The Haunting of Drearcliff Grange School

by Kim Newman

  Miss Steps didn’t have mentacles. She used blocks – hard, physical objects, like bricks or flagstones. She could instantly make – and maintain – invisible stairs for her own use.

  Stephen Swift didn’t even seem to be concentrating. She had confidence.

  No Drearcliff Grange Unusual was so sure of her Talent.

  Swift could rely on her steps the way Pinborough could on her left hook or Bok on her long jump. It was something earned and learned, not an accident of birth. She must have had tutoring. The House of Reform must train Unusuals with a lack of ruth unknown to Sausage Gossage.

  Amy wobbled in the air. Her wings dragged at her shoulders.

  Miss Steps suddenly lunged – her huge-eyed, frizz-haired head loomed close to Amy’s face – and let out a yahhh.

  Amy’s goggles misted from Swift’s exhalation. There was spittle in there too.

  Laughing her strange explosive laugh, Miss Steps leaped back.

  Only Amy – maybe only Amy in the world – could appreciate that jump. Stephen Swift imagined a floor and pushed against it as she would any surface… then ‘landed’ again with perfect footing. Fifteen feet above the street.

  ‘Gave you a spook-de-doo there!’ said Miss Steps.

  Was she showing off? Or had she such mastery of her Abilities she didn’t even think of them any more? Like no one thinks about blinking or breathing… until they can’t.

  Swift walked around Amy again, this time climbing a spiral up above her head and down below her boots. She trotted, working her knees and elbows with slight exaggeration. It was clownish – but more absurd than amusing.

  As if trying to shake off a sticky sweet wrapper, Miss Steps flicked her fingers towards Amy’s face…

  (with nine or ten feet of empty air between them)

  And Amy was slapped.

  Miss Steps could do that.

  Apply her Talent to hit a person.

  She did it again.

  Amy waved mentacles between them, trying to interrupt Swift’s fluence. A dozen more slaps came – playful, but stinging. Amy knew the Draycott’s girl wasn’t even hitting terribly hard. She didn’t think Amy worth a real punch.

  Miss Steps bark-laughed again. She was enjoying herself.

  ‘Thomsett,’ shouted Larry, now too worried about falling to be bothered that the wrong Moth had come to her rescue, ‘Thomsett…!’

  ‘Hang on, Larry,’ said Amy, not sure she didn’t need rescuing herself.

  She reached out with her mind. She couldn’t make solid planes or strike blows, but she could slow falls.

  She’d practised at forming a layer of nothing to serve as a fireman’s life net. The invisible mattress was effective if she took the tumble herself, going limp and falling backwards off her bed. When her cellmates were prevailed upon to volunteer as guinea pigs, the process was iffier. Kali and Light Fingers didn’t appreciate bumped bottoms sustained before Amy got the measure of her Application.

  Now she really needed the break-fall to work.

  Larry’s was losing her grip on the lamp post. A violet seam of light across her stomach showed her pocket was acting up.

  If she kept things inside too long, she got a tummy ache. Her pocket wanted to return what was stashed there.

  Sometimes, extras came back. Purple duplicates.

  Amy bit her cheeks and tried to support Larry.

  ‘Four hundred and fifty-nine green bottles hanging on the wall,’ she thought, teeth clenched, concentrating, ‘four hundred and fifty-nine green bottles hanging on the wall…’

  ‘Don’t worry about the pilchard,’ said Miss Steps…

  The tilting lamp post righted itself. Swift had done that.

  ‘And if one green bottle should accidentally fall…’

  With a panicky little wail, Larry let go…

  Whistle whistle whistle…

  Then stopped dead in mid-air.

  Kerr-ASH!

  It wasn’t Amy’s mattress. It was one of Miss Steps’ ‘floors’.

  Larry sat up in mid-air, surprised not to be on the pavement with a cracked head.

  Miss Steps’ plane tilted to become a slope and Larry rolled down to the Knout and the Glove. Sterlyng got her hair-encircled arm around the Third’s neck. Sparks laid her spindly left hand on Larry’s shoulder and raised her terrifying, shining right.

  ‘Worry about you.’

  Miss Steps thrust out her hand, palm first…

  A flat plane of force hit Amy in the face, cracking her goggles. She smelled her own blood.

  It was as if she’d been socked in the puss by Blackfist.

  Miss Steps wasn’t holding back now.

  ‘Worry about you… a lot!’

  Another beam-end struck her face…

  Whistle whistle whistle kerr-ASH!

  And Amy fell into the dark.

  V: A Moment’s Dream

  TWO DAYS AFTER A. stood on Shark Shingles and watched her father’s coffin pushed out onto flat grey sea, the Steward of the Purple House visited her mother… Coin was passed from purse to hand, and the question of what was to be done with the child settled.

  A. was indentured in the kitchens… She was up before dawn to scrub the floor, carry brim-full pots of oven grease to the bottomless stock cauldron, cut crosses into the stumps of a barrelful of sprouts (with a wickedly curved little blade that scored a permanent mark into her thumb), and fetch haunches of meat taller than she was from the Ice Cellar.

  She was not to speak out of turn and not to step off a line chalked on the floor for her… not that she had idle time for straying… her duties were set out on a page of a clothbound book… Every minute of every hour she was awake was accounted for… When she slept, arranged in a bed with five other girls like a set of spoons, she was too tired to dream.

  And yet, once A. mastered her duties, she found moments in the day when she could draw breath… The chalk line got scuffed, especially down the stairs and along the passage to the Ice Cellar… She had a few seconds of tarrying time – more seconds every day – to consider the doors that led to other cellars… The Wrong Doors were all rust-red, with black locks.

  She heard from older servants, who had been at the Purple House so long they came to look and sound alike, of girls who had walked her line before… and of what happened to those girls when – as they all did, inevitably and eventually – they opened one of the Wrong Doors.

  A. kept the wickedly curved little blade in her pinafore pocket at all times… She completed her scrubbing, carrying and scoring more and more swiftly – and lingered longer each day in the passage to the Ice Cellar… She didn’t want to pass through a Wrong Door, but was interested enough in them to wonder which cellars lay beyond each.

  A. made friends – and enemies – among the other servants… When a looking-glass was passed to her, she saw she had come to resemble them, down to the twin feathery plumes of hair teased up over her mob cap and the glittery, slightly scaly patches on her cheeks… this was the look of the people of the Purple House.

  On exciting occasions, she glimpsed a superior servant, an over-butler or a groom… and learned the names of the resident dependents of the Mistress of Purple House… Doktor Schatten, Mistress Wyngs, Count Dragon, Hugo Ape, Mr Night Hand, the Ghost Lantern Girl, Lord Leaves, Mr Whistle, Pandora Paule, Jennifer God… A. should never hope to see any of these persons, for they were set greatly above her station.

  Millie, who sliced carrots while A. crossed sprouts, had a store of gossip about the House Above… Lying spoon-fashion before sleep, Millie’s ankles next to A.’s pillow, A. asked her bedmate for stories of the resident dependents… Millie talked often of sickly, changeable Princess Violet, who was the Apple of All Eyes and a Great Cause for Concern.

  Violet was cossetted and adored, and everyone who came to the Purple House brought her a present… The Princess received beautifully painted books with no words (even on the spines and covers) that she would foul with her food – the jellies and fondants pre
pared in dainty kitchens well away from A.’s grimy place of work… Fabulous toys would be loved for a week, a day, a moment, then cast aside with violence.

  Millie spoke as if the Princess were a horror, but A. understood poor Violet suffered from an uncomfortable condition – something like a hot coal burned behind one of her eyes – and had to take it out on what came to hand, the more precious the better… One night, it was said, Princess Violet was so pained by the burning behind her eye she broke down the stout door of her apartment and tore off the nose of an unfortunate under-footman.

  Behind one of the Wrong Doors, Millie said, were the presents the Princess had taken her pains out on… in a sorry state of repair, but kept because they were gifts from people too exalted to offend… Now, A. rushed through her duties in the morning and dawdled at each Wrong Door, fancying she knew which led to the cavern where the Princess’s ruined books and damaged toys lay… three-legged rocking horses, music boxes that plunked half-tunes then sounded like an omnibus crashing into a penguin pool, regiments of invalid toy soldiers unfit for return to the front, a singed miniature theatre where mutilated cardboard players mounted tragical farces.

  Suddenly, Millie was sent away… The new girl who walked her chalk line couldn’t pass on gossip because she knew nothing of the Purple House… The Most Wrong of Wrong Doors had a peculiar fascination for A… She strained to hear the discords of the damaged music box, then hurried to the Ice Cellar and her duties… always, the steps of tantalised anticipation, the precious seconds of delicious wondering… then the getting-on-with-it of the Ice Cellar and the heft of the haunches of meat taller than she was.

  On the day that the Wrongest of Wrong Doors was open, it still came as a surprise and shock – for it was open not when A. was on her way to the Ice Cellar, dragging her feet as was her secret custom… but open as she was hurrying back, bent double under cold meat… Her heart stopped for a long moment, then raced as she felt compelled to step off her chalk line and stand at the open door… There was only darkness in the Toy Cellar, but she smelled rotten foods smeared on lovely books and heard the cacophonies of smashed music boxes.

  Then, it showed its great cracked face…

  A.’s heart – and the whole world – stopped… for she had seen the Broken Doll!

  VI: Awake and Fighting!

  ‘THERE’D BE FOUR hundred and fifty-eight green bottles hanging on the wall!’

  Amy’s eyes watered.

  Months had passed in the Purple House… but only a fraction of a fraction of a second in waking life.

  She tried to hold on to the memory of her dream.

  Rolls and rolls of tapestry, woven in an unconscious trice, minutely embroidered with a wealth of detail… came apart, rotted to muck, evaporated.

  There was a house, wasn’t there?

  A house that now wasn’t there. A house that wasn’t.

  A corridor, though. She fought to keep that.

  A cold corridor. A nice room. No, an ice room.

  A gory door. And who she saw when it was opened.

  In an eye-blink, even the memory of the memory was gone.

  All that remained – burned into her retinae like lightning ghosts – was a white mask. Living eyes in a china face. A cobweb of black cracks in translucent glaze. A blood-dab on cherub lips.

  She blinked until the face was gone.

  Her nose bled, her ears rang. She tasted sulphur.

  She had been slammed in the face by an invisible block.

  That had sent her… somewhere. Knocked her out of herself.

  How could she be distracted by phantoms when beset by immediate peril? Others were depending on her. Before she could help them, she must help herself.

  Newton got his own back. She persistently defied his Laws of Gravity. Now she felt the mighty pull of the Earth. She was heavy. A ton of plummeting bricks, alongside a ton of fluttering feathers. An elephant tossed off a cliff, umbrella clutched in her trunk.

  She fell.

  She’d been told to worry about herself.

  Who said that?

  Miss Steps. Stephen Swift.

  She’d been told to worry about herself a lot.

  Good advice.

  So why was she more afraid of the ghost of a ghost than of Stephen Swift?

  She fell faster. Flailing. Her cloak flapped.

  While she was in dreamland – in the What-was-the-Colour House? – her Talent shut off.

  Once upon a time, she floated in her sleep. She was cured of that. Thank you everso much, Miss Gossage, Mother will be pleased. You can tell her how wonderfully you curbed my bad habits at the funeral…

  Whistle whistle whistle kerr-ASH!

  She slammed onto a cold, solid surface.

  The fall should have broken bones. She should be bleeding on the pavement.

  She lay on nothing, well above the heads of the hog-grunting Draycott’s girls. They held a sickly faced, struggling Larry Laurence.

  Amy’s Talent had failed but Miss Steps was in control of hers.

  The reason Amy wasn’t crumpled on the ground with many injuries was that Swift wasn’t finished with her. She lay on one of Miss Steps’ steps. She pressed her cheek to cold, dry nothing. Invisible ice veined with unmoving fog threads, pressed like flowers in an old book. Hard and smooth like polished marble. Not soft and yielding like her mentacle mattress.

  Amy tried to get a grip on herself, to float of her own accord.

  She must push back, hit back, fight back…

  She made fists and tried to wrap mentacle gauntlets around them – copying Miss Steps’ steps and the Glove’s glove.

  Stephen Swift laughed again and stepped down.

  Amy’s forehead bumped another layer of ice.

  She was trapped between two of Miss Steps’ planes. If they ground together, she’d be crushed.

  ‘I call this the Duck Press,’ said Swift.

  She was glad of a chance to show off to a fellow Unusual who could appreciate her skill. Ordinaries never understood. Talent was never enough by itself. What impressed were the Applications.

  ‘I also do the Cosy Coffin,’ she continued, ‘and the Iron Maiden, which is the Cosy Coffin and the Duck Press, but with spikes. I’ve only tried it on rabbits so far. Funny thing though, when the Iron Maiden’s fully closed, it leaks. Can you hold liquids?’

  Amy shook her head. With difficulty.

  ‘Annoying, isn’t it? I want to do a teapot that isn’t there – raise the leaves in the air, surround them with boiling water from a kettle, swirl the big bubble so it brews, then pour cup shapes and pass them round. People could drink them. Wouldn’t that be a stunner?’

  More impressive than her own After Lights Out tea parties, Amy admitted.

  ‘I wanted to be a magician when I was a little girl,’ continued Swift. ‘Top hat, white tie and tights… a dashing cloak, not unlike your silly wings… and a dancing wand I would never hold in my hand. Like your fling with the dreg’s cripplestick.’

  Amy understood.

  She’d also thought of what she might do for show. Use her Talent not to help, but to amaze. She imagined gasps and applause. Considered fame and fortune. The thing missing was a just cause. Without one of those, it was all just magic tricks and party pieces.

  ‘Then, Mater Draycott inspired me to set my ambitions higher.’

  Amy’s mentacles squashed against Swift’s cold planes. She wrapped her mattress around her inside the Duck Press, straining to push the surfaces apart. Without apparent effort, Swift narrowed her torture trap. Amy gave her no more of a fight than one of her leaky rabbits.

  ‘Have you played with animals, Amanda?’

  Amy was disgusted by the gleam in Swift’s big wet eyes.

  Miss Steps licked her lips. She did that a lot, and sprayed when she laughed. She should keep a pocket hankie handy.

  The girl was mad, Amy realised. Sick, almost.

  Was that how tutors treated Unusuals at Draycott’s? Drove them mad? Burned ou
t any conscience, encouraged profligate cruelties, cultivated unspeakable instincts?

  Made them into Wrong ’Uns?

  ‘Is your Games Mistress still that silly Sausage person?’ continued Swift. ‘The daffy dilly who copped the wrong envelope last year? My, how we chortled. Guffawed, even. We never thought you Dreary Cliffettes would fall for the howler about the echo in the Quiet Room… or the Tall Tale of the Big Pig in the basement. Goes to show what they say. Fools beg to be fools. ’Tis only polite to oblige ’em.’

  Miss Steps was vertical and Amy horizontal, but their heads were on the same level.

  Amy felt Swift’s breath on her face.

  With her hands, Stephen Swift took off Amy’s goggles. She stuck a thumb through the cracked lens.

  ‘Clumsy, clumsy me,’ she said insincerely, ‘what a zany I be…’

  Miss Steps had to press hard to pop the glass and cut her thumb doing it. She sucked her wound, frowning.

  Amy saw it.

  Swift’s leaf.

  The stabbable spot on Siegfried’s back. Pinborough’s fringe-flick.

  Stephen Swift’s leaf was that she was weak.

  She relied on her Talent – her formidable, overpowering Talent – and neglected her Ordinary self. Physically, she was soft.

  Miss Steps sneered at Miss Gossage, but she could do with a tutor who forced her to spend hours on a gym mat. It would do her good. Swift probably had a permanent sick note and spent every P.E. period murdering animals with her mind.

  Amy crossed her arms on her chest as if in a real coffin.

  She breathed steadily, trying not to taste fog. Her mentacles expanded.

  ‘Amandakins,’ Miss Steps said, ‘are you giving up? Poor show.’

  From below, the Glove and the Knout hog-grunted.

  Amy concentrated.

  ‘Bodkins, but you’re a weed,’ said Miss Steps. ‘Couldn’t you try to make it more of a challenge? I’m as bored as you are. This Game is No Fun At All.’

  She reached across to slap Amy… not to slam her with invisible bricks, but to flap her soft little fingers across Amy’s mouth.

  Amy drew in breath and bit hard on the meat of Swift’s hand.

  Miss Steps opened her mouth in an O and screamed. Foam ropes dangled from her chops.