Vita and the Monsters of Moorhouse

by Jillian Karger

  Wile stared out the window at Autumn Fire Forest. “It looks good,” he told her. “Better than before even, I bet.”

  “Thanks.”

  He continued to gaze out the window. “Y’know, I’d expect you to be a painter, looking at all this.”

  Vita looked out the window as well. Her creations looked too much like paintings sometimes, but the autumnal forest had just enough of a watercolor sheen to make it seem ever so slightly more than a forest in the real world could ever be. “Nope,” she replied. She took a napkin out of the dispenser on the table and fiddled with it. “I drew a lot when I was little, but I was never anywhere near as good as my older sister.”

  She remembered the stack of Michelle’s drawings gathering dust in Vita’s closet, from back before Michelle had decided she was too cool for unicorn pictures. Vivid colors jumped out of the bounds of the dull white paper and whimsical creatures’ eyes glittered with emotion and intelligence. Vita didn’t know if she would ever have been able to dream Whirlyton up without those beautiful drawings for inspiration.

  “Well of course you weren’t as good as her,” Wile remarked. “She’s your older sister; she’s always gonna have a few years of practice on you.”

  She paused. She had never really thought of it that way before. Then she shook her head. “What about Rosie? She’s certainly not older, and she’s worlds away from where I’ll ever be as a painter.”

  He shrugged. “People start out in different places, I think. Like Rosie might’ve started out in a better place than you or me when it comes to drawing. Doesn’t mean we can’t all get where we want to go eventually, in our own time.” He was silent for a few moments, surveying the fiery trees and sparkling blue river. “But maybe you don’t want to be a painter. That’s fine, too. You can paint pictures in your head, which is pretty cool all on its own.”

  Her eyes widened, then she looked down at the table with a smile.

  They got off the train at Landora. Vita’s face turned red when she realized the train let off in the least done portion of the city—a big patch of Base surrounded the train platform with only a single canal running through it.

  As soon as they stepped of the train, a gondola approached the platform. Giuseppe the lobster waved an oar arm at them. “Little miss! Have you come to take a ride with me at last?”

  She looked questioningly at Wile and the boy nodded. They hopped into the gondola and Giuseppe chatted to them both as he rowed them forward. “I must thank you, little sir,” he told Wile. “The little miss always says she’ll make time to take a ride from me, but she never does.”

  Wile didn’t answer—he was too busy staring at the Base lain out around them. It had been on the ground so long it was beginning to dry out.

  “I bet you’re wondering what’s taking me so long with this,” Vita commented. “With your music thing you would’ve been done building this city in a day.”

  “No, I wasn’t thinking that. I know why it’s taking you so long—you get too caught up in the details.”

  “Rosie said that too.”

  “Rosie’s a smart girl.” He looked up as they passed under an ivory bridge. Lions’ faces were carved at each end of the bridge’s rails. “None of it has to be perfect the first time. The important part is covering ground with something. If you don’t like it you can always change it.”

  “But won’t it take even longer if I keep having to start all over?”

  “You’d think it would, but all that time you spend obsessing over the details takes longer, trust me.”

  The long stretches of Base faded away and they sailed past beautiful ivory buildings with pink, green, and blue domed roofs. The smells of cinnamon and melted chocolate wafted over the air from Mr. Chauncey’s bakery. An elephant couple in another gondola waved over to Vita and Wile and so did a family of starfish dressed in jeans and striped sweaters.

  When they passed by a jazz club called The Attic, Spiral the snake came rolling through the doorway. He rushed to the bank and rolled alongside Vita and Wile’s gondola. “Vita, I heard about what happened at Bringlesberg!” he yelled. “It’s all anyone can talk about!”

  Giuseppe let the children off and they joined Spiral on the cobblestone street. “Yeah, it looks like we’re going to have to rebuild Bringlesberg almost entirely…” she told Spiral as they walked over to the jazz club.

  “Oh no!” he exclaimed.

  “But who knows,” she went on, “maybe it’ll turn out even better than before.”

  This earned her a smile from Wile.

  Inside the jazz club was packed with minks in sequined dresses and foxes dealing blackjack—the citizens of Landora tended to party all night and sleep during the day. A bearded mouse played the trumpet onstage in the back, with a whiskered elephant on sax and a rotund beaver on piano. Wile and Vita crammed into a dusky lavender velvet booth and Spiral hopped up onto the bench across from them. Wile’s brown eyes lit up at the sight of the musicians.

  Before Spiral could say a word, a penguin in a bowtie approached the microphone. “Now for this next song we’d like a volunteer from our audience to come improvise with the band! I think old Grubs’ fingers are getting pretty tired, so a piano player would be especially welcome.”

  Vita elbowed Wile. “Go on.”

  He looked up at the stage then back at her. “What makes you so sure I even play?”

  She just held his gaze and eventually he sighed. “Oh, all right.” He practically skipped up to the stage, betraying his grudging tone.

  Wile whispered something to the band then took his place at the piano bench. He started out playing something simple—it reminded Vita of big band music she’d heard before, what they would have danced to back in the 1920s. But then Wile’s fingers started to dance over the keys and soon enough it didn’t even sound like one person playing anymore. What was just as amazing as the sounds he was coaxing from the piano was how in synch the boy’s body was with the music. Playing that piano seemed as simple for breathing for Wile—simpler, since no one seems born to breathe, and Wile was obviously born to play music.

  He received a standing ovation from The Attic’s patrons when he returned to their booth. Vita felt another pang of dizziness when they rose to leave and she would have fallen had Wile not caught her. They stepped out onto the cobblestones and Vita saw that the sun was beginning to rise in the west. They bid Spiral farewell and took off in the direction of Vita’s Dream Chamber entrance.

  “It looks like you need some real food,” Wile commented as they walked. “Getting that penguin to call someone onstage to play was probably the last bit of world-building you had in you.”

  “Hey, I didn’t do that!”

  He gave her a knowing look. “Well, whoever made that happen, I’d like you to thank them. I’ve never played piano in front of anyone but Robbie and…” He trailed off and kicked at the ground. “I’ve just never gotten to play in front of a big crowd like that before, is all.”

  “Well, I doubt that’ll be the last time. You’re really, really good, Wile.”

  He looked away from her. “Thanks.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Listen, I’m sorry I was so nasty my first time here, V.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. She stopped beside her compass hole and put her compass inside. “I mean, now that I know about Jeff—”

  “Still,” he cut in. “I think part of it is that I felt threatened by you.”

  She turned away from the Dream Chamber’s open door to look at him. Was he joking? His beautiful world was already finished while she felt like she’d barely started. “Me?”

  “Yeah, you. You may think I’m going to win, but…” He looked back and forth between Brickingham and the colorful trees of Nayera Jungle, then met her eyes with a grim smile. “I think it’s gonna be you.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE BLACK KNIGHTS

  Wile stopped short in front of Vita when she turned away from the order window, causing her to nearly spi
ll her bowl of brown on the dusty cafeteria floor.

  She straightened. “What is it?” she whispered.

  His dark eyes moved back toward the widest edge of the triangular Mess Hall. At first Vita thought he was looking at the crowd of monsters betting on the black beetles that raced down the longest table on the right. Brunhilda was there for the races too, which meant the other monsters probably hadn’t had to steal the beetles from her bug-haired head. She seemed as excited about the race as the rest of them.

  Then Vita looked to her left and noticed Rafe’s mighty silver frame beside Grover’s gangly one at the table across the aisle. Over the past week since her inspection, she hadn’t run into the other children at all and had spent her meals alone or with Wile—a prospect that would have horrified Vita in her early days at Moorhouse. But now she appreciated the chance to ask Wile what he could remember about Jeff, about himself. She was friends with Rosie and Grover too, of course, but she had never felt this close to anyone apart from Jen.

  She stepped closer to Wile and could see Rosie and Jasmine sitting across from Grover, and that Rosie was sitting next to Dotted-Line Jack. Peebles stood on top of the table in his purple tennis shoes and told what seemed, by the surrounding children, monster, and imaginary friends’ frequent giggles, to be quite an amusing story.

  Wile, however, did not look amused.

  “What, Peebles and Dotted-Line Jack?” Vita asked. “They’re all right.”

  The boy cut his eyes at her. “Jeff thought he could be friends with the monsters, too. And look what happened to him.”

  “Wile—” Vita began, but the boy was already on his way down the aisle. She rushed to catch up.

  By the time she arrived at the students’ table, Grover wore a scowl identical to Wile’s while Rosie frowned.

  “—in our seats,” Wile finished.

  Rosie glanced down the long table then back at Wile, her copper-flecked eyes widened in surprised sorrow. “What are you talking about, Coyote? There’s plenty of room for all of us.”

  “And like Miss Jasmine here,” Peebles said with a nod to the fairy on Rosie’s shoulder, “I don’t even be needing a seat.”

  “I said, they’re in our seats,” Wile repeated.

  Dotted-Line Jack gave Wile a long steely blue gaze, then nodded and rose from the table. “He’s right, Peebs.”

  “You don’t have to go, Jackie,” Rosie said, grabbing at the monster’s long-fingered hand.

  “I do,” he replied with a grim smile. “But I’ll see you soon, Rosie-Rose.” He patted Vita’s shoulder as he passed. “I’ll be seeing you even sooner, V.”

  Instead of flinching at Dotted-Line Jack’s freezing cold hand as she usually did, Vita reached up and squeezed it with her own. “Looking forward to it,” she replied.

  For a moment—just for a moment—the monster’s eyes became less incandescent and looked almost human in the midst of all those ink black tracks across his face. Then Dotted-Line Jack floated past the beetle races to a much smaller group of monsters playing cards a few tables away, the smoke-like wisps of his ghostly lower half trailing behind him.

  Peebles jumped between the students’ orange trays and onto the dusty floor in front of Vita and Wile. “I look forward to our next lesson as well, Miss Vita Lawrence,” he told her before he hopped after his apprentice.

  “What did you go and do that for?” Grover demanded of Wile as soon as the monsters were out of earshot. “They’re two of the best teachers in this school, and you chased them off like they were mosquitoes.”

  “Not like mosquitoes,” Wile corrected. “Mosquitoes are much easier to deal with—you can just squash them.”

  “I don’t know what your problem is with Jackie,” Rosie said with a pout. “What’s not to like about him?”

  Wile sat beside Rosie with a heavy sigh. “He’s a monster, Rosie-Rose. That’s what’s not to like.”

  With a roll of her eyes the little girl shifted her focus to Vita. “Hey there, Tinker Bell. Where’s Melina?”

  Vita’s hands rose to her shoulders, half expecting Melina to be there. She hadn’t even thought to collect her caterpillar friend from Nayera Jungle before leaving her Chamber to meet Wile. Now that she thought about it, she noticed the Mess Hall was silent as well. It seemed she and Wile had both forgotten their imaginary friends in the presence of a real one.

  “Melina’s sleeping,” Vita told her.

  “But all our teachers are monsters,” Grover said to Wile. He hiked an eyebrow above his thick glasses when Vita took her place at the table beside Wile instead of by Rafe. “There’s got to be at least a few you like—the ones you work with most.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Wile said.

  Vita frowned, unable to quite reconcile the Wile who’d helped return the fiery colors to her Dream Chamber’s autumnal forest with the one she sat beside now. She understood why Wile would hate Moorhouse’s monsters, but Vita couldn’t bring herself to feel the same, especially not about Peebles and Dotted-Line Jack. And not Eerla or Mazkin either—nor Faylonique or Brunhilda, who both always helped poor rabbit-headed Myeliel around on his handless days. The monsters had effectively trapped the children inside Moorhouse—but they also promised a wonderful prize at the end of the competition.

  That was, if the competition ever really ended.

  Despite her growling stomach Vita pushed her bowl of soggy brown mush to the side and put her face in her hands.

  “What’s wrong, V?” Grover asked. “You need me to fix your brown for you?”

  “She’s had classes practically non-stop these days,” Wile explained. “And she’s still recovering from her first inspection.”

  “Oh no!” Vita heard Rosie exclaim. “And I’m guessing it wasn’t with Mazkin?”

  “What’s the difference?” Wile replied, sounding annoyed. It wasn’t the sort of question that sounded like it wanted an answer, and it didn’t get one.

  By the time Vita looked up, Rafe had already shifted her tray to Grover’s side of the table, and the bespectacled boy threw glowing golden raisins, dried cranberries, and walnuts in with Vita’s brown. He’d also created a tiny silver pitcher of milk for Vita to use as she wished. The girl thanked the boy when the robot knight returned her tray, poured some milk in the bowl, and gobbled down half the brown. If she closed her eyes she could almost pretend it was proper oatmeal.

  Next to Vita Wile ate his unaltered brown in silence.

  Jasmine flew in front of Vita’s face after the girl had finished her hasty meal. The fairy studied Vita with her bottle-green eyes. “You still don’t seem quite yourself.”

  “I know just what’ll cheer you up, Tink,” Rosie said with some forced merriment. “Watching Rafe cream the Crusador in a jousting match!”

  Vita perked up a bit at that. Watching Rafe and another robot knight play with laser lances did sound appealing.

  Grover didn’t look anywhere near as excited by the idea of a visit as Rosie or Jasmine. He tugged at the collar of his blue and white striped sweater while Rafe scratched at the back of his neck, though Vita had never imagined the metal Rafe was made of could itch. “Oh, uh, yeah,” Grover said. “Um, I guess that would be all right.” His gaze landed on Wile and his brows drew together. “So long as it’s just the girls.”

  Wile shrugged at this and Vita nudged him in the side. “What?” he mouthed at her, and she cocked her head to the left, in the direction of the hall Wile and Grover shared. Wile looked between Vita and Grover a few times, then down at Vita’s empty bowl. “Oh, fine,” he said. “Here’s the deal, Grove—you let me come along and I’ll let you into my Chamber.”

  “You must think I’m an idiot,” Grover fumed. “You’ll waltz right into mine without letting me into yours, just like last time.”

  “That’s not how it—” Wile began.

  “Grover,” Vita cut in, “I bet Wile wouldn’t mind if you came to his Chamber first and then we went to yours. Would you, Wile?”

&
nbsp; He sighed again. “No, I guess I wouldn’t mind.”

  The children left the Mess Hall together and for all his sighing and groaning, Wile gave Vita what looked very close to a smile.

  • • •

  Grover’s shoulders looked lighter as he crossed the threshold out of Wile’s Dream Chamber and back into the hallway. And the music in the hallway was a light, happy tune with lots of horns. Rosie, Jasmine, and Vita followed behind the two boys and the robot knight.

  “Can anyone go into those buildings, though?” Grover asked Wile. “I’d think they’d get squished when the buildings shrink down with the music.”

  “Yeah, the buildings are more for show,” Wile replied. “You can go up on their roofs, though—it’s actually a pretty fun ride. I’ll take you next time.”

  Vita grinned at the boys’ backs. It was so nice to see this lack of animosity between them. She wondered if this was more how they’d been before Jeff had disappeared.

  Grover’s shoulders had stiffened up again by the time the group reached the door to his Dream Chamber. He turned his compass over and over in his hands without putting it in the compass hole. “Are you guys sure you’re not tired?” he asked. “Especially you, V—you’ve had all those lessons lately, and that inspection.”

  The girl shook her head. “Nope, I feel fine.”

  Grover seemed disappointed by this. Rafe bent down to whisper something in the skinny boy’s ear and he nodded. Finally he unlocked the doors and they swung open. The entrance led straight onto the castle’s drawbridge—Grover had set things up so the drawbridge dropped at the exact moment he unlocked his Dream Chamber door, and he never had to wait.

  As soon as her feet hit the blond wooden planks Vita searched around for anything amiss. But the castle and the jewel blue moat around it seemed as magnificent and intimidating as ever. The sky above was a deep blue, darkening into night.

  “It’s a little late for jousting, but it’s just about banquet time if you’re all still hungry,” Grover said at the head of the group. He led them under the red and gold flag draped over the castle’s entrance and the drawbridge automatically folded upward behind them.