The men began clomping heavily in Will’s direction. Any second now, they would see him, and Will would be dragged off to some factory, to be beaten and mistreated and probably told he was useless, just as he had been at the alchemist’s. In desperation, Will swung himself onto the cart, lifted the heavy canvas tarp that was covering its load, and slipped underneath, at precisely the moment the men once again came into view.
Underneath the tarp it was dark and warm. Will closed his eyes, lay very still, and prayed.
For a moment there was the sound of shuffling boots, and some confused murmurs. Then the first man said, “Well, I’ll be dagged. I coulda swore I heard somethin’.”
“Probably a rat.”
“Don’t be stupid. A rat’s got no footsteps.”
“I’ve seen rats in your factory so big, it’s a miracle they don’t got boots and a pocket watch.”
“Oh, yeah . . . ? At least my wife don’t put rats in the stew when meat’s running low. . . .”
“That’s cuz you don’t got a wife. . . .”
The men’s voices grew more remote. Will allowed himself a small sigh of relief. They were walking away. When he could no longer hear them, he opened his eyes.
And found himself staring at the girl from the attic.
He started to cry out, but she brought a finger quickly to her lips and shook her head, and he swallowed back the sound.
At that moment, the cart gave a tremendous, lurching movement forward, and Will heard someone saying, “Whoa, girl, whoa. Give me a second, give me a second. We’ll be on our way in no time.” Will assumed this was the driver, speaking to the donkey, and he was right. Boots scraped up at the front of the carriage; a leather whip slapped against the side of the cart; the man said, “Okay, thatta girl, nice and easy”; and the cart began lurching noisily forward.
Finally Will thought it safe to speak. “What—what—what are you doing here?”
“Stowing away,” the girl said placidly. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Stowaways are on boats,” Will couldn’t help but point out.
“Well, hitching a ride, then. We need to go west. This cart is going west. I heard the men saying so. So we got in.”
Will was not sure whether the girl from the attic had recognized him or not. She showed no signs of being inclined to run away. Of course, perhaps that was because she was trapped underneath a tarp, on a moving cart, surrounded by . . . Will squinted, trying to make out the wooden forms all around him, jostling in the darkness. His stomach squirmed. Coffins. They were surrounded by wooden coffins. Will hoped they were empty.
The girl-no-longer-in-the-attic was sitting in a narrow space between coffins, holding the box on her lap. It looked, Will thought, awfully like the kind of box the alchemist had used to transport magic, but he put the thought out of his mind. He would not think about the alchemist again, now or ever.
He lowered himself into the narrow space next to her. The girl’s eyes appeared to flit briefly to the empty air immediately to his left, and she stifled a giggle.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She bit her lip. “You nearly squashed them, that’s all. But I don’t suppose they can be squashed, really, so it’s all right.”
Will was confused. They were all alone in the cart; unless the coffins really were full of dead people, an idea that made him sick just to think of. “Squashed who?”
She opened her mouth, seemed about to say something, but instead just shook her head.
Perhaps it was as the woman with the cane said: Perhaps the girl really was mad as a hatter. He did not know whether the idea made him nervous or just sad. “Why did you run away from me before?” he asked, as a test.
The girl squinted at him for a second. Briefly, a look of alarm passed over her face. “You’re the boy I saw at the train station,” she said, recognizing him for the first time. “You were with the policeman and the old woman.”
“I wasn’t with them,” Will said irritably.
“Well, I thought you were,” the girl said. “That’s why I ran. They tried to have me arrested.” She squinted at him again and said suspiciously, “If you’re not with the police, then how come you’re following me?”
“I’m not following you,” Will said, and then in his head added, not exactly. He thought the girl seemed sane enough, even if she did have imaginary friends, and decided to be honest. “I’m a runaway,” he said. “I’ve got nowhere to go.”
The girl’s face lit up. “We’re runaways too! We’ve got no home at all anymore. Well, I suppose they’ve never really had a home—not for the longest time, anyway. I wouldn’t say the Other Side counts.”
“The Other Side?” Will was confused again. “What are you talking about? And who’s ‘they’?”