“Who were they?” No? asked. “I bet they were here to rescue us. We just need a person to come along—any person will do—as long as they are willing to lead the way.”
Kay stroked her arm and smiled at her. “You don’t suppose they made it inside before they were caught?”
“Could be. There is only one way to be sure that it is still locked,” the Good Fairy said. “But we must get by the Queen and Mr. Firkin.”
“We’ll need a diversion,” Kay said. “Something that will keep their attention while we slip off and check the front door.”
“If I had a match,” No? said, “I could start a fire—”
“Don’t even joke,” the Good Fairy said, holding up the kindling of her arms. “It doesn’t have to be serious, just enough so they won’t notice we are missing. We’ll be there and back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
A new idea hatched in No?’s addled brain. Fetching a length of rope coiled on the floor beside the corncrib, she twisted a noose in one end and measured out the remaining length. With a quick toss, she flung it over the crossbeam and tied it off to a rail on the stall. Masha and Irina watched silently, wallowing too deep in their own ennui to stop her or utter a warning. Climbing into position, No? balanced on the rail. Taking care not to muss her new straw hair, she slipped the noose over her head and tightened the knot against her neck. Nodding once to Kay and the Good Fairy, she sighed as loudly as she could. When no one took notice, she cleared her throat and clapped her hands three times.
“If in this world I cannot be free, then I cannot stay in this world,” she announced.
“Get down from there at once,” Mr. Firkin hollered as soon as he had spotted her. “No, wait…”
The Russians shook off their slumber and got to their feet. Nix dropped a ball, which rolled across the room, setting the little dog in motion, which startled the Old Hag. The Queen, anxious over this unscheduled execution, charged to confront her. Seeing their chance, Kay and the Good Fairy darted out of the room in the commotion. No? had launched into a political diatribe, venting her long frustration in a fit of oratory.
They rounded the corner into a small vestibule that served as the entrance to the museum. The room was brightened by moonlight streaming in through an octagonal porthole inset above the outer doors. Atop a rickety table stood a tin coffee can with “Donations Welcome” taped to the surface. Next to the can was a guest book with handwritten entries: The Millers from Woodstock found it “spooky.” Andi und Christian Ludwig from Ulm, Germany, wrote “fantastisch” and “never seens anything like it.” Along the opposite wall, bins filled with silk-screened posters from past shows were available for a few dollars each. The room as a whole produced an odd stereophonic effect. The stray voices in the other rooms were louder, but they could also hear the Worm crawling about in the chamber below, grumbling to itself, as well as their comrades in the stalls raising a ruckus over No?’s admonitions.
“You don’t think she’d really go through with it?” Kay mimed the pulling of the noose, the snap of the neck, the loll of the tongue.
“I doubt it. But what if she did? The worst that could happen is that her stitches give and her head pops off. We’d simply have to sew it on again.”
Offset from the center of the room, the great doors loomed. A wooden bar laid horizontally across the frame was braced against a metal clip, and they knew at once that nobody could have entered past that barrier. Whoever had locked it must have used a separate exit, perhaps the subterranean one guarded by the Worm. Directly opposite was a stairway that led to the basement, but the door to it, too, was shut tight. The visitors from that afternoon must have gone home disappointed.
The temptation proved too great. Kay asked, “Shall we?”