The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls (25 page)

“Go away, Vicky,” he said.

“No. Did you hear those rumbles?”

“I
said
—”

“I know what you said, and I’m not going anywhere,” said Victoria. The words came easier now. “Look, the Home was rumbling just now. I heard it, and so did Jacqueline. It was just like at your coaching, when I started humming. And I’ve heard it before, too. The first night, when Mrs. Cavendish showed me around, we were out in the gardens, and there was this weird groaning noise, like a monster, and it came from the Home, and Mrs. Cavendish didn’t seem to like it. But I don’t know what that means. And I
did
fall down the fireplace that night. The Home moved me around to all these rooms. I know it sounds stupid, but it
did
happen. It happened just now; it happened earlier today, in the piano room. Remember? You were drumming away on the keyboard, and I was humming, and the Home moved, and then Mrs. Cavendish told us to be quiet. Well, so I did the same thing just now; I sang, I hummed, and the passage reappeared, and that’s how I got here.”

Lawrence sat up. “I don’t hear anything.”

“It’ll happen again. Just wait. Sometimes it takes a few minutes.”

“You’re trying to tell me,” Lawrence said, frowning, “that the Home likes music?”

Victoria frowned. “Maybe. It certainly seems to. But maybe it’s not just music. All that pounding you did on the piano wasn’t really music. Maybe it just likes noise. It
is
really quiet in this place most of the time.”

“You make it sound like the Home is alive, like Donovan said. I thought you didn’t believe that. I’m not sure
I
believe that.”

“Look,” said Victoria. She was growing impatient. The whispering, echo-y voices had said, “Hurry. Hurry now.” This was not hurrying. “I don’t understand it either, but I’m going to find out, and you can either come with me, which is why I came to get you, or you can sit here and not believe me, and then what if I find a way out? What if I can’t come back and get you?”

Lawrence shook his head, his face pale, dark circles beneath his eyes. “I don’t understand any of this.”

“Well, I don’t either. Just come with me—we’ll figure it out. Trust me.”

“Why should I? You’re just like Mr. Alice. You sit back and watch her hurt people, and you don’t even care.”

Victoria felt like Lawrence had slapped her. “I’ve just been upset.”

“It’s not like you’re the only one who’s upset.”

Victoria drew herself up into as grand a dazzle as she could muster. “For your information, she had me in the hanger for days, and I saw my parents. I yelled for them, but they didn’t hear me. Or maybe they did, but they didn’t listen, and then they left.” She paused. “They’re planning to adopt one of the children here. They’re planning to replace me. And whoever it is won’t remember me, and neither will they. I’ll just . . .” She paused. “I’ll be an orphan.”

Lawrence said, “Oh,” and fiddled with his sleeves.

“Yes, well.” Victoria sniffed.

“I’m sorry, Vicky.”

“It’s fine.”

“Really, I am.” He patted her hand.

“All right, well, thanks.”

“That was me that day, beating on the window to get your attention,” said Lawrence. “When you came the second time? And the first time, in the kitchen, the paper airplane—that was me, too.”

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” said Victoria quietly.

Lawrence smiled. “But you’re here. I knew you would come. I knew it.” He rubbed his hands together and winced from the
sting of all the bug bites. “So, what’s the plan, then?”

“I want to investigate this place,” said Victoria, “and figure out what’s behind all this—the bugs, the Home, why it moves like there’s an earthquake and shifts and pops hallways out of nowhere, all of it.”

“I wonder why I’ve never noticed it doing things like this before,” Lawrence said, wrinkling his forehead to think.

“I don’t know. Maybe you’re not paying good enough attention.”

Lawrence glared at her. “Maybe I’ve been really scared.”

“Maybe. But it
is
moving, and I want to find out why.”

“Easy enough,” said Lawrence, jumping to the floor. It was like old times—Victoria coming up with some grand studying plan for end-of-term exams, and Lawrence going along with it because that’s what friends do, and he hadn’t any others. “What’s the plan?”

Victoria wanted to hug him but restrained herself. “Well, I don’t know. We’ll just start exploring, I guess. Maybe if you’re with me, you’ll be able to get through the fireplace too.”

“And then what? If we figure everything out, then what do we do?”

“We get out,” Victoria said firmly. “We escape.”

“And the other kids?”

Victoria’s chest twisted a little. “If there’s time, we’ll come back and get them. But
only
if there’s time.” Victoria gave Lawrence a stern look before he could say anything. “Look, this is my plan, all right?”

“But we’ll try our very best to come back and get them, won’t we?”

“Yes, we’ll try. Our very, absolute best. I swear on my academic report.”

Lawrence snorted. “I should be surprised you said that, but I’m really, really not.”

“I’m
serious
.”

“I know. That’s what’s so funny.”

Victoria flashed a dazzle at him, and he coughed and cleared his throat and choked back his laughter. “All right, so what about Mrs. Cavendish?”

“What
about
her?”

“We’ll just escape and leave her here to keep doing what she’s doing? For all we know, she could snatch us right back the moment we step through the gate.”

Victoria frowned. The truth was, she had no idea what to do about Mrs. Cavendish. She got the feeling that getting rid of her would not be easy. “I really don’t know. But maybe if we explore long enough, we’ll find something to help us.”

Lawrence looked at her skeptically.

Victoria raised one imperious eyebrow. “Unless you’ve got a better idea?”

“No, not really.”

“Well, then.”

“But where do we start looking?” Lawrence asked.

“I’m not sure. . . ,” said Victoria, but then she saw a lingering bit of dirt on Lawrence’s neck, where Mr. Alice had pressed his rake earlier that day. “Actually, I do know. Let’s go to the gardens.”

“Outside?” Lawrence whistled. “You’re crazier than I thought. Those gardens give me the creeps.”

Frowning and thinking furiously, Victoria led him to the fireplace. “When she showed me the gardens, she called them her pride and joy. But what’s the point of them? We never go outside except for coaching. And Mr. Alice is always working in the gardens, right? Why does he spend so much time there? It doesn’t make sense, unless it’s something important. Yes. We start there.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” said a voice from behind them. They whirled to see Peter standing at the ends of the beds, straight and tall, leaning to the side because he was still stiff from his coaching the other day. He managed a small smile, though. But it wasn’t his. “Not a good idea.”

“Thanks very much for the advice,” said Victoria, feeling quite herself again by this point and in no mood for creepy boys. She pushed Lawrence toward the hearth, ignoring Peter and the uncomfortable feeling the look in his eyes had left in her belly, and started to crawl into the shadows of the fireplace.

After a few crawl-steps, she took a deep breath and looked back at Lawrence. “Well?”

“But it’s after lights-out,” said Lawrence, eyeing the fireplace uneasily. “People have—”

“Yes, yes, they’ve snuck out before bed and never come back. I know. But I did it the other night, and I’m just fine, aren’t I?”

“But . . . 
outside
?”

“It could be our only chance to find out what’s really going on and how to get out, don’t you think?”

Lawrence sighed, crouched down, and crawled in beside her. Together, they peeked down the passage, which had remained in place since Victoria crawled through. It was too dark to see much beyond the first few feet.

“Um. Hello?” Victoria whispered. “I’m, er, I’m back. And Lawrence is with me.”

Lawrence stared at her as though she had sprouted a second head.

Victoria ignored him and began to hum, trying not to
burn up of embarrassment. Her scratchy, wobbly voice bounced down the passage and was swallowed up in a sudden rolling wave of clicks and wings. Lawrence hid his face, but Victoria gritted her teeth and dazzled the darkness till her eyes felt like they would pop out of her skull.

“Hurry,”
the voices whispered. When Lawrence heard them, he yelped. Victoria clapped a hand over his mouth.

“Hello? We’re, er . . . we’re trying to get outside.” Victoria paused. Any moment now, they would be swarmed upon and eaten alive. She fought not to scream. “To the gardens?”

The walls expanded and contracted, twisting and shifting. Steps formed in front of them, leading down and down. A few tiny black shapes tumbled down them, popping out of the walls, their legs waving uselessly through the air. The ceiling rumbled with wings and black eyes.

“Hurry,”
the voices repeated.
“Angry. So angry.”

Lawrence shrank closer to Victoria, grabbing her hand.

“Vicky, I’ve got an awful feeling about this,” he whispered.

“Me too,” said Victoria, but she pulled on his hand anyway, to help him to his feet, held her head high, and, holding tight to Lawrence’s sweating fingers, started downstairs into the dark.

“I DON’T LIKE THIS,” LAWRENCE SAID AS THEY FELT
their way down the winding staircase. The floor was slippery, and they had to hold on to the walls to keep from sliding all the way down. “What’s
in
here with us?”

“You know what it is,” Victoria whispered. Wings brushed past her neck, getting tangled in her hair. She batted them away, her throat twisting into a tight, sick feeling. There weren’t too many of them—yet.

Lawrence groaned. “Those
bugs
.”

“I hope they don’t tell her what we’re doing. If they’re part of her, like you think they are . . .”

“Oh, great, I didn’t even think about that.”

Victoria brushed out some roach wings from her hair. She
wanted to scream and run, and her skin crawled, but she made herself go slowly. If they fell and hurt themselves, this would all be for nothing.

“Hurry, please,”
the voices urged, sliding down the stairs alongside them, girls’ voices and boys’ voices and grown-up voices, but Victoria couldn’t even be too sure of that. The voices were all tangled up in one another, scratchy and sad.

“What
is
that?” Lawrence asked. His teeth were chattering.

“I don’t know,” said Victoria. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to, either.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, the last step shoved them forward, and a wall whooshed up behind them. A pair of angry beetles plopped out onto their backs, wiggled their legs around to plop right side up, and scurried away. The staircase was gone.

“That’s not good,” Lawrence whispered. He felt around the wall to find the opening, but it had disappeared completely. “Where are we?”

“I’m not sure,” said Victoria.

The floor beneath them moved, rippling down a long hallway that stretched from left to right on either side of them. In the darkness, the red walls and carpet were black as mud. Ten skittering legs, a million times over, raced away from them into the shadows. Through the high, narrow
windows overhead, a little bit of moonlight glowed, illuminating smiling, golden metal faces on the walls—garish lips, wagging tongues, long hands beckoning them closer.

Victoria and Lawrence froze.

“Do you want to go back?” whispered Lawrence.

Yes
, Victoria wanted to say. But she swallowed hard and said, “Absolutely not. Do you?”

Lawrence glanced at her. “Er. No. Not like I’d know how to go back anyway. We’re stuck.”

They slipped through a gap in those smiling, slobbering faces, down a narrow staircase they’d never seen before. Long, skinny emerald snakes formed the banisters. It was just wide enough that they could go down together, hand in hand. Victoria squeezed Lawrence’s fingers so hard, she thought she might break them. He squeezed them right back.

They followed the steps down for ages. At the bottom, they passed through a curtain of beads that looked suspiciously like teeth, into the gallery on the first floor.

“Finally,”
said Lawrence, sighing with relief. “The gallery. We know where that is, at least. Now where do we go?”

Victoria didn’t have time to say she didn’t know, because a sudden stink washed over them from above. Gray feathers fell to their feet and dissolved into thin air.

“Get down!” Victoria fell to the floor and pulled Lawrence
along with her. One of the huge painted birds from the ceiling just missed them, swooping down with its sharp, ivory hands outstretched.

“It’s coming back!” said Lawrence, yanking Victoria to her feet. They ran for the center of the Home, but the gallery was suddenly much larger than it had been before. The faster they ran, the larger it became. More birds dropped from the ceiling like bats. Beaks snapped at the hems of their pajamas. A clawed finger scraped Victoria’s hair. She looked back to see a black tongue and razor-sharp feathers swiping at her.