The Rambling Read online

  The dog yipped again, like, That’s okay, I still like you, I didn’t figure you had anything anyway. Dogs are good like that, I wager. Dogs don’t know how not to love you.

  I sat there sweating, my stomach starting to tighten and churn, feeling sick and fevery, like I got the flu but ten times worse. I was spider bit and ill for sure, and if these were my last stars and my last moon, I was happy they were so bright and lovely, that the moon glowed down on me with my mom’s face, that the stars were a map of all the places my soul would go when it up and left my body. That was a good thought. The journey never does quite end, does it?

  The dog yapped again and it was like it was saying, Get up, Buddy. You ain’t got time to die yet.

  “Okay, pup dog,” I said. “If you insist.”

  I straggled myself to my feet and headed off toward that old lady’s house, hoping something else good would work out for me. It took me a minute but I found her shack. The whole place was dark and empty, just a rotting nothing on a busted pier right on the edge of the water. It looked like the old lady had cleared out, it looked like she’d never been there at all. A dozen feral cats loped around in the darkness, their tails swishing little question marks in the air.

  And then I saw it, among the heaps of old rotten wood half-sunk in the pier—an honest-to-God skiff, perfect for wallowing through swamp water. I could have shouted for joy, I would have done a dance right then and there if I hadn’t been all sick from my spider-folk bite. I looked up to Heaven and I said some thank-yous, don’t you doubt for one second. Somebody was looking out for me, that’s for sure. Maybe that would overcome the hex on my blood and get me out of Gentlesburg in one piece. Regardless, this skiff right here was the first bit of genuine good luck I’d had in ages.

  I was probably gonna have to repent a thousand times for borrowing it, but at least I wasn’t stealing it. After all, I did have the intent to return the skiff, somehow, someday, right back here where I found it. Surely, that belief was somewhere in my heart.

  I hunched down to loosen the knot that tied it to the dock and felt something cold slide up against my throat.

  “Stay right where you are, partner,” said a high ragged whisper of a voice. “Don’t do nothing that would make me have to transform you into a corpse.”

  I felt the pointy end of another knife sticking into my back.

  Well, that was the end of my good-luck streak. I figured it was the shortest durn good-luck streak in the all-time history of luck.

  “Don’t you move now,” the voice said. I could feel the knives slide off my throat and away from my back. “Don’t you even think about running. Just hold your hands behind you and I’ll tie ’em up real quick-like. But if you try and run, you’re a goner.”

  I reached my arms behind my back, just like the man said to. I felt cold ropes wrap around my wrists too tight, the brittle cut of them on my skin. Yep, my good-luck streak had ended, so far as I was concerned.

  “Now stand up and face me, little blood,” said the man. “Let me look you in the eyes.”

  I did as I was told. It was the boy from the Skinny Yellow Dog, the magician kid with the top hat. Except that under the muddy moon and stars I could see his face was covered in white makeup, like he was some kind of actor, and underneath was all wrinkles and leathery skin. His teeth clacked in his mouth and I realized he had dentures in. His eyes were bloodshot. The suit looked ragged and old, like he’d worn it for twenty years straight. That yellow tuft of hair hung crooked under his hat. It was a wig, I realized.

  This kid wasn’t a kid at all. He was just an old man pretending, a short stooped old faker magician with two knives drawn and pointed at me.

  “Anybody chasing after Boss Authority’s got to be worth some money to him, I suppose,” said the magician. “You got to be worth at least a pouch of gold, or a stake at the table.”

  “I don’t see that I’m worth squat to him,” I said, “seeing as how he don’t even know that I exist. I couldn’t care less about Boss Authority. I just want my daddy back.”

  The magician chuckled to himself, dentures going clackety clack clack. “If your daddy’s who you said he is, then sure enough Boss Authority will want you. He’ll take a special interest in you, that I guarantee.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I said.

  “How much do you actually know about your daddy? Do you have any idea what kind of trouble he’s in?”

  I didn’t say a word, because I’ll be honest, I didn’t have a clue. I didn’t know why Boss Authority was after Pop. I didn’t know a durn thing at all. I felt all dizzy and nearly puked right then on the magician’s shoes.

  “But I been hexed,” I said. “And spider-folk bit too.”

  “Likely enough that is,” said the magician. “That ain’t any of my problem. Now hop in that skiff and let’s set off now. No good keeping Boss Authority waiting, and we got us one long journey to go.”

  He poked at me with both of those knives, and seeing as how I didn’t have much choice in the matter, I did as he said. The skiff was sturdy and good and what’s more, it was new, you could tell. This was a good skiff, laid out like a birthday present for me, even though it wasn’t my birthday. It was a heck of a lot better than anything my mom had given me, Lord bless her, much less Pop. And now I had to go and get kidnapped with it.

  “This is my lucky day,” the magician said. He whistled. “You know what I’m gonna get with all that money Boss Authority’s gonna give me?”

  “What’s that?” I said.

  My head swirling and loopy, I wanted to know. I wanted to know what was worth turning me over to the fiercest man in the Swamplands.

  “A dirigible.”

  “A dirigible?”

  “Yes sirree,” he said. “A bona fide hot-air balloon. I want to sail over all y’all’s heads. I want to be flying over everybody’s heads and look down over them like they’re nothing, every person who ever picked on me no bigger than an ant. I been broke all my life. Short too. I want to fly. I want to be higher than the birds.”

  “I can kind of understand that,” I said. “I’ve wanted to ride in a dirigible my whole life, and that’s a fact.”

  “Oh I’ll give you a ride then!” he said, all excited. “I mean, if Boss Authority doesn’t”—and he drew his finger across his neck like a knife.

  “Gee,” I said. “Thanks. You know, if my daddy was here, rest assured he would whoop the ever-living fire out of you right now.”

  “That may well be,” said the magician. “But the fact of the matter remains, your daddy ain’t here. And I am. So what’s that say about your daddy?”

  I looked up at the magician, hating his guts, while he made ready to hop off the pier and onto the skiff. About midstep he stopped, his foot dangling off into the night air. His left hand was suddenly empty, that knife long gone from it. Another hand held it now, tight against his throat. He flailed with the right-hand knife and I saw the one against his throat pull tighter and a tiny trickle of blood run down onto his collar, staining his suit.

  A girl’s voice sounded from behind the magician.

  “Drop it,” she said. “Though it would be my pleasure to spill you wide open all over this pier and leave you for gator bait.”

  It was Tally. She’d snuck up on him and pickpocketed that knife straight out of the magician’s fingers.

  He dropped the other knife. It went plop in the water.

  “Now spit out them false teeth of yours,” she said.

  He did. Tally kicked them off the pier.

  “Take off your hat,” she said. “I don’t want to be surprised by nothing hiding underneath that.”

  He did. Two birds flew out from under it.

  “That’s a pretty good trick,” said Tally. “Too bad ain’t anybody ever going to see you do it again. Not in this town anyhow. You got that?”

  “Durn spider-folk, you are,” he said, his gums smacking. “I heard about you.”

  “Then you heard about
my granddad, ain’t you?”

  The magician nodded, his eyes gone wide as a frog’s.

  “Skedaddle,” she said. “And I’m keeping this knife to remember you by.”

  The magician scuttled off, his shoes pounding the pier boards before he turned a corner and was gone. Tally stood there, half spider, her six eyes staring down at me.

  “You gonna let me cut them ropes off you or what?” she said.

  I turned and she sliced me free.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Did I kill your granddad?”

  “Nope,” she said. “He didn’t hardly catch fire. Though that don’t make him any less furious at you. Or at me.”

  “It ain’t your fault,” I said. “I’m the one who chucked a lantern at him.”

  “And I’m the one who brought him hexed blood,” she said. “That makes us about even in terms of guilt. At least in Granddad’s eyes.”

  I lay there in the skiff, feeling about as sick as I ever could. Tally held the magician’s knife in her furry hands. She climbed into the boat, hardly rocking it at all. Ol’ Tally was a real pro at boats, I decided.

  “You come to finish the job?” I said, my voice gone whispery and harsh from the sickness. “Get back on his good side that way?”

  “Don’t think there’s much to finish,” she said. “Granddad’s venom is about the most powerful there is. ’Course, he wouldn’t have spit it into you if he hadn’t been so surprised by the hex in your blood. Granddad doesn’t usually poison folks whose blood he draws.”

  “Guess I’m just that unlucky, huh?”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” Tally spit into her palms and rubbed them together until they formed some kind of paste, white and sticky, like a spider’s web.

  “Nice thing about being what I am,” she said, “is that I don’t just poison folks, you know? I got the cure in me too.”

  She rubbed the paste on my arm, right over the bite marks. It stung a bit, and I hollered out.

  “Shhh, now,” she said. “I know you’re tougher than that.”

  “Trying to be.”

  “Trying is good enough.”

  Tally massaged my arm, blowing soft on it. She bent over it and I got nervous again, like she was going to bite me same as her granddad did. I tried to yank my arm back, to swat her away. Heck, I was so sick I probably moaned a little too.

  “Hush already,” she said. “If I wanted you dead I would have just let that magician do the job. Trust me now.”

  She spat into my wound and rubbed it in some more. It hurt, a whole lot, it stung and burned and was some kind of awful agony. But then the pain began to cool, to soothe, like cold water on a sunburn.

  “See?” she said. “You’re already feeling better.”

  Tally pulled a canteen of water from around her neck and offered me some. It tasted good, better than I ever thought water could taste. My head didn’t hurt so bad, and I felt like some of my wits were coming back. I wasn’t gonna die after all, and I was awful glad of it.

  I peered at Tally closer now, her fangs, her furry arms. Nope, down deep, she was still the same Tally I first met. The same hustler, the same genius pickpocket, a low-down kid like me. What I’m trying to say is that I still liked her, despite everything. But I didn’t quite trust her, and nobody can blame me for that.

  “Why are you helping me?” I said.

  “Because I can’t stay here in Gentlesburg,” she said. “Not anymore. Not with Granddad like he is. He’s gotten worse, see? He used to just lock me in the wardrobe when I messed up, or maybe throw a plate at me. He never bit me with his fangs before.” For a second I thought she was going to cry, if spider-folk can cry. But then she shook it off. “Time to hit the river.”

  “So you’re gonna come help me find my daddy?” I said.

  “Nope,” she said. “But I am gonna hitch a ride into the swamp, see if I can’t find me a cure.”

  “A cure?” I said. “Can you cure the spider out of you?”

  “To be honest, I don’t got a clue,” she said. “But I’ve heard tell of mighty witches who can hex folks into dogs, or who can turn people into part fishes, with gills and everything, so they can swim underwater. Any witch strong enough to do that can surely find a fix for what’s wrong with me.”

  I wanted to say something nice to Tally right about then, something comforting, but I was scared if I opened my mouth I was gonna puke right there in this boat.

  Tally sighed.

  “I’m sick of picking pockets, Buddy. I’m sick of my granddad, and I’m sick of this dingy spider-life in wretched old Gentlesburg. I want to be cured, Buddy. I don’t want to be hexed anymore.”

  That I could understand perfectly, yes sir. I’d realized I must’ve been hexed my whole life and I hadn’t hardly known it. That’s why nothing had ever gone right with me. That’s why I was friendless and alone, that’s why Mom’s bakery had burned itself down. Still, that didn’t mean I needed a companion for this trip. I was hunting Pop, I was, and it was dangerous business.

  “What if I say you can’t come?” I croaked.

  “I say you’re not well enough to tell me one thing or the other,” she said.

  The girl had a point.

  “But I thought you said you cured me.”

  “You ain’t cured yet. I got to give you the remedy at least two more times, and that’s a fact. Unless you want your arm swelling up like a bullfrog.”

  My stomach did a backflip and for one second my whole vision went black.

  “Fine,” I said. “Let’s just get the heck out of Gentlesburg.”

  “I’ll give an amen to that,” said Tally. She finished untying the skiff, and we floated off, Tally rowing until the current could grab us and drag us onward. A river of clouds crossed the sky, heat lightning flickering far off. The moon was nothing but a ghost in the clouds above me, the stars lonesome notes from an old forgotten song.

  It was like I could hear them sing, those stars. It was like the moon was the conductor and the rivers and waters and oceans of the world were all hollering out, the trees too, singing every far-off note the stars wrote in the sky.

  “That’s just the venom working itself out your system,” said Tally.

  Well that was something, wasn’t it? I hadn’t even known I was speaking out loud.

  9

  WE FLOATED DOWN THE RIVER, following that slow and steady tug swampward. Tally kept the skiff straight, rowing when we needed, but mostly the river did the work. It struck me then that water is the most powerful thing, just like Pop said, water running like blood to the heart of the earth. But what about love then? Mom believed love was more powerful, didn’t she? Who would win in a contest, water or love, that’s what I wanted to know.

  Tally dipped her hand into the river and then laid it on my forehead. It felt cool in the night air, it felt like healing. “You just rest up now. We’ll be in the swamp in no time.”

  I slept then, I think. Or maybe I just dreamed. Fever will do that to you, make you dream with your eyes open, cast your thoughts big and loud up in the sky above. I saw monkeys dangling in the trees, their eyes red as fire, speaking in tongues like at a tent revival. I saw clouds like warships, big sixteen-sailed battle boats armed with cannons and blood-starved pirates ready to burn and plunder. I saw the ghosts of old women wash their dark hair in the river. They had no eyes, just empty black sockets, and they smiled at me like sad friends at a funeral. The trees began to lean in closer, to dangle their gray scraggly beards like old wizards peering down at us. Snakes slithered across the water like miracles, and there were all manner of bugs—biting sucking buzzing bugs, bugs everywhere. The swamp was alive tonight, don’t you doubt that. The swamp was so full of life I couldn’t see how there was any room for us, for me and my new pal Tally to fit.

  “Hush up now,” she said, “just rest.”

  And I did, I fell right to sleep.

  I woke up here and there, in fits and starts. Once when the moon was high I woke and nearly yelped ou
t. Tally was in her full spider face, hunching up in the boat, all six eyes awake and watching. Around us flashed gold and silver lights that would blink and vanish, as if beckoning us to follow.

  “What are those?”

  “Fairy lights,” she said. “You follow them off into the marsh and you’ll never come back.”

  Her voice shook, like she was scared, like this fierce half spider with her fangs was trembling in our little boat. What could scare someone like Tally?

  “Quiet,” she said. “They’re listening.”

  “Who’s listening?”

  But Tally wouldn’t say a word.

  I imagined all that could live in this swamp, ghost hermits and old dead monks ringing their bells, their cathedrals all long sunk into the muck. Kids who wandered in this swamp and got lost, turned around, folks who never made their way out, who wander still, though they’d long left their bodies behind. Not to mention all the scaly hidden creatures with bright blinking eyes hid deep in the dark and wild and muck.

  “Be quiet already,” whispered Tally. “Lest you want to call them right to us. Lest you never want to leave the Swamplands alive.”

  I guessed I was talking out loud again. I guessed I couldn’t tell a difference between my brain and mouth right about then. Something hollered in the woods, a high mournful yip like an old sad song, an echo of a song sung a thousand years ago that’s just been lingering around, singing to itself. Tally bristled, and every brown spider hair on her body bristled.

  “You see that?” said Tally. She pointed up to a tree limb above us. A daisy chain of fingerbones dangled down, hung on it like a garland. There were skulls fit into the notches of a cypress tree.

  “The Creepy,” she said.

  “There ain’t such thing as the Creepy,” I said. “My daddy told me.”

  Tally looked down at me, all six of her eyes wild and black and reflecting moonlight.

  “If I were you,” she said, “I’d start wondering about what my daddy said that was true and what he said that wasn’t.”

  10