Eldritch Manor (5 page)

Willa dabbed her mouth with her napkin and placed it on her plate. The so-called meal was finally over. Now she had to pretend she was full, even though her stomach was groaning. Suddenly something brushed against her ankle. She stiffened. What new weird creature could this be? Was it dangerous? It was circling her feet, she could feel it moving. It must be the cat, the mysterious cat she had never seen. She picked up her handkerchief and let it slip from her hand onto the floor. Nobody even looked up as she leaned down to retrieve it and peered into the darkness under the table. Two green eyes peered back, and a scaly lizard face flicked out a scarlet tongue at her.

She managed not to scream but jerked up suddenly, banging her head on the table. Sitting up as nonchalantly as possible, she quietly drew up her legs until she was sitting cross-legged on her chair. She realized she was holding her breath and let it out slowly and silently. This was too much all at once; she felt an urge to shout, or run or scream or SOMETHING, but she kept rigidly still.

Everything had become strangely quiet. Everyone at the table was watching her, smiling.

“How did you like your dinner?” Miss Trang was regarding her with transparent eyes.

“It was delicious, thank you very much.” All she could think about was getting out of there and going home to make herself a peanut butter sandwich.

“This was all Horace's idea.” said Miss Trang, gesturing toward the empty plates.

Horace nodded, grinning. “It's known as a Barmecide Feast — a test of poise and humour. You did very well indeed, my dear.”

Willa blinked, unsure of what to say. Her stomach spoke for her, gurgling loudly, and she blushed with embarrassment. Miss Trang turned to Baz.

“Go and make Willa a sandwich. Peanut butter, yes?”

Willa started in surprise and nodded. Baz scurried into the kitchen and in a flash returned with the sandwich. As Willa munched happily, Miss Trang spoke once more.

“Since you have done so well tonight, we'd like to keep you on as our housekeeper. You'll have additional duties, so we'll need you here full time. And there are two rules. The first rule you know already: do not tell
anyone
about
anything
that goes on here. The second concerns the asking of questions. I'm sure you have a few queries about our humble household, yes?”

Willa could only nod, as her mouth was full.

“Well, it would take many days and nights to explain everything you are wondering about, believe me. For this reason you are only allowed one question per day.”

Willa swallowed. “May I ask one now?” Miss Trang nodded but Tengu was already pointing at Willa and cackling.

“That was a question! You used up your question!”

Miss Trang gave him a stern look and he sat back, one hand over his mouth as he continued to snicker. “Go ahead.” She nodded to Willa.

Willa's mind raced. What did she most want to know about? The fairy? The bird Fadiyah? Horace the lion? Robert the centaur?

Hearing the sudden tick-tick-tick of nails on the wood floor, Willa peered back over her shoulder to see the long, skinny lizard dash across the room, jumping, writhing, and wriggling. She thought it was biting at its own tail, but soon saw that it had two heads, one at either end, which snapped at each other with jagged teeth! Finally one clamped onto the neck of the other. The lizard formed a hoop and rolled away out of sight. Willa turned back to Miss Trang.

“Don't you own a cat?” she asked. The table erupted into guffaws and squeals of laughter. The bird squawked. Even Miss Trang smiled.

“The answer to that is no.”

Which was all very well, but when Willa arrived for work the next morning there was a dead little bird waiting for her on the doorstep, looking for all the world like a cat's welcome gift.

In the ordinary everyday, one question at a time

W
illa
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.