“What do I do?”

  Mrs. Galdarro strode to her desk and picked up the scroll she had sealed earlier. She handed it to Tommy and said, “Put this in your backpack. Do NOT open it. I will call your parents in an hour and let them know that I will be picking you up for another meeting at 4:30. I want you to pack a change of clothing—only 100 percent cotton, do you understand? Put the scroll on the pillow just before you leave.”

  Tommy nodded repeatedly. He had only one question. “Mrs. Galdarro . . . will I ever see my parents again?”

  The librarian clutched her book to her chest. “I hope so, Tommy . . . but I can make no guarantees.”

  31

  Gravity

  AFTER SCHOOL, Tommy placed the scroll on his bed and zipped up his backpack. He put on a 100–percent cotton pair of jeans and 100–percent cotton long-sleeved T-shirt. He hadn’t bothered to ask Mrs. Galdarro why the cotton. Maybe Elves are allergic to polyester? Tommy didn’t know. And he had far more important things on his mind.

  He felt heavy, like God had turned up the gravity. Year after year of memories poured out from every corner of his room. The mural he and his mother had spent the summer painting when he was ten, trophies from soccer and karate standing like a little golden army on his dresser, and of course Smores, his pet guinea pig—they weighed on Tommy’s heart. A fur ball of tan, black, and white, Smores stood up on his hind legs and leaned on the rim of the aquarium. He gave Tommy his “red alert, I’m hungry” squeal.

  Tommy lifted off the cover and poured a cup of multicolored pellets into Smores’s feeding dish. The guinea pig emitted a happy trill as Tommy combed the hair on its lower back with his fingers.

  Two sharp beeps outside.

  Mrs. Galdarro.

  “Bye, Smores,” Tommy whispered. He hoisted his backpack and left his room.

  His mother stood in the kitchen with her hands on her hips. “I don’t think this microwave is working right,” she said as Tommy entered the kitchen. “Tommy, you didn’t put any metal in there, did you?”

  Tommy didn’t answer. He grabbed his mom around the waist and hugged her. He hugged her the way he did when he was seven. He smelled the cotton in her shirt, smelled her lilac perfume, and felt the warmth of her shoulder on his chin.

  “Oh . . . oh,” Mrs. Bowman replied, and at first she didn’t seem to know quite what to do with her arms. But then she wrapped them around him and forgot all about the microwave.

  When they separated, she asked, “What was that for?”

  “I just love you,” Tommy said. “That’s all.” He turned around so she wouldn’t see him tearing up. “Where’s Dad?”

  “In the basement, playing bridge on the computer, I imagine.” As Tommy went to the basement door, she said, “That backpack looks a little full for just a meeting.”

  Tommy froze in mid step. He wouldn’t lie to her. If she opened the backpack, found all the food, the photo album, the clothes. . . .

  Honk! Honk! Mrs. Galdarro saved the day.

  “I’ve gotta go, Mom, but I want to say goodbye to Dad,” Tommy said.

  He ran down the stairs and found his father in front of the wide monitor, the blue light reflecting strangely off his father’s glasses. “Hey, Dad . . . uh, I’ve got to go, so I just wanted to—”

  “Just a second, Son,” he replied, clicking the mouse. “I have a six-no-trump bid going here. Can you wait till I’m the dummy?”

  “Mrs. Galdarro’s waiting outside,” Tommy replied. Not knowing what else to do, Tommy threw his arms around his father’s neck and hugged him, too.

  “Careful, Son, you knocked my glasses off.”

  “Sorry,” Tommy said as he released his dad. “I’m in kind of a hurry.”

  “Oh, okay,” his father replied as he slid his glasses back onto his nose. “Haven’t had such a hug in a while. Thank you, Son.”

  “Uh, yeah, sure, Dad,” Tommy replied. He turned back to the stairs. Say it. Go on, Tommy. Say it. Why is this so hard? At last, Tommy pushed out the words, “Love you, Dad.”

  Tommy was halfway up the basement stairs when he heard his father’s words, tentative but warm, “I love you, Son. Be safe.”

  “That was hard,” Tommy said after they’d been driving for a while.

  “I am sorry, Tommy. But it’s for the best. With you in that house, none of you would be safe.”

  “But what if the . . . the Drefids and those trees attack anyway? They don’t know you’ve taken me.”

  “Yes, they do. You may not have noticed several new trees in the woods across the street from your home. They were watching, Tommy. I made sure they saw me clearly before you came out. Even now, I suspect the trees are getting word to the Drefids that we are gone. That is well for your parents, though likely more unpleasant for us.”

  Scenery went by the windows in a blur. Tommy caught glimpses of familiar places: streets where friends lived, community pools where he liked to swim, favorite restaurants and the like. It was strange not to know if he’d ever see any of these places again. Even stranger to know that Seabrook, Maryland, was not his real home. But in spite of such uncertainty, Tommy felt something deep inside, a kind of peace with all that was happening. He trusted Mrs. Galdarro. And bubbling away in some distant corner of his mind was a thrilling sense of anticipation, similar to thinking of an upcoming vacation . . . only better.

  Mrs. Galdarro brought her silver SUV to a stop in front of the school. The back hatch opened, and Mr. Charlie threw a large black satchel inside. It reminded Tommy of the bag Mr. Phitzsinger used for all the lacrosse sticks.

  Tommy went to get out of the front seat so that Mr. Charlie could sit down. “No, sir,” said Mr. Charlie, holding the door from opening farther. “You are the guest of honor. Now, just sit yourself on down.” Mr. Charlie jumped into the backseat and shut the door. Reluctantly, Tommy closed his door.

  “Yes, sir,” Mr. Charlie continued. “I’ze been waitin’ fer this day, a long, long time.”

  “You know, Merrick,” said Mrs. Galdarro as she drove away, “you don’t need to use that dialect any longer. We’re all Elves here.”

  “Awww, shucks, Elle,” Mr. Charlie replied, and then his voice changed. “Certainly I do not need to maintain colloquial speech for camouflage, but really, it’s such a beautiful dialect . . . full of hospitality, comfort, and grace. I’ze might jest keep usin’ it fer a while. Fact is, I’ve grown right attached to the name Charlie, too, if you don’t mind.”

  “If it pleases you,” said Mrs. Galdarro with a curious smile.

  Tommy looked into the backseat at the man he’d always thought was the school’s custodian. Since Mr. Charlie wasn’t wearing his glasses, Tommy could see the depth of his eye color. “You know,” said Tommy, “you don’t see too many people with purple eyes.”

  “True ’nuff,” he replied. He laughed deeply and winked at Tommy. “Not ’round here, that is.” Then he began to whistle.

  Tommy looked over Mr. Charlie’s shoulder at the big duffel in the back. Then he turned to Mrs. Galdarro. “What’s in the bag Mr. Charlie brought?”

  “Tools,” she replied.

  “What kind of tools?”

  “The just-in-case kind.”

  32

  In the Shadow of Madness

  SINCE THEY’D left the main highway, Tommy had gotten lost in the twists and turns. But finally, Mrs. Galdarro turned down a leaf-covered road and parked the SUV in the gravel on the side. A steep hill rose up to the left of the road, and a wall of tall trees towered above them. More dead leaves spiraled down from the heights and joined the others. They all got out of the SUV.

  Shivering as chill air found its way under his jacket, Tommy said, “Brr, where are we?”

  “Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital for the Criminally Insane,” Mrs. Galdarro replied. She’d said it as casually as if she were talking about a local grocery store.

  A fleeting terror blew through Tommy. How could I have been so foolish as to go with these strangers? “What? Criminally insane?”

  “Don’t worry, Tommy. The hospital’s been abandoned for more than twenty years. Besides,” she said, gesturing, “Mr. Charlie brought his tools.”

  Mr. Charlie slammed shut the hatch and slung the big, black duffel over his shoulder. He unzipped the bag a little to show Tommy the contents. Tommy’s eyebrows shot up. “Whoa!”

  Mr. Charlie zippered the bag. “Just the thing in case old Mobius and his crew come to call.” Laughing deeply, Mr. Charlie took to the hill. Even with the heavy duffel, up he went, one powerful bound after another, until he stood at the top. “C’mon, y’all.”

  Tommy felt it was weird to be hearing Mobius’s name used . . . the same character from an ancient book . . . alive, and hunting him.

  Mrs. Galdarro patted Tommy on the shoulder. “Merrick—er, Charlie is one of the Lyrian Elves,” she said as she and Tommy climbed the hill. “Very strong. That and his Dreadnaught training have made him a formidable warrior . . . as you can no doubt imagine from his display of strength.”

  “Dreadnaught?”

  “Among the races of Elves, few are selected for Dreadnaught training. Strongest of body and of mind, the Dreadnaughts learn a terribly difficult and profoundly effective form of combat called Vexbane. And, as their name implies, they fear nothing.”

  When all had reached the top, they traveled in silence between the hulking trunks of the tall oaks and elms and forced their way through a barricade of fat pines. They emerged to find the hilly campus and deserted buildings of Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital.

  A massive building of faded red and gray bricks was flanked on either side by smaller, colonial-looking brick buildings attached to the main by stone ports and fenced-in widow’s walks. Few windows were left unbroken, and debris lay all around the perimeter as if an explosion had blown out the innards of the building but left its stone skeleton intact. And it seemed as if the landscape were intent on reclaiming the man-made structure, for leafless climbing vines practically engulfed the lower half of each eerie building.

  “We have to go in there?” Tommy asked.

  “I’m afraid so,” said Mrs. Galdarro. “The portal is there.”

  Did she have to use the word afraid? “I’ve never seen a place so . . . haunted-looking,” said Tommy. “Couldn’t you have put the portal in a playground or something?”

  “We had no control over the placement of these portals,” she replied, “What little we know about the portals we learned from Sarron Froth. The Spider King uses them to take slaves from Earth. It was the Spider King who put them in out-of-the-way places such as this.”

  “Slaves?”

  “Another time, Tommy. There is too much to explain now.”

  Waves of wind swept through the knee-high grass as Mr. Charlie led the way across the deserted campus. They entered through a side door at one of the roofed ports of the main building. Once past a set of double doors hanging loosely from their frame, they stood at the end of a long hallway. Floor tiles that had once fit snugly into tight rows were cracked or shattered and scattered about the hall. Paint peeled on every wall. Water damage and rot had eaten jagged holes the length of the ceiling, and plaster dangled down like patches of old skin.

  “Mr. Charlie,” whispered Tommy, “could you take out the tools now?”

  Shadow and pale light alternated up the entire hall. Doors from hospital rooms—some open, some closed—made Tommy wince as he walked by. Every creep, demon, zombie, and monster from every horror movie Tommy had ever seen waltzed into his imagination. At any moment, something would surely leap out from behind one of those doors.

  Tommy positioned himself between Mrs. Galdarro and Mr. Charlie. They passed broken-out windows where the vines they’d seen outside had already penetrated and snaked into the hall.

  Their footsteps did not echo, but there was so much debris on the floor that each new footfall cracked or crushed something. They certainly weren’t going to sneak up on anything. Through another set of doors and they came to an inky, black stairwell. “A little light, Charlie?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  In a moment, he had a brilliant flashlight in his hand. He gave another to Mrs. Galdarro and one to Tommy. Obscene graffiti lined the stairwell. Tommy averted his eyes and stuck close to Mr. Charlie. At the bottom of the stairs, the double doors opened into a wide ward. A dozen small bed frames were tossed all about the floor as if a major earthquake had once hit the hospital.

  “How much farther?” Tommy whispered.

  “Not far,” Mrs. Galdarro replied. “After this chamber, we’ve a short hall past several mostly empty rooms. The portal is in the strangest room in this building.”

  Tommy couldn’t imagine anything stranger or creepier than what he’d already seen of the abandoned hospital. “What do you mean, strange?” he asked.

  “Bunch of drawers,” said Mr. Charlie.

  “A little hard to explain,” said Mrs. Galdarro.

  They said no more as they passed out of the ward with the beds. Something wet dripped onto Tommy’s arm. He shuddered and shined the light; a drop of discolored water trailed across his forearm. Tommy wiped it on his pants leg and shined his flashlight up at the ceiling. Gray and black stains blossomed sickly in the midst of the rotting ceiling tiles. Disgusting, Tommy thought as he walked along, continuing to stare at the blotches on the ceiling.

  “TOMMY, WATCH OUT!!” Mr. Charlie grabbed Tommy by the arm just below the shoulder and kept him from taking another step.

  Tommy’s heart pounded so hard he thought his ears would pop. Mr. Charlie shined his light down at Tommy’s feet. Part of the floor had torn away, revealing a gaping mouth into darkness. Tommy saw the water far down below, foul and green in the flashlight beam.

  “I’m sorry about that, Tommy,” said Mrs. Galdarro. “This hole wasn’t nearly as large the last time I came this way.”

  Tommy blinked in the dim light. His breathing and heart rate made it all too clear what would have happened, if he’d taken just one more step.

  The rest of the hall went without incident. They turned a corner, went through a wide door, and entered a square room. “This is the room,” said Mr. Charlie. “See all the drawers?”

  Tommy turned his beam on the walls of the chamber. There were square openings in vertical sets of three on either side of the chamber. Each opening had a thick door hanging open and inside a long tray, almost like a deep pan. There was soot or ash all over the drawers and the floor. Tommy suddenly realized what this room had been.

  33

  No Exit

  “WHERE’S THE portal?” Tommy asked, staring at the abandoned hospital’s crematory. He was convinced there were spiders—or worse things—all over him, and his skin crawled. Tommy wanted out of there, and fast.

  “It is on the far wall,” Mrs. Galdarro replied. They walked across the chamber to the wall. “Charlie, put the light on the wall for me.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Galdarro said, “Tommy, as you pass into the portal, you will feel very strange sensations on your skin—like running through millions of feathers. But there is also a steady current, like your electricity . . . not strong enough to shock or harm you, but enough to feel its presence. I will go first.” She took a step forward and stopped. “Wait, this isn’t . . .” She reached up and touched the stone of the wall.

  “Elle, look,” said Mr. Charlie, shining his light onto the floor. There were footprints in the dust and ash.

  Mrs. Galdarro pounded a fist on the wall. “They’ve closed the gate!” she growled.

  “Who?” Tommy asked.

  “Drefids,” said Mr. Charlie. “They are the ones who really know how to work these things. Got here before us.”

  “Why?” asked Tommy.

  “To keep you from escaping,” she replied. “I must contact the other Sentinels.”

  “Cool,” said Tommy. “You have some kind of magic mirror, crystal ball, or like a pet owl or something?”

  “Yes, I have just the thing.” Mrs. Galdarro frowned and reached into her pocket. “It’s called a cell phone.” She flipped open her phone. “Oh dear, I’m not getting a signal.”

  “Maybe you should get ya’self a pet owl,” said Mr. Charlie, and he smiled at Tommy.

  “I didn’t ask your opinion,” Mrs. Galdarro huffed. “We need to get back to the surface.”

  They fled the strange room with all the drawers. Their flashlight beams danced all over the hall as they hurried ahead. Not taking a chance of falling into that ghastly hole, Tommy made sure to stay to the far right. They increased their pace and raced through the ward with all the tumbled bed frames. At a dead run, they hit the stairs and bounded up.

  Night had settled over the hospital grounds while they were below the surface. Cloud-veiled moonlight through broken windows cast pale, intermittent light into the long hallway.

  Mrs. Galdarro checked her cell phone as they walked. “Come on,” she urged the phone. And then she stopped. “It says my mailbox is full.”

  “That can’t be good,” said Mr. Charlie.

  “Shhh!” said Tommy. “What was that?”

  There was a creaking sound above them. “Uh, Charlie,” said Mrs. Galdarro. “I think it would be a good time to get out the tools.”

  “The just-in-case ones?” asked Tommy, looking to Mr. Charlie.

  “Yes, indeed,” Charlie replied, letting the black duffel slide off his arm to the ground. He reached inside and pulled out several items. “Miss Elle, here’s your sword.” He gave her a thin-bladed weapon that reminded Tommy of a samurai sword. “Tommy, I hope this short bow works for you.” He handed Tommy a black compound bow and a quiver of long silver arrows.

  “What am I shooting at?” Tommy asked, a tremor in his voice. The creaking above them turned to a rapid scratching and a horrendous rip. Pieces of wood and crumbling drywall fell from the ceiling.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35