Her Perilous Mansion

by Sean Williams

  They all fit! Except T for Tabitha, who had been the oldest person in the house. She must have faded into nothing sometime before Solo’s Impure Inn, and thus the letter was taken away. As Dr Mithily had said, There are many here now who weren’t here then, and vice versa.

  That was why the name of the house changed. It reflected the names of the people within it, and it changed every time someone arrived in the house or faded away to nothing at all. That was also how Madame Iris had been able to guess the spelling of the name Etta had spelt wrong, because there needed to be a U for Ursula.

  Etta put down the stub of her well-used pencil and stepped back to inspect her many scribblings on the wall. The puzzle was solved!

  Her sense of personal triumph didn’t last long, however.

  No matter how she struggled, she couldn’t find a way to turn that knowledge to her advantage.

  Almanac woke to the sound of vigorous conversation and couldn’t immediately identify its source. Then he remembered the twins. Hackett and Elsie had woken before him and were continuing their exploration of the manor. Maybe they had found the games in the music room, or the toys in the nursery. Either way, they were keeping themselves occupied.

  A third voice joined in the merriment, and Almanac realised that Ugo had made himself known to the new arrivals, perhaps to keep them out of the kitchen, where Almanac was again sleeping. If so, it had worked. He felt considerably better for having had a long rest.

  The question of what to do next, however, vexed him just as much as it had before turning in.

  He still hadn’t been down into the cellars. Part of him didn’t want to because they were a reminder of everything that had gone wrong two days ago. Etta hadn’t escaped, he hadn’t broken the spell, and now more people had arrived at the manor.

  Whatever he decided to do now, it had to be the right choice.

  The trouble was, he couldn’t ask anyone for advice. Hackett and Elsie didn’t know anything, and Etta was silent now, along with the others – unless they could find a way to exploit the cussword code to their benefit.

  Was he wrong, though, to rely too much on Etta? After all, they had been in their predicament together but Etta had tried to run away without him. That felt like a betrayal of the most basic kind. Josh would never have done that to him. Etta, on the other hand, hadn’t hesitated, and the more he considered her betrayal, the angrier he became.

  He wasn’t, however, a naturally sullen person, so after longer than he could bear of stewing to himself, he took his rug over to the scullery and lightly knocked.

  There was no answer, and when he went back to the kitchen it was Olive who answered via the pipes, spelling out Asleep.

  ‘So Etta … and the rest of you … do sleep, then?’ He had never wondered about that before.

  One tap for yes. Revealing that obviously didn’t break the rules.

  Out of habit, she went on to say. We dream, too.

  ‘What of?’

  Home. The sky. Chocolate.

  Almanac had never had a home of his own, and chocolate had been a rare treat until he had moved to the manor – but to see the sky all he had had to do was walk into the orphanage’s courtyard, while the mistress was distracted, and look up. He couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to lose that freedom forever, as Olive had, and now Etta had too.

  ‘I don’t know what to do next, Olive. Can you tell me?’

  After a long silence, he continued, ‘No, I didn’t think so. Do you mind if I talk to you anyway?’

  One tap for no.

  ‘Well, it seems to me that if I give in, the spell wins and Etta will never see the sky or eat chocolate again, like you and everyone else, and maybe that’ll be me too one day, and Hackett and Elsie and whoever comes here after us. Etta wouldn’t want that, and neither do I. But what if Hackett and Elsie are here because of what Etta and I did? They arrived right after we broke the rules – it has to be connected, right? The question is, should I stop trying to break the spell so no one else will be caught … or try even harder so no one else will be caught? Wait, that’s the same thing. You know, it’s pretty simple when you look at it that way. Thanks, Olive.’

  Laughter came as a tinkling rat-a-tat from the pipes.

  I didn’t do anything, she said.

  ‘Yes, you did,’ he said. ‘And not just by listening. By teaching me your code, so Etta and I can use it now, like you knew we’d need it … and … oh, I only just remembered something you told me once. “You’re only trapped if you can’t escape. But you can be trapped if you don’t want to escape, too.” I think you were trying to give me a message. Is that right? That some people want to escape and others don’t?’

  Silence, in this case, had to mean yes, because she was being stopped by the spell. A no would have been quite possible to type out.

  ‘You’ve been helping us as best you can, like Veronica the librarian and Isaac the cellarmaster,’ Almanac said, grinning. ‘I wonder how many of you there have been. You clever ghosts, you!’

  ‘Who’s clever?’ asked Etta in a sleepy voice from through the door.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Almanac, remembering Silas describing himself as ‘part of the place’, Olive saying ‘Rubbish!’, Ugo dropping a hint about a maze, and many other such moments. If only he had noticed sooner! ‘I didn’t mean to wake you up. I’m going away now, but I’ll be back. If Hackett and Elsie come looking for me, tell them to wait here and stay out of the cellars.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Olive tapped assent as well.

  Almanac quickly dressed and headed downstairs, bringing a lit candle with him. The smell of disturbed rubbish, which he had largely forgotten, assailed him immediately. Undeterred, he wound his way to the point where he had started digging and began to follow the clues he had with great effort uncovered. He still remembered the list perfectly well.

  Lampshade, chamber-pot, effigy…

  He was soon at the beginning of the mushroom maze, where the disorienting effects of magic halted him. He backed hastily away, not wanting to trigger another arrival at the house. The dizziness seemed to follow him, as though uncertain of his intent. Was this, he wondered, the worst the spell could do? Make him feel sick and confused? If so, he had nothing to fear. It couldn’t kill him or anything …

  If he was right about Etta’s escape attempt helping him the first time he had tackled the maze, he realised that with another distraction he might be able to try again.

  But to what end? He hadn’t found anything the first time.

  Perhaps he had missed something. After all, if there was nothing there to be found, why would the spell still be doing its best to keep him away?

  Deep in thought, and far from defeated, Almanac retraced his steps through the cellar towards the kitchen, from where the sound of the twins arguing clearly reached him.

  Etta’s appetite had vanished, but still, watching Almanac burn bacon was torture. When she remembered how her mother had scrimped and saved in order to afford a pig, it appalled her to see the twins throwing half of their breakfast into the bin. Magic was magic, but that meat still had to come from somewhere…

  There was worse to come.

  ‘We need to hold a house meeting,’ Almanac told the twins when the so-called breakfast was over. ‘The two of you, me, and everyone who lives here.’

  Etta groaned to herself. House meetings to her meant being the youngest of thirteen people all trying to talk at once. Even if she could make herself heard, no one heeded her suggestions anyway. She might as well have been shouting into a well.

  As the newest of the ghosts, she expected things to be little different.

  ‘How many people live here?’ asked Elsie. ‘We already met Ugo, Olive, Etta, Lord Nigel and Lady Simone.’

  ‘Our letter came from Master Owen,’ said Hackett. ‘And there was an old man in the garden. He told me to help myself to blackberries.’

  ‘That’s Silas,’ Almanac told them. ‘There are more. I don’t kn
ow how many, exactly. Let’s go knock on Etta’s door.’

  ‘I’m here,’ Etta said, returning to the scullery so she could talk to them.

  ‘Can you call the others?’ he asked her. ‘Is that how it works?’

  She went to reply, but the spell stopped her, so she said ‘cranberries’ instead, for yes, and Almanac nodded, instructing the twins to join him in taking a seat on the floor outside her scullery.

  ‘Ugo? Olive? Are you there?’ Etta felt slightly foolish talking to empty walls but was gratified when their two glowing figures appeared in response to her words. ‘Almanac wants to get everyone together. Will they come?’

  ‘We can but ask,’ said Ugo, vanishing again.

  ‘Only you will be able to talk to him,’ Olive reminded her, ‘since this is your space, and there are no pipes, bell-pulls or chimneys nearby.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ Etta said. ‘I’ll pass on anything they want to say to him … if the spell lets me.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Olive. ‘You will be our spokesperson.’

  Etta nodded, understanding only then that this wasn’t going to be anything like the house meetings she was used to.

  The walls began to fill with ghostly, glowing forms, some she had never seen before. When the number seemed approximately complete – eighteen letters in ‘Her Perilous Mansion’ meant fifteen ghosts, including her, plus Almanac, Elsie and Hackett – Etta knocked on the door to get Almanac’s attention.

  ‘We’re here,’ she said. ‘Go ahead.’

  Almanac cleared his throat, as though it had only just occurred to him how weird it might look to Elsie and Hackett that he was talking to a locked door.

  In actual fact, he was imagining everyone crowding around the keyhole on the other side, and had given himself stage fright.

  ‘I, uh … ’

  Etta braced herself for a string of broken sentences, but after that one slight falter Almanac pressed on. Clenching both thumbs into his fists helped to steady him.

  ‘Hackett and Elsie deserve to know the truth about this place,’ he said. ‘I think it’s only fair that we tell them together. Etta, will you let me know if I get something wrong? I’m guessing you know more than you did before, now you’re … you know.’

  ‘Cranberries,’ she said, because that was simplest.

  ‘Okay, so, there’s a spell on this house,’ Almanac began. The twins’ eyes grew wider and more solemn the deeper into the explanation he progressed. They didn’t seem scared, though, merely stunned, or waiting for worse to come. Their lives, Etta thought, had probably been one endless wait for worse to come.

  ‘I want you to remember that it’s not your fault you’re here,’ Almanac finished. ‘That’s on me and Etta, I think.’

  ‘Cranberries,’ said Etta.

  ‘But we’re going to work together to break the spell so that everyone can go home. Okay?’

  The twins glanced at each other, seeming less than excited by the prospect.

  ‘Um, what if we don’t want to?’ asked Hackett. ‘We don’t have a home anywhere else.’

  ‘And we like it here,’ said Elsie. ‘Except for the cooking … but that’s not your fault,’ she added hastily, seeing the wounded look Almanac cast her. ‘I mean, everything is so wonderful. Why would anyone want to leave?’

  It was a fair question, one Etta and Almanac had asked themselves in their first days. Until the threat of being trapped or killed or slowly erased had become known to them.

  ‘You’ll change your mind,’ he told them. ‘I did.’

  ‘But you’re not us,’ Hackett mulishly insisted. ‘Can’t you leave and we’ll stay behind?’

  ‘I don’t think the magic works like that.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  That was a fair question, Etta thought, and Almanac obviously agreed.

  ‘Is Doctor Mithily there?’ he asked her.

  ‘Cranberries,’ Etta said.

  ‘What does she think?’

  ‘Spells can’t be bargained with,’ Doctor Mithily told her. ‘They either do what they’re ordered to, or they don’t.’

  Etta passed that on with a simple ‘cheese wig’.

  ‘It just doesn’t seem right,’ added Elsie, folding her arms. ‘You’ve been here for ages. We only just arrived. Why do we have to miss out on a future with food and a warm bed?’

  ‘Actually,’ said Almanac, ‘it’s only been two weeks, but that’s long enough—’

  ‘You must’ve had it pretty good before, then,’ said Hackett. ‘Probably didn’t have to sleep in a ditch or get rained on all day or eat a boiled rat—’

  ‘—or fight over a shoe or bite a man because he tried to steal the only coin you had or run away because a lady looked at you wrong—’

  ‘Enough!’ The sound of Etta’s voice, channelling her ma’s best scolding, shocked the twins into sullen silence. ‘We get the picture. You’re not the only ones who had it rough. All of us left something behind that we didn’t like – that’s why we came here – and while your lot may have been worse than anyone’s, the fact remains that you still had one important thing that you’ve now lost, and that’s … I mean, if things go wrong here, you can’t … There’s no … Oh, chessboards on fire!’

  ‘What I think Etta is trying to tell you,’ Almanac said, lips quivering with the effort of suppressing a smile, ‘is that you’ve lost your freedom. When things went bad before, you could always run away. Now, you can’t. That’s why you have to help us break the spell. You don’t want to be trapped here forever, do you?’

  The twins began chattering in their special language. There was no telling what they were saying, but it was clear they were arguing.

  ‘Why are we even talking to them?’ Etta asked the others gathered around the scullery. ‘I mean, if they want to stay here, that’s their choice – and if they don’t want to help, we can’t make them. Can’t we just do this on our own?’

  ‘I think Almanac will need their help,’ said Doctor Mithily. ‘Two was not enough to break the spell. Three might be.’

  ‘You don’t mean to say that you still have hope!’ said Madame Iris.

  ‘Yes, and she is not the only one,’ said Ugo. ‘We must have hope. How long until there are four, five, a dozen – more? If the spell is not stopped, as it should have been a long time ago, their fates will be on our heads.’

  ‘Who made you our leader?’ sniffed Lady Simone.

  ‘I lead nothing,’ he said, with a sigh. ‘I am just a kid, but I know what is right.’

  ‘Do you agree to this, lass?’ Silas asked Etta. ‘Or would you rather another escape attempt, as Iris and I encouraged you to try, despite Ugo’s best efforts? To find someone who might release us?’

  Etta thought hard. She had tried escaping and it had gone horribly wrong. But Almanac had tried breaking the spell, and that had had consequences too. What was he thinking of doing now that would make it any different?

  Maybe the number of people didn’t matter as much as having those people working together.

  ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that I’d like us all to try breaking the spell instead of arguing about who’s right and who’s wrong.’

  ‘You’ve got a head on your shoulders,’ the gardener said with a gruff laugh. ‘I’m with you, lass.’

  The rest of the ‘escape’ faction, the most vocal members of which were Lady Simone and Madame Iris, looked disappointed but conceded defeat. All of them were forced to agree that the odds of Almanac or anyone finding a sorcerer were vanishingly low. There was no way of knowing how much time they would have outside the walls of the grounds, since to Etta it had seemed like only moments before she had been snatched back.

  ‘Very well,’ said Madame Iris. ‘We will abide by what the young ones decide, and we will assist in any way we may.’

  ‘You may,’ said Mr Packer, ‘but the question is: can any of us?’

  ‘That’ll depend on the boy’s plan,’ said Lord Nigel. ‘Do you think he has one?’
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  The only person who knew the answer to that question was Almanac, and since everything depended on Hackett and Elsie, for the moment he was disinclined to do more than wait to see what they decided.

  The twins finished their private conversation, but the argument was far from over. Neither of them was happy. The most they could agree on was what to tell Almanac.

  ‘We don’t know you,’ Elsie said. ‘How can we trust that you’re telling the truth?’

  ‘Maybe you’re tricking us,’ said Hackett. ‘What if this is all a kind of test?’

  That was another thing Etta and Almanac remembered wondering themselves.

  ‘It’s not,’ Almanac said, ‘but I understand why you’d want to find out for yourselves. Try to escape. See what happens. If you succeed, you’ll be cleverer than us. If you don’t, you’ll know we’re telling the truth. Go on. Take all day if you want. All week! We’re not going anywhere.’

  The twins looked at each other, wondering if this was another trick.

  ‘What’s he playing at?’ Lord Nigel asked Etta. ‘If they actually manage to escape, we’ll only end up with more people here!’

  ‘Yes, but what are the odds of that?’ asked Etta, appreciating Almanac’s strategy. ‘He reminds me of Ma.’

  Almanac was remembering how Josh used to handle potential troublemakers in the orphanage. There was always some scheme underfoot to annoy the mistress, and the masterminds were always trying to enlist supporters to help deflect punishment away from themselves. When discouragement failed, as it often did, Josh would try encouragement instead, but without joining in. The resulting confusion often led to nothing happening at all.

  Josh was still helping him even now, he thought.

  Hackett turned out to be made of fierce resistance to anything he thought a slight. ‘All right, then. I will try to escape!’

  ‘How are you going to do that?’ Almanac asked him.

  ‘Climb the wall. I’m a good climber, and it doesn’t look that hard.’

  Etta wanted to tell him that she had already tried that, but the words stopped in her throat.