The House on Hoarder Hill

by Mikki Lish

  “You know,” she said, “I think Grandpa John might like us being here now.”

  “I wish we lived closer,” Spencer said. “I’d be a magician by now.”

  Hedy laughed. “You haven’t learned any tricks so far.”

  “That’s not my fault—we’ve been busy,” he protested. “Let’s check on the eggs.”

  To their delight they found them changed, even the one that Spencer had kept with him for half a day. Where the shells had been a dark, polished gray they were now the lighter color of distant storm clouds. More and more coppery strands glinted in the surface like fire.

  “I wonder if this means they’re getting ready to hatch,” Spencer said.

  “We could ask Grandpa,” Hedy mused. “He doesn’t seem as uptight about these as he is about stuff inside.”

  That was all Spencer needed to hear. He placed the three eggs in three different coat pockets. “If they hatch, he might let us keep one as a pet!” And he took off up the slope back toward the house with Hedy on his heels.

  They slowed down as they neared the rear of the house, and then Hedy yanked Spencer to a stop to stare through the kitchen windows. Mrs. Vilums was in the doorway between the kitchen and the hall, her back to them. She seemed to be saying something to the doorframe. A few moments later, bumps appeared in the wood, rising up and then disappearing like whales at sea. Mrs. Vilums smiled at them and held her face close to the wood so that one of the Woodspies could touch her skin, as though kissing her cheek.

  “Mrs. V knows the Woodspies,” Hedy breathed.

  The cook watched with amusement as the Woodspies chased one another playfully up one side of the doorframe, across the lintel, and down the other side. There, they disappeared into the wood of the doorframe. The children ducked down low before Mrs. Vilums could turn around and see them spying on her.

  “What do we do?” Spencer whispered.

  Hedy chewed her lip. “Let’s ask her for help. We need the tooth. For Grandma.”

  “What do we tell her?”

  “Follow my lead,” Hedy said.

  As they walked through the back door, they smiled innocently at Mrs. Vilums, who was slicing apples. Hedy checked there was no sign of Grandpa John coming down the hall, then took a deep breath. “Mrs. Vilums, do you know the Woodspies?”

  Mrs. Vilums paused a fraction too long before saying, “I beg your pardon?”

  “We saw them here with you a few minutes ago,” Hedy said, patting the doorframe.

  “One of them kissed you!” Spencer added.

  Mrs. Vilums turned to place a plate of apple skins on the table. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Lar! Lar! Lar!

  Suddenly flustered, Mrs. Vilums knocked the plate, and apple skins skittered across the table as she looked around for the source of the chirping.

  Spencer half lifted an egg from his coat pocket. “Liar bird egg.”

  “They know when someone is lying,” Hedy said in a low voice.

  “Why am I suddenly the subject of interrogation?” Mrs. Vilums threw up her hands.

  “Please, Mrs. V, we need the Woodspies’ help,” Hedy said. “They’ve taken something they shouldn’t have. A tooth. It’s really important they give it back.” Mrs. Vilums seemed unmoved. Hedy decided to press harder. “Does Grandpa John know about you and the Woodspies?”

  The cook waved a dismissive hand. “He wouldn’t care.”

  Lar! Lar! Lar!

  “You know about the Woodspies,” Hedy said. “You knew how to cure us of that cold feeling. You’re not just someone who cooks and cleans for Grandpa John, are you?”

  Mrs. Vilums looked like she wanted to bolt through the back door. Spencer pulled a liar bird egg out completely and held it in two hands. Coppery filaments glimmered in the shell, and the whole egg wobbled, agitated.

  Staring at the egg, Mrs. Vilums said, “I … I was sent here years ago by a rival of your grandfather, to become a part of this household and learn his secrets. The rival wanted me to pass the secrets back to him.”

  “Albert Nobody?” asked Spencer.

  “No, someone else.” The egg was silent, so Mrs. Vilums was telling them the truth. “He threatened to harm my sisters, but I never told this rival anything of consequence. And in any case, he’s dead now.” At Hedy’s and Spencer’s expressions, she added, “Of natural causes!”

  “So why are you still here?” Hedy asked.

  Mrs. Vilums glanced out the back windows. “To be close to my sisters.”

  There was a sad quiet to the woman’s voice that made Hedy hate herself for what she was about to do. “If you help us get the tooth back from the Woodspies,” she said, “we won’t tell Grandpa John what you just told us.”

  Blackmailing someone didn’t agree with Hedy; it brought an uncomfortable, prickly flush to her cheeks. She tried to soften the cruelty of her words by adding, “It could help us find our grandmother.”

  Mrs. Vilums’s eyes flashed with anger and surprise. Hedy glanced at Spencer for backup, but he was staring into his coat pockets.

  “Um,” he said, “this egg is hatching.”

  Not only was the egg in Spencer’s right pocket hatching, but the one he held in his hand was too, and the third one. Within a few minutes, the children lifted three wet chicks from the broken shell and goo and placed them in a makeshift nest of tea towels. Their grayish-pink skin showed through slick feathers, and they seemed exhausted.

  Hedy and Spencer had never seen freshly hatched birds before. They bent down close over the chicks, admiring them in whispers, studying their small dark eyes and tiny beaks that kept opening and closing. Even Mrs. Vilums was charmed by the chicks, crooning a gentle lullaby to them in a language the children couldn’t understand. “We should tell your grandfather,” she said as she finished her song.

  It took a long time before Grandpa John strode into the kitchen, scratching his head and insisting he never expected the things to hatch. For a while, Hedy, Spencer, and Grandpa John were consumed with watching the chicks dry into silvery-brown balls of fluffy down, with short crests on their heads the color of a dying fire. Over mugs of hot chocolate, the children peppered Grandpa John with questions—where had they come from, what should they be fed, what was he going to do with them?

  Sometime during all of this, Mrs. Vilums slipped out of the back door unnoticed. When Hedy realized, her heart sank, and she wondered if Mrs. Vilums was gone for good. But when the children headed to their bedroom for the night, there in the middle of the floor was the tiny white tooth.

  Spencer’s alarm went off at midnight, and the children struggled awake, yawning heavily and feeling dull-eyed. With the tooth in Spencer’s robe pocket, they tiptoed down the hall and up the stairs to Nobody’s room. Hedy paused at the door.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  Spencer hesitated. “I don’t want to learn his beheading trick anymore,” he murmured.

  “I won’t let him hurt you,” Hedy said. Her voice sounded tougher than she felt. She took a deep breath before turning the doorknob and entering, Spencer on her heels.

  “Ah!” cooed Nobody as they sidled around the wooden chest with the domino design. “If it isn’t the Sang spawn—I mean, the Sang children—back so soon.”

  “Our last name isn’t Sang. It’s van Beer,” Spencer muttered to the blue light as it coiled and uncoiled in the glass.

  “Of course, silly me,” Nobody said. “I’m not surprised your mother didn’t want you having any hint of the Sang name hanging about such wonderful children, sullying your futures. I presume you have the tooth?”

  Spencer held the tooth up. “Here.”

  “Well, aren’t you clever? It’s time for me to be released, then,” Nobody said, his tone wheedling.

  Hedy took half a step forward, then stopped herself. “No, you have to show us what happened to our grandmother first.”

  “How do I know you won’t just run away once I show you?” Nobody said, sounding hurt. �
�One of us has to give in first, and you’re the ones who came to find me.”

  But with Doug and Stan’s warning ringing in her head, Hedy stood her ground. “Show us what you know first.”

  The blue light traveled through the green glass in an annoyed flicker. “Stubborn as your grandfather, eh?”

  “That’s right.”

  Nobody sighed very loudly. “Very well. A show you want, a show you’ll get. But there will be consequences if you don’t keep your word,” he said. “You need to put the tooth back. I can’t do anything with you holding it.”

  Neither of them was keen to touch the chandelier again, but they reached up to unscrew a cylindrical chamber. A very small disc about the size of a fingernail fell out onto the floor.

  “Quick, pick it up, fools,” Nobody hissed. “That’s the wrong chamber. The tooth belongs in the next one around, clockwise. Don’t mix them up or I’ll end up with teeth growing out of my fingers.”

  It was a horrifying thought, but before they could ask what he meant, three familiar bumps appeared in the surface of the floorboards. The Woodspies had been drawn by the fallen disc. Hedy scrambled to pick it up before the Woodspies could steal the thing, and realized that it wasn’t just the size of a fingernail, it was a fingernail. Not just a clipped end, but a full nail, ripped off a finger. She almost dropped it in disgust. It was very dark in color, somewhere between red and purple and black. Trying to hold it with as little of her own fingers as possible, she returned the nail into its chamber, and Spencer replaced the cap. They opened the next chamber along clockwise, as instructed by Nobody, and Spencer placed the tooth carefully inside and closed it again.

  “Okay, now your turn,” Hedy said, backing away from the chandelier and pulling Spencer with her. The Woodspies circled their feet; Hedy couldn’t tell whether the little creatures were nervous or being protective.

  “There’s a deck of cards inside that chest,” Nobody ordered. “Get it out.”

  Hedy opened the lid of the domino chest and extracted the cards lying at the bottom. She gently shook the cards out onto her palm.

  “Now throw them into the air.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Throw them into the air.”

  With a doubtful glance at Spencer, Hedy tossed the deck of cards into the air. They fell to the floor with a soft slap.

  “Pathetic effort,” muttered Nobody. “Try again, both of you, half a deck each. And really throw. I can’t do much if they’re just lying on the ground.”

  The Woodspies bulldozed cards into Hedy’s and Spencer’s hands until they each had roughly half a deck. Deep in the heart of the chandelier, Nobody’s blue light had shrunk to a tight sphere.

  “One, two, three,” counted Spencer, and they both flung the cards up.

  The cards fluttered and spun. But something else was happening. All the black and red diamonds, spades, hearts, and clubs, and the numbers too, lifted off the cards, so that unmarked cardboard wafted to the floor. The small black and red markings gathered together, mysteriously suspended in a large cloud, clustering randomly until Nobody said in a deep, showy voice, “Behold. The Disappearance of Rose Sang.”

  The cloud of shapes and numbers swirled around until they formed an image of a long box. They’d seen it in the clip on Jelly’s phone.

  “Grandpa John’s Kaleidos,” Hedy said. The littlest Woodspy wobbled to and fro excitedly, bumping her toes.

  Shapes and numbers wavered, and everything swirled again. The Kaleidos reappeared, and a cloud of red and black in the shape of a person approached it—a woman in a short, flared skirt. It couldn’t be anyone else.

  “There’s Grandma,” Spencer said, transfixed.

  The shape of Grandma Rose ran an affectionate hand along the Kaleidos, then walked away. The shapes and numbers that formed her figure dissolved. It was just the box again. But now here came someone new. A taller person with broader shoulders and a cape fluttering behind him as he walked. Like Grandma Rose, his face was indistinct. He knelt at one end of the Kaleidos and extracted a cube, made of a stack of diamonds. Then he too walked away, and the markings that formed him disbanded.

  “Who was that?” Hedy asked, but Nobody said nothing.

  The red-and-black shapes churned and re-formed, showing the box again but smaller, as though seen from a farther distance. On one side was a patch of black spade shapes, showing where the Kaleidos was missing a cube.

  Doll-sized forms of John and Rose walked out of the swirl of shapes, to take a bow in front of the box at an imaginary audience. Rose curtsied and swung herself into the Kaleidos. The small black John moved his glittering creation around, pushing and pulling and tipping pieces over, red shapes dancing like the flames over it all.

  John stopped, made the Kaleidos rectangular again, and opened the side. The box was empty. Small red Rose was gone. The figure of John bent over, crying.

  As the cloud of shapes and numbers merged again into one large Kaleidos image, they began to float toward Hedy and Spencer. The empty spot where the missing cube should have been grew and grew, and then came at the children in a rush, the spaces between the shapes disappearing until all was black. It was a tunnel of pure shadow that enveloped them, reverberating. Hedy couldn’t see anything, but she held Spencer’s hand tightly. When his other hand came searching through the darkness, she grabbed it. No matter how hard she blinked, she couldn’t see anything through the terrifying blackness, nor hear anything. The only slivers of comfort she had to anchor her in the darkness were Spencer’s hands and the bump of a Woodspy underfoot.

  Finally, light. The blackness parted, like a tent being unzipped. The shapes all mixed together again, red and black, and then dived down onto the mess of cards, taking their places so that, moments later, the cards looked like they always had.

  “And there you have it,” Nobody said blithely. The blue light in the chandelier was no longer a ball shape and now danced across the glass chambers as normal.

  Hedy and Spencer were still clutching each other’s hands, breathing hard. Shakily, Hedy asked, “What was that thing at the end?”

  “It was the end.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was the deafening, endless night I believe your grandmother endures. Do you want to see it again?”

  Hedy did not. Everything in her instinctively recoiled at the thought of drowning in the blackness once more. But neither did she want to let Nobody know that she was frightened. “Who was the man who took the cube?”

  “Oh, you know that,” Nobody said, his voice taking on a sly tone.

  “Who was it?”

  “Why, your greatest family magician, of course!”

  Hedy felt like her heart had dropped into a deep chasm under her feet. Spencer released her hands from his, stunned and pale as a ghost. “Grandpa John?” he whispered.

  Nobody chuckled deeply for a long time.

  “It can’t have been Grandpa John,” Hedy managed.

  “Really? Why?”

  “He loved her. He’s so sad. He’s been … been broken ever since she disappeared.”

  “The sad, broken form of a guilty man, I say,” Nobody said. “Or is it an act? Haven’t you ever wondered why your mother moved so far away from her only surviving parent? Did she know in her heart what he had done, and hate him for it?”

  “Mom and Dad moved for work,” Spencer protested.

  And Mom doesn’t hate Grandpa John, Hedy thought, holding on to what she thought she knew as if it were a life raft. Moments of their mother and grandfather together played in her mind. Perhaps Mom and Grandpa John were a little awkward with each other at times, and weeks seemed to go by between phone calls. Hedy had never heard them fight, but why did they live so far away? Why didn’t they visit more?

  “Of course that’s what she told you,” Nobody sighed. “Back in those days, your grandfather was the most arrogant performer on the circuit. We all hated him. Even Peter found him infuriating. John claimed he was the best, but I
would have put my money on any number of others. I never did understand why the police dropped the line of questioning that involved the Amazing John Sang so quickly. Your grandfather probably did it for the attention.”

  Hedy couldn’t put the deep grief of Grandpa John together with someone who would make his own wife disappear.

  “Anyway, I’ve done my part. Now time for you to do yours. Set me free,” said Nobody.

  “What are you going to do when you’re out?” Spencer asked.

  There was a pause before Mr. Nobody spoke. “Travel the world to lay the sun on my throat. To look thunder in the eye. To bite at the wind in my teeth.”

  The children were momentarily stunned. What did it mean to look thunder in the eye?

  “I thought you were going to say you’d haunt somebody,” Spencer said.

  “Would you like me to?” Nobody teased.

  Hedy tried to think. “What are we supposed to do now? How do we find Grandma Rose?”

  “Well, obviously, in order to untrap her you need to find that box she’s trapped in and make it whole,” Nobody said.

  “But Grandpa John said he destroyed the Kaleidos,” Hedy said, “to keep our mother safe.”

  Nobody snorted. “Ha! You’d better hope not! Fat chance of you finding her if he did. Now set me free.”

  “But are we looking for the missing piece?”

  After a long moment of thought, Nobody said, “If I’m set free, I can help you look for it. And the Kaleidos.”

  “How?”

  “There are places I can go that you can’t.”

  Hedy was suspicious. “Do you promise?”

  “Magician’s honor.”

  Hedy nibbled her thumbnail, thinking. After a long moment, she muttered, “Fine.”

  Spencer grabbed her elbow. “Doug and Stan said not to trust him!” he whispered.

  “I think this will be the fastest way.” She and Spencer slowly edged toward the chandelier. “What do we do?” she asked Nobody.

  “You need to take out all my relics and lay them on the floor. The tooth, the nail, all the items in the other chambers. Take them out and arrange them how I tell you to.”