If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late (16 page)

“But I . . . have no name,” stammered the Homunculus.

“No name? Impossible. They must call you something.”

“Only mean things. Awful things. Except sometimes . . .” The Homunculus hesitated.

“Yes?”

“Sometimes, the housekeeper, when my master is not around, she . . . she calls me her little Cabbage Face.” The Homunculus covered his face with his large hand; years of taunting had made him immune to most embarrassments, but this was something else altogether.

“Cabbage Face, eh?” The Jester laughed. “It suits you perfectly!”

The Jester tossed his ball thoughtfully.

“Your master made you a monster. Your name will make you a man.”

“So Cabbage Face is the homunculus’s name!” Cass exclaimed.

“How ’bout that? I can’t believe we didn’t think of it,” said Max-Ernest. “Or did we? Now, I can’t remember. . . .”

“Do you think that’s true — that your name makes you who you are?”

“No. That’s silly. Like, if your name is Dakota, you don’t suddenly turn into a state. I have two names and I’m not two people.”

Yes, but he often acted like he was two people, Cass wanted to say. Instead, she asked, “Why don’t you think Lord Pharaoh gave the homunculus a name? You know, like Frankenstein or something.”

“Actually, Frankenstein wasn’t Frankenstein’s name. He was just a monster — Frankenstein was the man who made him. You know, Dr. Frankenstein. So that would be like calling the homunculus Lord Pharaoh. Which would be kind of funny considering the way he treated him. I mean in the story, not that he really —”

“Yeah, I get it!” said Cass. “Let me read the last part —”

Part Conclusive

I
t is said that a Homunculus must serve his maker — for that is the nature of a Homunculus.

But it is also said that if the maker takes advantage of his servant, and treats him too much like a slave, then the Homunculus will take vengeance on his maker and run away — for that, too, is the nature of a Homunculus.

The Homunculus called Cabbage Face ran far, far away from his master, Lord Pharaoh. Never resting, he crossed oceans and deserts, mountain ranges and city slums. Until the day Lord Pharaoh caught up with him and the Homunculus at last confronted the man who should have been to him a father, but instead was a mortal enemy.

When the Homunculus had vanquished his master, the homunculus buried his remains far from the eyes of those who knew him. So that never again would another person — whether for greed or glory or science — repeat the mistakes his master had made, the Homunculus buried with him the means of the Homunculus’s own making: the alchemist’s secret notes and diaries, his recipes and ingredients, and the leftovers of his awful experiments.

And then the Homunculus laid himself down across the grave of Lord Pharaoh. Henceforward, he would protect the grave from the world — and, more importantly, the world from the grave.

Yet, in all those years, and forever after, the Homunculus never forgot the Fool who freed him. Before he ran, he made to this funny man a solemn vow: that when the Ball called, he would come.

And he always did. He always has.

The End

Cass put down the last page in wonder.

“So do you think the Sound Prism really has the power to call the homunculus?” she asked.

“Well, it would be sort of crazy if it did. And kind of scary. But it looks like Mr. Wallace thinks it’s all made up —”

He shone the flashlight on the back of the last page, where there was a handwritten note:

The Legend of Cabbage Face, indeed!

It is well known that the author of this story, my predecessor’s predecessor’s prede-cessor, fancied himself a great writer and novelist. Here, I fear, he let his literary ambitions — and his imagination — get away from him.

The fact that the Jester appears really to be a jester proves this “legend” to be just that. A hat with bells? Ridiculous! If we know anything, we know that our noble founder was a man of science, not a fool!

And a talking homunculus? Sentimental claptrap! If such a creature ever existed, he must have been a monster, incapable of thought or feeling.

Still, we know that the Masters of the Midnight Sun search even now for Lord Pharaoh’s grave. So perhaps there is a grain of truth here, after all.

Deserves further study
. — W. W.W. III

“Mr. Wallace is a sourpuss!” said Cass when she’d finished reading.

“Come on, be honest — you don’t really believe that some alchemist made a little guy out of horse . . . poop . . . five hundred years ago, do you?”

“
In
poop. Not
out of
poop.”

“And he’s still alive? And he even talks?”

“I don’t know. All I know is we promised to find him, whether he talks or not. Are you going to help or aren’t you?”

Cass looked at him expectantly. She needed Max-Ernest in fighting shape. Or whatever the Max-Ernest version of fighting shape was. She couldn’t afford to have such a waffling, moody partner.

Max-Ernest nodded and extended his arm.

This was serious business, and they both knew it. Whoever or whatever the homunculus was or wasn’t, the fact remained that Dr. L and Ms. Mauvais were looking for him — and that alone made their job extremely important.

And extremely dangerous.

They shook hands, both beginning at last to feel the chill.

A
fter Max-Ernest had gone, Cass stood for a moment in the Barbie Graveyard contemplating what they’d read.

How odd that the Jester had pointy ears. . . . She wondered if Max-Ernest had noticed.

A breeze rustled through the yard, stirring the autumn leaves. And a small piece of paper fluttered in the air, landing at Cass’s foot.

It must have slipped out of the wand, thought Cass.

She shone her flashlight on the paper as she picked it up off the ground. It was a rather formal-looking document:

STATE BOARD OF HEALTH

DIVISION OF VITAL STATISTICS

Certificate of Live Birth

I’m sorry I can’t tell you the name of the girl listed on the birth certificate. Or who her parents were. Or what city she was born in. But it hardly matters; Cass didn’t recognize the names herself.

And yet something about the birth certificate bothered her — what?

Of course — the birth date! It was the same as her own. What a strange coincidence. Almost like discovering a long-lost twin sister.

So why had the birth certificate been in the Sound Prism file?

A dreadful realization struck her: the Terces Society had made a mistake. They thought she was this other girl.

It was the other girl, not Cass, who was supposed to have the Sound Prism. It was the other girl, not Cass, who was supposed to hunt the homunculus.

Cass knew she ought to tell Pietro right away.

But what if he took the mission away from her? She couldn’t bear the thought.

What good would that do, anyway?

Obviously, he didn’t know where the other girl was or he would have given the Sound Prism to her.

On the other hand, if Cass found the homunculus, the Terces Society would be so grateful, it wouldn’t matter who she was.

Staving off her pangs of conscience, Cass slipped the birth certificate into her pocket and walked back into the house.

T
ommy! Tommy!”

The cries of Tommy’s older brother ring in our ears — blocking out the song of the Sound Prism.

We are at the lake again. But on the other side.

Here we spy a little boy, maybe two or three years old. Tommy — we assume it’s Tommy — is about twenty yards from the tent, just out of view of the older boys. He appears totally carefree, laughing and playing among the wet rocks. He runs this way and that, skirting the edge of the lake, oblivious to the possibility of falling onto something sharp or drowning in the icy water.

Thankfully, he turns away and starts running in another direction altogether. What’s drawing his attention — something in the air maybe? A dragonfly? At any rate, he heads away from the lake and — oh no! — straight into the woods.

He disappears into a tunnel of brush so small it looks as though it was made for him. Most people wouldn’t be able to follow him into the tunnel —

But we have no trouble. We don’t even have to duck.

Soon the brush opens up and young Tommy finds himself in a forest glade. A beam of sunlight peeks through the clouds and lights up the trees. Delighted, he spreads his arms and spins around and around until he falls dizzy in a heap on the ground.

In the background, the older boys’ voices are heard again, but fainter than before. “Tom-my! Tom-my!” they cry. “Where are you? Come back!”

Tommy giggles and staggers to his feet. They’re playing his favorite game — hide-and-seek! But where to hide? He looks around. There are almost too many options. Big rocks. Giant ferns. Fallen logs.

A tall fir tree has been hollowed out by fire, leaving a small charred cave at the base of the tree — perfect.

He runs stumblingly toward the tree. In his haste, he doesn’t notice us darting past him.

Nor does he notice the sound his footsteps are making. It is the sound of crunching bones. The whole glade is littered with them.

By the time Tommy reaches the tree, we are inside, looking up at him. We let out a low, guttural
grrrrrrrowl.

“Kitty . . . ?” he asks. “Doggy . . . ? Doggy go ruff-ruff!”

His pudgy hand reaches into the hole, and —

Cass woke up gnawing on her own hand, her pillow covered with slobber.

She shuddered in horror. What had happened to the little boy?

Cass jumped out of bed, trying to shake off her dream. When had she started believing her dreams were real, anyway? Probably, there was no boy and never had been. According to Max-Ernest, there might not even be a homunculus.

And even if there were a homunculus, according to that birth certificate, she was the wrong girl to be dreaming about him.

In any case, she had a job to do.

They’d decided the next step was to come up with a list of likely locations for the homunculus. After all, he hadn’t come when she’d played the song of the Sound Prism the first time. Maybe they needed to be closer to the homunculus for him to hear.

Suddenly, Cass stiffened: on her Wall of Horrors, directly in front of her, was her dream. Well, the lake in her dream. In black-and-white. And blurry. But unmistakable nonetheless. There were the same jagged mountains in the background. And the same graveyard on the side of the lake.

BEAR OR BIGFOOT?

Three-Year-Old Boy Survives Mountain Encounter

She’d cut the article out of the newspaper a month or so ago, realizing that she was unsure how to respond to a bear attack (was it true you were supposed to play dead?), and she’d been disappointed that the article provided no instructions.

With an uncomfortable prickling sensation in the back of her neck, she reread the article now:

Whisper Lake
— On Monday, forest service officials reported a mountain miracle.

For the last few weeks, a very hungry bear has been haunting Whisper Lake, a popular campsite for backpackers. According to a local ranger, the bear steals food and garbage from all the campers who stay at the lake — no matter how well it’s hidden.

“Eats everyone’s dinner — the sneak! Getting ready to hibernate for winter, I guess. A long winter,” said the ranger.

Locals had taken to calling him Bigfoot — because of his big appetite. And because, until this past weekend, nobody had seen the elusive ursine in person — only his tracks.

But then three-year-old Thomas Xxxxxx went missing at Whisper Lake.

When his older brother told their parents that Thomas was lost, the family immediately sought help. For three hours, rangers searched, to no avail. They all feared the worst.

“Then Tommy came stumbling back into the campsite — laughing like nothing was wrong,” said his brother.