The ghoul of windydown v.., p.5
The Ghoul of Windydown Vale, page 5
I’ve made it less than three steps down the hall when Mrs. Smith stops me. Doc Bunder is right beside her.
“How is our patient?” he asks. “Thought I heard some chatting back here. Good sign?”
“There are crumbs!” I blurt.
“Generally a symptom of eating,” Doc says with a smile. “A very good sign.”
As Doc and Mrs. Smith brush past me, I stumble down the hall until I find a quiet corner. Then I slump against the wall. Getting asked about Liza ’n’ me is nothing new, but having it come from this strange girl? It’s got my chest tight in a way I haven’t felt since …
… well, since the night I told Liza my secret.
As her closest friend, I was honor bound to do it. At least, that’s what I tell myself. And it beats the truth by a fair shot: I had been fixing to kiss her. It felt like all year I was building to it, too, trying to suss out if what folks said we should be was, well, what we were.
The problem with that? I had no clue how I felt. But I told myself that if I could only kiss her—nothing fancy, just a quick peck like Mother and Father when they pass each other in the kitchen—well, then I’d have a better idea of whether we were as inevitable as everyone claimed.
I waited until there was a clear night. It was pretty out, too: fireflies to match the stars. We walked some, stopping every so often to look down into a still pool, the kind that makes the sky seem double and the night glow bright. She had just finished laughing at something I said. I don’t even remember what it was, but Liza’s got the kind of laugh that gets you saying a thousand stupid somethings, just to find the one that’ll make her giggle. When it got real quiet again, I slid up behind her, close as I could get. Then I whispered in her ear, “Liza, could I—”
The words kiss you never made it out of my mouth. I scared her so bad she whipped around and socked me in the chest. I stumbled, my feet twisting and arms wheeling.
Then I fell.
The mud caught me—it’ll always catch you. And Liza was there in a heartbeat to hoist me free. I wasn’t hurt, but I looked like a chicken half-dipped in fry batter. She fell to laughing again as I slumped down on the Walk, and she held my hand as I shivered there. I could’ve tried for the kiss, but with my hindquarters all drippy I felt the moment for romance had passed. And when she pressed me? Demanding to know what I got all whispery for in the first place?
I panicked. Told her about the Ghoul, right then and there. Her face went from shocked to deathly grim in a snap, and by the time I finished walking her the rest of the way home, she was fuming. Been at loggerheads with her ma ever since, and a little colder to me.
Or I’ve been more bashful with her.
Or something.
And regardless, I haven’t tried to kiss her again.
“Copper? C’mere!” I hear Doc Bunder call. I take one more look up at the ceiling to calm myself, then slip back into the room.
Seems I missed a to-do.
The tray of Mother’s stew is toppled, bits of turnip and carrot in a murky puddle near the upturned bowl on the floor. The cheese sits in the middle of the mess like a lonely island. Annabelle is doubled over on the bed, hands to belly. She’s groaning and heaving, but nothing’s coming up.
Maybe because most of it’s already on Liza’s apron.
Mrs. Smith rubs at Annabelle’s back, and Doc holds a little bowl with a cloth crumpled in it. He snaps his fingers at me and says, “In my bag, Copper. The cordmint!”
I spot his black leather bag on the floor and rush to pop the clasp. Inside is a jumble of bottles, bandages, and tiny metal tools, along with a few cloth pouches of gold nuggets like the ones Mother keeps stowed behind the cutlery. I start digging through and reading labels, but Doc has tiny handwriting, so I’m left squinting and wondering what someone might use “limb salt” or “peptic treacle” for. I’m about to grab a dozen bottles and hope for the best when Doc says, “Orange bottle, blue label!”
It’s right there, clear as anything. When I grab it, Doc holds up his hands and I toss it to him. Popping the cork off with his teeth, he pours a little onto the cloth, then more into the bowl. Approaching slowly, he holds the bowl beneath Annabelle’s head. Almost immediately, she stops retching.
“Bad stew?” I ask Liza.
“She didn’t even take a bite! I put the tray in her lap, she looked down at it, and then…”
“She erupted?” I offer.
Liza scowls at me, but nods.
“Not everyone likes turnips,” I mutter.
“I daresay there’s nothing wrong with your mother’s stew, Copper,” Mrs. Smith explains. “Girl’s just had a rough go of it.”
Doc Bunder agrees. “She needs to rest. Best leave her be for now.”
“Liza,” Mrs. Smith says, “you can go get cleaned up. Make sure the hearth is fueled. We’ll be behind today, but might be that we can make a little progress before dinner.”
“Fine,” Liza says, and she grabs my hand, tugging me away. I stumble behind her as we storm through the hall, burst into the taproom, then cut to the front door. When we’re out on the porch, Liza stops to untie her apron. She growls as she holds it over the edge, shaking it and letting the slimy bits drip into the mud.
“Liza, what’s—”
“Wrong?” she snaps without looking at me. “I just got puked on.”
“Um … at least it happened before she ate the stew?” I say as cheerfully as I can.
“And you didn’t tell me she was pretty.”
I take a step back. “What?”
“You heard me.”
I frown. Liza and I might be best friends, but there’s nobody in the wide world that has the power to vex me quite like she can. “Sorry,” I drawl. “Must have slipped my mind, somewhere between my head wound and her horse trying to run me over.”
“They do that when you jump in front of them, Copper.”
“Why does it matter if the girl is pretty?”
“So you do think she’s pretty?”
I can’t think of an answer that won’t get me flung off my own porch, so I just shrug. Liza growls, but then she crosses her arms over the railing and leans into the rain, letting it cool her. “Sorry, Copper,” she murmurs. “I’m just having a weird day.”
“Me … too?” I respond, joining her at the rail. “But hopefully things’ll come a bit clearer soon.”
“Depends on what you find out there tonight.”
I sigh, squinting through the fog. I can see the shadows of the deeper swamp.
“It surely does,” I say.
Chapter Nine
There’s a bit of high ground just behind our inn; the only way to get to it is through the kitchen, since the mud has risen so much in the last few years. It used to be that I could walk around the entire building, even underneath—just slip in next to the support beams and the trunks of the trees. I tried it once, but when I looked up and saw the floorboards of the inn, I imagined them creaking, then cracking, then collapsing on top of me. I never went below again. Of course, now I’d need to be able to breathe mud to do it.
A little shed casts its shadow in the moonlight, just past the meager garden Father’s planted. I tiptoe through the herbs and sneak inside.
Then I take my clothes off.
I’m not nakifying, though I’m sure the biteflies, mosquitoes, and leeches would love that. I prop Liza’s daddy’s boots in the corner, wiggling my free toes in the dirt. The cut on my heel pains me some, so I leave the bandage on, even though it’ll be utterly ruined before I’m halfway to anywhere.
My pants are the next to go, and I fold them up neat atop the boots. Tucked at the back of one of the shelves is a bundle of old rags and work gloves. I dig through the pile until I find the britches I hid there. When they got so old the knees blew out, I went ahead and tore the bottom halves of the legs off. It’s the same with the shirt I button on—I ripped the sleeves off at the shoulders. I look like I’ve been savaged by wolves, but it’s worth it. Means I’ll be able to move quickly. And quietly. And carefully.
Which is exactly what I do.
I could find the Ghoul’s hiding spot with my eyes closed at midnight on a starless night if I had to. Not that I would—for all the progress the mud has made, there are still big patches of tangly vines, thorny bushes, and knotted tree limbs to dodge, and by the time I’ve reached my destination, my arms are itchy with tiny cuts. Only a few are bleeding, which means it was a good run. I can’t stop to savor the victory, though, because as soon as I do, the mosquitoes are on me. I flick my hands around to ward them off, then sprint again, right up to my hiding place.
My nightmare place.
There are only a few remnants of Old Windydown left standing, and those stick out from the mist and mud like lonely gravestones. To my right, a couple rooftops are connected by rotting planks, bridges forgotten once we’d salvaged everything we could from below. Past those is the worst of the swamps. It’s pure, glistening mud, far as I can see, with one grim exception: the church spire. It juts up like an angry finger shaming the sky, the cross a great X to warn folk away.
On my left, I can make out the skeleton of the stable, blackened beams reminding me of the fire that took it. That was the same night the Windydown Inn cracked in two; the noise was so terrible it frightened the horses, who knocked a lantern over and set the whole structure ablaze. I didn’t learn about it until later, and my first question for Father was whether they got all the horses out in time.
He still hasn’t answered me.
I find a tiny little tuffet of grass and rest for a second, slapping at my arms and legs to keep the bugs off. Then I launch myself forward again, hopping from high spot to high spot, working my way along the path until I’m there.
Home.
The place I died.
And where the Ghoul lives.
Only the left half of the Windydown Inn remains, and even that’s overgrown. The moonlight coming through the mountain peaks bounces off swirls of mist, casting strange shadows along the splintered timber and torn-open rooms; I can see a bed hanging precariously off the edge, like a strong breeze would be enough to send it spinning into the slime below. I conjure a few good thoughts—Mother’s sweet pies, games of rollyskims with the triplets, the way my hand felt when Liza took it. And then I leap.
It’s always much easier with the claw-poles, but my fingers and feet are strong. I manage to catch a windowsill and hoist myself up. The room I’m in is tilted so badly that I slide immediately to the corner, but I let it happen. A bundle of moldering linens and ripped pillows softens my landing, and I mutter an apology to all the mice whose nests I probably disturbed.
As I crawl my way forward, I keep whispering. “Don’t look at the ceilings, Copper. It won’t sink on you, Copper. You’ve done this hundreds of times now, Copper.” I’m not sure it helps, because I’m sweating so bad it’s getting into my eyes, and it’s hard for me to take a deep breath. But I keep moving, because I know if I stop, the memories will suck me down, sure as mud. And that’s just the way I like it—reminds me that haunting is dangerous business.
And keeps me from taking the Ghoul for granted.
At the end of a short, warped hallway sits an old chest of drawers. I figure it must have been thrown out of one of the rooms when the building split, because it’s missing its top drawer and all four legs are broken. Bracing my feet against the edges of the chest, I dig my fingers underneath the lip of the bottommost drawer. I wriggle it enough to get a good grip, and then I wrench it free. The drawer is empty, save for a few irate moths that flutter in my face.
Behind it, though?
I reach into the dark, rummaging until my fingertips touch the bundle. I pull it out and turn until I can stand properly, one foot on the left-hand wall and the other on what used to pass as the floor. Balanced like that, I’m able to use both hands to unwrap the kit. My heart is thumping, and I hold my breath as I take stock.
A plain overshirt, draped with flaps of pale cloth.
A pair of muddy, torn pants.
Two spindly claw-poles.
And the face of Windydown’s Ghoul.
Chapter Ten
As soon as I’d sworn to be the Ghoul, Mother took me out. I whimpered, and I trembled, and I had to hold her hand, but she got me all the way down the Long Walk, to where the planks stopped and the dirt road to the south started. She made sure no one else was about, and then she snuck us behind a few big oaks. “Watch,” she whispered.
I did, with wide eyes and a belly full of knots.
She started with the mask, pressing the grim thing to her face and tying the twine tight. The suit wasn’t more than a cinched bit of streaky canvas with some shredded cloth sewn on, made to look like hanging scraps of skin. The weirdest part was the claws. They had leather straps near the bottoms. Mother looped them around her wrists, even using her teeth to tug the straps. When they were secure, she grabbed the poles and shimmied the arms of the suit down over them. Then she hunched forward, kind of like an old man, and she started to sway. I couldn’t see her eyes—just those inky black holes. And when she hocked up some wetness, holding it in her throat to gurgle and choke on?
It was terrifying.
“Stop!” I mewled.
She swallowed, and from behind all that creepy, my mother’s soft voice emerged. “Can’t, Copper. You need to learn.”
My teeth chattering, I nodded.
“Now it’s your turn,” she said, and she carefully transferred the costume to me a piece at a time. I was no help; Mother might as well have been dressing a sack of beans. But she got me Ghouled up, by and by. Even the mask. I could hear my breath whispering past the nails.
“One more thing,” Mother murmured as I hefted the claw-poles. She had brought a coil of rope, and she looped it around my waist.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“I love you, Copper. Be strong,” she replied.
And then she shoved me into the mud.
Anyone daring the swamps that night would’ve thought the Ghoul was eatin’ well, way I carried on. I thrashed and hollered, raking at the mud with the poles. I begged Mother to save me, cursed her for betraying me, and sobbed so hard I snotted all over the inside of the mask. She watched from the high ground, a hand on her heart and the other pointing above me. “The trees, Copper,” she begged, voice breaking.
Overhanging the pit of muck was a thick bough, draped in moss and forked like the devil’s tongue. I threw my hands up, but the branch was way too high.
Or would’ve been, if I hadn’t been wearing the claws.
To my shock, I snagged the bough. Pulling up, I dragged my legs from their bog-cold prison. Then, by swinging myself forward, I was able to launch onto the firmament. I collapsed at Mother’s feet, flipped onto my back, and stared up at the night sky.
I had done it. I had survived the mud.
Turns out that was just the first test. Wrenching free from the mud was a last-resort sort of deal. The goal, Mother explained, was to avoid the mud entirely.
That meant learning to fly.
After we cleaned the mask out, Mother showed me the incredible way she was able to use the claws to vault, swing, and grapple her way over the mud. She took us back into the swamps, running parallel to the Long Walk but never getting close enough to be seen. I scrambled to keep up, glad she stuck to a stretch where I could leap from high patch to high patch. Every so often, she’d give me the claws and force me to try. Where she was graceful, I was gangly. Where she was lightning-fast, I was molasses-slow.
But I stayed out of the mud. And little by little, my fear shrank.
At least until she showed me the bugs.
Just before dawn, we stopped. Ahead in the gloom, Mother crouched atop a massive old log. She looked so creepy that I stumbled back a bit. Water pooled in my footprints, slowly erasing them. She sank a claw deep into the wood, and she used her other hand to beckon me close.
“What?” I whispered.
“Last part of the Ghoul. Look.”
My skin prickled cold, but I obeyed. With a sharp talon, she pointed me to the other side of the log.
What I saw was one of the strangest things I’d ever encountered in the Vale.
“It’s glowing!” I exclaimed. An eerie, greenish light illuminated my mother’s mask as she leaned over the patch. Waving a claw, she bade me to come closer.
The patch wasn’t just glowing. It was moving.
“Gnat larvae,” Mother said. “Just hatched.”
“What? Why?” I asked. I had meant Why are they glowing? But Mother answered a different question.
“For this,” she said, and she rolled up a sleeve. The claw-pole was still attached to her forearm, but she could let go and use her fingers, leaving the claw to wobble and wave in the air. Without so much as a tremble, she shoved her hand into the squirming mass, using her first two fingers to crush a wide line of the little creatures. When she pulled her fingers away, they were covered in glowing bug bits. I watched, mouth agape, as she brought her fingers up to the mask.
And shoved them into the eye sockets.
I slapped a hand over my mouth, but Mother seemed calm. Her fingers rooted around in the holes for a few seconds.
Then she grabbed me by the collar.
“Look at me, Copper,” she said. I tried my best, but couldn’t bring myself to peer into those black empties.
“I said look!”
“Okay!” I squealed.
I still have nightmares about what I saw; probably fair, since I’ve been giving tradefolk the same for years now.
Mother had her eyes closed. I could see the bug guts smeared across her eyelids, flush and shining that sickly green. When she opened her eyes, the light went out—at least until she blinked.
“Stay here, but watch me,” she commanded. I pulled myself up onto the log so I wouldn’t sink, and I scooted as far from the patch of bugs as I could. Then I made myself into a little ball, caught my lower lip between my teeth to keep from crying, and watched.
Mother shot away twice as fast as she had in coming here. I got the briefest glimpse of how quick she could move with the claws, but then I lost her in the fog. Every part of me wanted to cry out for her, but I knew I shouldn’t be screaming.
