He had worried that he wouldn’t be able to find the common, but there were signs aplenty and the walk was quite short. With the salty breath of the harbor to his left, he made his way to Salem Common, stopping only to pick up one more carved pumpkin.
The park seemed to be the only surviving section of the original settlement. Four-hundred-odd years had not struck Alastor as a particularly long time until he had seen the changes they had brought. The houses were wider, painted—something that, he noted, only the wealthiest could have afforded in the old days—and the roads wider, and painted with lines too. The first roar of the strange carriage—car—speeding past him had been enough to send him diving into the nearby shrubbery.
So this was the present, then. Loud, crowded, and altogether too clean. And not one bleeding spider to eat!
The trees in the common were cloaked in vibrant crimsons and golds, frosted with the cold night air. He claimed a seat on a nearby bench, the one closest to the magnificently reeking garbage canister so he might relish it, and set a still-sleeping Longsharp beside him.
The boy’s skin prickled, numbed as he lifted the first pumpkin and bit into its smooth skin. Chewing happily, Alastor glanced up, searching for the moon through the overhead branches, trying to figure out the time of night. He knew it was most likely past the witching hour, but was still surprised there were no fiends out prowling. Surely there were errands that needed to be run. Imps sent out to gather the bones from cemeteries for their masters and mistresses, the shivering white light of a fetch sent to warn a human of a loved one’s death. There was not even a goblin running his mischief.
Well. He had bigger concerns on his mind. The whole truth of it was this: He had not gone out that night only to see how Salem had done for itself. He had not gone just to find an escape route back to Redhood either. He needed fresh night air.
He needed to think.
Alastor needed to figure out which of his wretched siblings had helped the Reddings break their contract with him. Which of them had revealed his true name to Honor Redding.
He’d nearly given up his own shade when the boy had asked about the names of fiends. He pulled his cape tighter around the maggot’s shoulders, his pitifully thin skin. How dangerously close he’d come to revealing the one way a Malefactor could be controlled…and how foolish the boy had been to not put the matter together.
Cheered by that last thought, he used the boy’s teeth to gnaw on the remainder of the pumpkin before turning to the next, smaller one. Soon enough, the human’s belly was distended, and Alastor himself was finally full. He belched, interrupting the twittering of small creatures in the trees overhead, impatient for morning.
He leaned back against the wet wood bench and considered them. Downstairs, in his own land, he might have looked up and seen those pernicious little faeries chirping in the branches. Or brainless golems taking their halting steps down the crooked cobblestone streets running errands for their masters. The animals of this world were…cuddlier.
For one brief, terrible moment, Alastor allowed himself to wonder if his own realm had been as altered by time as the human realm had. Even fiends were not immune to changing tastes and improvements. Would the buildings still be made of shining black stones? Would they still lean, like hunched shoulders, over the already crowded streets? Were the souls he had already collected still there, serving his father, the king?
Other questions came flooding in. Had one of his five brothers taken the throne that was rightfully his? He was the first son, but his younger brother Bune, the one born only a few years after Alastor, had always eyed their father’s throne with eyes that gleamed like fire. Surely he was behind this, but how had he learned Alastor’s true, secret name, and why had he betrayed his own kin to the humans?
“Thou knowest why,” he muttered. It was no different from what Alastor himself would do, were he second in line to the throne of Downstairs. Kill the heir, so he was no longer the spare.
“I will crack thy toes,” he swore, “and make boots of thy intestines.”
Was his precious young sister still Downstairs, or had they sent her up to begin her own Collection? He sighed, unable to picture it. Bune and his three other brothers had tormented her, sliced at her every nerve, clawed at her honor, and haunted her courage. All because she could not manifest an animal form, and therefore could not travel into the human realm. His own, the fox, was said to represent cleverness, as much as Bune’s great, snarling cat was strength.
It was the greatest of all disappointments to have a malefactor without an animal form in one’s bloodline, because it spoke of a flaw. It was so dishonorable, so shameful, Pyra, and all malefactors like her, were locked away to save the families from disgrace.
But Alastor knew Pyra’s situation was like an eclipse. Soon the darkness that shadowed her life in the tower would pass, and she would find that small glowing part of her shade that could transform, that could show to all realms her gifts. Perhaps it already had, and she walked among humans now, forming contracts, collecting human shades.
The idea of Pyra dealing with the ruckus and danger of the human world made him feel as hollow as the boy’s limp, useless arm.
Finished with his meal, Alastor made the boy stand and flung his makeshift cape out behind him. Before he could take another step, something bright—something strikingly orange—caught his eye.
Near the edge of the silver, chalky path was the finest hat he’d ever laid his eyes upon. Its base was square, but from it rose a beautiful, dirt-splattered cone, rising to a magnificent point. Left, for anyone to find.
Left for him, as if by fate!
He was surprised to find that its coating felt so very…waxy, like a dead man’s skin. The weight of it too was surprising, as was the rather large hole at its base. The boy had a tiny head to match his tiny brain, it seemed. As long as the boy’s puny neck was strong enough to bear its magnificence, he would wear it with pride.
Alastor easily balanced it as he carried Longsharp to the other side of the street, crossing into a narrow brick lane—some sort of promenade? There were few like this Downstairs, strips of shops where one might buy wares and goods. That, at least, held true here. The moon was high and bright enough that he could even catch a hint of his reflection in the nearest window.
“Mortal fools,” he scoffed, admiring himself in his new cap and cape.
Then, before he could accidentally summon another fiend, the way he had the hag, he moved on to the next shop, which displayed crates of hideously bright sweets.
It was something of a strange coincidence that he smelled it then. The boy’s nose was inferior to his own, but the wind was fierce that night, prowling up and down the streets, stirring up memories and old dust. The fallen leaves suddenly swirled around him, rising toward the moon. It picked up traces of the hob’s delightful vinegar smell and swirled them straight to Alastor.