by Mike Ford
“What do you want?” a creaky voice shouted, sounding irritated.
“That’s Wandsworth,” the Charlies said. “He’s always in a bad mood.”
A moment later, the door opened a crack, and a long nose poked out at about the height of Max’s belly button. This was followed by a bushy gray mustache, then an unruly beard that dragged on the floor. A huge spider crawled out of the beard, followed by two more, then all three disappeared back into the bushy gray tangle of hair as, finally, the face that the nose and beard belonged to emerged and a pair of dark eyes glared at the group of kids.
“How did you get in here?” Wandsworth asked. “I distinctly recall putting the drawbridge up. Those door-to-door potion salesmen have been particularly pestering of late.”
“We, um, kind of wished ourselves here,” Max explained.
Wandsworth’s eyebrows knitted together in a scowl. “Wished?” he growled.
“Well, Arthur did,” Max elaborated, pointing to Tamyra’s brother.
“Is he a wizard?” asked Wandsworth.
“Oh no,” said Max. “At least, I don’t think he is. He’s only three.”
“When I was three, I turned my nanny into a goat,” Wandsworth said. “Can’t he even do that?”
“None of us are wizards,” said Tamyra. “This is all because of the Wish Eater.”
“Fish eater?” Wandsworth said. “Don’t care much for it myself. Prefer mutton.”
“Wish Eater,” Max said. “It’s a thing you feed wishes to. It looks like a set of teeth.”
“A set of dragon teeth,” Tamyra added. “Well, small ones, anyway.”
“Dragon teeth, you say?” Wandsworth said.
“Is that important?” Max asked.
“Chatterbox has a brother,” Wandsworth said. “His name is Gabblejaw. He belongs to a rival wizard. My brother, actually. I heard he turned some of Gabblejaw’s baby teeth into a magical item. Your Wish Eater may be it. If so, that explains it. Dragon magic is unpredictable.”
“Right,” Max said, as if everyone knew this. “Anyway, we were hoping you might be able to help us get back home.”
“And maybe sort out some other problems,” Tamyra added.
“Why would I do that?” Wandsworth asked.
Max looked at Tamyra. “Um, because you’re a wizard?”
Wandsworth snorted. “Can’t you ask the eater of wishes to do it?”
“We don’t exactly have it right now,” Max told him. “It brought us here, but it stayed behind.”
Wandsworth glowered at them. He was clearly annoyed at being interrupted at whatever it was he was doing.
“Or if you’re busy, maybe we can ask your brother for help,” Max suggested.
“You might—if I hadn’t gotten into an argument with him and turned him into a toad,” said Wandsworth, regarding them with an expression suggesting he was thinking of doing the same to all of them.
“Pwease?” the two Arthurs said.
Wandsworth sighed. “Well, if it’s the only way to get rid of you all, I might be able to help you. It depends on what kind of mood he’s in today.”
“He?” Tamyra said.
“Chatterbox,” the wizard said, stepping through the door and shutting it behind him. “Come on. We’ll see what we can do.”
He began the long trudge up the stairs, the kids forming a line behind him. His legs were very short, and it took a long time, but eventually they reached the kitchen again. Wandsworth kept going, walking through the castle and out into a courtyard. He stopped there, put two fingers into his mouth, and let out a loud whistle. A moment later, Chatterbox alighted from the sky and landed in the courtyard. He towered over the kids and the wizard, puffing out clouds of purple smoke.
“Catterbox!” the two Arthurs shouted.
The dragon leaned down and looked at them. The little boys patted his head.
“I think he likes you,” Wandsworth said, not unkindly. “That’s good.”
“How is he going to help us get home?” Max asked.
“Are we going to ride him?” one of the Charlies asked.
“All dragons are related,” Wandsworth said. “And they’re all magic, of course. How did that Wish Eater of yours work?”
“We wrote our wishes down and fed them to it,” said Tamyra.
“Then we’ll try that,” Wandsworth said. “I’m sure I have some paper and a quill in here somewhere.” He stuck his hand into his enormous beard. There was a lot of rustling as a dozen spiders scurried out, and then he pulled out a goose feather and a piece of parchment. He handed them to Max.
“What should I say?” Max asked Tamyra. “I don’t want to make things worse.”
“With spells, it’s best to keep them simple,” Wandsworth suggested. “Especially when it comes to dragons. They can’t read very well, you know.”
“How about ‘I wish that everything was back to the way it should be’?” Tamyra said.
Max looked at Wandsworth. “Will that undo all the crazy things that have happened?”
The wizard shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
Max looked at Tamyra, then at her brothers and sisters standing behind her. If everything went back to the way it was before, they wouldn’t exist anymore. “Are you sure?” he asked her.
Tamyra hesitated a moment. Then she nodded. “I think it’s the right thing to do. I won’t remember anyway.”
Max wrote the words out on the parchment. “Now what?” he asked Wandsworth.
“Feed it to Chatterbox,” the wizard said. “That’s how the other one worked, right?”
Max held the parchment up. Chatterbox leaned down and sniffed it. Then he opened his mouth, took the parchment between his teeth, and started to chew. He swallowed it with a big gulp, then belched, filling the air with purple smoke.
Max sputtered and coughed, waving his hands around to clear the smoke. When it did, he found he was sitting up in his own bed, in his own room. It was morning. In the other bed, Charlie was sitting up, yawning and stretching.
“I had the best dream,” Charlie said. “We were at the Enchanted Castle.”
Max got out of bed and went into the hallway. The door to the twins’ room was open, and from inside he could hear them arguing about which team’s jerseys they should wear that day. Then his mother appeared, carrying Arthur.
“Oh, good. You’re up,” she said. “Would you mind helping Arthur get dressed? Your father hit the snooze button four times, and now we’re running late.”
“No problem,” Max said, taking Arthur from her. “What do you want to wear today, buddy?” he asked his brother.
“Catterbox shirt!” Arthur said.
“You got it,” said Max, taking him into his room.
The rest of the morning was chaotic, as everyone jostled for space in the bathroom and rushed through breakfast before heading off to work and school. For once, Max enjoyed every second of the craziness. He didn’t even complain when Charlie knocked his milk over into his lap and he had to change his jeans.
As he was getting his books together, he got a text from Tamyra. Everything okay there?
Yep, he texted back. U?
Great!!! Tamyra replied.
On the walk to school, Max thought about what they should do with the Wish Eater. It was too dangerous to keep around. He didn’t want one of his brothers or sisters finding it and accidentally wishing they could fly or asking for a talking pony or something. But he wasn’t sure what should be done with it.
He forgot all about it when they got to school, and he saw Tamyra standing out front with her Charlie and her Elfie and Elsie. His heart sank. “I thought you said everything was great,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Tamyra said. “It is.”
“But … they’re still here,” Max whispered, nodding at her brother and sisters.
“Um, yeah,” Tamyra said, looking confused. “Why wouldn’t they be?”
Max started to say something more. Then it dawned on
him. Tamyra didn’t remember that she hadn’t always had brothers and sisters. She thought they had always been there. He thought about what she’d wished—that everything would be the way it should be. Apparently, the Wish Eater had decided that she needed a bigger family. The fact that she didn’t remember not having them before was a little frightening, and for a moment Max wondered what else the Wish Eater might have changed.
“What do you think we should do with the Wish Eater?” he asked her.
“It’s not at my house,” Tamyra said. “I thought maybe it would be at yours, since you bought it first.”
“Uh-uh,” said Max. “Maybe it went back to where it came from.”
They walked into the school, where Max was immediately surrounded by Amber, Pihu, and Ji-woo.
“You’d better have memorized the cheers,” Pihu said.
“You too,” Ji-woo said to Tamyra. “The whole school is going to be watching.”
The three girls ran off, leaving Max alone with Tamyra. Tamyra grinned. “I’m on the squad!” she said, pumping her fist.
“But I—” Max said.
“Hey,” Tamyra said. “The Wish Eater knows best.”
Max groaned. “Go Badgers,” he said.
ANOTHER SCARE, IF YOU DARE!
TURN THE PAGE FOR A SPOOKY
SNEAK PEEK!
“Did you get it open?”
Sofia tried turning the key that she’d inserted into the lock on the trunk. It didn’t budge. She twisted it again, then rattled the lock in frustration. It was the ninth key she’d tried.
“No,” she said. “And that was the last one on the ring.”
Her father came over and attempted to turn the key himself.
“I already did that,” Sofia said.
“Just making sure,” said Mr. Flores, pulling the key out. “Sometimes these old locks stick when they haven’t been used in a while.”
Sofia sat down on the trunk and let out an exasperated sigh. She looked around the attic. The bare wood floor was covered in dust, and the only light came from a single tiny window at the far end of the room. This was covered with dirt and cobwebs, so the attic was shrouded in shadows. Fortunately, her father had brought a flashlight, which is how they had noticed the trunk pushed into one corner of the attic.
The rest of the room was filled with cots, or at least metal frames that were supposed to have mattresses on them. Only one did. The rest were bare. There were seven on each of the two long walls of the attic.
“Why are there so many beds in here?” Sofia asked.
“People had a lot more kids back when this house was built,” her father answered, poking at a hole in the ceiling where it looked like water was getting in. “One more thing to add to the to-do list,” he muttered.
“But there are plenty of bedrooms downstairs,” said Sofia.
In fact, there were nine bedrooms in the house. It’s why her father had bought the house in the first place, why they had moved from their little apartment in the city to the big old house in Sorrow’s Hollow. He thought it would make a great bed-and-breakfast.
“Maybe they had boarders,” her father suggested. “That was a big thing back then, renting rooms to people who couldn’t afford their own houses.”
Sofia supposed this might explain it. She still thought it was odd, though. She stared hard at the trunk, as if this might make it feel bad for being so stubborn about opening up for her. “Why would the people we bought the house from leave a locked trunk in the attic?”
“Who knows,” her father said, examining the bunch of keys in his hand and jangling them. “Maybe they forgot about it. It looks like no one has been up here in years. Or maybe there’s nothing in it.”
Sofia was annoyed. They had been in the house for only a few days, and she wasn’t exactly excited about it. She missed their apartment in the city. She missed her friends. The locked trunk felt like one more reminder that her life had changed, and not for the better.
“Nothing works in this house,” she said angrily. “There’s no hot water in the bathroom. We don’t get Wi-Fi. And there’s no air-conditioning. It was so hot last night! I thought I was going to melt!”
“And yet, you didn’t,” said her father. “Look, I know this house isn’t perfect. But it will be, with a little work. You’ll see. It’s going to be beautiful, and everyone is going to want to stay here.”
Sofia snorted. “Maybe people who like creepy old houses will,” she said. “Everyone else will go to places where there’s actually something to do.”
“Hey, there’s lots to do around here,” her father countered. “There’s hiking, and fishing, and tubing on the creek. And next month there’s the Firefly Festival.”
“Fireflies,” Sofia said. “Wow. I can’t wait.”
“I have to go to the hardware store in town,” her father said, pretending not to see her rolling her eyes. “Why don’t you come with me? I bet we can find a fan for your room there. And I’m pretty sure the real estate agent said there’s a bookstore.”
At the mention of books, Sofia perked up a little. Books were always good. She was currently reading Lucy M. Boston’s The Children of Green Knowe, and she had only a few chapters left. Maybe she would be able to find the next book in the series in town. She followed her father out of the attic and down the stairs.
“Aren’t you going to lock the front door?” she asked as he descended the front steps and walked toward the beat-up red pickup truck he’d bought to get around now that they didn’t have the subway or bus.
“What for?” her father said. “This isn’t the city. What could possibly happen in Sorrow’s Hollow?”
“Nothing,” Sofia mumbled as she walked to the truck and got in. “That’s the problem.”
The hardware store was out of fans, and Sofia’s mood had not improved by the time they finished picking up the other things they needed. Back outside, she looked around for the bookstore her father had mentioned. None of the stores really looked like they might carry books, but one of the nearby windows was filled with some curious things. Sofia looked at the name painted on the door.
“Frightville,” she said. “Doesn’t sound like a bookstore to me.”
“Maybe whoever runs it knows where the bookstore is,” her father suggested. “Let’s go ask.”
Sofia pushed the door open, and she and her father stepped inside. The store was stuffed with things. All kinds of things. Sofia didn’t know where to look first. Her eyes moved from a clown marionette dangling from its strings to a large dollhouse in which a family of what appeared to be real mice were celebrating a birthday party. The store was eerie and magical all at once, like a junk shop and carnival combined, and Sofia wanted to examine everything.
Then a man appeared. Quite tall and quite thin, he wore a black suit and had silver hair and pale skin, as if he’d lived his whole life indoors and never seen the sun. “I am Odson Ends,” he said in a low, smooth voice. “Welcome to my shop. May I help you find something?”
“I was actually looking for the bookstore,” Sofia told him.
“I do have a number of books,” the man said. He tilted his head, peering at Sofia with interest before lifting one long, bony finger and pointing it at her. “But I think you’re looking for something else.”
“I am?” Sofia said. “Oh, well, I couldn’t find a fan at the hardware store.”
“Mmm,” said Mr. Ends, shaking his head. “I don’t think that’s it.”
Sofia laughed. “Well, unless you have a key that can open a locked trunk, I can’t think of anything else.”
The man smiled. “A key,” he said thoughtfully. “Now that I may be able to help you with.”
He walked away, going to a cupboard and opening it. When he came back, he was holding an old wooden box. He lifted the lid, and inside were dozens of keys of all shapes and sizes. He held the box out.
“Do they all open trunks?” Sofia asked, looking at the jumble of keys.
“They open all
kinds of things,” Mr. Ends answered.
“How do I know which one to try?”
“If it were me,” said Mr. Ends, “I would choose the one that seems the most lonely.”
Sofia nodded, but she didn’t really understand what he meant. How could a key be lonely? It was just a piece of metal. Still, she looked closely at the keys in the box, and to her surprise, there was one that seemed to stand out from the others. Even more peculiar, there was nothing particularly interesting about it. It was definitely old, the kind of key Sofia knew was called a skeleton key, with a circular handle, a long shaft, and a head featuring two toothlike points. Other than that, it was hardly worth noticing. Still, she picked it up.
“This one,” she said.
The man shut the box. “Ah,” he said. “You’ve selected a whichkey.”
“Witch key?” said Sofia. “Like, it belonged to a witch?”
Mr. Ends shook his head. “Which,” he said. “Because you can never be sure which thing it will open.”
Sofia laughed. “Well, I hope it opens the trunk in our attic,” she said.
“Do you?” asked Mr. Ends.
Sofia nodded. “Sure,” she said. “I want to see what’s in there.”
The man looked at her, another smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “In that case,” he said, “I have a feeling you’ll find that this key is exactly what you’re looking for.”
When Sofia and her dad got home, she ran up the stairs to the attic. Inside, she knelt on the floor in front of the trunk. She took out the whichkey and gripped it in her hand. She slipped it into the lock on the trunk, then held her breath as she turned it.
There was a click. Sofia put her hands on either side of the lid and lifted. This time, it opened.
Copyright © 2019 by Mike Ford
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