Pure Dead Batty

by Debi Gliori

  Abruptly Damp sat down on the snow and burst into tears.

  “Not like it,” she sniffed, too tired even to wipe her nose on her sleeve in the hope that such revolting behavior might sting Mrs. McLachlan into wakefulness.

  “Not like it,” she insisted, her voice hoarse and barely audible over the roar of the wind and the crash of the waves on the shore. “Tired, tired girl.” And she curled her little body against that of her nanny, wriggling under an unresisting arm and trying to warm herself in the only way she could. Her eyes closed and, in the absence of any signs of disapproval from Mrs. McLachlan, her thumb stole up toward her lips and popped into her mouth.

  Snow continued falling, snow on snow, flake by flake claiming the three bodies on the beach and turning them white. Inside Damp’s fleece, Vesper’s autonomic system shut down all nonessential activity, plunging him into early hibernation. Squatting nearby in a little pool of snow-melt, the salamander slapped himself on his scaly forehead and gave out a howl of frustration.

  “You thtupid people—you can’t thleep here! Oh, for heaven’th thake.”

  Flaming brightly, he ran up and down the length of Mrs. McLachlan, trying desperately to set her alight and thus wake her out of this fatal slumber. “You’re going to die!” he squeaked, furious that the most his flames could achieve was to melt small patches of snow and send steam spiraling up into the gale. “Help! Thomebody do thomething. Eth Oh Eth!”

  As if in answer to his pleas, his words were washed away by a vast wave, its force drenching him and removing the crust of snow from the three bodies before cascading onto the beach with such force that it left a crater in the snow.

  “Jings!” roared a voice. “Oan nights like yon, ah’m awfy glad ah’m waterproof, eh no?”

  Deafening slapping sounds accompanied this statement, then a vast eyeball appeared inches away from the stunned salamander.

  “Whoo’r youse?” the voice demanded, the eye blinking, its pupil a huge pit of blackness in which the salamander saw himself damply reflected. “Pleased tae meet youse an’ aw that. Ma name’s Neh … Ness, aye, right, but youse can call me the Sleeper.”

  “Orynxth,” the little creature squeaked. “Pleathed to make your acquaintanth.”

  The giant eye withdrew and there were more slapping sounds, as if several enormous somethings were dropping onto the shore from a great height. With an effort, the salamander forced himself to burn more brightly, and in the increased candlepower managed to illuminate the owner of the eyeball and source of the voice.

  A vast water-serpent towered over the bodies on the beach, his long body arranged in five decreasing arches, the smallest of which was taller than any of the scrub oaks lining the shore.

  “Aye, that’s great, pal,” he roared. “Jis’ bring yon wee light ower here.”

  The colossal beast bent over Mrs. McLachlan and Damp, sniffing and snuffling over their bodies, as if in the darkness he needed to identify them by smell rather than sight. Obviously satisfied with the result of his inquiries, he picked both child and nanny up, tucked them into a vestigial pouch on his belly, and turned his attention to the other body, that of the demon Isagoth.

  “Thmellth nathty …” the salamander muttered, edging forward to sniff alongside the Sleeper. “Er, thcuthe me?”

  The giant beast turned round, scattering snow and pebbles across the beach and slapping his tail into the water with a loud crash. Bits of flotsam were now embedded in his tender underbelly—a car tire and, bizarrely, a blue rubber glove dangling like an alien udder from beneath the Sleeper’s pouch.

  “Look, pal,” he roared, “ah’m due up at the big hoose fir ma dinner, so ‘fit’s awright wi’ youse, ah’ll take these wee craiturs up there wi’ me. Drop them aff wi’ their ain folk, eh no? Ah think the big yin’s been missin’ fir ages. They’ll be pure dead chuffed tae get them back agin, eh no?”

  Orynx nodded. He wasn’t sure about the third body, though. Wasn’t sure at all. In another lifetime he’d been enslaved by demons; even washed in seawater and blown clean in a gale, Isagoth still retained the faintest trace of the sulphurous reek of Hades. Fortunately, the Sleeper wasn’t too impressed by his olfactory assessment of the unconscious demon either.

  “Phwoarrrrr,” he pronounced, rearing back in disgust. “That yin’s gone aff. It’s pure mingin’, yon. No way ahm ah luggin’ that aw the way up to the big hoose in the snaw and the dark, jis’ tae have them chuck it in the compost. Let’s go, wee yin, ah’m freezin’ ma buns aff, stonnin’ here.”

  And, leaving Isagoth to the mercies of the weather, the Sleeper plucked Orynx off the ground and placed the little creature on top of his enormous head, rearranged the passengers in his pouch, and, undulating sinuously, headed in the direction of StregaSchloss.

  Sweet Dreams

  Tarantella’s daughters watched with interest as a withered hand appeared, clawing its way over the lip of the freezer, all five fingers scrabbling for purchase on the smooth white metal lid.

  “My goodness,” observed Emailia. “And we thought our Aging Parent was an antique …”

  The lid to the freezer lifted slowly, falling open on its hinges as, inside, something large splashed around in what sounded like a tank of melted ice.

  “Eughhh!” Novella leaped backward out of harm’s way. “Water. Gag. Yeeeeurch. I’m out of here.”

  Climbing out of the freezer came Strega-Nonna, wet, wrinkly, like a geriatric version of Botticelli’s Venus arising out of her clamshell. The spider babies watched as the old lady removed several dripping bags of no-longer-frozen chips from beneath her feet, dropped them onto the floor and used them to cushion her landing as she half climbed, half fell out of the freezer with a dismayed yelp. Pausing only to check for breakages, she clambered to her feet and tottered off in the direction of the kitchen.

  Tarantella’s daughters picked their way fastidiously past the puddles left in Strega-Nonna’s wake and scuttled after the antique ancestor, following her staggery progress past dusty, cobwebbed racks of wine from vintages long forgotten. After a catastrophic explosion in the cellar the previous New Year, Latch had restocked the racks with over two thousand bottles, some of which had been laid down at the beginning of the previous century. Consequently, the smell in the wine cellar was of old things: fading wine labels, wax-sealed corks, and a faint, musty grapiness, where a cork had failed and allowed a bottle to drip onto the stone floor. Following Strega-Nonna’s wet footprints, the spider babies paused at a particularly sticky patch—the sugary residue left when a bottle of exceedingly strong damson gin had steadily leaked its contents onto the floor over the previous two years. Tarantella’s daughters were still at that stage in their lives where their avid desire for knowledge far outweighed their instinct for self-preservation. Like teenagers, the spiders had all come hardwired with shameless curiosity, vast appetites, and exceptionally sweet teeth. All they appeared to have inherited from their mother was her fastidious attention to personal hygiene. Consequently, when Anecdota found herself sticking to the floor as she crossed the dehydrated gin lake, she shrieked to a stop, delicately lifted two legs at a time, and groomed herself as if her life depended on it. Very soon a wide smile crossed her mouthparts and she lurched, hiccuping, towards Emailia and Diarya, both of whom were regarding the sticky puddle with unalloyed disgust.

  “Ladiesh, ladiesh,” Anecdota bawled. “Chill. Thish shtuff, I tell you, ish nectar of the godsh. Forget grooming, ladiesh. Jusht come on in and help yourshelvsh.”

  Two minutes later, warm and fuzzy feelings began to overcome the spiders. Another two minutes later, a fly blundered into their company and prepared itself for instant annihilation, only to discover that the spiders were too inebriated to be bothered to sting it, wrap it, and consume it at leisure. They reeled into the kitchen, rank of breath, unable to see straight, but affectionate, giggly, and in a mood to party till midnight and beyond. Drunkenly they rolled under the table, where they paused, shrieking with laughter, as the kitchen
spun around them alarmingly. Above their heads the mood was far more somber.

  Strega-Nonna was becoming hysterical. “I tell you, I’ve lost the thread—I cannot bring Flora back—I—I—”

  “Seems to me you’re a teeny bit confused, Nonna,” Baci said gently. “Flora’s been gone for a long time. Since the summer. But you weren’t to know—after all, you were tucked up asleep in your freezer—”

  “No! You don’t understand.” The old lady nearly wept with frustration. “Flora always goes away—and then I bring her back. Always. But I can’t. Do you understand? I can’t bring Flora back this time.”

  “No, Nonna”—Baci’s voice was soothing, the tone conciliatory—“I do understand. None of us can bring her back. No matter how much we wish we could. Believe me, I do understa—”

  “NO!” Strega-Nonna shrieked. “No, you don’t. You can’t understand. You keep on refusing to listen to me. D’you think that just because I’m old, that means I’m stupid? D’you think I’m losing my mind? I’ve lost the thread, I tell you—”

  “Telling me,” Latch murmured, and turned to confer with Signora Strega-Borgia under his breath. “Signora, do you want me to see if I can calm her down? Tuck her up in bed upstairs while you deal with Titus’s friend?”

  “Oh, Lord,” Baci moaned, reminded of the hideously transformed Rand. “It—he’s in the pantry, been raking around in there for ages, trying to find a similar jar to the one he had earlier, but I’ve a horrible feeling that I know what it was he ate, and it wasn’t what he thought—”

  “You’ve got to help me,” Strega-Nonna insisted, turning from Baci and transferring her attentions to Latch. “Flora is in terrible danger—she cannot return without the thread—she—”

  The door to the corridor opened and Titus stood there, pale-faced and shaking. “Mum—there’s something—” And half falling, half staggering across the room, he collapsed onto a chair and put his head in his hands. From under the table came an almost inaudible hiccup as Anecdota tried and failed to focus on all the legs now crowding under the table.

  “Mum—” Titus began, then stopped.

  Baci reached out to pat him, letting him know without words that whatever it was that ailed him, she would do her best to make things right, to make it all better, and then she remembered. “TITUS!” she gasped. “The measles. You shouldn’t be here—near me—the baby—”

  The kitchen door flew open and Pandora stood there, her lipsticked spots hideously apparent against her ashen face.

  “My photos have gone,” she stated, then, catching sight of Rand emerging from the pantry, she gasped, “Oh, heck. You’re turning into a spi—Mum? Can’t you do something?”

  Baci had one hand over her mouth, the other outstretched as if to keep everything—everyone—in the room at a distance. Under the circumstances this was entirely understandable: two of her children were covered in the false rosy rash of an illness which Latch had assured her was fatal to unborn babies; Strega-Nonna was wetly hysterical; and Rand—Rand scuttled across the floor toward her, his eight furry legs ample evidence, if evidence had been required, that there was a whole world of difference between consuming acanthoid wax and the similarly spelled arachnoid version.

  Just at that moment the lights flickered and went out and the door to the kitchen garden fell inward with a loud crash. In a deafening roar, a voice informed them, “Ah’m awfy sorry, but ah think ah jis’ snagged ma tail in yer power cables.…” And preceded by the brightly burning salamander, the Sleeper slid into the kitchen, bringing a blast of icy wind behind him.

  “Were you born in a barn?” demanded Ffup, bounding into the kitchen with Nestor clasped under one arm.

  The Sleeper quailed slightly, then recovered. “Dinnae gi’e me any a’ yer grief, wumman,” he growled, punctuating this with what he hoped was a suitably manly snort. Haloed by snowflakes, he turned to face the assembled beasts, humans, and spiders with an abashed look on its face.

  “Aw, hen,” he mumbled, rearing over Signora Strega-Borgia. “Ah’m that sorry, but ah’ve gone and trashed your wee door.…” He bent forward to pick splinters of oak from his belly, and paused, as if struck by a sudden thought. “Aye, but look, see. Ah’ve brought youse all twa wee presents. Check these oot. Ah found them washed up oan the beach.” And unaware of quite how huge an effect this was about to have, he rooted in his pouch and produced his treasures for all to see.

  Later, by candlelight, Latch crept into Mrs. McLachlan’s bedroom, hardly daring to breathe. Knees creaking in protest, he lowered himself into the wicker armchair by her bedside and closed his eyes for a moment to collect himself. His chest burned with unshed tears and unbelievable relief that at last his beloved Flora had been returned to him. All those long months without her; all the nights he’d lain awake, wondering if he’d ever see her dear face again; trying to drag his thoughts away from the terror that he’d find her body washed up on the shore, broken and battered, lost to him forever. His shoulders began to shake, and to his shame, he found himself unable to stop tears pouring down his face. Try as he might, he couldn’t hold himself back any longer; why now, why here, he wondered; unable to do anything but sit by her bedside and cry silently, his whole person violently seized by feelings completely beyond his experience or control. The room shimmered in the candlelight as Latch sat beside the woman he loved more than life itself and wept himself dry.

  A hand touched his and his eyes opened. He must have fallen asleep, dozed off in the chair, how long had he—? Confused, disoriented, he saw first Titus, then Pandora standing beside him, gazing down to where Flora slept. Clearing his throat, Latch stretched and stood up slowly, his long legs cramped with his vigil by Flora’s bedside. As if a veil had lifted from his eyes with the return of his beloved Flora, he now saw that the children looked like wraiths in the candlelight. Although man-sized, Titus had the bruised eyes of a lost boy and Pandora looked as if she hadn’t slept since the day her nanny had vanished. Latch’s heart squeezed with pity as he realized how orphaned Titus and Pandora had become by losing their Mrs. McLachlan. They’d hidden it well, he thought, watching as Titus’s eyes filled up with tears, watching Pandora’s hands shake as she covered her face. He reached out and drew them both into his embrace.

  “Is she …? Will she be …?” Pandora began, then, unable to continue, she buried her head in Latch’s shirt and sobbed.

  Titus shook like a reed, racked by huge choking sobs. “I just—I just remember looking at all her sensible shoes,” he whispered into Latch’s shoulder. “And—and thinking she’d n-never—n-never fill them again …”

  “And her bed,” Pandora wept. “I used to go and curl up under her quilt b-b-because I could smell her lavender soap under there—but—but then—” A fresh burst of weeping all but obliterated Pandora’s next words, but Latch felt his own eyes prickle as he heard the child gasp out, “It faded. I—I—I couldn’t reach her—I began to f-f-forget what she w-w-was like.”

  Outside the window, the storm howled and raged as gales battered the stone walls of StregaSchloss.

  “When will she …? How long before …?” Pandora began, then stopped herself.

  It didn’t matter, Latch realized, looking at Flora’s dear face and feeling a wave of absolute joy at the thought of all the happiness to come. He too had wondered when would she and how long … but it didn’t matter at all. What was important now was the simple fact that she was back. Home again. Safe.

  “And I’m never letting you go again,” he whispered. “Not without me by your side.”

  In an antique porcelain candleholder by Baci’s bedside, Orynx the salamander curled himself into a little ball and glowed faintly. Hanging upside down from one of the bars of the headboard, Vesper narrowed his eyes and muttered, “… and if you think you’re replacing moi as Damp’s familiar, you can think again, dude.”

  The salamander ignored this completely, his light dimming by not one watt in response.

  “I’m her main man,
” Vesper continued. “Her numero uno first lootenant. I’m her shadow. I, like, er, stick to her like a tick, like glue, like a glove, like a … like a …”

  Orynx yawned, rolled his eyes, and glared up at where the little bat dangled above Damp’s head. “Oh, pleath,” he sighed. “Cut me thome thlack. I’m not out to trethpath on your patch. I’m here for Thomeone Elth Entirely.”

  Damp sighed in her sleep, pressing her back into her mother’s tummy, stretching happily under a heavy arm. Inside Baci, Someone Else Entirely opened brown eyes, wriggled luxuriously in the darkness, and fell asleep once more. Vesper folded his wings and glared at Orynx; then, deciding that he offered no threat whatsoever, the little bat launched into the lullaby with which he’d soothed Damp to sleep ever since they’d first met.

  “Cabin crew, doors to manual, and cross-check. We will shortly dim the overhead lights for landing—”

  “Thpeak for yourthelf,” muttered Orynx. “The only dim thing round here hath wingth and thqueakth a lot.”

  “Please return your upright to the tray position and extinguish all seat—”

  “Vesper?” Damp groaned, but before she could finish, Orynx interrupted with a terse “Pleath. Thut up.”

  Titus and Pandora sat guarding Flora for a while, as if they feared she might vanish again if their attention were elsewhere. Around them, StregaSchloss slept, the sounds of the house settling into the night and forming a familiar symphony composed of the ticking of cooling radiators, the creak of contracting roof trusses, the whistle of water in pipes, and the prolonged wail of baby dragons wanting to be tucked in by Mum, not Dad.

  “Na, na, na,” came Nestor’s distinctive wail. “No wantit. Not likeit. Want Mummmaaaaa.”

  “Aw, come oan, son. Yer mammy’s havin’ a bath. Jis’ snuggle doon and let Daddy get some sleep, eh no?”