by Garth Nix
‘How nice to hear from your mother,’ she said. ‘Now, it’s getting late. There’s time to read in bed, if you like.’
‘Late?’ said Jaide. ‘It’s not even eight-thirty.’
‘It’s a school night, and you’ve had a long day. I have some work to do. If you go to your room, I’ll come and turn the light out in half an hour.’
For a moment, Jaide thought about refusing to obey, just flat out rebelling against her grandmother. But there was something in the old woman’s gaze that said this would be a very big mistake.
The twins had no choice but to trudge up the stairs and do as they were told. They both had reading lamps on flexible metal arms that snaked out from behind their beds, lamps that cast misshapen shadows across the walls and ceiling when they were switched on. Jack settled back to an adventure novel with a plot he had trouble paying attention to, while Jaide picked up her illustrated book on whales. She was very interested in marine life, but now, with the events of that day turning over and over in her mind, and the thought of school on top of all that, she could barely concentrate.
The strange sounds coming from the ground floor didn’t help. There were clicking footsteps, doors opening and shutting, and clanks and clunks, as if Grandma X was moving furniture back and forth. Whatever she was up to, it kept her so busy, she didn’t come to say goodnight until almost ten o’clock.
Jaide was already asleep, and Jack wasn’t far off. He closed the book he hadn’t really been reading and switched out the light. Grandma X stood in the doorway for a moment, her face hidden. He thought she might be about to say something, but then she left and pulled the door shut behind her.
It was very dark in Portland compared to the city, but after a minute or two his eyes adjusted, and Jack found that he could see pretty well. He looked out his window and counted the regular flashes of the lighthouse’s beacon, warning ships away from the perils of Dagger Reef. Twenty-three was the last number he remembered before he slipped into a dream about giant spiders swarming out of the cactus garden and tying a dog up in their webs. He twitched restlessly, but didn’t wake up.
Jaide was dreaming about spiders, too, only she was the one in danger from them. She had been flying and had blundered into a giant web. The sticky strands wrapped themselves around her face and hands. No matter how she tugged she couldn’t get free, and she couldn’t call for help because her mouth was glued shut. At the far edge of the web, something dark and red-eyed moved closer . . .
A roaring sound woke both twins at precisely the same moment. Their beds were shaking and their sheets were whipping around them. It sounded like a storm had burst through the windows and was turning the room inside out, but there was no rain, just wind. Jaide fumbled for the switch of her reading light. It didn’t come on the way it was supposed to. The filament glowed feebly, as though something was sucking the light out of the wire.
By the faint, flickering glow, Jack saw a whirling funnel of dusty air spinning in the centre of the room, sucking up all their clothes and books and whipping the chandelier around in tight circles. The wind was so strong that he had to hang on with both hands to stop himself from being sucked in as well. Frenzied eddies swirled around the room, dropping books and clothes on every horizontal surface, including the twins. The curtains flapped like sails, and the noise they made was so deafening, he couldn’t hear himself or his sister shouting for help.
Then the darkness came. The feeble electric light was snuffed out, and the window went dark. The howling, tortured air began to smash things, and all of it was much too much like the terrible day the twins’ house had exploded.
Only the awful, staring eyes were missing, and Jack found himself whimpering at the thought that they would soon be there. He could almost see one already —
With a bright, metallic ping, both lamps and the overhead light suddenly flashed back into full life. The darkness was whipped away like a magician’s cape, revealing Grandma X in the doorway, her arms upraised and the sleeves of her white dressing gown bunched up over her elbows. She brought her hands together, and as her palms touched, the crack of their meeting resounded through the room. Instantly the tornado collapsed like a water balloon that had been squeezed too hard. A few whiplike wisps of wind scattered around the walls, like snakes trying to escape from a barrel, and vanished.
When the air was still, Grandma X surveyed the mess with a severe eye.
‘You should be asleep,’ she said sternly. ‘All aspects of you.’
She seemed to be talking to someone else in addition to the twins.
‘What was it?’ asked Jaide. ‘Where did it come from?’
‘Is it going to come back?’ Jack added. ‘Will . . . will the eyes come?’
Grandma X looked directly at Jack and Jaide and continued in gentler tones.
‘There’s nothing you need to worry about, troubletwisters. Go back to sleep.’
She accompanied the instruction with a wave of her hand, like someone smoothing down a sheet. With her words and the wave, the twins felt suddenly tired again, the adrenaline of waking in fright entirely dissipating. They lay back on their pillows and shut their eyes.
Grandma X swept out the door.
Her footsteps had barely reached the stairs when Jack forced himself awake. It was like swimming to the surface from a long way down, requiring enormous effort. But finally he got his eyes open and managed to swing his legs out of the bed and stagger over to his sister.
It took quite a few vigorous shakes, but eventually Jaide came awake, too. She yawned widely as Jack said, ‘Did you see that whirlwind? Did you see what she did? She tried to make us sleep again, too. She is a witch!’
Jaide was much less happy with her theory now. It was all very well to speculate about the supernatural when the sun was up. At night, believability was a bad thing. The similarity between the whirlwind in Portland and the explosion in their home had her wondering exactly how they had come to be here, and why.
‘What should we do?’ she asked her brother.
‘Follow her,’ Jack said. ‘Find out what she’s up to. Stop her if it’s something bad.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know. We’ll think of something when we know more about it – her – everything!’
Jaide thought about this as she slowly came fully awake.
‘All right,’ she said with a shiver. ‘Hang on. I’m cold; I need my dressing-gown.’
Jack opened the door a crack and peered through. They heard Grandma X moving about on the floor above, then moving back to the stairs to go even higher, up to the widow’s walk, the balcony on the dangerous rooftop.
Jack slipped out into the darkened hallway and peered up the stairwell. The sleeve of Grandma X’s robe was just visible, so white it seemed to be glowing in the gloom. Gingerly, mindful of even the slightest noise, he put a foot on the first step and began to climb.
Jaide finally found her father’s old dressing-gown in the mess. Out in the hallway, she looked around for her brother but couldn’t see him.
‘Jack,’ she hissed, ‘where are you?’
‘Up here,’ came the answering whisper out of the shadows, and suddenly there he was, crouched at the top of the first rise of stairs. Jaide had been looking right at him. ‘Come on!’
JAIDE BLINKED AND RUBBED HER eyes. Jack disappeared again for a second, then became visible, almost as if he had momentarily become part of the shadows.
She kept her eye on Jack as she followed him upward, but he didn’t disappear again. The stairs creaked under their weight, but luckily the floor here was carpeted, which muffled their footsteps, and the house was making plenty of other noises to cover the sounds. The wind outside – completely outside now, thank goodness – was rattling the window frames, and the old house creaked and groaned like a ship tossed at sea.
From far above came the clank of a bolt being pulled back, followed by the thud of a door – or a hatch – opening.
Jack’s hand found Jaide’
s in the gloom, and they went up together, turning once to the right, then turning again. Seven steps later, they were on Grandma X’s floor. Three shut doors greeted them, one of them presumably to her bedroom. Instead of paintings or photos on the walls there were masks, strange masks of different people with varied expressions. Some were smiling and happy, some frowning, some screaming, mouths stretched open. More than a dozen pairs of empty black eyes stared at the twins as they tiptoed by.
Jack resisted the urge to run. The next set of steps was bare wood, without the carpet, so any footsteps would be much louder. The air also felt colder and the creaking of the building sounded clearer and alarmingly alive, as if it was a living organism complaining about the wind.
Jaide was acutely aware of how high they were. The house seemed to contract around them, becoming all angles and strange intersections as they passed into the roof cavity. The ceiling was barely as high as their heads. Cobwebs swayed against their faces. All about them was the smell of dust.
Directly above the last step was the hatch they had heard closing from below.
Jack reached ahead to fumble one-handed with the bolt. Jaide kept a tight grip on Jack’s free hand, because unlike him she couldn’t see a thing.
Grandma X had already drawn the bolt, so all Jack had to do was push open the hatch. He did so cautiously, and a coil of icy wind came through and whipped around them. Jaide was relieved that enough starlight came in for her to see. When Jack pushed the hatch completely open, she saw the wooden rail of the widow’s walk ahead, with the night sky beyond.
Jack put a finger to his lips and they crept out onto the walk, under the stars and into the wind.
They had emerged from the western side of a strange vertical construction in the middle of the walk that stuck up very much like a submarine’s conning tower. The moon was partly obscured by cloud and was still rising, but it was bright enough for Jaide to see. There was no sign of Grandma X, at least on this side. The twins huddled together, looking out.
By the increasing moonlight, the view from the widow’s walk was almost as good as the one from the top of the Rock. They could see across the bay, all the way out to sea. To the south, the Rock itself was clearly visible above the tower door. The stately fir tree swayed back and forth with the stiff breeze, its needles making a sound like a crowd whispering. Below that, Jaide could hear something else – an unpleasant hissing noise that she couldn’t immediately identify. It sounded a bit like a big water sprinkler, but no one would have one of those on after all the rain.
The wind plucked at her, and once again Jaide felt that feeling of weightlessness, as if the breeze might pick her up and fly her away, off into the night sky. The sensation was not welcome, and Jaide felt a stab of fear.
‘She’s not here,’ Jaide whispered to Jack. ‘Maybe we should go back down.’
Jack pointed with his thumb, indicating that they couldn’t see the other corner unless they moved, and he started to inch around the conning tower. Jaide reluctantly followed him, keeping a firm grip on his hand.
They only had to go one step before they saw Grandma X standing in the southwest corner of the widow’s walk. She was leaning over the railing, staring at something on the ground in front of the house.
The twins hunkered down. If she turned around, she’d see them at once.
But Grandma X was totally intent on whatever lay below. Suddenly she raised her right arm to point to the south. Something flashed on her finger, and she shouted five words loud and sharp enough to make the twins flinch.
‘Do as I have commanded!’
The weird hissing noise grew louder. Grandma X straightened and took a deep breath. She gripped the railing tightly with both hands. Her back arched and her eyes closed.
She became very still.
The twins broke from cover and ran to the other end of the rail. They didn’t dare breathe as they leaned out over to catch a glimpse of what Grandma X had been talking to – and then, when they did see, they couldn’t breathe at all.
A writhing, wriggling horde of black rats surrounded the house, thousands and thousands of them, all staring up at Grandma X and the twins. The rats’ eyes were bright white, just like the dog’s had been, far too bright to be just the reflected moonlight. The ghastly throng moved as one, surging against the base of the house like a horrible sea that spoke with one great voice, a squeal that issued from thousands of rat mouths, either in salute or defiance.
The squeal faded as a slender column of glowing light appeared in the middle of the pack. The rats closest to it squeaked, suddenly separated from the mass, and jumped and tumbled away, biting one another in their efforts to escape. Once far enough away, they calmed again and moved with the tide of the horde.
But there was now a clear circle in the mass of rats, with the column of light gently pulsing in the middle, the exact same colour as the moon above. As Jack watched, transfixed, the column slowly took the shape of a woman.
She stood straight and tall, with long, silver hair and a robe of shimmering starlight. On her right hand there was a ring that shone brighter than any star. Her beauty took Jaide’s breath away. Standing next to her brother, whipped by the relentless wind, she felt that she had never seen anyone so strong, so wonderful, and so . . . luminous before. She had to be a ghost, or even some kind of goddess.
‘Do as you have been bidden!’ commanded the silvery apparition.
Jaide was shocked to hear what was recognisably her grandmother’s voice, though it was infused with a power that she could physically feel as a deep vibration through the air. She was also shocked by the sudden realisation that the apparition looked like her grandmother, though fifty years younger.
‘At once!’
The horde of rats exploded as if a bomb had been dropped among them. Rats jumped into the air, climbed fences, dived through bushes, ran over one another, all squeaking and scratching in their panic to obey the ghostly figure.
The moon went behind a cloud, and the glowing woman faded and was gone. Grandma X stirred as though waking from a deep sleep. Jaide and Jack retreated to the doorway and peeped around.
‘We should go now,’ Jaide whispered, and tried to pull Jack back to the door.
He shook off her hand and edged forward. He loved being out at night, and he wanted to know more about what was going on. Had Grandma X summoned the rats to tell them what to do, and the twins had just witnessed her sending them off? That fitted in with the theory that she was an evil witch, and the rats were servants like the insects that had plagued them on the Rock. But a nagging doubt lurked in the corner of Jack’s mind. Grandma X clearly had magical powers, but what was she using them for?
At that moment, Grandma X started to turn back from the railing. Jack froze in panic. She would see him for sure – but she paused to wipe her forehead with a large and very white handkerchief that came out of her sleeve.
In those vital few seconds, Jaide pulled at Jack again, and this time he didn’t resist. They ducked back through the door and went straight down the hatch. Jack whipped it closed behind him and the twins hurried down the stairs as fast as they could.
But they were in too much of a hurry, and Jaide was in front and couldn’t see. She miscounted the stairs and thumped down hard on the third floor landing. The dull thud seemed horribly loud in the darkness, echoing up the stairwell.
‘Who’s there?’ called Grandma X, frighteningly close above them.
Jaide thought fast. She couldn’t run – that would be far too noisy. But she certainly couldn’t tell the truth about where they’d been.
‘It’s us, Grandma,’ she said, the tremor in her voice entirely real. ‘I . . . we . . . woke up when we heard a noise outside. I called but you didn’t answer, so we came up here to find you.’
Grandma X came down through the hatch. Jaide flinched as she heard the boots coming closer, with a threatening tap . . . tap . . . tap. Even when her grandmother stopped, it was too dark for Jaide to see her, so she cou
ldn’t tell whether she looked angry.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t answer, Jaidith,’ said Grandma X. Somehow she found Jaide’s shoulder in the gloom and gave it a squeeze. ‘You need to go back to bed now. We’ll talk more in the morning. Where is Jackaran?’
Jaide opened her mouth and shut it again. Jack had been behind her coming downstairs. Grandma X should have run into him . . .
‘Uh, he must have gone back to bed,’ she said weakly.
A very soft footfall to her left and below her suggested that this was not true. Jaide tried to look without turning her head, but couldn’t see a thing.
‘I’ll turn on the light,’ said Grandma X. ‘I don’t want you to break your neck. Unless you can see in the dark?’
‘No, I can’t,’ said Jaide, though she had a very strong suspicion that Grandma X could see quite well. But if that was so, why hadn’t she spotted Jack?
‘I’ll only be a moment,’ said Grandma X. Jaide heard those boots tap-tapping up a few steps. At the same time, she heard the faintest of footfalls going the other way. Then there was the click of a switch and all the lights on the stairs came on.
‘No more wandering about,’ said Grandma X. ‘Come with me, and I’ll tuck you in.’
Jaide looked down. Was that Jack, there in the shadow at the turn of the stairs?
‘Grandma,’ Jaide said in a desperate bid to give Jack more time, ‘is this house haunted?’
Grandma X stopped on the step above and looked at her granddaughter.
‘Not as such,’ she said. ‘Why? What have you seen?’
‘That wind . . . the weird noises . . .’
‘There’s nothing to worry about, Jaidith. You and Jackaran are completely safe in this house. Now, to bed.’
They walked down together. Grandma X took Jaide’s hand, and Jaide was surprised that she’d never noticed the ring the old lady was wearing before. It was reversed with the stone on the inside, so Jaide couldn’t see it clearly – but it had to be the same one she’d seen shining on the hand of the apparition that had sent the rats off on their mission.