The Ever After

Chapter Four: A Stranger Arrives

MAY WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF A DREAM. SHE had fallen into a great, black sea. A set of long fingers was holding on to her ankles. When she yanked her legs away, the hand held out a moldy old letter with her name on it. The fingers tapped on the paper of the letter. Tap tap tap.

Tap tap tap.

Tap tap tap.

Hours after she had fallen asleep, May sat straight up in bed. She pushed her palms down on the bed to make sure she was really there and not still dreaming. Thank goodness. She breathed deeply and looked around her room, noticing her familiar objects in the shadows. Her mom had never come to her with the aspirin, or had she?

She climbed out of her bed and dug her balled-up, wet shorts out of the closet, prying her waterlogged letter out of the pocket. She walked to the window and held it up by the light of the moon.

Tap tap tap. May froze. The noise had come from just outside her door.

May looked out her window to check the moon—it was high in the dark sky. That meant it was midnight or a little later. She laid her letter on the windowsill, trying not to creak as she crossed the floor to her door. She paused at the threshold for a moment to listen. The sound outside the door was very gentle, like a twig beating against a window. Or fingernails. She reached out and grasped the handle, opened it, and looked. There was nothing but the dark.

Tap tap tap. The sound started again, but now it was farther away, up ahead of her in the darkness. May tiptoed toward it, pausing halfway—at the top of the back stairs—to look down toward the second floor. Nothing. She continued on to her mother's bedroom door. The sound had stopped. She listened hard, to the chirping of crickets and the dry leaves rubbing against one another outside. And tapping again. Behind her.

May swallowed. Her chest began to flicker hotly.

She turned slowly and quietly. The sound was now coming from her room at the end of the hall. And there was something else coming from there too. A pale blue glow, like someone had left a television on.

There wasn't a television in all of White Moss Manor.

May's limbs zinged.

"Hello?" May whispered, her breath barely coming out. "Mom?"

The tapping stopped for a moment, and then started again. "Hello?" she whispered, but very low this time.

She looked back at her mom's door, torn. Her mom had looked so tired. The last thing May wanted to do was to wake her. Especially for something that was probably nothing. May tried to think like her mom would: It was nothing. It was her imagination getting away. The light was probably coming from the moon.

Quietly May padded down the hallway. She stopped just short of her door. Her breath, which had been on its way to her mouth, changed its mind and froze in her throat.

There, sitting on her bed, with its back to her, was a figure. Stretched out to one side, its long, white fingers drummed against the windowsill, while the other hand seemed to be tucked up in front of it, as if it was supporting its chin. Its body was long and skinny, covered by a long, ragged shirt and a pair of ripped pants, and its head, from what May could see of it, was enormous and round like a pumpkin, with a tuft of hair up top. Through the figure's body, the round orb of the moon and the trees below were completely visible. He was like a piece of light. . . .

May couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. She opened her mouth to scream, but only a squeak came out.

At the noise, the creature perked its head to the left and then swiveled to look at her.

The thing was nothing close to human. Its mouth was a giant, jagged gash. Its nose, two holes in powder white skin. Its eyes were long and droopy, the sockets hanging around horrible black eyeballs. Looking at May, they widened in surprise and then squinted in concentration. Finally the mouth split open and stretched from cheek to cheek in a wicked smile—revealing crooked, broken teeth.

May's voice finally found its way to her lips. She screamed. "Moooommm!"

The smile on the creature in front of her descended into a deep, horrible frown. It shot up from the bed, rushing toward her. At the same moment, the sound of footsteps hitting wood echoed at the end of the hall. May jumped back and flattened herself against the wall, still screaming.

The creature sailed through the doorway, its face a mask of ugliness. May threw her arms up in front of her, but instead of lunging for her, it sailed right past her, disappearing around the corner and down the stairs just as Mrs. Bird's door flew open.

"May, what is it?" Mrs. Bird cried, running to her daughter and grabbing her shoulders. "Shhhhhhh. Shhhhhhh."

For several agonizing seconds May couldn't catch her breath to say anything. She flung her arm in the direction of the stairs, and the word finally came out. "Ghost!"

Mrs. Bird frowned. "A ghost?"

May nodded, thrusting her hand toward the stairs again and panting. "He went down there."

Mrs. Bird looked at her for another moment, then walked into the stairway and disappeared. She was gone long enough for May to worry she'd sent her to her doom. But to her relief, she reappeared a few minutes later. May was standing against the wall, nibbling hard on her fingers.

"Did you see it?" May asked, looking over her mother's shoulder.

Mrs. Bird shook her head, her eyes heavy-lidded, her mouth set in a droopy, tired line. She sighed. "No, honey. There's nothing down there. Come on." Putting one hand on May's back, she ushered her down the hall and into her bedroom.

"But, Mom, it was there, I swear." A few taps on the stairs and in the hallway, and Somber Kitty appeared, rubbing against May's shins.

"It was just a dream, baby."

"But, Mom—"

"C'mon, hop in." Mrs Bird had pulled down the top of the covers into a triangle and rubbed the sheets to indicate where May should hop. May stared at her, disbelieving. "Hop in."

"But . . ."

Mrs. Bird sighed, running a hand through her soft, fuzzy brown hair. "Please, honey, I'm tired."

May stared for a second longer, then crawled up under her mom's arm, into the space provided.

"But, Mom."

"Honey, I promise you, it was just a dream."

"Can I sleep with you?"

Mrs. Bird shook her head. "May, you're ten years old."

May tugged at her nails, frustrated. She and Somber Kitty exchanged looks. Somber Kitty let out a long sigh and then hopped off the bed and pranced back into the hallway, his footsteps sounding on the stairs, and then May heard the swinging of the cat door to the front.

"Mom?" May searched the space behind her mother in the hallway with her eyes.

Mrs. Bird turned, tugging at the hem of her pink nightshirt drowsily.

"Will you look out the window? What if it's in the yard?"

Mrs. Bird frowned, then knelt on the bed and looked outside. She turned to May. "Nothing."

"Okay. Will you check the back too?"

Mrs. Bird nodded wearily and made her way to the door.

After her mom had gone, May sat in her bed, her arms wrapped around her knees, eyeing the corners of her room. Finally, once she got the courage to move, she sidled up to her window.

May leaned forward and gazed out onto the lawn. There was Somber Kitty, out on the stone walkway, playing with his tail. And there, in the glow of the moon, standing on the grass, with the bush behind him visible through his skinny, see-through legs, was the horrible creature with the pumpkin head, watching her.

Meeting her eyes, he quickly turned, floating across the grass and into the woods.