CHAPTER TWO
I woke with a gasp to the sound of men arguing.
I lay on my side in a bed of crackly brown leaves, each one large enough to wrap around my body like a cape. Rolling onto my stomach, I crawled under a sprawling rhododendron and stared through the foliage in the direction of the voices.
Two men passed through the outer wall of the East Gatehouse, under the trio of raised portcullises that were not supposed to be open. They led a grimacing horse and groaning cart that barely cleared the stone arch. I crouched lower.
"You can't hide forever," my uncle bellowed from somewhere in the darkness. "I know you stole it!"
The moon hovered high in the sky. I wondered how long I'd been out. Something bulged in my pocket. I pulled out a leather-bound book. My Uncle Mazol was going to beat me for this, but I couldn't remember stealing it. I could only read a few words, and those words were scorched in my mind, making my stomach twist each time I reimagined seeing them appear on the old pages. Then there was the dream. It played over and over. Falling. Falling. Falling. It always ended the same. Eyes clenched shut. Bones to gravel. Dust to dust.
I watched the men shift down the overgrown road, stepping over an endless web of roots, whacking the tangles with a machete. Their eyes never resting long on the path but always darting up at the three and four level brick skeletons of a city that rose on either side. The broken, lifeless buildings leaned over the alley; like their last breath was a sigh; like they might, if given a proper shove, touch in the middle and turn the alley into a tunnel. Their horse whinnied and tried to turn back for the gates, but one of the men—a towering, bulging figure—pulled her reigns and forced her on toward the western tip of the city. The jungle had long ago reclaimed this forgotten space between the walls. Nothing is more patient than the jungle. In time, it takes back the land stolen from it, when there are no humans remaining to beat it into submission.
The men drew close now. They squeezed the cart around a banyan tree that had staked its claim across the porches of two buildings and half the road. In ten years, I'd never seen anyone except my uncle and cousin inside the city gates. Deliveries from Queen Anne were dropped in the gatehouse, never inside the walls. Could I still be dreaming, finally seeing what came after the falling?
Lantern light flashed in a window behind me. My uncle was close, but I couldn't take my eyes off the men—one twice as tall and five times as large around as the other. The giant's skin was ebony, like men I'd heard stories about who lived in the great deserts over the mountains. The short one wore a porcelain mask that gleamed pearl in the moonlight; his skin so pale, it was nearly as white as the mask. Both men wore riveted brown leather and canvas with boots up to their knees and belts so thick I thought they might have been used to harness elephants.
I heard my uncle's footsteps pounding the floorboards. "Burl!" I pictured the lasher he hung above the mantle in his study, the round, stone walled room on the sixth level of the castle. Peering through the trees and above broken buildings at the castle's hulking shadow, I tried to picture where his study was. A few sparks glimmered orange in the gloom, one of them belonging to the fire in Mazol's study where the lasher grew hot. I wondered if I could make the belt disappear just by thinking it. I wondered if I could make Mazol disappear too.
The castle's tallest towers, silhouetted against a bloody ocean sky, rose even higher than the king of all trees: the two hundred foot baliza. No matter where I hid, it always felt as if the castle might fall on me. Its constant presence sucked the air from my lungs. Yet it was my home, if only because Mazol kept the food locked up in its pantries. The endless halls, the numberless rooms, the nickel and iron walkways, the alabaster tiles, the marble and glass walls, the unsearchable secrets, all drew me in like a salivating, toothy smile. The castle, Daemanhur, was a singular making of man that the jungle could not prevail against. Perhaps because the castle was alive too. It stretched on and on—a fungus that sprawled a little more each year, constantly added to, expanded and refortified over untold centuries. The baliza tree may be the king of all jungle plants, but Daemanhur was king of the jungle.
And the castle would save me from my uncle. I'd dissolve into the maze, like another of its countless occupants—rats, cockroaches, scorpions, spiders, hornets, shadows—only to emerge when I could no longer stand the hunger. By then, my uncle's head would be cooled. Maybe the belt's leather too.
The cart creaked to a stop, ten feet from where I hid.
"How scary could Evan Burl really be?" the giant said. "He's only ten-years-old."
"He ain't dangerous."
"Everyone in Queen Anne says it's worse inside these walls than out in them jungles."
"We'll be a smart bit more comfy in that big old castle than rotting in a dungeon."
"You shouldn't have poisoned her. Had a nice gig, we did. Now we have to take up with this Mazol and his haunted Daemanhur castle."
"It ain't haunted."
"A hundred years ago, everyone who lived in this city vanished."
The short man's eyes darted across the murky windows. "Do you think some of their souls is floating around in there?"
"Where did they all go?" The giant stared in my direction. I held my breath. His eyes narrowed, like he saw me. Then, he turned away. "This place is evil."
A crow, with wings longer than I was tall, flew overhead, cawing. Landing on branch that hung out over the road, he watched us with lidless, burning red eyes.
"It was just the plague," the masked man said.
"That or something from the jungle found its way in here."
"A lot of somethings."
More crows joined the first. They pecked and cawed at each other, fighting for the best position from which to swoop down on us if one of us looked like we might not fight back too hard.
The giant, leaning down to the other man, lowered his voice, "The old Miller man was whispering last week about a grim beast that lives up here."
I shuddered. Uncle Mazol tells me stories about a monster living in the castle. He says it only comes out when I'm sleeping. He says everyone has a monster hiding inside. That sometimes, if you're not careful, the horror finds his way out.
"Well I'm gonna rest pretty," the short one said. "Find me a right soft cot to sleep on tonight. Might even take up painting with all the free time we got coming. Just mind you keep that big iron portcullis shut tight, and we got nothing to worry about."
The growl of a jungle cat cut through the darkness from the direction of the gate.
"You did shut the gate right?"
"Said you were gonna," the giant said.
My uncle stepped out from the building, his wrinkled old face cast with flickering shadows from the carriage lantern. I edged back into the undergrowth. He stared at the open gate.
"Was just telling Ballard to shut it," the short man said.
"You better hope no beast took notice."
The giant jogged to the wall, his feet pounding the ground with thuds that made my teeth chatter.
"Yesler, where's the boy?" Mazol said.
Chains rattled. The first portcullis slammed down.
"I... uh... " Yesler's head tipped back as he stared up in the sky. "You see that?"
"What?"
"A flash of light."
Mazol frowned. "It's time then."
"For what?"
"They're coming."
Lightning split the sky. Thunder rolled. With a patter, fat rain drops began to fall, growing stronger and faster. Suddenly cold, I pulled my thin shirt around me. Wind whisked down the alley and rushed through the trees.
I stared up; rain stung my skin.
A murky shape crashed through the tree canopy, cracking and snapping branches. I shielded my face from a pelting of dust and debris as the object smashed into the mud in the center of the street. The flock of crows took to the air, cawing and circling above us.
I squinted in the dim light. A casket. Cracked and dented; built of rusty engraved iron, bron
ze and gummed wood; the carved side panels were lined with gears, smeared with grease, and covered in cobwebs. My uncle produced a three-tooth key and twisted it inside the lock. The gears spun to life. The lid jerked open with a clank and hiss. The men leaned forward, lanterns held high; their faces turned all to eyes.
I crept closer, tracing along the trunk of a banyan tree. I couldn't quite see inside the casket. The rain poured down, masking the noise of my shuffling feet.
"What happens next?" Yesler said.
"I ain't rightly sure," my uncle said.
A few low branches jutted out above me. Jumping, I swung up to a low limb that extended over the men then crawled until the branch began to sag from my weight.
Gasping, I covered my mouth.
A girl.
"She alive?" Ballard said.
"You think he'd go through all that trouble to send us a stiff?"
I crept further. The branch sagged lower. The bark was slick from rain. I slipped, but managed to swing back on top, showering the three men with dust.
The girl, about seventeen-years-old, wore thick, wire-rimmed glasses. Her lily skin shimmered in the pelting rain and twilight; her roughly cut raven hair fell just past her chin. I'd seen pictures of girls before, but they were clumsy sketches compared to the real thing. Like a painted cloud can't convey the feeling of flight. And this girl, she was close enough to touch. I felt her in my bones.
Uncle Mazol inspected a silver tag hanging from an onyx anklet above her right foot. "Hen-ri-et-ta."
Another crack of lightening filled the sky.
"That'll be the next one."
"How many are coming?"
"Eleven." Mazol gazed up, shielding his face from the rain. His eyes focused on me. "I've been looking for you."
I scooted back. My feet tangled. I slipped and fell, landing with a soggy splash on my back in the mud at Mazol's feet.