Brian blushed. He was grateful. He didn’t know why it was that he could take care of himself when clawed by a two-headed monster, but he was helpless when it came to crowds of Gregory’s other friends — one head each.
Regardless, Brian could tell that Gregory was worried about him — he even got seconds for Brian at lunch, like he thought his friend needed to keep up his strength.
Just after lunch, they headed over to their headquarters to try to get Sniggleping or Prudence on the two-way mirror.
The two boys clanked through the broken-down foyer of the building and trudged up the stairs. Light fell in through the huge windows and lit the dust in the air.
“I told my parents we might go up and see Prudence this weekend,” Gregory told Brian. “They said that was cool with them. I lied and told them she’d invited us.”
“I have to ask my parents,” Brian replied. “As long as we’re back by Sunday night, I don’t think it will be a problem.”
Gregory asked soberly, “Will we be back by Sunday night?”
“I hope we don’t have to go at all,” said Brian. He turned the key in the lock of the office and they walked in.
“Howdy, Minnie, love of my life,” Gregory greeted the automaton, saluting her with one hand and blowing a kiss with his other.
“Why, hi there, boys,” said Minnie, winking slyly, as she always did. “Mr. Flockton ain’t in. You want I should take a message, or you okay just cooling your heels ‘til he gets back from whatever filthy joint he’s sunk in today?”
“Thanks, Minnie,” said Brian, heading for the inner office, Gregory close behind him.
Minnie smiled, picked up her letter opener, and stabbed at Brian.
Gregory yelled, “Brian!” and leaped — grabbing her arm.
Minnie fought, rocking Gregory back and forth as he gripped the flesh of her wrist. He could feel the beams and cogs beneath the skin. “Why, hi there, boys,” she said. “Mr. Flockton ain’t — Why, hi there, boys, Mr. Flockton ain’t — Why, hi there, boys, the Game is over. Why, hi there, boys, the Game is over, boys. Why, boys, the Game —”
She jabbed. Brian gripped her upper shoulder. He and Gregory yanked, and with a jolt, they pulled off their secretary’s arm.
In their hands, still wired, it kept bending and writhing, trying to stab but without purchase. Her fingers, dolled up, were wrapped around the letter opener’s hilt, white with tension.
“Why, hi there, boys. Why, hi there, boys. Why, hi there, boys. Here’s a message for you. Here’s a message for you.”
“From who?” Brian shouted. “Who’s it from, Minnie?”
“Here’s a message. Here’s a message. Here’s a message.”
“What’s the message?” Brian screamed. The arm bucked in his hands. “What is it?”
“The knife. The Game is over, boys. Why, hi there, boys. Why, hi. Why, hi there. The knife. The Game is over. Why …”
Her eyes went blank. The arm stopped struggling.
Brian stepped quickly behind her and felt for the plate in Minnie’s back where her windup key would be inserted.
“Be careful,” Gregory warned.
“Get me a screwdriver,” said Brian.
“I mean be careful because that’s my own true love you’re pawing up.”
“How did she get reprogrammed?” Brian demanded. No one answered.
Gregory went to the inner office and returned with a screwdriver.
Brian took off the plate in Minnie’s back. Inside were gears and springs. Brian didn’t know much about how the magical automatons worked, but he knew that if he snapped the spring that the key wound, she couldn’t start up again on her own. She’d have to be fixed first by Sniggleping.
He yanked her spring.
“Let’s call up Sniggleping on the mirror,” said Gregory. “He made her. He’ll know how someone could reprogram her.”
“Something’s going very wrong,” said Brian. “None of this should be happening. We’re not competing right now.”
They went into the inner office, where their communications mirror hung, an old 1920s thing in a glamorous Bakelite frame. Brian touched it and said the Cantrip of Activation. Then he said Sniggleping’s name.
“Come on, Sniggleping,” Brian said. “Be there today.”
Prudence had taught Brian a few simple spells he’d need to run the Game. The Cantrip of Activation was one of them. It acted as a toggle switch for many Norumbegan artifacts, turning them on or off.
The mirror was crowded with the boys’ faces. As the Cantrip took hold, the mirror image faded; the glass slowly frosted. The faces turned white and eyeless. Brian’s glasses were dim loops of gray. As the boys watched and waited for Sniggleping to appear, Gregory said, “I’m going to get Prudence to teach me the Cantrip of Activation, too.”
“I can try to teach you again,” Brian offered. “Anytime.”
“It’s just one word, right? Come on. How hard can it be?”
“Well, yeah … but … no, it’s not just one word, exactly,” said Brian. “It’s a set of things you have to think about, too.”
“We tried before. I got the spoken part right.”
“You have to clear your mind and think about the right things. Otherwise, you’re just saying stuff.”
Gregory looked miffed. “Why does Prudence teach you all these things and not me?”
“She — I’m sure she’d teach you, too. You said you didn’t want to learn. You said it was boring.”
“Now I don’t think it’s boring.”
“Last time I tried to teach you, you got all … you got mad.”
“Maybe I’m dumb.”
“You’re not dumb.”
“Never mind. It’s just that Prude pays more attention to you just because you won the Game.”
Brian’s washed-out face creased with concern in the fading mirror. “She doesn’t pay more attention —”
“Yeah, yeah. Where’s Snig?” said Gregory irritably.
Brian and Gregory looked through themselves, and dimly saw Sniggleping’s workshop in the mountains of Vermont.
And abruptly, their little spat was forgotten.
For this is what they saw: Sniggleping’s workshop was empty. Not a thing remained. It had always been crammed with plans and tools and half-built heads and entrails spun on spools. Now there was nothing but an expanse of floor, an empty balcony.
“What happened?” Gregory gasped.
“He’s gone. He took everything with him.”
“No,” said Gregory. “He didn’t leave by choice. Look at the floor. The strip of light.”
“What do you mean?”
“His door must be open. He left his door just flapping open. He wouldn’t have left the place unlocked. Not if he left by himself.”
“You’re right,” said Brian, unbelieving. “Someone’s taken him. They must have. Someone broke in and dragged him off.”
“Okay,” said Gregory, pressing his fingers together. “Wee Snig’s gone. Prudence is missing.”
“Someone programmed Minnie to kill. And I was attacked by a monster on the T.”
“Something’s seriously gone wrong. What are we going to do?”
Brian exhaled heavily. They knew what needed to be done. And it scared them both.
“Let’s get packing,” Brian said. “We’re going to Vermont.”
FOUR
As the train crossed iron bridges, Brian gazed out the window at the millponds and sumac thickets below.
“I’m looking forward to seeing the mountains again,” Gregory said.
“And Kalgrash,” said Brian. “He’ll be there.”
“Oh, yeah. Sure. Great.” Gregory sounded sarcastic.
Brian smiled. “I like Kalgrash.”
“I like the little guy fine. Of all the people who have ever attacked me with a battle-ax, he’s my favorite.”
“It was his job.”
“I’m not sure you should forgive someone for trying to ax you just beca
use they were programmed to.”
“He didn’t try to ax us. He just blocked us.”
“With an ax.”
Brian pressed his lips together. “And can you please not remind him about the programming? When we see him? No one likes to hear they’re just clockwork. Remember: Sniggleping built him to feel stuff.”
“All right. Okay. Fine.” Gregory took a bite of some kind of fruit leather so tough that his face warped when he chewed. “You know, it’s a little weird to say this, but overall, I’m actually ready to go back. I mean, because of the adventure. It really was kind of cool, with the forest and the mountains and, yeah, the troll, even. It felt like we were actually doing something.”
“It was like we’d been waiting for it all our lives,” Brian agreed. He looked out the window at passing burbs. He wished that he actually felt that way — that he didn’t just feel like they were galloping into a trap.
“We’re going to do this,” said Gregory. “We’re going to find Prudence and sort this all out. Right?”
“Right,” said Brian. He wasn’t convinced. “I hope so.”
“Don’t say ‘I hope so.’ Think positive. Say ‘Yes.’ Come on. Through your megaphone: ‘Why, certainly, my good sir!’ It’s an adventure, dude.”
Gregory’s enthusiasm was infectious. They were both swept up by the feeling of the task to be completed. They talked about the places they’d visited in the forest … the paths through dark glades, the interdimensional clock keeping time for some other world, Kalgrash’s cozy burrow underneath the old stone bridge, and the Haunted Hunting Grounds, where specters of the Norumbegan court still sought their prey.
They had stood on top of the mountain, looking out over that forest — looking past Grendle Manor and the steeples of distant churches, far-flung fields, the trees in their last brown leaves before the coming of snow from the North — and they had vowed that they would never forget any of it, they would never give in to suits and company coffee mugs and nine-to-five. Nothing could be the same after the magical wood.
Brian said, “Anything can happen in that forest.”
“Yeah. Who knows — we might even survive.”
Brian allowed himself to smile. “It’s possible.”
They got off the train in Gerenford, Vermont, Gregory dragging his luggage behind him on wheels. Brian was carrying only a backpack.
The town green looked much the same as it had the year before: same church, same plain nineteenth-century houses, same statue of the same founder holding up the same skinned rabbit. It was busier, though. In the fall, he and Gregory had been picked up here by horse and carriage. It didn’t look the same in the summer, with parents tipping back their strollers to hop sidewalks and girls straggling past eating Chipwiches. It didn’t look like a mad-uncle-in-a-buggy town anymore.
In the absence of a carriage, they had called ahead and arranged for a taxi to take them to Prudence’s house. It was waiting for them when they arrived. It was a station wagon with the word Taxi Scotch-taped to its window.
It drove them out of town. They couldn’t speak freely about magic and skulduggery in front of the driver.
“I hope she’s all right,” said Gregory. He was clearly getting more nervous as they got closer. Trees passed the windows.
Brian looked at his friend with concern. “She’s your favorite relative, isn’t she?” he asked.
“Of course. She laughed at my screaming turkey.” He murmured, “She can’t be gone. There’s got to be some normal explanation we haven’t thought of yet.”
They were not headed to Grendle Manor. That house had been some kind of magical construction, built as carefully as a wedding cake especially for the Game, and it had disintegrated when it was no longer needed. After the round was won, Prudence had moved back into her old house, a sixties ranch-style home on a dirt road at the base of Norumbega Mountain.
That was where they were headed when they drove through the gates of a new suburban development. The car passed streets of replicated, generous houses. “Wow,” said Gregory. “She said there were some new streets near her, but this is a lot of houses.”
“It’s only been here for a little while,” the taxi driver offered from the front seat. “Kind of a new development. Rumbling Elk Haven. My sister lives here.”
“We camped here when it was woods,” said Brian.
“It was creepy when it was woods,” said the driver. “I hated it. There was always a lot of people disappearing or having stuff grow on their faces if they slept there. You know, puff balls or stuff. Or another eye. This guy from Dellisburg, he camped here for a week and he got this itch in his cheek, and after a few weeks, he developed another eye. I mean a cheek eye. I hate that stuff. I grew up near here. I was always: ‘No way I’m camping there. I already wear glasses. I don’t want to have to wear glasses and a monocle, too.’”
“Another eye?” said Brian.
“Yeah. It saw stuff his normal eyes didn’t see. This was back in the day.”
“Did you ever actually see this guy?” Gregory asked. “Or is this just hearsay and rumor?”
The driver laughed. “Hearsay and rumor,” he said. “What else? Doesn’t matter now, anyhow. It’s great they have this community here. It really takes away the creepiness.”
The wagon soared without sound over the broad, richly laid tarmac.
The driver added, “Except people say the creepiness is coming back.”
“Here?” said Brian.
“From the storm drains and stuff. From up on the mountain. Kind of invading the neighborhood. Like they shouldn’t have built anything here. Not so fast. Without being careful, you know, of what they disturbed.”
“Great,” said Gregory.
When they got to Prudence’s house, Brian didn’t recognize it at first. He remembered it being sunk in the gloom of white-pine woods and dense firs. Now it was surrounded by houses.
Brian looked up and down the street. They might have been put up too quickly, but he was thankful for the new homes. He was kind of scared, and he liked the look of neighbors. People were just getting home from work, turning down their freshly paved driveways and calling hello to each other across their lawns.
“Witnesses,” said Gregory.
Brian nodded.
Gregory said, “Much harder for us to be torn apart by ogres if people are playing Wiffle ball in our backyard.”
They thanked the driver. Brian calculated the tip. Gregory paid him.
The whole time, they were watching Prudence’s house. No sign of motion. No sign anyone had been home for some days. The lawn looked like it hadn’t been mowed in a while. There were newsprint circulars stuffed in between the screen door and the front door.
Gregory rang the bell. As they expected, there was no answer.
Then Gregory knocked. They waited.
Up the street, little kids were riding bikes with training wheels. They cheered and spun in circles.
Gregory said, “I don’t have a real good feeling about this.”
Brian shook his head. “Do you have the key?”
Gregory nodded and took it out of his pocket.
He rang the bell again. They knocked again. Gregory leaned toward the glass panels of the door and shouted, “Prudence? Prudence, it’s Gregory.”
No answer.
Gregory turned the key in the lock. He opened the door. A foul smell issued out.
Together, they entered the house.
FIVE
The cat box was full. It sat by the front door, the turds old, dry, and frosted white. That explained the smell. Beside it sat the cat’s water and food dishes, empty.
Brian and Gregory looked up and down the entry steps. There was no sign of motion. Upstairs, pleasant daylight shone through dirty windows. The place was in a much better state than when Brian had been there the last time, hiding with Kalgrash while a Thusser agent had tracked them through the wood. It had been a ruin then. Now there was a sofa and a few stuffed chairs in th
e living room. There was a television. A magazine was open on the floor, as if someone had been reading and had just fled from the room.
Gregory pointed up and pointed down with a quizzical look on his face, as if to say, Which first?
Brian shrugged. Gregory nodded slightly and walked silently up the four steps that led to the main floor of the house.
The two kept close together. There was nothing else to see in the living room. On the walls, Prudence had hung Norumbegan art — old scrolls, matted and framed, depicting an ancient tale of men in robes and top hats. Above the mantelpiece was a Norumbegan blunderbuss.
They stepped on the carpet like the floor was about to give way at the touch of their toes and buck them into a pit. Brian couldn’t help but feel that something was hunched in one of the rooms, spike nosed, half turned from a trail of carnage, listening. Something, he felt, was waiting.
They kept moving through the house.
Nothing in the kitchen to see. Dishes and a frying pan in the sink. A stink from rotting pork. On the refrigerator were sepia photos of Gregory and Brian engaged in the Game, whispering to each other in a gloomy hallway or sitting on a hassock by the fire, looking frightened and guilty.
Carefully pressing his fingers against the handle, Brian swung the fridge open.
Gregory whispered, “Can’t the party pizzas wait till later?”
“I’m sniffing the milk,” Brian said.
“Sniffing the milk.”
Brian nodded. “And stuff. To see if it’s rotten.” There were several Tupperware containers filled with scraps. All of the scraps and the curdling beans were spotted with mold.
“It’s been a while,” whispered Brian, grimly.
Gregory opened the cupboard.
“What are you looking for?” Brian asked.
“Hidden intruders. Listen: We are looking in every closet. Every single one. Together. And you’re pulling back the shower curtain. I am really unhappy.”
Brian was really unhappy, too. His stomach was tight. His elbows wanted to jump. He complained, “Why do I have to be the one who pulls back the shower curtain?”
“Your skills.”
“Skills.”