by Debi Gliori
“You admit it?” she shrieked, her head surrounded by a halo of steam from where the Sleeper’s splashes met her fiery exhalations.
“That’s whit ah’m tryin’ tae tell youse, wumman. I wis gi’en yon ring by a wee horsy thing, a burnt liberayrian, and telt tae take guid care o’ it.”
Beside Ffup, Pandora gasped. A wee horsy thing. A burnt librarian. She knew exactly who the Sleeper was talking about. This could only be the centaur Alpha, onetime custodian of the Etheric Library and Keeper of the Chronostone. Pandora also remembered, on being introduced to the centaur, that she’d been horribly embarrassed by his complete lack of clothes and puzzled by his library’s complete lack of books. Her gasp of recognition went unnoticed by Ffup, who was too blinded by jealousy to either understand or care.
“Whaaaaaat? You expect me to believe that slinky wee sea serpent thing I found you wrapped round is a librarian? Oh yeah, right. And I’m an accountant.”
“Aw, c’mon, hen.” The Sleeper raised his voice, goaded at last. “Get a grip, eh? Yon slinky wee sea serpent wis a sea horse. And youse may weel be an accountant, but youse’re certainly no zoologist. Look. Wid youse open your eyes? The sea horse is right behint me. And he’s brocht aw his freends, and they want their stone back, the noo…”
“They’re not the only ones,” said a voice. “I want that stone back as well.” And stepping out of the mist came the demon Isagoth. Regrettably, he was still coated in baby sick despite his walk in the pouring rain all the way from Auchenlochtermuchty, but nobody noticed this lamentable lack of personal hygiene because the demon was clasping the real Baby Strega-Borgia under his arm. Titus inhaled sharply, dropping Damp’s hand before launching himself in what would have been a heroic but ultimately fatal attempt to rescue his baby brother. However, Titus had reckoned without the strength of his rickety relative; hadn’t factored Strega-Nonna into the equation at all, assuming that such a feeble old woman was more of a liability than an asset.
As they all had. All except Pandora, who’d had firsthand experience of what a tough old bird Strega-Nonna really was. Pandora, who alone knew the depth of the old woman’s courage and who was just beginning to suspect that Nonna’s love for her family was without limit.
“Nonna, no…,” she began, but she was light-years too late. In what now felt like slow motion, Strega-Nonna turned to Damp, unwrapped Luciano’s sweater from around her own shoulders, placed it like a cloak around the child, and then bent to unzip Damp’s pajama-case pig and withdraw the stone hidden within. As if she had all the time in the world, she turned and patted first Titus’s, then Pandora’s cheeks in the manner of Italian grandmothers the world over; next, she stopped and waited to make absolutely sure that Isagoth could see what a treasure she held in her hand before picking up her skirt in her other hand and sprinting for the loch.
Then all was noise and confusion. Much later, when Titus and Pandora tried to piece together the ghastly chain of events that transpired, link after dark link, on that winter evening, it was Strega-Nonna’s bravery that shone like a lighthouse, illuminating all their deeds like a beacon of hope in the darkness. At first Titus had had no idea what she was doing, bolting off in the mist like that. But Pandora knew—knew without doubt that Strega-Nonna was using herself as bait. Isagoth too had instantly understood what was happening. After all, he reasoned, it had all happened before, during the previous summer, when that suicidal pest of a nanny had flung herself into the loch, clutching what he was beginning to think of as his stone. That time, back then, he’d been too slow to stop her, but this time…this time he had the kid. This time he was in charge. Even if he did have to run like a fool to catch up. Coughing horribly, the old lady headed across the meadow, only quickening her pace when she heard the footsteps behind her.
“Hey, hag. Haven’t you forgotten something?” Isagoth taunted, pointing to the baby, who bounced and jiggled in his arms. By now they’d crossed the meadow and, to his surprise, the old bag was way ahead—almost at the end of the jetty, for Pete’s sake. If he didn’t stop her, history was going to repeat itself, and there was no way he was going to allow that to happen. He stopped, dropped the baby on the grass, and extended his arms in a V shape in front of himself. There was a crackle, as if lightning had struck, and a thin black line shot out from Isagoth’s fingertips, faster than the eye could follow, striking Strega-Nonna right in the middle of her throat. The old lady coughed once and slowly toppled to her knees, her hands still clutching the stone. Smoke began to coil around her, wisps of gray wreathing round her neck like a choker made of mist. Pandora screamed and then ran full tilt into the demon, shrieking Strega-Nonna’s name over and over and over again; behind her, Titus scooped up his screaming baby brother into his arms and continued to run toward his dying great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. Flames licked around the old lady’s head like a crown of fire, and her sightless eyes turned inward to some place Titus and Pandora dared not follow.
Don Lucifer di S’Embowelli held the changeling at arm’s length as he paced back and forth in front of the silent pictures in the Ancestors’ Room. Hoping they might be mistaken for figures made of paint rather than flesh, Baci and Ludo Grabbit hid in the deep painted shadows in the portrait of Malvolio. With no idea what was happening beyond the Ancestors’ Room, they had been waiting on the other side of the portrait until someone came to let them know if the coast was clear. When Don Lucifer had appeared round the door, Baci’s heart sank. StregaSchloss must still be under siege…. And then she saw the infant grasped in Lucifer’s arms. Ludo had been ready, leaping forward to catch her, to pin her arms to her sides and stop her from rushing to the defense of the Hell-born changeling.
Now Baci was still, in the manner of a rabbit caught in a snare, poised between the world behind the portal and the world to which she yearned to return, no matter what it cost. Don Lucifer glared at the paintings, but there was no response from any of them, not even when he roared Baci’s name so loudly he made the baby cry.
“I know you’re in there, you stupid woman,” he bawled, his ugly face contorted with rage. “If you don’t show yourself, I’m gonna start on the brat, capisce?”
Hidden behind a tree on the other side of the frame that had once housed the likeness of Malvolio di S’Enchantedino Borgia, Baci struggled her hardest against Ludo’s grip, aware of how puny her best efforts were. Tears rolled down her face as she saw her tiny baby flopping like a rag doll in the grip of his evil uncle Lucifer.
“Let me go to him, pleeeeease,” she begged Ludo, her fists raining against the lawyer’s chest, her voice rising to a ragged shriek. “MY BABY! YOU HAVE TO. LET. ME. GO!” And then, to her horror, she saw why Ludo wouldn’t let her sacrifice herself.
Annoyed at being squeezed in the grip of the roaring man and aware that Baci, source of all good things, was somewhere nearby, the changeling decided to seize control of the situation. Before Don Lucifer could issue another threat, it reared forward in his arms and sank its teeth into the gangster’s newly restored nose, biting down so hard that it was some moments before the Don could dislodge its grip, hurl the monster to the floor, and get as far away from the biting baby as possible. Blind with pain and rage, Don Lucifer crashed along the corridor, flinging open doors at random in search of something to stanch the flow of blood as well as something to numb the pain. Ten minutes later, pressing a towel to his face, he reentered the Ancestors’ Room clutching a bottle of whiskey. Again the room was silent, save for the changeling hissing on the floor in front of Malvolio’s portrait. Don Lucifer smiled nastily. He’d had enough messing around with biting brats and wailing women. He’d do the wife and the baby together…. At this thought, his smile widened and he dropped the towel. Slowly, lingeringly, he removed the cork from the bottle and let it fall to the floor. It bounced once, then rolled toward the glowing embers in the fireplace. Perfect. Don Lucifer had just worked out how to hammer the two final nails into his brother’s coffin. Paying particular attention to the
area of floorboards around Malvolio’s portrait, Don Lucifer splashed whiskey all around, laying a trail of alcohol that led all the way back to the warm tiles surrounding the fireplace. He did this with one hand while, with his other hand, he rummaged in his pocket for his cigarette lighter.
Running across the rose quartz drive, knowing deep down that something was very wrong indeed, Luciano smelled the smoke but couldn’t at first see its source. Then he heard the sound of breaking glass, and looked up just as the windows of the Ancestors’ Room were illuminated by an awful flash of bloody light. As he ran, he saw two figures silhouetted in the window, backlit by leaping flames. Luciano’s throat was so constricted with dread that he couldn’t even say Baci’s name; could do nothing other than run flat out for the front door, knowing that no matter how fast he took the stairs, nor with what degree of suicidal courage he broke into the burning room, he would forever and ever and ever be too late to save his beloved Baci.
Burn, Baby, Burn
A wave as tall as a mountain rose up out of the loch. It was like nothing Titus had ever seen before, unless he discounted the sort of tidal waves generally found in disaster movies. Except, he decided, you don’t get the smell of the sea from waves in disaster movies; nor do they sound like the babble of a million voices, one on top of the other, all of them clamoring to be heard. Titus knelt beside his dead great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, shocked into a state of emotional numbness, hardly aware of the baby in his arms or the imminence of his own death as it rushed toward him, borne by the vast wall of water towering over the shores of the loch. He looked up from Strega-Nonna to where Pandora was struggling on the pebbly shore with Strega-Nonna’s murderer; looked to the meadow, where Ffup was rising into the air with Damp clasped in her forepaws; and finally looked back to the house, where he saw flames leaping from the windows of the Ancestors’ Room.
Then something as tall and heavy as an apartment building hit him, driving him under, deep, deep down into the darkest night, and he found himself wondering, as consciousness fled, if there might be white-chocolate-and-vanilla brownies in the afterlife or if being dead was really as final as he’d been led to believe.
S’tan sat at the table reading recipe books, oblivious to the chaos surrounding him and unruffled by the wicked wind howling through the broken window by the sink. Occasionally he would lick his finger and turn a page, his entire attention focused on his search for whatever had been in Mrs. McLachlan’s icing bag. Thus, when the nanny appeared in the kitchen, he didn’t at first regard her as a threat, but as a welcome source of information.
“That…that stuff you rammed down my throat,” he began, closing the recipe book and pushing it to one side before taking another from the pile of unread volumes and opening its stained cover. “It was…well, heck, it was wicked, whatever it was.” He didn’t look up, didn’t make eye contact with the nanny; instead, his fingers continued to flip pages as he scanned the lists of ingredients, hoping against hope that Mrs. McLachlan would let him in on her secret recipe. To his delight, Mrs. McLachlan did not disappoint.
“It was just a wee rowan jelly, dear. Made from rowan berries. Of course, being a cook yourself, you’ll know that a jelly made from the ripe berries is the most concentrated form of the fruit you could hope to obtain….” Here Mrs. McLachlan paused and took a breath; when she spoke again, her voice had developed a marked edge. “What you weren’t to know was that here in Scotland, we used to grow rowan trees in our graveyards to ward off evil. And very effective they were too. So a jelly made from those berries…well, I’m sure you can imagine how potent its effect would be.”
Which was when he looked up and saw that Mrs. McLachlan wasn’t alone. Behind her stood Minty, Latch, and the wolf pack, all of whom stared at him with flat, expressionless eyes.
“Your time’s up,” said Mrs. McLachlan, and as if to underline this, Minty took an egg timer out from behind her back and placed it firmly on the cupboard, where they could all watch its progress.
Clearing his throat, Latch removed a small Play-Doh figure from his pocket and met S’tan’s puzzled gaze before saying, “I took the liberty of mixing some of the blood from your injured finger into this dough. I’m sure you’ll appreciate the significance of what I’m talking about.” And stepping to one side, the butler opened the door of the oven and held the figure uncomfortably close to the flames.
Fat beads of sweat broke out on S’tan’s brow, and he held up his hands in mock surrender. “Guys, ladies, I mean…Sheesh. Is this aggro strictly necessary?”
Silence greeted him, and his eyes flicked from the egg timer to the oven and back. Blisters began to break out across his face, swelling up and bursting, as the silence stretched out, unbroken. Then, as if a switch had been thrown, S’tan’s mood abruptly changed.
“D’you cretins really think that you can best me? ME? The Prince of Dork, the Prints of Dark…yeah, whatever…” He paused, his brow furrowed as if he were an actor who’d forgotten his lines, his whole body racked with the embarrassment of waiting for the prompt that never came. Shaking his head and sending drops of sweat spraying in all directions, S’tan stood up, and his chair went crashing to the floor behind him. His face twisted with contempt, and he closed the recipe book as if it held a story with a deeply unsatisfying conclusion. With his eyes firmly fixed on the falling level of sand in the upper chamber of the egg timer, S’tan ground out his final lines, spitting each word across the kitchen, the effort of speaking costing him dear. Latch tried to ignore the black smoke trickling out from S’tan’s nostrils, just as he forced himself to ignore the pain he felt in his own hand—the hand that held the little figure over the flames. Somehow S’tan managed to force a laugh from his throat, even as his lower legs burst into flame.
“You—you must be out of your tiny minds if you think this is it. I’ll boil you alive and suck the flesh from your bones. I’ll make you wish you’d never been born. I’ll give you nightmares for all eternity. And as for you—” At this, he lurched toward Flora, and that was enough. With a roar of rage and pain commingled, Latch flung the manikin into the oven and slammed the door shut.
There was a ghastly scream, a crackle and a hiss, and in front of their horrified eyes S’tan melted, blackened, bubbled, and turned to smoke. The smell was indescribably bad, the air so thick with cremated devil flesh that it seemed to Latch and Minty as if they would never be rid of him. S’tan coated their skin, clung to their hair, trickled down the backs of their throats, clogged their lungs; even his glowing, flaming afterimage seemed to have seared itself on their retinas—but Mrs. McLachlan flung open the door to the kitchen garden and they fled blindly outside, never before so glad to be cold, wet, and alive on a winter’s night in Argyll.
Even though she now understood the changeling was not her own—was some twisted stand-in for her missing baby son—still Baci was unable to ignore the little creature’s shrieks and wails. The changeling shrank away from the flames that licked across the floor of the Ancestors’ Room, its face a gargoyle’s mask of horror, its true nature revealed by fear. Half mad with grief, Baci broke free from Ludo’s grip and lunged through the gilt frame, passing through the portal between the worlds as if it were merely an ordinary doorway. She scooped up the howling changeling and ran for the window with it in her arms. Two paces behind, barely able to see through the smoke, Ludo plunged across the burning room, intent on saving Baci from herself. As the lawyer reached out to her, the velvet curtains caught fire, their moth-eaten, sunbleached fabric no match for the greedy flames. For one heart-stopping moment, Baci and the changeling were silhouetted against an unbroken wall of fire; then the curtains fell from the pelmet, spilling to the floor in a waterfall of sparks and flecks of burning velvet…
…at which point the windows imploded and Ffup crashed into the burning room, wings wide, neck outstretched, a grin stretching from ear to ear, delighted at having made the most dramatic entrance of her entire life.
“Pretty cool,
huh?” she demanded, stamping on the burning curtains with her heat-resistant dragon feet, forgetting in her triumph that she was the only creature in the room in possession of heat-resistant anything. Smoke filled the room; the floor was dotted with little bonfires; and glowing flakes and embers threatened bookcases and chairs, beds and wardrobes alike. Despite this, Ffup paused in front of Minty’s cheval mirror and turned to one side admiringly; then, remembering the purpose behind crashing into the Ancestors’ Room, she collected herself.
“Right, guys. Time to rock and roll.” And grabbing Ludo, Baci, and the changeling, she ran full tilt at the window and her powerful wings bore them all out into the night.
Waiting one floor below, with his mouth submerged in the waters of the moat and the remainder of his scaly body coiled on the rose quartz drive, the vast Sleeper took Ffup’s reappearance as his cue for action. He trundled forward, quartz crunching beneath his belly as he uncoiled and extended his colossal body, inching slowly up the wall beneath the Ancestors’ Room. When his head was finally level with the shattered windows, he paused, took a deep breath, and then, looking more like a firefighter’s hose than a mythical Scottish beast, squirted thousands of quarts of moat water straight into the burning room.
Something’s Got to Give
The unmistakable smell of burned flesh hung in the darkness of the great hall as Luciano took the stairs five at a time in what he knew must be a doomed attempt to rescue his wife. Memories of her flickered across his mind: Baci crowned in cream rosebuds as his bride; Baci asleep, her body curled around the babies like a mother lion’s; Baci dancing across a meadow full of cotton grass; Baci swimming in the lily pond…