And then she noticed the items scattered below the kitchen table. Her father’s glasses case, her mother’s phone. The ghoul had gone through their pockets. “He’s got the keys.” Eliza ignored the panic welling inside as she picked up a chair and swung it at the kitchen window. The glass shattered, leaving a mosaic of jagged shards. Eliza climbed upon the kitchen counter, sweeping the broken glass aside with a tea towel.
“Stop.”
She flinched.
Grim Shivers stood in the kitchen door, watching her. “You’ll cut yourself,” he said. His voice was different now from how it had been when he’d first turned up on the doorstep. As if he had grown into his body. Now he sounded just as Eliza had imagined the ghoul would have when he had spoken with Augustus in that horrible tale from The Book of Kindly Deaths. “I need you whole and in good working order, so you can tell me where the book is.”
Eliza climbed down, seizing a carving knife from the block. Fury engulfed her as she stepped towards him. “Stay away! If you come near me,” she gazed towards her parents’ lifeless bodies, “I’ll stick this knife in your heart.”
Grim Shivers nodded. “I believe you would, Miss Drabe. But it won’t hurt me. However, if you don’t tell me where the book is, I will hurt you.”
“I don’t know what book you’re talking about. There’s thousands of books in this house. And my name’s Miss Winter.”
“But you’re a Drabe, too,” the ghoul said. “And I can see quite clearly from the look in your eyes that you know exactly which book I want. It’s the one your grandfather used to take me from my world. The book he used as a bridge to mine. I will find him, Miss Drabe.”
Eliza glanced towards the door behind the creature. “Okay, I’ll give you your book. Just don’t hurt me.”
Grim Shivers nodded, placing a hand on his chest. “You have my word.”
As Eliza passed her parents’ bodies, she gripped the knife even tighter, walking into the front room and stepping aside as the ghoul entered. The floor was littered with books, the bookcases empty. “There’s a safe behind that picture of the tower,” Eliza said.
“Safe?” Grim Shivers asked, striding across the room.
“A hidden door. I asked my dad to put the book in there for me.”
As the ghoul picked up the painting to find a blank wall, Eliza turned and ran.
She seized the front door. It was locked. She looked for the key on the shelf, but it was gone.
“Liar!” Grim Shivers growled from the front room. Eliza ran up the stairs as he emerged into the hall, his hands bunched into fists. She ignored him and flew down the hall, making for the study’s hidden room. If she could reach it in time, she’d be safe.
But as she passed her bedroom, Eliza remembered The Book of Kindly Deaths. She backtracked, her arms and legs shaking as she grabbed the book with numb fingers. Eliza screamed as she emerged into the hall to find Grim Shivers storming towards her, his long face contorted with fury. “Liar!”
Eliza ran, throwing the study door open and slamming it shut. She yanked the black book on the bottom shelf and dashed into the hidden room just as the study door smashed open.
The last thing she saw, as the secret door swung shut, were the ghoul’s smoldering eyes and the glowing blue-white blade at his side.
Her head swam now, panic and nausea flooding through her. She closed her eyes as she tried to calm herself, but all she could see was her parents slumped across the kitchen table.
And then he began to kick at the door, howling, the sound low and terrible in its woeful rage. Eliza remembered the bookcases he’d emptied downstairs. If he did that now, which seemed likely in his rage… “He’s going to open the door!” She looked around the room. There were no exits.
She was trapped.
Her gaze fell on the stained glass window. Eliza threw the book on the desk, clambering up and pulling the handle. It opened a fraction, admitting a cool air bearing rich, exotic fragrances, spices, blossoms and perfumes. But below the fragrances, a coppery, blood-like scent and the stench of rot.
Something slammed into the hidden door. Eliza pulled the window handle with all her might. It opened. She recognized the room on the other side at once. She’d seen it the night before. In her nightmare.
Despite trying to tell herself that The Book of Kindly Deaths was just a book and the happenings or hallucinations were just her awakened imagination, she’d known it to be real. Knew that her nightmare of the city was nothing of the sort, that it was not just a dream. And here before her was the proof. For beyond the window was the room with the whispering books and the slug-like creature in the glass tank.
Grim Shivers let forth another cry of rage, the hidden door shaking in its frame.
Eliza froze on the window ledge as the sound of heavy feet marched towards the room. Two guards entered. Eliza averted her eyes as she ducked back into the secret room, sealing the window.
A clank of feet rang out as the guards approached the window. Behind Eliza, the din of books being hurled around came as the ghoul bellowed.
“He’s going to find the switch,” Eliza whispered, her voice trembling. She glanced around the room, searching for another way out.
But there was none.
Her gaze fell to the desk and The Book of Kindly Deaths, and the pen beside it.
Eliza snatched the book, letting it fall open to the last page, and forced her thoughts to clear as she reread her grandfather’s entry. He had written himself into the book. If he could, why couldn’t she?
She picked the pen up, flinching as a charge of power exploded in her fingertips, running through her arm and shooting deep into her chest. Eliza gasped for air as her body began to flood and swell with energy. She let it guide her as she wrote, following Tom’s words with her own:
* * *
Additional Addendum
Eliza Winter 2001—13 January 2013
I, the writer Eliza Winter, pass from my world into the back room of the Malady Inn in Eastern Blackwood unhindered.
* * *
And as she added the full stop, the room flickered, darkening as the book below her crackled with energy.
Then the study began to flicker and smolder like a heat haze. Dimly she saw the ghostly outline of Grim Shivers pouncing through the door, his skeletal fingers outstretched…
Eliza looked away, down to the desk, and the last thing she saw was The Book of Kindly Deaths closing.
And then it was gone.
And so was she.
16
The Malady Inn
Darkness surrounded Eliza. It was as if every source of light in the universe—every light bulb, star, moon, and sun—had gone out. She held her hand out but found nothing.
Eliza took a deep breath, almost choking with surprise. The air was different, so intensely clean and fresh that it almost hurt her lungs.
She gulped another breath and exhaled, pushing out the old, stale air she’d brought with her. As she continued to take deeper breaths, her senses came to life, clearer and sharper, her energy and strength keener than ever.
And now she could smell something else, something musty and damp. “Where am I?” she asked.
Silence. And then, far away, a clamor of voices.
“Am I dead?” she asked, her voice louder than usual. She wondered if something catastrophic had happened, if somehow she was trapped in some strange limbo.
“Maybe I’m stuck inside the book?” Eliza held out her hands, almost expecting to feel paper pages or the hard cover of The Book of Kindly Deaths, but instead, her fingers brushed against cold stone.
“A wall?”
Eliza ran her fingers up and down across the stone. As she moved towards it, something jutted into her side.
She cried out and reached down, finding the edge of a surface up against the stone. She knocked against it, producing a hollow sound, then her hands collided with something else. Eliza reached for it. It was cold and smooth, and on one side, she found a lid. Sh
e flipped it open, and as the smell of fuel filled the air, Eliza knew exactly what she was holding.
Her father had had one when he used to smoke. “A lighter.” She flicked the flint wheel and a vivid spark lit the gloom as the wick burst into life, creating a flame.
Eliza found herself beside a desk. At its center was a candle. She lit it, flicking the lighter shut and placing it in her pocket. The room was small; in its corner were a neatly made bed and a tall wardrobe. The wallpaper was of dark flowers set against a light-grey background, just like the damask wallpaper she’d once seen in a Victorian museum. As Eliza looked around, she saw there were no windows or doors.
“How do I get out?”
She turned to the desk and found another candle. As she lit it, she saw the photographs piled upon the desk.
Her own face grinned toothily back, six years younger. Behind her younger self, her grandfather beamed with a soft, generous smile.
Eliza remembered her grandmother taking the photograph while they were at the zoo. It had been blazing hot, the place filled with vibrantly colored birds and tired, lazy animals. And then a monkey had screeched in fury and the shock had caused her to drop her ice cream on the sweltering pavement just before the picture had been taken. Eliza recalled how instead of crying, as she usually would have, she’d accepted her loss. She’d felt a swell of pride moments later when Tom had handed her his ice cream, thanking her for being brave and adding, “Bravery should always be rewarded.”
Eliza glanced through the other photographs. One was of her parents on their wedding day, a wary look on her mum’s face as she stood with her own mother on one side, Eliza’s dad on the other.
Tom must have taken that photograph. Which explained, perhaps, the look on her mother’s face.
The other pictures were of her grandparents alone, except they were much younger. Tom smiled brightly in each of the photographs but, as Eliza looked closer, she could see the shadow in his smile. It was the face of a man who believed in being brave, no matter what, and in smiling and making the best of things. Behind his smile, however, his eyes told a different story. They were haunted. They were the eyes of a man who had lived with terrible things.
A man who had seen monsters.
Eliza searched the desk drawer. She found a box of matches and a few books, thrillers, their modern covers strangely out of place. Books by bestselling authors stashed in a room in another world.
The next drawer revealed two identical necklaces. Each long silver chain held a heavy jade amulet. Eliza remembered Tom wearing one when they’d gone to the beach. She recalled the addendum from the story about Victoria Stapleton and how the writer had mentioned a necklace made of Solaarock. She took one of the necklaces and put it on. It felt curiously reassuring and heavy as she walked towards the wardrobe. The clothes inside were unlike anything she’d seen outside of a museum. There were old-fashioned suits and rough woolen trousers and hooded jerkins, and each smelled of sweat, dampness, and blood.
A tiny crack allowed a glint of light to show through the back of the wardrobe. Eliza knocked against it. It was hollow. She pushed the clothes aside, scouring through the interior until she found a small brass lever, which she pulled. All at once, the back of the wardrobe folded in on itself, and Eliza found herself standing before a corridor, voices filling the passage beyond.
She stepped through, jumping as the back of the wardrobe folded back up with a clatter, leaving in its place a pitted brick wall. As she examined the wall for a way to return through the wardrobe, a peal of raucous laughter rang down the hall. Slowly and cautiously, Eliza made her way along it.
The room at the end was illuminated with candles. It looked and smelled like a pub. A very old pub. But as Eliza saw the figures drinking at the tables, she gasped.
The room was full of monsters.
Three tiny men sat at the nearest table. They had claws for hands and hooves for feet and watched Eliza with tiny black eyes. When they smiled, they revealed rows of shark-like teeth and began to laugh once more, their voices loud and grating.
Next to them sat an immense lady with one large eye where her mouth should have been and two mouths where her eyes should have been. She frowned at Eliza before shaking her head and taking a deep draught from her pewter tankard.
Behind the woman, a hooded figure sat gazing off into the distance. A bow and a sheathed sword rested against his table. As Eliza watched, the figure turned to her, two flashes of intense green light glowing within its hood.
Eliza looked away to the group of men and women that sat behind the hooded figure in a melancholy huddle. They would have looked normal if it wasn’t for their waxy yellow skin and large, mournful eyes. And as Eliza glanced at their lank black hair and tattered clothes, she realized who they were. “The Wrong People…”
Before she could finish her sentence, a creature with a long putrid-green face and deep, sunken eyes slammed its tankard upon the table and shouted, “Human!”
It vanished for a split second, reappearing before Eliza, its claws outstretched as they swiped towards her.
17
Shard
Eliza flinched as the creature slashed the air and whimpered as her head struck the wall behind. The creature laughed and tensed as if about to lunge, when all of a sudden a bolt thudded into the wall.
The creature shot a furious glance to the bar, where a lofty man with a shock of white hair and two pure-black eyes quickly reloaded a small crossbow. “Step away,” he called, aiming it at them. “And if you so much as look at the girl again, your head will hang on my trophy wall. Do you understand?”
“Jaxma!” the creature hissed.
“I’m no turncoat,” the man thundered. “I served at Oakspell. Don’t you dare call me a jaxma!” He strode over, jabbing the crossbow against the creature’s head. “Is our business concluded?”
The creature nodded and scowled at Eliza, before crossing the room and vanishing into the shadows.
“Welcome to the Malady Inn, Eliza.” The man lowered his crossbow. “You may call me Mr. Barrow, if it pleases you.”
“How do you know my name?”
Mr. Barrow smiled. “Tom has told me all about you. And seeing as you managed to find your way from your world to ours, I’d say you’d have to be a Drabe. Am I right?”
“Apparently.”
Eliza looked across the room. All eyes seemed to be on them as a deathly hush settled over the bar. It was like a dream. Or perhaps nightmare was a better word.
Mr. Barrow turned and addressed the room. “All incidents of gawping and eavesdropping will be met with a lifetime ban from the Malady Inn. Back to your drinks, ladies, gentlemen, and those who are neither.”
Gradually, their audience looked away, whispering to one another, and slowly their whispers became murmurs and the murmurs built until the room was once more filled with raucous conversation.
As Mr. Barrow led Eliza to the bar, she peered at the dozens of dusty bottles lined up behind it. Every color of the rainbow seemed to be represented, and more still. She wondered what the drinks inside tasted like, before deciding it was probably better not to know.
Mr. Barrow pulled a large pint of what looked like frothing green beer and pushed it towards Eliza. “Old Catwhist, your grandfather’s favorite.”
“I’m probably too young to drink it,” Eliza said. She’d had a sip of her father’s beer once and found it the most wretched thing she’d ever tasted. Even worse than liver.
“Then I’ll sup it. It would be a shame to see it go to waste. How about some spiritberry juice? It’ll keep your head where it needs to be.”
“I…I’ll try a sip, maybe.”
Mr. Barrow reached for a bottle of plum-colored juice and poured it into a small glass. The juice was thick and gloopy, but he looked so happy as he offered it that Eliza took a sip. Despite its appearance, it was deliciously fragrant, reminding her of vanilla, blossoms, and coffee.
“Do you like it?”
“
I like it,” she said and swallowed the rest. Soon, her surroundings seemed slightly less threatening. Mr. Barrow placed a hand upon her arm. “You shouldn’t be here, girl. This is not a place for you. It’s not even a place for Tom, and he’s an old hand with our people. As soon as my shift is done, I’ll help you get home.”
“I can’t go home,” Eliza said and, as she thought of the hidden study in Tom’s house, the warm, dizzy feeling from the spiritberry juice vanished. “I can’t go back. There’s a creature…Grim Shivers. He did something to my parents. And he wants to kill me.”
A dark look crossed Mr. Barrow’s face. “I…I’m surprised to hear that. The Grims are ruthless, but they’ve never spilled innocent blood. Only because they can’t, mind you. I told Tom sending Shivers to your realm was an act of great folly. I warned him!”
“I need to find Tom.” She looked around the room. “Why did he come here? And why did he send that…creature to us?”
“He said he came to right two wrongs. Things that have bothered him for years. There’s much wrong in the Grimwytch, Eliza, much wrong. But to try and right it is like spitting to drench an inferno. I told him those things were none of his business, that he should leave the past where it belongs.”
“What wrongs did he come to right?”
“Something about a boy whose mouth was stolen by a malefactrix. And another who was arrested by Grim Shivers himself. Said he could fix two wrongs and make them both right at the same time. He’s old, Eliza. And tired. He thinks he’s coming to the end of his days. Sadly, I’m inclined to agree. When…when your mother refused her calling and denied you yours, it changed him. He’s not been right since.”
“What calling?”
“To serve as Tom’s apprentice. To write down the wrongs. To send back those who seek to cross to places they don’t belong. And there are plenty of them. But your mother wouldn’t have anything to do with it, or with Tom. He felt her rejection keener than any blade. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you did ask.”
The Book of Kindly Deaths Page 17