Vita and the Monsters of Moorhouse

by Jillian Karger

  Their father led the children to a private room where a vase held the only slightly wilting flowers Vita’s father had brought a few days before. In the bed her mother, Alison, lay propped up on pillows reading a book with the long, dark hair Michelle inherited fanned out around her. Anne of Green Gables, the leather-bound cover read. Her pale skin was perhaps a bit paler than it used to be, and she’d lost weight, but other than that you wouldn’t know anything was wrong.

  Ali gave his wife a kiss on the forehead then sat at the foot of the bed. “Hey there, Allie,” he greeted.

  “Hey there, Ali,” she replied with a smile. Vita’s father was the only person who ever called her by their shared nickname—she was Alison to everyone else.

  Vita moved to hug her mother but Michelle sat down on the edge of the bed before she could get a chance. “OMG, Mom, I have so much to tell you. Today Jackie told me that Ellen told her that Matt Wilkes said that I…”

  Alison smiled attentively throughout what would turn out to be a strong contender for Michelle’s boringest and most inconsequential story yet.

  Then their mother’s eyes moved to Bryan, who moved forward to stand beside the bed. She reached up to pat his curls. “This is a very respectable fro you have going, Bry.”

  He smiled a little, the first Vita had seen … well, since the last time they had visited their mother. “Thanks, Mom. I try.”

  Having been momentarily distracted by the wonders of her phone, Michelle looked up and regurgitated another several minutes’ worth of high school gossip. Finally Michelle had to go the restroom and Ali and Bryan went to get snacks, leaving Vita and her mother blissfully alone.

  Alison smiled wide at Vita. “And how are you, sweetheart?”

  Immediately Vita hopped up onto the bed so she could give her a hug. Somehow when everything else reeked of antiseptic her mother’s dark hair still smelled like violets. “I miss you, Mom.”

  Her mother squeezed her back, though much more gently than she used to. “I miss you too, Vita. I miss Michelle, Bryan, your father, everything. I was trying to convince Ali that I could write a few freelance articles from here, but he didn’t go for it. Neither did my doctor, for that matter.”

  Vita rested her head on her mother’s chest, though she tried not to put most of her weight on her. “When are you coming home?”

  She felt Alison’s chest rise and fall with her sigh. “The moment your father and I know, you will too. I promise. Now tell me about what’s been going on with you. How’s Jen?”

  Vita frowned. She opened her mouth, intending to simply say that Jen was fine—her mother had enough to worry about, after all. Instead the entire story of playing with Jen and Erica Simmons making fun of her that afternoon poured out.

  “She was so mean, Mom, and Jen just stood there,” Vita said. “It seems like Jen has fun when we play together and it’s just us, but then when other people are around…” She sniffed, her voice barely audible at this point. “I’m not sure if she wants to be my friend anymore.”

  “Oh honey,” her mother said. “That’s probably not true. And you know Jen isn’t the only kid at your school—you could always make more friends.”

  Vita couldn’t help rolling her eyes at that. The cliques at school had been formed years earlier. While they would accept new members as pretty and outgoing as Jen, Vita knew there would be no place for her.

  She and Jen had been friends for so long that she barely remembered how they had even become friends in the first place. They always worked together on group projects, and sat together at lunch.

  Without Jen, she wouldn’t have anyone.

  “Yeah, maybe,” she mumbled to her mother, and cuddled closer to her.

  For a moment the two laid together in silence, Vita’s pink sneakers hanging off the edge of the bed. Vita looked out the room’s large window at the blue sky outside, then sat up on the bed so she could look down on the street below.

  Across the street from the hospital was a large and imposing building made of red brick and some sort of beige stone. It looked like a school, or maybe a grand old church. The building wrapped around the corner and looked to be three stories high. Windows lined each story and the third set of windows poked into the eave of the roof. In between each of the top windows were stone gargoyles whose mouths were open in silent screams.

  A narrow facade stood at the intersection of the building’s two main walls and revealed a tall set of arched black double doors. A black wrought iron fence ran the length of the building, protecting the slim strip of dying grass and single, twig-like tree that served as the building’s grounds.

  Her mother leaned forward to follow Vita’s gaze out the window. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? The building with the gargoyles? I’ve spent some very pleasant hours trying to figure out what sort of building it is. I thought maybe an apartment building, but that’s a little too boring, don’t you think?” Vita nodded. “So maybe something a little more interesting, like a school.”

  Vita beamed. “I thought it looked like a school too!”

  “What are we talking about?” Ali asked. Vita turned to find her father and brother had returned, bags of chips and bottles of soda in hand.

  “That building down there,” Alison said. “We were trying to figure out what sort of building it is, what it’s for. V and I both think it looks like a school.”

  Ali moved closer to look out the window, and uncharacteristically Bryan did the same. “What a gorgeous old place,” Vita’s father said. “I could see it being a very fancy and proper sort of school,” he said in an exaggerated British accent, making Vita and her mother laugh.

  After a moment Bryan took a few steps away from the window and crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t know—I think it looks more like a prison.”

  • • •

  Vita stood with her brother and sister at the corner outside the hospital, waiting for their father to return with the car. Michelle played with her phone while Bryan was already back to staring at nothing in his usual way.

  “Hey Michelle,” Vita said, looking up at her sister.

  Michelle’s eyes remained glued to her phone.

  “See that building across the street?” Vita soldiered on. “We were trying to figure out what sort of building it is when you were in the bathroom.”

  Nothing.

  “What do you think it is?”

  Nothing.

  “Michelle?”

  Vita kept expecting Michelle to at least snap and call her an annoying little brat, but instead it was as though Vita wasn’t there at all. Which felt about ten million times worse than if she had snapped.

  When the light at the intersection changed, Vita decided to take the chance to get a closer look at her and her mother’s gargoyle school.

  As she began to cross the street, she heard Melina’s voice ask, “What do you think you’re doing, love,” in her ear. Vita was startled to find the caterpillar around her shoulders.

  “That building,” Vita said. “It’s so pretty and cool, and I want to find out what goes on inside.”

  “And how do you plan to do that?” Melina asked.

  “I’ll walk right by it; I should be able to get a closer look at least.”

  Melina was silent at that, but still curled protectively against Vita. As they approached the building, Vita slowed her pace and drifted toward the black fence that curved around the corner. She looked straight up and saw a gargoyle’s wordless howl. Up close she was able to admire the lovely carving even more.

  She moved closer to the fence so she could stare between the black bars. She frowned when she saw nothing but a ground covered in more litter than grass.

  “Vita—” Melina said with a note of warning in her voice.

  “Shh!” Vita replied. She’d heard a rustling in the grass on the other side of the fence.

  She crept toward the ink black arched doors embedded in the building’s narrow front façade. Vita’s eyes followed her ears to a particu
lar patch of grass right outside the building’s entrance.

  She saw a small creature scurrying through the fading grass. It had a big, round head, bright green skin, and enormous black eyes. Instead of walking, the creature bent its four tiny legs and jumped from place to place like a frog. But it was far too large to be a frog, wasn’t it? It was closer to the size of a rabbit.

  “Michelle! Bryan!” Vita yelled, hoping they would be able to hear her from across the street.

  But when she turned to look it was as though no time had passed—Michelle was still absorbed in her phone and Bryan was still in Dreamland. Vita had been gone nearly five whole minutes and neither of them had even noticed.

  She stood still for a moment and squeezed her fists so tight her nails formed painful half-moons on her palms.

  “They’s forgotten you, eh?” a wheezy, high-pitched voice asked. “I been forgotten meself. I know it dun’t feel too nice. No, not nice at all.”

  Vita heard more movement in the grass and gasped when the tiny creature appeared near the fence, close enough for her to reach through the black bars and touch his neon skin. His four legs were thinner than a frog’s, really, and up close Vita could see he wore little purple tennis shoes on each of his four feet. The blue laces on each shoe were tied in perfect bows, and Vita wondered how the little monster managed it without any arms.

  His big, round head took up more space on his body than his legs, and his enormous black eyes took up half of his head. His nose was nothing more than two sharp, flared nostrils and his mouth was lipless and miniscule. Vita wasn’t sure whether she found him adorable or terrifying.

  “Why hello, Vita Lawrence,” the monster said.

  Vita shivered and imagined Melina tightening around her. “How do you know my name?”

  The monster rocked back and forth on his little, bent legs, considering. “Well, my kind sees a lot more than yours. Got better vision.”

  “And what exactly is your kind?”

  The creature hopped even closer to the fence, making Melina growl. “Why, I be a Drozlinian—that is, a citizen o’ the Rotten Realm o’ Drozlin. Peebles is what I be called.”

  Vita blinked. “Realm? Like another world?”

  Peebles rocked back and forth on his legs again. Vita realized it was his version of a shrug. “Yes. No.” Peebles inclined his head toward Vita. “You, you be in the human world. But I be in Drozlin. I see your world just fine, though. Better than you do, in fact.”

  “So that building there … it’s in another world?”

  “Building?!” Peebles scoffed. “Moorhouse be a school. Best school o’ world-building in Drozlin. Though Moorhouse ain’t quite in Drozlin Proper. It be right on the border and nudges into your world a bit. So humans can see it—but only humans who look, which ain’t most of ‘em.”

  Moorhouse. It was a good name. The stone gargoyles and pointed dormer windows would’ve fit right in with the spooky moors on the cover of her mother’s copy of Wuthering Heights.

  Vita grinned. “I knew it was a school! But who teaches there?”

  “I do.” Peebles stood as straight as his frog legs would allow. “It be the most righteous of careers in Drozlin to teach at Moorhouse. It be the only way to fix the realm!”

  “Vita, your father will be here any minute with the car,” Melina said, her long, thin body tense around Vita’s shoulders.

  Vita just shushed her again. “What’s wrong with your realm?” she asked Peebles.

  “Drozlin be Rotten, Vita Lawrence! It be dark, and gray, and always so very cold. We Drozlinians don’t even know how Rotten it be, till we see your world from Moorhouse. All your sunshine, and flowers. And children. Children like you make your world even nicer with your pretty Figments.”

  Vita was pretty sure Peebles was saying something nice, but the hungry edge to his voice made her nervous.

  “Like her,” Peebles went on. His black eyes moved from Vita’s to her right shoulder. “She be one o’ the finest Figments I seen in a long time. Hey there, kitty cat,” Peebles said with a too-white grin.

  Melina hissed, though Vita wasn’t sure if it was in anger at being called a common cat or if she was just shocked Peebles could see her.

  Vita’s heart sank. If Peebles could see Melina, then he had to be imaginary, too.

  Jen had been right, and so had everyone at school.

  She really was losing it.

  Peebles shook his large head very quickly as though he could hear Vita’s thoughts. “No, no, no, Vita Lawrence! Don’t you listen? I just got good vision, is all. All Drozlinians do. We can see what you dream, what you imagine. I seen your kitty friend, and a snake who rolls around like a wheel … and a very large gray bear on a few occasions.”

  A small smile crept onto his face, lighting up his black eyes. “I be willing to bet your Whirlyton is a whole lot nicer than Drozlin. Human children can morph Drozlin to their will, Vita Lawrence. You could make it just like Whirlyton—we’ll teach you how at Moorhouse.”

  “He’s not making any sense,” Melina said. “Let’s go back to Michelle and Bryan.”

  Vita looked across the street again. She may as well have been looking at a painting—neither of her siblings had moved an inch.

  “Teach me what?” she asked Peebles. “I don’t even know what world-building is.”

  “It be very much what it sounds like, and something much better learned by doing than explaining, in me own humble opinion.”

  Seemingly of its own accord, the front gate swung open. Vita looked back and forth on the sidewalk, hoping someone had witnessed this bit of magic. But people walked right by, completely oblivious. On the other side of the street her brother and sister stood, distracted as ever.

  Here she was, speaking to a real live monster, and no one was paying any attention.

  Vita stared at where the dirt floor of Moorhouse’s grounds ended, and the sidewalk began. “If you hate Drozlin so much, why don’t you just leave?”

  “Can’t leave. Moorhouse is as close to the border as we Drozlinians can go.” Peebles looked up at Vita and his eyes were like shiny black buttons. “But you can come inside and your fantasies will become something you can feel. Your kitty friend—she’ll be real, not a shadow. You will know what it truly be to create, Vita Lawrence.”

  “Don’t do it, Vita,” Melina warned and jumped to the ground.

  It was true that Peebles wasn’t making very much sense. But Peebles had said there were more creatures like him inside Moorhouse—Drozlinians. Could she pass up the chance to see more fantastical creatures like him?

  And he’d said Melina would be real inside Moorhouse. If Vita didn’t follow Peebles now, wouldn’t she always wonder if there was just the tiniest sliver of a possibility the monster had been telling the truth?

  Vita expected to feel some sort of jolt, or shiver, when she walked onto Moorhouse’s grounds. She felt nothing but the light wind that lifted an empty bag of chips and an old receipt up into the air.

  Melina followed Vita through the gate and glared up at her.

  “What?” Vita asked. “You can’t pretend you’re not curious.”

  “No, I’d be perfectly happy not to walk into the scary, otherworldly building filled with monsters,” Melina spat.

  “But look at him! He’s so tiny and cute.”

  “That doesn’t mean they’ll all be like that.”

  Vita stuck her tongue out at Melina. This was an adventure, just like she had always wanted. She wasn’t going to let it pass her by. Still, she hesitated outside the door.

  “Is you all right, Vita Lawrence?” Peebles asked.

  Vita thought of her father. She knew that even if her brother and sister didn’t notice her absence, he certainly would when he arrived with the clunker. Did she really want to give her tired, overworked dad one more thing to worry about?

  Vita squinted through Moorhouse’s front windows, hoping for a glimpse of another Drozlinian, and gasped. She saw a creature that looked lik
e one of those porcelain dolls Vita’s grandmother always brought for Vita when she visited from Ohio. The doll had perfect bow lips and a tiny nose. Her eyes were wide and lavender and she had long, chocolate brown curls. The doll noticed Vita and gave her a bright smile.

  Melina had been wrong. It looked like the other creatures inside Moorhouse were even less frightening than Peebles.

  Vita puffed her chest out with renewed resolve. “I’m fine,” she said.

  Peebles gave Vita a bashful smile when they reached the doors. “Do you mind?” he asked. “There’s other ways in and doors and me don’t get along so well.”

  “It’s not locked?” Vita asked.

  “Why would it be? Like I said, people only see Moorhouse if they takes the time to look.”

  Vita exhaled slowly and then pulled the door’s rusty handle fast, like she was pulling off a Band-Aid.

  As soon as the door was open, a cold hand grabbed the collar of Vita’s blue button-down shirt and pulled her inside.

  CHAPTER THREE

  FIRONELLA

  The front doors of Moorhouse slammed shut and all was dark.

  The icy hand that had pulled Vita through the door still held her collar in a firm grip and Vita could smell the sweet, musty scent of potpourri mixed with something far less pleasant. The hand wrenched the girl through a room crowded with people.

  Or rather, Vita realized, the room was crowded with creatures; Drozlinians, as Peebles had called them. Indeed, the squeaks and grunts these creatures made as Vita passed didn’t sound at all human.

  The surrounding bodies pressed Vita away from the door and into a velvety armchair in the corner. “Melina!” Vita called, squinting in vain to find her friend in the darkness.

  “I’m here, Vita!” Melina replied from some distance away, and Vita noted something strange in the caterpillar’s voice.

  The hand let go of Vita’s shirt but the creature hovered close enough that Vita could still smell her sickly sweet scent. She leaned over Vita’s chair to flick a switch, and soft lamplight filled Moorhouse’s front hall.