Aunt Maria

by Diana Wynne Jones

  I crawled upstairs very softly on hands and knees and sat in Chris’s room on the floor, trying to imagine the same low-down view that Chris would get of it now. All Chris’s arrangements were there. The fishing line had torn the curtain and the thermometer had fallen on the floor, but they were a person’s arrangements, clever things to do. I wondered what it would feel like to be Chris now. Then I thought, No! I must have imagined it. Or maybe she’ll turn him back before Mum realizes. And I still found it almost impossible to believe.

  The Mrs. Urs made it even harder to believe. I wasn’t going to go downstairs at first, when the doorbell rang.

  “Naomi, dear!” Aunt Maria shouted. “Answer the door, dear!”

  And Elaine yelled, “Don’t bother. I’m here. I’ll do it.”

  Then I realized I didn’t dare stay upstairs or they’d realize I knew about Chris. I didn’t want to turn into a wolf, too. So I went down. Elaine, who didn’t even look as if she’d been crying, let alone chasing a wolf round someone’s dining room, was cheerfully showing in a happy group of Zoe Green, Hester Bailey, and Phyllis Forbes. Every one of them made me want to cringe for a different reason, but I went through into the kitchen and turned out the cake Mum had baked. While I did, I thought carefully about the way I usually behaved. When I brought the cake in, I said, “Where’s Chris, Auntie?”

  “He went out, dear,” said Elaine. The literal truth, after all, but the “dear” was unusual. I thought, I must be very careful!

  “Remember the silver teapot,” said Aunt Maria. “Will you be little mother this afternoon, Naomi, dear?”

  So I did the tea and tried to behave as if nothing had happened. The others behaved as if nothing had happened, too.

  It was creepy. All polite jolly chatter and everyone saying Aunt Maria looked so well today. I thought they all knew about Chris. Look at the way Elaine knew the moment it happened. But no one gave a sign, and Aunt Maria was just the same as usual. I felt a real traitor to Chris, pretending, too, but the more I think about it, the more I think the best way I can help Chris is by pretending and staying human.

  I thought a lot, though. You do when something awful happens. I thought a lot about Dad when the news came that he’d gone over the cliff. Now I thought about Chris and the things he’d hinted at. I thought: It’s between women and men in Cranbury, and the women are winning. The green box does it. I looked at Zoe Green’s mad, gushing face. She was talking about ectoplasmic manifestations. And I thought, Aunt Maria did for your son. Why are you such friends with her? I looked at Hester Bailey and wondered if she knew all about our old car and Zenobia Bailey. She looked too sensible to have a relation like Zenobia—all brown tweeds and sensible thick stockings—but Aunt Maria is sort of related to us, after all. Then I looked at Phyllis Forbes. She has a pink, shiny face with a pointing nose and short, fairish hair like an old-fashioned schoolgirl. I wondered if she knew that half her orphans had just been irradiated with stuff from that green box. I don’t think so. I think only Mr. Phelps knows that and I hope none of them ever finds out.

  Mum came in as they were leaving. She looked all pink and fresh and cheerful. “Where’s Chris got to?” she said.

  “I think he went out, dear,” Aunt Maria said vaguely.

  “Saw him going down the street,” Elaine backed her up.

  “I expect he’ll be in when he’s hungry,” Mum said.

  She was a bit surprised when supper was ready and Chris still wasn’t in, but I backed Aunt Maria up then and I said Chris must have taken the rest of yesterday’s cake with him. “He’ll be back for bedtime,” I said. It went against the grain to back Aunt Maria up, but I’d thought a lot about it, and I know it’s easier to make Mum understand when she’s not all worked up first. I’m going to tell her at bedtime.

  Mum said, “Bother. I wanted to measure him for this new sweater.” And she began to cast on stitches in the pea green wool. “I daresay I can do the back by guess,” she said.

  I wish she wasn’t doing that.

  Seven

  Mum doesn’t believe me.

  Last night I waited until Aunt Maria began snoring, then I said, “Mum, you know Chris still hasn’t come in.”

  Mum was sitting up in bed brushing Lavinia. She had the cat on a sheet of newspaper, and she said, “You have to make sure there are no fleas’ eggs left—yes, he has, Mig. Don’t be silly.”

  “When did he come in, then?” I said.

  “Just now, while we were putting Auntie to bed,” Mum said. “You heard him. He called up to say he was taking his supper up to his room.”

  I snatched up my candle in a flood of relief and went racing down to Chris’s room. For a moment I thought Chris was there. His bed was in the tumble he always leaves it in and looked as if there was a person there. But I banged my hand down on the biggest lump, and it went flat. Then I put the candle down and pulled the covers off, and the sheet was cold and wrinkled.

  “What are you doing, dear?” Aunt Maria called as usual.

  “Looking for C—for a book,” I said. Then I went into our room. Mum looked up with a smile and a puff of gray hairs in one hand.

  “What did I tell you?” she said.

  “No, he isn’t!” I whispered. Aunt Maria hadn’t begun snoring again and I didn’t dare say any more.

  “He’s downstairs feeding his face,” Mum said, laughing. “I heard him go down. I hope he’ll leave some bread for breakfast.”

  I was getting into bed when Aunt Maria finally began snoring. I said, “Mum, Chris isn’t there. I know you’re going to find that hard to believe—he isn’t there because Aunt Maria turned him into a wolf.”

  Mum shoved Lavinia aside and turned over to go to sleep. “Miggie, love,” she said, in her deepest and drowsiest voice, “I’m a bit tired to join in one of your romances at the moment. Just go to sleep.”

  “It’s true!” I said. I shook her to make her stay awake. “Mum, Chris is a wolf. And I don’t know what to do!”

  “End the story some other way,” Mum said. “And Mig … shake me once again, and I’ll hit you. I’m tired.” And she went to sleep.

  Well, I thought, she’ll have to notice in the morning. I lay down and tried to go to sleep, but I couldn’t for ages. I kept wondering where Chris was and how he was managing. To make things worse, it started to rain. I could hear it hammering on the roof. Lavinia came and curled up by my neck, purring. I suppose she was pleased not to be out, but I thought, You selfish beast! You’re all right! Which was not fair, because I was as selfish as Lavinia and neither of us could help it. I wondered whether to get up and go to the goblin wood and look for Chris. He’d have had to go to the wood. I thought I ought to go and make sure he could get at the pork pie we left under the tree. But I was too scared to try. I told myself that wild animals had coats to protect them from the weather, but wild animals are used to being out in the rain and Chris wasn’t. I wondered whether he thought like a wolf, or knew he was Chris really. And I wondered and wondered how I could make Aunt Maria turn him back. I still can’t think how. She never did like Chris, anyway.

  Today had been awful.

  I had forgotten how much of Mum’s time Aunt Maria takes up and how she shouts to know what’s going on if you talk privately. All I seemed to be able to do was to say, “Look, Mum. Chris hasn’t had breakfast.”

  “Go and dig the lazy creature out,” Mum said, flying past with more marmalade.

  When she came back, I said, “Chris isn’t in his room, and his bed hasn’t been slept in.”

  “I wish he’d remember to make his bed,” Mum said. “He’s in the living room.” Then Aunt Maria called out, and she jumped up. “Tell him to eat something before he goes out,” she said, and ran off upstairs again.

  When she came down again, I said, “He’s not in the living room, Mum. He’s a wolf.”

  “Yes, he does eat a lot,” Mum said. “He went out. I heard the front door. I wish he hadn’t gone out in the fog.”

  The fog
was down all day, as thick and bluish as Lavinia’s fur. I kept thinking of how damp and cold Chris would be. I could see how Lavinia felt. She crouched in the garden shed all day with little drops of water all over her, looking wretched. I kept trying to tell Mum about Chris, and if she didn’t think I was talking about something else or writing a story, she seemed to think Chris was in the other room or that he had just gone out.

  When she was getting lunch, I shut the kitchen door so Aunt Maria wouldn’t hear and said, “Mum, listen to me. Chris is a wolf. Understand? That’s why he’s not here. He hasn’t been here since yesterday afternoon.”

  “Don’t be silly, Mig,” Mum said. “He took a packed lunch and went out. You know he did.”

  She hadn’t mentioned packed lunch before. I said, “When did he take the packed lunch?”

  “It must have been while we were getting Auntie dressed,” Mum said. “He used all the white bread up.”

  “No. We finished the white loaf at breakfast,” I said.

  “Then he must have taken brown bread,” Mum said. “Mig, if you’re going to hang around in here, peel the potatoes while I do the sprouts.”

  I think it was then that it dawned on me that Mum wasn’t going to notice Chris was missing. She has been made so that she thinks Chris is just round the corner all the time. She doesn’t realize that she never sees him. I don’t know why I didn’t understand earlier. If Aunt Maria can turn Chris into a wolf, she’s surely strong enough to do this to Mum—except that it seems a different kind of thing, much more natural and ordinary, and I didn’t really think she could do both kinds.

  And that made me understand, too, that Aunt Maria was quite capable of turning a person into a cat, as well. I didn’t do the potatoes. I went outside into the gray-white garden and walked up to the shed, getting soaked with fog drops from the bushes. Lavinia was crouching in a corner of the shed. She mewed miserably at me.

  “Are you Lavinia really?” I said. “Mew three times if you are.” And I waited. The cat stared at me with flat yellow eyes and went on staring. It was just a cat and a rather stupid one at that. But it could be Lavinia. In which case, Chris probably doesn’t know he’s Chris, either. He’ll be a wild wolf even to himself and I’ll have to capture him, somehow, to get him turned back. He’ll bite. It will be terrible. Oh, heavens, how I wish this really was a story I was writing! I’d write in a happy ending this moment. But it isn’t, it’s real, and it goes on and on.

  Over lunch I realized Aunt Maria was talking as if Mum and I were staying with her for good. She kept saying things like, “Don’t leave the spring cleaning any later than May, will you, dear? I usually have all the curtains washed then, but you needn’t bother. They can wait till you’ve some time in summer.” Then she said, “I’d like little Naomi to be confirmed this autumn. I’ll telephone the vicar.”

  “Mum!” I whispered when we were washing up. “We aren’t going to stay here with Aunt Maria, are we?”

  “I’m beginning to think it’s the only thing we can do,” Mum said. “Lavinia’s obviously gone for good, and Auntie is quite helpless on her own.”

  “But what about your job? And Chris and I have to go to school in two weeks,” I said. I keep reminding her about Chris. She takes no notice.

  “We can settle schools here,” Mum said. “I’ll have to give up my job of course.” You wouldn’t believe how cheerfully she said it.

  My back crept—it was like a cold hand on the back of my neck—as I realized how deeply Aunt Maria has been at work on Mum. “Mum,” I said. “She’s not helpless. You said so yourself. Put her in a home.”

  “Mig! What an unkind thought! She’d be miserable away from the things she’s always known,” Mum said.

  “So am I miserable away from the things I’ve always known!” I said. “Mum, I want to go home.”

  “You’re only a little girl,” Mum said, laughing. “You’ll adapt.”

  It’s like trying to fight the fog outside. The fog had one blessing, though. No Mrs. Urs turned out in it except Benita Wallins. She sat with her fat bandaged legs stretched out across the carpet and said to me, “I hear you’re always writing away. Going to be a journalist, are you, dear?”

  “I’m going to write famous books,” I said.

  B. Wallins laughed. She is the jolliest of all the Mrs. Urs, but when she laughs you feel she has just called you a bad name.

  “I learn the art from other famous writers,” I said, like replying to an insult. “I know hundreds of poems and things.”

  “Let’s hear one then,” said Benita W. unbelievingly.

  “In my young days we were all taught to recite,” Aunt Maria said. “Stand up properly, dear, and hold your head up as you speak.”

  I don’t think they thought I could. So I stood up and recited my very favorite poem, called “The Battle of Lepanto.” It is ever so long. I know it all. It is full of splendid things like “The cold Queen of England is looking in the glass” and “risen from a doubtful seat and half-attained stall/The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall.” I got quite carried away by that bit, where Don John of Austria goes to war where none of the other kings will. I wish there was a Last Knight of Europe here in Cranbury to come to our aid. But the only one I can think of is Mr. Phelps.

  There was a chilly silence when I had finished. Aunt Maria said, “What a clever little memorizer you are, dear. Don’t you know anything more suitable?”

  I shan’t recite another word for her. No, on second thought, I shall. “Tam O’Shanter.” That is all about witches, but my Scottish accent isn’t very good.

  In the middle of the night, Chris came and howled in the garden.

  I didn’t hear him straight away. What woke me up was Lavinia, digging all her claws into me with terror. She had gone like bent steel knitting needles inside a ball of wool, she was so frightened. I rolled over wondering, What’s scared her now? Then I heard it. It is the most unearthly, eerie noise, a wolf howling. It turned my stomach and stood my hair up in prickles. I thought, the ghost! and dived under the covers like Lavinia.

  Then I heard the thin yodeling wail again and realized what it was. I think there is something built into the genes of the human race that tells them a wolf is howling, even though the last wolf in Britain was shot two hundred years ago.

  I jumped out of bed. Shut up, you fool! I thought. You’ll wake Elaine, and she’ll make Larry shoot you with his rabbit gun! I was so terrified of Elaine that I forgot to think of ghosts or be scared in the dark. The howl came again as I got to the stairs, and I felt as if I’d taken wings. I pelted into Chris’s room in the dark and dodged his table with the lamp on it almost without noticing and got to the window.

  Chris’s room is over the kitchen, so it sticks out into the garden. The fog had gone, leaving a clear dark blue night and a moon riding furiously through the clouds. I could see Chris quite clearly standing in the middle of the lawn. He was a pale spindly dog shape, higher on the legs than an Alsatian, with a small pointed head. He was raising his head to give another howl. I wrestled frantically to get the window open and stop him.

  He heard me. I saw his head tilt as his ears caught the noise. You forget how sharp an animal’s ears are. And I think he was waiting, hoping I’d hear. I had no sooner pushed the window up than he started to gallop toward the house, faster and faster. First I was frightened. Then I realized what he meant to do, and I got out of the way of the window just in time. There is a sloping coal bin on the end of the kitchen, to which Chris has staggered back and forth with coal for nearly two weeks now. I heard the strong thump of paws on its wooden lid, then Chris was half through the window. He nearly missed with his back legs and had to scrabble for a bit, and I was just going to pull him. But he made it and bounded down to the floor, pushing himself against me and making little whining noises.

  “Oh, Chris!” I said. “I am glad to see you!”

  He is miserable. I could tell that at once. His coat was still damp from the rain and
the fog, and I know he was freezing for a day and a night. But it is more than that. It is a kind of shame. He knows he is a wolf and he hates it. He hates the strong way he smells when he is wet. I could tell that because he kept breaking off whining all the time I was lighting the lamp, to give himself disgusted little licks. He hates having a tail. He turned round and bit his tail when I’d got the lamp going, to show me.

  “I know,” I said. “But I can’t think of any way to make her turn you back.” He knew that. He looked at me as if he’d expected it, resigned to misery. Even though he has gray wolf eyes and a black nose, he still looks like Chris, with Chris’s expressions in his face. He is a very young, skinny, forlorn wolf. “Are you hungry?” I said. His ears pricked. He was starving. I’m not sure he could bring himself to kill things and eat them raw.

  There were no more cookies in the flower basket, so we had to creep downstairs. I was terrified Aunt Maria would wake up, but she never did. I think she sleeps much more soundly toward the middle of the night. She never woke up the night I ran away from the ghost, either.

  In the kitchen, Chris drank a bowl of milk—he did it very noisily and badly; I could see he was not used to lapping yet—while I fetched out all the loose food I could find. He nosed aside the lettuce, but he ate everything else, even a tomato. He ate raw sausages, raw bacon, a frozen hamburger, cold Yorkshire pudding and a lump of cheese.

  “Are you sure this won’t make you ill?” I whispered.

  He shook his head and looked up hopefully. He was still hungry. I tried him with cornflakes then, but he sneezed them all over the floor. Wolves don’t seem to get on with cornflakes. So I found the sardines Mum had got for Lavinia and a lot of cake. Chris gobbled it all, while I crawled about sweeping up cornflakes and making sure no paw-prints showed on the linoleum. I’m used to that with Lavinia.

  Chris did a wonderful stretch then, rocking back with his forepaws straight out and then standing up slowly, so that the stretch traveled the whole way down his body and out at each back leg in turn. Then he shook, to show me he felt better. His coat fluffed up, quite thick and almost glossy. He is not really gray, more brindled, with darker hair on top and yellower hair underneath, and the colors mostly mixed together on the rest of him. He jerked his head to say, Come with me, and went trotting swift and busy through the dining room. I heard him softly loping upstairs as I switched out the kitchen light and groped after.