The Wendygo House

by Jon Jacks

  She shakes her head. Her place and that of the mouse has now been taken by the puppy and rabbit. She expertly takes the rope’s handle off the duck, who joins in with clapping along with the song alongside the other mouse.

  ‘No, of course it’s not my creation: it’s the woods’ creation – they’ve created it all, somehow!’

  I chuckle edgily.

  ‘The woods?’ I repeat uncertainly.

  ‘The wendy house Dad made, remember? It’s made from wood from the forest. Maybe it didn’t like that. They’re not normal woods – you’ve felt that, surely?’

  The singing, the skipping, it all rhythmically continues as we talk.

  No one but me seems to mind that we’re endlessly going through this same, repeated routine. Pearl seems to be desperately controlling and hiding a terrifying nervousness.

  The duck, mice, rabbit and puppy expertly swap roles, the singing never faltering. No one seems to be making any effort to change positions with either myself or Pearl, however.

  Maybe they realise, even if they don’t show it, that we’re talking. That reacting to our talking might interrupt the rhythm of everything we’re doing here.

  ‘It took Ellie first, right? This wood?’ I say.

  Pearl nods.

  ‘We found her in this weird land it had created for us; tapping into our imaginations, giving us whatever we wanted. But it picks up on your bad thoughts too; spiders, darkness, things moving under the bed. Drags you deeper into its clutches, like it’s steadily devouring you.’

  ‘And the skipping song stops them thinking of such things?’

  She nods again.

  ‘It’s easy to remember. We just have to do it until we’re tired: so tired that we’re too exhausted to think bad things.’

  *

  ‘But you can get home, right?’

  I’m hoping my comment doesn’t have the edge of an accusation.

  If it does, Pearl doesn’t seem to either notice or be concerned by it.

  ‘I just wakeup back in the wendy house, back amongst the dolls I’ve named after you all.’

  After all of us?’

  She nods again, all the while twirling the rope, singing the song when she’s not talking to me.

  ‘I’ve been back since you came down here: time’s different there. You’ve not been missing long enough for Dad to worry yet.’

  ‘This doll; it’s one you’d originally called Diana?’

  She glances up at me in surprise. I’m a little surprised too that there really is a connection: I’d just asked Pearl the question on the off chance that there might be a link.

  ‘I use the dolls to come back in here: you know, singing the song to them.’

  ‘Why come back?’

  ‘I need to work out a way to get everyone back home.’

  ‘And can you? Figure a way out, I mean?’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘I’m only nine, remember?’

  *

  Chapter 33

  ‘Three-six-nine, the goose drank wine…’

  Nine: Pearl’s age.

  A coincidence again, of course.

  Even so, I look about me, seeking other connections.

  ‘…the monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line…’

  Sure, here everything in the song is all replicated in the cartoon characters’ actions: the goose having his tipple, the monkey chewing.

  Didn’t Mom warn me that I shouldn’t rely on the supposed patterns I think I see around me? Something like that anyway, I think.

  But is it different here? Different because Pearl’s constructed this whole weird world around the song?

  Does the song give us any clues on how to get out of here?

  ‘The line broke, the monkey got choked…’

  The tram car’s skewed off the broken rails once more, slewed to a grinding halt. The poor monkey’s whipped up towards the boat, already making its way up to heaven.

  ‘…and they all went to heaven in a little row boat.’

  Maybe there’s no pattern here to help us after all.

  Maybe, as Mom says, I shouldn’t be relying on patterns.

  It’s a pattern of behaviour we’re trying to break out of here anyway, isn’t it?

  Like we’re just unthinkingly following a path someone else has set for us.

  Like the tram and its rails.

  And it only breaks free when the rails are broken…

  *

  The mice, puppy, duck and rabbit are all wide-eyed with fright.

  ‘Three-six-nine…’

  They continue to sing the song, but now nervously, their squeaky little voices quaking. They each anxiously grasp the armrests of the seats they’ve taken on board the jolting, rolling tram.

  ‘…the goose drank wine…’

  Persuading them to break off from their skipping, to take a risk and clamber on board the tram, had been easier than I’d imagined.

  Deep down, they’d all realised we’d be trapped here forever unless we tried this.

  ‘…the monkey chewed tobacco…’

  Boarding a tram you know is about to crash though: it’s bound to be a little nerve wracking, isn’t it?

  Especially as I’m standing by the brake’s large handle, readying myself to override its automatic application when the tram careers off the buckled rails.

  ‘…on the streetcar line…’

  It’s the only way. The only way to have a chance of getting back home.

  ‘The line broke…’

  *

  Chapter 34

  Pulling the brake handle back hard, forcing it to go against its instructions to automatically bring the runaway tram to a halt, I snap it off. The whole thing comes away in my hands.

  ‘…the monkey got choked…’

  But with a painful screeching of cogs, the brake pads jump free of the wheels. The tram bounces off the snapped rails.

  It doesn’t slew to a halt this time.

  It continues to roll down the slight incline. Gathering speed.

  And now there’s no brake at all to stop it from careering completely down a hill that would shame San Francisco.

  ‘…and they all went to heaven in a little row boat.’

  *

  Despite the shrieks, the screams, everyone but me still feels safer continuing with the song.

  ‘My mama told me, if I was goody…’

  The tram shakes and rattles violently as it tears down the hill.

  Just when I think I’ve made a mistake, that we should never have attempted this foolish idea, the hurtling tram at last begins to slow down a fraction as the road begins to rise once more.

  After the slight rise, however, there’s yet another steep drop. The tram sets off wildly careering downhill once more.

  It really is like a cartoon version of San Francisco, with an exaggerated mix of hills and valleys, giving us all the most terrifying roller coaster ride of all time. The houses are Victorian, clapperboard, and no doubt rather attractive if I had the time or inclination to admire them.

  People – or, rather, a large variety of animals who take on the actions and poses of people – watch us pass by in astonishment, large exclamation and question mark symbols appearing above their heads. Somewhere, far off down some adjacent street, I hear the clanging of fire bells, the wailing of police sirens. No doubt some animal equivalent of the Keystone Cops is rushing to our aid.

  If they are, they’re going to be too late to save us.

  At the bottom of the steep hill we’re now uncontrollably rushing down, there’s a dockside, with a large expanse of water lying just beyond it.

  Who knows? Perhaps, as we’re a cartoon, the tram will simply precariously turn a sharp corner, balanced only on one set of wheels?

  But it doesn’t.

  It rattles at unbelievable speed across the cobbles of the dockside.

  It flies off the dockside’s edge.

  It lands in the water – and begins to rapidly
sink beneath the rolling waves.

  *

  Chapter 35

  This isn’t anything like cartoonland anymore

  The water flooding in around us is freezing.

  The mice, being the smallest among us, are frequently slipping under, no matter how often we reach out for them and pull them back up to the surface. As we lift them up to safety once more, they gasp out their thanks, nervously spitting out the water they’ve swallowed.

  By grabbing hold of armrests and the ceiling’s hanging straps, we’re all desperately trying to drag ourselves up the middle of the increasingly sloping aisle that runs between the seats, the tram gradually tipping forward as it sinks.

  The more the cartoon tram sinks, the more real rather than cartoon-like it becomes: its seats are now of wood and material, while its sides and base are real iron. The sea, too, is now actually water, flowing over us, threatening to envelop us; to drown us.

  We, however, are still cartoons: still cartoon animals, struggling to survive in what is now a threateningly real world.

  Even though we all realise that the danger facing us is now undoubtedly real, we help each other clamber up what is an increasingly steep aisle. The water swiftly rushes in around us, gurgling happily as it sweeps through windows, or bubbles up hungrily from below. Some of us have already managed to scramble free of the rapidly sinking tram, climbing out through the opening towards its rear. We exhaustedly clamber up onto the rear window, this now effectively being the top of the tram as it is swiftly devoured by the swirling waters.

  From here, even though exhausted, bedraggled and shivering with cold, we lean over the sides to help those still fighting to escape the sinking tram. We instinctively form into a long, supportive line, desperately clinging on to each other to ensure everyone gets clear.

  But yet again, a mouse towards the end of the line loses her grip once more, her hands too wet and slippery, her grasp now weaker than ever. She sinks, the waters now greedy and powerful. The swirling currents grab at her, remorselessly sucking her down.

  Although the duck could have easily saved herself long ago, she had remained at the line’s rear, helping others clamber higher up the line. Without any hesitation, she dives farther down into the dark, surging waters.

  As the rest of us gratefully pull ourselves up onto the tram’s rear window, we glance nervously down through the glass at the burbling waters swirling just beneath our feet. We all gasp with joy as, at last, we see a ghostly blur of white rising up towards us.

  Somehow, the duck (Why don’t I know their names? Why hadn’t I taken notice when Pearl had introduced them all to me?) must have managed to find the poor mouse deep within those grasping waters. Her wings are almost angelic in their whiteness as they urge the mouse to keep swimming up through the whirling darkness.

  Spluttering and anxiously fighting for air, the mouse weakly accepts our outstretched hands to aid her as she tiredly clambers up onto the tram’s windshield. The duck remains in the water, helping push her up from below.

  Abruptly, the sea around them both violently bubbles. It gurgles noisily, the very last pockets of air escaping from their imprisonment within the stricken tram.

  The glass window lurches, almost toppling us all back into the water: then with a last shriek of fleeing air, the tram begins to completely sink beneath us.

  *

  As our only platform suddenly vanishes from beneath our feet, the waters rush around us once more, determined to suck us down along with the hungrily devoured tram.

  There’s a frantic flaying of arms, a frenzied wriggling of legs; but thankfully we all manage to stay afloat.

  No; not all.

  The duck is still trapped beneath the glass.

  The tram is slipping down through the waters far too quickly for her to work her way free.

  As the tram disappears into the black waters, her outspread wings form a last, eerie white glow in the darkness; but soon, even that is gone.

  *

  Chapter 36

  ‘She’s a cartoon; people don’t die in cartoons.’

  I don’t know who says it.

  But it’s something we’re all thinking.

  All hoping.

  Not that any of us believe it. We might still be cartoon animals, but everything else around us seems all too real.

  I can even smell the sour stench of the barges containing the city’s waste, a tug dragging out a lazily meandering line of them out of the harbour and towards the sea.

  We should be swimming towards them: to make sure no more of us drown.

  But instead, we’re all still frantically treading water, staring down into the depths. All still hopping that the poor duck (Who was she? Jeanie? Mary?) has somehow survived.

  ‘Will she be okay? Is Carol still there?’ one of the mice forlornly asks. ‘Isn’t she scared of the dark?’

  Pearl intently but miserably peers down into the water.

  ‘I…I don’t know…’

  ‘There! Look, she is coming back!’

  The rabbit’s eyes are wide with delight. She makes us look beneath our wriggling feet once more; an eerily white glow is rising from the dark depths towards us, the wings gently rippling the water.

  ‘Yaayyy!’ a few of us cheer.

  All of us smile inanely.

  Carol continues to unhurriedly draw towards us, her white wings spreading out to a greater extent than I thought possible. Her eyes are closed, as if blissfully asleep.

  She rises up between us. We all cheer happily, but Carol doesn’t respond.

  She continues to rise, leaving the water.

  Her white glow is now truly ghostly. She is partially transparent, an early cartoon illustrator’s idea of a soul rising up towards heaven.

  The only thing missing from such an image is the harp.

  Carol drifts past us, continuing her slow ascent into the air. She still seems to be peacefully asleep.

  It seems both ridiculously comical and yet also remarkably heart breaking.

  Carol isn’t really a cartoon, of course: she was once a girl, a real girl.

  And this has all the signs of being a representation of her actual death.

  *

  O

  Now the girls around me are sobbing. A few of them almost hysterically.

  ‘We…we have to save ourselves,’ Pearl says, taking charge. ‘We should swim for the barges: get on board one of those.’

  As the tug has turned towards the open sea, the swinging line of barges lying behind it has drifted incredibly close to us. Pearl’s right: if we don’t take this opportunity to save ourselves, we could all end up drowning.

  Without waiting for any discussion or disagreement, Pearl starts heading towards the barge drifting closest to us. One by one, the others follow, scrabbling ungainly through the water.

  It’s not far to swim. Even those who can’t swim can manage a scrambling doggy paddle.

  We clamber aboard the waste-filled barge, once again helping each other as we exhaustedly pull ourselves up out of the water. At least, unlike Pearl, we don’t have water-drenched clothes to contend with.

  At some point, she’s either removed or lost her shoes: when we were treading water, they were probably too heavy to continue wearing safely.

  The stench of the waste is just about unbearable. There’s everything you can imagine here: discarded washing machines, damp cardboard boxes, rotting slimy fruit and vegetables. We’re already all covered in a disgusting film of oily dirt.

  ‘Look! Look up there! It’s Carol!’

  The little puppy is elatedly staring and eagerly pointing up into the sky above us.

  Carol is seated in her own little boat: a boat being rowed by the monkey and the goose. A boat ever so languidly spiralling upwards into the sky.

  Alongside me, a bedraggled Pearl fearfully mumbles a line from her skipping song.

  ‘And they all went to heaven in a little row boat.’

  *

  Chap
ter 37

  Despite the horrendous smell, and the odd way the piled trash seems to ooze and move beneath our bodies, we lie back amongst the waste as if it’s the world’s most comfortable bed.

  We’re all just so relieved to be alive. Too exhausted, too, to care about getting filthy.

  About us, seagulls squeal excitedly, aggressively swooping low. They land on and peck hungrily at the vast pile of waste on each barge. Around us, insects of every kind scramble over the waste, greedily devouring what they can.

  The wind grows cooler and stronger as we move out of the harbour and pass out into the more open sea.

  ‘I didn’t realise we could die,’ the little mouse tiredly laid out alongside me says.

  Her face is tightly screwed up. She’s so near to being tearful once more.

  Jeanie; this is Jeanie, I realise.

  Minnie Mouse-like, the mice have bows around their ears. Only this mouse has just one bow: and didn’t Jeanie’s mom say she’d lost her bow?

  And the other mouse?

  Isn’t that little Ellie? The one who vanished at the wild tea party?

  The one who vanished, in fact, before any of the other kids did.

  I don’t know too much about Ellie; but to see clearly, she had to wear these ridiculously ugly spectacles, ones that unfortunately made her look bug-eyed whenever she was forced to wear them. And this other little mouse has fearfully large eyes, lemur-like in their pitifully vulnerable stare.

  ‘I’d thought that, as cartoons, we’d be safe,’ the rabbit miserably agrees.

  ‘We’ve come out of the cartoon world,’ Pearl points out. ‘We’ve got to realise we’re all in danger once more.’

  ‘I’m sorry; it’s my fault,’ I say, surprising myself with my honesty and humility.

  Sad cartoon faces all look my way.

  ‘It’s not your fault, Dia,’ Pearl says determinedly. ‘You were right: we couldn’t stay there forever. No matter how safe it seemed.’

  ‘It was still a prison, really,’ the puppy adds, with a nod of her head.

  ‘I want to get home; to see Mom, and Dad. Even Joey.’