The Books of Elsewhere, Vol. 1: The Shadows (18 page)

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Authors: Jacqueline West

BOOK: The Books of Elsewhere, Vol. 1: The Shadows
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Inside the locket was a portrait. Even though the painting was upside-down, Olive could make out a face—a bony, angular face with deep pits for eyes and a sharp, square jaw. She recognized it instantly. It was the man from the old photograph she found in the back of the chest of drawers.
“Come out, Grandfather,” Annabelle said. Slowly, like smoke, the image in the portrait slithered out of the locket toward the open mouth of the urn. Annabelle bowed her head. “I have kept my promise to you,” she whispered. “This is still our house. It will always be ours, and no one will ever again chase our family away.”
Olive glanced at Morton from the corner of her eye. He was staring down, mouth agape, squeezing his hand. The cut had vanished.
Annabelle lifted the urn above her head. Its gold body flashed in the moonlight. A sudden wind rose, knocking Olive and Morton off of their feet. Olive managed to catch herself, and realized that her body was once again doing what she told it to. The necklace hung cold and heavy against her shirt. Morton scrambled toward her. She wrapped her arms tightly around his skinny shoulders, and this time Morton didn’t shrug her arms away.
The black trees bent wildly in the wind. Bits of dead leaves and twigs whipped through the chilly air. Olive squinted up into the fading light to see that Annabelle was laughing, holding the urn high. A trail of ashes coiled from the urn’s mouth. As Olive watched, the rising ashes grew thicker, darker, spinning through the air. They eclipsed the moon. They filled the sky. They muffled Annabelle’s triumphant laugh with the sound of a swirling, papery storm.
Pulling Morton along beside her, Olive crawled toward the edge of the clearing. The cycling wind sucked at them, trying to pull them back. Head down, Olive fought her way out into the trees, moving into a crouch, and then a run.
 
“Wait!” called Morton, who was hopping after her as fast as he could, his ankles still bound together. Behind him, the ashes scythed through the trees like the wings of a million black insects. The sound alone made Olive’s skin crawl.
She scrambled back toward Morton. With shaking, freezing hands, she managed to slip one of his bare feet out of the rope. Together they scuttled onto the white path just ahead of the swirling ashes.
“Hurry!” Olive yelled. “Run! If we can get to the picture frame, we can call for help!”
Morton tucked his chin to his chest and pumped his little legs as fast as he possibly could. Olive raced along beside him, holding tight to his hand.
The wind struck at them like leather whips. Olive’s hair flew in every direction, into her mouth, into her eyes. They had come to the end of the path, but the sky was getting darker, colder. Dead grass lashed wildly around their ankles. The frame, with its picture of the hallway, glowed dimly ahead of them.
“Horatio!” Olive screamed. “Leopold! Harvey!”
“Help us!” yelled Morton.
Still running, Olive looked up at the spot where the moon used to be. In the dark clouds of ash, she was sure she could make out a face—an angular face, with pits where eyes should have been. It roiled and spread, blotting out all but the faintest glow of moonlight.
Olive turned back toward the frame a moment too late. A long black tree branch swung out across the path, thwacking her in the stomach. She landed on her back, dragging Morton along with such force that he did a backward somersault.
Olive flipped over onto her hands and knees. “Follow me, and stay low!” she commanded. They scrambled off the path into the thick underbrush. “If we can just wait long enough, I’m sure Horatio will come for us. I’m sure he will.”
Morton nodded, squinting in the wind.
“Here—this is a good spot,” Olive whispered as they crawled into a cluster of massive tree trunks. “Let’s just stay hidden and wait.”
Morton squeezed close to Olive, and they both wriggled down against the roots of the trees. “I told you I was real,” he whispered. “I have blood. You saw it.”
“I know,” Olive answered. “I know.” She thought of the silence where Morton’s heartbeat should have been. The blood that might actually have been paint.
You were real once,
she thought to herself. Aloud, she only said, “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”
Morton nodded, looking down at his bare toes. Olive smoothed out the rumples in his nightshirt, making sure it covered his legs. Then they were quiet for a moment, leaning against each other.
Olive tried sending out a mental distress signal to Horatio. Sometimes people in stories did that.
Come and get us,
she thought. Then, just because she knew how much Horatio would hate it, she thought,
Here, kitty, kitty, kitty
, and had to swallow an insane giggle.
Something behind them moved. Olive could feel it shifting in the ground. It trailed over her arm, and when she looked down, one tree root had snaked out of the dirt and was wrapping itself around her wrist. She gasped, scuttling away. Another branch reached toward her. She dodged before it could coil around her neck. Morton was kicking at the roots that were trying to bind his ankles.
“Get up!” shouted Olive, slapping at the branches. “We have to move! It’s Annabelle—she’s trying to trap us!”
Dodging out of the underbrush, Morton and Olive ran back onto the clear space of the path. “The cats might not hear us. They might not be able to help us,” Olive puffed to Morton. “But if they don’t, nobody will know where we are, and then
neither
of us will ever see our families . . .” A sob squeezed down on Olive’s voice.
She pictured her parents coming home and finding the house empty. They would panic and cry and call the police, never knowing that their daughter was stuck on the other side of a picture frame at the top of the hallway stairs. Morton’s parents had probably done the very same thing, years and years ago, never guessing that their little boy was right next door, waiting to be found before it was too late. But nobody did find him. And now it
was
too late.
No.
Olive stopped so suddenly that Morton almost crashed into her.
No. NO. It wasn’t too late. She wouldn’t let it be too late. Morton had been stuck in this painting before, but she wasn’t going to let it happen to him again. She wasn’t going to let it happen to her.
Morton gaped up at her. “What? What? Why are we stopping?”
Olive made her voice as steady as she could. “Morton, we can’t wait for the cats. We have to get those spectacles. If we can take them and get out, then Annabelle will be stuck in here for good.”
Morton cringed, looking past Olive into the trees. “Look,” he whispered, pointing. From where they stood, they could just glimpse Annabelle through the trees, the pastels of her trailing skirts pale against the black silhouettes. They had run almost all the way back to the clearing.
Olive and Morton slunk closer, keeping as quiet as they could while dodging and fighting off the branches that grabbed at them. They stopped at the edge of the clearing and huddled between the trunks.
“We should split up,” Olive whispered to Morton. She jerked her arm away from a persistent branch and glanced toward the sky. The swirling clouds were thickening, pulling together into a huge, spinning funnel. The face Olive had seen—if it was still there, and she felt sure that it was—seemed to be lost in the churning dark. “Something is happening. I’m not sure how much time we’ll have.”
“Right.” Morton nodded, his moony head bouncing like a bobble-head doll on a dashboard. “I’ll distract her. You get the spectacles.”
Olive stared hard at Morton for a moment. Something intent and solemn had settled over the fear on his face, like a cloak, hiding everything but its faint outline. “All right,” she whispered. “Be careful.”
Morton nodded once more. Then he tripped on the hem of his nightshirt and stumbled away to the right.
Olive crouched, squinting into the clearing. Annabelle was walking around and around the stump, mumbling something to herself and making signs in the air. Olive could see the spectacles hanging around Annabelle’s neck. Her heart gave a hopeful little bounce.
A thin branch coiled around Olive’s leg and she kicked at it distractedly. The branch snapped, and quickly mended its broken halves. In the clearing, Annabelle froze.
Just then, Morton charged into the open, still tugging at something strapped to his leg. Olive squinted, trying to see through the darkness. In Morton’s fist was the little flashlight Olive had brought him.
“Ta-DA!” he sang. He flicked on the light. A tiny, cheerful streak of gold bobbed around the clearing like a firefly.
But it was too late. Annabelle had spotted Olive.
“Hey, lady,” Morton shouted. “Over here! Look!” Morton pointed the flashlight toward the dark sky. The clouds swirled and broke, pulling away from its beam.
Annabelle ignored him. She turned toward Olive with a sickening smile and gestured with both hands. The trees around Olive sprang to life. Roots knotted around her ankles. Branches locked her arms tight against her sides. Another branch wrapped itself around her neck and began to squeeze. Olive felt her face start to tingle.
“The old man doesn’t like this! You’d better come over here and stop me!” she heard Morton shouting in the distance.
Olive couldn’t breathe. Little fireworks exploded in front of her eyes. Through them, she could see Annabelle moving closer, the spectacles glinting on their chain. In the distance, a little white shape darted forward. Something gleamed through the darkness.
“YAH!” Morton yowled, leaping forward and landing on Annabelle’s trailing skirts, pinning her to the ground. Annabelle whirled around. The beam of Morton’s flashlight struck her full in the face. Annabelle let out a shriek and raised her arms, shielding her eyes from the light.
All at once, the branches around Olive’s body loosened. With a wriggle, she slipped out of their grasp and charged through the trees into the clearing, throwing herself against Annabelle’s back. Morton still had the flashlight aimed at Annabelle’s eyes. “YAH!” he shouted again. Annabelle covered her face with one arm and flailed blindly at Morton with the other.
“Grandfather!” Annabelle yelled toward the sky.
Olive felt her fist close around the spectacles and yanked backward with all the strength in her body. The chain snapped. The spectacles were secure in her hand.
“Come on!” Olive shouted, grabbing Morton’s arm. They bolted down the path, the beam of Morton’s flashlight bobbing wildly over the ground in front of them. Its light was already getting weaker. “I think the batter is draining out!” gasped Morton.
Another pair of running footsteps joined the sound of their own. Olive glanced over her shoulder. Annabelle was after them, the dagger she had used to cut Morton clasped in her fist.
Olive put on the spectacles. “When we get to the frame,” she panted to Morton, “you go first. I’ll be right behind you.”
The small square of hallway light shone just a few steps in front of them. Olive pushed Morton ahead. He grabbed the bottom of the frame, Olive held him by the ankle, and Morton dove out into the hallway.
Annabelle lunged closer, her hands reaching out, her mouth forming a furious
NO
. Willing herself not to look back, Olive grasped the frame. She heaved her body over it, pushing her head and shoulders out into the gold light of the hallway. But she couldn’t get any farther. Annabelle’s hand was locked around her foot.
Olive kicked wildly, her legs hitting nothing but the cold, swirling air of the forest. Then there was a sudden tug, and the sensation of something slipping away. Her left sock was gone. Her foot was free of Annabelle’s grasp. Annabelle stumbled backward, still clutching Olive’s stripy sock, and Olive toppled out into the hallway.
She landed on her stomach on the hall carpet. Morton sat in exhausted silence beside her. Then his eyes grew wide. He looked at Olive. “We did it,” he said. He scrambled to his feet. “We did it! We did it!” he chanted, hopping up and down, waving the dead flashlight.
Something sharp was poking Olive in the ribs, but she didn’t seem to be bleeding, and she knew it wasn’t Annabelle’s knife. She felt around cautiously with one hand.
Broken glass.

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