The Mostly True Story of Jack (27 page)

“Who brought the cats?” Anders panted.

Wendy ignored this. “Anders, do Mr. and Mrs. Fitzpatrick know I went underground?”

Anders nodded. “And Avery has every construction crew in Iowa poised in front of their house. We heard him say that if he could kill Jack and destroy the house at the
same time, the Lady’s good half would be so weak that She’d break apart and scatter. But they don’t have Jack.”

Wendy nodded. “So we’ll just do the first part.”

“What?”

“I saw it in the mirror. The house needs to break apart. It has to happen while She’s strong. The
good
part of Her, I mean.” Wendy sped up without explaining, leaving the boys behind to wonder what exactly she had seen underground.

J
ACK LOOKED AROUND THE DARK, TIGHT SPACE
. H
E LOOKED
up and loose dirt sprinkled into his eyes. He was utterly, utterly alone. “Oh no,” Jack said. “This won’t do at all.”

And, without even trying to, Jack made the world.

Grass, green and thick as moss, unrolled like carpeting under his feet while the walls became horizons that broadened with each coming breath. As he walked, hills erupted from the ground, forests sprouted like weeds, and abundant farms spilled across the land. Above his head, the hard-packed dirt of the ceiling lifted, brightened, and
widened out into a sky. “I know this place,” he said. Birds flew in great masses over broad fields and rested next to newly formed lakes, already crowded with silvery fish.

“Of course you do, my boy, of course you do,” an old man’s voice said just behind him. Jack jumped, and when he saw the figure in front of him, he screamed. “Oh, come now,” the old man’s voice chided. “Your friend was far more civil.”

“Well, now I know you’re lying,” Jack said, his voice trembling. “Wendy’s hardly ever civil.”

A crowd gathered in front of him—each of them shaped like a human being, but see-through and hollow, as though made from tracing paper. Most were children, but there were a couple of adults, including the first person who spoke, an ancient-looking man wearing the reversed collar of a minister. Each figure reached over to touch Jack on his arms or his face or his leafy hair. Jack gritted his teeth to keep from shuddering. Their touch was as light as dandelion seed; their skins rustled and whispered as they moved.

“You’re souls, aren’t you?”

“Oh, come on now,” the minister-soul said, his voice both pompous and impatient. “No time for chitchat. Come and see what your friend was able to accomplish.” He floated away, feet hovering just above the ground, and Jack followed at a run, stopping in front of the mirror. It was tall and narrow, with ragged edges, and was hanging in the air without holding on to anything. As
Jack drew nearer, the extra shards on the ground started lifting up of their own accord, attaching themselves onto the mirror with a patter of flashes.

“There, you see?” the minister-soul said. “Your home is responding to you already. Oh, I did so hope this would happen!”

“I need to get you out of here,” Jack said, though in truth it was not so much for the souls’ benefit as for Jack’s own. He turned away from the soul and faced the mirror.

He did not see his own reflection, but instead, the image of a purple house with missing windows and doors quivered in front of him. Shingles flew from the wobbly roof and the rafters buckled and swayed, as though the house itself was gasping for breath.

“It’s Clive and Mabel’s house,” Jack said. “What’s happened to it?”

“It won’t last long. Your mother—well, half of Her anyway, the good half, is gaining in strength. She’s been stuck in there, but She’s ready to come out. Someone has gathered happy people all in one spot, you see? All that joy causes a sort of soul-heat. Creatures like your mother feed off it. See how the house trembles? If She can get enough power, She’ll be able to step free. And you see that bulge on the ground? That’s the wicked half. The Lady.” The soul shuddered.

“What happens if they both come out at the same time?” Jack pressed his hands to the mirror. It was cold,
but his breath didn’t cloud the glass. And the sap from his hands didn’t leave a mark. He did notice, though, that it wasn’t rigid like regular glass. He pressed in, and it bounced back like a trampoline.

“It’s tough to say. For as long as I’ve been here, they’ve avoided each other. But now that you’ve arrived, I can only see their dual emergence as one thing.” The soul cleared his throat importantly.

“What?” Jack said, rolling his eyes.

“An opportunity.”

Outside the Fitzpatrick house, a storm twisted and raged, the Lady in the bulging ground howled, and the Other in the house sang and sang. The people on the lawn assembled themselves into a tight mob and opened umbrellas for shelter. They still passed plates with lemon meringue pie and Jell-O salad and butter cookies with pink frosting. They still smiled and laughed and told jokes. It was as though they noticed the rain but not the storm.

Wendy, Anders, and Frankie could hardly see the house through the flying dust and debris. Storm clouds flew at the house. Then lightning and rain, hail the size of softballs. Even snow.

“We need to do something,” Wendy said.

“I didn’t think…” Frankie began, the unscarred portion of his face gray with fear. “I didn’t think She would
be this strong already. I don’t know what… I mean I don’t think we can…” He choked back a sob. His face was a mask of terror.

“
Give me the boy
,” a voice sounded. It rumbled through the ground and cracked across the sky.
“Give me the boy and you can have the girl.”

“She doesn’t know I’m out,” Wendy whispered. “So She doesn’t know that Jack’s in there either. That’s good, I think.” Wendy reached for her brother’s hand and squeezed. She held on for dear life.

Jack stood next to the mirror, pressing his hands against the surface. It wasn’t glass, he knew, though its edges were sharp like glass. But there was one thing that Jack was absolutely sure about: the mirror was
alive
.

The pompous soul cleared its voice. “Your mother—both halves of Her are in the same place. If you reach into the mirror, you might be able to snatch the pair of them. Serves Her right, really,” he added bitterly. “She’s snatched half the souls here through that mirror.”

“But how can you go free?”

“I don’t think we can, my boy. You see, we’re trapped here.”

“Maybe. But if She could reach through and pull people
in
, surely I can push you
out
. If you get to the other side, where do you think you’ll go?”

“I don’t rightly know, son. I suspect we’ll do as souls
normally do when their bodies fall away. We’ll go on.” The soul’s face took on a sudden, wistful expression. “Oh! To go
on
!”

Gog and Magog leaped to the roof of a car and stared down at Frankie and Wendy with an unmistakably annoyed expression.

“
What?
” Wendy asked, exasperated.

“
Pfft
,” hissed the cats. They turned and bounded to the ground, before leaping upward again into the cab of an idling bulldozer.

“Bad kitties!” Anders whispered as the cats batted their paws at the controls. “They’re going to get hurt if they—oh! I get it.” He turned to his friends. “I know how we can help Jack.” He ran into the idling bulldozer and, after a few false starts, knocked it into gear.

“What are you
doing
?” Wendy shouted. Anders drove the bulldozer directly to the house. She nodded.
Good plan
, she thought.

“Hey!
Hey, kid!
” One of the drivers took off after the runaway bulldozer while three others ran hard at his heels, leaving their trucks idling in place. Wendy shook her head.
Adults are so stupid sometimes
, she thought as she slipped into an unlocked truck and put it in gear. Frankie jumped in next to her, and she fed the engine to
a roar. They sped toward the house. They shut their eyes tight and gripped their seats, and their trucks ripped into the western wall with a crash.

The World-Under-the-World wobbled, buckled, and thrashed. The sky darkened; the land erupted in waves, knocking Jack to his knees.

“What’s going on?” Jack shouted over the wind, but he didn’t wonder for long. Two voices rang through the rocking world. “
I’m free!
” they shouted as one—a voice filled with rage and triumph harmonizing strangely with a voice filled with joy and love. Jack looked at the mirror. It flashed to an image of a house—or what used to be a house. It was now just a pile of rubble covered over by thick ivy and heavy blossoms, with heavy machinery shoved against the side. Two women stood next to the rubble, rubbing their eyes. They were both impossibly tall, with hair made of grass and skin made of supple new leaves. They looked at each other with the utmost revulsion.

“Look at them,” Jack gasped. “They’re
broken
.” Pity stabbed painfully at his heart.

“Now, boy,” the soul said. “Reach in now.”

Jack pressed the Portsmouth against the mirror. “After you,” Jack said, and he pushed the souls through.

The house was a tangle of wood and stone and furniture scattered on the ground. Two—
whatever
they were. Women, mostly, though they didn’t look like any women that Wendy had ever seen, all leaf and bark and corn silk and earth, stood in the yard at the side of the house. They could hardly stand to look at each other. Indeed, they looked like they were about to be sick.

Wendy ran through the wreckage that once was the house to see if Anders was all right, but she stopped in her tracks the moment the mirror appeared. Her mirror, hovering just over the ground. She stared at it.
Was it real?
she wondered. The events of the last twenty-four hours jumbled and swam in her head, and she could hardly separate dream from reality. A figure shot out of the mirror. Then another, then another. They looked like human beings,
mostly
, though they were hollow and papery like dried-out husks. They held their shape for only a moment before transforming into tight balls of light.

“Souls,” Wendy whispered.

“
No!
” the Lady cried, trying to catch the balls of light as they spun faster and faster around Herself and the Other.
“Don’t leave me!”
But no matter how She tried, the balls of light quivered and spun, staying just out of reach. The Other smiled, blowing kisses at each one, and called them out by name.

“Marcus,” the Other crooned. “Timothy, Delilah, Iris. Ichabod, Sylas, June, Eva.”

“Thank you,” buzzed the balls of light as they increased in brightness and speed. “Thank you.”

The souls spun so fast, they appeared at first like a halo around the bodies of the women, then a bright cloud. And then, with a blinding flash, they shot upward and disappeared into the sky. The Lady fell to Her knees, buried Her face in Her hands. Her Other, moved to pity, knelt down next to Her, their shoulders touching.

It was at this moment that a figure appeared in the mirror. A boy like a tree, standing rooted and tall.

“Jack!” Wendy shouted, but he didn’t seem to hear her.