The Ever After

Chapter Twenty-Five: Beatrice and Fabbio

MAY STOOD ON THE DECREPIT BALCONY OF room 9440, staring down toward the streets of the city and listening to the noises that drifted up.

Everyone moving around below looked tiny, like little toy ghosts. Pumpkin still lay snoring in the room behind her.

The beds-there were two-were moldy and rotten, sagging in the middle and covered in dust, which Pumpkin had found delightful. They had burst into the room, laughing and joyful and hugging each other, talking about their adventures-May relating what she'd seen at the Eternal Edifice, and Pumpkin talking about slipping away from the gargoyles by ducking under a souvenir cart. They'd bounced on the beds awhile and played Old Maid with a deck of cards they'd found in the drawer, and May had let Pumpkin cheat. Then Pumpkin had shown May all the things he'd bought.

He'd presented her with a locket he'd bought in a trendy neighborhood at the edge of Sewerside. It was in the shape of a coffin that broke into two halves-one for each of them to wear. Put together, it read BEST FRIENDS, and words had been engraved on the back: PUMPKIN & MAY, NEVER TO BE DEARLY DEPARTED. Afterward they had listened to the sirens of the city, which had gone off three times in a row.

"Do you think that's for us?" May had asked, peering through the sliding glass door at a distant gaggle of gargoyles circling at the edge of the city.

Pumpkin had yawned and crawled into his bed, shrugging. May twisted her half of the locket between her fingers, smiling with relief that Pumpkin was okay. But after a few moments her smile faded, and her heart became as heavy as a sack of beans.

Pumpkin had escaped, but just barely. John the Jibber was gone. And there was Lucius, somewhere far below the Dead Sea. She'd caused nothing but disaster to the spirits who had helped her. She couldn't forget what the Undertaker had said, about the danger that surrounded her. She knew as long as he was by her side, Pumpkin was surrounded by it too.

Down on the streets all the spirits seemed to be going somewhere, and May wished she were going somewhere as well. They all had homes. Sighing, she walked back into the room, then dug through her sack for her comfort blanket. She wrapped it over her death shroud.

Suddenly she was lying on her bed in White Moss Manor. There was the tiny hairline crack in the ceiling she used to stare at while daydreaming.

May sat up and peered around at the shelves lined with quartz rocks, picking one up and rolling it around in her hands, her heart aching. Her eyes skipped across the books on her desk and the materializer lying on the floor beside it. She stared at the bedroom door.

"Somber Kitty?" she called loudly, knowing it wouldn't work, but hoping. She waited for several seconds, then slumped back down onto her bed in misery. Finally she tugged the blanket off.

She looked at the embroidered words: Remember to keep warm, and she thought she understood them differently than she had at first. Maybe it meant she should remember and that would keep her warm. Only right now, it made her sad.

Pumpkin was still snoring.

May went to her knapsack again and tucked the blanket inside, then swung the pack over her shoulder and looked at Pumpkin, thinking.

She pulled out the blanket again and laid it over him, wondering what kind of place he would wake up to, lying under it. What memories kept Pumpkin warm? "Good-bye, Pumpkin," she whispered softly, gently patting his tuft of yellow hair. Then she tiptoed out of the room, closing the door behind her.

* * *

In room 9440 the comfort blanket had already transported Pumpkin's dreams far away, to the same place it had taken May: Briery Swamp. He too was in May's bedroom, sitting on a chair. Only he was waiting for a skinny, dark-haired girl to come upstairs and draw her pictures or read her books.