The Ever Breath by Julianna Baggott Read Free Book Online Page B

leaf, but not as hard as a bone. He shuddered and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to know what it was. He kept on going, and when he reached the mouth of the tunnel, he held tight to the snow globe and kept crawling forward.
    The tunnel went on, and Truman wondered how long it was. What if it didn’t
have
an ending? He started to feel confined, a little claustrophobic. Was the tunnel getting tighter?
    Finally, he saw a distant light. He crawled faster. His hand patted the dirt until he found one root and then another and another. He climbed the roots as if they were a ladder. And when he popped his head out of the tunnel, he saw two cat eyes, peering at him from a small, dimly lit room.
    But it was not a cat—or not completely—because, as it reached forward to help him from the hole, it offered its pale little
human
hand.

CHAPTER NINE
The Breath World?
    Truman stood in the small, dimly lit room. Everything was blurry, as if the room were underwater. There were strange catlike creatures weaving around his ankles, sniffing at the hems of his pajama pants, nosing his bare feet. There had to be a hundred of them at least. He was looking for the cat who’d led him here, an indistinct, furred black form, but now he couldn’t tell one from the next—and these obviously weren’t just cats. The creatures padded around on their back paws and human hands, and when they looked at Truman, they seemed to understand more than a cat would, though he wasn’t sure what made him think that, exactly. They were all making soft mewling noises in the backs of their throats.
    Truman looked around at the room. A potbelly stove, a tiny stone sink, cupboards, a square table with one lonely chair, a lantern sitting on the windowsill, a small bed stacked with quilts. He thought of Camille’s snow globe with the little hut inside it and the woman peeking out the window. The room looked how he imagined the inside of the hut to be.And the snow globe woman had cats on her shoulders. Could … could this be the same hut?
    He looked over at one of the creatures, poised on the table, who’d picked up a piece of deep red fruit the size of a mandarin orange, and watched it peel the fruit open, just the way Truman would—first digging in a thumbnail and then pulling away the rind like bits of thick leather. Truman pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, hoping things would be clearer. But it didn’t help. The animal cocked its head and stared at Truman as if they knew each other.
    “Were you the one calling to me in the snow?” Truman asked finally.
    The animal nodded and held the fruit up, offering him some.
    “No, thanks,” Truman said, not sure what to make of any of this. “Are you all cats?”
    The mewler nibbled the fruit in its hands. “Mewlersss,” it hissed, and the others echoed, “Mewlersss, mewlersss, mewlersss…”
    “Mewlers?” Truman said, trying the word out. Could these mewlers be the kind of creatures that were kicked out of the Fixed World? If they were, then could this really be the Breath World itself, the one from his grandmother’s story?
    Behind the potbelly stove there were three mewlers knitting. Each had a ball of blue yarn and needles. They seemed to be making woolen hats.
    “Hey,” Truman said to the mewler eating the fruit, “my grandmother has one of those hats.”
    “Hatsss, hatsss,” one of the knitting mewlers hissed,and the other knitting mewlers repeated, “Hatsss, hatsss, hatsss …”
    Just then, Truman heard a buzz, and three large flying bugs zipped past his face. Their wings sounded electric. One of the mewlers leapt from the table onto Truman’s shoulder, trying to swipe at the bugs in midair. Instead the mewler hit Truman’s glasses and sent them flying across the room. Truman groaned, but when he looked around, everything came into sharp focus—without his glasses on.
    He was stunned. He took a moment to drink in the room with real clarity. But then another mewler leapt right on