It would be, he fantasized, the payload he had been waiting for his whole life, since he had lain in his narrow cot as a young boy in Howard’s Glen, next to his pushy and pinchy older sister, and dreamed of someday having money to buy an enormous house of his own, and money to bathe in, and money to roll between his fingers. Money to burn and waste and hoard and love!
He moved silently across the barn. Not even the bats, sleeping in the rafters, were disturbed by his progress. As always, his heart was beating rapidly—not from nerves, because he had years of practice and was excellent at what he did—but from pleasure and excitement.
Closer, closer, closer. Finally he stood just beside the two slumbering forms, each folded like twin commas. Slowly—moving inch by inch now—he knelt to the ground and removed from his overcoat the small rectangular wooden box he had stolen from Mrs. Snout’s pantry, which contained a load of potato flour. He allowed himself another small smile. It was, as he expected, almost exactly the same dimensions as the girl’s box, and roughly the same weight, which meant that with any luck he would be miles and miles away before she noticed the substitution.
He tucked the jewelry box carefully under his arm and left the box filled with flour in its place, barely concealing a chuckle of glee. It was really so easy . . . almost too easy. . . .
Then Sticky slipped back across the barn and out into the night. Liesl slept; Will slept; the bats slept. Everyone slept, it seemed, but for the black-haired thief who moved through the streets of Gainsville quickly and with purpose, carrying (though he did not know it, of course) the greatest magic in all the world.
Some time later, Po and Bundle squeezed through a narrow opening in the folds between worlds and re-entered the Living Side. Po was surprised to find that outside, the edges of the sky were lightening. They had been gone for longer than the ghost had anticipated.
At that moment, Liesl stirred. She sat up, rubbing her eyes and blinking.
“Is it time to get up?” she asked, her voice still thick with sleep. Next to her, Will groaned.
“Yes,” Po said.
Liesl yawned broadly. “Poor Po,” she said. “You must get so bored, just sitting there watching us all night.”
Po felt another foreign twinge (guilt was the word, only recovered that instant). “It’s not too bad,” the ghost said vaguely.
“Po can’t sit down, anyway,” Will said, raising himself onto both elbows. His hair was sticking up most ridiculously. “Can you, Po? You don’t have legs to fold or a bottom to sit on.”
Po did not dignify Will’s comment with a response. Instead it just flitted to the window and said, “We should go.”
Po had debated telling Liesl it had gone to the Other Side, but Will’s comment made the ghost decide firmly against it.
Besides, Po thought, the box was clearly sitting right next to her, and no harm had been done.
In its mind, Bundle went, Mwark.
Chapter Twenty-One
THE WAY OUT OF GAINSVILLE WAS BARE AND bleak, though it must once have been less so. On either side of the narrow dirt road, bald brown fields extended toward the horizon. Most of the farms had been abandoned years ago, and nothing looked familiar to Liesl.
The rain, at least, had stopped, and it was slightly warmer than it had been for some time, so both Liesl and Will were able to unbutton their coats. Still, it was slow going, especially when the road began to wind up into the foothills. Here the path became less clear. For long stretches it disappeared altogether, and Bundle and Po had to float on ahead and come back and report the correct way, so that Liesl and Will would not exhaust themselves tracing and retracing their steps.
Everyone’s temper ran short.
“I swear,” Liesl said for the hundredth time, pausing to wipe sweat off her brow, “this box is heavier than it was yesterday.”
“If you would let me carry it . . . ,” Will said, also for the hundredth time.
“No!” Liesl said sharply.
Will muttered something under his breath and went on ahead.
“What did you say?” Liesl’s heart was beating very fast.
“I said it’s loony!” Will cried out, turning back to her. “This whole trip is loony!” And then, frustrated, he kicked a very large stone to his left. Pain shot through his toes and he began hopping up and down. “We’ve been walking all day and we’re not getting anywhere. I’ve passed this rock twenty times in the past two hours, I’d swear to it!”
“Are you questioning my capacity to navigate?” Po asked coldly, and Bundle made a noise somewhere between a growl and a hiss.
“I’m sorry if I’m not particularly inclined to believe a ghost. Probably just bringing us out here to kill us.”
“So I could spend eternity in your delightful company? I don’t think so.”
“Stop it, stop it, stop it!” Liesl cried out, so loudly that Will and Po did, in fact, stop it. She sank to the ground. “It’s no use,” she said. “We’ll never make it. We don’t know where we are; we don’t know the way. And you two are fighting. It’s horrible. I can’t stand it.” A tear slid down her cheek to the very tip of her chin.