by B. V. Larson
“We have pictures of so many other relatives, statues even. But why not Vater? You’d think there would be a big portrait hanging in the entrance and a statue in lobby.”
She shrugged. “Maybe it’s for the same reason that we aren’t supposed to talk about him.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe there are pictures and statues, but there is something about them that caused the adults to hide them.”
Sarah shook her head. “Why?”
I didn’t answer her, I was thinking hard about something else. “And they say they know he’s coming, but how do they know? I mean did he call up from the airport like my Uncle Louis, asking for a ride? Or is there some kind of signal?”
“I don’t have any idea,” said Sarah. “But I know you are going to get me into trouble with this kind of talk.”
I noticed then that Thomas had drifted near me. He could move quietly, that one. I knew someone was there by the way that Sarah narrowed her eyes and looked over my shoulder. He spoke almost into my ear, making me jump.
“Maybe he’s a bug,” said Thomas.
We turned to stare at him.
“Who?” I asked.
“You know who. Maybe he’s something so awful, that the adults keep it quiet. Like a seamonster or a dragon or a snake or something.”
It was my turn to eye him closely. I saw something in his face. He wasn’t just making a joke. “What do you know?”
“Thomas, you’re not bunking with the rat tonight, are you?” came another voice, that of Danny. He was never far from his sidekick.
Thomas glanced back at Danny, who stood at the end of the hallway. He looked back at me.
“Yeah. I know stuff. We know stuff. We’ve seen things. Things the adults don’t want us kids to see.”
“Thomas,” came a quiet word from Danny. He didn’t seem to want to approach us, but hung back. He wanted Thomas to come when he called… like a dog. The thought made me smile.
“It won’t be funny when you find out the truth,” snarled Thomas, mistaking my smile for a jeering one.
“No, I believe you,” I said, as he walked away.
“No you don’t, but you will,” said Thomas. He stalked away down the corridor.
I started to go after him, but Sarah put a hand on my shoulder.
“You never know when to quit, do you?”
I looked back at her. “No,” I said seriously. Then I smiled.
“I like that about you.”
I blinked at her. Had she just said she liked me?
She left me in the hallway then and went upstairs to the girls floor and to bed. By the time I got to the room I was sharing with Jake, I was thinking hard.
“What is it?” asked Jake.
I glanced at him and then out the window, which was crusty with frost and snow. Outside the moon had come out from behind the clouds to light up the snowdrifts with a silvery shine.
“Tonight,” I said, “We are going on a little trip.”
Jake groaned and his head fell back against his old-fashioned, feather-filled pillow with a crunching sound.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Scouting
About an hour or so later I actually had to wake Jake up. He was the kind of guy who could fall asleep no matter what was happening. He muttered and slapped at my hand, but I shook his shoulder again. I had the other hand ready, in case he came awake shouting, to clamp over his mouth. But he didn’t.
He looked at me, dazed. “What…?”
“Time to explore,” I whispered. There was only one other kid in our room, Chris Anderson. Anderson always snored loudly and wasn’t easily awakened.
“What time is it?” asked Jake, scratching his head.
I shrugged. “About midnight.” I was one of those people who didn’t feel sleepy just because it was dark out. In fact, I tended to feel more active at night. I wondered vaguely if this was the nocturnal rodent part of me coming out. I didn’t like the idea much and tried not to think about it.
I finally got a confused Jake into his shoes and pants and we crept out into the hallway. Jake yawned with a groaning sound and I shushed him.
“What are we going to do, anyway?”
“I told you what Thomas told me,” I said.
“He was just messing with your mind.”
I shook my head. “Not Thomas. He’s not that imaginative. I want to see what’s going on up in that attic.”
“Thrown out of the mansion the day Vater shows up,” muttered Jake, but he came along after me.
We’d made it as far as the next dimly lit hallway when the hardwood floors creaked behind us. I froze, melting against the wall. Jake, seemingly more awake now, pressed himself into a shadow beside me. We breathed there for a moment, listening. Nothing.
We crept forward and I peeked out to look around the corner into a side passage. I knew this hall led up to a fold-down stairway that allowed access to the attic. It wasn’t the main stairs, but a back way I’d noticed while cleaning up there earlier.
“Just what do you boys think you’re doing?”
We froze again and rotated our heads. I was thinking of Urdo, but there stood a much shorter figure, only a few feet behind us, hands on her hips. It was Beth.
“You didn’t think I was going to let you sneak off and get in trouble without me, did you?” she said with a grin.
“Oh,” said Jake, letting all the air whoosh out of him. “Great imitation of Urdo, you creep. I all but wet myself.”
I snorted and shook my head. I didn’t see any easy way to get rid of her, nor did I want to. I beckoned and the three of us proceeded into the dark side-passage.
The attic trapdoor opened and let down the stairs with what seemed like a tremendous clattering sound. I tried to do it slowly, but that just made it creak and squeal on unoiled hinges and springs. I let it go fast at the end, and it snapped down onto the carpet that ran down the middle of the hardwood floor with a resonating thump. We all winced.
“Do you want to wake the dead?” asked Beth.
“Don’t say that,” said Jake.
She gave him a funny look. I shushed them and we all listened for a few minutes. Someone opened a distant door. I heard a toilet flush. Another door opened and shut. Still, we waited, hearing nothing but the sounds of our own breathing. Cold, musty air poured down into our faces from the open trapdoor.
“It must be freezing up there,” whispered Beth.
“I don’t think anyone’s coming to investigate,” said Jake.
I nodded. We put on jackets and headed up the folding steps into the cold darkness above.
“This is a bad idea,” hissed Jake. He was the last one in the hall, looking up at us.
“Do you want to stay behind?” I asked.
“It’s just… I don’t know why we need to do this right now. I’m sleepy.”
“I knew you’d chicken,” I said, not doing a good job of hiding the disgust in my voice.
“I’m a sleepy toad, not an attic rat,” he muttered back.
My neck felt hot suddenly and I became angry. I realized somewhere in the back of my mind I was going to have to hear rat comments for the rest of my life and I already didn’t like it.
“This will work out perfectly,” said Beth, laying a hand on my shoulder. “He can stay behind and close up the stairway. We don’t want anyone coming along and finding the stairs folded down. They might come up here to investigate.”
I made a sour face, and then nodded. “All right you old toad. Close it up and do a quieter job of it than we did when we opened it.”
Jake smiled wanly, “I could hardly make it louder.”
A few minutes later, the trapdoor was closed and the attic became very dark. I opened my cellphone. It was one of those phones that only worked when you had money in the account for it, and of course mine was empty. But, the dim blue glow of the screen did help light up the room a bit. A very little bit.
“Is that your idea of a light source?” asked Beth. She m
ade a tsking sound and produced a small flashlight. “I’ve always got one in my backpack.”
The flashlight was no thicker than my thumb, but it produced enough light to see by. I snapped my cell phone shut again. I looked at it for a second.
“What?” asked Beth.
“Funny,” I said. “My mom never called me tonight. She would normally call me if I’m spending the night somewhere.”
“Got any minutes on it?”
“Shouldn’t matter,” I said. “It’s one of those deals where certain numbers are free.”
“I see,” she whispered. “My aunt didn’t call me either, and I’ve got minutes. Maybe we are too far out in the boondocks to get a signal.”
“Probably,” I said. I looked at it again. The display showed only one bar of signal. “One bar. That’s pretty iffy.”
“Well, now what?” asked Beth, shining her light in my face and making me squint.
“Now, we are going to see what is up in that lab, that laboratory, that Forever Room. I’m curious about some things.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Face
I crept through the attic passages with Beth close behind.
“So are we just going to the laboratory?” she asked.
“It’s a place to start.”
“What are we looking for?”
“Whatever Thomas was talking about,” I said. “There was a funny look in his eyes. He really did see something.”
We made our way with only a few bumped heads and scraped knees in the dark, cramped attic to the tiny square door that led into the laboratory. I tried the knob. It clicked and opened.
“It’s not locked,” hissed Beth.
“Urdo has been busy.”
We moved inside. It was very dark and very cold. The metal dome over the telescope was closed, but I could feel the winter seeping in from outside. The wind blew and whistled through the cracks in the dome.
Beth shined her light around inside. It passed over the brass telescope, which gleamed with yellowy brightness. The gears that cranked the scope were dusty and still. I noticed a single tooth had broken off of one of the cogs.
“How did that thing know?” I asked in a hushed voice.
“Know what?”
“That I would become a mouse,” I said. I put out a hand and touched the cold tube of the telescope. When faced with one of the strange devices that my people sometimes come up with, I always feel a sense of wonder.
Beth made a sniffing sound and shook her head. “I’m not totally convinced it did. Maybe it just gives you a general answer that seems to work for everyone. Like a fortune cookie or a newspaper horoscope.”
I shook my head in return. “You don’t know my people yet. We actually do stuff like this. It’s creepy, but real.”
She looked at me and chewed her lip. She had seen us change into animals, so she believed in that. But predicting the future? That was too much for her somehow. I could tell that maybe she didn’t want to believe it. I could tell that maybe, she was scared. I didn’t blame her and so I dropped it.
I frowned at the telescope and the broken metal tooth. “I don’t think that cog had a broken tooth before, you know.” I examined the jagged metal and touched it. The metal was sharp and made a tiny red nick in the pad of my thumb.
“Well,” said Beth. “Maybe it just broke recently, or it was there before and hidden. Maybe we didn’t see it until now because the cog was in a different position.”
I nodded. “Either way, someone has been using the telescope. Let’s look through it.”
She sighed. “I knew you were going to say that.”
I grinned and waved her over to the mechanism that slid open the slot in the dome and let the telescope poke out into the heavens. She worked the lever, and it creaked open with what seemed like a hideous screeching sound.
I was about to look into the eye cup when Beth gasped.
“What?” I asked.
“The plant!” she said, pointing to the potted plant in the roll top desk. I followed the beam from her flashlight. My eyes widened. The plant had flowered.
“It’s some kind of flower,” I said. I touched a leaf to make sure it was real. It had a soft, slightly fuzzy to it, exactly as it should. “It’s not a fake plastic thing.”
“I think it’s an African Violet,” said Beth. “My mother never stops messing about in her garden every spring.”
For some reason, the flower made a chill run through me. What were we messing with? What kind of place was freezing cold in the dead of winter and closed up in darkness and still let a flower bloom?
“There something’s strange about the way time behaves in this place,” I said.
“Time?” asked Beth. She nosed closer to the flower and examined it. She touched a violet petal gingerly, as if it might bite her.
“Maybe time moves differently here. The telescope can see the future, and the flower can grow as if it’s springtime in the sun.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Beth.
“Not without knowing the whole story it doesn’t.”
Beth looked back to me. “Are you going to look into that thing?”
I eyed the telescope and the black rubber eye cup. Did I really want to know whatever it would show me?
“Open the slot where the lenses goes in,” I told Beth.
She blinked, and then nodded. She opened the slot and directed the beam of her flashlight inside. She slid out a disk. It was a greenish-tinged lens. It looked thicker and darker than the rose-colored lens had. It was as thick and dark as a green glass bottle.
We looked at each other. “It has to do something,” said Beth. She was whispering again. She carefully lowered the green lens back into the slot.
I slowly lowered my head to peer into the eye cup.
I almost screamed. As it was, Beth startled at my intake of breath.
“Don’t even tell me,” she said.
I gazed into the night sky, and I saw was there a figure there. It was not an entirely human figure. It was dark with a widespread cloak that reached far out from outspread arms, like the fluttering wings of a kite. I worked the focus knob and breathed hard. I zoomed in on the face. It was a human face, but there were fangs in its mouth. There was a scary look of intelligence in its eyes. The lips curled back over those long teeth and the fanged man looked at me, just as I looked at him. For a moment, the telescope seemed reversed, as if I were the creature being examined and all I could see was the eye of the scientist studying me.
I felt something pulling at me, and finally I fell back away from the telescope and into the chair. I gasped.
“It was holding onto your head like a suction cup!” said Beth. Her hands were on my shoulders. I realized she had pulled me back from the scope. She had ripped me away from it by force.
“Okay, tell me now, I’m ready,” said Beth.
“A man,” I said. “A face in the sky. I think-I think it was Vater.”
She looked at me quizzically.
“And,” I said slowly. “I think he saw me.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Stranger
We heard a creaking sound then. I knew what it was instantly. We’d made the sound ourselves just minutes earlier. Someone was out in the attic hallways, moving stealthily, but not silently. I waved wildly at Beth to put out the flashlight. She clicked it off. We both listened for a moment. I heard only the sound of my heart pounding in my ears and my breath puffing worriedly from my open mouth. I put my hand up and cupped my ear. It helps me to hear better sometimes.
Then I heard it, fainter than before, another creaking of old floorboards complaining under the weight of someone’s foot. I put my mouth to Beth’s ear.
“Someone’s coming. Let’s just run for it,” I whispered.
She gave my hand a single squeeze of agreement. We crept on hands and knees up to the square door and bolted through it. Out in the hallway, we could see a figure coming without a light. We tur
ned the other way and ran with what seemed like thundering steps. I glanced back and saw the figure crouching and looking after us. Suddenly, as if coming to a decision, it came after us.
I turned back to look where I was going and slammed into Beth. She squeaked and fell against a door. We’d run out of corridor. We fumbled for doorknobs, rattled one then the one next to it, both were locked.
The third door wasn’t locked, however, and swung open groaning like a coffin lid in a scary movie. We fell inside another passage and slammed the door behind us. I felt around and found there was a twist-lock, and I twisted it.
We ran down another passage past windows that let in the light of the full moon that had risen outside. For the first time, I felt the moonlight as it touched my skin.
I pulled my hand back as if bitten.
“What’s the matter,” whispered Beth.
I shook my head, rubbing my hand, and then slipped it back into the moonlight. It was an odd sensation, the way normal people feel the sunlight falling on their bare skin. I knew the light wasn’t hot enough to feel it for normal people. But I had changed now. I was part animal. I was no longer a mundane. I’d always heard that our people did feel it. For us, moonlight was like the light of a hot summer day where the wind is silent and the sun is blazing hot overhead. I’d heard of people who had even been burned by moonlight. Even when it didn’t burn, we could always feel it.
We ran a good ways down the passage when Beth pulled me to one side. There was a curtain of some kind hanging down. We hid behind it. We could hear, back down the passageway, the doorknob rattling. Then we heard a jingling sound.
“They’ve got keys!” said Beth in my ear.
“I know, we’ve got to get out of here, but I’m lost.”
“We must have crossed most of the mansion by now. What if we come down in the adults section?” asked Beth. “Maybe we should just give it up.”
I looked at Beth. Even back here, in the shadows, I could vaguely see her scared, glinting eyes. What had I led her into? Her first week at a new school and she would be in all kinds of trouble at the very least. But there was much more going on here than just two school kids running loose at night.