“What?” Ned and Sarah asked simultaneously.
“I know these woods better than anyone. And if you think I’m taking Sarah back into that manor, you’re crazy. I’m going to get the children out of that hole and then I am going to take all of these boys and girls home to their families.”
“Watch who you call boy,” Kevin said. “I happen to be thirty-one.”
“Sorry about that, young man.” He turned back to Ned. “Get going. We’ve already wasted too much time.”
“Okay. I’ll go get the others. Take these children—I mean, people—back to town and I’ll contact you as soon as I can.” He looked at Sarah, her young face hiding wizened eyes. “Nice to meet you, Sarah. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too. I have no idea who you are.”
“This is Ned the sweeper’s son,” Bruce offered. “See you soon, Ned.”
“See you soon. And . . . uh . . . thanks, Bruce.” Ned then sprinted toward the western wall of the building.
Bruce told the children to come out of the trees. One by one, they plopped down like overripe apples, and Bruce inspected his new team. He felt young for the first time in twenty years. “Okay, troops. Who here has ever played tag?”
FORTY-ONE
The Master swirled his brandy around a large snifter and took a long gulp. He swallowed, belched loudly, and stood up. He and Josephine had just finished a mountain of food. Josephine was stuffed to the gills and sat uncomfortably in a massive wooden chair as she waited for the Master to continue his story. He was telling her about his childhood.
“My mother was an exquisite beauty, but she was raised in dung. Her family was absolutely destitute. My grandparents were both plain as old toast, and they never understood how they’d produced such magnificence. In fact, they were so mystified by her existence that they barely touched her, as if she were made of rice paper and might just blow away.” The Master took another swig of brandy and walked to the fireplace.
“Many of the local men sought her hand. But she was determined to wait for”—he paused disdainfully—“true love.” He rolled his eyes and continued. “One day, my father appeared out of nowhere. My mother’s first impression of him was that he was a short, boring, pimply snob. It turned out she was wrong about one thing: He wasn’t that short. He offered her parents an exorbitant amount of money for her hand, and he was allowed to take her that very day to his family’s estate in Drubshire. She never forgave him. He was a weak man and he had made the ghastly mistake of loving her.
“When I was four, my father disappeared. Mummy always said it was a hunting accident, but I caught the servants rolling their eyes. Once he was gone, she was determined to find the true love that had eluded her. She stopped eating, concerned that childbirth had made her fat.”
He walked back to the table and pinched off a juicy grape, then rolled it between his fingers. “She would bother the servants all day long with elaborate details about supper—which spices and sauces should be used, which goose should be slaughtered, how many elaborate pastries should be baked—and then she wouldn’t eat one bite. I used to worry that the cook would have hurt feelings, so I would eat twice my fill.”
He popped the grape into his mouth. “I became quite the little butterball, which only served to antagonize my mother more. As she continued to fast, the flesh began to hang off her bones, and her face became so tight that one could see the blood moving under her skin. Her hips and bosom disappeared and she took to wearing large embroidered dresses of heavy fabrics. I once heard the maid say that when Mummy walked down the stairway, she looked like a teeny skull perched upon some drapes.”
The Master laughed nastily, but Josephine didn’t think it was funny at all. “Her gaunt fingers allowed her rings to fall off without her noticing,” he continued. “The servants gathered them up like candy. I imagine it’s how a few of them retired.
“Many suitors arrived. Mummy’s beauty had been legendary and now her fortune was too. I would sit at the dinner table across from the poor chap of the moment, who was inevitably trying not to stare at my mother’s bulging eyes and cheekbones. She would attempt to be charming but would never smile. The suitor was always thrown by her stony expression as she explained what a delightful time she was having. What he never knew was that she didn’t smile because lack of nutrition had rotted her teeth.
“As one by one they stopped paying her visits, she became more miserable and venomous. She decided that I was the one turning them away and that they were sickened by a woman who was already a mother. She forbade me to sit at the dinner table. I was not allowed outside or anywhere strangers might spot me. She had the servants construct a ‘playroom’ down in the cellar. It smelled of onions and dead rats, and I was ordered to stay there during the daytime.”
Josephine thought this was perhaps the worst thing she’d ever heard. Her father was not an affectionate man, but he’d never been cruel or hateful toward her. She felt herself softening toward the Master and thought that maybe she understood why he was so mean. “That’s awful,” she said.
“Don’t interrupt,” he told her. “One winter, before my ninth birthday, she became infatuated with a new man, Count Luther Von Wottleton. He visited her several times and she managed to keep me hidden. The servants knew better than to mention her son, having seen the welts on past offenders. Mummy was quite taken with this man, and from my cellar window I would watch them walk in the gardens. He would do most of the talking, and she giggled and sometimes forgot to cover her mouth with her hand. I had never seen her happier. She even brought me sweets and took me on a long walk when the count was out of town.” A small smile crept onto the Master’s face at the memory and Josephine found herself smiling too, relieved that the Master may have had at least a tiny moment of joy in his childhood.
“But it didn’t last long. The count didn’t come back. At first Mummy told the servants that his business was keeping him away. But as several more weeks passed, she became quiet and depressed. Finally, word reached her that the count had married his cousin. And the fatal blow came when Mummy heard that the girl was only nineteen. She flew into a rage and broke all the heirlooms in the house.
“Then she disappeared. She vanished into the night wearing plain clothes and a cloak. None of us knew what to do. The servants ran the house as usual, anticipating her eventual return, and I spent my time with them in the kitchen. After a few weeks, things relaxed and we started to do as we pleased. We all ate around the dining room table and one night we even had a food fight. It was the happiest time I’d ever known. An older couple named Mr. and Mrs. Baggs, who tended the gardens, asked if I wanted to come and live with them. I said yes immediately. And at that one moment, I thought at last I was going to have a normal childhood, with friends.”
Josephine thought about Bruce and Alma Jarvis and how she had briefly thought she could have a normal childhood living with them. And once again her heart felt the sting of their betrayal.
“And then Mummy came back. She returned in the middle of winter, just as the clock struck midnight. But she wasn’t alone. The Brothers walked close behind her. Some of the servants fled in terror, including the Baggses, who begged me to go with them. But I couldn’t. I was frozen. She was my mother.
“She looked triumphant, grinning from ear to ear as she showed me her black hole of a mouth. ‘I’ve done it, Leopold! I’ve found the fountain of youth!’ She swung me around maniacally. I thought she’d completely lost her mind. ‘I was given these marvelous creatures,’ she said, ‘and tonight Mummy is going to bury herself in the ground next to them and they are going to suck all of Mummy’s years away, and I will never grow old! Never, Leopold!’
“She explained how she’d met a man one cold night on the road, who seemed to appear out of nowhere. He claimed to have traveled to the Dark World, where he stole the Brothers from their mother while they were still harmless pups.”
Josephine flinched. “That’s horrible. Why should they want to obey anyone who did that to them?”
The Master pulled a strange-looking stone from his pocket. It was multicolored like an opal, yet it was translucent and seemed to glow from the inside. He explained, “It’s lava rock from the Dark World. And the Brothers are tied to it like an umbilical cord.” He added smugly, “Don’t get any ideas, Josephine. They will always do exactly as I command.” He made a fist around the stone.
“Where was I when you so rudely interrupted? Oh yes, Mummy’s return. That night, we all watched as the Brothers dug their way into a deep pit and Mummy piled dirt on top of them. She then had a servant dig a long narrow hole for herself. She was wearing her finest silks and gold, and, looking as happy as I’d ever seen her, she lowered herself into the dank soil. We waited to see what would happen. It didn’t take long. Mummy began screaming in agony, crying out for help. The servants just stood there, but I couldn’t stand it. I rushed to the hole to see Mummy convulsing, and pustules were forming on her flesh. It was foul. I jumped into the hole and gathered her in my arms. Her skin was turning dry and her hair so brittle that it fell off in strands into my lap. And then do you know what she said to me?”
Josephine shook her head, not wanting to know.
“She smiled at me and said, ‘I should have known you were the only one pathetic enough to love me.’ And then she disintegrated, simply turned to dust in my arms, and the only thing left was the lava stone.
“And then my real pain began. The Brothers had finished with Mummy and now it was my turn. Their draining power reached deep within me and I convulsed helplessly, waiting for the pustules, the swelling, and my eventual death, but it didn’t come. The pain ended and I was able to climb back out of the hole. It was years later before I understood why. The man who sold the Brothers to my mother had neglected to tell her that as long as the creatures were in our world, they could only properly feed off children. For an adult to be buried with them was certain death. But he was correct about one thing. If a child feels the pain of a Brother feeding, he will never grow old, even if he desperately wants to.”
A word came to Josephine, something from one of her books. “Succulents,” she uttered without thinking.
“Excuse me?” said the Master.
“Uh . . . the Brothers, they’re succulents. Like cacti? They don’t eat, really; they suck nutrients out of the soil around them.” She pictured the dead and barren wasteland outside the manor and knew she was right.
He smiled an evil, bitter grin. “You’re not altogether stupid for your age. It took me quite a while to figure that out. It seems that something in the soil of the Dark World gives the Brothers all they need, but here in our world, they need a little—how shall I say it—supplement?”
“The lost children of Gulm,” she gasped. “You didn’t sell them at all. You’ve just been feeding them to the Brothers.”
The Master did a little bow, as if Josephine had paid him an enormous compliment.
“How long can they survive it?” she asked, horrified.
