The Spindlers (24 page)

Downstairs, her mother was sitting in the kitchen, staring off into space, with a pile of bills heaped in front of her. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, and the small exclamation point was already there between her eyebrows. Her toast was untouched, and she was very pale.

“Patrick wants pancakes,” Liza said, coming into the kitchen.

Her mother started, as though waking up from a dream.

“Not today, Liza,” she said, and she sounded tired. “I've just run the dishwasher.”

“But it's a special day,” Liza insisted. “Patrick's soul has come back from the underworld. His nocturna carried it up.”

“His what?”

“Nocturna. They're like little butterflies, and they bring dreams. They bring seeds of hope to the surface, too. And they're eternal. And there's one for every person in the whole world. Can you believe it?” Liza was filled with such a bubbly happiness, she did not notice her mother's face drooping and drooping, like rain melting down a windowpane.

“Oh, Liza!” Mrs. Elston suddenly cried. “What will I do with you!” And suddenly, to Liza's horror, her mother leaned her elbows on the table, put her face in her hands, and began to cry.

For a moment Liza stood paralyzed; she had never seen her mother cry before, and the experience made something open inside her, something that made her feel very old. It was like seeing the River of Knowledge for the first time; she was filled with sadness and wonder both.

Liza approached the kitchen table. She reached into her pocket and selected two seeds of hope. She held them out to her mother.

“Do you know what these are?” she said gently, as though she was speaking to Patrick after one of his nightmares. “These are seeds of hope. They may not look like much, but they grow everywhere, in even the hardest places, where nothing else grows.”

Mrs. Elston, sniffling, lifted her head from her hands and looked at her daughter. “Liza,” she said.

“It's not a story, Mom. It's true. Go on.” Liza offered up the seeds. “Take them. They're for you.”

Mrs. Elston looked at the small dark seeds glinting in Liza's palm. She looked up at her daughter. She opened her mouth and closed it. Then she looked back at the seeds. And perhaps she saw the way that they flashed, momentarily brilliant; or perhaps she saw something else. In any case, she reached out and took the seeds in her own hand, and closed her fist tightly.

“Thank you,” she said. Leaning forward suddenly, she wrapped Liza in a fierce hug. “You know I love you, right? I love you and Patrick very much.”

“You're squishing me,” Liza said into her mother's shoulder. Mrs. Elston laughed and released her.

“And look,” Liza said, placing her father's glasses on the table.

Mrs. Elston let out a cry of surprise. “Where did you
find
these?” she said. “Your father has been looking everywhere for them.”

Liza thought about telling her mom about the troglod market, but at the last minute decided that she would let the troglods, and the nids, and Mirabella, be her secret—her secret and Patrick's, of course, since she could hardly
wait
to tell him. So she just said, “They were on my nightstand.”

“You're a miracle, Liza,” Mrs. Elston said, and leaned forward and kissed Liza on the middle of her forehead. “Your father went to look for them at the office. He'll be so relieved. I'll call him to tell him he can turn around and come home.”

Bump, bump, bump
. The real Patrick came down the stairs, sliding on his rump, with his hair squished flat against his forehead. “I'm ready,” he said. “Where are the pancakes?”

“Mom said—,” Liza began, but Mrs. Elston cut her off.

“I'll make the pancakes,” she said, standing. “I think we even have a few chocolate chips left over. How does that sound? You go outside and play. I'll call you when they're ready.”

“Pancakes! Pancakes! Pancakes!” Patrick shouted, as he ran for the door.

“Go on,” Mrs. Elston said to Liza, smiling. The exclamation point hadn't totally disappeared, but it was much fainter now. “It'll be fifteen minutes at least.”

When Liza was almost at the front door, Mrs. Elston called her back.

“I almost forgot,” she said, shuffling through the pile of letters and half-crumpled envelopes on the kitchen table. “This came for you yesterday.”

It was a postcard that showed an enormous red-brick building, half-covered in a thick green shag of ivy, like a vertical carpet. Liza's heart gave a flip, as though her nocturna had just brushed it with its wingtips.

On the back of the postcard was a note written in neat purple pen. It said:

Hey, Lizard—

How are you? College is awesome, but I miss you like crazy, of course. Can't wait to see you when I'm home this summer. Have you seen
On the Floor
yet? I'm totally going to take you. (Remember that time Patrick stuck all that popcorn in his nose?) Hope you've been working on your Pinecone Bowling skills, because otherwise, PREPARE TO GET CREAMED
.

xoxo

Anna

P.S. Tell Peapod I send him love and a hug
.

Liza looked up at her mother. “Anna's coming home!” she burst out. She felt like she was rising and rising on a tide of joy. She had known it would be a special day today. She had felt it.

“Of course she is, sweet pea.” Mrs. Elston smiled at her daughter. “How could she ever stay away from you?”

“Liza!” Patrick called to her from outside. He pressed his nose and hands against the screen door, and for a moment, when he withdrew, a brief impression of his image remained.

“Coming,” she said. She tucked the postcard into her sundress pocket, so that it was nestled next to the seeds of hope, and followed Patrick outside.

P
atrick was standing in the yard, trying to peer through the evergreen tree.

“See anything good?” Liza asked, coming toward him.

He turned to her and made a face. “Just a garden gnome,” he said. “Nothing special.”

“It was probably a troglod,” Liza said. She came down the porch steps.

“A troglod?” Patrick raised his eyebrows.

“Uh-huh. Gnomes like cold temperatures, just like Anna said. It's mostly troglods that live around here. We'll have to remember to tell Anna when she comes home. She
is
coming home soon, did you know that?”

Patrick made a whooping sound and did his version of a victory dance, which involved clenching his fists and trying to shake the rest of his body into motion, and made him look a little like a cross between a jackhammer and a jellyfish.

“Troglods are crazy for pinks, of course,” Liza said. “Maybe I'll get some for Mirabella—that's a rat I met, you know, when I was Below. I'm thinking I'll get her a real hat, too, and a new purse, since she lost hers in the Live Forest.”

“She can have my Rangers hat,” Patrick volunteered. Liza felt a rush of feeling for him that was as deep and layered and swirly as the River of Knowledge. Patrick always understood.

“That would be perfect,” Liza said. “And you can help me cut up the pinks today, but only if you agree to be careful with the scissors.”

Patrick made a farting noise by blowing air out of his cheeks, and Liza knew that this was his way of agreeing.

“And look what else,” she said, and showed him the seeds of hope she had in her pocket. She did not, however, tell him that she had rescued his soul from the spindlers; not yet. That would come. “They're magic.”

“They don't
look
it,” Patrick said doubtfully.

“Oh, but they are,” Liza said. “Very magic. There's lots of magic everywhere, you know.”

And it was true: There was. From farther down the street, a lawn mower kicked into gear. The air was full of the smells of grass shavings and flowers, raindrops and damp towels, pancakes and rubber tires. Across the street, in Mr. and Mrs. Richardson's yard, several daffodils nodded in the breeze. Liza thought of the nids and wondered whether they would allow the rats and the troglods back into their balls, now that the spindlers were gone. She hoped so.

“Let's go give a seed to Mrs. Costenblatt,” she said to Patrick, and he agreed, grumpily and gruntily, shoving his hands in his pockets: the Patrick she had known, and loved, and hated, too, since the moment he was born.

“But afterward we get to play Pinecone Bowling,” he said as they started down the street. The light filtering through the trees striped his face in sun and shadow.

Liza felt she now knew many things she had not known yesterday. She knew, for example, that even rats could be beautiful, and hope grew from the smallest seeds, and sometimes there was great truth in made-up stories. She knew that the world was a complex place, and very wonderful.

Feelings, too, were complex. They could pull you in all different directions. Liza thought of the three-headed dog she had seen in the underworld, and its three snapping jaws, and the strange octopus with its razor-sharp tentacles, and how the creatures had fought to the death.

Yes, the world was very strange. But you had to walk through. That was the trick. You had to keep walking through, always, with your chin held high, the way she had passed through the shadowed tunnels of the underworld, with only the dim light of the lumpen to guide her.

That was the other trick, the other truth: Light would come to you from unexpected places.

“Someday you must remind me to tell you about the game of bowling I played Below, and how I beat the three-headed dog with the scorpion tail,” Liza said as the real Patrick, her Patrick, loped beside her in the sunshine. “And I will introduce you to Mirabella. Maybe we will even go Below together—although you must absolutely promise to stay away from the River of Knowledge, and of course watch out for the scawgs....”

T
hank you to Maurice Sendak, and my parents for introducing me to his work;

To the continuous support of the blogger and bookseller communities;

To my agent, for his tireless campaigning on my behalf, and for being the founding member of Team Lauren Oliver;

To my editor, Rosemary Brosnan, for her attentiveness and guidance, and for whipping this book into shape;

To my sister, ever generous, wise, funny, supportive, and one of the best people on the planet;

To Lisa Zigarmi, for her unfaltering friendship, and especially for a January night several years ago;

And, lastly, to Michael Otremba. I didn't know him when I wrote this book, but since he came into my life, he has provided me with joy, inspiration, and loving support. 999,700 dates to go!