Nieve (7 page)

What? Main Street wasn't the most original name around, but it had always been called that. Looked like somebody
was trying to turn the place into a tourist town with fake, old-fashioned “streetes” and “shoppes.” Odd that Mayor Mary had allowed it. But then, maybe she didn't know. The sign can't have been up for very long, Nieve thought, despite looking as though it had been rooted on the spot for centuries. If so, she'd make sure Mary knew. Once she was finished at Exley's, she'd find the mayor and tell her.

Arriving at the pharmacy, Nieve saw another new-old sign. This one, a wooden signboard hanging above the door, was carved in the shape of a mortar and pestle. Except that the mortar was a skull with the top sheared off and the pestle a bone sticking out of it. The sign's white paint was cracked and dirty and the black letters painted on it were faded to grey. Barely legible, Nieve read
Wormius & Ashe
the names that arched across the skull's forehead. Below, the word
Apothecaries
formed a kind of grim smile that served for the skull's mouth. The sign swung back and forth on its rusted bracket, squeaking and creaking, despite the stillness of the morning. This didn't appear to disturb the chubby bat that was suspended upside-down from the tip of the pestle, wrapped up in itself like a round brown parcel. Greedy thing must have eaten a bagful of moths last night, Nieve thought. She even thought she could hear it snoring contentedly. But surely not.

She wasn't at all sure that she wanted to go in. Shielding her eyes, she tried peering through the door, but it was too dark within to make anything out except for some bulky, indefinable shapes. Dad was wrong, she decided, it's not open . . . that is, she
hoped
it wasn't, but when she tried the handle it turned easily and the door gave way.

Nieve stepped cautiously over the threshold and into the store. Despite the weak light coming through the front window, it was very dark inside. No overhead lights were on, and yet as far as she knew there hadn't been a power outage in town. Towards the far end, where the dispensary was, she did see a small light shining and she headed toward that, navigating between the counters more by touch than sight. Her fingers trailed over bottles and jars, and moving along, she touched something soft and thick that felt horribly like human hair. She pulled back her hand in alarm, but then remembered that Mr. Exley used to sell wigs for people who got sick and lost all their hair, so this was probably one leftover from when he must have so hastily cleaned off the shelves.

Still, she felt uneasy. She told herself to turn around, to leave. It was dumb to be fumbling around in the dark, dangerous even. The new owners couldn't be wanting business too badly. But she couldn't stop moving toward that light – it seemed to draw her on. It flickered and wavered, beckoning. Candlelight, she realized, and the closer she came to it the more agitated the candle's flame grew, as if she were a gust of wind that had stirred up the air in the dusty old store.

As she arrived at the dispensary, a figure rose up suddenly from behind the counter, clearly calculated to startle her. She
did
give a start, but more so because she recognized him. It was the same tall gangly man she'd seen bicycling into town dragging the darkness with him. He stood directly behind the candle and the light it cast gave his already narrow and ghastly face an even more ghastly aspect.

He smiled down at her with an equally ghastly grin, and said, “May I be of some service, young lady?”

Nieve, determined to keep her cool, said evenly, “Yes, I would like to buy some tissues. Six boxes, please.”

“Tissues?” he said.
“Tissues.
What an interesting request.”

She didn't like the way he said “tissues.” And she couldn't think of anything less interesting.

Nevertheless, he said it again. “Tissues. Hmmm, let me see.” He placed a long, stick- thin finger on his bony chin and tapped it a couple of times. “Mr. Wormius, tell me, would we happen to have any
tissue
on hand?”

Confused, Nieve looked around to see who he was talking to, and it was only then that she noticed the top of someone's head – wide and moon-white – behind the counter, barely cresting it.

“Tissue, Mr. Ashe?” The round head now rose above the counter and came into full view. (He's climbed onto a stool, Nieve thought.) He appeared with a considering expression on his large, smooth, dish-like face. His eyes were as grey as gravel and unadorned with either lashes or eyebrows. “Why, I believe we do, Mr. Ashe,” he said in a raspy voice. “I believe we have several boxes of . . .
tissue
.”

Nieve squirmed a little and bit her lip. They were trying to creep her out and coming very close to succeeding. “Tissues,” she said firmly. Not
skin.
Jeepers! “Made of paper, to blow your nose on, dry your eyes, stuff like that.”

“Ah, I see,” said Ashe. “Bodily excrescences. Tears! Mr. Wormius, I think this young lady needs a little something to cheer her up.”

“Oh indeed she does, Mr. Ashe,” said Wormius. “She's terribly pale. Trouble at home, a best friend missing . . . why, it's enough to make anyone weep.”

Nieve narrowed her eyes.

“Have a medicinal candy, my dear,” offered Ashe. He extended a skeletal hand into the gloom and pulled a glass apothecary jar toward him. “A sweet to soothe the aching heart.”

Nieve couldn't help it. When she saw what was in the jar she gasped. It was
those
jawbreakers again! They rattled and clinked and shuffled in the jar until the black eyespots were all turned toward her. She made a face, thinking of the bitter taste left in her mouth from the one last night . . . how
alive
it had been, the explosion, the stink in her room.

Ashe, eyeing her closely, said, “You appear to be ill, my dear. How worrying, especially with no one to look after you. No one at all. But we can help, can't we Mr. Wormius?”

“We
can
, most certainly, Mr. Ashe.”

“Why don't you stick out your tongue for me and say,
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
.”

Ashe made this sound like he'd fallen down a mine shaft.

Nieve
was
seriously tempted to stick out her tongue, but not in the manner he intended.

Instead, she said, as haughtily as she could manage, “I don't require any help thank you.” She then turned and walked back down the aisle, quickly, in case they followed after and tried to grab her. She didn't glance back to see if they
were
pursuing her – or to see if they'd completely vanished as the Weed Inspector had done – but kept walking swiftly toward the door, focused solely on getting through it.

“You've forgotten your
tissue
. . .
Nieve
,” she heard Wormius chuckle.

“Yes,
Nieve
,” Ashe called after her. “
Nieve,
dear, whatever will you do without it?”

–Eight–
Dark Matters

I
n her rush to get through the door of the pharmacy, Nieve didn't observe as closely as she might have done the woman who passed her going in. She
did
note that the woman radiated a frostiness because she felt it in passing, as if she'd pushed through a cold current. This caused her to glance up briefly, taking in the woman's pale, perfect features, the elegant, upswept hairdo, the ritzy clothes, the confident stride. Altogether the woman looked as if she knew exactly where she was going, and why. Nieve didn't try to warn her off.

Instead, she hurried down the street, trying not to think about how those two creeps in the pharmacy had known her name . . . and that wasn't all they seemed to know about her. As she passed the bookstore, she saw that DunstanWarlock was arranging a new window display. This was something he did so infrequently that there were thick shoals of dust in the window and long-dead flies belly-up on the foxed and yellowed books.

Glancing out at her, the bookseller straightened, tipped his hat, and smirked. He'd never acknowledged Nieve before and she couldn't see why he did so now. She ignored him and kept on. But her stomach tightened in distress only a few steps ahead when she realized why he'd tipped his hat at her. On his little finger he was wearing a gold ring with a black stone, the very same kind of ring that her mother had been wearing the night of the storm. He had wanted her to see it.

Nieve picked up speed. The street was oddly empty: no one was out shopping or running errands, visiting the library or dropping into the post office for a chat with Mrs. Welty, the postmistress. When she'd passed by Redfern's Five & Dime, she saw that it was closed now, too. The storefront windows were covered with black paper. Wishart's Bakery was open, but when she stopped to see what kind of cookies and squares they had on offer, she saw instead a single cake displayed in the window on a peculiar pedestal cake stand. The stand was made of grey marble, stained and chipped. Around its base were detailed carvings of strange men. They were like bald, ugly children, pug-nosed, with crafty eyes, pointy ears, and sharp teeth filling their leering mouths. These carved men were holding up a marble plate upon which sat what Nieve thought must be a chocolate cake, although it was so dark it could have easily been licorice. The cake's icing had been whipped into fierce peaks as sharp as claws. In colour and consistency the icing reminded her of Genevieve Crawley's lipstick.

Nieve gazed at the cake, unable somehow not to. She had no desire to sample it. Her stomach tightened even more the longer she looked at it, and yet it was . . .
.

“Divine,” someone beside her said.

Nieve had been so absorbed that she hadn't noticed Alicia Overbury sidle up beside her.

“It's icky, if you ask me.” Nieve pulled her gaze with difficulty from the window. “Why aren't you in school?”

“Why aren't
you?
”

“I'm sick.” This wasn't a lie, she'd witnessed enough this morning to make anyone sick. Although Alicia
did
look sick. Not only did she appear wan and listless, but she was a mess. Her clothes were rumpled and torn, and her face was dirty, flecks of mud on her cheeks and the corners of her mouth smudged with jam. Not at all her usual prim and prissy self.

“You're missing out. We play games all the time and get loads of treats.” While Alicia spoke, she continued to stare intently, hungrily at the cake.

“Why aren't you there then, if it's so much fun?”