Читать книгу Eldritch Manor 3-Book Bundle - Kim Thompson - Страница 8

In the ordinary everyday, one question at a time

Willa returned to work, doing the same chores plus new ones, since she now had to clean and tidy the entire house. She didn’t mind in the least. The extra pay of a real full-time job made her parents very proud. The mood at home became much more relaxed, which was great. No more talk about “money worries.”

Willa’s days at the boarding house changed from quiet to boisterous. Everyone could now go about as they pleased while Willa was there. They bickered in the parlour, pestered Baz for tea and biscuits, and generally got underfoot as Willa was trying to clean. Robert awkwardly clip-clopped through the too-small rooms, knocking things over with his tail. Being so restricted in space made him extremely cross and argumentative, though he was always civil to Willa. And Horace was very kind to her too. He was usually in his human form, although once in a while she’d chance upon him as a lion, curled up on the carpet for a nap, and taking up the entire room. Mab occasionally flitted by her, glittering and giggly. Tengu grinned when he saw Willa and did his best to talk her into a friendly arm wrestle or some other contest of strength. She always declined, though, fearing that she might win. Baz was friendly enough, even though Willa always felt she was snickering at her.

Belle, however, was another story entirely. She rolled through the house, pushed by Baz or wheeling herself, with nothing but a scowl and a hrrmph for Willa, who had no idea what she’d done to incur the old lady’s wrath. Belle seemed to blame her for some ancient injustice. Maybe she just didn’t like kids. Or maybe she hated everyone from the “outside.” Whatever the reason, the mermaid was always in a foul mood and Willa tried to stay out of her way.

The old folks spent their days sniping at each other, not always good-naturedly, while the bird clucked disapprovingly in the corner. Squabbles quieted immediately whenever Miss Trang emerged from her office, gliding quiet and mysterious through the house, but resumed as soon as she was out of earshot.

Despite all distractions, Willa spent her days diligently focussed on her work. The cleaning of the upstairs bedrooms was no small job, as the old folk were all packrats and had been accumulating possessions for hundreds of years. The dark and dusty rooms were full, floor-to-ceiling full, of weird odds and ends. Horace’s room was crowded with a huge collection of bird feathers, mounted and framed, or simply stuck into jars, vases, books. His books too were overwhelming, tottering stacks of them everywhere. Some had pages so faded they were totally illegible, while others were in languages Horace admitted he had no knowledge of. And yet he refused to let Willa dispose of any of them, even the ones which were entirely missing their pages, eaten out by bugs or some other long-gone pest.

“What if they fell into the wrong hands?” He’d throw his hands up in despair at the thought.

“Whatever hands they fell into would just throw them in the trash!” countered Willa, but Horace just smiled.

Robert didn’t keep so many things, but his room had its own challenges. To accomodate his height, a hole had been broken in the ceiling so that his room opened into the attic, which was teeming with spiders, and sometimes bats as well. (Willa never saw any sign of mice, however. If there wasn’t an actual cat on the premises keeping them out, she felt there must surely be some kind of ghost cat at work.) Robert didn’t seem to mind insects or pests, but they made it doubly hard for Willa to keep the place even remotely tidy.

Tengu’s room, on the other hand, was a snap to clean. It was a small room, simple and clutter-free. He slept on a mat on the floor and had next to no personal possessions. That’s not to say he didn’t want things, though. Willa often heard him begging Miss Trang for ...

“A bardiche? Or a morningstar! No? How about a sweet little shuriken? Just one?”

Willa would go to the immense dictionary in the library to look up his requests — massive medieval weapons mostly, pretty gruesome-looking. And the “sweet little shuriken” was a razor-sharp throwing star. Fortunately Miss Trang held firm. No weapons was a fundamental house rule. Thank goodness for that, thought Willa.

Baz’s room was dominated by a great huge cabinet with dozens of tiny drawers containing all sorts of dried herbs, dead bugs, and reptiles, and unidentifiable bits of fuzz which made Willa queasy. Belle had a wardrobe full of gorgeous clothes she never wore and an ornate vanity table with a beautiful set of ivory and pearl brushes and combs. A golden inlaid with gemstones probably held her jewellery, though Willa didn’t have the nerve to peek inside. Mab’s dollhouse was usually tidy enough, which was good, because Willa didn’t know how she’d ever dust in there without breaking something. Miss Trang’s room was the only one she was still not allowed to enter, though she could now go in to clean the office.

Baz did all the cooking, but Willa helped there too whenever she could. The backyard remained off limits to her. Willa thought it would be wonderful if it was cut back, mowed, and cleaned up. As Miss Trang pointed out, however, the overgrown trees and bushes effectively shielded them from the prying eyes of the outside world — most notably the nosy next-door neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Hackett. The Hacketts were fond of calling to Willa from their front porch, waving her over as she was arriving or leaving so they could complain about something ... most often the abysmal condition of the front or back yards. They were annoyed enough at the sight of a single weed in a neighbouring lawn, so naturally the jungle in Miss Trang’s backyard was really driving them up the wall. It was part of Willa’s job to listen sympathetically and try to keep on good terms with the Hacketts, which was possibly the hardest part of her work at the house.

There was a lot to do, but Willa arrived every morning eager and excited. She worked hard to finish her chores as quickly as possible so she’d have at least some of the afternoon free, all the while pondering what question she would ask that day. It was a difficult decision to make. Willa felt fortunate to be in Miss Trang’s good graces at last, so she certainly didn’t want to push her luck by being too inquisitive. And she was still a little afraid of Miss Trang, so she decided to steer clear of her for the first week at least. Better to start with the others, and the simpler, more straightforward questions.

So on her very first day she sought out Horace, in the library as usual, and in human form. The day outside was rainy and grey, and the library was dark, but there was a fire lit in the fireplace and the chairs were big and cozy. Horace smiled to see her and set his book aside.

“Come. Sit down.” Willa climbed into a tall wingback chair as he poured her some tea. He passed the cup and looked at her kindly. “You’d like to ask me something?”

“Yes, please. If you don’t mind. I was wondering what you ... what exactly ...” She paused awkwardly.

“What exactly am I?” Willa nodded and sipped her tea. Horace sighed, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes. Then he stood and walked to the centre of the hearth rug. He began to pace in deliberate circles, the way cats do before they lie down. On the first round he glowed golden in the dancing light of the fire. On the second round he dropped onto all fours and hair streamed around his face. On the third round the golden fur flowed down his neck and back until he had turned once more into a lion and lay down on the rug, yawning contentedly.

Willa stared. The change had been so smooth, so ... normal. Now Horace lay there, his forepaws extended before him. His face was the only thing that remained the same. It was still a human, Horace face, but fringed with a golden lion’s mane. When he spoke his voice was even more velvety, as if he might fall into purring at any moment.

“I am an Androsphinx, from the ancient time of the pharoahs in Egypt.” Willa listened breathlessly as Horace explained how very, very old he was. He explained how some sphinxes were warlike and enjoyed eating human flesh ... as he said this his nose crinkled in distaste, and he hastened to assure Willa that he was a more peaceable sort than that.

“Besides, humans are just ... not very tasty, no matter how you prepare them,” he sniffed. Willa sank further into her chair, very thankful for this fact.

As the afternoon wore on and the room grew darker, rain tapped on the roof and the windows rattled, the hibiscus plant curled around their chairs, and Willa listened to Horace’s tales of Egypt. She listened to his soft voice until her eyes grew heavy and it seemed that his yellow fur had turned into the very sand dunes of the desert, and the gusts of wind at the windows were whispering djinn, the evil spirits that whirl about the desert plains.

When she woke the fire had gone out in the grate, and Horace was nowhere to be seen. It all seemed like a dream, but then everything that happened in this house seemed like a dream and Willa knew that every day she spent there would be more fantastic than the last. And she was absolutely right.

The next day, after a morning of dusting so vigorously she sneezed about a hundred times, Willa had tea with little Mab, who clutched her tea-thimble with both hands as if it were a bucket. I’m having tea with a real fairy, Willa kept saying to herself in disbelief, though Mab wasn’t quite as lovely and delicate as Willa expected fairies to be. She looked sweet enough and had a smile that made Willa want to coo over her like a baby, but whenever Mab was irritated there would be a sharp flash in her eyes and her dear smile would twist ever so slightly into a kind of gargoyle grimace which made Willa shiver.

Mab delighted in saying nasty things about the other inhabitants of the house. It always surprised Willa how much the old folks argued and fought, though she suspected it was due more to boredom than to actual hatred. Mab boasted about the tricks she played on her housemates, such as sewing their pockets shut with invisible thread, sprinkling sawdust in their lemonade, and hovering around their ears like a persistent mosquito, whispering an endless stream of insults. Mab’s knowledge of rude words was extensive, covering all the ones that Willa wasn’t allowed to use at home, and many more that Willa had never heard before, but which certainly sounded like words she wouldn’t be allowed to use at home. Mab’s main complaint was that the others didn’t take her seriously, treating her like a silly little kid or referring to her as an “insect.” When Mab recounted how they teased her, she’d become extremely agitated. Her language would turn a few shades more colourful, and she’d pound her little fists on the table so hard that her fine yellow hair would jump out of its silky ringlets and poke straight out on all sides, so that she looked like a dandelion, the kind that you blow on to watch the seeds fly away.

One morning the Hacketts were up in arms about being woken at an ungodly hour by an awful, ear-splitting noise coming from Miss Trang’s roof. Willa promised she’d get to the bottom of it. She feared it was the bird Fadi, but Tengu gleefully claimed responsibility.

“You see,” he hopped up and down in his excitement, “I’ve taken on the job of scaring away basilisks.”

“Basilisks?” Willa looked at him questioningly.

“You don’t know what basilisks are?! Really, what passes for education in your world! Basilisks are half-snake and half-rooster. They can kill you just by looking at you!” At this point he jumped at Willa, grimacing with his fingers curled like claws. Tengu was always trying to give her a scare, but it just made Willa want to laugh because the tender-hearted fellow was easily the least scary person in the entire household.

“Basilisks are repelled by the sound of a rooster crowing. But we don’t have a rooster. So I get up every morning, go up on the roof, and cock-a-doodle-doo!” He snapped his fingers proudly. “So simple it’s genius.”

Then he did his rooster impersonation for Willa, right there in the parlour, setting the teacups rattling and the chandelier tinkling. The ruckus brought Belle rolling in and an argument began at once.

“Must you do that in the house, you fool?”

Willa got Tengu to agree to do his crowing a couple hours after dawn, and on the peak of the roof furthest from the Hacketts. Belle was still shaking her head.

“That sorry excuse for rooster crowing would never fool a basilisk. Never in a million years.”

Tengu drew himself up to his full, unremarkable height. “I don’t see any around here, do you? Therefore it must work!”

Then he stuck his tongue out at Belle and waggled his fingers around his ears. That started Belle hurling things at him — sofa cushions, books, shoes — until Willa begged her to stop.

Belle was easily the most unfriendly person in the house, but no matter how unpleasant she was, how cranky, how downright rude, Willa felt drawn to her. She still remembered how beautiful Belle had looked when she’d first met her, when Belle was asking to go to the seaside. That loveliness and charm could be flicked on or off like a light switch, and apparently Belle had decided Willa was to be left in the dark. Their encounters usually went something like this:

“Good morning, Belle!”

Scowl.

“And how are you today?”

Abrupt exit from room, with a dismissive toss of silver hair. Really, it was like trying to be friends with a rock.

Besides giving Miss Trang a wide berth, and trying not to antagonize Belle, Willa also tended to avoid Robert. He usually stayed in his room, but when he ventured out, knocking into the overhead lamps and smashing things with every step, Willa felt small and foolish next to him. And he always looked a little wild-eyed. The wisps of hair around his ears stuck out every which way, there were always spills and stains on his clothes, and he smelled funny. When speaking of Robert, Mab tipped her head back with her thumb pointing to her mouth, meaning he drank too much.

One day Robert and Belle happened to be in the parlour as Mab led Willa in to show her one of her special treasures. She opened up a trunk to reveal a real pearl from an oyster. Mab glowed proudly as Willa admired it. She wasn’t exactly sure what Mab might do with it, since it was far too big for jewellery. Willa was just imagining the little fairy using it as a bowling ball when Robert suddenly swayed to his feet and stomped one hoof in irritation.

“A pearl. Big deal. I’ve got something far more valuable than that.” He turned to Willa, smiling eagerly. “Would you like to see it?”

Willa nodded, a little uncertain. Robert reached for an old cigar box on the mantel.

Belle snorted. “Oh for God’s sake, Robert. Not that filthy old thing.”

“It’s gross,” squeaked Mab in agreement.

Robert spun around, upsetting an end table. “You two wouldn’t know magic if it came up and bit you on the ass!”

He turned back to Willa, tipping over a vase, which Willa managed to catch, but not before it spilled water and daisies all over the carpet. Robert paid no mind, tapping the top of the cigar box.

“This is my good luck charm. It’s the best luck charm there is, better than a rabbit’s foot or a horseshoe, and it beats a four-leaf clover all to hell.”

Now Willa was curious, so she leaned in as he removed the rubber band keeping the lid in place. He carefully lifted the lid to reveal what looked like a misshapen turnip.

“Oh, that’s ... nice....” Willa smiled politely.

Robert beamed proudly, as if he was showing off a newborn baby. “It’s a mandrake!” Seeing Willa’s blank look, he went on. “The mandrake only grows at the foot of a gallows, and as you can see, the root is in the shape of a man.”

Willa looked closer. The thing did have two offshoots that could be taken for arms and another two that could be legs, but it was far from obvious. She looked up to see Robert nodding and smiling, his eyes wide with delight. He looked like a little boy at show and tell.

“When the mandrake is pulled from the ground, the root screams so horribly that anyone within earshot goes instantly mad,” he informed her gleefully.

“So that’s what happened to you, you old goat,” cackled Belle.

Willa stifled a smile as Robert let fly with a few choice words. Mab was up on the dollhouse roof, rolling around amid peals of tinkly bell laughter, while Belle rocked back and forth in her chair, grinning merrily. Willa hadn’t seen Belle smile in a long, long while.

Robert grew rather huffy and returned his cigar box to the mantel. Willa tried to cheer him up, saying it was really quite fascinating and she’d never heard about mandrakes before, but he was officially in a sulk and went stomping up to his room. Willa wondered if she should go up to apologize but felt Mab tugging at her sleeve.

“I’ve got something else to show you. Something very, very important,” her little voice chimed. Willa smiled, reminded of little children trying to top each other with their toys. She knelt on the carpet as Mab flew into the little house again. Inside, the fairy reached under a miniature armchair and pulled out a tiny sewing basket.

Willa looked over at Belle, who rolled her eyes. Mab opened the basket and carefully lifted out her knitting needles. Hanging from them was a long, silvery scarf. Willa had often seen Mab sit in that chair, clicking away with her knitting needles, but she had never before gotten a look at what the fairy was knitting. Mab lovingly draped the scarf across her arms and stroked it.

“This,” she whispered, “is the most valuable treasure in the entire house.” She held it out and Willa reached to touch it. The stitches were tiny and fine, and the scarf felt silky, even silkier than silk. It was like dipping her finger in cool water. Suddenly Belle’s mocking voice burst out behind her.

“What makes it so valuable? What’s it made of, caterpillar fuzz? Moooonbeams? Magical silvery fairy farts?” Belle burst into laughter as Mab shot her a dirty look and whisked the scarf back into the basket. Willa watched helplessly as the fairy flew up and grabbed hold of the front of the dollhouse. With a last indignant “Hmph!” she slammed it shut with herself inside.

“Belle!” Willa felt bad for Mab but couldn’t help but smile herself. Belle was still chuckling in amusement. Willa sat down beside her, conscious of how rare this friendly moment was. “What about you? Don’t you have something special like that? Something that means the world to you?”

Belle raised her eyebrows at Willa’s tone but blinked thoughtfully. Willa noticed her hand slip into a small pocket in her sweater.

“Me? Well, I ...” Belle saw Willa looking at her pocket and blushed. “It’s nothing much. Just something that ... someone ... gave to me.”

Willa watched closely as Belle pulled out her hand and uncurled her fingers. In her lined and wrinkled palm was a round, smooth, white stone.

“Is it magic?” Willa whispered.

Belle shook her head. “Not in the way you might think.” She rolled the stone over and over in her hand. “This was given to me a long time ago. When I lived in the ocean.” Her face softened into a smile at the memory, and she ran her fingers over its surface.

“Belle,” ventured Willa, “why do you live here? Instead of in the ocean, I mean?” For a moment Willa was afraid she’d gone too far, but Belle just lowered her head sadly.

“I made a mistake.” She tapped her breastbone with one bony finger. “I can’t breathe water anymore, I can never go back. Sometimes ... I forget that.” Her eyes fell on the stone again. “And this ... this was the start of all my troubles.” She snapped it up in her hand and thrust it into her pocket. Then she seemed to suddenly remember who she was talking to and squinted angrily at Willa.

“But of course, you know all about it already, don’t you? Don’t you?” she hissed at Willa, making her jump.“No, I don’t! I don’t know what you mean!” Willa protested, shrinking back from her.

Angry as she was, there was a tear in Belle’s eye as she gripped the wheels of her chair and rolled out of the room. Willa was left behind, alone and utterly confused.