Will forced a laugh. “Me and Po weren’t fighting. We were just, um, joking around. Weren’t we, Po?”
“What is joking?” Po asked, but seeing the way Will glared, quickly said, “Oh, yes. Yes. Joking.”
Liesl wiped her nose on the cuff of her jacket. “Really?” She sniffed.
Will nodded vigorously, and the ghost flickered its agreement. Both were desperately uncomfortable, and unhappy because Liesl was unhappy. Above all, they wished—fervently, more than anything—that a second tear would not follow the first, as neither had any experience with a crying girl.
Only Bundle went to her and wrapped its Essence as close to hers as possible, so that in her soul she felt a comforting warmth. She wiped the tear from her chin with her forearm.
Will felt encouraged to speak again. “Er—it’ll be all right, Liesl,” he said, feeling horribly awkward. “We’ll get there. You’ll see.”
Just then a terrible, shrill scream echoed up through the hills. Liesl gasped and nearly dropped the wooden box. Will jumped, and even Po flashed momentarily to the Other Side, reappearing a second later.
“What was that?” Liesl asked. Instantly she forgot about the difficult way ahead, and the fact that Po and Will had been fighting.
“Sounded like a wolf or something,” Will said uncertainly. He had never actually heard a wolf, but he imagined they would howl like that.
“We must move on,” Po said. “It will be dark soon.”
Liesl climbed heavily to her feet. Every one of her muscles ached. And this time, when Will reached out and said, “Here, let me,” she passed him the box.
“Don’t drop it,” she said.
“Never.”
“Swear?”
He made an X over his heart.
They walked on.
Chapter Twenty-Two
THE TERRIBLE SCREAM THAT HAD SO STARTLED Liesl and her friends did not come from a wolf.
It came from Sticky, who had at that moment—having finally reached an area he felt was sufficiently remote—lowered the wooden box to the ground with eager, trembling fingers, and unlatched it.
How to describe his fury—his outrage—his pure and searing disappointment—when instead of piles of rubies and strands of pearls and little, clinking rings—he had instead beheld a pile of dust, of nothing, of worthlessness? (For so the magic looked to him—like dust.)
There is no way to describe his feelings at that moment. Even he could not describe them, which was why, instead, he screamed: a great, long howl, which carried up all the way into the hills.
Had Sticky taken the time to examine the contents of the box more closely, he might have noticed some interesting and unusual features of the substance that, at first glance, appeared to be dust. He might have noticed the very slight way it shimmered, almost as if it was moving and shifting ever so slightly. He might have noticed, too, that from certain angles it appeared to shine, just like the long-missing sun, and that it was not a uniform dark gray color, but a hundred different colors all at once—blue and purple and red and green.
But he did not look more closely. Enraged, he drew his leg back and gave the box a quick, hard kick. The box flew several feet and landed heavily with a large crack. Sticky noticed with satisfaction that the latch had broken off and the box had sprung open.
Then something occurred to him: The girl had made a fool of him. She had known, somehow, that he was after the jewelry, and so had replaced it with a box full of dust before sleeping. Yes, yes; it must be so. She believed she could outwit him.
The idea was like a deliverance. The jewelry existed—it must exist. The future that Sticky had dreamed of for himself all those years ago was still within reach. (And how he would take revenge on that snipe-y, snoopy sister of his once he was rich! He would track her down, wherever she was, and make her pay for every time she had pulled his ears, and pinched his elbows, and called him a worm!)
Sticky remembered that the girl had asked the way to the Red House, and so he set off in that direction. This time, there would be no midnight sneaking. This time, he would have the girl’s riches, even if he had to pry them from her cold, dead fingers.
Sticky smiled.
The magic—now exposed to the air—spilled from the box onto the ground. Slowly, very slowly, encouraged by the wind, it began skipping and spreading over the surface of the world.
Chapter Twenty-Three
EVENTUALLY THE IMPERFECT PATH THAT LIESL, Will, Po, and Bundle followed began to wind down and out of the hills. The stars were smoldering behind a thin covering of clouds by the time they were at last on flat ground. By then the path had disappeared. All around them were dark, bare fields; and in the distance, a house, with candles burning brightly in its windows.