The Floating Island (24 page)

“Hey! That was in my pocket! Give it back, you little thief!” Ven shouted, snatching the box from Ida’s hand. He walked as close to her as he could without bouncing his belly off hers, and thrust his face into hers so that their foreheads almost touched. “It was you,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “You put the ring in my room. That’s why you stood up to Whiting—to throw suspicion off yourself.”

Ida snorted contemptuously but said nothing.

“Why did you do it? What do you want from me? You’ve been taking my things, or trying to, from the moment I was unlucky enough to meet you in Kingston,” Ven continued, his anger rising along with his voice. “You tried to pick my pocket. You steal anything and everything that isn’t nailed down. You break into our room. Now you’ve set me up and had me arrested. Stay away from me, you sticky-fingered brat, or I’ll go to Evan Knapp myself and join that line of people in town who want to see you hang.”

“Master Polypheme,”
said Mrs. Snodgrass severely. The rest of the noise in the room faded away at the harshness of her tone. Even McLean’s song vanished.

Clemency’s head popped in the back door. “Ida—
now,
” she said.

Ida stared at him a moment longer, then turned with a smile that was half of a sneer and sauntered out the back door.

Trudy Snodgrass marched over to where Ven stood and stuck her finger into his face.

“No one is rude to a guest in my inn except me,” she said stoutly. “Not even another guest. In the morning you will apologize to Ida. If you have a complaint, or an infraction to report, you know the process. But just because you went to visit the king does not mean you have the right to accuse someone in such an ugly manner. Is that understood?”

Ven exhaled slowly, then felt embarrassment replace his anger.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be. Now, the two of you, get to bed. The sun has gone down. Get to Hare Warren immediately.”

Ven and Char looked at each other in alarm, then glanced out the inn’s large windows. The night had come, and darkness had indeed swallowed the world outside the inn.

“Take lanterns,” Mrs. Snodgrass said, pointing to two that hung near the kitchen entrance. “To light your way—just to be safe.”

Ven and Char mumbled their thanks and good nights, and hurried for the back door.

The lights had been put out already in the windows of Mouse Lodge and Hare Warren by the time they had started across the back meadow. Ven could see pretty well in the dark, being Nain, but even with the lantern Char stumbled several times, tripping over the well pump and dashing his foot against a large steppingstone on the way.

Finally they reached the door of Hare Warren.

It was locked.

The wind picked up, or perhaps they just noticed it then. In the distance the fog was rolling in, hot steam on a summer’s night. The boys thought they could hear the strange sounds they had heard their first night in Hare Warren, the mournful wailing and eerie whine carried on the wind.

Ven banged on the door urgently.

“Cadwalder!” he called, rapping again. “Let us in!”

There was no answer.

Char began to hammer on the door as well. “Come on, Cadwalder—open the bloody door!”

“He must have left for his night watch already and locked it before he left,” Ven said desperately. “But why don’t the others open it? Can’t they hear us?”

Out of the fog at the road’s edge shapes seemed to form. Ven and Char both turned, their backs to the locked door, and strained their eyes to try and get a better look.

The gleaming, leaping shapes that looked like ghostly wolves glided silently out of the mist, swirling in circles. The haunting noise grew louder.

And then they lunged, all the same time, toward the center of the crossroads, as if springing into a hole that was opening in the middle of the roadway, in a chorus of inhuman growls.

Then the screaming began.

I
T WAS A MOMENT BEFORE EITHER BOY’S HEART BEAT AGAIN.

From the moment they had arrived on the island, and heard the strange whispers and incomplete tales about the haunting of the crossroads, they had no idea what was going on there. For the first time since then, they knew one thing without question.

The screaming from within the mist did not come from something demonic, or ghostly, or from another, more sinister world.

It came from a human throat.

Ven and Char stared at each other for a moment in fright.

Then Ven held up his lantern and looked back into the swirling mist, where mysterious wailing and leaping spirits lunged and dragged away, as if tearing the mist apart.

“Come on!” he shouted to Char, and ran as fast as his legs would carry him toward the crossroads.

“Wait!” Char yelled from the doorstep of Hare Warren, then dashed after him.

“Someone’s being killed,” Ven gasped as they ran. “We have to help.”

As they passed the caretaker’s shed, Char stopped long enough to grab two grass rakes that hung on the side of the shed. “No—point—going unarmed,” he puffed, tossing one to Ven.

“Somehow I doubt whatever is haunting that road is going to be afraid of a rake,” Ven said.

Char looked around quickly.

“Well, the only other weapon lying around here is horse dung,” he said, starting off into the mist. “You can take that if you want to and hurl it at whatever is in there.”

“No, thanks,” said Ven, fighting back his fear and following Char.

Into the rolling clouds of fog they ran, hurrying blindly into the filmy darkness lighted by flashes from the swinging lanterns. The sounds of screaming grew louder as they came nearer to the center of the road, punctuated by the deep growling and unearthly shrieking noise. The boys kept their rakes in front of them, swiping blindly every few feet.

“It’s those ghost wolves,” Char whispered as they approached. “They’re tearing someone apart.”

Ven doubled his effort and ran even faster. His hands were slippery with sweat, and he struggled not to drop the lantern or the rake.

They came over the last rise before the road. The boys froze.

In the darkness they could see the white spirits gleaming, their wolf-like bodies huge and muscular, gleaming like ivory in the mist. They were ripping at a body lying in the road, now limp and seemingly lifeless.

A surge of heat rose up from Ven’s stomach, racing through him like a fiery wind. Panic, anger, and the need to help blended together and rushed into his mouth like acid, and he let out a guttural scream that was part roar, part snarl.

Then he heaved his lantern with all his might into the center of the crossroads.

The lantern spun in circles and shattered as it landed in the roadway, sending a splash of billowing light skyward.

The beasts reared back, the nearest one yelping as the fire caught it and began to burn.

Ven let out a bellow and rushed forward, waving the rake angrily, Char doing the same half a step behind him.

The shadow-wolves retreated into the darkness.

The boys hurried to the body lying at the center of the crossroads. When they reached it they stopped. Ven bent down to examine it while Char stood guard, waving his rake menacingly through the mist.

“Oh no,” Ven whispered as he turned the victim over. “No. Char—it’s Nicholas.”

“Gah! Nick? Is he alive? What was he
doing
out here?”

Ven felt for breath, but his hands were trembling so violently that he could not tell if there was any movement in their Warren-mate’s chest.

“Don’t know—maybe he was sent to town with a message and got delayed. We’ve got to get him out of here,” he said. “Those spirit wolves didn’t bolt, they just slunk away. They could come back any minute—come on, help me carry him.”

Together they lifted Nicholas off the road, trying not to notice the pool of his blood. They had managed to get his sagging arms around their shoulders when Char looked up suddenly.

“Hear that?” he asked nervously, staring into the mist. “That weird noise? They’re coming back.”

“We’ll never make it back to the inn,” Ven said, watching the distant shadows move along the road. “They’re between it and us now.”

A hideous howl tore through the air, and the ground beneath them began to tremble.

“Come on!” Ven shouted, dragging Nicholas forward. “To the graveyard—it has a fence. Run!”

Pulling with all their strength, they lugged Nicholas’s body west across the road to the small graveyard beneath the thicket of trees. Char scrambled over the fence, then helped as Ven pushed Nicholas over before climbing inside himself.

“Sorry, Nick,” Char said, wincing, as Nicholas’s body hit the soft grassy ground with a thump.

“I don’t think he can hear you,” whispered Ven urgently. “But the wolves might be able to. Hush.”

They dragged Nicholas behind the largest of the Price family gravestones in the middle of the cemetery and settled down beside him, hiding.

“Let’s just wait here till dawn,” Char said softly. “Maybe if we can make it till morning, they’ll go away. Don’t bad things go away when the sun comes up?”

“Not all bad things,” said Ven gloomily.

“You got another suggestion?”

Ven thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No.” He turned Nicholas gently on his side and put his hand in front of the injured boy’s mouth. “I think he’s breathing—and he needs help.” He stood up and looked over the fence. “Maybe I could run for the inn—”

“And then what?” Char demanded. “Who you gonna get to come out and help? Anybody you want torn to shreds?” He exhaled and leaned back against the gravestone, then a wicked gleam came into his eye and he grinned. “Think Ida would come out?”

“Stop it,” Ven said, but he chuckled as well. “I guess we just wait and see if they come back.”

“Once it gets light I’ll run back and get somebody to help carry him,” Char said. “I’ll see if I can find Cadwalder, if he isn’t asleep already. Or maybe McLean.”

“Have you ever noticed that McLean doesn’t seem to leave the inn much?” Ven mused. “In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him leave the hearth while I’ve been there.”

Char shrugged. “Lots of odd folks in this place,” he said. “Never seen so many non-humans in one place before. But that makes it kinda nice.” He looked into the mist that was swirling through the graveyard. “At least it hasn’t been boring since I met up with you. Lots to look forward to as your roommate. Assuming you stay, o’ course.”

Ven sat back down beside a small gray headstone. “I don’t belong here, Char,” he said tiredly.

“Well, not yet,” Char replied, glancing around. “You’re still alive, at least for the moment.”

“No, not in the cemetery, I mean here, at the inn, in Hare Warren. In Serendair.”

Char sighed. “None of us does. It’s just that we don’t belong anywhere else, either.”

“The king wants me to stay, to work for him, but I don’t belong here. I have a family, even if they don’t want to know me anymore,” Ven continued, shivering a little in the mist. “Family reputation is the most important thing to Nain; it’s our whole history, everything we are. I soiled our family name
and
caused them to believe I was dead. Even if my mother forgives me, I doubt my father ever will. I can’t fix the loss of the factory—but at least I can make sure Witherspoon gets what’s coming to him. Even if they don’t want to see me, isn’t it wrong not to go back?”

Char’s face twisted in thought. “It’s a nice problem to have, to have to choose between a king that wants to hire you, and a mother to coddle you and a father to yell at you.”

He looked out in the distance for a moment, then, seeing nothing, sat down next to Ven. “You make me crazy sometimes, Ven. You’re like your beard—you ain’t had any cause to grow. You’ve had more of everything than a lot of folks, more family, more schooling—”

“More good friends to watch out for me,” Ven added. “I guess I’m being selfish—you have it a lot worse than I do.”

Char stared at him through the low-lying fog. “You know, that’s the first time since we’ve met that you’ve actually called me a friend,” he said. “You think I’ve only gone through this with you ’cause the captain told me to watch out for you. You feel so guilty about stupid things. You didn’t have any choice but to sink those ships—once the Fire Pirates struck, you and those sailors were all dead men anyway. But you still feel bad about it, instead of glad you lived.

“You can’t bring my parents back, can’t find me new parents, can’t seem to understand that some things can’t be replaced. You wonder what you can do to make my life better, as if paying for my candy helps. It doesn’t. There’s some things you just can’t do anything about. Stop feeling sorry for me. This is my life, just as that is yours. You have a family, but people pick on you because you’re Nain. I have none, and nobody bothers me. We each have our blessings and our curses. In the end it makes us equals. Live with yours, and let me live with mine.”

Ven thought for a moment. “You’re right,” he said finally.

“O’
course
I’m right,” Char said smugly. “In case you haven’t noticed, I usually am. It probably comes from living so fast.” His face lost its grin. “Lives like mine go quick, Ven. Are you really fifty?”

“Yup.”

“Fifty years old? Real years?”

“Yes.”

Char sighed. “Not to be insulting, but why aren’t you more grown-up? Why aren’t you as smart as the captain, or any other fifty-year-old person? Are all Nain treated like babies until they’re fifty or something?”

“I don’t know,” Ven said quietly. “This is just what fifty looks like on a Nain.”

“Well, I can understand that you don’t grow as fast, and that you live longer,” Char continued. “What I don’t understand is how, if you’ve had all that time, you’re still like me. I mean, you’ve had fifty years to learn about the world, but it hasn’t made you any more, well,
old.
Why haven’t you grown up?”

The breeze picked up, twisting curls of fog around the trees, and rustling their sweaty hair.

Over the wind, or through it, they heard a distinctive
SSHHH!

The boys froze.

At first they saw nothing in the misty graveyard but low-lying fog. Then in the beat of a heart they saw a form approaching, growing clearer, before their eyes.

It was a tall boy, a little older than they were, lean and long-faced, his eyes gazing at them as the haze swirled and parted around him.

At first they thought it might be Cadwalder on his way home from work in the mist, but he was taller, slightly stooped at the shoulder. And he wasn’t really coming toward them, he was thickening from the darkness, solidifying, as if he had been there all the time, but invisible.

“The answer to your question,” said the tall boy, “is that he hasn’t had to.” His voice was soft like the wind, and it alternated between being high and low, as if it was just beginning to change. “Nain, Lirin, Gwadd, merrows, and all those races take a much longer view of life than humans do. They age more slowly, grow more slowly. That’s because there are so few of them compared to humans. They have to live long enough to pass along all that they’ve learned of their parts of the world. You might want to lie down now.”

Ven looked quickly back over his shoulder.

Out of the mist, wolf-like shapes were approaching, low to the ground, growling threateningly, tracking their scent. The wind carried the weird noise he had heard his first night in Hare Warren.

He lay down on his stomach quickly. Char was already flat on the ground, his arm covering Nicholas’s head.

“You’d best get down, too,” he whispered to the tall boy.

The young man smiled. “They won’t harm me,” he said, looking into the fog. “They are afraid of me.”

Ven raised his head up enough to be able to see. The beasts were scouring the ground, tracking their scent. They were coming nearer with each passing moment.

A drop of rain fell on his nose, spattering into mist in the summer heat. Ven blinked as more drops fell on his lashes.

“Great,” he muttered. “I can barely see them as it is—now we’ll be almost blind in the rain.”

The tall boy smiled. “Some blind people see far better than those whose eyes work,” he said. “The rain may help you see better, not worse.”

“Who are you?” Ven whispered. “Do you live near here?”

The boy turned at looked at him thoughtfully. “This is my home,” he said simply. “But I don’t live anywhere. My name is Gregory Snodgrass.”