Will knew that the furnace was used for burning bodies, but still, he found it kind of pretty . . . ribbons of blue and red and white, twisting beyond the grate . . . colors you never saw anymore. . . . His eyes became heavy and his head began to nod forward on his neck. It had been a long night.
Then Will was climbing up a long silk braid of hair, woven with multicolored strands. He was climbing into the sky, where a steam-engine train was waiting, engine chugging, puffing out smoke that blended with the clouds. Strangely, the train had wings—great big feathery wings, like the wings of an enormous bird. The train was painted in bright colors, many of which Will did not have a name for; and in one of the windows he saw the girl from 31 Highland Avenue, looking out at him and waving. She was saying something to him—she was calling his name? No. She was telling him her name . . . Amanda . . . or Amen . . . or . . .
“Ahem.”
Will woke with a start and found Mr. Gray looking at him, holding a small canvas sack from which various paper-wrapped objects were protruding.
“Here.” Mr. Gray extended the sack to Will. “I did the best I could. Tell Merv”—that was the alchemist’s name, which no one but Mr. Gray ever used—“that I had absolutely no chicken heads to give him. Mrs. Finnegan came by yesterday and cleaned me out entirely. She was making soup.”
“Mmmkay.” Will got clumsily to his feet. His body felt heavy all over, and he was groggy from sleep and the sudden, rude awakening from his dream. He took the bag from Mr. Gray and slung it over one shoulder. From its depths came the smell of dried fish and other sour things. He took the wooden box from the table. It felt even heavier than it had earlier in the night. “Thank you.”
“Until next time,” Mr. Gray said, and was relieved when the boy tottered out of the door with his bag and his box. Really, just like a jellyfish, he thought disapprovingly; all pale and wiggly-looking, like he could squirm away from you quickly. Children in general, Mr. Gray thought, were incredibly inconvenient. Someday he hoped the world could be rid of them altogether. Perhaps he could ask the mayor . . . ?
Another shake of his head, and a sigh. No, no. It wouldn’t do. That was life: You were born, you were a child, then you grew and you died. Even Mr. Gray had been a child once, though he hardly remembered it—and even then he had always worn the same somber black suits, and neckties every day. Even his first-grade teacher had called him Mr. Gray.
The alchemist’s assistant’s visit had distracted him, and for a moment he stood in the middle of the room, trying to recall what he had been doing before the interruption. Oh, yes! Looking for a suitable container for Mr. Smith’s remains. He went back to rummaging under the sink and eventually came out with an empty canister of coffee.
It was all very strange, Mr. Gray thought, as he wiped the coffee canister clean with a sponge. Very, very mysterious. You were born; you lived a whole life; and at the end, you wound up in a coffee container.
“Ah, well,” he said out loud quietly. “That’s just the way things are. Life’s a funny business.” Death, he supposed, was the punch line.
On the cramped wooden table the very powerful magic sitting in a small wooden chest that looked almost exactly like the late Mrs. Gray’s jewelry box let off a sparkle, a minute flash of light. But Mr. Gray had his back toward the table and did not see.
And outside, in the dark maze of sleeping streets, the alchemist’s assistant scuttled off toward the Lady Premiere carrying a wooden jewelry box filled with the mortal remains of Liesl Morbower’s father.
Coincidences; mix-ups; harmless mistakes and switches. And so a story is born.
What Mr. Gray had said was true: Life is a very funny business indeed.
Chapter Four
THE NIGHT AFTER LIESL FIRST SAW THE GHOST and the ghost-pet, they appeared again. But this time she was waiting for them.
“Did you find out? Did you see him? Is he on the Other Side?” she asked breathlessly, as soon as she saw Po flickering in the corner of the room.
“Turn off the light, please,” Po said. Po liked the light—it craved the light, to be honest, since the Other Side was in darkness all the time—but it was no longer used to it. And it was one thing to see the bright glow of the lamp from the Other Side. By the time it reached Po there, it had been filtered through layers and layers of existence, like sunlight getting bent and pale through water.
It was quite another thing to step into the Living Side, and see the light full-on, with its blare and glare.
Po did not really have eyes anymore, nor did it really have a head to host a headache; but standing in the light made something tremble and ache inside of it.
Liesl was impatient to hear news of her father, but she stood up and moved to the lamp and extinguished it. Strangely, she could see Po and Bundle better in the dark. Their forms seemed clearer and more solid. In the light they had looked like skating shadows at the edges of her vision; when she tried to focus on them, they dissolved.