Peter heard the sound of fabric ripping. He looked down and saw four tiny, clawed fingers shredding the cloth.
“HURRY!”
“I’M HURRYING!” Dill shrieked.
They mowed over at least a hundred mushrooms as they frantically searched for the fairy ring where Beth had disappeared.
“IS THAT — CAREFUL!” Peter warned.
“I AM, I AM!”
Then he saw it, plain as day: a perfect circle of brown toadstools, six feet ahead.
“STOP!” Peter cried.
Dill dropped the twitching pillowcase without being told twice. The cloth bag was thrashing and rolling every which way like some horrible cocoon about to produce the world’s most terrifying butterfly.
Dill eyed the fairy ring. “Dude, we don’t have to go in there, do we?!”
“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Peter said frantically. Tiny green hands were tearing the pillowcase to shreds; in a matter of seconds, the changeling would be out. If it didn’t kill him and Dill on the spot, it might just jump in the fairy circle and go back to its own world. The idea of following it to a land of a thousand troll babies was about the worst thing Peter could imagine.
“Wait — dude, Beth’s a hostage, right? We’ve got a hostage, too!”
Peter eyed the snarling pillowcase. “You call that a hostage?”
Dill jerked his thumb at the fairy ring and whispered, “They don’t know that.”
As Dill’s meaning dawned on Peter, he smiled — Ahhhhh! — then just as quickly frowned again. “So?”
“So do what they do in every bank robber cop movie — negotiate!”
“Uh — okay, okay — ahem.” Keeping one eye on the thrashing pillowcase, Peter started shouting at the fairy ring. “UM, FAIRY PEOPLE — WE HAVE YOUR TROLL BABY! AND I KNOW YOU HAVE MY SISTER! UH, WE WILL TRADE YOU BETH FOR — ”
Peter didn’t have time to finish before the grass in the fairy ring began to whip and shake like some giant fan was blowing on it. A tiny head rose up through the green, as though an elevator platform hidden beneath the ground was pushing its way up through the lawn.
Peter and Dill gasped, expecting an army of green, fanged monsters to start popping out at them.
Instead, Beth rose up through the grass, apparently unharmed. She was dressed in some sort of strange leather outfit, with a ragged little skirt, a halter top, and a chain of tiny bones hanging around her neck. She also had scraps of the same leathery material clutched in her hands and, oddly enough, clenched between her teeth.
She looked over at Peter and Dill.
“BETH!” they both cried out.
“Oh my gosh, I’m happier to see you than I’ve ever been in my whole life!” Peter exclaimed.
“Dude, that’s not saying much.”
“Shut up, Dill! Beth, get out of that circle of mushrooms — hurry, come over here!”
Completely ignoring her brother, Beth bent over, faced the grass beneath her feet, and screamed. The piece of leather in her mouth fell to the ground. Beth didn’t care; she just kept screaming.
And it wasn’t scared or frightened screaming. No, Peter knew the sound from experience: it was pure, flat–out rage.
As though summoned by the sound of her voice, the changeling slashed through the last bits of cloth and burst out of the shredded pillowcase. Strands of tattered scotch tape covered every inch of his body like the scraggly feathers of a prehistoric dodo bird just hatched from its egg.
But this dodo bird was maaad.
The changeling faced Beth and fixed its bulging ping–pong eyes on her.
Beth quit screaming and looked up from the fairy ring.
Peter’s heart stopped in his chest.
The changeling lunged forward onto its front arms, opened its mouth, and ROARED. Its tongue flailed back and forth like a whip and sprayed spit and mucus across the grass.
Peter knew the changeling was about to charge. Though it was suicide, he tensed his body, ready to tackle the troll and wrestle it into the fairy ring himself — anything to make sure his sister got away safely.
Beth looked at the changeling, then squatted down and HOWLED. Her face was a mask of fury. Her skin went fire–truck red. Her eyebrows were so contorted with hatred, Peter could barely recognize her. In fact, he was kind of frightened.
So was the changeling.
The troll baby shut its mouth and hunched back on its hind legs. It blinked once, and seemed utterly lost as to what to do about the wailing banshee in front of him.
Beth rushed out of the fairy ring, arms beating the air, still screaming with rage.
The changeling whimpered like a scared dog, then turned around and fled.
Beth chased it, screaming, in circles around Peter and Dill. She never got close — the troll baby was too fast for that — but she never let up. She just kept screaming and chasing, screaming and chasing.
The troll baby kept darting looks over its shoulder at Beth, then doubling its speed and zigzagging away, the strands of tape on its body fluttering like plastic streamers from a little kid’s bike handles. Seeing the look of terror on its face, Peter almost felt sorry for it.
Almost.
Finally it gave up. It jumped in the air and dove headfirst into the fairy ring. Like a jungle animal falling into a trap in the ground, the changeling disappeared completely, leaving behind only shivering blades of grass.
Having lost the main object of her fury, Beth turned on Peter. “WHERE MY STAWBERRY SHORCAKE BA’ING SUU?”
Peter was too shocked by the troll baby’s exit to understand her right away. “Your, uh — ?”
“WHERE STAWBEWY SHORCAKE!” Beth screamed at the top of her lungs, her face now an unnatural shade of purple.
“In the house, in the house! In your room, up in your room!”
Beth turned and ran howling across the field. When she got in the back door to the kitchen, she didn’t stop screaming; the sound just got muted a little as she raced through the house up to her bedroom. Peter assumed that she had found her bathing suit when everything finally went silent.
Peter looked over at Dill, whose mouth had dropped open at the beginning and never shut the whole time. Dill looked back at him.
Without a word, they ripped out all the toadstools that made up the fairy ring, scattered them across Grandfather’s giant backyard, and ground them to pulp beneath their tennis shoes.
And, just to be sure, they kicked over every other mushroom in the field, too.
20
Mom got the job.
Fifteen minutes after Peter and Dill cleared the field of mushrooms, she walked in beaming and laughing, carrying take–out Chinese food and a half gallon of fancy ice cream. She was in such a good mood that she even invited Dill to stay, which was a miracle.
Over dinner, she told them all about how the head of the Office of Legal Affairs had been so impressed with her background, how he said they never got people at Charterton University with such big–city experience, and that after twenty minutes of talking he’d asked how soon could she start?
“We still have to iron out the details, of course,” Mom said.
Peter and Dill exchanged a look. Iron, Dill mouthed with a giggle.
Mom ignored him. “I’ve got to get daycare for Beth, and I’m still negotiating my final salary, of course…”
Speaking of his sister, Peter watched her carefully throughout dinner. From every indication, she seemed to be the same old Beth: wearing her Strawberry Shortcake bathing suit, messily eating Kung Pao Chicken with her hands, and throwing won tons off her high chair onto the floor. Every so often she would interrupt Mom’s story, at which point Peter’s stomach would clench with fear.
“Mommy, mommy, dey was wittle gween mens wi’ sticks an’ dey was mean!”
“Uh huh, that’s nice, Beth.”
“Mommy, mommy, dey stole Stawbewy Shorcake! I ha’ to go beat ‘em up!”
“That’s nice. So, as I was saying — ”
He
shouldn’t have worried. Beth’s babbling was just as messy as her eating, and totally incoherent to anyone who hadn’t been there. The secret of what had happened that afternoon was safe.
Grandfather walked into the kitchen as they were eating ice cream. Peter’s heart beat faster from fear, but he calmed himself down. They had cleaned the house hastily before Mom got home, and there were no tell–tale signs the troll had left behind — not even any hand– or footprints on the ceiling. There was no reason Grandfather would ever know.
“Dad, I got the job!” Mom grinned.
“Good for you,” he said emotionlessly as he walked into the hall.
On an ordinary night Mom might have been crushed, but she just turned back around and kept on chatting about how interesting the job was, and how nice her new boss seemed, and how good it would be to get back to work.
Several minutes of happy ice–cream–eating passed before the poop hit the fan.
“PETER!” Grandfather yelled from down the hall. Peter’s heart immediately leapt into his throat, and he suddenly realized the most important thing he and Dill should have done while cleaning up: not mopping drool. Not replacing the iron. Not pulling stray bits of tape off the front door.
He had forgotten to replace the book in Grandfather’s study.
Whether Dill had figured it out or not, he knew from the tone of Grandfather’s voice that he didn’t want to stick around.
“See you later, dude,” he said as he slid out of his kitchen chair. He turned back briefly, just long enough to snag his bowl of ice cream and carry it with him as he popped out the back door.
“Hey, bring that bowl back after you’re finished!” Mom called merrily after him. Not even Dill’s dessert thievery could ruin her day.
21
Peter trudged warily down the hallway and stopped at the study. His heart was hammering inside his chest as he tapped at the door.
“Come in,” Grandfather snarled from inside.
Peter pushed the door open. Grandfather was sitting behind his mahogany desk in his leather chair. The chandelier was turned off, so the only light came from the tiny, stained–glass lamp on his desk, which cast half of Grandfather’s face into shadow as he glared at Peter.
“I believe I’ve made it clear that this room is off–limits to you when I am not home.”
Peter nodded silently. His knees trembled a little as Grandfather held up the copy of Fairieland: Portals To The Other World And Its Denizens.
“Is there something you’d like to tell me?” the old man barked.
Not really…
“Well, you know how Mom had her job interview today?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you were gone, and Dill and I had to babysit Beth.”
“So?”
“So…something happened.”
The story came out in fits and starts: about the mushrooms in the field, how Beth mysteriously disappeared and then reappeared out of nowhere, how she had acted odd and then started turning into a tiny, green, big–eared troll baby.
Grandfather didn’t seem phased by any of it, though he looked none too pleased.
“Then it chased us in here,” Peter said guiltily and stopped talking.
Grandfather’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Us?”
“Yeah…me and Dill. But don’t worry, the monster baby didn’t get in.”
Grandfather closed his eyes as though he were in pain. “I am more concerned that the monster idjit from next door did.” Then his eyes snapped open and he scowled. “Well? I assume the story ends with something other than you making friends with the changeling and helping it take over my granddaughter’s identity.”
“Oh — you know about changelings?”
Grandfather rolled his eyes. “Do I know about changelings,” he muttered to himself, then snapped at Peter, “Of course I do! The better question is, how do you?”
Peter looked confused. “Well…I told you, it started out looking like Beth, and we had to fight it — ”
“But how did you know it was called a changeling?”
Peter pointed at the book on Grandfather’s desk. “That book.”
Grandfather pointed to Fairieland. “This book.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t leave this book out.”
Peter shook his head ‘no.’
Grandfather looked around his study — not because he needed to, but for dramatic effect. “There are over 6,000 books in this room. How did you manage to find a book about changelings in less than three weeks’ time?”
“Uh…I don’t know.”
“You don’t know,” Grandfather said sarcastically.
“Well, we’d already starting looking when I noticed there was this light shining on one across the room, so I picked it out.” He gestured at the book in the old man’s hand. “That one.”
Grandfather’s eyes opened wide. Wider, in fact, than Peter had ever seen him open them before. He looked genuinely surprised.
“You…saw a light? Shining on just one of them?”
“Yeah.”
Grandfather was silent for a moment. When he spoke, it was in a decidedly less angry voice. “So, you found this book, discovered you had a changeling on your hands… what happened next?”
“Does the light mean anything?” Peter asked.
“Other than an incredible piece of good luck, no,” Grandfather said. “What happened next?”
“But you looked really surpr — ”
“What happened next.”
Peter finished the story, ending with the destruction of the fairy ring. Grandfather sat quietly for a moment. Then he nodded, once, as he stood up.
“Well done.”
Peter had to take a few seconds to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.
“‘Well done’?!” he asked, bewildered. “That’s it?!”
Grandfather walked around the desk. “What more do you want?”
Peter backed up against the wall, a little afraid that Grandfather was going to spring across the room at him. “You’re not mad?”
“Well, unlike previous incidents,” Grandfather emphasized with a dollop of irritation, “you didn’t misbehave or do anything mischievous. Things just happened, and you coped with them as best you could.”
Grandfather was almost to the study door. Amazingly, he didn’t seem like he was going to reach out and choke Peter.
“Where are you going, then?” Peter asked.
“To check on your sister. I doubt another changeling came back in her place, but I want to make sure nonetheless.”
“You’re not going to throw her in the fire, are you?”
“That method of detecting changelings went out of style sometime in the 17th century. There are safer, more humane ways.” Grandfather looked at Peter suspiciously. “You didn’t — ”
“No,” Peter said defensively. “Are you gonna touch her with a hot iron?”
Grandfather stopped with his hand on the doorknob and stared at Peter. “What in the world are you talking about?”
“The book said fairies don’t like irons, so we plugged Mom’s into the wall and —”
“Iron. The metal iron, as in the main component of steel. Fairies don’t like iron, it hurts them to touch it.”
“Oh,” Peter said, a little embarrassed.
“But since a laundry iron has steel, it would probably achieve the same effect. I might just use the iron myself to test her reaction — but cold, and definitely not plugged in.”
Grandfather was halfway out the door when Peter spoke up again. “Wait…”
The old man turned back around, severely annoyed. “If you wanted to clear your conscience, consider yourself forgiven. Just don’t go back in my study again when I’m not here. Ever. Even if you are being chased by — ”
“I saw something on your desk,” Peter blurted out.
Grandfather stopped moving. He froze there at the door, arm fully extended. His face didn’t move in the slightest; his eyes certain
ly didn’t get larger this time.
“…oh?” he said, sounding only vaguely interested.
“Yeah, there were some books…and a notebook you were writing in. It said something about a curse on the Flannagan family.” Grandfather didn’t say anything for another ten seconds. When he did speak, his face didn’t change, but his voice was absolutely neutral. Not angry, not irritated, not impatient. Certainly not happy, but…disconnected. Emotionless.
“There is no curse. It’s an old rumor I ran across while researching our family tree.”
“But the notebook talked about the end of the world — ”
“Yes, well, it’s a rather idiotic rumor. Forget you read it.”
“But all your other stories about hobos and vampires are strange and crazy — why isn’t this one true?”
“Because it’s not. Forget about it.”
“But maybe — ”
“I told you it’s balderdash — why in the world would you even care?” Grandfather snapped, back to his old self.
“Tons of bad stuff keeps happening to me. What if it’s the curse?”
Grandfather shook his head. “I’ve told you, Duskerville is a strange place, with supernatural goings–on that have affected hundreds of people over the centuries. Those forces have been here far longer than our family has. Your recent encounters are just part of the bigger picture. They are not connected to any curse, because there isn’t one.”
“But — ”
“Go to bed,” Grandfather said sternly and walked out of the study. Peter could hear the old man’s footsteps on the hardwood floors, fading away.
Though it was a little too early to go to sleep, Peter still went up to his room, if for no other reason than to get out of Grandfather’s way. The rest of the evening, he played the conversation over and over again in his mind. None of his questions had been answered, but there was one thing he was certain of: he had never heard Grandfather use that tone of voice before in his life. The old man had used that neutral, unconcerned way of speaking twice — when asked about the curse, and also when Peter had asked about the light in the study, the one that had pointed out the changeling book.
Grandfather had always been truthful before, at least to Peter’s knowledge. The old man had omitted some things, probably, and refused to talk about others, yes, but he had never flat–out told a lie.
Tonight, for the first time, it sounded as though he might have.
As he drifted off to sleep that night, Peter wondered which was stranger: everything that had happened with the changeling today…
Peter And The Vampires (Volume One) Page 26
