The House on Hoarder Hill

by Mikki Lish

  “Maybe I should. Isn’t it wiser to quit while we’re ahead?”

  “You could make this the last one ever, then,” Hedy suggested. “And if it’s the last time you ever do magic, it’ll be because you care about someone, not because you’re trying to show off.”

  Grandpa John looked at them with a mixture of amusement and defeat. “Will you help me?” he asked unexpectedly. They nodded eagerly. “All right. Quietly, then. And don’t get your hopes up. I’m not certain we can pull this off.”

  He crooked a finger, and they followed him to his study, where he opened a brown leather box in a bookcase. From the box, he withdrew a long, slim ebony wand, and from a drawer in his desk he retrieved the stone hand.

  “Grandpa John, are you an actual wizard?” exclaimed Spencer, gaping at the wand. But Grandpa John rolled his eyes as though it was an absurd notion.

  They sneaked through the front door and looped around the side of the house to get to the backyard. The children had to trot to keep up with Grandpa John as he strode through the wooden archway, down the path, all the way to the statue graveyard.

  The “glue glue” seemed ordinary enough when squeezed out of the mustard bottle. But once they held the chopped-off hand to the stump of Mrs. Vilums’s wrist, the join between them fizzed. There was a far-off sound of bells, and they watched the seam between the hand and the wrist disappear. It was like it had never been broken.

  Grandpa John pulled the wand from under his sweater and turned to face the carved figures of Mrs. Vilums, Maja, and Ewa. He cleared his throat nervously. “Both of you take a hold of the wand,” he instructed the children. They did so, and then he placed his hand over the top of theirs. “Now think of what Mrs. Vilums looked like as a person, what she sounded like. Bring her to life in your mind.”

  As they raised the wand in the air together, Hedy’s mind flitted over different memories of Mrs. Vilums: sending them out into the garden for sunlight, being kissed by the Woodspies, dashing to protect them from Sir Roland. They brought the wand down to point at Mrs. Vilums and her sisters.

  “Awaken,” Grandpa John whispered, staring hard at the statues. He nodded at Hedy and Spencer to do the same.

  “Awaken,” they repeated.

  They backed away a few steps and waited for something to happen.

  “Do you think Maja and Ewa are as good at baking cakes as Mrs. V?” Spencer whispered into the stillness of the garden.

  Hedy stifled a laugh. “How can you still be hungry?”

  A crest of voices and noise suddenly floated from the house, making the three of them turn back, fleetingly worried that some danger had befallen the house. But it wasn’t fright or alarm, only laughter.

  “That’s the most people my house has ever held,” Grandpa John murmured.

  “It’s a big house, Grandpa John,” Hedy said. “There’s room for three more, isn’t there?”

  “Yes, there is,” he agreed.

  At that, there was a light cracking sound over the surface of the carved stone statues. Hedy took Spencer’s and Grandpa John’s hands and dared to smile. With a growing sense of hope, they watched dark shards of stone begin falling away to reveal the life that was waiting beneath.

  The stone raven hesitated.

  She was no longer trapped on the roof by her stone form and could take to the wing at will—it was what she loved best. But sitting above the attic window where she had helped the girl fly, she heard a noise that made her pause and look through the glass.

  All seemed dim and still in the attic, but there was the noise again. Peck, peck. Two large frames rested against a wall. Peck, peck. One of the frames quivered, as though it was being tapped. Peck, peck. A board covering the front of the frame was marred by a hole that had been chipped through it. If the light had been better, the stone raven might have seen the brown eye of a magpie-like creature, gazing through the opening.

  Calls below the great house diverted the stone raven yet again. It was the voice of Rose. She was no longer the Missing One; she was found, and she was with her family. The raven now thought of them as the raven’s own flock. She watched them embrace and call out their farewells to one another, and then four of the flock got into their red car to drive away. Even the girl who could fly.

  The stone raven leapt and flickered in midair to feather, muscle, and bone. She circled above the car that slowly eased down the hill. When it got to a small terraced house in the village, the red car was flagged down, and the raven had to alight upon a lamppost to observe. The woman who cooked for the Master emerged from the house, smiling widely, followed by two other women who looked very much like her. They passed wrapped parcels through the windows of the car and kissed everyone inside it, laughing and chattering for a while, before allowing the family to leave the village.

  The red car sped toward the woods, and the raven sped with it. Alongside the trees where many wild things lived, the girl in the car spotted the raven and wound down her window so that her hair flew everywhere and the wind blew her cheeks pink. “We’ll see you at Easter!” she shouted, and the grinning boy waved his furry hat through the window. Then the girl wound the window up again, and they watched the raven with beaming faces. Wanting to make them happy, the raven soared in graceful waves up and down. The bird did not want the girl to forget that she could fly.

  Another car raced along the cold road. It accelerated quickly, perhaps recklessly, creeping up behind the family’s red car, as though intent on hunting it. The raven descended to fly level with the cars, a sense of danger ruffling her happiness.

  The pursuing car was occupied by one man alone, with dark hair and a brightly colored blue-and-red cloth around his long neck. His car began to overtake the red one with a loud purr. Before his car had quite passed, the lone man turned to the girl and boy through the windows and drew a finger across his neck. The raven did not know that the girl and boy had seen the paisley cravat and the rather handsome face before. But she knew something was wrong; the smiles dropped from their faces as they took in the driver—and the black nail on that threatening finger.

  The stranger in the car surged ahead and swerved, so that the red car screeched and veered perilously toward the edge of the road before coming to a stop. There was no stopping the pursuing car now, however. It raced away, victorious.

  The raven flapped onto the hood of the red car and peered inside. The family were wide-eyed, but unhurt. The father opened the car door and stepped out, staring at the vehicle disappearing down the road.

  “Who does he think he is?” the mother seethed.

  The girl and the boy stared at each other, dread mirrored in their faces. “Nobody.”

  We have imagined sharing Hedy and Spencer’s story in different ways over the years. To have it come to life on page is a dream come true, but we didn’t get here alone.

  At the outset, the dream might have been an unrealized one if not for: Doug Ngai, the original Doug the Rug, who matchmade us as a writing team and whose belief in us never wavers; Rob Hyde, who gave us early advice when we first began writing Hoarder Hill for the screen; Kevin Burke, who loved the characters so much he wanted to get to know them in book form; Harry Holland, whose talent and amazing vision brought our idea to life in our teaser trailer; Mitch Rose, who was instrumental in us being represented by CAA, and whom we owe a really fancy TV dinner.

  To the cheer squad that supported our vision for page and screen, read early drafts, and listened to our ideas—we heart you:

  The Holland family, especially Paddy Holland, who has always been our Spencer; Genya Sugowdz; Stuart Madgwick; Jenny Wong; Christie Carr; Kelly and Carol Dann; Kristen Cherrie; Lia Brandligt; Marinka and Amanda Hudonogov Foster; Kendra Wester; Dede Grutz; Kat Rallis; Dijanna Mulhearn; JulieAnne Rhodes, on whose guest bed the idea was “conceived”; Naomi Watts for your continued support; Heidi Gomes, whose friendship and help we were so lucky to have inherited; Katherine Tomlinson; Julieanne and Dave Williams; Jamie Olds and magicians Eric Jones
and Charlie Caper; Emmy Marriott; Ben Perkins; Dan Baldwin for brainstorming the painted world with us; Debbie Ujcic; Bjorn Puckler; and Lexi, Nick, Sylvie, and Ophelia De Toth.

  Mahalo to our amazing literary agents, Oliver and Paula Latsch of LatschLit, for once upon a time asking if there was a Chapter 2, and for their continued support and guidance thereafter.

  Our thanks to Barry Cunningham for loving Doug and Stan as much as we do, believing we could be the real deal and inviting us to join the incredible Chicken House stable—or perhaps coop!—of authors.

  We’re indebted to Rachel Leyshon, editor extraordinaire, who always saw the forest in spite of the many, many trees and helped us distill the story in these pages with such intelligence, thoughtfulness, and tact.

  Thank you to Rachel Hickman, Elinor Bagenal, Laura Myers, Jazz Bartlett Love, Sarah Wilson, and the whole Chicken House team for getting behind our book and being all-round lovely humans.

  For enabling our nefarious plans for world/multimedia domination, our gratitude goes out to:

  Catrin Abert and Carsten Polzin at Piper Verlag; Olivia Blaustein, our dynamic agent, and Jamie Stockton at CAA; Debbie Liebling, Zainab Azizi, and Sam Raimi at Ghost House; and Nne Ebong at wiip.

  My love and gratitude goes out especially to my parents, Juliana and Michael Ngai, who gave me time to write with their boundless support in day-to-day life; to Brent Armfield for his constant encouragement, humor, and loving the unexpected bits; and to Rufus and Xavier for so proudly telling everyone from teachers to strangers at the park that their mama is going to be an author.

  My love and thanks also go out to family! Firstly to my father, Uldis, who passed on his passion for storytelling, and my mother, Ilze, for her humor, sense of fun, and unfailing support in whatever dreams I chose to chase (that day …), Martins, Amanda, Sharon, Adrian, Aleks, Thorley, Josie, Annika, Ryan, and a special shout-out to “baby” brother Gint for suggesting that it would be “kind of funny if you had a talking bear rug and stag head in your story.”

  My husband, Colin Lish, for his endless, unwavering support, encouragement, love, and keeping me focused when yet another “shiny object” would enter my orbit!

  Australian co-authors Mikki Lish and Kelly Ngai create worlds together, even though they don’t live on the same continent. This means that when they video call each other, it’s not unusual for someone to be in pajamas.

  Mikki has worked with many musicians and actors and now lives in America with her husband, dog and cats.

  Kelly lives in Australia with her two sons and loves waking up to the wild story ideas that Mikki has sent during the night.

  Copyright © 2021 by Mikki Lish & Kelly Ngai

  All rights reserved. Published by Chicken House, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, CHICKEN HOUSE, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by Chicken House, 2 Palmer Street, Frome, Somerset BA11 1DS.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First printing 2021

  Cover art © 2021 by Petur Antonsson • Cover design by Christopher Stengel

  e-ISBN 978-1-338-66518-5

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.