Twenty
They sat and waited and waited and sat, not daring to so much as whisper. Floorboards creaked and floorboards groaned. Voices muttered here and there through the house. It seemed like you could hear the men in suits no matter where they were. Maybe it was another trick of the room.
Once, footsteps came up right outside the door and shuffled around a bit, but they turned right back around.
Eventually, the front door slammed. Car engines started up outside, then faded. Finally Eleanor felt safe opening the door. They crept down together, cautiously, and stopped to listen. No creaking or groaning or voices, and the house felt empty, like it had when they arrived.
Pip bolted for the hallway.
“Pip!” Eleanor cried in alarm.
“Bathroom!” Pip called over her shoulder, and Eleanor stifled a relieved laugh, realizing that she had the same urgent need.
A few minutes later they joined up in the front hallway. The sun was coming in through the windows now, but the light was weak and thin. Fall light, filtered through clouds. Eleanor felt strange, like she’d been gone over with a rolling pin. Thinned out. Noises seemed too loud and muffled at the same time, and she found herself looking at the door to the hidden room, wanting to go inside, slam the door shut, and never, ever leave.
She did not trust that urge at all. She’d read too many fairy tales entirely. A feeling like that usually came with a curse at the other end of it, and she was cursed plenty enough already. She resolved not to spend more time than she needed to in that room.
“We have until dark,” Eleanor said. “That’s what he said.”
“That was—it was him, wasn’t it?” Pip asked, chewing on a strand of her hair nervously. “Mr. January?”
“Yeah. It was him. He didn’t seem to like your mom very much.”
“That’s the only good thing I’ve heard about him,” Pip said. Her voice sounded like a bruise felt when you pressed down on it. “His sisters weren’t there. Do you think he’s like . . . their leader?”
Eleanor made a face. The fairy tale made it seem that way, but she didn’t exactly trust fairy tales to be accurate when it came to how important women were. The book never even gave the girl with backward hands a name, and she was at least as important as Jack. “Maybe it’s more like this is his project, and they have their own projects.”
“Ashford can tell us more,” Pip said confidently.
“We’ll find him. Then we’ll make a plan,” Eleanor said.
“You make the plan. You’re good at plans. I’ll bring the hittin’ stick,” Pip said. She had the walking stick in one hand and the poker sticking out of her backpack. Eleanor hoped she wouldn’t have to hit anyone or anything. They were just a couple of kids. Any fight they got in, they would probably lose.
“We need better protection,” she said.
“We have the stick and the poker,” Pip replied.
Eleanor had the book out. She was paging through, looking at “Rattlebird” and “The Graveyard Dog” and “Cat-of-Ashes,” but apart from the iron shovel the kids used in “The Graveyard Dog,” there wasn’t much mention of weapons. The cat-of-ashes and the rattlebird never even fought anyone in their stories.
“There has to be a clue,” Eleanor muttered.
“What’s that one?” Pip asked, and Eleanor stopped flipping pages.
It was a story called “Iron, Ash, and Salt.” Three children fell down a well and found themselves in a gray world filled with strange monsters. They protected themselves with iron, ash, and salt—a refrain it kept repeating.
“‘They drove the creatures back with iron! They drove them back with ash! They drove them back with salt!’” Pip read. She had a good reading-aloud voice, Eleanor thought. So you didn’t just hear the words, you felt them.
“The iron worked already,” Eleanor said.
“Yeah, but . . . most things get hurt when you hit them with fire tools,” Pip pointed out.
“It’s worth a try. There’s salt in the kitchen. And ashes in the drawing room fireplace.”
They took down the round container of salt from the kitchen cabinet, then filled a sandwich bag with ashes scooped up from the fireplace. Eleanor washed her hands. Pip just scrubbed hers clean on her jeans.
“So,” Pip said. “What’s the plan?”
Eleanor took a deep breath and held it. “One, get supplies. We’ve done that. Two, find Ashford. Three, get Otto free. Four, defeat the January Society and escape the curse.”
“It seems like step four is actually a lot of steps,” Pip said.
“It’s a work in progress,” Eleanor said with a grimace. “We’ll keep figuring it out as we go.”
“If saving Otto’s part of it, it’s good enough for me,” Pip said. The loyal fervor in her voice made Eleanor feel warm.
“All right, then. Ready?” Eleanor asked.
“No,” Pip said. “But let’s go anyway.”
Eleanor opened the back door and stepped out. For a moment she thought she’d been wrong, and the sun wasn’t done rising. But it was only that the colors were still all wrong. The whole yard was gray. Dark gray tree trunks, light gray ground, pale gray sky of pockmarked clouds. The shed, which should have been a faded blue, was gray, too.
It was worse, somehow, in the daylight. Stranger, eerier. It made the world seem dead—or halfway to dead, at least.
“Do you think it comes back? Color?” Pip asked.
“After midnight,” Eleanor said with confidence. “After today, everything will go back to normal.”
Pip shivered. “Let’s get moving. All this standing still is making it too easy to think.”
THEY RODE THEIR bikes along side streets and back paths again. Eleanor took Otto’s bike this time, since it was in better shape than the one she’d gotten from the shed, but her face was still hot and sweaty by the time they reached the official border of Eden Eld.
October 31. Halloween. There should have been kids in costumes, people handing out candy. Eleanor had always loved that her birthday was on Halloween. She loved to celebrate, but hated being the center of attention, and so it was perfect. It was like there was a giant party for her—but no one realized it. She could just watch and enjoy.
But it seemed as if all the joy had gone out of Eden Eld along with the color. The witches and pumpkins in the windows had lost their smiles; they stared with empty eyes and blank expressions. No one wore costumes, and everyone shuffled slowly down the sidewalk, eyes downcast. They didn’t just look gray—they were acting gray. A man walked past with slow, ponderous steps. The wind snatched the hat from his head and sent it bumping and rolling down the sidewalk. He halted, half turned, and watched it for a moment. Then he just kept moving.
Pip and Eleanor clung together and walked slowly. Any one of these people could be part of the January Society. Any one of them could be dangerous.
A gleaming black car pulled onto the street a few blocks away. It looked just like the ones that had pulled up outside of Otto’s house. Pip gripped Eleanor’s arm and hissed a wordless warning.
“This way!” Eleanor said, and dragged her into an alleyway beside them. They crouched behind a garbage can as the car whirred past. It was only when it was gone that Eleanor realized they were holding hands again, their fingers laced so tightly together her bones hurt.
She gave Pip’s hand one last squeeze before she dropped it, and the two of them straightened up. “Should we—” Pip began.
Clackclackclack! Clackclackclack!
The sound burst in the air around them, and a black shape dropped from the sky with an angry scream, claws raking at Eleanor’s face.
Pip let out a yell and swung her walking stick like a bat. The big black bird swooped up out of reach and then dived again. Clackclackclack! Clackclackclack!
Now Eleanor could see what was making the sound. It was the rattlebird, and beneath its feathers hung dozens and dozens of bones. Bones of all sizes, rattling at the end of lengths of dirty twine that wrapped him like a net. His claws glinted like steel. His eyes were yellow as a jack-o’-lantern’s glow. Pip swung again and missed again.
“Just run!” Eleanor said, and they did, pounding through the alley. They could see the street on the other side.
And then the graveyard dog stepped out in front of them. He put his head down and growled. Eleanor and Pip skidded to a stop.
Eleanor whipped her backpack around and grabbed the sandwich bag that she’d left sticking out of the top of it. She ripped it open and snatched a handful of ashes, flinging them at the dog.
The ashes drifted over the dog’s face.
He sneezed.
“I don’t think that worked,” Pip whispered, as the dog shook his head and growled again.
A low, feminine voice laughed above them. The cat-of-ashes waltzed along the top of the wall to their left. And then, in a single leap, she landed on the ground between them and the dog, swiping at the air in front of his nose and making him jump back.
The rattlebird landed on a dumpster behind them. Clackclackclack. His talons screeched on the metal.
“Language is a funny thing, isn’t it?” the cat-of-ashes asked, swishing her tail. “The fierce one had it right.”
Ash, Eleanor thought. Ash was the soot at the bottom of a fireplace, but it was also a type of wood. “It’s the walking stick,” she whispered. The cat-of-ashes purred in approval.
“Told you all I needed was the hittin’ stick,” Pip said.
“Iron for the dog, ash for the bird,” the cat-of-ashes said.
The dog snarled. “Why are you telling them,” he said, not bending it at the end of the sentence like a proper question.
“Troublemaker,” the rattlebird croaked. “Trickster, traitor, spy.”
“Oh, boo. You’re just mad your leashes are tighter than mine,” she said. “I’m here the same as the both of you, aren’t I? As ordered. Now, come on, kids. We’re bringing you in. No struggling.” She winked one green eye. The creatures still had color, Eleanor realized.
“Tell us what works against you,” Eleanor said. “Salt?”
“I’m nice, but I’m not that nice, kid,” the cat-of-ashes said. She waggled her haunches and settled into a crouch. “Now, surrender quick before my canine friend gobbles you up and gives your bones to the bird.”
“No,” Eleanor said. “We’re not giving up.” She reached over to Pip’s backpack and pulled the iron poker free.
“Don’t like that one. It tickles,” the dog said, tensing up like he was ready to jump. His nose twitched in the air, and he narrowed his eyes at Eleanor. “You have something that doesn’t belong to you.”
“Now!” Pip yelled. She swung for the bird. Eleanor charged forward, holding the iron poker out like a lance as the dog leaped. Her eyes jammed shut of their own accord and she yanked the poker up in front of her to block him.
Something hot and prickly passed over her skin. She whipped around, opening her eyes. The dog had broken apart in a flurry of sparks and ashes. They swarmed together on the other side of her, forming the rough shape of the dog—but it seethed and billowed like a smoke cloud, not quite turning solid again.
Pip’s walking stick swung again and again. She couldn’t hit the rattlebird, but she could keep him off.
“Use what you’ve got, kid!” the cat-of-ashes cried. She reared up on her hind legs. On instinct, Eleanor flung out a hand to block her. The cat’s teeth sank into her palm even as Pip’s walking stick finally found its mark, and Eleanor screamed in pain.
“Miscreant!” the rattlebird yelled, as his body turned to smoke and ash, still in the shape of a bird. He flapped up high out of reach and hovered overhead.
The dog snuffed and snorted, whirling around like he was chasing his tail. He was getting more solid.
The cat-of-ashes hissed, and her fur puffed up until she seemed twice her size. Her green eyes were wilder than ever, and between her teeth spat sparks.
Pip had the salt carton out. She twisted it so the holes were open and flung the salt in the cat’s direction. It hit her fur and went up in a shower of sparks as she howled and writhed and twisted.
“Ouch! That hurt, you whiskerless wretches!” she yelled as she turned to smoke and ash and streaked away, down low close to the wall. “Curse you all. And good luck!”
Pip and Eleanor charged out of the alley, breaking into the open. Eleanor looked left and right. All she saw was gray. Use what you’ve got! the cat-of-ashes yelled in her mind. The weapons, or—
She yanked the crystal lens out of her pocket and stuck it to her eye.
Color flooded back into the world. Most of the street looked normal, back to red brick and black streets and green trees. She twisted to look behind her. The rattlebird wheeled overhead, gray-gray-gray, and the dog, nearly re-formed, was gray all the way through. The walking stick glowed.
And so did a door, way down the street. It was a huge, ornate door, filling nearly the entire south side of the clock tower wall. Eleanor lowered the crystal for a moment. Without the crystal, the door wasn’t there at all. She lifted it and it reappeared.
“I know where Bartimaeus is! Come this way,” she said. Pip followed her without hesitation.
Please be unlocked. Please be unlocked. Her breath sliced at her throat, cold and ragged. The dog’s snarling and snapping got louder, more solid. They reached the door and Eleanor grabbed at the big brass doorknob, twisting desperately.
It opened.