Nightbooks

by J. A. White

  “Ah,” said Natacha, amused. “You thought it was—what? Some kind of immortality oil? Doesn’t exist.”

  “The blue mist isn’t magic?”

  “Oh, it’s magic, all right. Just not the kind you’re thinking of. We’ll get to that later. Let me start from the beginning.” She stirred the stew with a long wooden ladle. “When I was a little younger than you, about twenty years ago, Aunt Gris took me prisoner.”

  “The . . . who?” Alex asked, baffled. “Took you prisoner? What are you talking about?”

  “Her full name was Griselda,” Natacha said, snapping the syllables with her tongue. “But she insisted that we call her Aunt Gris. She was the original witch who lived in the apartment. For all I know, she might be the original witch, period. She created all this. The candy house. The forest. The magic rooms.” Natacha smiled slightly. “You’ll never believe how she tricked me into crossing the threshold. I was obsessed with unicorns at the time, and I—”

  “—followed one inside the apartment building,” Alex said, the words spilling from his stunned lips.

  Natacha stopped stirring.

  “How did you know that?” she asked.

  “You’re Unicorn Girl!” Alex exclaimed, dizzy with revelation.

  “What?”

  “You never wrote your name,” he added, “so that’s what we called you. We read what you wrote inside the storybooks when you were a girl.”

  Natacha straightened, the gears of her memory starting to turn.

  “I did write in the storybooks, didn’t I?” she asked. “It seems so long ago, another life. That’s how you knew about the sleeping oil, isn’t it?”

  Alex nodded.

  “Only—I never wrote down the final ingredient, so how . . .” Natacha looked abashed, like a student who finally figures out an answer that should have been obvious from the start. “That story about the baker’s daughter! You tricked me into telling you!”

  “Yes,” Alex said.

  Natacha looked at him with something approaching respect.

  “You’re smarter than you look, storyteller,” she said.

  Alex disagreed. If he was that intelligent, he would have figured out Natacha’s true identity long ago. As it was, his understanding of past events had been completely shattered, making him wonder what else he had gotten wrong. He felt like he had been reading the pages of a story in the wrong order.

  “Aunt Gris,” Alex said, pushing his glasses back. “You don’t mean to say that she’s the witch from ‘Hansel and Gretel,’ do you? That’s just a story. It never really happened.”

  “Says the boy sitting in a house made of candy,” Natacha replied, raising her eyebrows. “I don’t know who came first, the witch or the story. In any case, she’s the one who’s been alive forever. It wasn’t any oils or potions that did it, though. No—the magic Aunt Gris used was far older than that. She ate children and devoured their youth.”

  Natacha’s eyes looked past him at the massive oven built into the wall. Alex took a quick glance and turned away, his imagination blasting him with unwanted images. I used to love the witch in “Hansel and Gretel,” he thought. The way she tried to fatten Hansel up so there would be more of him to cook—so creepy.

  That was before he knew she was real.

  “I wasn’t the only one she captured,” Natacha said, staring at the oven with great intensity. “There was a boy a few years older than me. Ian. He watched out for me, taught me what I needed to do to stay safe, until Aunt Gris started to grow old again and needed to replenish her lost youth.” Natacha scrubbed her hands together as though washing them beneath running water. “She made me clean the oven afterward. Closed the door behind me until it was all spic-and-span. I was in there for hours, in the dark. That was the day I decided that I was never going to be powerless again.”

  Alex felt a chill run up his spine. Unicorn Girl climbed into the oven that day, he thought, and someone completely different climbed out. It made him sad.

  “I waited for my opportunity,” Natacha said. “I read Aunt Gris her nightly tale and played the faithful little servant. The library, if you haven’t guessed by now, belonged to her. She’s the one obsessed with scary stories.” Natacha’s expression grew sly. “But I pretended to love them, just like her, and in time Aunt Gris grew to trust me. One day she took me through her secret door, to this very kitchen, and told me how the apartment was just a facade to trick children. The true house is the one we’re sitting in right now. It’s the beating heart, the source of all the magic.”

  Natacha ladled stew into two clay bowls. She slid one across the table and took a seat.

  “She taught me a few potions, too,” Natacha continued. “Nothing complicated. Nothing that she ever imagined I could use against her. But she underestimated my gift for such things, and one night—we were here in the candy house, just before story time—I slipped a sleeping potion into her tea. She fell to the floor, and I listened, ever so carefully, until her breathing became slow and steady. Then I raised my knife into the air. . . .” She glanced at Alex’s stew. “You’re not eating.”

  “What?” he asked, as though awoken from a dream. “I’m not hungry.”

  “Are you sure?” Natacha stirred her stew with a wooden spoon. Steam rose in undulating waves. “I made it special. Just for you.”

  Alex stared down at his bowl with a growing sense of dismay. He had never smelled stew like this before. He poked it with his spoon. Chunks of white meat bobbed to the surface.

  A horrible thought slithered into his mind.

  “Where’s Lenore?” he asked quietly.

  “Lenore?” Natacha asked, lingering on the word as though it were a name she hadn’t heard in years. “You mean, the useless beast who betrayed me?” She took a healthy bite of the stew and chewed thoughtfully. “Don’t worry about her.”

  Alex stared down at his stew, fighting the nausea rising up his throat.

  She couldn’t have, he thought. That’s too horrible, even for her.

  “Wait!” Natacha exclaimed, choking back laughter. “Did you think . . . I cooked the cat?”

  “Didn’t you?” Alex asked.

  Natacha exploded with laughter. She pounded the table, guffawing uncontrollably.

  “Why in the world would I ruin a perfectly good stew?” she asked. “You know how old that cat is? She’s probably all string and gristle inside.”

  Unsure what to believe, Alex reexamined the stew in front of him. I guess that could be chicken, he thought. And as for the strange smell—who knows what weird spices she threw in there?

  “At first I was mad you tried to escape,” Natacha said. “And I won’t lie, I considered some pretty horrific punishments—but then I remembered that I had done the exact same thing when I was your age! Which got me thinking—maybe things could be different between us. That’s why I’m telling you my story, Alex. You’re a child of darkness, just like me. You don’t need to return to a world that doesn’t understand. You can make a home here, as I have. Not as my captive. As a friend.”

  Alex stared at Natacha in utter disbelief. I’m nothing like you! he started to scream. You’ve hurt people! How can I ever be your friend? But then he saw Natacha’s downcast eyes and the nervous way she plucked at the tiny hairs on her arm, and a shocking realization kept him from speaking.

  She’s lonely, he thought.

  It was strange to imagine that Natacha might desire human companionship just like anyone else, but he supposed it made sense. She had been alone in the apartment for two decades. He had no desire to be her friend, of course, but he couldn’t just turn her down. She would be furious, and then Alex wouldn’t be able to help Yasmin and Lenore at all.

  I have to go along with it for now, he thought. Put her at ease.

  “I didn’t want to admit it at first,” Alex said, managing a small smile. “But in a strange way, I do feel at home here.”

  “I knew it!” Natacha exclaimed, throwing her arms into the air. She seeme
d so genuinely thrilled that Alex almost felt guilty for lying to her. “You won’t regret this, Alex! Of course you’re going to have to work your way back into my trust, but after that things are—”

  The house trembled. Stew spilled down the swinging cauldron and spattered into the flames. The disturbance only lasted a few seconds, but it was long enough to apply a fresh coat of worry to Natacha’s face.

  “We can’t wait any longer,” she said, sliding off the bench. “You have to tell her a story. Something she’s never heard before.”

  “Why do you keep saying ‘she’?” Alex asked.

  Natacha smiled with wicked delight and she wrapped her arm around his shoulder.

  “Forget all about your ghosts and goblins and vampires,” she said. “I’m going to show you something really scary.”

  20

  Aunt Gris

  Natacha led him along a dank corridor and into a circular chamber. There was a coffin at its center. It was made from a blue, crystalline material—rock candy, Alex thought—and suspended from the ceiling by black licorice. To its left sat a silver machine, similar to Natacha’s oil diffuser but much larger. A long plastic tube connected the machine to a nozzle in the bottom of the coffin. Red mist swirled through the tube, clouding the crystalline walls of the coffin and obscuring its interior.

  “Alex!” shouted a familiar voice.

  He spun around. Iron gates were evenly spaced around the stone wall like the numbers of a clock. Behind them he could see tiny cells. This must be where Aunt Gris kept her captives, back in the fairy-tale days, he thought. Yasmin was in a cell on the opposite side of the chamber, her face pressed against the bars. At some point she had lost her cap. As Yasmin brushed the hair from her eyes, Lenore peeked out from between her legs and regarded Alex like a child arriving late to class: Where have you been?

  “Alex?” Yasmin asked. She took in the situation with a perplexed expression: Why was he standing beside Natacha and making no attempt to help her? “Are you under a spell?”

  “Quiet, girl,” Natacha said. “The storyteller is no longer your friend. He’s with me now. Isn’t that right?”

  Natacha stared hard at Alex, daring him to contradict her.

  “That’s right,” he said. “Sorry, Yasmin. This is who I really am.”

  He saw the betrayal in Yasmin’s eyes and quickly turned away, his heart aching. Natacha nodded with approval and led him to the coffin.

  “Meet the great and powerful Aunt Gris,” she said, running her hand along the jagged coffin lid. “Before I could bring the knife down and finish what I started, the house sealed her inside this . . . shell. It was protecting itself, you see. When a witch dies, all of her magic is undone. The house and everything connected to it would fall apart.”

  “The house is alive?” Alex asked.

  “It can’t talk or anything like that,” Natacha said. “But it’s like you and me, Alex. It knows how to survive. It connected itself to the witch, sapped her magic. This way it could offer me a reason to keep her alive.”

  Natacha snapped a shard off the coffin lid and held it before her eyes. Light prismed through its craggy surface and cast her face in a sickly blue glow.

  “It’s made of candy, you know,” she said. “The first time I saw it, I couldn’t resist taking a tiny nibble, just to see what would happen. That was a mistake. I was sick for weeks. But the power it gave me, the things I could do . . .” Her eyes glowed with remembrance. “I cast my first spell by mistake. I held my unicorn pendant in my hand and wished it was real—and there they were! I created life! Isn’t that magnificent?”

  Alex nodded eagerly, concealing his real reaction: Those things you created are monsters, not unicorns.

  “After that, there was no going back,” Natacha said. “I learned that just a tiny piece of the coffin, like the one in my hand here, could be boiled down to its essence and turned into an entire vat of oil that lasted for months. All I had to do was breathe it in for a few minutes each day, and Aunt Gris’s magic could be mine.”

  That’s what the blue mist was for, Alex thought. Natacha’s daily intake of magic.

  “You were free,” Alex said. “Why didn’t you leave the apartment? Go back to your family?”

  “And been what?” Natacha snapped. “Just a normal girl again? I don’t think so.”

  “You could have been a good witch,” Alex said. “You didn’t have to hurt any of those kids.”

  “That’s not my fault!” Natacha exclaimed. “The apartment brought them to my door. I set the first few free, but . . . I was punished. For a long time, the magic oil didn’t work anymore. What choice did I have?”

  You could have stopped, Alex thought. You could have done the right thing.

  But that would have meant giving up magic, and for Natacha that was no option at all. In some ways, she had never stopped being the apartment’s prisoner.

  Biting back his fear, Alex bent down and peered through the side of the coffin. A red scrim covered its sides like algae on the glass of a fish tank. He could just barely glimpse a figure inside. It had a vaguely human shape, but the dimensions were all off.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Alex asked.

  “Aunt Gris has been in there a long time,” Natacha said. “She’s as much a part of the house now as . . . There were bound to be certain changes. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that she stays asleep. And that’s where you come in, my friend. The sleeping oil doesn’t work as well as it used to. Aunt Gris gets restless. You’ve seen what happens.”

  “The earthquakes,” Alex said.

  “Exactly,” Natacha said. “The only thing that can put her back to sleep again are scary stories. They calm her down, like lullabies soothe a baby. Maybe they give her beautiful nightmares.” She grinned as an idea struck her. “You should try it! The oil. Once you see what it’s like to have magic at your fingertips”—she clapped her hands, suddenly as giddy as a child—“I could teach you how to cast spells! Think about it, Alex. Wouldn’t being a warlock be a lot better than writing about one?”

  The strained smile on Natacha’s face did little to hide her desperation. Alex felt an inkling of pity.

  “If I stay,” he said, “will you let Yasmin and Lenore go?”

  “Of course,” Natacha said. “No harm will come to them.”

  Alex smiled with relief, as though Natacha had set his mind at rest. He knew she was lying, though.

  As soon as he told his story, he’d never see his friends again.

  Without warning, the entire room jerked to the left like a carnival ride. Iron gates squealed against their moorings. Cots flew across their cells. A misshapen chunk of the coffin lid plummeted to the floor and shattered like a glass vase. With a shout of anguish, Natacha fell to her knees and frantically gathered the pieces.

  “Tell a story!” she exclaimed. “Quick!”

  “I don’t have one!”

  “Just make it up!”

  “It’s not that easy.”

  “Then tell her a true story,” Natacha said. “The reason you wanted to destroy your nightbooks! She’ll like that.”

  “That’s not scary.”

  “It was to you,” Natacha said. “Something made you terrified of your own stories, of the kind of person who could have such dreadful ideas. Feed her your fear!”

  The magical quake rose in intensity. A crack appeared in the stone wall. The coffin swung back and forth like a vampire’s hammock. Alex remained silent. All I have to do is keep my mouth shut, he thought, and Aunt Gris will eventually wake up. He didn’t like the idea of bringing another evil witch into the world. But at least it was an evil witch who probably hated Natacha even more than they did.

  “Why aren’t you starting?” Natacha asked.

  Alex clenched his lips together and stared back at her with defiance.

  “Fine,” Natacha said, raising her hands into the air. They thrummed with gathering power. “Let me make this easy. You either tell your story ri
ght now or I will turn the girl to dust and make you sweep her up!”

  Alex looked at the coffin. There was no movement. No sign that Aunt Gris was going to wake up in the next minute or two. If he tried to wait it out, Natacha would have plenty of time to hurt his friends.

  But what if there was a way I could force her to wake up? he wondered, formulating a plan.

  “Last chance!” Natacha said, raising her hands higher.

  “Okay,” Alex said. “I’ll do it.”

  He turned toward the coffin. There was no need to speak loudly. Aunt Gris was part of the house. If she could hear him when he read stories in the living room, she could certainly hear him when he was standing three feet away.

  Alex took a big breath. Just like Scheherazade on the one-thousand-and-first night, he thought.

  “I was in math,” he said, “when my teacher got a call from the office and said that Mr. Calkins wanted to see me. I went, ‘Who’s Mr. Calkins?’ because I really had no idea, and Greg Jenkins said, ‘He’s the guy who talks to the crazy kids.’ The class thought that was pretty funny. I left quick. It took me a while to find Mr. Calkins’s office, and when I finally did I guess he’d been waiting a while, because he looked pretty annoyed. ‘Mosher, right?’ he asked, consulting this file on his desk. ‘Alexander?’ I nodded even though no one ever calls me Alexander. I sat down and he closed the door behind us.”

  The walls of the room began to shake a little less, like an audience quieting down as a performance begins.

  “Mr. Calkins asked me a bunch of questions. ‘How’s school?’ and ‘How are things at home?’ Icebreakers. I answered him as best I could, but in my head I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing there. I’m not a troublemaker. I’m not flunking out of school. I’m no one. And then Mr. Calkins lifted the file with my name on it and I saw how thick it was, just stuffed with papers, and he said, ‘I’ve been looking through some of your writing through the years. Your teachers photocopied the more disturbing stories. Did you know that?’ I didn’t know that. I thought my teachers always liked me.”

  With a final shudder, like a train car coming to rest at a station, the rumbling came to a complete stop. Natacha, grinning from ear to ear, circled her hand in a clockwise motion: Keep going, keep going!