The Monsters of Rookhaven

by Padraig Kenny

  Freddie had heard enough adults weeping behind closed doors to last him a lifetime.

  He looked at the village green now, and tried to imagine those VE Day crowds, tried to imagine their joy. He tried most of all to imagine what that joy felt like, but he couldn’t.

  Freddie took one last look at the empty green, then he turned and headed home.

  Jem

  They were in the main hallway when Mirabelle raised a finger in the air.

  ‘Shh, listen,’ she said.

  There came a delicate tinkling sound of metal on metal. Jem followed Mirabelle’s gaze upwards to the iron chandelier that hung from the ceiling. It was hard to be sure, but she thought she saw something moving.

  Whatever it was suddenly leaped from the chandelier and plummeted towards them. Jem shrieked and jumped in response. Mirabelle laughed, and Jem felt her cheeks flush with a combination of embarrassment and fear.

  The thing that dropped from above had wrapped itself round Mirabelle’s neck. It had a tail. It was nuzzling under her chin, and Mirabelle was chuckling.

  ‘Stop it, Gideon.’

  Curiosity finally overcame Jem’s fear, and she stepped closer to Mirabelle for a better look. The tiny, wiry, greyscaled creature was no bigger than an infant. It was wearing dark trousers that stopped just above its ankles, a dark jacket, and a shirt with a stiff collar. It was barefoot, and its feet had three clawed toes. There was one eye in the centre of its forehead, and it chittered amiably as Mirabelle stroked it under its chin with her index finger.

  ‘This is Gideon, the youngest member of our family,’ said Mirabelle.

  Jem looked at Gideon, her heart pounding. She thought she might react with horror, but instead the strange wonder she felt surprised her.

  ‘How old is he?’ she asked.

  ‘Not that old at all. He arrived quite recently. He came from the Ether. He’s small now, but he’s growing quickly. He can already walk and climb. He might grow to be as big as me or as large as Uncle Bertram. Or he might stay the way he is now.’ Mirabelle shook her head. ‘It’s hard to predict what final form you eventually take after you come from the Ether. Odd has looked the same way since he emerged about three hundred years ago.’

  Jem nodded, as if she knew what Mirabelle was talking about. She saw the amused look on Mirabelle’s face. ‘I’ll explain it all later.’ She gestured for Jem to follow her.

  Jem walked side by side with her down the hallway, listening to the contented burbling of Gideon as he rested on Mirabelle’s neck and shoulders like some kind of sentient scarf. She was still trying to get her head around his appearance, but the way Mirabelle interacted with him was that of a protective sister towards a younger sibling. It was strange to see, but as someone with an older brother she understood that bond.

  ‘This is the dining room,’ said Mirabelle, pushing her way through a polished set of double doors.

  The room was taken up by a very long table. At the end of it sat Bertram. He was surrounded by various bowls, plates and silver platters, all filled with food. Once again Jem was struck by seeing so much food in one place.

  Bertram tore some meat off the plate nearest to him as they walked towards him.

  ‘Roast chicken,’ he cried. He gestured at the spread. ‘And peas, and gravy, and carrots, and something called mash.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be asleep, Uncle?’

  Bertram shook his head. ‘Too much excitement. Too much going on. Just look at this marvellous repast provided by Odd.’ He held a bowl up in one hand and tilted it towards her, almost shrieking with delight. ‘Look at this! This is ice cream.’

  He nodded enthusiastically at them and then frowned as he looked at the bowl. ‘Oh, it appears to have lost its solidity.’

  ‘I think it’s melting,’ said Mirabelle.

  Bertram quickly put the bowl down and wiped his hand on his jacket. He eyed the bowl nervously.

  ‘Melting? Why would it do that?’

  Jem was bemused by Bertram’s seeming lack of basic knowledge, but Mirabelle winked at her as if to say ‘just play along’.

  He carefully opened a notebook by his side, took a pencil from it and licked the tip in preparation, all the time keeping his eyes on the bowl of ice cream as if he feared it might grow legs and make a dash for it. He gave a flourish with the pencil.

  ‘I shall commence my preparatory notes. First I shall write down my visual and olfactory observations. Then the tasting shall begin.’

  ‘Why not try something a bit more daring, Uncle?’ asked Mirabelle. ‘Why not attempt to eat the ice cream right now?’ She looked at Jem with a twinkle in her eye. It was a small thing, but it made Jem feel trusted, part of something.

  Bertram’s cheek twitched. ‘Well, well . . . perhaps.’

  He reached for the bowl and brought it to his lips, smiling nervously at Mirabelle and Jem. He squeezed his eyes shut, then supped hesitantly at it. He paused for a moment, supped with a little more confidence, then laid the bowl down with a satisfied ‘Ah.’

  ‘Interesting,’ he said as he started writing in his notebook.

  Mirabelle whispered to Jem. ‘This is Uncle’s latest hobby. He likes to record the taste of things. The thing is he can’t actually taste human food, unless it’s raw meat, but we like to humour him.’

  Gideon offered his judgement on the subject by sticking his tongue out and making a tiny ‘bleh’ sound.

  The doors were flung open, and in walked Aunt Eliza. Her jet-black hair was piled on top of her head and held with a diamond pin. She had changed into fresh clothes and was wearing an ankle-length scarlet dress that shimmered, and long, white silk gloves. Around her neck she wore a purple feather boa. Jem was taken aback by her poise and grace.

  Eliza scrunched her face up in distaste as she looked at what Bertram had in front of him.

  ‘What is that?’ she asked, her voice sounding thick with bile.

  ‘This is roast chicken,’ said Bertram proudly. ‘And this is ice cream.’

  ‘How does it taste?’ said Eliza, her nose wrinkled in disgust.

  ‘Marvellous,’ said Bertram.

  Aunt Eliza didn’t look convinced. She settled herself into a chair and reclined casually with one knee over the other.

  ‘You should be sleeping, Aunt,’ said Mirabelle.

  Eliza puffed her cheeks out and exhaled. ‘Indeed, and I was about to retire and was commencing my beauty regime, but then I saw Daisy flapping by in my mirror again like some kind of panicked fish, and suddenly I just seemed to lose all interest.’

  Eliza’s left cheek started to ripple. Jem blinked, not quite sure what it was she was seeing, but there was a definite movement, as if the older lady’s skin were alive and moving.

  ‘Aunt,’ said Mirabelle, touching her own cheek by way of warning.

  ‘Oh,’ said Eliza. She patted her cheek. ‘Hush now,’ she sighed, and her cheek became placid again.

  Jem wanted to ask about what she’d just seen, but she felt frozen to the spot by the strangeness of it all. Just when she had regained her balance and begun to adjust to this bizarre new world in which she’d found herself, something else would happen to unsettle her.

  ‘You look beautiful, Eliza,’ said Bertram, patting her on the arm.

  ‘Why thank you, Bertram. How very kind.’

  Bertram grinned like a baby. ‘Not as beautiful as Rula, though.’ He bit into a carrot and gazed wistfully into the distance, chomping away, immune to its flavour. ‘Oh, Rula,’ he sighed.

  Eliza shook her head and rolled her eyes at Mirabelle, who smiled in response.

  ‘Let’s go, Jem,’ said Mirabelle.

  ‘Where to?’ asked Eliza, her eyes narrowing, her tone surprisingly sharp.

  Mirabelle beamed innocently at her. ‘Nowhere special, Aunt.’

  Both Eliza and Bertram exchanged a glance. Bertram in particular looked worried.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere you shouldn’t, are you?’ he said.

  ‘Not do
wn below,’ said Eliza. She fixed Mirabelle with a stern look. It was definitely not a question.

  Bertram shook his head. ‘You can’t go down there, not with her,’ he said, looking at Jem, his voice a terrified whisper.

  ‘We can’t, we shan’t, we won’t,’ said Mirabelle.

  Her uncle and her aunt looked at them both. Even Gideon’s ears were pricked as he paid attention. A definite air of disquiet had seeped into the room, and Jem suddenly felt uncomfortable with the attention.

  Eliza eventually sighed and shook her head.

  ‘You really do go to great lengths sometimes to annoy your uncle,’ she said.

  Mirabelle was still smiling. ‘I’m just giving Jem a tour.’

  She grabbed Jem’s arm again, and they were back out in the hall before Jem had time to draw breath. Jem wanted to ask Mirabelle why her aunt and uncle seemed so uneasy with the idea of them going ‘down below’, but Mirabelle was already dashing on ahead. Jem followed her, rounding a corner just in time to see Mirabelle vanish into another room. Jem tensed in preparation for what lay inside, but nothing could have prepared her for what came next.

  The dozens of glowing lights were hard enough for her to take in, but it was the sheer volume of portraits that lined the walls, and the walls themselves seemingly stretching on and on into forever, which overwhelmed her. Jem felt her breath catch in her chest as she looked up and realized she couldn’t see the ceiling.

  It felt as if the floor had suddenly tilted, and she was finding it hard to stand up straight. Then Mirabelle’s hand lightly took her elbow.

  ‘This is the Room of Lights,’ said Mirabelle.

  ‘There are so many of them,’ Jem managed to gasp.

  She had never seen so many colours – blazing pinks, muted golds, shimmering reds – all hanging in the air to form a burning tapestry.

  ‘What are they?’ Jem asked.

  ‘Enoch calls them the Spheres. They’re ways in to this world,’ said Mirabelle, smiling herself in wonder, as if she too were seeing the lights for the first time.

  Ways in to this world. It seemed such a simple statement, but it set Jem’s mind reeling again. Ways in, but from where and for who or what? She was reminded of Jem’s talk of the mirror realm. Again she found herself trying to put strange new ideas into some kind of order.

  ‘There are places throughout the world, hidden places like this house, where there are gateways between your world and the Ether. Uncle Enoch says that House of Rookhaven has the largest amount of these gateways.’

  Somehow Jem managed to peel her eyes away from the glowing orbs. Now she looked at the portraits. There was one large portrait of a creature that looked like a rhino. It had a horn where a nose should have been, but its face was brown and leathery, and it had three golden eyes. Its shoulders were huge, and it was dressed in what looked like a glossy brown dressing gown made of some kind of animal fur.

  ‘That’s Uncle Alfred,’ said Mirabelle. ‘One of the older generation. One of those who lived abroad.’

  ‘Abroad?’

  ‘In your world,’ said Mirabelle.

  Jem frowned, wondering to herself how a rhino in a fur coat could live unseen in the outside world and how one could use the term ‘uncle’ to describe it.

  There was another portrait of two boys dressed in Edwardian tweed sitting on a futon. Both boys were identical, right down to the arms that protruded from the sides of their heads.

  ‘Quentin and Richard Haxley. Very well-respected members of the Family. Very old and wise. They liked to juggle. I’m told they were very popular at parties.’

  Jem’s attention was now taken with a large doughy-looking woman sitting on a bench. Two extremely tall spindly men stood either side of her with one hand on each of her shoulders. All three of them had mouths and nostrils, but no eyes. The mouths were curved into smiles, each one filled with pointed razor-sharp teeth.

  ‘Mavis Dibble and the Dibble twins. Notorious talkers and terrible gossips.’

  Mirabelle pointed at a painting of a young woman with three heads. Each head was identical except one had green eyes, one blue, and one brown. Their matching fierce gazes seemed to burn through the picture.

  ‘Aunt Rula. She went travelling over a century ago. Uncle Bertram had a bit of a thing for her.’ Mirabelle frowned for a moment. ‘Well, for one of her heads, anyway. I think it was the middle one. The other two were rather jealous. He still pines after her, expecting her to come home some day.’ Mirabelle shrugged. ‘Perhaps she will.’

  Jem glanced at another painting. It was of something that looked like a black gloopy substance contained in a jar. The black gloopy substance had two blue eyes, both surprisingly beautiful and filled with an aching melancholy.

  ‘Uncle Urg,’ said Mirabelle.

  ‘Urg?’ said Jem.

  ‘Urg.’

  Jem started to laugh, Mirabelle joined in and Gideon started chittering too. Suddenly a wave of dizziness washed over her, and she began to find it hard to breathe. The room seemed to be getting larger with each passing moment. She flapped her hand at Mirabelle, and saw Gideon tilt his head towards her in curiosity, blinking his one eye as he regarded her.

  Mirabelle took Jem back into the hall, and leaned her against the wall. Jem slumped there and took a few deep breaths.

  ‘It’s a lot to take in,’ said Mirabelle sympathetically.

  Jem nodded.

  ‘Urg,’ she said.

  ‘Urg,’ said Mirabelle, and the laughter started all over again.

  Mirabelle took Jem to the fifth floor to a room at the corner of the house. Jem’s legs were aching by the time they reached their destination. When Mirabelle opened the door, she flinched from the beams of sunlight that shone in through the holes in the roof. A large window had been boarded up. The ceiling had been torn away, and the bare rafters holding up this section of the roof could be seen. Some were soggy and soft-looking, presumably because of the rain that came in through the holes. There were about a dozen ravens arranged along some of the beams. Jem was surprised by how eerily quiet they were, as if they were watching them. The floor was covered in bird droppings and the occasional pool of water.

  ‘This is the Room of Knives,’ said Mirabelle.

  ‘Why is it called that?’ asked Jem.

  Mirabelle stepped towards one of the beams of sunlight. She circled it with her palms held up as if warming them. She pirouetted gracefully round another sunbeam and tiptoed between two more. Jem’s heart thudded so hard as she watched this display that she could feel it pulsing in her mouth. She had to fight the urge to run across the room and grab Mirabelle. All she could think of was that scorched shadow outside the house. Gideon pressed himself in closer to Mirabelle’s neck, mewling nervously. Mirabelle shushed him.

  ‘Because on a day like today it’s filled with knives of sunlight,’ said Mirabelle. ‘One misstep and I could step in a sunbeam then poof.’ She splayed her fingers out like a magician demonstrating a disappearing trick. ‘No more me.’

  ‘Be careful,’ said Jem.

  A raven flew down and Mirabelle instinctively put out her hand for it to land on it. ‘Quawk quawk,’ it said, right into her face, then it pivoted and stared at Jem with its one good eye. ‘Quawk,’ it said again, as if accusing her of something.

  Mirabelle chuckled. ‘It’s all right – Jem is a friend.’

  ‘Quawk,’ said Gideon, raising his head in defiance, causing Mirabelle to smile.

  The raven dipped its head up and down vigorously for a few moments then flew back up into the rafters, cawing at its companions and receiving muted caws in response as if they were all discussing the interloper.

  As Mirabelle led her out of the room, Jem looked back up at the silent ravens in the rafters: the occasional flap here, a beak rubbing a wing there, but no other sound from them.

  ‘My mum always said it was bad luck to let a bird into a room.’

  ‘These birds have always been here, and we’ve never had any bad luck,�
� said Mirabelle.

  Even so, Jem couldn’t help looking up at them with a certain mistrust. They looked as if they were waiting for something, but she didn’t say this to Mirabelle for fear she might laugh at her.

  Mirabelle brought Jem to a library next. There were four levels of shelves filled with dusty leather-bound books and when Jem opened some of them they were filled with runes from languages she’d never seen before.

  They visited several more rooms, and soon it all became a blur for Jem. They took time for a snack in the now empty dining room. Mirabelle didn’t eat a thing, despite the spread in front of them. Gideon peered over her shoulder, looking at the food with slight distaste, but Jem ate a chicken sandwich while Mirabelle told her more about her family history. Jem listened with awe to stories so strange she could barely take them in. She was particularly intrigued when Mirabelle told her about the Ether.

  ‘But what is it, and how do you . . .’ She tried to think of the word. ‘Emerge from there?’

  ‘The lights in the Room of Lights are the way in. Like gateways. That’s how I came here. It’s where we’re all from,’ said Mirabelle. ‘Aunt Eliza tried to explain it to me once. She says no one knows exactly what the Ether is, but she likes to think of it as a place of souls, and the souls drift among each other, all of them waiting for their moment. And then when one is ready it crosses over into this world to become part of the Family.’

  ‘It’s like being born,’ said Jem.

  Mirabelle frowned. ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’

  ‘And there are more places like this? Are they hidden by magic too?’

  Mirabelle nodded.

  Through a chink in a curtain, Jem could see the sun was sinking low in the sky. As they finally left the dining room, Jem felt that with each step she was lurching from one strange dream into another.

  Gideon leaped from Mirabelle’s shoulders and then looked guiltily at her.

  Mirabelle pointed a finger. ‘Remember now, Gideon, behave. No wandering off.’