Whichwood(40)
“Laylee can see the ghosts,” said Madarjoon. “She knows them personally. That much was made clear tonight.”
Benyamin blinked, surprised. Oliver didn’t know what to say. Alice looked at the unconscious mordeshoor and said, “Yes, it would make sense if she did. Though I wonder why she never said anything about it before.”
“Because she’s a smart girl,” said Madarjoon. “She knows better than to make that kind of information public. It’s hard enough being the caretaker of dead bodies; but to have to act as liaison between human and spirit? Can you imagine how many grieving people would harangue her about communicating with the spirits of their loved ones?” Madarjoon shook her head. “No, it’s better that she kept it to herself. But the ghosts made it clear tonight that they knew her personally—that they’d talked before, that they cared for her. That sort of relationship cannot come from nothing. Mark my words: That girl can see the dead—and can speak with them, too. And if you’re going to have any luck at all tonight, you’re going to need her with her eyes open. So go. And hurry. You have no time.”
Benyamin checked the clock and said anxiously, “But the trains won’t come for another hour—what do we—”
And Madarjoon grabbed for her two canes—resting just to the side of her bed—and pulled herself up, with great effort, to stand on weak and withered legs. She wore a long pink nightgown with a ruffled collar and scalloped hem, her hair tied back with a small silk bandana. At her unexpected movement, Benyamin rushed forward, alarmed, but Madarjoon held up a hand to stop him.
“Come along, children,” she said carefully. “Let me do the only kind of magic I’m good for anymore.”
“But, Madarjoon,” Benyamin cried, running forward, “you’re not strong enough—”
She cut him off with her cane. “A piece of advice, sweet son of mine: Never, ever again tell a woman she’s not strong enough.”
“But I didn’t mean—I never—”
“I know.” She smiled. “Now come along.” She glanced at Oliver and Alice. “All of you.”
“Where are we going?” asked Alice, hurrying forward.
“We’ll get to that in a minute. Hurry up, hurry up,” she said, hobbling forward to prod Oliver with her cane. “Come on, then. We haven’t got all night.” Oliver jumped up, startled, and reached for Laylee, preparing to lift her into his arms again when Benyamin’s mother cried, “Get a barrow, boy! No need to waste time flexing your muscles.”
Oliver flushed, embarrassed for a reason he couldn’t quite explain, while Benyamin ran off to collect one of the extra wheelbarrows he used for his saffron harvest. The children lined the rough interior with pillows and bedsheets, and then, carefully, settled Laylee inside, taking care to tuck in her bag of bones beside her. Suddenly, for just a second, her eyelids fluttered.
Alice gasped.
The four of them peered in, looking for another sign of life, but this time Laylee was still.
“Everyone’s got their coats?” Madarjoon said loudly, looking over the heads of the children. “You’ve all used the toilet? No? Well, best hold it in. Come on, then—let’s carry on.”
And they shuffled outside into the cold, biting night and hiked in taut, nervous silence for a matter of at least fifteen minutes, through hills and valleys of thigh-high snow (through which Benyamin had no idea how his mother managed), until they reached the very edge of their quiet peninsula, and could hear the ferocious waves lashing against the cliffs.
Alice and Oliver were just shy of terrified. They had no interest at all in summoning what was left of their glass elevator, and they had no idea whether that was what Madarjoon had been hoping to find. In fact, they sincerely hoped it wasn’t, because if it was, they didn’t know how they were going to explain to her that they’d broken it.
Luckily, that wasn’t at all what Madarjoon was thinking.
She hobbled out to the very precipice, a point nearly invisible in the blackness of night. The children were too afraid to follow her, and when Alice whispered her worries to Benyamin, he assured her that everything would be okay. Madarjoon had, in fact, done this many times before.
There was a reason, you see, why Benyamin had never had to explain his strange relationship with the many-legged world—and it was because his mother never needed an explanation. She, too, had a special relationship with the nonhuman world, and she would call upon that friendship now, at a time she needed it most.
When Madarjoon stepped back from the ledge some moments later, it was only a matter of seconds before the sea—already churning with great and tremendous turbulence—began to lurch ever more tremendously. As the sea rocked back and forth with the dizzying force of a thunderclap, from its tremulous depths came a sudden and unmistakable expulsion of air, and a sound like a blasted rocket—crack!—snapped the seas wide open.
A whale as large as a pirate ship bobbed at the surface of the water, its large fin slapping hello to an old friend. Madarjoon spoke quickly and quietly to her comrade, and the children, struck still with awe, stood silently by, waiting only to be told what to do. There was little time to spare, so the formalities were dispensed with. The whale-friend took only a moment to slap its fin in acknowledgment to whatever secret thing Benyamin’s mother had said to him and, a moment later, yawned open his mouth to allow them aboard.