He put the plate on the floor in front of the closet door.
“I’m really sorry I kicked over your house,” he mumbled. He turned out the light and crawled into bed.
It had to work. It just had to.
* * *
For the first time in a long time, Jamie jumped out of bed when the alarm went off instead of hitting snooze five times. The plate in front of his closet was empty.
With a whoop of joy, he pulled open the door and grabbed his favorite yellow T-shirt from the hanger. It was dry!
He yanked it over his head and went to put his hands in the sleeves. They were sewn closed. He yanked at the edges of the fabric, but the thread was strong. It wouldn’t tear. He pulled off the shirt and checked the others. Sure enough, all of the sleeves were sewn closed. It was the same with all of his pants. They were all sewn shut at the ankle.
Inside one of the pockets was a delicate piece of paper. It was nothing like the paper in his notebooks. It was almost see-through, like tissue paper. On it, in elegant script, were the words:
* * *
You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?
* * *
Jamie looked from the note to his closet. He was in so much trouble.
* * *
It was lunch time when Jamie finally made it to school. He found Ingrid out in the woods near the playground, the same woods he’d been running through just a few days before.
“It didn’t work.”
“I didn’t say it would.”
“They sewed all my clothes shut. My mom had to take me to buy new ones before I could come to school.” His face turned red. “I had to go to the store in my pajamas.”
Ingrid looked like she might laugh, but she bit down on her lip instead. “I’m sorry. What did you try? Did you apologize? Did you give them an offering?”
“Of course I did! I said I was sorry and put out a plate of cookies, which they ate.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I’m grounded for two weeks now.”
“Cookies? You tried to give them cookies?”
“What was I supposed to give them?”
“I don’t know, but not cookies.” She looked up at the leaves overhead, as if the answer was hidden there. With a sigh, she turned back to him. “All right, come on.”
“Come on where?”
“The library. We’re going to find the answer.”
* * *
Jamie followed Ingrid back into the school to the library. She led him past the picture books and down an aisle where one of the shelves was marked folklore. There seemed to be books about folklore from all over the world.
Ingrid pulled down a book and started paging through. “Here we go. Fairies. You’re supposed to leave offerings of cream or milk. Sometimes cakes or breads.”
“You’d think cookies would be close enough,” Jamie said.
Ingrid rolled her eyes at him.
“Fine. I’ll try it.”
“It wouldn’t be a bad idea to build them a new house too. Maybe they’ll like it enough to leave your closet.”
Jamie nodded. He didn’t dare complain. At this point he was willing to try anything to get his video games back.
* * *
That night, he snuck out of his room to the kitchen after his mom went to bed and poured some milk into a bowl. He grabbed another plate of cookies as well, just to be safe, since they did eat them last time.
He placed them both in front of the closet door and got down on his knees.
“I’m really, really, really sorry. Please give me my clothes back. I didn’t mean to wreck your house, or at least, I wouldn’t have if I’d known someone was living there. I’ll make you a new house, I promise. Just please stop messing with my clothes.”
There was no sound from his closet, only his clothes on their hangers and the lurking shadows. He got up off his knees, turned out the light, and got into bed. What was going to be wrong with his clothes tomorrow?
* * *
The alarm was still ten minutes away from going off when Jamie woke up the next morning. He’d had a terrible sleep, starting at every noise, wondering if it was the fairies.
He crept out of bed and went to his closet. The plate and bowl were empty.
With a tremor of fear, he pulled the closet door open and reached for a pair of pants.
They were dry.
He checked the legs.
They weren’t sewn shut.
Ever so carefully, he pulled them on, checking for rips and stains and mud. Nothing. He put his hand in the pocket, where a small piece of paper waited.
* * *
We have a few thoughts on the new house you’re going to build us … (And keep the offerings coming!)
* * *
Next, in tiny script, was a list under the heading Demands, which Jamie didn’t bother reading. He was too relieved. He had his clothes back! And his video games!
He ran all the way to school after eating breakfast and looked for Ingrid everywhere, finally finding her in the library with her nose tucked in a book.
“I did it! They liked the milk and cookies!” He waved the note at her.
She took the note from him, a smile on her face. “That’s great.” The smile faded as she read the note. “Wait, did you read the list of their demands for the new house?”
“Not in detail, no.” He wasn’t going to tell her that he hadn’t read it at all.
She handed the paper back to him. His face fell as he read it. “Where am I supposed to get a tiny telescope? And a miniature hot tub?”
“I don’t know. But I suggest you tell your mom to stock up on milk and cookies while you figure it out.”
“You’re kidding me. I seriously have to fulfill all of these demands?”
Ingrid stood up from her chair and tucked her book under her arm. She gave him a smile as she left the library. “Looks like it. Either that or you’ve got new neighbors.”
* * *
Melanie Cole is a writer living in Saskatchewan, Canada, with her beloved husband and dog. You can find her on Twitter @MelanieKCole.
Josie could smell the change in her room.
She noticed it as soon as she went up there after school. Dodgy trainers, the comforting pong of Leonard, her dog, and something else. The new smell was spicy and dry, but she couldn’t work out where it was coming from.
She gave the dog a gentle nudge on the behind.
“Go on, boy. Solve the mystery.”
Leonard headed straight for Josie’s closet, sniffing at it and looking puzzled. After a moment he scratched at the door with one paw …
And something on the other side scratched back.
Leonard jumped in surprise and sneezed.
Josie was a practical girl. There wasn’t supposed to be anything that moved in her closet. Whether it was a raccoon or someone playing a joke, she would be prepared. She grabbed her baseball bat from the corner, and, armed and ready, she tugged open the closet door.
“Oh.”
She stared. She knew exactly what it was. How or why it was in a twelve-year-old’s bedroom closet was a mystery.
Leonard edged forward, sniffed, and sneezed again. Josie could feel her own nose prickling at the musty waft from the closet, like stale cinnamon.
Wedged between sweaters and boxes of old toys was an Egyptian mummy. It was tall and battered, with loose ends of bandage hanging off here and there. It would have been rejected as a film prop. Arms crossed over its chest, it leaned at a slight angle, its head against a heap of clothes on the top shelf.
Leonard, who considered the mystery solved, wandered off to chew some furniture before Josie’s mother got back from work.
Josie prodded the mummy with the baseball bat. It didn’t move. She was sure she’d heard a noise, though. She sat down on the floor. If this was a practical joke, who had done it?
There was always her friend Robert, of course. As a fellow “reject” (which covered anyone in their year who didn’t seek popularity or a
ttention), he and Josie shared a love of weird stuff. Into science fiction—and chunky and asthmatic—Robert was shunned by the “in” people. But she couldn’t see how Robert could have got hold of such a thing, or why he would hide it in her closet …
“Shut. Door. Please.”
She looked around.
“Excuse me?”
“Shut. Door.”
The second time, it was obvious that the words came from the mummy. One dark brown eye had opened, like a prune with a glint in it.
Despite her surprise, the mummy didn’t seem very threatening. Josie was young, fast, and armed. And Leonard was around. She was fairly sure that he would take to a dry stick-shaped leg as easily as he did to a dry leg-shaped stick.
“Uh … what are you doing in my closet?”
“I am. Hiding.”
A dead Egyptian (who smelled like an old cinnamon cookie) was hiding in her bedroom. Okay. She pushed the closet door so that it was only half open and pulled out her phone.
“Robert, are you busy at the moment? You might want to come over.”
* * *
Half an hour later, they were in conference, sitting on Josie’s bed. After a hefty blast on his inhaler, Robert nodded. He pulled out some horror DVDs he had brought, and they stared at the covers.
“It does look like a mummy,” he agreed. “And it definitely spoke?”
“Yes. It said it was hiding.”
Anyone else at school would have argued. Robert went over to the closet and opened the door wider.
“Do you have a name?” asked Robert.
The mummy’s head tilted slightly.
“Menkhep.” The voice was dry, hollow.
Robert looked excited.
“Are you a mighty pharaoh?”
“Archi. Tect. Builder.”
Josie thought that was slightly disappointing. A fabulous relic of the past in her closet, and he was a drywaller.
“What are you hiding from?”
“Every. Thing.” The mummy shivered.
It was a slow conversation, with very long pauses. Peanut butter sandwiches were made in between sentences, though the mummy didn’t seem to want any.
Menkhep was on the run. Or on the stumble. Josie doubted that he could run anywhere. After countless centuries of what seemed to be a pleasant sleep, he had been dug up and placed into a case to be displayed in museums. He hadn’t minded that. People stared; he dozed, safe in his comfortable case.
Then, quite recently, he had been shipped here, to the small museum in Josie’s hometown, and the trouble began. A stranger started asking about the new display. He said he was an expert. He asked to have the case opened and started coming in at night to do “studies.”
Those studies had involved breaking off one of the mummy’s toes, then another, then a finger, and taking away pieces of the wrappings. They also involved a lot of muttering and chanting, some of which Menkhep thought sounded familiar. Familiar from very long ago.
“Man. Took. Pieces.”
Menkhep moved one arm. Some of the bandages, and the little finger from his right hand, were missing.
Robert and Josie made sympathetic noises.
“Left. Place. Not want. To lose. More.”
“You wouldn’t,” they agreed.
They decided to ignore the unlikely fact that a mummy could wake up, think, or move at all. He was here, and that was that. Even Leonard, who pottered in to “borrow” a peanut butter sandwich, seemed to have taken it in his stride.
The mummy’s tale was fragmented, like scraps of an ancient parchment. The mummy was trying to escape the strange man but had spent too much time in his coffin. “Sarcophagus,” insisted Robert.
Josie was beginning to understand. This Menkhep was like Mrs. Gumster, who lived across the street. She couldn’t leave her house, even though she was a lot fitter than the mummy. Agoraphobic, that was the word. Being away from his safe place had proved to be a terrifying experience.
Staggering through the night, confused and lost, the mummy had found the garage door open at Josie’s house. With Josie on a sleepover and her mother on night shift, the bewildered Egyptian wandered around the empty house until he found a nice enclosed space.
Josie’s closet.
“How come you speak English, Mr. Menkhep?” Robert was flicking through screens on his phone.
“Listen. Many years. Many. Years.”
Josie and Robert considered the matter.
“I suppose you can stay here until we work something out,” she said at last.
But the mummy had gone stiff again. Maybe he was asleep. She pressed the closet door quietly shut.
Robert put down his phone. “I found this site online. They used to use bits of mummy as medicine. Long time ago, mind you. And for magic.”
“Magic. That chanting and so on. I bet that man wants to do something magical—and probably not in a nice way.”
They sat on the bed and watched some of an old horror film, keeping the sound turned down low.
“See?” She nodded as a man put on ancient Egyptian robes and started chanting over a sarcophagus.
Robert paused the film. “That wouldn’t be a good thing, then.”
“Not for Mr. Menkhep if they’re going to keep stealing his fingers—and maybe other bits.”
Their imaginations supplied the mummy’s head on an altar or his arms being waved around by hooded figures.
“Yuck. I have to go. Dad will be home soon, and he wants to play basketball again.”
His father was always hopeful that Robert would suddenly find an interest in sports. And always disappointed.
They parted with a promise to come up with a plan at the end of the week. The next two days of school were what the principal called “fun” tests, which wouldn’t affect their grades. No one but the principal thought this was fun, not even the teachers.
Josie said nothing to her mother, who worked on the ambulances. She came home tired most days. Or nights. Sometimes they watched TV or played a board game; sometimes her mother had to crash out soon after eating. Josie understood. And having the mummy around was quite pleasant. He said very little and asked for nothing but to doze in the closet. Once she got used to the odd smell, Josie found it quite reassuring.
“Are you sure I can’t get you anything?” she asked on the second night.
“Tired. Thank. You. Not moved. For so many years.”
He probably needed to get fit again, Josie thought, but she couldn’t imagine Menkhep doing aerobics. A leg would probably drop off.
She did drag a spare mattress into her room and suggested he sleep on that, which would be more comfortable. He managed five minutes on it and then had to get back in the closet.
“Too much. Space,” he moaned and pulled the door shut on himself.
* * *
It was Friday morning when the front door bell rang, minutes before she had to go to school. Puzzling over a lost pencil case, Josie answered the door without thinking.
“Yes?”
The man on the porch was tall and wore a suit. He had the sort of smile adults used when they hated children but didn’t want to show it. Wide and artificial, too many teeth.
“Hello, dear. Is your mummy in?”
Caught off guard, Josie made a mess of things.
“No! There’s no mummy here, never has been.”
The smile exposed even more teeth.
“Ah.” He rubbed the side of his nose. “I only speak to … mummies, you see.”
He gave a damp cough.
“How did you get it here?” he said. “No, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that it is mine. I’m sure you don’t want that dry old thing in your way, so let’s see about removing it.”
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a wallet.
“Ten pounds, perhaps? For the inconvenience. You can tell your parents you found the money.”
“I don’t take anything from strangers,” she said firmly and shut the door in the ma
n’s face.
“He knows about Mr. Menkhep,” she said to Leonard, who had utterly failed to be any sort of guard dog.
How the man had found out where the mummy was, she couldn’t imagine. Maybe he had some clever way of following the smell. Even Josie’s mother had asked if she had bought a new air freshener.
She texted Robert. “Skip school. Meet me here.” It wouldn’t be the first time—she used her mother’s old phone to send texts to the school secretary.
They held their meeting in the kitchen, not sure what to say to the mummy himself.
“We could move him.” Robert took an extra drag on his inhaler, in case things got too exciting.
“Wouldn’t help. If that man could find Mr. Menkhep hidden in my bedroom, he can probably find him anywhere.”
“The bits,” said Robert. “Maybe he can track him through magic, using them. Use a finger or a toe to work out where the rest is.”
It made as much sense as anything else.
“So what do we do?”
“Well, he can’t say anything to your mother, can he? He can’t ask, ‘Please, can I have the Egyptian body in your daughter’s closet, the one from the museum?’ And I bet he won’t go to the police.”
Josie took the point. “He’ll have to steal the mummy, then.”
“Which means breaking in to your house.”
“Then we could go to the police.”
“Which would be too late for Mr. Menkhep.”
They looked down at the dog. Leonard dropped the carrot he had stolen from the vegetable rack and tried to look useful. It didn’t help. Neither did talking it over with the mummy, who groaned and seemed to accept his fate.
“Let him. Take me. Then. Not. Your fault.”
A knock on the front door interrupted further talk.
This time Josie pushed Leonard into position, and she had Robert with her. The three of them faced the tall man on the porch. Josie noticed the cream-coloured car across the street. That didn’t belong to anyone around here. He must have been waiting and thinking. No doubt he’d seen Robert arrive—and no adults.
The Monsters Hiding in Your Closet Page 4
