He sat for one week, waiting for his parents to return, neither eating nor drinking, refusing to budge. But after ten days with no sign of them, he began walking eastward, as they had ordered him, and this was how he had found the Institute. Stairway Ruth, delighted at his arrival, had let him in and Kitchen Maggie had fed him. They questioned him about his past, but he just stared straight ahead, never wanting to talk again. After a few days, they stopped trying.
The alarm downstairs ceased ringing, and Fargus was jolted back to the present. He thought of Ida and Josephine and wondered what they would think of him if they knew what he had done. Would they be as ashamed of him as he was of himself? Sometimes it was better not to speak.
NINE
Josephine had been asleep just a few hours when the pigeons began squawking. She woke with a start and looked around, confused. Where was she?
A fragment of light was streaming through the square window above her. Josephine stood up, stretched her aching body, and looked outside. The sun had risen and for the first time she could see outside. With a sinking heart, she knew that she was a very, very long way from home.
The landscape before her was a wild plain, with short grass and little other vegetation. And it went on for miles, with no other signs of life in sight. No people, no buildings or houses. No wonder Ida had said Josephine should stay inside the Institute. There was no other place to go.
What could have happened to her in that shed? How could she have traveled so far, so quickly? Perhaps, like in many of her storybooks, there was magic out there that she had never heard of. And Josephine found that, despite her fear of this strange, new place, she was a bit thrilled with the idea that the world was not as straightforward as she had been led to believe.
She continued to gaze at this new land. There were trees outside, but only a handful. The trunks were white and the leaves were bruise purple. The tops of the trees were completely flat, as if they’d been chopped off with a scythe. They were beautiful, and Josephine was so mesmerized by them that she wanted to run down and climb one immediately. But her enthusiasm was soon quelled.
She was looking at one of the trees when out of the corner of her eye she saw something dart across the plain—a dark blur, moving at high speed, running on all fours, like a huge dog or bear. And then there was a second blur, running toward the first.
As the two figures collided, they fell upon each other ferociously, rolling around and kicking up dust. It seemed like a normal battle between beasts until one of them stood up like a man on its hind legs and began to walk toward the other. Then the other one stood up. Josephine saw now they were much too big for dogs. They were almost the size of the trees.
They circled each other, flexing their enormous back muscles and stomping their clawed feet. They had thick coats of what looked like black fur running from their foreheads down their backs and into their tails. But as the sun hit the creatures, she saw that it wasn’t fur at all. It was more like spikes or quills. These animals were covered in thorns, like the cacti she’d studied in school.
She gasped, and the two creatures, though hundreds of yards away, seemed to hear her. They turned simultaneously toward her window. She ducked instinctively, but even as she took cover, she knew she was being ridiculous. It was impossible that they’d heard her.
She rose and looked out the window again. To her horror, the two creatures were back on all fours and they were running straight toward her!
Josephine’s heart pounded. She felt frozen. She could now make out their faces, and they were like nothing she’d ever seen before. Pointed ears stuck up out of square heads. Each creature had beady yellow eyes and a muzzle that ended in a piglike nose.
But most horrifying and terrible of all was . . . these animals had no mouths.
Instead, they had taut brown skin that reached from the bottom of their noses down into their necks, where even more spikes rose. The lack of lips or teeth or any opening at all made these creatures look wicked beyond any monsters Josephine had ever conjured in her imagination. She was frightened down to her soul.
What could these terrifying animals be? Was she safe up in the tower? Could they climb a vertical stone wall? Surely not. But what if they could fly? Josephine ran to the door, but it was bolted shut. She pounded on it as hard as she could.
“Help! Help me! Please!” she cried. The creatures would be at the base of the tower any second. She yelled again, “Help me!” But she knew even as she said it that no one would come. Why should Kitchen Maggie or Stairway Ruth care if she was in despair? She decided to try a different tactic. Maybe they had no concern for her, but they most certainly cared about their meat supply.
“Fire!” she screamed. “Help, quickly! There’s a fire!”
Sure enough, she heard heavy footsteps approaching the doorway. The bolt slid back and Kitchen Maggie thundered inside, holding a large bucket of water. The pigeons squealed in alarm.
“Where is it? Where’s the fire?” she spat.
Josephine hadn’t really figured out what she would do if anyone came. She shrank into a corner and pointed at the window. “There are monsters out there! And they’re coming to get me!”
Maggie clamored to the window and looked. After a moment, she turned and glared at Josephine. “You’ve summoned the Brothers. I should throw you out the tower and let them have you.”
She stomped across the room and grabbed a pigeon from the nearest cubbyhole. She broke its neck in one swift motion. Then she grabbed another and another, killing each of them with the same ease and pleasure. She took them to the window. A wild snorting was coming from below, and she tossed down the dead birds one at a time.
“Give these to the Master. Go home! We’ll have merchandise ready for him in two days!” The snorting stopped.
Josephine stared at the door Maggie had left open behind her and began creeping toward it.
She was about two feet away from the doorway when she felt herself being hoisted up by the back of her shirt. Maggie spun Josephine around so that they were face-to-face.
“If you do anything to attract the Brothers, or start screaming again, or do anything that I find even slightly irritating, I’m going to take my mallet and pound you into meat stew. Got it?”
Josephine hung there, helpless and petrified, feet dangling. “Yes, I’ve got it.”
“Good.” Maggie dropped her and stormed out of the room, bolting the door once more.
Josephine cried out when she hit the floor. “Ow!” But she figured the pain was better than what the Brothers might have had in store for her. She pictured their mouthless faces and huge claws and decided that if the Brothers were always prowling around outside the Institute, she would stay inside and learn to love the taste of pigeon.
TEN
Josephine rested against the wall and stared at the pigeons, wondering if they were as bored as she was. They had nothing to do, just like her, and yet their twitchy heads and unblinking eyes gave them a sense of alertness, which was the opposite of how Josephine felt. She was exhausted, and every so often her eyelids would close, her head would droop, and she would fall into a sort of half sleep.
But then a pigeon would fly in through the window and cause pandemonium all over again. Each time one returned, the birds squawked as if it hadn’t ever happened before. The arriving bird usually had something in its beak, and it would fly to its little cubby and share whatever it had found with the babies and other pigeons that were anxiously awaiting lunch.
Josephine was amazed by them. All of the pigeons had the option of flying out of this prison forever and making a lovely new home out in the wild, and yet they chose to return each day to this disgusting tower and take care of their families. Perhaps that was what the noise was about when they returned. Maybe it was a celebration.
Josephine wondered, if she and her father were pigeons, would her father return to feed her? Or would he make a break for freedom—
Her ruminations were interrupted by voices on the other side of the door. “Stop holding on to my trousers or I’ll pop you in the mouth!”
Josephine suppressed a giggle. It was Ida! She didn’t think she’d ever been so happy to hear someone’s voice. She heard the bolt on the door slide backward, the door creaked open, and Ida’s head and then Fargus’s came peeking around. Josephine grinned at them. “You found me!”
Ida sashayed into the room, smirking. She was wearing the same cotton clothes as two days before, and Josephine suspected she had even slept in them. “I knew exactly where they’d put you.” Fargus looked at Ida incredulously, so she added, “Well, maybe we looked a few other places first.”
Fargus, looking the same as he had that day in her garden—rumpled and vaguely embarrassed—walked up to Josephine and handed her a sweaty lump of cheese and a piece of bread. Josephine gratefully shoved both into her mouth. The three of them sat in a tight ring in the cleanest corner of the room.
