by P. B. Kerr
“That is true,” said Nimrod. “Of course, new ghosts are being created all the time. People die and sometimes they become ghosts. But it is certain that things are not what they were. It will take many centuries for there to be as many ghosts as once there were. However, you must allow a man with a house like Nightshakes a little poetic license. Besides, there are more things in heaven and earth besides ghosts than perhaps you can yet imagine, Philippa. At least I hope so.”
“Now there’s a comforting thought,” mumbled Groanin. He went into the room that Bo had indicated, closed the door behind him and looked around, nodding appreciatively as his eyes took in the enormous bed, the wide-screen TV, and the many marble acres of the bathroom. He had just dropped his bag and spread himself out on the bed when there was a knock at the door. It was John.
Groanin smiled as best he was able. “What do you want, young man?” he asked the boy. “I say, what do you want?”
“I assume you have no real interest in the Djinnverso tournament,” said John.
“You assume correctly. I dislike all games except soccer and darts.”
“In which case I was wondering if you might like to accompany me to the Peabody Museum.”
Mr. Groanin thought about John’s invitation for a moment. In truth the idea was not an attractive one to him. Groanin had disliked museums ever since the time he had been attacked by a tiger while working in the library of the British Museum. But he was fond of John and decided to go with him if only to keep him from getting into mischief, because boys will be boys even when they are also djinn.
The Peabody is a large redbrick building that looks more like a church than a museum. But there can be few if any churches that are possessed of the type of outside statuary that blesses the Peabody. For, mounted on a granite plinth in front is a life-sized and reasonably lifelike bronze of a Torosaurus, which is a species of dinosaur that most resembles a Triceratops.
Mr. Groanin was not impressed.
“Now, why would anyone want to make a statue of an ugly-looking beast like that?” he grumbled. “I’ve never understood the fascination people have with these daft creatures. Big, nasty things with sharp teeth and clumsy feet.” He shuddered. “Horrible.”
John did not agree. “I think it’s amazing,” he said. “Just imagine what would happen if it came alive. The damage it could cause. Awesome.”
“If I was lucky enough to have a wish from a djinn right now,” Groanin said pointedly, “it would be that this big horrible monstrosity could stay exactly where it is, forever. Is that clear?”
“Yes,” said John. “I was just imagining, that’s all.”
“Well, don’t. When you imagine something, most normal folk feel obliged to reach for a tin hat.”
They went inside and spent a meandering couple of hours looking at collections of historical scientific instruments, meteorites, Egyptian antiquities, and various items of South American gold and pottery. John would have been bored except for the curious sensation they were being watched. A couple of times he even turned around suddenly, hoping to catch sight of someone spying on him, but spotted nothing out of the ordinary and his behavior only earned him some strange looks from Groanin.
“What’s wrong with you, lad? You’re as jumpy as a sack full of cats.”
“Nothing,” said John. He glanced out of the window, where a wind was strengthening. “I expect it was just the wind.” He glanced at his watch. “Come on, let’s go back to the house. This place is boring.”
“Never a truer word spoken,” said Groanin. “I’ve seen the contents of handkerchiefs that were more interesting than this.”
At Nightshakes, the Djinnverso tournament was in full swing and nobody paid any attention to John, which, for once, suited him very well, and after dinner, he sought out Bo, Mr. Vodyannoy’s weird butler, to ask him a question. He found Bo in the butler’s pantry in the basement reading a magazine about boxing, which was a sport in which Bo, who was the size of a mountain gorilla and almost as hairy, had once excelled.
“Excuse me, Bo,” John said nervously. “But I was wondering if you could direct me to Mr. Vodyannoy’s collection of talking boards. I’d like to take a look at them, see. On account of how they’re supposed to be valuable antiques ‘n’ all.”
Bo growled quietly, stood up, fetched his improbable jacket, and from a pocket, produced a map of the house that he then spread on the pantry table. He spoke in a voice that was a strong combination of coffee, many sleepless nights, cigarettes, an old punch in the throat, and Hungary.
“We’re here,” he said, pointing a forefinger as thick as a tree sapling to a small square on the map. “You go along this corridor and up these stairs to the hall of mirrors. Exiting the hall by the east door, you head quietly through the portrait gallery and then the music room, to the summer drawing room. Exit the summer drawing room by the tall door and walk through the conservatory to the spiral staircase. At the top of the spiral staircase, with fortune you will find yourself in an observatory, easily recognizable by the presence of a large reflector telescope. Counting your blessings as you leave the observatory by the green malachite corridor, you will then pass through a trophy room to the hall of shadows. There, in thirteen large drawers labeled BEWARE, you will find what you are looking for, sir.” Bo folded the map and handed it to John. “Here. Take it. In case you get lost.”
“Thanks,” said John. “Incidentally, why are those thirteen drawers labeled BEWARE? Is it because the talking boards are so valuable?”
“It’s not that they’re so valuable, sir,” Bo said stiffly. “Just that they are quite hazardous and should on no account be handled by anyone who has no knowledge of how they work. Let alone a boy of about twelve or thirteen years old. Of course, you, sir, being a djinn, will doubtless know exactly what you’re doing.”
“Yes,” said John, who, despite the faith Bo placed in him, had almost no idea of what a talking board could do. “You’re right. I do know what I’m doing. Of course.” He pocketed the map and moved toward the door. “Thanks for all your help.”
“Not that way, sir,” said Bo, pointing in the opposite direction to the one John was moving in. “This way. By the way, sir, the hall of drawers is on the very edge of the west wing. This means that it is on the very border of the east wing, which is not a place to go after dark. Not even for a djinn such as yourself. Eight months ago, my own sister, Grace, went missing in the east wing.”
“How long was she missing for?” John asked brightly.
“I regret to say she is still missing,” said Bo. “Occasionally we hear her weeping in some faraway corner of the house, but although we have often looked, we have never been able to find her. We leave food out for the poor creature, of course. And the food disappears. So we presume that she is still alive.”
“But surely Mr. Vodyannoy could find her, with djinn power.”
“Didn’t Mr. Vodyannoy explain about that?” said Bo.
“Explain what?”
“There is a djinn binding on this house that stops djinn power being used in it. That is the Nightshakes curse, sir. Before it was a loony bin, sir, the house was previously owned by a member of the Ifrit tribe. A very nasty lot. In fact, sir, if you will pardon my language, they are an absolute shower.”
“Yes, I’ve met them.”
“You will be careful, won’t you, sir?” said Bo in a voice as deep and rough as an alligator’s. “We should hate to lose two persons. Once has been unfortunate. Twice would look like actionable negligence on my part.”
“Yes. I’ll be all right.”
For an instant, the wind and rain rubbed against the windowpane like a hungry dog and, momentarily, a flash of lightning illuminated the butler’s pantry like someone playing with an electric switch.
“A storm is getting up,” observed Bo.
“I’d say it has gotten up, had breakfast, and is already at work,” replied John.
Bo did not smile at John’s joke.
�
�I mention it, sir,” he said, “because the power in that part of the house is always uncertain. Especially during an electrical storm. I would advise you to take this flashlight.”
Bo handed John a flashlight and then sat down to finish reading his magazine. Somewhat unnerved by the butler’s remarks but not quite deterred, for he was a stubborn, often courageous boy, John set out for the hall of shadows.
It was another half hour before John reached the hall of shadows, by which time he was talking to himself almost constantly to keep from being frightened. The portrait gallery had been full of pictures of Mr. Vodyannoy’s ancestors, several of whom seemed to belong in a carnival freak show. Especially the great aunt with the red beard. The summer drawing room had been as cold as a crypt, which was hardly surprising since the several stone gargoyles there had been taken from the Vodyannoy family burial vault in Vienna. Exiting the so-called summer drawing room by a door as tall as a basketball hoop, John had passed through a cobwebby conservatory and climbed up a wobbly spiral staircase, at the top of which there had been an observatory where a human skeleton sat in a red leather armchair apparently staring through the telescope at the moon. Then, leaving the observatory by the green malachite corridor, he had entered a trophy room. These were not silver trophies but some very lifelike animals which had been shot and expertly stuffed and arranged around the room like so many pieces of fierce-looking furniture: a Kodiak bear, a lion, a tiger, a jackal, a hyena, a wolf, a jaguar, a rhinoceros, and an elephant with a homicidal glint in its amber eye.
“Forget the Peabody, dude,” he said to himself. “You should have looked around this museum. Place gives me the creeps.”
But he remained firm of purpose, determined to use one of the talking boards to make contact with some sort of spirit and discover the fate of poor Mr. Rakshasas. A month or two before, Mr. Rakshasas’s spirit had disappeared from the Metropolitan Museum in New York, apparently absorbed by a ghostly Chinese terra-cotta warrior. His body, which had been left for safekeeping at the Gaunt family home on East 77th Street, had subsequently vanished. John missed the old djinn, and his peculiar, wise Irish sayings, dreadfully.
The hall of shadows was well-named. The ceiling chandelier seemed not to be working but a log was burning in the huge grate and this made everything seem uncomfortably vivid and penumbral, as if the room itself might be moving. John turned on the flashlight, let out an unsteady breath, and gritted his teeth for a moment.
“Nothing to be scared of,” he said. “Just the fire, that’s all.”
In the center of the room stood a tall hexagonal cabinet made of Chinese red lacquer. In the firelight, it looked quite infernal. It had exactly thirteen drawers. On each drawer was painted one word in gold lettering: CAVE. For a moment John wondered if he might have the wrong drawers until he remembered that cave was the Latin word for “beware.” But it was another Latin phrase that immediately presented itself to John’s nervous mind.
“Carpe diem,” he said. “Carpe diem. Seize the drawer handle.” He seized one of the drawer handles and pulled.
“Looking for something?”
John let out a yelp of fear and, spinning around, saw a woman sitting in a high-sided chair who looked like the witch of the place. She had long unkempt hair, dirty clothes, and a strange smile on a grubby face that was all yellow skin and bone. Instinctively, he guessed this strange creature must be Bo’s lost sister.
“You must be Grace,” he said, swallowing his fear.
“I don’t think I know you, boy,” she said.
“Your brother, Bo, told me about you,” said John.
“What did he say?” Grace asked sharply.
“Nothing. Only that you had gone missing in the east wing.”
“That’s easy enough in this house, right enough.”
“You’re in the west wing now,” said John. “I can show you the way back if you like. When I’ve done what I came here to do.”
“I suppose you want to play cards. Do you want to play cards?”
“Cards? No, not particularly.”
“What are you doing in those drawers? There are no cards in those drawers, if that’s what you’re after. And no food, either. I’ve already looked.”
“I was looking for one of Mr. Vodyannoy’s talking boards,” answered John, and removed one of the boards from the open drawer. It was rather a fine wooden board, with a picture of what looked like several Native Americans and a man with a beard, who was wearing armor.
“Those boards,” said Grace, “they’re dangerous. You shouldn’t mess around with them.”
But John wasn’t listening. He took the board and a little balsa-wood heart, which acted as a kind of pointer, over to the fire, laid it on the rug, and sat down in front of it. Printed on the board was an alphabet, ten numbers from one to zero, and the words sí, no, hola, and adiós. Curious to see what might happen, Grace came over and sat opposite John. She was close enough for him to smell her, and it was not a good smell, but John was too polite to tell Grace she stank and to move away. Besides, he was still a little scared of her as she obviously was quite mad. He took a deep breath, placed his hands on either side of the board, and stared at it intently.
“My name is John Gaunt,” he said loudly. “I’m trying to get in touch with a friend of mine, named Mr. Rakshasas, to find out if he has passed over to the other side. If Mr. Rakshasas is there, or if there’s someone here with us who might know Mr. Rakshasas and where he is, then please make yourself known to us.”
Nothing happened except that Grace shook her head. “Listen to me, boy,” she whispered. “This is not something a child should ever do.”
“Quiet,” hissed John. “Please. I’m trying to make contact with the other side.”
“The other side of what?” sniggered Grace.
“I dunno, exactly,” admitted John. “But a medium made contact with me once. And that’s the kind of thing she said.”
“A medium made contact with you?” Grace frowned. “Are you dead? You don’t look at all dead.”
“Look, don’t ask me to explain it now,” said John, and moved his hands onto the board, which seemed to work because almost immediately the little wooden heart moved.
“You moved that yourself,” said Grace.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
John decided to ignore her and concentrate on the talking board. “Is anyone there?” he asked, and looked around nervously as he heard something tap on the windowpane. But it was just the branch of a tree outside. The wind moaned in the fireplace, stirring the flames, and a small wisp of wood smoke drifted across the board. Then the heart moved again, this time more noticeably than before, pointing to one letter, then another, and then another. John spelled out the letters.
“P-A-I-T-I-T-I.”
Then the heart stopped.
“Paititi? Is that a name? A word? I don’t understand.”
Now the heart began to move rapidly, and John found himself struggling not just to spell out the words, but to understand them, too.
“You’re going too fast,” he said. “Slow down. And, please, what language is this? I don’t recognize it.” Finally, he shouted, “Look, whoever you are, what language is this?”
The heart stopped for a moment and then slowly moved again.
“M-A-N-C-O-C-A-P-A-C. Mancocapac? I’m afraid I don’t speak Mancocapac. I mean, I wish I did. But I don’t.”
Now, in all normal circumstances John’s wish that he spoke Mancocapac would have done the trick because he was a djinn, after all. Once before, in Berlin, John wished he could understand German, and immediately found that he could. But the ancient Ifrit binding on Nightshakes meant that John’s wish went unfulfilled, and unfortunately, he was left none the wiser as to what his invisible interlocutor wanted to communicate.
The heart began to vibrate on the board.
“I think you’ve upset him,” said Grace.
The next second, the little heart flew
into the fireplace as if flicked there by some unseen, powerful forefinger. Even as John quickly retrieved the antique heart from the fire, something picked up the talking board and hurled it across the room, hitting one of the thirteen panes in the window and breaking it. The log fire seemed to stretch out to this new current of oxygen. A huge gust of smoke, which billowed down the chimney and into the room, seemed to clothe an invisible figure, and, for the briefest moment, John saw what looked like a man with the longest earlobes he had ever seen. The man had a fringe of hair that almost covered his eyes and was wearing a cloak of feathers so that he looked like an enormous peacock. Then the man disappeared from sight, although not from the room, it seemed, for something hauled every one of the thirteen drawers out of the hexagonal red lacquer cabinet, emptying all of Mr. Vodyannoy’s talking boards onto the floor. A moment later, the window burst open and the spirit — for John was sure that was what it was — disappeared into the stormy night.
“He’s gone,” said Grace. “Good riddance, too, if you ask me. Smashing up the place like that. Diabolical liberty.”
John pressed a finger to his mouth because something remained behind. Something hidden in the shadows of the hall of shadows. Something that had not been there before.
It sounded like a rumble of thunder. Or perhaps a very large man snoring after a heavy lunch. A very large man with powerful jaws and sharp teeth. A very large man who was rather more feline than human. John felt the hair rise on his head, as it suddenly dawned on him that this sounded less like a large man and more like a very big cat. The kind with spots on it. Like the one he’d seen in the trophy room. The growling came closer and he saw a definitely catlike shape edging forward from the corner of the room.
“What is it?” gulped Grace. “A sheep?”
“It definitely isn’t a sheep, you crazy witch,” whispered John.
“Then what is it?”
John didn’t answer. But already he recognized the kind of big cat he was dealing with. It was a South American jaguar, or otorongo. A big one, heavily muscled, about six feet long and probably weighing as much as two hundred pounds.