The Ever After

Chapter Twenty-Four: May, Alone

IT WAS SEVERAL MINUTES BEFORE MAY EMERGED into the light again. She had just begun to think this was how her life would end, drowning in a stream of ectoplasm, when the glimmer of dusky light made its way into the dark- ness and she finally drifted out into the open air. She caught at a brick poking out of the sidewalk above and latched on to it, dragging herself onto the cobblestones, and finally, pulling her death shroud over herself.

Panting hard, she looked around and saw that she was in a deserted alley lined along one side with solemn, gray, ornately carved buildings. Wherever she'd drifted, it was very quiet and far from the chaos of the boulevard.

The gargoyles were gone. Pumpkin was gone. John the Jibber was gone.

May hung her head between her knees, fighting back the sharp pain in her heart. In the distance she could hear the sound of dogs somewhere in the city.

She was completely alone.

May fell onto her back, watching the zipping stars, which tonight were covered lightly in clouds, and feeling the darkest despair.

"It's all my fault," she squeaked to the sky, thinking of John, and Lucius, and Pumpkin. She closed her eyes, her lids forcing twin tears out of the corners and down her cheeks, where they hid in her ectoplasm-soaked hair.

Pumpkin, Lucius, and John were gone. And she was still a million miles from her home.

May curled into a tight ball on her side and lay still for a long time. Whenever she'd been sad at home, she had always had Somber Kitty to tuck up in her arms to catch her tears on top of his soft ears. Now she had nobody.

When May finally opened her eyes again, she rolled slowly onto her back and blinked at the sky, squinting at a strange cloud that had settled directly above her. It took a familiar shape-of a tree, with eyes peering down at her.

May scrambled to sit up. But by the time she did and blinked at the sky again, the cloud had been blown into a new shape.

May looked around and adjusted her shroud nervously. Slowly she climbed to her feet and gazed at the sky again. Was the Lady looking out for her? Or frowning down on her?

"I just want everything to be like it was before," she said out loud.

A scrawwwwwk sounded in the distance.

May shivered. She should probably hide for a while, just in case. And then, when the city had calmed down and the sound of dogs had died, she could go look for Pumpkin. If there was any hope of finding him at all.

She scanned the street again.

The building straight ahead of her stood wide open. Above the door it read MAUSOLEUM 387A.

Walking very slowly, May peered through the open doorway. The mausoleum was pitch-dark inside, clearly deserted. She shifted from foot to foot, then stared up at the sky, then back at the door. She walked into the mausoleum at a snail's pace, feeling her way along a wall.

Pssssspppppsss.

Voices were whispering in the darkness.

May shrank back against the wall, her heart racing.

Suddenly a blue flame leaped into the darkness, illuminating a tall starlight and a man holding it, surrounded by a circle of other spirits. May shrank farther into a corner and tried to make her breathing as low and quiet as possible.

"You see, that wasn't so bad," the man holding the starlight said, pushing his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose with his free hand. "Now let's try again. Laura, this time you do the honors."