by Kim Thompson
He started, turning back. “They’re coming. Listen.”
There was a faint skittering sound in the walls, and the creaking of boards, as if the house was shifting on its foundation. Then the sound of fabric tearing. Willa felt jittery.
“Everyone! Get ready!”
Tengu jumped to his feet and gathered up the broom handles. Belle removed the cone from around Baz’s neck.
“Now don’t go scratching at your cuts,” Belle scolded. “Or I’ll put it right back on.” Baz scowled but said nothing. Tengu held out their mop handle weapons.
“We’re not going to get far with sticks, Tengu,” grumbled Belle.
The golden bird hopped about urgently, making the cage jump and clang on its stand. Willa opened the cage door and Fadi stepped out onto her arm.
“You know something’s about to happen, don’t you?” Willa cooed softly, smoothing the bird’s feathers. Calmed, Fadi looked into Willa’s eyes, tilted her head and nodded. Then she hopped onto the back of the sofa and stretched her glittering wings out to
the sides.
Willa put her ear to the office door. The sounds were growing louder in there, with the addition of the stealthy scrape of something very, very large. She turned to Horace again, whispering.
“The knitting needles are the time talisman. We’ve just got to keep them hidden, right?”
“Yes,” Horace nodded. “If they don’t have the needles they cannot enter and live in your world. And we can always get back in time by starting to knit again.”
Willa nodded and opened her palm. She let out a gasp. Only the ball of yarn was there. She dashed back into the parlour and dropped to her knees, groping frantically for the tiny needles on the rug. Horace stumbled in behind her, dropping down as well and fumbling about.
A loud crash sounded in the office. Fadiyah flew out of the room with Tengu close behind, spinning his mop handle artfully. Baz fumbled for her broomstick and followed. Belle wheeled herself out, her pale fingers clenching a fireplace poker.
The noise and shouts grew deafening, but Willa continued to run her fingers back and forth across the flowered rug, her heart pounding.
“I’ll find them, Horace, go!” she yelled. Horace struggled to his feet and dashed out of the room with a roar.
A movement caught Willa’s eye. Mab was stirring in her bed. Willa crawled over and gently lifted the fairy, wrapping her in a blanket and slipping her into the inner pocket of her jacket. Then a horrifying scream from Belle made her jump.
The old lady had slipped out of her chair at the foot of the stairs, screaming more in anger than fear as she swung her poker at three cat-people who hissed and reared up to pounce.
Willa grabbed a cushion from the sofa and ran out into the hall. She started to whack the cats as hard as she could. They tumbled backwards and scampered back into the office.
“I could have handled those furballs,” grumbled Belle as Willa helped her into the wheelchair.
“I know, but I need you in here.” Willa wheeled her into the parlour doorway. “Try to keep the cats out of here. The needles are still in the rug somewhere.”
She expected an argument from the old woman, but Belle nodded purposefully and pointed to the pillow Willa still had in her hand.
“A pillow’s not going to cut it, sweetie. Here!” Belle held out her poker.
“No, you keep it.” Willa tossed the pillow aside and grabbed the fireplace shovel.
The scene in the office was fierce. The far wall was one great empty black hole now and the lithe cat-people were slithering in, swarming the place despite the tremendous efforts of Horace, Baz, and Tengu. Horace was in lion form, big and golden, pouncing on the cats with a great roar, clawing and flinging them across the room. Baz was fighting fire with fire, hissing and swiping with her claws. Fadi swooped back and forth, scattering the felines. The most amazing sight, however, was Tengu, flashing around the room in a blur, forward, backward, spinning and flipping. His mop handle whooshed back and forth with eerie precision, cracking cat spines with every blow. The cats were falling and being thrown, but they kept coming.
“Horace!” called Willa. “There’s too many of them!”
The lion paused, nodding his great head, and backed into the doorway of the office, effectively blocking it.
“Stand back!” he roared. Tengu, Baz, and Willa shrank back into the corners of the room. The bird perched above the window. The cats, suddenly silent, turned to stare at Horace in the doorway.
In the sudden quiet Willa could hear Horace mumbling, menace in his voice. Then he roared and swiped with his paw, creating a visible disturbance in the air. It spread outward in a semi-circle, like ripples in a lake, and the cats were blown back by the shockwave. They flew back into the hole or thunked against the wall, dropping to the floor. Then they sprang as one at Horace, like a wave splashing back at him, but he waved his paw again, in a wide, strong sweep, and the cats were thrown back with even greater force. Many fell unconscious to the floor, but still more cats poured out of the wall.
Horace was hanging his head wearily now as the cats crept forward, slowly covering the whole floor. He braced himself in the frame of the doorway as they began to climb all over him, mewling terribly.
The bird flapped back and forth, screeching angrily, diving and tearing at their backs, but the cats paid it no mind. Tengu, Baz, and Willa leapt back into the fray but it was a losing battle. They couldn’t even get close to Horace, who was sinking into an ocean of cats.
“Horace!” screamed Willa as he disappeared from sight. Just then the room seemed to explode behind her. Shards of glass filled the air and Willa fell forward, landing on cats. The next moment she was beneath them. She couldn’t breathe. Their feet scratched and scrambled over her. When she felt an opening she rolled over and sat up. A large, dark shape loomed above her. And a large, moist eye.
Dinah let out an ear-splitting wail as the last of the cats slipped away into the darkness beyond the wall. Willa and the others sat up on the glass-strewn floor exchanging looks of amazement. Dinah had thrust her head through the window, sending the terrified cats into retreat. Now she closed her eyes and let out a tremendous cry of victory. The sound reverberated for a long time through the still house.
“Dinah! Thank you, thank you!” Willa threw her arms around the dinosaur’s neck. The others gathered around with happy shouts and hugs, and Dinah closed her eyes, snuffling humbly.
Willa looked to Horace, small and human again, slumped in the doorway. His face and hands were crisscrossed with bright red scratches. She ran over to help him up.
“Horace, are you okay?” He was too breathless to answer but waved her aside, standing on his own.
The office was in a shambles, but more than that, the black stains and puddles had multiplied all over the room, scattered around like spattered paint. Pulsating. Silently everyone stepped around them, withdrawing from the office into the narrow hallway. Belle was out of her chair, sitting on the floor in the parlour, wide-eyed. “What happened?”
“Dinah happened, that’s what,” cackled Baz. Belle grinned as they helped her back into her chair.
Willa caught her breath. “She surprised them, but they’ll be back. The hole’s too big to block now, we’ll have to barricade the doorway!”
Tengu jumped to the stairs and braced his mop handle against the bannister, which gave way and splintered apart, trailing ragged nails. He and Baz hurriedly hammered scraps of wood across the office doorway. Horace seemed totally exhausted; he sat on the stairs and watched silently.
Willa turned to the parlour. Belle was looking very pleased with herself.
“No need to look. I found them,” she crowed.
“Belle! That’s fantastic!” Willa gave her an impulsive hug and felt the bony shoulders melt a little. She held out her hand for the needles but Belle shook her head.
“No, no. I’ll look after them.”
Willa felt her face growing hot. “Belle! We don’t have
time to argue!”
“So stop arguing!”
“Give them to me right now!”
Willa surprised herself. She sounded like her mom. She was talking to Belle as if the mermaid were a small child. She felt a twinge of guilt. Belle was staring back at her in that I’m-not-to-be-meddled-with way.
“I may be old and I may be foolish, but I am not totally useless!”
Willa still felt she was in the right. She was the one to safeguard the needles, but there was no way to get them, short of strong-arming an old woman in a wheelchair, and she wasn’t about to do that.
“All right,” she sighed. “Where do you have them?”
Belle’s hand slipped into her sweater pocket. Willa just nodded and turned away.
The office doorway was haphazardly boarded up now. Everyone stepped back to wait.
Willa headed out the back door and hurried into the trees. The fairies were all about, sitting in branches and armed with slivers of spears, or bows and arrows. Willa pulled Mab from her pocket, stirring and newly awake. Willa breathed a sigh of relief as Mab blinked, trying weakly to sit up. The fairies scowled at the sight of her, but Willa would have none of it.
“I don’t care if you’ve got some stupid old feud with her. She needs your help right now! We could lose everything here, you’ve GOT to do the right thing!”
Willa felt the desperation in her voice, but she was so forceful that the fairies paused, exchanging looks. Then they directed Willa to a hollow in a tree. She lay Mab down and watched as they covered her up with leaves and feathers.
“Thank you,” Willa called back as she hurried off.
Next Willa went to see Dinah. The dinosaur’s chin rested on the windowsill and she eyed the office warily. Willa suddenly felt tired, very tired. She leaned against Dinah, closing her eyes for a moment. All was silent. Nothing moved. There was no breeze, no air. It was as if her ears were plugged with cotton. Willa squeezed her eyes shut, enjoying the silence and willing it to continue. It didn’t.
There was a strange whooshing sound next, like an underground river, and a breeze hit her.
She opened her eyes. The black hole was now bulging into the office, like a great black bubble of nothing about to burst into the room. As Willa and Dinah stared, the bubble wobbled and snapped, and darkness flowed into the room.
When the thick black liquid had covered the floor it began to pull together and solidify. A form took shape, long and snake-like, but huge. The tail end disappeared into the black hole. The front end swung back and forth. The face was blank, featureless. Then, as Willa stared, a mouth ripped open and a barbed black tongue snapped out, whipping around the room. Searching. The massive beast filled the room, thrashing its tongue back and forth like a blind man’s cane.
Unable to move or even breathe, Willa watched. How could they fight that?
Chapter Fourteen
The Mouth
The great black snake scraped across the office. Cats and spiders spilled out of its mouth. The cats spread over the floor and the spiders covered the walls and ceiling, turning the entire room black. Dinah thrust her head in, bellowing. The spiders skittered, the cats backed away, but the snake paid no attention.
Willa dashed to the back door, nearly tripping over the two-headed lizard fleeing the house to disappear in the long grass. Inside she found the old folks staring at the office door as Dinah’s roaring sounded from within.
“Get back!” hollered Willa, running up. “Get away from the door!”
They were just beginning to move when the office door exploded into pieces around them. Tengu and Baz fell toward the front door, Belle and Horace to the stairs. The dark shape flowed through them into the parlour, a rippling blackness six feet high blocking the hallway. Tengu and Baz disappeared outside. Horace stood halfway up the stairs in total shock. Belle’s wheelchair had tipped over at the foot of the stairs, where she lay, her face agape in horror.
The cats and spiders appeared next. The spiders streamed across the ceiling. The cats scrambled over the back of the seemingly endless form of the snake, grinning evilly. Willa scrambled over the broken bannister onto the stairs.
“Get upstairs, Horace! We’re right behind you!” She slid her hands under Belle’s arms and dragged her out of the fallen chair. It sounded like the parlour was being smashed to dust.
Willa inched her way backwards, heaving Belle up the stairs, step by step. The cats swarmed over the empty chair and dropped onto Belle’s tail, which she swung back and forth energetically, sweeping them off the stairs but causing Willa to stumble. She struggled to keep a grip on Belle and nearly dropped her again when she backed into Horace.
“Horace! Move!” Willa looked back over her shoulder. Her blood froze. His face was blank and confused, his eyes darting about.
“Have you ... have you seen my glasses? I seem to have misplaced them,” he stammered. Above them spiders rushed over the ceiling, heading to the second floor ahead of them.
“They’re in the library, old man. MOVE IT!” hollered Belle.
Horace blinked and retreated up the stairs. The noise in the parlour suddenly abated. The thing glinted in the dim light, retracting. Willa heaved and tugged Belle up the stairs, slipping and stumbling with every step.
The snakehead pulled back into the hallway. Belle gasped. The cats withdrew silently as the head swung over to the stairs. The mouth gaped open toward them. Willa held her breath. The interior of the thing went on and on forever, and there were shapes in there, voices, howling wind, and great cold space. There was a whole universe inside, just waiting to come out.
Then the tongue snapped out, slapping and bumping up the stairs. They both shrieked, their cries lost in the screech of the golden bird, diving at the tongue with claws outstretched. One talon thunked into a stair, but the tongue had simply split in two to escape being impaled; now two tongues whipped blindly about the stairs. The bird struggled to extract its claw and dodge them.
Willa gave a great lunge backward and sprawled on the second floor landing. She and Belle crawled and scrambled to the library door. There was a sickening thud as Fadi was thrown into a wall behind them.
“Come!” screamed Willa.
Dragging one limp wing, the bird hopped after them into the library and they slammed the door shut.
Willa’s breath came in painful gasps; she felt tears flowing down her cheeks. Belle pulled herself across the floor, still gripping her poker, wheezing and cursing as she went. Fadiyah shook herself, stretching her hurt wing and gurgling with great agitation.
Horace sat in an armchair, watching them blankly. Belle opened her mouth, but Willa stopped her.
“He’s gone, Belle. There’s no use.”
Belle said nothing. In the hall they could hear the slither of the tongue and the skitter of cats.
A sudden sharp rap made Willa jump out of her skin. It was Tengu, outside the window. Willa slid the window open.
“May we join you?” he asked cheerfully. He and Baz had come up the fire escape. They tumbled into the room and everyone turned expectantly to Willa. Why did they look to her? She just wanted to fall apart and weep, but something about that swish-swish in the hallway caused her to take a deep breath. She began to pace, mostly to stamp out the shaking in her knees.
“It’s like a snake, but it has no eyes,” she explained. “It can’t see, but its tongue is trying to feel out what it’s looking for: the knitting needles. It doesn’t care about us, it just wants the needles. And if it gets them ...” She fell silent, at a loss.
Belle thrust one hand into her sweater pocket and brandished her poker with the other. Her face was so pale it looked blue, but her eyes blazed.
“It won’t get them,” she growled.
In the hall the tongue slapped around, and as they watched, spiders began squeezing in under the door. Baz sprang across the room, pouncing on them. Willa looked around wildly.
“Out the window!”
Tengu jumped forward and slung Bel
le over his shoulders, fireman-style.
“Aaack! Watch it, you hooligan,” she hissed, but he just grinned and hopped out the window. Willa coaxed Horace to the window. He was like a small, frightened child.
Baz was losing the battle, even though the bird had joined her. The spiders just kept coming. Out in the hall the sound of shattering glass and splintering wood was getting louder. Horace was finally gripping the fire escape ladder and Willa started to follow.
“If anyone has a spell up their sleeves, this would be a good time to pull it out!” she shouted.
Baz gave her a grim nod and turned to face the door. Willa paused on the ladder, watching as the old woman began to mutter and howl weirdly. Then she danced, spinning and hopping to the door and back a few times. Her footprints on the floor glowed in two parallel lines running the length of the room toward the door. There was a loud CRACK and the floor between the lines sagged a little. Baz jumped back, scurrying to the window just as the black head crashed through the library door.
Everyone clambered down the fire escape ladder. Tengu led the way with Belle over his shoulder, then Horace and Willa, and finally Baz. Willa looked up to see tendrils of gossiping hibiscus twining out the window as well.
Somewhere inside the library the bird screeched and the snake’s two tongues smashed through the window after them. Glass showered down and the fire escape swung away from the wall. Everyone hung on, shielding their faces. Baz grabbed Willa’s arm, her eyes wild with glee.
“Listen! The floor’s going!”
Indeed, Willa could hear a great groaning of wood now. The tongues were curving down after them. One flicked sharply at Baz. She swung out of reach, hanging on to the ladder with one hand.
Just then the house, the ladder, the very air vibrated with a tremendous crash. Both tongues zipped back up into the window. Baz cackled crazily as the parlour windows blasted out below their dangling feet.