by N. D. Wilson
Henry twisted back and put out his hand. It disappeared in front of him. He twiddled his fingers around and felt the air. It was cooler than the air in the cupboard. He slid forward and Henrietta groaned. The cupboard was open, but not into Grandfather’s room. The opening was barely big enough for his head.
Henrietta kicked him in her sleep. He kicked back and pushed himself forward as hard as he could. His forehead and eyes emerged into light. His shoulders banged against something and would go no farther.
Henry blinked and tried to turn his head. The space was narrow, but he managed to move a little, enough to recognize his bed. His head was sticking through the wall into his bedroom, and he was looking down at Richard.
“Hey,” Henry said. “Richard. Wake up, you little moron.”
Richard didn’t move, so Henry pulled in a deep breath, preparing to shake the house down with his yelling. He blew it right back out. All the cupboard doors he could see were open. All of them. He couldn’t see the doors down by the floor, but he felt something in his stomach.
Endor was open.
He looked back at Richard. Something was wrong. Henry could see him breathing, but his skin was gray.
“Richard!” he said quietly. “Richard, wake up. Richard. Annabee is coming! Quick! Wake up!”
Richard moved one hand.
“Richard!” Henry was worried as well as claustrophobic. He gathered all the moisture in his mouth, tipped his head, and spat.
Most of it landed on the bed, but the spray caught Richard’s chin. Henry ran his tongue around the inside of his cheeks, gathered more saliva, and tried again. The spit landed on Richard’s forehead.
Henry waited, holding his breath. Richard shifted slightly and began snoring. Henry didn’t have much more moisture to work with. His tongue gathered and he let it pool in his jaw. When he had enough, he spat.
He was disappointed. It didn’t stay together. But it all hit Richard in the face.
“Richard!” Henry said. “Come on, please!”
Richard’s eyes opened and looked directly into Henry’s. “I feel ill,” he said.
“Well, get me out of here, and I’ll find you some medicine.”
“Why is my face wet?”
“I don’t know. Just stand up and help me out of here.”
“What are you doing?” Richard sighed and shut his eyes.
“No, Richard! Up! Up! I found Henrietta.”
Richard rolled over and sat up on the end of the bed. “What would you like me to do?”
“Set the combination back to this cupboard. Then we can come out downstairs.”
“I don’t know the combination.”
“You were with me when I set it! Wait a second. Do not lie back down! I’ll get it out of my backpack.”
Henry slid all the way back into the hall and glanced around. Then he pulled out Grandfather’s journal and scanned the list until he recognized the combination.
Henrietta woke up. “What are you doing?”
“Getting us out of here. Hold on. Hop out so I can get all the way in.”
Henrietta did, and she groaned while she stretched. Henry climbed back inside. “Up, Richard, up!” she heard him say. “Okay, here it is. No. Don’t do it yet. It might cut my head off.”
Henry slid out again, next to Henrietta, and smiled. “We’re going,” he said. Henrietta was staring at the ceiling. He glanced up. “I don’t ever want to see this place again.” Henrietta didn’t say anything.
Henry climbed in first. Henrietta followed on his heels.
The witch ran her hands across the door’s surface and around the frame. Zeke stepped toward the stairs. She sniffed at him but kept her hands on the wood.
“You have the faeren shut your doors! A strength so far beneath me I almost overlooked it.” She stepped back and stretched both hands in front of her.
One word rumbled slowly in her throat and the door flew open, knocking Anastasia over onto her father. Penelope’s mouth opened, but she could not scream.
Henry crawled into the room and froze, unable to take in the scene all at once. The witch stepped into the doorway and took a deep breath.
“The boy Henry,” she said, sniffing. She smiled. “Your blood will run stronger in my veins.”
Henrietta pushed Henry from behind and came out beside him.
“Mom?” She ignored the witch and crawled straight to her mother’s body. Then she saw her father. “Is he dead?” she cried. “Penelope, is he dead?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She stood up and ran straight at the witch, throwing herself at the woman. The witch lurched back and gasped as Henrietta’s shoulder drove into her stomach. Henry took two steps and lunged at the woman, hitting Henrietta in the shoulder blades and the witch in the ribs. The three of them teetered in the doorway.
Henry banged his head against her as hard as he could and swung drunkenly with his fists. He felt two inhuman hands close on his throat. A throbbing pulse surged into him, and in one blinding moment, his skull crackled and his body and mind went limp.
Penelope and Anastasia saw the witch step back and catch her heel in the carpet nest created by the chain saw. She fell, and Henry and Henrietta fell with her.
The bat was already off Zeke’s shoulder. His knees were bent. Hips rotated. Arms extended. The ash shaft swung as fast as it ever had in the fields. Before the three bodies bounced on the floor, Zeke’s bat whistled through Henry’s hair and smacked into the witch’s temple.
The house was still. Henrietta struggled to pull herself out from under Henry. She stood up shaking, tears still running down her cheeks.
“Henry?” Zeke said. He threw his bat down. The end was smoking. “Henry!”
The witch lay still, now visible for what she was—a shriveled body, eyeless and bald. Henry lay on top of her, head to head, cheek to cheek. Zeke grabbed Henry’s body, pulled him off, and laid him on his back in the bedroom. A splatter of the witch’s blood was steaming on his jaw.
“He’s breathing,” Zeke said.
Something crashed down the attic stairs and tumbled onto the landing. Zeke spun and grabbed for his bat.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
“Richard,” Anastasia said. “He fell down the stairs.”
Outside, the black cat, which had been scratching at the mudroom door, relaxed. Cats do not yearn for freedom. Most of them just have it—even when they are pampered, owned, and cared for. This cat did not know that it had been a slave. It did know that it needed a drink. And it could smell mice in the barn and peeper frogs in the tall grass beyond it. It did not know that it had been possessed. It did not know that the inside of its head had never been its own, that there was a woman who had seen the world through its eyes. The cat, which had no name, knew none of this. But something had changed. If it had known what, it would have run as far away as possible, run until collapse. Instead, it turned around slowly, stretched its paws as far as they would reach, straightened the kinks out of its back, and walked off into the grass to find a drink and a place to lie down.
“What are we going to do now?” Anastasia asked.
“We have to call the sheriff,” Penelope said.
“Not with her here,” said Henrietta. “We can’t explain her.”
“I don’t even know what’s going on,” Zeke said. “She tried to stab me. She’s really a witch, isn’t she?”
“Well, she’s dead now,” Penelope said.
“No, she’s not,” Zeke said. “She should be, but I just knocked her out. She’s still breathing.” All three of them looked at the body, face up on the floor. The chest, under the gray cloak, was rising and falling slowly.
“We should kill her,” Anastasia said.
“What? We can’t do that!” Penelope was shocked. “Anastasia, that’s awful. We can’t just kill someone who’s unconscious. What would you do, anyway?”
“Well, she’s got a knife, and she stabbed Dad, and she tried to stab Zeke. We should just stab her in t
he neck or something.”
“We can’t kill her,” Penelope said. “Zeke, tell Anastasia how awful that would be.”
Zeke looked around at the bodies on the floor. “Well, I don’t know what all is going on. But we do need an ambulance now.”
Frank and Dotty lay side by side. Zeke moved Henry beside Frank and carried a moaning, delirious Richard in and set him beside Dotty. He’d broken his wrist.
“The witch is going to wake back up,” Zeke said.
“I would like taffeta,” Richard muttered. “Yellow.”
Anastasia sniffed loudly. “You don’t have to watch, Penny. I can stab her.”
“No, and you wouldn’t even know how,” Penelope said. “Anastasia, go call now. Tell them that there have been some accidents, and a man has been stabbed.”
Anastasia stood up and walked toward the stairs. “I’d just stick it in her neck. She’s going to wake up, and when she does, there’s nothing we can do to her.”
Penelope ignored her. “We could lock her in the basement,” she suggested.
Henrietta had been sitting silently beside her mother. “Stick her through a cupboard,” she said quietly.
Penelope looked at her. “I don’t think we should do that,” she said. “We don’t know where we’d be sending her. Some poor people might just have a witch all of a sudden.”
“Well, I think it’s either that or let Anastasia stab her in the neck,” Henrietta said.
“Leaping,” Richard said. “I could be leaping.”
Zeke looked down at Richard and then at Penelope.
“I have no idea what’s going on. Why would she stay in a cupboard?”
“The cupboard goes to another place,” Henrietta said. “That’s how we came through.”
Zeke shrugged. “Whatever you say.” He turned to Penelope. “I’ll do what you want. I don’t have time to figure all this out.”
“Okay,” she finally said. “We’ll shove her through the cupboard.”
Henrietta stood up. “I’ll go turn the knobs.”
“Why?” Penelope asked. “You just came through from somewhere. Can’t she go there?”
Henrietta stopped, and then shook her head. “I don’t want her there. It’s sad enough already.” Then she hurried from the room.
Zeke grabbed the witch’s arm and pulled her toward the cupboard. Penelope tried to help. Anastasia was on the phone downstairs. Richard began humming.
When Henrietta reached the attic room, she looked around. It was very cold and strange with all the doors open. A tiny square of sunset poured through one, moonlight dribbled through another. Most were simply dark.
Different-flavored breezes played through Henrietta’s hair. The room felt like it was breathing, like she was standing in a lung, with air moving in and out of the different cupboards. A cloud of dust was floating down from a small door near the top of the wall, and Henrietta could hear voices, singing, laughter, clinking glasses, knives scraping on plates. She went over to the wall, got down on her knees, and looked through the black cupboard. She picked up its door, shoved it on, and pushed the bed leg back against it. Then, starting on one side, she slammed every door she could reach.
When she got to the middle, she stopped. The door with the compass locks was open, too. And there was something lumpy inside it, something charcoal gray. It was wheezing. She reached in and pulled out the small animal, and it sagged in her arms like a fat puppy. It had wings.
“Go ahead!” Zeke hollered from below. “Do whatever it is you’re doing!” Henrietta tucked the animal in one arm, like she was carrying a baby, and shut the door. Then, with a quick flick, she spun the knobs.
“I think that’s fine,” Zeke called. “Doesn’t look like there’s a back.” She turned and ran out of the room and down the stairs with her armload. She entered Grandfather’s room as Zeke was fishing the witch’s head into the cupboard. No one looked at her. Anastasia stood beside the body, gripping the witch’s knife.
“What are you doing, Anastasia?” Penelope asked.
Anastasia smiled. “I’m just watching, in case she wakes up.”
“You shouldn’t keep that knife,” Penelope said.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s probably wicked or something.”
Anastasia thought for a moment. “Maybe it was good first, and she stole it, and now it’s good again.”
“But you don’t know that,” Penelope said.
“You don’t know it isn’t,” said Anastasia.
“Could you push on her legs?” Zeke asked. Penelope bent down and grabbed the witch’s leg. Then she shivered.
“She’s freezing cold,” she said.
“I know,” Zeke answered. “I think she might die anyway. Unless she’s always this cold. You push, too, Anastasia.”
“But I’m making sure,” Anastasia said.
Penelope glared at her. “Just put the knife down and push.”
Anastasia did not want to, but she did. She set the knife on one of the bookshelves while she thought the others weren’t looking, then stooped to push the cold body.
They had her through to the hips, so Zeke let go of her waist, moved behind the girls, and grabbed her ankles.
“This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever done,” he said. “Weirdest I’ve ever seen.” He braced himself and drove the witch through like a wheelbarrow. Both girls fell over, and Zeke landed on his knees. Then he moved his grip to the bottoms of her feet, and, puffing hard, pushed them in as well. When he was done, he stood, picked the knife up off the shelf, and threw it in the cupboard.
“Hey!” Anastasia said.
In the distance, they heard sirens.
“She’s all in, Henrietta.” Zeke turned to face her. “Is there anything we can do to keep her from just coming back through? What are you holding?”
Henrietta left and ran back up to the cupboards. She stood for a moment, facing the locks, trying to remember where they had been set before. She did not want to lose that place. She reset the compass locks and hurried back down the stairs to Grandfather’s room.
Anastasia was frowning. Penelope was on the floor, running her hand through her father’s hair.
“Well, she’s gone,” Zeke said. “Who knows where.”
The sirens were getting louder.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The doctors at the small regional hospital were kept busy. Two ambulances brought in four patients for treatment, all from the same house. Francis H. Willis was treated for a stab wound in his side, severe concussion, and a partially collapsed lung. Dorothy S. Willis was treated for blood poisoning. Henry P. York was treated for burns to the jaw, slight skull fracture, and resulting concussion. Richard Hutchins was treated for a compound wrist fracture.
Penelope, Henrietta, and Anastasia Willis were all questioned individually, as was Ezekiel Johnson. They all told the same story, and the deputy who interviewed them retold it himself in the following weeks. It was always appreciated.
Frank Willis slipped at the top of the stairs while carrying a knife and took a visiting English cousin with him. He stabbed himself, but luckily he only broke the boy’s arm. Everybody in the house ran to the commotion, including Dotty, who’d been frying bacon. She took the skillet with her, and when she saw the knife in old Frank’s side, she fainted straight off. Henry, another cousin, tried to catch her but only took grease to the face and a doorknob to the back of the head for his trouble. Still, it was a good thing for Dotty that she did faint, or they might not have caught the blood poisoning.
Frank was the last to be released from the regional hospital. Dotty picked him up in the truck and drove him slowly through the field roads toward Henry, Kansas. They entered the city limits as quietly as the truck would allow and rolled past the burnt-out bus station and the old baseball field on their way to the tall house on the edge of town.
That night, wind brought in black clouds, and the rain came down sideways. Zeke came to dinner wet—Penelope had told h
im everything—and the family sat down around three loaves of meat. At the end of the meal, Dotty arched her eyebrows at Frank. He nodded and set down his fork.
“Well,” he said, looking around the table. “This is the official meeting. We’ve all been through an adventure now, and here’s where it ends. No more looking in cupboards. No more going through cupboards.”
“But I never got to go through one,” Anastasia said. “Not even once.”
Frank smiled. “I know. And that’s the way it’s gonna stay.” He looked at Penelope. “Penny, you get your own room now. Your mother and I are moving into Grandfather’s room.”
The kids all looked down at their plates, and Dotty blushed. “Frank,” she said, “no one seems able to remember how, but during all the ruckus, the door shut again.”
“Grandfather’s door?” Frank asked. “Locked?”
Dotty smiled. “Yeah.”
“Henrietta’s got the key,” Henry said. He sat up straight and looked at her.
“I did,” Henrietta said. “But that was a long time ago. Has anyone seen it?”
Anastasia leaned over the table. “And she’s keeping a baby rhino in the barn.”
Henrietta sighed. Everyone was looking at her. “It’s not a rhino. It looks a little like one, but it’s way smaller.”
“And it has wings,” Anastasia said. “I followed her out there yesterday. She’s feeding it cat food.”
Zeke looked at Henrietta. “Is that what you were carrying?”
She nodded.
“Well,” Frank said, “we’re all here. Go get the rhino.”
Henrietta came back into the dining room dripping with rain. Her arms were wrapped around something fat and gray with black, beady little eyes. She set it on the table and sat down.
It stood up on all fours, shook out gray feathered wings, and looked around the table. It was shaped almost exactly like a rhinoceros, only it was eighteen inches long and winged. It had one short, blunt horn, split and cracked at the end. Its belly hung almost to the ground, like a basset hound’s.
“I haven’t named him yet,” Henrietta said. “And I can’t get him to fly.”
