Chapter 7 Locks and Unlocks #2
They were nearing the great Grecian hall. As they stepped into the manicured gardens, low hedges and beautiful topiary stretching out all around them, the first of the statues appeared.
They were dressed like Nancy, in flowing white chitons and chitoniskos, but unlike Nancy, none of the garden statues in sight had any colored accents; compared to them, her little dashes of red were impossibly bright, shockingly daring.
Most of them were white-haired, although a few had the same striped patterning as she did, the fingers of the Lord of the Dead permanently branded in their tresses.
One man had streaks of carroty orange surrounded by white, while a girl had streaks of chestnut brown.
There was something inherently vital about the statues, even though they didn’t move, didn’t blink or visibly breathe; still, passing among them, it was obvious that they were alive.
Sumi stared at them with unabashed fascination, looking them up and down without blinking.
“What happens if it rains?” she asked. “Or if there’s a bad wind? Or if there’s bees?”
“It doesn’t rain here,” said Nancy patiently.
“There are windstorms, but only three times a year, and we always have notice when they’re coming, so we can move all the garden statues inside.
And the only bees here are corpse bees, which are harmless to the living.
It’s still hard to hold still when one lands on your eyeball. ”
Kade shuddered. “In a world of horrors, that’s the most upsetting thing you’ve ever said,” he accused. “Maybe don’t.”
“Fair enough,” said Nancy. She stopped in front of one of the statues, a burly man whose hair was chalky white but whose beard was ruddy red, encompassing his chin and jawline. “Lief, I’m sorry, but I need someone to tell me what’s been happening for the last two weeks.”
Christopher jerked slightly, startled by her request, then paused, doing the math in his head.
If a month on Earth was equivalent to a year in the Halls of the Dead, then a day on Earth would be roughly equal to twelve days in the Halls.
Nancy had been with them for a day, but she’d been gone from her friends and the danger posed by the riled-up ghosts for nearly two weeks.
Bit by bit, so slowly that it looked more like a special effect than anything real, the man she’d called Lief began to move.
He subtly angled himself toward Nancy, then melted gradually into a crouching position, expression never changing.
Once he was closer to her level, he stopped, weight now balanced on his toes and the fingers of one pale hand.
“Your friend … has fruit,” he said, each word ponderous as a boulder rolling down a hill. “Three … seeds.”
“Sumi, give him three seeds,” said Nancy. She turned so that she was facing the others, and said, “It can be hard to speak after a long posing session, unless you have something to moisten your throat. The seeds will make it easier for him.”
Christopher nodded. Kade looked uncomfortable.
Carefully, Sumi plucked three seeds from her ravaged pomegranate and set them on the plinth next to Lief’s hand.
He reached down with his other hand, picking them up and bringing them to his mouth.
Every motion took an age. Nancy held perfectly still, watching him, and somehow his slow, stuttering movement drove home even more how unnatural her own stillness was.
When she froze, she might as well have been carved from marble.
None of the little motions that defined the living were present in her face.
Lief chewed, once, crushing the seeds between his teeth, then swallowed and returned his attention to Nancy. “I had heard one of the Lady’s attendant statues was removed from the world,” he said. “Was that you?”
“Unless she was able to see another to safety,” said Nancy. “What happened? What continues to happen?”
“The unquiet dead have found themselves a champion,” said Lief.
“A newly arrived spirit so filled with rage at the reality of death that they have been antagonizing the other ghosts, rallying them to break from their chambers and sweep through the halls. Where they find signs of life they rip apart and devour of it. Some of them have consumed enough of the living to appear as shades, shaped now like the people they were in life. Some have taken enough to remember their names.”
“That isn’t right,” said Nancy, sounding stricken. “How many of the statues have they killed?”
“Thus far, the dead remain inside the halls. The garden statuary is safe.” He sounded lightly smug as he said that.
Nancy frowned a little, casting her eyes downward. “There’s no need to gloat at the misfortune of your peers,” she said, chiding lightly.
“The interior statues have held themselves superior to us for long enough that if we want to take pleasure in being spared such a vast and terrible danger, we should be allowed our small satisfaction,” he said.
“But you’re right. The indoor statues did nothing to deserve or cause this, and they deserve our sympathy in these hours. ”
“Thank you.”
Lief inclined his head. “I apologize for my insensitivity. But since your departure, the attacks have continued. When last we were brought news, fully half the interior statues were gone, and the Lady was offering to escort any who wished to avoid a similar fate to the groves, where they might find their own doorways home. I think she may have forgotten the exchange of time between our world and yours.”
Something about the way he said that made Sumi stop picking at her pomegranates and frown at him. He looked impassively back.
“You’re not from Earth, are you?” she asked. “You’re like Ponder. You’re a person shaped like a people who didn’t start out on the world we come from. Where are you from?”
“I was born in a place called the Goblin Market, where everything has a price and all life is lived according to the principles of fair value,” said Lief.
“I grew tired of bartering for my existence before I was ten years old, and when I saw a door that seemed likely to take me away from there, I took it. I have never once looked back. This is where I was meant to be from the beginning. I just started out in the wrong place.”
Sumi, who had heard of the Goblin Market before, nodded. “We had a teacher who’d traveled there, once. She died, and she didn’t get better. It was very sad.”
“Death often is,” Lief said. He returned his attention to Nancy. “The Lord and Lady walk the Halls, agitated and angry. They have barred the doors against new arrivals, forbidding any intrusion to their holdings. They must have left a loophole for your return.”
“I was sent to fetch help,” said Nancy.
“Have you?”
“I think so.” She gestured to the people behind her, and that motion was more fluid than it would have been when she first returned to the school, although it was still stop-motion staccato; she was beginning to recover the habit of movement.
“Sumi was a resident here, before her own resurrection; the quiet dead may remember her, and be willing to come to her aid. Christopher can pipe the dead to dance at his command; there’s every chance he can stop the attacks if he has time to raise his flute.
Kade is a goblin prince from a far-off Fairyland, and he has the way of command about him.
And Talia is a poet. Poets have always possessed special powers in the lands of the dead.
We just need to ask the Lady what she demands of us. ”
“The unquiet dead swept through the atrium some hours ago,” said Lief. “We could hear the screams from here. It seems unlikely that they would return so soon, with all the Halls open for their feasting.”
“Thank you,” said Nancy. She turned to the others as Lief began the slow, laborious process of straightening, returning to the standing position he had occupied when she first addressed him. “If the Lady has not yet evacuated the Halls, it’s close enough to safe for us to enter.”
“Because that’s a reasonable way to measure safety,” muttered Talia. “Whether the woman who encourages people to turn themselves into literal statues has decided she needs to evacuate her house.”
“Works for me,” chirped Sumi.
Nancy turned toward the hall, took a deep breath, and started walking forward.
The rest of them followed, a train of moths fluttering along behind them.