him up, to distract him. That was the only reason I did it, why I leaned up on my toes and kissed Henry Page’s cheek. Twice, for good luck.

“You have sandwich breath,” I told him.

Then I grabbed the ten-dollar bill and left him standing there, his hand on his cheek.

The Hall was empty and dark, wreckage from the caved-in ceiling swept to the side in a pile blocked off with ropes. The holes in the ceiling gaped down at me.

I stood there for a minute, trying to figure out how to go about this. I’d spent months avoiding Limbo. But I didn’t know how to find it. All I knew was that shades came from Limbo. The only times I’d seen it, they’d been around.

Maybe it was as simple as that.

Igor bounded toward me out of the dark.
And what exactly do you think you’re doing?

“Um, hello?” I called out. My voice bounced around the Hall. “Shades? I’ve come here to—”

A blast of cold air knocked me to the ground. Mr. Worthington’s face appeared in the seat cushion above my face.

“Stupid,” he boomed. “Stupid.”

“I’m not stupid,” I said, glaring up at him. “I’ve just got to find your daughter’s doll, thanks very much.”

Mr. Worthington patted me anxiously. “Safe. Please. Stay.”

That’s when my arm started to burn, colder than it had ever burned before, and I knew, instinctively, what was about to happen. I smiled at Mr. Worthington.

“Can’t stay,” I said.

Igor growled, jumped onto my shoulders, and dug in his claws.
Olivia . . .

I turned to see dozens of cold black hands reaching for
me, then jerking away like I’d burned them, then reaching for me again. Behind the hands, a door to Limbo swirled.

“Okay.” I turned toward Limbo, spread my arms wide, and closed my eyes. Igor was meowing in my ear. “You can take me. I’ll go with you.”

The hands grabbed me. None of them could hold on for very long. It was like Frederick had said—they wanted to be like me, but they also hated me. I was painful to them. One hand snaked around and clamped over my mouth and nose, choking my air away. Another hand reached under my shirt and pressed itself over my heart.

“Blood,” a rattling voice wheezed. “Fresh blood.”

They dragged me through what felt like a pane of glass. It smashed to pieces around me. Mr. Worthington’s thundering screams vanished, sucked away into nothingness.

Abruptly, the hands let go of me.

To make sure I was alive, I took a breath. Two breaths. I could feel it puffing, freezing in the air like a cloud of ice.

I clenched my fists, fingernails pinching my palms.

Igor shook against my stomach, his claws digging into my skin. I felt the warm sting of blood.

Alive, then.

But where?

I opened my eyes.

I
WAS IN
the Hall, but not the Hall I knew.

It was Limbo’s version.

The pipe organ here was black instead of silver, and five stories tall. Its pipes slithered in the air like seaweed underwater. Instead of dusty red fabric, the Hall floor seats were covered in skin, stretched tight and bolted into place with teeth. They loomed in the darkness, big as houses. Black water covered the floor, knee-deep. My hair was wet and frozen. So was Igor.

Igor tried to meow.
Well, I hope you’re satisfied with yourself.

“I could have drawn this,” I whispered, looking around at the curtains made of old spiderwebs, at the craggy mountaintops that burst out of the Hall’s ceiling. Up past the tops of the mountains, black stars blinked in a dull, white sky.

That didn’t seem right.

Colors swirled everywhere, like when you close your eyes at night and see entire worlds behind your eyelids.
Blues, purples, reds, pale yellows. I started to shiver. When I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, my skin felt crackly, old, like the bark of a tree, or . . .

A burn.

I looked down.

Igor noticed it at the same time, yowled, jumped into the water, and climbed onto one of the giant chairs. His claws pulled on the chair’s skin, yanking out long, gummy strands.

What have they done to you?