Her Perilous Mansion

by Sean Williams

  She brushed it away. It was her fault Etta had left her home and been lured into this trap. It was her fault she was a ghost now. That she was dead, wholly or partly.

  ‘Never before had the spell brought two people at once,’ said Doctor Mithily. ‘I saw numerous possibilities, and for a time it seemed as though all our dreams might come true—’

  ‘You were hoping we would rescue you?’ Etta’s voice cracked. ‘Well, fat lot of good it’s done you, hasn’t it!’

  With a sob, she rushed back through the walls and retreated to the scullery – which was no comfort at all, now she knew it was a coffin.

  Hackett and Elsie ate copious amounts of bread and butter – toasted or untoasted, they didn’t care. Almanac wondered if the magic that stocked the pantry would be able to keep up with their appetites, but he didn’t encourage them to slow down. It was clear they needed a good feed. He could at least give them that.

  But then what?

  The twins maintained a steady stream of chatter even when their mouths were full. They were excited and had many questions about their prospects. Anything was better than begging, they said; too often they had been cursed at, or chased away, or beaten just for being poor and desperate. There would be none of that anymore, would there?

  Almanac, moved to meet two young people whose upbringings had been even more hopeless than his own, assured them that they would suffer no abuse of the kind they were used to. Here, they would be fed, clothed and sheltered. Their duties would be … light. In fact, they weren’t to worry about anything like that until they had settled in. That was the best way Almanac could think of to explain that this was a house like no other, short of bombarding them with details that might only frighten them. Thankfully, they both appeared to have forgotten the magical jolt they had experienced upon entering the house.

  ‘Perhaps you can explain one thing to us, sir … I mean, Almanac,’ Hackett said around his sixth piece of toast.

  ‘I’ll try,’ he said.

  ‘It’s about the name of this place,’ said Elsie. ‘We’ve been arguing over it ever since we arrived.’

  ‘Ah! Which did you see on the sign outside, Spoilnieu Manors or Sir Palemoon’s Ruin?’

  ‘Pardon me, s— Almanac, but neither,’ said Hackett. ‘I saw Liar Sun Prison Home.’

  ‘And I definitely saw Her Perilous Mansion,’ said Elsie. ‘Which of us is right?’

  Almanac stared from one to the other, not knowing how to answer them. What was this new mystery? A house couldn’t have four names, could it?

  ‘It may be that we’re all wrong,’ he said, remembering something Doctor Mithily had told him once about being right and wrong at the same time. He wished he could ask Etta. She was good with puzzles. ‘Put it out of your mind, if you can. You must be exhausted. I’ll show you up to your rooms, so you can rest. We can talk more later.’

  ‘Oh, can’t we explore first?’ asked Elsie. ‘I’ve never been in a house with running water before!’

  ‘Or mirrors!’ added Hackett.

  ‘All right,’ Almanac said, remembering the wonder he too had felt when he first arrived. Maybe they would discover something he and Etta had overlooked. ‘Just don’t break anything and … be mindful that other people live here too. Some of them don’t like to be disturbed.’

  ‘We’ll be as quiet as a pair of church mice,’ said Elsie in a low voice. ‘We’ve had plenty of experience doing that!’

  ‘Qity! You don’t want Almanac thinking we were thieves, do you?’

  ‘Were you?’

  Hackett turned to Almanac, his face red. ‘We weren’t, sir, at least not very often, and only when we absolutely had to be.’

  Almanac smiled paternally. He found it easy to treat them as he would’ve younger boys in the orphanage, who deserved kindness and care, not the cruelty that some of the older boys meted out. ‘It’s all right. I understand. Just tell me, before you go, what’s that language you sometimes speak? I’ve never heard the like.’

  Hackett’s flush deepened. ‘That’s how we talk to ourselves, privately,’ he said. ‘We grew up on our own, see, with no one to teach us how to converse proper—’

  ‘Properly,’ Elsie corrected him, ‘so we taught ourselves. Until, that is, we met a kindly school ma’am who had fallen on hard times. We went around with her for a while before she died. She showed us all the best spots to hawk for coin—’

  ‘While at the same time teaching us letters. She explained that our twin language was just for us, but sometimes it still slips out—’

  ‘When we’re surprised or scared—’

  ‘Or if we just forget,’ finished Hackett, his face returning to its usual colour. ‘We’ll try to talk properly from now on.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Almanac told them. ‘You can talk any way you like, as long as I can understand you when I need to. You’ll find you aren’t the only ones here who … speak in unusual ways.’

  For the first time, he wondered why Olive and, for that matter, Ugo hadn’t said hello to the new arrivals. Maybe they were letting him do the welcoming before putting in an appearance. It was certainly a lot to take in at once. He remembered well how disoriented he himself had felt … he performed a quick mental calculation … two weeks ago! A lifetime, it seemed.

  ‘Off you go,’ he said. ‘I’ll be here when you’re done.’

  Taking one more slice of bread each, they scampered up the servants’ stairs, chattering in their private tongue. Almanac tidied up after them, but perfunctorily. He wanted to get back to what he had been doing when the twins arrived: talking to Etta and finding out what had happened to her.

  Knocking on the scullery door, he began to explain who had come to the manor.

  ‘I know,’ she said, and there was something in her voice that told him she would say a lot more on the topic, if she only could.

  ‘They remind me of us,’ he said.

  ‘Do they argue all the time?’

  ‘Only half the time, so they’re not exactly like us.’

  Etta laughed, but without her usual readiness. ‘I wish I … had never … ’

  ‘It’s okay,’ he told her. ‘You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to … or can’t … for whatever reason.’

  He found it impossible to say because something might be listening in without using those exact words.

  ‘Almanac, pay attention to me,’ she said. ‘Holsworthing. Sisters. Ma. Letter. Chambermaid. Hairpin. Journey. Got lost twice – and chased by a dog! Uh...Clothes too big. Orphanage...Cake … Telephone. Ugo … Oh! Do you hear yet, or do I have to keep going?’

  He was paying attention. She was telling him her life story in tiny fragments, but there was nothing in there about the manor or the spell.

  ‘I understand,’ Almanac said. ‘There are certain things you can’t talk about.’

  ‘Cranberries.’

  Once for yes.

  ‘And that’s connected with why you can’t come out. The spell.’

  ‘Cranberries.’

  ‘We’ll find a way to beat it,’ he said. ‘I’m not giving in, you know. I’m not leaving you here.’

  There was a long pause before she finally said, ‘Cheese wigs.’

  A flurry of footsteps came down the stairs.

  ‘Look what we found!’ exclaimed Hackett, holding a small bundle in front of him.

  ‘New clothes!’ said Elsie proudly. She had a bundle of her own.

  ‘Well, don’t put them on now,’ Almanac told them, even though he found their excitement infectious. ‘Come and meet my friend Etta, then it’s bath and bed for both of you.’

  ‘But we’ve only just got here!’ complained Elsie.

  ‘There will be time tomorrow for everything you want to do, I promise. Now, don’t be rude. Etta is in the scullery … for now. Say hello.’

  ‘Hello, Etta,’ said Hackett. ‘What are you doing in there?’

  ‘That’s a long story,’ Etta told them. ‘It’s nice to meet you both. You do
what Almanac tells you, all right? He’s not as dense as he looks.’

  Elsie tittered.

  ‘Just … be careful,’ Etta said on a more serious note. ‘This place … is … ’

  ‘Come on,’ said Almanac, ushering them towards the stairs. ‘Etta is tired. You can talk to her again in the morning.’

  ‘Goodnight!’ they called over their shoulders.

  When they were gone, the spell’s hold over Etta was released.

  ‘ … dangerous,’ she said to nobody but the kitchen walls.

  Etta’s second night in the scullery was long. The first night she had been unconscious, recovering from the effects of her sudden return to the house and unaware of Almanac’s frantic attempts to find her. Awake now, she could go anywhere in the manor, but only if she stayed within the walls, ceilings and floors. If she wanted to step into free air or be heard by anyone real, like Almanac or the twins, she had to return to the scullery. Those were the new restrictions under which she lived, thanks to the spell.

  She discovered that inside the scullery was the only place she could touch things, like the door, which she could knock on with her glowing knuckles. There was a supply of dressmaking pencils in a box, but no paper, which limited her ability to write notes, like Mr Packer, although that didn’t seem to help him evade the rules of the spell. If only she had the Talent! She could have written a spell on the wall that turned it to smoke.

  But if she’d had the Talent, she wouldn’t have been trapped here in the first place, or been such a burden to her ma …

  Between being trapped and having nothing to do, she soon became bored, and took to walking in circles around the scullery like the mouse called Alexis she had once kept in a box, her only friend, until she grew tired of feeding it and let it go in the garden, where it had been promptly caught and eaten by the neighbour’s cat. The memory was brilliant and clear in her mind, and not just because she and everyone else in the house was in the same position Alexis had been. What would happen if they broke the spell and escaped? Would she be returned to a regular life? Would that even be possible, given the strength of the spell and its maker? Would it be better, then, to risk nothing and stay in the house, where at least she had people who could hear her?

  The memory also made her think of her home in Holsworthing, where she had once thought herself unhappy. Now, she wondered why. Even if she had been unappreciated, she’d had a home and a family. Hackett and Elsie would have given anything to be in her shoes. Ugo too, probably, and maybe Almanac as well. Her ma and sisters had seemed to resent her very existence, but still, it had been a home.

  Ingratitude had led her here.

  A magic spell had trapped her here, though, and that wasn’t her fault. No one deserved that.

  She had too much time to think. Ruing the day she had first heard the name Sir Palemoon’s Ruin led her to thinking about ‘Spoilnieu Manors’ and the names Elsie and Hackett had called the place that was now their gaol. Four people couldn’t be mistaken about something so fundamental. There had to be a reason for the name appearing different to different sets of eyes. Reasons were like solutions, and every puzzle had one of those. Maybe this was the same.

  Taking one of the pencils she had found, she wrote all the names on the back of the door.

  Sir Palemoon’s Ruin

  Spoilnieu Manors

  Liar Son Prison Home

  Her Perilous Mansion

  The only thing connecting them, apart from the fact that they were all place names, was a distinctly ominous sound, which was appropriate, she thought, but not especially helpful.

  ‘The “sun” in “Liar Son” must be S-U-N,’ said a voice from behind her.

  She turned, saw the glowing figure of Madame Iris in the wall and, without acknowledging her directly, corrected the list.

  Sir Palemoon’s Ruin

  Spoilnieu Manors

  Liar Sun Prison Home

  Her Perilous Mansion

  ‘Ugo knew this place as Solo’s Impure Inn,’ Madame Iris added. ‘He was the last person to arrive before Almanac. In my day, it was called Monk’s Haint, and before that it was once St Hives Mission, Spite Folly … many other names, all the way back to Dowsmoke Hall, the oldest name of all, after Stormleigh.’

  Etta turned from her contemplation of the list. ‘Haint’ meant ‘haunt’, she had learned from her third sister Fay (Failure), but it would only make her feel unhappy if she thought any more of home.

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I want to explain why I did what I did.’

  ‘What else is there to say? You knew what would happen if you tried to escape, but you did it anyway.’

  ‘Child, it is not that simple. You will understand when you have been here as long as I have. Heaven forfend you are not, of course, but the spell will likely defeat us all, I suppose. I could not go into oblivion without fighting. I had to either escape and get help or die in the attempt. Abandoning hope, you see, is the worst fate of all.’

  Etta went back to studiously ignoring the selfish old woman whose actions had led to her being trapped in a tiny cage.

  ‘Can we make peace?’ Madame Iris asked her. ‘It was not my intention to cause Ugo’s death, or yours.’

  Perhaps, Etta thought defiantly, there was a message hidden in the names, a clue that would lead her to solving the larger puzzle of the spell itself. If she could find it, she could free everyone, and no one else need be trapped again.

  ‘In all the time I have been here, growing older if not wiser with the years,’ Madame Iris went on, ‘I saw many people escape. Everyone tries, eventually – only to reappear in the walls. Now I am one of them. It seems only fair.’

  Etta waited for the old lady to say more, but she did not, and when, after a moment, Etta looked to see what she was doing she found that Madame Iris had vanished. Good, she thought. The interruption had only distracted her. It wasn’t as though she’d learned anything useful from the entire conversation.

  It was nearly dawn, according to the clock in the sunroom, when Etta realised that she had, in fact, learned something.

  The first thing she did after Madame Iris left was to add the new names to the list.

  Sir Palemoon’s Ruin

  Spoilnieu Manors

  Liar Sun Prison Home

  Her Perilous Mansion

  Solo’s Impure Inn

  Monk’s Haint

  St Hives Mission

  Spite Folly

  Dowsmoke Hall

  Stormleigh

  Doing this, she realised that they all contained at least one S and at least one O.

  Again, she wished she were Almanac – or could ask him for advice. Curse the spell for tying her tongue! What would he make of this? What would he do next?

  He would put the names in some kind of order, that was for certain.

  Listing them alphabetically, though, didn’t tell her anything. Neither did listing them from largest to smallest. Chronologically, from oldest to most recent, they read:

  Stormleigh

  Dowsmoke Hall

  St Hives Mission

  Spite Folly

  Monk’s Haint

  Solo’s Impure Inn

  Spoilnieu Manors

  Sir Palemoon’s Ruin

  Liar Sun Prison Home

  Her Perilous Mansion

  The first three names were useless because she didn’t know if there were other names she was missing. Cutting them whittled the list down to:

  Solo’s Impure Inn

  Spoilnieu Manors

  Sir Palemoon’s Ruin

  Liar Sun Prison Home

  Her Perilous Mansion

  If there was a message hidden in the names, it wasn’t leaping out at her. Except now she realised that as well as S’s and O’s they had two I’s in common … and N’s … and M’s … and L’s … In fact, she thought, the names had more letters in common than they didn’t.

  Which was odd.

  The only letters the names didn’t
all share were H, E, A and R, which spelt Hear. Could that be the message? If so, what was she supposed to be hearing that she wasn’t?

  Or was the spell making her hear something she ought to ignore … ?

  She wrote H, E, A and R on the wall and stared at the letters, willing them to make some other kind of sense.

  They didn’t.

  A thought niggled at her. The four letters separating the five names made her think of Holsworthing, but it wasn’t immediately clear why. Then she remembered that the cottage next to her home had been called ‘Mafters’, which didn’t mean anything in any language because it wasn’t really a word. It was made up from the names of everyone who lived there – the first letters of each of the children, plus M for ‘mother’ and F for ‘father’. It was a kind of low magic, Dizzy had told her: giving a house a new name was supposed to bring happiness, but to Etta it just seemed a bit silly. Without a sorcerer, words were just words. And what happened once someone grew up and moved out or died or more children came along? Wouldn’t they just have to change the name every time? Everyone who came to visit would get confused …

  Just as she, Almanac, Hackett and Elsie were confused …

  Quickly, pursuing the thought while she had it, she began crossing out letters and rearranging words.

  ‘Her Perilous Mansion’ rearranged was ‘Liar Sun Prison Home’ with an added E. That was interesting. And ‘Liar Sun Prison Home’ was ‘Sir Palemoon’s Ruin’ with an added H. Pursuing this thread led her to learning that ‘Sir Palemoon’s Ruin’ was ‘Spoilnieu Manors’ with an added R, and ‘Spoilnieu Manors’ was ‘Solo’s Impure Inn’ with an added A.

  E for Elsie.

  H for Hackett.

  R for Etta, because her real name was Regret.

  A for Almanac.

  And presumably, before ‘Solo’s Impure Inn’, came something without a U, because Ugo had been the previous arrival.

  Which left O for Olive, N for Lord Nigel, S for Lady Simone, M for Doctor Mithily, P for Mr Packer, S for Silas, O for Owen the groomsman, and two I’s, one each for Ian the stable boy and Madame Iris – and L, R, E and N would belong to people she hadn’t met yet.