Читать книгу The Last Ever After - Soman Chainani, Soman Chainani - Страница 16

he first thing Agatha noticed about Snow White’s house is that it smelled like Sophie. Standing in the shadowed doorway, she closed her eyes and inhaled the scent … lavender cotton candy … vanilla-coated fog …

The pink front door shivered and groaned behind her. She’d left it open and she could hear Tedros and Uma in the garden, debating what to do with the bodies. She didn’t know why she hadn’t made Tedros check the house with her; perhaps after their argument in the Woods, she wanted to do something without him … or perhaps she wanted to test if he’d even notice her gone … or perhaps she’d spent so much of the journey acting touchy and weak that she wanted to make up for it … Whatever the reason, here she was, all alone, looking for whoever made that scream.

Agatha opened her eyes. On a breath, she forged deeper into the house.

The living room had a snuggly feel to it, with a sooty fireplace facing big-armed calico chairs, a fluffy red-brown rug made out of hawk feathers, a shelf of gemstones, seashells, and animal eggs beneath a shut, slatted window, and a steep, stumpy wooden staircase in the back corner, barricaded with red velvet rope. Agatha peered at a brass plaque on the wall:

Behind the den, the kitchen was roped off, just like the staircase, but Agatha peeked in to see a dusty, deserted nook, no footprints on the floor or signs of life, except for a few flies milling around a leaky faucet.

“Agatha?” Tedros called outside. “Where are you?”

Agatha sighed, stomach relaxing. The scream must have been one of the dwarves’ after all. She shuddered at such a morbid thought and hustled towards the front door, determined to get to League Headquarters. Whoever this League was, her mother had trusted them to help her. “You must save Sophie as Stefan saved you,” Callis’ voice echoed—

Agatha stopped cold in the foyer.

A creak echoed somewhere upstairs …

Then it went quiet.

Slowly she raised her eyes to the ceiling.

She knew a sensible princess would have called her prince, but instead, she was moving into the den again, slipping off her clumps one by one before she left them on the lambskin chair. She felt her bare toes rake through the feathers of the rug, her eyes pinned on the ceiling until she squeezed under the rope at the rear of the room. She slid up the stairs on her hands and knees like a cat, taking time between steps, so the cricks and cracks of the stairs were camouflaged by the swinging squeaks of the front door.

At the top of the stairs was a narrow hallway with two rooms. Agatha rose up carefully and peeked into the first. Seven small beds lay in a cramped row, as if in an orphanage hall, each neatly made with different colored sheets, matching the tunics of the seven dead bodies outside.

Agatha felt a rush of sadness. Death had been rare to her before last night and now it followed her like a shroud. What was it like to be alive one moment—like her mother, like the Crypt Keeper, like these seven helpers of Good—and then be gone the next? What happens to all your thoughts, your fears, your dreams? What happens to all the love you’ve yet to give? Her body quivered, as if she’d gone too deep, and she was suddenly aware of the stillness around her. Why am I still here? she berated herself, turning around. Tedros would be worried sick by now. Quickly she stepped out of the dwarves’ quarters and leaned over to check the next room—

Agatha grabbed the wall in shock.

In a frost-white bedroom, a frail female’s body lay facedown on the wood floor, her head hidden under the canopied bed. A crystal crown gleamed on its side nearby, as if it’d tumbled off her when she fell. But the dead woman wasn’t what made Agatha gape in horror.

An old crone in black was kneeling next to the body. She had red eyes and a pig nose, a patchwork of stitches, and brown, shriveled flesh flaking off her, just like Red Riding Hood’s wolf and Jack’s giant in the Woods. In her clawlike hand, she clutched a musty storybook, pulled open to its last page: a painting of a prince kissing Snow White back to life, while seven dwarves smiled on blissfully, a dead witch on the ground behind them.

A dead witch that looked just like the old crone holding the storybook.

“That was the old,” the witch purred, leering at the book’s last page …

Before Agatha’s eyes, the painting magically redrew, until the old witch now crouched over Snow White’s dead body instead, the dwarves behind her all slain.

“And this is the new,” the witch grinned.

Agatha’s focus swung back to the corpse half-hidden under the bed … to the royal crown askew … and a deep dread snaked up her spine, remembering something Jack’s giant had said on Necro Ridge …

“Should be out fixin’ our stories like the others.”

“He’ll give us a turn at our stories soon enough,” Red Riding Hood’s wolf had answered.

The witch snapped the storybook shut with a triumphant cackle, jolting Agatha out of her thoughts. She glanced up to see the hag rearing to her feet, her back angled to the door—

“Agatha!” Tedros’ voice yelled outside.

The witch dropped the book to the floor. Before Agatha could move, she spun and met her eyes with a lethal stare.

Agatha shrank into the hall’s corner, flattening against the wall.

The witch drew a thin, jewel-handled dagger from her cloak, caked with dried blood.

Agatha whirled towards the staircase. Too far to run. She spun back to see the witch prowl towards her, trapping her in the corner. Agatha’s finger glowed gold with terror, the witch ten feet away, but she couldn’t remember a single spell from class. Agatha opened her mouth to scream for her prince. The witch was too fast. She hurled the knife for Agatha’s throat like a bullet—

With a cry, Agatha shot a ray of gold light from her finger and the knife turned into a peach-petaled daisy, floating to the floor.

Gulping breaths, Agatha stared at the flower, thankful Sophie had used the hex against her first year. It was the only spell she’d never forget.

“Agatha!” Tedros shouted again.

Agatha looked up urgently, but it was too late. The witch slammed her against the wall, appallingly powerful, reeking of decay, and held her up by the throat with her liver-spotted hand. Breath choked, Agatha glimpsed the charred scars across the witch’s ankles and legs. “Ordered to dance … until she fell dead …,” Agatha remembered, struggling to stay conscious as the witch squeezed her neck harder. She and Sophie once danced in red-hot shoes too … a first-year punishment from Yuba … Or was it second year? … Agatha could feel her mind fading, the witch’s thumb crushing her windpipe. She tried to think of Sophie’s face as they danced … her helpless face, those suffering eyes … Darkness strangled her, pulling her under. No … please … not yet … Sophie—I’ll save—you—

A bolt of will flashed through her and she sank her teeth into the witch’s bony arm and bit as hard as she could. The old crone shrieked and let go. Agatha doubled over, gagging and wheezing, the witch still gaping at her, as if biting wasn’t part of a Good girl’s playbook, as if this greasy-haired, bug-eyed punk might be one of Evil’s after all—

Agatha kneed her in the gut and dove for the stairs, about to reach the first step, only to feel the witch’s boot crush the back of her leg. Agatha buckled to the floor, slamming her nose into the wood. She felt the hot blood seeping out of it and staunched it with her hand as she twirled around to defend against the witch—

But the hallway was empty, the witch gone.

Agatha hobbled to the edge of the stairs. The den was as quiet as when she came in, the slatted window over the bookshelf wide open and blowing in the breeze.

Tedros burst through the front door, his face cherry red. “Agatha, where are—” He saw her on the staircase and flushed two shades redder. “DO YOU WANT ME TO HAVE A HEART ATTACK! I’M SCREAMING LIKE A FOOL, NOT KNOWING IF YOU’RE ALIVE OR DEAD, AND HERE YOU ARE PLAYING HIDE-AND-SEEK LIKE A CHILD ON A PLAYGROUND, LOOKING A HOLY BLOODY MESS AND—”

Tedros’ face changed.

“Agatha,” he whispered, looking very scared. “Why are you bleeding?”

Agatha shook her head, tears welling, hyperventilating too fast to talk—

A cry came from outside.

Agatha and Tedros went rigid with twin gasps. “Uma.”

Instantly, the prince dashed out the door, Agatha racing behind him—

Princess Uma sat against a tree, near the dwarves’ corpses, her eyes spooked wide and legs out straight like a porcelain doll’s.

Tedros skidded to his knees in front of her, jostling her by the shoulders. Uma didn’t move. “What’s wrong with her!” he cried.

Agatha landed next to him and touched Uma’s face. Her fingers made a hollow sound on her teacher’s ashen skin. “Petrification,” she said, remembering the curse once used against the teachers.

“What’s the counterspell?” her prince pushed.

Agatha paled. “Only the one who casts the spell can reverse it.” She looked at Tedros. “That witch … that witch did it—”

“What witch?” Tedros pressed, but Agatha was frantically scouring the deserted glen … She slumped. They’d never find that old hag. Princess Uma was as good as dead.

Not her too. Not our only hope. Agatha tuned out a bird’s loud chirps and sank her face in her hands. How do we get to Sophie now?

“Agatha …”

“Not now,” she whispered, head throbbing with fear, grief, and strident birdcalls.

“Agatha, look …”

Agatha spun. “I said not no—”

She frowned.

The dove from the well was in the prince’s lap tweeting angrily at both of them.

“What’s it saying?” Tedros asked her.

“How should I know?”

“You’re the one who took Animal Communication!”

“And burned down the school in the process—”

Agatha stopped because the dove was drawing in the dirt with its wing. “Why is he drawing an elephant?”

The dove let out a torrent of chirps, furiously modifying his picture.

“It’s a weasel,” Tedros guessed. “Look at the ears.”

“No, it’s a moose—”

“Or a raccoon.”

The dove was apoplectic now, slashing more lines.

“Oh. A rabbit,” said Agatha.

“Definitely a rabbit,” Tedros agreed.

He looked at Agatha. “Why’s he drawing a rabbit?”

The dove rolled his eyes and stabbed his wing ahead.

Tedros and Agatha turned and saw a fat, balding white rabbit glaring at them from behind a tree, wearing a dirty blue waistcoat with a silver swan crest over the heart, a hideous white cravat, and crooked spectacles low on his nose. The rabbit yanked a pocketwatch out of his coat, pointed crabbily at it, and scampered down a dirt path out of the glen.

“Um. I think he wants us to follow him,” said Agatha.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” said Tedros, slinging Uma over his shoulder and lumbering ahead. “Stay any longer and we might end up as dead as those dwarves.”

“But shouldn’t we know where he’s taking us?” Agatha called out. “We can’t just follow a strange animal in a scarf—”

“Sooner we follow him, sooner we find someone who knows how to unpetrify a teacher,” her prince called back.

They followed the rabbit through inky trees as blackness swept over the Woods like a plague, the sun offering no resistance against the night. Soon they could barely see at all, and if it wasn’t for the rabbit’s corpulent pace, they’d have lost him in the dark. Ominous howls and low screams crackled ahead of them and Agatha tried to ignore the skitters and slithers in the underbrush lining the path. Yellow and red eyes peeped overhead like malevolent stars, warning her that danger was coming and coming fast. If only we knew where League Headquarters was, Agatha thought miserably. Her mother had sacrificed her life to make sure they reached the League … and I didn’t bother to ask Uma where it was? Why didn’t I have a backup plan in case something happened? Why can’t I think straight? Now instead of finding the one place where they’d be safe tonight, they were on some wild-goose chase, carrying a petrified teacher and chasing a time-obsessed bunny to who knows where. With Tedros lagging under Uma’s weight, Agatha kept pace with the rabbit for more than an hour, silently punishing herself for their predicament, until she finally glimpsed a wisp of white smoke emanating through pine trees ahead.

Drawing closer, Agatha began to smell a faint tinge of sandalwood mixed with a familiar scent she couldn’t quite place, and as they moved into a tiny clearing, she saw that the smoke plumes were coming from a hole in the dirt, half-covered with dead fern fronds. The rabbit kicked the ferns aside and disappeared down the burrow, before peeking his face through the gap impatiently.

Agatha paused, reluctant to follow a stranger into a hole—

Tedros barreled right by her. “Nothin’ to lose,” he mumbled.

Before Agatha could argue, her prince lowered Uma into the hole and slid in behind her. Irritated, Agatha lowered herself down after him, landing awkwardly in darkness before Tedros caught her into his chest, soaking her with sweat. He smells good, Agatha noticed, inhaling his minty fresh scent. How could a boy possibly smell like spring fields after everything they’d just been through? She suddenly thought of Sophie, who’d smelled of honeycream even after traipsing up Graves Hill in the worst heat. Maybe that’s why Tedros missed Sophie, Agatha thought bitterly … they could lie around all day sniffing each other, flawless gold-haired idols, while here she was, a “holy bloody mess,” reeking of stress, dirt, and undead witch—

“Anyone here?” Tedros called.

Agatha snapped to attention, embarrassed by her thoughts. It was pitch-black in the hole, the rabbit nowhere to be seen.

“Hello?” Tedros echoed.

Nothing answered him.

The prince held out his hand and felt a wall of solid earth in front of him. “Why do we always end up in dirt?”

Agatha’s stomach rumbled. “Maybe the dove was telling us to eat the rabbit instead of follow him.”

“Or maybe the rabbit was telling us to leave Uma here, while we go look for League Headquarters.”

“You want us to dump a petrified teacher in a hole and leave?” said Agatha, flabbergasted.

“It’s not like she’s going anywhere.”

“Suppose you’ll dump me in a hole the moment I’m inconvenient too,” Agatha murmured, strangely confessional in the dark.

“Huh?”

“Then you can go get your sweet-smelling, beautiful, vibrant Sophie all alone,” Agatha vented, unable to stop herself.

“You didn’t happen to eat any strange mushrooms on the way, did you?”

“Go ahead, laugh. You can name your children Blond and Blonder.”

“Never pegged you as a jealous type,” Tedros marveled.

“Jealous? Why? Because you almost kissed her as a boy and a girl? Because you can make her feel loved in a way that I can’t? Me? Jealous?” Agatha ranted, thoroughly ashamed of herself now.

“Isn’t Sophie supposed to be the crazy one?”

“Bet you wouldn’t leave her in a dark pit—”

“And we thought Tweedledee and Tweedledum were hopeless,” said a hoary voice.

Agatha and Tedros choked, recognizing it at once, and twirled to see a torch spark to flame in the grip of a white-bearded gnome wearing a belted green coat with a silver swan over the heart and a pointy orange hat. A gnome Agatha thought had been killed in a fire, but now here he was, alive in a secret den. She burst into a smile, glowing with relief—

Yuba didn’t smile back. “First you lose a teacher because you fail to protect each other in the face of mortal danger. Then you fight so often and loudly that you’ve alerted the entire Woods as to your whereabouts. Now you’re so busy insulting each other that you forget to use a simple glow spell to illuminate your surroundings in the time that a Cave Troll could have bashed both your heads to smithereens. If it wasn’t for a rabbit rescuing you from yourselves, you two nincompoops would be dead before dawn,” he lashed, fingers twitching on his white staff as if he wanted to beat them with it. “A Bad Group is one thing. But you two Evers might just be the Worst Evers … Ever.”

Agatha and Tedros looked down, humiliated.

Yuba sighed. “Lucky for you, the League needs you as much as you need it.”

Torches roared to flame, lighting up a squad of strangers behind him in a giant cave headquarters the size of a small house.

“Presenting the honorable League of Thirteen, legendary legion of Good and Enlightenment,” Yuba proclaimed with an imperious smile, clearly expecting the Evers to look impressed, awed, or at least grateful for the glorious platoon that they had come all this way to see.

Agatha and Tedros blanched in horror instead.

Because the League of Thirteen that was their only hope to save Sophie, the League of Thirteen that was their only hope to stay alive … were all very, very old.