Young Writers Society

38 THREE’S A CROWD

Weighted down as it was, the wagon was heavy and Christian dragged it to the park gate with difficulty. Every time the wheels creaked he looked up and down the street, certain someone would hear them or the rustling of the paper bags or his own anxious breathing, the pounding of his heart. Despite his fears, he made it to the park wall without incident.

When he did, however, he looked up at it in dismay. He could not climb over the park wall with the wagon and all his supplies, but he had given the key to the gate back to Conrad the night of the harpies’ attack.

Possibly, he thought, he could climb up with one item at a time and drop it onto the ground below, but the wagon would have to be left behind. That would mean many long trips back and forth between the wall and the rose garden. And even then, there were certain things he knew he could not carry with him on his climb—the tent, the topsoil, the rose plants. He wished Conrad had not made him return the key.

His thoughts were interrupted by a voice.

“What are you doing here so late?”

It was Liza. He turned around to face her with a feeling of dread, but he plastered an unwilling smile on his face and sidled in front of the wagon, hoping she wouldn’t see it.

“I live here,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

She glared at him. For once she wore jeans and a t-shirt and sensible flats instead of the old, too-tight business clothes she always wore to the office.

“I still don’t believe you,” she said. She paused and bit her lip. “But my husband’s been missing for a week now, and…I don’t know what else to do.”

Before Christian could think of a response, another familiar (though doleful) voice called out behind him.

“Abernathy? My dear fellow, whatever are you doing out so late? Left another book, have you?”

This, of course, was Mr. Catcher.

Oh, dear, Christian thought, but he hitched the smile back onto his face and turned away from Liza to greet the old man.

“How are you this evening, Mr. Catcher?”

“Not well, dear boy, not well at all,” Mr. Catcher intoned mournfully. He sounded as if he had a bad head-cold. “My dear Winifred passed only this morning.”

“Oh,” Christian said. He dearly wished the old man would go away (and Liza, too), but he did not want to be insensitive to Mr. Catcher’s plight. “Oh, I’m—I’m terribly sorry to hear that.”

(Terribly sorry, indeed.)

“She went peacefully, for which I am grateful.” Mr. Catcher blew his nose into a handkerchief with a honk, but before he could say anything more Liza said sharply, “What’s all this, Christian?”

She had seen the wagon. Oh, dear, Christian thought in distress. Even Mr. Catcher, dull-eyed with grief, said, “What’s all what?”

Liza poked through the wagon’s contents as if she expected it to contain drugs, or perhaps an arsenal of weapons. “You look like you’re set to go camping for about a month. What are you up to?”

Mr. Catcher joined her, prodding items aside with his cane. “What is all this, Abernathy?”

“Is that your tea kettle?”

“Is that topsoil?”

“Is that a tent?”

Christian quelled under their combined gazes.

“I—well, I—that is to say—”

“Abernathy,” Mr. Catcher said kindly, “how are you going to get all this into the park?”

Christian looked at him in amazement. Liza frowned.

“I think the question is why he’s trying to get all this into the park,” she said.

“Not at all.” Mr. Catcher leaned close and lowered his voice, and when he spoke he sounded anxious. “Is it bad in there? The rose beds? The Fair?”

“Quite bad,” Christian said in astonishment. “But how do you know about all of it, Mr. Catcher?”

“We haven’t time for that now, my boy,” Mr. Catcher said. “We need to get you inside that park.”

39 BREAKING AND ENTERING

They decided to pick the lock. Rather, Mr. Catcher decided it. Liza had watched the two men in confusion during their conversation and Christian, aside from his amazement that Mr. Catcher knew about Celadon Park’s magic, felt uneasy at the whole idea. Using the key had never made him feel this way; having a key gave you the right to be somewhere. But picking the lock—well, that was outright breaking and entering.

Mr. Catcher went galumphing away to fetch one of dear Winifred’s hairpins. In the following interval, Liza and Christian shared an uncomfortable silence.

“This can’t be true,” Liza said after a while.

“It is. All of it.” Then: “I didn’t lie to you, Liza.”

She hesitated. “So this really is where Conrad’s been off to?”

“Yes,” said Christian.

“Are we going to see him?”

“No,” said Christian.

“But he’ll be here?”

“Er,” said Christian. After telling her the truth of the matter, he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that he wasn’t sure where her husband was at the moment. Conrad had been with the Rovers the night of the attack. Perhaps he was in the Otherworld with them, but Christian had no way of knowing for sure; nor did he know when they would return. And with the balloon-artist’s leg refusing to heal properly… At that thought, his brow puckered with worry. He and Liza lapsed back into silence.

Mr. Catcher galloped back and held up a hair pin. Then he bent double with his hands to his knees, gasping for breath.

“Are you alright?” Liza asked.

Mr. Catcher held up a hand. They waited.

“Never better,” he wheezed, but when he tried to straighten up again he coughed and hacked.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Liza said. “Breathe a minute, would you?”

“I’m fine, my dear, I’m fine.” (More wheezing.) “My lungs aren’t what they used to be. But I assure you, I’m perfectly alright.”

“That’s one of us,” Liza muttered. She took the hair pin from the old man and went to work on the padlock hanging from the park gate. It was open in less than two minutes.

“You’ve done it,” Mr. Catcher wheezed.

Liza shrugged. “Used to be faster. I’m out of practice.”

Out of practice? What kind of criminals had Christian gotten himself involved with? But after all, he had been the first one to show up here on the street, outside the park gate late at night, so he gripped the wagon handle and said, “Let’s go.”

He pushed the gate open with an effort, wincing at the rasping of its hinges. Someone was bound to hear it. He strained to listen for the sound of people opening their doors or windows to look for the source of the commotion, but the street was still and silent. He slipped through the gate with the others close behind him.

As they walked through the wood with the wagon creaking and swaying between them, Christian heard his companions introducing themselves in whispers. At first he ignored it. But as their conversation moved from introductions to the strangeness of the whole affair,he felt uneasy. He turned around and implored them, “Be quiet, please be quiet. We don’t know what may hear us.”

“What do you mean what?” Liza asked, but Mr. Catcher said, “He’s right.”

They all fell silent, but the silence seemed even louder than their voices had been and Christian wished he had said nothing.

Something squeaked, making them all jump. When they turned around they saw it was the garden gnome Christian had put in the wagon. It had come to life sometime after they passed into the park.

They had just come to the edge of the wood and the empty clearing when Liza gasped and said, “Christian—”

He turned back to look at her, but she was pointing with a shaking finger to something out in the clear. Mr. Catcher’s eyes were wide with fright. Christian whirled back around just in time to see a giant spider cross their path.

40 CROWS

His mouth opened in a scream, but his voice stuck in his throat and no sound came out. (Later he was grateful for that.) The spider was the size of a Shetland pony, covered in shaggy hair the color of mud, with banded legs like a tarantula. It could have bowled them over easily, but it must not have noticed them; it scuttled across the clearing and disappeared into the trees.

Christian let out a breath he did not realize he had been holding. Behind him he heard Liza say between gritted teeth, “What—the hell—was that?” When he turned around, he saw Mr. Catcher massaging his heart with a hand and saying, “Alright now. Just a spider—”

“Just a spider!” Liza choked.

Christian’s legs felt like jelly, but he said, “Come on,” gripped the wagon handle tighter, and continued onward. Liza’s breaths came in shaky bursts as she walked stiffly beside him.

They were halfway across the clearing when they heard something whirring above and behind them.

“What now?” Mr. Catcher said.

From a distance it looked like a black cloud with swiftly shifting edges, but as it came closer they saw it was made up of wings and talons and sharp beaks.

“What is it?” Liza asked.

“Nothing good,” Christian said. “Run.”

They sprinted as fast as they could toward the gardens. Christian fell behind, burdened with the wagon.

The cloud caught up with them, a flock of dozens and dozens of crows. They pecked at Christian’s face and tore at his hair with their sharp talons until he cried out in pain—His brain unhelpfully reminded him a flock of crows was called a murder—Just ahead of him he could hear Liza, shouting in a panicky voice to Mr. Catcher, who was beginning to breathe heavily again though he still managed to run.

A clawed foot raked across Christian’s forehead and knocked his glasses from his face. Blind, he fell and slammed into the ground, but he could still hear the garden gnome squeaking in terror in the wagon. Liza had doubled back, picked up his glasses, grabbed his hand. Together the three of them ran, and his companions tried to beat the crows away with their hands—

Christian saw the orderly trees of the gardens before them, and he shouted, “Light!” without thinking, and when he did so the fairy lights zipped on and so did the gas lamps. Then they were safe in the shelter of the trees and the crows were flapping angrily away.