The Monsters of Morley Manor

by Bruce Coville

  “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.

  We followed her. I wasn’t sure how we were moving. We didn’t flap our arms or anything. It was more like you thought about where you wanted to go, then just sort of moved in that direction.

  Ahead of us floated a spirit.

  Even from behind he looked familiar. I felt a thickness in my throat, a lump of emotion I couldn’t swallow away.

  “Hello, Horace,” said Gramma softly. “We’ve come for a little visit.”

  15

  Family Reunion

  WHEN GRAMPA TURNED, when Gramma finally saw his face, she started to cry. They weren’t real tears, of course, since we weren’t actually in our bodies. Still, you could tell she was crying by the way her mouth trembled and her shoulders shook.

  As for Grampa, he looked . . . well, he looked odd. He had a lot of expressions moving across his face, things that looked like surprise, happiness, anger, joy, even fear. The really weird thing was that his face was no longer old, the way it had been the last time I’d seen him. But it wasn’t young, either. It was as if all the ages he had ever been, all the faces he had worn through the years, had combined somehow. His wrinkles were gone, but his eyes were old and wise.

  He was also transparent. That didn’t seem all that odd, since we were, too. But unlike us, he had no silver cord leading back to his body, no thread connecting him to the world of the living.

  He stared at us for a long time. “You’re not dead,” he said at last, his voice worried, puzzled, and relieved all at once.

  “Well, of course not, Horace,” said Gramma matter-of-factly.

  I was surprised that she could hear him, since he had barely spoken above a whisper and she was nearly deaf. Then I realized her deafness was part of her physical body, and we had left those behind when we entered the Land of the Dead.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. “And with the children! You shouldn’t have come, Ethel!”

  “We had to come, sir,” said Gaspar.

  Grampa turned toward him. His eyes grew wide. “Gaspar?” he said slowly, and beneath the astonishment I could sense a hint of anger in his voice. “Gaspar Morley? And—can it be?—Melisande!” He said her name with something like a sob. “But you’re no older than when . . . but you’re not dead, either! How can . . . Ethel, what’s going on here? What are you doing here with them?”

  “It’s a long story,” said Gaspar.

  Grampa gestured to the misty void surrounding us. “If there’s one thing I’ve got, it’s time.”

  “Actually, that may not be entirely true,” Gaspar replied. “The reason we dared this journey is to bring word to the dead that they are in danger.”

  “Dead is dead,” said Grampa, sounding scornful.

  “Really?” asked Gaspar. “It’s true that you are dead to the life you once knew. But though you no longer have your body, your self still exists. Now that is in danger as well.”

  Grampa snorted. “You sound like Reverend van Dyke. But don’t worry, Gaspar. There’s not much temptation around here. I don’t think I’m in danger of any major sins at the moment.”

  Gaspar’s handsome face darkened with a scowl of frustration. “The danger is from outside, you old—” He cut himself off and took a deep breath. Then he closed his eyes. I had a feeling he was counting to ten. Maybe higher. Finally he spoke again, sounding somewhat stiff and formal.

  “There exists a great and powerful alien race, a group without pity or mercy. These people, the Flinduvians, have found a way to use the souls of Earth’s dead to power a weapon they have created. If they should take you, sir, the result would be a second death. A permanent one. A death not of the body, but of the soul itself. Or perhaps not. We don’t really know what happens when a soul is used in this weapon of theirs. It could be far worse than mere oblivion.”

  Now Grampa did look frightened. “You’re joking,” he whispered.

  “I did not travel all the way to the Land of the Dead for the sake of a prank,” said Gaspar sharply. “Now, is there someone you can take us to, a leader of any sort here?”

  “I never thought I’d hear someone say ‘take me to your leader’ to a ghost,” whispered Sarah.

  “I never thought I’d make a trip to the Land of the Dead,” I replied softly.

  Grampa’s face twisted into a familiar scowl. I recognized it as his thinking look. “I don’t believe there’s really a leader in this place,” he said. “But I haven’t been here all that long, so maybe there’s som
ething or someone I don’t know about. Some souls greeted me when I arrived, helped calm me, kept me from being afraid. But since then I’ve been pretty much on my own.”

  “What have you been doing, Grampa?” Sarah asked.

  “Waiting. Thinking. Trying to let go.” He glanced at my grandmother. “It’s hard, Ethel. I don’t want to let go.”

  “Let go of what?” asked Sarah. We had both floated close to him, and now she reached out to take his hand. She couldn’t really touch him, of course. Touch is for the living.

  “Of the world,” he said slowly. “Of life.” He turned to look at Gramma. “Mostly I didn’t want to let go of you, my dear. But that’s what I’m supposed to do, I guess. I’m not really supposed to be here. None of us is. We’re supposed to move on to . . . Well, I don’t know exactly what. To something else. But I couldn’t stop thinking about our life together.” He looked at Gaspar again, then added bitterly, “I didn’t expect you to show up here with my old rival.”

  Gramma smiled. “Are you jealous, you old fool?” she asked, in her most loving voice.

  “Jealous of the living,” said Grampa.

  Gramma stretched her hand toward him, but she couldn’t touch him, any more than Sarah could. “I suspect that very jealousy would keep you here, if nothing else did, my love. You’ve got to let go, Horace. But not yet. Not until this nightmare is over.” She turned to me and said softly, “This is a nightmare, isn’t it, Anthony? I mean, I am only dreaming, right?”

  I longed to be able to tell her that was the case. But Gramma was fierce about the truth and didn’t like even the tiniest lies. Besides, who knew what else we were going to have to deal with before this was all over? If she thought this was a dream, it might lull her, make her less sharp, less ready to act. And that was a luxury we couldn’t afford.

  So I shook my head. “It’s no dream, Gramma.”

  She sighed. “Oh, I knew that. I was just sort of hoping . . . Well, never mind. What do we do now, Gaspar?”

  Gaspar looked uncertain, which was unusual for him. “I guess we try to deliver our warning. After that we go back to the world of the living, to see if the others have returned from Flinduvia.”

  Gramma turned back to Grampa. “Well, there it is, Horace. You have to help us deliver our warning. I can’t take the children home until we do.”

  She held out her arms and floated toward him.

  Gaspar gestured to the rest of our group, and we turned to give the two old people, one living and one dead, a few minutes to themselves.

  I used the time while Gramma and Grampa were whispering to each other to get a better look at the place we were in.

  There wasn’t much to see, or so I thought at first. It was gray and misty, and seemed to roll on forever. Though it didn’t have anything you could call landscape or scenery, I did get a sense of up and down, which was sort of weird. But we were all floating the same way up, as were the occasional dead people who drifted past. So I figured my sense of up and down was genuine.

  The ghosts—I guess that’s what you would call them—pretty much ignored us. That was fine as far as I was concerned. The only time they looked our way was when Bob growled at them.

  I figure they weren’t used to seeing cocker spaniels in the Land of the Dead.

  “Shush,” whispered Melisande. “You’re disturbing them.”

  Bob whimpered, and floated against her side.

  “I don’t like it here,” whispered Sarah, who was floating almost as close to my side as Bob was to Melisande’s. “It feels cold.”

  Gaspar nodded. “It is not pleasant. But remember, this is not where you will spend eternity. This is a place for those who have not yet moved on.”

  IT’S HARD TO HAVE a sense of time in the Land of the Dead, so I don’t really know how long it was before Gaspar made a noise in his throat to interrupt my grandparents.

  Grampa looked startled, as if he had forgotten the rest of us were there.

  His voice unusually gentle, Gaspar said, “What would you suggest we do next, Horace?”

  Grampa looked at Gaspar for a long time. “I don’t know,” he said at last.

  “Is there no one to contact?”

  “Not that I can think of.”

  They went back and forth like that a couple more times until I finally got sick of it. I don’t know what came over me. I had just had enough, I guess. Anyway, I threw my head back and yelled, “Hellllllp! We need to talk to someone! Who’s in charge here, anyway?”

  The silence that followed my outburst was broken when Melisande started to laugh.

  It was a rich, beautiful sound.

  And it was like bait.

  16

  Ivanoma

  AS THE SOUND of Melisande’s laugh tinkled and chimed through the mist, I saw the ghosts around us stop their slow drifting. They turned and began to move toward us. Within moments, we were surrounded by dozens of translucent men and women (and a few children), all staring at Melisande with a look I can only describe as hunger.

  “Laughter is something you don’t hear much of in these parts,” explained Grampa softly.

  Melisande looked nervous, but I figured this was our big chance. “Listen, everyone,” I said, “we’ve got a problem. Is there anyone in this place we can talk to—anyone who’s sort of in charge?”

  The dead people glanced at one another. Finally a sad-eyed woman in an old-fashioned dress said, “No one is in charge here. But perhaps you could talk to Ivanoma.”

  “Who’s that?” I asked. I was a little surprised that the grown-ups were letting me carry the conversation, but I guess they figured I had started it and unless I made some mistake they’d let me keep it going.

  “Ivanoma is a . . . Well, it’s sort of a counselor,” said the woman.

  “It?” I asked.

  “Ivanoma is too—” The dead woman paused, then said slowly, “Well, it’s too much to be a mere he or she.”

  The others murmured in agreement.

  “Don’t look at me,” said Grampa, when we all turned in his direction. “I’ve never heard of this Ivanoma, whatever it is.”

  “How do we find our way to this muchness of a being?” asked Gaspar.

  The woman looked at our silver cords, then said hesitantly, “I’m not sure you should go that far.”

  That made me nervous. If there was one thing I didn’t want to do, it was break the connection that held me to my body.

  “The cords will hold,” said Gaspar confidently.

  Melisande leaned over. “I hope Brother knows what he’s talking about,” she whispered in my ear.

  I looked at her in horror. But before I could say anything, the woman who had mentioned Ivanoma said, “Follow me.”

  TO TRAVEL IN the Land of the Dead is strange. At first I thought there was little to mark the passing of distance, because everything looks the same. But as we moved on, I began to see vague hints of the world of the living. They were little more than shapes in the mist, different shades and tones in the gray, like the images you sometimes get when your TV isn’t tuned in well. The difference now was that it was all very real. I realized we were moving very fast. I began to worry even more about the silver cords. How far could they stretch?

  Suddenly we plunged downward.

  Below us stretched a great lake of ice. Chained flat on its back in the center of the lake was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. It was shaped like a human, but it was enormous, maybe a hundred feet long. Vast, perfectly formed wings stretched from its shoulders across the clear ice. Its face was calm and noble, with a broad, high brow and a mouth that seemed to be just on the verge of a frown on one side, just on the verge of a smile on the other. The sight of it made my heart ache with a longing to coax that smile into bloom.

  The being—I assumed it was Ivanoma—lay very still, staring upward into the mist and the darkness. Clusters of the dead surrounded it, leaning against its sides, floating around its huge and magnificent head, resting on its brea
st.

  From its beautiful eyes flowed a never-ending stream of tears.

  Some of the dead were bathing in them.

  I felt fear, and awe, and pity, as we sank toward the creature.

  Suddenly Ivanoma blinked and lifted its head. Then it raised one vast and shapely arm. As it did, the chains that held it to the ice separated as if they were made of nothing but mist—though they had looked as solid as steel just a moment earlier.

  “Why have the living come to the Land of the Dead?” it asked in a whisper that had as many tones, as much music, as a choir.

  As it spoke, it held out its hand in a clear invitation for us to land upon it.

  So we did. Though our bodies were not really there—though we were, in truth, lighter than air—I could see the great being flinch when we touched it. The palm of its hand sank as if a great weight had just been dropped into it.

  We stood in the center of Ivanoma’s hand and it lowered us, to hold us right before its eyes.

  Its eyes.

  If I had a hundred years, I couldn’t tell you what it meant to look into those eyes, except to say that it was like drowning in pain and beauty, and I was afraid I might never be able to look at the regular world, at anything else, again.

  My mother told me once that the memory of pain fades. She said if it didn’t, women would never have more than one baby.

  I think that must be true for other things as well, things like beauty, and love. If the memory of gazing into those eyes—each of which was a yard wide and several thousand miles deep—had not faded, I doubt I could move in the world today. I would only sit and remember.

  For a long time none of us spoke. Finally it was Sarah, the question machine, who asked, “Are you Ivanoma?”

  The vast being nodded.

  “Are you an angel?” I asked.

  It nodded again.

  “Why are you here? Why are you so sad?”

  None of this was what we had come to say. But it was all that I could think of.

  “I made a mistake once,” whispered the angel in a voice that would have made Mozart weep with envy because he could never write music that beautiful. “I chose the wrong side in an ancient war. I am paying for my sin.”