by Remy Wilkins
“A beach ball?” Pinwheel looked confused.
“Oh, sorry.” Rodney held out his hands giving him a rough idea of the size. “It was about this big.”
“Not bigger?”
“It couldn’t have been too much bigger since it was in a tree.”
Pinwheel frowned.
“You think it could be the Maleficory or whatever?”
“No. Impossible. The Alvarium Maleficorum is big. It is over four Pinwheels tall and almost twice that at its widest. This must be a smaller Alvarium.”
“So they’ve built smaller ones to bring in more help.”
“Little demons like Birthless aren’t valuable to the army. They are used as slaves and fodder.”
“Fodder?”
“Food,” Pinwheel said.
Rodney made a face.
“The smaller demons will be used primarily for ichor to bring in the big demons. The smaller Alvaria are not our concern. We must find the big one.”
Rodney noticed a red circle drawn in the center of the house. Next to it were the letters A.M. He stabbed it with his finger. “Do you think this stands for Alvarium Malefi-whatever?”
Pinwheel considered it for a moment. “Could be.”
“That means it’s in the house.” He thought for a moment. “But it can’t be in the attic. I was just up there, and it’s obviously not downstairs, either. Where could it be?”
“Can’t hurt to check,” Pinwheel suggested.
“I guess,” he said as he folded the map. This might be his only chance to look at the map and notebook so he decided to take them and risk Ray’s finding out. He arranged the pillows back on the bed and then shut the door behind them.
In three great leaps Rodney descended the stairs. They examined the walls looking for clues. They checked the clock set under the stairs, the sliding door that led to the library, the swinging door that led into the kitchen, and the open archway that went into the first room. There was a well-worn circular rug on the floor in front of the central pillar.
“I got it!” Rodney pushed Pinwheel back and knelt to peel up the rug. He rolled it into a fabric log to reveal the wood floor. Underneath were two lines carved into the floor. One of the lines was humped in the middle.
“Aw, man, I thought there’d be a trapdoor here.”
“What is that?” Pinwheel asked pointing at the symbol cut into the floor.
“That’s the symbol for Libra. Ray just likes it,” he said, running his hand over the carved lines.
“Libra? You mean, the angels of the tribe of Libra?”
Rodney spun around to look at Pinwheel. “What are you talking about?”
Pinwheel’s black eyes twitched. “Libra’s one of the twelve tribes of the angels . . . ” He cocked his head to the side. “Correct?”
“I don’t know anything about that. Ray just said it was a constellation. It means ‘balance,’ I think.”
“What is a constellation?”
“Star patterns in the sky.” Just to be sure it was nothing more, Rodney pressed on the lines hoping a door would pop up or a latch would be revealed. Nothing happened.
Rodney shivered. No telling where Ray was or when he’d return. “Where could it be?” he said aloud. He felt panic weaving themselves into his voice again. He lay down on the rolled rug and stared at the ceiling.
They were silent. Pinwheel kept his eyes on the symbol carved into the floor. “Do all the symbols on the floor stand for constellations?”
Rodney sat up. “What do you mean, ‘all the symbols on the floor’? Are there more?”
Pinwheel turned around and pointed at the foyer’s floor. “There is this sign carved on the floor.”
Rodney hopped up to look. He saw the large H carved into the floor. “Yeah, that stands for Honeycomb House. At least, I think it does.” He stood looking at it, and a thread from his memory tugged at him. Suddenly the symbol before him was connected to another. “Wait a minute.”
Rodney stood and walked back into the stair room and searched the clock face. He put his finger on the glass. Where the seven on a regular clock would be was the H symbol in the foyer. Libra was where the number two would be.
“What if every room aligns with one of the signs of the zodiac?” he said.
Pinwheel stared at the signs. “How many rooms are in the house?”
Rodney laid out the floor plan. “The first level has the foyer, the dining room, the kitchen, the library, the living room, and the sunroom, but part of the sunroom is a bathroom.”
“And this room makes seven hexagons.”
“The second floor has three bedrooms, but a bathroom is built between two rooms. So four rooms, but only three hexagons.”
“That is ten.”
“Right,” agreed Rodney. “And then there’s the attic, so all together that’s eleven hexagons.”
“But there are twelve signs on the clock.”
“There’s a hidden room,” he said.
Pinwheel frowned and looked around. “We must find the room.”
Rodney remembered the notebook. “Wait.” He opened it and flipped through its pages.
The book was filled with Ray’s writing, all in blue and black ink. He flipped through, reading the large block letters at the top of some of the pages and examined the simple sketches within. The Coat of Colors, the Maleficorum, the Flood of Demons, squiggly lines, hexagons, drawings of flowers. It was all too strange for Rodney to interpret.
A page leapt out at him, a circle of symbols under which the words Horologium Zodiaci were written. He recognized the sign of Libra and the H symbol and followed the lines that led to their names.
“Here it is!” He put his finger on the top symbol and read out the names clockwise, moving his finger around to each:
“Leo, the lion, that must be the attic. Virgo, the virgin. Libra, balance, that’s this room. Scorpio, that’s easy, scorpion. Sagittarius, the archer.” He paused and pointed to the library. “That’s gotta be Sagittarius ’cause it’s full of archers. Capricornus, the goat. Aquarius, the water bearer. Pisces, the fish, that’s the foyer. Aries, the ram. Okay, that’s the dining room. Taurus, the bull. Gemini, the twins. And Scarabaeus, the scarab. Hey, that’s my room!”
“So we must find what rooms align with Virgo, Scorpio, Capricornus, Aquarius, Taurus, and Gemini.”
“You check the kitchen, living room, and sunroom, and I’ll check the guest bedroom and Ray’s room.”
They scattered. Rodney was able to identify the symbol of Gemini, C, in the room his parents slept in and the water symbol Aquarius, K, in Ray’s room. When he returned downstairs Pinwheel had connected Virgo, Capricornus, and Taurus to the kitchen, sunroom, and living room. Only Scorpio was unaccounted for.
Rodney slapped his head. “The workshop!”
They ran outside into the heavy air, alive with bugs, and pulled open the wide doors of the workshop. The cool air from inside pricked their skin as they entered. Unlike the house, the walls of the workshop were bare of carvings, though they bore innumerable tools, hanging from hooks and sitting on shelves.
The floor was smooth concrete. It was blank of any symbols.
“I don’t get it. Where is the twelfth room?”
“The map indicates that it is inside the house.” Pinwheel said, devoid of confidence.
He and Pinwheel froze at the sound of gravel and the hum of a car. It wasn’t loud enough to be Ray’s, but it caused them to scurry to the door and peek out. It was a white car.
“Otis!” Rodney hissed. “What’s he doing here? He never comes up to the house.”
They watched as the car slid to a stop in front of the Honeycomb House. The car rocked gently as Otis climbed out and frowned at the front door.
“Stay here,” Rodney whispered.
“You forget, Otis does
not have the eye.”
“Oh, right. Okay, let’s see what he wants.” Rodney pushed open the door and stepped into the shaded area before the workshop. “Hi, Otis,” he called.
Otis spun his head around and squinted to locate the voice. He found Rodney walking over to him. “Hello again, son. How are you?”
“Rodney,” he reminded him.
“Right, yes. Is Ray here?”
“No, he’s out.” He watched Pinwheel creep up beside him. Perhaps he could still be heard despite being invisible.
“Thought so.” Otis sounded peeved. He paused and stared up at the sky, putting his hand to his bony chin and pursing his lips. Rodney waited silently until he was ready to speak again. “Listen, tell Ray I came by. Tell him I saw the smoke and he better have the permits this time.”
“Permits?”
“Fire permits,” he said and ran a hand across his brow to smear the sweat into his hair. “I catch him burning things again, I’ll have Al Walden write him up. You tell him that.”
“Yes sir.”
Otis climbed back into his car. His tires chewed gravel and kicked up dust as he turned around. They watched as the worm of dust trailing his car faded before they returned to the house.
Rodney’s stomach growled and he remembered his half-eaten sandwich on the kitchen counter. “Do you eat?”
Pinwheel looked surprised. He looked up at Rodney in panic. “I do not know.”
“Well, are you hungry?”
Pinwheel vigorously shook his head. “No.”
“So no big deal.” They walked back inside. They entered the kitchen and Rodney took another bite out of his sandwich. He noticed Pinwheel fretting. “What is it, Pinwheel?”
“Demons must eat in order to stay in this world. Otherwise they fall back into their immaterial natures.”
“So what do they eat?”
“Mud, mostly. But anything really. Just something to anchor their nature in matter.”
Rodney made a face. “So do you want to eat mud?”
Pinwheel’s eyes flashed and the snarl of his lips showed his bright teeth. “I am not a demon.”
“Okay, okay,” Rodney said waving his hands. He turned and opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bowl of strawberries. He picked up one and tossed it to the fuming former demon. “Here, eat a strawberry.”
Pinwheel caught and examined it. He ran a thumb over its dimpled skin. He looked up at Rodney and made a face. “Seeds?”
“Yeah. What’s wrong with seeds? Don’t angels like seeds?” His tone was playful.
Pinwheel sighed and shrugged his shoulders. He flipped the strawberry into his mouth and chewed quickly, eyes shut.
Rodney paused to see the full reaction.
Pinwheel swallowed, shuddered, and opened his eyes. “Not bad.”
“You’re not going to float off into the spirit world?”
Pinwheel licked his lips. “The spirit world is more solid than the material world. This world is so transient, to stay in it, a demon must be tethered to it.” He made further smacking noises, greedily looking over the bowl of fruit. “So maybe I could have a couple more.”
Rodney finished off his sandwich, but he wanted more. He decided on a slice of bread with a bit of honey. When he pulled out the jar of honey, Pinwheel eyed it like it was a coiled snake.
“What? Haven’t you seen honey before?” Rodney said with a short laugh.
“Yes.”
He dipped in a spoon and drew it out again. “Want some?” he said, letting a long rod of honey drizzle back into the jar.
Pinwheel, wary, shook his head.
Rodney ate his honeyed bread while Pinwheel polished off the strawberries. Rodney tossed him an apple afterward and watched him carve it up with his razor-sharp teeth. Rodney pulled out the peeler and showed Pinwheel how to attach an apple and crank it skinless.
While Pinwheel stripped a pound of apples clean of their skin, Rodney pulled out Ray’s notebook and paged through it, looking for more clues. Most of what he found didn’t seem to help. There was a drawing of what he assumed was the stone snake effigy with Alpha Draconis scrawled next to it. A wavy line in blue was titled Vino Fluvius. It had to be the Second River since it continued down the mountain and passed in front of a circle which was presumably the Honeycomb House.
Rodney pulled open the big map and considered again the circled marks. For the first time he noticed a line that went from the edge of Ray’s property through the woods to a couple of rectangles. The first was marked Armamentarium, and the second bore the mysterious mark ₤.
“Any idea what this is?” he said pointing at the area. He looked up to see Pinwheel nearly hidden behind a pile of apple peels. Nude apples were stacked on the table next to the peeler. “Pinwheel!” he snapped. “What are we going to do with all those apples?”
Pinwheel’s eyes went big as he realized what he’d done. He smiled sheepishly.
Rodney shook his head, but picked the map back up. “Look at this.” Rodney pointed at a thin line that went through the woods to the west and arrived at the other buildings.
“What do you think it is?” said Pinwheel.
“Maybe Armamentarium is connected to the army of demons.” Rodney tapped the building with his finger. “We have to check it out.”
Pinwheel looked at him. “We should bring the rabbits.”
* * *
It was well into the afternoon. The sun’s heat was heavy on the air, loud bugs afloat in it. Rodney had wanted to leave a note, but Pinwheel insisted they keep Ray in the dark. They easily located the path from the house to the secret location and tromped down it, the rabbits leaping with them like fuzzy guards. Ebenezer bulleted ahead, his small gray frame disappearing into the underbrush. He’d reappear later and wait before shooting off again. Jerome, the mottled black and white rabbit, traveled beside Rodney. He was the elder rabbit and hopped more slowly. The fat golden one, Thundertrump, trailed behind. Rodney could hear the great whumps she made at each landing.
The path was surprisingly wide, almost enough for a car to drive. The trail looked like it had once been more heavily traveled, but the number of low-hanging branches and abundant spiderwebs indicated that it wasn’t in high use anymore. Pinwheel strode cautiously behind Ebenezer. He ducked behind each tree and peered around before going further. He was expecting trouble, but Rodney felt safer the farther they went from the old house.
It used to be a place of dull dinners and endless weekends waiting to go home. Sometimes he and his dad would sit on the couches. He would have a toy on his lap, and his dad would grip a magazine while they listened to Ray and his mom laugh in the other room. Rodney couldn’t understand their mirth.
Most of their conversations went no further than a single name before the table slapping set off the collapse into guffaws. They’d try and explain to his father and him what was so funny about Esther Osterhaus or Sam Armstrong, but invariably the explanation would fall apart at the next key phrase.
It would go like this: “Remember Michael Bunyan?” and they’d both laugh. “So precious when he gave mom that—” more laughing and some table slapping. His dad would force a tight smile, his eyes sucked dry of patience. Ray would snort and blurt out, “dried toad!” and his mom would bury her face in her hands. Ray would let his head hang back and unleash his joyous woofing.
Now the knowledge of demonic activity had warped the home. It felt dark and menacing and alive with danger. As they moved farther away, Rodney felt better.
Ahead, he saw Pinwheel stiffen, then duck down. He waved Rodney over. “What do you see?” Rodney asked as he crawled up.
“Two buildings.”
“Do you think one could have the Alvarium inside?”
Pinwheel shrugged. “It is possible.”
“Lemme look.” Rodney edged around the tree and surveyed the a
rea.
The building nearest to them was a long rectangle with green metal siding, faded by the sun. In front of it was a long thin house. Rodney edged around the tree, ducking under the limbs, to get a better look. Across from the long shed was another structure, wood and chickenwire.
“Chickens,” he exclaimed. He was about to take another step when Pinwheel grabbed his shoulder.
“It is curious.”
“What?” Rodney scanned the area ahead for something.
“The house makes a triangle with the shed and the chicken coop.”
“So?”
“A triangle.” He repeated with a grimace. “Angels like triangles.”
“And demons don’t?”
“Like hexagons make angels ill, triangles ward off demons.”
“So are you going to brave the triangle or—” he was unable to finish because Pinwheel pulled him back into the bushes, and clamped a hand over his mouth.
He followed Pinwheel’s eyes to find a woman had exited the house and was walking to the coop. She wore a white sleeveless dress that touched the grass as she walked. Her silver hair was held back with a blue wrap that covered the top of her head. She looked familiar to Rodney. “Hey, wait. That’s Lucasta. She knows Ray.”
“Then we do not trust her.”
“Ray says she’s really nice.”
“We cannot trust Ray.”
Pinwheel was adamant that they stay hidden. If Lucasta’s place was on the map, it made sense that she played some kind of role in the diabolical plot.
She checked on the chickens, made a mark on the clipboard she carried, and returned to the house. Pinwheel and Rodney stayed motionless till they were sure she wasn’t returning.
“The first building must be the Armamentarium, and that weird L-looking symbol must stand for Lucasta.”
Pinwheel pushed him forward. “We have to find out what’s in the Armamentarium.”
“Alright. You keep an eye out for Lucasta.” Rodney stepped out, and Pinwheel trotted out into the grass in the center of the triangle. Presumably he’d made himself invisible, but since their chief threats were Ray and other demons, it mattered little.