The Monsters of Rookhaven

by Padraig Kenny

  ‘He can’t be allowed to roam free. He can’t.’

  Enoch closed his eyes and sighed. ‘Mirabelle, you need to understand . . .’

  Mirabelle stepped towards Enoch. ‘You’re afraid of him,’ she growled.

  Enoch looked as if he’d been slapped.

  Mirabelle grabbed Jem’s hand. ‘We’re going to find Tom and Piglet and bring them both back.’

  ‘You will do no such thing!’ Enoch shouted.

  Mirabelle gave an angry, defiant smile. ‘Oh yes we will.’

  ‘Mirabelle, you can’t,’ Eliza pleaded.

  ‘She can and she will,’ said a voice behind Mirabelle.

  Odd stepped from the shadows and Mirabelle felt the sudden urge to run to him and hug him.

  Odd fixed Enoch with a determined look. ‘She’ll find them.’

  Enoch looked unconvinced. ‘And how, pray tell, will she accomplish this if she can’t leave the grounds?’

  Odd gave a dismissive shrug. His hands were clasped behind his back. ‘She’ll leave. She just won’t do it through the front door.’

  Mirabelle had spotted Odd making circles in the air with the little finger of his right hand. She grabbed Jem just as she felt the cold air behind her. She saw Enoch’s eyes widen as he looked over her shoulder, saw the look of determination on Odd’s face as he wheeled round and then pushed both her and Jem through the portal that had formed behind them.

  There was a sudden popping sound, and the sensation of being squeezed through a tiny gap, and Mirabelle felt herself propelled forward at impossible speed . . .

  She gasped as her lungs filled with cold night air. She was surrounded by trees and the night sky above her was sprinkled with stars. She tottered backwards as if she’d been kicked, but she felt Odd’s hands on her arms as he steadied her.

  ‘Give it a minute.’ He led her towards a tree against which Jem was already leaning.

  Jem was gasping too and looking up at the sky. ‘What just happened?’ she asked.

  Odd shrugged as if it were nothing. ‘We left the house.’

  ‘Where is it?’ asked Mirabelle, looking around her in an attempt to get her bearings.

  Odd licked the tip of his finger and held it up in the air and frowned. ‘About half a mile back that way,’ he said, pointing behind him.

  ‘Odd, you let us travel with you,’ said Mirabelle, looking shocked.

  Odd looked at the ground. ‘Well, you needed help.’

  Mirabelle touched his arm. ‘But you never let anyone travel with you. “No one goes with Odd,” that’s what you always say.’

  Odd lifted his head and smiled awkwardly.

  ‘Tom? What’s happened to Tom?’ Jem wailed.

  ‘I think Piglet took him,’ said Mirabelle. ‘But we’ll find him. I promise.’

  Mirabelle tried to smile encouragingly, but the look of fear on Jem’s face only made her own fear greater. She tried to tamp the feeling down.

  ‘Come on,’ Odd said. ‘I think Piglet’s gone that way.’

  Mirabelle and Jem followed him into the dark. They walked for some time back in the direction of the house. Odd reasoned that Piglet could only have gone so far. Odd had deliberately (he hoped) jumped ahead of him and quite some distance beyond the Glamour. He led them to a small road bordered by fields on one side and forest on the other. The earth beneath their feet was hard. The night was cold, and Jem was rubbing her upper arms vigorously even though she had her cardigan on. Odd gallantly took off his jacket and gave it to her. Jem nodded her thanks and they continued on their way.

  Mirabelle listened hard, but she couldn’t detect a sound.

  Then Odd stopped suddenly and bent down to inspect something at his feet.

  They huddled around him. Mirabelle tried not to show how frightened she was, for Jem’s sake, when Jem spotted the dark liquid patch on the ground.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ she said.

  ‘It’s blood,’ said Odd.

  Mirabelle could have punched him.

  Jem grabbed her. ‘He can’t . . . It isn’t . . .’

  Mirabelle shushed her and shook her head. ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘It definitely isn’t,’ said Odd, sucking blood from the tip of a finger. He narrowed his eyes and looked at the field, and that’s when they saw the clumped, fretful shadows lowing anxiously to each other by the trees at the far side of the field. As Odd moved towards the field, the shadows dispersed and scattered, their hooves rumbling in the dark, their panicked lowing getting louder.

  ‘Cows,’ Odd said.

  He came upon the ruin of a gate, a splintered, shattered tumble of planks, and then all their heads whipped round as they heard what sounded like a scream on the road up ahead.

  Jem was gone before Mirabelle knew what was happening. She pounded up the rough path after her, shouting her name, but Jem wasn’t listening. Mirabelle turned back to look for Odd, but he’d vanished.

  There was another strangled howl. Mirabelle heard Jem shout Tom’s name, and then Jem plunged into the trees.

  Mirabelle was close on her heels and followed her into the forest. She slapped low-hanging branches and bushes aside and finally broke into a clearing.

  The first thing she saw was Odd and Jem by a tree. Tom was propped against it. His shirt was covered in something dark and sticky.

  ‘It’s blood!’ Jem wailed.

  The panic Mirabelle felt was all-consuming, but it was just for an instant because Odd said:

  ‘It’s all right – it’s not his blood.’

  And then Tom’s eyes flickered open and he gave a weak smile.

  Jem embraced him tightly, and he patted her on the back with a floppy hand.

  ‘Jem,’ he gasped. His face twitched and his eyes were wide and manic. He started to paw his sister’s arms, as if he couldn’t quite believe she was there. He tapped the side of his head. ‘He was in here. He saw everything.’

  Mirabelle heard Jem’s gasp as Tom squeezed her arms too tightly. Tom was panting and babbling. Sweat was pouring down his face.

  ‘There was Mum and Dad and me and you. And he looked at us and watched it all. And he, he . . .’ Tom looked frantically about as if he’d lost something, rocking from side to side, his hands on Jem’s arms. He looked up at her, his eyes bulging. ‘He sees everything!’ he wailed. Then his face crumpled, and he burst into tears.

  ‘Who? Who sees everything?’ Jem cried with a mixture of joy and terror.

  Tom looked over her shoulder, but really it was the grunting snuffling from behind that caught their attention.

  And it was the rending, splintering sound that made them all turn.

  For the first time in her life, Mirabelle laid her eyes upon Piglet.

  And what a sight he was.

  He was bent over the corpse of a cow, its shattered ribs jabbing upwards into the night, steam rising from its entrails as it rocked back and forth while Piglet buried his snout inside its innards and ripped and tore and rent and chewed and swallowed.

  Piglet was as large as an elephant, and then somehow as small as a dog. Then he expanded again, hulking over his prey, blotting out the stars. Looking at him was like trying to catch sight of the colours of a butterfly’s wings in flight. Piglet seemed to change and run like paint in water, even as she looked upon him and came to a decision as to what he really looked like. One moment he was all eyes, dozens, perhaps hundreds, all blinking, all yellow, then he was all fangs, a gaping maw filled with scythe-like teeth, huge and impossibly sharp. He was claws and nails, ripping and tearing, his head horned and spiked, a ruffle of feathers round his neck. He was gold then scarlet, his body shimmering like the fan tail of a peacock. He sniffed and moaned with pleasure as he ate, and it seemed as if nothing else existed for him.

  But he raised his head when Jem shouted at him.

  ‘What did you do to him?’

  Mirabelle had been so rapt by the sight of Piglet that she hadn’t even noticed Jem advancing towards him. She tried to grab her, but Jem sh
rugged her arm away.

  ‘What did you do to him?’ she screamed, her whole body trembling with rage.

  Piglet raised his head and sniffed the air. His eyes narrowed. They were green now, or were they red, flecked with a molten gold?

  He threw back his head and bellowed.

  Then it was Mirabelle’s turn to scream as Piglet charged towards Jem.

  Jem was rooted to the spot. Even the reliably instinctive Odd didn’t seem to know what to do.

  Mirabelle didn’t think twice. She pushed Jem out of the way.

  Piglet’s form contracted and narrowed to a point, and now he was a spear of white light, and that spear hit Mirabelle full in the chest.

  For Mirabelle everything seemed to freeze. Then there was the sensation of the world collapsing around her, and she felt as if she’d been swallowed by a tidal wave.

  Mirabelle opened her eyes and found herself surrounded by mist, lilac in colour, with little sunbursts of golden light flaring in it occasionally. She was transfixed by these tiny explosions, sometimes with figures in them, sometimes with places. She could see their outlines, their shapes. Some were more vivid than others.

  She panicked for a moment, flailing like someone who has just fallen into deep water. Somehow she managed to calm herself simply by gazing at the images. The gold, the lilac, the explosions of colour and light.

  This is what Piglet sees, she thought.

  And then she felt a sudden rush as another mind touched hers, and that mind was vast, and old, and yet also terribly young, like that of a child.

  ‘Piglet,’ she said, in recognition, her voice echoing in the mist, tears of happiness springing to her eyes.

  She knew him now. Knew him like never before, and he knew her. And she saw what he saw, and she saw . . .

  The most recent thing Piglet had seen.

  Tom and Jem standing by a grave, holding hands, their heads bowed. Mirabelle could feel Tom’s pain. It was a raw thing that seemed to rake hot, burning furrows of agony even in her own mind, and she could feel his desperation, and his sadness, and his fear, and it was so overwhelming that she could feel herself choking on it.

  The image ran and dissolved, like a watercolour in a rainstorm. Now Tom and Jem were sitting at a table, picking at a meagre dinner. A hulking figure entered the room. He shouted something at them. Tom stood up and stepped between the figure and Jem. The man shouted some more. Then he raised a stick . . .

  The image darkened, became a low, mean-looking house on a derelict street. Tom and Jem were creeping out of the front door, both of them carrying small bags. As they ran down the street, Mirabelle could almost taste their terror, mingled with a strange, desperate joy.

  The picture changed. Tom and Jem were now in a room in an abandoned bombed-out house. Tom was shoving ration books into a rucksack. Jem was pleading with him to stop, and Mirabelle could feel his anger and fear and his . . .

  The picture changed again. Tom crouched in a corner watching Jem sleep on a dingy mattress, clasping his knees tight to his chest, trying his best to muffle his sobs. Mirabelle knew his thoughts. And his guilt was a terrible, awful thing that loomed over him, ready to devour him, but he owed it to his parents to do everything, anything to save Jem. It was up to him now. Everything came down to him.

  Mirabelle felt all of this, knew all of this, in an instant, as if Tom’s very soul had been mapped out for her.

  Another rushing sensation took her, as if she were being carried by a fast-moving current.

  She was outside the House of Rookhaven now. But these were Piglet’s memories, not Tom’s.

  The sky was grey, a soft wind blew. A car was coming up the driveway. She recognized it as Dr Ellenby’s. He parked in front of the house and stepped out of the car, then held the passenger door open for his companion. It was a woman. Dr Ellenby took her hand as he helped her out. The woman clasped a hand to her round belly, pushed a strand of dark hair out of her eyes.

  Enoch appeared at the front door and Piglet tried and failed to decipher the look on his face. Mirabelle could sense his confusion. She concentrated on Enoch’s face, to see if she could read it herself, but she couldn’t see clearly, and it was too late because the picture was already changing . . .

  To a large bedroom. One that Mirabelle had seen before, that she knew was part of the house. The woman was lying in the bed and Dr Ellenby had his shirtsleeves rolled up and was mopping her brow as the woman’s head twisted and turned. Mirabelle noticed now how much younger Dr Ellenby looked. His beard was darker, and he was saying something to the woman, smiling in that easy way of his, exuding the same warmth and sense of strength he always seemed to have.

  Enoch was standing in the corner, looking at the floor, clasping his arms to his chest as if to comfort himself. For the first time in her vision Mirabelle perceived sound.

  The woman screamed.

  Piglet screamed.

  Mirabelle screamed.

  Silence and darkness descended.

  There was nothing now, for what seemed like an eternity and an instant.

  Nothing.

  Then the silence was broken by the soft steady rhythm of a heartbeat. And somehow Mirabelle could sense that the heart was new.

  The darkness started to dissipate and now it was night, and Enoch was standing by the window looking out over the garden, and in his arms he held a baby swaddled in a blanket, and Enoch was . . . he was . . .

  Mirabelle opened her eyes. She was vaguely aware that her forehead was pressed into the ground. She could smell soil and damp grass, and she gasped like someone coming up for air and raised herself onto her knees.

  She looked around, and the world gradually came back into focus.

  Jem and Odd were standing over her. Jem laid a hand on her shoulder; her lip was quivering.

  ‘Mirabelle?’

  Mirabelle tried to speak, but no words came out.

  She looked across woozily at Tom who still sat with his back against the tree.

  Tom smiled at her, but his eyes glittered with tears.

  ‘I told you,’ he said. ‘I told you, didn’t I?’

  Mirabelle could only nod. She became aware that she was cradling something in the crook of her arm. It was dark and furry and small, and it mewled softly.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Jem.

  A shaken Mirabelle finally found her words.

  ‘This is Piglet,’ she said. She thought about it for a moment, realizing that he could still change shape at any moment. ‘For now,’ she added, her voice trembling.

  Jem

  It was the strangely sedate way everyone reacted at first that confused Jem. That would all change later, but for now Mirabelle seemed to be oddly calm as she cradled the creature in the crook of her arm.

  Mirabelle tried to stand, but she stumbled backwards, and both Odd and Jem had to grab an arm each to steady her. Mirabelle looked at them, grateful, but also with an expression that suggested she was close to tears. Since she’d first met Mirabelle, the thing that Jem had liked most about her was her serenity and confidence. Now, much like Tom, she seemed completely changed. It was this that frightened Jem more than anything. More than seeing Tom covered in blood. More than seeing the creature they called Piglet seem to change its appearance with each passing moment. The same creature that had charged her seconds ago and that was now purring contentedly as it nestled into Mirabelle’s chest.

  ‘Piglet,’ Mirabelle whispered. She smiled down at him, then turned to Odd, her smile vanishing.

  ‘Did you know?’ she said, her face a rictus of rage.

  Odd tried to meet her gaze, but it was so fierce he could only look at his feet. ‘Mirabelle . . . please—’

  ‘Did you know, Odd?’ Mirabelle roared.

  Odd looked stricken. He took half a step towards Mirabelle, but she retreated from him and hugged Piglet closer to her. Her eyes were fixed on Odd, burning with accusation. Jem had no idea what was going on.

  ‘We need to put him back in his room
,’ said Odd, nodding at Piglet. ‘Let me help.’

  Odd started to make a circle in the air with his finger. Mirabelle grabbed him by the wrist and pushed his arm down viciously. Jem was shocked by the angry gesture.

  ‘No!’

  Odd blinked at her. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then he looked from Jem to Mirabelle and back again, as if seeking direction. He looked completely bereft. Jem felt a sudden sympathy for him.

  ‘You need to go,’ said Mirabelle, her voice lower but no less angry.

  Odd turned away from them, his head bowed, and vanished into a portal.

  Jem helped Tom to his feet and put her arm round him, being careful to try to avoid the blood on his shirt.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jem,’ he said, his eyes brimming with tears.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said.

  ‘He was inside my head. He made me run out of the house. I couldn’t stop him.’ He squeezed her arm so tight Jem had to grit her teeth. ‘He sees everything, Jem. He hears everything. And he’s so old. He’s older than anything.’

  In an effort to calm him Jem smiled and nodded as if she understood what he meant. She hugged him fiercely to her with one arm as they made their way over to where Mirabelle stood.

  ‘We have to get Piglet back to his room,’ Mirabelle said, looking as if she were barely keeping herself together. Jem could see the anger in her eyes, and the grief that lay beneath the surface. A grief so profound that Jem feared it might crack Mirabelle’s alabaster skin.

  Jem touched her arm tenderly. ‘What happened?’ she whispered, for fear of waking Piglet.

  Mirabelle shook her head and looked away for a moment to compose herself.

  ‘Piglet showed me things. Things that have been kept from me,’ she replied hoarsely.

  They walked back to the house in silence. Jem could sense that Mirabelle didn’t want to talk. She cast occasional glances in her direction, but Mirabelle stared straight ahead, her eyes fixed on the road, jaw clenched, as if on the path towards some dreadful destiny from which she couldn’t turn away. Sometimes Jem would hear Mirabelle murmuring softly to Piglet, but Jem was afraid to look for fear Piglet might become a mountain of eyes or teeth, or something spiked and clawed that breathed fire.