When the man noticed Tick and the others, he stopped and stared at them with wide eyes. After a long, awkward pause, he spoke, his voice as scratchy as his beard.
“Well, butter my grits,” he said with a heavy Southern accent. “What you chirrun doin’ up in here?”
Tick didn’t say anything, not sure why he felt so odd. Maybe it was the absurdity of seeing a lumberjack in a world made of metal. Sofia saved the situation.
“We’re, uh, kind of lost,” she said.
“Lost?” the man repeated, leaning back and putting his large hands in the pockets of his overalls. “How you reckon on gettin’ lost up here on da roofens?”
Tick blinked, unsure if the guy was still speaking English.
“Um, pardon me?” Paul said, clearing his throat. “Didn’t quite catch what you just said.”
The man squinted, looking at each of them in turn, as if doing some deep thinking and analysis. Finally he said, “Ya’ll look as twittered as a hound dawg at a tea party. Whatcha lookin’ fer?”
Tick felt it was his turn. “Sir, we’re, uh, like my friend said—we’re lost. We’re not familiar with this . . . place. Where are we? Where are all the houses and buildings and people?”
The man folded his arms, a smile spreading across his face; he had a huge gap between his two front teeth. “Boy, you must be dumber ‘an roadkill in math class. You hear what I’m sayin’?”
Tick shook his head, trying to look as confused as possible—which wasn’t hard.
The man stepped forward. “Boy, you is standin’ on the Roofens.” He pointed down to the ground with exaggerated enthusiasm. “All the people is down there.”
Chapter
11
~
Below the Roofens
Tick looked at his feet, almost expecting to see little fairies running around to avoid being squished. But of course all he saw were his shoes and a thin crack on the stone road.
“Down there?” he asked.
The man made a noise somewhere deep in this throat, a cross between a cough and the clearing of phlegm. “I reckon that’s what I said, ain’t it? Who in the guppy-guts are you people?”
Tick fumbled for words, glad Sofia spoke up first. “We’re just up here exploring, that’s all. Of course we know what the Roofens are and that we’re standing on them.” She gave Tick an annoyed look. “That we’re on top of the buildings.”
“Ain’t usin’ dem brains a’yorn too much up here, wanderin’ ’round like three hillbillies lookin’ for moonshine. No, ma’am, ain’t too smart.” The man leaned over and spat something dark and disgusting on the road.
“My name’s Sofia, and this is my friend, Tick.” She gestured with her thumb. “And this is Paul. To tell you the truth, we are really lost, and kind of hungry and cold.”
“Mmm-hmm,” the man said with a grunt, eyeing Sofia up and down as if checking for ticks. “Come along, then. Ol’ Sally’ll take right good care of ya.”
Paul spoke for the first time since the appearance of the strange man. “Is Sally your wife?”
The man laughed, a guffaw that hit the mist with a dull thump. “My wife? Boy, I ain’t got me no wife. You’re lookin’ at him.”
Tick was confused. “What do you mean?”
“Boy, what you mean, what I mean?”
“He means, what do you mean?” Sofia said, her voice returning to its normal arrogance.
The lumberjack threw his arms up in the air. “Feel like I’m talkin’ to kai-yotes who done got their ears chopped off. I’m tellin’ ya that yer lookin’ at Sally, and you best not say a word about it.”
“Your name is Sally?” Tick asked.
“Sally T. Jones, at yer service.” He bowed, sweeping his arms wide, then righting himself. His face had reddened from the blood rushing to his head; it matched his beard. “Named after my grandpappy, who was named after his grandpappy. See, Sally’s short for Sallivent, a name older than expired dirt, ya hear?”
“We hear,” Sofia said. “You have a woman’s name.”
Tick elbowed his friend. “Be nice,” he whispered.
“I like it,” Paul said. “Beats the heck out of being named Princess or Barbie, right?”
Sally gave Paul a confused look. “I’ll eat my own dandruff if you ain’t the strangest group of chirrun I ever done seen.”
“What’s a chirrun?” Tick asked.
Sally squinted in disbelief. “Chirrun. Ya know—you’s a kid, a child. More than one of ya—chirrun.”
“I think he means children,” Sofia said.
Sally took a step to the side, then motioned around the back of the metal block. “You kids wanna come back with me? Get ya sumthin’ to fill dem tummies?”
“Where’d you come from?” Paul asked, leaning to get a look around the metal wall. “Is there seriously a whole city under us? Under these roofs?”
“Like I said, boy, we standin’ on the Roofens. Probably done shaved purtin’ near six months off your life stayin’ out chere for so long. Dis dirty air’ll eat yer innards quicker than a beaver on balsa wood.”
“What’s wrong with the air?” Tick asked.
Sally did his funny squint again. “I reckon you folks ain’t lyin’ when you says yer lost. These parts ’bout as polluted as my granny’s toenails. Why do you think they built dem cities under all this here metal?”
“Why’d you come up here, then?” Sofia asked.
Sally paused, his eyes darting back and forth. “I, uh, well, ya see, the thing is . . .” He scratched his beard. “See, I done heard yer little twitter feet up on my ceilin’ there, so I come up to do some investigatin’. Yep, that’s what I reckon, far as I recall.”
Tick exchanged a baffled look with Sofia and Paul. It didn’t take a genius to realize they’d already caught Sally in his first lie.
“Well,” Tick said, “we need a minute to talk about what we’re gonna do.”
“Go on, then,” Sally said. “I ain’t got a mind to bother dem there bid’ness and matter, such as it were.”
“Huh?” Paul asked.
Tick quickly grabbed his friend by the shoulders and turned him away from Sally, pulling him into a huddle with Sofia.
“So what do we do?” Tick whispered.
“That guy’s something else, ain’t he?” Paul asked. “I can barely understand a word he says.”
“I’m already getting used to it,” Sofia said. “If you ignore every third word or so, it makes perfect sense.”
“But what do we do?” Tick insisted.
“What else?” Paul said. “Go with this dude and get something to eat.”
“How do we know he’s safe?” Tick asked.
“Dude, get off the sissy train. There are three of us and one of him.”
“He seems perfectly harmless,” Sofia said. “I vote we go with him. We can’t walk around up here for the rest of our lives.”
“Plus,” Paul said, “he said this air’s really polluted. I’m not real cool on the whole lung-cancer thing. Let’s do it.”
Sofia nodded. “I’m dying to see what’s down there.”
Tick thought for a second. He felt uneasy, but he knew it was because their lives had gone flat-out crazy the last couple of days. Sally was definitely holding something back, and that made Tick nervous, but Paul was right—they had him outnumbered.
“All right,” he whispered, then turned to Sally. “Sir, we really appreciate the offer to go to your house. We’re really hungry, and, uh, lost.”
Sally smiled and rubbed his belly. “I ain’t said nothing about goin’ to my house. But I know a restaurant’s got some good eatin’. Come on, den.” He waved his arm in a beckoning gesture as he turned and walked back the way he’d come.
Tick, Sofia, and Paul paused. But then they followed.
~
Sally led them through a small trapdoor and down a very long and steep set of wooden stairs, which looked out of place amidst all the surrounding metal. The way was dark and hot, humid
and reeking of something rotten. Tick felt more nervous by the second, worried they were walking into a trap, but he didn’t know what else to do. Where could they go? Who could they trust?
For now, Sally was their only friend in the world. This world, anyway.
They reached the bottom of the stairs and proceeded down a long hallway, their surroundings remaining unchanged. A faint light from ahead revealed black water seeping down the wooden walls. A rat scurried by Tick’s foot; he barely stopped himself from crying out like the startled maid in an old cartoon.
Sally finally stopped next to a warped door of splintered wood, an iron handle barely hanging on. “Prepare dem hearts a’yorn,” he said. “This place ain’t like none such you ever saw.” He pushed the door, and everyone watched as it swung outward, creaking loudly.
“Follow Uncle Sally and you chirrun might live another day or two.” He stepped through the doorway.
Sofia went first, then Paul, then Tick. For the next several minutes, Tick felt as if his brain might explode from taking in the completely alien place.
Stretching before them, below them, above them, was an endless world of chaos. Long rows of roughly cobbled pathways ran in every direction, with no pattern or regularity. Shops and inns and pubs crowded close on all sides. Hundreds of people bustled about. Dirty, ripped awnings hung over the places of business, wooden signs dangling from chains. On these signs were printed the only means of distinguishing one building from another—their names carved and painted onto the wood. Places called such things as The Axeman’s Guild and The Darkhorse Inn and The Sordid Swine.
Some of the pathways were actually bridges, and Tick could see the levels below, overlapping and seemingly built on top of each other. The same was true above them, balconies and bridges spanning every direction, up and up and up until Tick saw the black roof that covered everything. The ceiling was filled with small rectangles of fluorescent lights, half of which were flickering or burned out altogether.
It was the universe’s worst mall.
Paul leaned over and whispered to Tick, “Dude, check these people out.”
Tick focused on the occupants of the enormous indoor town. Most of them slumped along, barely speaking to each other, many with hunched shoulders or an odd limp. Black seemed to be the color of choice for their clothes, everyone wearing drab and dirty garments with rips and tears aplenty. The people’s faces were dirty too, with disheveled, greasy hair. The only spots of color were an occasional red scarf or green shawl or yellow vest, worn by those who seemed to walk with a little more confidence than the others.
And the smell—it was like a port-a-potty dumping ground, a foul, putrid stench that made Tick gag reflexively every few seconds until he grew somewhat used to it.
“Sally,” Sofia coughed, “I think we were better off on the Roofens.”
“Quit yer poutin’ and come on,” Sally replied, shuffling off to the right.
Tick and the others followed, dodging through the lazy crowd of sullen, black-clad residents, who seemed to be marching toward their destinations with no purpose whatsoever. Tick didn’t see one person smiling. For that matter, none of them showed emotion at all—not a sneer, not a grimace, not a frown to be found.
“We’ve gotta get out of here,” Tick whispered, scared to offend anyone around him but feeling a surge of panic well up inside him. He didn’t know how much longer he could last in this horrible place. “We need to solve that riddle, quick.”
“No kidding,” Paul said. “I’ve just about had my fill of Happy Town.”
“It’s not just that,” Tick said, still speaking quietly. “Something’s not right here—it’s not safe.”
Sally moved them to the side of their current path, next to a small iron table outside a restaurant called The Stinky Stew.
“Have’n yerselves a seat on dem cheers.” He pointed to the four crooked wooden chairs surrounding the table. “I’ll be back with some eats.”
As their guide entered the restaurant, a rusty bell ringing with the movement of the door, Tick and the others pulled out the chairs and sat down. Tick eyeballed the people walking by, looking for potential trouble. Seeing nothing but the unchanging mass of zombie-like shoppers, he said to Sofia, “Get the riddle out.”
Sofia did, putting the paper on the table in front of her. Tick and Paul scooted their chairs across the uneven stones of the floor until they could see the words of the long poem.
Inside the words of the words inside,
There lies a secret to unhide.
A place there is where you must go,
To meet the Seven, friend or foe . . .
Tick read through the whole thing, then sat back in his chair, racking his brain. The poem seemed to offer no direction, nothing specific to grasp onto. At least the Twelve Clues had made it pretty clear that he was to figure out a date, a time, the magic words. This was a bunch of poetic nonsense.
Sofia flipped the page over where the second note was printed. “Who are Anna and Miss Graham?”
Paul leaned onto his elbows, resting them on the table. “Do you think it’s the same person?”
“Maybe,” Sofia replied. “We should start asking around here—see if anyone’s heard of her.”
“That’s the only thing I can think of,” Paul said. He stood up, almost knocking his chair backward.
“What are you doing?” Tick asked.
“Asking around, dude.” He reached out and tapped the arm of the first stranger to walk by, an older woman in a filthy black dress, her gray hair sprawled across her shoulders in greasy strings. “Excuse me, ma’am, do you know who Anna Graham is?”
The old lady recoiled, barely casting a glance at Paul before quickening her step to get away. He didn’t give up, tapping the next person, then the next, then the next, each time repeating his question. And the response was the same each time—a flinch, as if the name frightened them.
“Dudes, we don’t have leprosy, ya know?” Paul called out. Cupping his hands together, he shouted in an even louder voice, “Does anyone here know Miss Anna Graham?” The sounds of shuffling feet were all he got in return.
Sitting down with a huff, Paul shook his head. “This is ridiculous. What’s wrong with these people?”
Tick’s thoughts had wandered slightly. Something about Anna’s name bothered him, tickled something in the back of his mind. Miss Graham. Anna. Anna Graham.
“This phrase has to be the key,” Sofia said suddenly, pointing at the lines near the end of the poem: “All this you must ignore and hate, for you to find the wanted fate.”
“Yeah, I thought the same thing,” Tick said.
“Maybe it means—” Sofia began, but stopped when Sally came bustling outside, clanging the door against the wall with his elbows as he balanced several plates and bowls heaped with steaming food.
“As promised,” he said, setting the meal on the table. He almost dropped one plate onto the ground, but Paul caught it and pushed it to safety. “Grab yer grub and eat. I’m as hungry as a one-legged possum caught in a dang ol’ bear trap.”
Sally sat down in the remaining chair and picked up his food with his hands; there wasn’t a utensil in sight. Tick couldn’t believe how delicious everything looked—chicken legs thick with meat, slabs of beef, celery and carrots, chunks of bread, sausages. It was so unexpectedly appetizing; he’d half-expected Sally to bring out a trash can full of fly-infested garbage.
Paul was the first to join in, then Sofia, both of them grabbing a roasted drumstick and chowing down.
“This ain’t bad,” Paul said with a full mouth, throwing his manners out the window. “Tastes a little stale and smoky, but it’s pretty good.”
Tick reached over and grabbed his own piece of chicken and a roll. Paul was right—it tasted a little old, even a little dirty, but it was like Thanksgiving dinner all the same—and Tick was starving. No one said a word as they munched and chewed and chomped their way through every last morsel of food.
Tick had just sat back, rubbing his belly in satisfaction, when a young boy in a dark suit stepped up to their table and cleared his throat. His dirty blond hair framed a face smeared with grime, and his eyes were wide, as if he was scared to death.
“Whatcha want?” Sally asked, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “What’s yer bid’ness, son?”
The boy swallowed, rocking back and forth on his feet, glancing over his shoulder now and again. But he said nothing.
“Got some dadgum cotton in dem ears, son?” Sally asked. “I say, what’s yer bid’ness?”
The boy’s arm slowly raised, his index finger extended. One by one, he pointed at the four people sitting at the table. Then he spoke in a weak, high-pitched voice full of fear.
“The Master . . . told me to . . . he said . . . he said you’ll all be dead in five minutes.”
Chapter
12
~
Long, Spindly Legs
All four of them stood up in the same instant; this time, Paul’s chair did fall over with a rattling clang.
“What kinda nonsense you talkin’?” Sally asked.
The boy looked up at him, his face growing impossibly paler; then he turned and ran, disappearing in the dense crowd of mulling citizens.
“What was that?” Paul said.
“The riddle,” Tick said, leaning over and twisting the paper from Master George toward him. “We have to solve the riddle. Now.”
“Yeah, that’ll be extra easy knowing we’re about to die,” Paul said.
“Quit whining and think,” Sofia said, joining Tick to study the poem.
Tick tried to focus, reading the words through and then closing his eyes, letting them float through his mind, sorting them out. He thought of the lady’s name, Miss Anna Graham . . .