Tick, Sofia, and Paul paused. But then they followed.
Sally led them through a small trapdoor and down a very long and steep set of wooden stairs, which looked out of place amidst all the surrounding metal. The way was dark and hot, humid and reeking of something rotten. Tick felt more nervous by the second, worried they were walking into a trap, but he didn’t know what else to do. Where could they go? Who could they trust?
For now, Sally was their only friend in the world. This world, anyway.
They reached the bottom of the stairs and proceeded down a long hallway, their surroundings remaining unchanged. A faint light from ahead revealed black water seeping down the wooden walls. A rat scurried by Tick’s foot; he barely stopped himself from crying out like the startled maid in an old cartoon.
Sally finally stopped next to a warped door of splintered wood, an iron handle barely hanging on. “Prepare dem hearts a’yorn,” he said. “This place ain’t like none such you ever saw.” He pushed the door, and everyone watched as it swung outward, creaking loudly.
“Follow Uncle Sally and you chirrun might live another day or two.” He stepped through the doorway.
Sofia went first, then Paul, then Tick. For the next several minutes, Tick felt as if his brain might explode from taking in the completely alien place.
Stretching before them, below them, above them, was an endless world of chaos. Long rows of roughly cobbled pathways ran in every direction, with no pattern or regularity. Shops and inns and pubs crowded close on all sides. Hundreds of people bustled about. Dirty, ripped awnings hung over the places of business, wooden signs dangling from chains. On these signs were printed the only means of distinguishing one building from another—their names carved and painted onto the wood. Places called such things as The Axeman’s Guild and The Darkhorse Inn and The Sordid Swine.
Some of the pathways were actually bridges, and Tick could see the levels below, overlapping and seemingly built on top of each other. The same was true above them, balconies and bridges spanning every direction, up and up and up until Tick saw the black roof that covered everything. The ceiling was filled with small rectangles of fluorescent lights, half of which were flickering or burned out altogether.
It was the universe’s worst mall.
Paul leaned over and whispered to Tick, “Dude, check these people out.”
Tick focused on the occupants of the enormous indoor town. Most of them slumped along, barely speaking to each other, many with hunched shoulders or an odd limp. Black seemed to be the color of choice for their clothes, everyone wearing drab and dirty garments with rips and tears aplenty. The people’s faces were dirty too, with disheveled, greasy hair. The only spots of color were an occasional red scarf or green shawl or yellow vest, worn by those who seemed to walk with a little more confidence than the others.
And the smell—it was like a port-a-potty dumping ground, a foul, putrid stench that made Tick gag reflexively every few seconds until he grew somewhat used to it.
“Sally,” Sofia coughed, “I think we were better off on the Roofens.”
“Quit yer poutin’ and come on,” Sally replied, shuffling off to the right.
Tick and the others followed, dodging through the lazy crowd of sullen, black-clad residents, who seemed to be marching toward their destinations with no purpose whatsoever. Tick didn’t see one person smiling. For that matter, none of them showed emotion at all—not a sneer, not a grimace, not a frown to be found.
“We’ve gotta get out of here,” Tick whispered, scared to offend anyone around him but feeling a surge of panic well up inside him. He didn’t know how much longer he could last in this horrible place. “We need to solve that riddle, quick.”
“No kidding,” Paul said. “I’ve just about had my fill of Happy Town.”
“It’s not just that,” Tick said, still speaking quietly. “Something’s not right here—it’s not safe.”
Sally moved them to the side of their current path, next to a small iron table outside a restaurant called The Stinky Stew.
“Have’n yerselves a seat on dem cheers.” He pointed to the four crooked wooden chairs surrounding the table. “I’ll be back with some eats.”
As their guide entered the restaurant, a rusty bell ringing with the movement of the door, Tick and the others pulled out the chairs and sat down. Tick eyeballed the people walking by, looking for potential trouble. Seeing nothing but the unchanging mass of zombie-like shoppers, he said to Sofia, “Get the riddle out.”
Sofia did, putting the paper on the table in front of her. Tick and Paul scooted their chairs across the uneven stones of the floor until they could see the words of the long poem.
Inside the words of the words inside,
There lies a secret to unhide.
A place there is where you must go,
To meet the Seven, friend or foe . . .
Tick read through the whole thing, then sat back in his chair, racking his brain. The poem seemed to offer no direction, nothing specific to grasp onto. At least the Twelve Clues had made it pretty clear that he was to figure out a date, a time, the magic words. This was a bunch of poetic nonsense.
Sofia flipped the page over where the second note was printed. “Who are Anna and Miss Graham?”
Paul leaned onto his elbows, resting them on the table. “Do you think it’s the same person?”
“Maybe,” Sofia replied. “We should start asking around here—see if anyone’s heard of her.”
“That’s the only thing I can think of,” Paul said. He stood up, almost knocking his chair backward.
“What are you doing?” Tick asked.
“Asking around, dude.” He reached out and tapped the arm of the first stranger to walk by, an older woman in a filthy black dress, her gray hair sprawled across her shoulders in greasy strings. “Excuse me, ma’am, do you know who Anna Graham is?”
The old lady recoiled, barely casting a glance at Paul before quickening her step to get away. He didn’t give up, tapping the next person, then the next, then the next, each time repeating his question. And the response was the same each time—a flinch, as if the name frightened them.
“Dudes, we don’t have leprosy, ya know?” Paul called out. Cupping his hands together, he shouted in an even louder voice, “Does anyone here know Miss Anna Graham?” The sounds of shuffling feet were all he got in return.
Sitting down with a huff, Paul shook his head. “This is ridiculous. What’s wrong with these people?”
Tick’s thoughts had wandered slightly. Something about Anna’s name bothered him, tickled something in the back of his mind. Miss Graham. Anna. Anna Graham.
“This phrase has to be the key,” Sofia said suddenly, pointing at the lines near the end of the poem: “All this you must ignore and hate, for you to find the wanted fate.”
“Yeah, I thought the same thing,” Tick said.
“Maybe it means—” Sofia began, but stopped when Sally came bustling outside, clanging the door against the wall with his elbows as he balanced several plates and bowls heaped with steaming food.
“As promised,” he said, setting the meal on the table. He almost dropped one plate onto the ground, but Paul caught it and pushed it to safety. “Grab yer grub and eat. I’m as hungry as a one-legged possum caught in a dang ol’ bear trap.”
Sally sat down in the remaining chair and picked up his food with his hands; there wasn’t a utensil in sight. Tick couldn’t believe how delicious everything looked—chicken legs thick with meat, slabs of beef, celery and carrots, chunks of bread, sausages. It was so unexpectedly appetizing; he’d half-expected Sally to bring out a trash can full of fly-infested garbage.
Paul was the first to join in, then Sofia, both of them grabbing a roasted drumstick and chowing down.
“This ain’t bad,” Paul said with a full mouth, throwing his manners out the window. “Tastes a little stale and smoky, but it’s pretty good.”
Tick reached over and grabbed his own piece of chicken and a roll. Paul was right—it tasted a little old, even a little dirty, but it was like Thanksgiving dinner all the same—and Tick was starving. No one said a word as they munched and chewed and chomped their way through every last morsel of food.
Tick had just sat back, rubbing his belly in satisfaction, when a young boy in a dark suit stepped up to their table and cleared his throat. His dirty blond hair framed a face smeared with grime, and his eyes were wide, as if he was scared to death.
“Whatcha want?” Sally asked, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “What’s yer bid’ness, son?”
The boy swallowed, rocking back and forth on his feet, glancing over his shoulder now and again. But he said nothing.
“Got some dadgum cotton in dem ears, son?” Sally asked. “I say, what’s yer bid’ness?”
The boy’s arm slowly raised, his index finger extended. One by one, he pointed at the four people sitting at the table. Then he spoke in a weak, high-pitched voice full of fear.
“The Master . . . told me to . . . he said . . . he said you’ll all be dead in five minutes.”
Chapter
12
Long, Spindly Legs
All four of them stood up in the same instant; this time, Paul’s chair did fall over with a rattling clang.
“What kinda nonsense you talkin’?” Sally asked.
The boy looked up at him, his face growing impossibly paler; then he turned and ran, disappearing in the dense crowd of mulling citizens.
“What was that?” Paul said.
“The riddle,” Tick said, leaning over and twisting the paper from Master George toward him. “We have to solve the riddle. Now.”
“Yeah, that’ll be extra easy knowing we’re about to die,” Paul said.
“Quit whining and think,” Sofia said, joining Tick to study the poem.
Tick tried to focus, reading the words through and then closing his eyes, letting them float through his mind, sorting them out. He thought of the lady’s name, Miss Anna Graham . . .
Sofia spoke up, breaking his concentration. “The part about ignoring everything else—it must mean the two lines after it are all that matters—the last two lines. The rest of it seems like nonsense anyway . . . but . . . ‘There lies a secret to unhide . . . ’”
“‘Inside the words of the words inside,’” Tick finished for her.
“What is that?” Paul said, his neck bent back as he looked up at the ceiling.
Tick ignored him, staring at the last two lines of the poem as if doing so would make them rearrange themselves. Rearrange . . .
Paul slapped Tick on the shoulder, then Sofia, who was also ignoring him. “Guys, cut the poetry lesson for a second and look.” He pointed upward.
Far above, odd shapes crawled across the black roof, defying gravity and blotting out the sputtering lights as they moved around. Impossible to make out clearly, the . . . things were squat and round with several long, angled limbs that moved up and down rapidly, bending and unbending as they scuttled about. They looked like big spiders, but false somehow—artificial. As if their legs were made out of . . .