“I want Edmund to direct,” said Lia.
“I do too,” Nathan said. ‘“Is that okay with the rest of you?”
“Ask the house.” Matt said.
“Edmund,” said the house.
Edmund looked surprised, but he didn’t say no. “Let’s sit on the porch.”
They climbed the porch stairs and sat in a circle on the porch. Their breath misted up in the cold night air. Terry shivered once, then stopped.
“Those who connect with the house by touch, place your palms flat on the porch,” Edmund said. Matt, Lia, Nathan, and Suki put their hands palms-down on the porch. Matt felt a warm touch against her palms.
Edmund talked them into breathing together again, and this time Matt felt the house breathe along with them. Calm settled over them; Matt dropped into some other kind of consciousness, not awake, not asleep, only waiting.
Finally, Edmund said, “Spirit be with us. Spirit be in us. Spirit surround us. Spirit protect us. Spirit please hear us. We offer our skills. We offer our powers. We offer our efforts in aid of this work. A being here wishes from one to another to change shape and stature. We ask that you shape her. We ask that you help her. We ask that you fill us and take what we offer, help us to shape her into what she wishes, and so let it happen by will and by wishing and for good of all. We ask that you enter, we ask that you gather, we ask that you heed her, we ask that you hear us ….” He kept speaking in a low, soothing voice.
Matt felt gathering power. It blew around the circle, a wind that teased something out of each of them. Strands of power. Matt opened dream-eyes and watched colors flow from them to form a spinning and braiding rope in the center of the circle: red and orange from Lia, forest green and gold from Edmund, pale blue from Tasha, yellow and ice-blue and red from Terry, lavender and sea-green from Harry, clear, rippling strands from Nathan, gold and gray from Suki, and from Matt’s own chest a strange mix of asphalt black and sputtering all colors, butterfly-wing patterns. From the porch, a tide of turquoise flowed. Everything blended in the center of the circle, spinning and twisting and twining together, as beautiful in its strange cloud of colors as anything Matt had ever seen.
Sparkling rope rose up from them as Edmund murmured. The rope twisted through the air, traveled around the corner of the house. Matt heard drumbeats and the clang of finger cymbals as the rope danced away from them. Edmund’s voice twined into the music; sitar joined it. The rope danced. The longer it grew, the weaker Matt felt, but she also fell happy and strange.
Eventually the rope had danced all the way around the house and came back to drop its beginning into the circle beside the place where it spun from. Each end kissed the other, wove together. Edmund murmured, with music, and the music rose and speeded. The rope floated up free of the circle and bound itself entirely around the house.
Then the Earth moved.
Tremendous wrenching and creaking sounds came from the house, and the porch shook beneath them.
“Hear us. Protect us. Hear us. Protect us. Hear us. Protect us.”
The house shook and shivered. Shingles fell. Glass shattered. Boards buckled. The rope tightened around the house, and then, somehow, kept tightening. It plunged through the walls without breaking them and was gone from sight.
The house stopped shaking. Matt, exhausted, could not sit upright anymore, and collapsed on her back on the buckled porch boards. Everyone else wilted too.
“Spirit, we thank you, we bless you, release you,” Edmund whispered several times.
Matt rolled over and crawled to him. He lay on his back and stared sightlessly upward. Matt lifted a heavy, heavy arm, managed to touch his face, crept her fingers up across his cheek and touched his eyelids down over his eyes.
“What. Happened.” Terry’s voice came out in a hoarse wheeze. “That. Wasn’t. Transformation. Nothing. Happened.”
The house’s front door creaked open, then cracked off its hinges and fell backward into the house.
A woman stepped out onto the porch. She was tall and broad, muscular and fat, and her skin was the color of acorns. Thick silver hair rippled from her head down around her shoulders. She wore a dark green full-length dress, and she carried a tray with a pitcher and some cups on it.
Matt lay with her head on Edmund’s chest and watched from under half-open eyelids. The woman looked a lot like the house had in Matt’s dreams.
The woman crossed the porch to where they sprawled and sat down beside Nathan. She set down the tray and said, “My son. My son.” Her voice was deep and rich. She stroked her knuckles down Nathan’s cheek. His eyes fluttered. She poured something from the pitcher into a cup, then lifted his head onto her thigh. “Drink,” she said, and held the cup to his lips. He swallowed. She made him drink a whole cupful, then laid him down.
Next, she stroked Suki’s face, lifted Suki’s head and supported it on her thigh. “My daughter.” The woman gently fed Suki, too.
The woman came to Matt, brought a cup. “Hey, Mattie. Hey, little one.” She touched Matt’s face, brushed a finger across Matt’s lips. Her hand was warm and rough, and her eyes were turquoise. She lifted Matt’s head. “Drink this.”
The liquid was cool and tasted like milk and tropical fruits. It warmed Matt from the inside. “Wah,” Matt said. The woman eased her down again, and Matt lay with her eyes closed, feeling how the warmth spread from her center all through her. The tired seeped away.
“Edmund? Honey, wake up and drink this.” The woman went all around the circle, feeding each of them. Matt listened to her gentle murmurs, and the occasional sleepy protests from some of the others.
Presently Matt sat up. Nathan held Suki upright, muttered to her. Suki shifted her shoulders and wiggled her feet. Nathan gripped her elbows and helped Suki straighten.
Edmund sat up beside Matt. He rubbed his forehead. He glanced at the house, which still stood, though the front door was a gaping hole now, and everything looked more decrepit than before. “Guess Terry should’ve done it,” he said.
“Why?”
“Everybody got tired, and nothing happened. If the master attacks us now—”
“Nothing happened?” The woman came to Edmund and felt his forehead. She poured him some more drink from the pitcher. “Drink this.” she said.
“Okay.” He drank.
She knocked on his head with her knuckles. “Now, wake up.”
He blinked three times and looked at her.
She smiled a dazzling smile. “Hello, Boy.”
“House.” He scrambled to his feet. “House!”
Everyone else blinked and sat up and stared.
“House?” Terry said in a very small voice.
“Terry.”
“It worked?”
“Most wonderfully.” She held out her arms and whirled, her hair wild and her dress flaring. “Thank you, children. I am eternally grateful for your help.”
They all stared at her. Edmund hugged her, and she hugged him back. “Beautifully done,” she murmured.
“But the house—” Terry pointed.
They all looked. Shingles pattered down. Boards looked cracked, dry, brittle, twisted.
Matt pressed her hands to the porch.—House?—
Nothing answered. It shocked Matt. She was used to getting some response, even if only a snore, from everything shaped that she touched. This was the first time she had found no one home in something. It felt eerie and disturbing.
“My shell,” said the woman. “My home no longer. Returned to nature. Don’t go inside again, children. It’s not safe. In fact, we should get off the porch.”
Tasha and Lia, both as light as air, had less trouble rising than the others. They helped everyone else stand, steadied elbows as people stumbled down the porch steps. They went as far as the furniture Nathan and Suki had pulled from the house, and then they sat again, Tasha, Terry, Suki. and Nathan on the bed, Lia and Harry on the desk, and Edmund in a chair with Matt on his lap. She felt very silly. He was big and warm and
comfortable to sit on, though, and he put his arms around her. Matt rested her head against his chest.
“House,” Nathan murmured, and shook his head, smiling.
The woman refilled cups arid handed them around again.
“What is this, House?” Terry asked.
“Restorative.”
Matt drank again. This time the drink tasted different, like bittersweet hot chocolate. She held out her cup for more, and tasted mulled cider. She felt its strength flow into her and wake her up.
“Let’s go after Dee now,” said Lia.
“I’m so tired!” Terry said.
“Drink some more. We have to go after Dee now,” Matt said. “And could you get that crystal ball again so we can check on her first?”
Terry grumbled and got up, then stomped off to the cars.
“Do you want us to keep calling you House?” Harry asked.
The woman placed her tray on a table and sat beside Lia and Harry on the desk. “That would be confusing in the outside world, wouldn’t it? I suppose I shall need a name. What name should I choose?”
“What was your mom’s name, Nathan?” Matt asked.
“Irene.”
“No,” said the house. “I don’t want to use the name of someone I knew. And I would rather not have the name of someone alive whom I might run into. Though I suppose just because they’re dead doesn’t mean I won’t run into them.”
“My mom’s name was Beth,” Matt said. “Suki’s mom’s name was Gloria.
“Beth. I like Beth,” murmured the house. “Would it be all right with you if I used Beth, Matt?”
Matt felt strange. If she didn’t want House to use the name, why had she volunteered it? Because House had been like her mother some of the time. “Yeah, okay,” Matt said, her voice gruff.
“Beth,” muttered the house. “Beth what? Beth House. Beth Lee. Beth Guthrie. Beth Blacksmith.”
“Beth Blacksmith,” Nathan said.
“Beth Blacksmith,” the house repeated. She smiled.
Terry returned with the red-velvet bag. She sat on the ground and set everything up the way she had before, only this time the fairy lights hovered above them all, dimming when Terry asked for it.
An image of Deirdre appeared in the crystal. She looked the same, still dressed in the clothes she had worn out of the house, her eyebrows fierce and angry, but she didn’t look like anything had hurt her. Something flurried near her and her mouth moved in what looked like shouting.
“She looks okay,” Lia said.
Matt leaned forward, watched Deirdre frown. “Can you ask that thing how to find her?”
Terry wrote symbols on the crystal ball with whatever she had hidden in her hand. She murmured some more. Deirdre faded to black, and then they saw an ornate house, its façade made of pale, ornamented stone. “Pull back,” Terry said, and the view pulled back until they were staring at the house from a street. The house had a black iron fence around it, topped with sharp spikes. “Has anybody ever seen this place before?”
“No.”
“Nope.”
“Uh-uh.”
“Looks like something from the Addams Family.”
Terry sighed. “Now please give us the nearest corner.”
A signpost appeared: 34th and Blaine.
“Thanks. That’s very helpful.” Terry’s tone was sarcastic.
The image wavered and vanished, replaced by something new.
A different street. Four cars, two black, two lighter, all differently shaped, lined up at a curb by a shaky, silvery picket fence, with dark bushes beyond. The orange glow of a streetlight. Deirdre stood in the street, surrounded by shadowy figures.
“Hey, you guys!” she yelled. “They’re here!”
Nathan jumped up and looked toward the street.
“The dorks are here,” Deirdre yelled again, both in the crystal ball and in the present.
Everyone jumped up and ran to the fence, where they lined up and stared at the street.
Deirdre stood a step behind the master, a tall man cloaked in black with a deeply lined somber face, pale eyes, and silver hair. Galen stood beside the master, one hand buried in his pocket, the other clutching a silver dagger. The glowing silver-and-green person Matt had seen before stood with his hand on Deirdre’s shoulder, and behind Deirdre lurked a tall woman with cascades of heavy red hair, and layered scarves of black clothes. To the side stood an ink black figure the size of a child. A strange aura surrounded the little one.
“You see, child, they do not care about you,” the master said to Deirdre, his voice rich and deep and persuasive. “I care about all my children. Don’t you want to be one of mine?”
“We do too care!” Terry cried. “We were working on finding you! Thirty-fourth and Blaine! We were just going to go there, but you came here first!”
“What took you so long?” wailed Deirdre.
“We had to do a couple things first, but we checked on you and you looked okay,” Terry said.
The master’s cloak parted and he stretched out long, thin hands. He rubbed thumbs across his fingertips. His eyes narrowed. “What have you done? The whole power configuration has changed! What have you done?”
“Dee, are you all right?” Matt asked.
“Guess I am.” Deirdre brushed the glowing hand off her shoulder and came toward them. “Nathan? What happened to you?”
The master grabbed her shoulder and jerked her back.
Deirdre karate-chopped backward, dislodging his hand. “Hey, buster, quit it.”
His eyes widened and his nostrils flared. He murmured something and gestured toward Deirdre.
Lia screamed and leapt over the fence. She flew to the master and gripped his wrists. “Don’t you dare,” she cried, her voice sharp and bright, each word a slice. Her hands glowed red, then orange, then yellow, then white, sizzling into the master’s skin. There was a smell of searing meat. “Dee, go back!”
Harry, Tasha, Terry, and Nathan jumped the fence too, with Edmund close behind.
The master shook his arms, worked them, tried to dislodge Lia. Her hair lifted and flared like a torch. She glowed golden except for the white heat in her hands. He spoke a string of words, and she only laughed, a hard, dark sound.
Deirdre broke and ran toward her friends. Edmund grabbed her and hustled her back behind the fence into home territory, thrust her toward Matt, who hovered, dancing, just behind the fence, wishing she could jump in and fight, afraid there was nothing she could do to help.
The master spoke three words. They thudded like an avalanche and knocked Lia loose, pounded her to the ground. She screamed. Harry and Nathan ran to her.
“Don’t just stand there, my children,” said the master to his team. “Deal with these creatures!” He gripped each wrist in the opposite hand and muttered some kind of spell.
Matt pulled Deirdre farther inside from the fence. “Are you all right?” Suki joined them, put her arms around Deirdre. Sounds of battle and chanting came from the street.
“I’m, I guess I’m all right, but I’m mad as hell. Those people! Well, that Cross guy, he’s the one Galen calls the master, and a bigger asshole—”
“Did he hurt you?” Suki murmured.
“Some of it wasn’t pleasant,” Deirdre said in a gruff voice. She shuddered. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“Did they give you your heart’s desire?” asked Matt.
“My heart’s desire?”
“Didn’t you go with glow-guy because he told you he’d give you your heart’s desire?”
Deirdre blinked. She glanced up at three faint lights, which hovered above them. “What are those?”
“Lights,” said Matt. “Listen, if you don’t want to talk about it, it’s okay. I got to go see if I can help.” She left Deirdre with Suki and ran back to the fence.
So many things were happening in the street she couldn’t see them all at once.
Nathan had retrieved Lia, pressed her into the house’s arms.
Harry, Tasha, and Edmund grappled with the master’s minions. Terry dashed forward and pressed something against the small dark thing’s head. It let go of Harry’s legs, cried out, and turned into a small fat yippy dog. It ran around barking, dancing in and out among the other people. It looked happy.
Terry tried to spell the redheaded woman, but the woman slapped Terry’s forehead with a piece of paper that stuck to it, and Terry changed into a statue.
Edmund faced the glowing white-haired, green-robed man who had stolen Deirdre. They held their hands up, palms out, facing each other. Occasionally one or the other stroked the air between them, but they didn’t touch each other. It looked more like a silent conversation than a fight.
Cross still gripped his wrists and muttered. Nathan started toward him.
Matt couldn’t figure out what to do.
Galen stepped in front of Cross and tried to stop Nathan. Tasha, airborne, reached down and grabbed Galen’s arms, lifted him and brought him into the yard. “You don’t really want to fight us, do you?” she asked.
Matt opened the gate and went out into the street. She knelt, put her palms down on it.—Road?—
—Matt! See what’s happening on me? See? This is different! It tastes wild!—
—Yes. You want to be part of it?—
—How? How, more than I already am?—
—Grab their feet and suck them down.—
—What?—The road had never considered such a thing.
—Just the new guys, the ones you told me before. Swamp-violet, chili-pepper-ice, sugar-garlic, blood-apple. What do you think? Can you open and swallow their feet?—
—How?—
She told the road what it had been like when the house had swallowed her, how other things she had known learned of their own plasticity, how the road might be able to do such things too.
The road got excited.—I’ll try it!—
It thought very hard, and then, suddenly, the asphalt went warm and soupy under her palms. She sank into it up to her wrists, her knees and toes sinking in too.
—Okay, good,—she said. —Can you do the other guys now?—
—Yes! Yes! Yes!—
The calling, thunks, and chanting of the fight suddenly changed to startled yelps. Matt looked up, saw pavement close over Cross’s feet, the redhead’s feet, the glow-guy’s feet. The Pekingese was dancing too fast to be caught.
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