Twenty-Four

Wander, Jack, and the hedgewitch emerged from the house. Jack had a sword at his hip—not Gloaming, but one still a little bit magical in its own right. Wander had looped the silver moonlight thread around her wrists, and it gleamed in the dark. The hedgewitch had her bag over her shoulder.

“They’ll be here any minute,” Eleanor said.

“We will be with you,” Wander promised. Jack didn’t say anything—but she could see in his face everything he wished he could have said. They’d barely had the chance to get to know each other, but he had been the best father he could in that short time.

And if they won, they’d have all the time in the world to spend together.

She looked at the hedgewitch. “You can do this,” the woman said firmly, fiercely. Her mother would have told her she loved her. Would have given her words of comfort. But right now, she found that the hedgewitch’s stern gaze was what she really needed. Because the hedgewitch didn’t say things she didn’t believe. She didn’t say them out of hope or optimism or to make you feel better. She believed in facts. And if she thought they could win, maybe they would.

Eleanor took a deep, steadying breath. “This is the part where we have some kind of stirring speech,” she said. “But I can’t think of one.” She let out a shaky laugh, her nerves getting the better of her.

“We don’t need a speech,” Pip said.

“We already know everything that we’d say,” Otto told her.

“You’ve already been through the Wending together,” Wander added.

“And faced mud beasts,” Jack said.

“And survived your thirteenth Halloween, when none of those before you could,” the hedgewitch reminded her.

Eleanor swallowed. “Then there’s nothing left to say. We do this. Together. Win or lose, we see it through,” she said.

“We’re ready,” Pip said. She drew Gloaming. The blade flashed in the darkness.

“We’re ready,” Otto agreed, patting his backpack, which was bursting with potions and tinctures and tricks.

The hedgewitch stepped forward, slipping her bag off her shoulder. “Eleanor. You’ll need this.” She settled the bag over Eleanor’s shoulder and smoothed the strap in place, her fingertips lingering in an almost affectionate touch. “I enchanted that bag myself. When you reach into it, you’ll find whatever you need right away, and nothing inside will ever be lost or damaged. It will keep them all safe for you.”

Surprised by this unexpected bit of kindness, Eleanor looked inside the bag. Instead of the hedgewitch’s potions and charms, the bag held a long skein of moonlight thread—and the three books from the Library. She gave the hedgewitch a startled look. Eleanor had left the books in her room. The hedgewitch could have hidden Claire’s book—or destroyed it. Why hadn’t she?

The hedgewitch stepped back. Eleanor shook her head. She didn’t know what to think or feel—and there wasn’t time to figure it out.

She turned back around. Otto and Pip caught her hands briefly, a single second of contact. Their hands dropped away quickly, but even that fleeting touch steadied her.

In that moment, Mr. January appeared at the edge of the light.

He did not step out of the shadows; he was simply there, facing away from them. And then his sisters appeared to his left and right, maybe twenty feet apart from one another. It was like the darkness had peeled back to reveal them.

Mrs. Prosper turned. Eleanor could see traces of Melia in her features, but they had grown more precise, more perfect. She looked at them with poisonous hatred. In the trees behind her, large, shadowy shapes moved, and Eleanor thought of the massive, mushroom-infested mucks with a thrill of fear.

Katie turned, and as she did, two other versions of her stepped free. They each stretched out a hand as Rag-a-bone and Shatterblack prowled up to flank them. One held the Editor’s quill, the other her inkpot. The Katie in the center had the book of Eden Eld clasped under one arm. A small satchel hung over her other shoulder.

And then Mr. January turned neatly on his heel, with a flourish of his cane. He peered at them with a twisted smile. With a clack-clack-clack of bones, the rattlebird swooped in, landing in the branches above him. The graveyard dog paced out of the darkness, a growl rumbling in his broad, deep chest.

“Well. Here we are,” Mr. January said, smooth as anything. “This isn’t what I had planned, of course, but it’s a marvelous bit of innovation on my sister’s part, don’t you think? She’s caught us up on all the tricks you got up to in your absence.”

“Did she tell you that we met you, Ash?” Eleanor asked.

To her surprise, he visibly recoiled. “That is not my name. It has not been for a very long time,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “My timeline does not include your little excursion. And soon all will be put right, as if it never happened.”

“We saw what happened to you there. Why would you want to go back?” Eleanor asked. The others glanced at her. This wasn’t part of the plan. But she wanted to understand.

“We were young and weak. Our parents taught us to be strong,” Mrs. Prosper said.

“And they will reward our return,” Mr. January added. “We will have our thrones beside theirs.”

The Katies said nothing.

“Now,” Mr. January said, his voice getting smooth and calm once again. “May I suggest you surrender? You see, now that you’ve given us the gift of breaking reality, we have all the time in the world. Even if you somehow wriggle your way free now, we’ll only come after you again. And again. And again. Instead of all this struggle, you could simply . . . step through the door.”

He moved slightly to the side and waved his cane behind him. The darkness seemed to ooze back a little farther. From the shadows, a door knit itself into existence. It was plain, without even a frame around it, and when it swung open, it left a straight-edged hole.

On the other side, gray mist seethed, formless and empty. Eleanor shivered. The gray world. They’d been through that door on Halloween. And now it was Halloween again—more or less.

At least this meant she wouldn’t have to open the way to the gray world herself.

“So what do you say? Step right in, and this can all be over,” Mr. January said.

“Not a chance,” Pip replied.

Mr. January shrugged, like it didn’t particularly matter to him one way or the other. “Just thought I’d offer. In that case . . .” He paused for dramatic effect—but whatever he was going to say, he didn’t get the chance.

“Get ’em,” Pip said simply—and Eleanor and the others charged.

For a moment, the People Who Look Away seemed so surprised they didn’t move at all. The second after that, everything erupted into chaos.

The three dogs were the first to react, leaping to meet the charge. Jack surged out front to meet the graveyard dog, driving him back with a sweep of his sword, while Wander danced in with her moonlight thread, wielding it like a whip the umbral hounds skittered away from.

The cat-of-ashes plodded forward reluctantly and hissed in an almost apologetic tone as she advanced on Eleanor. A tiny gray shape zipped out the back door and darted straight toward the big cat. She halted in surprise as the kitten-of-ashes launched herself, all fangs and pinprick claws, straight at her.

“Oh, for the love of—” Eleanor heard her say, and then, “Ow! Ow! Ow! You little brat, stop that!”

The cats staggered off toward the orchard, dodging and flipping and yowling.

The rattlebird launched into the air, only for Otto to chuck a glass bottle right at it. The bottle broke against its chest, and glowing vines burst out, wrapping the rattlebird’s wings up tight and sending it crashing to the ground. The hedgewitch and Otto fanned out, both of them with intent expressions of concentration.

From the orchard lurched the mushroom-covered bodies of the bearlike mucks, but Pip was ready, moving to intercept them.

The People Who Look Away hung back—as always, content to let their beasts do the hard work. Eleanor kept her attention focused on Katie. She had to get the book, quill, and ink back from her.

Eleanor started forward, jaw clenched. A muck reared up in front of her. It was huge, with wide, tattered ears like a bat. Bare ribs protruded through the mud that coated its body, mushrooms growing between them. It raised a huge paw, claws extended—and then a glass bottle shattered against its torso, brilliant white light spilling out. It let out a strangled sound and crumpled to the ground, turning to dust and mud.

The hedgewitch appeared at her side, another bottle already in hand. “You okay?” she asked, a bit breathless.

“Fine,” Eleanor said curtly.

The hedgewitch nodded sharply. “Go. I’ll make sure nothing touches you,” she said.

Eleanor ran forward again, trying to ignore the shapes lunging out of the dark, the yelps and growls and shrieks, the clash and clang of metal. The Katies were right ahead of her, watching her approach with a kind of detached curiosity.

“What are you doing?” the one on the left asked.

“There’s no point to all of this,” the one on the right said.

“You won’t get away,” the one in the center said.

“No one ever does,” they chorused together, and their voices were suddenly full of anguish and sorrow and anger.

“You did,” Eleanor said. “You escaped.”

“No. I didn’t. I tried a hundred times, and I never did,” they said. Their outlines shook, flexing. They snapped back into a single woman, then split into three again.

“You escaped with us,” Eleanor insisted, tears in her voice. “You were Thea and you got away.”

“That wasn’t real,” the center Katie said. “Enough of this.” She wrenched open the cover of the book. The three of them moved in unison—one holding the ink, the other the quill, the third the book. Eleanor lunged forward, trying to cross the last distance before Katie could—

A hand closed around her wrist. “Got you,” Ms. Foster spat, as all around them familiar figures appeared out of thin air—thirteen men and women. Pip’s dentist. Otto’s great-aunt. They were the thirteen men and women of the January Society, who had tried to hand them over to Mr. January last Halloween.

Katie, satisfied, merged once more into a single version of herself. She tucked the ink and quill into the bag that hung over her shoulder, and the book she held under one arm, surveying her work.

“Ah! Excellent!” Mr. January cried, as the Society members looked around in confusion. “A chance to redeem yourself. Get those children through the door, and all will be forgiven! I’ll even let you exist again!”

“Come on, Eleanor dear,” Ms. Foster said, dragging her toward the door.

The hedgewitch stepped up behind her, uncorked a vial, and dumped it over Delilah Foster’s perfectly coiffed hair.

Ms. Foster gasped and spun. “Claire? What did you—” she started, and then she stopped. She didn’t just stop talking—she stopped moving. Stopped blinking. Stopped breathing.

It took Eleanor a moment to realize what had happened, since everything was already gray. Delilah Foster had turned to stone.

“I should have done that before you ever had the chance to come after us,” the hedgewitch growled. Eleanor grinned at her, and she grinned back.

The moment shattered a half second later as an umbral hound slammed into the hedgewitch, taking her down to the ground. Eleanor yelped and lunged to help, but a muck lurched between them. She scrambled back—then dodged under the reaching hands of a January Society member.

The fight had been pretty even before, but now more mucks were streaming out of the trees. The January Society members weren’t armed, but there were a dozen of them, and three had hold of Pip, hauling her backward toward the door as another two charged a shouting Jack, seemingly heedless of his sword.

Eleanor didn’t have time to look for Otto, or for Katie and her book and ink—she ducked and dodged and ran and spun as mucks and men and hounds seemed to come from all directions. The dark was closing in.

Time, already fickle, seemed to seethe and slow around her. She blinked, watching the battle as if it was in slow motion. They were going to lose, she realized, as Jack collapsed to one knee, Mrs. Prosper twisting her hands in a spell to make the roots of the trees wrap around him.

As Wander staggered, fending off the rattlebird, who must have freed himself.

As somewhere, Otto gave a scream that might have been fear or pain.

This was going to be it. Their grand plans, their months of struggling and surviving and beating the odds. It was all going to be for nothing. The People Who Look Away were going to win, and the gates of the Pallid Kingdom would open, and all the Empty would spill out.

A growl sounded behind her. She turned slowly. Rag-a-bone crouched, ready to leap. And Eleanor stood frozen. She couldn’t get away. Even if she got away from Rag-a-bone, the January Society would get her. Or Mrs. Prosper, or Mr. January, or the graveyard dog. Maybe they’d already gotten the others. She couldn’t see them anymore. Not Otto or Pip or the hedgewitch or Katie.

She couldn’t see them, she realized, but she could feel them. She was connected to each and every one of her friends, and there were their threads, tugging at her. They were still here. They were still alive. And she wasn’t Empty. She wasn’t alone.

She closed her eyes. Otto, she thought, and reached out her hand. She felt his hand close around hers, as if they stood side by side. Pip, she thought, and there she was, too. In the middle of all the chaos, they existed in a still, perfect moment.

We can do this, Eleanor thought.

The three of us, she heard Otto’s voice say.

Together, Pip’s voice chimed in.

Eleanor opened her eyes. Her hands were empty, but she could still feel them, all the same.

She could feel Katie, too. Thea. A slight and trembling thread.

Rag-a-bone sailed toward Eleanor, teeth bared and snapping. Eleanor reached. She felt a hole in the world open right behind her. She stepped backward, letting it close as soon as she was through.

Thirty feet away, Rag-a-bone leaped through empty air and landed with a startled yelp. And Eleanor stood in front of Katie Rhodes. Only one of her now—ink and quill in one hand, the book in the other. Her eyes widened as Eleanor appeared.

“Impressive,” she noted. “But it’s not going to be enough. You can’t fight your way out of your fate.”

“We’ll see,” Eleanor said, and she lunged. Katie lifted a hand to defend herself, but Eleanor wasn’t attacking. She closed both hands around the book and kept moving. She let herself fall forward, using all of her weight to tear the book out of Katie’s hands.

Katie let out a cry of startled anger. Eleanor didn’t look back at her. On her knees in the churned-up mud, she pressed one palm flat against the cover of The Small, Cursed Town of Eden Eld and reached into her bag with the other, closing her hand around the spine of the thickest book. The original, unedited version.

The Story of Eden Eld flowed through her. The small, cursed town nestled among the pines. Founded by people who had been so afraid of the world they would do anything to protect themselves from it—including sacrificing their children to Mr. January’s schemes.

The words raced over her skin as they passed through her, into the book on the ground, leaving only scraps of the Story lingering in her mind. She glimpsed the names and faces of the children who had been lost to the curse before them. Some had tried to escape. Some hadn’t ever realized what was coming for them. All of them were lost.

And every time they were, the same words repeated. The three children were lost to the curse of Eden Eld. But perhaps the next three would be the ones to end it.

And then, finally, after twelve repetitions, twelve sets of children sacrificed: The three children had survived the curse, for now. But more trials were to come, and only time would tell whether they could end the curse for good.

We can, Eleanor thought, as the last of the story swept out of her and into the book. We will.

Katie grabbed her by the hair, hauling her up. The book fell from her hands to the ground.

For a moment, Eleanor thought it hadn’t worked. It was still dark as night.

And then she realized that the moon was shining overhead. It wasn’t dark as night. It was night. Halloween night. Any signs of spring withered and vanished. The apples on the trees swelled, some falling rotten to the ground. The January Society dissipated like so much fog, their fates restored as the timeline reverted.

The mucks fell back. The umbral hounds retreated with quizzical growls.

The air filled with the familiar tick-tock-tick of the grandfather clock—and in the house, a baby began to cry.

Eleanor twisted to smile triumphantly at Katie. Katie released her grip and fell back a step with a shocked expression, eyes roving over the rapidly changing scene.

Otto, Pip, if you can hear me, I have an idea, she thought, sending the words along the connections between them. She felt their understanding on the other side.

The world-walker Story was still flowing in Eleanor’s veins, its words written on her very soul. She stretched out her senses and turned. Mr. January and Mrs. Prosper looked about in rage and confusion as they guarded the door. Pip and Otto were running across the muddy, torn-up battlefield. Elsewhere, Wander was helping Jack to his feet, and the hedgewitch leaned against a tree, panting heavily with mud splattered across her body.

Otto crashed into Mrs. Prosper, and the elegant woman toppled backward. Pip drove Mr. January backward, retreating from her slashing blade. And Eleanor reached out in that instant, nicking tiny holes in the fabric of the world for the two villains to fall through. They stumbled through one portal and out of another—straight through the door to the gray. Pip leaped through the portal after Mr. January even as he regained his balance. He lunged for the doorway—but Pip slammed the door shut right in his face.

She spun and put her back to the door, digging her feet into the ground to brace it. Wander hurried toward her, unspooling the moonlight thread.

Eleanor turned to Katie, who stared at her with a weary kind of anger. “So you did have a plan after all,” Katie said, contempt in her voice. “You won’t put me through that door.”

“I don’t have to,” Eleanor said. “I can make my own.”

The tiny portals zipping across the battlefield had been easy. Opening a door to the gray world was harder—but the world-walker whispered, and Eleanor listened, and the portal stitched itself together behind Katie.

“I’ll take that,” Eleanor said. She reached out, grabbing hold of the strap of Katie’s bag, and with the other hand she shoved her hard in the chest, throwing all of her anger and sorrow and fear and triumph behind it.

Katie fell back. The strap of the bag snagged for a moment, and then came free, and she fell backward. Into the portal. Into the gray.

Now close! Eleanor thought, and the portal sealed shut. The gray—and Katie—vanished. Eleanor grabbed the moonlight thread from her bag, a needle already affixed to the end, and began stitching up the air where it had been. A moment later and Wander was beside her, her stitches elegant next to Eleanor’s haphazard zigzag.

“Almost,” Wander whispered. “Almost—”

Eleanor could sense the connections between the worlds cinching shut. A gap, a crack, a sliver, barely a whisper—

Just as the opening between the worlds shut, something wrenched it open. The door opened—just a bit. Just enough for Katie Rhodes to lunge out. To wrap her hand around Eleanor’s throat.

To pull her through the door, into the gray, as the link between the worlds was stitched shut.