The Monster Hunter's Manual

by Jessica Penot

  I stepped away from him and moved towards the tapestry. “Who are you?” I demanded. “And what are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing here?” the small voice responded. It was a girl’s voice.

  “We live here,” I answered.

  The girl stepped out of the corner. I could see her. She was pretty and pale. She seemed almost like an angel in the shadows and was the prettiest girl I had ever seen, like a picture from a fairytale. I couldn’t see her very well, but she had long blond hair and blue eyes. She wore a long dress that dragged against the dirty floor when she moved. There were jewels braided into her hair. She was probably no more than twelve, but something in the way she stood gave her authority.

  “I live here too,” she said.

  “Really?” Alex asked.

  She nodded and stepped into the sunlight. The girl was pale – so pale the sun passed right through her. I think I should have been afraid. Alex jumped a little, but she was so pretty and sweet that there was no way I could be afraid.

  “You’re a ghost,” I said plainly.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you used to live here?”

  “I still do,” she said.

  “I mean, when you were alive?”

  “Oh it doesn’t matter that I live here because I’m a ghost?” she said.

  I could feel myself flushing. I hadn’t meant to offend her and my words seemed to be coming out all wrong. “No, that’s not what I meant.”

  She shook her head in disagreement. “Well, that’s what you said. This is my room. It’s always been my room.”

  “Well,” Alex said. “It’s gross and dirty.”

  “That’s because you lack the vision to see it as it really is,” she said.

  “I can see fine.”

  “How does it really look?” I asked.

  The girl stepped forward and smiled at me. “Do you want me to show you?”

  I nodded. I could hardly breathe. This was like magic. Like real magic. We were in a magic castle!

  “Don’t let her do it!” Alex yelled. “She’ll suck your brains out or something.”

  “Shut up,” I said.

  The girl reached out and passed her hand through me. It tingled. I closed my eyes. “You have the gift,” she whispered softly.

  I opened my eyes and I saw the room as it had once been. I saw a large bed, like a princess’s, hung with beautiful fabric. There was a large fireplace in the corner and the walls were covered in tapestries. These were bright and new, showing pictures of unicorns and princesses sitting in tents.

  Beneath the tapestries, three pretty young girls sat doing embroidery, little dogs at their feet. The girls talked and laughed as they worked.

  I looked out the window and saw the castle. The walls were high and flags decorated with red lions, waved in the wind. The courtyard was crowded with peasants working. There was a man in the corner working in a small enclave. He seemed to be a blacksmith working his craft. Another man was saddling horses and there were a group of women carrying heavy baskets somewhere. Children ran through the courtyard laughing and two men practiced fighting with wooden swords. An older man sat on a stool cleaning something. Everyone was busy.

  Just behind the courtyard, the keep stood like it had just been built. The keep was a beautiful home for the lord of the land. Knights practiced their sword fighting on the mound just beyond the castle keep. The sound of their clashing swords rose above the other sounds in the courtyard.

  A young boy saddled a horse by the barn and a pair of pretty maidens walked through the castle gates. The church doors were thrown open, and as the bells sounded, people stopped their work and began to walk towards them.

  I smiled and the image faded, like a movie fading out. I turned around and everything was as it had been. “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  “I know,” she replied.

  “I’m Gabriel.”

  “I’m Eleanor,” she said in a crisp, British accent.

  “Why don’t you speak French?”

  “When I lived here,” she said. “The English held this part of France. The Great Queen Eleanor, after whom I am named, and Henry II the Plantagenet, ruled all of England and most of France.”

  I smiled at her. “I didn’t know that.”

  “When the French came and took this castle, it fell and no one bothered to fix it. Your aunt’s the only one who’s lived here since then.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded.

  “You’ve been here all alone?”

  She laughed. “No silly. This place is filled with friends. Why would I stay alone?”

  “What friends?”

  “Would you like to meet them?” Her grin was mischievous.

  “Yes!”

  “Don’t tell your Aunt Perrine, OK?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Can I come too?” Alex asked from the corner.

  Eleanor gave him a mean glare and then smiled and nodded. “I haven’t had any other children to play with in forever,” she said. She turned and led us out of the keep.

  Eleanor almost vanished as she stepped into the courtyard. The sun made her nothing but a whisper of light and we had to squint to see her. She ran and we had to go as fast as we could to keep up with her. We could hear her laughter as she passed under the castle gates and out into the driveway. She took us down a sharp path behind the castle to a cave, which went under the castle. There were bars in front of it, but she raised them so we could pass under. In the darkness of the cave, I could see Eleanor more clearly than ever. She glowed in the dark. I could see her long golden hair tied back in a braid and her long, velvet gown tied at the waist with a jeweled belt.

  She was so bright we could see the cave, even in the dark. And it wasn’t a cave, it was a tunnel. It was hundreds of tunnels built beneath the castle out of stone. Eleanor laughed and led us into the darkness until we were so far underground we couldn’t have found our way out if we tried.

  “I don’t like this,” Alex whined.

  I took his hand and smiled at him. “It’s going to be OK. This is magic. Just like Mom used to say. Don’t you remember?”

  “No,” he said.

  “She used to say that there was magic in all these old places, if we had eyes to see them. She said that there were adventures in every shadow and we should never turn away from an adventure.”

  “She said that?”

  I nodded and Alex smiled. His grip tightened in my hand and we pushed on, following our phantom friend to a large room filled with an underground garden. It didn’t even seem real it was so beautiful. A waterfall poured out of what appeared to be an underground portion of the castle and there were flowers everywhere. I watched Eleanor. She was the prettiest thing in the room and her radiance illuminated everything, bathing it in a warm glow.

  She smiled and made a strange cooing sound and two dozen gleaming eyes appeared around us in the darkness.

  Eleanor said something in French and more than a dozen, strange fuzzy creatures lumbered out from the shadows. Alex’s hand tightened in mine. The creatures were small and walked upright, but hunched over. They had long pointy noses and beady little eyes. They wore old tunics and strange gilded armor. The tiny creatures came out of the shadows and studied us.

  Eleanor spoke to them in French. “These are my friends,” she said. “They are the Molemen. They’ve been here as long as me, even longer. They play wonderful games and music.”

  One of the Molemen spoke to her and she nodded. “They want to know if you will be working with your Aunt Perrine – The Lady Perrine?” Eleanor asked.

  I had no idea what they were talking about so I answered as best I could. “We’ll help her as much as we can,” I said.

  A loud cheer rang out in the hall and then suddenly it filled with Molemen and Molewomen carrying instruments, tables, and food.

  “They like you and they salute you as the heirs of Chateau Larcher. The next Lords of the castle,” Eleanor s
aid.

  Music filled the hall and mole people shoved large goblets of a sticky sweet nectar into our hands. The mole people danced around our feet and occasionally stopped to say something to us in French. I smiled at them and pretended to understand.

  “They have been the defenders of this place since long before my time,” Eleanor said. “They’ve been here since the ancients built the first dolmen in honor of the spirits that keep it.”

  “What’s a dolmen?” I asked.

  “You haven’t seen the dolmen?”

  Alex and I both shook our heads.

  “You have much to learn before you take the chateau,” she said.

  One of the Molemen pulled at my shirt and I kneeled down so I could hear him better. He handed me a necklace of some sort. It was a cross with a dragon on it. It was beautiful, like the gilded breastplates the Molemen wore. It looked like one of the amulets from the magic game I used to play back home. I gave the amulet back to the Moleman, but he only seemed frustrated by me. The music continued and the Moleman spoke to me urgently, as if he was saying something very important.

  I looked up at Eleanor desperately, hoping she might translate, but she was dancing with the Molewomen. Her skirts were up and she was laughing merrily. The Moleman kept talking and occasionally his voice rose to a yell and then he put the amulet back in my hand and bowed to me.

  Alex watched the entire exchange with curiosity. “Wow,” he said. “Is this really happening?”

  “It has to be,” I answered. “Doesn’t it?”

  I gazed at the beautiful gold cross amulet in my hand. The dragon in the center of it was holding an enormous ruby. I held it for a few moments and then reluctantly placed it around my neck.

  The music continued and a Molewoman danced around Alex. He laughed. I hadn’t seen him laugh since our parents died. He smiled as two Molewomen pulled him away from me and he began to dance. The music was sweet and energetic. The Molemen played flutes and strange stringed instruments that wove together a music so sweet, I could have forgotten all my worries. The church bell above us rang, once, twice, three times, and the music stopped. The Molemen looked upwards and removed their hats. They muttered something and bowed to us as they vanished into their black tunnels. It all ended as quickly as it began. By the time the bells had rung seven times the hall was as quiet as it had been to start.

  “It’s time to return to pray,” Eleanor explained. “They always pray when the bell strikes seven. We should go.”

  Eleanor led us back through the darkness and into the light where she became little more than a whisper again. “Did you like my friends?”

  “Very much,” I answered.

  “Will you come see me again?”

  “We would love too,” Alex said.

  “There is so much more to show you and it’s been so long since I’ve had other children to play with,” she said in a soft, almost sad voice.

  I could hear Aunt Perrine’s voice calling to us somewhere in the distance. “We should go,” I said.

  “Come see me tomorrow,” Eleanor said. A strong wind blew and she vanished, leaving us wondering if she had ever been there at all. Alex and I both looked at each other and then walked, in complete silence, back home.

  I think we both wondered if we had imagined it all. It seemed completely impossible. Ghosts? Molemen? The only thing that kept me from completely dismissing our afternoon as a vivid daydream was the amulet I had put around my neck. Its weight reminded me that it might have been real.

  Alex and I stepped in to the warm smell of food. Our portion of the castle, our new home, was bright and cheery. The windows were still open and Aunt Perrine had moved the table out to the lawn in front of the house.

  “Bonjour!” Aunt Perrine exclaimed as we entered. “I have dinner.”

  “Bonjour,” I answered pleasantly. The food smelled wonderful.

  “Wash your ’ands and I we will eat outside.”

  Alex and I washed in silence and sat down at the pretty lawn outside the castle. Our plates were piled high with some kind of beans and sausage. There was bread and some sort of vegetable mix to go with it.

  “Eat, eat,” Aunt Perrine said. “You boys look like you ’ave been ’aving an adventure.”

  “Oh, we have!” Alex exclaimed.

  “Oh la la. You will have to tell me all about it.”

  I sat down and tasted the food. It was delicious. I smiled and filled my mouth with more food as Alex explained our day to Aunt Perrine. Aunt Perrine nodded and smiled as she ate and listened. She had a full glass of red wine and she drank deeply and seemed to be taking Alex’s story very seriously.

  Alex smiled as he talked. He was thrilled and I ate happily, because for the first time since Mom and Dad died, Alex and I were having fun. When he had finished telling the story, Alex ate enthusiastically and Aunt Perrine was silent.

  Finally,” she said. “I’m glad to see you boys settling in and I’m glad you are both ’appy ’ere.”

  “This is good,” Alex said as he ate. “I think Mom used to make this sometimes. What is it?” Chunks of food fell out of his mouth as he attempted to eat and talk at the same time. His speech was garbled and the food stuck to his shirt. I shriveled my nose in disgust and looked away.

  I took another bite and realized Mom did used to make it. I couldn’t believe I had forgotten. How could I forget? It was Dad’s favorite.

  Aunt Perrine smiled as she talked. She always seemed so happy. “It’s Cassolette. Is very good. Your father always loved my Cassolette.”

  The sun set over the castle gates painting the courtyard a bright pink and then faded. We helped Aunt Perrine clean and she sang as she cleaned.

  Night came and Aunt Perrine watched us go upstairs to get ready for bed. When we were done, she told us a story.

  “Once upon a time…” she said. “All stories start with once upon a time…There was a queen who had been born poor. Fate had made her quick witted and she had married far above her station, but her husband was dim witted and was a very poor ruler. The king and queen had a baby, a beautiful baby girl whom they both loved. There were many who envied the happiness of the king and queen and their lovely baby. One of these was the mighty green dragon Verdi. Verdi was clever and hated the king’s stupidity. He thought it a cruel twist of fate that such land and wealth and such a brilliant queen should be given to a dimwit. So this clever dragon devised a plan to expose the king and set the queen on the throne…”

  “But why did the dragon care?” Alex asked.

  “He didn’t really. Dragons never do, but dragons sometimes will destroy things that offer them even the mildest irritation. Most dragons hate people and are easily provoked. Time passed and the dragon made his plans. He planned to trick the king. The dragon told the king that if he brought his daughter to him, he would show him how to find a mountain of gold. The king was also greedy, so he quickly agreed. “When the queen found out that her daughter was missing, she searched everywhere for her little girl. When she realized there was no help to be had in finding the little girl, she went to the tower and fetched a book of old spells. She cast the old magic, and using that magic, she found the dragon. But it was too late. The young girl had already been devoured and the king entombed in his mountain of gold, but the queen was angry so she spun a spell so powerful that the ground itself shook. The stones of heaven fell down onto earth and when the dragon realized what he had done, he shuddered, for the queen’s spell killed not just him, but all dragons everywhere. The very earth opened up and swallowed them whole. It devoured them as the dragon had devoured the queen’s daughter.

  “But fate is not without a sense of humor and the queen’s daughter was cursed to walk the earth until the queen herself died. The princess would never know rest, until the sorceress queen died. The princess was cursed to be a ghost until the sorceress gave up her magic immortality.”

  “So why didn’t the queen just give up her immortality?” I asked.

  “Zat i
s a story for anozer night,” Aunt Perrine said.

  Alex grimaced. “That’s a terrible story.”

  “Not all stories ’ave ’appy endings.”

  “Well I don’t like it,” Alex said.

  “I vill tell you one with a ’appy ending tomorrow,” Aunt Perrine promised, and she kissed Alex’s head.

  I looked out the window and thought about Eleanor and wondered if she had been a princess. I wondered if all the fairytales were true. If dragons hadn’t once tricked silly kings and if princesses hadn’t once been lost to the dragons’ terrible jaws.

  Chapter 4

  Skeletons in the Attic

  The banging started in the middle of the night again. I woke up and found Alex sitting apprehensively on the edge of my bed. He was looking at me with wide, horrified eyes.

  “If Eleanor is a ghost and she’s real,” he whispered, “then why can’t there really be something horrible in the attic?”

  There were tears in his eyes and I scooted over and made room for him in bed with me.

  “You can stay here, but you have to go to sleep,” I demanded. Alex crawled in next to me and closed his eyes.

  But we couldn’t sleep. The banging upstairs turned into rattling and then into yelling. Alex and I could only lay on the bed watching the ceiling and wondering what hideous creature was going to come stumbling down the stairs to eat us.

  “I wish Dad was here,” Alex said.

  “Me too.”

  There was another thud and then more commotion. This time they were speaking in English. I could almost hear them. I heard someone shout, “Bed,” and then someone say something that sounded like, “Be quiet.”

  Bang. Bang. Bang. Someone stomped down the stairs and then someone even bigger followed them. Alex scooted closer to me in the bed. I could feel his tension. I put my hand in his. I could almost hear his heart pounding over the sound of his ragged breath.

  Thud. They were right outside the door. Crack. They were breaking things. I sat up.

  “I forgot to lock the door!” Alex whimpered.

  I looked at the doorknob in terror. I was too afraid to get up. Alex looked at me with pleading eyes so I summoned all the courage in my body and rose to my feet.