The Monsters of Morley Manor

by Bruce Coville

  The darkening purple sky arched above us, and the air smelled clean and spicy. I think that smell may have been the most alien thing of all. More than the purple sky or the weird flowers or the broccoli-like grass, it forced me to remember that I was a long way from home.

  I wondered what time it was on Earth. The Wentar had said that time operates differently on different worlds. Was it possible only a few minutes had passed back home? Or—and this would be much worse—would we get home to find that days, or even years, had gone by?

  We had been so busy trying to survive that I hadn’t really thought about these things. Now I couldn’t get them out of my mind. Was Gramma Walker still sleeping soundly in our house? Or had she woken to find us gone? I had this horrible vision of her in a state of panic, calling our parents to come home from their florists conference, filled with guilt and fear. . . .

  “We’d better hurry,” I said.

  Gaspar nodded. “A great deal depends on us. Heavy, heavy is the burden we carry.”

  “Look, boss,” said Albert. “I hate to bring this up, but if we’re going to separate, we need to figure out who’s going where.”

  Melisande’s snakes began to hiss and writhe. I knew how they felt. Suddenly, splitting up seemed like a terrible idea.

  “Clearly, I must make the trip to Flinduvia,” said the Wentar. “However, I think it would be a good idea if one of you Morleys came along. Assuming I actually locate Martin, it may be reassuring for him if a member of his family is with me.”

  “Perhaps I should go,” said Gaspar. “He is my twin, after all.”

  The Wentar shook his head. “Aside from me, you’re the only one who has the knowledge and training to lead a trip to the Land of the Dead, Gaspar. Therefore, you must go back to Earth with Sarah and Anthony.”

  “I vill go to Flinduvia,” said Ludmilla.

  “I’ll go, too,” said Albert instantly.

  Sarah nudged me. “I think he likes her,” she whispered.

  I looked at Ludmilla. Aside from the fangs, she was definitely a babe. Even so, the idea that Albert had a crush on her was pretty weird.

  “If Ludmilla issss going to Flinduvia, then I sssshould accompany Gaspar and the children,” said Melisande. She paused, then added, “It issss probably besssst we bring Bob with our group. He’ll be lessss trouble that way.”

  Bob licked her face.

  “Oh, sssstop,” she said, pushing him away.

  We walked for a time in silence. It was clear the Morleys were upset about the idea of separating.

  “What about those Flinduvians who were chasing us?” asked Sarah suddenly. “Are you sure they didn’t come through after us?”

  “I told you, you cannot track someone through a Starry Door,” said the Wentar calmly.

  “Well, then, won’t they still be waiting for us back at Morley Manor?” she asked.

  It was exactly the sort of sensible thing I could count on her to think of.

  “That, too, is unlikely,” said the Wentar. “Patience is not one of their virtues, and I expect they will have left by now, especially as they have no idea when, or even if, we would return. However, your concerns are not entirely unjustified.”

  “There’s always room for despair when you’re around,” muttered Albert.

  The Wentar ignored him. Turning to Gaspar, he said, “In the odd event that they are still there, you can use this sonic disruptor to buy yourself some time. Just fling it to the floor. It will create an effective . . . distraction.” As he spoke, he pressed a silvery disk, about three inches across and an inch thick, into Gaspar’s hand.

  The lizard-headed scientist slid the disk into the pocket of his lab coat. Then he and the Wentar got into a conversation about how, exactly, we were going to get to the Land of the Dead. I listened eagerly but other than the fact that Morley Manor seemed to be the best starting place, I couldn’t make much sense of it.

  It wasn’t long before we reached the place where we had stepped out of the Starry Door.

  It wasn’t there!

  “What happened to it?” I cried, afraid we were going to be stuck on this frogworld forever.

  “Doors such as this are not constantly open,” said Gaspar gently. “Think of the trouble it would cause if they were! Not only would people be hopping from planet to planet all the time, which would be bad enough, but all sorts of wildlife might wander through as well. That would really create chaos!”

  Melisande began to laugh, and her snakes made a kind of choked hissing that I realized must be their version of a giggle.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Sarah.

  “I wassss thinking of what people on Earth would ssssay if they could ssssee the petssss I keep on Zzzzentarazzzzna.”

  “What is Zentarazna?” I asked.

  “It issss the plasssse we would rather be,” she answered. That was all she would say about it, even though Sarah pestered her with questions while we waited for Gaspar and the Wentar to reopen the Starry Door—a process that involved a lot of singing and hand waving as far as I could tell.

  Suddenly I felt a change in the air around us. We stopped talking and looked toward where Gaspar and the Wentar were working.

  “Look!” whispered Sarah.

  It was awesome. First there was nothing but air in front of us. Then, slowly, a shimmering oval began to appear. In the center of that oval was the Starry Door.

  It seemed as if it took forever for the door to finish taking shape, though really it was only about ten minutes. The thing is, once it was ready, I sort of wished it wasn’t. Even though I was eager to get back to Earth, I was terrified of what we had to do once we got there.

  The purple sky was nearly dark above us now, the first stars just starting to appear. Some small creatures began singing in the grass. Our group stood without moving, and I realized for the first time that once we split up it was possible we might never see the others again. Both groups were going on dangerous missions—missions from which they might never return. It was clear this was much on the mind of the Family Morleskievich as well. Finally Gaspar stepped forward and said to Ludmilla, “Be careful, little sister.”

  They hugged each other for a long time.

  I looked at my own little sister. Even though she’s an incredible pain and bugs the daylights out of me, I realized that I would do just about anything to keep someone else from hurting her. I realized something else, too: As horrible as the monsters of Morley Manor looked, their feelings were, in many ways, not that different from ours.

  The rest of us said our good-byes. The Wentar grasped me firmly by the hand. It was the first time I had touched him, and his skin had a kind of papery feel. Yet there was also a tingle of power and energy in it. “You have been brave, Anthony,” he said. “But there are greater challenges to come. Much depends on you and your sister. Do not lose courage, and do not forget the power and strength that come from the ties of love that bind a family together.”

  Albert took me by the hand, too. His hand was more leathery, and the back of it was covered with thick hair. “Thank you for thawing us out,” he said.

  “It was an honor,” I replied.

  Then it was time to go. The Wentar stepped to the Starry Door and pulled it open. As before, it revealed the black void sprinkled with stars. Bending, the Wentar touched one in the lower right corner. “I want to go there,” he said.

  The door rippled. The Wentar stepped forward, Ludmilla and Albert at his side.

  An instant later, they were gone.

  Then it was our turn.

  Standing in front of the door, Gaspar squared his shoulders, muttered something that might have been a prayer, pointed at one of the stars, and said, “I want to go there!”

  The door rippled.

  Hoping that Gaspar had pointed to the star that would take us back to Morley Manor, Sarah and I followed him through the door, Melisande and Bob close behind us.

  MY BODY WAS still tingling when I realized we were back in the upstair
s hallway of Morley Manor—or, to be more precise, the strange hallway that stretched beyond Morley Manor.

  “No matter how far one wanders, there’s still no place like home,” said Gaspar. His voice was dry, and I couldn’t tell if he was joking or not.

  He started toward the secret entrance that led back into the house. We came to the shreds of the black wall that had been sliced open by the Flinduvians. Though the air was still, the tatters moved and shifted, as if blown by a wind from another world. Gaspar gathered a handful and looked at them sadly. “Such power,” he whispered. “Such anger.”

  I assumed he was talking about the Flinduvians.

  He held the tatters aside so the rest of us could pass.

  “What time issss it, do you ssssupposssse?” hissed Melisande, once we were on the other side of the bookcase, back in the real Morley Manor.

  None of us was wearing a watch. Despite the weird chiming we had heard when we came in, there were no clocks in the house; they had been sold with the rest of the furniture. From where we were standing, we couldn’t even tell if it was light or dark outside.

  “Come,” said Gaspar. “If we go outdoors we can get a sense of the time—though that won’t tell us what day it is.”

  “I hope we haven’t been gone too long,” said Sarah nervously She slipped her hand into mine as we walked down the stairs. I kept looking over my shoulder, wondering if the Flinduvians were waiting to leap out and ambush us. But there was no sign of them, other than some holes smashed in the walls.

  We stepped outside. Bob leaped over the railing and began running around, sniffing at bushes. Gaspar simply walked to the edge of the porch and began scanning the sky. I went to stand beside him. It was still dark, but a hint of gray was pearling up in the east.

  “I’d say it’s about four in the morning,” he muttered at last. “That makes things a little tricky, since we need to wait until midnight to make the crossing to the Land of the Dead.”

  “We sssstill don’t know what day it issss,” pointed out Melisande.

  “There’s a paper box two blocks up,” said Sarah. “We can check the date there.”

  Gaspar glanced around. “I am not comfortable going that far from the house. I would rather not be seen.”

  I had gotten so used to the monsters that I hadn’t thought about that. When we had carried them to Morley Manor, they had been about five inches high, so it had been no problem to hide them. But at full size, Gaspar was well over six feet—not to mention his having a lizardy head that was at least two feet long. He was not the kind of guy you saw walking down the street every day in a place like Owl’s Roost.

  “I’ll check the paper,” said Sarah. “Be right back.”

  “I’ll go with you,” I said quickly.

  “Wait!” said Gaspar.

  It was too late. Sarah and I had bounded off the porch and were almost at the gate.

  I think Gaspar was afraid we might run off on him, but the reason I had followed Sarah was much simpler: I was still worried about the Flinduvians, and I didn’t want her bumping into them on her own. What good I could have done by being with her I couldn’t tell you, so in some ways it was a stupid thing to do. But in my heart, it felt right. Even though we annoy each other, we had been sticking closer together since Grampa Walker died.

  “Uh-oh,” I said when I got a look at the paper in the box. “Gramma must be going crazy! We’ve been gone a whole day!”

  Sarah looked at the newspaper for a moment, then began to laugh. “No we haven’t, Anthony. It was only a night.”

  “But that’s the Monday paper. And it was Sunday when we went into Morley Manor.”

  “And after Sunday midnight it was Monday morning,” said Sarah, as if she were explaining something to an idiot.

  “Yeah, but it’s just barely morning. The paper wouldn’t be out yet. So it must have been here since yesterday. Which means this must be Tuesday.”

  “Uh-uh,” said Sarah, shaking her head. “This is the morning paper. They start putting them out at about four or so. Besides, the box is still full. If this was yesterday’s paper, there would be hardly any left. So it must be Monday morning. If we get home before Gramma wakes up, she’ll never know we were gone.”

  “All right, let’s go back and tell Gaspar the good news,” I said, feeling kind of grumpy. How did she know all this stuff, anyway?

  GASPAR AND MELISANDE were standing on the walk just inside the gate, out of sight from anyone who might happen by—though passersby were pretty unlikely, considering the time and the location. Their worried expressions changed to relief when they saw us returning.

  “Everything is fine,” I said. “It’s Monday morning, just like it should be, and . . . yikes! I forgot!”

  13

  The Original Package

  “WHAT?” CRIED MELISANDE and Gaspar together. “What is it?”

  “Monday” I said, my voice weak. “That’s when they’re going to tear down Morley Manor. They’ll be starting in just a few hours!”

  “O perfidious world!” cried Gaspar indignantly. “That a man’s home should be subject to such whims of fortune!”

  Melisande’s snakes began to writhe furiously.

  Bob crouched at her side, whining piteously.

  “I told you they were going to do it,” I pointed out.

  Of course, that had been more than five hours ago. A lot had happened to us since then, including being chased by horrible aliens, making a trip to another planet, and finding out that the very souls of Earth’s dead were in danger.

  “We must take quick action,” said Gaspar. “No time for thought, no chance for sweet contemplation. Such is the darkness of the world.” He looked from side to side, almost as if hoping to find someone to help him. His shoulders slumped. We were on our own.

  “All right,” he said. “Anthony, Sarah—please come back inside with us. We will need your help in returning to our human shapes.”

  “You want ussss to turn back?” cried Melisande in alarm. “Here? On Earth!”

  It was clear she didn’t like the idea. Judging by the horrible hissing and fizzing they set up, her snakes liked it even less.

  “We have no choice,” said Gaspar. He sounded apologetic.

  “You can turn back into humans whenever you want?” I asked, startled by the idea.

  “What is a human?” asked Gaspar, spreading his hands. “Is it form or face that gives us sweet humanity, or is it something deeper and more real?”

  “Jusssst ansssswer the quesssstion,” hissed Melisande impatiently.

  Gaspar sighed. “Yes, we can turn back, but not easily. At least, its not easy here. In fact, the process is quite painful—which is probably a metaphor, though I haven’t yet figured out for what.”

  “Do you mind telling us how you got this way?” asked Sarah.

  “Not at all, when we have time. At the moment we’ve got work to do.”

  “What about Bob?” I asked, gesturing toward the werehuman cocker spaniel.

  “There’s nothing we can do about him right now,” said Gaspar. “His transformation was of a different sort than ours. Now, follow me.”

  He led the way back upstairs to his laboratory. For a moment I was worried that the Flinduvians might have smashed it in a fit of spite, so I was relieved to see that it was still intact.

  The green jewel called The Heart of Zentarazna that provided power for the whole operation still rested in the control box.

  Even our yellow raincoats were right where we had left them.

  “Now listen carefully,” said Gaspar. “I’m going to show you how to operate the equipment. But there is something else, something more important. This is not going to be pleasant for Melisande and me. We will plead for you to stop the process. You must not do this! No matter how we beg or scream, no matter what we say, you must not stop the transformation. To do so would be catastrophic. Is that clear?”

  “Clear,” I said, feeling uneasy.

  Gaspar talked
us through the order in which we had to push the buttons and pull the levers. He did it twice, then made me repeat it to him two more times. When he was satisfied, he took Melisande by the hand and they went to stand beneath the same glass chambers we had used to enlarge them.

  Even after they were in place, I waited for Gaspar’s nod before pulling the lever that would lower the tubes. As the chambers descended from the ceiling Melisande’s snakes started thrashing wildly, tying themselves in knots.

  We heard the dull thunk of the glass against the platform. A moment later Gaspar nodded again. Instantly Sarah and I set to work, pulling levers and shifting dials. Soon a fantastic humming filled the room, getting gradually louder and louder. Sparks crackled through the glass chambers, which began to fill with green mist. Electricity—or maybe some other kind of power I don’t know about—skittered over the surface of the cylinders.

  All at once Gaspar began to scream.

  “We’ve got to turn it off!” cried Sarah in alarm.

  “No!” I said fiercely. “He told us this would happen.”

  Gaspar screamed again and began pounding on the side of the tube. Melisande uttered a high-pitched shriek that seemed to wind around his, spiraling upward.

  I felt as if someone was scraping shards of glass down a blackboard.

  Melisande was on her knees now. I could see her snakes through the green mist, thrashing, thrashing, stretching out to new lengths as if they were trying to separate from her head.

  “Stop it!” sobbed Sarah. “Stop it, Anthony! You have to stop it!”

  “We can’t!” I said, though there was nothing in the world I wanted more at that moment than to do just that. “If we stop now, Gaspar and Melisande might be caught halfway between human and monster forever!”

  Gaspar screamed a third time. “For the love of God, Anthony, stop the process! I was wrong, I was wrong. Stop it if you have a shred of mercy in your soul!”

  He beat his head against the clear wall of the cylinder, sobbing piteously.

  “I can’t stand it!” cried Sarah. “Turn it off, Anthony!”