Caley Cross and the Hadeon Drop Read online

  “Please keep your arms inside the vehicle at all times,” called the major. “Do not panic if you find yourself scattered around the universe a bit. Or a bit bigger than a bit …”

  Caley felt like her body was being pulled apart. Not unpleasantly, just like a really good yoga stretch … in every possible direction. Then she felt folded up like origami into an infinitely small speck. Then all the lights went out.

  “State your business,” the woodpecker-man said somewhere, faintly.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Erinath

  When the lights came back on, the mole with Winston Churchill’s face was steering the carriage.

  Still dead, Caley told herself.

  She blinked. Then she blinked harder, stunned by what she saw. They were rolling past a village—but not like any village Caley had ever seen. The mushroom-shaped houses seemed to have grown right out of the ground. They were covered in pieces of polished glass and shells washed up from some strange shore in mosaic patterns: waves, fields of flowers, tiger stripes, giraffe spots, peacock feathers. The roofs were topped in shaggy moss trimmed like hairdos in wild styles: beehives, bird crests, buffalo horns. Each house had a round door and eyelike windows that were beginning to blink shut in the slowly setting sun, giving them the appearance of heads of giant sleepy creatures about to doze off. The cobbled streets teemed with people wearing clothes made of what looked like leaves and bark and vines, adorned with minerals and crystals like they’d grown around their wearers.

  “Scone?” The major offered Caley the plate. “They’re quite tasty.”

  Caley hoovered them all down without even breathing. She had forgotten in all the excitement (*see zombie frogs, steel wolves, etc.) that she hadn’t eaten all day (not counting that truffle).

  The major regarded the vanished tray of scones wistfully and patted his belly.

  “Right-e-o. Really should watch my weight anyway. By the way, good job opening the gate.” The major regarded Caley admiringly. “How did you manage that?”

  Caley shrugged. “I just told the woodpecker … uh … person.”

  “Fearless, talking to a gatekeeper like that. You remind me a lot of your mother.”

  “My mother?” Caley felt her heart skip a beat.

  “Looked a lot like you. Same green eyes. Red hair too. Not quite as curly …”

  “She wasn’t … a demon?”

  “Gracious, nooooo.” The major shook his head emphatically. “Where would you get an idea like that?”

  “Is she … here?”

  The major shook his head again. “Queen Catherine disappeared years ago.” He lowered his voice. “Of course, everyone suspects … Olpheist.”

  “Olpheist?”

  “Think of your worst nightmare, and have that nightmare think of its worst nightmare, and that might begin to sum him up. Nearly destroyed our world once. Imprisoned in the Black Gate. But he escaped somehow. Perhaps that is why you were sent to live with the old buzzard. No one would think of looking for you there.”

  “With … the Gunch?”

  “No, the bird with the unfortunate plumage. Wasn’t he looking after you?”

  Caley could see how someone would think Albert was looking after her. At least he fed her toast now and then.

  “At any rate, you’re where you belong now.” The major nodded. “Erinath.”

  “Erinath?”

  “You do know where we are?”

  “The afterlife?”

  “It is a world. Located somewhere between the green and blue parts of a rainbow at a transcendent bijection of the space-time continuum. ‘Wormhole,’ I believe your people call it. Although I think it is more accurately a woodpecker-hole. Science was never my forte in school. More of a sports athlete myself. Quite the hundred-meter dasher …”

  The major did a deep-knee bend, flinging his arms vigorously. Caley heard a loud pop, and he groaned and sat back down quickly, rubbing his knee.

  “Bit of a gammy leg from the war, I’m afraid.”

  “Try having four of them,” Cecil said with a snort.

  The major steered the carriage down a wide cobbled road leading to a castle perched on steep cliffs in the distance. Its leaded glass windows twinkled in the late afternoon sun.

  “Is that where we’re going?” asked Caley.

  “Where else would a princess of Erinath live?”

  Guards waved the carriage through the gates of a formidable wooden wall being built around the perimeter of the castle. They passed gardens filled with the craziest looking flowers. Some resembled little old ladies in skirts and bonnets that curtsied as they passed. Others were shaped like ballerinas in petal tutus who pirouetted in place. Flutelike reeds played soft music, as if the wind was singing. Everything gave off fantastic scents: vanilla, blueberry, marmalade, pistachio ice cream, and even, Caley thought, a whiff of armpit. There were hedges and bushes carved in the shape of various animals that seemed alive. Caley was certain she saw a group of shrub-monkeys picking stray leaves off each other. She leaned over the carriage door, craning back for a look.

  “Admiring our gardens, I see,” said the major. “A thousand years old. Best to keep your head inside the carriage.”

  As if in reply, a hippo made of holly charged them. The major pulled another knob on his panel, and a huge toilet plunger shot out and sent the hippo tumbling back into the garden in a scatter of leaves, looking aggravated.

  “Another of my little inventions,” the major informed her. “Useful for a variety of bushy beasts. And, of course, blocked toilets.”

  Despite the eye-popping gardens, Caley’s gaze was drawn to the castle coming into full view at the end of the road. It was surrounded by the gardens and a deep wood beyond. Like the houses in the village, it appeared to have grown out of the ground. Its towering walls were made of massive tree roots that seemed ancient and petrified, like stone. The windows were studded with balconies with wrought iron railings in winglike shapes that reminded her of bats clinging to the sides of a cave. Endless sloping towers and turrets with eye-shaped windows were covered in wooden shingles and looked like giant fossilized fish.

  Caley had the feeling it wasn’t a castle so much as some sort of colossal tree creature.

  The carriage pulled up to a grand staircase. A row of trumpet-shaped flowers in pots blew a fanfare. A crowd of important-looking people—wearing the same plant-clothes as the villagers but fancier—all peered expectantly at Caley. Everyone bowed or curtsied as she stepped from the carriage. A swarm of what looked like electrified bees buzzed up and began flashing little lights at Caley’s face.

  “No photographs!” a stern voice called.

  The bees zipped off as a tiny woman trailed by several maids marched up to Caley. She had a beaky nose, dramatically arched eyebrows, a permanently disapproving mouth and wore a feathery black dress that went from her chin to the ground. She bowed sharply to Caley. It reminded her of a crow pecking at a worm.

  “Welcome to Castle Erinath, Your Highness.” The woman spoke in a high, chirpy voice that made her seem even more birdlike. “I am Duchess Odeli, Mistress of the Royal Household.”

  Caley was dismayed to see a zombie cricket peeking out from her ridiculous roadkill costume. It must have come from the Gunch’s. She hoped no one would notice, but it jumped on her shoulder and began chirping loudly.

  “Common gryllidae,” said the duchess, snatching up the ex-cricket and handing it to a maid. “Please see our extra guest gets a leaf to munch on. It does not look particularly well nourished. This way, Your Highness.” The duchess fairly floated up the wide stairs leading into the castle, then turned to see Caley wasn’t following her.

  “Oh, you mean me,” said Caley, setting off after the duchess, with the maids giggling behind.

  Caley gazed in awe at the entrance hall, hundreds of feet high, with walls made of the same giant petrified roots as the outside. Dozens of hollow trunk-like pillars held up the roof with branches overhead forming arches. Bulging
here and there on the pillars like knotholes, openings covered in stained glass with leaf and vine patterns flooded the wooded-looking hall with rainbows. Curving staircases spiraled off in all directions, like steps on a titanic tree house. Carved statues of kings and queens and fearsome animals appeared to be growing right out of the roots. As Caley passed under an archway, a wooden cherub waved at her and a queen turned to it ever-so-slowly with a disapproving look.

  The duchess shot on ahead. She had a way of coasting along, her floor-length feathery getup fluttering over her unseen feet, her arms gently flapping, which made it seem like she was hovering slightly above the ground. She made no sound at all as she moved, like a gliding gull.

  “Sorry we’re late.” The major raced on his little legs to keep up. “Bit of a dust-up en route. Or a bit bigger than a bit …”

  “I expect the Council will want to hear all about it,” said the duchess. “I believe they are arriving for a meeting.”

  “It takes more than a few wolf-type situations to throw Major Fogg off the trail …” The major blinked blindly around. The duchess had rounded a corner with everyone, and he had kept going in a straight line. “Right-e-o, carry on,” he said, saluting a cherub.

  Caley followed the duchess into a great hall with vaulted ceilings covered in coats of arms. A startled stag leaped from one coat of arms to another. A huddle of people, many with odd animal features like Major Fogg, hurried past, talking heatedly. Caley thought she heard her name and “Olpheist.” Everyone stopped when they noticed her and bowed.

  A tall, gaunt man with a graying goatee wearing a black military uniform, long leather gloves, and a cape trimmed in wolf fur stared at Caley with unblinking black eyes. Unlike the others, he did not bow, and something about the way he was looking at her made her stomach feel funny, like she was trying to digest something rotten.

  Caley hustled after the duchess. She had the impression the wolf-man was still staring at her, but when she glanced back, he was heading off with the others.

  The duchess led Caley through endless twisting hallways lit by torches holding what appeared to be glowing stones. They finally stopped in front of a door with a royal crest carved into it with the initial C. They seemed to be in a tower of the castle, though it was impossible for Caley to tell because the tree house stairs sometimes went up, sometimes down, sometimes, it seemed, in no direction at all. She hoped she wouldn’t have to find her way to the bathroom in the night.

  “These are your quarters, Your Highness.”

  The duchess flung open the door. The grand room was filled with beautiful furniture, all in powder blue. Carved flowers decorated the root-covered walls, and as Caley passed, buds opened. Flute-shaped blossoms played soothing music like you might hear on an elevator. The floor was carpeted in moss and fireflies flitted from it, lighting their way.

  “This is … my room?” asked Caley.

  “This is the outer receiving room,” said the duchess, opening another set of doors to another, even grander room, this one decorated in pale yellow. “And this is the inner receiving room.”

  The duchess kept opening doors, with Caley and the maids trailing after her. One room was trimmed in royal blue, another in ruby red, and yet another was all warm white. The duchess announced each room as they swept through.

  “The outer formal sitting room. The inner informal sitting room. The outer bedchamber. The inner bedchamber.”

  This last room, decorated in deep forest green, had a four-poster bed hung with thick velvet curtains. More of the glowing stones warmed a small fireplace. On a tapestry, a deer drank from a pool in a forest. The deer startled at the site of everyone and ran into the woven trees. Caley noticed a table laid with silver trays of fruit and pastries and chocolates. Her stomach rumbled loudly.

  “They are for you, Your Highness,” offered the duchess. “If you are hungry.”

  “Even when I’m dead, apparently,” Caley muttered, and she began gobbling as much food as she could before she got reincarnated somewhere. She did a quick head count of the maids lined up behind the duchess. At least ten. Tons of room for everyone. Way less crowed than the Gunch’s. Trouble was, there was only one bed.

  “Should I sleep on a couch? Or the floor? Or the bathtub when nobody’s using it …”

  “These rooms are for you alone, Your Highness. You and your friend.”

  The duchess took a wooden cage from a maid and put it on a table. The cricket was inside, munching happily on a leaf.

  “If these are not adequate, I’m sure I can arrange more suitable accommodations.”

  “No, they’re … suitable,” Caley said quickly.

  “These were your mother’s rooms.” The duchess turned to a portrait over the fireplace, her lips tightening into a frown.

  Caley stared at the image of the young woman with red hair, green eyes like hers, and a penetrating, almost fierce expression. A shiver ran down her spine.

  It looked exactly like the person she always saw in her dreams.

  “Do you know what happened to her?” Caley asked without taking her eyes off the portrait. “Major Fogg said someone named Olpheist—”

  “A hot bath, then rest, I’ve found, does wonders to help one settle in,” the duchess cut her off sternly. “Do not wander about at night. The castle is … It’s best to stay in your rooms.”

  The duchess curtsied and shooed the maids out ahead of her, closing the doors behind them.

  Caley fell into the bed, too exhausted to have a bath or even take her clothes off. The carved flowers on the walls closed, and the sculpted starlings in the rafters settled into their nests for the night in a small flurry of splinters. The eyelid window blinked shut. Caley watched the deer reappear on the tapestry and lie down by the pool. Her eyes drifted to the portrait over the fireplace, and then she fell instantly asleep.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Oracle

  It was the dream again: the windswept cottage … the sky split apart … the black rain … her mother melting from her fingers … and the hooded man. This time, he lowered his hood.

  The face staring back at Caley was her own.

  Caley bolted upright, her heart pounding. She squinted around the darkened room. It was still night and she was still … wherever she was. The room suddenly began to shake. Caley stumbled from the bedroom, flinging open the door. To her surprise, the outer bedchamber was gone and in its place was one of the root-riddled hallways. Flickering torches cast shadows across it that made her think of claws. She turned back to her bedroom, but it was gone, too, replaced by another hallway. She began wrenching open doors, but they all led to more hallways that started to writhe like she was inside the belly of a giant snake. She went tumbling from one hallway to another until she landed in a passageway barely big enough to stand up in.

  The shaking stopped at last. It was pitch-black except for a small circle of light from a knothole in the wall. Caley heard voices and peered through the hole.

  Inside a dimly lit grotto-like chamber, a group was seated on flat rocks, hovering in midair around the edges of a stone pond. Caley recognized a few of the people from the great hall. Everyone was shouting at once. A man in a gold-and-black-striped robe with a white beard and round, furry ears that made him look vaguely like a tiger called above the din.

  “The Council will come to order. Order!”

  A toad-faced man in a maroon tunic turned to him.

  “Chancellor Abbetine, we have a report from Major Fogg that the daughter of Queen Catherine has been found on a place called ‘Earth.’”

  “Never heard of it,” said a woman with praying mantis arms.

  “It’s in Grenthorne’s Galaxy Guide,” said the toad-man. “Terrible reviews. The tenants have really trashed the place. Really more for the backpacker type—”

  “How did the child come to be here?”

  Everyone turned to someone Caley hadn’t noticed in the shadows. It was the wolf-man.

  “Sent for,” replied Chancell
or Abbetine, “by Master Pim.” He held up the scroll Caley had seen Major Fogg show the woodpecker.

  “Who has let our enemy in the gate,” the wolf-man said. He had a way of speaking that was low and menacing, like distant thunder.

  “General Roon, what are you getting at?” Abbetine stared at the wolf-man.

  “Interesting the child should possess the same power as Olpheist,” Roon continued smoothly. “The power to raise the dead.”

  “It’s true,” the talking toad said uneasily. “My cousin has it on good authority she made several frogs come back to life. Just for fun.”

  “And there was an incident involving crickets …” added the praying mantis woman.

  “Olpheist can take many forms … hidden in the darkness,” said Roon. “Some, perhaps, among us now.”

  His inky eyes snapped toward Caley. She yanked her head from the knothole. Had he seen her? Her heart beat so hard, she was sure everyone could hear it, but when she looked again, a man in a military uniform with an armored rhino horn for a nose stared accusingly at Roon.

  “Aside from a few foul beasts on the loose, the only darkness I see is you, General Roon. You defile this Council wearing the fur of an animal around your neck.”

  “Perhaps it should have put up more of a fight, Commander Pike,” Roon replied with a thin smile. “Perhaps it is time we were all prepared to fight.”

  Everyone began shouting again.

  “The alliance has kept the peace for a thousand years!” Abbetine held up his hands in an appeasing gesture. “There is no need for rash action.”

  “Olpheist’s power is beyond your feeble comprehension,” Roon said. “Non-persons threaten this kingdom once again. As the Sword to the Crown, I intend to protect it. By any means necessary.”

  Everyone’s attention shifted uneasily to the man standing in rigid attention behind Roon. Well, not exactly a man, thought Caley. He was the size of a refrigerator, with metallic-looking hands the size of rakes, long, greasy hair, one dead eye, and a mouthful of burnt-bean teeth. His skin—which resembled lizard scales dipped in iron—had so many scars, it looked like he’d been fed through a wood chipper.