The Monsters of Morley Manor (12 page)

Gramma didn't hear me come in, of course. I went and stood next to her, so I wouldn't startle her when she realized I was there.

She jumped a little, anyway. “Good morning, slugabed,” she said cheerfully. “What did you two do last night, sneak out and watch TV after I had gone to sleep?”

“Something like that,” I said, looking straight at her. This is the best way to talk to Gramma Walker. She uses the way your lips move to help figure out what you're saying. “Is Sarah up?” I added.

“She's in the bathroom. Why don't you pour yourself a bowl of cereal?”

That sounded like a good idea. I had been so tired when we got in that I'd forgotten I was also starving.

Mr. Perkins hissed at me as I went to the cupboard. The sound reminded me of Melisande's snakes. I wondered how she and Gaspar were making out with their quest to find a lawyer to help them save Morley Manor.

Before I could worry about it too much, I heard the doorbell. Gramma didn't hear it, of course, but when I stood up and started toward the door, she said, “I'll get it, Anthony. You eat.”

While she was gone, Sarah came back into the kitchen. I was about to ask her if last night had really happened when Gramma came back, too. She had an odd look on her face. Melisande and Gaspar were behind her, Bob trotting happily at their heels.

“These people say they're friends of yours,” said Gramma, looking a little puzzled. (It may seem strange to some of you that she would let them in, but you have to remember that in Owl's Roost, Nebraska, people still leave their doors unlocked at night. We are not what you would call the crime capital of the world.)

“How did you make out?” I asked, jumping to my feet.

Gaspar smiled. “Justice has triumphed! We obtained a temporary restraining order to stop the demolition. Morley Manor still stands!”

“Gracious!” said Gramma. “What do you two have to do with Morley Manor?”

Then she narrowed her eyes. Her hands began to tremble.

“Gaspar?” she whispered.

He looked at her curiously.

She clutched at her heart.
“Gaspar!”
she said again, and this time her voice sounded accusing.

Gaspar looked at her more intently. Suddenly his eyes grew wide.
“Ethel?”
he cried in astonishment.

Gramma staggered and grabbed the back of a chair. Slowly, she lowered herself into it. “Gaspar,” she murmured. “Melisande. Bob!”

“What's going on here?” I asked, totally baffled.

“That's what I want to know,” said Gramma. She sounded terrified.

Gaspar turned to me. “Your grandmother and I were once engaged to be married,” he said, his voice thick with emotion.

“It is you,” whispered Gramma in awe. “But how is it possible?
Where have you been?
”

“It's a long story,” said Gaspar.

“He's not kidding,” I said.

“Sit,” said Gramma firmly. “Tell.”

 

We
SPENT
most of that afternoon at the kitchen table. There were two stories that needed to be told: what had happened to Sarah and me in the past twenty-four hours, and what had happened to Gaspar and the other Morleys over fifty years ago. Sarah, of course, also wanted to know all about Gaspar and Gramma having been engaged. But they seemed hesitant to talk about it, as if the topic was too painful to touch, and after a few questions she gave up.

“I could tell it was upsetting them,” she told me later.

As for what had happened to the Morleys . . .

“We don't actually know all of the story ourselves,” confessed Gaspar, “and won't, unless the Wentar is able to bring back not only my brother, but the clone that had pretended to be him for all those years. But I can tell you how it began.” He folded his hands on the table in front of him. “I was, as you know, both a scientist and a magician.”

“It was considered a great scandal by those who figured it out,” put in Gramma Walker.

“Yes, and an even greater scandal when big brother here started going out with a woman so much younger than himself,” said Melisande. “Such is the way of a small town.”

It took me a moment to realize that the “younger” woman she was talking about was Gramma!

“Don't fool yourself, Melisande,” said Gramma sharply. “I've lived in the big city. People there gossip just as much as small-town folk. More, probably. It's just that you have to be better known to get gossiped about by the “right' people. Go on, Gaspar. I'm eager to find out why you broke my heart.”

“Breaking your heart was the last thing I ever intended,” said Gaspar, reaching out to take her hand.

“Can we skip the romance and tell the story?” I asked. I was still trying to get used to the idea of Gramma being younger than Gaspar, since she now looked thirty or forty years older than him. But then, she had kept on living for the fifty years that the Morleys had been frozen.

Gaspar nodded, his face no longer that of a great lizard, but that of a lean, handsome man. I wondered if Grampa Walker had known about this—which got me to wondering what it would have been like if things had worked out differently and Gaspar actually had married my grandmother.

It was too weird to wrap my mind around.

“Our real troubles started when I discovered the secret of the Starry Doors,” he said. “I was angry, because I realized Martin had known it for some time, and had not shared it with me.”

“Of course, that was when we still thought Martin was our real brother,” said Melisande.

Gaspar sighed. “It changes so much to know the truth. And we haven't had time to think through all that it means. Anyway, since Martin had not told me what he was doing, I returned the favor and did not tell him what
we
were up to. But with Ludmilla, Melisande, Albert, and Bob at my side, I began to explore other worlds. One planet in particular, Zentarazna, held a great fascination for us. In that place, people had learned to shape their own bodies as they wished, to change them as it suited their fancy. Since Melisande and Ludmilla had grown tired of all the attention they got for their great beauty, they quickly embraced the idea of taking on a strange image.”

“We tried several,” said Melisande. “It was fun. Like changing clothes in a dressing room. And not nearly as difficult to do as it is here,” she added, turning to me and Sarah.

Gramma shot her a glance, and I got the sense that they had not liked each other all those years ago.

“Of course,” said Gaspar, “Albert was always Albert, and Bob's were-problems had started back in Transylvania. They are who they are. It was Ludmilla, Melisande, and I who played at shape-shifting. In late October of 1948, there was a townwide Halloween party—”

“The last night I ever saw you,” murmured Gramma.

Gaspar nodded. “The three of us had decided to go in our altered shapes, which seemed like the best of all possible costumes. Alas, that was the night Martin discovered what we had been doing. A great argument broke out when we got home. Martin pulled out a strange weapon, something I had never seen before. And that's the last thing I remember until I found myself standing on the edge of your bathroom sink, looking up at Anthony and Sarah!”

Gramma squeezed his hand. “I cried for a long time after you disappeared,” she whispered.

Gaspar shook his handsome head. “I did not expect this, Ethel. My heart has gone into hiding, and I have no words for what I feel.”

I was startled to see tears in his eyes. Then I realized that even though fifty years had gone by for Gramma, for Gaspar it was as if he had last seen her only the day before, seen her young and beautiful, seen her as the woman he was going to marry.

And now she was old.

“There was a great scandal,” said Gramma softly. “People suspected that Martin had killed you all. But there were no bodies, so the police couldn't put together a case.” She shook her head. “And all that time you were trapped in a box inside Morley Manor. Oh, that Martin! I could just—”

She stopped, unable to finish the sentence, though I wasn't sure if it was because she couldn't bring herself to say something violent in front of me and Sarah, or because she couldn't think of something bad enough to do to Martin.

“He wasn't the real Martin,” said Gaspar softly. “Though whether any of us can ever know our true self is a great question, anyway.”

“Those fifty years seemed like only a moment to us,” added Melisande. “But the world has changed so! We were only out for a few hours this morning, but it was as if we had gone to another planet. Had we not traveled before, been to Zentarazna and other strange places, I do not think I could have coped with all this.”

“And now you need to travel again,” murmured Gramma, awe and wonder in her voice. “You need to go to the Land of the Dead to see my poor husband.”

Gaspar nodded.

“Well,” she said, “I'm going with you.”

Gaspar started to protest, but it was pointless. I knew that tone of voice. He had as much of a chance of talking Gramma out of going with us as I had of sprouting wings and flying—though the way things had been going lately, I suppose even that wouldn't have surprised me. As for Gramma, she might have been astonished to see Gaspar, might even have felt the stirrings of an old love. But there was no way she was going to miss a chance to visit Grampa.

 

S
INCE
G
RAMMA
could provide the needed connection for the trip, we had a long argument about whether or not Sarah and I should be allowed to come. Gramma thought it was too dangerous. We pointed out what we had already been through, but that didn't convince her. Even Sarah's pleading, which is usually quite effective, did not change Gramma's mind. It was only when I argued that we would probably be in more danger on our own than we would if we went with them that she relented.

So, at eleven o'clock that night, we returned to Morley Manor.

“There's one thing I don't get,” said Sarah, as we approached the house. “If the key to making the trip is our connection to Grampa, then why do we have to come back here to do it?”

“Two reasons,” said Gaspar. “First, the aura of magic is stronger here. That was one of the reasons we bought the place to begin with, of course. And our work over the years did a great deal to increase that. Besides, we can go deeper into the Earth here, which makes the journey easier.”

“So the Land of the Dead is underground?” asked Sarah.

“Not really. From what the Wentar told me, I don't think you can say it is in this world at all. Even so, going underground brings you closer to a certain kind of truth.”

By this time we had reached the house. Melisande shuddered when she saw the bulldozer parked in front of it.

“The feathers of doom did indeed sweep close to our family home today,” said Gaspar grimly.

Once we were inside, he led the way down the cellar stairs. He held Sarah's flashlight in one hand, in the other a broomstick to knock aside the cobwebs—which were so thick in some places that they looked like a gray silk wall.

On the far side of the basement was a door that led to another stairway, one that took us even deeper into the Earth.

A stray cobweb brushed across my forehead. The air was cold and damp. Bob began to whine.

“It's all right, boy” murmured Melisande, who was walking beside him.

I counted a hundred and thirteen steps as we descended.

“Where did these stairs come from?” asked Sarah.

“Martin built them, of course,” said Gaspar. “At one time we would have done it together.”

He sounded bitter, and wistful.

Finally we reached the bottom. The chamber we entered was earthen walled, but had a solid ceiling, supported by thick wooden beams.

Gaspar instructed us to lie down and join hands. The dirt floor was cool and damp, but he said closeness to the Earth was important.

“Leave a space for me here,” he said, talking to Gramma and me. We shifted apart, still holding hands for the time being.

“Now close your eyes,” Gaspar said, turning off the flashlight.

“Why should we close our eyes?” asked Melisande. “It's dark enough already!”

“It will help you move deeper into yourselves,” said Gaspar quietly.

I closed my eyes and listened as he worked. He was muttering to himself, strange words that I couldn't quite make out. Every once in a while I heard him strike a match; I could see the flicker of light, even through my closed lids.

A pungent odor filled the room, a weird mingling of freshness and rot, sharp as vinegar, sweet as cider. My head began to whirl.

“Now think of those who have gone before,” Gaspar said. A moment later I felt him separate my hand from Gramma's. He lay down between us, then took my hand in his.

The soil was cool, damp, and firm beneath me. I felt almost as if I were lying in a grave.

I turned my thoughts to Grampa, thought of how much I wanted to see him, to tell him that I loved him.

Suddenly I looked down and saw a long silver cord. With a start, I realized that it stretched back to my own body.

Gramma was floating next to me. Near her, I saw Sarah and Melisande. Gaspar was on the other side of me. Even Bob had made it through, looking as surprised as I have ever seen a cocker spaniel look.

Ahead of us, all around us, was a vast space filled with a kind of milky mist. Floating through it were the figures of people, some of them sharply defined, others soft around the edges, so it was hard to make them out. Their moans and mutters filled the air.

I looked down. All I saw was more mist. I had no idea how far above the ground we were—if there even was any ground, for that matter. But I felt so light I had no fear of falling.

“That way!” said Gramma suddenly, her voice strong and firm.

A murmur of astonishment rose from the shapes floating around us.