The Secret Room (9 page)

I clapped my hand over my mouth. I seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

“Sorry... I didn't want...”

But Arnim just looked at me thoughtfully.

“You're right,” he said. “I always had parents. The whole time I was alive.”

“But now ... do you miss it a lot? Playing games with them at night, eating burnt fish sticks, and ...”

Arnim shook his head. “You think that I'm jealous,” he said, “because you're there doing everything. But it's not like that.”

He took my hand and laid it on his chest. It was cold, ice cold, like the wind and the room and the iron bed.

“None of that means anything to me anymore,” he whispered. “I don't get sad anymore, or tired, or sick. Understand?”

“Maybe,” I whispered back. “Arnim—what happens if... if something happens to me? If the Nameless One ...” I cleared my throat. “If he kills me?”

“You would turn into a bird, like all of them. You would live in the countryside with the hills and the forests.”

“That doesn't sound so bad,” I said and tried to laugh.

He put his finger to his lips. “Your time hasn't come yet,” he replied. “And hopefully it'll be a long time before it does. You belong here now, with Ines and Paul. Someone has to look after them when I'm not here anymore. Promise me you'll do it.”

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I'll do it.”

And then I hugged my brother's cold, cold body again before reaching my hand out to the painting that I had come out of last time.

Everything in the world on the other side was still made of black and white, and in my hand was the feather whose pull I was following.

As I was walking down to the end of the hall, I asked myself why I had never actually looked at the other paintings on the walls of the secret room. Of course I didn't know the right order—but maybe they could have shown me everything that was going to happen.

And I admitted to myself that I was just too afraid. Afraid that I would see my body in a painting, that it would be lying cold and still and wouldn't belong to me anymore.

I remembered what Arnim had said: “Your time hasn't come yet.”

No, it hadn't, and if I could have made a wish at that moment in the cold, empty, black-and-white corridor, it would have been to be able to sit in the swing in the Ribbeks' yard many more times in the future.

The feather led me around a corner, and then the corridor ended abruptly.

I stumbled into an enormous room whose ceiling was so high that I almost couldn't see it anymore. When I tilted my head back, I saw that there were wisps of fog drifting back and forth up at the top.

It was so bitter cold that I wrapped my arms around myself. My teeth were chattering. The feather was pulling like crazy now; I had to force myself not to run. It pulled me through the middle of the room—along a perfectly straight path made of black tiles. It was as if someone had put this black path here just so I could walk along it.

I walked for quite a while before I noticed what was at the other end of the room.

There was a throne made of stone whose tiles were as red as blood and as blue as the horizon above the sea. The sudden brightness of these colors made me squint.

I had to lock my knees to resist the pull of the feather and of being dragged right up to the throne.

Now I knew why it had helped me when I was being choked by the longing in the palace garden. I knew why it had opened the silver gate for me and why it had led me through the corridors. I knew why it had dragged me along so impatiently.

It wanted to get back to its master.

Because he was sitting there on the blood-red, horizon-blue throne, looking down at me.

I had no doubt that it was him, even though he was no longer in the form of a black eagle.

Sitting in front of me now was a huge lion, three times as big and strong as an ordinary lion and snow-white like—well, just like snow. But snow isn't ever as pure and immaculate as the Nameless One's fur was.

“So there you are,” he purred. His voice was as gentle as a flower bed full of buttercups, and he smiled. “I didn't even have to go looking for you. You came to me yourself.”

I wanted to say something, I wanted to scream at him, to insult him, but my throat was suddenly dry and my tongue wouldn't obey me.

The Nameless One kept smiling silently to himself and began to lick his front paw casually. As he was doing it, I caught a glimpse of his huge, gleaming fangs and the inside of his mouth—red as blood and red as the tiles on his throne.

After he was finished with his paw, he looked at me again—this time with his head tilted to one side and a weary interest in his eyes. His eyes were the same ones he had had as an eagle, yellow and glowing and cruel.

“So you came to free your brother?” he asked. “Did you think that I didn't know that you were on your way here? Did you think that I hadn't seen you flying through the sky with the birds? Did you think that I hadn't made sure that you would get through the palace garden safely? And did you think I hadn't heard what my little friends in the cages whispered to you?”

I still couldn't say anything. I just stood there and stared at the Nameless One and trembled. But this time it wasn't because of the cold.

It was fear that made me tremble.

Yes, I was afraid. I was so afraid that my mind froze, so afraid that I just had one thought left: Turn around. Run away.

I didn't have an ounce of bravery left—maybe I had never had any. But I couldn't run away. Not anymore. There was nowhere I could have run to.

“Your journey ends here,” said the Nameless One with a chuckle. “You know that. Am I right? You knew it the whole time, just like me.”

He stood up, stretched, and gave a long yawn, like cats do.

Then he slowly climbed down from his throne and walked over to me on his immaculately white, velvet paws. Dark red puddles, like pools of blood, formed where they touched the floor.

I wanted to run, but fear had frozen me to the ground where I was standing.

“You knew,” he repeated. “And you still came.” Now he was very close and looked down at me from above.

“That's brave,” he said. “Or stupid.”

And then he lifted his giant front paw. The pristine claws flashed above me.

I forced my mind to unfreeze, forced myself to start thinking again.

What did I have that I could use to defend myself?

The feather! If I did it right, I might be able to drive its sharp tip into his face ... I raised my hand and then I saw that it wasn't a feather that I held between my fingers. It had changed forms along with its master. It was no more than a soft, fleecy tuft of white fur that I held up in the air to defend myself.

The Nameless One threw his head back, his long, white mane flying around him, and laughed. He laughed a ghastly laugh, long and booming and aware of all the power that he possessed. If it had been possible for me to feel more afraid than I already was, I definitely would have then.

While he was still laughing, he pounced.

I automatically threw myself to one side, and he missed me with his first leap. But he caught me on his second one, and his giant claws made a scratch along the whole length of my right leg. I didn't feel any pain, I was too afraid, but I could feel the blood running down my leg. It was surprisingly warm in contrast to the freezing cold around me. I climbed to my knees and managed to slip through his big white paws like a bar of soap—I was just too small for him to grab onto easily.

It was crazy, but as the Nameless One was leaping at me for the third time, I was wondering whether my blood was warm enough to give off steam. And I wondered if the wisps of fog on the ceiling of the huge room had all come from the warmth of steaming blood—the steaming blood of all the people who had chosen to come here to free their brothers and sisters, the people who hadn't succeeded.

Then the gigantic white body was above me again and one glimpse into his eyes was enough to erase every thought in my mind. They burned holes in my heart and pierced my soul like glowing daggers.

This time he had me.

He set his paw on my chest and pressed me to the floor so hard that I couldn't breathe.

“So,” he said, “now say goodbye to the world as you know it.”

I gasped and coughed and struggled for air. My hands, which were still free, automatically began to rummage through my pockets. How absurd, I thought. Now, when I'm just about to die, my stupid hands start trying to find my inhaler. And they found it.

The Nameless One opened his jaws and was preparing to sink his flashing teeth into my neck and, pointlessly, my fingers were closing around the small, metal container.

I'm about to be mauled
, I thought,
and I'm clinging to an inhaler that can save me from suffocating. How absolutely ridiculous
.

And then a thought flashed through my head like lightning.

I pulled the inhaler out of my pocket.

The Nameless One was almost touching my face with his. I could feel his cold breath on my cheeks. With a jerk, I raised the inhaler up, pointed it at his cruel, yellow eyes, and pressed down on it a couple times in succession, a second before the mighty lion's jaws had reached my neck.

Pull out the inhaler, point it, fire—I had always had to do it so often and so quickly that I didn't even have to think about how to aim.

A piercing, angry howl broke the silence as the Nameless One's teeth snapped shut above me. They missed their target, but they caught my shoulder and sank deep into my flesh.

My cry blended with the cry of the Nameless One.

It was if the air around us had burst.

I lifted the inhaler and fired again as I crawled backwards. The white lion thrashed about wildly, but he couldn't see where he was swiping with his paws. The spray from the inhaler couldn't really hurt him, but it blinded him for a while—maybe long enough for me to escape.

That is, if there were anywhere to escape to.

I unsuccessfully tried to get to my feet a few times and took some more blows and scratches—then I finally managed and stumbled backward, away from the raging beast.

At some point I bumped against a wall. There was nowhere else to go.

I would have just stood there without knowing what to do if I hadn't heard a noise right then. It was a very quiet noise, and it was almost a miracle that I'd heard it above the Nameless One's raging roar.

I looked up.

And then I saw, high up amid the wisps of fog, there was a window. Two patches of color were sitting at it, a green one and a yellow one: birds.

I could hardly believe it, but there was a ladder with silver rungs leading up to the window. I had backed right into it without realizing it.

The white lion seemed to be recovering—I couldn't lose any time. So I grabbed onto the ladder and started climbing up as fast as I could.

Halfway up I looked back: The Nameless One was standing below and looking up at me. He shook his head angrily a few times because his eyes were still watering.

“Just you wait!” he bellowed. “You think you can escape from me? This ladder doesn't lead anywhere! Not to your brother and not to freedom!”

I felt my strength fading. And now I could feel the pain that I hadn't had time to feel before. The long wound on my leg burned like fire, and I could barely move the shoulder that the Nameless One had sunk his teeth into.

I climbed more and more slowly. I stopped turning around. I knew as soon as he could see okay, the snow white lion down there would turn into a pitch black eagle, unfold his giant wings, and come to get me ...

But the yellow and green birds were sitting up in the window waiting for me. Now I could see the blue sky behind them. The window was just a rectangular opening in the wall, and behind it was freedom.

When I got to the top of the ladder, the birds flew away— but I had recognized one of them, Yellow Pea of Santorini. What had brought her here? Here, where none of them had ever dared to go? And why had she brought the green bird with her?