The House on Hoarder Hill

by Mikki Lish

  “It isn’t,” Stan sniffed.

  “I heard about them back when I was underfoot in that Italian magician’s house. They used to put criminals on trial, and a liar bird let everyone know when they weren’t telling the truth.”

  Jelly clasped her hands together. “Can I have one? Please?”

  “No way,” Spencer said firmly. “They belong to Grandpa.”

  As if summoned, from down below they heard the muffled call of Grandpa John, which meant it was time for them to get out. Hedy beckoned them all to the door.

  “There are a million cool things here,” Max said, looking around the room with new eyes.

  “Yeah,” Hedy said, “but none of them are helping us find who we’re looking for.”

  Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but a dark knot in the floorboard seemed to wink as she said it.

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  Hedy swam up out of her dream, thinking the tapping would stop at the cusp between dreaming and waking. Only it didn’t. Her dream, of the swirling mirrored cubes that they’d seen in the video clip that afternoon, began to slip away.

  Tap tap tap!

  The tapping was more insistent this time, and it was coming from the foot of her bed. Hedy jerked upright. She made sure her limbs and her duvet were on top of the mattress, nothing hanging over the side that could be grabbed by some monster in the dark, and then warily crawled to the foot of the bed.

  Tap tap tap!

  The yellow light of the lamp was faint, but she still had to squint as her eyes adjusted.

  Spencer heaved a big breath; then his eyes struggled open. “What?” was all he managed.

  Tap tap tap!

  Spencer’s eyes popped completely open. Hedy motioned her head toward the source of the noise. They both scrambled around so their feet were at their pillows, then peered at the floor. Three bumps were circling in figure eights between Hedy’s and Spencer’s beds. Every now and then they bumped against the bed frame, three in quick succession, with a tap tap tap. One was smaller than the others but just as active.

  “Like the first night,” Spencer whispered.

  Words clicked together in Hedy’s mind. Creatures in the wood. “Woodspies.”

  One bump stopped in its tracks, which the others didn’t notice, so they banged into the first one like a trio of cars crashing into one another. “It’s okay,” Hedy whispered to them, getting the feeling the creatures were skittish. “What do you want?”

  “I have an idea.” Spencer picked up his sock of marbles, pulled some marbles out, and then reached down to the floor. “Hey,” he said, tapping the marbles softly on the wood, “come here.”

  At the sound, the Woodspies paused. Spencer rolled the marbles, and each Woodspy in turn claimed one. The way the bump of each Woodspy moved through the floor made the marble roll away from it. They moved to the left or right of the marble to make it change direction, winding in quick circles around it when they wanted the marble to stop.

  The children sank to the floor and inched closer and closer. Spencer grabbed his little camera and took a picture. By the time one of the Woodspies knocked into Spencer’s leg, it too had lost its nerve.

  “Hiya,” Spencer said. “You guys like the marbles?”

  The Woodspies raced their marbles back to Spencer and nudged him.

  Simon’s parting words floated through Hedy’s mind. Even Master wouldn’t be able to find everything, short of asking the Woodspies. She leaned down on her elbows. “Do you guys know where Albert Nobody is?”

  The Woodspies seemed startled and jolted away with their marbles for a moment before coiling back to Hedy’s elbow and nudging her as well.

  “You do,” Hedy decided. “That’s why you came and woke us up, right?”

  The Woodspies huddled, then each rolled their marble to a large dark knot in the floor, which opened just a little—and sucked the marbles down one by one before closing again. Slowly the Woodspies moved toward the door, then stopped.

  “Do they want us to follow them?” Spencer asked.

  “Maybe.” Hedy grabbed her flashlight from her trunk. “Let’s not lose them.”

  Spencer scrambled to his feet. “I wonder if Nobody could teach me how he decapitates himself and then sticks his head back on.”

  Hedy’s flashlight beam found the three Woodspies in the hallway, weaving toward the stairs. Once there, the creatures headed to the floor above.

  “This isn’t going to get us very far,” Hedy said. “All the rooms are locked up there.” Nevertheless, they followed the Woodspies, doing their best not to make the steps creak.

  “What do you think Nobody will look like?” Spencer asked.

  “I don’t know,” Hedy said. “Why?”

  “They’re not taking us to a dead body, are they?”

  “Why would Grandpa John be keeping a dead body in his house?”

  “He has so much weird stuff here. A dead body wouldn’t even be the weirdest thing to show up.”

  “Yes, it would!”

  Swinging her flashlight, Hedy found the Woodspies clustered around another knot in the wooden floorboards. They moved in a slow circle around it, until—pop pop pop! Out burst the marbles that had disappeared downstairs. The Woodspies then raced up the hall with their marbles to a blue door.

  One of the Woodspies streamed up the doorframe to the lock, and suddenly the latch was shoved back with a click. The door swung open.

  Unlike the rest of Grandpa John’s cluttered house, there were only two items in this otherwise bare room. One was a low-hanging chandelier. The other was a wooden chest, about the size of the trunks in their bedroom, painted like a domino, one square blank and the other with five dots.

  Hedy and Spencer inched cautiously into the room as the Woodspies chased their marbles around.

  “He must be in that chest,” Hedy said.

  “Should we open it?”

  “Go on, then.”

  “No, you do it.”

  “Why me?”

  “You’re the oldest.”

  The chest was certainly large enough to fit a body. Hedy tried to ignore the tiny shiver that traveled down her neck. She decided to approach this the same way she did the diving platform at their public pool near home: Don’t overthink it. Get the worst over quickly. Hedy strode toward the chest and lifted the lid, heart drumming.

  It was empty, except for one deck of playing cards tucked in the corner.

  “Hello?” Hedy tried. “Albert Nobody?”

  Nothing. Reassured, Spencer scurried to Hedy’s side. “Do we have to do something to get Albert Nobody talking?” he asked.

  “Maybe the Woodspies know,” Hedy said. And that was when she noticed the three creatures clustered beneath the chandelier. She knelt on the floor next to them and looked up. “Is Albert Nobody in there?”

  They wobbled.

  “I think that means yes,” Spencer said.

  The chandelier was as large and round as a wagon wheel and made of eight tubes on the outside, with brass ornaments hanging from them. At the center of the tubes was a compartment made of green-and-black glass, like the skin of a beautiful, dangerous snake.

  As Hedy stood, the Woodspies whizzed beneath one of her feet, tipping her off balance and making her knock her head on the chandelier. “Ow!” she muttered. She could hear a rattling sound, as though something tiny was rolling about inside one of the chambers.

  Spencer fiddled with the brass ornament at its base. “It’s coming off!” he said, and as he unscrewed it, a tiny white object fell out onto the floor. It was a child’s tooth.

  “Ugh.” Hedy pulled a face.

  “What’s a tooth doing in there?” asked Spencer.

  “I don’t even want to know.”

  “Do you think it belongs to Nobody? Maybe he kept his baby teeth.”

  The three Woodspies, far from being disgusted by the mysterious tooth, began pushing it around, like one of their marbles.

  “Maybe you should put it back,
” Hedy said.

  “Why me?”

  “Because you took it out!”

  “I didn’t mean to!”

  “Then why did you undo that ornament?”

  “I didn’t know it was—No!” Spencer suddenly dived toward the floor. The Woodspies had nudged the tooth to a knot in the wooden floorboard, and before Spencer had a chance to do anything, they sucked the tooth into the wood and disappeared.

  “Give it back,” said a voice behind them. It was not Grandpa John’s voice.

  The children spun round. There was no one there, but the dark glass of the chandelier was glowing royal blue.

  “Give the blasted tooth back.”

  Blue light, like veins, whipped across the chandelier.

  Spencer inched closer to Hedy as she asked, “Albert Nobody?”

  The invisible speaker ignored her question. “What do you mean by causing such a ruckus? Hammering my home like barbarians at the gates? Were you raised by baboons? Give my tooth back and scram.”

  “We’ll need to call the Woodspies back to get your tooth,” Hedy said. “But we actually wanted to talk to you, Albert.”

  “Mr. Nobody to you, peasant.”

  Hedy bit her tongue. They had to win his help somehow. “You try,” she whispered to Spencer.

  “I really like your tricks, Mr. Nobody …” Spencer began.

  “Of course you would, you provincial cretin,” Nobody said in a patronizing tone. “I’m sure you’ve never come across a skerrick of magic in your life.”

  Spencer looked crestfallen. “I believe in magic,” he tried again. “How do you cut off your own head?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Can I learn it?”

  “Why, of course!” Spencer’s face lifted in hope at Nobody’s suddenly amiable tone. The invisible magician added, “Come closer.”

  Spencer squinted at Hedy. He wasn’t going any closer by himself. She took his hand, and together they inched forward until they were only two paces from the chandelier.

  “Take a sharp, a very sharp, implement,” Nobody said, “and cut—”

  “Stop it,” Hedy barked. “Don’t listen to him, Spence.”

  Spencer took a step back and crossed his arms.

  “No, cretins,” Nobody said softly, “the grand-spawn of John Sang, Self-Importance Personified, may not learn my defining act of magic.” Tendrils of blue light fluttered across the chandelier. “Ooh, find me! Find me!” he suddenly chortled.

  Hedy leaned in. “What did you say?”

  He mimicked a woman’s voice. “Find. Me. Your loving grandmother, Rose.”

  “How do you know about her?”

  “Because I’m a being of intelligence, dead though I may be. Even locked in this prison, I pay attention to what happens on Hoarder Hill. I listen. Unlike some former magicians living here.”

  “Where is she?” Hedy pressed.

  “Oh, Lord knows,” Nobody said breezily. “I know what happened to her only up to a point.”

  “What point?”

  “The point at which she disappeared, never to be seen again, ruining your grandfather’s life—and, I daresay, your mother’s life—forever.”

  Hedy and Spencer shared a look. They hadn’t really thought much about their mother’s life before they had been born, nor how the disappearance of Rose had changed things for her.

  “Will you tell us what happened?” Hedy asked.

  There was silence as the invisible Nobody thought. Finally, he said, “I’ve decided I rather like you two after all. Clever things, aren’t you, to have found me?”

  Hedy couldn’t help feeling suspicious at this sudden change.

  “I won’t tell you what happened,” Nobody continued. “I’ll do something even better. I will show you. Although you may not like what you see.”

  “We can handle it,” Hedy said firmly.

  “Can you, indeed? Well, my assistance is conditional.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you want me to help you, unleash me from this prison.”

  “How can you be trapped?” Spencer asked, puzzled. “Can’t ghosts move through walls?”

  “Who said I was a ghost?”

  “Then what are you?” Spencer probed.

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  Hedy scowled. It was maddening when grown-ups assumed that. “How do we get you out?”

  “Return my tooth and unscrew the chambers of the chandelier. That’s all you have to do. Easy. I’ll be out of your hair, and your grandfather’s too—if he’s still got any.”

  “Will you teach me your trick?” Spencer asked, sensing this was his time to bargain.

  “Oh, of course.”

  “We’ll think about it,” Hedy said, eyes narrowed, and then she motioned to Spencer. It was time to go.

  “Free me,” Nobody called softly, “and I could help you do the same for your grandmother.”

  Neither of the children said anything as they hurried away from the room, leaving it unlocked. The farther they got from the odd, bodiless voice, the better they felt.

  The next morning, Hedy and Spencer mulled over Mr. Nobody’s offer. As they cruised from room to room, they kept an eye out for a white tooth or a moving bump in the floorboards.

  “How can anyone trust somebody who’s so mean at first and then switches to being nice when they want something?” Hedy whispered.

  Spencer gave her an accusing look. “You’re like that to me.”

  “I’m never that mean to you.” She felt a pang of remorse at Spencer’s flat stare. “Am I?”

  Grandpa John usually spent an hour or two in his study after breakfast. “Writing letters,” he had told them. Hedy had a feeling that was how he found new objects to buy. As soon as his door closed, they stole a moment with Doug and Stan to tell them about their discovery and Nobody’s proposition.

  “Don’t like the sound of him,” Stan muttered.

  Doug flicked an ear. “I’m with Stan. Not everything in this house that the Master’s collected is good like us, you know? Some might think he’s willy-nilly and collects every-which-thing that has the slightest whiff of enchantment. And others still might say he collects the stuff that isn’t good and keeps it under wraps to stop it making mischief in the world.”

  “Albert Nobody falls into the ‘Isn’t Good’ category, if your encounter is anything to go by,” said Stan. “Fancy calling you, young Spencer, a cretin.”

  Spencer shrugged. “I thought he was calling me one of those crunchy things you put on salad.”

  “It’s a bad idea to deal with him,” Doug muttered, shaking his head.

  “But he’s our best chance of finding out what happened,” Hedy said.

  Stan and Doug fell silent. They couldn’t argue with that. Finally, Doug said, “As long as you promise not to trust him.”

  “And give away as little as you can,” Stan added.

  “And I don’t think you should let him loose either,” Doug plowed on. “He’s in there for a reason.”

  Hedy sighed. “We need the tooth back from the Woodspies before we can do any of that.”

  Every bit of wood they studied inside the house—floor, door, windowsills, tables, and chairs—was as still as it was meant to be. At a loss, they checked things in the garage too, inspecting handles of spades, rakes and hoes, wooden boards, an old wooden set of bowling pins. None of it seemed out of the ordinary.

  When they heard footsteps on the driveway, they bustled to replace the bowling pins in their frame.

  Grandpa John peered around the garage door. “What are you two doing in here?” He didn’t sound angry, but there was unease in the crease between his eyebrows.

  “We, um.” Hedy scanned the garage for inspiration. “We’re looking at your motorcycles. Just looking.”

  Grandpa’s eyebrow crease smoothed away. “Well, that one’s a Gillet, 1929,” he told them, “and that’s an Indian. And that orange one is a Honda.”

 
“Why do you have so many?” Spencer asked.

  “Oh, I used to ride around a bit,” Grandpa John said. “And your grandmother used to join me on the Indian. Good riding in the countryside.”

  “Grandma Rose could ride a motorcycle?” Hedy was shocked.

  “She could indeed. That was her helmet.” He pointed to an old helmet, red with a white stripe running down the center.

  Spencer wandered over to the orange motorcycle. “Did you ride this one?”

  “Sometimes. A few other people rode it too. Peter did, a handful of times. We’d join a group riding around and create a whole lot of noise.” He shook his head, reminiscing, and then out of nowhere said gravely, “Don’t forget, you two are the only siblings you’ve got.”

  “Like you and Uncle Peter,” Spencer said.

  Hedy, however, couldn’t help blurting out, “You were part of a biker gang?”

  “Goodness, we weren’t bikers,” said Grandpa John. “We had other common interests.”

  “A magicians’ biker gang?”

  “You make it sound rather more interesting than it was,” Grandpa John said, taking hold of his box of screwdrivers. “Like we rode across Britain in capes, casting spells. Now go on—you’ve been skulking around indoors all morning when you could be enjoying the great outdoors.”

  “Are you coming with us?” Spencer asked.

  Grandpa John rattled his screwdrivers. “I have to get on with something.”

  Spencer lowered his voice as far as he could and creased his own brow in imitation of Grandpa John. “But you’ve been skulking around indoors all morning.”

  Grandpa John chuckled and said, “Next time, you scallywag.”

  The great outdoors was cold and overcast, but it was refreshing to be out of the house. Hedy and Spencer wandered the garden path, picking thorns off the barren archway of climbing roses and poking at stones. With some fumbling, they climbed onto the lowest branches of the leafless sycamore tree. Hedy cast her eyes over trunk and branches for Woodspies, but after a while, she gave up to simply enjoy being in the tree. Looking back at the house, she could see Mrs. Vilums moving about the kitchen, but Grandpa John must have returned to his study with the screwdrivers.