By the time I reach them, Will’s there too, holding Henry, and Kent is kneeling beside Elise at the edge of a decorative stone parapet. She’s pointing out over what was once a lawn, but now is just tree roots and muck.
The sun comes out from behind low, hazy clouds, and Elliott’s fair hair gleams in the sudden brightness.
Beyond the parapet is a moldering staircase that was once inside the house, but is now exposed completely to the elements. The stairway turns twice, and the carved wooden banister is mostly intact.
“There’s people,” Henry says. He holds the binoculars out to Kent.
“Did you give him my binoculars?” Elliott asks.
“They’re coming this way.” Elise’s voice is mesmerized, like she is looking at something both terrible and wondrous.
As if I am being pulled into Elise’s imagination, I hear the splashing of someone running through the water. I follow the line of her shaking arm. A girl in a dress that used to be white appears through the vegetation, pulling someone behind her, barely paying attention to where she is putting her feet. The rank water is as high as her calves.
A shot cracks from the undergrowth. Elise screams again, covering her mouth with both hands. The girl in the swamp turns her head toward the sound but doesn’t stop. She can’t.
Will hands Henry to me, and I crouch down behind the rail of the parapet, pulling Elise with me. Thankfully, the railings are thick and ornate and haven’t succumbed yet to the decay of the rest of the house. And we’re four stories up. The shooter will have to get closer to pose any danger to the children.
“This way,” Elliott calls to the girl, dropping to the stairwell and bounding down the stairs. April has gotten to us now too. I’m aware of her behind me, even as I watch the girl’s desperate race through the marsh.
Elliott stops at the place where the stairway disappears into the water. The girl stares at him with wild, terrified eyes. He reaches out his hand.
But she stumbles, unable to catch herself because she won’t let go of her companion. The hair on the back of my neck rises. If the gunman wants to kill her, this would be the time to shoot. Elliott is moving, stepping into the muck, grabbing her. He takes the boy’s arm, but then pulls back.
The boy’s face lifts upward. I gasp.
Red lines run down from his eyes and stain his mask. The slight girl pulls at him, urging him to stand.
Everything goes silent. The frogs, the crickets. I’m holding my breath.
The man out there must be our former prisoner. The Hunter. He didn’t kill us before, but now he’s tracking these new arrivals. Stalking them like prey.
Elliott, his boots sinking into the muck, puts two fingers to the boy’s throat. But the boy is dead. The Red Death takes its victims quickly.
“Let go,” he tells the girl. “Take cover behind the banister.” She won’t release the boy’s hand. In the long silence that follows, soft splashes sound below. Peering over the banister, I see the dark-green backs of great reptiles slithering toward us from every direction. Their wakes are like a starburst.
Elliott scans the line of trees and sets his jaw grimly.
The gunman fires again, shattering the window behind Elliott.
“April!” Elliott shouts, but she’s already firing. My ears ring.
Elliott pries the girl from the dead boy and shoves her up onto the sagging wooden stairs. Can crocodiles climb stairs?
The girl lets out a low wail, and then Kent is there, pulling her up and handing Elliott a gun. Elliott stands tall. He raises his hand in a half salute, half wave, mocking whoever just shot at him and missed.
“I can’t leave him,” the girl says, her voice clear in the sudden silence.
“He’s dead,” Elliott says, his eyes on the swamp.
“But—” Her gaze is frozen on the dead boy’s face. She’s straining against Kent’s grip. I know the broken look on her face all too well. April climbs down, stopping just above where Kent stands.
“Stay here,” I say to the children. Ignoring the pain in my shoulder, I crawl across the last few feet of roof to where the house has fallen away.
The broken timbers form a natural ladder, so at least I can climb down, without taking a leap like Elliott did. Will is standing at the first turn of the staircase. I move to pass him, but he puts his hand on my arm.
The girl is a thin little waif, but even streaked with swamp grime, she is lovely. Though the white mask covers most of her face, her big grief-stricken eyes are visible.
“Elliott, here.” I toss down my cloak, and he catches it with one hand. “Cover his face, and then get back up here!”
He catches the cloak but doesn’t indicate he heard my request or the urgency in my voice. “Show yourself!” he calls. I’m near enough to see that his eyes give lie to his calm demeanor. He’s scanning every possible hiding place in the swamp. His finger caresses the trigger of the gun.
April, now halfway down the staircase, has her own poised and ready. Will’s hand tightens on my arm, and Kent peers through his binoculars.
“Whoever is out there isn’t stupid. He’s not going to reveal himself. Araby is right. Get to the roof—move!” Kent pushes the girl up the staircase.
Elliott isn’t moving. It’s like he’s offering himself as a target.
April lists to the side, putting most of her weight on the banister.
No one else seems to realize how weak she is. My heart pounds in my ears. I try to call out, but my voice has faded to nothing.
April’s musket clatters down the stairs half a second before she collapses.
Elliott turns, and another gunshot tears across the swamp.
CHAPTER FIVE
I FINALLY FIND MY VOICE AND SCREAM. I LUNGE forward, but Will keeps me from diving down the stairs, holding me back from both April and Elliott. I’m not even sure who I’m trying to reach first.
April is lying on the stairway in a faint, and the surprise on Elliott’s face would be comical if his cheek weren’t covered in blood.
“Everyone get back to the airship,” Kent calls. “It just grazed him.”
Elliott raises his sleeve to his face, and his eyes blaze.
Will lifts April and carries her up the stairs. How will we hoist her up onto the roof?
The girl raises her hand, perhaps to beg us not to leave her friend here for the crocodiles, but no one is paying attention. Kent climbs up, and Will hands April to him. He has Elise and Henry in tow.
“Come with me,” I say to the girl. The look she gives me is far from grateful, but she obeys.
As we climb to the roof, Kent drops an ax to Elliott. He chops at the stairs, kicking the rotted wood down into the water.
Crocodiles swarm below, snapping at one another. The boy’s body has already disappeared. I pull the girl away from the edge so she can’t see, and then turn back in case Elliott needs help.
He kicks a last chunk of rotten wood down, onto the frenzy of crocodiles.
“I dare anyone, or anything, to try to climb up now.” He passes the ax back to Kent, just as another shot rings out.
Kent screams, and the ax falls.
“My hand,” he gasps.
I’m reaching for him, but Will is already there.
“It’s your wrist,” Will says. “It could be much worse.”
Kent’s face is white, and he’s cradling his arm. It’s the first time I’ve seen him upset. “I have to be able to steer the ship.”
By now Elliott has pulled himself up. He inspects Kent’s wrist. “Will’s right. We’ll clean and bandage it, and you’ll get us out of here. It’s going to be fine.”
The sun is setting behind the two chimneys where the airship is tethered. The girl stops when she sees it, her mouth falling open.
“You aren’t from here. You aren’t swamp dwellers.” She sounds relieved.
“Of course not,” April snaps. She’s sitting right inside the doorway of the cabin, fully alert now, and she waves the girl inside. “Do we look like people who live in a swamp?” Her dress is a dirty, torn mess, but the way April holds herself, no one would think she is from anywhere but the city. The upper city.
Outside, the boys prepare the ship to take off. Kent, cradling his wrist, snaps instructions that Will and Elliott hurry to follow.
“We were going to the palace,” the girl says. She produces a heavy embossed invitation from some hidden pocket. “He said that we’d be safe there.”
April reaches for the invitation, but then she must remember that this girl has been in contact with someone who just died of the Red Death, and she pulls her hand back.
“You’re a long way from there,” April says.
“We’d never left the city before,” the girl says in a whisper. “We weren’t even sure that it was real, the palace, and this party. . . .” The ruined dress that she is wearing was probably the finest thing she has ever owned.
“Where did you get the invitation?” April asks.
“They were being delivered in the city. People were killing each other for them . . . .” She stops speaking and looks up. Elliott stands in the doorway.
“We’re taking off,” he says. “As soon as Kent allows Will to bandage his wrist.” The place where the bullet grazed his cheek is only a thin trickle of blood now. Turning to the girl, he asks, “When did the man start chasing you?”
“This morning. We were trying to escape the swamp. But he kept shooting near our feet, forcing us deeper and deeper into it. Finally we saw the house and decided to try to make for it. ”
Elliott stays in the doorway, turned so that he can see the edges of the roof. I can hear the children’s voices from the interior cabin. They’ve gone inside with Thom. Will pushes past Elliott to get a bandage, and April begins to stand, but I put my hand on her arm. “He’s going to be fine.”
“This is what comes of mercy,” Elliott says, looking at Will. “The good reverend is drawing the most evil and cruel of our population to his side. It doesn’t bode well for anyone if he takes the city.”
It also doesn’t bode well for Elliott, since Malcontent wants to kill him.
Elliott doesn’t know that Malcontent is his father. I don’t know why I didn’t realize this before. I look down at April, but she shakes her head.
She must know that I will tell him. I have to tell him. Eventually.
His eyes fall on the girl, whose name, I realize, none of us have asked. “Is it safe to have her here?”
He’s looking to me, hoping I read something useful about the Red Death in Father’s journal.
“It spreads through air and fluids,” I say. “Just be careful. Keep your masks on, don’t drink after her. . . .” I don’t really know how contagious the disease is. I hope I’m not endangering all of us.
“I guess we’ll have to risk it.” He doesn’t sound happy. From the deck, Kent raises his hand to show Elliott that he’s stopped long enough for Will to bandage his wrist, and Elliott hurries out of the cabin to help.
April moves to recline on a cot that’s been brought from the sleeping cabin. The rest of us settle ourselves around the table in the center of the room.