Colin and The Rise of The House of Horwood

by M. E. Eadie

  ***

  The change in Grizzelda’s personality was absolute in all matters -- except that of school, and in this, she was unmovable. Otherwise, all she did was flit about giving out vacuous compliments. The change in her demeanor extended into her conversations with that other voice within her room at night. It was as though she had become a new woman. Even her disagreements with Rhea’s mom (which still continued) were smoothed over with pleasantries. There was something oddly comforting in the fact that Grizzelda could still be disagreeable, but in a very nice way.

  “Well, Mrs. Li, I still don’t think it’s a good idea that the children go to school. You see, they’re … different,” she said with quiet determination, her portly Marcus doll still snuggled into the crook of her arm (she never went anywhere without it.)

  On one particular visit to the house with her mom, Rhea leaned up against the stone wall in the wine cellar where she, Colin, and Spike had taken refuge from Grizzelda and Mrs. Li. Colin and Rhea pressed their ears to the open end of the empty wine bottle each held against the wall. Spike didn’t need such artificial aids, and neither did they. At first they hadn’t believed Sergeant Peary, who hung upside down by his feet, which were glued firmly to the ceiling, but in fact they didn’t need them to hear the conversation going on between the two women. “Somehow,” explained Sergeant Peary, “sound is absorbed by the house and channeled down here. You can hear anything, as long as you’re focused on it. I used to come and hide down here when the Old Man was throwing a fit.”

  Rhea set the empty bottle on the floor and listened to the conversation that filtered down from the parlor.

  “Weird, but you know, she says you can’t go to school, but she’s saying it nicely,” said Rhea about Grizzelda. “Don’t look so disappointed. Having to see Principal Devonish each day is no picnic. Look on the bright side; we’ve got our first game this weekend!”

  Colin remained silent; he was, and wasn’t, looking forward to the game.

  “I second that!” said Sergeant Peary, the ashes from his cigar falling onto Spike’s head.

  “Hey!” Spike said, instinctively waving his hands in the air even though he didn’t feel the ashes.

  “Sorry, about that, mate. So, does everyone have their Halloween costume picked out? You know, ghouls with pasty faces, rotten teeth, and lips dripping with blood?” asked Sergeant Peary’s, his face contorting to the ghastly details of his description.

  “No,” said Colin, not really interested in the party at all.

  Rhea looked aghast. “The party is tonight, and you don’t have anything to wear? I wish I were invited. This is pretty exclusive stuff. Anybody who has ever gone has had a lot of fun. Your aunt must know the directors at Bevis, Bunk and Tellings, or how else could she have gotten the invitations?”

  “Bevis, Munk and Smelling?” asked Spike messing up the name on purpose.

  “No, Bunk and Tellings,” instructed Rhea. “The mortuary. They do this every year. It’s really creepy, but fun, from what I hear.”

  Spike was taking more of an interest in the party, so Colin decided to reinforce what they had already agreed on.

  “It’s such a shame we won’t be going,” said Colin shrugging, his mock disappointment coming through clearly. Both he and Spike had decided that spending all night with their aunt wasn’t going to be much fun, so they had put no effort into finding a costume, or even thinking about it.

  “Why don’t you try the Old Man’s wardrobe?” said Sergeant Perry who immediately received a disapproving glower from Colin. “Sorry, just trying to be helpful. You know there was this one time when I saw the Old Man prancing about in black leotards and cape. Had he known I’d seen him, he would’ve whipped me. As it was, I couldn’t stop laughing for a week.”

  “Where is this wardrobe?” asked Rhea.

  “In the part of the house that was never finished,” said Sergeant Peary.

  “There’s nothing there,” protested Spike.

  “That’s because you haven’t been looking.”

  “That’s what Silverberry said, but I’d like to know what that exactly means?” Colin asked.

  “It means what it means. Why don’t you go and have a look,” reaffirmed Sergeant Perry.

  “You’re not coming?” asked Colin.

  Sergeant Peary shook his head. “I’d rather go up to the library and ask Ofelia to get that statue of mom to sing again, maybe something from Puccini. Don’t worry! When you get to the sealed off wall, just push through it. It has a lock, but don’t worry about it.”

  “What kind of lock?” asked Colin, rubbing his nose, remembering the snakes. Whenever Peary said not to worry about something, then it was time to worry.

  “It’s just a Riddle Lock, harmless -- if you get it right,” said Peary casually.

  “What if we don’t get it right?”

  “Now that’s a good question. When I was growing up and I didn’t get something right, the Old Man would beat me. Not in front of mom, but when she wasn’t looking, so I don’t expect that getting the riddle wrong will be very pleasant.”

  “He beat you?” said Rhea aghast.

  Sergeant Peary looked suddenly uncomfortable, as though he’d said more than he had wanted to.

  Changing the subject abruptly, he said, “I’ll show you, if you promise to stop asking questions about my life. Come on, I don’t want to waste my death talking to you lot in a wine cellar. Puccini will have to wait,” he finished with a sigh.

  They followed the ghost through a series of winding subterranean passages they hadn’t known existed. Eventually the earth beneath their feet started to rise. They had come to the end of the house, or what they had perceived as the end of the house. Colin knew they had arrived by the particular ‘feel’ of the place: a sense of vast possibilities. To the eye it looked just like a hastily bricked-in wall where the hardened mortar oozed out sloppily between the bricks. On the other side was the half-finished tower.

  “What are we supposed to see, because I don’t ‘see’ anything,” complained Spike.

  “Patience, patience my little precocious pup,” growled Sergeant Peary. I had an art teacher years ago, who said ‘seeing’ was a relative term that applied to all the senses.”

  “What?” asked a bewildered Spike.

  “I think he wants us to touch the wall,” said Rhea.

  Colin, remembering the snakes slithering in his nose wasn’t going to be the first to touch it.

  Rhea, intending to place the palm of her hand against the rough wall, found the bricks soft, allowing her hand to pass through to the other side.

  “It’s like jelly.”

  She continued to push until the wall had consumed half her body. Then her progress stopped and her eyes widened. The bricks around her had suddenly hardened. She couldn’t move. She was stuck.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” she asked a bit startled, her free arm and leg waving in the air.

  “It’s the Riddle Lock,” explained Sergeant Peary, “I thought I told you that.”

  Spike and Colin were trying to tug Rhea back by pulling on her arm and leg.

  “Hey, watch it, I’m not a wish-bone you know!”

  “Sorry,” said Colin turning on the ghost. “Why didn’t you tell us this was going to happen?”

  Sergeant Peary rolled his eyes. “Probably because I didn’t know it was going to happen. A Riddle Lock responds differently for each person that tries to use it, each time.”

  “So, what if I can’t open it?” asked Rhea.

  “You’ll probably be stuck there,” answered Sergeant Peary. The ghost stepped up to the wall and disappeared through it to the other side.

  “Where are you going? Aren’t you going to help us?” called Colin after him.

  “Sorry,” came the ghost’s voice through the other side of the wall, “union rules.”

  No sooner had Rhea asked: “How are we supposed to solve a riddle when we don�
�t even know what’s being asked?” Then a note, a small white piece of paper, fell out of the air to rest gently in her palm. She stared angrily at the note and then at both Colin and Spike. “Well, aren’t you going to help? It’s hard to unfold a piece of paper with one hand!”

  Colin apologized, took the paper, unfolded it and read it: “What is half of a whole, part foul, part fair, and read only on the top?”

  “A circle that’s been divided in half,” said Spike excitedly.

  “What about the foul and fair part? Could that mean weather, and what do people read only on the top?” asked Colin.

  “Labels on the tops of cans!” jumped in Spike.

  “I don’t think so,” countered Rhea, “labels are on the sides of cans.”

  Spike looked a bit embarrassed, “Right, of course.”

  The muffled voice of Sergeant Peary came again through the wall. “You’re thinking is too literal, and besides, you two shouldn’t be doing the thinking. The riddle applies to Rhea, and Rhea only.”

  A big grin spread over Rhea’s face. “I know what it is! I know the answer. Me,” she said with satisfaction.

  Suddenly, the wall dilated to form a doorway, dumping her unceremoniously to the floor where she landed with a thump. Beyond the door, they could see Sergeant Peary standing at the bottom of a winding staircase. He was sucking on the stub of his cigar and applauding.

  “Very good. You’re a quick one, you are!”

  “I still don’t get it,” said Spike following Colin through the door.

  “Me,” said Rhea, “half of a whole. I was stuck in the wall, half of me was. It should’ve read ‘part fowl, part fair,’ that’s my guardian spirit, the phoenix, and ‘read on top’ should’ve been.

  “RED on top of the head,” said Colin, his eyes widening.

  “Fun, wasn’t it?” said Sergeant Peary. “Of course, you wouldn’t have thought so after a few days stuck in the wall; but making people squirm was always the Old Man’s specialty. Now, if you don’t mind, let’s go find some costumes!”

  From the outside this was the unfinished section of the house, but on the inside it was complete, and looked as though the stone blocks had been set just yesterday. They stared up the steps spiraling up into a distant point that seemed to go on forever.

  “How tall is this tower?” asked Colin.

  “No, idea. I’ve never been to the top,” said Sergeant Peary who was floating over the first steps. Up the center of the stairs was a large red carpet runner.

  “This is impossible,” said Rhea feeling a kink growing in her neck from staring up. “It has to have a top.”

  “The one thing I’ve learned from death,” said the ghost, giving a painful grin, “is that nothing is impossible.” He tapped the side of his head with the wet end of his stubby cigar. “It’s all up here, what we choose to accept or not.”

  He floated away, forcing them to follow him up the stairs. They noticed how Sergeant Peary was avoiding the banister and staying close to the wall of the tower.

  After awhile, their legs began to hurt from the effort. Colin put on a burst of energy to catch up to the ghost; he wanted to ask him how long they were going to keep climbing. In the effort, he didn’t see the edge of the carpet runner quiver and come to life. It turned up making a large enough bump to trip him. He toppled, out of control, arms flailing toward the black banister at the edge of the stairs. Suddenly Sergeant Peary was in front of him, blocking his way. As Colin fell, he passed through Sergeant Peary, but felt himself slow down. It gave him enough time to reach out and grab the banister before he flipped over it. His arms jerked taut and bolts of pain went through his fingers as he struggled to hold on. Out of fear he looked over his shoulder and saw the hard floor far below him. Then Rhea and Spike were leaning over him, pulling him up. After a few tense moments he was able to get his elbows onto the railing and swing his legs back over the banister. Back on the stairs he was able to regain his composure and stop shaking. He stared at the seemingly harmless dark red carpet. Sergeant Peary was looking a little embarrassed.

  “The carpet tripped me!”

  “The carpet?” asked Spike.

  In the momentary silence that followed, they turned to Sergeant Peary who was avoiding any eye contact.

  “Sorry,” he said, “I forgot. The carpet runner, although not entirely alive, is aware of us.”

  “But why did it try to kill me?”

  “You know the Old Man,” said Sergeant Peary bitterly, “always joking around.” He stomped hard down on the carpet and a slight moan echoed emptily up the stairs.

  “So, when do we get there?” asked Colin, not anxious to continue walking on the runner.

  “We’re here,” said Peary, motioning to a nondescript section of the wall. It wasn’t any different to the rest of the wall, but the closer they looked, the more they were able to see that one of the stone blocks was faintly engraved with a strange rune.

  “Just press it,” said the ghost. “Don’t worry, there’s no lock. The Old Man figured if someone could make it this far, they deserved a peek.”

  Colin pressed the rune and with grating noises several of the stone blocks turned sideways creating a narrow passage for them to enter. He stepped cautiously through the cavity and into the dark room beyond.

  There was nothing special about the room except that there was a skylight in the ceiling and there was a big mirror standing in the middle of the room. The mirror was an exact duplicate of the mirror in Grizzelda’s room, except that this one had glass in both the front and in the back.

  “You’re father had a thing for mirrors didn’t he?” asked Colin, watching his reversed image as he approached the mirror.

  “He called them looking glasses. He also said they were mirrors to the soul,” said Peary cryptically. They could tell from the twitch at the corner of his eye that he wanted to, but couldn’t, say more.

  “The Union?” asked Colin.

  Sergeant Peary nodded.

  “So, where are the costumes?” asked Rhea feeling chilled. There was something about the room she didn’t like, but it was difficult to understand specifically what it was.

  “The mirror, the costumes are in the mirror. It’s not a normal mirror, none of the ones that look like this are. You walk up to the mirror, step into it, and then, when you step out the other side, you’re dressed in your costume.”

  Both Spike and Colin hesitated. Rhea stepped bravely up to the mirror to look at her image. It couldn’t be much worse than being stuck in the wall. The closer she got, the more her image changed, wavering like a flame, her clothes changing color, from the beige pants and blue sweater she was wearing to a long flowing gown made of red and yellow burning feathers. Her head was adorned with a flaming headdress that also covered her eyes and nose with a blazing beaked mask. She moved her arms and thousands of flames, like little feather tongues danced.

  “Wow,” she said, “I’ve never seen a costume like that before. “What is it? How does it work?”

  Colin knew instinctively what it was, and where it came from. It came from the same place he and Grandfather Thunder had gotten the necklace. Perhaps that’s where the mirrors led, and then he hesitated -- perhaps there were Shadow Nixes inside the mirror also.

  “It’s a Phoenix costume,” said Colin.

  “So, I just step through to the other side, and I’m dressed like this? How does it work? How could my clothes change into that?” asked Rhea.

  “Mine is not to question why, but to do and die,” said Sergeant Peary.

  “I have no intention of dying,” snapped Rhea. “Is this dangerous?”

  “No, no, I was just trying to recite some sage words. No, it’s harmless,” said Sergeant Peary, a little too quickly.

  “I know how,” said Colin who had slipped into one of his trances while watching Rhea. He had seen, close up, what would happen with her clothes, the clothes of the mirror image. He coul
d find no other words for it except that somehow they were, “remade.”

  Before he could say they should forget the entire thing, because anything associated with Zuhayer Horwood could not be trusted, Rhea had stepped through the mirror, emerging immediately on the other side dressed as a human firebird.

  “Wow,” echoed Spike reaching out to hold his hand close to her flaming costume, “you’re actually hot!”

  “How do you feel?” Colin leaned forward to examine her.

  “Fine, I feel the same as I was feeling before I stepped through the mirror. The only change is I look like this!” She twirled about letting the orange-red flames dance. The train of her dress flicked into the air like fire leaping out of a bonfire.

  “I don’t know if I trust this. There’s got to be a catch somewhere. You can’t tell me that Zuhayer Horwood just liked to dress up for the sake of dressing up,” said Colin.

  “You’re right,” said Sergeant Peary, one corner of his eye twitching. “There’s a catch here. I may be putting myself at risk with the Union here, but I’m going to tell you anyway. The costume has something to do with the guardian spirit you have. There’s something else, but I definitely can’t tell you that, but it’s not dangerous, more potentially embarrassing than anything.”

  Spike had already stepped through the mirror, emerging dress like a coyote. His entire body was covered in fur that fit him like a second skin. His ears were elongated, and the end of his black snout twitched, but as he held his hands up, he noticed, with some relief, that he still had fingers and not paws. An expression of sly curiosity passed over his face and slipped into his eyes that glimmered mischievously; he reached around behind to touch his tail.

  “I’ve got a tail! Cool!”

  Swallowing hard, Colin stepped up to the mirror. He didn’t see himself dressed in fatigues like Sergeant Peary wore. He couldn’t see the costume his clothes were going to turn into. He stared at himself in the mirror, his reflection wearing his multi-colored shirt and jeans.

  “Why can’t I see what my costume is going to be?” he questioned. “I mean, shouldn’t I look like you?”

  “Good question, but I’m not your full-time guardian. I’m only on part-time assignment.” The ghost was staring inquiringly at the mirror. When he got closer to the mirror the image of Colin began to fleck apart, as though it was being lost in a snowstorm of black and white particles. “I think somehow I’m interfering with the reception. Guess you just have to go through to find out.”

  Taking a deep breath and stepping through the mirror, Colin couldn’t help but wonder what the Sergeant meant by embarrassment. On the other side of the mirror, Colin looked down at his body and--nothing. He was still the same. He had expected a change, but nothing had happened; he was still the same. He couldn’t help but be a little disappointed.

  “What happened?”

  “Well,” said Sergeant Peary slowly, “I don’t know. How do you feel?”

  “I don’t know,” was all he said, but he did feel different. There was a part of him, a part deep inside that seethed and roiled with the stirrings of a wind. Although it was a gentle wind, it held within it the promise of great tempestuous power. “I do feel a bit different. I feel like--this may sound silly--but I feel like--the wind.”

  “That’s why your costume can’t be seen,” said Sergeant Peary. “Your guardian must be the wind, and nobody can see the wind.”

  Colin turned to the mirror, and he found himself staring into the eye of a hurricane, a feeling of peace filled his being while everything around him was blurred with destruction.